Justice and Security Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Skelmersdale and Lord Campbell-Savours

Monday 9th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, I wish to say a tiny word on Amendment 17. I note that it begins:

“The ISC may decide to hold some of its proceedings in public, subject to sub-paragraph (2)”,

and so on. I ask the Minister whether there is anything in the Bill to prevent the ISC meeting in public, should it so wish.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, perhaps I may intervene briefly. Amendment 14 says that,

“the ISC shall meet in public save when it determines that members of the public shall be excluded”.

I think that that would put the fear of God into the agencies and I am afraid it would create a climate of suspicion which the committee does not deserve. I am not saying that it should not meet in public on occasion, as I shall explain in a minute, but putting words such as that into the Bill would be very unpopular within the agency. It needs to have confidence that Parliament is able to handle the material with the necessary safeguards.

Amendment 15 says:

“The ISC shall not less than once in each calendar year hold a public question time for which it shall determine applicable procedures”.

In a curious way, there may be something in that amendment. I remember—and the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, may recall—that we did occasionally meet in public. After the Mitrokhin inquiry, we invited journalists in to ask us questions. Therefore, in a way, the structure is there to do it. The question is: what is on the agenda? I can foresee circumstances in which there may well be an item of some controversy or just a general report where the committee may want to meet in public, and the public—basically, journalists—ask questions. However, Ministers may want to ponder over the exact wording of the amendment.

Finally, Amendment 17 says:

“The ISC may decide to hold some of its proceedings in public, subject to sub-paragraph (2) … The ISC may not hold public hearings under sub-paragraph (1) if it might lead to the disclosure of”.

The problem is that if members of the agencies, or indeed Ministers, are brought in as witnesses to answer questions, their refusal to answer, for perfectly legitimate reasons of national security, might send a hare running in the media which gets completely out of control. Although I accept that there are conditions in which the public or journalists should be able to ask questions, we have to be very careful about witnesses who might be called before the committee in those circumstances but who might feel that they cannot answers the questions in open session. The reason that parliamentary Select Committees meet in private is to avoid those very problems.

Therefore, again, I give qualified support but I think that there would be certain conditions under which it would be quite wrong for the committee to meet in public.