Counter-terrorism and Security Powers

Alan Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Commons Chamber

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

With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a statement on the review of counter-terrorism and security powers.

As I have said to the House before, the first duty of Government is to protect the public, but that duty must never be used as a reason to ride roughshod over our civil liberties—and that is what the previous Government did on far too many occasions. This Government are different. We have already introduced legislation to get rid of identity cards once and for all; we have already declared our intention to bring forward a freedom Bill later this year; and just last week I announced interim restrictions on the use of stop-and-search powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Today, as promised in the coalition agreement, I am announcing an urgent review of counter-terrorism and security powers. The review will consider six key powers: control orders; section 44 stop-and-search powers and the use of terrorism legislation in relation to photography; the use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 by local authorities and access to communications data more generally; extending the use of deportations with assurances in a manner that is consistent with our legal and human rights obligations; measures to deal with organisations that promote hatred or violence; and the detention of terrorist suspects before charge.

Those are the most controversial and sensitive powers. In particular, the issue of pre-charge detention has been the subject of considerable debate in the House, and tomorrow we will consider whether to renew the current detention limit for a further six months. That will provide us with sufficient time to look carefully at pre-charge detention in the review and to explore how we can reduce the period of detention below 28 days. The review will also help to inform us on what additional safeguards are needed in the proposed asset freezing Bill, which the Treasury will introduce shortly.

The Government’s work on the use of intercept as evidence in court and the modernisation of our interception capabilities will be done separately and will not form part of the review. The review will be conducted by the Home Office with the full involvement of the police, security and intelligence agencies and other Government Departments, including those in Scotland and Northern Ireland. I want the review to be conducted as openly and transparently as possible. I have asked Liberty to contribute to the review, and it has said that it would be delighted to do so. I am keen to involve other civil liberty and community organisations and, as with other reviews, I would urge anyone with an interest to submit their views to the Home Office.

To ensure independent oversight of the review, I have asked the noble and learned Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, to make sure that the work is conducted properly, that all the relevant options have been considered and that the recommendations of the review are not only fair but seen to be fair. That role is distinct from the excellent work that is already being undertaken by the noble and learned Lord Carlile of Berriew in his statutory role as independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. The proposals made by Lord Carlile will be fully considered as part of the review and I know that he welcomes the additional independent perspective that Lord Macdonald will provide on these issues. Any legislative amendments that result from the review will of course be subject to review by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. I have ordered that the review should be completed as quickly as possible, because it is important that the police and the security and intelligence agencies are able to do their vital work with certainty and confidence. I will report back to Parliament on the outcome of the review after the summer recess.

Before I finish, I want to make one thing absolutely clear. In correcting the mistakes of the previous Government, we are doing just that. We are not criticising or castigating members of the police or of the security and intelligence services. They do their work with bravery, patriotism and a strong sense of duty, and I know the whole House will want to join me in paying tribute to them. The review will enable this Government to put right the failures of the last Government and, in so doing, restore the ancient civil liberties that should be synonymous with the name of our country. I commend this statement to the House.

[Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving me early sight of her statement. It is important to recall that when the Terrorism Bill received its Third Reading in November 2005, it had all-party support, so both parties to the coalition Government supported the bulk of the legislation that will now be reviewed. Two things characterised that debate, which came a few months after the horror and carnage of 7/7. The first was the realisation that no change in Government policy would remove the UK from al-Qaeda’s firing line and that the only response to the threat was to contest and then defeat it. The second was the extraordinary lengths that were taken to proceed on the basis of consensus, not just with the then shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), and the Lib Dem spokesman Mark Oaten, but with the Select Committee on Home Affairs and the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

The threat that was faced then has not diminished. The Prime Minister put it succinctly in his statement of 6 July, when he said:

“As we meet in the relative safety of this House today, let us not forget this: as we speak, al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen are meeting in secret to plot attacks against us; terrorists are preparing to attack our forces in Afghanistan; the Real IRA is planning its next strike against security forces in Northern Ireland; and rogue regimes are still trying to acquire nuclear weapons.”—[Official Report, 6 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 178.]

Can the Home Secretary confirm that the review is not being held to scale down the powers needed to address a diminishing threat, but is far from that? What is the latest estimate of the number of terror suspects actively engaged in complex plots and can she tell us how many such plots have been disrupted since 7/7?

The review must surely be held in the context of how those powers are working on the ground. In that context, will she provide information, if necessary on Privy Council terms, as Charles Clarke did in 2005, to allow Her Majesty’s Opposition to be fully conversant with the backdrop to this review? Will she ensure that the same spirit of consensus-seeking takes place in reviewing anti-terrorism legislation that characterised the approach to the Terrorism Act 2006?

The Home Secretary’s statement contained the immature and partisan attacks on the previous Government that are becoming rather tiresome and that are unworthy of a debate of this seriousness. Will she tell me in what way she considers the previous Government to have ridden roughshod over civil liberties on control orders, deportation with assurances, dealing with organisations that promote hatred or violence, or on the detention of terrorist suspects before charge?

On the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, and in relation to some of the most widely spread myths about RIPA, is she aware that the interception of communications commissioner, Sir Paul Kennedy, concluded his latest annual report by saying that

“no evidence has emerged from the inspections which have been conducted during the last three years to indicate communications data is being used to investigate offences of a trivial nature, such as dog fouling or littering”?

What are the terms of reference for the review? They are not in the statement. Is it to be held purely in the context of civil liberties, or will it have a wider remit? We believe that it should. Does the Home Secretary think the time scale long enough to do justice to the issues under review? Given the fact that the Olympics are fast approaching, will they be a factor in the deliberations?

Given our joint desire to overcome the practical difficulties that prevent the use of intercept as evidence in our courts, given that 28-day detention has to be reapproved by Parliament each year and given that control orders are subject to annual report by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, what further safeguards does the Home Secretary believe may be necessary? I would on this occasion appreciate some answers, given the importance of the subject.

I worry about the Government’s position on counter-terrorism. They admonish senior counter-terrorism police officers for daring to discuss in a closed meeting with colleagues the implication of a 25% cut in their funding. They refuse to give the police and the security services the same assurances on funding as they provide for the Department for International Development. They plan to diminish important weapons in the fight against crime and terrorism such as the DNA database and CCTV. The balance between collective security and individual freedom has to be carefully struck under the ever-changing and constantly evolving threat of international terrorism, but this review appears to be about one side of that balance.

Liberal Democrats should remember the words of John Stuart Mill, who said:

“All that makes existence valuable to anyone depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.”

The Government should remember that the slow creep of complacency is a phrase often used to describe the erosion of civil liberties. It is equally applicable to our vulnerability to terrorist attack.

[Mrs May]

Of all the things that I have seen in the couple of months since I became Home Secretary, the thing that has most struck me and surprised me has been the complete unwillingness of the Labour party to recognise what much of the counter-terrorism legislation that it introduced, and on occasions the misuse of that legislation, have done to civil liberties in this country. It has surprised me because I hoped that, in opposition, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) and his colleagues would have taken the opportunity to sit back and look at their records in government and wonder why in the past few years so many people, including the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, have been raising questions about the counter-terrorism legislation that the previous Government introduced. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has not seen fit to use the time in opposition so far to undertake that exercise.

In the counter-terrorism review, we are looking at precisely the balance that the right hon. Gentleman talks about between collective security and individual freedom. We want to ensure that we strike the right balance between collective security and individual freedom and not the wrong balance that we believe the previous Government introduced in a number of areas.

The right hon. Gentleman asked for some statistics. I can tell him that 235 people were convicted of terrorism-related offences between 11 September 2001 and 31 December 2009, and a further 22 defendants were awaiting trial as at 31 December 2009. For the 28 terrorism-related trials completed in the 12 months to the end of last year, 93% were convicted, with just over half pleading guilty, and convictions included six life sentences. At the end of December 2009, 131 people were in prison for terrorism, extremist offences or charges relating to terrorism or extremism.

I am certainly not making light of the threat that exists in this country and, as the right hon. Gentleman acknowledged, nor did my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when he came to the House to make his statement on detainees and the publication of guidance to our security services. We recognise the level of threat in the United Kingdom, but I say to the right hon. Gentleman and members of the Labour party that our fight against those threats is not aided by legislation that is misused or that people feel encroaches on civil liberties.

The right hon. Gentleman asked whether I could suggest legislation in which the Labour Government had ridden roughshod over civil liberties and then said they had not done so in relation to the detention of terror suspects before charging. I have to say to him that trying to introduce 90 days of pre-charge detention was indeed riding roughshod over our civil liberties. The review will look to ensure that our counter-terrorism legislation is appropriate to the level of threat and provides our police and our security and intelligence agencies with the powers that they need to combat that threat, while ensuring that we can enjoy our ancient civil liberties.