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10.48 am
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Tony Lloyd): I strongly welcome the decision of my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) to apply for this debate. He raised an important issue, and the quality of contributions this morning--it sounds patronising, but it happens to be true--has been outstanding. Our message will ring across the oceans to each of the Caribbean states mentioned this morning.
I begin with the pleasant task of welcoming the first contribution by the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman) from the Front Bench. I am sure that his thoughtful and well-researched speech has been well received both here and outside this place. He has set himself a high standard to live up to.
The background to the debate is that, after capital punishment had been in disuse for some years, a number of states began to withdraw from some of the important international human rights conventions last year, giving a strong signal of intent to resume capital punishment. The circumstances of that have been detailed by hon. Members. That was followed by executions in the
Bahamas and in St. Kitts-Nevis. Earlier this month, there were nine executions, about which the House has heard, in Trinidad and Tobago. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton has said, the comments made by Prime Minister P. J. Patterson a little under two weeks ago suggest that Jamaica is about to take the same course.
We should place it on record that revulsion is felt by any civilised human being at the crime of murder--there is no disagreement about that. Murder is generally considered to be an horrific crime and, in its most extreme cases, revulsion for the crime and the criminal is a natural and understandable human reaction.
I shall not rehearse all the arguments concerning the death penalty. My own views, like those of every hon. Member who has spoken, have been consistent for many years, although I do not have a closed mind and we must constantly re-examine the arguments. It is worth reiterating that taking away a human life by judicial process is futile. All studies suggest that capital punishment has no long-term deterrent effect and, as has been said in the debate, we know where our own judicial processes have been flawed. Happily, capital punishment has not been used recently, although it would have been carried out in certain cases in a previous era. We know that innocent people have been executed and, for them, there can never be any attempt at recompense.
The House has consistently rejected the reintroduction of the death penalty over many years. In 1997, the Government recognised that and Parliament abolished the death penalty for treason and piracy and removed it from armed forces legislation. We have ratified, or will ratify, various protocols, such as protocol 6 of the European convention on human rights and the second optional protocol to the international covenant on civil and political rights. As hon. Members have said, foreign policy has to take account of the principles of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Under the UK presidency of the European Union, we agreed EU guidelines to press for abolition of the death penalty.
The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells referred to consistency. We have raised specific cases in many countries, including the United States, China, Iran, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, the Philippines and others. We have also made our policy on the death penalty clear in the course of normal contact with many other countries. We are not singling out Caribbean states because they are small or even because of our close and friendly relations. This is an important issue of principle and humanity--principle is universal and non-discriminatory, as is the bond of humanity--so there is no difficulty in saying to the House that we do not need to keep silent on it.
We have a particularly close relationship with the countries of the Caribbean and, at the end of this week, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will travel to the European-Latin American and Caribbean summit in Rio de Janeiro. He will make a major contribution on the issue of drugs and the need for co-operation across Latin America and the Caribbean and the consumer countries of Europe. Britain already co-operates strongly on a bilateral basis in parts of that region, but we need to improve our response and recognise that, in the modern world, drugs are often the motor for crimes of excessive greed and, in particular, violent crime. I believe that such co-operation is addressing some of the fundamentals which, ironically, dictate what the House is discussing this morning--murder and capital punishment.
A particular concern for the United Kingdom is ensuring that the anxieties of our close friends in the Caribbean are given proper weight in the summit proceedings. It is right that the United Kingdom, of all countries, should shoulder that task. The historical ties that bind us are strong and the links run deep in cities such as Manchester, which I and my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton represent. Many of our constituents come from the West Indies and their children and their children's children are respected constituents. Their influence is powerful and for the good. We trade extensively with the Caribbean and have close contacts at every level. The Government have taken, and will continue to take, numerous initiatives, beginning with the UK-Caribbean regional forum in Nassau in February last year, to develop and enhance our relationship and reflect the depth and closeness of these links in a modern context.
Sadly, we find ourselves in fundamental disagreement with close friends over the specific issue of capital punishment, but the frequency and depth of our dialogue means that we can seriously engage Caribbean Governments. We understand the context that exists in many Caribbean countries and their particular problems, and my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) gave us a graphic account of the strength of feeling that exists. We do not deny that and we do not intend to diminish the impact of violent crime in Caribbean countries.
Crime, and particularly violent crime such as murder, is increasing. A high proportion of murders are domestic--that is the case everywhere--but many are related to the increasing drugs menace. The islands find themselves on the drug trafficking routes from source to user countries, so they are vulnerable to the extraordinary violence that results from that horrific trade. The consequences are tragic.
We have sympathy for the Governments who valiantly attempt to enforce the law and make their communities safer, often with extremely limited resources. We need to be mindful of the fears of citizens, their demands for tough action by Governments and the pressure under which Caribbean Governments are put by the action of other states.
We want to establish that, although we sympathisewith the difficulties of Caribbean Governments, we fundamentally disagree that capital punishment is the solution. However, we can do more than stand on the sidelines. We are finding ways of helping Caribbean Governments with the problems of crime and criminal justice. The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells made that
very point. The work of our police advisers and technical co-operation officers in the region involves training Caribbean police forces in modern techniques, and building the capacity of those institutions to improve crime prevention and fight the growing problems of youth crime and violence. That is a practical step towards introducing real deterrence.
We will build on our work on prison reform; I heard the comments of hon. Members on conditions in some of the Caribbean states, in particular Jamaica. When my noble Friend Baroness Symons visited Jamaica in October last year, she raised the issue of prison conditions with the Jamaican authorities. We are working hard in countries such as Belize to find alternatives to prison, because conditions are often horrendous. We will help with the introduction of greater use of non-custodial prisons. That may not help in respect of capital crimes, but it will alleviate the pressure on the prison system. We are assisting with criminal justice reform and helping to simplify court procedures and improve legislative drafting.
A number of suggestions have come from hon. Members. I shall happily discuss with my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton the funding for the Caribbean death penalty crime project, which he discussed. It will help if we take that forward bilaterally at first and I am more than sympathetic to the concept, which is consistent with what the Foreign Office is doing through the human rights project fund.
I am also sure that we can find imaginative ways of helping to ensure that relevant, up-to-date information is available through modern technology such as the internet, and possibly through the British Council. We can certainly look at those issues. We are funding Caribbean Justice, which is holding a conference on the death penalty that will bring together lawyers and other interested parties. We also intend to help there.
Development assistance was referred to, but I must disappoint my hon. Friends on that. I shall tell them why. We have no bilateral programme with some countries--the question of consistency is important in that--but we are determined to help the most marginal countries out of poverty. Poverty creates the conditions for crime and we would turn our back on the reality of violent crime if we cut all forms of assistance. We are not prepared to cut programmes for those who help with judicial reform.
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