Chilcot Committee: Intercept Evidence

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I may depress the noble and learned Lord a little when I tell him that it has actually been longer than four and a half years. I gather that seven previous attempts going back to 1993 have been made to try to resolve this issue, which gives some indication of the difficulty of dealing with it. We have made a coalition commitment that the Government will seek,

“to find a practical way to allow the use of intercept evidence in court”.

However, we must focus on the benefits, costs and risks of so doing, and that is why we want to get it right. As regards the legal advice, I can only say to the noble and learned Lord that it would not generally be appropriate to put into the public domain independent legal advice that had been offered by counsel.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that if the risks associated with making intercept evidence available in court could be made acceptable to the Government, surely the benefits of using such evidence in court would be enormous? We would bring to justice people who at the moment cannot be brought to justice. It would be a much better way of running these things than having control orders, TPIMs and what have you.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I think I can agree entirely with the noble Lord, but we have to accept that there are risks and that we have to find a balance between the risks and the benefits. That is what we are trying to do. As the noble Lord will appreciate, for a whole series of Governments going back to 1993, this is quite a difficult matter to resolve.