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Intelligence and Security Committee

Yes, that is absolutely true, although I do not believe for one minute that any of this is cut and dried and crystal clear, because it never is. There are intelligence agencies across the world that we believe we can trust, but which for whatever reason—my hon. Friend used the term "inadvertently"—have been guilty of contravening some of the Geneva conventions. That has indeed sometimes been inadvertent. I spent a large amount of my time at the Foreign Office helping to negotiate the possible future extradition to their home countries of people who were being held in places such as Belmarsh. We might have been given every possible reassurance that those people would be safe, but our courts frequently did not believe those reassurances, so our attempts to send those people back home to their own countries were often stymied. These are very difficult areas, and there is no rule that says that, because we do something in this country with the best of intentions, it will not be contravened or broken somewhere else in the world. I believe that the people who work in our intelligence and security agencies deserve the very best guidance, both political and practical, and that that guidance must be as clear and unambiguous as possible. It is this Parliament, and this Government, who must provide it.