Counter-Terrorism Bill
1:00 pm
Lord Carlile: The Chilcot inquiry has now reported and I broadly agree with its conclusions. I have always been in favour of the availability of intercept evidence. My own view, having examined an awful lot of terrorism cases, is that intercept evidence would be useful in a very small number of very serious cases: possibly one or two in the next three or four years. That is not a scientific analysis, but an educated guess. Competent terrorists, if I may use that expression, are very counter-intuitive about intelligence efforts. One hears stories, although this is only a hypothetical example, of terrorists going into a park and lying prone, face down on the grass, so as to talk to one another head to head. Those kinds of people do not say things on telephones that would be much use to anyone. Also, it is absolutely vital that national security should be protected. That applies in every single country that I know of that admits intercept evidence, and I do not know of any comparable country where there is an exception to that rule.