Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Ben Gummer Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

I echo the closing remarks of the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain). This has been a balanced and constructive debate, and it is good to see the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) return to his place. He and I sat through a similar debate on the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill a little over a year ago, as did my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips), my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) and the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). We all discussed issues of similar import concerning a similarly tiny number of people. For the TPIMs legislation, that number was nine people, and here we hear from the Government that there are 20 cases pending. While the sums of money involved are considerable, they are not significant in the grand scheme of Government spending. However, the issues of principle are of the highest order and it is entirely right that we have had such an interesting and well-informed debate after that in another place.

In introducing the debate, the Minister without Portfolio, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) made a powerful case for why the current situation cannot continue and why the liberty of the litigant, sacrosanct in normal circumstances, to know the evidence that might demolish his or her case, should not be sacrosanct in these unordinary circumstances. They are not ordinary, because the evidence that might be presented could imperil—in many cases, would imperil—the lives not only of agents or officers, but citizens of this country.

We cannot, therefore, continue with the situation we have at the moment, but I would like to add two other liberties that are offended by things as they stand. The first is the liberty of the individual agents and officers, who have not been mentioned so far. Although they are anonymous in most of these instances, in a civil action they are accused of the most appalling crimes—rendition, torture, or procuring murder—and yet, through the agency of their employer, they cannot defend themselves and say that these things did not happen. I hesitate to say that spies have feelings too, but it is clearly wrong to allow someone, just because it is easier for Her Majesty’s Government to raise their hand and pay up, to have it on their record for the rest of their life that they were part of a conspiracy or action of that magnitude. In not defending them in court, we do them a disservice that the Government have a duty of care to address.

A bigger liberty is at stake, however, and that is the liberty of the nation. It seems to me that learned and noble Members in another place have forgotten that the state also has a personality and seem to think that, because the state is not a person, it is perfectly acceptable for it to admit liability where it might have none and to pay damages when it might not need to. Yet the state does have a personality. The Crown has a personality—it is the vessel of our shared values and experience, it is our common interest as a nation—and, if the state admits liability when it should not, it impugns those values, it demeans us as a nation and, perhaps most importantly, it devalues an apology and admission of liability that might be made when it should be made.

In order to protect the liberty of the nation and individual officers, it is vital, in the interests of justice, that we enable the state to defend itself in these civil actions. Here, then, I part company slightly with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) when he says that this is an unsatisfactory solution, but one that is better than the current situation. I do not think we need apologise for the proposals, because actually they are a reaffirmation of justice in very difficult circumstances: we know that not to do so would be to deny the very values on which that justice is built, but, if the information were to be presented in open court, the evidence might imperil the lives of those whom all of us assembled here—both in what we do and in the legislation that we pass—seek to protect. We must give them the justice they deserve.

The current inequality might be having a bizarre result. It is possible, and we have no guarantee it has not happened, that a civil litigant who is known to the security services but whom, for whatever reasons they have not been able to prosecute—certain Opposition Members will know of such instances—could bring a civil claim and win damages for tens of millions of pounds, and that money could then be recycled back into terrorism and used to attack the very people who have defended, or not defended, their right to bring a case. That is a bizarre situation and a travesty of justice—it is grotesque—so it seems wrong that any of us seek to try to defend the status quo. It is everything that we should be seeking not to do.

[Stephen Phillips]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the real travesty is the Government having to settle cases and pay damages in circumstances where they might have a perfectly legitimate defence, but which cannot be deployed in court because it would reveal confidential information? It is when that money goes back into the hands of terrorists that we need to be particularly concerned, and that is one reason why the Bill needs a Second Reading.

[Ben Gummer]

Absolutely. I could not improve on my hon. and learned Friend’s words. It is wrong not only because the money might be recycled back into terrorism, but because it devalues the point when we have done something wrong and need to admit liability and learn from it. It turns everything on its head, and that is why we need the change.

I wish to make a slight political point. There have been some brave speeches from certain Opposition Members who know a great deal more about this matter than people sitting on the Front Bench of Her Majesty’s Opposition. It is odd to hear ill-informed remarks about the Bill being directed at those on the Government Front Bench, given that the Government have been open about what they want to achieve, and reasonable and generous in trying to accommodate the amendments from another place. In the spirit of that, it behoves Her Majesty’s Opposition not to use words such as “humiliating” or “climbdown”, but to acknowledge that the Government are listening carefully to, and accommodating, the arguments being made in both Houses. I hope that, at the end of the Committee stage, the Government will come back to the House with a Bill that will provide justice to the individual officers, to the intelligence agencies, to the nation and to the litigants. I hope that the Bill will do something that we in this place are supposed to do—namely, to ensure that the dispensation of justice is indeed just.