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Terrorism Bill

My Lords, I begin with brief thanks to the Chief Whip for suggesting certain time limits that have at least ensured that the debate will finish at a more appropriate time than would otherwise be suggested by one with 47 or 48 speakers in it. I add an apology to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Sharp and Lady Turner of Camden, for having missed their speeches. All would, I think, agree that amid a debate of such length one does have to leave at some point, albeit briefly. I start by stressing our broad support for the Bill as it now is. The noble Lord, Lord Stratford, put it well when he said that he regretted the necessity for the Bill but supported it. We can say the same; I would certainly agree with the noble Lord on that. However, when he went on to say to that he was now in favour of collective liberty as opposed to individual liberty, I found those remarks somewhat frightening, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of the Shaws. Having said that we broadly support the Bill, we feel that, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, made clear, considerable improvements can be made to it. We will seek, in the spirit of consensus which the noble Baroness spoke of earlier, to effect a number of changes. We are in agreement with the Liberal Democrats on some of them; on others, I suspect that we might not be. We are certainly seeking a number of changes, as outlined by my noble friend Lord Kingsland when he opened the debate. We also feel that, as was stressed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, and as, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, reminded us towards the end of the debate, a great many other issues need to be addressed in the fight against terrorism, other than merely the legislative process. Perhaps I may start with the question of consensus that the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, stressed at the beginning of the debate. The noble Baroness made much of it; dare I say that she laid it on with a trowel, as they say? Consensus was absolutely vital, consensus was very important to the Government and they sought consensus the whole way through the Bill. As, I think, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, put it, that was somewhat rich in the light of what happened in another place. I remind the House of what happened. We will remember that in Committee the right honourable gentleman the Home Secretary appeared to withdraw all debate on his amendments on 90 days as he was going to table further amendments. On 7 November, about a week later, he said:"““We do not accept that 28 days is an appropriate period . . . Later today I will be tabling an amendment to reduce the amount of time from 90 days, but not as low as 28 days . . . We are going to continue our conversations with backbench members of Parliament on all sides of the House, because there are a number of Conservatives and others, as well as people on the Labour side of the House, who believe that an amount of time greater than 28 and less than 90 is right””." That was all very fine until, only a few minutes later, at his monthly press conference, the Prime Minister announced:"““I believe that [the police] have put forward a compelling case, making it crystal clear that the need for a maximum of 90 days to hold suspects prior to charge is necessary . . . So I hope, even now, Parliament will not force a compromise on us. As Charles Clarke has just said a few moments ago, we will of course have to table amendments tonight since this is the last time to do so before Wednesday’s debate, but we intend to use the time between now and Wednesday to try and get people to understand the importance of giving the police and our security services the powers they need to prevent terrorism in this country. I hope even now Parliament will not force a compromise on us””." If we are to have comments of that sort, I fail to see how we are going to have consensus. I hope that the noble Baroness now comes before this House in a genuine spirit of consensus and that she will make it clear that she will listen to us to some extent and accept that although, as we have made clear, we support a large part of the Bill, we have considerable concerns about it and would like to send it back to another place greatly improved. We are of course grateful for the concessions that we have received so far—the sunset clause and the fact that the High Court judge will review the cases of those who are locked up for 28 days every seven days or so—but, as my noble friend Lord Kingsland and the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, made clear, there are further concessions, as examples of that consensus, that we are looking for that we would very much hope to get from the Government. I move on to Clause 1 and the various definitions of the new offence dealing with glorification, the test of recklessness and so on. I was glad that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, made it clear, particularly when referring to Clause 1(4), that he simply could not understand it. That makes it easier for me to say that I had very great difficulties in understanding that clause. Other noble Lords, many learned in the law and many not—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, my noble and learned friend, Lord Mayhew, the noble Lords, Lord Parekh and Lord Plant—all made it clear that they had problems with the definitions in Clause 1, particularly with subsections (4) and (5), and that we needed to consider them carefully, something that this House can and will do. The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, made clear where he saw the need for three amendments to the clause. We shall certainly support him on some of them, but I am not sure that we would go as far as he wants on the question of recklessness. We would prefer to go back to the subjective test of recklessness, as originally set out in Caldwell, rather than have the objective test, which applied when that case was reversed in R v G. No doubt, we can deal with that matter in Committee and will argue it out carefully then. That brings me to a later clause—Clause 23 and the question of 28 days, 90 days, or whatever. At this stage, it would not be appropriate for me to argue the merits of either case, except to say that 28 days is about right and we do not accept the case for 90. I accept that many noble Lords on all sides of the House passionately believe in the case for 90 days. Many have considerable experience that I greatly respect—the noble Baronesses, Lady Ramsay of Cartvale and Lady Henig, and my noble friend Lady Park, for example. I hope that they would also agree that many of us passionately believe that 90 days is excessive and that the lesser figure of 28 was the compromise reached in the other place, with the support of my party. That is an alternative figure, and there is just as good a case for it. I hope that we can get away from the argument put forward, dare I suggest, by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, who accused us of political opportunism in going for that period. I totally reject that and find it difficult to see how we can argue the case rationally if such accusations are made.