Detainee Inquiry

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I have met a very wide range NGOs, human rights groups and those with an interest, and I have been trying to persuade them that the Gibson inquiry is something that they should get engaged with. I very much hope still to see them doing that. I am still having meetings about the Green Paper on security and justice and of course on the supervision of the security services. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was here earlier; we will continue to engage. I agree that it would be very much better if we could get the NGOs and others to accept that this is the way to proceed. We will continue to listen to their arguments about why they feel that they cannot, and we will do our best.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. Does he agree that under procedure there is no other way than to allow the Crown Prosecution Service to make those investigations before carrying on with the inquiry?

[Mr Clarke]

I am glad to hear that my hon. Friend believes that. I think that is right. The problem of letting the inquiry go ahead while the police are carrying out the investigations is obviously that one could hopelessly compromise the other. We cannot have witnesses giving evidence about events when the police are in the middle of inquiries into the self-same events. [Interruption.] Well, that was the basis upon which we started, and everybody accepted that Gibson could not start until the police investigations had finished. There are sensible reasons, as my hon. Friend says, why we are in that situation.