Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

Public interest immunity is a device by which we can exclude evidence, but it can also lead to hearings with some anonymity of witnesses, to the redaction of documents and to confidentiality rings. The choice is not simply between the exclusion of material or its admissibility—evidence can become admissible through certain devices, which I shall come on to shortly if my right hon. Friend gives me time to develop my argument.

Labour, Liberal Democrat, Conservative and Cross-Bench peers agreed that the original Bill was poorly drafted and gave too much power to Ministers to decide what did or did not stay secret in court proceedings. Amendments were passed by substantial margins to put in place what we considered to be appropriate checks and balances. No longer would the decision on whether a proceeding was held in secret be in reality taken by a Minister with the façade of a judge’s rubber-stamping it. Instead, it would be truly taken by a judge, who would be empowered to balance the public interest of holding proceedings in the open against the public interest of holding proceedings behind closed doors due to the harm done to our national security. The Lords amendments would also have ensured that the use of a CMP remained a last resort, as befits something that is anathema to open and fair justice and that, as all sides accept, should be used only in exceptional circumstances.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sadiq Khan]

I will, but then I must make progress or we will reach the knife before I have finished my speech.

[Caroline Lucas]

The shadow Secretary of State is very kind to give way. Does he not recognise that if CMPs are available, even if in theory they are a last resort, that very fact will mean that they will be used? Huge numbers in the legal profession want to get rid of secret courts in civil law altogether, which is what my amendments would achieve.

[Sadiq Khan]

If the hon. Lady reads the Supreme Court judgment in al-Rawi, she will see that one of the court’s concerns was about not having in its toolkit the ability to have a CMP in an appropriate case. Its point was that it is for Parliament to add the option of a CMP to the armoury in the toolkit to be used after all the other options have been exhausted. Our amendments seek to do that. CMPs will not be the first choice made by a judge, but as a last resort judges might decide to use one if all the other tools in their toolkit are inadequate.

Further amendments were also made that permitted all parties to seek the use of a CMP and not just the Government, and to ensure that the judicial balancing of public interest and national security also took place once proceedings were being held in secret. There was a degree of contentment on Second Reading in the Commons that because of the improvements made by the Lords, the worst excesses of the proposals had been ameliorated. The former leader of the Liberal Democrats, who is also a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), said that

“the amendments made in the House of Lords have been regarded by many people as being entirely favourable and reasonable.”—[Official Report, 18 December 2012; Vol. 555, c. 713.]

We agree. He not only wanted the Government to accept the amendments but wanted to persuade them to accept further amendments with the purpose of extending the discretion of the court, and we also agree with that.

The pity is that the Government shredded the Lords amendments as the Bill progressed through Committee. I must also, at this point, put on record how disappointing it was that the Government tabled its amendments at such late stages on repeated occasions—they did so at the latest stages possible, both in Committee and now on Report. It is unacceptable that the Bill had its Second Reading in the House of Lords on 19 June and yet the Government were still tabling amendments as late as last Thursday, thereby depriving us, interested parties and experts a chance properly to analyse those late amendments. That is not befitting of such a sensitive and complex issue.

Let me turn my attention briefly to the Liberal Democrats. If we are to be successful in our attempts to improve the Bill today, we will need their support. During the passage of this Bill, the Liberal Democrats have had a number of different positions, often at the same time. The grass-roots party voted to ditch part 2 in its entirety, but a Liberal Democrat Minister, the noble Lord Wallace of Tankerness, steered it through its Lords stages and resisted any changes or improvements. Liberal Democrat Back-Bench peers, to their credit, supported the amendments made to the Bill. More than 80% of the Liberal Democrat peers in the House of Lords voted with us to amend the Bill to incorporate the concerns of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. In Committee, the hon. Members for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) sided with Labour in our amendments to restore the improvements made to the Bill by the House of Lords.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Six interventions ago, I said that I would take my last one; I keep being too generous.

The hon. Gentleman’s point would be good if I was suggesting that we remove CMPs altogether. I am saying that a judge should consider—a word that I shall explain in a moment—all other options, including public interest immunity, before going to a CMP. The Government amendment requires the Minister to consider PII; if it is good enough for the Minister, why is it not good enough for the judge?

We are not saying that there should not be CMPs, but that it is exceptional, for the reasons the Government have given. It should happen very infrequently; people have mentioned figures of seven or 15. The Under-Secretary has said from the Front Bench that he is not sure how many, which is why he will be supporting our sunset clause. What I am saying is that asking the judge to consider all the other options would make explicit the intention of Parliament and the Government.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sadiq Khan]

I really must make progress; there will be time for hon. Members to contribute after I have finished.

David Anderson, the Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has himself said that

“the court’s power to order a CMP should be exercisable only if, for reasons of national security connected with disclosure, the just resolution of a case cannot be obtained by other procedural means (including not only PII but other established means such as confidentiality rings and hearings in camera).”

We should not legislate in a way that means that CMPs will replace tried and tested methods for dealing with sensitive material in open proceedings if those methods will do the job. Only if it is deemed, after consideration by a judge, that those tried and tested measures cannot be employed in a way that would allow important evidence to be used in a public court, would the option of a CMP be considered. The Bill as it stands does not allow for this. Our amendments would not, as some have argued, including the Minister on Second Reading, mean that a full and lengthy PII exercise had to be undertaken before a CMP could even be considered. On the contrary, the key word in all this is “considered”. Our amendments would deliver this. I hope that the House will support that as part of our efforts to maintain as much as possible of the precious traditions of openness in our justice system.

Some have interpreted the Government amendments tabled at the eleventh hour last week as delivering what we and others have asked for. They will lead to a Minister—in other words, one of the parties in the civil action or judicial review—considering the use of PII and the judge having to take their conclusion into consideration when deciding whether to grant a CMP. In our view, this is not an appropriate check and balance, and we will therefore look to amend the Bill accordingly.

Amendment 38 deals with the Wiley judicial balance within the CMP. The Government’s argument for resisting this is the same as their reason for resisting full judicial balancing on the decision on whether to order a closed proceeding in the first place. We are not persuaded of their arguments in that circumstance. We believe that this is another key component of judicial balancing and a crucial check and balance.

Our amendments also deal with the equality of arms. On Second Reading, the Minister said:

“We will also accept that any party, not just the Government, should be able to ask for a closed material procedure.”—[Official Report, 18 December 2012; Vol. 555, c. 722.]

We welcomed that statement. After all, equality of arms is backed by the JCHR and the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC. However, following the changes that the Government made in Committee, we now know that their idea of equality of arms is very different from everyone else’s. The JCHR report published last week is highly critical of what was done to the Bill in Committee. It says:

“in our view the Government’s amendment enabling all parties to proceedings to apply for a CMP does not provide for equality of arms in litigation because it would unfairly favour the Secretary of State”.

In short, it is a two-tier equality of arms—or, in the real world, an inequality of arms. Our amendment would restore proper equality of arms. I am pleased that the Government have decided to support us and have signed our amendment.

Some have said that the debates at this late stage are nothing more than angels dancing on the head of a pin. I disagree. There remain some fundamental differences, chiefly about judicial balancing and last resort, about which we are still concerned. I hope that colleagues in all parts of the House will support, in particular, amendments 30 and 31. We will first need to vote on amendment 26, which is a paving amendment that would ensure that the Bill contained the proper checks and balances that it needs without having to rely on the other place—with Lib Dem support, I hasten to add—to make sure that there is equilibrium in the great balancing act that we face between our national security and the rights of individuals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clarke]

I was about to move on to that point, having made the general case. Every time I make concessions, they are pocketed and there is a fresh set of demands. I have known that to happen before, but never on the same scale as with this Bill. I will try to explain that when I get on to the matter.

[Caroline Lucas]

I see that the Minister is about to get some advice from behind him on habeas corpus cases. The advice we have received is that they are regarded as civil actions, and that habeas corpus could therefore be at risk in future.

The Minister should not get carried away with the idea that everybody supports the change. Some parties, such as the Green party, do not. That will not surprise him, but the Liberal Democrat conference did not support it, either. It talked about it as a serious risk to public trust and confidence. Many people out there do not support the change or think it is necessary, and I have yet to hear any real argument as to why it is.

[Mr Clarke]

I respect the hon. Lady’s sincerity, and she represents those who are against the whole policy. I have met such people outside—to use a flippant phrase, some of my best friends are human rights lawyers, and I have met people who say that the whole idea of CMPs is so bad that it is a lesser evil to keep paying money to the ever-mounting number of people coming forward. That is a judgment for the House to make, but the three political parties do not contain many members who agree with that, and I do not think the public agree with it. I would prefer to see a judge test the evidence and come to a conclusion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. May I re-emphasise the time constraint?

[Caroline Lucas]

I am pleased to speak in favour of my amendments 1 to 7, and I hope to press amendment 1 to the vote. As colleagues will know, they are designed to get rid of part 2 in its entirety. That part would allow Ministers to use secret courts in a wide range of cases, for example any in which they could claim that national security was involved.

Let us look at some examples of when secret courts could be used, such as the cases of the bereaved families of soldiers bringing negligence claims against the Ministry of Defence. Debi Allbutt, whose husband was killed in a so-called friendly fire hit on his Challenger tank in Iraq, has said:

“I really don’t think people in the country realise how dangerous this new law will be for justice. I think anyone in my position deserves to know the truth about how their husband, a brave soldier fighting for his country, lost his life.”

Let us think of cases involving victims of torture or rendition in which the Government have been involved, who are seeking redress. They would also be affected, including such people as Khadija al-Saadi, who was 12 years old when she was rendered by MI6 to Gaddafi’s Libya along with her mother, three younger siblings and Gaddafi-opposing father. In a letter published by the prisoners’ human rights group Reprieve, she has said:

“I wrote to Ken Clarke when I heard about the secret courts plan, but he would not say that he would not seek to try my case in secret. I still feel this would have been unnecessary, unfair, and unworthy of the UK. I hope the inquiry will be as open and as fair as the phone hacking inquiry.

Secret courts could also be used in actions against the Government over corruption in arms deals. On Second Reading, Ministers refused to rule out the possibility of that in some cases:

“if there was embarrassment over arms sales to a particular country, where those sold arms had been used to deny the human rights of many others, against the policies and wishes of this country, and there was a desire not to make that too public”.—[Official Report, 18 December 2012; Vol. 555, c. 722.]

A case of corruption in arms deals is therefore another that would not be held in open court.

Habeas corpus claims are at risk, too. Claims under the centuries-old safeguard against illegal detention, which forces the authorities either to charge or release a prisoner, are generally considered civil actions, so secret courts could mean people being imprisoned without knowing why. That was exactly what the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), said in the Public Bill Committee—that the Bill would cover habeas corpus claims. My new clause 2 would address that.

The question this evening is whether we really want to allow the Government to ensure that everything from state involvement in torture to the neglect of British soldiers could be hidden from public view. After a decade that has seen our intelligence agencies become involved in unprecedented complicity in wrongdoing, we should ask how we can prevent that from ever happening again, not how to remove the safeguards that allow us to hold the state and its agencies to account. That is especially true when, as the high-profile case of Binyam Mohamed has amply illustrated, the security agencies have shown that they are prepared to mislead the judiciary, and given that judges tend to defer to Ministers when faced with arguments about national security.

[Mr George Howarth]

I take it that the hon. Lady’s case is that better than a closed material procedure is public interest immunity, in which case nobody ever gets to hear anything about what happened and what evidence exists.

[Caroline Lucas]

Like the special advocates and many others in the legal profession, I believe that PII is a safer way forward than having hearings in closed courts, and I stand by that.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

On a related point, the Government are currently obliged to settle cases, with none of the evidence ever being disclosed and no hearing at all. They never go before a judge. How would deleting clause 6 assist in ensuring that there is justice in such cases? At the moment, there is no trial at all.

[Caroline Lucas]

I would argue, and a huge amount of legal opinion argues with me, that secret courts are a worse option. We would not choose either option, but I strongly believe that closed courts are a step too far for British justice.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I agree with the thrust of the hon. Lady’s speech. Does she accept that one problem with the secret courts process is that it would create a culture of impunity among the security services and allow them to develop relationships with other security services knowing that they would be protected and would be unlikely ever to have to face anybody’s wrath?

[Caroline Lucas]

Indeed, and I pointed out earlier the complicity of the intelligence services. Such arguments are mounting up, and they explain why opponents are lining up to denounce the Government’s proposals for closed material procedures. The special advocates have called them “fundamentally unfair”, and the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald, has warned that secret courts will

“damage public confidence in our judiciary”

and are

“not fair because they are not balanced”.

The Law Society and the Bar Council have warned:

“Secret trials and non-disclosure of evidence are potential characteristics of repressive regimes and undemocratic societies.”

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published expert legal advice finding that secret courts are

“incompatible with the common law right to a fair trial”

and

“incompatible with article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights”.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

On that point, is the hon. Lady aware that closed material procedures are already used by, for example, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, and have been held not to be incompatible with the European convention? Is she not waving her shroud a little too strongly?

[Caroline Lucas]

As somebody who has a constituent who has been subject to SIAC, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I am not waving my shroud nearly strongly enough. The SIAC process is inhumane. We can discuss later whether it falls foul of article 6, but the idea that because we already have CMPs in that example it is somehow appropriate to export them to civil cases is misguided.

[Richard Fuller]

The hon. Lady is making a strong point about the continuation in a new area of a procedure that applies in certain areas. What does she feel will be the implications for how British justice is perceived around the world, in countries where we would like the standards of our justice system to be adopted, if we proceed with the proposal in the Bill?

[Caroline Lucas]

That is a good question. We like to hold our justice system up as an example to the world, yet if we go down this route, we will fundamentally undermine some of the principles of British justice that we have rightly been proud of for many years, and people around the world will look on with genuine shock.

Last week, more than 700 figures from the legal profession, including 40 QCs, had a letter published in the Daily Mail—not a newspaper that I have often quoted in the Chamber—stating that the proposals in the Bill to allow a huge extension of court hearings behind closed doors would

“erode core principles of our civil justice system”.

They argued that if the Government’s changes were allowed to go ahead, they would

“fatally undermine the court room as an independent and objective forum in which allegations of wrongdoing can be fairly tested and where the Government can be transparently held to account.”

The proposals, they concluded, were “dangerous and unnecessary”.

The Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice also has serious concerns about the Bill’s provisions relating to closed material procedures in certain civil proceedings, and the Scottish Government have concluded that they are

“unable to support any extension—under any circumstances—of the Bill into devolved areas.”

[Mr Ellwood]

I understand the thrust of the hon. Lady’s argument and the position that her party takes, but does she recognise that the House’s first obligation is the protection of the nation? One way in which we thwart many potential attacks against this nation is through our work with intelligence services from other countries. If we go down the route that she suggests, that relationship will break down. No other country will trust us with information if it is then exposed in court, which will make our country even more vulnerable to attack.

[Caroline Lucas]

Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that, right now, other countries are not sharing their information with us because of the current situation?

[Mr Ellwood]

Yes, that is exactly what happened.

[Caroline Lucas]

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. No one is suggesting that PII will not still be available so that we can have measures such as redactions.

[Mr George Howarth]

It is generous of the hon. Lady to give way to me a second time.

As a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I have spoken to members of the Obama Administration and the American agencies, and they are quite emphatic that they are now giving us less information than before the Binyam Mohamed case.

[Caroline Lucas]

Well, all right. I stand corrected by the right hon. Gentleman, but if he is suggesting that we go down the route that the US has been going down over the past few years with the invasion of Iraq and everything that has gone with it, that is up to him. It is not the road that I want to go down.

I have received a huge number of e-mails and letters from constituents who argue that although our legal system is not flawless, the new measures are an attack on its founding principles. Any Liberal Democrat Ministers and MPs who back part 2 of the Bill do not have the support of their party members who voted at the party conference last September to oppose secret courts. I therefore remind Liberal Democrat colleagues that party members have reaffirmed their opposition to secret courts as well as their commitment to the rule of law, open justice and holding the Government to account, the right to a fair trial and the protection of civil liberties. They have called on Liberal Democrat MPs to vote against part 2 of the Bill, and I hope that colleagues will bear that in mind when we come to vote.

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Caroline Lucas]

I will make a little more progress.

The TUC has taken a similar line and passed a motion that condemns secret courts as posing a significant threat to public security and accountability. Such widespread opposition stems not just from principles, because there is a complete lack of evidence to back up the proposals in part 2 of the Bill. The Bill is about security yet the Government do not claim that closed material procedures would do anything to promote national security. Indeed, they accept that the existing process of public interest immunity already provides effective safeguards for that process.

The Government have been unable to demonstrate that the courts cannot resolve issues fairly because they lack recourse to secret courts. They refer to 20 or 30 cases that they say require closed material procedures, yet they have refused so far to allow any proper access to the details of those cases so that their claims can be evaluated for accuracy, for example by the special advocates. As the Joint Committee on Human Rights stated, the Government have not demonstrated with evidence that there is a real and practical problem. Until they can prove that public interest immunity is not sufficient, there can be no justification for the introduction of closed material procedures. Even then we would need guarantees that the basic rights and principles of justice are not being undermined.

There have been attempts to amend part 2 of the Bill; indeed, I have tabled a new clause to limit the circumstances in which closed material procedures can be used. Let me be clear, however, that that is a last resort and the best option by far remains to scrap part 2 of the Bill. The amendments that have been tabled by the House of Lords only slightly modify the process by which a secret court is imposed on a case. Even if closed material procedures are considered a last resort after public interest immunity is exhausted, simply having such a measure on the statute book is likely to lead to its increased use.

Hon. Members will be aware that the Government are seeking to undo many of the changes made by the House of Lords, claiming to have listened to widespread and grave concerns about the Bill. They effectively want to reinsert the original test for triggering closed material procedures, thereby scrapping the requirement that such procedures are a last resort once a judge has decided that a fair determination of proceedings is not possible any other way. That removes the only real bar on secret courts becoming routine in civil cases, and negates the move to introduce judicial discretion. In common with the Government’s recent amendments that require the Secretary of State to report annually to Parliament on closed material procedures and keep their use under independent review, such measures are frankly just tweaks that leave intact the core of the Bill. Secret courts will still be available across the civil justice system, and will still be fundamentally unfair. The only way to safeguard Britain’s system of fair justice is by removing from the Bill clauses 6 to 11 that provide for secret courts.

Closed material procedures would allow Ministers to exclude their opponents from the courtroom, along with the press and the public, and provide a one-sided case to the judge, free of effective challenge.

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

I do not challenge the hon. Lady’s sincerity for a moment, but I hope she will accept that when it comes to voting on matters of such important principle, every Liberal Democrat MP is obliged to use his or her judgment. She speaks as if Ministers were in a position to resolve these matters. Ministers are entitled, through barristers or advocates, to make application to a court on which the judge has to decide. Ministers may wish to bring about such an objective, but unless a judge is satisfied that that is in the interests of national security, they will not be successful.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that intervention but I am afraid that that response does not give me the comfort it obviously gives him.

In conclusion let me say a few words about new clause 2. Although I judge that the House is not with me on amendments 1 to 7, new clause 2—which will be taken as part of the same group—looks at how we can try to restrict the number of cases where CMPs are used. Proposed subsection (1) concerns circumstances in which the liberty of the individual is at stake. Ministers have confirmed recently to the Bill Committee that CMPs could be used in habeas corpus cases where an individual seeks to challenge their detention by the state. Although such cases may not be common, the current Bill would leave us in a position whereby an individual losing their habeas corpus claim could, as a result of a CMP, remain imprisoned without knowing why. Subsection (1) of new clause 2 seeks to rule out such a possibility by ensuring that a CMP will not be available

“where the outcome could result in, contribute to, or impede efforts to challenge the imprisonment; or continued detention of a party, whether in the UK or overseas.”

Subsection (2)(a) of new clause 2 aims to ensure that a CMP cannot be used by the Government to cover up some of the most serious international crimes—for example where genocide or torture are at issue. That is fairly straightforward, as there is clear public interest in those proceedings taking place in as open and even-handed way as possible, and the use of a CMP would be entirely at odds with that aim.

Finally, subsection (2)(b) aims to ensure that material will not be withheld in a CMP where doing so may result in the wrongful imprisonment or death of an individual, whether in the UK or overseas. For example, that could apply where an individual potentially faces capital charges on the basis of “evidence” extracted under torture, as with Binyam Mohamed.

I will now conclude my speech, but let me say that an awful lot of people are watching the House tonight. Although I accept that my words are the minority view in this Chamber, huge numbers of people are deeply concerned about the direction in which closed material proceedings would take us. I hope that hon. Members will be mindful of that when the matter is put to a vote.

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) does no service to the causes in which she believes by the extraordinary exaggeration of her remarks, although she is not the only one. I noticed, for example, that Shami Chakrabarti—who really ought to know better—referred to:

“Government arguments for morphing British courts into shadowy Soviet-style commissions”,

and that Amnesty International said that the system could come

“straight from the pages of a Kafka novel”.

The hon. Lady must try to rely on facts and not on rhetoric. For example, we have the constant use of the phrase “secret courts” but there are to be no secret courts. We are talking about cases in which the vast majority of evidence will be heard in open session. If closed material procedures do apply, they will apply usually to a very modest part of the total evidence. Thousands of civil cases are brought each year and estimates for how many cases would be affected by CMPs are somewhere between seven and 15 a year. The idea that we are transforming our society into one in which civil liberties are not recognised does not bear credence.

I have been somewhat amused by the extraordinary affection that has grown over the past 15 years for public interest immunity certificates. As I mentioned earlier, I signed one of those and I remember hearing howls of execration from the Labour Benches at the time and from the whole civil liberties movement. We were told that public interest immunity certificates were going to send innocent people to jail and do all sorts of terrible things that were incompatible with a free society. Well, we have moved on. Those who denigrated PIIs now see them as a way of preserving our liberties against evil Governments, intelligence agencies and the like.

Let us consider the views of those who have had greatest involvement in such matters, and remind the House what has been said by two people when comparing PIIs with closed material procedures. Lord Carlile, formerly a Liberal Democrat Member of this House and independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said:

“CMP hearings, with special advocates representing the interests of the individual litigant concerned, are fairer and more searching than the significantly more secretive PII hearings process.”

Lord Justice Woolf, in addition to other remarks that have been cited, said he thought Lord Carlile was right and that

“in most situations that are covered by the Bill the result will be preferable to both sides”—

that is crucial; it will be preferable not just to the Government or the defendants, but to the plaintiff as well—

“if the closed hearing procedure is adopted rather than PII, because PII has the very unfortunate effect that you cannot rely on the material that is in issue, whereas both the claimant and the Government”—

not just the Government; the claimant as well—

“may want to rely on that material. That is a good reason for having the closed-hearing procedure.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 July 2012; Vol. 738, c. 1189.]