David Nuttall
Main Page: David Nuttall (Conservative - Bury North)Department Debates - View all David Nuttall's debates with the Home Office
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
First, I do not think that anyone has heard from this Dispatch Box an attack on the Daily Mail, although I know the right hon. Gentleman would like to put up a straw man to make some allegations. As I said previously, we made a legally binding confidentiality agreement in November 2010. The key words there are “legally binding”, not “confidentiality”. As I am sure he will understand, that puts an obligation on this Government and not, by the sound of things, on former Home Secretaries or reviewers of terrorism. Even a Scottish National party Government would be legally obliged to stick to the confidentiality agreement, and he knows it.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, as there were 16 applications for closed material procedures in the first two years after the Justice and Security Act 2013 was passed, millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money may have been saved simply because the security services are now free to present the evidence they have?
Mr Wallace
Hopefully the closed material procedures are doing exactly what we wanted: seeing off vexatious claims, testing the evidence and ensuring that, where the allegations are unfounded, the UK Government are not vulnerable to paying out money or compensation.