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Counter-Terrorism Bill

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; indeed, the Home Secretary gave the game away earlier today when she said, ““Trust me.”” Of course one starts with a presumption in favour of trusting the Home Secretary, but such trust has not always been justified in every Home Secretary who has occupied that Front-Bench post since I first entered this House, and it is not likely to be justified in every future case. Parliament can exercise an informed judgment only if the information is put before it. If the information is put before Parliament in sufficient quantity, and it is of sufficient quality to enable it to exercise that judgment, that raises precisely the point that the hon. Gentleman makes: that the prejudice to the individual may be overwhelming. Once freedoms of the kind that we are debating are removed or even diminished, they are not easily recovered. We should never imagine that what we now take for granted was handed out by benevolent monarchs or by altruistic Governments. They were won. Sometimes they had to be seized physically, and sometimes they could be seized by political or other methods. But they had to be acquired, because the natural acquisitiveness of the Executive means that it takes power to itself as often as it can. If we give the power back, how difficult will it be to restore the freedoms and the personal liberty that we regard as so important? It is not right to legislate on the basis of what might be. It is much less right to legislate on the basis of what might be when that involves an attack on freedom and liberty. The reason why I was a little disparaging about Stevens, Falconer, Goldsmith and Carlile was that we should not be moved by the opinions of others. On an issue of this kind, we should be moved by our own judgment, and that is why I will vote against the Government.