Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Alan Johnson

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

It seems that the Home Secretary and I are allies in the debate this afternoon—although, having read her written ministerial statement and listened to her speech, I think that she is adopting the position of St Augustine—“Lord, make us virtuous, but not yet”. The Home Secretary and I have many things in common, among them our charm, panache, looks and preference for flat shoes. And we both voted for 28 days in 2005. Neither of us has ever voted against 28 days, and we both belong to political parties that made no mention of reducing pre-charge detention of terrorist suspects in our manifestos.

This issue will, of course, form part of the review that the Home Secretary rather foolishly described yesterday as putting right the failures of the previous Government. If 28 days was a failure, it is strange that she should advocate the continuation of that failure today. She is right to do so: as so often with the Home Secretary, the problem is not so much what she does as the way in which she does it. She told us yesterday that personally she was always in favour of 14 days. We understand that it is impossible to tell what she believes from her voting record, but this fervour for 14 days has been a well-kept secret. She has always actually voted for 28 days.

Incidentally, the person whom the Home Secretary has appointed to provide independent oversight of the review—the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven—made clear in evidence to the Home Affairs Committee his support for 28 days, stating:

“We welcomed the increase to 28 days and we felt that a period of 14 days was not sufficient. It seems to us that 28 days has been effective and has provided us with powers, supervised by the courts, which have been useful to us as prosecutors in making appropriate charging decisions within that period.”

This review, like Brighton seafront, has two peers—both Lib Dems—and the views of Lord Macdonald are completely in line with the view of Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer of the terrorist legislation, whose work the Home Secretary rightly described yesterday as “excellent”. Lord Carlile not only accepted the need to maintain 28 days but said:

“I expect in the course of time to see cases in which the current maximum of 28 days will be proved inadequate. This will be very rare but inevitably extremely serious.”

The 28 day pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects is a temporary measure which, thanks to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), who is in his place, has to be renewed each year. The task of the House in considering whether to support a further extension—in this case for six months—was succinctly expressed by the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley) when he spoke for the Conservatives in last year’s debate. Perhaps I may just mention that we all look forward to seeing the hon. Gentleman restored to good health. He has many friends across the House who respect and admire him and want to see him back on the Government Benches very quickly. He said last year that the Government must first demonstrate convincingly to Parliament that the security situation is such that 28 days remains indispensable, and secondly, that the legal framework must meet the procedural protections afforded by our common law and by the Human Rights Act. He said, with his customary prescience:

“I hope that this will give an indication of the approach that we want to take, should there be a change of Government before the next renewal.”—[Official Report, 9 July 2009; Vol. 495, c.1165.]

I accept that a small minority of Members—it may or may not include the Home Secretary—are convinced that pre-charge detention should be 14 days or less, and I respect that view. It has been consistently argued by several—a minority, but several—Members. The majority of Members, however, will look at the evidence and decide on that basis whether in the year since we last renewed this legislation, the terrorist threat has faded and/or whether this legislation is being abused by the criminal justice system.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that no other country in Europe, or indeed North America, that suffers the same kind of concerns as we do has seen fit to go down the road that we have in this country—of having very long periods of detention before charge?

[Alan Johnson]

I am not aware of that. In fact, the usual argument is that the common-law countries such as Australia, Canada and even the US do not have this system. Europe is the worst place for my hon. Friend to find his examples. Let me cite Norway, for instance. Good old, solid, Scandinavian, liberal Norway has provisions that allow people to be kept in custody—renewed by a High Court judge, who is involved in any detention beyond 14 days—for far longer than 28 days, or even 42 days. That was a helpful intervention, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend.

I think that the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds succinctly summed up the two issues I mentioned, but there is one further aspect that we have to consider in deciding whether to renew this legislation. It was rightly raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). The issue is whether the very existence of 28-day detention leads to radicalisation in certain communities to the extent that it defeats the objective of reducing the terrorist threat. The Home Office community impact study published in March certainly found examples of UK Muslims having a strong negative perception of counter-terrorism legislation, but concluded that there was insufficient evidence on specific aspects, such as 28 days, to lead to any firm conclusions. I doubt whether anyone in this Chamber thinks that pre-charge detention of 28 rather than 14 days has of itself radicalised anyone to the extent that they would be prepared to engage in terrorist activity.

While I am dealing with this aspect, I hope the Home Secretary can refute the story in The Guardian this morning that she has decided to dismantle the Prevent strategy. She told my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) yesterday, as is recorded in column 802 of Hansard, that the strategy was being reviewed by the Home Department and the Department for Communities and Local Government. When I read the Home Office draft structural reform plan released yesterday, which is the source of the story in The Guardian, all I could find was the eminently sensible objective of keeping the “prevent” strand of counter-terrorism separate from the “integration” initiatives of DCLG. I would welcome clarification.