Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Debate between David Davis and Kris Hopkins

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend makes a very good case, and he knows Northern Ireland terrorism better than most people in this House. He also knows that internment was one of the best recruiting sergeants for the Provisional IRA and others in that period. So yes, he is right.

The second hard fact I want to draw on relates to the reasons given to me for 42 and 90 days by John Reid, the predecessor as Home Secretary of both my right hon. Friend the current Secretary of State and my friend the shadow Secretary of State. When John Reid briefed me, as shadow Home Secretary, on his Government’s proposals for those periods of detention, the most telling argument he had—to be fair, it was telling—was the prospect of the British agencies being overwhelmed by multiple prospective attacks at the same time. The circumstances he listed were as follows: multiple plots against multiple targets at multiple locations, with not all the information involved being in our control—perhaps some of it was coming from foreign intelligence agencies such as the Pakistani service—and with the plot already starting to be carried out, so that it was necessary to move quickly.

That was the case the then Home Secretary made, and within a month or so of his briefing me on it we almost had a rehearsal in Operation Overt, the Heathrow plot, to which the shadow Home Secretary referred. It was thought at the time that 10 aircraft had been targeted, although it now turns out that the true number was seven, as well as multiple locations—there were many suspects at the beginning in at least three different locations. There were also concerns about gaining access to some of the houses and other places where evidence was thought to be located, and foreign evidence was involved, too. It was a facsimile of the case John Reid had described.

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, although we accept that radicalisation may not be created by one action or one piece of legislation, having pre-charge detention of 28 days compromises civil liberties and that, for some at least, it is one step towards radicalisation—as is the Prevent agenda’s national indicator 35, which targeted the Muslim community specifically? We need to make sure that we do not compromise the democratic process and that we engage all communities.

[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.