Clause 51
Counter-Terrorism Bill
12:00 pm
Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General, Law Officers; Beaconsfield, Conservative)
As the hon. Gentleman will be aware from the debate we had on the earlier clause, I am sympathetic to the points he makes. In addition, we have our own new clause 7 in this group. Bearing in mind the comments that I made earlier, there is a possible solution for the Minister in terms of a clause allowing a person to make an application after five years to be discharged from the notification requirements, if the court is satisfied that there are exceptional circumstances indicating that the person no longer presents a danger to national security or to public safety. If the Minister has had a chance to look at that, I would commend it as a possible formula.
There are different ways of approaching this, but new clause 7 seems to me to put the burden on the individual concerned to make a case to the court. That would meet some of the concerns raise by the hon. Gentlemen, but in a slightly different way. I have a slight preference for new clause 7. As the Minister indicated an interest in looking at this again, it might be something to which he can return on Report. If he does not, we may well do so in terms of new clause 7 as a possible formula, which I do not think will do anything to defeat the perfectly proper objectives of the notification procedure.