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Counter-Terrorism Bill

No. I have a small but important point to get through, and then I shall take some interventions. What about the other two cases in which people were held for 28 days? They are implicitly held up as the illustration that, due to the complexity of investigations, 28 days is proving inadequate. Is that really what those cases show? The key question is, when was the evidence available on which the charges were based? Ministers and officials have been asked a number of times—the Home Secretary has been asked a number of times—to answer that question, and they have implied that the evidence was obtained very late in the 28-day period. During our numerous meetings, when we were trying to reach a consensus, I asked the Home Secretary three times to show me the facts that demonstrated that evidence gathering had delayed the decision to charge in Operation Overt. But she failed to explain—even in the most general terms, or on a Privy Council basis, which I would have been perfectly happy to accept—what the evidence was or when it was acquired. I was forced to establish the facts myself and then to check them with the investigating team at Scotland Yard. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), the shadow Attorney-General, checked them with the Crown Prosecution Service. The facts are as follows: in neither of the two cases was the evidential basis of the charge encrypted data, evidence requiring complex forensic analysis or intelligence from overseas. In one case, it comprised telephone records, handwritten and printed literature, an unencrypted CD and a receipt, all of which were available within four days of arrest. The second case was based on witness statements, mobile phone text messages and a single unencrypted computer file, all of which were available within 12 days of arrest. That does not mean that the police should be criticised—far from it. They should be commended for their handling of that operation, as I have said on several occasions. Nor does it mean that the CPS acted improperly—it rightly looked to gather as much evidence as possible under the rules that it is given by this House within the time frame that Parliament sets it. However, it does show that in the most complex terrorism investigation in our history, all the evidence on the only two suspects charged after 21 days was in the possession of the police within four and 12 days respectively. I suspect that that is why the Director of Public Prosecutions does not believe that the extension is at all necessary or foresee circumstances in which it will be necessary in future.