Orders of the Day — Prevention of Terrorism Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 2:52 pm on 23 February 2005.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Tam Dalyell Mr Tam Dalyell Labour, Linlithgow 2:52, 23 February 2005

In one way or another, the right hon. Gentleman has great experience of the security services. Does he share the unease felt by some Members about the information on which Ministers must base their decisions? In 1968, Harold Wilson wanted to appoint the then MP for Lanark, Judith Hart, to his Cabinet. The security services objected on the ground that Mrs. Hart had a communist background, but they had identified the wrong Mrs. Hart, who had nothing to do with the MP for Lanark and who was the wife of a distinguished professor at the university of Oxford. The Home Secretary knows that the security services did not distinguish themselves during the miners' strike—and we will leave weapons of mass destruction out of it.