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Terrorism Bill

My Lords, the House has spent many hours debating how best to counter the threat to our country that may arise from the acts of individual terrorists, particularly those who are part of, sustained and even created by international terrorist groups. We have been trying to counter the attacks through the front door and forgetting the back. The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, who has had more direct experience than most of us of contemporary terrorism in, for instance, the Sudan and Indonesia, is not able to be here. She has shown us the threat at the back door and in the basement. It cannot make sense for two firms to be responsible between them for such a comprehensive group of our most sensitive national institutions—Parliament, MoD bases, 11 nuclear power stations, British Airways, Texaco and so on. It is an additional cause of concern that these two particular firms are owned by a man with known and close links with a militant Islamic African country, the Sudan. But we ought, I suggest, be concerned whoever the owner is. This is too much power concentrated in one place. The elaborate protective devices installed round this House make little sense if we have a potential long-term unidentified enemy within. Nevertheless, we can hope for a statement from the Government about this issue. I suggest that we should not neglect the potential enemy or allow unfettered access and more control to two firms only. We should not do that; that is asking for serious trouble. I believe that we ought to have some sort of commitment that an inquiry and review will take place to establish effective safeguards, and preferably that the present monopoly will be broken. I fully recognise that this is far too delicate a subject on which to expect any further answers, but I do hope for that.