Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

It seems that the Home Secretary and I are allies in the debate this afternoon—although, having read her written ministerial statement and listened to her speech, I think that she is adopting the position of St Augustine—““Lord, make us virtuous, but not yet””. The Home Secretary and I have many things in common, among them our charm, panache, looks and preference for flat shoes. And we both voted for 28 days in 2005. Neither of us has ever voted against 28 days, and we both belong to political parties that made no mention of reducing pre-charge detention of terrorist suspects in our manifestos. This issue will, of course, form part of the review that the Home Secretary rather foolishly described yesterday as putting right the failures of the previous Government. If 28 days was a failure, it is strange that she should advocate the continuation of that failure today. She is right to do so: as so often with the Home Secretary, the problem is not so much what she does as the way in which she does it. She told us yesterday that personally she was always in favour of 14 days. We understand that it is impossible to tell what she believes from her voting record, but this fervour for 14 days has been a well-kept secret. She has always actually voted for 28 days. Incidentally, the person whom the Home Secretary has appointed to provide independent oversight of the review—the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven—made clear in evidence to the Home Affairs Committee his support for 28 days, stating:"““We welcomed the increase to 28 days and we felt that a period of 14 days was not sufficient. It seems to us that 28 days has been effective and has provided us with powers, supervised by the courts, which have been useful to us as prosecutors in making appropriate charging decisions within that period.””" This review, like Brighton seafront, has two peers—both Lib Dems—and the views of Lord Macdonald are completely in line with the view of Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer of the terrorist legislation, whose work the Home Secretary rightly described yesterday as ““excellent””. Lord Carlile not only accepted the need to maintain 28 days but said:"““I expect in the course of time to see cases in which the current maximum of 28 days will be proved inadequate. This will be very rare but inevitably extremely serious.””" The 28 day pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects is a temporary measure which, thanks to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), who is in his place, has to be renewed each year. The task of the House in considering whether to support a further extension—in this case for six months—was succinctly expressed by the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley)when he spoke for the Conservatives in last year's debate. Perhaps I may just mention that we all look forward to seeing the hon. Gentleman restored to good health. He has many friends across the House who respect and admire him and want to see him back on the Government Benches very quickly. He said last year that the Government must first demonstrate convincingly to Parliament that the security situation is such that 28 days remains indispensable, and secondly, that the legal framework must meet the procedural protections afforded by our common law and by the Human Rights Act. He said, with his customary prescience:"““I hope this will give an indication of the approach that we want to take, should there be a change of Government before the next renewal.””" I accept that a small minority of Members—it may or may not include the Home Secretary—are convinced that pre-charge detention should be 14 days or less, and I respect that view. It has been consistently argued by several—a minority, but several—Members. The majority of Members, however, will look at the evidence and decide on that basis whether in the year since we last renewed this legislation, the terrorist threat has faded and/or whether this legislation is being abused by the criminal justice system.