The OTHER Prime Minister's Questions

If you were wondering why civil liberties were such a cause for concern in this country, you need look no further than the unelected man in charge of the country - Gordon Brown.

Yesterday, he appeared in front of the House of Commons Liaison Committee. Now, these Committees are generally a bit more useful than the theatrics of PMQs. At Committee, we do actually get some answers and some insight.

Now, before going on, just have to paste in the bit that the Hansard section is asking people to make clear, lest we get told off:

1. This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.

2. Any public use of, or reference to, the contents should make clear that neither witnesses nor Members have had the opportunity to correct the record. The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings.

Now with that said, we had the benefit of having watched coverage of the questions that were asked of Gordon Brown at the Liaison Committee live yesterday, courtesy of Sky News - well, at least until a heavy passing shower interrupted parts of the audio. So, we were waiting to come back to this.

All of our interest is in the questions posed by Andrew Dismore MP concerning 'terror' legislation, civil liberties and human rights issues.

Now, we give Labour MPs a very hard time on this blog and maybe we should apologise in very rare instances for tarring them all with the same brush.

So, credit where credit is due, Andrew Dismore does try to keep the executive in check on civil liberty issues. And you'll be able to think of him highly yourself once you read the 'uncorrected' transcript of yesterday's exchange between him and Brown.

Civil liberties at home

After his questions about 'terror' laws in general and a section on the cost effectiveness of control orders, Dismore questioned the unelected PM on the controversial 28 days detention policy.

So now, let's get down to the meat of this post. We'll say nothing. Here's the exchange - we're not offering any further opinion or editing or omitting a word:

Q78 Mr Dismore: [...] Can I ask about Section 44 stop and search. As you know, a couple of weeks ago the European Court of Human Rights held that the powers of stop and search under section 44 violate the right to respect for private life because they are neither sufficiently circumscribed and defined nor subject to adequate legal safeguards against their abuse. Time and again I have been told, and my Committee has been told, by ministers and senior police officers, that section 44 should only be used strictly for counter-terrorism purposes but, in practice, it has become a lazy way for police officers to stop and search people more broadly. Indeed even in my own constituency, talking to the borough commander, there are half a dozen areas which are subject to section 44 powers, which I found rather surprising. Will you now look again at section 44 and the way it is used because I think it does undermine confidence in the police in the way that it is being used as well as it being abused in the way it is being used excessively?

Mr Brown: As far as I understand, this case went to the ECHR after the applicants lost their previous challenges in the divisional court, in the Court of Appeal and in the House of Lords, and these earlier judgments said that stop and search did not interfere with a person's human rights. The case was related to two people, as you know, who were stopped near an arms fair in London in 2003. As far as I understand it, the Home Secretary is not only disappointed with the European Court of Human Rights' ruling in this case, because we had won all the other challenges in the UK courts, including in the House of Lords, but we are considering the judgment and will seek to appeal. Pending the outcome of this appeal, the police will continue to have these powers available to them. I think we must wait until we see the outcome of this appeal.

Q79 Mr Dismore: I am sure the Home Secretary is disappointed, but my Committee is disappointed by the response that we have had in relation to this, because time and again we have had overwhelming evidence about the abuse of section 44 even when it comes to dealing with ordinary protesters having a cup of coffee or the climate change people sat in an Indian restaurant.

Mr Brown: I can accept that you feel strongly about it but you have to understand that this is a case where the applicants lost their previous challenges in the divisional court, in the Court of Appeal and in the House of Lords and therefore we now have a judgment from the ECHR. We will look at that carefully but our initial instinct is to appeal.

Human Rights abroad

So then Mr. Dismore questioned Brown about allegations of torture. Note that Mr. Dismore wants to talk about what might have been happening in the past whereas Brown will only answer by talking about the future. Again, this is a direct copy and paste - no editing or omission by this blogger:

Q81 Mr Dismore: Can I ask you finally about a couple of points on torture, which we have explored before. You promised to make public the new guidance to the intelligence services on the detention and interrogation of suspects overseas. Will you make public the guidance which was in place between 2001 and 2007 when the allegations we have previously explored in this Committee, and in my own Committee with ministers, of complicity in torture were alleged to have happened?

Mr Brown: Let us just be clear where we start on this. We do not support torture; we do not condone torture; we do not allow torture; and we do not ask other people to torture on our behalf. I am absolutely clear that these are the principles that guide the conduct of this administration. Where there are allegations made, they are treated seriously. I wanted to publish the guidelines so that people can be in no doubt as to what are the recommendations we give to those people charged with the security of our country. What I have done is put the guidelines before the Intelligence and Security Committee. They are now looking at these guidelines. I would not want to go back in time and publish previous recommendations. I would want to publish the recommendations that are going to be in force from now on. I think that would give you the satisfaction that we as a Government are doing everything that we can.

Q82 Mr Dismore: That would be helpful for the future ---

Mr Brown: Hold on. They will come from the Intelligence and Security Committee with their advice and then we will publish them, and that is something that we have already said we will do.

Q83 Mr Dismore: That will be helpful for the future but the allegations relate to the past. I think if we are going to be able to put to rest these allegations we have to know what the guidelines were at the time when the allegations were supposed to have happened.

Mr Brown: There are cases in relation to that that are being dealt with at the moment through the courts. I think the most important thing I can do in the job I have is to make sure that people are clear about the guidelines under which the security services and all our services are operating now, and I am going to publish these very soon after I have had the advice of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

There's plenty more in the transcript for you to sink your teeth into and deliberate over. What, unfortunately, the transcripts can never convey is body language and tone of voice but in the exchanges we've selected, we reckon there are plenty of word specifics in the answers that are enlightening.

What do you think?