Serious Crime Bill [HL]

I am pleased to hear that, as nobody could have more experience than my noble friend has of the sort of secrets that are passed around. However, I must assure the noble and learned Lord that I have known the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for some 40 years, so he has changed his view at some point. No rationale has ever been put before us to explain this, as other jurisdictions are clearly quite happy to use this type of evidence—and are clearly successful in using it. We approach this not from the point of view of it being helpful to the defence but that it would be helpful to the prosecution to have such evidence used. Once again, we await with bated breath the government response.