Murder of Lee Rigby

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me first guarantee to the right hon. Gentleman that there will be proper scrutiny of this legislation. It is fast-track legislation, we hope, rather than emergency legislation. It is not being rushed through in just a couple of days—in the other place, for instance. The time between the stages will be shortened, but the overall amount of time will not be.

Much of this legislation comes from ideas that I put forward back in September and some of it comes from the extremism taskforce, which I set up after the murder of Lee Rigby many months ago, so this is not emergency, knee-jerk legislation, but well thought through. It is not starting from scratch either, because we have very good counter-terrorism legislation in this country. This is about seeing where there are potential gaps and making sure they are filled in.

On the question about people returning from overseas, the power we are taking in the new legislation is to make sure that people can come back only if they do so on our terms. That is the key. We will make sure that if people are to be prosecuted, we are ready to prosecute them and that if they are going to be subject to a TPIM, they will be subject to a TPIM.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

One thing not mentioned in the Prime Minister’s statement—and for good reason—was communications data. Whatever one thinks about the Communications Data Bill, our report did not focus on this matter at all significantly because it played no relevant part. Nevertheless, there was a serious leak at an early stage from the unredacted draft of the report, which was reported in a Sunday paper, saying that the report was going to concentrate on this area. Does the Prime Minister agree with me that if MI5 is going to continue to share so much secret material with the Intelligence and Security Committee, leaks of our drafts are absolutely to be deplored and might imperil our ability to do this sort of work in the future?

[The Prime Minister]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. All leaks are to be deplored, but leaks of this particular sort of material, when we have trusted the Committee with such important and delicate work, are particularly reprehensible. Communications data are vital not just in respect of terrorism, but when we are trying to find abducted children or solve rapes and murders. They are used in almost all serious crimes. What we did in the Bill was simply to stop the situation from getting worse. What we need now is to go forward with more full-throated legislation. I think we need an honest and open debate about that across the House.