Members of Britain’s parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee have returned from a visit to the US concentration camp at its naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, confirming what we already know, that thousands of detainees held without charge have been abused.

“We conclude that abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay has almost certainly taken place in the past,” the report said, also recommending that the UK government “continue to raise with the United States authorities human rights concerns about the treatment of detainees.”

The British committee became the first members of a national parliament, other than the US Congress, to visit the concentration camp in September of last year. It found that the facilities at Guantanamo are broadly comparable with those at the UK’s equivalent maximum security detention centre at Belmarsh in south-east London but said the conditions, including access to exercise, lawyers and the outside world, were not.

“We conclude that, in choosing unilaterally to interpret terms and provisions of the Geneva Conventions, the United States risks undermining this important body of international law,” the MPs said.

Their report added that by its own test, the UK Government should “recognise that the Geneva Conventions are failing to provide necessary protection because they lack clarity and are out of date.

“We recommend that the Government work with other signatories to the Geneva Conventions and with the International Committee of the Red Cross to update the Conventions,” it said.

The “international community as a whole needs to shoulder its responsibility in finding a longerterm solution,” it concluded.