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Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Bill

I thank noble Lords for their brevity, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, for his telegraphic delivery with regard to this amendment, which we have spent some time discussing. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, that indeed the committee gets extremely high marks for brevity and the lack of prescription in the detail—albeit that I am not able to assent to the amendment at this stage. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, makes a good point when he says that we need to look at making sure that the information before the judge is such as to enable him to make an informed decision, that it may not necessarily be that the special counsel is the only way forward, and that there may be other ways and we need to consider that. I assure him that we are looking at the provisions of the New Zealand legislation on which the amendments are based and trying to find out how they operate in practice. I told the House at Second Reading that I had the privilege of meeting New Zealand Associate Minister of Justice Lianne Dalziel in Edinburgh, and we are seeking to get as much information as we can about how the legislation operates in that country. It is important that we understand that these amendments seek to establish a statutory scheme for the appointment of special counsel in relation to witness anonymity applications. In Amendments Nos. 4B and 9 the scheme is based on the New Zealand model, but the structure that is adopted there is significantly different from our own. Therefore, we need to be appropriately cautious about that. The wording of the amendments themselves and our earlier debate demonstrate the difference there may be in the way in which we approach this matter, and what may or may not be necessary. It is important to acknowledge that this is not the only situation in which a statutory scheme is present. The appointment of special counsel in this situation is therefore particularly complex because at present we have at least one statutory scheme alongside the common law. Before bringing forward any statutory provision we will want to be satisfied about the correct role of a special advocate in anonymity proceedings. As I said, it was worth pointing out the difference between the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Lester, put forward the role and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, expressed the role. There is no reluctance at all to introduce a statutory scheme if that scheme would appear to be the most appropriate, but we need to give the matter further careful consideration.