Sikh Community

Baroness Berridge Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Singh, for securing the debate and I want to state that I have very much enjoyed getting to know the noble Lord. He is a fellow officer in the All-Party Parliamentary Group on International Religious Freedom or Belief. He brings a significant voice from the Sikh community to our plural public debate. However, I have to say that when he began to tell me about the implications of the documents that have been released I was surprised that there could have been any connection. That may reflect the fact that I was not perhaps old enough to be conscious of the seriousness of the events at the time. However, I was surprised to learn that there had been this type of involvement.

In many ways, the title of this debate saddens me as the hundreds of thousands of British people in the Sikh community have been a good example of integration, with many successful businesses, and involvement in politics—with Paul Uppal MP in the House of Commons. The England cricket team is of course in need of another Monty Panesar to rescue our performance. Members of the Sikh community are also an exemplar of how reasonable accommodation of religious beliefs can be achieved in UK law. Section 11 of the Employment Act 1989 exempts turban-wearing Sikhs from any requirements to wear safety helmets on construction sites or to wear crash helmets. The Kirpan ceremonial knife is exempted under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 if carried for religious reasons.

However, the news coverage of this matter reveals that the relationship between the UK Government and the Sikh community is strained and reconciliation is needed. Despite the attempts by the first inquiry, it seems that we are not where we would like to be. Any relationship needs the parties to trust each other and that in this scenario depends on openness. After reading various reports, it is clear that the disclosure of the documents in January of this year was inadvertent. This was disclosure of information that the UK Government had decided would always remain secret. It is important that Her Majesty’s Government have been clear about this as it is a starting point for considering matters and restoring the relationship. In this scenario, it seems that the Ministry of Defence made a mistake in that it did not destroy all the files that it should have done and that at the 25-year point copies were left. Although the Cabinet Secretary’s report has pieced together the material from copies left in other government files, it has inevitably left a lingering and damaging suspicion that not all the documents needed were in fact available to the inquiry. It is partly to ensure that this does not happen again that Her Majesty’s Government have instituted an inquiry into the disclosure under the 30-year, or soon to be 20-year, rule. As a matter of practicality, at 25 years, should the files be destroyed? Would it not be sensible to wait until 30 years have passed to make sure that we are not in future inadvertently placed in this position again and that the files remain to be considered if needed. These documents were never intended to be disclosed as the decision was made that they would reveal information relating to intelligence or special forces. This situation would have meant that the destruction of all the files in 2009 was appropriate and all the copies in the other files should have been destroyed.

As I said, I am pleased that there is a commission looking into the annual release of papers and the process for withholding information. But as this was an inadvertent disclosure, we have a rare window into the decisions that are made on the basis of the military and special forces destruction of information. Will the commission have any remit to receive views from the public and interested bodies, particularly the Sikh community, on whether this kind of information should have been available for disclosure after 30 years? Is there not an advantage from such an inadvertent disclosure to have public debate on whether the line of non-disclosure is being drawn in the right place?

I note at this point that there has been no cry from the Government in terms of an Edward Snowden-type situation where we have all kinds of security implications because we know about what happened 30 years ago. But if it is not going to be part of the commission’s work, could Her Majesty's Government advise whether the Intelligence and Security Committee could have a remit to consider this issue? The relational problems are perhaps being exacerbated by the fact that the Cabinet Secretary, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, is investigating the previous behaviour of Her Majesty's Government. Would not the ISC, which is a parliamentary committee, be more neutrally placed to look into this matter to allay the fears of additional documentation being available that such an inadvertent disclosure has created?

I am afraid that I am not currently persuaded of the need for a full inquiry, but I completely understand the feelings of the Sikh community in lacking trust in their Government in this regard. It seems that they were never intended to know this information, which leads to legitimate concerns for the community of what else the Government know and questions about why the community should not have known this information after 30 years. As I am sure Her Majesty’s Government realise, it is one thing to express your apologies for the death of community members at the hands of a foreign Government. Quite another type of apology and restoration is needed if you have involvement, albeit limited and perhaps ineffective involvement, but involvement none the less, in the actions of a foreign Government in these types of matters. Undoing this relational damage will be difficult, but I struggle to see how this relationship can be fully restored unless the question is answered of why after 30 years the community could not in any event have known this information.

Finally, I note that the Indian Government are looking into this matter again. Can my noble friend the Minister indicate whether the UN is looking at holding some form of inquiry into the matter? I strongly support an international inquiry. If Her Majesty’s Government could support that, it would do something to improve relationships. I sympathise with Her Majesty’s Government over this inadvertent disclosure as restoring the relationship with the Sikh community will not be straightforward. I hope that they are able to do this, whether in the manner that I have outlined with the ISC or through another vehicle. Otherwise the views of political parties—I wait to hear with interest the views of those on the Benches opposite—on a full public inquiry could well become in May 2015 what political strategists call a wedge issue for voters.