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Counter-Terrorism Bill

I have listened to the Minister’s reply on Amendment No. 35 with some interest. I make it clear that, as my noble friend Lord Carlile mentioned in the earlier debate, he and I have been close friends and colleagues for 37 years. I do not for a moment doubt his integrity or—although I may disagree with him—the reasons why he puts forward the views that he has expressed today. However, I wonder whether it is appropriate that the independent reviewer should have an office within the Home Office itself and be serviced by Home Office officials, which is the current position. This does not just apply to my noble friend Lord Carlile but to anybody who may hold that office in the future. If we are to have an independent reviewer, he should be seen to be independent, have his own office and staff, and, when he comes to give his view to both your Lordships and to Parliament as a whole, we should know that it comes from somebody who is in no way influenced by the views circulating in the Home Office at any particular moment. It may not be my noble friend, but his successor. On Amendment No. 36, there is a great deal of sense in having a statutory basis for the threshold charging. As I pointed out in my speech earlier today, the guidance issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions to his prosecutors was not published and did not come to light until February of this year. For a period of two to three years, the public were unaware of the nature of the threshold charging going on in terrorism cases. That involved not only a reasonable suspicion that a person had committed a terrorist offence but that there was a likelihood that more evidence would come to light. Further, that decision could be based on inadmissible evidence—intelligence or intercept evidence. It seems to me that we ought not to encourage the Director of Public Prosecutions to give guidance to public prosecutors that is not absolutely transparent and known to everybody concerned in this field. I respectfully suggest that the Minister takes that on board and returns to these issues at Report.