Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Freeman Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freeman]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak after the right reverend Prelate and I am very pleased that, given the decision of the House earlier on, I am still able to pay tribute to him with his proper title. I agree very much with what he has just said.

I support this Bill. It has been some time in gestation and, although some parts of it might need further consideration in your Lordships’ Committee, I think that this Bill needs to be hastened to the statute book. It is well balanced. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bew, in his comments on its construction and content.

First, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, who chaired the Joint Committee of the Commons and the Lords, on which I served, which looked at the provisions dealing with detention before trial. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Goodhart, who will be speaking later, will wish to comment.

I shall concentrate on Clause 58, which deals with pre-trial detention. As noble Lords will well know, this issue has been batted back and forth over many years in terms of the length of detention before trial. For many of us, it has been an annoying bone to gnaw on for many years, so I am delighted that we have now settled on a sensible period of 14 days as the norm. I support the Home Secretary, who has been at the forefront of trying to deliver a message, not just to the police forces and our security services but to the public at large, that this should be the norm. Gone are the days when we were talking about several multiples of that period as an aspiration.

As your Lordships will know, the 28-day period effectively lapsed in January this year, and we are now back to a standard 14-days maximum detention before trial. The Joint Select Committee of your Lordships' House and the other place took evidence from not only the police but former Home Secretaries, who warned of the serious risk that there might be individual cases, and perhaps collective numbers of people, who might need to be detained beyond 14 days before trial, but that was very much the exception.

A lot has changed in the past few years. We have extra resources for the police forces and our security services, new technologies that identify where people are coming from and electronic devices to understand where the threat might come from, whether individuals or groups, but the threat remains. As we come up to the Olympics, our security services are acutely aware of the prospect of—heavens above—multiple terrorist threats. Your Lordships will wish that those never happen, but the security services and the police are taking them very seriously. Therefore, we need a provision to go to 28 days in exceptional circumstances.

The Joint Committee of your Lordships' House and the House of Commons came up with a recommendation that has not been fully accepted by the Government, except that there is a provision that, when Parliament is sitting, the Government in the form of the Home Secretary—and, in your Lordships' House, the Minister responsible for the Home Office—would bring forward an order to extend the period and would explain why that was necessary. However, there is a danger, which we need to reflect on. It is very important not to prejudice the case of an individual or group of individuals, so I think that we must accept this provision but we must make sure that we preserve proper legal proceedings and the justice of the case as well as protect our security.

I am pleased that the Government have accepted that, when Parliament is not sitting, the Home Secretary should be responsible for acting to extend the period to 28 days, subject to a number of provisions, particularly as far as the Director of Public Prosecutions is concerned. If Parliament cannot be recalled because it has been dissolved before an election, there must be a provision, in exceptional circumstances, to go to 28 days. This compromise is workable. It was not the recommendation of the Joint Committee, but I support it.

I very much support the Bill and look forward to its further and rapid progress.