Public Office (Accountability) Bill

Nick Timothy Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 14th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

I was nine years old at the time of the Hillsborough tragedy, and I remember listening to the news of the terrible events on the radio, sitting behind my parents in the car. I was 32 when, while working in the Home Office, I received a copy of the report by the Hillsborough independent panel, which detailed the full horror of that terrible tragedy. In my time in the Home Office I saw many intelligence reports and papers about serious crimes and terror plots, but the Hillsborough report was undoubtedly the most shocking thing I read.

More than two decades passed between the tragedy itself and that moment of truth and transparency, and we can only imagine the pain felt by the victims and their families who fought for years for justice. I pay tribute to them and would like to associate myself with the remarks made by the Minister. They have known grief and suffering none of us would ever wish to experience.

This is not a debate about the need for transparency. I am proud to have played a modest part in bringing that about when I worked in the Home Office. Nor is this a debate about the need for accountability. I have spent many years in different roles making the case for better police accountability and, indeed, working with those who lead and work in our security and intelligence agencies. They themselves would be the first to say—though their work is by definition often secret—that they need to be accountable. They are only citizens of this country, just like everyone else. I am sure that everyone here today agrees on the need for accountability.

The question is, how should this accountability work? Today we are considering one specific issue among several: is the proposal to extend the duty of candour to the intelligence agencies, the military, military intelligence, Counter Terrorism Policing and the National Crime Agency, which all necessarily work to some degree in secret, appropriate? Does it deliver accountability, and does it allow these sensitive services to do their work to the best of their abilities? Our job today is to consider that question and that question alone.

Of course, we may be informed by the trauma, pain and emotion that come from terrible tragedies—tragedies that have, in some instances, been compounded by undue secrecy and even outright dishonesty from the state itself—but it is our job in this place to get the law right, for if we do not, we may find ourselves back here in future debating another tragedy that could have been stopped had it not been for the unintended consequences of what we are debating today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

The shadow Secretary of State will know, given his background working in the Home Office, that a duty of candour is not the same as the duty to disclose sensitive information. The two should not be conflated, and he should not be doing so on the Floor of the House.

[Nick Timothy]

I am confused by that intervention from the hon. Lady, who was the Minister in charge of this Bill. The argument I am making is consistent with the position she brought to the House in January, only to back down when it became controversial.

As I was saying, this could lead to intelligence that should, for good reasons, remain secret being published, which undermines the way the intelligence agencies and others work. We know this is a matter of grave concern for the agencies, the military and those in law enforcement because they have told us that. The Government know this, because the same people have told Ministers, and we know that the Government accepted this, because that was why they tabled the amendment in January, which they have since dropped.

Allied military and intelligence partners—most notably, the US and other Five Eyes partners—will look at what the Government are doing today and question what can be done to protect them and their methods. The Justice Secretary is once again not here today.

[Derek Twigg (Widnes and Halewood) (Lab)]

Could the hon. Member point to current legislation that has a gap and does not give the protection to the intelligence services that we all wish to see?

[Nick Timothy]

I am not sure I follow the hon. Member’s question. If he wants to repeat it more clearly, I will happily listen.

[Derek Twigg]

The hon. Member is saying that the intelligence services are not protected under the current legislation. Could he say why?

[Nick Timothy]

The point is that this is a new duty, which is backed by criminal sanction, and that is why it is different from the status quo.

As I was saying, the Justice Secretary is a Privy Counsellor. He is the Deputy Prime Minister. He was once the Foreign Secretary—the man to whom MI6 and GCHQ were accountable. He knows that these sources of intelligence from allies are essential. They support our national interest, protect our way of life and save the lives of innocent people. Neither he nor the Minister can, hand on heart, stand here today and say that they know for sure that this Bill does not endanger that intelligence. Nobody can say that, because this Bill will change the behaviour, decisions and actions of those we ask to keep us safe, because it might change the terms of the relationships with our allies, and because we cannot anticipate the decisions made by individual heads of future investigations and inquiries.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that chairs of inquiries and inquests already have the power to hold closed sessions in private if they are looking at information that is sensitive or potentially poses a risk to our national security? That already exists, and the measures in the Bill do not impact that at all—it is already done on a daily basis in inquiries.

[Nick Timothy]

What the hon. Lady says is not entirely relevant to this proposition. This is about the provision of information to particular investigations and inquiries, and we do not know—indeed, we cannot know—the identities of the people who lead those investigations and inquiries. That is one of the reasons why this is such a step into the dark.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I used to be a prosecutor before coming to this place. We were able to find perfectly good ways of dealing with confidential sources of information—informants and others. There are procedures already in place for that.

[Nick Timothy]

We are sent here to scrutinise legislation. That is what we are doing. We have talked to people in the intelligence agencies, the police and others who are very concerned about this. The concerns that I am expressing were shared by Ministers themselves, which is why the amendment we are proposing today reflects the amendment that the Government themselves brought to the House in January.

[Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)]

The interventions and the shadow Secretary of State’s responses are indicative of what he said earlier: we should not be discussing something as technically complex as this, which could have wide-reaching ramifications, with 24 hours’ notice and without any opportunity to have a proper discussion and raise these points.

[Nick Timothy]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The Prime Minister said this was going to be one of his first acts as Prime Minister; it turns out it is going to be his final act as Prime Minister. He is only doing it by the skin of his teeth, because he is presenting a proposal to the House that none of us got to see even this weekend, and those who had been drawn into the consultation process and had been privately consulted say that this bears no relation at all to what they have been shown, even very recently. The Government are clearly doing this on the hoof, and it is very worrying.

It is no exaggeration to say that some of those people who may be appointed to lead investigations and inquiries might be influenced or pressured by those whose purpose is the destruction of the British state and British sovereignty itself.

[Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)]

The people who lead these inquiries are leading public figures and have usually held significant judicial office. Is the hon. Member honestly suggesting that they are going to be successfully pressured by people who want to destroy the British state?

[Nick Timothy]

I am tempted to say that the hon. Lady should have a conversation with the Attorney General, who used to prosecute British soldiers and was still appointed to one of the highest offices in the land.

Irish republicans, Islamist extremists, useful idiots deployed by Putin’s Russia—they will all see the opportunity in this law, as we know they have seen the opportunity in examples of lawfare fought elsewhere, including Northern Ireland. These are known unknowns, but there are also unknown unknowns. [Interruption.] There is an additional risk that the security services will be tied up in court cases, thanks to differing interpretations of the legislation, or that the scope of the Bill and the information that must be disclosed will be widened over time. I can hear sighs and complaints from Government Members, but they do not seem to understand that new laws—especially when they are to be taken in balance with existing laws—are tested in the courts, and their interpretation widens. That is a fact, and it is one of the concerns expressed by the intelligence agencies, the police and others. If Government Members think they are above listening to those people, I am very sorry about that.

There are questions, too, about the role of investigations and inquiries set up by the devolved Governments, including in Northern Ireland. I was alarmed by the Minister’s earlier answer to a question about the need to reveal information about intelligence agency sources in that context. These are the reasons that my party proposes an amendment, informed in part by the Government’s own proposed amendment back in January, to give control of secret material back to service leaders, who are rightly then accountable to elected Ministers, in not only the intelligence services but the armed forces, the National Crime Agency and counter-terrorism policing.

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

One of the hon. Gentleman’s former colleagues went to Downing Street just a month ago with a letter that says he believes he was misled by his own Department when he was the Secretary of State for Defence, so why on earth is the hon. Gentleman arguing this particular case? If Defence Secretaries are misled by their Departments, I do not really understand his faith in leaders of intelligence services and others not being able to hide the truth purely to defend their own Departments.

[Nick Timothy]

I think the hon. Lady, whether it is by design or by mistake, misunderstands my point. Of course, there should be accountability and transparency, and there are many ways in which we can do that, but there are ways of doing it that do not jeopardise the operations of the most sensitive organisations in the country by revealing their sources, their methods and their technological capabilities.

There are also serious flaws in the proposals to create a new duty to prevent death or serious injury and the new crime of misleading the public. Senior police officers are concerned that the new duty will have a chilling effect on operations. Police officers may be deterred from taking vital split-second decisions to give chase or to restrain, for fear of being sued or charged, placing their careers and livelihoods in jeopardy. Those employed in other parts of the public sector, such as the welfare system or the health service, might also be affected. These measures also risk snarling up the police and others in time-consuming and costly litigation.

There is also a serious risk that the new crime of misleading the public could stifle legitimate political disagreement and debate, criminalise honest mistakes, or punish people for making statements that we only later learn are wrong when the facts change. That is why a lock on such prosecutions, with a requirement for the Attorney General to approve them, is absolutely essential, and we invite hon. Members to support our amendment to ensure that this evening.