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Home Affairs and Justice

The Home Secretary is obviously not about to answer the straightforward question put by our Scottish nationalist friend, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), but will she consider this point? Does she not accept that her approach to the question this evening, like her approach to it this morning, rather implies that the Government are hoping to get as long as they can out of a process of political negotiation? That cannot be a satisfactory approach. The background is that the Government went for 90 days but had to settle for 28 days, which, in my recollection, was a figure more or less plucked out of the air. If we are to reach a rational solution to this important question, the Government must consider how to put together some evidence for the length of time that might be required in a complex, difficult, multi-defendant case. At the moment, the Home Secretary sounds like somebody negotiating the price of a commodity, inviting her critics to put up the first offer, whereupon she will try to bargain to get more. This is a question of civil liberties, and that is not a sensible way to approach a big issue of criminal justice.