Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

It is pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), the former Home Secretary, and the House will give due weight to his considered contribution. This Bill is clearly important. The world outside might not have realised that it is in three parts: the third is the ancillary part and is very small, the first appears almost to have consensus on both sides of the House, and the second is clearly still controversial.

Let me first say a word about part 1. Ever since I have been in this place, I have felt that it was right that the responsibility for intelligence and security matters should transfer from the Prime Minister to Parliament. It has been a gradual, careful and considered process, but it is right that we have now done that as all three major parties made a commitment that it should happen. I pay tribute to the current Committee and its predecessors, but it is clearly right that people elected by the people should hold our security and intelligence services to account. With some small further changes that colleagues have debated, we will be on the right track and I anticipate that the newly reconstituted Committee will soon be doing a very important job. I pay tribute to all colleagues who are members of the Committee.

That leaves part 2, which is about the hugely important issue of how we deal with civil cases—I repeat, civil cases—in which there are intelligence issues that cannot easily be shared with the watching world. I say civil cases, but there is one question that was not entirely answered by my very good and noble Friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who spoke for the Liberal Democrats and the Government in the House of Lords, when he was asked about the application of habeas corpus, which is not necessarily a civil case in the full sense. He was not entirely clear whether closed material proceedings could apply in a habeas corpus application, and that will need to be specifically addressed as we have to know exactly where we stand as we deal with the Bill.

When the first proposals were published in the Green Paper, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I were extremely nervous about them. We were concerned that they gave far too much power to the state and far too little power to the courts, and that they crossed the line between the open courts we have always accepted as the right principle and courts with a restricted process. The former Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, the Minister without Portfolio, fairly said that the Government wanted to consult and they did, and they have listened to the responses to the Green Paper. There is an argument that there could have been a White Paper, but that is not a central argument for today. It is particularly helpful that not only at the beginning, but by the time the Bill came to the Lords, some changes had already been made. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and colleagues had argued for these changes and set out what, for us, were the bottom lines. In April that was made clear. One of them was that we should restrict the scope of the Bill to national security cases only: done. The second was that we should remove inquests: done, although I hear what the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) said. There is an inquest question and I do not want to be dismissive of that. The third was ensuring that closed material proceedings were triggered by an application to a judge, not by a decision by Ministers.

Those steps represented good progress. The Bill then went to the Lords, where it was the subject of long deliberation. It was also examined by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) who served on the Committee for almost its entire work on the Bill. I declare an interest: I joined the Committee at the very end of its proceedings on the Bill. Effectively the work had been done. There was unanimity on the Committee as to the changes that should be made.

I welcome the fact that the recommendations made by the Joint Committee have almost entirely been picked up by the House of Lords on Report and supported by a majority in the Lords—in many cases, large majorities—against the Government. They have made the Bill a better Bill, with many of the safeguards that we want. I hope the Minister without Portfolio and his colleagues in the Home Office will accept the principle of all the amendments that have come to us from the Lords. The Joint Committee wants that to happen and I would urge that, as would my party colleagues.

In between those two things we debated the Bill at our Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton, and it got a resounding thumbs-down from my colleagues as going far too far across the line to closed courts from open courts. I understand that, and I am sensitive to it as I make my remaining comments this afternoon.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

With reference to our party conference, there are those who, like me, would perhaps see closed material proceedings limited to the quantum and the consideration of the quantum rather than the substantive issue. Perhaps that would be an alternative that would attract more support from the party.

[Simon Hughes]

That is a point of view, but I am not sure. I have not discussed it with my hon. Friend. The point of view of our colleagues was that we have to be very careful when we move away from open justice. We have to accept the evidence of those who say it is not necessary. The Joint Committee heard from the special advocates that it was not necessary. They did not support the proposal and we should give that due weight.

The central issue is what the procedure will be in order to protect the security interests on the one hand, but make sure that we deliver a fair outcome to a reasonable case on the other. The existing system, the public interest immunity system, means that Ministers declare documents secret and therefore they cannot be used. It is a very simple system, although it can be time consuming. I accept the argument that that often means that a case cannot be carried through to a conclusion, so I am not here to defend the idea that the PII system is the solution to all our difficulties.

Happily, the Bill is now drafted in such a way that consideration has to be given to that option first, and to whether, if certain documents are withheld, the trial can none the less proceed fairly. But if that is not the answer entirely, we have to consider whether there is something else. I want to flag up the changes that have been made and the ones that I think might get us nearer to what my party colleagues would like to see, as would many people who have written to us.

First, it is right that we should stick to the idea that the discretion is with the judge, not with Ministers of the state as an alternative. That is why the change referred to by the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), that the judge “may” do things, rather than “must” do things, is the right change—small word but big implication in the context of clause 6. We have added the requirement to look at alternatives, such as the PII alternative. We have also added the requirement—a good one—that all parties to the proceedings can apply for closed material proceedings, or that could happen at the judge’s instigation, which is a good thing. We have also dealt with the inquests issue.

However, we have not dealt with the fundamentally important issue of how a defendant can see the evidence against them, and that is what gave the Joint Committee on Human Rights its biggest difficulty. The Committee made it absolutely clear in its report’s conclusions that, because we had not had the information that justified the case and had heard from the special advocates that they were not persuaded, even though the Government’s official reviewer said he was persuaded, the Committee was not persuaded either. That is set out in paragraphs 44 to 46. There was uncertainly about how many cases we were talking about. Paragraph 42 states:

“In the light of the lack of clarity about whether the number of pending claims is 27, 15, 6 or 3, and in the light of the Independent Reviewer’s evidence we wrote to the Minister in charge of the Bill on 23 October to ask how many civil damages claims were currently pending”.

Just after the Committee wrote the report, the Advocate-General for Scotland, my noble Friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness, replied to that:

“I can confirm that as of 31 October 2012, there are 20 such live civil damages claims (including those stayed and at pre-action stage). There are also a number of other live cases, including judicial review challenges.”

He went on to elaborate the detail of that figure. I think we have to accept that that is roughly the number of cases we are talking about, but some of them are very significant cases and cannot be dismissed.

We must therefore take seriously the challenge that the Government have brought us. My honest view is that we have to allow the defence better access to the information, either through special advocates or by another means. It is on the new word that has only recently come into our language—“gisting”, which means allowing the defence to see not every iota of evidence, but the gist of it—that we need to do the most work in Committee. I think that there must be a mandatory requirement that the information be given in summary to the defence and that the defence—they can be specially cleared defendant advocates or representatives—can see the evidence, respond and take instructions on it. If we are going to say that we will allow the courts to go into closed session, it seems to me that we need the security of knowing that the defendant will have the right to know the case against them and the right to challenge. I hope that the Committee will do some detailed work on that over the coming weeks.

I agree that we need to deal with the Norwich Pharmacal situation, because at the moment we are precluded from using intelligence from abroad because of the court’s overriding power to have that put into the public domain. That has to be dealt with, because it is clearly unsatisfactory. I agree that we need to have a reporting and reviewing process and allow the media to make representations, as recommended by the Joint Committee.

I have two final points. First, we must ensure the judicial balance of national security against the public interest takes place in the second stage of the closed material proceedings process, not just at the gateway. Secondly, we have to consider whether we can just sign off this legislation forever or whether we have to come back to it in a certain number of years. This is very unusual territory for us. Civil liberties are at risk. We have made progress, but we are not there yet.