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Witness Anonymity

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and, as I said earlier, for the co-operation that the official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats separately have offered the Government. I of course accept what he says—that there is a balance here, with two competing considerations: the need for the public to be protected from serious and dangerous criminals, and the paramount need to ensure that the trial process is fair and that those for whom the evidence does not exist are not convicted. That has to be the paramount consideration, but what the courts have sought to do over some decades is properly to balance those considerations. I had never been aware of any complaints about the way in which the courts, up to and including the Court of Appeal, had secured the anonymity of witnesses but the fairness of the trial process. Just one indication of that is that my parliamentary branch tells me that it knows of no parliamentary questions on that, and I have had no ministerial correspondence on it. That contrasts with the hundreds of parliamentary questions and thousands of letters on all the issues that concern the British public and Members of this House. Let me run quickly through the points that the hon. Gentleman raised. I am very grateful to him for what he says about the gratuitous attacks on the judiciary; they are totally unjustified. As in any country that runs by the rule of law, we have to have a judiciary that is separate and independent from the Executive and the legislature. By definition, that means that there will be occasions when an independent judiciary make judgments that are inconvenient to the Executive and the legislature. That is their job. Ultimately, this is the high court of Parliament, because central to our constitution is the sovereignty of Parliament and we, ultimately, can decide. But within that system, that independence must be respected and preserved. On the issue of the numbers, the hon. Gentleman is right to say that the president of ACPO suggested that there could be 40 or so. What I understand—it is for him to say this, not for me—is that he was describing the police estimate of the number of really serious cases involved. The other estimates that have been around are all-encompassing ones of any potential cases in the pipeline—they could involve, for example, test purchases of drugs—which I think could be more. However, it is precisely because there is a definitional problem that I do not wish to give this House estimates, unless I am satisfied that they are reasonably accurate. The hon. Gentleman asks whether we can provide an assessment of the growth and nature of this problem. I will do my best—there is simply an issue of time here, and the capacity of the officials involved. I understand the point that he is making. Great steps have been made, going back to the early 1990s, progressively to improve victim and witness protection. Victim Support funding has greatly grown, there are measures in a whole series of statutes going back to 1997, and there will be further measures in the Bill in the Queen's Speech at the end of this year. That said, however effective witness protection and witness support measures are, there will still be some cases where the only effective protection to ensure that the witnesses come forward is to anonymise their evidence. The hon. Gentleman asks about the sunset clause. The promise that I have made is an absolute promise, and if I may, I might consult him and the Liberal Democrat spokesman outside this House about some of the difficulties in putting that on the face of the Bill, but I promise that that does not detract from the absolute commitment that I have already given. On the question of taking all the stages in one day, I will discuss that with the usual channels, without any commitment, because the usual channels are a law unto themselves—always have been, always will be. [Interruption.] And often anonymous. On the Bill's application, it will apply to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. On how it will apply retrospectively, the question is how it will apply for the future in respect of out-of-time appeals, appeals that may be in time, and trials that are under way in respect of events that have already happened, which may involve a conviction. That way forward is as I described towards the end of my statement, which is that there will be measures to ensure that the appeal court will not quash convictions solely on the basis that the trial court lacked the jurisdiction under the common law, as is now known but was not known before Wednesday, to provide for anonymity measures. More detail will obviously be given in the Bill. We have considered the inquisitorial approach in New Zealand. The New Zealand drafters, although not formally subject to the convention, took full account of it in their drafting. There is a lot to learn from that. Whether to shift further from an adversarial to an inquisitorial approach in our courts is a big issue that is not for an emergency Bill.