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Terrorism Bill

Before the Minister replies, perhaps I may say a few words as the fourth signatory to the amendment. I must confess that I am the most recent signatory, but I should like to say a few words. Over the weekend, I was going through some old letters and I came across a letter from 1993 from the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of the Shaws. It was a lovely letter, a kindly letter. It was praising me. She was praising me for the work that I had done with the Socialist International in Chile. I took great comfort from that. She said that she recognised the work that I had done on civil rights. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of the Shaws—my noble friend—that I have not changed since then. I am exactly the same person with exactly the same views and concerns about civil liberties, but I did not put my name to the amendment with hesitation or reluctance; I put it with enthusiasm and alacrity because I strongly believe that is absolutely the right thing to do and we must ask the House of Commons to think again. I shall return to that in just a moment. I criticise the Government just for a moment. That is not something that I do regularly or something that I do with pleasure but I feel strongly about it. The Government got off on the wrong foot trying to explain what they plan and want to do. All the concentration was on 90 days. That has happened in this debate as well; nearly everyone—many noble Lords—have been talking about 90 days. The correct expression is ““up to 90 days””. That has not been made clear enough from the start. The Government had explained that, after the 14 days, we are talking about discrete periods of seven days. Then, as a number of noble Lords said, a judge must be convinced. I find it implicit but astonishing in what the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, said, that she does not trust one of her colleagues, a judge, to make the right judgment.