Clegg quizzes Brown on Chilcot Report

6.50.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 7th Feb 2008

[Feb 6]: . . Nicholas Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam, Liberal Democrat): I, too, thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement and the report.

I pay tribute to Sir John and all his colleagues for having produced what is self-evidently a very thorough and rigorous report on a sensitive and delicate issue. I warmly welcome the fact that they have opened the door to allowing intercept evidence to become admissible in court, even though that door is only ajar and further work needs to be done to make the issue a reality. We have long argued that intercept evidence should be admissible in court, in keeping with so many other jurisdictions around the world. That is part of our wider belief that we can and should do more to strengthen our judicial system so that there are more prosecutions in anti-terror cases.

I welcome the Prime Minister's emphasis on a cross-party approach on this issue; I regret that there is not that emphasis on other important issues in the anti-terrorism debate-notably, the extension of the period of detention without charge. Given that we have made so much progress on this issue and on issues such as post-charge questioning, I urge him to revisit the need for a further extension-to up to 42 days-of the period during which the police can detain people without charge.

May I ask the Prime Minister three specific questions about the mechanics of what happens after the production of the Chilcot report? First, I acknowledge and understand that it is unlikely if not impossible for any further implementation recommendations to be produced during the passage of the Counter-Terrorism Bill through the House. However, will he be more specific and commit that the work will at least be complete during this Parliament? Without a timetable, legitimate fears will be provoked that there will just be delay on delay in the crucial implementing phase of the process.

Secondly, will the Prime Minister clarify exactly what the relationship will be between the implementation group and the advisory group? It is, of course, a good thing that the advisory group will have a cross-party composition, but if it is to have a somewhat passive, observatory role, it will not play the function that many people want it to play: to hold the implementation group's feet to the fire to ensure that the Chilcot report recommendations are followed up in detail in the months ahead.

Finally, although I realise that it would be inappropriate to name the individual civil servants in the implementation group, will the Prime Minister at least enumerate which Departments and agencies will be part of it, so that once it reaches conclusions there will be an endorsement, on behalf of all the Government and all the Government agencies, of the group's implementing recommendations?

Gordon Brown (Prime Minister): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his general welcome for our proposals. At the end he raised issues about the nature of the implementation group; perhaps we can arrange talks on Privy Council terms about how that will move forward. I agree that in principle it is right to do this, and I have always thought that there is a very strong case for doing so if we can find the means. The problem is that although we can draw parallels with other jurisdictions, ours is distinctive-not just because of the adversarial system and the European convention on human rights, but because of the special capabilities that we have in Britain and our co-operation with overseas services.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman agrees that, as the committee has told us, the position on control orders has not changed. I would like to think that we could have the same degree of consensus on the proposal about questioning and the 42 days. I still believe that the proposal put forward by Liberty which he and the Conservative party supported is a basis for moving forward. In the legislation that we put forward, we have made proposals in line with that. I hope we can have discussions on that in the future.

On the distinction between the implementation team and the advisory group, let me make it clear that an implementation group was recommended by the Chilcot committee. It did not feel that it could continue with the technical and legal work on its own, and it suggested that we set up an implementation committee. The advisory committee will be there, as its name suggests, to advise as we go through the work. [http://tinyurl.com/yv6ge7]