Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Edward Leigh and David Davis

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I associate myself almost entirely with the assessment of the Bill by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier).

Over the past several decades, any number of counter-terrorism Bills have been put before the House. Some have been justified; some have not. Some have been effective; some have not. Some have, in the words of the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), fought terrorism, while some have fed terrorism. This Bill is a complex mix of measures, most of which I suspect are necessary, but it shares one characteristic with every single other counter-terrorism Bill I have seen here before: it brings more unfettered power to the Executive. With that go two problems. One is the increasing power of the Executive, which is a bad thing in itself, and the second is an increase in the likelihood of a miscarriage of justice.

I do not have a particular objection to a “managed return” approach to some of the individuals currently abroad committing crimes in other states. I do not subscribe to the “stateless person” concern, particularly when people have deliberately rejected their own allegiance to the state. I think there is a reasonable argument to be had on that, but I am concerned that this power will be effectively unfettered, which is what the Bill says at the moment, in the hands of the Home Secretary.

In common with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough and indeed others who have spoken, I shall listen very closely to what the Minister has to say. In my view, reform is necessary to bring about, ideally, judicial decision rather than judicial oversight. I would prefer this power to be one for the courts full stop—with all the proper appeal procedures that go with it. Judicial review is not good enough: it is too restrictive, too procedural and insufficiently material. My preference is for a judicial decision, but in its absence, for a close and unfettered judicial oversight. I say to my honourable and old friend the Minister that I hope he will be able to put the conscience of the House at rest today with his proposals. If not, I fear I shall have to support the Opposition in a number of their amendments and new clauses in the group.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I hesitate to speak in the company of such distinguished lawyers, as I am just a former common or garden practitioner in the criminal courts, but I would like to give the view, as I understand it, of most members of the public. I very much hope in respect of what the public want that the Government will be firm today and will resist amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick). I accept that he is entirely sincere and consistent in his views, and would indeed resist the amendments tabled by the Labour party. I commend the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), which I signed. I fully understand that the Government might not be able to accept them today, but I hope they will take them away and look further at these entirely sensible amendments.

I wanted to speak today because I believe we need a sense of balance in this debate. We have heard reference made to “carnage”, “atmosphere”, “revolts” and the House of Commons being “up in arms” about this. Judging from how the debate has developed and from the number of Members attending it, I am not sure that that is necessarily the case. As I said in an intervention, I suspect that most Members of Parliament—and, more importantly, most members of the public—support what the Government are trying to do, and we will see what happens in the vote later.

We have these debates, and I quite understand where my legal friends are coming from, and liberty is entirely important. We are using language relating to Magna Carta, habeas corpus, and the God-given rights of free-born Englishmen; that is all very well, but I think the public view the issue in a different way. They are absolutely outraged that people who come here and are given British passports, which should be a tremendous honour and privilege—or indeed people who are raised here and have British passports—feel that this gives them the right to go abroad and fight for an extremist cause. These people not only hold views, but practise views that are wholly alien to everything this country has stood for for hundreds of years. These people are not even like Sinn Fein. At least Sinn Fein in their worst years, even if they were blowing up Members of Parliament, soldiers or innocent members of the public, presumably saw some sort of logic in their own eyes in what they were doing. We are talking about people who are religious fanatics whose idea of fun and aggro is to cut off the head of an aid worker.

The Government are not going to act in a vacuum. The Home Secretary is not going to act unreasonably. We need look only at what the Bill, which I support, says. It refers again and again to the Secretary of State needing to

“reasonably suspect that an individual is, or has been involved in terrorism-related activity”,

and to her “reasonably considering” that action is

“necessary for a purpose connected with protecting members of the public”.

The Secretary of State, furthermore, must

“reasonably consider that the individual is outside the UK”.

She has to act “reasonably”. Surely we must trust our Government and our Secretary of State to protect our people. If the Secretary of State acts unreasonably, we can surely trust the courts in a judicial review system to provide oversight and, if necessary, overturn it. I do not think for a moment that the Secretary of State would act unreasonably.

For the sake of argument, I refer to the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Walsall North. As I understand it, he wants to replace the system whereby the Secretary of State has to act reasonably, presumably on the basis of intelligence, which may be nuanced, with a full court procedure. His amendment 18 states:

“The court may impose a temporary exclusion order on an individual following an application from the Secretary of State if the court is satisfied that conditions A to D are met.”

I have tried to understand how the amendments from the Labour Front-Bench team are more nuanced, but let me develop the argument. Those who oppose what the Government are trying to do are saying that there should be a court hearing in which all these factors can be discussed and through which we can assess whether a person—he may have gone to Syria, been a jihadist and all the rest of it—is a real threat to the United Kingdom.

I do not know a lot about intelligence, but I suspect that much of what will motivate the Secretary of State in her actions to exclude an individual will be based on intelligence. We are not talking about depriving somebody of their liberty. We are not talking about a free-born Englishman who goes abroad, gets in a spot of trouble, comes over here and is locked up. We are not talking about anything like that. We are talking about excluding somebody—temporarily, as I understand it—who the Secretary of State is reasonably satisfied has gone to fight jihad and engage in terrorist activity, and there is a real danger of them coming back here to blow up our children.

I suspect that a member of the public is not overly motivated by complex, legalistic arguments about judicial oversight, judicial review, delay and the rights of people to claim unfettered return. I suspect that a member of the public will be primarily, fundamentally and, indeed, probably wholly concerned about the safety of themselves and their family, and they will have trust. I trusted the last Labour Government. I know that the Governments of Tony Blair and the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) received a lot of stick over this, but I think they were right in wanting to protect the public. I realise that it went against many of their instincts, but they rightly took the view that such was the nature of the threat that we were fighting a war. It is a situation rather like the one we faced in the second world war, in which some sort of deprivation of traditional liberties has to take place, although we are not actually depriving anybody of their liberty here. We are not putting people in prison. We are simply saying, “You have gone abroad to fight an extremist cause, and if you want to come back here, we think the Secretary of State has the right to exclude you.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Of course I do not propose to leave it to the public and their anger. That is taking my arguments to an extreme limit. I am not suggesting that there should be a lynch mob and that everyone who comes back from Syria should be stopped by the public. We are not talking about the public. We are talking about the Secretary of State acting reasonably, on the basis of all the Government and intelligence sources available to her, to exclude someone temporarily from coming back to this country. This is not an assault on Magna Carta, habeas corpus or the traditional rights of English people; it is a sensible precaution, taken in circumstances in which we face jihadists who have no concept of our liberties, or indeed of any kind of logic. That is why I support the Government’s position.

[Mr David Davis]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Before I end my speech, I had better give way to my good friend.

[Mr Davis]

It is necessary to protect public security while avoiding miscarriages of justice. Does my hon. Friend accept that, in a number of cases, the clear finding of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission—the court, a secret court, that will probably consider these matters—has been that the Home Secretary of the day has made a mistake, sometimes on the basis of fallacious evidence and sometimes on the basis of straightforwardly bogus evidence presented by the intelligence agencies? The protection against that, surely, is a court, even if it has to be a secret court.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I broadly accept that point. Much as I admire the Secretary of State and her advisers, I freely accept that she may make a mistake. However, I think that, just as in the second world war, the threat is such that there must be some diminution of our traditional civil liberties to protect the liberty of the wider public. I am not saying that the end justifies the means, but we are in a very dangerous situation.

We are talking about the Bill; we are not talking about hypothetical situations. The Bill lays an injunction on the Secretary of State to act reasonably, and if a court finds that the Secretary of State has acted unreasonably, it can reverse her decision. I repeat, however, that we are not talking about some fundamental assault on civil liberties, or about depriving people of their liberty in this country. We are simply talking about a reasonable belief that people have fought jihad and a reasonable belief that they are a threat to our people. I think that the bulk of members of the public and the majority of Members of Parliament trust the Secretary of State to act reasonably.