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National Security

My Lords, I associate myself with the thanks given by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, to the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, for repeating this Statement. There is a lot of sound common sense in the Statement, particularly in relation to initiatives in education, the media and the community, and cross-faith initiatives. The length of the Statement deserves a full debate, and perhaps we can look at an opportunity to have one. I repeat the point that I made at the opening of the Queen’s Speech debate: we on these Benches are fully committed to measures to combat terrorism and ensure the safety of the public. We support the police and security services in their difficult and sometimes dangerous task of countering terrorism. We urge all communities to see the fight against terrorism as their fight. It is not a question, as the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has said, of one party being tough on terrorism and other parties being soft, nor is it a matter of being able to pass a law or adopt a policy that will make us 100 per cent secure and safe. There will be attacks in future and we have to think hard about how best to foil or respond to such attacks. It is on that basis that we welcome the Government’s search for a cross-party consensus. There are areas of agreement: for example, we agree with the Government on post-charge questioning and support the concept of a unified border force. The training of staff and the use of architects and other professionals to make public areas and public buildings safer is eminently sensible and we shall examine the report of the noble Lord, Lord West, with due respect for his experience and expertise. We also welcome the constructive measures proposed to engage and involve our Muslim fellow citizens, who could be the greatest victims of all if terrorists are allowed to succeed. The actions at all levels of education are to be welcomed, as are actions to ensure that those preaching in Mosques are not preaching violence and hatred and the initiatives proposed among Muslim women and young Muslims. The proposals to work more closely with our European partners are also to be welcomed, as sharing experience and information can only be of value, as is the work to use financial intelligence to cut off funding to terrorist networks. However, consensus can go only so far; Parliament has a job to do. During the Second World War, Winston Churchill described Aneurin Bevan as a ““squalid nuisance””, because he kept up the responsibilities of opposition, even at a time of coalition and war. When government and agencies seek more powers over the citizen, Parliament has a duty to examine such proposals and ensure that the highest hurdles are cleared, otherwise we slip into a permanent state of emergency. The Government have a duty to inform people of the realities that they face but not to encourage panic or hysteria. In that respect, we welcome the absence of knee-jerk reactions to June’s events. So we will question the justification for extending the period of detention without charge beyond 28 days. However, I will not go into a close debate on that today, otherwise the Lord President will simply quote to me the noble Lord, Lord Carlile—who is fast achieving sainthood on the government Benches. We will probe whether the rapid expansion of the security services outlined in the Statement is matched by improvements in co-ordination between the services, particularly between MI5 and MI6 and between those services and the new border forces and dedicated regional counterterrorism units. We will probe what political control and accountability those services will have. We will continue to question whether the billions spent on an untried and untested ID card system would not be better spent on more mundane but more effective projects. For example, I read in the newspapers that the police are short of staff who can quickly and expertly decipher computer information. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said on Monday, the police should be recruiting the young, with their computer skills, from our colleges and universities and get them on board to do this job. One could say the same about a number of the hearts-and-minds initiatives outlined in the Statement. There is a real danger that in many of these areas we will be doing too little, too late, while the ID card scheme gobbles up resources. One of the lasting images of the Second World War was of Londoners trudging to work through glass and rubble. Such fortitude came from shared values and a common purpose. There is much in the Statement that will promote shared values and the shared interests referred to and promote that common purpose in the face of present dangers. However, Parliament has a duty to test demand for new powers against protection of hard-won and long-standing civil liberties. We are a robust society and one which is instinctively tolerant. So it might do us no harm to keep in mind another of Churchill's war time statements: we have nothing to fear but fear itself.