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Intelligence and Security Committee

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The conclusion will not be affected, unless of course the Government choose to change the draft guidance, and if they do, our successors—it will be them now, alas—might well want to come to different conclusions. It is a mess, and it is a pity—and, I have to say to the Government, it was also absolutely unnecessary to go to these lengths to put off what is nothing more than an honest difference of opinion between people on both sides of the House doing their best to get this absolutely right. On the case of Binyam Mohamed, the guidance, and all that goes with it, is at the heart of what some people suspect happened, what others seem to know happened and what I can tell them did not happen. In our report to the Government in response to the guidance, we included a letter that we wrote to the Prime Minister on 17 March last year. We were concerned about the delays in setting out what was going on as this case rolled on through the courts. We included that letter with our initial findings on the allegations, including in Mr. Mohamed's case the allegation of complicity in torture, and that letter has been annexed to the review, which stills awaits publication. The Committee's letter includes some of the details of Mr. Mohamed's case in so far as it sheds light on the wider policy issues. Complaints such as Mr. Mohamed's are, of course, properly a matter for the Investigatory Powers Tribunal to investigate. We advised Mr. Mohamed's lawyers of that, and I am still surprised that he has apparently chosen not to take up that route. I would also say to all those now calling for a judicial inquiry that that is exactly what we have—a senior judge, Lord Justice Mummery, and his tribunal, which was specifically set up to look at individual cases.