I have read enough of the various documents to know that the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I am glad to agree with him.
I do not want to open up too many old wounds, but I have read the excellent book, “Account Rendered”, by the now Lord Tyrie, which includes some purportedly declassified top secret documents on how the CIA conducted their interrogation techniques. I very much hope that Ministers responsible have read those documents, because I found it quite nauseating. I am ex-forces. If you are ex-forces, then at some time in your life you are actually committed to killing our enemies, but even so I found it nauseating to see just how degrading authorised American interrogation techniques could be. The list of what they would do includes the attention grasp, or grasp by collars; walling, or slamming people against a false flexible wall; the wall standing stress position; the facial hold; facial slap stress positions; waterboarding—I think we can pretty clearly be disgusted by that—and cramped confinement, including putting insects in a box with a person who you know has a phobia. Imagine combining all these things using nudity, control of diet and restraint, putting them all in sequence deliberately for prolonged periods. That is what the declassified documents in “Account Rendered” give an account of.
I completely agree with the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) that these principles are absolutely robust, and I am 100% certain in my own mind that our brave officials—men and women good and true, noble and decent—would never want, in any sense, however distant, to be complicit in extraordinary rendition for the purpose of degrading treatment. I am absolutely clear about that. But our job in this House is not to simply trust the great and good people that we have today; it is to put in place a law that makes sure that in future everyone can understand that we do not do these things, not least because showing that we are on the right side of the argument will help us to recruit agents overseas.
I am dead serious about this. It is no reflection on my very high estimation of the people who serve us and keep us safe; it is about worries about the future when
there is another panic about another terrorist attack. I say to my right hon. Friend the Minister: if public-spirited lawyers draw up clauses that can put these excellent, robust principles on a statutory footing, I will certainly seek to maximise support for it, because in future we must make sure that no Government of any colour can ever discredit our great people by raising even the slightest suspicion that we might have been even distantly complicit in cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners.
8.58 pm