Constitution and Home Affairs

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Education – in the House of Commons at 5:08 pm on 7 June 2010.

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Photo of David Davis David Davis Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden 5:08, 7 June 2010

With only seven minutes, I must be brief on the issues I want to raise.

The Deputy Prime Minister will not be surprised that I am a strong supporter of much of his great repeal Bill which, after all, is the natural conclusion of the great battle over freedom that has taken place in the past five years. I hope that that Bill represents a step change not only in the law, but in attitudes in the Government, so that they will not think that in order to catch the guilty, we must punish the innocent, or that to prevent terrorism and crime, we must treat the whole country as suspects. If that step change happens, it will augur well for the future.

It is a paradox that the new politics is ushering in a return to some ancient rights. The reform of the libel laws re-establishes freedom of speech; the reform of freedom of information re-establishes open government; and reform of the DNA database re-establishes the presumption of innocence. In addition, the prevention of unnecessary intercepts, along with measures against the retention of data and the proposals on CCTV, re-establishes privacy. All those are worth while, and by themselves would justify the existence of the coalition if nothing else did.

Of the three pillars of our national traditions-liberty, justice and democracy-those proposals support the first two, so I offer two cheers for the great repeal Bill, not three. The reason for two rather than three cheers is that some things are missing from it. There is nothing on those great blots on our judicial landscape, by which I mean, first, the use of secret trials in which suspects-usually, but not always, terrorist suspects-are tried without knowing the allegations or the evidence against them, which is completely inimical to British law. That was introduced by the previous Government and I hope that this Government will remove it.

There is nothing yet on control orders-another measure inimical to British traditions, using house arrest and effective internal exile for suspects rather than for the convicted. There is still nothing yet-I hope we will see it and I hope that the Home Secretary will respond to the point when she concludes the debate-on reduction of the 28-day period for which prisoners can be held without charge. We fought over 42 and 90 days, but 28 is still too many, and I hope that the Government will take that on board. I trust that these are deferrals, not oversights, by the Government.

Another issue for the Government to think about in connection with the great repeal Bill is the need to revisit the Digital Economy Act 2010. It was passed in the final stages of the previous Parliament, and it was an error for us to allow it through, as we did in the wash-up.