Migrant Crossings: Role of the Military

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Baroness Goldie

Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The involvement of the Navy is primarily to ensure that the dangers that have confronted migrants setting out on this hazardous course can be assuaged or even prevented from arising altogether. That is why the modus operandi will be one of interception and escort; the Navy will be responsible for bringing migrants to UK shores in a safe and controlled manner. That will prevent uncontrolled or undocumented arrivals.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, Tobias Ellwood, the well-respected chair of the Defence Committee in the other place, has called these proposals “rushed” and a “massive distraction” for the military, but of course it is a massive distraction for the electorate as well. Does the Minister understand the fear that proposals to deploy the military against desperate refugees causes in refugee and migrant communities who are already here? This smacks not of the dog whistle but of the foghorn.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I totally disagree. This is a positive intervention to, as I said earlier, assuage and prevent tragedy and make a positive contribution to helping the plight in which the migrants find themselves.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Baroness Goldie

Committee stage
Thursday 11th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The Bill has been drafted to reflect the overall policy intentions to try to reassure our service personnel that, before overseas operations are committed to, careful thought is given to them. As the noble and gallant Lord understands, because of the deliberate way that the Bill is drafted, the impact of Clause 12 is merely to consider, not to compel, derogation. I simply repeat my undertaking to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead: I will look very carefully at these arguments.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I apologise to the Minister for not putting this short question clearly enough in my earlier remarks. Do the Government agree that the new duty in Clause 12, which would become the new Section 14A of the Human Rights Act, on the Secretary of State to consider derogation a judicially reviewable duty? Will it be, as I suspect it will, open to challenge in relation to the Secretary of State’s considerations, so that litigants will be able to judicially review the adequacy of the considerations, whether or not the operations were significant, and the Secretary of State’s decision not to derogate—or, indeed, to derogate—in relation to every single potential overseas operation?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The way in which I anticipate Clause 12 operating is that it is simply an ex facie reminder on the face of the Bill that a Secretary of State, if he were contemplating an overseas operation, should consider derogation. I suggest to the noble Baroness that thereafter, the existing law would govern whatever subsequent activity took place and whether or not the designated derogation order was deployed. The law is there and it is clear as to what is to be done. I think the acceptance of ministerial power to make these decisions is understood. As I have said before, that is with reference to parliamentary scrutiny, which has a very public capacity to call Ministers to account. I therefore merely ascribe to Clause 12 a reassurance that a Minister will give thought to this, but is not obliged to derogate.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Baroness Goldie

Committee stage & Lords Hansard
Tuesday 9th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I apologise for the confusion.

There was a further amendment: Amendment 15. It deals with Clause 6(6), which is the delegated power provision. That provision is there to ensure that the Government are able to respond to new developments and fresh concerns that may emerge in relation to potential offences in future overseas operations without the need to seek primary legislation every time a change is required.

Legislation that confers such a power to amend the list in the schedule to an Act is not unusual. Schedule 1 lists the offences excluded from the requirements set out in Clauses 2, 3 and 5, and the power is limited to amending this list of offences, so it has a very narrow scope. It is also not unusual that any exercise of the power to amend the schedule to an Act be subject to the affirmative procedure before any regulations can be made.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the noble Lords, Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Tunnicliffe, have been supportive of this amendment. Its aim seems to be to further narrow the scope of the power in response to the concerns raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

I believe, however, that the concern over the power contained in Clause 6(6) has possibly arisen from the wider concerns regarding the requirements set out in Clauses 2, 3 and 5. I have tried to allay these concerns, and I have detected a growing acceptance that the Bill does not represent an absolute bar to future prosecutions of serious crimes. The delegated power will allow future Governments to adapt Part 1 of the Bill according to the lessons they may learn from overseas operations in future. To limit the scope so that offences can only be added to Schedule 1, as the amendment would wish, could have an impact on the Government’s ability to implement the lessons learned and adapt to what is likely to be an evolving operational landscape.

The power already has a very narrow scope and its use will still require the express approval of both Houses of Parliament. In these circumstances, I urge noble Lords to not move this amendment.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for what I can call only a predictably clear and gracious response. Because the Minister has agreed to reflect on this evening’s debate and consult her colleagues thereafter, I will just press her for a moment longer on the distinction between sexual offences and torture in particular, not with a view to further back and forth this evening but in the hope that it might influence her discussions with her colleagues.

The last 20 years have taught us that when torture is practised as a weapon of war, sexual torture is often one facet of that torture. It is not a nice thing to discuss. The other side of the coin is that of false allegations and clouds hanging over innocent and brave members of Her Majesty’s forces. Our Armed Forces, when overseas, can be as easily subject to false allegations of sexual offences as to false allegations of torture or any of the other offences that are not barred from the presumption against prosecution in the Bill.

If this is not about false allegations, there must be, as I understand the rationale, some kind of thinking, perhaps at the Ministry of Defence or elsewhere, that because our Armed Forces are engaged in violence, there is some kind of fine line, or borderline, between the violence in which we understand they are engaged and torture. If that is the case, I find it very troubling indeed. Are we back in the Bush White House? Are we back with the legal advice that it is not torture when it is enhanced interrogation, for example?

It seems to me that international law and our own ethical and legal norms are very clear on the distinction between the kind of violence that is sadly necessary in war situations and genocide, crimes against humanity and torture. There is not a borderline against torture, and that tacit acceptance of a grey area is just the kind of thinking that got people into such difficulties on both sides of the Atlantic over the last 20 years. So I humbly ask the Minister, in the spirit of genuinely trying to improve this, to examine that distinction between sex and torture, and sexual torture and other forms of torture, in particular, when she goes back to her colleagues in the department and elsewhere.

Brexit: Northern Ireland Backstop

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Baroness Goldie

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

The Government have been very clear about two things. One is that we respect the integrity of the United Kingdom: we have been very clear that we do not want any form of hard border. The backstop would effectively provide a customs union of which the UK would be part, and that would protect Northern Ireland and the Republic’s activities as well. We are in these negotiations, and I repeat the Government’s commitment to avoid a hard border and to support the Belfast agreement.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I would not dream of tempting the Minister into the labyrinth. However, because of the importance of these matters and the anxiety that continuing uncertainty about the backstop is causing to so many people, even beyond this House, will she clarify whether it is still the Government’s policy to ensure a legally binding change to the withdrawal agreement over the backstop—not just an exchange of letters or assurances but a legally binding change to the backstop? As we are told that my opposite, the Attorney-General, is closely involved in negotiations and will soon set out his legal tests to ensure that the backstop cannot be used to trap the UK, will she please tell us a little more?

[Baroness Goldie]

I fear that my answer is bound to disappoint the noble Baroness: I apologise in advance for that. Let me say by way of introduction that the Prime Minister has been very clear that she is investigating a negotiation in which we can achieve legally binding changes to the backstop. That is the Government’s position. Where do we go from there? We are in negotiations. The Attorney-General and the Cabinet Secretary were meeting the EU last night and the Prime Minister is to meet President Juncker tomorrow evening. These discussions are at a vital stage and we shall have to await their outcome. I understand that the Attorney-General will propose in due course to make a statement about the progress that has been made, and I cannot pre-empt that.

Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Baroness Goldie

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a customary courtesy on occasions such as this for me to thank the Minister for repeating an Answer but this evening those thanks are very much heartfelt, as are my thanks to Kenneth Clarke, the Father of the House of Commons, for putting this Question. My thanks to the Minister are for two words in that Answer: “60 days”. They are for the promise to come back within 60 days with an answer on whether we are finally to have a judicial inquiry into what is perhaps the darkest part of the so-called war on terror, as far as this country is concerned. I am very grateful for that.

However, when the Minister returns with that answer and, I hope, to deliver the judicial inquiry that the agencies, victims of kidnap and torture and the wider public need to close this chapter and move forward, will that inquiry be truly independent and autonomous, bearing in mind that the first of the two ISC reports highlighted the fact that Mr Grieve and his colleagues were not able to summon witnesses, including those involved in the agencies at the pertinent time? Will that inquiry also look into the operation of the Justice and Security Act—the so-called secret courts Act—which I suspect Mr Clarke and others on all sides of both Houses might have thought twice about in 2013, if they had known what was to be revealed subsequently? Finally, can the Minister say whether the consolidated guidance will be reconsidered in the light of full public consultation, since the contemporaneous report—the second of the ISC reports—said that Ministers still lack a common understanding of what they may and may not authorise? Rendition, the transfer part of this terrible practice, is still not dealt with in current guidance.

[Baroness Goldie]

I thank the noble Baroness for her response to the reply to the Urgent Question. She welcomed the agreement that the Government will respond within 60 days and update the House on what they consider the position to be. I obviously do not want to pre-empt that by anticipating what may or may not be within the Government’s response. On the particular matter of an inquiry the Government, as I said, will give careful consideration to calls for another judge-led inquiry. One would imagine that implicit in that phrasing is a degree of independence, if it is indeed the Government’s decision to go down that road.

On the matter of the consolidated guidance, I think there is universal recognition that its introduction in 2010 saw a major step forward in how the Government—and the state, for that matter—deal with these sensitive and delicate issues. It was interesting that the committee acknowledged that very few countries in the world have attempted to set out their approach to these matters and let themselves be held accountable in the manner in which the United Kingdom does. That was a welcome acknowledgement by the committee of the strength of CSG. Clearly, however, the invitation to Sir Adrian Fulford to make proposals to the Government about how the consolidated guidance could be improved, taking account of the committee’s views and, importantly, those of civil society, will obviously inform the Government’s thinking in relation to that guidance.