Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. Figures were given in briefings to newspapers of about £50 million of additional funding to the security services and the police as a result of the switch from control orders to TPIMs, but it would be helpful to have that figure confirmed by the Government. In addition, however, we do not know whether extra resources are being provided for the ending of TPIMs. That clearly creates additional pressures on the police and security services.

This country has always to be vigilant against terrorism, and we should thank the police and our security and intelligence services, which do a difficult job incredibly well, often behind the scenes and unnoticed. According to the independent reviewer of terrorism, the threat of a terror attack directly by al-Qaeda has decreased since the mid-2000s, but the threat from its affiliates and its power to motivate other extremists and provide training and planning support all remain. Over this Parliament, we have seen attempted bomb plots in the west midlands, plans to attack a Territorial Army base and target Wootton Bassett, and of course the dreadful murder of Drummer Lee Rigby last summer.

UK nationals attempting to travel overseas to fight and train are also potential threats to the UK, both to our interests and citizens abroad and to us here when they return home. The independent reviewer has warned that the Syrian conflict might begin to rival the traditional threat from al-Qaeda core and regions north of Pakistan. We need to be vigilant against these threats and ensure that the British people are protected, and to ensure that the terrorists do not divide us or undermine our democratic values. The laws we pass against terrorism need always to be proportionate and fair.

That is why, like control orders before them, TPIMs are exceptional powers and should be used only in exceptional circumstances, but there are difficult cases: where there is substantial evidence that someone poses a terror risk, but where convictions cannot be achieved—for example, if they depend on secret intelligence that cannot be used in court. Given the risk of harm and potential loss of life from terror attacks, Parliament and our courts have long supported preventive measures based on a clear legal procedure, with safeguards to reduce the risk to the public.

Three years ago, however, the Home Secretary decided to weaken those terror powers by replacing control orders with TPIMs, putting a two-year limit on each one and removing relocation and other restrictions from them. She said there would be a greater focus on prosecution and imprisonment.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the narrative being put out by the Conservative part of the coalition is that the legislative change that brought in TPIMs was a result of their coalition partners, the Liberals? Was not the start of this, however, in the Conservative party’s 2010 manifesto?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I want to come to that. The Home Secretary ducks the issue if she simply blames the Liberal Democrats for this change in legislation, because she introduced it and Conservative MPs voted for, supported and defended it at every stage of its passage through the House, even when we raised questions and concerns.

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[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

Since 11 September 2001 successive Governments have grappled with the problem of how to deal with terrorist suspects who can neither be prosecuted nor deported. The last Government first introduced the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act in November 2001. This legislation effectively introduced detention without trial for foreign terrorist suspects who could be held pending deportation even when that deportation was unlikely ever to happen. In 2004 the Law Lords struck down those powers.

We later had the extraordinary spectacle of the attempt to increase the period of pre-charge detention to 90 days, which was rightly defeated by Parliament, and in 2005 the last Government introduced control orders, but control orders too, as my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) has said, were steadily eroded by the courts. Three control orders were quashed because the courts said they were wrong in principle, two control orders were revoked because the courts directed that they were no longer necessary, and three control orders were revoked because the previous Government felt they were unable to make the disclosures ordered by the court. All those individuals were then freed from their controls.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does what the right hon. Lady has just described not show that the judicial oversight of control orders was actually working?

[Mrs May]

I have to say that that is an ingenious argument to make in support of the hon. Gentleman’s Front Benchers, but what it shows is that the courts were giving a very clear message about aspects of control orders. What we needed was a regime that was legally viable and would command the confidence of the police and security services, and TPIMs have been consistently endorsed by the courts, two successive independent reviewers of counter-terrorism legislation, the police and the Security Service. They provide some of the strongest restrictions available in the democratic world and some of the strongest possible protections that our courts will allow. We now have a strong and sustainable legal framework to handle terrorist suspects whom we can neither prosecute nor deport.

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[Mrs May]

I was about to answer the point that the right hon. Gentleman has just made. When I refer to the seven absconds that took place under control orders, the answer that I always get from Opposition Members is about this issue of relocation. What neither he in his intervention, nor the right hon. Lady in her speech tell us is that forced relocation was struck down by the courts in four control order cases, including those of two individuals who were subsequently placed on TPIMs. The right hon. Lady also does not say that several control order subjects breached their control orders even while they were relocated, so the idea that relocation would prevent orders being breached is simply not correct. When the Metropolitan Police Commissioner was asked whether the removal of the option for relocation would have had any bearing on the case of Ibrahim Magag, in particular, he answered:

“we do not think so”.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

What about the point made by David Anderson in his latest review? He says:

“The possibility of relocation has now been removed. That step was not required by the courts …which had indeed shown themselves generally supportive of relocation as a deterrent”

to terrorism.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, because David Anderson has consistently said:

“The only sure way to prevent absconding is to lock people in a high security prison.”

As I said at the beginning of my speech, that option, without charge or prosecution, has already been struck down by the highest courts in the land.

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[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman brings considerable experience of this matter to the House. As I said, the police and Security Service have been putting plans in place for those individuals who will come off TPIMs, and they are similar to the plans they use every day to manage other suspects who are not subject to restrictions.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs May]

I am going to make some progress as I have taken quite a few interventions.

We continue to believe that the best place for a terrorist is behind bars. As I have said, if the police and Security Service find any individual engaging in new terrorism-related activity, the police will seek to have them prosecuted. If that is not possible, it is open to the police and Security Service to recommend that a new TPIM notice should be imposed.

In response to an earlier intervention from the hon. Member for North Antrim, I said that I would talk about the new powers that we have introduced. We have not just given extra money to the police and Security Service; we have strengthened their powers. In April last year, in a written statement to the House, I explained how we would use the royal prerogative to remove passports from British nationals who we believe want to travel abroad to take part in extremist activity, terrorist training or other fighting. That has significantly enhanced the security services’ powers in this area and the prerogative has already been used on several occasions, helping to disrupt terrorist suspects who want to travel abroad to gain skills or contacts that they could use to plot attacks in this country.

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[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The first priority of any Government must be the protection of their citizens. In this country, we take for granted the freedoms and liberties that have been built up over many centuries. Do many of our constituents think about the threats that are posed by Islamic terrorists? No, they do not, and that is quite right as they have to go about their daily business. None the less, there is a serious threat. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) has just mentioned the fact that some people believe that this threat is similar to that posed by the IRA. It is not similar to IRA terrorism. It is not similar to other terrorist organisations that act against states. Ideologically, this is a corrupted version of Islam that is hellbent on taking away the liberties and the way of life that we have built up over many centuries and that we in this House support. It also involves individuals who are prepared to take part in atrocities, including by taking their own lives, against all types of communities. That was certainly not the case with other terrorist organisations. What we are dealing with here is a new type of threat.

I agree with previous speakers when they asked whether, in an ideal world, we would have control orders or TPIMs. No, we would not. There is a recognition that, in a small group of cases, the state needs to act to protect its citizens. The hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), who is not in his place, said that we should not make this a party political matter. I must say that that is a bit rich coming from the Conservative party or the Liberal Democrat party, which made it a very political matter at the previous election.

I do not know what fantasy world the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) lives in, but it is clear that he has a distorted view of control orders and the TPIMs arrangement. I know that Government Members scoffed when I suggested that the courts were doing their job when they turned down control orders. Well, they were; it was built into the process. The hon. Gentleman stated that the relocation of people was tantamount to a Soviet-style regime. No, it was not. In that system, the High Court could review cases and, in some instances, they overturned them. It was doing its job as defined by the legislation. Four cases were rejected. The idea that the Home Secretary has put over today that the courts were the reason for changing control orders was nailed by the independent reviewer, David Anderson, in his report. He said:

“The possibility of relocation has now been removed. That step was not required by the courts (which had indeed shown themselves generally supportive of relocation as a deterrent to TRA”—

terrorist-related activity.

In an ideal world, we would want to prosecute such cases, but it is not possible. That does not mean that those individuals are not dangerous to our citizens and our way of life, but what TPIMs have done—they were referred to by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) as control orders-lite, which is exactly what they are—is to affect two fundamental issues: the arbitrary two-year time limit and relocation. I know that the Liberal Democrats might not want to be reminded of being lectured by Lord Carlile, but what he said is important and interesting. He said:

“With my experience from the beginning of control orders until early this year, I wonder why we are troubling to replace a functioning system with another that has almost entirely the same arms, body and legs, but…there is one leg missing from the Bill, and for now, in my view, it gives this legislation a distinct limp. It is the continuing power to order relocation, subject, of course, to the usual court procedures.”

Again, that is something that the hon. Member for Cambridge seems to forget about. Lord Carlile went on to say:

“On the evidence available, I am persuaded firmly—I choose my words carefully—to the view that it would be negligent to remove relocation from the main provisions.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 5 October 2011; Vol. 730, c. 1176.]

Clearly, the TPIMs system has taken two of the fundamental provisions away. The question for the Government and the Home Secretary today, which she refused constantly to answer, was about the six individuals who will come off TPIMs in the next week. What will happen to them? She gave us an assurance that the Security Service has put in place the necessary monitoring systems, but we need to know about that as the public need that reassurance. Without it, people who are a threat to the liberties we take for granted in this country will walk free on our streets. It is not good enough for the Home Secretary simply to say, “Trust me, this will happen.” These people are either a threat or not a threat, but the public need to know.

I do not often agree with the editorial of The Sun, which said this morning:

“The Coalition is relaxing terror controls just as Britain enters a perilous era.”