Terrorism Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 8:00 pm on 13 December 2005.

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Photo of Lord Thomas of Gresford Lord Thomas of Gresford Shadow Attorney General, Law Officers (Constitutional Affairs), Advisory Team On Legal Matters, Non-Departmental & Cross Departmental Responsibilities 8:00, 13 December 2005

We should perhaps get towards the end of what has been a very serious and important debate that has aroused passions on both sides. I do not intend to do much more than try briefly to sum up the argument.

The danger is that people should pose the wrong question. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and those who earlier supported the 90-day option seem to me to be posing the wrong question. It is a balance; it is a judgment; but it is not a balance between the human rights of an individual and the safety of the public. That is not the issue. The question is much wider and deeper than that.

The first question is: what causes people to become terrorists at all? The noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, has spoken movingly of the effect of the legislation on his community. We know that there is alienation out there; we know that alienation has been caused by racial and religious tensions. I need not develop that point; we know that it is there. The Bill does nothing to improve the sense of alienation felt by the people to whom the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, referred. The sense of justice that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, talked about is critical. Whatever part of the community they come from, people should feel that they will have justice, as much as the next man. The noble Lord, Lord Condon, put it absolutely right when he said that this law is counterproductive and the issue is: what will it generate? Those are wise words.

The question that I pose is: what helps catch terrorists? Intelligence. The noble Lord, Lord Lyell, said that. Intelligence comes from within a community that feels a part of the whole community. If there is alienation, the people within that community will protect their own; whereas they should be protecting the whole of us. It is vital that people remember the importance of intelligence in stopping all this.

The example surely was in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s when internment was introduced. It ran for about 18 months and it came to an end. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Merlyn-Rees, was the Minister who stopped it. It was stopped because it fractured the community and it meant that no intelligence was coming out of that community. It caused the sense of injustice and alienation to continue. Unfortunately, those feelings and that fracture continued for many years after that.

My third question is: what is the utility of 90 days? It is meaningless within the criminal investigation process. The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, talked about the problems of investigations abroad, dealing with foreign governments, language and police forces abroad. Does she really believe that those sorts of difficulties can be solved in 90 days? That has never been my experience in 40 years at the Bar. If there is a foreign problem, it runs and runs, sometimes into the trial itself. All the other investigations—into encrypted computer disks, DNA, scientific discoveries and so on—and forensic examinations go on. There is an assumption on the part of those who ask for 90 days that everything stops at the point of charge but that is absolutely not the case. All that is needed is sufficient evidence to charge and the police investigation continues. All the lengthy and difficult matters will be dealt with eventually by trial; they do not cease.

The 90-day detention period may not be 90 days for some, as some noble Lords have said, because once there is sufficient evidence to charge somebody you have to charge them; you cannot hold back. So the people who serve 90 days are those most likely to be released at the end of that period. During that period, if you hold somebody while waiting for something to turn up, you are doing a terrible thing to them and to their families. Do not ignore the fact that 500 of the people arrested under the Terrorism Act were released without any charge.

My final question is: are the existing powers of the police being used? Mention has been made of the ricin case. Had the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, not referred to it, I would have made the point that no ricin was ever discovered. There was one person about whom the complaint has been made who went abroad when he was given bail having been charged with a minor offence. He was in police custody for two days, not the 14 days that the police could have had to investigate the matter longer and build up the case if there was more evidence to come in. We shall have to look later at what the intelligence about the 7 July bombers was and whether there were earlier opportunities during which those bombers, or some of them, could have been arrested. I do not propose to develop that matter but I am sure that it will come to your Lordships' attention in due course.

I agree totally with the noble Lord, Lord Elton, who talked about the fractured society—I have already pinched the phrase. We must avoid that at all costs. We are at a crucial time for our generation, just as those who went before us faced crucial times and crucial decisions. If we fracture this society, then the terrorists will have won.