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Terrorism Bill

It is with great reluctance that I find myself unable to wholeheartedly support the amendment put forward today and, on a day of unusual disagreements in your Lordships’ House, I add to the unusual circumstances by finding myself for the first time in my life not wholeheartedly supporting something put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Imbert. I also apologise for not making this point on Second Reading, where I had hoped to speak, but I was recovering from a hospital admission and was unable to travel. The reason why I am reluctant to support the amendment—noble Lords may think it strange as I am a former commissioner—is that I fear that on balance, and it is a very fine balance, it may be counterproductive in the sense of encouraging martyrdom rather than preventing it. That is my fear. As other noble Lords have said, when asked, ““How can we improve the fight against terrorism?”” the police service was absolutely right to advocate what it believed was right—an extension of detention without charge. I make no criticism of my former colleagues; I believe that they were sincere, they were well motivated and they were right to advocate what from their point of view was the right thing to do. However, as has already been said this afternoon, the question for your Lordships’ House and the other place is a wider question: having heard what the police and intelligence agencies are advocating, what does this House and the other place feel is in the long-term benefit of the country in the fight against terrorism? Even though in one, two or three individual cases an extension to 90 days may help, my fear is what that might generate in terms of helping in the propaganda of terrorism. Often there is a misunderstanding about what al-Qaeda is. It is not a finite list of several hundred people and, once we have ticked them off and got them before a court and convicted, we will not have stopped terrorism. In Arabic, al-Qaeda means many things. One of its main meanings is a way of looking at life and doing things—a series of tenets and principles, advocating the witness of martyrdom through violent means. The huge publicity that has surrounded this debate has already generated enormous fear in law-abiding communities in parts of this country. If we now go back and make it look as though we are going to challenge yet again the point of 28 days that we have reached, I fear that it will play into the hands of the propagandists, who will encourage young men and women—to all other intents and purposes, they are good people—to be misguided, brainwashed and induced into acts of martyrdom. This may be only a small part of the tipping point that leads them to martyrdom. But those who advocate terrorism and challenging the values of the West will point to this provision, if we go to 90 days, as illustrating why they must challenge our values and norms. Also, I fear that the debate is almost being portrayed as our either having up to 90 days or doing nothing. This is not a static debate; we do not freeze the action at this point. I encourage the notion that we try up to 28 days, and look at what other measures we can bring to bear to support the police and the other agencies. We need to revisit the admissibility of interception evidence, and the police and criminal evidence rules on interrogation. We can look at many other innovative ways of supporting the fight against terrorism without playing into the hands of the radical fundamentalists.