I am entirely sympathetic to what the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has said about that case. However, a statutory avenue is already available under the Regulation and Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which set up the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Further to the intervention by the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), a fellow member of the Committee, one might not be able to describe the proposed power that she wishes to provide as quasi-judicial, but it might possess a hybrid relationship in being both investigative and judicial, or in a position of seeking to create redress.
Apart from that, there is a fundamental statutory point. The hon. Lady’s proposed subsection (4A) refers to a situation in which
“a plausible claim has been made by or on behalf of an individual to the ISC that the Security Service…has disseminated any information to any recipient concerning any person that appears to be…materially false; and…harmful to the person defamed.”
The breadth of that goes far beyond even the jurisdiction of any court in the United Kingdom of which I am aware. Proposed subsection (4B) says that
“the ISC shall fully and expeditiously investigate the claim”—
so it does involve an investigative function—
“and, where the claim appears to be well founded, shall ensure that the misinformation is expeditiously corrected.”
But by what means? The ISC is not in a position to implement any such action. The amendment is not legally well-founded. In any event, as has been pointed out, its scope goes far beyond anything that the Committee’s
staff and resources would permit. Moreover, there is no indication of how the powers would be exercised or how they could ever be implemented.