Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:16 pm on 30 October 2002.

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Photo of Simon Hughes Simon Hughes Shadow Spokesperson (Home Affairs) 4:16, 30 October 2002

I told the Home Secretary and the House that my colleagues and I will support the order in this House, and in the other House later today. Given that this is the first debate on this issue for more than a year, it is appropriate first to join Ministers and others by reaffirming our solidarity and sympathy with the huge number of people who, since we last debated proscription and terrorist organisations, have suffered at the hands of terrorists. Atrocious numbers were killed in the United States in the late summer of last year. According to the latest figures, 184 people were killed in Bali just a couple of weeks ago, of whom 14 were UK citizens, and according to research carried out by my assistant with the help of our very good Library staff, the intelligence suggests that other terrorist activities that took place between 11 September last year and the Bali incident resulted in the deaths of a further 50 people in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Tunisia, Yemen and Kuwait.

The Home Secretary is right to say that we need to be continually vigilant in this matter, and the Government are right to say that proscription must be kept under permanent review. As I have always made clear, we have an obligation to have legislation that helps to counter terrorism. Although he was not in his current post at the time, the Home Secretary may remember my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I arguing for the end of the old anti-terrorist legislation that split the UK into two parts—Northern Ireland in one category, and Great Britain in the other—and for comprehensive legislation that treats all parts and all citizens equally. That is why we welcomed the principle of the 2000 Act and accepted the principle of proscription. Sometimes, it is necessary to take the drastic step of telling those who belong to, work for and associate themselves with certain organisations that such activities are unacceptable in this country. We still hold to that view, which is why we will support the order, and consider it absolutely right that this country reserve the power to proscribe certain organisations in the right way.

To pick up on a phrase that the Home Secretary used, we should, of course, never be a haven for terrorists. The justifiable argument was made that we perhaps unwittingly became such a haven, in part, during the late 1990s. There is a difficult balance to strike. We must not become such a country, but on the other hand we must be a haven for free speech and liberty for those who, within the law, want to be critical of—in spoken word and in writing—regimes, faiths and practices that they consider unacceptable. I therefore hope that the Home Secretary—of whom I, like Mr. Letwin, would like to ask a few questions—will accept the good faith of our position.