Terrorism (Detention and Human Rights)

The Minister will respond later. I suppose that my right hon. Friend was echoing the Home Secretary’s rather sceptical comments in the Queen’s Speech debate to the effect that intercept was not a ““silver bullet”” and that it could not get around the need to take difficult decisions on matters such as pre-charge detention and control orders. I certainly agree that it is not, by any stretch, a complete panacea in terms of counter-terrorism policy, but it would significantly strengthen the prospects of successful prosecutions and of putting terrorism suspects behind bars as the result of fair trials and judicial sentences, rather than without any form of judicial process. As I mentioned earlier, my Committee will shortly be considering possible ways in which the ban could be relaxed, and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on the issue, including on the timing and nature of any work that the Home Office is doing on it. When we came to consider alternatives to lengthy pre-charge detention, we were struck by what the DPP told us in an informal meeting. He told us that in most terrorist cases the threshold test for bringing charges—the test of reasonable suspicion—was used on the basis of some evidence. That is in accordance with the code for Crown prosecutors, which provides for the test to be applied when it is proposed to keep the suspect in custody, but the necessary evidence to apply the full code test is not yet available. We were therefore somewhat surprised that the police had said in evidence to the Home Affairs Committee that the threshold test was not applicable in terrorism cases. In their response to our report, the Government said that the test"““could apply in some terrorism cases””." They added that because it will not apply in all cases,"““it is not a relevant factor in considering the appropriate time limit for pre-charge detention.””" We were impressed by what the DPP told us about the threshold charge system. The use of the threshold test did not feature in parliamentary debates on the extension of the pre-charge detention period, which is a pity because it has to be an important and relevant factor. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister can clarify the differences between the evidence given to the Home Affairs Committee, to our Committee and in the Government’s response to our Committee about the extent of the use of the threshold test in terrorism cases. If the position is as he said it is in his response to our Committee, I would also invite him to reconsider the Government’s position that the use of the test is not relevant to the length of the pre-charge detention period. In our view, it provides an important way to resolve some of the issues that gave rise to the debate over the extension.