I begin by drawing the House’s attention to the fact that, along with Her Majesty’s Government and an official, I have been a defendant in civil actions brought by two Libyan nationals and their families— Mr al-Saadi, whose case was settled just before Christmas, and Mr Belhaj. In the case of Mr Belhaj, proceedings are still active; in the circumstances, I am sure the House will understand how constrained I have to be in respect of those matters at present. I hope to be able to say much more about the cases at an appropriate stage in future. However, I should make it clear that at all times, in all the positions that I occupied as a Secretary of State, I was scrupulous in seeking to carry out my duties in accordance with the law.
My purpose in rising to speak now is to explain why I believe that the Government’s formulation for the conditions for a closed material proceeding are to be preferred to those of the Opposition. However, I want to make two more general points to begin with.
First, the freedoms that we in this country take for granted are built on our system of justice, which is among the very best in the world. It is independent, fair and fearless—and it is transparent, for the very obvious but crucial reason that justice must not only be done, but be seen to be done. It follows that we should permit departures from that principle of openness only in the most exceptional circumstances.
Whenever Parliament has been asked to agree to having part of a court’s proceedings in camera or to having the identity of witnesses, or most seriously the evidence itself, withheld from one of the parties to the proceedings, it has scrutinised the legislation with the greatest care. It has nonetheless been convinced that, in some cases, the interests of justice do require such special procedures.
Thus in 2008, Parliament agreed, in the Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Act, new statutory procedures for the taking of anonymised evidence in criminal trials. That evidence has to be heard by the defendant and the jury, but its origin—the names involved and often the exact circumstances in which it came to be produced—is kept secret and away from the defendant.
More relevantly to today’s proceedings, in 1997 Parliament decided on a cross-party basis to establish the first arrangements for closed material proceedings in respect of persons whose deportation had been ordered on grounds of national security but where the evidence against them could not safely be disclosed to the deportee or their representatives.
I note what the special advocates have said, because we are all reluctant to see such a system operate, although it has to because it is better than any alternative. In the intervening period, that system has worked for the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, and worked reasonably well. The senior judges who preside at these proceedings, in SIAC, have shown themselves to be robustly independent. Of 37 substantive cases before SIAC since 2007, the tribunal—a senior judge with colleagues—has found against the Government in at least seven. The procedures in the Bill build on the 15 years’ experience of SIAC.
Secondly, I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) and his colleagues for the constructive approach that they have adopted towards the Bill. I spent 18 years on the Opposition Benches between 1979 and 1997 and then witnessed the Conservative Opposition during their 13 years on these Benches. The temptations on Oppositions to oppose in a destructive way are considerable, and so too are the pressures from outside on them to operate in that way. We in my party succumbed to those pressures too often in 1980s, and, I am afraid, so did the Conservative party on many occasions, including on Bills like this, during part of its 13 years in opposition.
By contrast, my right hon. Friend and his colleagues, from the outset of the publication of the Green Paper—I well remember his response to that a year and a half ago—have accepted, as he said in his opening remarks, that there may be circumstances in which closed material procedures have to be applied in civil cases, but argued that there should be greater safeguards in the Bill and, crucially, that the court, not the Secretary of State, should decide whether a CMP should operate in any particular case. As a result, the Bill has been significantly improved, and my right hon. Friend and his team can rightly claim considerable credit for that.
Let me turn to the key amendments 30 and 31 and the amendments to which they are linked. The amendments seek to reword clause 6(6) and to add a third condition. Thus the Government propose,
“The second condition is that it is the interests of fair and effective administration of justice”
to use a CMP, while the Opposition instead propose that the second condition should be a relative one—that
“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.”
They also propose to add:
“The third condition is that a fair determination of the proceedings is not possible by any other means.”
As the Minister said, this is colloquially called the Wiley balance test. However, when I looked at the definition of the Wiley test I noted that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has turned it into something else. It is a test, but it should not be adorned with the phrase, “the Wiley test”, because it goes considerably further. I do not dispute anybody’s motives in dealing with this incredibly difficult issue. However, shifting the test, even if it were the accurate Wiley test in respect of PIIs, to CMPs has the defect of arguing by analogy. It is appropriate in PII cases but not in this regard.
We have had a great deal of elucidation. I commend—but do not, with respect, agree with—what the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) said about the uses of PIIs. I also accept the comments of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). During the nine years for which I was responsible for the various agencies, I quite frequently had to make applications to a court for a PII. Even in respect of marginal evidence, PIIs are hugely time-consuming. It is not like dealing with a letter to a Member of Parliament on an issue that one knows backwards where one can virtually top and tail it in one’s sleep. One has to read every single piece of evidence that one is certifying ought to be—in one’s own view, although it is a matter for the court—excluded on grounds of national security, or whatever the grounds may be. I accept the burden of what the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden and the hon. Member for Chichester said. Yes, it is true—this was brought out by the court’s judgment in al-Rawi—that when the court receives an application for PII it is able not only to accept or reject it but to take a middle way—a third way, as it were—of gisting, confidentiality rings, and so on.
However, the profound difference in this regard is that ultimately, if the respondent party, which in civil cases is inevitably the Government—it is completely different in criminal cases, but this is not about criminal cases—do not like the decision that the court has come to, they have to decide not to contest the case at all. That is why there is a lacuna in the current arrangements, and that is the mother and father of this Bill. That does not apply in respect of CMPs, where the Government will not be able to use PIIs to exclude evidence as they can now, because the judge will say, “Hang on a second. Why are you applying to exclude evidence which is absolutely central to the case? You need to put it in, and I will decide, thank you very much, whether it should be kept completely secret or there ought to be some kind of gisting or summary of that evidence.” The right that accords to the state in respect of PII does not accord to it in respect of CMPs.
6.15 pm
PIIs have taken on a life of their own, with some people having suddenly decided that they are a touchstone of British justice. They are being presented as though they are a better alternative than CMPs. I signed all the PIIs that I dealt with, as others in this House have had to, with a great burden on me and while looking at the evidence. Like anybody else, I did not just do what I was asked to do. Rule No. 1 to anybody in a ministerial position who wishes to survive is every day never to do that which they are asked to do but to make their own decisions. That is what I did, and I am still here. At the heart of PIIs is the application by the relevant Secretary
of State to exclude evidence. The paradox is that the more sensitive and secret the evidence, and the more crucial it is to a case, the more likely a judge is to exclude it altogether rather than allow it to be gisted or summarised, and so the interests of justice are not served.
Interestingly, unless things have changed since I made PII applications, special advocates have no role in the PII process. Nobody challenges what the Secretary of State has done apart from the poor old judge, whereas in respect of applications for CMPs there will be special advocates acting like terriers, as we have seen from SIAC. As the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) said, if at any stage the special advocate believes that the CMP should not continue, he or she will make an application to the judge.