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Terrorism Bill

If I may, I shall constrain my comments to those that arise from the amendment, as opposed to the debate about 90 or 60 days, which we shall come to next. I am of course grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, for tabling the amendments. They relate to the grounds on which continued detention may be authorised in terrorist cases and what may happen while a person is detained. I hope to make some clear statements to try to put to rest some of the concerns that have arisen concerning the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and other provisions. We will shortly come to the thorny issue of for how long a person can be detained in total. As I said, I do not want to stray into that territory. However, it is right for me to remind the Committee of the safeguards that exist. All detention beyond 48 hours must be authorised by a judge. Another issue that we shall address shortly is the level of the judge but, whatever the level, the test is the same. The judge can authorise continued detention only if he or she is satisfied that the investigation is being carried out as expeditiously as possible and that further detention is necessary to obtain relevant evidence or to preserve relevant evidence. That is the test. Those are significant conditions that judges apply scrupulously when deciding whether to grant an application for continuing detention. It has never been suggested by any Member of this House or elsewhere that the provisions are not applied by the members of our judiciary fairly, firmly and effectively. Amendment No. 119 provides that judicial authority could authorise continued detention only for questioning where such questioning was designed to prevent harm to the public or to the relevant evidence obtained during continued detention, where that would be in the interests of justice. I cannot see the logic of so doing, bearing in mind the tried and tested approach that we currently have. We must let judges decide. If they think that the case for extension exists, applying the tests in the legislation, they should be allowed to grant it. We think that we can trust our judges. I make it absolutely clear that I do. More than that, I fail to see the mischief that the amendment is intended to address. What is the harm in questioning a person about anything that may be relevant to the cause of the investigation? I assume that the thinking behind the amendment is that a person may eventually crack if he is kept for long enough and that the police would somehow contrive to achieve that result. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, may be harking back to days before PACE, when concerns of that nature arose from time to time. I respectfully say to him that he ignores the protections that now exist. The suspect has the right to have his lawyer present, who would certainly ensure that no unwarranted confessions or statements were extracted. Interviews are recorded, so a proper record exists and it would be possible to tell if undue pressure had been exerted. I recall that many years ago—more than 20 years ago—it was common practice for some defendants to put ““STUP”” at the end of their statement, which meant ““statement taken under pressure””. We dealt with that through PACE. Finally, the Government have made a firm commitment to introduce a separate code of practice under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 governing pre-charge detention in terrorist cases. At present, detention of terrorist suspects is governed by PACE code C, which deals with pre-charge detention generally. That commitment is a further guarantee of proper, decent treatment for those detained. I know that that is something that the noble Lord wants and I can reassure him that we also want that. The remaining amendments in the group refer to Clause 24; I am grateful for the opportunity to say something about that clause. The purpose of Clause 24 is not to change things but to put beyond doubt what had until recently been believed to be the case. The position was thrown into doubt by an application for judicial review in Northern Ireland. In that case, an individual who was held while DNA samples were being analysed challenged the legality of his continued detention. In that instance, on the advice of senior Crown counsel, he was released. Prior to that, it had been thought that continued detention for that kind of purpose was lawful—that remains the view on the mainland—but we want to put the matter beyond doubt. Clause 24 therefore clarifies the position by providing that detention pending the outcome of an examination or analysis of relevant evidence, or an examination or analysis to obtain relevant evidence, is a specific ground on which detention can be justified. That would cover issues such as analysis of DNA material. The other grounds on which detention can be allowed are to obtain or preserve relevant evidence. I see no reason why we should limit that as suggested by Amendment No. 128. It seeks to limit the grounds on which extended detention can be authorised by limiting the meaning of relevant evidence. Under the amendment, evidence would be relevant only if it was obtained from investigations abroad, telephone networks, encrypted computer files and forensic examination and analysis. I appreciate that the Liberal Democrats have said that they find only some of the arguments that the police have put forward for extended detention compelling but we can trust the judiciary to weigh that up and get it right. As I have said before, if a judge believes that the case for extension exists applying the tests in the legislation, he or she should be allowed to grant it, whether or not the reason happens to be one of the factors that the Liberal Democrats happen to find compelling. Our judiciary have been very good at dealing with that, and I feel absolute confidence that we can allow them to continue to do a very good job. As I have indicated, substantial safeguards exist and I think we can rely on them rather than seeking to impose artificial obstacles that might hamper the progress of investigations. Perhaps the noble Lord simply wished to elicit from me all those guarantees. If that was his purpose, I am only too happy to have been given the wonderful privilege and opportunity to oblige.