Clause 6 — Declaration permitting closed material applications in proceedings

Part of Justice and Security Bill [Lords] (Programme) (No. 2) – in the House of Commons at 4:15 pm on 4 March 2013.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Sadiq Khan Sadiq Khan Shadow Minister (London), Shadow Lord Chancellor and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, Shadow Lord Chancellor and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice 4:15, 4 March 2013

If the hon. Lady reads the Supreme Court judgment in al-Rawi, she will see that one of the Court’s concerns was about not having in its toolkit the ability to have a CMP in an appropriate case. Its point was that it is for Parliament to add the option of a CMP to the armoury in the toolkit to be used after all the other options have been exhausted. Our amendments seek to do that. CMPs will not be the first choice made by a judge, but as a last resort judges might decide to use one if all the other tools in their toolkit are inadequate.

Further amendments were also made that permitted all parties to seek the use of a CMP and not just the Government, and to ensure that the judicial balancing of public interest and national security also took place once proceedings were being held in secret. There was a degree of contentment on Second Reading in the Commons that because of the improvements made by the Lords, the worst excesses of the proposals had been ameliorated. The former leader of the Liberal Democrats, who is also a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Sir Menzies Campbell, said that

“the amendments made in the House of Lords have been regarded by many people as being entirely favourable and reasonable.”—[Hansard, 18 December 2012; Vol. 555, c. 713.]

We agree. He not only wanted the Government to accept the amendments but wanted to persuade them to accept further amendments with the purpose of extending the discretion of the court, and we also agree with that.

The pity is that the Government shredded the Lords amendments as the Bill progressed through Committee. I must also, at this point, put on record how disappointing it was that the Government tabled its amendments at such late stages on repeated occasions—they did so at the latest stages possible, both in Committee and now on Report. It is unacceptable that the Bill had its

Second Reading in the House of Lords on 19 June and yet the Government were still tabling amendments as late as last Thursday, thereby depriving us, interested parties and experts a chance properly to analyse those late amendments. That is not befitting of such a sensitive and complex issue.

Let me turn my attention briefly to the Liberal Democrats. If we are to be successful in our attempts to improve the Bill today, we will need their support. During the passage of this Bill, the Liberal Democrats have had a number of different positions, often at the same time. The grass-roots party voted to ditch part 2 in its entirety, but a Liberal Democrat Minister, the noble Lord Wallace of Tankerness, steered it through its Lords stages and resisted any changes or improvements. Liberal Democrat Back-Bench peers, to their credit, supported the amendments made to the Bill. More than 80% of the Liberal Democrat peers in the House of Lords voted with us to amend the Bill to incorporate the concerns of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. In Committee, the hon. Members for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) sided with Labour in our amendments to restore the improvements made to the Bill by the House of Lords.