Treatment of Detainees

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is completely right. We need a robust and hard-nosed defence of our liberty, which means having security services that can work properly. That is why today’s announcement is important. However, we do not need what I would call ineffective authoritarianism, of which we had a bit too much under the previous regime—although I do not want to get political, as this is not a political day.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Holding the Executive to account is supposed to be the role of Parliament, not of judges or independent inquiries. Does the Prime Minister not think it about time, therefore, that the Intelligence and Security Committee was made a Committee of the House, appointed by the House, not one appointed by, and reporting to, him?

[The Prime Minister]

I have only been doing this job for a few weeks, and I am very happy to look at that issue. I know that it has been discussed before. Can we change the nature of the Intelligence and Security Committee? Can we help it to do its job even better? I am very happy to look at that. However, I do not think for a moment that we should believe that the ISC should be doing this piece of work. For public confidence, and for independence from Parliament, party and Government, it is right to have a judge-led inquiry. I say to Opposition Members who take a different view that these events relate to 2002-03. If the ISC was the right answer, why on earth did it not come up with it in the previous years?