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Counter-Terrorism Bill

I declared at Second Reading that I sit as the Home Secretary’s representative on the Metropolitan Police Authority, with the specific responsibility of providing lay oversight of the police work on counterterrorism. I spent an hour or so today with the senior officer at New Scotland Yard who co-ordinates terrorist investigations. I do not intend to report the detail of that conversation, as that would be inappropriate, but I can say that I am disturbed that there are Members of the Committee who have not recognised the increasing threat of terrorist action. I spend a lot of my time looking at the degree to which the police services, and, I am sure, the intelligence services, are stretched to full capacity in investigations that are graded as high priority. We cannot view that with complacency. We have also discussed risk, which, in terms of terrorism, has been transformed in the past 10 to 15 years. The objective of the terrorists is not to make a specific point but to inflict mass casualties. There is a desire to do ““better”” than has been done before. There is also the recognition that the individuals concerned will die in the course of taking that action. That means that the decision on when to intervene in any prospective plot is that much more difficult. You have to intervene earlier to avoid running the risk of possibly horrible and appalling loss of life. That is the dilemma that is faced, and it is why it is necessary for the Committee to debate these provisions. Much has been made of the complexity of the cases. A recent example involved the seizure of some 200 or 300 computers. A modern computer contains a terabyte of memory, which is the equivalent of 50,000 trees, cut down, converted to paper and printed on both sides. If that material is encrypted or is written entirely in Arabic or, perhaps more significantly, if it contains significant material hidden in files which have been given such innocuous labels as ““holiday photographs””, it is an enormous task to sift through it. That is why time is needed, because of the relationships that have to be pursued, as my noble friend Lady Ramsay said, in international jurisdictions. In our discussions, we have heard much about the threshold test. I had a brief exchange with my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton on this point. As I understand it—although I may be corrected by the massed ranks of noble and learned colleagues in this Committee—the decision on making a prosecution, whether or not with a reduced threshold, has to be taken by the Crown Prosecution Service. Before this provision can be implemented, the director of that service has to certify that a prosecution is necessary. This new power is a reserve power which can be used only in the event that things cannot otherwise be dealt with. Because it is a reserve power and because it requires the consent, approval and recommendation of the Director of Public Prosecutions, it can be invoked only in circumstances in which the lower threshold test has not proved satisfactory, or when the other matters that noble Lords have raised mean that the legislation is needed. Those are the only circumstances in which this failsafe will come into force. The reality is that this proposal is designed to protect in the event of other things failing. It can be implemented only after what has been described as a tortuous and difficult process. It should be a tortuous and difficult process. However, the provision is there for a reason. It is there because, although there may be a threat to civil liberties in any instance where someone is detained for longer than 28 days—and probably for longer than 14 days, and probably longer than seven days—the rule of proportionality states that we must protect this country and its citizens, both here and overseas, from the threat of mass murder. That is what terrorism is about.