Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Debate between Lord Reid of Cardowan and Lord Dubs

Wednesday 5th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Henley, as the Minister and pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Browning. I hope that she will get better soon and will be with us again before too long. I was talking to her only yesterday to commiserate on her health. She said that she really enjoyed the job, and the fact that she did so was obvious in how she dealt with the business of the House. It was a pleasure for us all, even if we disagreed with her.

I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and I want to develop one or two arguments. At the outset, however, I should say that if I were speaking later in the debate, I would probably be saying to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, that I agreed with him on intercept evidence and to the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, that I agreed with the thrust of his arguments. But given that I have not yet heard them speak, I shall have to say a word about that.

The noble Lord, Lord Howard, mentioned intercept evidence and the committee on which he serves. Those of us not privy to the sort of information that he now is—as presumably he also was when in the Cabinet—are not as aware as he is of the difficulties involved in the use of intercept evidence. It is a difficult point which affects the whole debate on terrorism that most of us do not have access to the information which determines how decisions are ultimately made by Ministers. We have to take it as an act of faith and there are limits to the amount of faith we can always have. I am very keen on the use of intercept evidence and would like to hear—I am not going to because it is all secret, of course—the arguments against the use of it, given that it is now normally used in many other countries which presumably have the same difficulties that the noble Lord referred to.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

Briefly, my noble friend raises a good point that he does not have access to the information on which sometimes the judgment is based. I merely commend to him a study: can he name one British Home Secretary who does not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howard, in his estimate of the dangers and disadvantages of introducing what my noble friend proposes?

[Lord Dubs]

Of course, all Home Secretaries had access to this information which we do not have, so I cannot name a single Home Secretary in that regard. That does not mean that all Home Secretaries in history have always been right about everything. I say that with as much modesty as I can muster. Why is it that in many other countries intercept evidence is used when the same difficulties surely apply?