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Home Affairs and Justice

I think that that point answers itself. At the end of all this, there has been no case at all in which 28 days has prevented a subject from being charged. Indeed, we would know if there had been one, because of the control order sign that would have come up. The next question is whether the police could have gathered the key evidence more quickly than they did in each of the terrorism cases. I spoke to some senior members of the police team that ran the investigation to which I have been referring. My strong impression was that the investigation was well run and that the team did a capable job. It clearly did all that was necessary in the time available. The question that must be answered in that context, however, is: if the police had needed to do the investigation faster, could they have done so? As a test of that, I asked the police whether they instituted three-shift working for the evidence-gathering process. Did they work right round the clock? ““No,”” they said. I asked them whether they directed in any forensic or IT staff from other forces. ““Not necessary,”” they said. I asked the police a number of other questions, about the techniques and management of the evidence-gathering process. It was quite clear that there were ways—we shall talk about them on Second Reading—of accelerating some aspects of the process when that became necessary. So to summarise, in no case to date has the 28-day limit created a problem. Furthermore, it is almost certain that the evidence-gathering and sifting can be accelerated if the necessary resources are provided.