Daniel Morgan: Independent Panel Report Debate
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Lord Rosser
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Daniel Morgan: Independent Panel Report
Lord Rosser Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]
The expected publication date of the independent panel’s report was over a week ago. The Home Office has said that it has asked the chair of the independent panel to agree a process for “sharing” the report with the department in order to proceed with its publication, because the Home Secretary has national security and Human Rights Act responsibilities. Yet the Government said in the Commons yesterday that
“redaction, editing and so on”—[Official Report, Commons, 24/5/21; col. 52.]
of the independent report “will not happen.” The panel itself, whose chair will speak on this Urgent Question, has said that
“a senior specialist Metropolitan Police team”
has already carried out a security check, and that the intervention of the Home Secretary is
“unnecessary and is not consistent with the panel’s independence”,
whose terms of reference make it clear that the Home Secretary’s role is limited to receiving the report, laying it before Parliament and responding to the findings. How are the Home Secretary’s intervention and supposed checks, which will not lead to any
“redaction, editing and so on”,—[Official Report, Commons, 24/5/21; col. 52.]
consistent with the independent—I stress the word—panel’s terms of reference?
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, a publication date cannot be arranged until the report is actually received. The Home Office is working with the panel for that to happen. My honourable friend did say yesterday that there would be no redactions, but there were caveats in two areas: national security and human rights considerations. Security checks have already been carried out; I bow completely to the knowledge and experience of the people who may have carried them out, but my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has a personal obligation, by dint of her post, to assure herself that those security checks are carried out to her satisfaction.