Convention Against Torture

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Written Statements

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

My right hon. and noble friend the Minister of State for Justice, Lord McNally, has made the following written ministerial statement:

The optional protocol to the convention against torture (OPCAT), which the UK ratified in December 2003, requires states parties to establish a “National Preventative Mechanism” (NPM) to carry out visits to places of detention in order to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The Government established the UK NPM in March 2009—[Official Report, 31 March 2009, Vol. 490, Part No. 57, column 56WS].

I am informing the House that the following three organisations are formally designated as additional members of the UK NPM:

Lay Observers, in England and Wales;

Social Care And Social Work Improvement Scotland, better known as the Care Inspectorate (instead of the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care, which no longer exists), in Scotland;

Independent Custody Visitors Scotland, in Scotland.