Orders of the Day — Terrorism Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:11 pm on 10 November 2005.

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Photo of David Kidney David Kidney PPS (Mr Elliot Morley, Minister of State), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 4:11, 10 November 2005

The House has arrived at a settled position, so it is now our responsibility to make the Bill work. I assume that the other place will revise the Bill, rather than transform it.

I want to consider the advice that we should give to the police on the rare occasions when a person has been detained for 27 days and not yet charged. I believe the police and the security forces when they say that they are working actively to prevent and deter terrorist attacks on our soil. I understand why they say that they intervene sooner rather than later. We have heard a lot about how the police can get things wrong, but if they get this wrong, the results could be catastrophic, which is why they require time for investigation. We know that delays to an investigation could be caused by the decrypting of computer evidence, inquiries overseas and the tracing of records on the multiple use of pay-as-you-go mobile phones. The police need reasonable suspicion to arrest people, but admissible evidence to charge them. By the end of 28 days, the police will have to decide whether to charge or release. The House must advise them that, if they have not finished their inquiries and do not have admissible evidence, they must release.

Some people hope that the police will charge people with other offences instead. Liberal Democrat Members say that the police could charge a suspect with a lesser terrorist offence. However, the police advise us that they will not have reached the point at which they can decide to charge because they will not have the evidence to charge a person with a terrorist offence at all.

Some people have suggested that, if a person is charged with terrorism and must thus be put before a court, the court would of course refuse bail. However, the Hayman briefing note points out that a terrorist was granted bail and left the country, but the police subsequently believed that he was a prime conspirator, so that assertion does not help us. Conservative Members have said that a person could be charged for other reasons, such as not giving the decryption key to the police. However, that would mean that the person would have the right to attempt to get bail, which would interfere with questioning after charge.

If we have to change the law to allow people to be questioned after charge and to stop them being granted bail, but if no one says for how much longer after 28 days such questioning may go on, we will end up in the same position as we would have reached under the Government's proposal. However, we would have done more damage to our system and given more ammunition to those who are against us and say through their propaganda that the police make trumped-up charges, keep people in and question them until they get their evidence.