Belhaj and Boudchar: Litigation Update

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. He has taken a considerable interest in this case and I pay tribute to him for his continued attention to it.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s second point, as I mentioned, the consolidated guidance is a public document, which of course permits the public to comment on it. In my view, that is as it should be. As he has heard me say, we will continue to look at whether the guidance is in the right place. I believe that we will be particularly spurred into that by the upcoming ISC report. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and other members of the public will have the opportunity to make their views known.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s first point, I think he and I are entirely in agreement that prevention is better than cure. It has been difficult to cure this case. I hope I have made it clear that we have done our best to resolve the case in a satisfactory fashion, but that is extremely difficult to do. It is far better to avoid such incidents occurring in the first place. It is about a system change and a culture change that brings that about, and I believe that in recent years—not least, may I say, under the coalition Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a distinguished member—we have seen those changes.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I thank the Attorney General for his statement today. I worked on this case in my previous role as a Government lawyer, as of course have many Government lawyers over the years, and even though there are clearly no winners today, I ask him to join me in praising the work of lawyers in the Treasury Solicitor’s Department and the Security Service lawyers who themselves provide a barrier, where one is needed, in the difficult balancing act between the rule of law and protecting national security. However, I ask him to tell us what lessons have been learned with regard to our ability to speed up litigation, because this matter has gone on for far too long. I thank him for getting personally involved in the mediation and for going to carry out that mediation himself.

[The Attorney General]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. She is right that a huge amount of work has been put into this case by lawyers on all sides, and very few people register that fact when the case is concluded, however it comes to be concluded. As a fellow lawyer, she will agree with me that it is always better to resolve cases outside the courtroom if one can. It seemed to me that there was a clear imperative in this case to do exactly that. It was, in my view, in nobody’s interest for this case to continue through the courts and to drag out the difficulties that it had caused to all concerned. I am delighted to see that it has been resolved. That, of course, has been a team effort, and I hope very much that this will enable us to draw a line under this incident, recognising as I do that there are lessons to be learned for the future.