Baha Mousa Inquiry

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I am very grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for his response and for the way in which he phrased it. He is quite right that the report in no way reflects on the general behaviour of our armed forces; indeed, the whole reason why we are discussing this case is that it was a shocking deviation from the normal standards of behaviour that we have seen from our armed forces. He is correct that a number of individuals are still serving. We are looking at the evidence in detail—it is obviously a very large report—and as I have said, the chain of command is looking at how those individuals still in the armed forces might be treated, although I expect a number of suspensions today.

The right hon. Gentleman raised a number of issues about the harsh approach to questioning and why we should adopt it. First, I should say to the House that the so-called harsh approach involves a short burst of shouting—defined as a short, sharp shock—to bring a captured person back to the realisation of their situation. It is not a violent technique, but it has produced information that has led to both civilian and military lives being saved. To deprive our armed forces of techniques that can make them safer and protect the population both here and abroad would be wrong.

The right hon. Gentleman asked whether we needed a change to the law in respect of the five techniques that were outlawed by the Heath Government back in 1972. My understanding is that we do not—they are absolutely banned, as is currently made clear in training—but I will look to see whether doing that would reinforce the position and whether our legal experts believe it to be necessary.

As for the right hon. Gentleman’s point about exemptions from prosecution based on evidence, let me be clear that there was an exemption from prosecution based on an individual’s own evidence, not an exemption from prosecution based on the evidence of others that came out in the inquiry. Both military and civilian prosecuting authorities will be looking closely at the evidence to see whether it is possible to bring more of those involved to justice.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for the content of his statement and for the tone in which he delivered it. I agree completely with what he said, including his reticence about the banning of non-physical harsh methodology. This incident was a dreadful stain on our very fine armed forces, and I welcome his comments about the continued efforts to pursue those who still evade responsibility for their appalling behaviour.

There are two areas that I want to ask the Secretary of State about. As with the Aitken report, this incident has again exposed the problems with corporate memory, which has come up in other areas, such as the loss of the Hercules and the coroner’s inquiry into that. What ongoing work, as I know that some work has been done, is the right hon. Gentleman doing to try to improve—no organisation can be perfect—this issue of corporate memory in the Ministry of Defence? What are he and his Ministers doing to continue to show an interest in detention facilities? No matter what rules and regulations are in force, if the top of the chain of command and Ministers themselves are not constantly vigilant in overseeing from the top the methods being used, the facilities provided and how they are being run, there will be lapses. Are the right hon. Gentleman and his Ministers continuing to be vigilant in respect of our facilities and how they are being used in Afghanistan and elsewhere?

[Dr Fox]

The answer to the final question is emphatically yes. The Minister for the Armed Forces and I have recently inspected detention facilities in Afghanistan. We also have a rigorous system of reporting in place where every allegation is reported, recorded and investigated, which is a huge difference from what happened back in 2003. If I may say so, the Ministry of Defence strategic detention policy that the right hon. Gentleman published when he was Secretary of State is one of the ways in which we are codifying policy to ensure that corporate memory is not lost. The procedures for improvements in training, the very clear delineation of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable and the writing down of these training materials are the means by which, I hope, these dreadful and almost unbelievable lapses in corporate memory will not be allowed to happen again.