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Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

I am proud to be one of the 35 people referred to in the case of Lord Alton and others. Others in that 35 are in the Chamber tonight. I deliberately say that I am proud because it was a unique group of people—[Interruption.] It was a unique group of people and included my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who shares my satisfaction at having been part of the campaign to have that grave injustice, as we saw it, remedied. It is worth reminding the House that among those people were Lord Waddington, a former Conservative Home Secretary; Lord Russell-Johnston, from the Liberal party; a former national agent of the Labour party, who is now in the House of Lords; Lord Archer, who was Attorney-General in James Callaghan's Government; a former Scottish Law Officer; a Conservative Lord; and the former leader of the Labour peers, Lord Corbett. Those people banded together, feeling that there was a need to persuade the Government to lift the proscription on their own initiative and, if they did not do so, to pursue it through the courts. I regret that successive Ministers could not be persuaded to look at the matter impartially—I use that word deliberately, because the Government have foolishly and recklessly been motivated by the desire to appease the unappeasable, namely the regime in Tehran. The Government have not executed their obligations in law or the obligations dictated by common justice that require them to consider the evidence when deciding whether to continue the proscription of the PMOI.