Treatment of Detainees

Hazel Blears Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend served on that Committee and knows its work extremely well. To answer his questions, it is right that the reports to which he refers will be made available to the inquiry. The guidance we are publishing today is neither the past guidance nor the guidance the ISC looked at: it is indeed new, amalgamated guidance, which is public, and I urge him to read it. We are not publishing the ISC report from the previous Parliament on the last set of guidance, because that would be slightly misleading—it is a report into guidance that no longer exists. That is the right approach, and I ask him to look at the guidance to see what he thinks.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement and in particular his support for, and reaffirmation of, the very brave work of the security services. He will be all too well aware of the likely impact of the inquiry on communities here in Britain, because of the events that it deals with. As the inquiry progresses, I ask him to be conscious of the need to explain, to be as transparent as possible, and to be aware of the impact on our communities here in Britain of some of the allegations that may be made in relation to events that occurred elsewhere.

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady makes an extremely good point, and all right hon. and hon. Members can play their part. Different communities in our country will welcome what has been said today as an effort to get to the truth and the facts, and to find out what happened to make sure it cannot happen again. That will be welcomed, and I am sure she will be able to play her part in that.