Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

I believe that the Minister has waived his opportunity to respond. I want briefly to put a few points on the record. When we had this debate several years ago, the House was packed and the debate was incredibly controversial. At that time, the Government used a number of arguments. Their first was that these were temporary measures and that the full architecture of the prevention of terrorism legislation had not yet been put in place. We have had five years since then, with an annual criminal justice Bill of some sort and a whole range of other measures brought forward to tackle the prevention of terrorism. There is no longer an argument left that these are temporary measures. The other argument that Ministers always advance when they have difficulty in justifying a case is based on saying, "We know more than you do because of the information that's been given to us by the intelligence services." That is the argument that took us into the Iraq war and cost 500,000 lives. I do not have the confidence in the intelligence services that other Members have displayed, certainly not after the cover-ups that we have experienced on the torture of prisoners and the collusion in the torture of people to gain information. As we have heard, we are talking about people who have been put under control orders because they are possibly the most dangerous people in the country. The situation then degenerates into farce when they abscond and we have a Minister making statements to the House and elsewhere to reassure the general public that no one is at risk as a result of their absconding. I want to place on the record—this might be the last opportunity to do so before the general election—my tribute to the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) has done through his Committee in exposing the absolute ineffectiveness and injustice of control orders. I also want to place on record my respect and admiration for Gareth Peirce and the work that she has done in defending several of these people valiantly while at times being attacked in the media and elsewhere. Through her evidence—we have used it time and again in recent years—she has been able to demonstrate the brutality of these orders, particularly the new, lighter order of internal exile, and their effects on individuals and their families. I give the Government a warning: this policy is having ramifications across communities. We said that it would be a recruiting sergeant for terrorism, and I believe that it is a recruiting sergeant for those who are anxious about what is happening to their communities as a result of this illiberal legislation. It is completely counter-productive, and regrettably, we are rehearsing the same arguments five years on. Again tonight, hon. Members who are not even present for the debate will vote the order through, and it will have a direct, detrimental impact on all our communities.