Clause 64
Counter-Terrorism Bill
6:00 pm
Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General, Law Officers; Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I shall avoid taking up the Committee’s time on votes on individual probing amendments. I have to accept that completely redrafting the clause is beyond me, although I may attempt to do it before Report. However, my gut feeling is that that is required. If we were able to redraft the clause, we might even be able to point out to the Government that we are trying to achieve most of what they intend—albeit in a form that I find much more comfortable and acceptable in my anxiety about maintaining transparency and confidence in the system—and trying to ensure that the process has proper judicial oversight, which is lacking at the moment.
I will not press the amendment to a vote; I am simply using it to tease out this important debate. Considering the Bill clause by clause and subsection by subsection helps me understand the issues that arise. First, we need a system in which judicial oversight is seen to be operating and in which the mechanism is not triggered by the Secretary of State’s certificate. Secondly, we need some confidence that the necessity of getting rid of a jury has been thought through. Thirdly, we need to maintain public confidence that, under the system for appointing coroners—the Minister might be following the Home Office’s briefing and might be better able to satisfy me of the bona fides of the Government on this matter—the coroners are independent and that existing coroners, preferably, will be doing the exceptional work that is required.
Subject to those comments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.