I am very cautious about claiming agreement and support at any stage, but I thank my right hon. Friend for that. I am sure that he would acknowledge that, despite the demand for parliamentary oversight and the subsequent considerable reforms of the House of Commons—achieved mainly by the former hon. Member for Cannock Chase Tony Wright—where we now have elected Select Committees and a much greater sense of openness in our business, the Intelligence and Security Committee seems to have avoided the reform process altogether. It is the only Select Committee where its members are appointed by the Prime Minister, in consultation with the Leader of the Opposition, and where the Chair is elected by the Committee rather than by a vote by party caucuses of the whole House. Its reports are published, yes, but one wonders how much is told to our colleagues on the Committee. I have no great ambitions or expectations of being appointed to it, but in an elected process all kinds of things could happen. Patronage is one of the great traditions of the British Parliament. It creates the illusion that the security services are accountable. I would have hoped that the Committee would have given the security services an
extremely hard time over Sami al-Saadi, in whose case the British security services were clearly involved, over Guantanamo Bay, over Diego Garcia and over many other issues.
The second point I want to raise concerns the process that has led us to this pass of having a degree of secrecy in our courts. I opposed the establishment of the Special Immigration Appeals courts because they were anathema to everything we believe in: a special judge alone has access to the evidence; the defendant has no access to it; the defendant’s barrister has no access to evidence that he can share with his client; only the prosecutor has access to it. The whole issue is stacked against the defendant, and therein lies the potential for the most massive miscarriages of justice. Those of us who have spent much of our lives campaigning against miscarriages of justice will be well aware of past secrecy and the need for openness.
In opening, the Minister without Portfolio made much of the fact that the closed material procedure would be decided by a judge. Clause 6(2) states that
“a party to the proceedings (whether or not the Secretary of State) would be required to disclose material in the course of the proceedings to another person (whether or not another party to the proceedings)”,
where
“the degree of harm to the interests of national security if the material is disclosed would be likely to outweigh the public interest in the fair and open administration of justice, and”
where
“a fair determination of the proceedings is not possible by any other means.”
It seems to me that the Secretary of State would have considerable power in that situation.
I hope that the House understands the depth of feeling among many eminent people outside the House who have spent their lives campaigning for justice—against all the odds—and sometimes achieved it. Those who campaigned on Hillsborough eventually achieved justice, as did those who campaigned for the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four. I do not want us to create yet another situation in which future miscarriages of justice can take place.