New Clause 6 — Duration

Part of Orders of the Day — Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill — [1st Allotted Day] – in the House of Commons at 4:47 pm on 21 November 2001.

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Photo of Oliver Letwin Oliver Letwin Shadow Secretary of State (Home Office) 4:47, 21 November 2001

I am not privy to the discussions that may have gone on between the Government and the Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, but from listening to the interchange during the debate on the programme motion I sensed—perhaps mistakenly—that the Government might be offering to concede on the version of new clause 6 that has been proposed by the Home Affairs Committee. We shall undoubtedly discover whether that is the case as we proceed.

I want specifically to point out the respects in which new clause 6, tabled jointly by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, differs from that which has been proposed by the Home Affairs Committee. The Committee's proposition is a huge advance on the position in the Bill. We would welcome a concession, but our view—for reasons that I shall explain—is that the Home Affairs Committee version is not tough enough to enable the House and the Government to inquire sufficiently, over succeeding years, into the effects and implications of the most controversial parts of the Bill.

Ministers will already fully understand new clause 6, but I apologise to the Committee because the drafting is inelegant and it may be opaque on first reading. The intent, however, is simple. New clause 6 is best read from back to front. The underlying intent of new clause 6(5) does not differ greatly from that of the Home Secretary. It would provide that part 4—the most controversial part—would cease to have effect after a year. The Bill would give that provision a 15-month renewal clause, so although there is a significant difference between a complete lapse and a renewal and a minor difference between 15 months and a year, our underlying thoughts are similar to those of Ministers.

New clause 6(4) would apply a two-year lapse period to the second most controversial class of parts of the Bill—parts 3, 5, 10, 11 and 13. Part 5, which covers incitement to religious hatred, might have been better included in new clause 6(5) and given only a year before it lapses, but we opted—in the spirit of attempting to reach eventual consensus with the Government—to give it and the other parts I mentioned two years before they lapse. New clause 6(3) relates to the remaining parts of the Bill except part 12. They are less controversial and we opted for a period equal to that suggested by the Home Affairs Committee—five years.

Having moved from the end of the new clause towards the front, I beg the Committee to move from the front towards the middle. New clause 6(1) and (2) describe the flexibility that we wish to give the Home Secretary, within the constraints that I have just described—one-year, two-year and five-year lapses for parts of descending order of controversy—to renew parts or to let them lapse and bring them back. The only other effect of new clause 6(1) would be on part 12—the implementation of the OECD convention on bribery and corruption—which would be left intact with no lapse period, because it is a matter of cross-party agreement and I am reasonably confident that such minor amendment as we have proposed will eventually be the subject of agreement, if merited. It is a purely technical amendment.

The sum result is that we wish the Committee to recognise—and if it does not, that the other place will do so—that the necessary constraints under which Ministers have laboured in producing a Bill at high speed and under which the House and the other place labour in scrutinising it at even higher speed, as we have already heard, should be matched by an exceptional rigour in forcing the Executive to bring back sections of the Act, as it will be, for fundamental renewal. The renewals would be more frequent the more controversial the provisions. I hope that we can reach consensus on that point. Many issues will be debated in the next few hours, next Monday and in the other place.

We ought to be able to agree that it is as much in the interests of the Government as it is in the interests of Parliament and of the people that there should be the opportunity to discover whether the intent of the Bill—I have always admitted throughout these proceedings and in all public pronouncements that the Home Secretary's intent is noble and justified—is reflected in the outcomes it provides.