UK Involvement in Rendition

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Nia Griffith

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

That is what I understand the position to be, although obviously our knowledge is incomplete.

The correspondence continues:

“I know that I did not pay for the air cargo but the intelligence on him was British.”

To refer to another human being as “air cargo” is just about as degrading and dehumanising as it is possible to imagine.

When I raised the issue with the Prime Minister today, during Prime Minister’s questions, he told me that

“very few countries in the world would have had such an independent and thorough investigation into an issue like this.”

He was right—up to a point. The investigation of the role of senior British officers in the rendition of the al-Saadi family and another one was carried out by the Metropolitan Police Service. It was a thorough investigation, which does the police credit. At the end of it, a report running to 28,000 pages was sent to the Crown Prosecution Service, which announced on 9 June that no proceedings would be taken against the suspect in the inquiry.

I shall turn to the question of the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service in a moment, but first I want to address the Prime Minister’s assertion about the rigour of the investigation. As I have said, the Metropolitan Police Service appears to have done a thorough piece of work; the fact remains, however, that the whole investigation only ever happened because, in the chaos following the fall of Gaddafi, someone from Human Rights Watch happened to come across those documents. But for that, we would almost certainly never have known of our country’s involvement in this affair.

A number of issues arise from the statement made by the CPS on 9 June, and I would be grateful if the Minister addressed them in his reply. The first relates to the review of the decision. The decision itself has been greeted with some scepticism and incredulity. I understand that there is to be a review of it, but that the review will be carried out by other CPS officials, subordinate to those who made the decision. Surely a case of such political sensitivity deserves better than that. There is a precedent for the review of a politically sensitive decision being conducted by lawyers who are independent of the CPS: that was done in the case of the decision not to prosecute the late Lord Janner. I suggest that this is another case in which an independent review is appropriate. Will the Minister tell me whether or not there will be such an independent review?

Most remarkably of all, the CPS statement of 9 June concludes that the CPS has sufficient evidence to conclude that

“the suspect had...sought political authority for some of his actions albeit not within a formal written process nor in detail which covered all his communications and conduct.”

Let us pause for a second to consider the significance of that. Officials of the Crown Prosecution Service have evidence that politicians—presumably that means Ministers of the day—were told of an illegal act by British intelligence officers. It cannot be right that officials of the CPS can know that, but we as parliamentarians cannot. It is ironic to think that if the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) had remained in his post as Director of Public Prosecutions, he would know more about this than he can today, having faced the voters and been elected to the House. So how are we to get to the truth here? The Prime Minister when he was the Leader of the Opposition said of rendition:

“As a moral purpose always must be accompanied by moral means, surely we must recognise that, in the last six years, issues like Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition have done huge damage to our moral authority.”—[Official Report, 21 February 2007; Vol. 457, c. 267.]

It was unsurprising, therefore, that in July 2010, in the first couple of months of his time as Prime Minister, he set up an independent judge-led inquiry into torture under Sir Peter Gibson. At that time, the Prime Minister took the view, and told this House,

“For public confidence, and for independence from Parliament, party and Government, it is right to have a judge-led inquiry.”—[Official Report, 6 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 185.]

He expressly excluded the use of the Intelligence and Security Committee for the task. The Gibson inquiry was suspended in 2012 when the documents discovered by Human Rights Watch were published. At that time, the then Secretary of State for Justice, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), said:

“The Government fully intend to hold an independent, judge-led inquiry, once all police investigations have concluded, to establish the full facts and draw a line under these issues.”—[Official Report, 18 January 2012; Vol. 538, c. 752.]

The view expressed by the Prime Minister today about the investigation of this by the Intelligence and Security Committee is the direct opposite of the view he expressed in 2010. When the Minister replies, will he tell the House when Government policy changed on this and why? Surely public confidence demands that a full, independent and judge-led inquiry be reinstated.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. While we may have every respect for the commitment by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), the Chair of the ISC, that he will carry out an inquiry into rendition, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that reform and much greater transparency are needed on the way in which this House scrutinises MI6 activities in future so that this cannot happen again?

[Mr Carmichael]

I certainly agree with the hon. Lady and I think she will find that the Chairman of the ISC himself has said that he sees the need for a measure of reform there.