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Terrorism Bill

My Lords, I accept that and I look forward to the noble Lord’s contribution at the end of the debate. No doubt he will correct me and other noble Lords if we make any other apparent errors. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay of Cartvale, and others that we need to give the police and security services the necessary powers. I also accept what others have said about the safeguards. As my noble friend Lady Henig said, whether the detention period is 14, 28, 60 or 90 days is to some extent arbitrary. As my noble friend Lady Ramsay of Cartvale said in her compelling speech, more time is needed with the high-tech, sophisticated terrorists and the huge volume of tapes, paper, intercepts or transcripts that need to be dealt with. That has not been answered by anyone on the other side of the argument. Whatever the length of detention, the key safeguard, which has been mentioned today but not sufficiently in the past, is that there will be a judicial review every seven days—in Scotland by a judge of the Court of Session. I disagree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. I think this matter must be considered at a higher level. The accused can be held for another period of seven days only if it is approved by that judge. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, has said—perhaps he might have said it a little earlier—only two or three people would be held for up to 90 days. The notion that large numbers of people are going to be rounded up and held incommunicado for 90 days, as some have implied, is nonsense. It is a scare story put about by some of the opponents of the Bill. Some people, as my noble friend Lady Henig said, are playing politics with this issue—a dangerous game. They want to inflict a defeat on the Government, or the Prime Minister, for other reasons. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, seemed obsessed by the Prime Minister in his speech. Again and again he mentioned the Prime Minister as if he were the only person advocating 90 days. If the noble Lord, Lord McNally, were still a member of the Labour Party and had been at the parliamentary Labour Party meeting that I attended, he would have heard that the call came from Member after Member, representing constituency after constituency, throughout the whole of the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister was responding to that. I regret to say that the Tories, with the Liberal Democrats and the Labour rebels, opportunistically opposed him deliberately to seek a pyrrhic victory in the House of Commons. I hope that Conservatives here today will think differently. I would like to restore the 90-day provision. If that amendment were put down, I would certainly support it. I welcome what my noble friend Lady Henig said about this House being given an opportunity to consider the option of 60 days as well. Then we could have a proper discussion about what the period should be. I found the most regrettable part of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, his description of the lobbying by the police as ““improper””. It was grossly unfortunate that he said that. They are not the only ones who lobby the Houses of Parliament. I did not find anything improper in it. I tell the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, that in my 26 years as a Member of Parliament I have been phoned by members of the constabulary in Ayrshire, the Chief Constable and inspectors about particular issues again and again, and rightly so. As my noble friend Lady Henig said, if teachers and lawyers can do it, then the police should certainly be able to do so as well. I fervently hope—and no doubt the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark will pray—that we are spared any atrocities which might have been avoided if the police and the security services had been given the time that some of us want to give them.