Mr. Brian Gormally:

That was on the national security material. We went quite a long way from a human rights point of view to say there are reasons why some information could be redacted - either to protect somebody's life or to protect somebody from serious harm. We went further than many of our colleagues around the world would go in that we said that if there were current and legitimate methodologies that security services use to keep people safe then they could be protected as well but not mechanisms that were illegitimate at the time and which, presumably, are not used now. We put that forward and, from our point of view, it was going a long way towards accepting the concept of national security, which should not be there as a concept. We did not use the term ourselves and yet we did not have any substantive discussion with the UK Government on that. We put it in and we have had some toing and froing but we have not yet seen the colour of their money in a final sense. We saw leaked drafts two and a half years ago which said that any information the security service says should not be released will not be released. There is a ludicrous blanket ban on passing on information. We will just have to wait and see what, if anything, is in the consultation. If one says to victims that in this case there is not enough evidence to prosecute that is fair enough. We would tell them just what happened to their loved one but in the interests of national security we cannot tell them anything even though the death happened 40 years ago. What is that going to do for faith in the rule of law and society?