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Terrorism Bill

My Lords, I find it difficult to follow that moving speech. I support the amendment because 60 days is still a great deal better than 28. The arguments for more time remain the same, although more urgent. The two key problems which inhibit the chances for a charge being made within the time limit are the same. The pressure on insufficient resources is greater. There really is a very limited supply of people with the highly technical linguistic and decryption skills to extract from masses of complex material the necessary evidence—and it has to be evidence—to allow a charge to be formulated. If the police arrest four presumed terrorists, that will produce four sets of complex and sophisticated material. I shall be very surprised if there are four such teams available, particularly as they must work under great pressure and are meanwhile not available for other work. Indeed, the press this week reports an MI5 trawl through transcripts and video footage alone, which suggests that there has been a serious lack of resources there. They and the police both need people with specialised linguistic and decryption skills; they are both looking for needles in haystacks. Then there is the problem of the time needed to follow up clues in the international dimension which characterises the present terrorist threat. The IRA was a relatively domestic problem. Asking for answers from a foreign security service with its own agenda and own pace is not the same as checking with a domestic police force, where we can set the priorities. In a previous debate on this issue, the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, described convincingly the difficulty of following up leads abroad through friendly intelligence services, each with their own agenda, and most far less well organised than ours, in time before the detention period runs out. Suppose that the resources team finds a clue in the first week of detention, which leads abroad. At present, the police and the intelligence services have a maximum of three weeks after that and only if they have secured extensions after 14 days to follow up these inquiries. How practical is that? How can they possibly get the answer in two and a half weeks? Unless they can secure at least up to—it is always up to—60 days, there is a very real chance that the suspects will have to be released before the crucial evidence, if it exists, has been obtained. I want to quote the wise words of the late Lord Merlyn-Rees, whom we have so sadly lost, in Hansard on 13 December. He said:"““We are talking as if 90 days is what all those who are arrested will have to undergo; and that is not the case. Most cases will be for a week or a fortnight . . . by going in front of a judge and saying what further evidence they have got or they would like to get hold of, they would then be likely to hold someone for longer””.—[Official Report, 13/12/05; col. 1174.]" If suspects have to be released before the follow-up of clues both domestically and abroad, the police then have to begin all over again and no-one, incidentally, will know whether the suspects were or were not innocent. Even up to 60 days would give the police and the security services at least a chance to find the evidence on which to base a charge. Does it make sense to ignore the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, who believes that, given the role of a senior judge, 90 days is probably a practical and sensible option. I do not know whether he would settle for 60 days. He advocated, however, that more could be done in terms of a more searching system of control week by week to recognise the seriousness—and we do recognise the seriousness—of the state holding someone in high security custody for as long as three months. Returning to the main issue of proof and of the deprivation of liberty, the noble and learned Lord, Lord  Morris of Aberavon recognised that:"““In an age of international terrorism . . . the case for extending the period of detention without charge is formidable””.—[Official Report, 21/11/05; col. 1422.]" And arguing for earlier arrest and therefore a greater need for the burden of proof, he said that if the wrongdoer slipped the net before there is enough evidence to charge him it could be too late. Some of the opposition to 90 or even 60 days springs from the view that we are sending a hostile message to the whole Muslim community, and here I echo what the noble Lord said. We are told that it would be counter-productive as the present terrorist threat comes in the wake of the events of July last year. It is not unnatural that, at this time, we should relate our action to that sector of international terrorism. We are told that this will be counter-productive and encourage young men to martyrdom because those who advocate terrorism and challenge the values of the West will point to this provision—90 days—as illustrating why they must challenge our values and norms. But that is allowing would-be terrorists to set our national agenda. I am sure that law-abiding decent Muslim communities, who are as British as we are, would wish us to do all that is necessary to bring terrorists from whatever culture to justice and to protect the public of which they are part. It is not right for us to assume that in preventing a handful, though a deeply dangerous handful, of young people from taking to themselves the right to set our national agenda through terror, we are failing to show respect to the Muslim community, who are British themselves and by no means wish to become part of a worldwide Sharia state—certainly not through terror. Finally, I well understand and share the deep concern felt by many that in seeking this extension of up to—only up to—60 days, we are in danger of eroding our precious heritage of civil liberties, and especially the principle of innocent until proved guilty. I do not wish to do that; none of us does. There is, however, a sunset clause in this Bill which means that we can think again. In a year from now, or better still, two, there will have been time to increase to some extent the specialist resources without which the police will almost certainly be unable to find the evidence, if it exists, to make a charge or not. In that time it should be possible to create the further safeguards advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, and Sir Swinton Thomas. Can it be right to deny the police, as 28 days will almost certainly do, the time to do their job, and yet to require them to start the hopeless process again with undiminished zeal as and when more suspects are identified? I urge the House to vote for up to, and only up to, 60 days, to be reviewed under the sunset clause, to give time for international checks to be made where necessary, but above all, for more resources to be built up.