Chilcot Committee: Intercept Evidence Debate

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Department: Home Office

Chilcot Committee: Intercept Evidence

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts
Tuesday 24th July 2012

(12 years, 4 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Harris of Haringey Portrait Lord Harris of Haringey
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My Lords, the supposition seems to be that a large number of cases do not proceed to court because intercept evidence is not admissible. Could the Minister give us the Government’s estimate of how many such cases there are that would have proceeded to court had this evidence been available?

Lord Henley Portrait Lord Henley
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My Lords, I cannot give the noble Lord that, but I remind him of the remarks made by his noble friend Lord West about the number of cases that possibly would never have been pursued at all because of lack of intelligence. He must differentiate between intelligence and evidence. That is what we are trying to do—to make sure we still have the intelligence and do not lose it as a result of making use of it as evidence.