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Terrorism Bill

As the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, said, Section 44 can be an important weapon for combating terrorism, but not if it is a blunderbuss that is not aimed at any specific target at any particular time. When we hear that for a number years a rolling authorisation has covered the whole of the metropolitan area, it is clear that the focus of Section 44 powers has been lost. We have to look at the experience of the way in which the provision has been used. One has to agree with the sentiments expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland: the section can be confined to a particular location at a particular time; it is an operational decision so that it is a proportionate response to a terrorist threat that should be used with sensitivity and integrity. Those are marvellous sentiments, but the effect of the way in which the section has been used is to demonstrate that it is too loosely drafted. Its use of the word ““expedient”” in subsection (3) requires amendment in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, has proposed. Instead of giving an authorisation where the person giving it considers it ““expedient””, the person should give it when he or she reasonably believes it to be necessary for the prevention of acts of terrorism. It is right that the noble Baroness’s amendments go on to define more narrowly the place and time. In subsection (4), she suggests that, instead of the whole of a police area outside Northern Ireland—or the whole of the Metropolitan Police district, or the whole of the City of London and so on—the authorisation should relate to a part that is actually the subject of a terrorist threat. I do not accept the argument that by defining a particular part—and publicising that, so that everybody knows where it is—you therefore leave open other broad areas where Section 44 authorisation has not been obtained. For those reasons, we support the noble Baroness’s amendment.