Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition Debate
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Lord Hanson of Flint
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Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition
Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Sir Alan Duncan
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for all the work that he has been doing on the Committee. As he rightly points out, we are already the only country that publishes guidance. The Committee found no evidence that agencies had deliberately turned a blind eye, but the Investigatory Powers Commissioner now has a very important role to play in the oversight of the consolidated guidance. Last week the Prime Minister invited him to make proposals for how it could be improved further, and I have no doubt that the Committee of which he is a member will exercise its rights to make recommendations whenever it thinks them appropriate.
David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
The Committee has met for five years, and I have been a member of it for the past two. Investigating this issue has been a thorough exercise. My question to the Minister is simply this: does he believe that, if the Government or the House ultimately decided on a judge-led inquiry, that judge-led inquiry could call witnesses who were denied to the Committee?
Sir Alan Duncan
It would be invidious of me not to thank the right hon. Gentleman for the service that he gives to the Committee, which he joined just after I had left. I do not want to pre-empt speculatively what might be the possible shape of a judge-led inquiry should it so happen, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will allow me not to answer his question specifically, as it would indeed be only speculative.