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Terrorism Bill

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for his reply, and to all those who have spoken in this debate. The contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, was a wonderful illustration of precisely where Section 44 is not being used properly. I remind your Lordships of something I said at the beginning; that under Section 45 of the Act the power conferred by an authorisation may be exercised only for the purpose of searching for articles of a kind that could be used in connection with terrorism. I fail to understand how, in the circumstances described by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, the police officer could have thought he was likely to find any articles concerned with terrorism. That is an unpublicised situation. When we deal with the position of Mr Wolfgang or anyone else who is simply a protester, the matter becomes even more absurd. The purpose of this amendment is not to alter Section 44 in any drastic way. Indeed, I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Harris, would happily accept subsections (1), (2) and (3); it is only the question of publicity that he objects to, and I will deal with that in a moment. The amendment would bring the section back to the purposes for which it was originally designed, as stated by the then Home Secretary, Mr Straw, when he introduced the Bill in 1999. I said that I would say a word about publicity. It is a fundamental principle that when we are abroad, in England and Wales, we know the law that affects us. We are entitled as citizens to know whether there are any specific provisions that give the police powers in the area where we are. It is incumbent upon the Secretary of State to declare the area to which the special powers apply. No one could be more concerned about the protection of the public than I am, but I do not believe it is helpful, or that it was the intent of this Act when it was passed, for whole areas—and there may be whole cities outside London; we do not know, because they are not declared—to be subject to these special powers permanently, rolling on, 28 days after 28 days, without any obvious consideration being given on a monthly basis of whether they are necessary. The word I take from the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, whose amendment was the precursor to what I am saying—I am merely a follower in her footsteps—is ““alienation””, to which the Minister also referred. It is a balance. Everything we have dealt with in the Terrorism Act ultimately turns out to be a balance between the liberty of the people of this country and the need to protect them. I think the Act as originally drafted, in its original intention, struck a reasonable balance, but it has been misused in the way that I have indicated. Therefore, I seek to test the opinion of the House. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 14) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 109; Not-Contents, 124