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Terrorism Bill

My Lords, in this extremely important and interesting debate, we have had the personal experience of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, at a time when he was engaged in curbing terrorist activities in Northern Ireland. He has emphasised to your Lordships the importance of working alongside the population and how the introduction of detention without trial undermined that critical weapon that he had in his armoury. We have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Condon, with all his experience as Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who has told your Lordships that we are sacrificing some very important human rights if we go along this road. The noble Lord, Lord Joffe, has told us of his personal experience of the effects of the 90-day law in South Africa. You cannot beat these experiences that have been told to us today from the point of view of persuading us what course we should take. I simply want to address one aspect of the case where I think some of your Lordships may be a little misled. The noble Lord, Lord Imbert, when he spoke on 13 December, said:"““To allow 14, or even 28 days, for a major and complex inquiry is woefully inadequate””.—[Official Report, 13/12/05; col. 1164.]" Today, the noble Baroness, Lady Park, asked whether that period of time was practical. The noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, said that it is totally inadequate to meet the needs of the police. I would entirely agree that if an investigation were to be crammed within 14 or 28 days, it would be ““totally inadequate””. But a police inquiry does not begin with the arrest of an individual and end with the charge. These are important moments within a spectrum of activity which starts with the initial suspicion that begins the inquiry. It would be highly unusual for a suspect in a terrorist case to be arrested immediately after the suspicion first arose. An arrest would be unlikely to be triggered by an anonymous phone call. If the police hear that a person may be a terrorist, they are naturally anxious to build up a case and to find out with whom he is in contact and what the tendrils are of any conspiracy that there may be. So by adopting methods of surveillance: by bugging his home and car and monitoring his telephone and e-mail traffic, they will obtain evidence. They may very well make the sort of inquiries abroad that the noble Baroness, Lady Symons referred to. The concept of making inquiries abroad within a 14-, 28-, 60- or 90-day period is quite impossible. It obviously cannot be done. But inquiries are made abroad before arrest and they are made after arrest, to fulfil that type of inquiry. Arrest of a suspect obviously brings these investigations by way of surveillance to a full stop. But it also gives certain rights to a suspect—rights to consult a lawyer—and in the short period that elapses until he is charged, when he is interrogated, an opportunity for him to give his side of the case. When he is charged he has the right to know exactly what is said against him. Although arrest prevents surveillance and evidence of that sort, it does give an opportunity, for example, for specimens of blood to be taken from which DNA can be extracted; for taking fingerprints; and for obtaining other important scientific data. There may be searches of premises that are associated with him, which will produce reading matter, documents, hard disk drives, perhaps chemicals and even explosives. And there will be interrogations. Specimens will be forwarded to the appropriate laboratory for examination and analysis. This is not done within a 14 or 28-day period. It is a continuing investigation. Arrest and charge have different implications from placing boundaries around the police operation. No-one can be arrested unless there are reasonable grounds for suspicion—that is a basic principle. A person suspected of an offence must be immediately cautioned. It is interesting to look at the provisions of code G on caution. Code G states:"““There must be some reasonable objective grounds for the suspicion, based on known facts or information which are relevant to the likelihood the offence has been committed and the person to be questioned committed it””." Those are the directions given to the police. Do not arrest until you are at that level of investigation. The suspect is taken to the police station, he is told his rights, and he is then interrogated. Charging, which follows interrogation, is in serious cases the responsibility of the Crown Prosecution Service, which will consider whether there is enough evidence and whether it is in the public interest. If there is enough evidence, it must charge. It cannot keep a person in custody without charging him if it has sufficient evidence. It follows that if a person is held in custody without charge, there is not sufficient evidence against him to make a case, and if a person is to be detained for 60 days without charge, it is because at no time during that period is there enough evidence to charge him. The point was made that questioning must stop on charge. That is not correct; questioning may continue if it is in the public interest, for the prevention of harm to the public. Noble Lords should have in mind the spectrum from the beginning of an investigation all the way up until the trial; arrest and charge are merely important incidents on that spectrum. We are all agreed—are we not?—that imprisonment without trial is the weapon of the tyrant. The Supreme Court in the United States said in June 2004:"““The point at issue in this case is nothing less than the essence of a free society. If this nation is still attached to the ideals symbolised in its flag, it must not use the weapons of tyrants to resist an attack by the forces of tyranny””." We must not introduce imprisonment without trial in the face of the forces of tyranny.