APPG News

Following Monday's Urgent Question, the government today issued a combination of Oral and Written Statements, along with the successor to the Consolidated Guidance to intelligence and military personnel on detainee issues.  In his Oral Statement, the Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington announced the publication of the 'Principles' document by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, Sir Adrian Fulford, to replace the Consolidated Guidance. He also announced that "the Government have decided that it is not necessary to establish a further Inquiry." The Minister justified this on the grounds…

In response to an Urgent Question on Monday 15 July from APPG Chair Ken Clarke, the Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington committed the government to setting out its decision on a judge-led inquiry 'later this week'. Mr Lidington, relying on behalf of the Prime Minister, added that the government would, at the same time, publish its response to Sir Adrian Fulford's review of the Consolidated Guidance. Neither the precise date nor the form of the government announcement was clear from Mr Lidington's statement. The Speaker's suggestion that it should be the subject of an Oral Statement to th…

The APPG held an Extraordianry General Meeting (EGM) on Tuesday 9 July, at which Rt Hon Stephen Timms MP was elected as an additional Vice-Chair of the Group. The meeting also reviewed recent and current activities of the Group, including the continuing campaign for a judge-led inquiry. Read the minutes of the EGM here.

One year on from the publication of the Intelligence and Security Committee's (ISC) two reports on detainee mistreatment and rendtion, the Government has failed to respond to calls for a renewed judge-led inquiry. The ISC reports demonstrated both the much greater scale of British involvement in rendtion than previously thought, and the degree to which their work had been frustrated, and ultimately halted, by denial of access to key witnesses. At the time of publication, a Government Minister committed to reporting back to Parliament on the Government's stance towards a new inquiry. When a r…

The Investigatory Powers Commissioner, Sir Adrian Fulford, confirmed on Friday that his review of the Consolidated Guidance had been submitted to the Prime Minister. Sir Adrian expressed his thanks for "the significant amount of work and enormous assistance I have received from our internal and external stakeholders in completing this task." The Prime Minister's response to the proposed revised Guidance is now awaited. You can find the IPCO's statement here; and the APPG's response to the consultation on the Guidance here.

APPG Member David Davis challenged ministers through an Urgent Question over Ministry of Defence guidelines that appear to give ministers discretion over whether to approve information sharing that could be linked to torture. Documents released under a Freedom of Information Act request by Dr Sam Raphael, Co-Director of the collaborative research initiative The Rendition Project, include MoD guidelines which state that information sharing should not proceed where there is a risk of torture "unless ministers agree that the exceptional benefits justify accepting the risk and the legal conseque…