I fully support the motion that the Government have put before the House today. One of the features of the fight against terrorism is that the Front-Bench teams unite as they have today in supporting what the Home Secretary proposes.

We must, of course, give the Home Secretary the benefit of the doubt. I am sure she has looked at this case very carefully indeed. I am certain that she, like previous Home Secretaries, does not take lightly the decision to proscribe an organisation. However, I want to raise a number of concerns that I have raised in the past, and that the Select Committee has raised, that have not been really been answered by the Government. I am glad to see here Dr Huppert, who is also a member of the Select Committee and who played a leading part in producing the report that we published at the end of last year on the roots of radicalism.

Of course it is right that when the Government have the evidence, and the security services and others give advice to the Home Secretary, they should initiate a ban. Despite the fact that we have had successive orders on the Floor of the House that have gone through relatively quickly because of the support of the Opposition, the concern expressed by the Select Committee, which has not really been answered, is that the orders are not time-limited. Once the proscription is put in place, there is no revisiting it unless there is an application by the group concerned to get itself de-proscribed.

In the time that I have been in the House, there has been only one example of a group being de-proscribed. That was the People’s Mujahedeen, which in the end had to go to court in order to get the proscription lifted by the then Government. The concerns that I have raised have been raised with me and with the Home Affairs Committee by a number of groups including, for example, members of the Tamil community, who were concerned at the banning of the LTTE, an organisation that no longer exists, whose leaders have been executed or dissipated. It does not function, yet that proscription remains in force. A number of right hon. and hon. Members have members of the Tamil community in their constituencies and they have raised this concern. That is why it is important that the Government should take a view on the matter.

Whenever Ministers have come to the House before to talk about proscribing organisations—in this case, Ansaru—we have raised the point but we have never received a response with a definitive answer. David Anderson, QC, the reviewer of counter-terrorism appointed by the Government, has favoured a time limit. In Australia there is a time limit of two years. There should perhaps be not an automatic de-proscription, but at least the opportunity for senior Home Office officials to review the decision and to see whether the organisation has changed. One of the points that was made to the Home Secretary the last time she used proscription against an organisation—I think it was Muslims Against Crusades— was that organisations can change their name, but still function. By changing their name, they become, in a sense, a new organisation.

The points made by my hon. Friend Diana Johnson about Hizb ut-Tahrir are relevant. I know the Prime Minister is very keen to ban this organisation. He has said so as Leader of the Opposition and as Prime Minister, but he has come up against advice that has been given, presumably, by those who give advice whose names we do not know —obviously, because by the nature of their job they have to operate in the shadows. They have clearly said to the Home Secretary that in respect of Hizb ut-Tahrir there is no case to proscribe, but there is in respect of Ansaru.

We in the House probably know more about Hizb ut-Tahrir than we do about Ansaru. Many of us, myself included, probably discovered this organisation only when we knew that a proscription order was going to be issued on the Floor of the House today. In the case of Hizb ut-Tahrir, we know what its members are up to, we know about their activities, we know what they have said, but still they are not proscribed.

It may seem odd that Members are asking for more proscription and at the same time are asking for time limits, but when an organisation ceases to exist and members of settled communities, though not members of that organisation, are loosely associated because they come from the same geographical area, such as members of the Tamil community who are settled in this country, obviously there are concerns.

I hope that when the Minister replies, he will at least give us some indication—I appreciate that this is not his area of responsibility—when we will know that the Government have made up their mind in respect of the response to the Select Committee’s report published a year ago. That will assist us, as I am sure it will assist David Anderson, QC, in our deliberations on this very important subject. On the substance of the order, I fully support what the Government are doing today. I have faith in the Home Secretary’s judgment. I know that she would do this only if she felt that it was the right thing to do, and I hope the order will go through with the support of the whole House.