David Winnick
Main Page: David Winnick (Labour - Walsall North)Department Debates - View all David Winnick's debates with the Home Office
(9 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Order. These are extremely sensitive and often complicated matters of which the House is treating with great care. I point out that we have another statement to follow. I want to accommodate colleagues, but somewhat greater succinctness is required.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
The overwhelming majority of the population at the time would no doubt have supported 90 days pre-charge detention. It is the job of the House of Commons to determine what is right—to get the right balance between the acute danger of terrorism and civil liberties, not to talk about what the large majority of the public may or may not want. We are elected to make the decision that we consider to be correct. Is it not the case that the Home Secretary intends to bring in a measure—rightly, in my view, described as the snoopers charter—which the previous Government could not introduce in the last Parliament because their coalition partner would not agree? As far as I am concerned—obviously, there will be a good deal of controversy about this—the snoopers charter is a greater affront to civil liberties than any measure that has been introduced or proposed in recent years.
Mrs May
The response I give on that misnomer of a piece of legislation is the same as I gave the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry): it is no such thing as it has been described. It is about ensuring merely that, as matters increasingly move into the digital age, the agencies are able to have access to the same sort of data as they have had access to in the past, which is used in the vast majority of serious crime cases—not just in investigation, but in bringing prosecutions of serious criminals—and in counter-terrorism investigations.
The hon. Gentleman refers to the 90 days of pre-charge detention. I point out to him that the Conservative party opposed that measure, and I remind him that it was his Labour Government who introduced 28 days of pre-charge detention, and the coalition Government who reduced it to 14 days.