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Counter-Terrorism Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I shall come on to that point later. I do not believe that the Government have made their case for the need for 42 days. In the evidence that they have given to us, the threat level has been described as ““about the same””. There have been assertions of a growing threat in terms of numbers, but no qualitative analysis or assessment has been provided. We should never underestimate the threat, which is of course serious, but equally we should not over-hype it. We need to give a clear and accurate picture in order to maintain public confidence. I think that it is instrumental that the three most recent attacks have been somewhat amateurish affairs, as we all know. The numbers that we are given could mean either that there are more plots and plotters, which would be worrying, or that the substantial extra resources that we have given the security services mean that they know more about such people than they knew before, when they were below their radar—that, of course, would be reassuring. The numbers relate to the general level of the threat, and that is not relevant to the 42-day debate at all. What is relevant to the debate is when the plotters are subject to arrest, if and when these plots become crystallised. We do not have much information about such matters, other than in respect of the cases that we know about. Such cases are far fewer in number than the thousands that we are told exist. Although the director of MI5 is prepared to give a lecture to the society of newspaper editors on this issue, he is not prepared to repeat his lecture to a parliamentary Committee and to take questions on it from such a Committee. We invited him to do so. We did not want to talk about the secret squirrel stuff. We wanted only to discuss the broad issues, but he was not prepared to come before us. We wrote to him in December 2007 asking for his assessment of the increase, but we have yet to receive a reply to that letter.