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National Security

My Lords, I, too, welcome the Statement. It is a huge relief to discover that the Government are not contemplating a detention period of 60 or 90 days and have accepted that only on rare occasions should the period exceed 14 days, so 28 days must not be regarded as the norm—I hope it never will be. However, it is said that, on even rarer occasions, it might be necessary to go beyond 28 days. I accept that that might be so. It seems to me that the safeguards now proposed are such that they might form the basis of a consensus across all the parties. I cannot conceive of any circumstances that would justify an extension of a further 28 days, making 56 days in all, which, as I have said on many occasions, would be clearly contrary to Article 5 of the European convention. There is one other possible safeguard that would do much to convince me. In Ireland, there used to be an office known as the Independent Commissioner for Holding (Detention) Centres, who did more than anyone to ensure that within detention centres the police complied with the law and got on with the job. I suggest that we should have a similar arrangement at Paddington Green. Finally, I welcome the appointment of the review committee on interception of communications. I cannot imagine four men more likely to reach a sensible result.