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Counter-Terrorism Bill

I do not intend to go down that route, and under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act it should not be referred to. The amendment requires every acquisition of information obtained by the intelligence and security agencies from authorities or persons outside England and Wales to be accompanied by a statement setting out the steps taken to ascertain the circumstances in which the information was obtained and that it had not been obtained by torture is unworkable. At one level, it is unworkable given the intrinsic difficulty of proving the negative that the information had not been obtained by torture. In the vast majority of cases, a definitive assurance would not be possible. Rather than going into an unnecessarily long explanation, it would be better to look at the detailed consideration of such matters by the House of Lords in its judgment in the case of A (FC) and others (FC) (Appellants) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) (2004). I think it will suffice to say that trying to prove a negative does not have the quality of certainty associated with good law-making. Another reason why the proposal is unworkable is that the intelligence and security agencies often carry out their work under considerable time pressure. The sheer bureaucracy that would be created by this proposal would impede the rapid acquisition and dissemination of what could be time-critical intelligence. Furthermore, the volume of information involved would make such a proposal impractical to implement. Such a requirement would hamper the intelligence and security agencies in doing their vital work and would divert valuable resources away from it. In fact, the burden would be so great that intelligence services would be forced to disclose information under existing provisions without relying on or getting the benefit of Clauses 19, 20 and 21. Last and, I hesitate to say, least, there is the issue of why the noble Lords who tabled this amendment framed it so that information given to the intelligence services by individuals in Scotland would require certification concerning torture when information from individuals in England and Wales would not. I shall leave them to explain their thinking. I started by saying that the Government have sympathy in the aims that appear to lie behind the amendment. Let me make clear the position in regard to torture. I make no apology for repeating what has been said here, and elsewhere, earlier. The security and intelligence agencies do not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or inhumane or degrading treatment. For reasons both ethical and legal, their policy is not to carry out any action that they know would result in torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. There is also the pragmatic reason that one can put little store by what is got out of someone being tortured because he will say whatever comes into his head and, if he has nothing, he will tell something. UK policy on torture is very clear: we unreservedly condemn the use of torture and take allegations of mistreatment very seriously. We abide by our commitments under international law, including the UN convention against torture and the European Convention on Human Rights and expect all other countries to comply with their international obligations. Evidence found to have been obtained as a result of torture would not be admissible in criminal or civil proceedings in the UK, apart from in prosecutions of individuals believed to have been involved in torturing others. The provenance of intelligence received from foreign services is often obscured. Where it is clear that it has been obtained from individuals in detention, such intelligence is very carefully evaluated. The prime purpose for which we need intelligence on counterterrorism targets is to avert threats to British citizens' lives. Where there is reliable intelligence bearing directly on such threats, it would be irresponsible to rejected out of hand. If we fail to do everything in our power to protect the lives of our people, that will be a fundamental abdication of our responsibility as a Government. For the reason that I have given, I believe that the amendment must be rejected.