Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

We do not really know what arguments the noble Baroness’s colleagues will present at Strasbourg, but it sounds as though they will say, ““We believe that the protection of our citizens against the threat of terrorism is more important than the prohibition against torture in Article 3, and therefore we want to water down the protection””. That protection is given not only through the many cases that my noble friend has mentioned but is, as he said, enshrined in customary international law. However, it seems the Government want to destroy that edifice because they think that the protection of our citizens is more important than our international obligations. I wonder whether that is really the case that the noble Baroness thinks will be made in Strasbourg because my noble friend has said that he cannot see any argument that would prevail in the face of the decisions that the court has made in the past. If that is the strength of the Government’s case, it is inept in the extreme for them to go to Strasbourg and present such a feeble argument knowing that it will almost certainly fail. That is particularly the case when, as my noble friend has said, there is another route. It is not a route that I am particularly attracted by yet, because not only do you have to have waterproof memoranda of understanding, you also have to have mechanisms by which those memoranda are overseen. That has proved an impossible hurdle so far. I believe that as regards Jordan—my noble friend will probably correct me if I am wrong—originally we asked the ICRC whether it would be prepared to monitor the situation. It refused point blank, and we finished up with an organisation that no one has ever heard of and which a search on the Internet has not been able to identify. Whether we could go to the courts and plead that we had sufficiently watertight guarantees against torture through the memorandum of understanding we have with Jordan being policed by some unknown and untested domestic NGO is doubtful. Although I do not disagree with my noble friend that this route is worth exploring as a means of solving the dilemma if we can find adequate means of monitoring those agreements, that is not what the Government are asking us to do. The Government are seeking to water down the obligations that we and every other state have taken on under Article 3. I seriously submit that we ought to think again about this, because it is not simply a question of our own domestic protection but of the reputation of Europe as a whole. If we cancel or water down this very important obligation of the convention, it will be a very black day in the annals of this country for us to have taken the lead on such an initiative. I beg the Government to think again about going to Strasbourg and to concentrate on other routes by which they can solve this admittedly very difficult problem. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 7 agreed to. Clauses 8 to 10 agreed to. Clause 11 [Continuation of leave]: