Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 26th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lords, Lord Anderson and Lord Campbell of Pittenweem. I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, for bringing forward his amendment both on Report and now. I also thank my noble friend for the way in which she has responded. As she will recall, I did not participate on Report but I listened with care; we had subsequent conversations about this. I read with great interest the contributions made by a number of my former colleagues in the other place when our amendments were considered there last week.

First, while I agree with my noble friend and welcome the concessions that the Government have made, it is important for us to understand the nature of this further substantial shift. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, who, in quoting part of Article 8(2) of the ICC statute, illustrated the wide range of potential crimes listed there. This gives rise to the concern that the chance of a vexatious allegation in relation to such a wide range of potential crimes is far greater than it is for crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity. However, as my right honourable friend Jeremy Wright, the former Attorney-General, helpfully said in the debate last Wednesday in the other place, by virtue of the exclusions that the Government have introduced, there is an increasing inconsistency as to which offences are relevant and which are excluded.

The truth of the matter is this: if we could be certain that the decisions made by prosecuting authorities on a relevant offence would exclude the potential of a further prosecution by the International Criminal Court—and that the decisions made by UK prosecutors would be sufficient for everybody’s acceptance—the UK would be able and willing to undertake a prosecution, even of a relevant offence, and this would be accepted by the ICC; my noble friend the Minister made this point in introducing the debate. The court could then proceed only if we were unable and unwilling, which we evidently would not be. I fear that there is uncertainty about this.

We have to balance, on the one hand, the uncertainty about exposing our potential servicepeople to the International Criminal Court—especially after the five-year period—against, on the other hand, not being able to reassure them that these offences have been brought within the scope of relevant offences for the higher prosecution threshold. The iteration between this House and the other House has helped enormously to understand that there is a balance to be struck.