Prevention of Terrorism Act

On my hon. Friend’s final point, there are important issues at stake. The Intelligence Services Commissioner has made some recommendations and the Prime Minister is considering them and will make a statement in due course, as he has said. I understand exactly my hon. Friend’s points and their importance. There is a whole series of reporting and accountability procedures in the current legislation, such as reports to the House and certain Select Committees and renewal legislation in various forms. I agree with my hon. Friend, first, that reporting procedure is important and needs to be part of this and, secondly, that it needs to be fairly consistent and straightforward to improve public understanding of the issues. When we look at the new legislation, I hope that we will get a clear system of reporting. That would be bound to include an annual report of some kind. The type of scrutiny given to that report is also relevant. It would be beneficial to get a coherent approach on all these reporting and accountability mechanisms.