Counter-terrorism

Ed Balls Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary what the Government’s policy is on 28-day pre-charge detention.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

The Home Secretary is in Budapest at an informal meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council, so I will be responding on her behalf. As the Home Secretary, Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister have made clear, the first duty of any Government is to protect the British public and we will not do anything that risks our security. The arrests of individuals for terrorism-related offences before Christmas, the cargo bomb plot in October and the bombings in Stockholm in December have all demonstrated that the threat from international terrorism remains a serious one.

On 13 July last year, the Home Secretary announced that she was renewing the current order for 28-day pre-charge detention for six months, while the powers were considered as part of a wider review of counter-terrorism powers. As the Home Secretary will be giving a full statement to the House on Wednesday on the outcome of that review, it would be wrong of me to pre-empt her statement by giving details of the review today.

This Government are clear that the power to detain terrorist suspects for up to 28 days’ detention before they were charged or released was meant to be an exceptional power—that was always Parliament’s intention. But under the last Government, it became the norm, with the renewal of 28 days repeatedly brought before the House, despite the power rarely being used. Since July 2007, no one has been held for longer than 14 days, despite the many terrorists arrested since then. That is a testament to the efforts of our prosecutors, our police and our intelligence agencies.

As I said, the Home Secretary will, next Wednesday, announce to the House the findings from the wider review of counter-terrorism and security powers. She will set out the detailed considerations of the Government in determining whether the current regime of 28 days should be renewed and, if not, what should be put in its place. In the interim, I can announce that the Government will not be seeking to extend the order allowing the maximum 28-day limit and, accordingly, the current order will lapse on 25 January and the maximum limit of pre-charge detention will, from that time, revert to 14 days. We are clear that 14 days should be the norm and that the law should reflect that. However, we will place draft emergency legislation in the House Library to extend the maximum period to 28 days to prepare for the very exceptional circumstances when a longer period may be required. If Parliament approved, the maximum period of pre-charge detention could be extended by that method.

In the Government’s announcement on the wider review, the Home Secretary will set out what contingency measures should be introduced in order to ensure that our ability to bring terrorists to justice is as effective as possible. This country continues to face a real and serious threat from terrorism. That threat is unlikely to diminish any time soon. The Government are clear that we need appropriate powers to deal with that threat but that those powers must not interfere with the hard-won civil liberties of the British people. There is a difficult balance to be struck between protecting our security and defending our civil liberties. The outcome of our counter-terrorism powers review will strike that balance, and it is this Government’s sincere hope that it will form the basis of a lasting political consensus across the House on this fundamentally important issue.

[Ed Balls]

We are in the unusual constitutional position of having the Government make an announcement in response to an urgent question on a vital matter of national security. I shall return to that issue at the end of my comments.

First, I agree with the Minister that keeping the public safe and striking the right balance between security and the protection of liberties is a vital task facing any Government. That is why when I became Home Secretary—[Interruption.] When I became shadow Home Secretary, I told the Home Secretary that it was our intention, as a responsible Opposition, to support the Government on issues of national security and on the review of counter-terrorism powers. That was on the basis that decisions were made on the basis of evidence and were in the national interest, and that there was an orderly process.

That is still our intention, but this process has not been orderly—it has been a complete shambles. I am not referring only to the way in which this review has been delayed and delayed—it was first promised, last July, to be completed by the end of last summer. Nor am I referring only to the countless and very detailed leaks and briefings to the BBC on the outcome of the review. Such leaks have continued over the weekend—following my point of order of eight days ago—including to The Sun on the funding of surveillance. I have to say that this is no way to make announcements on vital issues of national security.

There is a third reason, which is the reason for this urgent question today. When the Home Secretary announced her review in July, she extended 28 days pre-charge detention for a further six months until 24 January and she said to the House:

“After that, it will be up to me as Home Secretary to come back to the House to ask for a further extension, to let the limit fall to 14 days, or to present new proposals that reduce the limit but introduce contingency arrangements in extreme circumstances.”—[Official Report, 14 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 1007.]

The Home Secretary has not come back to the House. I said that we would support a change on the basis of the evidence. There has been no evidence. There are no details of contingency arrangements. We are told that there will be a statement on Wednesday, but the policy on 28 days collapses by default on Monday.

In the absence of the Home Secretary, will the Minister tell the House what will happen on Monday if a terror suspect is detained? What will be the period of detention? Do the police and security services agree that this power is now not needed? Is that in the evidence in the as yet unpublished review? Do the Government really intend to let this happen by default, with no statement, no announcement and no evidence presented to the House? I must say that this is a deeply arrogant way for the Government to treat this House. It is a shambolic way to make policy on vital issues of national security.

Should not the Minister go away, come back this afternoon to make a proper statement, publish the evidence and allow right hon. and hon. Members to ask the questions that should be asked, rather than allowing the Government to treat them with such contempt?

[Damian Green]

I am sorry that I shot the shadow Home Secretary’s fox before he stood up with what was clearly a pre-written statement that did not bother with anything I actually announced—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman asked a question; I gave a substantive answer. He seems to object to that. I have come to the House of Commons to give a substantive answer to a question. I can understand why the noisy and excited Opposition Front Benchers are confused by this process, because under their Government there was never any substantive answer to an urgent question. It clearly came as a huge shock to the shadow Home Secretary that he actually had an answer, because it was clear from the rest of what he said that he had not listened to any of it.

The right hon. Gentleman’s substantive point was that he wanted the counter-terrorism powers review earlier. I think that in his more serious moments he might recognise that, rather than rush a review of something as important as counter-terrorism powers, it is important to get it right. In this area of vital national interest and the security of our country, the Government will not be driven, as his Government too often were, by the media agenda. We will take the right amount of time and get it right.

The right hon. Gentleman’s other point was about process. He had the cheek to talk about process in relation to counter-terrorism powers. I shall not take any lectures on process from the party that tried to use pre-charge detention as a political tool, that tried to impose 90 days detention, then 60 days, then 42 days—a party that, when that proposal was turned down by the House of Lords, finally and grudgingly settled for 28 days. The shambles of counter-terrorism powers was precisely illustrated by the disasters of the previous Government.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the timing of when he will get the evidence. If he ever paid any attention to the proceedings of this House, he would have heard my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House announce last week that the Home Secretary would make the statement that I have just talked about next week. I announced earlier that the statement would be made on Wednesday, but there is an underlying serious point that the House needs to address, which is the importance of balancing the security of the British people with the need to maintain our civil liberties. We need no lectures on that from the right hon. Gentleman. One of the most damaging failures of the Government in which he was a leading figure was an inability to strike that balance between security and civil liberties. At every turn, the Labour Government trampled on civil liberties, not just with their attempt to impose 90 days detention but with their databases on children and their ID card scheme. No amount of sanctimonious bluster from the Labour party can disguise their shocking record on civil liberties and security. This Government will repair their mistakes in that area.

My final thought for the right hon. Gentleman is that he said in his blog last week:

“I want to support the Home Secretary in reaching a new consensus about counter-terrorism policy”,

I am afraid that nothing he has said today has illustrated that what he claimed to think last week is what he actually thinks this week. He should go away and think hard about the serious nature of his job.