Hazel Blears
Main Page: Hazel Blears (Labour - Salford and Eccles)Department Debates - View all Hazel Blears's debates with the Cabinet Office
Justice and Security Bill [Lords]
Hazel Blears Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Clarke
Minded to? Certainly—we will accept some of them. I speak warmly of the Joint Committee because I do not believe it was pursuing objectives that differed from mine or those of my colleagues. I think it will probably fall to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) to explain in Committee why we are not wholly convinced that every one of the amendments is quite right, or even that some of them would have the effect that the Joint Committee proposed. I will not, however, get into that level of detail so early in a Second Reading speech, if I may be allowed not to do so.
We discussed the Green Paper about a year ago, and I recall that it was a comparatively non-controversial occasion. Such was the general satisfaction and understanding on all sides that I left the Chamber wondering whether I needed to have bothered to make an oral statement. Quite a lot has happened since then, but I trust it has not shifted the opinion of the Members who joined in the debate at that time, particularly that of the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan). I still strongly agree with what he said, which I shall quote:
“We need, as a matter of urgency, to bolster the safeguards and scrutiny mechanisms concerning issues of security and intelligence.”—[Official Report, 19 October 2011; Vol. 533, c. 901.]
I am glad to see the right hon. Gentleman nodding his head in response to his own quotation. I was glad to read in a recent interview in The Guardian that he still believes that, as he said:
“In two and a half years’ time, it could be me in that seat making that tough decision. So it is very important for ministers to have the opportunity to protect sources, to protect delicate operations and all the rest of it. They shouldn’t be jeopardised by a civil action.”
I will not comment on the right hon. Gentleman’s political optimism and ambition to occupy any seat at all, but he is certainly right, in my opinion, to identify a serious problem with the current arrangements. At the moment, total secrecy is all that happens to the sensitive intelligence information in far too many cases and no judicial judgment is pronounced on the merits of plaintiff versus defendant. I believe that the present system needs to be reformed urgently. That is why the principle of the Bill is certainly necessary.
In support of the need for change, let me remind the House of a letter written to The Times newspaper last month by a number of individuals for whom I personally have the greatest respect. The signatories included the former Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord Woolf; the former Home Secretary, Lord Reid; and my right hon. Friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, a former Lord Chancellor. I am sure we all agree that all those people are totally committed to the rule of law and the principles of justice. In their letter they explained:
“In national security matters our legal system relies upon a procedure known as public interest immunity…Under PII, evidence which is deemed to be national security sensitive is excluded from the courtroom. The judge may not take it into account when coming to his or her judgment.”
This procedure, they say, is
“resulting in a damaging gap in the rule of law.”
They are right to say that.
In my opinion, it has become well nigh impossible for British judges to untangle, and adjudicate on, claims and counter-claims of alleged British involvement in the mistreatment of detainees. If we, as citizens, want to know whether the Security Service could challenge and rebut what is claimed against it, no judge can give us guidance as things stand. Some of the allegations of British involvement in the mistreatment of detainees are really serious, and I do not think that the system should continue to prevent judges from scrutinising the secret actions of the state in such cases.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
Not only will judges not have the full information, but when cases are settled, adverse inferences will inevitably be drawn about behaviour that may or may not have taken place, and that affects the reputation of our agencies. Is it not therefore essential that we can get to the heart of the matter, so that the agencies can at least put their case?
Mr Clarke
Yes, because we want a process whereby the judge can hear the evidence of the intelligence agencies in a closed—secret, if one likes—process, and that is not the purpose of PII. PII is a very old process that has developed over the years from simple beginnings, and I imagine that in the early cases—before my time—it was probably rather straightforward: if a Minister said he wanted public interest immunity, it was granted. The findings of Lord Justice Scott in the arms to Iraq inquiry —not at my expense, I am glad to say—rather upset that approach. PII is of course used flexibly in proper cases because judges and lawyers all want to hear evidence in open court whenever possible, but I think that we need to update all this. We are not abolishing public interest immunity, but I think that in many cases extending closed material procedures, which is what we are proposing, would be an altogether more sensible way of getting a proper judgment in the case.
Let me turn to the provisions of the Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction.
Hazel Blears
I want to tease out the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s view on the balancing test, which is part of the House of Lords amendments. At the moment there is a test stating that the judge, when deciding whether closed material procedures can be applied for, has to balance the degree of harm to the interests of national security with the public interest in the fair and open administration of justice. Balancing tests are notoriously difficult. One of the main problems with the Chahal case, which led to significant issues for this country’s national security, was whether the balancing test was in the right place, and most of us felt that it was not. If we are to have a balancing test in the legislation, it is in the part about whether proceedings are suitable; it is not in the part about when an application can be made. We need some clarity on the Government’s position with regard to the balancing test, because clearly the interests of national security are not always equivalent to the interests of an open proceeding, and that is a difficult balance to strike.
Mr Clarke
The balance is indeed difficult to draw. We have debated the balancing test on various occasions and in the past I have rather resisted it because it gives rise to the possibility of the judge saying, “Oh yes, there is a risk to national security. What a pity, never mind. I wish open justice to be done, so let’s take a chance with national security.” That is probably a somewhat broad-brush piece of opposition, and we are reflecting on the issue. The proper response to the right hon. Lady’s entirely sensible and pertinent question is probably best given in Committee, when we will have had more time to decide the position.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind
I agree with my right hon. Friend. There has to be an ultimate right for the Prime Minister to decline to allow the Committee to receive certain information. However, until now, the agencies have been able to exercise that power. To be fair to them, they have rarely, if ever, tried to do so.
On operations, the statutory basis is crucial. The Committee has accepted that our oversight of operations should be retrospective. We do not wish to interfere in ongoing operations. That would be unreasonable and would put an intolerable burden on the agencies. As long as the oversight is retrospective and there is a significant national interest—we will have debates over what that phrase means—I believe that there is a sound basis.
Thirdly, until now, the Intelligence and Security Committee has been able only to request information from the agencies, not require it. To be fair to the agencies, they have not, for all practical purposes, ever refused us information, but they have been in control of the information that has been provided. Real problems have emerged over the years. On some occasions, it has been found, subsequent to the publication of a report, that important documents had simply not been made available to the Committee. That may not have been done in bad faith, but the consequence was embarrassment for the agencies and for the system of independent oversight. That cannot be allowed to continue.
We have also found that when the agencies have responded to a requirement of the courts, the resources and the time that they have devoted to finding every relevant document have been slightly greater than for a Committee that can only request information and not require it. That is going to change. I pay tribute to the agencies for accepting the need to make this change. The Committee will now have the power to require information from the agencies, including information on operations, subject to one or two important safeguards.
I come now to the crucial difference. Until now, the problem has been that although the agencies hold vast amounts of information on any given subject, we do not expect them, when we request information, to fill several forklift trucks with information and dump it at our offices. That would be absurd, and we will not expect that when we require information in the future. However, until now, the agencies have done the editing themselves. Even if it is done entirely in good faith, that does not enable the Committee to be confident that it has seen all the information that it would wish to see before it brings forward its proposals.
We have proposed that we will appoint additional staff—assistants to the Committee, who will be our employees and be answerable to us—who will go to the agencies when we require information on a particular subject from them and discuss all the information, including the raw material, that they have in their files. I pay tribute again to the Government and the agencies for agreeing to that. I hope that there will be a process of agreement and discussion, but at the end of the day, it will be our staff who decide which parts of the available material the Committee is likely to want to see. We, Parliament and the public will therefore be able to have confidence that the decision will be taken by the Committee itself, not by the agencies, however much they would be trying to do their best in good faith.
That is an enormous culture change for MI6, MI5 and GCHQ to accept. For the first time in their history they will be not just providing information to people who are not employees of the agencies or part of the Government—we are not part of the Government, and in future we will be part of Parliament—but allowing them to come into their offices, see material and discuss what the ISC would like to evaluate. I pay tribute to the agencies for accepting that. Of course they have some reservations and concerns, and a memorandum of understanding is being discussed. It is referred to in the Bill and will be published in due course. It will explain in greater detail how the system will work on a day-to-day basis. We may have to review it in a year or two in the light of experience.
I pay tribute also to both Her Majesty’s Government and Her Majesty’s Opposition, because such a change is not just a potential rod for the back of the agencies but will occasionally create problems for the Government of the day. Both Front-Bench teams know that the Bill will mean that intelligence oversight will have the teeth that it has not had in the past, because it will be on a statutory basis and include the real powers that I have described. That is why I and the Committee feel confident in saying that we will have a tougher, more effective and more reliable system of oversight than we have ever had in our history or than can currently be found in almost any country in the western world or globally.
Hazel Blears
I pay tribute to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his leadership of the Intelligence and Security Committee. I do not think we would have quite such robust proposals had it not been for his work.
May I remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman of one small point? As the Bill is drafted, it would prevent the Committee from examining ongoing operations. If the Government were to ask us to consider a matter that was ongoing and not retrospective, that would be forbidden. The Bill therefore needs to be amended on that point.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind
I must first reciprocate the right hon. Lady’s compliment. She has made an enormous and much-respected contribution to the Committee’s work.
The right hon. Lady raises an important point. Of course we accept that our oversight of operations must be retrospective and on matters of significant national interest. However, there have been circumstances in which the Prime Minister of the day has invited the Committee to examine an ongoing operation on some specific matter. In addition, there are sometimes occasions when, because of leaks and press awareness, an ongoing operation becomes a matter of public discussion and debate. There must be flexibility in the Bill to allow the Committee to examine such matters. The House should feel confident that, although we wish a number of improvements to be made in Committee, we are entering a new phase of intelligence oversight.
I want to say a few words about part 2 of the Bill. A number of my right hon. and hon. Friends who serve on the Committee will undoubtedly wish to speak about it as well. It goes without saying that closed material proceedings are not very satisfactory, but in the imperfect world in which we live, the choice is sometimes between good solutions and bad solutions but more often between bad solutions and worse solutions. As has been said, public interest immunity is not a feasible alternative. The £2 million settlement that was made just a couple of weeks ago was a case to which intelligence material would have been central if it had gone to court. There could not have been PII, because that would have excluded all the material. That leaves us to introduce a system that, as the former Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf has said, is certainly preferable to PII. I say to hon. Members who still have their doubts that the system is not perfect, but it is a lot better than the one we have at the moment. That is why it is in the national interest to support the Bill.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), and I echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) about his leadership on matters concerning the Bill and our general work. It has been a genuine pleasure to work with him over the past two years.
The debates that we have had on national security over the past decade have been among the most important exchanges in the House over that period. They have taken us to the heart of the balance between individual liberty, including the rights of those who are suspected of plotting terror, and our collective security, including the most fundamental human right of all, the right to life.
As we have responded to the new threats of global terror from al-Qaeda, it would have been a miracle if Governments had been able to get everything absolutely right first time. As I have said before in the House, I accept that the proposals for 90-day and 42-day pre-charge detention went too far, as an issue of practicality as well as one of principle, and Parliament was right to block them. Equally, the judges were right to deem detention without trial non-compliant with the rights of defendants. That, too, had to be replaced.
It remains to be seen whether the reforms of the past two years have gone too far in taking the balance away from public safety. I certainly do not accept the narrative that everything that has happened since 9/11—all the extra resources provided to the intelligence and security agencies and the stronger powers that Parliament has decided on to deal with suspects—are a victory for the securocrats, who hoodwink Ministers into illiberal measures to undermine our basic freedoms. The simple fact is that many thousands of lives have been saved because of the actions that Governments and Parliament have taken. At the same time, suspects have still been able to enforce their rights in the courts, and judges have increasingly ordered the disclosure of information that would have been held secret in the past.
The Bill deals specifically with the balance between greater scrutiny and the limits that ought to apply in a certain small number of civil cases. The Intelligence and Security Committee has played an important role in scrutinising the agencies, as its chairman said. That role far exceeds what was envisaged in 1994 and includes the close examination of some ongoing operations. However, the ISC will be in a stronger position when it is a Committee of Parliament and has greater powers and resources to ensure that it can get the information that it requires rather than simply trusting that the agencies are giving it what it has requested.
I place on record the tremendous debt that all members of the ISC, and therefore all Members of Parliament, owe the small, dedicated team of staff who work to support it in all its work. The chairman of the ISC alluded to a number of issues that still need to be ironed out. I suggest that the starting point for our deliberations in Committee should be that the Bill must not prevent the ISC from doing anything that it is already doing in practice.
As we have heard in the opening Front-Bench speeches, the most controversial part of the Bill relates to the closed material procedure. I do not intend to dwell on the background to it, because others have spoken about the importance of the control principle and the difficulties that the agencies currently face in defending themselves against civil claims. However, I want to make two points. The first is to confirm that the increasing reluctance of the United States intelligence community to share life-saving secrets with the United Kingdom is not a made-up scare story. I have seen and heard, in frank exchanges with colleagues in Washington when the Committee visited last year and earlier this year, that that is a substantial problem that simply has to be dealt with.
Secondly, the agencies’ desire to defend themselves is not about suppressing the truth, and it is not primarily about saving the taxpayer the millions of pounds that it is currently costing, although those are substantial sums. It is about being able to defend their reputation and the high standards of those who take risks every day to protect our freedoms. Clearly mistakes have been made and individuals have been mistreated, but I simply cannot accept the casual assertion that is often made, or at least implied, that the agencies are inevitably the bad guys while the claimants are always the blameless victims.
The comments of Lord Phillips and others during the consideration of the Bill in the other place, and the support that those independent-minded politicians gave for the closed material procedure, were very welcome. It is fair to say that the Bill has been improved in the other place. It is right that judges have discretion and decide whether the closed material procedure is appropriate. It is right that the courts must decide whether, on balance, the interests of national security are likely to outweigh the interests of fairness and open justice. The question of how that balance is to be struck, as the Minister without Portfolio said, is likely to be debated in detail in Committee. I was pleased to hear that he and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) intend to promote discussion in relation to PII. Under the Bill, consideration of PII should always come first, before the closed material procedure. As the Minister without Portfolio said, that could produce long delays in the judicial process, even though the outcome could be staring the court in the face from the outset.
In the short time remaining, there are two more issues that I should like to raise. If I am feeling brave enough, I might even table some amendments about them in due course. In relation to the order-making power, which was in clause 11 but has now been dropped for reasons of political consideration—presumably to make sure that the Bill completes its passage and that the main provisions remain—the cause of the concerns that prompted that power, which would allow the closed material procedure in other proceedings, has not gone away.
There are two particular types of proceedings that are relevant. The first is inquests, as I have said to the Minister before. If there is secret intelligence that cannot be revealed because it would result in the disclosure of sources, methodologies and so on, but which explained the cause of death, the coroner at the inquest should be able to see it. It might be possible in most cases not to have a closed material procedure. Lady Justice Hallett did a fine job in making sure that intelligence could be considered at the 7/7 inquest without the need for a closed material procedure, but I would not rule it out in future. The order-making power originally included in clause 11 would have provided an opportunity for Ministers, as and when cases arose.
I am thinking in particular of more than 30 historic inquests that have still to be heard in Northern Ireland and where the deaths involved the police or Army. That is an issue that will not go away. I have raised it with the Minister, and with other Ministers, and I have yet to hear one disagree with my assertion that if it is right to have a closed material procedure in civil cases, it is right to have it in inquests. I am thinking, too, of proceedings in relation to the judicial review of decisions to revoke the licences of convicted terrorists who have been released from prison, but where there is intelligence that suggests that they are again engaging in terrorist activity.
Hazel Blears
My right hon. Friend has pursued the issue of inquests with huge tenacity, and he makes an almost irrefutable point: how are we to get a proper decision in an inquest unless the full information can be put before the coroner? Certainly in the case of the historic inquests in Northern Ireland, inevitably, by its very nature, that information will be private and secret information from the intelligence agencies. I have yet to hear an answer from the Government on that.
Paul Goggins
I do not make light of the issues. If intelligence were shared with a coroner, but not with the family of the deceased, that would be a massive step, but it is better that we should know the cause of death rather than the whole thing remain a mystery. I am therefore grateful to my right hon. Friend for her intervention.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I am not entirely sure that we will see completely eye to eye in our contributions, but I hope that we will have the opportunity to debate the subject further.
As a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I welcome the proposals in Part 1 of the Bill. They will go a long way to ensuring that the scrutiny of our intelligence agencies is more robust and transparent. In turn, that will give the British public a greater degree of reassurance that the intelligence agencies are properly and fully scrutinised. That is important because they spend a great deal of public money—approximately £2 billion—and because they are involved in some of the most controversial and difficult areas of our national life and operations across the globe.
I commend to the Minister the amendments ably and deftly moved by my colleagues Lord Butler of Brockwell and the Marquess Lothian in the other place, particularly in relation to the issue about not limiting the Committee to dealing entirely with retrospective matters, but giving it some freedom to look at current issues if that is what the Government want us to do. I hope the amendments will be adopted.
I want to add my thanks to those from the Chair of the Committee and from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) to our current secretariat. They are few in number, but the work they do is amazing. I do not think that the Committee would fulfil its role in the way that it does without their insight, intelligence and intellect, and I pay tribute to them.
If Part 1 of the Bill is relatively uncontentious, the same cannot be said of part 2. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, repeated the phrase that these proposals are a “radical departure” from our normal system of justice. That is also what Lord Pannick said in the other place and was the basis of all the evidence put before the Joint Committee. Yes, it is a radical departure. Under our normal system of justice, evidence is heard in open court and challenged by adversarial cross-examination, and the judge weighs the evidence and comes to a reasoned judgment at the end of the case.
Mr George Howarth
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, although these proposals are a radical departure, the circumstances in which they would be used are also a radical departure?
Hazel Blears
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Since the terrorist threat to the country has increased, particularly since 9/11, and remains a significant threat, clearly other measures have had to be taken.
That is exactly the point: although everyone is saying that these proposals are a radical departure, actually we have trodden this path before. As the Minister responsible for taking the control order legislation through the House, I know only too well the depth of feeling among Members on both sides of the House—this is hugely controversial stuff about which people have very strong feelings. It is contentious among the legal profession, and there are many different views among judges and practitioners, but, as has been said, none of us wants to go down this path—it is not something that we relish doing—but, if we are to protect national security and to have a fair hearing of these issues, we have no other option.
Last night, I tried something that the judges will have to do, which was a little balancing act: I drew up a table of arguments for and against the proposals to highlight in my own mind where the balance in the Bill should lie. First, on the “for” side—the reasons I support the proposals for closed procedures—was the need to protect our international relationships and liaison with countries across the globe. Yes, that is about America, but it is not just about America; increasingly, many of the plots that threaten the UK have an international element and much more work now has to be done upstream—in the words of the security agencies—to disrupt terrorist training and plots that might manifest themselves in this country unless we can do work internationally as well as in this country. That means we have to have these relationships. They are fundamental to the success of our fight against terrorism.
Some people have asked whether the threat that America might not co-operate with us as much as it has in the past is real, or whether it is something that the security agencies are making up to force us down this path. As the Americans would say, “You bet it’s real”. When the Committee visited America last year, we were told in no uncertain terms by law officers, the CIA and a whole host of agencies that the damage done not so much by the information in the Binyam Mohamed case, but by the breaching of the control principle had shaken that relationship—I would not say to its foundations, because it is a very strong relationship, but it had shaken it—and resulted in a lack of information sharing.
Mr David Davis
The right hon. Lady might not be aware, but the greatest release of intelligence information in history prior to WikiLeaks came in the Pentagon papers. In that case, the American Government brought the control principle before their courts, and they were turned down and vast amounts of data provided by foreign countries were released into the public domain—and that was not the last time; it has happened several times since. Indeed, evidence to the Binyam Mohamed trial stated that the US understood the issues about control because the courts in the states were independent.
Hazel Blears
I think the right hon. Gentleman gets the balance wrong in that case. I think of the information that the US has provided us with to protect our security. I think of the bomb plot in April—the second underpants bomb plot—where the liaison between the US and this country was essential to preventing an incident that could have cost many lives. We have to strike a balance, but national security is our first responsibility to the country.
Mark Durkan
My right hon. Friend referred to US concerns based on the Binyam Mohamed case. Does she not, and do they not, recognise that no disclosure of information was ordered by the courts here and that the disclosure actually happened in US proceedings, not here?
Hazel Blears
I think the Americans have a great deal of concern about many legal jurisdictions when it results in information subject to the control principle being disclosed in open court.
Mr Tyrie
Is the right hon. Lady aware that the American courts do not provide that absolute level of protection and that there is no reciprocation of the control principle in US courts, so it is perfectly possible, through the US court system, that information that we have handed to the Americans could, in principle, find its way into the public domain? That point has been made once or twice already. It is crucial that both countries have a sense of balance and put their courts back at the centre of making that judgment.
Hazel Blears
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, clearly the control principle relates to relationships between different intelligence services and liaison countries. Also, in America, they have the states secret privilege, under which they can say, “This matter is not justiciable at all, because it covers matters relating to national intelligence”, so in some respects it is a more draconian system than ours. We are seeking to find a balance, rather than having an Executive veto, and I think that that is the right way to go.
The second issue on my “for” list was about revealing capabilities, techniques and methods. As a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I am in a privileged position and have had an opportunity to look at the current cases lodged for damages in civil proceedings. I have looked at the grounds from the applicants and the defence grounds from the agencies, and it is startlingly clear that, were the defence to be pursued, it would reveal techniques, methods, capabilities and networks of agents, and that it would be impossible for the security agencies to pursue their defence in those contemporary cases. Some people think that these cases are historical and that once we have dealt with the ones from Guantanamo Bay, which we have, there will not be any more coming down the track, but that is not the case. Many have happened recently, and, as the Minister without Portfolio said, this jurisdiction is now becoming an attractive place to bring a claim, because the agencies are not in a position to defend themselves.
Thirdly and fundamentally, the system of closed procedures will allow all the evidence to be put before the judge. That is the foundation here. If we have public interest immunity, we exclude information from the judge, which is the opposite of what we are trying to achieve, and I do not believe that partial justice, in which information that could go to the heart of the proceedings is excluded, is proper justice.
The final point that I weighed in the balance was about safeguarding the reputation of our agencies. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East made the point very powerfully that these are people who, in some cases, put their lives on the line for our safety and that of those we represent, and when they have to settle cases, as they did last week in the claim by Mr al-Saadi, people will inevitably draw inferences. They will say, “There’s no smoke without fire. There must have been something in it, if the Government are prepared to pay £2 million”, and that puts the agencies in an invidious position. Men and women of integrity and honour who dedicate their lives to the protection of this country are smeared by the implication that they have been complicit in torture or mistreatment. It might have happened in some cases, but I would rather that all the information was before the judge, because at least then the services could get a proper decision, rather than have their integrity smeared, which I think is outrageous.
My final point is about taxpayers’ money. It is not our main issue, but many millions of pounds has been paid to people, some of whom might not have had legitimate claims had we been able to get them into court. If we are giving them millions of pounds, there is the prospect of some of it being used to fund further extremist or terrorist activity. That is totally unacceptable.
There are a number of outstanding questions, and I have no doubt that the Minister will explore them in fine detail in Committee. I look forward to the prospect of discussing them with him. I want to make a couple of final points now, however. The decisions to accept discretion and to move from “must” to “may” are welcome. If this is really to be a judge-led process, that is where we need to be. I also want to make a point to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden, who is no longer in his place. He talked about the court being able to look at each piece of information; that is exactly what the court will be able to do. The judge will be able to look at each piece of evidence and ask whether it goes to the heart of the issue and whether it should be kept secret or disclosed. If there were a redacted paragraph that had no national security implications, for example, the judge would be able to determine that it could be disclosed. PII would be available, and the matter would not even be before the court, so the right hon. Gentleman’s point really did not support his argument. On the PII issue, I have misgivings about the length of time involved and the cumbersome nature of the process in every case. I want to explore the balancing judgment to get this in the right place.
This is a necessary Bill. As I have said, this is not a move that any of us relishes making. We are democrats in this country, and we believe in the rule of law, but if we are to protect our national security and get the balance right, it is essential that we support it.