Detainee Inquiry

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

Like my hon. Friend, I was a member of the all-party group on extraordinary rendition being led by my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), so I was as anxious to see the outcome of the police and other inquiries as everybody else. The whole point is to dispel all this because we must have an effective national security system and effective agencies. People who work in those agencies do very brave work that is essential to this country. We must draw a line under all this and investigate fully this legacy of allegations in order to find out exactly what happened and work out how to proceed and how to scrutinise the services in future.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The Justice Secretary clearly has the support of both sides of the House in the decision he has taken today. Could he clarify whether this was his decision or whether Sir Peter came to him and asked to be relinquished of his responsibilities in view of the fresh investigations? I know that the Justice Secretary cannot give us a timetable, but does he envisage this lasting for months or years?

[Mr Clarke]

It was discussed with Sir Peter Gibson and he agrees that this is the way to proceed. I did not personally have the conversation, but in the light of last week’s inquiry it was decided that it was sensible to discuss this with Sir Peter and he agrees with the decision we have taken to proceed in this way. I wish I knew how long the Metropolitan police investigations will take. I hope that they will not take as long as the Guantanamo Bay cases, but there is absolutely no basis on which I can properly intervene with the police. We want these matters to be investigated thoroughly so we will wait and see.