---

Terrorist Asset-Freezing (Temporary Provisions) Bill

From memory, it was not a unanimous decision: there was criticism of some aspects of it. However, I accept that the Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the Government. My point is that the Government were on notice that they were vulnerable, but they chose to battle on through the courts rather than put the legislation on a more secure basis by involving Parliament. It should have been clear to the Government that Parliament had not been properly involved in the early decisions, and that the proper way forward was to bring legislation that would involve Parliament in the construction of the way in which individuals’ assets would be frozen. However, they stuck it out until the very end and lost in the Supreme Court. That made it inevitable that we would have emergency legislation. We are in this position because the Government failed to act. The Government first informed us nearly two weeks ago that they intended to take through the legislation, which was published in draft form last week, on an expedited basis. The Bill would replace the orders under the 1946 Act with a dedicated Bill. Dates had been provisionally agreed that would have allowed both Houses to consider the Bill on a rapid but acceptable timescale. The plan was for the Bill to start in the other place today and for it to have been completed in your Lordships’ House, with Second Reading, Committee, Report and Third Reading taken over the first two weeks of March. However, once the Government heard that their application for a stay had been rejected by the Supreme Court, they abandoned that Bill and opted for the minimalist Bill before us today. They have dressed this up as the virtue of pre-legislative scrutiny; but they showed no interest whatever in extensive or pre-legislative scrutiny right up to the time that their stay application failed. There is also a puzzle. The Government have asset-freezing powers in the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, the Deputy President of the Supreme Court, said could have been used for the cases covered by the appeals. I believe that that legislation has been used only once, in the case of the Icelandic banks to which I referred earlier. The Government have not properly explained why they do not use that legislation for terrorist asset freezing; in what ways their view differs from that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope; or, indeed, why a simple amendment to that Act could not give them the legislative cover that they need. The Bill has a sunset date of 31 December 2010. It could have been managed perfectly well with a 31 March sunset. It would have been possible and, in our view, desirable if the longer Bill putting terrorist asset freezing onto a proper footing had stuck with the timetable that we had already agreed. We told the Government last week that we were ready and willing to do that in addition to dealing with this emergency Bill this week. The chairman of the Human Rights Committee said yesterday in another place that 31 March would have allowed his committee enough time to scrutinise the longer Bill. The Government are still running away from proper parliamentary scrutiny. We believe that it is about time there was a debate in Parliament about the balance between the rights of those who are the subject of asset freezing and the needs of national security. We need to debate whether there should be some involvement by the courts in the designation orders themselves, by way of review or confirmation. We should examine why terrorist asset-freezing orders are more draconian than asset freezing for money laundering or criminal purposes, for example under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, where the courts have a greater involvement. We need to debate whether the appeal processes first set out in the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 are appropriate. They are based solely on judicial review processes and remedies and so are heavily weighted in favour of the Executive. I disagree with the Minister's analysis of judicial review. It does not allow an examination of the merits of the case and it also does not allow, for example, for orders to be varied, which is important when dealing with licences for the use of financial resources. We need to debate the way in which the various offences are constructed and why some of them are restricted to situations where significant benefit is involved while others are not. We need to subject the information provisions to scrutiny and ensure that the privilege regarding self-incrimination is not damaged. We have a long list of more detailed points which can be taken forward only in the context of a longer Bill. We are denied the opportunity to deal with those points because the Government have chosen the minimalist emergency legislation. All the points that I have mentioned are relevant to the minimalist Bill but they cannot be debated given the structure of the Bill and the timetable to which we are working. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has tabled amendments for our Committee stage this evening, but I do not think that this short Bill is the right place for them. Let me reiterate that we believe in a strong and effective regime which can minimise the threat posed by terrorism in whatever guise it appears. However, we are mindful of the need to accord those suspected of involvement in terrorism the sort of rights that a civilised and libertarian society accords its citizens. The Bill does not allow a proper consideration of those issues. We shall return to some of them when we reconvene later today for the Committee stage but we shall not debate them properly until there is a full Bill to scrutinise. I regret that the Government are denying Parliament that opportunity.