Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

I thank the noble Lord. He reminds me that I omitted to address part of the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. In relation to the committee not being permitted to call all the witnesses it wanted, my understanding is that that was not possible for a combination of reasons of policy and legal reasons. In some cases, this was because the officials in question were junior at the time of these events and, apparently, it is not normal practice for a parliamentary committee to take evidence from junior officials. As to the suggestion that the Government are trying to cover something up, let me make two observations. As the noble Lord acknowledged, it was the Government who invited the committee to go down the road of undertaking this inquiry; it is something that the Government wanted the committee to do. This might come up later on but there was also some question about whether there was any redaction of the report. My understanding is that at the request of the US, because of national security concerns, the committee agreed to redact one word in 300 pages of the report. It seems to me that this has been a thorough and very open process.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, in declaring my interest as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee between 2001 and 2005, may I press the Minister further on this? Will she accept that if the committee does not have power to see whatever material it requires to see, and to interview whatever witnesses it demands to see, then its credibility with Parliament and the public—and, much more importantly, the credibility of the agencies with Parliament and the public—cannot be maintained? This is an absolutely key constitutional issue and a key issue of national security. Will the Government accept that for the Prime Minister to deny the ISC, which represents Parliament, access to key witnesses that it requires to see is to make a travesty of these proceedings?