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HMP Woodhill

I, too, start by thanking the Secretary of State for an advance copy of the statement. Sir Christopher Rose's remit was very limited:"““To investigate the circumstances relating to the visits to Babar Ahmad””." He does, however, make comments on a wider range of points and I would like to touch on them briefly first. First, on the Wilson doctrine, I acknowledge what the Secretary of State said about its not applying in this case, but I welcome the fact that the codes of practice will be reviewed. Clearly, we need that clarification as the chief surveillance commissioner has made it clear that in his view it is unsustainable in its present form. The report has been turned around extremely rapidly, within only a couple of weeks, yet during that time Sir Christopher managed to assess that routine bugging has not taken place. Some Members will find it astonishing to have achieved that within those time scales, so I hope that the Home Secretary will consider, as the Law Society suggested, that it may be appropriate to hold an inquiry into whether much larger scale bugging is indeed taking place. On the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan), and who knew what and when, there is useful clarification. The Home Secretary has said on a number of occasions that the hon. Gentleman was not the target of surveillance, but Sir Christopher Rose's report says that junior officers were aware that Mr. Babar Ahmad's prison friend was a Member of Parliament, so could the Home Secretary confirm whether additional guidance will be given to officers in that respect and how that guidance, once implemented, will be monitored? The astonishingly rapid turnaround of the report on the bugging of conversations between the hon. Member for Tooting and Mr. Ahmad addresses some of the concerns raised by the incident but leaves up in the air the whole question of whether we are moving towards an ever more intrusive surveillance society in which nothing is private and everything is analysed, recorded, logged and stored. That is a question the Liberal Democrats will pursue relentlessly.