Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard
Tuesday 9th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. I start by declaring my interest as a member of the Army Reserve and, indeed, my morning job as the deputy director of joint warfare at UK Strategic Command. Listening to this debate, I have been struck by how clear the point of law seems to be, particularly for noble and learned Lords, from the comfort and security of this Chamber or, perhaps, one’s home. My mind turns to members of the Royal Anglian Regiment who are currently on patrol in Mali, fighting against al-Shabaab and trying to defend what we believe in. I have no doubt that they are equally clear about what is right and wrong.

It always amazes me how members of our Armed Forces, despite the circumstances in which they often find themselves, have applied what is right and wrong under the most difficult circumstances and their judgment is normally sound. However, they will be less interested in the detailed points of law than in knowing that their relationship with Parliament is one of trust and support. As I listened to this debate, I am genuinely concerned that we are beginning not to see the wood for the trees in relation to why we are bringing the Bill forward. It was done partly at the request of our Armed Forces who, in recent years, after a series of vexatious claims, simply want to know that Parliament and the Government have their back.

I have the utmost respect for noble Lords and noble Baronesses who have brought forward these amendments, which in the main come from a genuine concern that the Bill may disrespect international law or organisations such as the ICC. I understand, but I am concerned. Rather like the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, I do not understand these early amendments, because they seem to go to the heart of what we are seeking to achieve, and the principles of what the Bill is for, in the triple lock. I find that frustrating, because nothing in the Bill ultimately will prevent, in the case of new evidence, a serviceman being brought to justice. No one is trying to say that members of our Armed Forces should be above the law. That is not the purpose of the Bill.

Some noble Lords simply do not like the Bill and want it gone. To be fair to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, she was clear in her comments and I absolutely respect her. In many ways, it reminds me of exactly why I joined the military 32 years ago—to ensure that she has the right to stand there and make these points. What I find frustrating, though, is that when some seem to be seeking, effectively, to wreck the Bill through these amendments, in the same breath we hear platitudes about the brave members of our Armed Forces. We should be supporting them.

I, for one, am not saying that the Bill is perfect; it is anything but. I have proposed my own amendment to try to improve the Bill. Later this afternoon, I will be commenting on some amendments that try sensibly to improve the Bill. However, I do not want to lose the purpose of what we are doing, because your Lordships’ House will not do itself any favours with members of our Armed Forces if we seek to undermine the general direction of the Bill and what it aims to do.

I turn in particular to the first set of amendments and the movement from five years to 10 years. I have concerns about that, not least because, in response to the public consultation, there were concerns about a 10-year timeframe. That is a long time and, particularly in the heat of battle, memories can fade and evidence can deteriorate. Given that we are seeking to create certainty and reassurance, a period of five years better achieves that objective. Ultimately, any timeframe will probably be viewed as arbitrary.

Perhaps to reassure myself, I considered how two of the most recent unfortunate cases would be impacted. The trial following the tragic death of Baha Mousa, the Iraqi man who died in British custody in September 2003, was in 2006, just three years later. Equally, I was involved as a Minister in the case of Sergeant Blackman when it came up again two or three years ago. It involved the killing of a Taliban prisoner in 2011 and the trial took place in 2013, well within a relatively short period. In both circumstances, the evidence came out after the event.

Ultimately, nothing changes if new evidence comes to light, which is why the amendment moving the timescale from five to 10 years is unnecessary. Indeed, it goes to the heart of what the Bill is trying to achieve. We should not be treating members of our Armed Forces like fools. They are anything but fools. If we are seeking to put the Bill through Parliament in an effort to support them, let us do just that. Of course there are areas in which the Bill can be improved, but I am not sure that these amendments do that.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the well-made points made by the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton, and I certainly take them on board. I am going to speak briefly to the opening amendments and the general feel of the Bill. I do so having also taken on board the wise words of my noble and gallant friend Lord Stirrup. I look forward to hearing more about his reservations on the Bill.

I was enormously impressed by what we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. Their words are, I contend, in the interests of our armed services, given that clarity on the fairness that these matters require helps to give confidence that proceedings involving service personnel are thorough. We desire them to be thorough and universally admired. If they are, that only helps our service personnel. I look forward to hearing other speakers and the reply of the Minister to those concerns.

I turn to a slightly wider landscape. We hear virtually every week in your Lordships’ House about disturbing events in, for example, Myanmar, Hong Kong and China, as well as, even nearer to home, the recent case of the American woman claiming diplomatic immunity after her tragic road crash. There were the cases of the assassination of Mr Khashoggi, the poisonings in Salisbury, Sergei Magnitsky and the current detention of Mr Navalny. The point that I am making is that in all those cases it takes time for the facts to emerge, even to be dug up. The case of Baha Mousa could easily have taken six years, but I salute the efforts that were made. I am afraid that the facts often take longer than five years to emerge. Still more importantly, I contend that our remonstrations about these cases is all the stronger if the way in which we deal with our own employees is as beyond reproach as possible. That is why I worry that five years is too short and why I have real concerns over the presumptions against prosecutions contained in the Bill.

Finally, I stress that I accept that the terrible things that happen in the heat of battle are quite different from the premeditated use of torture. It is that matter which particularly concerns me and to which I shall return when we reach Amendment 14.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is conventional to say what a pleasure it is to speak after whichever noble Lord has preceded one. On this occasion, it genuinely is a pleasure to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, because I tended to agree with most of what he said. I am winding up on this group of amendments very much from the same place as when I was winding up at the end of Second Reading from the Liberal Democrat Benches.

On this occasion, my name is attached to some of the amendments, but I will none the less restate, for the avoidance of any doubt before I get into their substance, that I am not proposing that we throw out the Bill. The amendments to which my name is attached are intended for debate in Committee. I support the amendment to change the timescale from five to 10 years, but I am not necessarily at the point of suggesting that, when we get to Report and voting, certain clauses should not stand part of the Bill. Nor am I going to support, much to her disappointment, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and say that I shall vote against the whole Bill at Third Reading. That, to the best of my knowledge, is not the Liberal Democrat party line. We have not said that we will vote against the whole Bill. Rather, there are aspects of the Bill which we and many other noble Lords right across the Chamber argued at Second Reading were flawed and which need to be addressed in amendments in Committee that presumably will be voted on on Report.

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[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 14 and have considerable sympathy for the other amendments in this group, so I will speak generally about these issues. Like all the previous speakers on this group, I believe that this Bill, as presently drafted, undermines our obligations under the Geneva conventions and the UN Convention against Torture, which explicitly require that serious international crimes, such as torture, genocide and crimes against humanity, are investigated and prosecuted. I am deeply concerned about this Bill because it promotes the growing, dangerous idea that the UK can simply set aside international obligations in law. Its entry into force will be yet more evidence of what Theresa May called the abandonment of the UK’s moral leadership on the world stage, and will add to the risk of more prolonged investigations of our Armed Forces, not fewer.

The Government have excluded a number of sexual offences listed in Schedule 1 from the scope of the Bill. During the Bill’s passage through the other place, the Government were asked on several occasions to explain why crimes such as torture and genocide remain within scope of the Bill, while offences of a sexual nature are excluded. In response, the Secretary of State and the Minister for Defence People and Veterans argued that violent and lethal acts are sometimes justified during combat, and these activities can expose service personnel to allegations of torture or other war crimes, whereas sexual violence can never be justified. The Minister repeated that explanation and expanded upon it at Second Reading.

I struggle to understand this explanation or to grasp why this distinction has been made. The best I can do is to summarise it in this way: the argument seems to be that the very nature of war or conflict justifies special rules to protect those engaged in conflict from allegations that they have breached the laws designed, sometimes solely but at least in part, to prevent just war and conflict from being used as an excuse for the perpetration of the most egregious crimes. This argument simply cannot be allowed to prevail.

The use of torture, like sexual offences, can never be justified. The legal definition of torture describes it in terms of the “intentional” or “deliberate” infliction of severe pain or suffering. In short, these acts are clearly distinct from legitimate use of force during combat. It is surely our duty to ensure that no British service personnel will be engaged in a situation which would put them at risk of credibly being accused of conduct meeting any of the relevant definitions of torture, genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.

In the event of a rare, credible allegation of such behaviour being levelled at British service personnel, they should be effectively investigated and, where there is sufficient reliable and credible evidence, prosecuted. That is my understanding of our obligations and what we should be seeking to support with no conditionality.

Ministers who deny that the triple lock will weaken our stance on such crimes dismiss these arguments with the rhetorical equivalent of a wave of the hand, even though a large and diverse coalition of military, legal and other experts have sustained their view that it will do exactly that. As your Lordships’ House has heard from every previous speaker, they can explain comprehensively why that is the case.

I have one final point and I make no apology that it is a point which has already been made by every one of the preceding speakers. What is effectively a de facto statute of limitations on the prosecution of crimes makes it much more likely that British soldiers will be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court, which acts only where countries are unwilling to prosecute their own citizens. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, explained very clearly at Second Reading and repeated today that this not only makes investigation and possible prosecution by the ICC more likely, but also subjects them to the possibility of such investigations and prosecutions by any number of other jurisdictions.

There are three very specific public warnings of the risks of investigation and possible prosecution by the ICC. In addition to the letter to Ben Wallace, which has been referred to on a number of occasions, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court warned that if a proposed presumption against prosecution were introduced, it

“would need to consider its potential impact on the ability of the UK authorities to investigate and/or prosecute crimes allegedly committed by members of the British armed forces … against the standards of inactivity and genuineness set out in article 17 of the Statute.”

The Office of the Prosecutor also stated in the final report Situation in Iraq/UK published in December 2020, that it will continue to monitor the development of the Overseas Operations Bill and its impact, and may revisit its decision not to take action against the UK for war crimes committed in Iraq in the light of new facts or evidence. The increased risk of investigation or prosecution by the ICC also applies in respect of other past and future overseas operations.

We should all, Government and Parliament, remember that we have a solemn commitment to our Armed Forces given on ratification of the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court, that no member would ever be at risk of appearing in The Hague. If this Bill in its present form becomes an Act of Parliament, it will be a deliberate breach of this commitment and the ultimate irony is that it will expose our armed forces in the future to long and possibly repeated investigations.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister, who has dealt with our concerns so graciously all afternoon, will probably realise that we now come to the winter of our discontent. It is here that I hope—if I may say so, with great respect—that she will consider even more carefully what is being said.

I support Amendments 14 and 36 in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead. He made the point—we hear it quite often in your Lordships’ House—that an undertaking from the Government to take seriously—to say that it is the intention of the Government—is not in itself a sufficient replacement for statute where something as vitally important as this is concerned.

Torture does not work—you hear what you want to hear—but it is also abhorrent, and, as the right reverend Prelate just said, it is immoral and uncivilised. We need for that reason to set an example which will protect our service men and women from possible torture if captured. I hope the noble Lord, Lord West, will forgive me if I quote a little further from what he has written:

“What is quite clear, and it was inculcated in us from day one of warfare training, is that ‘there are no circumstances in which torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment can ever be justified’; it’s a principle that all members of our military must, and do, abide. We must be wary of creating a perception and certainly not a reality that this is not the case.”

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I do not know whether I am proud to speak in support of my noble friend Lord Robertson of Port Ellen and all the other moving speeches that I have heard or devastated that I feel that I need to. The arguments are clear and compelling and have been made from across your Lordships’ House. I need not repeat them save to remind the Minister that the warning from the chief ICC prosecutor is a very serious matter indeed and not something that any of us can be proud of. I therefore note in particular the speeches of my noble friends Lord Robertson and Lord Browne of Ladyton, former Defence Secretaries and one is a former Secretary-General of NATO. I have not always agreed with them on every matter of human rights disputes but the Minister and all your Lordships will know that their comments would not have been made lightly.

It was also important that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, reminded us of the universal jurisdiction over torture. I must therefore support not just Amendment 14 from my noble friend Lord Robertson but all noble Lords who are attempting to limit the reach of the Bill and prevent the presumption applying to war crimes, genocide, torture and crimes against humanity.

I say without hesitation to noble Lords who are not speaking in this group and who perhaps spoke in the past about what members of our Armed Forces would expect and whether we should feel comfortable looking them in the eye, that I have never met a member of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces who has attempted to justify any of those grave offences—quite the opposite. So much of their honour and their vocation is about believing in the rule of law and human rights internationally and putting their lives on the line so that grave offences of that kind are defeated elsewhere in the world and ruled out.

I return to the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds about sexual abuse. The Minister said very clearly on an earlier group that sexual offences had been singled out in the Bill because, in her words, the Government wanted to be clear that that kind of behaviour is never acceptable. Clearly, as a matter of domestic and international law, the offences touched on in this group—war crimes, genocide, torture and crimes against humanity—are never acceptable either. So there is a complete illogic about including sexual offences but not these other very grave matters.

The Minister will say that this is not a statute of limitation, it is just presumptive. I am afraid that that will not wash with large numbers of the public nor, crucially, elsewhere in the world, including, it would seem, with the chief prosecutor of the ICC. Furthermore, even if it were impossible for these offences ever to be perpetrated by Her Majesty’s forces in future, we have been told repeatedly that this is as much about reassurance and the signals that we send as it is about the letter of the law. Well, reassurance is a two-way street. It is of course about protection for our Armed Forces, but it is also about sending signals, not just to our Armed Forces but to our allies and friends—and to our enemies, including enemies who, I am sorry to say, might at some point in future have members of Her Majesty’s forces in their custody. That is perhaps the moment when these grave crimes become a matter of even closer concern than they are the rest of the time.

I say to the Minister, for whom I have a great deal of respect—I think she is a very gifted advocate but also a reasonable person, and one of the most decent members of the Government—and to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, as a law officer, who I think may be in his place, that this group of amendments, perhaps more than any other, should be responded to at the close of this evening’s debate with at least an offer to consider them. It would be unconscionable for something like this group not to be reflected in the legislation when it passes. And the legislation will pass, because of the Government’s mandate and majority. The Minister will remind us at various stages that the Bill was a manifesto commitment, but it was not ever a manifesto commitment to open the door, send a signal or give reassurance in relation to war crimes, genocide, torture and crimes against humanity.

People deserve advocates—even alleged wrongdoings deserve the most gifted and fearless advocates, and everyone should be so lucky as to have such a gifted advocate as the Minister—but we do not deserve the rotten law that is about to be made, exposing our Armed Forces, and humans all over the world, to lines that should never be crossed.