Prevention of Terrorism Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 1:00 pm on 10 March 2005.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Baroness Hayman Baroness Hayman Labour 1:00, 10 March 2005

My Lords, I voted with the Government in the previous Division in this House not because I was wholly tranquil or serene—in the words of the prayer—with the arrangements that we have finally come to about judicial control of control orders, burden of proof or any of those other matters. I did so because I believe that we are at the stage in our deliberations when we have to stand back and we have a responsibility seriously to focus on that with which we cannot hold. We must try to understand that other people have other issues about which they feel equally strongly.

In order to reconcile those points of view, I have come to the conclusion that we ought to stop arguing now about the specific details of parts of the Bill. There are two reasons for that. One is that we have improved the Bill considerably from its original drafting. The other is because I believe that it is better than Part 4 of the 2001 Act. That is fundamentally important to me.

I believe that control orders in some form are a necessary evil and that we are legislating to make them as palatable as possible. However, I do not believe that what we have done is incapable of improvement. The process by which we have done it has not been satisfactory in this House and, in another place, as we all recognise, it has been unacceptable in many ways. Therefore, my sticking-point is that we have the opportunity for a comprehensive reassessment of what we have done so far and to have proper legislation in a proper parliamentary process. That takes us to a sunset clause.

The reason that I tabled my amendment and do not wish to support the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, is that frankly I do not believe that the timetable that he suggests is sensible or practical. I believe that my noble friend is right. Finding consensus on a new offence of "acts preparatory to terrorism" will be a complex and difficult issue that will require time and pre-legislative scrutiny. I believe that we will need a little experience of this legislation to be able sensibly to return to it and see in what areas it needs change, amendment and tweaking.