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Terrorism Bill

My Lords, I applied that to myself, not just to other noble Lords."““No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or deprived . . . or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we go and send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land””." That is Magna Carta and that is fundamentally what we are talking about—the noblest of liberties. That clause inspired the writers of the American Declaration of Independence, and their constitution; that is what we are fighting for. If we go down the road of extending the locking-up of people without trial, we will qualify our own liberties. It is not as if the police have been phenomenally competent recently. They had—and the intelligence services had—knowledge of the people who blew up the bombs. There have been recent reports of enormous amounts of stop and search, as a result of powers used under the terrorism legislation. We have had no evidence that the actual powers needed must be extended from 14 days to 90 days. The noble Lord made that absolutely clear. Let us also bear in mind that horrid, beastly, brutal and disgusting though those attacks on the London Underground were, we are not going through the most ghastly of all terrorist occasions. Northern Ireland in the 1970s was certainly far worse, and they did not see the need for those extra powers then. We have a wonderful country, with wonderful liberties. We have a super place to live in. Therefore let us guard that with every ounce of our souls, because those liberties and that clause in Magna Carta are so important. I shall end by quoting Kipling on Magna Carta."““And still when mob or Monarch lays      Too rude a hand on English ways,      The whisper wakes, the shudder plays,      Across the reeds at Runnymede.      And Thames, that knows the moods of kings,      And crowds and priests and suchlike things,      Rolls deep and dreadful as he brings      Their warning down from Runnymede!””" Remember that, my Lords.