My Lords, I appreciate that the Committee dealt with some clauses regarding polygraphs on the previous day in Committee, to the extent of filleting the Bill so that certain provisions do not extend beyond England and Wales. I apologise to the Committee that I did not retrieve Amendments 19A and 19B, which were tabled at that time. I shall save my more general remarks about polygraphs for the next grouping, as this is a narrow point.
Section 30 of the Offender Management Act excludes the use of two matters as evidence in any proceedings against a released person. Those matters are physiological reactions and a statement made during participation in a polygraph session. The amendment would make it clear that those matters could not be used as evidence in proceedings against a third party, its purpose being to ask whether that is now the case. When dealing with terrorism offences, there must be a lot of interest in the contacts of individuals—and, perhaps, a lot of interest in finding evidence that can be used against those other people.
I was very grateful for the teach-in arranged by the MoJ on how these sessions are currently run for sex offenders. During that briefing, it was explained to us that the sessions are not fishing or trawling for information; they are not wide-ranging discussions to see what an offender might let slip. They use closed questions, to which the answer will primarily be yes or no. It seems to me that some questions can lend themselves to inquiries about situations which may be relevant to other persons: for instance, “Since our last session, have you had any contact with, direct or indirect, or any news of X?” or “Has your wife had any news of X’s family?” My amendment is to probe whether the answers can be used in evidence against X. I beg to move.