HC Deb 11 February 1964 vol 689 cc314-28

Amendment moved: In page 1, line 7, after "party", insert: being arrangements made solely under the authority, and with the express authorisation. of the Security Council of the United Nations Organisation".—[Mr. Warbey.]

8.39 p.m.

Mr. Warbey

Now that the Committee has had time to digest the hors d'æuvres, as it were, we can proceed to the main dish. I was saying earlier that the Amendment is not only desirable but essential both to bring the Bill into conformity with earlier legislation on the same subject and to establish a clear constitutional position which does not derogate from the powers of Parliament and the Queen without express authority.

In regard to the previous legislation, when moving the Second Reading of the Bill, the hon. Lady the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department said that to understand the Bill we must go back a few years. She took us back rather more than a few years—in fact, 12 years—to the time when the protocol referred to in the Explanatory Memorandum was drawn up and initialled by this country but not ratified. Since Second Reading, however, I have done a little homework, as I expect the hon. Lady has, too, and discovered that I was in error in suggesting that the International Organisations (Immunities and Privileges) Act, 1950, to which the hon. Lady referred as the background and basis of Clause 1(1) of the Bill was and had remained a dead letter. In fact, a number of Orders in Council have been made under it.

I discovered, however, that the 1950 Act was only a consolidation Measure. It embodied three earlier Acts, known as the Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Acts, 1944, 1946 and 1950. All of them were based on the concept of according immunities and privileges of the type and using exactly the same words as are contained in Clause 1(1) of the Bill. They conferred immunities and privileges on international organisations as corporate bodies and upon their members, staffs and representatives. The most important was the 1946 Act, which enabled the Government by Order in Council to designate the United Nations as a corporate body and to confer the necessary immunities and privileges upon the members of the Secretariat of the Organisation and also upon persons attending assemblies of the United Nations held in this country and on other persons serving the Organisation.

That was a new and significant departure in British legislation. It was equivalent to establishing the United Nations as a supranational political authority. It was necessary that it should be done, because the charter of the United Nations, which the House of Commons earlier had ratified and endorsed, conferred such a status upon the Organisation.

In the subsequent legislation, the Orders which we made under the consolidation Act for the first few years applied entirely and solely to the United Nations and its Specialised Agencies. There is a whole list of them, including the World Health, Organisation, the I.L.O., the F.A.O., U.N.E.S.C.O., the Universal Postal Union, and the World Meteorological Office, all exclusively world organisations of which this country is a member. It was not until 1954 that the Conservative Government introduced an Order under the Act which related to a military alliance—to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation—but even that was restricted to N.A.T.O., in, so to speak, its civilian aspect and not to a military headquarters. The same applies to the Order dated 27th June, 1962, conferring the same immunities and privileges on the Central Treaty Organisation. None of these powers was conferred on these organisations as military organisations.

This is the first Bill, therefore, in the history of this country which seeks to confer partial sovereign powers on an international military organisation. This is the grave and historic departure from precedent in the Bill. As I said on Second Reading, I do not object to it in principle, because I recognise the need for combined defence in the modern world, but if we are to do this we must do it for an organisation to which we have already accorded supranational stature, that is to say an organisation which we by deliberate act on our part have accepted as having a higher political authority than the Government of this country.

There is only one organisation to which we, by treaty and by ratification of treaty and by the explicit endorsement of the House, have accorded such powers, and that is the United Nations Organisation. These powers include the power to order the employment of British Armed Forces. I must say with respect to the hon. Lady the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department that I very much wish that we had on the Government Front Bench one of the defence Ministers to answer for the defence aspects of the Bill, because it is concerned with military organisation and nothing else.

8.45 p.m.

It is extremely important that we should know what powers are being given to other authorities, non-British authorities, to command British armed forces and take decisions which may involve their use in war. That decision is one `N h i eh is regarded as the essential symbol of national sovereignty. The power to decide whether or not one employs the armed forces of one's country in war is reserved by all countries as a national prerogative, as a symbol of sovereignty, and the nations of the world have not abandoned that sovereign right to anybody except the United Nations. They have done it, and we have done it, too, by signing the United Nations Charter and specifically by accepting Articles 25 and 42–49 of the Charter, which compel us to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council.

Article 25 does that in so many words, and Articles 42–49 apply that power of the Security Council to take decisions binding upon member nations to the field of enforcement action—that is, of military action, the actual employment of military forces, and the employment of military forces in the form of combined defence forces.

I do not think I need remind the hon. Lady the Joint Under-Secretary of State of the exact wording of the Articles of the Charter to which I am referring, but if she has any doubts, I refer her specifically to Articles 42, 45, 48 and 49. I will just quote the first part of Article 48 because this is relevant to my Amendment: The action required to carry out the decisions of the Security Council for the main tenance of international peace and security shall be taken by all the Members of the United Nations or by some of them, as the Security Council may determine. Thus, the Security Council has powers not only to decide that military action shall be taken by armed forces; it has even the power to decide which nations shall carry out that obligation. In other words, it has the power to organise com bined military action, combined defence, and to order this country to contribute to that combined military defence.

The Deputy-Chairman

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member. I have been listening very carefully to the deployment of his argument, but I cannot see how he is relating all this to what the Bill does, which is really merely to apply what one might call diplomatic privilege to a headquarters which happens to be in this country. I should be grateful if he would assist me as to how what he is now saying about the Security Council applies to this rather limited Bill.

Mr. Warbey

I felt, Sir Robert, that it was necessary to establish the responsibility of this country and the Government of this country to the Security Council of the United Nations in the field of defence, because that is precisely what my Amendment is about. My Amendment proposes that the arrangements to be made under this Bill, the orders to be made under this Bill, the privileges and immunities to be granted under this Bill, shall be granted to the United Nations and not to any other body. I was saying that, in my submission, we have no power to grant them to any other military organisation, because such powers involve according the right to determine whether or not British armed forces are employed, and that is a sovereign power of the British Crown and Parliament.

This is way I was concerned to show that the United Nations is the only international organisation on which we have expressly conferred this power, and that, therefore, my Amendment is necessary in order to bring the Bill within our constitution, and that if the hon. Lady and the Government want to apply this Bill to any other military organisation than one set up under the United Nations they must first of all bring in another Bill in order to give the necessary sovereign power to that other military organisation which they have in mind. That is the reason why I was making this point at some length.

I want to say now only that I know of no other treaty entered into by this country by which we have abandoned or derogated from our national sovereignty to give certain privileges outside our national law and, in effect, of being able to ignore our national law, other than the United Nations Charter. This certainly does not apply to the North Atlantic Treaty, as the hon. Lady will know. I think it would probably not be in order at this stage to give reasons why this Clause cannot in law apply to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation or military headquarters under its jurisdiction, but I shall, perhaps, be able to do that on the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

On the Amendment, I only say that I hope that I have shown that it is constitutionally necessary and that it is also desirable because it would be very undesirable to set up in this country and to confer these rights and powers contained in this Clause on an international military headquarters or defence organisation which is not capable of adequately defending this country.

9.0 p.m.

When one speaks of combined defence arrangements, as this Clause does, one must think of arrangements which contribute to the defence of our people and of other countries against war and its consequences. But the general view of almost all independent observers is that the military alliances to which the country is a party are irrelevant to the question of the defence of our people against the most probable causes of war.

I finish my case for the desirability of this Amendment by quoting from an important article in the Observer of 5th January last, called "Order out of Chaos." It said: The most obvious possible causes of world war are two—nuclear proliferation and the risk of local frictions becoming worse, which might involve the two super powers. As the two super powers cannot possibly act in sufficiently close harmony to provide a world police force themselves, this must be done by United Nations forces drawn from other powers. Britain should offer her services to the United Nations for this purpose. In other words, British armed forces should be members of the United Nations combined defence arrangements. It is to these United Nations arrangements, which alone are capable of safeguarding the British people and the peoples of the world against the most probable causes of war in this age, and to them alone, that we should grant the rights and privileges accorded in this Bill.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Mervyn Pike)

I must recommend the rejection of this Amendment. As the hon. Gentleman has himself said, he wishes to limit the application of the Bill to international headquarters and defence organisations set up pursuant to arrangements expressly authorised by the Security Council of the United Nations. This, of course, would defeat the primary object of the Bill, which is to enable the United Kingdom to ratify the Protocol on the Status of International Military Headquarters set up pursuant to the North Atlantic Treaty.

Mr. Warbey

There is nothing whatever in the Bill about what the hon. Lady is saying.

Miss Pike

Perhaps if the hon. Gentleman will listen he will understand more fully the argument I am deploying. This Amendment would defeat, as I say, the primary object of the Bill which, as I explained simply and clearly on Second Reading, is to ratify the Protocol on the Status of International Military Headquarters set up pursuant to the North Atlantic Treaty and to regulate the status of such headquarters and their personnel in the United Kingdom and Colonies in accordance with the provisions of the Protocol.

The hon. Member appears to hold the view that the only kind of international military organisation to which it would be justifiable to apply the provisions of the Bill would be one set up under the authority of the Security Council. I remind him that Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations clearly recognises the right of member States to make arrangements for collective self-defence.

The North Atlantic Treaty provides for arrangements of this kind and the international headquarters to which the Protocol relates are simply part of these arrangements. There is nothing in the Charter which prohibits the setting up of such headquarters without the authority of the United Nations. I remind the Committee that the wording in the Clause to which the hon. Gentleman referred— …any arrangements for common defence to which Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom are for the time being a party … closely follows the wording used in Section 1(2) of the Visiting Forces Act, 1952. This Bill is in the main an extension of that Act. It would be wrong to introduce legislation which would limit it in the way the hon. Gentleman suggests. I would say to him that there is absolutely no question of setting up a supra-state.

The effect of the Bill is not to confer supranational powers on the headquarters and organisations designated under it, but only to regulate their legal status and that of their personnel and to provide certain immunities and facilities desirable for the effective exercise of their functions. All that it does is to define the extent and nature of the inviolability granted. Similar provisions to those contained in Clause 1(1) of the Bill have already been made, as the hon. Gentleman said, in the case of numerous international organisations under the Immunities and Privileges (International Organisation) Act, 1950. I think that the hon. Gentleman enumerated some of these. I should have thought that there was nothing very exceptional in what we propose to do by means of the present provisions. I assure the hon. Gentleman that he exaggerates the implications of the Bill and of the Protocol in the speech which he made today and in his Second Reading speech.

This Bill merely seeks to extend provisions which are already in effect in this country, and to limit the Bill in the way the hon. Gentleman suggests would of course, as he will recognise, defeat the whole object of the Bill. I therefore urge the Committee to reject the Amendment.

Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)

This is an obscure little Bill, and the hon. Lady has not done much to enlighten us. We have been told repeatedly since the last visit of the Prime Minister to Moscow that the days of the cold war are over, and now we are establishing some kind of international headquarters. If the cold war is over, what do we want an international headquarters for—what is the hurry?

The Deputy-Chairman

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but we cannot discuss whether it is an international headquarters or not on this Amendment. It is clearly a limited one to introduce the United Nations into the provisions of this Bill whereby certain diplomatic immunities are given.

Mr. Hughes

I support the point of view of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Warbey). I fail to see that this is an urgency at the present time, and I fail to see what case the hon. Lady has made against the proposition that this headquarters should be a United Nations headquarters. If it is not to be a United Nations headquarters, it must be some other kind of headquarters. I therefore assume that this headquarters is part of i he machinery for continuing the military organisation which is thought necessary as a result of the Government's policy.

I do not believe that this country is the place for an international headquarters of this kind; it is not safe enough. In view of till; possibility of this country being destroyed by hydrogen bomb warfare, this is the worst place in the world in which this headquarters should be set up. If we set up this headquarters, it will be leaked upon by the people against whom we are supposed to be preparing for war as a further step in the organisation for a possible war.

The Deputy-Chairman

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member again, but he is going right outside the Amendment, which is concerned only with granting diplomatic immunities and privileges to a headquarters which is set up here. We cannot on this Amendment go into the question of whether the headquarters should be here or not. That is quite outside the scope of discussion on this Amendment

Mr. Hughes

I fail to see why there should be diplomatic immunity of any kind for this organisation.

Are we setting up a new kind of embassy in this country? Diplomatic immunity is supposed to apply only to embassies, but here we are giving diplomatic immunity to some other organisation. I believe that there are enough diplomatic immunities already. In fact, many of them are being abused. People with diplomatic immunity are breaking the traffic laws of this country.

I therefore believe that the hon. Member has found a flaw in the Bill and that this Amendment is perfectly justified.

Amendment negatived.

Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Warbey

I propose to ask the Joint Under-Secretary of State a few questions which I hope she will be able to answer more effectively than she answered the points which I put in proposing my Amendment. I warn her that if I do not get full and satisfactory answers to my questions on the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill, it will be necessary for me to put them again when we come to the Third Reading. That will perhaps give her the opportunity to consult the Ministry of Defence, which I repeat ought to be the body responsible for this Bill and for answering questions about it.

The hon. Lady keeps saying that the object of the Bill is to ratify a Protocol to the North Atlantic Treaty. That is not the object of the Bill. If it is, why is it not put in the Bill? That is the first question I ask the hon. Lady.

On Second Reading, the Joint Under-Secretary of State said that the privileges and immunities conferred under the Clause were similar to those conferred under the International Organisations (Immunities and Privileges) Act, 1950; and she said it again just now. Why is there no reference to the International Organisations Act, 1950, in the Clause? Why does not the Clause derive from that Act as do the Acts conferring similar powers on the International Finance Corporation and the International Development Association which were expressly related to the 1950 Act? Is there no mention of that legislation because the Bill makes a substantial departure from the principles of the 1950 Act?

Miss Pike

indicated dissent.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Warbey

The hon. Lady shakes her head. Perhaps she will tell me why if there is not a substantial departure it is not related to the 1950 Act, which contains all the privileges and amenities of Clause 1(1) in almost the same words. I suspect that the only reason why the Bill is not related to the 1950 Act is that for the first time powers of this type are conferred on an international military organisation—and I emphasise the word "military".

Will persons on technical missions to the international headquarters or defence organisations designated in the Clause be immune from arrest and detention? The hon. Lady will know that, under Orders made under the 1950 Act, immunity from arrest and detention is conferred on persons visiting this country as technical experts on missions to international organisations here. Will such immunities be granted, for example, to security officers of N.A.T.O. visiting this country in order to snoop on British citizens and perhaps tap their telephones or invade their private houses in order to try to see whether there are any of the classified documents mentioned in the Bill as "archives"?

What is the exact distinction between an international headquarters and a defence organisation? Why is there this differentiation, and what is the basis of the distinction? By definition, international headquarters are international military headquarters set up under combined defence arrangements. In what way are they distinguished from defence organisations?

I am aware that on Second Reading the hon. Lady referred to Article 14 of the Protocol and said that there were no defence organisations; but some are about to be set up. That Article refers to the whole or any part of the present Protocol or Agreement. In order to be able to understand the Bill, hon. Members must study not only the Protocol, but the Agreement from which it is devised, a document of some 30 pages including the French text, 15 pages of English text. This simple, short, technical little Bill involves a certain amount of research and study on the part of hon. Members if they are to understand its implications.

Article 14 of the Protocol says: The whole or any part of the present Protocol or of the Agreement may be applied, by decision of the North Atlantic Council, to any international military Headquarters or organisation (not included in the definitions…of this Protocol) … That is to say, other than the existing ones such as S.H.A.P.E. and SACEUR and so on established pursuant to the North Atlantic Treaty.

Paragraph 2 of Article 14 says: When the European Defence Community comes into being, the present Protocol may be applied to the personnel of the European Defence Forces attached to an Allied Headquarters and their dependents at such time and in such manner as may be determined by the North Atlantic Council. What an extraordinary business this is. The European Defence Community never did come into being. Are we going to bring it into being? Is it to be brought into being when this country enters the Common Market? Is that what the Government have in mind? Is this Bill in reality part of the Government's preparations for taking the country into the Common Market and establishing through the European Economic Community not only an economic community, but a defence community, and making provision for the headquarters of that defence community, or defence organisation associated with the community, to be established in this country?

Is that the purpose of the Bill? I ask that because the hon. Lady has not made a frank statement of the practical purposes of the Bill. During the Second Reading debate she told us some nonsense about the Government not having had time during the last 12 years to bring in this Bill, but she knows that in another place the Government spokesman, Lord Derwent, said that the Bill was essential and urgent. If it is essential and urgent what are the defence organisations which are to be brought within the scope of the rights conferred in this Clause?

Those rights are rather more far-reaching and significant than the hon. Lady has suggested. She has tried to say that they are no more than such privileges and immunities as we have granted in the past to all kinds of persons and organisations. That is true, but they have not been granted to the members of a combined defence organisation. We have never done that in the history of this country, and I want to know why it is being done now.

Moreover, these privileges and immunities are not being conferred on a Power which can reciprocate, because they are not being conferred on a nation State, or on the Government of a nation State. They are being conferred on an independent organisation. How does an independent organisation reciprocate in respect of the powers which we confer on it—the immunities and privileges which we grant to it? Exactly to what body corporate are we proposing to accord thee privileges and immunities? What political authority is responsible for the exercise of the rights granted under the Protocol? Article 4 provides that the rights and obligations which are grantee or imposed upon the sending State or its authorities in respect of its forces or their civilian components or dependents shall, in respect of an Allied Head quarters and its personnel and their dependents…be vested in or attach to the appropriate Supreme Headquarters and the authorities responsible under it, with certain exceptions. Therefore, apart from certain exceptions the rights granted in the Clause will be conferred upon a supreme headquarters—a body which will have a juridical personality, and which, by being given these rights and immunities, is also being given a political personality.

In other words, what is being done is to convert the Supreme Headquarters of N.A.T.O. into a supranational authority to which this country is responsible. In this Bill the Government are smuggling in something that they could not get through in the North Atlantic Treaty itself, and something which they cannot get through the Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, but something which they can get through by a technical device—by taking one unit set up under the North Atlantic Treaty Council and according to the unit of the military supreme headquarters supranational authority. Let us not forget that in the event of hostilities breaking out in any part of the North Atlantic Treaty area the supreme headquarters will have the power to give orders to the British armed forces assigned to it. Or will it? I should like to know the answer.

I am afraid that the hon. Lady will not be able to tell me. She will have to consult her defence colleagues. Will the bodies set up and designated under the Clause at any time have the power to command the use of British armed forces in war? If I cannot have an answer to that question I shall not be able to support the Clause. If the hon. Lady is not able to give a clear and definite answer it will be an admission that, under the cover of this innocent, simple and technical little Bill, the Government are smuggling in the power to hand over to some other authority—not the United Nations—the power to send this nation to war and to send British armed forces to their deaths.

9.30 p.m.

Miss Pike

I am afraid that the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Warbey) is being somewhat obtuse in his questions on this Clause. I accept that he may have found it difficult to follow my argument during the Second Reading debate, and that he finds it difficult to appreciate the reasons for this Bill. But apart from his criticisms, the only other criticism which we have heard is that the Bill was not introduced sooner. It is the general wish of hon. Members that we should be in the position to ratify the Protocol of the North Atlantic Treaty.

The hon. Gentleman asks why that is not specifically mentioned in the Bill, but it is not necessary that it should be. I said that the primary object of the Bill was to enable us to ratify the Protocol and I think that that will be welcomed by the majority of hon. Members.

Mr. Warbey

Can the hon. Lady say why we cannot ratify the Protocol without accepting this Bill?

Miss Pike

If the hon. Gentleman will read the Protocol carefully, he will understand. I have already explained, and I am sure he is fully aware, that it is only by applying the 1952 Act to headquarters and headquarters personnel that we shall be in a position fully to ratify the protocol.

The hon. Gentleman asks why there was no reference to the 1950 Act in the Bill. The Bill says that an Order in Council may give certain immunities to headquarters. The fact that these are the same immunities as are referred to in the 1950 Act does not mean that we should refer to that Act. It is better to have direct legislation than legislation by reference. The majority of the relevant points raised by the hon. Member do not refer to this Clause or the Question before the Committee. They would apply when Orders in Council are brought before the House for affirmative Resolution. The hon. Gentleman can then ask his questions. We are now taking enabling powers because this is an enabling Bill. I can assure him that there is nothing in the Bill which gives immunity from arrest or detention to any one.

Mr. Warbey

Can the hon. Lady say that there will be no such immunity from arrest or detention given by an Order made under the Bill?

Miss Pike

Any Orders will be brought to the House for affirmative Resolution. At present there is no intention that any such Orders should be made.

On Second Reading I indicated the sort of powers we had in mind and I outlined the headquarters and defence organisations which it was intended to designate. When these Orders in Council come before the House the hon. Gentleman may seek answers to the questions which he has asked. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that this Clause, which is the heart of the Bill, is essential. He will be able to express his fears at a later date and have the opportunity to obtain adequate answers to his questions.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.