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10.17 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Timothy Kirkhope): I am pleased to respond to the debate. I have noted the presence of not only my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath (Sir C. Townsend), but my hon. Friends the Members for Bury, South (Mr. Sumberg), for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) and for Stevenage (Mr. Wood).
I am sure that it will come as no surprise to my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath that I do not find his arguments about the War Crimes Act and its operation either attractive or convincing. My hon. Friend asked how I voted in relation to the measures that the House took. I think that the record will show that I voted in support of the legislation; I hope that that is the case, because that is how I feel.
The House supported the War Crimes Act on a free vote by an overwhelming majority, not only in 1990 but again in 1991. The House was fully aware that the gathering of evidence of alleged war crimes, including evidence from abroad, would be a lengthy and costly
process, given that the crimes were committed many years ago; but the House approved the legislation because of the enormity of the crimes, which cannot be diminished by the mere passage of time. The Act is about offences involving the killing of innocent people in horrendous circumstances, contrary to internationally accepted standards of civilised conduct. The House was determined to ensure that people in this country now suspected of such dreadful crimes should not be able to escape justice simply because they did not have British nationality during the second world war.
The Act is now part of the general criminal law and I must make it clear, lest there be any doubt, that the Government remain firmly committed to its purposes. The police and the prosecuting authorities can now follow up evidence that war crimes were committed by non-British nationals during the war, just as they can follow up evidence in other cases of murder and manslaughter, irrespective of the time that has passed or of whether the crimes were committed in Britain. The Act gives effect to the House's intention that persons against whom there is evidence of war crimes committed during the second world war may be brought to trial. There can be no case whatsoever for backtracking on that resolve or affording such people special protection by rendering the Act ineffective or inoperative.
I shall come to the question of investigations and prosecutions in a moment, but first it is worth recalling in a little more detail the background to the Act, what it is about and what the Government's policy on it is. The report of the war crimes inquiry, Command Paper 744, was presented to Parliament in July 1989. The inquiry was conducted, as my hon. Friend said, by Sir Thomas Hetherington and Mr. William Chalmers at the request of the then Home Secretary. The inquiry had been appointed following allegations that persons at that time living in the United Kingdom had committed war crimes during the second world war. The inquiry was asked, inter alia, to obtain and examine relevant material relating to the allegations and to consider, in the light of the likely probative value in court proceedings of the relevant documentary material and the evidence of potential witnesses, whether the law of the United Kingdom should be amended to make it possible to prosecute such persons for war crimes.
The inquiry considered about 300 allegations and concluded that in at least three of them, there would be a realistic prospect of conviction for murder on the evidence available, were the jurisdiction of British courts to be widened so that residents of this country who had committed crimes abroad could be prosecuted, albeit that they were not British at the relevant time. The inquiry recommended that further investigations be made into those cases and into more than 120 other cases. The inquiry noted that little or no consideration had been given by successive British Governments to what might be done with war criminals in the UK for the simple reason that before the inquiry was set up, none had been thought to be in Britain. The inquiry made it clear that nothing in the policy or practice of successive Governments prevented taking action to bring war criminals to justice.
Against the background of the inquiry, and in line with its recommendations, the Government introduced to Parliament in March 1990 what became the War Crimes Act 1991. The purpose of the war crimes legislation was to give our courts jurisdiction over murder, manslaughter
and culpable homicide committed as violations of the laws and customs of war during the second world war in Germany or German-held territory by people who are now British citizens or resident in the UK, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, irrespective of their nationality at the material time.
It is now therefore possible to prosecute for war crimes committed in Europe people who did not have British nationality at the time of the alleged offences. I emphasise that because our courts, as has been said, had jurisdiction over murder, manslaughter and culpable homicide committed abroad by British nationals by virtue of section 9 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and section 6(1) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975, which was a consolidating statute incorporating the corresponding provision in section 29 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1949.
Moreover, our courts already had jurisdiction over grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva conventions, including wilful killing and torture, wherever in the world the offence was committed and whatever the nationality of the offender, by virtue of the Geneva Conventions Act 1957, although that Act did not apply to grave breaches committed before it came into effect. The War Crimes Act did not therefore introduce any new principle concerning prosecuting for offences abroad irrespective of the nationality of the suspect.
I emphasise that the War Crimes Act did not create any new offences. Violations of the laws and customs of war have long been criminal according to the general principles of law recognised by this country and all other members of the community of civilised nations. The Act did not therefore criminalise conduct that was not already criminal by internationally recognised standards; it ensured that such conduct was triable by our courts.
The War Crimes Bill was approved by this House on a free vote by a large majority--273 votes to 60. It was then denied a Second Reading in another place, by 207 votes to 74. That was in June 1990. The Government reintroduced the Bill in identical form in this House in March 1991, where it was again approved by a large majority on a free vote, by 254 votes to 88. It was subsequently again denied a Second Reading in another place, by 131 votes to 109. The Bill was subsequently enacted, in May 1991, through the operation of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949.
I do not need to go into the detail of the debates on the Bill. Many of the arguments were anticipated by the war crimes inquiry. In particular, the inquiry had taken into account the ages of the alleged perpetrators of war crimes and the fact that the people involved had been living here for some considerable time. The inquiry was also aware of the additional manpower and resources that would be involved in investigating the allegations, and of the difficulties of bringing evidence before the courts. However, the inquiry said that those arguments were lacking when weighed in the balance against the alleged atrocities. The inquiry concluded:
I must emphasise that the Hetherington-Chalmers inquiry was just that--an inquiry. It was not a criminal investigation. The investigations did not begin until the Act came into force. Inevitably, the investigations were going to take some time and be resource-intensive. As I have said, the inquiry recommended that investigations be undertaken in more than 120 cases. After the inquiry, the police received information about other cases which also required investigation. The investigations were also going to take time and be costly because the events concerned took place abroad, moreover a long time ago. All of this was, of course, known to the House during the passage of the War Crimes Act. In line with the House's expectations, the Government ensured that the police were appropriately resourced for what were likely to be difficult and protracted inquiries.
Since May 1991, the Metropolitan police war crimes unit has considered 376 cases. In 117 of those, the subject of the inquiries has been confirmed dead. In a further 253 cases, the evidence so far is insufficient for the purposes of prosecution and the Crown Prosecution Service and the police have agreed that no further action should be taken at this time. This is subject to the possibility of reopening cases should any further evidence come to light.
"The crimes committed are so monstrous that they cannot be condoned: their prosecution could act as a deterrent to others in future wars. To take no action would taint the United Kingdom with the slur of being a haven for war criminals . . . Financial constraints should not be allowed to obstruct the course of justice in relation to such serious charges".
The fact is that the War Crimes Act is now law. It came into effect in May 1991 and since then the police and prosecuting authorities have had clear responsibilities to
investigate and prosecute for war crimes, as appropriate, in the same way as with other allegations of murder and manslaughter. The Government's policy in relation to the Act is unequivocal. It is that those who committed the most terrible crimes in Nazi-occupied Europe during the second world war should not be allowed to use the privilege of residence in this country to escape justice.
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