Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

David Winnick Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that point and we probably agree on the principle. The purpose of amendment 17 is to give the Minister the opportunity to tease out the practicalities of deliverability for any form of appeal. I take the view—it may be old-fashioned, but that is not for me to say—that if someone is effectively charged with involvement in terrorism, which is why a passport will be removed, that is a serious initial action by the state against an individual. The individual might be the subject of mistaken identity or factually wrong information might have been given, whether maliciously or not. They might be travelling for perfectly legitimate purposes, as I have said. In each of those cases, they should ultimately have the right to say to a third party, “I appreciate that these facts have been put before the passport remover, but they are fundamentally wrong and I demand my passport back.” That must be possible in a more speedy and effective way than is the case under the Bill.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Is it not the case, if we believe in fairness and the rule of law, that the stronger the action taken against an individual by the state, the more powerful the argument is that the individual should have the right of appeal? Without the right of appeal, the Bill gives the state excessive powers.

[Mr Hanson]

That is an important point.

As the Committee will know, under schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000, there is the power to stop and question individuals who are suspected of involvement in terrorism. The annual report on the Terrorism Acts by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC, that was published in July this year gave facts and figures about that power. It included the number and ethnicities of the people who have been examined under schedule 7 in recent years. Although he noted that there was not overwhelming evidence that the power was exercised in a “racially discriminatory manner”, he noted:

“It remains imperative that police should exercise their considerable powers in a sensitive, well-informed and unbiased manner”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Frank Dobson]

I agree that the Government have modified their position since the first daft statements were made—things have been made more rational—but I do not think they have come up with the best proposition. The proposal for notification and managed return orders may not be perfect by any means, but it is a better proposition than that suggested by the Government.

The peculiarity of the functions of British consular services when a person is suspected is extraordinary. The consular services will serve people with an order and then, if somebody else nicks them and puts them in prison or starts torturing them, the same consular services will turn around and start looking after their interests. That seems to me to be at the odd end of the functions of a consular service.

[Mr Winnick]

If this measure does not succeed, what would my right hon. Friend say in response to the powerful argument made by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) about the judicial process? Would there not be a very strong case that a court should decide on temporary exclusion orders?

[Frank Dobson]

That might be an improvement, but the practicalities of what happens in Turkey or Syria are not changed by a court decision or endorsement here.

What the process does not do—I would have thought that we all want to see this done—is bring people under our jurisdiction, prosecute them and, if they are found guilty, jail them. Surely that should be the main objective of Britain’s policy. The process is likely to get them picked up, but not by us: they will be picked up by somebody who may or may not be one of our allies. I believe, therefore, that the basic Government proposal undermines and interferes with their fundamental rights of abode in this country and it does not achieve what we want, which is to see terrorists brought to justice. The proposal of my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) would address both issues, so it would be an improvement.

The human right of a British citizen to abode in this country is not some fancy right dreamt up in Brussels or Strasbourg, and it has not been created by the Human Rights Act 1998. It is a right of citizens to which Gladstone and Disraeli would have subscribed, not to mention Palmerston, who, after all, sent a gunboat to Greece to protect the interests of an exceedingly dodgy Maltese who probably had committed a crime. There is nothing new about this right and we need to be very careful abut doing anything that would undermine it.

I believe that notification and managed return orders do not deny the fundamental rights at all; do not expose people to being picked up by the Turkish authorities and still less by the Syrian authorities; involve the identification of the suspects but do not tip them off that they will be arrested if they come back to this country; which the temporary exclusion orders do; bring the suspects within British jurisdiction; and will result, if those people are guilty, in their being prosecuted and punished, which is what we want. We do not want them roaming around. If they come back here and are guilty of what they are suspected of, they will be picked up when they arrive at the port, the airport or St Pancras station. That is what we want to happen and it will not happen under the exclusion orders.

--- Later in debate ---

As for whether or not there should then be a separate automatic court process in relation to the imposition of a TEO, this is about the operation of a royal prerogative in terms of the cancellation of a passport, and that operation currently does not have that judicial process inserted within it—the decision is taken by the Secretary of State. That is the first point to make. The second point is that the TPIMs have far more restrictions that can be imposed on an individual than would be imposed simply by the TEO. A number of hon. Members referred to the TEO in terms of taking away the right of abode for somebody in the UK, and I intervened on the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion in respect of her use of the term “exile”. This is not about saying to somebody that they are for ever exiled from the United Kingdom and cannot return. This is about not stopping somebody’s right of abode in the United Kingdom, but saying to an individual about whom there is concern that they have been involved in terrorism-related activity outside the UK that when they return they will do so on the basis of a process that the Government have put in place such that their return can be managed.

[Mr Winnick]

What makes some of us uneasy about temporary exclusion orders—I was certainly uneasy about them from the very beginning—is that excessive powers are being given without the individual having legal redress. I hope that one does not have to say that one is against terrorism and loathes every form of criminality, when we see what is happening with terrorism and what is happening in Australia. That does not alter the fact that these powers should be subject to some form of legal redress, and it is unfortunate that they will not be.

[Mrs May]

They are subject to a form of legal redress; it is called judicial review. The debate has not been about whether there is some form of legal redress available to individuals but about whether there should be an automatic court process after a decision has been made by the Secretary of State.

[Mr Winnick]

rose—

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman is welcome to intervene again.

[Mr Winnick]

The judicial process comes afterwards, and it can be very complex for the individual concerned. What I am saying is that if the Secretary of State is going to take powers such as temporary exclusion orders, those powers should be subject to a court order, and the arguments should be put in court. There may be some obvious restrictions for reasons that have been stated, but at least they are all part of living under the rule of law.

[Mrs May]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that the power to remove a passport from an individual—the royal prerogative power—is not subject to an automatic court process. This is more akin to that royal prerogative exercise in the removal of a passport than it is to the imposition of the sort of measures that can be within the terrorism prevention and investigation measures.