Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Garnier Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 9th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Garnier (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I made my maiden speech in the other place 26 years ago. I was not entirely sure whether I would make the right, the wrong or any impression, but I need not have worried. My turn came to speak well after midnight, and we were debating the Maastricht legislation. It seems that the relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom has dogged my political life like two squabbling passengers at the back of a bus—no matter where you sit, you can still hear them. However, on that occasion the hour and the subject worked to my advantage because I addressed an almost empty Chamber.

The few people present were, with one exception, there only because they had to be: the Deputy Speaker; the Clerk at the Table; the Government and Opposition Whips, playing some demented game of chicken to see who would give up and go home first; the junior Minister from the Foreign Office, who sensibly was concentrating on his correspondence; and a handful of Back-Benchers, who were waiting to speak and certainly not listening to me. The exception was Douglas Hurd, my noble friend Lord Hurd of Westwell, then the Foreign Secretary, who kindly came from his room to sit on the Front Bench as I mumbled at the back. Sadly, he has retired from this House but, to me, he represents so much of what is good in our public life.

On this occasion, I find myself speaking to a fuller House at a much earlier hour than last time, following speeches of great quality and great depth. However, I do not want to try anyone’s patience, not least because of the list of speakers due to speak after me, who have far greater expertise than I do, and because I want to hear my good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, make his maiden speech as well.

However, I want to record that in the very short time that I have been a Member of your Lordships’ House I have been struck by the kindness, not least during today’s debate, that I have received from noble Lords on all sides of the House and from members of staff in every department. Despite the fact that my peerage was announced on the evening before Prince Harry’s wedding, and therefore the Harborough Mail had other things to report, I was delighted to find that one or two people were expecting me when I got here. I particularly want to thank my noble friends Lord Goodlad and Lord Young of Cookham for supporting me at my introduction. They were friends in the Commons and they have stood fast to that friendship here.

I have taken my territorial designation, Harborough, from the constituency in south-east Leicestershire which I represented for 25 years. Although I come from Norfolk, my wife’s family have lived in Rutland, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire for many years, so I was delighted to be adopted by a constituency that covers most of south-east Leicestershire between the city of Leicester and Northamptonshire.

Despite my 25 years in the other place and my experience there as a Back and Front-Bencher, both in opposition and in government, there is much that is new to me here. The lines of communication between the two Houses are not always well maintained. This is a very different place, with its own characteristics, procedures and traditions, but we should celebrate these differences. Let it not be thought that because our parliamentary system is old, it must therefore be bad. Our system is old because it is good, not bad because it is old.

One of the defining features of our country is a general respect for the rule of law, and today’s debate demonstrates that justice and the rule of law remain in the forefront of our public discourse. Freedom of expression—political and otherwise—has been protected by the common law and the vigilance of Parliament every bit as much as by the European convention. Parliament and the law should be vigilant to ensure that our right to comment freely and honestly, and even offensively and idiotically, is never cut down. But terrorism—and the threat of terrorism—tests our freedoms and our tolerance of others’ opinions. The first four clauses of this Bill, with suitable safeguards, adjust the limits of acceptable conduct—where freedom of expression ends and where crime begins—just as the increased sentences in Clauses 6 to 10 make it plain how unacceptable we find these criminal acts to be.

There is no one answer to the questions posed by terrorism, by those who commit terrorism offences and by those who persuade others—or who are persuaded by others—to commit these hideous crimes. Ironically, at a time when electronic communications and information technology have allowed for the creation of highly sophisticated weapons and remote triggering systems, there is, as my noble friend the Minister indicated at the outset, a greater use of simple weapons such as vehicles and kitchen knives. The attacks are planned in days, not over months, and it is remarkably easy to buy bomb parts and chemicals, and to research targets online. This makes it harder to detect terrorist crime in advance, but with greater information sharing between those tasked with our protection, things could improve.

I understand—the Minister has indicated as much—that there are currently about 500 terrorist plots at various stages of development, and I think the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, made the same point. I further understand there are about 3,000 people of interest, as the noble Baroness mentioned. Further, there are about 20,000 people on the fringes called closed suspects—the 2017 offenders were, I gather, in that category. We therefore need to provide the security services and the police with the resources to allow them to review everyone in that group.

As the shadow Attorney-General when my noble friend Lord Hague and David Cameron were leaders of the Opposition, and as Solicitor-General in the coalition Government when Mr Cameron was Prime Minister, I spent a good deal of time on matters to do with terrorism and the sometimes conflicting rights under the European convention. There are a number in your Lordships’ House who, like me, are members of the former law officers’ club. Forty years ago, I was led by Lord Rawlinson of Ewell, a former Solicitor-General and Attorney-General, for the Daily Mail, in a libel action brought by the Moonies. He told me that when he was appointed Solicitor-General in 1962, the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, gave him a learned seminar on the history and constitutional role of the law officers. It was made clear that as Solicitor-General, his first duty was to the rule of law, his second was to Parliament and only his third was to Macmillan’s Administration. Mr Cameron appointed me Solicitor-General in 2010 during a three-minute telephone call. Had he had the time to think about it, I am sure he would have agreed with Macmillan. I certainly tried to keep Harold Macmillan’s advice to Peter Rawlinson to the forefront of my mind when I was Solicitor-General.

To many Ministers, the law officers are—with the exception now of Geoffrey Cox— either mysterious, barely-known creatures, or an inconvenient reminder that the law of the land applies to them. Like lawyers in private practice, law officers cannot talk in detail about their work, which is confidential to their client: the Government. But nor should they only say “no”—they should try to be imaginative and help the Government navigate through their difficulties. Their power—if they have any at all—lies in speaking truth unto power and in resignation. The law officers are more like submarines than the ships of the line in the Cabinet: you know they are down there somewhere, unseen and unheard, quietly going about their business, but if they surface and their concerns or disagreements become known to the wider world, either the Government are in trouble or they are.

Shortly after my appointment in 2010, I was showing off to the then Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, that one of my ancestors, Sir William de Grey, had been successively Solicitor-General and Attorney-General from 1763 until 1771, under five Prime Ministers. After that, I told him, my ancestor became Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. The noble and learned Lord smiled engagingly and gently reminded me that some apparent precedents are easily distinguished upon their facts.

After reading history at Oxford, I went to the Bar. In 1976, I joined a set of chambers in the Temple that specialised in media and information law—it still does. Leon Brittan, a Member of Parliament and a shadow Minister, was then the junior silk in Chambers. My friend Lord Brittan is sadly now dead, but he taught me that it is possible to be a practising barrister and a conscientious Member of Parliament and that, although lawyers are not everyone’s favourite, we have our uses. In response to my persistent questions about politics he said, “Stop talking about it; just go and do it”. He also demonstrated that it is possible to maintain one’s dignity in adversity. In the last months of his life, he was cruelly assailed by baseless allegations that would have broken healthy men. It is sad that he did not live to witness his own exoneration, but I hope it is of some comfort to his widow, Diana, that his reputation has, without question, been restored to its rightful place.

Somehow, I have arrived here among you all. I am honoured to be here and I hope to play my part in shaping the legislation that comes before us. Now is not the time for me to say much more about this Bill. Although it amends and adds to criminal law—a prospect that usually makes me worry for the judges and the lawyers who will have to apply it—for a modern statute, it is mercifully short. Its intentions are properly confined and the policy behind it is clear. I am not a fan of creating new offences, renaming existing offences or increasing sentences to send a message, when those who are hell-bent on killing police officers, soldiers and ordinary citizens, or encouraging others to do so, will pay no attention, seeing themselves as warriors for their hideous cause. Nor do I forget that, if the prison sentences set out in the Bill come to be used, we will have failed to educate, influence, inhibit or prevent those who have committed terrorist acts. However, I believe that this Bill is more than a message. It is part of a practical approach to countering terrorism and to protecting our borders; problems that we, but more acutely those whose job it is to protect us, face daily. I wish it well and I look forward to considering it further in due course.