Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

Yes, and using PII certificates in respect of evidence that is central to a case is profoundly unjust to both sets of parties.

Dinah Rose is a leading critic of the proposals in the Bill. I have looked carefully at her response to the consultation document, which was published earlier this year.

She stated,

“PII is not perfect—it does result in some cases being tried without all evidence being available.”

She also stated that in rare cases:

“PII may also result…in a situation in which a party is ordered to disclose a document which it is not prepared to disclose, leaving it no alternative but to settle the claim.”

She is being disingenuous, because in these national security cases we are talking about not a document—her word—but bundles of documents that are central to the adjudication of the action.

I, like the Minister, dealt with lots of PII cases and had to work through them very carefully. If there were thousands of documents, as there would be in these cases, a Minister would have to take a month or so off to operate that and, at the end, if the court accepted the PII application, there would be evidence that could not be used in the case.

Ms Rose concludes her summary by referring to the need for “potential misconduct” by the agencies to

“see the light of day”.

I absolutely agree with her sentiment. The problem is that in the absence of CMPs, there is no way of determining misconduct by members of the agencies in a civil action. The most that can happen is a settlement out of court with a payment into court but no admission of liability. That is profoundly unjust to both sides. It is unjust to the complainant, who might well have right on their side but who is denied the means to have the court find in their favour, and equally unjust to the agencies and their staff, who might also have right on their side but no means of making their defence.

In the other place, various amendments were made that were designed to strengthen the role of the courts in determining whether and, if so, how CMPs should be used. They will be examined upstairs and I look forward to the result of the Committee. I am in no doubt about the necessity of the Bill and if the sceptics want to make the agencies more accountable, they should have this Bill—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.