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Terrorism Bill

The case for the amendment has been brilliantly argued already. I shall only add that, first, such is the complexity and often quantity of the evidence which needs to be evaluated that the police need to know that they can rely on more time provided they can justify it to the judge week by week—as has been said, 90 days means ““up to”” 90 days and no more—and, secondly, the potentially serious nature of the possible crime, the public interest and the possibility of a threat to life if the suspects are not arrested and held should outweigh the case of the individual. Is it so terrible in the context of a serious threat to deprive someone of liberty for a limited time under conditions that are strictly monitored? They are held in decent conditions; their lawyers have full access; they are not going to be interrogated under intolerable conditions, nor for days at a time; they can exercise their right to silence; and their lawyers can make representations and do so weekly. We are not speaking of Guantanamo Bay or a Syrian gaol, or even of the many months unchallenged under which they could be held by a juge d’instruction under the French system. As has been said, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, describes the maximum six months as,"““probably a practicable and sensible option, all other things being equal””." He is mainly concerned, as we must be, about the adequacy of the safeguards for the suspect against arbitrary or over-long detention. The amendment does not preclude further safeguards or, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, advocates,"““a more searching system to reflect the seriousness of the state holding someone in high security custody without charge for as long as three months””." The amendment in no way precludes allying the 90-day provision with careful judicial control and scrutiny. Our first consideration must surely be that justice should be done, and threats to the state, and the people, need to be countered by allowing the police the best possible chance to defend the country. Control orders are no substitute for custody and investigation. Our proper concern—that no convictions should risk being based on possible torture-related evidence from other countries—should not prevent us giving our own system a real chance to operate. In the last war against Germany, our interrogators were notably successful. They did not use torture, but they needed time to elicit information through long, patient, persistent, repetitive questioning, and the occasional use of a salient fact to jolt the confidence of the prisoner. Our police need that time, too, and time to find those essential key facts with which to challenge the suspect. That means time for those crucial facts to be extracted from a mass of evidence, and there are only a limited number of people with the specialised technical and linguistic skills to do so. We really must give our system a chance to secure that evidence. The report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights sets out the police argument very clearly. It says that the problem was not one of resources and that,"““although more resources would help, they could not solve the problem entirely, because there is an irreducible amount of sequencing involved in any complex investigation, involving discrete stages in the collection, retrieval and analysis of information which then has to be incorporated into an effective interview strategy for the detainee””." The prisoner has human rights, but I submit that the public have them too. Is it really such a hardship to spend up to—and only up to—three months in custody, protected from abuse by the whole force of the law, if you have given the authorities reason to believe that you are a possible threat, and a great deal of possible supporting evidence exists that must be examined? We must not, in fighting for the rights of the individual prisoner, forget that the police are doing what society requires of them. They, too, are innocent until proved guilty. I support the amendment.