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Counter-Terrorism Bill

I listened with the greatest of interest to the intervention of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer, because I remember how supportive he was of me when I moved an amendment for 90 days of pre-charge detention. He has not satisfactorily explained how things have changed. I have lost count of the times that I have spoken in this House for an increase in pre-charge detention, and the arguments have not changed. They have not changed because the reasons for the need for them have not changed. I am as convinced now as I have ever been that having a maximum of 28 days in our legal system is inadequate for the terrorist challenge that we face. The senior police officers who are—listen carefully to the adverbs that I use— currently, directly and operationally involved in counterterrorism all say that they believe that we need more than 28 days and that they need more than 28 days. What has changed under the Bill is the way in which the Government propose to meet the requirements. This is a reserve power, to extend the pre-charge detention limit up to 42 days. The need for this falls broadly under two headings. I shall be brief, because most of the arguments are well known. First, there is often the need in terrorist cases to intervene early. Secondly, there is the growing scale and complexity of terrorist organisations. Early intervention in terrorist cases is necessary because of the self-evident risk in allowing a case to run to obtain evidence. Police intervention is forced to be much earlier than in other criminal cases. As for the growing scale and complexity of cases, there is no doubt that, pace the noble Earl, Lord Onslow—you only need to look at the recent cases to see this without having to be told—there has been a great increase.