Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I believe that this is the hon. Gentleman’s first time at the Dispatch Box with his new responsibilities as counter-terrorism Minister, so may I congratulate him on his appointment and on taking on that portfolio?

I am concerned about Lord Macdonald’s role in the Government’s latest suggestions. He was their reviewer of counter-terrorism policy, he produced a report and there were differences between him and the Government on a number of important points. Has he had the opportunity to comment on the Bill? Has the Home Secretary spoken to him about the substance of what is before the House today?

[James Brokenshire]

The right hon. Gentleman is probably aware that Lord Macdonald produced a separate report alongside the counter-terrorism review document to which I have alluded. That analysis and ancillary documentation fitted alongside the review, which was published earlier this year. We will deal in further detail with the points I made about the Bill’s provisions and with the concept of the need for exceptional emergency measures when we discuss the second group of amendments.

[Keith Vaz]

rose—

[James Brokenshire]

I am sorry if I have not satisfied the right hon. Gentleman’s inquiries.

[Keith Vaz]

The Minister usually satisfies them, but on this occasion he has not. What was Lord Macdonald’s role in these new proposals? Has he had an opportunity to look at them and comment on them? That is all I wish to find out.

[James Brokenshire]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the foreword to Lord Macdonald’s report said that he was invited

“to provide independent oversight of the Review”.

That is the role that he conducted. He was asked to

“ensure that it is properly conducted, that all the relevant options have been considered and the recommendations are balanced.”

That was the role he was required to carry out in the counter-terrorism review, which, obviously, led to the preparation of this Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huppert]

I thank the shadow Minister for his comments and apologise again for any criticism I might have made earlier about his seating. I do trust the Minister on this one. I am sure he would not have told the House something that the Metropolitan police had not told him was the case. I am sure he will be able to confirm that. I do have faith that the Metropolitan police have said this, if the Minister says they did.

I see amendments 8 and 20 as an attempt to keep control orders going for that last gasp. The gasp is not very long; it might not be a full five or 10-year gasp, but it is still a gasp and one gasp too many. I shall not support those amendments.

I believe we have made progress. The Government amendments take us a stage further. I am delighted to support them and look forward to hearing other contributions to the debate.

[Keith Vaz]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee, and to wish him well in his ministerial career. I know that the hon. Member for South Ribble (Lorraine Fullbrook) and I, who are with him every Tuesday, will want that to happen as soon as possible—but not before tomorrow, when, as he knows, we start our inquiry into the London riots.

In four days’ time, on its 10th anniversary, we shall remember the events of 9/11. The weekend newspapers were full of terrible accounts of what happened that day and of the stories of the survivors. The House discusses terrorism and its prevention in a measured, careful and sober manner, and I hope we shall do so today as we consider amendments and debate important issues.

I was not a member of the Committee that considered the Bill, and—mea culpa on behalf of the Home Affairs Committee—I am afraid that our agenda has been so full over the past two years that we have not had an opportunity to scrutinise this aspect of policy properly. We hope to make up for that next Tuesday, when we begin our inquiry into the roots of radicalism. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) talked of the need to understand why people become radicals. Next week our Committee will take evidence from the chairman of the United States committee on homeland security, Congressman Peter King. We hope to be able to present to the House in six months’ time—this will be a long and weighty inquiry—our views on what constitute the causes of terrorism, and on how we can deal with them.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I welcome the inquiry that is to be undertaken by my right hon. Friend’s Committee. May I ask him also to consider the fact that the country has had renewable emergency anti-terrorism legislation for 37 years, that the legislation has always been renewed six-monthly, annually or after whatever period has been specified, and that on each of those occasions we have moved further from the principles of absolute equality and transparency before the law and further towards a degree of Executive power? Does my right hon. Friend not think that it is time to turn the clock back in favour of openness and transparency, through the use of criminal law and criminal law alone?

[Keith Vaz]

I am sure that we shall touch on that subject. We are, of course, primarily concerned with the question of why people become radicals and what system makes them behave as they have behaved, but the way in which legislation is—in my hon. Friend's view—rushed through Parliament might well be one of our considerations.

I think it healthy for the House to have heard the comments of my hon. Friend, of the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) and of the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field), who observed that when Parliament discusses these matters the measures concerned go through on the nod. I believe that the role of the Opposition—my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) did a very good job in this regard—is to scrutinise and probe the Government, and that is exactly what happened when this Minister was the shadow Minister. Perhaps we regret not being more robust on issues of this kind when we are in opposition, but I hope that that will happen now. The five-year period for the review is probably too long; we need to consider it earlier and much more objectively, and that might be one of the issues that we can examine as the debate progresses.

I have three points to make. The first concerns the process that the Government appear to have adopted. I hope that the Minister will reassure me about something about which he did not manage to reassure me when I probed him earlier, namely the role of Lord Macdonald. I understand that Lord Macdonald was appointed by the Government to review legislation. As a former Director of Public Prosecutions and a distinguished lawyer, he is someone whom I think we ought to consult as we present new proposals. Has he seen the Bill, and, if so, what were his comments on it and on the changes that have been made in the last few days?

The same applies to Lord Carlile, who gave evidence that was diametrically opposed to that of Lord Macdonald. He wants to keep control orders, but, as colleagues will recall, when he appeared before the Select Committee he proposed a three-tier structure that he felt could replace them. Will the Minister enlighten the House on the process that was adopted, and confirm that there has been widespread consultation with the very people—Lord Carlile and Lord Macdonald—whom the Government believed could contribute to the discussion?