Terrorism Bill

I start on a sad note, because the Home Secretary’s comments about this not being a politically partisan exercise were undermined by his final remark. I am conscious that I am speaking on behalf of a party that has seen friends and colleagues murdered by terrorists. The names are familiar to all hon. Members: Airey Neave, Ian Gow and Anthony Berry. This party has first-hand experience of terror, so the House can draw its own conclusions when it faces silly and, frankly, contemptible accusations that any party, least of all mine, is soft on security. The war on terror is, after all, a battle of hearts and minds. The Government have passed five terrorism Acts since they came to power—the Criminal Justice (Terrorism and Conspiracy) Act 1998, The Terrorism Act 2000, the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and, finally, the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. Those Acts contain many worthwhile provisions, but none of them prevented the atrocities of 7 July, so let us not pretend that we can win the war on terror by passing every single law that the Government throw up. We will win the war by actually being tough, rather than just talking tough. There is a lot that the Government could do. They could secure our borders by introducing a new border control force, which is something that we have often proposed, but they will not do it. They could fund the security services properly by scrapping plans for identity cards and spending the money on intelligence, but they will not do it. They could help to convict terrorist suspects by allowing the authorities to submit phone-tap evidence in court, but they will not do it. They could appoint one, single Minister to take control of our fight against terrorism, which has happened in other countries, but they will not do it. We will take no lessons from the Government about being tough on terrorism, because they have failed to take on board many of our proposals, which, although our proposals were not especially innovative, would have brought us into line with the rest of the world. On the crucial matter before us today—the period for which a suspect can be held without trial—we want toughness that will work. Like all hon. Members, we have been searching for a workable proposal and we welcome the Government’s changes, which we proposed in many cases, such as better judicial scrutiny, new police and criminal evidence codes, which we hope—the Home Secretary did not address this point—will facilitate the interview of suspects after they are charged, and a clause, which is not a sunset clause, that requires the annual review of the legislation. It is right to point out that all those provisions were obtained only through parliamentary pressure from both sides of the House. The Government should also listen to what the House of Commons is saying about the duration of detention. On their own, those improvements to the Bill do not remove our responsibility to ensure that the detention is as limited in time as possible. It is worth grasping what is at stake right at the start—the imprisonment of men and women without trial in the country that invented habeas corpus. We all accept that, when national security is imperilled, our instinctive support for civil liberties must be qualified and that detention without charge must sometimes happen. That means getting a difficult balance right, because if the period of imprisonment is too brief, the civil liberties of suspects may be protected, but the lives of innocent people may be endangered. If the period of imprisonment is too long, locking up people without charge risks becoming the first resort of the authorities rather than the last. In those circumstances, innocent people are imprisoned. Remember that a 90-day detention is the equivalent of a six-month jail sentence, and the risks include not only an affront to justice, but a public backlash, in which case legislators’ mistakes will become recruiting sergeants for terrorists. The House knows the serious consequences for our national security and our civil liberties if we get the balance wrong in any direction.