Terrorism Act 2000 (Section 44)

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point on the concern that many of us have had about the powers that were introduced by the previous Labour Government: in many cases, those powers did not introduce an increased element of safety. In fact, the shadow Home Secretary referred to the review of counter-terrorism undertaken by Lord Carlile, who said in his 2009 annual report:

“There is little or no evidence that the use of section 44 has the potential to prevent an act of terrorism as compared with other statutory powers of stop and search.”

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I must say that I cannot join in the collective hurrah about the removal of powers that the House, not the European Court, should be in charge of. These powers were used successfully on 10,000 occasions last year in Northern Ireland to prevent and disrupt dissident terrorists. The year before that, only 3,000 stop-and-search measures were taken under reasonable suspicion, which is much more difficult to prove and identifies a suspect who may be traced by the police when they do not want him to be identified while they are pursuing him. What measures will now be put in place to ensure that the citizens of Northern Ireland are protected fully, completely and properly from the dissident republican threat?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising those issues. Obviously, I recognise the concern that he has raised in relation to the exercise of these powers in Northern Ireland and of the revised powers that I have announced today. The PSNI has a number of other powers available to it, and I referred to a couple of them in the response that I gave earlier to the shadow Home Secretary. The PSNI will still be able to use existing legislation to conduct targeted and intelligence-led stop and searches, to protect its officers and the communities that it serves, but I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with more detail about the powers that will continue to be available to the PSNI.