Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Absolutely. The Minister should take a leaf out of the book of the Minister for Borders and Immigration—I am talking about what happened when the Government were defeated on the Gurkha issue—and remember the importance of consulting Parliament. I am sure that the Home Affairs Committee, some of whose distinguished members are in the Chamber today, would want to be consulted, as would the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The Minister should let us know precisely what is planned, because we have heard some wonderful statements from the Government about community cohesion—the Prime Minister has announced additional money and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has talked about communities working together—but we need to see detailed plans before we can support them on a future occasion. My final points relate to intercept evidence. Again, I am sorry to disappoint the Whip, but this debate lasts only an hour and half. I do not know whether anybody has been arrested or detained in Leeds, but this issue affects the whole country and the liberty of the citizen, so I should be grateful if he allowed me, without hurrying me along, to finish this small contribution. I say to the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) that my Committee's report recommended that intercept evidence should be used, because we felt that that was the right approach to take. I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) that this has to be done carefully, but it should not be done so carefully that we never get it implemented. At the time, the Prime Minister made a statement to the House in which he said he was in favour of this. So let us adopt these sensible proposals and try to make progress on this matter. Let us all put the Government on notice that next time we will not nod this through; we will be much more critical if the Minister does not come up with the goods.