My Lords, I support the stand part notices tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood. Clauses 152 to 155 should be removed from the Bill in their entirety.

Before I begin, I want to make absolutely clear to the Committee that there is no question of whether authorised firearms officers encounter danger, because of course they do. I pay tribute to them and their families for the risks they assume in the course of their daily lives to protect us all. Nor is this about whether the court should protect individuals where there is a real and immediate risk to life or safety, because that already exists. I spent 15 years in chambers as a libel and media barrister with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, defending freedom of expression with great passion against the imposition of reporting restrictions. It is that defence that I am here to speak about today, because these clauses would see a constitutional cornerstone of our democracy overturned.

Open justice is not a concession to the media; it is about the public. It is about understanding what is going on in our criminal justice system. It protects the very sacred principle in this country of policing by consent, in which we rely on the public’s confidence and belief in transparency. It maintains confidence in the legitimacy of criminal proceedings. When, tragically—let us be realistic, it is what we are talking here—the state, represented by a fire officer, has killed or maimed someone by the use of force, open justice provides accountability to the public, and the public should have that accountability. That is why anonymity has always been exceptional. It is justified only on evidence and where strictly necessary. Even in cases of national security and terrorism, that remains the case.

So, why now? Why these clauses? It is important that we reflect on the context in which they are being brought forward. The case behind the proposal, acknowledged by the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, is that of Martyn Blake, a police officer who shot and, tragically, killed Chris Kaba during a police stop in Streatham in September 2022. For those who remember the case, after a year-long investigation—I say that in the light of the previous Amendment—the CPS authorised a charge of murder in September 2023. The court had initially granted the officer anonymity.

Following that charging decision, firearms officers laid down their arms. Noble Lords may recall that there were widely reported issues regarding morale in the force, recruitment of firearms officers and ensuring they knew they had the confidence of the Government and the public to do their jobs safely and securely. All those concerns were legitimate, but I ask noble Lords to remember, and the Government to bear in mind—it seems to have been overlooked in the conversations about this—that those firearms officers laid down their arms after the charging decision, not after the anonymity decision had been lifted. That is what happened. Initially, there was a storm about the anonymity—speculation, fear, concern, conspiracy theories and online campaigns. The officer was subjected to endless questions and issues around his and his family’s life. In fact, there has been no evidence that the lifting of the anonymity order caused any further problems for him than the initial lack of transparency, which raised suspicion and led the public to have fears and doubts.

It is that lack of evidence in bringing these clauses forward that causes me the gravest concern. Under the current system, when an anonymity order is made it is done only on evidence and in exceptional circumstances, as we saw in the Blake case. Here, we are trying to reverse that principle. After that case, noble Lords may also recall there was a review of the standards of conduct in firearms charges—the Godwin/Fulford review. Even then, no issues were raised about the anonymity protection for officers. That was drawn by the Home Secretary from some concerns—and they were put no higher than “concerns”—in the evidence given to that inquiry.

These clauses invert some of the most important principles in our justice system. They would give rise to the risk of a declaration of incompatibility by the European Court of Human Rights subject to Section 4 of the Human Rights Act. They proceed not from risk established in the individual case but from the status of a defendant. What a terrible principle to instil and embody in our law. They tell the courts that secrecy should be presumed and that the public should be kept away from the facts because of the role a defendant performs. It is not a modest adjustment that the Government seek; it is a change of principle and an unprecedented shift in English criminal law.

My noble friend Lord Black has already referenced the compromises and the difficulties for investigation of crimes if the press are not able to report freely. I endorse and support all those; I will not repeat them. Presumptions about reporting matter. They signal to the public Parliament’s view of where the balance should lie, and they shape outcomes and public perception for the reasons the noble Lord gave and many others that I am sure noble Lords sitting here are already thinking about.

Once anonymity becomes the default, openness becomes something that must be justified rather than assumed. That runs against European human rights law, our own Human Rights Act and all the cornerstone principles of our democracy. The justification offered—that firearms officers face a heightened risk of reprisal—is not adequate. It might be true in particular cases, but the law already provides for that very argument. Where risk is demonstrated, courts can and do grant anonymity when it has been justified, on evidence, and shown to be strictly necessary. Not once have we been given a reason in any of the debates, public statements and conversations around these clauses why firearms officers should be singled out for a statutory presumption when others who face serious threats do not.

What are we opening the floodgates to: prison officers, soldiers, witnesses in organised crime cases, or private citizens caught up in highly contentious incidents? Why would we not have to provide anonymity to some or all the above? Equality before the law, our rule of law, is not strengthened by creating special rules for one category of defendant, particularly—this is so important—when that defendant is an agent of the state.

There is also the issue of public confidence. When the state takes a life, transparency is essential. We are the United Kingdom; we have led the world in these principles. We are not Iran or some third-world country trying to figure out how to dictate its people. If Parliament were to accept that open justice may be displaced by default, because of operational pressure or institutional anxiety, it would become easier to extend that logic elsewhere. This is how fundamental principles are eroded: incremental exceptions that seem reasonable in isolation. Maybe it is trite for me, as a former practising barrister, to say that hard cases make bad law; in this case, it would seem hard politics does too.

We already have a system that allows courts to protect safety where it is genuinely at risk without abandoning openness, accountability or equality before the law. For all these reasons, I support the stand part notices and submit that these clauses should not stand part of the Bill.