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Counter-Terrorism Bill

Earlier, I did not pull up the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), when he attributed that view to me. It is not my view, and has never been my view. However, let us take one of the hon. Gentleman's cases of an incursion on our civil liberties. He says that the use of intercept evidence in court is such an incursion. No, the incursion on our civil liberties occurs when the intercept is made. That is why there are warrant arrangements and controls on intercepts. Not using such evidence in court has nothing to do with civil liberties—it is to do with a judicial decision and an intelligence decision. He should have got his case a bit straighter. Some weeks ago, the Government were clearly at risk of losing this aspect of the Bill, so they conjured up a series of so-called safeguards. Interestingly, given what was just said to me, they are an attempt to import—almost in the words of the Home Secretary—a diluted version of the Civil Contingencies Act into the Bill. Again, this comes as something of a surprise. The House will recall that Ministers spurned the Civil Contingencies Act model for months and said that it was inappropriate, fundamentally flawed and a draconian response. I begin to wonder who wrote the Act—I thought that it was this Government. If the Civil Contingencies Act is draconian, it is hard to understand why, in her proposals, the Home Secretary's deliberately diluted the safeguards that are supposedly based on the Act. The Home Secretary says that the 42-day power of detention could be invoked only if there were a grave, exceptional terrorist threat. The point was made by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) earlier that that is not a condition for invoking an extension beyond 28 days; it is merely a notification requirement. Even then the notification requirement will not refer to that, but to an operational necessity. It is merely a notification requirement, entirely irrelevant to the unfettered discretion that the Home Secretary will retain. Even if it were relevant, let us consider what could constitute a grave, exceptional terrorist threat. The hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) made this point earlier: the small print of the new clause refers to events that cause or threaten"““(a) serious loss of human life""(b) serious damage to human welfare in the United Kingdom, or""(c) serious damage to the security of the United Kingdom.””" I am being charitable on this. Those definitions are so broad—a massive expansion of the criteria in the Civil Contingencies Act—that virtually any terrorist plot would satisfy them. The Dhiren Barot plot in 2004 to set off a dirty bomb would easily meet those conditions, but the charging was concluded in 14 days. The Operation Crevice fertiliser bomb plot in 2004 would also meet the definition, but all the charges were brought within 14 days. The 21/7 attacks would certainly qualify, but again all the charges were brought within 14 days. The definition of grave, exceptional threat is not only irrelevant to the power of the Home Secretary to order 42 days' detention, it simply does not matter at all.