Terrorism (Detention and Human Rights)

I make no apologies for starting where my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen left off in his remarks about the background to how the matter came into being. Coming from a human rights perspective, our report disagreed with several of the Home Affairs Committee conclusions—I shall deal with those later—but we agree on some important issues. Both our Committees are engaged on Parliament’s behalf in the same enterprise—holding the Government to account and asking them to justify their legislation and policy on combating terrorism. Equally important, we are both in the business of providing suggestions for effective, acceptable and, in our case, human rights compatible ways to achieve the Government’s vital objective of safeguarding the people of this country from terrorism. As we have said repeatedly in all our reports on counter-terrorism, the Government have a clear and onerous human rights obligation under article 2 of the European convention on human rights to take positive steps to protect everyone in the United Kingdom against terrorist attack—an obligation that is often not recognised by human rights people or journalists. At the same time, human rights law places some limitations on the measures that may be taken to meet that duty. The Home Affairs Committee inquiry was tremendously valuable in subjecting to close examination the case made by the police and Government for extending the period of pre-charge detention in terrorism cases, but unfortunately that examination had to come after the passage of the Terrorism Act 2006. We entirely agree with the Committee’s conclusion that many of the Government’s difficulties during the Bill’s passage arose from the speed with which it was drafted and presented to Parliament. The Home Affairs Committee inquiry fulfilled the task of examining the police arguments for extended detention, but we believe that the Home Office should have done that before introducing the Bill in the first place. Our Committee also received evidence from the police during our legislative scrutiny of the Bill, but we could not do as detailed an evaluation as necessary in the short time available. We and the last Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights repeatedly faced extraordinary time pressures in conducting the required legislative scrutiny, which included obtaining the necessary evidence to report our views on counter-terrorism legislation, to inform parliamentary debate sufficiently early given the speed with which the legislation was put through both Houses. We were encouraged by the then Home Secretary’s commitment on 2 February that during this Session, the Government would publish a draft Bill consolidating existing terrorism legislation, which is currently spread over a number of Acts, to enable pre-legislative scrutiny before they proposed any further legislation proper. The then Home Secretary also told us that the Bill would provide an opportunity to amend existing terrorism legislation. We believe, and I think the Home Affairs Committee concurs, that it is essential for parliamentary Committees and Parliament as a whole to have time to consider any new legislative proposals that the Government wish to introduce, especially if they include measures such as a further extension of the period of pre-charge detention or changes to the control order regime. The Government’s intentions relating to this Session’s legislation are not at all clear now. There are rumours that the consolidating legislation might take the form of a consolidation Bill, which would be subject to accelerated parliamentary procedure and would therefore have minimal opportunity for amendment. I hope that in his reply, my hon. Friend the Minister will dispel those rumours and give the House a clear outline of the Government’s intentions.