Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Debate between Alan Johnson and David Davis

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. This is the most symbolic of the restrictions of our civil rights, and the one seen by Muslim communities in this country as being targeted on them. It is not intended to be, but that is the way it is seen.

What actually happened as a result of Operation Overt and the Heathrow plot? As the shadow Home Secretary said, six people were held beyond 14 days; five people were held for 27 or 28 days, and at the end of that process it turned out that three were innocent. I used the word “innocent” when the previous Government were in power, and I was almost shouted down. I mean innocent: no control order, no surveillance, no open file—the police thought they were innocent. When I obtained that information I had with me as my witnesses my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) and the Attorney-General. What was thought was therefore very plain.

[Alan Johnson]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very effective case. Can he explain why, in last year’s debate on this issue, he voted for the continuation of 28 days? His party abstained but he made the point in that debate that he could not accept 14 days, which he is now advocating, precisely because he knew inside details of Operation Overt and what happened at Heathrow. What changed his mind during the ensuing year?

[Mr Davis]

It took us time to get to the bottom of the facts. When I asked the right hon. Gentleman’s predecessor as Home Secretary to give us the information I am talking about, we were not given it. I asked for it three times, and my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton was there on at least one or two of those occasions. This is one of the problems with the Home Office: it mouths the words “justice must be seen to be done”, but it does not live by them in terms of transparency.

Let me turn to the remaining two people who were detained, because some further facts have come to light. We were told at the time, “Here is a serious case and we have to go to 27 or 28 days—right to the edge—in order to bring a case against them.” However, we pressed the matter and asked when the evidence was obtained to charge those individuals. It was obtained not at 27 or 28 days, but before 14 days—if I remember correctly, on day three and day 12. It was perfectly possible to charge those people before the 14-day limit; now we find, however, that they were charged on day 28. They spent nine months in prison on remand, and even in that time not enough evidence was found to convict them. One of the cases was thrown out by the judge after hearing it—it did not even go to a jury. The other was rejected unanimously by the jury and the individual concerned was exonerated. It was not a soft jury: the same jury convicted three other terrorists in the same trial. So, we had five people, every single one of whom was innocent.

That is what our policy has done so far and why it is a recruiting sergeant for terrorism. It might not make somebody a terrorist, but it does make the communities concerned less likely to co-operate, less likely to provide information, and less likely to help us to prevent the next terrorist attack. That is why the policy is completely counter-productive.

Let me turn to hard fact No. 3: the simple list put out by the previous Government and the present Government showing why we need this provision for another six months. We are told how difficult terrorist cases are. What did we do when we were trying to be consensual with the previous Government? Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats agreed with—in fact, we thought up—the idea of acts preparatory to terrorism. We supported the idea of terrorist training being an offence, so we made matters easier in that regard.

The next argument was, “We have lots of evidence and it might be encrypted—it might be in code.” We had to remind the previous Government that when they passed the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, they made it an offence to withhold the encryption key, so if the evidence is in code, belongs to the suspect and he does not provide the key, we have got him for five years anyway. Therefore, that argument went out the window.

Identity Documents Bill

Debate between Alan Johnson and David Davis

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alan Johnson]

The TUC is a lot of things, but it is not a paymaster. I was not aware that Brendan Barber had said that, but if that is his view he is perfectly entitled to express it. I am setting out the views of the current Home Secretary and the Conservative party on Second Reading on 20 December 2004 of the Bill whose measures they now seek to repeal. Indeed, they are not just seeking to repeal that legislation, but describing in extraordinarily derogatory terms anyone who supported it.

I quoted our precise manifesto commitment in 2005. We were in the course of carrying out that commitment, and everyone recognised that it would be a long process, but it began with the Tories’ enthusiastic support at the 2005 general election, and ended with their bitter opposition. How do we explain the Conservative party’s change from hard-headed pragmatists to the political wing of Liberty? In respect of the issues that galvanised the Conservatives to act in the 1996 Queen’s Speech and support the Identity Cards Bill on Second Reading in 2004, the only change is that the problems that they sought to address have become more acute.

The mantra of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats is civil liberties, but the Home Secretary should remember that when we talk about civil liberties—our basic freedoms—we are not talking solely about the rights of individuals but about the rights of society as a whole. We are talking about the right to be able to travel freely, the right to have access to efficient and effective public services, and the right to live our lives free from crime. ID cards, biometric passports and the national identity register that supported them were designed precisely to protect those freedoms, but at the same time to help to increase security—the security of each individual’s identity, the security of our borders and, yes, an added layer of security in the fight against terrorism.

The Home Secretary might like to be aware, because she mentioned it, that it was not me who first pointed out the link with terrorism—it was the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who is, I confess, not normally guilty of any inconsistency. During the Second Reading debate in 2004, he said, as shadow Home Secretary at this very Dispatch Box:

“I would not have countenanced ID cards before 11 September. After that, however, I accept that we must consider them. After 11 September, it is incumbent on all of us to examine carefully any measures that might enhance the nation’s security. Identity cards introduced properly and effectively may help to do that.”—[Official Report, 20 December 2004; Vol. 428, c. 1953.]

That is what he said as shadow Home Secretary.

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

My right hon. Friend—I will call him that, because he knows our relationship—is carefully not quoting the rest of the speech or saying what actually happened. What we did at that time was to give the Government of the day the benefit of the doubt because there had just been some terrorist events that obviously brought the country into some risk. We therefore said, “We will support the Government on this, under five tests”—they were very fond of five tests in those days. The five tests were that the Government could control the cost of the programme, which they did not; protect the privacy of the individual, which they did not; manage it competently, which they did not; protect the security of the data, which they did not; and show its effectiveness against terrorism and crime, which they did not. That is why we opposed it.

[Alan Johnson]

rose—