Counter-terrorism

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

As I said in my statement, the first duty of any Government is the security of the people, but that has to be balanced against the wider civil liberties that my hon. Friend and I both hold dear. What we are achieving is the proper balance. What was in place before was unbalanced and, as I just said in answer to our hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), it was not contributing to extra safety against terrorism, but was potentially a power in the hands of the state that could have been abused. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) will not want the state to have powers that it could potentially abuse.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

I have a hunch that both sides of the House could have united on a position around the reduction of pre-trial detention. But given that the Minister has just said that the security threat is such that the House should retain some form of emergency powers, is it not reasonable to ask that the Home Secretary should have come and put the evidence for that to the House? Can the Minister confirm that it was the intention of his Department to make this announcement by written ministerial statement on Monday, which would not have allowed any debate?

[Damian Green]

The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point about the reserve powers. The significant change is that instead of having something on the statute book to be used without any parliamentary scrutiny, we propose that Parliament should be able to act quickly, because we can imagine circumstances in which quick action is needed, while not leaving these onerous and draconian powers on the statute book. That seems to be a significant step forward towards proper balance and to giving Parliament more power over the process, which I am sure that he would welcome.