Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Jack Straw

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Achieving a balance between the liberty and freedom of citizens on the one hand, and the safety and security of the same citizens on the other hand, is a fundamental duty of this House and a fundamental responsibility of any Home Secretary. Since it is not possible to exercise more abstract freedoms and liberties without the freedom to live one’s life in peace and security, identifying where that balance lies will always be difficult and must take account of the particular circumstances of the age in which we live.

The Home Secretary opened her remarks—we should all be grateful for her generosity in giving way—by referring to the fact that all these orders were in the shadow of the attacks of 11 September 2001. Given that the scale of the terrorism and its threat had not before been experienced here, or anywhere else around the world, changes were made that then had to be altered in the light of experience.

I am not suggesting for one second that every change the Labour Government initiated or proposed was exactly right, because it was not. We had to learn from experience. I do not think that anyone who has held the office of Home Secretary—I am glad to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) in his place—would suggest that they got everything right.

However, I believe that by the end of our period in government, including the reforms introduced in 2007, the regime of control orders was broadly operating better than any alternative for dealing with the very small minority of dangerous people who, for reasons with which the House is fully familiar, could not in practice be prosecuted for the offences which it was understood in other circumstances they had committed or were likely to commit. Some would say, “We should just leave these matters to the courts.” At least the main parties are agreed that some people are so dangerous—as confirmed by information sufficiently reliable for the courts, albeit in closed proceedings—that they cannot just be left at large. No Government and no Home Secretary would survive if we washed our hands of the risks before us and then an aeroplane was blown up with hundreds of UK citizens on it, or bombs were let off. Control orders, imperfect though they are, and although they should be used only in extreme circumstances, were introduced to deal with those threats.

I never understood, and we have had no reliable explanation today, why on earth the Home Secretary decided, with no explanation whatsoever, to change control orders, which were working, to a weaker system of which there are two fundamentally different features: first, an arbitrary time limit, which she did not need to impose; and secondly, the removal of the relocation provisions, which was not required by the courts. She referred to four cases, I think, where she said that the courts said that they were not appropriate, as opposed to being struck down, because that phrase is about striking down legislation. The courts had decided, quite rightly, in the instant case, that they were not going to approve that part of the control order. That is what the courts are there for. They were not striking down relocations; they were merely saying “Parliament asked us to substitute our judgment for that of the Home Secretary. That is precisely what we have done. We do not think this is justified in these circumstances.” By the end of this process, no individual for whom a relocation order had been confirmed then absconded, whereas the Home Secretary has been faced with the reality that the system she introduced is very much weaker.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw on his experience as Home Secretary and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). Perhaps the current Home Secretary should have drawn on the experience of Lord Howard, who was Home Secretary in the previous Tory Administration and who said:

“If you ask me my personal view…I would have preferred the relocation provisions to have remained.”––[Official Report, Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Public Bill Committee, 21 June 2011; c. 17, Q53.]

[Mr Straw]

I am sorry that the Home Secretary did not say, as I think anybody who has held that office would say, “Okay, we’ve made these changes but we’re willing for them to be reviewed on a cross-party basis”, which is the gravamen of what is proposed in our motion.

The Home Secretary was asked, I do not know how many times, whether she regarded those whose TPIMs are about to end as still posing a significant risk to the public. In other words, we seek her judgment as to whether, if there were no time limit, she would be seeking to maintain those TPIMs. However, answer came there none. What she did say, which I greatly regret—I do not think it fits the office—was, “The police and the intelligence agencies have judged that they posed no substantially increased risk.” That is damning the current regime with faint praise. Of course she has to take advice from the police and the security agencies, but she knows very well that she cannot subcontract the responsibilities of this House and the statutory responsibility of the Home Secretary to unnamed police and intelligence agents; she has to make the judgment herself. The legislation does not say that the decision about whether to apply for a TPIM—as, before, with the decision about whether to apply for a control order—should be delegated to a panel of the police or the intelligence services. It is a judgment for her.

We needed to know, not least so that we could understand the Home Secretary’s own confidence in the measures that she has recommended to the House, whether she thought that the individuals in question continued to pose a risk. She did not answer that question. That is one of a great many reasons why I believe that she herself has little confidence in the process that she has brought into legislation and why we should strongly support the motion in the name of my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary.