Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. I would like to begin by thanking the right hon. and hon. Members who sat on the Public Bill Committee. I can genuinely say that it was one of the best Public Bill Committees that I have been involved in. The Bill underwent tough and detailed scrutiny. There was active participation and there were excellent contributions from both sides. I am sure Members who sat on the Committee will agree that it was lively and robust, but good natured. That is when Parliament excels and does its job properly. The Public Bill Committee certainly did that. The Committee benefited from the considerable knowledge and expertise of several Members including my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) and the right hon. Members for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) and for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). I am grateful for the contributions of those Members and other Members of the Committee to this debate. I also thank the Chairmen of the Committee and the officials, Officers and staff of the House who enabled the Committee's work to take place. We have had a full and detailed discussion of this important piece of legislation on Report, with many excellent contributions from all parts of the House. We have made it clear from the outset that we are committed to prosecuting and deporting terrorists wherever possible and that our starting point will always be that terrorists should be behind bars. I know that that is the position of everyone in the House. We recognise, however, that there are likely, for the foreseeable future, to be a small number of individuals who we believe are involved in terrorism but whom we cannot successfully prosecute or deport. The purpose of the Bill is to put in place the measures needed to deal with them. The Government have thought long and hard about what legislation is needed. We conducted a comprehensive and detailed review of all the key counter-terrorism powers, including control orders. As a result of that review, we concluded that control orders were not properly targeted and not entirely effective, and that they should be replaced with the system of prevention and investigation measures that is set out in the Bill. The Bill includes all the measures that we believe are necessary to deal with those we cannot prosecute or deport, including an overnight residence requirement; a travel measure allowing the banning of overseas travel without permission; measures restricting individuals from entering particular areas or places; an electronic communications device measure that will restrict the individual's ability to use communications devices; and a financial services measure that will allow individuals to be limited to only one bank account, for which they will have to provide statements. The transfer of money and goods overseas without prior permission could also be prohibited. The Bill also includes an association measure, under which a list of prohibited associates would be provided to the individual in advance, with the possibility that advance notice might be required for meeting other individuals; a reporting measure that would require the individual to report to a particular police station at a particular time; and a monitoring measure that would require the individual to co-operate with arrangements, including electronic tagging, to monitor their movements, communications, and other activities. The Bill includes additional safeguards, including an increase in the threshold for the imposition of a TPIM notice from reasonable suspicion of involvement in terrorism-related activity to reasonable belief, and a two-year overall time limit for a TPIM notice. We believe that TPIMs, together with the significant extra resources that are being given to the police and Security Service for covert investigation, strike the right balance between robust measures to protect the public and the protection of civil liberties. I do not intend to go over the issues that we discussed in detail on Report, but I wish to say something about the draft Enhanced Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill, which we published for pre-legislative scrutiny on 1 September. Some have claimed that publishing it means that the Government have made some sort of U-turn, and that we are trying to reintroduce more stringent powers through the back door. That is absolutely not the case. The review of counter-terrorism and security powers that was announced on 26 January made it clear that additional restrictive measures may be required in exceptional circumstances, and that we would produce draft legislation to cover such a situation. That is exactly what we have done. We do not believe it is necessary to have those additional measures in the current Bill, and we sincerely hope that they will never be required, but we think it is right to have the draft legislation available should there be exceptional circumstances that require it, and that Parliament should have the chance to consider it in detail now. The Government believe that the approach that the Bill sets out is the right one. It protects the public and civil liberties, it is both robust and fair and I commend it to the House.