Counter-Terrorism Bill

Large parts of this Bill are worse, but other aspects of Northern Ireland legislation were worse still. I accept the hon. Gentleman's general point and ask Members to reflect on whether, if the counter-terrorism legislation in Northern Ireland and the prevention of terrorism legislation here had incorporated the measures in the Bill, the situation would have been made much worse. It would have made it easier for people to say, ““This is great. We do not need to subvert the state; the state is subverting itself by virtue of the fact that no due process worth talking about stands.”” They may have said that it created what amounted to a police state, where police powers rule over everything else and are more significant than any other consideration. That is what we need to guard against in the Bill. Let us learn the lessons from the mistakes of the past and address the key issues before us now. Yes, there are threats, and they will continue to be tracked and monitored; all parties have made that clear in previous debates. Do we need to take this step of introducing a measure that the Secretary of State has told us may well not be used? On the one hand, we are told that the threat is live and real; on the other hand, we are told that we can rest assured that invoking these powers is a very remote possibility. Which is it to be? They cannot both be true.