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Counter-Terrorism Bill

Of course I will, Madam Deputy Speaker. The head of MI5 has not even mentioned pre-charge detention when setting out the security challenges that we face, whether briefing in public or in private on Privy Council terms. The most that the Home Secretary can cite is Sir Ian Blair, who offers no evidence at all but merely draws a ““pragmatic inference””—her words—that we might at some unspecified point in the future, faced with some unspecified threat, require an unspecified extension of detention without charge. That cannot be a sufficient basis for giving up a fundamental, basic right enjoyed in this country for 800 years.