Armed Drones

Mark Field Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) for securing the debate. As ever, he made a thoughtful and insightful contribution. He is also a man of boundless optimism—after all, he suggested that we would hear from the Chilcot inquiry “shortly”.

Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, have undoubtedly proved devastatingly effective. Militarily, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, their use has assisted in expelling al-Qaeda from large tracts of Pakistan—albeit not without some cost, and I agree precisely with what he and General McChrystal had to say—and from Yemen. Politically, drones have allowed the US in particular to pursue strategic objectives without needing to put boots on the ground in an era when, as we all know, there is very little appetite among western electorates for their countries to engage in further overseas military adventures.

Without doubt, the development of drone technology will continue apace in the years ahead. Drones will assuredly be an essential part of the furniture of international warfare and, as a consequence, their use will require a thorough overhaul of international law and regulation. That overhaul is still to come.

In the euphoria that surrounds the decisive deployment of drones to eliminate terrorist leaders from afar, it is also worth reflecting—as the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) did earlier—that before the world is too much older our enemies will also enjoy access to this technology, with potentially calamitous effect. Terrorists and even criminal extortion gangs will soon be able to operate hardware of this sort, the cost and capability of which is rapidly coming within their range.

The use of drones by the UK military was first avowed as recently as September, when the Prime Minister announced the extrajudicial killings of two UK citizens, Reyaad Khan and Junaid Hussain, who had joined ISIL in Syria and featured prominently in a propaganda video that promoted and encouraged terrorist attacks on UK soil. Of course, the UK Government wished to place those deaths on the record lest details seeped out via a freedom of information inquiry, as happened in July regarding joint US-UK air strikes over Syrian airspace. Moreover, the US policy of routine avowal of fatal drone attacks created the risk that eagle-eyed observers might notice that the two operations resulting in the deaths of Khan and Hussain had not been similarly gazetted. It is better to take the initiative rather than allow lurid conclusions to be drawn. In November, Mohammed Emwazi—alias “Jihadi John”—was similarly dispatched in co-operation with the US military.

For as long as such ISIL-supporting British terrorists were at large on Syrian soil, it would evidently have been impossible to bring them to trial. To be fair, there is a distinction between the situation today and that in Ulster some 40 years ago. Of course there were ungoverned spaces in parts of Londonderry and Belfast, but there are massive tracts within Syria that make it impossible to bring people to trial. None the less, their terrorist activity was designed to cause mayhem on UK soil. We are de facto at war with the so-called Islamic State, and as a consequence Khan and Hussain might properly be regarded as combatants. However, the strong inclination in the post-Iraq war era to provide watertight legal cover for all military operations led, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden said, to the drone raid being classed as “self-defence” under article 51 of the UN charter.

That has opened up a series of contentious issues. For example, were the primary subjects of the drone attack “directing an attack”, and was such an attack “imminent”? As a consequence, our intelligence agencies will need to show after each drone strike that they have carefully considered the operation of article 51, unless we have the change in law that I will come on to. We need to keep the terms of such drone operations under regular, if not constant, review.

[Mr David Davis]

My right hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. One of the difficulties with such a legal basis is the requirement of imminence, which gives us an evidential problem. Presumably there was some sort of terrorist cell in this country that was about to carry out a terrorist action, and the Government have failed or refused to answer questions about whether there have been any arrests in the follow-up to that strike. That gives us a problem. The Government may have good reason for not giving us the information, but when drone strikes are carried out they will have to be ready to provide an evidential chain of some sort to show that what they did was correct.

[Mark Field]

I very much agree with my right hon. Friend’s comments. It seems to me that we need to keep the terms of drone use under regular, if not constant, review, and that before seeking ministerial authorisation the intelligence agencies would have needed to conclude that the individuals posed an imminent and clear threat to national security. It is also essential that our security services satisfy themselves that a drone strike, rather than any attempt at apprehension, is both necessary and proportionate. The issue of collateral damage—the impact of a strike upon innocent civilians in the vicinity—has been incredibly controversial, especially in Pakistan and Yemen, where it has often been recognised that US strikes have necessitated discreet co-operation with host Governments.

In truth, the increasingly sophisticated monitoring of mobile phones, other telephony and emails has enhanced the ability to target suspects with virtually pinpoint accuracy—it was notable that the only other fatalities in the two UK strikes this summer were associates. That is a good thing; we should try as far as possible to minimise collateral damage.

Nevertheless, I agree with other contributors to the debate that there is now an urgent, and possibly unanswerable, case for updated legislation to govern the use of—not to mention the continued reliance upon—new drone technology. That would allow the Prime Minister and the Government of the day to act with the timing and precision required to wage effective operations, without first having to consider how to navigate the complex labyrinth of precedent, law and parliamentary approval that currently blunts us. The US War Powers Act goes some way to providing a template in that regard, bestowing on the Executive branch the ability to give the green light to action without congressional approval, while maintaining a series of vital checks, safeguards and balances.

It is worth recalling that US legal justification in relation to the use of drones on overseas targets has historically been markedly less strenuous. That has arguably caused difficulties in the ungoverned parts of the world where “Five Eyes” co-operation is often strongest—Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and, more recently, parts of Syria. The UK security services’ knowledge that intelligence passed to their US counterparts is used to launch drone strikes without, for example, any clear imminent threat to national security, potentially places the UK military, and our own workers, in a legal quagmire.

Although a common protocol among western allies would be ideal, that would necessitate an open political debate about the desirability of adopting the hit list approach that the US military have for selecting drone targets. For the Obama Administration, that approach has essentially involved a rolling update of named individuals, with the list being refreshed whenever there is a successful drone attack involving the assassination of terrorist targets. Needless to say, such an approach is far removed from the necessity for the prior legal approval of each and every step under British law as it currently stands.

Thank you, Mr Stringer, for allowing me to speak for rather longer than my requisite minutes, but I did take some interventions. I very much look forward to the Minister’s response to the debate, and to her recognising that we need new legislation and some genuine thought about the matter, not just in the context of what is happening in Syria but, I suspect, for many years to come.

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[Kevin Brennan]

I will just make a little progress. That is why it is so important that we have this debate, and why the Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry is so important. I understand that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who is not here today, has written to the Secretary of State for Defence expressing her concern about the Ministry’s lack of co-operation with that inquiry. Will the Minister, in her response, confirm that the Committee will get the Ministry’s full co-operation, obviously within the parameters of what it can say on this matter?

[Mark Field]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kevin Brennan]

I will, briefly, but I am conscious of time. If the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) will forgive me, I probably will not give way a further time.

[Mark Field]

If article 51, which states that there has to be an imminent threat, is to mean anything, the security services—and, indeed, Ministers who are considering the issue—need to be in a position to update such a list constantly. The notion that an individual is on a list until such time as they are eliminated or assassinated seems to be at odds with article 51. There needs to be a process whereby the question of whether a person is still an imminent threat to the UK is regularly turned over in people’s minds.

[Kevin Brennan]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I will be interested to see whether the Minister illuminates that issue further in her response to the debate.

I want to raise one other issue, which is whether there should be an inquest into the death of Reyaad Khan. The case, it is fair to say, is fairly unique, but it has possibly led to similar cases. To some extent, an inquest might help establish some of the legal parameters in such cases. I have received representations on this—not from constituents, but from others. As I understand it, section 9 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 effectively grants global jurisdiction in respect of the potential unlawful killing of a British citizen. There is no question but that the issue of legality has been raised, and is under debate; we would not be here today if there was not a question mark about the legality. Can the Minister tell us whether the Government have a view on whether an inquest would be appropriate, if it is correct that the 1861 Act has global jurisdiction, and that the action that led to the death of this British citizen, albeit one who was acting in such a way as to be an enemy of the UK, was physically initiated in the UK, although the weapon used to carry it out was physically located elsewhere? Given the time constraints, I will not go on much longer, but I am interested to hear her response.

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[Martin John Docherty]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. Her point recognises the limitations on intelligence. I will cover that in a moment.

An estimated 222 civilians have been killed in United States strikes, including the American and Italian hostages killed in recent drone strikes in compounds. The use of drones without robust and accountable rules of engagement removes not one additional extremist or terrorist, but acts as a recruiting sergeant for the most heinous of blood cults. The present policy of power to kill anyone anywhere in the world without oversight or safeguards is a failed strategy that perpetuates the illusion that military force is effective in combating extremists.

[Mark Field]

Will the hon. Gentleman accept that, as I suggested, part of the issue is that in Pakistan and Yemen there is co-operation between whatever authorities there are—I would not say there is a functioning Government in either of those countries—and the US military? That is part of the problem. Drones are a recruiting sergeant because of the anger in what is essentially a collection of civil wars with a lot of militias in place.

[Martin John Docherty]

Strangely, I would not disagree or agree. We are seeing the continued emergence of extremists. The recent dreadful attacks in Paris and Beirut show the exacerbated position that we find ourselves in.

As my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire said, our mistake could be in believing that electronic communication or signals intelligence is infallible. We know from experience that this is not the reality we wish it to be. This was mentioned in detail by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden. Our ability to scrutinise and inform the policies that improve intelligence should be welcomed—I hope the Minister will welcome that—as it seeks to improve conditions for armed forces and civilian staff who are at the coalface of engagement.

Finally, the future development of this technology will challenge our military planning and, critically, our own use of drones, especially the development of autonomous drones. Although there is a policy not to develop that technology, I urge the Government to agree to the UN resolution for a moratorium on the development of such technology until we better understand the ramifications on our society.