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Terrorism Bill

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I respect him greatly. He wanted to put that on the record and I am glad to have allowed him to do so, although I do not think that it added a great deal to the debate. The question of the review clause needs to be settled in a better way. Any review clause must be debated on the Floor of the House and carried by a vote of the House. Anything in a statutory instrument may be taken off the Floor or considered in a way that does not allow full debate on the Floor, and that would not be acceptable to those who are concerned about having the Bill at all. I hope that when we get the review clause in its final form, after the Bill has been through the other place and returned to this House, the Government will ensure that we have the right to a full debate on the Floor on a proper motion and that the provision is not slipped through. Prevention of terrorism legislation passed when we were not in government was discredited by the fact that, in the early stages, we did not have those debates. There was some to-ing and fro-ing about the word ““reckless””. It is a difficult word, but I first saw it in an amendment tabled by the Conservative Opposition in Committee. I do not know how one deals with that difficulty in legislation. If people do something innocently but recklessly, which part do we lean on? Do we judge their act innocent, so the police do not pursue them? Or do we judge it to be reckless and have the police pursue them, even though they may end up, days or weeks later, being deemed innocent but a little reckless? Holding them under the Bill would have a damaging effect on their life, their family and community and on the perception of them in the community, and it would also be damaging to the work of the police. I hope that we can have a provision that clarifies what we mean. If someone knowingly does something recklessly, such as driving a car and causing an accident, that is different from doing it unknowingly. I think of a recent case in Scotland in which someone thought that they were driving properly but were in fact driving recklessly. That case went to court and the individual was fined because he should have known that he was driving recklessly. We have to get the definition of ““reckless”” right. I return to the time provisions that the Bill now contains—28 days; four periods of seven days. That may prove inadequate. I know that people voted for that for all the right reasons. The problem is that the House focused on time rather than process. I was concerned about the definitions used in the Bill, especially in connection with the actions of people who wanted to encourage and support those fighting against oppression and state terror in other parts of the world. The Bill has still not got that quite right. For example, when I was a youth I went around sticking up posters for ““Back from Hanoi”” meetings. Representatives from the National Union of Mineworkers had gone to Vietnam to find out what was really going on, and on their return condemned what the Americans were doing to the people there. At the time, that was not a popular opinion. Would the Bill mean that I would end up in the slammer for sticking up posters, going to meetings and handing out leaflets that told of the American atrocities against the people of Vietnam? Theoretically, the Americans were our allies, and thank goodness that the Prime Minister of the time kept this country out of that terrible debacle. We have to get our approach right as we cannot discourage people—anywhere in the world, and even in this country—from standing up for the serious principles of human rights that have so often been abused. I return to the question of process. Sadly, the House originally settled on a 14-day detention period. Judicial review every seven days depends on the Bill containing the strictest definition of what merits continuation, but I believe it probable that opportunities will arise to abuse the system that is being proposed.That abuse will take the form of acts of omission, and I am worried that the police will think that, in order to keep a person in detention, they will have to prove only that they are pursuing a trail of evidence, regardless of its weakness. In contrast, I think that they should have to show that they are engaged in a serious and ongoing investigation of evidence that has not yet been analysed properly. The important point is that the evidence should exist: if it does not, and the police merely hope that they will find it after holding the person for another seven days, that will be insufficient reason for continuing that person’s detention. The process has to be defined very clearly. In our discussions, we were told that such matters would be kept under review by a High Court judge and that the people in detention would be properly represented. However, I want to know in detail how transparent the process will be. Giving the people involved representation will be no good if they are told by the police that they are in possession of evidence that can be shown to the High Court judge but not to the defence representative, on the ground that it has security implications. I want the people accused under the Bill to have the right to due and proper process, but such an approach would render that process null and void. In addition, we must make sure that the police do not think that they can hold for 28 days anyone whom they pick up. They cannot be allowed to believe that the detention period will be automatic as long as they can show that they are pursuing an investigation. I voted for a period of 90 days because I wanted a reassurance that the proper process would be observed. The actual length of the detention period would not matter to me—or to my constituents, or those in my constituency party who hold me to account—as long as the security authorities were required to show that they were pursuing a trail of evidence. As long as they could do that, detention could be prolonged by successive periods of seven days. The arguments that we got locked into about 28, 90 or 14 days were less important than ensuring that a person arrested by the police on suspicion of taking part in terrorist activity was held to be innocent until enough evidence had been gathered to allow a charge to be brought. Adopting that approach would make sure that every review by the High Court judge would start from the assumption of the person’s innocence, even though there were grounds for suspicion. At every review, the police would have to prove that extending detention for a further seven days was justified, and they could do that only by demonstrating in an obvious and transparent way that they were accumulating real evidence against the person involved. I hope that the Bill will return from the other place with the problems to do with definition, the maximum period of detention, glorification and the response to international terror all fixed. If that is the case, the Bill will be a good one. Whoever said that the people who voted for the strongest possible Bill consistent with the wishes of the public was on the money. It is possible that the House will benefit from the way that the Bill has been debated and we may feel that the process of deliberation has been wonderful. However, if it fails to do what it sets out to do—that is, prevent another atrocity such as happened here on 7/7, or on other occasions around the world—we will be held liable by the public.