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Protection of Critical Infrastructure

The Minister has commended the motion to the House, but with a degree of scepticism and lack of enthusiasm that I find refreshing. I hope that he will be as sceptical and as questioning when he comes to negotiate with his European counterparts over the further deliberations on this set of instruments. I am grateful to the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), for initiating the debate. Although not many of his Committee colleagues are here, I think it important for the Government to experience head-on the feeling of the House as a whole about this issue. Something that has already emerged in the debate—partly from the remarks of the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) and those of the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), but also from those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) and my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow)—is the cultural difference between the Westminster and the European systems for creating legislation. What we see in this great volume before us is a set of fairly vague proposals which, although no doubt benignly motivated, lack the detail that we commonly expect in a piece of British parliamentary legislation. It is important for the Government to remember that when they negotiate with the Commission. The timing of today’s debate may be fortuitous or it may be deliberate, but it coincides with the conclusion of what has become known as the Crevice trial at the Old Bailey, at which a number of dangerous conspirators were convicted of involvement in acts relating to and preparatory for terrorism. It is possible that had those men succeeded in their endeavours, hundreds or even more people would have been killed and the institutions and infrastructures of our country would have been placed under huge strain. Let us hope, although I fear it will be a forlorn hope, that the long sentences given to the defendants will deter others of similar mind and intention, and that the measures we are discussing will—in one form or another, but not necessarily as set out in the documents—be implemented and placed in a state of readiness, but never activated in response to a threat to the critical infrastructure of a number of European Union member states. The Crevice trial provides us with some useful lessons about threats to our national security and our national infrastructure. The definition of critical infrastructure in the documents before us is:"““Those facilities and networks, services and property the destruction of which would have a serious impact on the health, safety, security or economic well-being of citizens or the effective functioning of government in the member states. Such infrastructure includes systems for electricity and gas production and distribution, telephone exchanges and other communications systems, sewage plants, food distribution and key government services.””" It is surely the duty of Government in every member state to identify all facilities and services which come within that wide definition, and I trust that our Government—irrespective of the events made public through the recent trial, and regardless of the outrages of 7 July 2005 and what might have happened on 21 July—have done exactly that. It is clear that the House does not need a list comprising the infrastructure. However, given what we now know about the information relating to the Crevice defendants which was known in advance of 7 July 2005 by our security services and the police, we need to be assured that the Home Office and its Ministers—especially the Home Secretary—will ensure that the fullest possible inquiry is undertaken by an independent figure of some standing into the events, failures and mishaps that have now been revealed. We know, for example, that there were six good-quality photos of Sidique Khan, although the Intelligence and Security Committee was told that there was just one poor-quality photograph. First we were told by the ISC that identities were unknown—