Parliament

The final report of the Al-Sweady Inquiry was published on 17 December 2014. The last members of the Inquiry staff were released in January 2015 and final administrative wind-up procedures completed in March 2015.The chair of the Inquiry, Sir Thayne Forbes, wrote to the then Secretary of State confirming the fulfilment of his terms of reference (a so-called Section 14 letter), on 20 March 2015.

The Secretary of State for Defence engaged with Lord Justice Sir Charles Haddon-Cave, the inquiry chair, throughout the process of setting the terms of reference for the Independent Inquiry relating to Afghanistan (IIA).

As part of this process, Sir Charles and the Secretary of State considered comparable inquiries into historical allegations, including the Al-Sweady Inquiry, with regard to the IIA's terms of reference, resourcing requirements and anticipated costs.

Following his statement to the House on 17 December 2014 (Official Report, column 1407) on the Al-Sweady Inquiry Report, the Defence Secretary directed that evidence be submitted to the Solicitors Regulation Authority concerning potential breaches of professional standards by Public Interest lawyers and Leigh Day and Co.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has been conducting a wide-ranging investigation into two firms - Leigh Day & Co, and Public Interest Lawyers - as a result of concerns about their conduct in the Al-Sweady Inquiry and associated litigation. Among other things, it is investigating how these firms obtain instructions from claimants in Iraq - a matter that is directly relevant to the unprecedented number of allegations with which the Iraq Historic Allegations Team is contending.

The Government welcomes the SRA's decision to refer Leigh Day & Co to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, and awaits its decision with regard to Public Interest Lawyers. We will decide what further action may be appropriate in the light of the results of this process.

I would like to update the House on the implementation of the recommendations made in the report of the Al-Sweady Inquiry, chaired by Sir Thayne Forbes, and published on 17 December 2014.

As I explained in my statement to Parliament (Official Report, columns 1407-1421), the Chairman made nine constructive recommendations, all of which I immediately accepted in principle. I said that I would provide more detail about how these recommendations would be implemented once I had had an opportunity to consider them carefully, and in particular to ensure that they would not put at risk the lives of British Service personnel by unduly constraining essential tasks. The House will recognise that in developing coherent policy for the handling of captured persons, the Department must be mindful of the different operating environments and operational constraints faced by the different Services.

I am pleased to report that the Ministry of Defence has implemented in full four recommendations (Recommendations 3, 5, 7, and 9). These call for, respectively, the dating and retention of training material; the introduction of procedures to ensure the adequate recording of the capture of individuals and their physical condition on capture; the introduction of safeguards during the strip-searching of detainees; and provision for the recording of medical decisions on the suitability of detainees for detention and questioning. The Department has partly implemented, or intends to implement, the other five (Recommendations 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8).

The third edition of Joint Doctrine Publication 1-10, Captured Persons (CPERS) was published on 23 January 2015 and implements changes that anticipated three of these recommendations (Recommendations 5, 6, and 7) in whole or in part. An update to this doctrine, which will make further changes in response to the recommendations, will be published within the first half of this year.

I have today placed in the Library of the House a fuller report on the implementation of these recommendations.

The British courts would have no jurisdiction over any offences committed by those individuals either in relation to their evidence to the Inquiry or against British troops serving in Iraq. All nine were however committed in 2004 for trial in Iraq. Two were acquitted due to lack of evidence, while those convicted were subsequently pardoned under a general amnesty.