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Justice and Security Green Paper

If my right hon. Friend will excuse me, I shall not comment on the Binyam Mohamed case in detail. The judges take one view and others take another, but the Green Paper addresses the problem. One would need the facility for closed material procedures, so the starting point would be a decision, confirmed by the judge, that in the interest of national security the case should take place in closed proceedings and, therefore, not be revealed afterwards. That is an altogether better way of resolving the issue than allowing an argument to break out between judges, the Security Service and everybody else afterwards about whether something has been revealed that should not have been. That was where we were in the case of Binyam Mohamed. I cannot remember my right hon. Friend's second point, but we have got the balance right. Members of the Intelligence and Security Committee have said that confidentiality vis-à-vis allies is absolutely crucial, and it is no good currying favour by trying to get behind that, because in fact the safety of people in this country would be endangered if we did not have the full and frank co-operation of allied countries providing us with their intelligence, just as we provide them with ours.