Davey and Kennedy quiz Miliband on the torture of Binyam Mohamed

• [Feb 06]: EDWARD Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD): I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and for the support that he and his Department have given to Binyam Mohamed.

The Foreign Secretary rightly says that his judgment is on the line-whether to take a threat, and it was a threat, of non-co-operation on future intelligence sharing from our closest ally seriously, or whether to allow information on criminal acts of torture to be published. Will he confirm that the Court makes it clear that the publication of the summary of intelligence reports under question would not have created a security risk to the United States-that it would not have revealed the name of any agent, the location of any secret establishment, or the methods of any intelligence gathering? The truth is that the question of the publication of this summary was not about security and intelligence but about whether to cover up torture, and United States interest in avoiding political embarrassment and potential criminal investigations against its security services. So we have the bizarre situation that this is not a threat to our security from terrorists, but a threat to our security posed by our closest ally over an issue relating to democratic accountability and the rule of law.

Have the British Government not just rolled over in the face of a scarcely credible threat from a friend? Have both this Government and President Bush's Administration not confused intelligence with abuse, security with the rule of law, and secrecy with cover-up? Why did the Foreign Secretary not make it clear to our American friends that this country's opposition to torture meant that we would have nothing to do with intelligence gathered that way? Is it not our international legal duty not only to refrain from torture but to bring those who torture to justice-that this country's long-term security is best protected when we uphold human rights and the rule of law, and when it comes to upholding the values that Britain and America are supposed to share, this country will not be bullied into shabby and shady compromise? Was not President Obama right to say in his inauguration speech, "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals"?

When the Foreign Secretary raised this with Secretary Clinton, did he ask specifically, as the judges' final sentence says, "for the United States government to consider changing its position or itself putting that information into the public domain"?

On the question of whether British security services have been complicit in torture, I hope that the investigations of the ISC and the Attorney-General will provide answers. However, in issuing a public interest immunity certificate in this case, the answer of this House must be that the Foreign Secretary has stood in the way of allowing justice to take its course.

David Miliband: These cases are indeed illuminating, not only of the judgment of Ministers but of the judgment of those who would aspire to be Ministers. Although there was a very large lack of questions in the rant by the hon. Gentleman, I will go through his points.

First, the hon. Gentleman has a fundamental confusion between that which is necessary for justice, which is that the defence counsel has full access to all the documents that are necessary for that justice to be achieved, and the interest-which is a perfectly legitimate one to put-in public debate.

Mr. Davey indicated dissent.

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but I am sorry-justice is served by the individual in question having his rights to a proper trial, and that is served by his having full access to the 42 documents that are at issue. The 42 documents that are referred to were given to the defence counsel for Binyam Mohamed in significant part as a result of the representations of this Government. That is the way in which Government are served. When the hon. Gentleman talks, as he did in his first few seconds, about a cover-up of torture, he is neglecting the fact, first, that Binyam Mohamed's lawyers were given that documentation, and secondly, that the Attorney-General is looking in detail at whether there is anything complicit about the United Kingdom's role in this case.

Secondly, the hon. Gentleman said-it is worth the House looking at this when Hansard is published-that the threat to our national security came not from sources that we debate often in this House, whether terrorism or elsewhere, but from our closest ally, which the Intelligence and Security Committee has said is critical to saving British lives because of the intelligence that it provides. When he has had a chance to look at his remarks, he will realise that one cannot on one hand quote President Obama's inaugural speech, and deny on the other hand what his National Security Council says. I am happy to stick by what President Obama said. The National Security Council, which sits in the White House, speaks for the US Government-

Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD): You have not asked them.

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman shouts that we have not asked them. They made a public statement last night about this case, and they have been absolutely, resolutely clear about this case. Finally, the position of the Government in never condoning, co-operating in or authorising torture is absolute, and our fulfilment of our international responsibilities in that respect, moral and legal, is absolute. That is why we never condone, co-operate in or authorise torture, and why any allegations thereto are taken with the utmost seriousness and investigated by the highest legal authorities in the land.

. . • Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye & Lochaber, Liberal Democrat): Following on from that question, and the two earlier ones on exactly the same point, why does not the Foreign Secretary confirm that when the Government receive the advice from the Attorney-General sought by the Home Secretary on 23 October, they will make it available to the ISC, and to the House and the public generally, given what is now the public nature of the entire process?

On that issue, incidentally, we are also waiting to hear from the Government about the recent Information Tribunal ruling against them-again-on making available the then Attorney-General's advice and the Cabinet minutes relevant to the decision on the war on Iraq. Do the Government intend to appeal on that matter to the High Court, or to apply a veto under existing freedom of information legislation?

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker): Order. I think that the final remarks of the right hon. Member are beyond the scope of this statement.

Charles Kennedy: It was worth a try.

David Miliband (Secretary of State, Foreign & Commonwealth Office; South Shields, Labour): As the right hon. Gentleman says, it was worth a try, but probably not worth a response. We will come back to that matter on another occasion.

In respect of the earlier parts of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks, it is dangerous for one non-lawyer to tell another non-lawyer about the legal situation, but he referred to "advice" from the Attorney-General. That is not correct. The Attorney-General has to decide whether there is a case for prosecution, so it is a question not of whether advice should be published, but of whether steps should be taken on the basis of a decision by the Attorney-General, as the highest legal authority in the land. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman was not under any misapprehension about what I said earlier. The Government's commitment to the ISC-which has been repaid in full by the ISC in the way in which it has treated the information that we give to it-is to be full and open in our disclosures to it, and where information is of a highly sensitive nature, it is not published but the ISC do see it and scrutinise it. That must be the right way of working.