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Terrorism Bill

My Lords, the pain, the bereavement, the suffering and the danger speak for themselves. They represent an immense challenge to government. The Government have an unquestionable obligation to protect the human rights of everyone within their jurisdiction by maintaining defences against terrorism. To balance human rights and security is incredibly difficult. However, if in the end the package of measures is counter-productive, the Government will be failing in their duty. Therefore the task of Parliament is to scrutinise carefully what is proposed, to ensure the avoidance of the counter-productivity which could perhaps disastrously play into the hands of the extremists. Ultimately, the battle to contain terrorism can be won only in hearts and minds. If measures unnecessarily aggravate alienation and non-co-operation with those responsible for law and order, they will inevitably extend the potential recruiting grounds for the sinister and manipulative extremists. Just think of the young person in an immigrant community, under pressure from terrorists, if he is confronted with evidence used in propaganda saying that the traditional bastions of our system of justice are being removed because of the special problem of which he is a part. Does that win his heart or does it drive him to the manipulative terrorists? The greater the dangers and the more acute the provocation, the more important it is to stretch every sinew to act as far as is possible in accordance with the principles and conventions that have become the cornerstones of our judicial system—transparency, presumption of innocence, justice being seen to be done, and the rest. We are defending liberty—and are defending democracy as the guarantee of liberty. The police and security services are in the front line of that battle and they deserve all possible support; but police requests in themselves can never be sufficient justification for policy. We must take those requests very seriously, but it is Parliament that must evaluate and decide. Now a word on glorification—that, as has repeatedly been underlined in this debate, brings us immediately to the definition of terrorism. My noble friend Lord Stratford dealt well with it. He referred to Mandela and the ANC; he could have added the struggle for liberation in Mozambique. I am glad to say that I played a modest part in those causes. When the Home Secretary is tackled on these issues, I understand that his argument is that the times have now changed. He has used words on occasion which argued that nowhere in the world today can violence, including violence against property, be justified as a means of achieving change. I should remark that that has interesting significance for the future of foreign policy. But I spent three and a half years as the rapporteur for the Council of Europe on the struggle—the war—in Chechnya. I visited that war-torn country nine times. I do not believe that people should be fighting there. I believe that they could have a much stronger campaign without fighting. But faced with the brutality and the cruelty of the Russian war machine, can you really reach a situation in which you say that all those people involved in the struggle in Chechnya are terrorists? Of course what happened at Beslan, in the theatre in Moscow, in the stadium in Grozny, cannot possibly be justified. They were wicked acts, but there are many involved in the struggle who condemn those acts as much as we do, but would see military targets, for example, as legitimate. The issue is complex, and the definitions as they stand do not meet the complexity. I cannot say how much I welcome the agreement of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, to undertake a review of the definition of terrorism so that we can operate in a more convincing context. This is desperately urgent. Meanwhile, the proposed change in legislation which moves to recognise the importance of intention is obviously to be welcomed. Failure to follow this through on ““recklessness”” with a subjective provision, however, still needs careful consideration, not least in terms of our commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, and my noble friend Lord Eatwell have spoken about libraries and universities. I hope the noble Baroness will agree that analysis, evaluation and debate are central to the quality of democracy itself. The possible difficulties for libraries and universities are a symptom of a wider possible hazard in the Bill. We have to be careful about limiting ourselves to special exemptions rather than facing up to the essence of the issue. I am of course encouraged that we are now considering a length of detention of 28 days rather than 90. At the same time, I endorse the observations of my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws in this context. Whatever the period of detention, however, we must be certain that it is justified and can be seen to be justified as a proportionate response to perceived dangers and threats, as against its self-evidently still-greater restriction of liberty. Are the procedural safeguards, even with the welcome introduction of a High Court judge, sufficient? The presumption remains in favour of detention rather than liberty. A special case still has to be made for an extension of detention for less than seven days. In order to be compatible with Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which we are committed, would it not be necessary to amend the Terrorism Act 2000, to make provision for the presence both of the detainee and the legal representative, together with as much relevant material as possible, at any hearing for an extension? Of course there will have to be rational compromises to meet the requirements of both security and liberty. What matters is that those compromises can be as widely understood and justified as possible. They must invariably be seen to be rooted in a commitment to justice and liberty, from which we must demonstrate, convincingly and consistently, that we will never let the terrorists deflect us.