Terrorism (Detention and Human Rights)

I agree entirely. In fairness, I do not know the circumstances in which the Chancellor said what he said, although it was taken up by the newspapers. If the Government’s current position is, indeed, that there are no grounds for departing from 28 days, they should simply say so. That would, for the moment, put the debate to rest. If the debate has to be reopened at some later date because of further material that the Government wish to present, that is fine and we would consider it. The danger is that the occasional comments that emerge and that may have been distorted appear—perhaps not to the press, but certainly to the public—to be a bit like kite flying. Such statements seem to indicate that somebody is positioning themselves to make an announcement, or alternatively is engaging in an internal competition with others, to point out that their credentials on issues of security cannot be impeached from either the right, the left or anyone who believes that security is paramount. That is regrettable as these are important issues. We should not be making suggestions about what we would be prepared to do unless we have to face up to a situation in which it is time to persuade people that it needs doing. Tone does matter. I mentioned control orders. I am a beneficiary of control orders, as I discovered, rather bizarrely, six months after the debate that my award for parliamentarian of the year was on the back of my performances at the Dispatch Box over a 36-hour period during the control order spat. However, what is so ridiculous is that it is now known as the debate about whether or not to have control orders. That was not the subject of the debate. Everybody accepted that there was a need for control orders following the Belmarsh ruling in the House of Lords. The debate was actually about whether there should be a sunset clause. I was glad to see a reference in the Joint Committee’s report to the need to have sunset clauses—perhaps rather longer ones than we envisage, but nevertheless there is a recognition of the need to keep anti-terrorism legislation under review. When I spent 36 hours at the Dispatch Box—not, mercifully, continuously but a 36-hour period without much sleep—we were debating a quite narrow issue. That is not conducive to sensible debate either.