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Terrorism Bill

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow). I was particularly interested in the comments that he made about the attempt to reintroduce intercept evidence. It is worth pointing out that within the past few days the Australian Government have avoided a serious attack—we assume by Islamist fundamentalists. There was excellent intelligence work, excellent intelligence gathering and excellent police work. Yet that Government are now wrangling over whether they should extend their period of detention up to that huge limit of 14 days. We have had some very interesting and helpful speeches from hon. Members on both sides of the Floor. One of the best speeches came from the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Bill Etherington), who touched with great principle on a number of subjects, not least was internment. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) spoke equally well but from a different point of view. The hon. Members for Dundee, East (Stewart Hosie) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) talked of matters of high principle. Those speeches sit in stark contrast with that of the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Khabra), who made a rather bitter speech that impugned many people’s intentions and many people’s honour within the House. One of the most moving speeches was from the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson). He began by talking about the need to get through and beyond and to grow up from yah-boo politics. He, too, mentioned the juxtaposition of internment as opposed to 28 days and 90 days. He spoke also, movingly, about the need for the House to combine across the parties in the fight against terrorism. The comments of my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) were particularly helpful and illuminating. I agree with him that it does not seem that the Bill falls within the category of emergency legislation. I will deal in more detail with the comments of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) in a moment. I thought that the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkland—[Interruption.] I beg the hon. Gentleman’s pardon, I was referring to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty). The Falklands are a long way from home. I am sure that his constituents will not be grateful for that slip. The hon. Gentleman made an interesting series of points but failed to look outside the fact that the Bill should go much further than it attempts to do at present. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe made that point exactly correctly when he talked about the terrorists’ aim to produce an overreaction inside this country. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) touched cleverly on that. He made the point that longer detention gives a greater possibility of evidence being obtained under duress. That is certainly something of which I have person experience. I shall return to that. The speeches that started the debate need to be examined in a little more detail. The Home Secretary started with the theme of internment. Whether one uses the term or whether, like the hon. Member for Belfast, East, one merely touches on it as having parallels with the problems in Northern Ireland, the one thing that has convinced me of the need to go no further than 28 days was my experience of internment in Northern Ireland. I suspect the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality would disagree, and he is welcome to do so, but there are parallels. There are similarities and dissimilarities. In a number of arrests that I carried out, people said to me, ““I have never lifted a hand against the Crown forces. Yes, I am a nationalist. Yes, I am even a republican. But the thing that persuaded me and persuaded others was my unlawful detention for a long and unnecessary period.”” I cannot help but feel that, as a number of right hon. and hon. Members said today, if we introduce a period greater than 28 days—I am unhappy even with that—we are in grave danger of producing discontented people who will go back to the communities from which they came and spread the word of resentment against the Government. Interestingly, my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), in an intervention, spoke about the charge of sedition and why that has not been used. My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), who has done such a brilliant job of leading on the Bill through all its stages, dealt in some depth with the nonsense of glorification and indirect incitement. He posed the question why no preachers of hate have been charged under current legislation. He went on to speak about the definition of terrorism and about the Government’s vacillation, which has done them no favours over the past 10 days or so. If the House is to continue to consider only legislation, we would do well to concentrate on the comments of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe who spoke of the Bill as mere gesture. We must get right the period of detention that we impose upon our citizens before they are charged, but if the Bill really were emergency legislation, it should have been dealt with immediately after the attacks in July. We made that offer to the Government at the time. I fail to understand why we spend so much time concentrating on legislation which, after all, will not deter a terrorist from carrying out the new form of terrorism, about which we have heard so much today. If the Bill were not merely a gesture, we would have considered the concrete measures needed to protect our people and physically stop such attacks happening again. I regret that the Government have changed their position several times. I thought last week that the Home Secretary would reach some accommodation with us that allowed the whole House to go forward together. Sadly, I believe that the Prime Minister changed the Home Secretary’s mind. That has weakened the Government’s position, both in their own eyes and in the eyes of the public. I also very much regret the way the Association of Chief Police Officers has been used to make political points and, to borrow the words of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, to lobby and not to brief. Those are powerful words. We will support the Bill. Nevertheless, I am grateful to Opposition Members and to Government Members for making it a very much more sensible and reasonable Bill, which I hope will stand us in good stead in the future.