Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Verdirame and Lord Macdonald of River Glaven

Committee stage
Thursday 5th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven (CB)]

My Lords, I want to strongly support these amendments, and I shall be relatively brief. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, was kind enough to inform the Committee that in her presence I described the present situation as illogical. In fact, I think I spoke a good deal more strongly than that, and she has been kind enough not to repeat the totality of my remarks.

This is a reform which has been proposed and urged upon successive Governments for years. I found the speech from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, utterly persuasive and completely unanswerable. I take issue with him on only one point, which is when he expressed a little bit of surprise that the CPS would be supporting him. When I was the head of the CPS, I strongly supported this reform. Indeed, shortly after I stepped down from that position, I wrote a column in the Times asking this question: what is it about prosecuting war criminals in this context that the Government do not like? I never received a reply to that question which I understood, and the question is still live.

[Lord Verdirame (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I also offer my support but express some concerns that I believe could be addressed. I do not think I need to say very much as to the reasons I support the amendments, because the speakers before me have all done such a stellar job.

The one point that I would perhaps clarify is that a number of these offences under international law impose on the UK an obligation to prosecute or extradite. The problem that we have is that, in many cases, we cannot extradite. We cannot extradite in some cases because there is no jurisdiction that can, in practice, begin a criminal prosecution. But sometimes we cannot extradite because the jurisdictions to which we would extradite are jurisdictions where the suspect would face the death penalty or torture. In those cases, the individuals would, in effect, find a safe haven here because of our generous human rights protection, to which I think we should all remain committed. So we may end up with individuals who cannot be deported or extradited and whom we cannot prosecute unless we have some reform of universal jurisdiction. That is the need for this change, which would also bring us into line with international obligations.

My concerns are the following. First, we need to remember that universal jurisdiction is the last resort. In a lot of these cases, it is true that the country where the offence was committed, or of which the alleged offender is a national, will not be able to prosecute. However, ideally, the prosecutions should take place in a jurisdiction that has a closer connection with either the offence or the offender. Where that is not possible, we need to look at other options. Another option is prosecution before an international court and tribunal. As we know, under the ICC statute, the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court is always complementary to national jurisdictions. Only in the third instance, and as a last resort, should we look at prosecution under universal jurisdiction. It is only when everything else fails, which unfortunately might happen quite often, that prosecution under universal jurisdiction should be contemplated.