Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Debate between Pat McFadden and Tobias Ellwood

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr McFadden]

I believe that the Bill is based on a fundamentally mistaken premise—that liberty in our country was undermined by laws passed by the previous Labour Government in their efforts to protect the public and to combat terrorism. We have heard the Minister advance that argument many times during the debate. It is not, however, the laws passed by the last Labour Government that threaten liberty. Liberty is threatened by the ideology that fed the bombers of the London underground, by the acts that they took part in, by plots including those of the shoe bomber and the underpants bomber, as well as by other plots that have mercifully either not worked or been foiled before they reached fruition.

Both parties in the coalition have in different degrees shared in that fundamentally mistaken premise, and they have now brought it into the Government as the foundation for this Bill. I wonder whether, if we were talking about this in a year or two’s time, the Government would still introduce such a Bill. I genuinely do not know the answer to that. What we have here is a mistaken premise giving us wrong policy that will lead to increased risk for the public. The Bill will give new rights to terrorist suspects. It will allow them freedom of movement. It will grant them access to mobile phones and the internet. It will also put a two-year time limit on even the weakened provisions that TPIMs represent.

[Mr Ellwood]

I want to challenge the right hon. Gentleman’s point that any form of legislation could prevent a terrorist attack. If someone is convinced that that is what they want to do, wherever they are based in the UK and however they communicate, and whether they target the Olympics or somewhere else, they will conduct that attack, and possibly kill themselves as well. No legislation that we create in this House can prevent that. It is wrong to mislead the House and to suggest that we can somehow over-legislate or protect ourselves by what we do here. We cannot do that.

[Mr McFadden]

If that is what the hon. Gentleman believes, he should vote against the Bill because the Minister is pretending that this offers some measure of protection. These measures not only put the public at increased risk, but put the police and security services under increased pressure at the very time that their budgets are being cut. They mean less control and more surveillance. Surveillance itself compromises liberty, but does so simply in a more expensive and riskier way than some of the extra powers that the Government have chosen to reject.

To cap it all, in recent days we have seen the spectacle of the Government taking out an insurance policy against their own Bill by publishing draft emergency legislation but then refusing to add the powers to this Bill. The Government have failed utterly in today’s debate to specify the circumstances under which that insurance policy will be used. It is hard to escape the conclusion that my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) eloquently reached in her speech—that trade-offs within the coalition have shaped this policy. That is not good enough. We should not compromise the safety of our citizens on that basis. I echo the hope and prayer of my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary that none of the terrorist suspects who are granted increased freedoms under the Bill use them to kill innocent people. I have to say in all sincerity that if they do, the public will not forgive the Ministers or the Government who have passed this measure tonight.