Alex Salmond
Main Page: Alex Salmond (Scottish National Party - Gordon)Department Debates - View all Alex Salmond's debates with the Home Office
(7 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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My hon. Friend makes an interesting point that Guantanamo Bay goes back way before the coalition Government got into power. It is interesting that it took until 2010 or 2011 when we started making plans for the Justice and Security Act 2013 to do that. The question about what was done before is a matter for a former Government.
May I dissociate myself from these disgraceful attacks from the Tory Benches on the Daily Mail for campaigning to release British subjects from Guantanamo Bay? Lord Carlile was a Government adviser, and he has stated that Jamal al-Harith and others were paid compensation to prevent the release of security information through the courts into the public domain. It is a bit late for the Minister now to rest on confidentiality, so perhaps he will tell us the date of the confidentiality clause he cited, or is that too confidential?
First, I do not think that anyone has heard from this Dispatch Box an attack on the Daily Mail, although I know the right hon. Gentleman would like to put up a straw man to make some allegations. As I said previously, we made a legally binding confidentiality agreement in November 2010. The key words there are “legally binding”, not “confidentiality”. As I am sure he will understand, that puts an obligation on this Government and not, by the sound of things, on former Home Secretaries or reviewers of terrorism. Even a Scottish National party Government would be legally obliged to stick to the confidentiality agreement, and he knows it.