Terrorist Attack in Paris

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

This goes to the heart. We need to separate the issues. There can never be any excuse under any terms whatever for people using violence to raise a point. In fact, in many ways the spirit of Paris on that dreadful day was best represented by the Muslim police officer, a personal protection officer, who was murdered defending one of the journalists at Charlie Hebdo who had been under attack. It is that spirit of service that we ought to highlight. We may disagree with people, but we defend absolutely their right to speak. That is the spirit we should carry forward.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

Does my noble friend recognise that while there were criticisms of the Government for bringing in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, which they did well before the events in Paris, I do not think there is much criticism now of the need for steps to be taken in recognising the importance of introducing those measures? Those of us who are the survivors of last night’s marathon will recall the words of the impressive maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, a former director-general of MI5, who said that the threat level now is greater but our capacity to meet it is less. I challenge my noble friend on what he said at the end in reply to the question about the communications data Bill. We still have three months left of this Parliament. This should not be a party-political issue. These issues are our vital to our intelligence services. It does not matter how many boots we have on the ground; intelligence is our safeguard and our defence in those issues. We must ensure that in the present very dangerous situation the intelligence services have the resources they need. In the three months we have left, I hope the Government will consider that we could still do that and make sensible progress in this area.

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord brings immense experience to this, not least from his chairmanship of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the oversight committee. He makes an interesting point. I repeated the Home Secretary’s Statement in which she that there is no cross-party agreement. Should that cross-party agreement emerge—of course, in your Lordships’ House party affiliation is only part of the picture as there is a distinguished coterie of expertise on the Cross Benches—then all things are possible.