I will make a little more progress. The TUC has taken a similar line and passed a motion that condemns secret courts as posing a significant threat to public security and accountability. Such widespread opposition stems not just from principles, because there is a complete lack of evidence to back up the proposals in part 2 of the Bill. The Bill is about security yet the Government do not claim that closed material procedures would do anything to promote national security. Indeed, they accept that the existing process of public interest immunity already provides effective safeguards for that process.
The Government have been unable to demonstrate that the courts cannot resolve issues fairly because they lack recourse to secret courts. They refer to 20 or 30 cases that they say require closed material procedures, yet they have refused so far to allow any proper access to the details of those cases so that their claims can be evaluated for accuracy, for example by the special advocates. As the Joint Committee on Human Rights stated, the Government have not demonstrated with evidence that there is a real and practical problem. Until they can prove that public interest immunity is not sufficient, there can be no justification for the introduction of closed material procedures. Even then we would need guarantees that the basic rights and principles of justice are not being undermined.
There have been attempts to amend part 2 of the Bill; indeed, I have tabled a new clause to limit the circumstances in which closed material procedures can be used. Let me be clear, however, that that is a last resort and the best option by far remains to scrap part 2 of the Bill. The amendments that have been tabled by the House of Lords only slightly modify the process by which a secret court is imposed on a case. Even if closed material procedures are considered a last resort after public interest immunity is exhausted, simply having such a measure on the statute book is likely to lead to its increased use.
Hon. Members will be aware that the Government are seeking to undo many of the changes made by the House of Lords, claiming to have listened to widespread and grave concerns about the Bill. They effectively want to reinsert the original test for triggering closed material procedures, thereby scrapping the requirement that such procedures are a last resort once a judge has decided that a fair determination of proceedings is not possible any other way. That removes the only real bar on secret courts becoming routine in civil cases, and negates the move to introduce judicial discretion. In common with the Government’s recent amendments that require the Secretary of State to report annually to Parliament on closed material procedures and keep their use under independent review, such measures are frankly just tweaks that leave intact the core of the Bill. Secret courts will still be available across the civil justice system, and will
still be fundamentally unfair. The only way to safeguard Britain’s system of fair justice is by removing from the Bill clauses 6 to 11 that provide for secret courts.
Closed material procedures would allow Ministers to exclude their opponents from the courtroom, along with the press and the public, and provide a one-sided case to the judge, free of effective challenge.