Prevention of Terrorism Act

With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the renewal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. I have today laid before Parliament Lord Carlile of Berriew’s report on the operation of the control order regime under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, and an order to extend the life of that Act for a further 12 months. I am very grateful to Lord Carlile—as I am sure the whole House will be—for the customary diligence and care with which he approached his task. Overall, I believe that the report endorses the current operation of the control order system. Paragraph 61 states:"““As a last resort (only), in my view the control order system as operated currently in its non-derogating form is a justifiable and proportional safety valve for the proper protection of civil society.””" Lord Carlile also states, in paragraph 38, that in the 18 cases in which control orders have been made,"““I would have reached the same decision as the Secretary of State in each case in which a control order has been made.””" Lord Carlile has made a number of recommendations to improve the operation of the control order regime, including the monitoring of each case to ensure that the restrictions imposed are the minimum necessary consistent with the safety of the public, and fuller information from the police about why they believe it would not be possible to mount a prosecution rather than relying on a control order. I have considered each of Lord Carlile’s recommendations, and in principle I accept them. I am currently consulting, as required by the Act, with the Intelligence Services Commissioner and the director general of the Security Service, and will take their views into account before making final decisions, on which I will report to the House during the debates on the renewal order. No recommendation made by Lord Carlile requires primary legislation, and it is on that basis that I have laid the renewal order today. It will be fully debated in both Houses, and all Members will have an opportunity to debate Lord Carlile’s report and our response to it. Of course I hope that the order will be supported. The last stage of the Prevention of Terrorism Act was a significant parliamentary occasion which all members of this House will remember well. During that debate, I made a commitment to timetable further counter-terrorism legislation for spring this year, so that Lord Carlile’s report would be available to inform the House when it considered any amendments to the control order legislation. I gave that commitment in the context of an announcement I had already made that we would introduce legislation to give effect to new offences of terrorism. The House will know that the tragic events of 7 July changed the timetable for the introduction of that legislation. With the agreement of all parties, we decoupled that legislation from further parliamentary consideration of control orders and presented it in October, in the Terrorism Bill that is currently before Parliament. In July, I said that I would return to the issue of control orders in the spring. On receiving Lord Carlile’s report, I was left to consider the merits of introducing a Bill that would have little content, but would enable hon. Members to table amendments to the Prevention of Terrorism Act. In doing so, I noted the following points. First, Lord Carlile’s report emphasises that there has not yet been a complete cycle of control orders, in that legal challenges brought by those who have been the subject of control orders have not yet been completed and therefore tested in the courts. I think that final conclusions on the operation of the whole control order regime would therefore be premature. Secondly, there are three very important pieces of work that are being done this year, which I want to be able to take into account before presenting legislation on counter-terrorism. The first is Lord Carlile’s review of the legislative definition of terrorism, which was promised during the passage of the Terrorism Bill and has been a significant part of the debate in both Houses of Parliament. The second is his report on the operation of the current Terrorism Bill, once passed, and in particular the measure to lengthen the period of detention without charge to 28 days, which has been the subject of great debate in both Houses. The third is the work that the Government are undertaking to find, if possible, a legal model that would provide the necessary safeguards to allow intercept material to be used as evidence. That has been raised in many parts of the House. Each of those pieces of work has been of considerable importance to Members in all parts of this House during our debates, and in my view will demand attention before we decide the details of how to proceed on terrorism legislation. I am conscious that our terrorism legislation is now split between several different Acts of Parliament, and that the principal Act, the Terrorism Act 2000, has been subject to multiple amendments. That, as Lord Carlile among others has noted, is confusing, and I am keen to ascertain whether a way could be found of consolidating all our counter-terrorism legislation in a single, permanent Act. When I expressed that hope on Third Reading of the Terrorism Bill on 10 November 2005, the Opposition parties were good enough to say that they might be prepared to co-operate in such an endeavour. For all those reasons, I have decided not to introduce further legislation on terrorism now, but to plan for the development of a draft Bill that takes into account all the work that I have laid out, to be published in the first half of 2007 for pre-legislative scrutiny. Depending on the outcome of that scrutiny, we will seek to introduce the legislation later that year. It is a matter of genuine regret to me that—despite very positive discussions between the parties at the beginning of last year, following the House of Lords judgment on Belmarsh, and during the summer of last year after 7 July—any consensus reached has never held during the passage of subsequent legislation. It is unarguable that it would be better by far if the next counter-terrorism Bill had the support of all parts of the House. The timetable that I have set out offers us that opportunity and for my part, I am determined to take it, working with the whole House.