Schedule 1
Counter-Terrorism Bill
11:45 am
Martin Salter (Reading West, Labour)
Ken Macdonald, Director of Public Prosecutions, is on the record as saying:
“It is not for us to say whether we do or do not want legislation, and I am not prepared to express a view about that”.
I take Sir Ken Macdonald at his word.
It is also worth saying that in answer to Question 149 at column 57 about whether or not the Government proposals are human rights-compliant, Ken Macdonald said:
“My view is that this provision would be lawful if sufficiently controlled by the judiciary, which it would be.”
He then went on to say:
“I am quite satisfied that this provision would be lawful. As I have said, if it was in law, we would use it if we ever found it necessary to do so.”——[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism Public Bill Committee, 22 April 2008; c. 57, Q149.]
That takes me back to where I started. The nub of this debate is how we legislate, and whether we legislate in the aftermath and in haste or whether we take advantage of the calm before—sadly—an inevitable storm.
It was interesting to hear Conservative Members’ criticisms of the Government’s economic policy as the credit crunch bites and the problems from America find their way across the Atlantic. Apparently the Government, whom I support, failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining. At the moment, the sun is shining to the extent that we are not, as far as I am aware, about to face a major terrorist outrage in the next few weeks. But who knows? While the sun is shining, however, why do we not fix the legislative roof in a sensible way, rather than waiting for the inevitable panic—the tabloid and media outcry—that will follow the next inevitable terrorist outrage?
I come now to the previous extensions of pre-charge detention. Again, the Home Affairs Committee looked at the issue in some detail. In 1974, we saw an increase from 24 to 48 hours. The hon. Member for Newark helpfully drew some parallels from his experience in Northern Ireland—it was a different era, but there are lessons to be learned. The Terrorism Act 2000 extended the maximum period of detention to seven days, and we had a further change in 2003. That was under the rule of Lord Goldsmith, who—I am very keen to put this on the public record—was one of the more appalling witnesses to come before us. Hon. Members will forgive my irreverence, but I have a problem with Ministers who discover principles after they leave office. I remember him telling us, in answer to questions from myself, that there was a good case for going from seven to 14 days, given the technology that was increasingly becoming available to terrorist networks. The problem that he has with the current proposals is that he no longer thinks that that process is happening: he thinks that we have somehow reached a ceiling, that the terrorist networks are not learning, that there are no developments in the internet and in communications techniques, that international terrorism is set in aspic and that nothing is improving. He therefore thinks that we need to stay where we are. It was all right to change things while Lord Goldsmith was drawing a ministerial salary and he could make the arguments for a change, but now that he is not, the terms of the debate have somehow changed.