Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Debate between Julian Huppert and Paul Goggins

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Huppert]

I am following the right hon. Gentleman very carefully. Is he arguing that the Secretary of State should be able to do anything that he or she wants, but that, if Parliament later gets around to saying that it disagrees, because of course there is no time limit on when it has to agree, the condition has to end? Until that point, any measure whatever could be imposed on somebody who had not been convicted of any crime. Is that what he is arguing for?

[Paul Goggins]

I want the Home Secretary, having the insight, information and intelligence that she has and knowing the risks involved, to have the power to do something about the situation—and to do so immediately. It is important that there is some accountability to Parliament at a later date, and under amendment 3, when Parliament considered the matter at a later stage, it would be possible for either the House of the Lords or this House to decline to give an affirmation, at which point the power would lapse. It is important also, however, that the Home Secretary has the power to act.

This is a very interesting situation. Here am I, an Opposition Member, trusting the Home Secretary to exercise her judgment as the Home Secretary in relation to individual cases, and, by the way, her record on relocation in particular is first-class, and I applaud the way in which she has pursued the two cases that we know about. So I trust her judgment. Interestingly, however, her right hon. and hon. Friends do not seem to share my confidence in her. I trust her to exercise her judgment. She has access to intelligence and information, and she has a huge responsibility. I do not want to tie her hands so that she has a limited range of powers and is unable to exercise her responsibilities properly; I want to give her the powers that she needs.

[Paul Goggins]

I am pleased that my right hon. Friend has once again had the opportunity to remind us all of that oversight, which is not flimsy, but stringent.

[Dr Huppert]

First, I was going to comment that I have perhaps had experience of more Home Secretaries whom I did not trust on these issues than those I did. Perhaps that will change over the years and there will be more Home Secretaries who are more trustworthy on civil liberties. I hope that that is the case.

There is a point about judicial oversight, but there is also a point about Parliament having the chance to comment on what powers it thinks are acceptable. There is a range of things that the Home Secretary could argue are necessary but that Parliament would find simply unacceptable. Will the right hon. Gentleman also confirm that under—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. The interventions in this debate are rather long. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be generous enough to let the hon. Gentleman in for a second bite.

[Paul Goggins]

I am bringing my remarks to a conclusion now, Mr Deputy Speaker. In response to the hon. Gentleman, I have worked with a number of Home Secretaries and I have seen this Home Secretary in operation. They—even those colleagues in my party—have represented a range of different political views, but I have trusted every single one of them with the difficult decisions that they have had to make about terrorist suspects and others. That is bar none, including the current holder of the post. I ask the hon. Gentleman to reflect on that. We have to trust our senior politicians sometimes. That has to be within limits, of course, such as the judicial scrutiny and the powers in the Bill.

Frankly, I think that this Government are in the worst of all places. They have acknowledged that the measures in schedule 1 may not be sufficient in certain circumstances, yet they are tying the Secretary of State’s hands behind her back and will not give her the powers that she needs against the risk posed by a small number of individuals. The Government are in a terrible place and they need to think intelligently to get themselves out of it.

[Dr Huppert]

Thank you very much for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker, particularly given that I went on slightly too long. I apologise for that.

I agree to some extent with the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) in that I am uncomfortable with new clause 5, but it is for completely different reasons, as he might imagine. On the issue of trusting the Home Secretary, it is not a question of trusting an individual; I would not trust anybody with that kind of power unchecked by this Parliament. For me, that is a matter of principle, and it is not a reflection on any individual. I am quite sure, despite what was said earlier in the debate, that I will never have that responsibility—I am sure that he is very glad about that—but I would not trust myself to have those powers either.

I would like the Minister to clarify some issues, because we have not had the chance to go through this in detail in Committee. I am uncomfortable with the idea of having emergency legislation to step up the powers, because I simply cannot envisage any circumstance in which I would want to see it used. However, in the review the Government have taken the line that there are some hard to foresee possibilities where it might be needed. If that is the case, I think it is right to proceed in this way. I do not necessarily agree with the Government and would have liked the review to have gone even further, but I can understand where they are coming from.

If that is where we are coming from, there is clearly a need to have some way of installing the measure when Parliament is not sitting. Some have misunderstood this point as meaning that the power will be available to the Secretary of State when Parliament is in recess. It is clear that if the situation was so urgent that we needed to reduce the civil liberties that we give people during recess, we should be recalled. It would be important that we were recalled. However, there is a difference when there is no Parliament that can be recalled. If there is to be such a system, although I am not happy about it, I am pleased with this system and understand it. I am also pleased that the Government have accepted the need for parliamentary scrutiny. That is a move forward from their previous position, as I mentioned earlier.

Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Debate between Julian Huppert and Paul Goggins

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Goggins]

My hon. Friend is always very persuasive—one way or the other.

One area of policy on which I remain absolutely clear is the need to be able to control the activities of that small group of people who pose a serious threat and who cannot be deported or imprisoned, and I am pleased that the Government appear to have come to the same conclusion. We should seek consensus. There is much in the Bill that I can readily support. Conditions A to E, which are set out in clause 3, are welcome. They confirm the need for these TPIM notices to be focused on protection and prevention and they provide that the terrorism-related activity must be new activity. However, it is important that when a first application for a notice is made, that new activity can well predate the application.

A general time limit of two years is not unreasonable given the provisos that further notices can be made if there is new activity and that where a further notice is made, the older activity can be taken into account in addition to the new activity of which the Home Secretary has become aware. However, I caution her and her ministerial colleague against making that a general rule which can never be excepted. As I said about the maximum pre-charge detention period of 14 days, there might be exceptional circumstances. I hope that the Minister will be prepared, in Committee, to see whether some amendments can be framed to allow extensions beyond two years in specific and exceptional circumstances.

On making the powers permanent, I heard what my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said about that reducing parliamentary oversight, but we could also see it as a positive development if Parliament can reach a consensus and settled view. Given the constant arguing and bickering on this issue year after year when we should be seeking consensus in the face of the terrible threats that terrorists bring, there is some merit in Parliament’s reaching a settled view. There is a balance to be struck.

I agree strongly with condition A, that the Secretary of State must have a reasonable belief

“that the individual is…involved in terrorism-related activity”.

That is a higher threshold than the reasonable suspicion threshold that has previously operated for control orders, but in reaching my conclusion I have referred to the opinion of Lord Carlile in his most recent report that the higher threshold of reasonable belief was, in practice, always achieved anyway for each control order that was taken out under the existing system. It is a standard that was already being met, and I see no problem in including that formally in legislation.

It is right, given that we have six years’ experience of operating control orders, to set out in more precise form the measures that can be imposed as part of the new TPIM notices. Schedule 1 includes a list of measures, including accommodation, travel, communications, association and so on. I urge the Minister to see whether there ought not to be a catch-all power, because there may be a condition that is not caught by schedule 1. It might be sensible to leave an opening so that the Home Secretary can impose such a condition if circumstances allow. It is not a power that I would expect to be used frequently, but if we do not have that power, and unusual circumstances occur, there is nothing we can do about it. Perhaps that is something that could be considered.

I have four serious difficulties with the Bill and in relation to other pertinent issues. The first was mentioned by my right hon. Friend—the overnight residence measure. She was right to point out that in schedule 1, which says that the Secretary of State may impose a requirement

“applicable overnight…for the individual to remain at a specified residence”,

there is no definition of “overnight”. It may be possible to go into that in Committee to see whether it is possible to include something a little clearer.

The really important issue is the specified residence itself. My right hon. Friend made a powerful argument in relation to that. Paragraph 1(3) says that the specified residence must be

“premises that are the individual’s own residence, or…other premises…that are situated in an appropriate locality or an agreed locality.”

An appropriate locality is one in which the individual has a pre-existing connection. In the case of CD, which my right hon. Friend mentioned, it would not be possible under the new legislation for the Home Secretary to impose the conditions that she rightly imposed on the control order governing that individual. If it is possible, I would welcome an explanation on that from the Minister in his winding-up speech.

Let us reflect on who CD is: a leading figure in a close group of Islamist extremists based in north London. That conspiracy of individuals was planning attacks and seeking to acquire weapons. He was a real threat, and the Home Secretary was quite right to take action, and to insist that he live in the west midlands. It is not just me who says so, as Mr Justice Simon supports her view. My right hon. Friend made it perfectly clear when reading from paragraph 53 of Mr Justice Simon’s judgment that the relocation obligation is a necessary and proportionate measure to protect the public from an immediate and real risk of a terrorism-related attack. The Bill as drafted would not allow the Home Secretary to force that individual to live outside London in the west midlands, and the people of London and elsewhere would be at much greater risk if she could not do so.

My second concern relates to electronic communication, which is dealt with in paragraph 7. Sub-paragraph (1) sounds quite tough, as the Secretary of State may impose

“restrictions on the individual’s possession or use of electronic communication devices”.

However, under sub-paragraph (3), each suspect may have

“a telephone operated by connection to a fixed line…a computer that provides access to the internet…a mobile telephone that does not provide access to the internet.”

To be honest, I am concerned that that demonstrates naivety about the sophisticated operations of international terrorists. They use multiple mobile phones, and will run rings round the measure, unless paragraph 7 is toughened up and made much more specific and much less confusing. There is a real job of work to be done by the Committee.

[Dr Huppert]

Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that one purpose of the measure is to enable more evidence to be gathered for prosecution? The point of allowing people to have that communication is partly for the sake of civil liberties but partly because it can be monitored. What we want to see is prosecution, not indefinite or even two-year detentions.

[Paul Goggins]

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that an international terrorist is sitting there thinking, “Thank goodness they have given me the internet so I can reveal all my contacts and conspiracies,” he is quite naive. We are talking about highly sophisticated people, and I am concerned that the provisions in paragraph 7(3) are not as sophisticated as they need to be to deal with the threat.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Goggins]

My hon. Friend again makes his point with great care. Of course, these are exceptional powers that should be used sparingly. We have all this apparatus in relation to control orders to ensure that the suspect’s interests can be protected. That is why we have special advocates who can consider the information and argue on behalf of the suspect. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Cambridge wish to intervene?

[Dr Huppert]

I should be delighted to do so, and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. The problem is that the special advocate is not allowed to communicate the nature of that evidence to the person involved. That fundamentally means that they cannot advocate fairly on behalf of their client.

[Paul Goggins]

It is true that special advocates cannot share the intelligence directly, but they are there to represent the interests of the individual. To the hon. Gentleman, that might not be a perfect solution, but it is better that the individual has somebody to speak for them than nobody to speak for them. That is why that system was introduced.

I say again to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who put his point very fairly, that these are exceptional mechanisms to assist in making sure that the rights and interests of the individual are protected, but in the end, the entire Bill is designed to ensure that the rest of us are protected against the threats that those individuals pose. We must not forget that. As we have these debates about the liberty of the individual, we must balance that against the need for the protection of the wider public. That is the dilemma that goes right through the debate. We should never lose sight of one or the other side of that argument.

My final point is whether the whole new TPIM system represents the same level of risk as we had with control orders or a greater level of risk. I can only assume that the Home Secretary believes there is an increased risk from the new TPIM system, otherwise why would she be committing a serious level of resource—whatever that level is—to the police and the Security Service to help them deal with the additional work and the additional pressures that will result from the new system?

I was somewhat concerned to hear the Home Secretary quote Jonathan Evans as saying that the additional money would—I think she said—mitigate against the additional risk. That is an interesting phrase worthy of further exploration. I am extremely concerned that new gaps will open up. The question is whether there will be sufficient resource to fill those gaps and whether those gaps will pose an additional risk. No one in the House should be complacent about the possibility of an increased risk. I know that the Intelligence and Security Committee on which my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and I sit will take a very close interest in that.

I am sure that the last thing this Home Secretary would want to do is increase the risk to public safety. I mean that genuinely and sincerely, but Parliament must help her. One immediate way in which it can help is by tightening up the Bill in the way that I have suggested and as others will, I am sure, suggest, and then by monitoring closely what happens when the Bill and any amendments that are added to it are put into practice.