My Lords, my answer to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, is that regrettably Clause 8(4) is wholly accurate because the nature of the special advocates and the task that they are required to perform is that they are not responsible to the individual in whose case they are appearing. They are not responsible because they cannot tell the person concerned the information that is known to them, as the lawyer in the case. They cannot ask the individual to comment on that information or to give instructions to them on that information. If they speak to the individual concerned, what the individual tells them—the special advocate—may be wholly irrelevant to the case, unknown to the client.
Although the special advocate system is made available as being better than no representation at all, it is inherently and fundamentally unfair in that the individual
concerned does not know the nature of the case against them; and nothing that the special advocate does, however competent and industrious they are, can affect that. I therefore think that there is no advantage in seeking to supply in the Bill what would be a fig leaf to conceal the reality of the situation; and the reality of the situation is precisely as it is put in Clause 8(4).