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Counter-Terrorism Bill

I return to something that was said a long time ago by the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd): the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing did a good job in Committee—I served on it—in trying to bring the various parties together on the vast majority of the Bill. There is a great deal of consensus in the House on how we fight terrorism. Sometimes when we have this highly charged debate, we forget that. Is there a threat from terrorism? Yes, of course there is. I was on Capitol hill in Washington DC on 9/11. I was in Aldgate on 7/7. I do not need persuading that there is a threat from terrorists. [Interruption.] I tell hon. Members on the other side of the House that I understand their concerns. However, is there a need for further powers to fight terrorism effectively? Yes, there is. We have agreed the things that need to be done—the lower-order offences, the offence of acts preparatory to terrorism, the lowering of the threshold for prosecution, the post-charge questioning that forms part of the Bill and intercept evidence, which the Chilcot review is, I hope, providing is admissible evidence—and the legislation to require the provision of a key to encrypted material ought to be the answer to the question of how we deal with encrypted material within the period required. Is there an increase in the number of complex cases? I am persuaded that yes, there is. My answer to that is something that was decried earlier: we must provide more resources. I know that more resources have already been applied to the problem, but if there is a need for more interpreters, let us pay for more interpreters, pay for more police officers and have sufficient resources to do the job quickly. However, when I come to the question whether there is a case for this extension to six weeks' detention without a charge being placed, I do not agree and there is no consensus because it is unjustified, unfair, unworkable and profoundly unhelpful to our fight against terrorism. I heard the Home Secretary ask earlier, ““How would we feel if somebody was released after 28 days and they then committed an offence on the 29th, 30th or 31st day?”” I ask how she would feel if, under her proposals, that happened on the 43rd, 44th or 45th day. There will be no limit to this auction of time for detention without charge if that argument is sustained. I do not want to go into the issues of comparability with other jurisdictions—it is difficult to compare even common law jurisdictions, let alone those that operate on the continental pattern—but it worries me not that we are so far out of kilter with other common law jurisdictions, although we are, but that we are so far out of kilter with our history, our traditions as a country and how we maintain British justice. I see no justification for what the Home Secretary has presented as a safeguard—the interpolation of Parliament into a judicial process. It is a most extraordinary proposition that this House should be empanelled as a sort of grand jury. Some say that it will not be dealing with the specifics of a case, but it will, because of the way in which the new clauses and amendments are worded. They require evidence to be put before the Secretary of State in relation to the progress of a specific case, and they require her to present it to the House in as far as she can. The proposition is extraordinary because it defies jurisprudence, constitutionality and any concept of the illusory separation of powers, which we could debate at length. The House would be required to adjudicate on whether the Home Secretary was right in her assertion, but to do so either on the basis of evidence that would render the security services inoperable in the future or, more probably, without that evidence—perhaps on the basis of a dossier, and we all know what happens when the House decides matters on the basis of a dossier. We would thus be doing nothing more than rubber-stamp, or decide whether we liked the sound of the Home Secretary on the day when she presented the evidence to the House. At one point, the Home Secretary said ““Trust me.”” I am sure we are often happy to trust her, but that is no basis on which to change essential liberties in this country, and essential elements of our criminal justice system. I want us to have consensus on the fight against terrorism, and I think we established a sort of consensus on 28 days, although it was not my choice; I saw it very much as a temporary expedient to avoid the adoption of 90 days. It worries me that all the noddy heads that supported 90 days are the same noddy heads that now support 42 days. There is a strong contention to be made that those noddy heads would support any number put before them by the Home Secretary. Let me say to the Government that it is not too late, even now, to avoid the defeat that is inevitable—if not here tonight, as I hope, at the other end of the Corridor later—and to reach the proper consensus that the country needs in order to fight terrorism effectively.