Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Baroness D'Souza Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th March 2021 Lords Chamber

I am very concerned about the signals in respect of human rights that are being sent by Clause 12. I am hugely persuaded, of course, by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, in his view that Clause 12 should have no place in this legislation.

[Baroness D'Souza (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak on this Bill for the first time in Committee. The Bill seems so far to have divided the House into at least two camps: those who oppose the Bill altogether and those who seek to amend it radically. I am of the latter camp. Amendment 26, to which I have attached my name, introduces yet another safeguard, one that upholds and supports the UK’s human rights obligations under the two main conventions on human rights. Briefly, as has been said time and again, the Government should not be further enabled to derogate significantly from these conventions in the absence of parliamentary approval.

The emptiness of this clause has already been addressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. I would support the removal of the clause altogether. In case that does not happen, however, Amendment 26 serves as an important safeguard and should prevail. The question of derogation in this context, as we heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is somewhat contradictory. We all know that torture is a grave breach of the Geneva conventions, with corresponding obligations and sanctions, and, as we have learned, commission of the act of torture in any shape or form is a non-derogable offence.

By including this clause, the Government are acknowledging the extraterritorial application of the European Convention on Human Rights, something that they have hitherto declined to acknowledge. If the clause is included, there will be those who will welcome it precisely due to its support of the extraterritorial application of the European Convention on Human Rights. That said, its inclusion in its current form appears to go against the absolute prohibition on torture and is therefore a dangerous hostage to fortune and should not be in the Bill.