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Terrorism Bill

I am implacably opposed to this amendment, not because I wish to deliver one black eye or two black eyes to the Prime Minister or cover his body with bruises, but because I believe that if we are going to surrender any part of our civil liberties we need to be absolutely sure that there is a proper justification for that change. In my view, what is happening here is that, without any serious argument, we are about to surrender one of the most important parts of our civil liberties for no real justification at all. For reasons that do not matter, I spent a large part of my schooling time in South Africa. A number of my contemporaries were detained under the Suppression of Communism Acts for 90 days because they adhered to the quaint idea that, in the sight of God, all races were equal. Such detention seemed to me to be an absurdity. The only Marx they knew was Groucho, not Karl; but they were detained under the so-called Suppression of Communism Act, which meant that as long as you were opposed to the appalling apartheid regime of South Africa at the time, you were a communist. It was as simple an equation as that. I see no absolutely no justification for the extension of a power of detention for 90 days without trial, and I do not care—I am sorry that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, has gone—whether it is with or without judicial control. That seems to me quite an intolerable state of affairs, and that remains my implacable view. I am delighted to say that he is not in the Chamber this evening, but the son of a Member of your Lordships’ House hacked into the Pentagon in an evening. I really cannot believe that it takes the police forces of the United Kingdom, and particularly the Metropolitan Police, 90 days to work out encrypted messages in whatever language they are. I would be very surprised if they cannot work out in 36 to 48 hours what is there and what is of evidential value. I would be astonished if they cannot do that. And I am absolutely confident that within 28 days—