Prevention of Terrorism Act

May I welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement with regard to the prospect of new legislation? I hope that when he refers to consolidation he uses that in the broad sense because it may well need to be a consolidation with amendments. May I suggest to him that the first priority is to protect the public from terrorism and that the question of whether or not we subscribe to the Human Rights Act 1998 is only secondary? Does he agree that the role of the judiciary under that Act sometimes appears to interfere with the first principle, the protection of the public, and that we in this Parliament should legislate on our own terms to guarantee fair trial, habeas corpus and due process for alleged terrorists, but not hand over those important decisions to the court in Strasbourg or, now that the charter of fundamental rights is coming in through the back door, to the court in Luxembourg?