To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans the Government have for responding to the war crimes inquiry.
The Government have now had the opportunity to consider the implications of the parliamentary debates held last December, and have concluded that legislation should be introduced to enable war crimes trials to be held in this country. I am introducing the Bill today. It gives effect to the principal recommendation of the war crimes inquiry that British courts should be given jurisdiction over offences of murder, culpable homicide and manslaughter committed as war crimes in Germany or German-occupied territory during the period of the Second World War, by persons who are now British citizens or resident in the United Kingdom. The Bill also provides, as the inquiry recommended in paragraph 9.43, for the use in war crimes trials of the procedure for transfer to the Crown Court without committal proceedings, which is already available in respect of serious fraud cases; the Bill mirrors the provisions for fraud trials by providing for the Crown Court to dismiss a charge prior to trial, where it appears to the judge that there would be insufficient evidence to convict. Finally, the Bill provides authority for central government to meet the costs of war crimes investigations in England and Wales.The War Crimes Bill contains no other provisions. In respect of the other procedural recommendations in the war crimes report, the Government have reached the following conclusions: