Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, the noble Baroness referred to the Committee stage, when we had quite a debate on this issue. Amendments 4 and 5 are identical, word for word, to the two amendments that were tabled in Committee and withdrawn after a discussion. I said then that I was puzzled to have to discuss amendments to RIPA to allow intercept as evidence in coroners’ courts, as is again proposed in Amendments 4 and 5. I am no less puzzled now than I was in June. I am puzzled because the committee of distinguished privy counsellors, chaired by Sir John Chilcot and comprising my noble and learned friend Lord Archer, Sir Alan Beith MP, the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, who has now been replaced by the right honourable Michael Howard, reported to the Government in January 2008 after six months of detailed investigation, taking written and oral evidence from an impressive array of those who know about interception, including Members of your Lordships’ House, that nine conditions would have to be met—the noble Baroness did not mention this—before intercept could be used as evidence in court. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made clear in the House of Commons in February 2008, the Government accepted the report in its entirety, including its conclusion—again, the noble Baroness did not mention this—that, if the nine conditions were not met, intercept as evidence should not be introduced in courts. The Home Office intercept as evidence implementation unit was set up and I am pleased to hear that the noble Baroness has visited it and got to know what its work is about. However, as she no doubt discovered, it has not yet completed its detailed work. Anyone who knows anything about interception in all its complexity of operational and other problems is not surprised that such a task is taking this kind of time. Anyone who thinks otherwise fails to appreciate the importance and the enormity of the problems. No one whom I know has ever been against using intercept as evidence as a matter of principle. The practical problems and dangers in its implementation are and have always been the difficulty. When this issue has come up in another place, both the right honourable Alan Beith and the right honourable Michael Howard have made it clear that they, too, think that the Chilcot conditions must be met before there can be a change in this. The noble Baroness is right that I said in Committee that I thought it cavalier to rush in and do this. She took exception to the word "cavalier" but I have to say to her that, if I substituted another word, it would be even less acceptable, because I find it irresponsible to try to use intercept in coroners’ courts in this way, with no regard to—