---

Counter-Terrorism

It is what I am saying, but I do not classify internment in the way that the hon. Gentleman does. I return to the question that he has to answer in the context of a new phenomenon of threat—and threat has two elements to it: intention and capability. People have an untrammelled, unconstrained intent to murder people in their thousands—as they did in New York—or potentially millions, and they potentially have unconstrained capability, through radiological, chemical and other means. That is a new phenomenon. In light of that new phenomenon that we have to confront, the question that he has to answer is what happens when there are reasonable grounds for believing that people might actually do that, but we have not reached the level of evidence that would allow us to charge them. That is the question that we all have to answer. Of course we would prefer to charge them; we want to prosecute, and we wish to convict, but the issue is this: given the complexity of the questions, if we cannot reach that threshold within 28 days, do we just say, ““Tough; we will have to take the risk that there will be a mass murder of thousands””? That is the question that we all have to answer. I do not have the solution to that today, but I am suggesting that it is a question that we cannot avoid.