Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Debate between Diana Johnson and Lord Clarke of Nottingham

Thursday 7th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson]

I am grateful if that is the case. If the Minister could explain that, it would be helpful.

Amendment (a) was also drafted to include all members of the Committee in case it is felt appropriate in the future to make payments to members of Select Committees alongside the payments that are made to Chairs.

[Minister without Portfolio (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

Before dealing with Government amendment 58, which provides the Government with the necessary powers to make a financial contribution to the Committee, I will add a few words to the interesting and lively debate that we have had on the election of the Chair. I will not repeat every argument. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) put the case robustly and had some pretty strong support. However, every member of the ISC who is here has responded and he has had to take on some of the more formidable Members on both sides of the House. He is also facing the opposition of all three of the major parties.

I assure him that this is not an establishment stitch-up—quite the reverse. Perhaps the best way of illustrating that is by putting everything in the context of what we are trying to do in this part of the Bill. We are making a remarkable advance in strengthening the powers of this Committee to hold our security and intelligence services to account. For 20 years the Committee has steadily contributed on that front, and we are marching forward considerably in the Bill. This part of it is just as important as the part we debated on Monday, as we are stepping towards making our security services more accountable to Parliament. We are enabling judges, in exceptional cases, to take all the evidence into account and make an adjudication when allegations are made by individuals; and we are committing to holding judicial inquiries when worrying circumstances occur—subject, of course, to those inquiries being able to get under way once police investigations have been properly completed.

These amendments are important, and they are being proposed in the context of a situation where all parties agree that they want this Committee to be a parliamentary Committee and no longer a creature of the Government. We therefore wish to give it more resources and the structure that enables it to do an even better job. The only thing that distinguishes the Committee from a Joint Committee or Select Committee of this House is this problem of the extremely sensitive nature of some of the information that it sees. Only where it is unavoidable are we departing from the normal process of allowing the House of Commons to have a powerful Committee of its own choosing and to exhort it to do its job and report back properly on what is and is not happening in this area.

Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid

Debate between Diana Johnson and Lord Clarke of Nottingham

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I hope soon. I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s views, with which I have considerable sympathy. We take very seriously the workings of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and its impact on reoffending and rehabilitation, and policy is being finalised at the moment.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Will there be specific provision in the Bill on children and legal aid? In particular, will children in local authority care be able to access legal aid to challenge the local authority’s decisions?

[Mr Clarke]

Again, I am indebted to the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon. In response to the consultation, we changed the measure in the direction the hon. Lady would like, so the answer is yes.