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Counter-Terrorism Bill

““It is the job of Parliament to give them the tools””? It is the job of Parliament to defend the liberties that we have had for centuries. I rise to oppose the Government's new clauses and to support amendments Nos. 4 and 5 to remove 42 days from the Bill. Today, there are essentially two arguments to deal with. The first is: have the Government made their case for 42 days? If not, this change should be rejected out of hand, because in this country we do not give away freedom without good cause. Secondly, if they have made their case, are the powers proportionate and are the checks and balances to prevent improper use of the powers adequate? The issue of how long we incarcerate those on whom we have insufficient evidence to charge with any crime has become one of the defining debates of the last decade in this country. Notably, this week marks the anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta. For almost 800 years, we have built on the right of habeas corpus, founded in that ancient document: the fundamental freedom from arbitrary detention by the state. The liberty of the person is in our blood, part of our history, part of our way of life; Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Democratic Unionists—all parties. Liberty is the common strand that binds us together, and we have shed blood to protect it, both abroad and at home. Today the Government ask us to sacrifice some of that liberty. The Home Secretary offers a Faustian bargain: to trade a fundamental liberty for a little extra security. Yet, as the debate has gone on, the case for 42 days has first crumbled and then collapsed. So, after months of debate, what are the basic facts? The right hon. Lady said in her speech that the Home Secretary properly takes advice from the police but that that is not enough and we need to examine the evidence that they present. I think that that is what she said, so let us do so: let us look at the evidence that was presented by the Home Secretary's own witnesses. Let us start with Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. In his evidence to Parliament, the commissioner said explicitly:"““We have never put forward a case that there is evidence of a need for an extension””.––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism Public Bill Committee, 22 April 2008; c. 11, Q3.]" He based his support for 42 days on ““a pragmatic inference”” based on trends in a number of plots and on those plots' complexity. In support of that, he and his counter-terrorism chief initially claimed that 15 terrorist plots had been thwarted since the 7/7 bombings. It was on that basis that he presented his evidence to the Bill Committee. But then it transpired that there had been a mistake. The corrected evidence revealed the true picture, which is that between 2003 and 2005, there were nine plots, three a year, and there have been four since the beginning of 2006, two a year. So, the number of plots, far from increasing, has actually decreased over the past three years. That is a good thing, but it is not an argument for extra powers, and although we should not underestimate the threat, we should not overstate it either. The second witness who the Home Secretary brought before us was Mr. Peter Clarke. He argued exactly what was argued in the debate about 90 days, and he told us how complex and technical anti-terror cases were becoming. His example of a technically challenging case was that of Dhiren Barot. There is no doubt that it was a technically challenging case, but it was a case in which charges were successfully brought within 14 days—not 28 days, but 14—which is hardly evidence that we need three times as long. Mr. Clarke offered the observation that in the Barot case, police officers had occasion to sleep at the office. Frankly, I should prefer that police officers sleep at the office for two weeks than risk putting innocent people in a cell for six weeks.