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Witness Anonymity

My hon. Friend is right. I dare say that there is no constituency in the country—whether inner-city, urban or rural—where that issue has not been faced at one time or another. I agree with him about the importance of the legislation and the duty of care that the police, the prosecution and everyone else involved with such witnesses owe. In fact, I cannot think of any case in which the undertakings given to witnesses in respect of anonymity have been broken. There may be some, but it is very rare because not only is the witness involved put in jeopardy, but so is the credibility of the whole system. We will use the opportunity of the emergency legislation to deal with the immediate gap created by the Law Lords' judgment, and then more slowly, as is appropriate, we will think about other measures that might be included in the Bill that I will introduce just before Christmas.