We’re used to the Government and MPs in Westminster shouting loudly about their new policies. Every four or five years – or recently, a lot more frequently – we get presented with a shiny new manifesto chock-full of policy after policy.

But there is one policy Theresa May really doesn’t want you to know about: her policy on targeting people for assassination in parts of the world where the UK is not involved in armed conflict.

According to the Defence Secretary himself, this is something the Government will do. In December, Gavin Williamson told a newspaper he will target suspected terrorists and “hunt them down” in “Iraq and Syria and other areas.” Those “other areas” must be outside of the armed conflict the UK is involved in in Iraq and Syria.

But who exactly might be targeted, where and in what circumstances? The policy on that remains a mystery.

Back in 2016 the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights reported on this exact issue, warning that a lack of clarity could expose UK personnel to grave legal liability. In response, the government would say only that they had no policy on targeted killing beyond a war zone because it was “hypothetical”.

Then, just over a year ago, the Attorney General gave a speech in which he redefined the Westminster Government’s 180-year-old understanding of when they consider someone such a threat that they are prepared to kill them. But this was merely a list of “factors” to be considered, not a policy on targeted killing.

Finally, in September 2017 we got the long-awaited, official Government document on the use of drones and there was one sentence, deeply buried, which stated the UK had a “practice of targeting suspected terrorists outside of the armed conflict itself.” This looked like exactly the thing they had denied having a policy on for so long.

People, including the SNP’s Stewart McDonald, asked questions and then, mysteriously, the “practice” was erased from the document as suddenly as it appeared. Three days before Christmas a new version was uploaded with no mention of it. A defence minister described his own department’s document as “misleading”.

Where does this leave us? If you’re confused, then you are not alone. Any policy the Government does have is well and truly hidden beneath contradictory statements and vague language.

When we are talking about something so significant as our national security, it is not good enough for ministers to make decisions in the backrooms of Whitehall. The public interest in greater transparency is clear. Public servants deserve guidance and clarity for their own protection. And we the public have a right to know our Government’s policy on taking lethal, irreversible, action which may include strikes against UK citizens.

Rather than play politics and seek out snappy headlines, the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister should come before Parliament, publish their policy and have an open and honest debate about where the limits of their powers should lie.

Reprieve is an international human rights organisation that works to end the death penalty and associated human rights abuses worldwide.