It is a pleasure to follow the chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), and I echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) about his leadership on matters concerning the Bill and our general work. It has been a genuine pleasure to work with him over the past two years.
The debates that we have had on national security over the past decade have been among the most important exchanges in the House over that period. They have taken us to the heart of the balance between individual liberty, including the rights of those who are suspected of plotting terror, and our collective security, including the most fundamental human right of all, the right to life.
As we have responded to the new threats of global terror from al-Qaeda, it would have been a miracle if Governments had been able to get everything absolutely right first time. As I have said before in the House, I accept that the proposals for 90-day and 42-day pre-charge detention went too far, as an issue of practicality as well as one of principle, and Parliament was right to block them. Equally, the judges were right to deem detention without trial non-compliant with the rights of defendants. That, too, had to be replaced.
It remains to be seen whether the reforms of the past two years have gone too far in taking the balance away from public safety. I certainly do not accept the narrative that everything that has happened since 9/11—all the extra resources provided to the intelligence and security agencies and the stronger powers that Parliament has decided on to deal with suspects—are a victory for the securocrats, who hoodwink Ministers into illiberal measures to undermine our basic freedoms. The simple fact is that many thousands of lives have been saved because of the actions that Governments and Parliament have taken. At the same time, suspects have still been able to enforce their rights in the courts, and judges have increasingly ordered the disclosure of information that would have been held secret in the past.
The Bill deals specifically with the balance between greater scrutiny and the limits that ought to apply in a certain small number of civil cases. The Intelligence and
Security Committee has played an important role in scrutinising the agencies, as its chairman said. That role far exceeds what was envisaged in 1994 and includes the close examination of some ongoing operations. However, the ISC will be in a stronger position when it is a Committee of Parliament and has greater powers and resources to ensure that it can get the information that it requires rather than simply trusting that the agencies are giving it what it has requested.
I place on record the tremendous debt that all members of the ISC, and therefore all Members of Parliament, owe the small, dedicated team of staff who work to support it in all its work. The chairman of the ISC alluded to a number of issues that still need to be ironed out. I suggest that the starting point for our deliberations in Committee should be that the Bill must not prevent the ISC from doing anything that it is already doing in practice.
As we have heard in the opening Front-Bench speeches, the most controversial part of the Bill relates to the closed material procedure. I do not intend to dwell on the background to it, because others have spoken about the importance of the control principle and the difficulties that the agencies currently face in defending themselves against civil claims. However, I want to make two points. The first is to confirm that the increasing reluctance of the United States intelligence community to share life-saving secrets with the United Kingdom is not a made-up scare story. I have seen and heard, in frank exchanges with colleagues in Washington when the Committee visited last year and earlier this year, that that is a substantial problem that simply has to be dealt with.
Secondly, the agencies’ desire to defend themselves is not about suppressing the truth, and it is not primarily about saving the taxpayer the millions of pounds that it is currently costing, although those are substantial sums. It is about being able to defend their reputation and the high standards of those who take risks every day to protect our freedoms. Clearly mistakes have been made and individuals have been mistreated, but I simply cannot accept the casual assertion that is often made, or at least implied, that the agencies are inevitably the bad guys while the claimants are always the blameless victims.
The comments of Lord Phillips and others during the consideration of the Bill in the other place, and the support that those independent-minded politicians gave for the closed material procedure, were very welcome. It is fair to say that the Bill has been improved in the other place. It is right that judges have discretion and decide whether the closed material procedure is appropriate. It is right that the courts must decide whether, on balance, the interests of national security are likely to outweigh the interests of fairness and open justice. The question of how that balance is to be struck, as the Minister without Portfolio said, is likely to be debated in detail in Committee. I was pleased to hear that he and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) intend to promote discussion in relation to PII. Under the Bill, consideration of PII should always come first, before the closed material procedure. As the Minister without Portfolio said, that could produce
long delays in the judicial process, even though the outcome could be staring the court in the face from the outset.
In the short time remaining, there are two more issues that I should like to raise. If I am feeling brave enough, I might even table some amendments about them in due course. In relation to the order-making power, which was in clause 11 but has now been dropped for reasons of political consideration—presumably to make sure that the Bill completes its passage and that the main provisions remain—the cause of the concerns that prompted that power, which would allow the closed material procedure in other proceedings, has not gone away.
There are two particular types of proceedings that are relevant. The first is inquests, as I have said to the Minister before. If there is secret intelligence that cannot be revealed because it would result in the disclosure of sources, methodologies and so on, but which explained the cause of death, the coroner at the inquest should be able to see it. It might be possible in most cases not to have a closed material procedure. Lady Justice Hallett did a fine job in making sure that intelligence could be considered at the 7/7 inquest without the need for a closed material procedure, but I would not rule it out in future. The order-making power originally included in clause 11 would have provided an opportunity for Ministers, as and when cases arose.
I am thinking in particular of more than 30 historic inquests that have still to be heard in Northern Ireland and where the deaths involved the police or Army. That is an issue that will not go away. I have raised it with the Minister, and with other Ministers, and I have yet to hear one disagree with my assertion that if it is right to have a closed material procedure in civil cases, it is right to have it in inquests. I am thinking, too, of proceedings in relation to the judicial review of decisions to revoke the licences of convicted terrorists who have been released from prison, but where there is intelligence that suggests that they are again engaging in terrorist activity.