Coroners and Justice Bill

My hon. Friend makes an important point. In fact, I have tabled some amendments to clause 5, so perhaps he might want to wait to hear those arguments later. Otherwise, I might set off on a train of thought that would not be relevant to the point under discussion. The test for certification is still too broad. We are talking about not just intercept evidence but a wide range of intelligence material—and, indeed, other material altogether. There is the question of wider national security, but the real question is about relations with another country. The Azelle Rodney case, which is the only one that has been prayed in aid, did not concern relations with another country. The relations involved were those among the individual who was shot, his family, my constituents and Scotland Yard—pure and simple. We are told that the provision is about the protection of witnesses, yet the Bill includes a process for protecting witnesses in criminal trials that, if necessary, could easily be translated into a process for inquests. We are told also that the provision is about the prevention of crime, but again, similar processes in the Bill, in relation to the evidential basis for investigation, could have been transferred. The question we need to ask is this: if the scheme had been in operation five or 10 years ago, would any of the controversial inquests that have taken place in the past five or 10 years not have been allowed to proceed, even though they were able to proceed under the existing regime perfectly satisfactorily, to produce a verdict one way or another and to give the families closure? My concern is that if the process had been in place in, for example, the de Menezes case or the Corporal Matty Hull case, it would have been all too easy for the Secretary of State to make a declaration or a certification and then we would have been none the wiser about what happened in either case.