Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (Continuance in Force of Sections 1 to 9) Order 2011

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan]

My Lords, I will be extremely brief on this issue. It is very clear that everyone in this House is opposed to terrorism but the question we must ask is how effective the control orders have been. The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, asked what their impact had been on those who have been affected by them, not simply those who are subject to the orders but their families and those who suffer the effects of these exclusion orders. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, referred to alternative forms of investigation and surveillance.

One of the consequences of not using powers of surveillance and investigation in Northern Ireland to the extent that they led to prosecution was that we saw a development in criminal activity. I am not suggesting that the control orders would lead to that but one of the consequences of repressive anti-terrorist legislation is that it grows the terrorism which it seeks to defeat by virtue of the impact it has on the communities on whom it is imposed and on which it impacts. The evidence is very clear that legislation which is neither proportionate nor necessary has the effect of growing resentment in those communities, and that that resentment can lead ultimately to people becoming involved in, or possibly supporting in some very minor way, the very terrorism which it seeks to defeat. Is it not possible for the control order to slip into oblivion, for the new measures to be introduced in December, and in the mean time to make use of the very extensive powers of investigation and surveillance available under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and other legislation?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, for introducing the order. I echo my noble friend Lord Judd in thanking our security services and police for their co-ordinated work in keeping us safe. We know that plots have been foiled recently. It is clearly our duty to provide the police and security services with the tools and procedures that they need to do their job effectively. As we have heard today and in previous debates, that sometimes means walking a very difficult line in balancing individual freedom with collective safety—the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, put that very well—with the rights of the wider community sometimes outweighing the rights of the individual. Control orders have been the tool for that and I thought that the Minister said that they had had some success. In an ideal world we would not wish to use control orders. It would be greatly preferable if our criminal justice system could deal with terrorists who wished to cause us harm but the view was taken by the previous Government and previous Home Secretaries that control orders were a necessary evil.

The order before us provides for the continuation of the power to make a control order against an individual when the Secretary of State has reasonable grounds for suspecting that the individual is, or has been, involved in terrorism-related activity. I echo the noble Baroness’s tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for the work that he has done. We know that eight people are subject to control orders at the moment. My understanding—perhaps the noble Baroness will confirm this—is that some of these orders have been made since the coalition Government came to power. The implication of what the Minister has said is that the Government recognise that a number of people pose a real threat to our security who cannot be prosecuted or deported. Therefore, the Government have come face to face with reality in recognising the need for a mechanism to protect the public from the threat that such individuals pose. The Sixth Report of the Independent Reviewer states clearly:

“The control orders system, or an alternative system providing equivalent and proportionate public protection, remains necessary, but only for a small number of cases where robust information is available to the effect that the individual in question presents a considerable risk to national security, and conventional prosecution is not realistic”.

It looks like the Government have gone through a steep learning curve in the past few months, but one of the results is an absurd situation whereby the order on 28-day detention was allowed to lapse without the draft emergency legislation being in place. Legislation has now been published but, as yet, we do not know when Parliament will discuss it.

A number of noble Lords referred to the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights that examines whether Parliament should be given the opportunity to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny of the proposed emergency legislation. The noble Baroness will know that the Select Committee said that it does not accept the Government’s reasoning for not providing this opportunity and recommends that the legislation should be published and made available to Parliament for pre-legislative scrutiny. I invite the noble Baroness to comment on that specific recommendation. I also echo the point raised by my noble friend Lord Judd, who referred to the recommendation in the committee’s report that the Government should publish a summary of the views of a number of the agencies involved in counterterrorism in order to facilitate parliamentary scrutiny of the review. I accept that the report was published only a few days ago and I would not expect the Government already to be able to come to your Lordships’ House with a full response. That would be unreasonable. However, the noble Baroness should be able to say broadly whether she accepts those recommendations and can respond to them.

It is noticeable that the proposed new control order regime pays particular attention to surveillance. We are told that sufficient finance will be available to the police and security services for that resource-intensive proposal. Will new money be made available? The noble Baroness owes it to the House to inform us as to how continuation of the current control order regime will be dealt with, given the financial cuts that the police and the security services are facing. I pray in aid to the noble Baroness the report published today that details some of those cuts.

Will the noble Baroness inform the House about the impact on the capability of our counterterrorism work of the changes proposed in the Police Reform Bill that is now in the other place? That is highly relevant to this order and to what is likely to take place over the next few months. I have great reservations about the proposal to impose elected police commissioners on our police forces. I have no doubt whatever that it risks politicisation of our forces and inevitably corruption. That is a debate for another day, but I am concerned about the impact on national strategic policing issues, which are relevant to this debate.

There can be little doubt that police commissioners will be elected on manifestos that are bound to focus on local policing issues. I suspect that it will be a question of which candidate proposes more bobbies on the beat. That is fair enough, but what if these elected police commissioners neglect their national responsibilities? What if they do not make appropriate resources available for counterterrorism work? The noble Baroness speaks with great authority on this issue. Is she convinced that there will be sufficient intervention powers at a national level to ensure that elected police commissioners do not inhibit national security work in which the police have a major role to play? I assure her that we will come back to that issue.

These are not easy issues. As every noble Lord who spoke today said, we in this country have a long tradition of individual rights and freedoms. We are all very proud of that. As the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, said, we have responsibilities for the safety and security of the public in very challenging times. It is a very difficult balance to achieve. The Official Opposition support the extension of the order this evening. We look forward to the new legislation on how we can scrutinise what happens. I hope that we will be able to reach consensus that meets the requirements of individual freedoms while keeping the safety of our country to the fore.