Detainee Issues

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Perhaps it would help my noble friend if I refer to the specific paragraph in Sir Adrian’s letter. He said:

“It was argued in number of responses to the consultation that there should be a post-notification process for individuals who have been mistreated following a failure properly to apply any new guidance or principles. This would enable them to seek redress. Reprieve and Freedom from Torture, in a joint submission, made substantive representations regarding the UK’s international obligations in this regard”.


I will write to my noble friend when I have discovered the other part of Sir Adrian’s recommendations, which builds on the current position, but makes more explicit that there is now an obligation, if people come across mistreatment, to pass it up the chain. I recognise that the paragraph I just read out was not directly relevant to my noble friend’s question.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

The Minister has revealed the Government’s recent steep learning curve on extraordinary rendition, helped along the path by the activity of my noble friend Lord Tyrie. Do the Government now take the view that extraordinary rendition and what happens to people so rendered could bring anyone complicit in it within the scope of the International Criminal Court? That seems the common-sense conclusion from what they have found.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord may be right. If it were an offence under the law just referred to, as Ministers are obliged by the Ministerial Code to abide by national and international law, they would be precluded from taking action that ran the risk of that breach.