Mr Shaker Aamer

Debate between David T C Davies and Julian Knight

Wednesday 25th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Government response to the return to the UK of Mr Shaker Aamer.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. My interest in this matter stems from various press reports, such as this BBC report from the time of Mr Aamer’s return suggesting that he would be entitled to a large and secretive sum of compensation, allegedly in the region of £1 million. That, apparently, is in line with compensation paid to previous inmates of Guantanamo Bay who have returned to the UK.

I wrote to the Minister on this subject and, as always, he wrote back to me swiftly and directly, for which I am grateful. I could read out the whole letter because it is only a couple of sentences long, but I will not. The important sentence states: “In 2010, Kenneth Clarke, the then Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, made a statement in the House of Commons. In it he noted that Her Majesty’s Government had inherited the issues around the treatment of UK detainees held by other countries from previous Governments and that these issues needed to be addressed.” The letter goes on to say: “To that end, Mr Clarke informed the House ‘that the Government have now agreed a mediated settlement of the civil damages claims brought by detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.’ The details of that settlement have been made subject to a legally binding confidentiality agreement.”

I wrote to the Minister asking for confirmation that Mr Shaker Aamer will not be entitled to money, and that is the response I got, so I think it is fair for me to assume that Mr Aamer will be in line for substantial damages. If the Minister wants to intervene at any time to tell me that that is not so and to rule it out categorically, I will happily cut the debate very short and finish now.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. On a day when the Chancellor has announced difficult decisions in the spending review, many of my constituents will be horrified at the thought of compensation being paid to Mr Aamer. Will my hon. Friend reflect on that for a moment?

[David T. C. Davies]

I will further reflect on that and say that my hon. Friend’s constituents are absolutely right. I am horrified at the prospect of this happening. It is completely and utterly wrong that Mr Aamer should be entitled to any compensation.

--- Later in debate ---

[David T. C. Davies]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, which I will come to in a minute because there are three families in that position in Monmouthshire.

The then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe, made the point that the cost of fighting a court case was

“estimated at approximately £30 million to £50 million over three to five years of litigation.”—[Official Report, 16 November 2010; Vol. 518, c. 753.]

That is a very high figure, and I find it hard to believe, but I am not a legal man. In any event, if we are right then we should fight these cases. We should not simply have a situation where people can pitch up and say, “I’m going to sue the Government for £1 million and it will cost you more than that to defend the case, so you’ll have to give me the money.” This Government should be a Government of principles and if we believe that we are in the right, we should fight these cases and not simply hand out cheques to people.

[Julian Knight]

On that point, I wonder whether the figure of £30 million to £50 million that he just cited is in relation to our fighting the case and losing it. If so, what would be the figure if we fought the case and won?

[David T. C. Davies]

Exactly, and I wonder how much of that £30 million to £50 million would be the costs being submitted by the lawyers working for these people—actually, the statement does not make that clear, so I cannot comment. However, my hon. Friend makes a very good point.

If the Government showed a willingness to go to court, it might well be that Mr Aamer’s extremely expensive lawyers would think twice about bringing the case to court. There is certainly an implication of that in this report from the BBC and other press reports. In this report, Mr Stafford Smith, one of the main lawyers involved, implied that he was not going to bother suing the Americans because he had no chance of getting money out of them. As far as I am concerned, let Mr Aamer’s lawyers fight for their money in Britain, and let the Minister and the Government do everything in their power to stop them from getting it.

There are facts that need to come out here. Mr Aamer himself obviously felt that the extreme brand of Islam favoured by the Taliban at that time in 2001 was preferable to anything on offer in the UK. He chose to go out there to Afghanistan.