Treatment of Detainees

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

May I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for her response and questions? She is right to pay tribute to the security services. It is because we revere and respect what they do that we want to get on with the inquiry and get it done. To answer one of her questions, that is why it is limited to a year, and I hope that it gets started before the end of the year.

Let me deal with the questions in turn. I agree with the right hon. and learned Lady about torture—we have signed countless prohibitions against it, we do not condone it anywhere in the world, and we should be clear that information derived from it is useless. We should also be clear that we should not deport people to be tortured elsewhere, but we should redouble our efforts—my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will be doing that with the Home Secretary—to ensure that we can have guarantees from other countries so that we can deport people to them knowing that they will not be tortured.

On Guantanamo, we are making efforts on behalf of the case that the right hon. and learned Lady mentioned. As she probably knows, it involves a UK resident rather than a UK national.

On whether the current criminal case can continue unimpeded, yes, of course it can. It is a matter for the police and the prosecuting authorities.

The right hon. and learned Lady made several points about the Intelligence and Security Committee. I thank her for her comments about my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington. He will do an excellent job and it is an important committee. However, in answer to why there is an inquiry rather than the Intelligence and Security Committee doing the job, the inquiry will be led by a judge and will be fully independent of Parliament, party and Government. That is what we need to get to the bottom of the case. The fact that it is led by a judge will help ensure that we get it done properly. Although I have ultimate respect for the Intelligence and Security Committee, during the previous Parliament, there was such a run-around between the Government and the Committee—not about holding an inquiry, but about publishing the guidance—that I wonder whether the right hon. and learned Lady is taking the right line on that. It is much better to have a judge-led inquiry—[Interruption.] She has not taken a position, and I am pleased to hear that.

The right hon. and learned Lady asked why we should try to mediate civil cases. We want to clear the decks, get the inquiry done and sort out the problem, so why not try to mediate the existing civil cases, roll them up, deal with them, hold the inquiry, get to the bottom of what happened, and set out the guidance for the future so that we remove the stain on Britain’s reputation and ensure that our security services can get on with the work? I do not see an alternative; I think that the Government have gripped the matter quickly and comprehensively. I think that is the right answer so we can move on.

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

Anyone who has been a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee would want to join in the tributes to all three services that the Prime Minister and the acting leader of the Labour party paid. The Prime Minister has struck a delicate balance between competing interests. Perhaps the most powerful reason for having a judge rather than the committee—apart from the volume of material that must be examined—is the primary need to ensure public confidence and an outcome that satisfies the public that everything has been done fully and impartially to get to the bottom of the allegations.

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for the way he puts that. Public confidence is essential and there are competing interests. I do not want to hide that from people. That is the reason for not having a full judicial inquiry. We want a judge-led inquiry, but at the same time, we need to have regard to the importance of the security services and their work, and to the fact that a lot of what they do must, by its very nature, remain secret.