Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick]

I, too, support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, on Amendment 1, and his proposal that the imposition of a TPIM should be a judicial and not an administrative act. If restrictions of this nature on basic liberty are to be imposed, they are to be imposed on British citizens, and imposed entirely outside the criminal law process. Surely it is necessary for the procedure to require that they be imposed by judges, particularly when they are being imposed by reason of serious allegations of wrongdoing on the part of the individuals concerned?

The Minister said at Second Reading—and I reminded your Lordships in Committee—that the Government’s approach to this Bill was to try to balance civil liberties and security by ensuring that the Bill goes,

“no further than is absolutely necessary”—[Official Report, 5/10/11; col. 1137.]

in limiting people’s rights. Those were his words. Surely that test, that criterion—which must be the right criterion—requires that these restrictions be imposed only with judicial approval. If the security services, with all the information available to them, are unable to persuade a High Court judge in a closed session, where the material is not disclosed to the individual concerned, that the restrictions are needed, the restrictions should not be imposed at all.

If the Revenue requires a court order before it is able to raid a person’s house in order to seize his documents, surely the Home Secretary should require a court order before she can require that same individual to remain in his house overnight, or not to contact other specified persons, or before she can impose any of the other specific restrictions under a TPIM order.

Your Lordships should have no doubt that for these orders to be imposed by a judge on application by the Home Secretary, and not to be imposed administratively by the Home Secretary herself, would substantially increase confidence in these orders in those sections of the community most suspicious of them.

[The Archbishop of York]

My Lords, this clause gives the Home Secretary power to impose measures for terrorism prevention—so in many ways she is acting like a judge—and investigation, so she is behaving like the DPP. That is not right. You cannot combine functions that belong to the courts and the Director of Public Prosecutions into one person. That is always going to be problematic.

In this country, one of the greatest joys is that no one is deprived of their liberty unless they have committed an offence defined in law, been investigated and gone before a court, which in the end imposes the deprivation of liberty. Of course, you tell me, “This is the United Kingdom; the Home Secretary could never be near this”. In Uganda, if the President felt that you were committing treason, he made an order and you found yourself arrested, locked up and deprived of the possibility of any defence. Of course, you would say, “That is terrible; it should not be like that”. Friends, it happened to me.

Therefore, I feel where you are going at the moment, if you are going to deprive and impose specific measures on a person, surely it should be by application to the courts, and it would be the duty of the Home Secretary to present evidence that persuades a judge. Of course, we will be told that the Home Secretary will act very quickly. As the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, said, it can be done ex parte, very quickly; there is no reason that cannot happen. For the sake of those of us who came to enjoy the separation of the Executive from the judiciary and still see it as the greatest defence for the liberties of people, I hope that the Government will accept that this will be an improvement to the Bill if this separation is made.

There should be no doctrinaire stuff about it. In the end, it cannot really be the same person who does all this. Thank God, I will never be Home Secretary. If I were, I would find this clause terrifying, because in my conscience I would not want to be the judge, jury and executioner all in the same place—and the DPP as well, all combined into one. For the sake, therefore, of keeping this fantastic balance of the Executive and the judiciary never meddling with one another, this legislature would do well to accept all of the amendments that have been tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. This is what I rejoice about in this country—its liberty and its separation of powers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven]

My Lords, I also support the Government’s position on these amendments. The counterterrorism review gathered a great deal of evidence about relocation, as well as other measures applicable under the control order regime. The evidence was considered extremely carefully, as far as I could see. After all, the review was conducted by no less a division of the Home Office than the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, which is to be found in the deepest bowels of that department of state. Its conclusion, which I thought was certainly in accordance with the evidence, was that relocation was disproportionate and unnecessary in the face of other measures available under the TPIM legislation and particularly in the light of the Government’s decision to increase the amount of funding for surveillance, which after all is the main technique used by countries like us around the world to deal with these sorts of issues. I agreed with the conclusions of the counterterrorism review, as I thought that they were clearly in line with the evidence, of which there is a great deal. I am sure that the Government’s position on these amendments is the right one.

[The Archbishop of York]

I, too, as someone who supported the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, in his amendment, believe that it is the duty of the Home Secretary to make the application to the judge and the judge to determine. To bring back relocation would make the case worse—not because we lost the last Vote, but I generally feel that on this particular bit of the Bill the Government have got it right. So I hope that we do not have to go through the Lobby Doors again but that the amendment will be withdrawn. Nothing will cause me greater difficulty in my understanding of British justice than bringing back relocation. That actually causes more difficulty in our communities than anything else. If there is going to be relocation, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, should in his amendment have said that it should be done on the orders of a judge and not the Secretary of State.

I go with the Government on this, as I think they have got it right. Of course, we lost the last and most important amendment, but there we are.

[Lord Bew]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. Coming as I do from Northern Ireland, I regard control orders with great suspicion and concern, as with anything that smacks of internal exile. That is one of the implications of control orders and it is quite right that the House should take an extremely sceptical view of them.

None the less, there are two important considerations, one already alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, which is the evidence given by the deputy assistant commissioner about the efficacy of control orders. The other crucial point is the recent public debate over concern about security during the Olympics. There is a balance to be struck here, and it is very difficult for the Government to get this right; but this is a very modest request—a timing issue, focused fundamentally and purely on the question of security during the Olympics. For that reason, I favour the terms of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.