Mr Michael Mates (Petersfield)

I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye so that I can address the House for the first time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Brotherton) has been describing himself as a newcomer to the House as the new, fatter model of Jeffrey Archer. If I were to pursue the same analogy, I should have to call myself the new and entirely reconstructed model of Joan Quennell.

I am aware that time is at a premium in the debate today, so I hope that my constituents in Petersfield will forgive me if I do not recite the customary travelogue of my constituency, beautiful though it is, but proceed almost directly to what I want to say about the subject we are debating.

First, it is my pleasure as well as my privilege to pay tribute to Joan Quennell for her service here during the past 15 years. I was made well aware during the election campaign of the great esteem in which she was held in Petersfield and of the warmth and affection with which many constituents of all political persuasions spoke of the work she had done in the community there.

I am sure that the House will also wish me to pay tribute to her long service here, both as a back bencher and as a member of Mr. Speaker's Panel of Chairmen.

I wish to make two points about the measures to combat terrorism which will be discussed during this debate. Let me say straight away that I warmly welcome the proposals which the Home Secretary has brought forward in the Bill. They are necessary, they are sensible, and I think that there will be no resentment by the British people of any marginal effect that these measures may have on individuals who may suffer some hardship as a result. I am perfectly certain that the vast majority of the people of this country are only too ready to suffer some personal inconvenience if it means ridding our society of the cancer of terrorism.

As some hon. Members may know, I came to the House almost direct from the Army, in which I served for 20 years. One of the features I noticed during my service in Northern Ireland was the ready way in which many decent citizens are prepared to co-operate fully with the security forces, although they are personally substantially inconvenienced, in order to play their part in helping to get the situation there under control.

However, I do not believe that the proposed measures go far enough. The Home Secretary spoke on Monday about identity cards and said, in reply to a question by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), that he was not satisfied that the direct effect would be worth the trouble involved. The right hon. Gentleman said also that identity cards were eminently forgeable documents.

I question that. I have here an identity card which I used for two years during my recent tour as an exchange officer for the British Army to the army of the United States of America. This document is cheap, it is simple to issue, and it is virtually unforgeable. It bears my photograph, my signature and my fingerprint on it, and it was issued to me in a permanently sealed, laminated, tough folder within the space of about 10 minutes.

I have heard it said that to be required to give one's fingerprint is an infringement of the liberty of the innocent. I gave my fingerprint to no one. The only mark I made is on this card, and should I have been required to produce a print for the purpose of comparison I would have made one mark only on a piece of paper, which would then have been returned to me.

I most strongly urge the Home Secretary to look again at this problem, because it would be of the greatest value to the upholders of law and order, both in Northern Ireland and here in Great Britain, and for those seeking to regulate travel between Great Britain and either Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland.

I hope that my argument will persuade the Home Secretary to change his mind over this matter, as I believe that it would be worth his while to include such proposals, for which his Department must have contingency plans, in his Bill, even at the last minute. They would gain a large measure of support.

My major disappointment, having read the Bill, is that the Home Secretary has not seen fit to include any reference to or measures concerning the punishment of those convicted of acts of terrorism. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to say that we will discuss the whole question of capital punishment at a later date and that he would prefer this course to debating the subject of punishment in the immediate aftermath of any incident such as the Birmingham bombs. That was a sentiment which was echoed at Question Time by the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead).

I disagree with that, for two reasons. First, if we go on at the rate we are going now we shall almost always be in the aftermath of such barbaric incidents. An illustration of this is the answer by the Home Secretary to my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed), which is published in today's OFFICIAL REPORT and which shows that there were 30 crimes of bombing since 1st January of this year—almost one a week—that 40 people had been killed, and that 396 people—more than one person for every day of this year—have been injured in bomb outrages.

Secondly, and more important, I believe that the great majority of the British people at this time do not want us talking about taking action. They want us to take action. Moreover, I do not think that it would be helpful to discuss this particular aspect of punishment in the context of capital punishment as a whole. I know that there are many deeply held views of personal conscience on the whole question of executing criminals who have committed murder. Let me say at this point that I am not in favour of a general re-introduction of the death penalty for murder, but I do not think that it is right to consider the sort of people who indiscriminately slaughter totally innocent citizens in the context of other criminals. I believe that they are the enemies of the State, and, as such, I believe that we should consider ourselves to be at war with them. They certainly consider that they are at war with us. It is in this context of enemies that they should be ruthlessly sought out and destroyed. After all, these enemies are employing the tactics of indiscriminately taking the life of our innocent citizens, which makes the case immeasurably stronger for us to employ the same measure, although judicially, against them.

If we look at the matter in this light, all of the other questions which are properly raised in the wider issue of capital punishment as a whole, such as deterrence, the repugnance of taking a human life as retribution for a civil crime, and other moral issues and considerations, become quite irrelevant.

The Home Secretary also spoke on Monday of the law of treason and referred to the remarks of Lord Hailsham. We know that the law at present is obscure and archaic and that it has fallen into disuse, but is that any reason for simply dismissing it? It surely cannot be beyond the wit of the House to amend it and make it apply to the new sort of enemy that exists in our midst, provided that we have the will to do so. I believe that many of my right hon. and hon. Friends believe that this should be done.

Every aspect of this proposal will have to be examined very deeply, not least the possible kidnapping and reprisals if terrorists were to be executed. There is a very real danger that members of the judiciary, politicians and members of the security forces and their wives and families would be at risk to this sort of reprisal. One need only look at terrorist operations outside these shores to realise that the imprisonment of convicted terrorists is an open invitation to hostage-taking as a bargain for their release. It is a matter of some surprise that we have not yet been faced with this situation in Britain.

I appreciate the urgency with which the Government rightly wish to see the Bill become law, but it is my profound hope that some way can be found today for the House to express its views on the matters I have raised. This is not an occasion for the deferring of difficult and unpleasant decisions. It is an occasion when I believe that the vast majority of the British public want their elected leaders to stand up and be counted for what they believe in.

See this speech in context