Prime minister responds to criticisms from Nick Clegg and MPs, saying 'keeping our country safe' is paramount
David Cameron has defended plans to create a new generation of secret courts and to extend powers to monitor the public's emails, phone calls and social media communications, saying the government needed to take every step to keep the country safe.
The prime minister had been asked about criticisms of the proposals levelled by his deputy, Nick Clegg, and the joint committee on human rights.
"On the issue of how we have a court system that can both protect people's liberties and protect our national security, and on the issue of how we handle data both to protect people's security but again to make sure we can pursue terrorists and stop terrorist acts taking place, these are difficult issues," he said. "They are sensitive issues. They require government to have deep, long conversations and work through some very tough issues."
Cameron said the government had engaged in a lengthy consultative process with the legal profession on the courts plan and there was "time to deal with everybody's concerns" before the Queen's speech.
"We need to stand back and look at the big picture … government, prime ministers, have a responsibility for national security. We should take every step that is necessary to keep our country safe. We should not put our civil liberties at risk by doing so. But where there are gaps that need to be plugged, we need to plug those gaps. We should do that with consultation, with understanding, with respect to our long traditions for liberty in this country. But, nevertheless, those gaps have to be dealt with. That's my responsibility. And it's one that I intend to fulfil."
Earlier the justice secretary, Ken Clarke, defended the secret courts plan arguing it would make the system more accountable and more conducive to intelligence-sharing with other countries.
Speaking after the deputy prime minister wrote to cabinet colleagues to criticise the proposals as unacceptable in their present form, Clarke said he usually sided with Clegg on civil liberties issues and agreed that a judge, not the secretary of state, should make the final decision on what information should be heard privately.
He said that though he understood some of the concerns, the secret courts would allow evidence to be heard that, under the current system, would not be heard at all. The public interest immunity system meant intelligence cannot be heard if deemed sensitive to national security.
"The practice at the moment is that this evidence is never given," Clarke told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "I would like the judge to be able to take that evidence into account but it's got to be in some closed procedure."
Clarke added that the proposals – a response to evidence given in public during litigation brought on behalf of Binyam Mohamed and other former inmates of Guantánamo Bay detention centre – could help improve co-operation with foreign intelligence services.
Some of the evidence disclosed in those cases was based on material supplied by the CIA and, ever since, Clarke said, the US intelligence services had become "nervous that we're going to start revealing some of the information".
"They have started cutting back, I'm assured, on what they disclose," he said, while cautioning that he had not been given specific details. "I'm told that in fact the Americans have been extremely cautious since the Binyam Mohamed case and it's getting in the way of co-operation."
Courtroom secrecy would allow ministers to decide what material could be concealed from the public, the media and even claimants during civil trials. Clarke argues the secret courts are needed to protect the control principle, which allows governments to determine how their intelligence is disseminated. He stressed that no final decision had been made on the plans, which had been outlined in a green paper and were under consultation.
Clegg is demanding that the courts are used only in exceptional cases where there are national security concerns, complement public interest immunity, will not apply to inquests and that judges, not ministers, decide when special courts are invoked.
Clarke told the BBC he understood the latter concern: "You can't have the secretary of state saying he declares this has got to be in closed proceedings … if that's what people fear, fine. In the green paper what we put forward was the judge would be able to check that decision by a process similar to a judicial review."
MPs and peers on the committee have dismissed the government's argument for secret justice as being based on spurious claims that the current system puts national security at risk. The report says the proposals would cause harm to: individuals facing the death penalty in other countries who are seeking the disclosure of evidence while "fighting not only for their liberty but for their life"; public trust and confidence in the government and courts; the principle of open justice; and the media's attempts to report matters of public interest.
Clegg has also criticised separate plans to extend the powers of the intelligence agencies to monitor the public's emails, telephone calls and social media communications. His intervention shows the Lib Dems are adopting a more assertive approach on civil liberties.