Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

David Davis Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman would describe parliamentary debate and holding the Government to account as a fiction. I do not think that having an annual debate is a fiction. It is important that we give right hon. and hon. Members the chance to hold the Government to account, to review how the powers have been used throughout a particular year, and to take a view on whether the risk is such that we still need an exceptional system of rules outside the criminal justice system. I do not believe that those debates are a fiction.

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

Does the hon. Lady accept that using intelligence-based evidence, such as evidence obtained under torture, evidence from foreign countries or unchecked intercept evidence, leads to a greater chance of a miscarriage of justice? The reason I raise that point now is that we did not once, in the course of all the so-called reviews of the control order legislation, hear about any miscarriages of justice. Of course, there were several, as was demonstrated by the courts.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention. In the end, we must accept that there is an irreducible minimum number of cases in which the intelligence tells us that a serious risk is posed by an individual and they have to be dealt with, but they cannot be brought within the criminal justice system. We must accept that we need a system for mitigating that risk and for bringing those individuals under some form of control to prevent them from attack planning, which might lead to the loss of innocent lives.

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[Shabana Mahmood]

I agree with my hon. Friend on the starting point for debate. When Parliament considers such matters, it must consider the balance of risk and ask serious questions about how that risk is managed. That should always be the starting point of hon. Members as responsible parliamentarians when we consider exceptional powers that do not exist in other parts of our legal framework. We are also committed to saying that in an ideal world, we would not need such powers, but unfortunately, we are not in an ideal world—[Interruption.] Does the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) want to intervene?

[Mr David Davis]

indicated dissent.

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[Dr Huppert]

It is tempting to spend a while talking about risk, as that is a theme that lies behind this debate. Opposition Members have not mentioned the risk we create by treating people who have not been convicted of an offence as though they have been so convicted. In some cases, people who have been found not guilty in a court of law have immediately had a control order slapped on them. There is a risk involved in such cases. We have also heard the slightly lazy assumption that all the people who are suspects in these circumstances are dangerous. We know that some people have been completely exonerated. For example, Cerrie Bullivant, to whom I spoke earlier today, was not a risk, yet he was punished as though he was, for a very long time. Instead, however, I will talk about the purpose of sunset clauses.

[Mr David Davis]

Before my hon. Friend leaves the issue of risk, may I suggest that we need to tackle this matter head-on? During the course of the control order regime, the number of people of interest to the security services started at 1,600 and grew by 25% per annum, until the numbers rose above 4,000 and the agencies got too embarrassed to announce them. Does my hon. Friend accept that the control order regime and everything that went with it were so heavy-handed that they actually increased radicalisation rather than reducing it?

[Dr Huppert]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That speaks volumes about how ineffective control orders and the whole panoply of tools used by the previous Government were. It also highlights why the points about the extra resources needed by the police do not really matter. If there are 1,600 or 2,000 or 3,000 people of great interest to the security services, I hope that the services are occasionally looking at them; otherwise, their interest cannot be very great. If those people are actually dangerous, resources should be available, as the extra resources to deal with a relatively small handful of people are a drop in the ocean.

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[Dr Huppert]

The hon. Gentleman is right. I have always been uncomfortable when someone says, “I know better, so just do exactly what I say.” I am never comfortable with that as a form of argument, partly because it is very hard to rebut. In many ways, it is the central argument behind control orders—when the state tells someone, “I know what you’ve done, but I’m not going to tell you what it is or how I know; we’re just going to assume that you have done this.”

[Mr David Davis]

rose—

[Dr Huppert]

I will take one more intervention, but then I would like to make some progress.

[Mr Davis]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for intervening a second time, but on this point of “We know better than you”, the real problem with reviews has not been the timing so much as the quality of the information provided. We know that there have been miscarriages of justice, as the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, but these are never mentioned in any reviews. We also know from the evidence of the last few days that the control orders were used in effect to immobilise Libyan dissidents to suit our foreign policy in dealing with Colonel Gaddafi. This is the sort of thing we in the House should know about; the failure is not about time, but about the quality of the information provided to us.

[Dr Huppert]

Indeed. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. He pre-empts something I was planning to say later about the Libyan issue, which is a very serious one, as it seems that the Government might have acted perhaps using some of these tools on behalf of another power. I hope that the Minister will be able to assure us that that has never happened, and also assure us later than none of the evidence under which people have been subject to control orders has come as a result of torture in Libya. We have heard some astonishing stories; I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments about this either now or later, if he has time to check the facts.

The other purpose of a sunset clause is to flag up the fact that something is exceptional and should not be a regular part of our law. We do not have a sunset clause on theft and we do not have one on the vast majority of things because they are standard. This is an exceptional measure and we need to flag it up. That is why I am so pleased that the Government have accepted the argument. We should be very concerned when we step outside the normal bounds.

I disagree entirely with the comments made by the hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe), who I believed to be a shadow Minister but who appears to be sitting on the very Back Benches. I do not know what that says about his position and standing. [Interruption.] I hope he will move towards the front rather than withdraw to the back. I withdraw any aspersions I may have cast on the hon. Gentleman in what I said; I was merely surprised by his location. In Committee, he said:

“Unfortunately, there are times when people have to be outside the legal framework.”––[Official Report, Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Public Bill Committee, 23 June 2011; c. 57.]

I disagree with him completely and utterly on that. I think we have a legal framework for a reason, and once we start saying that people should be outside it, we are on very dangerous grounds.

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[James Brokenshire]

In some ways, this relates to the package of the measures before us. This is about not only this Bill, but the capabilities and resources being made available to the police and security services to allow them to monitor people and seek to bring them to justice. I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady, and it is our preferred option, that people who commit acts related to terrorism should be prosecuted and brought to justice in the normal way. However, the Government need to assess risk and seek to protect the public, and we judge that, for a number of reasons, it is not possible to achieve that aim in all circumstances. That is why preventive measures of the type contemplated in this Bill are required and will continue to be needed for the foreseeable future. We therefore argue that it is for Parliament to consider, on a per-Parliament basis, the necessity of these types of measures. I am aware that the hon. Lady has raised the issue of bail in this context, and we considered it in the counter-terrorism review. However, we had clear guidance from the police who recommended against bail being available for terrorist suspects because of the risk to public safety that might be involved.

[Mr David Davis]

If I may, I will pursue the point raised by the hon. Lady. Will the Minister tell us why he thinks that the number of convictions in this country is so low? In the 10 years or so since 9/11 there have been about 230 convictions relating to terrorism offences, which is less than 10% of the number in the United States during the same period, and similar comparisons can be drawn with other countries. Why does this country have such a low conviction rate compared with everybody else?

[James Brokenshire]

My right hon. Friend has taken a very consistent line on ensuring that those suspected of terrorism offences are brought to justice and that the courts are used appropriately. We need to do all we can to ensure that that happens, which is why we are taking forward measures such as post-charge questioning, which he has advocated clearly, and why we are continuing to examine the way in which intercept evidence might be usable in the courts and how the Privy Council review continues in relation to that. I agree with him that we need to be looking at a package of measures, that this is not about one instrument in itself and that it might be appropriate to take a range of steps. I would not want to suggest in this evening’s debate that this is about one issue. The Government are taking forward a range of measures as part of their counter-terrorism review and this Bill is just one part of that.

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[James Brokenshire]

I am saying that because this legislation remains and resides on the statute book, subject to the new clauses that we have rightly put in place following the previous debate with the five-year renewal. The powers that are available under the enhanced measures are such that they require a further considered approach by Parliament before they are introduced. That is why we have rationally and reasonably, as reflected in the counter-terrorism review, sought to adopt the approach that we have.

[Mr David Davis]

I have no wish to add to my hon. Friend’s difficulties, but he knows I have concerns about this issue. The simple truth is that had the 90-day measure been put before the House in July 2005, when the atrocity occurred, the House would have taken a much more emotional, rather than rational, decision. I have a general concern—I know that he is thinking through the legislation—that the House does not make its best decisions in the immediate aftermath of atrocities. There is a risk, in going down this route, that we will get not rational, but irrational, decisions.

[James Brokenshire]

I hear that argument, which is why we have sought to produce the draft Bill—to ensure that it can be considered rationally, calmly and coldly by the Joint Committee. Approaching it in that way means that in circumstances similar to those that have, sadly, arisen in the past, there is a defined mechanism and method that has been subject to scrutiny in advance. In many ways, we are seeking to recognise some of the challenges to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) has alluded and to address them by having the draft Bill available now for consideration.