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| David Cameron delivers big society speech: Politics live blog | David Cameron delivers big society speech: Politics live blog |
| (40 minutes later) | |
| 9.35am: Nick Clegg's decision to intervene in the government's secret courts plan is dominating the headlines today. The Daily Maily splashes on the story, which it describes as its exclusive. It says the proposal is "close to ruin". | |
Plans for a huge extension of 'secret justice' are close to ruin after Nick Clegg warned the Prime Minister he cannot support them as they stand. | |
| The Guardian and the Times are also saying that Kenneth Clarke, justice secretary, is going to back down over his plans, which are set out in his justice and security green paper last year. | |
| You can read the Ministry of Justice news release about the plans here. Here's a full summary of the proposals, and here's the green paper (pdf). | |
| Clarke has now given at least three interviews about the controversy, on the Today programme, on Sky and on BBC News. He's probably Westminster's leading expert at deploying the "it's all a fuss about nothing" defence and today he put on a masterclass as he tried to downplay the significance of the row. Here are the key points from his interviews. I've taken some of the quotes from PoliticsHome. | |
| • Clarke insisted that his plans were intended to increase the amount of evidence given in court because at the moment intelligence evidence is just not heard at all. | |
| At the moment this evidence is never given. The problem, which I don't think the [joint committee on human rights] addresses, is you can't have your British intelligence officers giving evidence in open court, saying my source is X, this is the technology we use, we know this. | |
| This meant there was "total silence", he said. His proposals would lead to an improvement because they would lead to intelligence evidence actually being heard by the judge, even if it was being heard in secret. Clarke said this would make the security services "more accountable to the courts". It would also give them the ability defend themselves. As a result judges and coroners would be "better informed" when they made their judgments. "I think that's an improvement myself," he said. | |
| • He claimed that the Americans were withholding intelligence from the British because they were worried about their intelligence being disclosed in open court under Britain's current rules. | |
| The Americans have got nervous that we are going to start revealing some of the [intelligence] information [given to the British] and they have started cutting back, I'm assured, on what they disclose ... I'm not told exactly, but 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 cooperation. | |
• He played down suggestions that he was going to water down his plans. Critics were saying this because they were misrepresenting what he was proposing in the first place, he said. | |
| I have been consulting for months. There was no fuss when we started ... The House of Commons seemed to quite welcome [the green paper] ... | |
| It is true that the joint committee said my proposals were rather vague. That is because we were consulting. If you put, as people did after the first three months, suddenly put the hardest possible interpretation on the green paper, then suddenly I'm introducing a Stasi-type regime here. But that is putting a particular interpretation. It's not where I come from. It's not where we are going to be. I think the government will be able to reassure its critics. | |
| • He said that he held "identical" views to Nick Clegg on civil liberties. | |
| I usually agree with Nick Clegg and most of the liberals on these things. I thought the last government was far too authoritarian ... | |
| I would be very, very surprised if I cannot reach agreement with Nick Clegg because Nick Clegg and I hold really identical views in principle on human rights, civil liberties, the rule of law and so on. | |
| Later said he and Clegg just as libertarian as David Davis | |
| • He seemed to criticise Clegg for leaking his objections to the green paper to the papers. It has been reported that Clegg has set out his objections in a letter to colleagues. Clarke said he would have got letter through normal process, "but I seem to have got it via the Times today". | |
| • He accepted that politicians should not be able to take the final decision about ruling that certain evidence must be given in secret. | |
You can't have just a secretary of state saying 'I declare' this has got to be closed proceedings as I'd be frightfully embarrassed if it went out. If that's what people fear, fine. In the green paper, what we put forward is that the judge should be able to check that decision with a process similar to that of judicial review. We've been consulting on that ... A judge has got to confirm that judgment, and we've got to agree the test the judge applies. | |
• He signalled that he was going to reject Clegg's call for inquests to be exempt from the new secret hearing provisions (or "closed material procedures", as they are called in the jargon). | |
| I'm not quite sure national security is less important in inquests than in other things, but that's my view. The government's got to decide this - Nick will be part of the collective decision. | |
| Clarke also said that he did not not see why a coroner could not hear evidence in a closed proceeding that another judge could hear in a closed procedings. | |
| • He said he was fully committed to open justice. Asked if whether he thought national security was more important than open justice, he said both were equally important. | |
Benjamin Franklin once said that anybody who gives up an ounce of basic liberty for the purpose of more safety does not deserve either liberty or safety. I agree with that. | |
| • He confirmed that he was opposed to secret evidence being used in criminal proceedings. | |
| This isn't criminal proceedings. You should not prosecute anyone on secret evidence. I quite agree. | |
| 9.00am: We have not heard much about the big society recently, but David Cameron is going to put that right today with a speech in London. He's launching Big Society Capital, the government's new big society bank, the one that is going to fund social enterprise initiatives using money from dormant bank accounts. As Nicholas Watt reports, it's going to have £600m available. Cameron will say the money will help society expand. | 9.00am: We have not heard much about the big society recently, but David Cameron is going to put that right today with a speech in London. He's launching Big Society Capital, the government's new big society bank, the one that is going to fund social enterprise initiatives using money from dormant bank accounts. As Nicholas Watt reports, it's going to have £600m available. Cameron will say the money will help society expand. |
| For years, the City has been associated with providing capital to help businesses to expand. Today, this is about supplying capital to help society expand. Just as finance from the City has been essential to help businesses grow and take on the world, so finance from the City is going to be essential to helping tackle our deepest social problems. | For years, the City has been associated with providing capital to help businesses to expand. Today, this is about supplying capital to help society expand. Just as finance from the City has been essential to help businesses grow and take on the world, so finance from the City is going to be essential to helping tackle our deepest social problems. |
| Big Society Capital is going to encourage charities and social enterprises to prove their business models - and then replicate them. Once they've proved that success in one area they'll be able - just as a business can - to seek investment for expansion into the wider region and into the country. | Big Society Capital is going to encourage charities and social enterprises to prove their business models - and then replicate them. Once they've proved that success in one area they'll be able - just as a business can - to seek investment for expansion into the wider region and into the country. |
| This is a self-sustaining, independent market that's going to help build the Big Society. | This is a self-sustaining, independent market that's going to help build the Big Society. |
| The speech is at 10.40am. I'll be covering it in detail. | The speech is at 10.40am. I'll be covering it in detail. |
| With luck Cameron will take questions, because it would be good to hear what he has to say about the other big issue of the day - the government's plan to allow intelligence evidence to be heard in secret in courts. As the Guardian reports, Nick Clegg has told his colleagues that he cannot accept the plans in their present form and the proposals have also been strongly criticised by parliament's joint committee on human rights. Kenneth Clarke, the justice secretary, was defending his plans on the Today programme earlier. He claimed that the Americans were now restricting the intelligence they share with the British because they are worried about it being disclosed in court. And he claimed that he felt much the same way as Clegg did on this issue. | With luck Cameron will take questions, because it would be good to hear what he has to say about the other big issue of the day - the government's plan to allow intelligence evidence to be heard in secret in courts. As the Guardian reports, Nick Clegg has told his colleagues that he cannot accept the plans in their present form and the proposals have also been strongly criticised by parliament's joint committee on human rights. Kenneth Clarke, the justice secretary, was defending his plans on the Today programme earlier. He claimed that the Americans were now restricting the intelligence they share with the British because they are worried about it being disclosed in court. And he claimed that he felt much the same way as Clegg did on this issue. |
I usually agree with Nick Clegg and most of the liberals on these things. I thought the last government was far too authoritarian. | I usually agree with Nick Clegg and most of the liberals on these things. I thought the last government was far too authoritarian. |
| I'll post more from the interview shortly. | I'll post more from the interview shortly. |
| Otherwise, it's quiet. But, as usual, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm and another in the afternoon. | Otherwise, it's quiet. But, as usual, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm and another in the afternoon. |
| If you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm on @AndrewSparrow. | If you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm on @AndrewSparrow. |
| And if you're a hardcore fan, you can follow @gdnpoliticslive. It's an automated feed that tweets the start of every new post that I put on the blog. | And if you're a hardcore fan, you can follow @gdnpoliticslive. It's an automated feed that tweets the start of every new post that I put on the blog. |