St John Ambulance

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) on securing the debate. I will make some local points about the St John home in my constituency, after which I will address several of the national issues that have been raised and debated by people who have had a longer involvement with the Order of St John than I have. I should perhaps say that my grandfather was the St John Ambulance county commissioner for Kent. At the time, he was the county’s largest employer, so I imagine that the many years of his time that he gave for free were of some value. That was a long time ago, but more recently a friend of mine has been involved with the St John eye clinics in Palestine, and I am constantly impressed when I see people on the St John operation.

I will focus specifically on the St John home in Tankerton in my constituency. That much-loved home was founded in 1947 and given to the Priory of England and the Islands in 1955. It was transferred to St John Ambulance in 1999, and it has always had a separate governance structure. The people who gave the home its £750,000 in assets did so, almost without exception, because they had a connection with the home. Had any of them realised that its separate governance structure had no legal basis and that those assets might one day be seized by the centre, I suspect that the fundraising would have taken a very different shape. The capital earns around £30,000 in interest, which bridges the gap between the cost of running the home and the income that it receives from residents and Kent county council. The home is small, with only 18 beds, and that money is essential for its financial viability.

I have huge respect for my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), but I found some of his contribution surprising. I was surprised by his allusion to the restructuring of the Red Cross, and the fact that he did not pass on—perhaps because St John had not told him—what actually happened with the Red Cross reorganisation. When he referred to the St John home in my constituency, however, I was truly staggered to hear him quoting from the letter of 17 October from the prior, when the letter that we received only a fortnight later dated 5 November stressed that the moneys referred to in previous correspondence could not be regarded as legally restricted. As the separate governance structure of the home is being broken up, there is nothing to stop the priory taking those moneys at any notice.

I will turn to the national picture before saying a few words about the role of the Charity Commission, which is the core of the matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) mentioned concerns about how criticism of the changes in St John has been treated. Of course, wherever there is change, some people will be against it, but never in any charity— I have seen it occasionally in a political party—have I seen the kind of conduct that has reportedly occurred over the past two years.

I shall expand a little on what my hon. Friends have referred to. There was a no-confidence motion in January 2013, as a result of which 10 people were suspended. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mike Wood) said that the leafy parts of Kent formed too large a part of the debate, so let me quote from my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), who is unfortunately detained in the debate on the Floor of the House. She was contacted by a constituent who is an old friend and was one of those suspended. She wrote to me:

“I am very concerned to have heard from my constituent that 10 senior members of the chapter of St John were suspended last March on charges of gross misconduct”—

basically for saying that they did not agree with what was going on—

“on account of signing a motion of no confidence in the trustees and excluded from any further work or contact with St John for the best part of a year. A debate was held as a result of this properly constituted and well supported motion, and in the event the motion was only defeated on a 40/60 split.”

Many of those involved in the debate had served for more than 20 years. My hon. Friend continued:

“The process for deciding on the charges has been dysfunctional and frankly beyond parody”—

those are her words, not mine—

“resulting in each of them being found guilty of the charges and given ‘suspended sentences’ of exclusion from office.”

I have dug a little further into the matter, and I want to share one fact that illustrates the extent to which governance has broken down in the organisation. The case was heard by an individual who was, on paper, extremely well qualified. He had a long involvement with St John, he had legal training and he was a clergyman. Unfortunately, he breached the first principle of natural justice, because he had been an extremely partisan participant on the other side of the debate. He could not, by any possible standards, be said to be independent. Such a breach of administrative justice should not be allowed to occur in any well-founded organisation.

I move on to the role of the Charity Commission. My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet asked the Minister, whom I am delighted to see in the Chamber—I know that, in the short time he has had available to prepare, he has taken a close interest in the case—a specific question, and I would like to ask another one. Is it right that the Charity Commission should confine itself to areas in which it has a specific legal duty to intervene? Might one reasonably expect any regulatory body—one thinks of the Bank of England, as a larger example—to take an informal interest when concerns are reported, and perhaps to do some informal prodding and make the odd telephone call?

I hope that hon. Members do not regard me as particularly pompous, but I find it extraordinary that after a group of MPs wrote to the Charity Commission, it would refuse to see us to discuss the matter. Whatever the merits of a case, if the Charity Commission is not even willing to discuss it with elected representatives, something has gone wrong in the organisation. It may well examine what is going on in the St John charity and conclude that the whole thing is a storm in a teacup, although I maintain that the administrative failings of the process at the centre, and the changing of mind on the various guarantees paid to the St John home in my constituency, need serious answers. The Charity Commission has been unwilling even to hold a meeting. Of course, since we secured the debate, the organisation has said that it will be happy to see us, but it was not able to fit us in before the debate.

[Mr Gray]

May I make a point on behalf of the charity commissioners? I understand that my hon. Friend may well be frustrated by the inability to hold such a meeting. However, does he agree that, if the charity commissioners were to start having meetings of that kind, with either one side or the other, about the many thousands of charities that might well be in similar disputes throughout the nation, they would be doing nothing else with their time—there are very few of them—and would become improperly involved in the internal politics of the charities? That would seem to be an absolutely wrong use of the commissioners’ time.

[Mr Brazier]

In its correspondence to us, the Charity Commission said that a charity’s trustees are legally responsible for all aspects of a charity’s management and administration, which I am sure we would all agree with. It went on to say that the commission would take action only if it believed that its regulatory powers were necessary or would be of use. In other words, an informal investigation is ruled out. That is very odd, however, because, to answer my hon. Friend’s question directly, the Charity Commission’s own description of its responsibilities and duties on its website states that it should be concerned with

“breaches of trust or abuses that otherwise impact significantly on public trust and confidence in the charity and charities generally”.

Given that three MPs representing different parties and areas—the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) may have been born in Kent, but she represents a seat in Derbyshire—had already expressed concerns, and that, from memory a fourth, my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall, came on board between the two letters, I would have thought that this was more than just a casual inquiry. I would have thought that the Charity Commission would have liked to have been involved.

I have detained Members for long enough, but would like to end with what I was about to say before the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray), for whom I have huge respect. St John Ambulance is a very precious charity. Every single MP who has spoken in this debate believes passionately in it, and most have had a much greater involvement with it than I have. It seems that something has gone wrong, and that the Charity Commission should be looking at that.

Commonwealth Meeting and the Philippines

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, that remains an option, but the most important thing is to get the independent inquiry under way. I would urge colleagues who have not seen some of the evidence in the recent Channel 4 documentary to look at that, because one really can see the need for rapid answers to the allegations made.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for International Development and for Defence for a model example of a joined-up government response to the horrors in the Philippines. Did my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister have time, in the margins of the conference, to discuss with President Hussain the dialogue that he has managed—singlehandedly more or less—to get going between himself and President Karzai over the vital future of Afghanistan?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he says about the joined-up nature of government between the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development. That joined-up government is now working well, through the National Security Council and things such as the conflict pool, which brings money together for states, particularly those facing instability. We have massively increased the amount of money going into that pool.

I was fortunate to sit next to the Pakistani Prime Minister during one of the sessions and so had a good conversation about the progress we were making with the trilateral approach and the better relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Both countries recognise their mutual interests in peace and prosperity as democratic states living side by side.

EU Council

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. UKTI now has more areas to look at around the world. It has excellent leadership from Stephen Green, the Trade Minister whom we hired from HSBC, and I am pleased that Ian Livingston, who until recently ran BT, will bring even more impetus to the vital work that UKTI and our trade bodies do around the world.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s strong defence of our intelligence services. Does he agree that it is a great shame that the very modest measure that we enacted last year to protect them from wholly spurious civil actions did not receive full bi-partisan support?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. As I said, I think that we scrutinise our intelligence services in the correct way in this House. I am always happy to look at other suggestions but I do not at the moment think that there is anything else we need to do.

G20

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Those issues are addressed in the summit communiqué, which points to some progress on important areas such as climate change. Also, the high-level panel that I chaired has at its heart the idea of sustainable development being the way that we increase the world’s resources. As I say, the focus of the meeting was largely around the rules of the global economy, but if the hon. Lady looks at the communiqué, she will see that there is further progress on the issues she raises.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I strongly support my right hon. Friend’s announcement of more money for humanitarian aid in Lebanon and Jordan and assistance to the armed forces there, who are holding an increasingly fragile ring. May I urge him to consider, as a small part of that assistance, providing more places on an affordable basis at Sandhurst and the staff colleges?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good suggestion with which I have a huge amount of sympathy. Our staff colleges for the Royal Navy, the RAF and the British Army are some of the greatest assets we have in our country. Many other countries want to send young men to train in them, and we should make sure that we put them to best use.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This is important; let me make this point.

However, I believe that the Opposition motion is deficient in two vital respects. First, it refers to the deaths on 21 August but does not in any way refer to the fact that they were caused by chemical weapons. That fact is accepted by almost everyone across the world, and for the House to ignore it would send a very bad message to the world.

Secondly, in no way does the Opposition motion even begin to point the finger of blame at President Assad. That is at odds with what has been said by NATO, President Obama and every European and regional leader I have spoken to; by the Governments of Australia, Canada, Turkey and India, to name but a few; and by the whole Arab League. It is at odds with the judgment of the independent Joint Intelligence Committee, and I think the Opposition amendment would be the wrong message for this House to send to the world. For that reason, I will recommend that my hon. Friends vote against it.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s decision to go through the UN process, but will he confirm to the House that were we to find during that process overwhelming opposition in the General Assembly and a majority against in the Security Council, as occurred 10 years ago, we would not then just motor on?

[The Prime Minister]

I think it would be unthinkable to proceed if there were overwhelming opposition in the Security Council.

Let me set out for the House why I think this issue is so important. The very best route to follow is to have a chapter VII resolution, take it to the UN Security Council, have it passed and then think about taking action. That was the path we followed with Libya.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Miliband]

I am coming exactly to that point, which is that the Government need to set that out in the coming days. That takes me precisely to the final point of the road map. Any military action must be specifically designed to deter the future use of chemical weapons; it must be time-limited with specific purpose and scope so that future action would require further recourse to this House; and it must have regard for the consequences of any action. We must ensure that every effort is made to bring the civil war in Syria to an end, and principal responsibility for that rests, of course, with the parties in that conflict, and in particular President Assad.

[Mr Brazier]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Edward Miliband]

I want to make a bit more progress.

The international community also has a duty to do everything it can to support the Geneva II process, and any action we take—this is the key point—must assist that process and not hinder it. That is the responsibility that lies on the Government and their allies—to set out that case in the coming period.

There will be some in this House who say that Britain should not contemplate action even when it is limited, because we do not know precisely the consequences that will follow. As I said, I am not with those who rule out action, and the horrific events unfolding in Syria ask us to consider all available options, but we owe it to the Syrian people, to our own country and to the future security of our world to scrutinise any plans on the basis of the consequences they will have. By setting a framework today, we give ourselves time and space to scrutinise what is being proposed by the Government, to see what the implications are.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

In 1990, the brutal regime of President Assad senior ruled three quarters of Lebanon. I was on a visit to east Beirut, part of the free enclave, when the Syrian army broke through and captured the rest of the city. A few weeks after the fighting, they butchered, in cold blood, a friend of mine, and when they found his five-year-old son hiding under the bed they killed him too. I have never since had any illusions about how evil this man is, but I have healthy respect for how rational and clever he and his horrible allies, Hezbollah, are.

I and my friends who live in Lebanon are convinced that when Hezbollah’s star began to fade under the emerging Lebanese democracy—the Cedar revolution—Hezbollah manufactured a border incident with Israel to bring on a bombardment that hugely strengthened Hezbollah’s position in Lebanon.

I firmly believe that President Assad was responsible for this atrocity, and although I do not know why he did it I would not rule out the possibility, which bears a little thinking about, that the election of President Rouhani in Iran was a disaster for Assad and Hezbollah. One of the best ways of undermining the tentative moves President Rouhani might make to build links with the opposition and a more peaceful attitude to the west would be western bombing.

I support two things that the Prime Minister brought out very strongly, the first of which is that we will go through the UN process and take it as far as we can. I agree that we cannot make the UN process, successfully overcoming the veto in every case, an absolute requirement. There might, for example, be an occasion when a vital British interest is threatened but we cannot get UN support, as well as the humanitarian examples that my right hon. Friend gave.

In saying that I shall support the Government tonight I would like to make three brief points. First, we must listen and not simply talk to countries in the neighbouring area. Secondly, we must continue to build on the excellent work we are doing in neighbouring countries, especially Lebanon and Jordan, because that is what is preventing a national horror from turning into a regional catastrophe. Thirdly, we must remember that if we take military action, and if it is to have any effect at all, we must do so with the full intention of being willing to turn up the wick if the other side responds in the wrong way, which is a sobering thought.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Miss Smith]

The right hon. Gentleman may wish to direct that question to the Justice Secretary himself, but the Parliamentary Secretary has had many discussions with Members across Government about opportunities for the voluntary sector, and we are passionate about getting that right.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

In strongly applauding my hon. Friend’s work in this area, may I suggest that it needs to go beyond the procurement process itself? The other danger is public sector bodies—both locally and centrally—taking on employees to do work that could be done more effectively by voluntary sector organisations.

[Miss Smith]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the value for money that the state would seek to achieve at all levels. Alongside that, our reforms include measures to build the capability of the third sector, which I am sure we would all want to see strongly succeed.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

We made a specific decision in the spending round to increase the child tax credit to protect the poorest families in our country, but we had an inheritance from the last Government of such appalling levels of debt that it has been difficult and painful to deal with them. Let me repeat the point that the best way to get people out of poverty is to see employment grow, and in the north-west, the part of the country that the hon. Lady represents, employment has risen by 6,000 this quarter, it has risen by 50,000 since the election and unemployment is down by 20,000 since the election. Those are all life chances, jobs and chances to get on which people did not have under the last Labour Government.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

May I welcome my right hon. Friend’s leadership at the G8 to prevent the horrors of Syria from turning into a regional humanitarian catastrophe? May I also urge him to pursue further the support for Lebanon and Jordan, two very fragile neighbouring states, and especially to go further with the support we are providing for the Lebanese army, which is the only cross-confessional organisation in the area and a potential stabilising force?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he said about the G8. We did make some good progress on Syria, particularly on support in terms of humanitarian aid, where $1.5 billion extra was pledged for what is now becoming one of the worst humanitarian crises we have seen in recent years. He is absolutely right to say that we need to support the neighbouring states, and we should pay tribute to the Lebanese army, which plays a very important role—we do indeed fund its activity in terms of some of the border posts.

EU Council and Woolwich

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 3rd June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for all that he has done in Greenwich and Woolwich to bring people and communities together. There has been such a strong and positive response, and such a powerful condemnation by everyone of what happened to that brave soldier.

The right hon. Gentleman’s point about cross-party work is important. I think that there is quite a strong sense across the House that while we may disagree about individual items on the agenda, we need to do more to prevent young minds from being perverted, to stop this radicalisation and to confront this extremist ideology. I think that there is strong support for those proposals.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement about his taskforce. Does he agree that now—in the aftermath of this appalling incident—is a good time to remind judges considering cases relating to the deportation of preachers of hate that they, too, have a role in upholding the rule of law?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has made an excellent point. I think that what we can do, through the words that we use, the speeches we make and the debates that we have in the House, is set the context for confrontation of not just the violent extremism, but the extremism and poisonous ideology on which these people thrive. However, it we must be made clear that in too many cases we have home-grown extremists: people who were born and bred here, and then radicalised here. Of course we must do more to kick out the preachers of hate and people who do not have the right to be here, but we have our own domestic, home-grown problem to deal with as well.

Debate on the Address

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

I will give way in a moment.

There are no measures in the immigration Bill on those problems, but why not? There are no measures because they would conflict with the Government’s economic approach. They believe in a race to the bottom when it comes to wages and conditions. The truth is that the Bill will not solve the growth crisis or concerns about immigration.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman mentions immigration. Does he accept that the net migration of 2.2 million people under the Labour Government plus the large numbers of migrants who were disguised by the end of embarkation controls represent a population movement unprecedented in the modern era?

[Edward Miliband]

Yes, I would accept that, as I have said on many occasions.

Let me move on. The reality is that none of the measures in the Gracious Speech will solve the—[Interruption.]

Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I do not think that I would conceivably use the language that my hon. Friend tries to attribute to me. Human rights Members are fervently opposed to the whole idea of CMP. They are extremely able lawyers and draftsmen. I am left in wonder and admiration at their ingenuity in producing an endless procession of amendments, so that every time their principles are adopted by the Government in amendments at various stages, a fresh set of amendments is tabled introducing new concepts that are designed to elaborate on the process. That is enough praise for my opponents, but it is ingenious.

We are not putting in the Wiley test, because we have three perfectly effective tests and complete discretion for the judge anyway. The Wiley test is used for PII, which is a quite different process that tries to exclude the evidence entirely from the judge, the claimant, the lawyers and everybody. PII is an application for total silence. We do not need to put the test in for that.

Amendment 31 is more difficult, as it requires that a CMP may be used only as a last resort. The circumstances I have described are getting pretty near to the last resort. We expect only a handful of cases, because we do not think our intelligence agencies will be sued very often. They are strictly enjoined to follow the principles of human rights, and not to connive at torture and everything else, but we do not know, and the conditions we have applied make it clear that we will only ever have CMPs in national security cases, unless a future Government try to relax them.

The trouble is that the last resort argument will undoubtedly be used for going through the whole PII process before starting on CMPs, and there are some people who want to do that. They say that they do not like the fact that the Secretary of State has to consider an application for PII. They want the Secretary of State to go through the whole process. They do not like the fact that the court has other tests for going to a CMP. They want the court to go through the whole PII process before it gets there. Why? Because it could take months or years. The Guantanamo Bay cases had hundreds of thousands of documents—it is a very elaborate process.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Mr Clarke]

I will in just a second.

There is a serious risk, in our opinion and in the opinion of those who have considered the drafting, that it will introduce a huge, expensive and discouraging process. David Anderson, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has described this sort of clause as requiring the court to bang its head against a brick wall. I think the Lords Constitution Committee also said that it did not want full PII. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who led for the Opposition, said this:

“None of us wants exhaustive PII or a Minister tied up for a year exhaustively going through paperwork, if it were obvious to all concerned that it was not needed”.––[Official Report, Justice and Security (Lords) Public Bill Committee, 5 February 2013; c. 167.]

We are resisting amendment 31 because we think ingenious lawyers will use the argument that we have to settle down to a few years of process and paperwork to satisfy the requirement exhaustively to consider every other possible way of trying the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Tyrie]

It is rare that I find myself agreeing with the lion’s share of what Opposition Members are saying and not agreeing with much that I have heard from my Front-Bench team. This is particularly unusual because of who has been speaking from the Dispatch Box. I normally agree with a great deal of what my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister without Portfolio says, but I cannot agree with him tonight.

The amendments on closed material procedures may look technical but they are really about the kind of society we want to live in: they are about whether people can get to hear the case that is being made against them; they are about whether we can keep legal safeguards that we have had for generations; they are about whether we are committed to finding out how much Britain has facilitated the United States’ programme of rendition—kidnap and, in some cases, torture; and, above all, they are about what values this country is seeking to espouse and export.

Amendments 30, 31 and 34 would take us some way in the right direction, and I will be voting for them. Amendments 31 and 34 would ensure that CMP is used at the discretion of a judge only as a last resort and only if obtaining justice is impossible by other means. For the sake of clarity, let me say that that is certainly not what the Government originally intended. Clause 6(5) of their original Bill required only that

“the Secretary of State must consider whether to make…a claim for public interest immunity”

before making an application for a CMP. A moment’s thought can tell us that that was almost worthless, as I believe the Government knew right from the start; all the Secretary of State would have to do would be to think about this matter, and he could do that in the bath if he so chose.

The House of Lords rescued matters, adding another provision requiring the judge to consider whether a PII “could have been made”. That meant that the court would be required to see whether a fair trial would be possible using PII, and so it would be up to the judge, not the Secretary of State, to decide whether PII should apply. We need to be mindful—this point has not been raised today—that the Executive, in general, and Secretaries of State, in particular, advised by officials, have interests of their own to serve. Foolishly, the Government scrapped that sensible House of Lords provision in Committee and they even scrapped the then clause 6(5), which would have required a Secretary of State at least to consider a PII.

The Government now intend to replace all that with their amendment 47, about which there has just been an exchange. It will provide that before making an order for a CMP the judge must be “satisfied” that the Secretary of State has “considered” making a CMP application. How, in a secret area, consideration by the Secretary of State would really be demonstrated is still unclear. Earlier the Minister said that we do not know exactly what effect this new process will have. No doubt officials will be able to provide suitable documentation to the Secretary of State in order for him to make that judgment, but I am not yet convinced that he will not be able to consider that in the bath as well. In other words, the discretion and control will lie fully not with the judge, as Lord Woolf wrongly supposes it will in his letter in The Times, but to a significant extent with the Secretary of State.

We have been told several times, and I have also been told in correspondence with the Minister, that this is a crucial area of the Bill on which further concessions would damage the interests of both justice and security. It is worth pointing out that on this crucial issue the Government have already held three incompatible positions: first, that the Secretary of State must think about PII; then, after Committee, that the Secretary of State should not even think about PII; and now, if amendment 47 is accepted, that the Secretary of State must tell the judge that he has thought very carefully about PII. Frankly, if this were not so serious an issue, all this chopping and changing would look slightly comical.

Amendment 30 is equally important. It would enable the judge to exercise the discretion he or she has now to balance the interests of justice against those of national security in determining what evidence should be disclosed. That is what is known as the Wiley balancing test, which has been discussed and is supported by the JCHR and a large proportion of the legal profession. It is important to be clear that that should not mean that judges will permit disclosure of information that would prejudice our security. I have asked for, but have not yet been told of, any case in which a judge has made that mistake under PII so far. Judges might not be perfect, but so far they have done a very good job of protecting our security and balancing security with justice.

[Mr Brazier]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Tyrie]

I am concluding, if my hon. Friend will forgive me.

For those reasons, I shall support amendments 30, 31 and 34. In my view, they give the minimum necessary judicial discretion to the court.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Goggins]

I accept that the Minister felt under enormous pressure to make that concession. Anybody who doubts the minds of coroners and senior judges in relation to the test that will be applied need only look at the coroner in the Litvinenko inquest, Sir Robert Owen, and the comments he made last week. He said clearly:

“I intend to conduct this inquest with the greatest degree of openness and transparency”—

and that he would give the Foreign Secretary’s request for a PII certificate—

“the most stringent and critical examination”.

We ought to trust the coroner and the judges.

In the end, the search for justice is a search for the truth. A secret court is one where information and intelligence is either not considered at all, or where the Government and their agencies cave in and make a settlement where no case has been heard—that is secret justice. Closed material proceedings are not perfection, but we are not dealing with perfection; we are dealing with a difficult issue in a small number of cases. However, we are more likely to get closer to the truth if the judge has seen the relevant information than if nobody has seen it at all.

[Mr Brazier]

This has been a high quality debate, starting with a typically rigorous speech by the Minister without Portfolio. It has been particularly noticeable that, while there have been strong speeches on both sides, all three Members who have had responsibility for this matter—the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), who made an outstanding contribution—took the view that we have to have this kind of legislation, and that the amendments would not be helpful. I want to put forward a couple of underlying reasons why I believe firmly that we need the Bill and that the amendments—some of them, anyway—would wreck it, and then delve a little into the historical background. I am concerned that the civil liberties lobby is just a little bit too free in its claims about British judicial traditions.

The one voice that does not seem to have been heard anywhere in the debate is that of the intelligence service. Baroness Manningham-Buller said:

“At the moment there is no justice at all in civil cases where individuals sue the Government for compensation, claiming, say, mistreatment or complicity in torture. Because the secret material held by the authorities cannot be used in court, the Government is forced to settle without a judge examining the merits of the claim. This is immensely damaging”—

immensely damaging—

“to the reputation of the Government and the intelligence and security agencies which cannot defend themselves; to the taxpayer who has increasingly to stump up millions in compensation; and perhaps most importantly of all to the claimants who, while they may receive large cash settlements, do not get their cases heard and judgment reached.”

I have a further concern. A friend of mine, former SAS officer Colonel Richard Williams, who has allowed me to quote his name in the press, has recently been attacked in one of our newspapers with allegations of brutality. The allegations are lies from beginning to end. Bizarrely, they start with the claim that he is being investigated for wrongdoing in Iraq. As he has never been investigated in any shape or form, that is a lie before we even get into the specific allegations. But let us suppose just for a moment that somebody was to turn those allegations into a court case. The circumstances of the operation concerned in the allegations involve some extremely secret material—where the tip-offs came from, modus operandi and so on. Now, it is quite possible that this man, who has been decorated for gallantry and leadership twice and badly wounded—indeed, he had another operation for his wounds only last year—could find himself facing a court case while being extremely reluctant to use certain material in his own defence, because no procedure is available under which he could do so without the risk of breaching secrecy.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does the hon. Gentleman also agree that this concerns not just the sources of intelligence, but the operating systems of troops on the ground? If anything got into the public domain—for example, about operations in Iraq by special forces—it would limit future operations, if those tactics became known to our opponents.

[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.

European Council

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

For the record, may I say that I do not have a handbag, which will reassure my hon. Friends, some of whom I know I have upset recently. I promise that I do not have a handbag and I have no plans to get one—[Interruption.] No, neither a manbag nor a handbag.

On the issue of how the EU does business, I agree that these all-night sittings are not a sensible way to discuss rationally things such as budgets. We need to try to find a way to start our work in the morning and try to complete it, rather than starting in the evening and going all the way through the night.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

In congratulating my right hon. Friend on this triumph, may I suggest to him that the bold bottom line on his long-term renegotiation of our role in Europe seems to have focused some minds wonderfully among other net contributors to the budget?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support. There is support in Europe for reform and for the agenda that we have set out, but we will have to work extremely hard to build alliances and win friends in order to deliver what I think would be good for Europe, but also good for Britain in Europe.