Tunisia, and European Council

George Howarth Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I sometimes wish that my hon. Friend would not speak in riddles, but be clear about what he really wants. I hope to prove him wrong by bringing home a substantial package that will make a difference and address the concerns of the British people, but in the end they will be the judge.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement and his words of condolence for the families who have so tragically lost family members. I also welcome his recognition of the need for a counter-narrative to violent extremism, but will he accept that there are many pathways into violent extremism and that any counter-narrative must be based on a proper understanding of those various pathways? Will he undertake to set up an audit of what we know both in the intelligence and security services and through open sources, so that any counter-narrative can be more firmly based?

Food Banks

George Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle]

My hon. Friend is correct. I know that the two Trussell Trust food banks in my constituency have figures similar to the national average, which show that over a fifth—22% in my constituency—of people who resort to food banks for an emergency food package are in work.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend will be aware of the statistics from the Big Help project in Knowsley, which covers her constituency and mine: 23% of those who receive vouchers to go to the food bank are in work—in other words, the working poor. Even more alarmingly, 45% of the vouchers issued involve children.

[Maria Eagle]

My right hon. Friend is correct. The figures for the Knowsley food bank, which cover his constituency and mine, are pretty similar to the figures for the south Liverpool food bank: benefit delays 28.8%, benefit changes 14.5%, and low income—in other words, poverty pay—22%. This is a problem that he and I recognise from our constituencies, and it needs to be addressed.

Murder of Lee Rigby

George Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and no one is proposing anything different. The point he makes about the tragic murder of Lee Rigby is right, and we have no plans to change that.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister may recall that in May 2009, the Intelligence and Security Committee produced a report on the London bombings, in which we concluded that there were real problems with tracking those on the periphery of investigations or whose names popped up on a regular basis. The recommendation was that there needed to be a proper regular review process in place. The Prime Minister will be aware that a similar conclusion is drawn in this report. Does he not think it is about time that somebody took responsibility for ensuring that these cases are reviewed on a regular basis so that, where necessary, in cases such as those of Adebowale and Adebolajo, the level of surveillance can be increased?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, makes an important point. It comes out very clearly in the report, which makes a recommendation about how to deal with these low-level suspects. The agencies’ view is that they are putting in place new measures to ensure that low-level subjects are picked up by the joint programme that they now run with the police, and it is important to see that through. We want to see their actions taken set out in the new year and followed through.

There is also the issue of where subjects of interest appear on the periphery of various investigations. Again, MI5’s view is that it is putting in place a strategy to address that, which it sees as a core part of its investigative process. As I said in my response to the report, no one should be in any doubt that, although the finding was that no specific information was available to get MI5 to stop the dreadful thing that happened, there were many lessons to learn. There is no way that anyone is going to shy away from that. All these points need to be followed through, and then we need to check up that action really has been taken.

Chilcot Inquiry (Costs)

George Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Keith Simpson (Broadland) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the Minister on his new appointment. He understands the problems of research, writing and getting things cleared, as the author of a much respected book, “5 Days to Power”, on the formation of the coalition in 2010. He had perhaps a slightly less happy experience on publishing “The Eye of the Storm: The View from the Centre of a Political Scandal” in 2014, as it might have delayed his promotion to the Front Bench. I am also grateful that the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), the main Opposition spokeswoman on this subject, made it—just in time—for the debate.

The full house we have here today enables me to range fairly widely over the important subject of the Chilcot inquiry. I should explain that when I applied for the debate, the Clerks quite rightly made it clear to me that I would not get a debate if I called it merely “The Chilcot inquiry”, as the Government do not have responsibility for the inquiry, which is independent. However, it is legitimate to ask about the costs of the inquiry, and I will be interpreting “costs” in a fairly broad way, so that we can have a proper debate.

My purpose is not to second-guess the content or conclusion of the inquiry’s report, nor, I emphasise, to raise the inquiry for party political reasons. As a Conservative Front-Bench spokesman at the time, I supported and voted with the then Government in nearly all the relevant major debates, including the one about going to war, even though, along with other colleagues, I expressed some concern or reservations about some aspects of the policy and the operational decisions.

I am raising the topic because the costs of the Chilcot inquiry do include not just the financial costs. There are the costs to relevance and timeliness because of the length of time the inquiry has taken so far, which is just over four years; costs to reputations, past and present, of Ministers, the military, the intelligence services and civil servants; the costs to public confidence in government, transparency and the decision to go to war; and, last but not least, the costs in terms of the anguish of relatives of those of our servicemen and women who were killed and wounded in the conflict, and who want to know why and how it happened.

A lot of expectations have built up about the inquiry’s final report. I fear that many members of the public have already made their minds up about the inquiry, and are not only allocating blame but have the fear that, somehow or other, it is an establishment stitch-up. That view was expressed at the time, even before the inquiry was announced by the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). He announced the establishment of the inquiry in June 2009. Hearings began in November that year and the final public hearing was on 2 February 2011. To date, we have had no real indication from Sir John Chilcot of when he intends to publish the results of his inquiry, and we have received mixed messages about the delay.

Frustrations at that delay have been expressed by Members of both Houses of Parliament in questions and debates, as well as by the media and relatives of those killed and wounded. There may be good reasons for it, but neither Sir John Chilcot nor the Government have really adequately explained them. That has exaggerated the suspicion that the inquiry is an establishment stitch-up or is not a proper inquiry. At the end of the day, some people are asking: to whose benefit is it that there is a delay? I suspect that I am probably more of the view that there are understandable reasons and, perhaps, cock-ups behind the delay than I am in the camp of conspiracy.

Are the administrative costs of the inquiry related to its terms of reference? Do those costs reflect the fact that the riding instruction for the initial inquiry was too broad and comprehensive? I remind hon. Members of the instructions laid down by the then Prime Minister in June 2009. He announced that it would be

“an independent Privy Counsellor committee of inquiry which will consider the period from summer 2001, before military operations began in March 2003, and our subsequent involvement in Iraq right up to the end of July this year”—

meaning 2009. He went on:

“The inquiry is essential because it will ensure that, by learning lessons, we strengthen the health of our democracy, our diplomacy and our military…Its scope is unprecedented. It covers an eight-year period, including the run-up to the conflict and the full period of conflict and reconstruction. The committee of inquiry will have access to the fullest range of information, including secret information. In other words, its investigation can range across all papers, all documents and all material. It can ask for any British document to be brought before it, and for any British citizen to appear. No British document and no British witness will be beyond the scope of the inquiry. I have asked the members of the committee to ensure that the final report will be able to disclose all but the most sensitive information—that is, all information except that which is essential to our national security.”—[Official Report, 15 June 2009; Vol. 494, c. 23.]

It is important to note that, in that original riding instruction, the then Prime Minister kept emphasising “British”. One problem the Chilcot inquiry has faced is that a considerable amount of evidence and a considerable number of individuals were from or in the United States of America. Understandably, that caused major problems.

Sir John Chilcot, in replying to then Prime Minister, wrote:

“Our terms of reference are very broad, but the essential points, as set out by the Prime Minister and agreed by the House of Commons, are that this is an Inquiry by a committee of Privy Counsellors”.

He went on to explain that the inquiry would consider the long period stated. He also emphasised the importance of the lessons of the inquiry:

“Those lessons will help ensure that, if we face similar situations in future, the government of the day is best equipped to respond to those situations in the most effective manner in the best interests of the country.”

There is a problem with that. The Chilcot inquiry has not reported and we do not yet know what lessons have been learned. Yet, ironically, in the past year, roughly, we have faced two situations in which the Prime Minister has tried to get the House of Commons to support military action. The first, last year, was over Syria, which—

[Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Order. The title of the debate focuses on the costs of the Chilcot inquiry. In his opening remarks, the hon. Gentleman chose to interpret “costs” in quite a wide way, and I am mindful of that. However, the direction of his speech needs constantly to refer back to the title of the debate. He is not out of order, but I am trying to be helpful by steering him in a direction that will keep him in order for the remainder of his speech.

[Mr Simpson]

I am grateful, Mr Howarth, and take note of that. I am not going off into a byway—one of my interpretations of “costs” is to do with the lessons of the inquiry, which I think have direct relevance not only to this debate but to the interests of nearly all colleagues in the House of Commons. Naturally, I will take note of what you have said.

The problem always was that the inquiry’s sheer breadth would incur extra costs in every possible sense of the word. Interestingly, the Government considered the historical precedents for the inquiry. They included the two inquiries from the first world war—the special commissions on the Dardanelles and on Mesopotamia—both of which were relatively cheap. The Mesopotamia inquiry reported within a year, and its lessons were immediately applied in 1917, while the financial costs of the Dardanelles inquiry, which lasted until 1919, were also pretty reasonable, although the inquiry did not, of course, have an impact on the conduct of the war. As far as the Government were concerned, however, the immediate precedent was what was called the Falklands inquiry, or the Franks inquiry, which was also a Privy Council inquiry. It reported within six months of being established and, once again, cost a relatively small amount. Once again, however, there was controversy because of the different interpretations regarding how the inquiry was set up and what lessons could possibly be learned from it.

In historical cases, as well as in the Chilcot inquiry, terms of reference are crucial. The important point about the Chilcot inquiry is that it is independent of the Government but relies on them for resources, so there is a cost factor. It is also reliant on them in terms of the cost of clearing secret and confidential documents, including those between the United States President and the British Prime Minister and those involving Departments and intelligence agencies. Will the Minister tell us, based on Government sources, the extent to which such procedures have held up the drafting of the final report, and whether Sir John Chilcot is satisfied that all those matters are now resolved? I will return to that point in greater detail.

In a letter Sir John Chilcot wrote to Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, dated 28 May 2014, he said that, in principle, agreement had been reached with the Government on the intelligence and other materials that might be released. Can the Minister tell us what documentation and information has been withheld? If any has been, will that be reflected in the final report? In other words—this may cost more—will sections of the report be flagged up as having been redacted?

A great deal of the delay has been attributed to what is called the Maxwellisation process. For those colleagues who are not too sure what that means, it is the process of warning those who have been criticised in a report and allowing them to respond before publication. It takes its name from the experience of Robert Maxwell, who was criticised in a Department of Trade and Industry report in 1969 and took the Department to court, where the judge ruled he had been unfairly treated. In future, therefore, individuals who were to be criticised would be given advance notice and a chance to comment. Obviously, the Government wanted to allow that not only because there had been a legal judgment, but because they did not—once again, Mr Howarth, I am following your direction—want to incur the costs of legal action.

From Sir John Chilcot’s letter to Sir Jeremy Heywood in May, we can see that the process of Maxwellisation has, in one sense, only just begun. Sir John Chilcot makes it quite clear that, now that everything else has been cleared in principle, it is possible to start the process of Maxwellisation. From reading the documents, I conclude that the delay has been in two parts. One was the negotiation between Chilcot and the Cabinet Office over the US-UK political and intelligence documentation. In addition, until that was resolved, the process of Maxwellisation could not seriously begin—in fact, it has only just begun. We will therefore see more financial costs one way or another.

Given the Cabinet Office discussions with Chilcot, what is the time scale for publication? Can we realistically expect Sir John Chilcot to publish his report before May 2015? That is important because there will be a cut-off date around Christmas—probably just into the new year—when the civil service will say that Chilcot forms part of the pre-election purdah, so the report will be postponed. That has financial costs, but I would suggest that it also has costs relating to the reputation of the British Government and the individuals concerned.

Of course, Chilcot is an independent inquiry into the Iraq war, but can the Minister tell us what departmental inquiries have been held into general or specific aspects of the war, from policy through to implementation and lessons learned, by the Cabinet Office, the National Security Council, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Department for International Development, and perhaps the intelligence agencies? We have no idea what individual departmental reports have been done, and whether Sir John Chilcot has had access to them. If he has, that might cut down the time he needs to investigate and the cost of the overall report. Does the Minister have details of any US Government or congressional inquiries into the Iraq war, which may have published documentation that would have been relevant to Chilcot or saved time?

I now return to—literally—the costs of the Chilcot inquiry. According to a House of Commons document, the total financial cost incurred by the inquiry, from its establishment on 15 June 2009 to 31 March this year, was £9,016,500. There is an additional cost of about £1 million for the rest of this year, so we are talking so far about £10 million. Compared with the cost of the major public inquiries, that is not a large amount. Nevertheless, it is a cost on the public purse.

There is also the cost to the reputations, past and present, of Ministers, the military, the intelligence services and the civil service. We in this House would want Sir John Chilcot to be as fair as possible in any criticism he makes of any individuals, so that they have the right not only in law, but in terms of natural justice, to respond. The trouble is that that could go on for a long time, and Sir John Chilcot must have a cut-off point in mind. Has he perhaps indicated what it is to Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary?

On the costs in terms of public confidence in Government transparency and the decision to go to war, I understand the practical problems behind the delay, which I have outlined, but the longer the Chilcot inquiry continues without publication, the greater will be the public’s suspicion that the process is not transparent. In addition, the central part of the report, which is about learning lessons, will become mainly historical, although we know that such lessons could have been relevant to more recent events.

Then there is the cost in terms of the relatives’ anguish. The Chilcot inquiry will perhaps not satisfy many of them, but there is a wound there that many of them feel. They want, as far as possible, to get at the truth, and Sir John Chilcot is only too well aware of that.

On the procedures connected with the eventual publication of the Chilcot inquiry, there will presumably be a press conference, and the full report and evidence will go online—we are talking about a report of, possibly, 500 or 600 pages, with several thousand pages of evidence. From Parliament’s point of view, the danger will be that a lot of this will be in the public domain. There will be headlines naming and shaming individuals or organisations before Members of this House and the other place have the benefit of being able to debate the issue. Does the Minister think that the Prime Minister of the day will make a formal statement to the House, which will be duplicated in the other place? Will there be an opportunity for a full parliamentary debate? Colleagues will expect that, and there may even be pressure to have a vote. Will the Government accept the recommendations of the Chilcot inquiry, or will they pick and mix? Does the Minister think that the process will be rather like what happens with a Select Committee, when the publication of a report is followed by a Government response that accepts, or does not accept, some or all of the report?

EU Council, Security and Middle East

George Howarth Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do not agree with my hon. Friend about that. Where he is right is of course that Russia faces a threat from Islamist extremism, but so far I have seen insufficient evidence that it wants to work with international partners to follow that through in other theatres—most recently in Syria, where it is perfectly obvious to me that Assad’s brutality and the lack of support for the responsible opposition has helped foment the ISIL problem, which is something on which Vladimir Putin and I would take completely different sides.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Does the Prime Minister accept that young Muslims are increasingly radicalised not in the mosque or the madrassah, but online in their own bedrooms? I welcome his commitment to revisit the communications data legislation, but does he agree that we need to go even further with close international partners in bringing communications service providers to a realisation that they bear a responsibility for their platforms being used for illegal purposes?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about that. There is no doubt that a lot of radicalisation is taking place online—by people watching videos or watching preachers, or what have you—often on the other side of the world. We have worked very closely with internet service providers on the issue of child pornography, and they have agreed in that theatre, as it were, to take some pretty radical action, including banning altogether particular search terms. They are taking some action in terms of extremism and the material we are taking down, but I think that there is probably more we can do by working with them and saying, “This is not a threat to free speech, but it is appalling to have some of the videos that are now shown on the internet.”

Oral Answers to Questions

George Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That sounds like an excellent campaign. We have, as a country, taken a lot of steps forward in making sure that that sort of equipment is more readily available, because if people who have suffered a heart attack are found quickly, in the golden minutes or golden hour after it strikes, their lives can be saved. It sounds like an excellent idea and I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to North Lincolnshire council.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Q11. Over the past 12 months, the use of food banks in Knowsley has increased by 93%, and social landlords report that rent arrears have gone up by 8.4%. Does the Prime Minister accept that the Government’s own policies are driving up debt and poverty in places like Knowsley?

[The Prime Minister]

What I would say to the right hon. Gentleman is that the best route out of poverty is work, and we should welcome the fact that there are 1.5 million more people in work. Looking at the figures, of course, yes, he is right that food bank usage has gone up, not least because food banks are now properly advertised and promoted, not only by Jobcentre Plus but by local authorities.

If the right hon. Gentleman wants to deal in facts, the OECD has shown that the proportion of people struggling to buy food in the UK has actually fallen since before Labour’s great recession. I know that Opposition Members want to make this argument about poverty and inequality in Britain, but the statistics do not back them up. Inequality has fallen compared with when Labour was in office; there are fewer people in relative poverty, and fewer children in relative poverty. The picture Labour Members want to paint—because they cannot paint one of an economy that is not growing, or one of people who are not getting jobs—is wholly false.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

George Howarth Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Like the hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), I begin by citing an e-mail I received from a constituent who was opposed to any intervention and who described himself as an ex-member of the armed services. Having listed some cogent reasons why military intervention was not in his view acceptable or sensible, he said at the end of his e-mail that, of course, we run the risk of washing our hands of the fate of the people of Syria, who are likely to be gassed in the future. He summed up neatly the dilemma we all face today. I would not use the phrase, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” but there is a fine line involved in deciding between one course of action and another.

I want to address two points raised by the Prime Minister, but I will not do so in a spirit of party political contention, because I want the debate to progress in such a way that by the time we get to episode two we can all understand more fully the Government’s intentions, the action that might be taken and under what circumstances. It would be helpful if the Deputy Prime Minister could address my points later.

First, the Prime Minister made it clear that any action taken would have the primary if not sole objective of either deterring or degrading Syria’s chemical weapons capability. There is a strong argument in favour of taking such action, but unfortunately, when pressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), the Prime Minister was not able to give enough information—or certainly was not able to put it clearly enough—to convince me that his proposed course of action would achieve that end. That case needs to be put more clearly. A stronger narrative about how it might work would be a big help, not just to Members of this House, but to the wider public, who have serious concerns about what is being proposed.

Secondly, the Prime Minister said that, in the end, this comes down to judgment. Each of us has to form a judgment about what is the right course of action. I accept that all such difficult decisions inevitably come down to forming a judgment. In order to help me and others form that judgment we need to discuss two things over the next few days, and perhaps longer. First, what is the intelligence that exists: what do we know about it, what does it prove and show, and what can we be certain of? I accept that it is not always possible to share intelligence with the public or even with Members of this House. In his very good speech, the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) made the point that the intelligence could at least be made available to the Intelligence and Security Committee, which I sit on, so that at least a few more people—nine of us, to be exact—would know exactly what is at stake. I do not want to over-claim anything. If the intelligence cannot be shared nationally, I am not sure that simply sharing it with the ISC would necessarily resolve that problem.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is talking about sharing information. I listened carefully to the Prime Minister’s speech, and he said that he had convincing evidence that young Muslims in Britain would not be alienated by this, and indeed that they were calling for military action to protect people in Syria. Would it not be a good thing if the whole House could see that evidence, because that is not what I am hearing from my constituents?

[Mr Howarth]

It would be a good thing if as much information as possible could be put before not only the House but the wider public. I have already made that point.

The second point that needs to be addressed is: where is the weight of world opinion? It seems to me that whenever there is a crisis of this kind—I have no qualms about saying this—the United Nations fails to live up to its promise. What tends to happen is that the United Nations Security Council will pass resolutions—I think it passed 14 on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction before any action was taken—but in the end, whatever the UN does, it tends to fall on the shoulders of coalitions of the willing to enforce its will. I am not condemning the United Nations—it is all we have—but we need to have a better way of doing these things in the future. We need to think very carefully as a country about where we fit into each of the coalitions, particularly the one under discussion.

[Robert Flello]

I am enjoying my right hon. Friend’s contribution; it is very good and sound. This is not a new issue. Why is it that we seem to have the same discussions time and again?

[Mr Howarth]

That is the point I am making. I do not think that the machinery of the United Nations is able to enforce decisions, and this is an obvious example. I accept that probably the overwhelming balance of evidence is that it is the regime that is carrying out these attacks, rather than the rebel forces, which probably do not have the capability. There is a further argument that a rogue commander might be carrying out these attacks without the knowledge or consent of the leadership and the President. If that is the case it is even more worrying if the regime works in such a way that random commanders can decide to do such things almost at will rather than be directed from the centre.

So far, so good: the debate has taken us a little further, but it has not taken us all the way. I hope that over the days and weeks to come the Prime Minister can get the narrative a bit clearer, so that those of us—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.

Oral Answers to Questions

George Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

Yes; in fact it has been a priority of the Director of Public Prosecutions to ensure that. We can always strive for a better performance, but as the results show, the CPS is making a major effort to tackle the cases effectively.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

The Solicitor-General will be aware that in the year up to September 2012, 1,243 sex offences resulted in a caution. Does he agree that it would be helpful to know a lot more about those cases, and to look at how they might impact on the conviction rates and how those offences are dealt with?

[The Solicitor-General]

Yes, research is important in this area. I sit on a ministerial group on violence against women and girls that is trying to examine these issues, with the help of the voluntary organisations. The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point and I will look into it.

Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

George Howarth Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I mean the latter, and we will discuss that after the votes at 8 pm, when my colleague will be dealing with those things. However, the right hon. Gentleman is right to remind the House of the difference between the two measures.

Our conditions are set out in the amendments standing in my name and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) and the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson). Labour’s position has been consistent on this matter since the publication of the draft Bill. We said that the legislation was drafted in such a way that there were too few safeguards in place on the use of CMPs. Safeguards are crucial because CMPs are alien to our tradition of open and fair justice, where justice is not only done, but is seen to be done. Any proceedings held in secret are a major departure from that. Given the exceptional and aberrant nature of CMPs, their use should be clearly constrained. That has been our position and remains so now: consistent and clear, balanced and proportionate. The Lords delivered a strong and clear verdict on the Bill last November.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend sets up a choice between open proceedings and CMPs, but is not the real choice between public interest immunity, where nothing ever gets heard by anybody, and CMPs?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. She basically paraphrases the words of David Anderson, who said that there are a small number of cases where it is preferable for there to be closed material proceedings, imperfect as that is. She is right to remind the House of what David Anderson said, albeit in her own words, and I agree.

The Wiley balance is a tried and tested legal mechanism by which courts can balance these competing interests, and there is considerable case law history to back that up. It was supported by the House of Lords, as I said, including by Lord Phillips, the former president of the Supreme Court. The Government’s changes remove from the Bill all reference to open justice. The fear is that by not taking open justice into account, the likelihood of a CMP taking place will increase to more than the exceptional that the Government have talked about. As I have said, the Government also tabled amendment 55 in Committee, which replaced “open” with “effective”. It is our view, shared by the JCHR and the special advocates, that this is a retrograde step. As I said, the Supreme Court in al-Rawi confirmed that both natural justice and open justice are important but separate fundamental principles, hence our amendment seeks to reintroduce to the Bill the Wiley test of fair and open justice.

[Mr George Howarth]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sadiq Khan]

I want to make some progress then I will give way.

Paving amendment 26 brings us to amendment 31, which would ensure that the use of CMPs became an option of last resort. Amendment 34 would mean that the court must consider—I emphasise the word “consider” —using public interest immunity before opting for closed proceedings. We believe that those amendments are important for two key reasons. First, deviation from open and fair justice should be considered in only the most extreme of circumstances, and I think there is general agreement there. As the Government have said, CMPs should be used only in exceptional cases. Let me remind the House that on Second Reading the Minister said:

“I agree that we should be talking about a small number of cases where any other process is impossible and it is necessary for it to be handled in this way.”—[Official Report, 18 December 2012; Vol. 55, c. 721.]

By placing in the Bill a provision that states as such, this should help ensure that the use of a CMP does indeed remain exceptional, as we all intend. Secondly, because it also allows the consideration of other measures, such as public interest immunity, redaction, in camera hearings, confidentiality rings and anonymity, all of these would protect the precious open and fair nature of our justice system, which must be one of our priorities.

[Mr Howarth]

My right hon. Friend has moved on from the point I was going to make, but I will return him to it. He has explained how the Wiley test works effectively with public interest immunity cases, but he seems to assume that that test will work equally well in closed material proceedings. I fail to understand how he can justify that statement on the basis of what he has already said.

[Sadiq Khan]

The Wiley balancing exercise has been applied for many years, and there is a rich history of precedent. The Minister plucks from the air “fair and effective”, but that was plucked from the air at the eleventh hour, at the last minute that an amendment could be tabled in Committee. What we, the Joint Committee, the special advocates and the House of Lords are saying is that if there is to be a gateway test before the decision about whether a hearing should be open or under a CMP, or about which material within a CMP should be open or closed, the judge should carry out a balancing exercise. He should weigh the public interest in having an open and fair hearing against the harm done by the revealing of information that would breach national security. That is the test that judges use now and what the Supreme Court judges in al-Rawi would like to have used had they had the option of a CMP, which this Bill would give them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clarke]

There is no definition, because all attempts to define it have got one into worse difficulties.

It is possible to exclude evidence from a case altogether under the existing public interest immunity procedure; the Bill does not touch that. The present PII law will be completely unaffected by the Bill, so people could still go for a PII. One is obviously being actively sought at the moment in the Litvinenko inquest, although I know that only from what I read in the press. That kind of exclusion could be claimed on the ground of damage to international relations, if the Government of some third-party state would be upset if certain evidence were to be published. That goes beyond questions of national security and into total secrecy, allowing the Minister to withdraw the whole blasted thing from the proceedings and not letting even the judge use it. That measure goes much wider. Such exclusions on wider grounds happened under the previous Government.

We are sticking to national security, however, and judges, using the completely unfettered discretion that we are now giving them, will no doubt have regard to what I say. What we have in mind are things that would cause damage to national security, by which we mean the safety of our citizens, our attempts to counter terrorism, and threats to international order among the wider public. I can assure the House that I am not in favour of excluding ministerial pigs’ ears. I am sure that the previous Government made more of them than we did, but I do not believe that that sort of thing should be put away in closed proceedings under any Government.

[Mr George Howarth]

Is not national security rather like reasonable doubt—two well understood English words, as a judge advised the jury in a trial the other week?

[Mr Clarke]

Amendments have been tabled to Bills of this kind to try to define the concept, but that leads to more trouble than it is worth. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that reasonable doubt is a very good comparison.

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[Paul Goggins]

rose—

[Mr George Howarth]

rose—

[Mr Davis]

Forgive me, but I am just coming to an end.

The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles was persuasive in arguing that if there is to be some sort of opt-out on gisting if things are really serious, only the judge should decide that. I take that point, and it is a good argument. There should be proper, explicit judicial balance in the decision to go to a CMP that takes into account all the interests of justice, and not just national security. There should be the argument of strict necessity; that is what I mean by the hierarchy. On that basis, the House could come to a conclusion in which we effectively have the best of all worlds.

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[Dr Huppert]

I thank the Minister for saying that he will look more carefully at the matter. However late in the day it is, we would be grateful for any changes he could make that might take us in the direction of what has been suggested by the JCHR and others.

While the Minister is in the mood for looking at other issues, can he be absolutely clear about confidentiality rings? This matter was raised earlier, so I will not go into it. As was discussed in Committee, there is a change in the wording that has led to the impression that the test is about the material rather than the disclosure. I hope that it will be made very clear that there is no sense in which that would apply to confidentiality rings. I believe that Opposition amendment 28 is intended to explore that issue.

I look forward to supporting any of the amendments that would take us towards the proposals of the JCHR. I look forward to amendment 1 being debated and for any opportunity to test the will of the House on that issue.

I was surprised to see amendment 70 and I look forward to the explanation from the right hon. Members for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) and for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). I am pleased that, owing to the influence of the Liberal Democrats, inquests were taken out of scope after being included in the original proposals. It is important, particularly at an inquest, that the family knows the grounds for the conclusion. It would be very unsatisfactory for people who had lost a loved one to be told, “We cannot tell you why it happened.” I am pleased that inquests are not included. I am surprised that there is a move to put them back in. I had hoped to ask the shadow Secretary of State whether he supported that move, but I suspect that I can guess the answer.

Amendments 39 and 40 relate to gisting. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) and I tabled similar proposals in Committee. I find it hard to see why there would be many cases in which a judge would not want a gist to be made available. We want that to happen. I understand that there may be cases in extremis where no gist would be possible. It would be helpful if the Minister made it clear that it is the intention that judges should always gist to the maximum extent possible. As long as that is said in this place, I think that we will be able to make progress.

[Mr George Howarth]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about gisting. In an exchange with him in Committee, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), gave a verbal assurance that gisting would be an acceptable way of proceeding. If that assurance was repeated today, and then taken with what the hon. Gentleman has just said, it would give a good indication of Parliament’s intention and would probably satisfy the point.

[Dr Huppert]

I dare say that it would. We will have to see what happens.

To return to the principle, I talked earlier to the right hon. Member for Blackburn about the range of civil proceedings into which the previous Government introduced close material proceedings. I find many of those far more objectionable than civil cases. I do not like the introduction of closed material proceedings into civil cases and find the principle very difficult. However, I find it worse when people’s liberty is at risk. That is the case with control orders, terrorism prevention and investigation measures, and SIAC.

I know something of the case referred to by the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) because we have discussed it in the past. The gentleman referred to has had his liberty seriously infringed. It is not a simple question of whether he is allowed to stay in the country or not. He has been detained for a considerable time now, given that it is two years since we last spoke about the case in great detail, based on evidence that he does not have the chance to see. That strikes me as deeply alarming. I am sure that the whole House would hold the position that criminal sanctions should not be allowed. We are edging very close to that if we are detaining somebody for years.

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[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

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[Mr Brazier]

Of course, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I used the phrase “modus operandi”. This brave officer led our special forces operation for so long in Iraq and did so well at a time when, frankly, other parts of our military operation were failing—the verdict of history is that sadly they did largely fail. The hon. Gentleman is right that this is not only about sources, but about modus operandi, but there is now a further wrinkle. Because the Government have committed to much more of what is generally called “upstream intervention”—putting small numbers of people into areas where they are not in charge or running the show, but simply mentoring, the dodgiest end of which will inevitably go to special forces—this is not only about our modus operandi, but about whether our relationships with host countries, which in almost every case will, I believe, do better in a range of different ways with advice from our special forces, will be possible at all.

I shall move on to the second part of my comments. In Committee, I listened again and again to hon. Gentlemen talking about ancient British traditions of justice. I have listened again and have been reading some of the contributions from the human rights lobby. Although they are perfectly entitled to their points of view and I am willing to listen to them with respect, they cannot claim that the current position of the civil rights lobby, which is reflected in some of these amendments, is in any way rooted in the traditions of British justice.

Let me quote what Lord Denning said in a deportation case some 40 years ago. He was speaking on the Hosenball case, which involved the deportation of, ironically, an American journalist. The case was decided unanimously in favour of the Home Secretary, but nevertheless Lord Denning felt that he ought to put some extra remarks on the record, just to remind people where the balance of British justice lay:

“But this is no ordinary case. It is a case in which national security is involved, and our history shows that, when the state itself is endangered, our cherished freedoms may have to take second place. Even natural justice itself may suffer a set-back. Time after time Parliament has so enacted and the courts have loyally followed.”

Time is brief and others are waiting to speak, so I will not go back to the earlier Liversidge v. Anderson case during the second world war, where by a 4:1 majority the locking up of everybody who happened to be German, with no procedure at all, was upheld. Suffice it to say, however, that this was the continuous view of the courts all the way through until the Belmarsh case. I will give one further quote. Ironically, I would like to quote Lord Hoffmann, one of the judges who found against the Government in the Belmarsh case, on the rather narrow grounds rooted in the then brand-new human rights provisions. In 2001, he commented in a lengthy judgment in the Rehman case:

“I shall deal first with the separation of powers… What is meant by ‘national security’ is a question of construction and therefore a question of law within the jurisdiction of the Commission, subject to appeal. But there is no difficulty about what ‘national security’ means. It is the security of the United Kingdom and its people. On the other hand, the question of whether something is ‘in the interests’ of national security is not a question of law. It is a matter of judgment and policy. Under the constitution of the United Kingdom and most other countries, decisions as to whether something is or is not in the interests of national security are not a matter for judicial decision. They are entrusted to the executive.”

The concessions that the Government have already made, even without going down the route of amendment 30, go much further than any court would have required 10 or more years ago. Whatever the claims of the human rights lobby, the British judicial system always used to understand the vital demands of our national security, and I urge the Government not to give any further ground.

[Mr George Howarth]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier). I shall try in a moment to give some examples of how important the point is that he finished on.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) referred to the well-known liberal credentials on these matters of the Minister without Portfolio. I would go further—perhaps my own Front Benchers will take this into account—and say that if someone is as liberal as he is, they are probably in the wrong place and, on this occasion, if someone is even more liberal than he is, they are almost certainly in the wrong place.

I would like to make one further point by way of introduction. I came here genuinely hoping to be persuaded by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) to follow the course of action he has outlined in the amendments. I wanted to hear what he had to say—that was why I made at least one, perhaps two, interventions—and to see whether he had an answer to some of the dilemmas I felt still existed in our approach to the Bill and, more particularly, our amendments. Before arriving here, I decided to read what he said on Second Reading about the tests he set for the Bill at that time and what it would look like when it left Committee.

My right hon. Friend relied heavily, though not exclusively, on the words at the time of David Anderson QC, who concluded that there was a

“case for restricting the novel application of Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction to national security information”—

the relevant clause at the time was clause 14—but that the Bill at the time was

“too broad in its application.”

Beyond that, however, no specific tests were set other than those set by the Joint Committee, which its Chairman listed at the time.

Algeria

George Howarth Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Our aid is at work in Mali. UK aid is currently helping 200,000 people in Mali through the provision of food, emergency health and medicine, and we are always one of the first to step forward and help, and this is an example of that. I know our aid budget is controversial, but if we are to put together these broken and fragile states, I would say yes, there is a role for security; yes, there is a role for diplomacy and politics; but there is also a role for aid and economic assistance.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

May I join the Prime Minister in expressing my condolences to the families who lost loved ones in Algeria, and may I also express a little relief that my own constituent who was caught up in those events managed to get home safely? I commend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) for the personal efforts he made to keep informed those MPs whose constituents were caught up in this situation.

On the question of our own intelligence and security agencies, does the Prime Minister agree that whatever changes we make to our own priorities, it is important to do more of what we are good at rather than trying to do too much in operations in which we would probably not be as effective?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I join the right hon. Gentleman in thanking my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, who has been working extremely hard, almost around the clock, trying to keep people in touch, whether it be the Scottish Government, MPs, or the police liaison teams that liaised with the families through what has been an incredibly difficult—impossibly difficult—period for them. I pay tribute to those teams that do such an important job. I think the right hon. Gentleman is right in his general point that we should do more of what we are good at. All budgets are limited, and although £33 billion is a large defence budget, it has its limits, so we should focus on areas where we can, with our partners, make the greatest difference.