What factors the Attorney-General takes into account in determining where the public interest lies in the context of legal proceedings relating to allegations of torture in interrogation.

Any decision on whether to bring criminal proceedings for an offence depends first on the sufficiency of evidence and then on whether prosecution is needed in the public interest. The normal principle is that a prosecution will usually take place unless there are public interest factors tending against prosecution that clearly outweigh those in favour.

In the current circumstances of the Attorney-General's investigation, it is odd that she is deciding not whether there should be prosecution but whether there should be investigation. In those circumstances, does the Solicitor-General agree that the evidential hurdle should be very low, that if there is credible evidence of torture it should be investigated by the police and that the public interest must always lie in favour of prosecution and factors such as embarrassment to the Government or the interests of foreign powers should never be taken into account?

I am sure the hon. Gentleman is right that there is no suggestion that that will happen. He did not start where the question suggested I thought he would, which was at the wrong end of it. Indeed, the court approved the Home Secretary sending to the Attorney-General the job of deciding whether there should be an investigation, and that is ongoing. If in due course there is one and there are offences to be considered, almost certainly—unless it is a decision that the House has said the Attorney-General must take—any decision to prosecute will be taken by the independent Director of Public Prosecutions in any event. I hope the hon. Gentleman feels that answer is clear and that it satisfies him.

As my hon. and learned Friend knows, the Joint Committee on Human Rights is looking into these allegations. We are particularly concerned about section 7 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994, which provides for the Secretary of State to waive the liability of intelligence service personnel for legal acts committed abroad in certain circumstances—the so-called James Bond Clause. Will my hon. and learned Friend confirm that it would not be in the public interest for any such certification to be provided in any case involving torture, and will she confirm that in the cases being looked at by the Attorney-General no such certificate has been issued?

I can neither confirm nor deny any such thing. It is not our intention to give a running commentary about the details of the ongoing deliberation process. The Attorney-General has written to the hon. Gentleman, as he knows, and a copy of the letter is in the Library. It indicates the stage that we are at—whether there should be an investigation is ongoing—and the Attorney-General will report to Parliament when she has made a decision.

Does the Solicitor-General agree that the public interest really lies in identifying whether or not torture was used and whether British officials were party to it? The public interest does not necessarily require identifying what information was extracted.

Once again, I have no doubt that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is right in the factors he puts forward that must play a role in considering the public interest. Let me simply reiterate what the Attorney-General has been asked to do, and the court wishes her to do: it is to see whether there should be an investigation, so please let us not put the cart before the horse. There will obviously be opportunities to look further at the matter. The Attorney-General has made it very clear that she will report to Parliament when she has completed her assessment.

But does the Solicitor-General think that the Attorney-General should have accepted this task in the first place, given the fact that Crown servants, senior officials and even Ministers might be involved? Is this not a situation where the investigation, and indeed the decision to prosecute, must be entirely independent of politicians?

They obviously will be. I do not know how many times one has to explain that to the Liberal Democrats. The decision whether to prosecute will not be taken by the Attorney-General or by me unless it is one of the offences on which Parliament has said the decision must be taken by the Attorney-General or the Solicitor-General so they cannot avoid it. In all other situations, the decisions will be taken by the independent Crown Prosecution Service and the investigation that precedes any such decision taken obviously by the police.

Does the Solicitor-General accept that most people see this as a cover-up of state-sponsored torture by a Government who supposedly introduced the Human Rights Act?

The hon. Gentleman lashes out like a man trying to get a fly out of his beard— [ Interruption. ] I am sure he is old enough to grow one. As I am sure he appreciates, the Foreign Secretary has made it very clear that the documents that are the cause of concern, which the court worried about and consequently passed on to the Attorney-General, were disclosed to Mr. Mohamed's lawyers only because the British Government negotiated the United States into that position. It is not the British Government who have any reservation about their disclosure. The hon. Gentleman tries really hard to be wide of the mark and he scored a very wide one today.