Counter-Terrorism Bill

The answer is, ““Patently not.”” The point of my intervention on the Home Secretary was that, to make a judgment on how long one needs—famously, she has had some trouble with that—one has to assess one's technical capacity. If one does not even know whether one has used one's full capacity, how on earth can one make a judgment about how long one needs? It is not possible. The judgment is flawed and based simply on a political, not a security, calculation. The Government have failed to demonstrate that an extension of detention without charge is necessary either on the basis of the evidence or in relation to the nightmare hypothetical scenarios that Ministers have dreamed up. The danger is that extending pre-charge detention—yet again—would make Britain less safe. I am now dealing directly with the point that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead made. First, such extension risks serving as a recruiting sergeant for terror because it is a disproportionate response, which will drive young Muslim men into the arms of extremists. Let us be clear: that is not a human rights point, but a security warning.