Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 20th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB) [V]]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord West, has pointed out, although the Government are to be congratulated on the intention behind the Bill, there are several wrinkles to be ironed out. First and foremost, there must be no provisions within it that would lead members of our Armed Forces to believe that they are sanctioned to break the rule of domestic or international law. In 1965, during confrontation with Indonesia, every company cross-border operation had to be authorised by the Cabinet, because in effect it involved an invasion—but that was an extreme.

Like many other noble Lords, during the remainder of the time allowed I shall concentrate on torture, which has been prohibited in this country ever since 1640. The most recent renewal of this prohibition was the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which designated it as a domestic offence, covering the torture of anyone, anywhere in the world. MoD doctrine makes clear that there are no circumstances in which torture, inhuman or degrading treatment can ever be justified. In the public consultation that the Government conducted prior to the Bill, HMG suggested that torture might not be covered by any presumption against prosecution. In the published Bill, however, only sexual offences are excluded from this presumption, acts of torture remaining subject to the Bill’s triple lock.

In the other place, 269 voted in favour of an amendment tabled by two ex-military MPs, David Davis and Dan Jarvis, to remove torture from the scope of the Bill. I give notice that I intend to table a similar amendment in Committee, or to attach my name to one removing it if another noble Lord should table one. Moreover, the Bill’s granting of immunity from prosecution to perpetrators of torture would not only break the UK’s obligations under the Geneva conventions, the UN Convention against Torture, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Rome statute and customary international law, it would leave members of our Armed Forces more rather than less likely to face prosecution at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

I join all other noble Lords who have praised and thanked the members of our Armed Forces, and I will always be proud of having served on overseas operations. Unfortunately, this Bill breaches the long-standing principle of military law that soldiers are subject to the same laws as all ordinary citizens, particularly with regard to torture, and we owe it to all service veterans and service men and women to scrutinise the Bill most thoroughly.