Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Ind)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), and to hear the comments of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), under whom I served with great pleasure a few years ago.

No one in the House will have failed to be completely horrified by the death of Drummer Rigby a few weeks ago, in a manner that was not only bestial, but designed to shock and grab national and international headlines with the minimum amount of resource from our opponents. I fear we will see more of that. If all it takes is a sharp knife and a little twisted courage—if that is the right phrase—to carry out acts that hold international attention for several days, if not weeks, we must be prepared.

Over the years I have referred to how surprised the House, and indeed the nation, is when such an act occurs. We need only to remind ourselves that just such an act was planned three or four years ago against a Muslim soldier who had been serving in Afghanistan.

[Keith Vaz]

indicated assent.

[Patrick Mercer]

I see the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee nodding; he and I discussed the issue at the time. That soldier was a Muslim, and on completion of his tour of duty in Afghanistan our enemies planned exactly the same sort of bestial—I use the word again—act. It is incumbent on us not to be surprised. Of course we will be horrified, but we should not be surprised. We must understand that this is about the most ghastly acts, particularly when combined with, I fear, the extraordinarily attention-grabbing technique of allowing individuals to carry out “suicide by cop”—I think that is the American phrase—by hanging around afterwards for more violence to be perpetrated and for their message to be broadcast even wider.

We have been warned. We know what attacks will be like in the future and how a small number of contorted and evil individuals can grab international headlines. That, of course, is what terrorism is about. It is not necessarily about killing or defeating; it is about terrorising, which is exactly what the very sad death of Drummer Rigby achieved for our opponents.

I commend the points the Government have made about Boko Haram, and the Opposition were correct to say that the group needs to be banned—we have perhaps been a little tardy about it in the past. If I may, I caution Opposition Members in their words of criticism for the Prime Minister over Hizb ut-Tahrir. The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee will remember that we debated that issue three or four years ago, and the then Leader of the Opposition made a precise point to the then Prime Minister about Hizb ut-Tahrir. However, with greatest respect to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North, it is not as simple as that.

[Diana Johnson]

I was making the point that we are now several years on, circumstances have changed, and the Prevent strategy review identified that Hizb ut-Tahrir is operating in universities. That is a concern and ought to be looked at again.

[Patrick Mercer]

I entirely take the hon. Lady’s point, and my comments are not meant to be inimical. The fact remains, however, that there are sometimes clear legal reasons why it is difficult to pin down such organisations. The previous Prime Minister found exactly the same situation, and there are legal reasons why it is difficult to achieve. There are also good intelligence reasons why it is sometimes necessary—or advised—to be less robust with such organisations than might otherwise be the temptation. Simply put, if Hizb ut-Tahrir were to be banned, as appears likely at the moment, it would soon spring up as “son of” or “bride of” or “ghost of” Hizb ut-Tahrir, under a different name with a different faction and a different flag. We need to be cautious in how we criticise one another’s attitudes towards these things.

We have talked about home-grown terrorism and the sad death of Drummer Rigby, but what interests me most is that, unless my ears were distracted, I do not think anybody has talked about the home-grown terrorism that we have been facing for the past several hundred years, which is republican terrorism. If I, in my ill-informed state, were to be asked which organisation posed the greatest—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that the reason why the House has not been discussing Irish terrorism is that it is not referenced in the order? I know that that is a point at which, intuitively, he would speedily have arrived in any case.

[Patrick Mercer]

I am most grateful, Mr Speaker. I do think that if we are talking about home-grown terrorism, we should not neglect the lessons that we have learned over the past several hundred years in facing that particular form of terrorism.

I return for a moment to the thorny issue of detention without trial. There will be temptations for the Minister to change the detention period as there are different pressures and as the different forms of terrorism to which we are subject become more and more frequent. I ask him not to give way to the temptation to do so needlessly, pointlessly and damagingly, as the previous Government did. My view is that the period is currently far too long. I ask him to understand that we combated the Irish Republican Army and Irish terrorism, or republican terrorism as I should probably call it more accurately, with a much shorter period of detention without trial. I speak from personal experience, although I entirely take the point that Mr Speaker has just made, Madam Deputy Speaker. We combated that terrorism within the law and with the principle and understanding that a man or woman is innocent until proved guilty. We did so on the basis that those who opposed us were criminals, not freedom fighters or misguided soldiers.

In this short speech, I wish to ask the Minister, if the temptation to increase the detention period arises again, to be fully cognisant of the fact that any period for which we take away a man or woman’s liberty, particularly when faced with the extraordinary difficulties and sensitivities of terrorism, means that we unintentionally add to, aid and abet the terrorists’ cause. In the same way, the death of Drummer Rigby—the death of simply one man, desperately sad though it was—has drawn attention to that cause. If we make an issue of the matter again and try to turn our liberties on their head by adding to simple criminal law in the case of terrorists, we will aid and abet their cause.

I will cease on that point, but I simply say that we must not forget the lessons of the past. We must understand where terrorism will lie in the future, and the House must never be surprised by the depravity and bestiality to which these people can stoop.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), who served with great distinction on the Home Affairs Committee for five years during the last Parliament. He is regarded as the House’s expert on security matters, and when he was on the Committee he was able to bring his expertise and knowledge to a number of inquiries and reports. He is an assiduous constituency Member of Parliament, and it has been a pleasure to hear from him on this important matter.

The whole House will support the Minister in his order. That was made clear by the shadow Minister for security, and I doubt very much that anyone who speaks in this debate will disagree with the Minister. Having served in the House for a number of years and attended debates on a number of such orders, I can say that it is clear that when Ministers with the security portfolio come before the House to make a statement—some of it based on intelligence that cannot be shared with the House—the House always defers to them and accepts what they say. That is even more important when Members can consider the order, look at the organisations and support what is being done.

I want to raise a few points on how proscription affects groups and how we can improve such orders. I fully support the decision on Boko Haram and Minbar Ansar Deen/Ansar al-Sharia, two groups that ought to be proscribed. As we heard from the shadow Minister, one is predominantly active in Nigeria, but with people in this country who support what is going on in Nigeria, north Cameroon and Niger. The other has been involved in all kinds of activities, particularly in Libya, but also in other countries that promote terrorism. In the United Kingdom, it promotes terrorism by distributing content through a forum and its website activities. It regularly advertises its involvement in these matters.

Before I turn to my specific points, I want to pay tribute to our security services for the incredible work they do on a daily basis. They work hard to keep the people of this country safe and sometimes we forget to thank them. We only thank them after there has been a great tragedy, such as the one alluded to by the hon. Member for Newark: the murder of Lee Rigby. Day in, day out, they work extremely hard, necessarily in the shadows, and we need to thank them for what they do.

My worry about proscription orders, especially in respect of new groups, is how the heads of those groups can be chopped off, and, amoeba-like, they can form themselves into different organisations with different names. For example, the Home Secretary proscribed Muslims Against Crusades in November 2011 on the grounds that it was simply a new name for an organisation that was already proscribed. However, as we know from other proscription orders, it is possible for Boko Haram and Ansar al-Sharia, or the people behind them, to suddenly create themselves into new organisations with new names. One example is the case of Mr Anjem Choudary, who has created numerous new organisations after his organisation was proscribed by the Home Secretary: Islam4UK, the Call to Submission, Islamic Path, the London School of Sharia and the Saved Sect, all of which have been banned. The latest is called the Islamic Emergency Defence—the IED.

When the Minister comes to reply, I want assurances that when these two groups and the people behind them form themselves into other organisations, the Government will be ready to proscribe them. This is a difficult area that requires huge expertise from the security services. It is fine for the House to proscribe, but it is a problem if groups create themselves into other organisations.

As we have heard from the shadow Minister, I am concerned, and the Prime Minister is concerned, that Hizb ut-Tahrir is still not the subject of proscription. I thought that the hon. Member for Newark was a little unfair to describe the shadow Minister’s comments as a criticism of the Prime Minister. I know how highly my hon. Friend regards the Prime Minister, and on this issue we believe he is absolutely right: this organisation ought to have been proscribed. This was a criticism not of the Prime Minister, but of the system. The Prime Minister believes, as he did in opposition, that something should be done, but somehow the system does not allow it to happen. That is still a mystery to me, but I live in hope that come 2015 and the next election, the organisation will have been banned.

[Patrick Mercer]

I hear everything the right hon. Gentleman says, but I think he would agree that there are extraordinary circumstances when what appears to be a clear-cut case on the surface is, for intelligence purposes, rather different.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but I do not think the Prime Minister would have used the words he did unless he was being very careful, and he certainly would have retracted them after he became Prime Minister had he received more information indicating a problem.

We shall leave that to one side, however, as it is not the subject of the order. I am sure the Prime Minister and everyone else is fully behind the proscription of these two organisations. I was disappointed with the Minister’s response to my intervention. He is an accomplished performer at the Dispatch Box and before the Home Affairs Committee—we will be calling him again for our inquiry into international terrorism and crime—but he did not give us any answers today or take us any further on from what he told us on 4 July 2012. That was the last time such an order was put through the House.

The hon. Member for Newark—I was about to call him the Minister for Newark; of course, he ought to have been security Minister at some stage, given his knowledge of the subject, but there is still time, with two years to go—the shadow Minister and I are not suggesting it in this case, but when we proscribe, we ought to put in place a time limit for reviewing the order, not because we would want to de-proscribe as soon as we proscribe, but because it would be right to keep reviewing these organisations, just in case they turn out to be shell organisations. I have mentioned the Tamil Tigers on the two most recent occasions that we have discussed this, although the Minister was not here last time—the Immigration Minister stood in for him. The Tamil Tigers have ceased to exist—everyone in the organisation has ceased to exist—yet they are still proscribed in the United Kingdom.

The Minister invites us to make an application for de-proscription for which there is no timetable. That means, I am afraid, that the matter ends up not in this House, which is responsible for proscription, but in the courts, where organisations are able to spend a lot of money. I think of the People’s Mujahedeen. Like me, Madam Deputy Speaker, you were in the House when that happened, on the Government Benches. A Minister came before the House and said, “We are de-proscribing the People’s Mujahedeen, because they’ve gone to court and won their judicial review.” I do not want these two organisations to do the same thing, which was why I said that the Minister’s answers were unsatisfactory.

The Minister told us one year ago, on 4 July 2012, that there would be a response “in due course”. I have discovered that that is one of the Minister’s favourite sayings—I am going to look in Hansard at how many times he says it; but he was a distinguished lawyer before he came to the House, and “in due course” is something that lawyers tend to say in their arguments. On 22 November 2012, however, the Immigration Minister, who is not a lawyer, used the word “shortly” in the House. “Shortly” clearly means “not next week”, because the response came in March this year.

Indeed, the word “response” also needs to be looked at, because although the Minister said that there had been a response—you were not in the Chair at the time, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will not draw you into this debate—the Government’s response was to say that the report by the independent reviewer of terrorism, David Anderson, QC, had been “noted”. That is a very odd response from the Government. We are used to them saying, “A Select Committee”—or an independent reviewer—“has made a recommendation, and this is what we think about the subject.” This poor chap went through the preparation of that entire report and then waited a whole year to be told that it had been “noted”. Now we hear from the Minister, in his response to me, that he is going to respond—[Interruption.] I am afraid I have forgotten what he said—it was not “in due course” or “shortly”—and I do not have access to Hansard, so when he winds up, perhaps he can remind me what he said he would do.

When we proscribe, we need to be careful that we do not get organisations that can then de-proscribe. There is no point having someone as distinguished as David Anderson, QC, producing reports—poring over all the detail and providing expertise to the Government—and then the Government not responding. All I say to the Minister is this. He has told us that officials are looking into the matter. Well, hooray for officials—distinguished officials, I am sure. He has told us that they are “actively” considering the matter. What does that mean? Since I last raised the matter in the House on 4 July 2012, have officials “inactively” considered it? We have had activity and officials; what we now have are Ministers—good Ministers, such as the security Minister. He is on top of the brief—

Abu Qatada

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Let me say to all hon. Members who are intending to repeat this question that I have already answered it. [Hon. Members: “No you have not.”] The Government’s position is absolutely clear—the deadline was on Monday 16 April. The only arbiters, however, and the only people who can decide on the deadline and on whether to accept a referral are the judges sitting on the panel of the Grand Chamber. They will give us their determination in due course.

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

Does the Home Secretary agree that Abu Qatada and his lawyers are doing nothing more or less than attempting to belittle and thwart the British judicial system—an attempt to terrorise just as surely as is laying a bomb or firing a bullet? If so, how will this be reflected at the Brighton conference?

Abu Qatada

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I can assure the right hon. Lady that this Government place the security of this country and its people as their priority. That is why we have put in place a series of measures that we believe will satisfy that requirement. Right now, the Government’s intention is to work to try to achieve what the right hon. Lady has recognised that all of us want across the House when it comes to dealing with Abu Qatada.

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

The European Court of Human Rights has yet again placed the Home Secretary and this Government in an extremely difficult position. In the short term at least, we are stuck with it, but can the right hon. Lady assure us that she will renegotiate not just with Jordan but with other countries that are subject to memorandums of understanding so that we can head these sorts of problem off—before they happen, not once they have happened?

[Mrs May]

Negotiations take place with a number of countries about the memorandums of understanding required to enable us to deport people so that we do not find ourselves unable to do so because of legal requirements. One important aspect of the Strasbourg Court’s decision in this case was that it supported the memorandum of understanding in respect of what would happen to Abu Qatada himself, were he to be returned to Jordan. In that sense, the memorandum of understanding was found to be workable by the Strasbourg court; access to a fair trial was the issue that it raised, but we will continue to be in negotiations with a number of countries where we feel it would be helpful to have such memorandums of understanding in place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I say to the right hon. Gentleman that we do recognise the international perspective in respect of online criminality. That is why, unlike the previous Government, we ratified the Budapest convention—the Council of Europe convention on precisely this issue—to ensure that there is better co-ordination and greater focus on legislation relating to online crime. We drew attention to that approach at the London conference, and we continue to highlight this message.

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

The Minister makes the point that cybercrime and cyber-attacks will be dealt with by more than one Department. What is the overlap between the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence and how will the costs be shared between them?

Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hazel Blears]

The hon. Gentleman speaks, as he did in Committee, from a position of great personal knowledge—in many ways, far greater than mine or my colleagues’—from having had operational responsibility on the ground in similar circumstances. He understands that, although we are all reluctant to go down this path, on occasion it is necessary. However, we have a democratic framework—people can challenge the orders; they can go to court; they can litigate; they can launch appeals—which is absolutely as it should be.

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Hazel Blears]

I will, but then I want to ask the Minister a couple of questions in the time remaining.

[Patrick Mercer]

The right hon. Lady makes some extremely good points. I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart)—and the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—that such measures are the very last things that we want to impose. Next year will be full of difficult periods, including not just the Olympic games, but the royal jubilee. Although I still feel that the powers are inadequate or wrong, they are better than what we had before, so should we not have them? Why are we delaying this? Should we not have powers that are more effective introduced quickly, rather than slowly?

[Hazel Blears]

I do not accept the premise that the TPIMs regime will be more effective. DAC Osborne said in evidence that control orders were effective, that the police were used to dealing with them and that relocation was the single most useful power. He also said that control orders provided not only surveillance, but disruption, and were therefore more effective. DAC Osborne recognised that the TPIMs regime would involve a greater level of risk. The Minister said that that risk would be dealt with by the extra resources. We must wait and see, but the police themselves said that, far from being more effective, the move from control orders to TPIMs would be less effective because it would increase the measure of risk.

Gangs and Youth Violence

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

A great many young people live in difficult circumstances but do not turn to gangs. Of course it is important for us to look at gang membership and youth violence in the round rather than arresting our way out of the problem, because it is not possible for us to arrest our way out of it. As I said earlier, young people coming out of prison who claim jobseeker’s allowance will go straight on to the Work programme. We must make a real effort to deal with problems such as unemployment, and to help those young people to find a different route through life.

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

I am sure that the Home Secretary was as impressed as I was by the work of Nottinghamshire constabulary, many of whose central Nottingham stations came under sustained and potentially lethal attack by petrol bombers during August. I accept that prevention is better than cure, and I note the Home Secretary’s strictures about knives and firearms, but what is being done, and what will she do, about the carrying and preparation of petrol bombs?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend has raised an important issue. We have not addressed it in the review, but I shall be happy to consider it. I pay tribute to the work done by Nottinghamshire police in defending both people and premises. As he says, they came under significant and sustained attack during what was a very difficult time.

Prevent Strategy

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

It is certainly the case that a strand of Prevent work takes place overseas and is overseen by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and it is important that that work is properly evaluated and evidence-based so that we ensure that the money is being spent where it can be seen to be properly working. We need to look very carefully at how the money is spent in that area of activity, but we also need to ensure that it continues to take place, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will be doing that. Separately from that, because the Department for International Development does not fund Prevent-related work, the work that DFID does in building up society has an impact in this area as well.

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

The Home Secretary talked about the dangers from Islamist fundamentalism but did not, I am sure for good reason, mention the dangers from Irish republican terrorism. Could she account for the difficult nexus in terms of intelligence and prevention work on the mainland of the United Kingdom and how this policy will encompass it?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising Northern Ireland-related terrorism. The Prevent strategy that I have outlined specifically does not cover Northern Ireland-related terrorism because it is important that we work through the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and the Northern Ireland Assembly and Ministers there, in looking at these issues. There is a responsibility for this in Northern Ireland, and it would not be right for us to bring Northern Ireland-related terrorism under the Prevent strategy that I have announced. However, certain aspects of the Prevent strategy have some commonality with themes in relation to Northern Ireland-related terrorism, and I am sure that others will draw on that.

Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), who brings to this subject not only a great deal of common sense but a great deal of experience. As she said, our liberties depend on our security. The two are inextricably linked; we cannot have one without the other.

As the right hon. Lady also rightly said, we sometimes lose the sense of why we are here having these debates in the first place. Over the past few days, four of our fighting men have been killed in Afghanistan, and it is worth bearing in mind that a police officer was recently blown to pieces in Omagh. They died for two things: not only to guarantee our physical security and protection but to guarantee that our liberties remain pre-eminent in our society. I would therefore, with the greatest of respect, ask that we all lift our sights a little—that we stop arguing about telephones, computers, curfews and other technical things and remember why we are here. We are here to honour the memories of those young men and young women who have died for us so that we can have a debate such as this in complete freedom and comfort. The single most important freedom that I would iterate on this occasion is the freedom for the accused man or woman to be innocent until he or she is proved guilty. Control orders do not do that. Control orders deny the very liberty, the very freedom, the very values for which our young men are this evening facing death and destruction in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) and I remember the difficult times of the mid-2000s. I have jousted with him many times and always enjoy his contributions. He made a fascinating point when he said that there was no rule book; I think that “instruction book” was his precise phrase. Indeed there was not, but there was a history book; in fact, there were lots of history books. Over the past 60 years or so, this country has allowed itself to make two grave errors at times of serious national emergency. On the first occasion, we were in a war of national survival, when we banged up tens of thousands of people during the period of wartime internment and assumed that they were guilty without giving them any form of trial. Because of the circumstances, that was not as serious a mistake as that which we made in the early 1970s when we interned hundreds of people in Ulster. I do not want to try to drag the argument into a simple, narrow one about Irish republicanism. None the less, it is important that we understand that control orders fly in the face of every lesson that we learned in the ’70s, for which many of my comrades died and others, including me, shed our blood.

Internment was wrong for all sorts of reasons. It was a straightforward denial of liberty, but much more importantly, it left behind a legacy of hatred that continues up until this day. I do not need to tell the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long), who lives with this on a minute-to-minute basis, that we are currently facing a threat in Ulster that is no less than that which we face from Islamist fundamentalism on these shores. That is because we got the issues and arguments that we are discussing wrong decades ago, and we must now make sure that we get them right. There is no place for control orders in a civilised society that wishes to counter terrorism intelligently, thoughtfully, and based on practice from the past. I therefore say to the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East that we should have used the history books before we started to compose these sorts of laws, which have done such damage and wasted so much time and so much life. We should have looked more carefully at where we got it wrong in the past.

Let us stop arguing about telephones, computers and all the technical things and ask ourselves what we can do to get rid of a pernicious system that denies the very thing in which we all believe—freedom and the ability to be innocent until proven guilty. Let us re-inject energy into our decision to negotiate memorandums of understanding. Let us talk to foreign Governments in more detail. Let us re-approach the European courts with greater energy. Let us try to insist that if an individual from another country commits a crime, or is thought to be about to commit a crime, or is even thought to be guilty of a crime, although not proven to be so, he or she is sent back to the country from which he or she originates. If it seems we cannot do that, let us then inject more energy into trying to do it—let us not give up. At the same time, let us look at the techniques that we can apply to make sure that intelligence on these individuals is turned into evidence that can be used in court to convict them and to get them behind bars if they are guilty, or, if they are not, to give them their liberty back.

I ask the Minister what has happened to the process of intercept evidence. Even as early as 1977, we were concerned about whether we could use that in court as evidence. To the best of my second lieutenant’s knowledge, it was being reviewed in the mid-’70s. Why can we still not use intercept evidence in court? I refuse to give in to the foot-dragging approach that the previous Government took on this issue. When I served on the Home Affairs Committee, we were told, “This is not a silver bullet, but by golly it will help.” What about questioning after charge? I think we have made some progress on that; the Minister can tell me whether I am right or wrong. Surely it is a tool that we can use, is it not?

Lastly—I have told people not to be too technical, and here I am delving into all sorts of technical things—there is plea bargaining, which the Americans and the Canadians use very successfully. Where do we stand on that? Have we given it enough thought? Have we had a refreshed insight and looked carefully at how we can use it? If we raise our eyes above the parapet of the specific argument, there are devices that we can use to produce evidence to get people into court and put them on trial. That has to be the aim rather than the current mish-mash of illiberal nonsense that we have within the democracy that we sometimes pretend to be.

My heart bleeds less than most people’s, but the fact remains that we cannot deal with these individuals improperly for two reasons: first, because of their basic human rights, about which I feel strongly; and secondly, for practical reasons. If we continue to subject minorities in this country to measures such as control orders, all of which are being applied to a very small number of people who come from a similar sort of background and believe in a similar sort of cause, we are bound to disaffect the wider societies from which they hail. We need look no further than what we did to the Roman Catholic population in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. We imposed not the same, but similar measures on those people—not entirely, but almost exclusively. The effect was that a military campaign by the Irish Republican Army that was pretty well over by the end of the ’70s extended itself well into the ’90s and killed hundreds more people than it needed to.

[Paul Goggins]

The hon. Gentleman has returned to the parallel between internment in the 1970s and control orders and TPIMs now. I acknowledge what he says about the impact of internment in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, but to draw a direct parallel between that and control orders and TPIMs is erroneous. The authorisation and oversight system is much more rigorous in relation to control orders and TPIMs than ever it was for internment.

[Patrick Mercer]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and I accede to that point. I will go with him, sit on a Committee and talk about all that good stuff. However, that does not make a difference in the eyes of the violent republican and the Islamist fundamentalist. They will make the parallels completely and perfectly, and they will use them to twist the mind and to suborn the innocent. That is exactly my point, and I am grateful to him for making it, because we are in danger of becoming over-technical.

I will not extend the point much further. It is simple: if we are not careful, we will impose on the very people whom we are trying to recruit and to persuade to come to our side the same sort of measures that we imposed on the Roman Catholic population in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. I will quote a song that summarises the point:

“Being Irish means you’re guilty, so we’re guilty one and all.”

Irish republicans were able to write that line because of internment. Irish republicans were able to write that line because their society had been suborned by a Government who were misguided. The parallels are not exact, but they are there. This is illiberal, this is improper, this is impractical, and this is wrong. We must get rid of control orders as soon as we can.

Quilliam Foundation

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Paul Goggins]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. He is a great authority on the issues and has an association with Quilliam—as he has said, he knows some of the people involved. He has raised an important issue. In fact, Quilliam has been involved in establishing a Facebook site called Khudi, which has 40,000 subscribers in Pakistan. There are young people listening to the liberal values and arguments being made through that Facebook page. Quilliam is taking the argument into parts of the world where we would find it impossible as individual politicians or, indeed, Governments to advance arguments that would be listened to with any credibility. I pay tribute to Quilliam for doing that work and thank my hon. Friend again for his intervention.

We will soon learn the conclusions that the coroner has reached in the 7/7 inquest. Whatever findings and recommendations she makes, we cannot escape the fact that those responsible for the bombs were a part of our community. We must ensure that there is no room for retreat into denial about extremism. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles, I was a Home Office Minister when the 7/7 bombs went off. In the months that followed, she and I travelled the length and breadth of the country in a effort to engage with the Muslim community and encourage it to face up to the minority in its midst that had adopted an extremist ideology and was intent on the destruction of our way of life and the values that underpin it.

I learned a great deal from those many encounters, but the most important lesson I learned was that it would not be me who could persuade young Muslims away from those who would try to radicalise them and turn them into extremists; it must be people within the wider Muslim community itself who do that work. Our job—whether as Ministers, other politicians who are interested in the issue or, indeed, non-governmental organisations—is to empower and encourage people within the Muslim community to do such work for themselves. That was the most important lesson I learned.

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

Like me, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman remembers sparring over this issue in relation to the Prevent strategy and the rights and wrongs thereof. However, the Quilliam Foundation is based on not just common sense, but the historical precedent of using those who were opposed to spread the message back to our opponents. That is a very valuable tool; it is not unique but it is an extraordinary tool. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would agree that that must not be allowed to perish.

[Paul Goggins]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. He and I have sparred over many issues, including this one. I have a great measure of agreement with him when we debate such matters. Those who speak with not just knowledge, but experience do so with additional credibility and in a particularly powerful way. We cannot afford to lose the experience that is contained within the Quilliam Foundation. I hope that my remarks and arguments—and those that will be made by others later in the debate—will persuade Ministers not to give a blank cheque to the organisation, but to provide sufficient funding to enable it to survive the immediate future and provide its own sustainable funding in the long term.

I was describing the core of the important work that Quilliam does by supporting, encouraging and empowering those within the Muslim community to take this work forward for themselves. Again, I say that I am not asking for a blank cheque. Indeed, I support the strong argument that Quilliam should get out of Government funding in the longer term because that will add to its sense of independence, credibility and power within the Muslim community. In the long run, that is a sensible way forward, but we need an interim solution that will enable the organisation to survive these next few days and weeks.

Quilliam has not simply sat there and demanded money; it has taken difficult decisions in recent days to make its sustainability more likely. It has reduced staff numbers from 14 to six and has made eight staff redundant. Clearly, those are very painful decisions, but Quilliam regarded them as necessary in the circumstances. The small team that remains at Quilliam is working flat out on funding bids to charitable trusts and other funding organisations. It currently has a number of funding bids in but, as hon. Members know, charitable trusts do not deal with funding bids every day of the week; they have their own cycle and programme for deciding such things. Quilliam needs some time to allow those organisations to consider the bids and to respond, I hope, positively. Another important recent development has been the granting of charitable status to Quilliam in the United States. I hope that that will open up more avenues of potential financial support for it in the longer term.

I would also like to inform the Minister that Quilliam has actively been looking for smaller more affordable offices, which is also an important way of reducing the organisation’s overhead costs. Quilliam is not sitting there expecting a blank cheque from Government; it wants independent funding and it is prepared to reduce its costs. However, at the moment, it faces a real crisis. The request is simple enough. In December, Quilliam was told that there would be no more core funding in 2011-12. Three months is just not long enough for an organisation to move from core funding to project funding. We need a more flexible approach. A grant of £150,000 to cover the year ahead should be made. That is a reasonable investment in the kind of project I have been describing. After that, Government funds should be available only for specific projects that are agreed.

I hope that such an approach will find support from all parties this morning. It is certainly supported by Lord Carlile who, of course, is regarded by many as the expert in this area of public policy. He has made it clear in the media and personally to me that he supports having a transitional grant that would facilitate survival and then a path towards sustainable, independent funding. Quilliam is prepared to confront Islamist extremists. We should be prepared to ensure that it remains in business.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe). Many of his comments, and his support for the Government, were not unexpected.

I sometimes wonder how much time we consume in the House of Commons dealing with apparently insignificant affairs. For instance, having had a grand total of—I think—nearly 30 individuals under control orders at one stage, we are now down to eight, so we find ourselves devoting many minutes, if not hours, of parliamentary time discussing the fate of eight individuals. That is important. However, what concerns me most is that the previous Government imposed control orders that are fundamentally wrong, misapplied and undemocratic—they are fundamentally a help to our enemies—but did not seem particularly bothered when individuals who were subject to them under the previous regime absconded or escaped.

That is the point. I pay huge tribute, as the hon. Gentleman did, not only to the work of Lord Carlile, but to the work of our security services, who have foiled or plain put off any number of extremely dangerous plots. However, the fact remains that although the eight individuals about whom we are speaking today are not numerous, they are a totem for our enemies.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s opinions, but, as the Minister said earlier, there are no charges against those eight individuals, and there is apparently no possibility of deporting the foreign nationals involved. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that the House will vote through Executive orders that control and change people’s lives entirely when no criminal charges have been laid against them?

[Patrick Mercer]

The hon. Gentleman’s intervention is helpful and timely, and I completely agree with him. The difficulty is that we are detaining those individuals undemocratically and improperly, which plays directly into the hands of our enemies.

Our foes—be they Islamist fundamentalists, direct action groups or animal rights groups, Irish individuals or whatever—all understand the power of propaganda. The one thing at which they are good is broadcasting their word. They understand that the spoken, the written and the broadcast word are more powerful than any bullet or bomb.

Before Christmas there was a series of events, with which I shall not detain the House, involving a serious plot against western Europe—a core al-Qaeda plot—that both failed and was foiled. To replace that failure in the eyes of the public, an extraordinarily ill-thought-through plot was mounted from Yemen involving ink cartridge containers on a certain number of aircraft—cartridges that, frankly, were unlikely ever to explode. However, for very little effort, our enemies dominated the media for four complete days at the end of October last year, making the point that terrorism had not gone away and that they still intended to terrorise people. They did so without killing or injuring anyone, and with very little effort on their part.

The point is that with control orders we continue to aid and abet our enemies in exactly those methods of operation. First and foremost, we fought Nazism, communism and Irish republicanism without having to resort to any of those methods, because we were a democratic nation fighting on democratic principles against non-democratic enemies.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I agree with a great deal of what my hon. Friend is saying, but we did intern people in the last war and we did have extraordinary regulations—regulation 18B—to lock up people who were deemed to be a threat to the state, so I think it is fair to have extraordinary regulations for relatively small numbers.

[Patrick Mercer]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right: of course we interned people in the last war, and we also carried out the disastrous policy of internment in Northern Ireland in the ’70s. I was not there at the time, but I was there in the follow-up to that policy, which was literally disastrous, not only in countering terrorism, but in aiding and abetting the recruitment of our foes in the battle with the Irish Republican Army that lay ahead. However, I hope that my hon. Friend does not mind if I do not go into that in too much detail.

If we retain the powers indefinitely and continue to treat that small number of people in that way, we will pass the most important tool that we can to our foes. We will be saying to our enemies: “Please understand that without letting off any bombs or killing any policemen, soldiers or civilians, you have achieved exactly what you want to achieve. In other words, you have destabilised our democracy. Without raising a finger, you have done exactly what you wanted to do: you have changed the way we live our lives.” That is not right. I celebrate the changes that the Home Secretary announced earlier. Without doubt, there have been some improvements. For instance, of the three measures for which I have long argued, and for which I shall continue to argue—the ability to question after charge, the use of intercept evidence and plea bargaining—one has been accepted. One is better than nothing—it is an improvement—but we must understand that our abiding aim is to get those individuals into court on a legitimate charge and with a legitimate trial, and to uphold the principle that they are innocent until proven guilty.

We have other methods of dealing with criminals. I am sure that, like me, the House remembers how a previous Prime Minister made it a point of principle that Irish republican terrorists, and indeed Protestant paramilitaries, should not be treated as they wished to be—that is, as soldiers—but as mere common criminals.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I am following the hon. Gentleman carefully, but will he correct his reference to “Protestant paramilitaries”, by perhaps describing them as loyalists or so-called loyalists? His use of the word “Protestant” in this context is not correct.

[Patrick Mercer]

The right hon. Gentleman is quite right. I am afraid that I am a victim of my own experience. He is absolutely right that the term is outdated. It was one that we used in the many tours that I served in Northern Ireland, but it is both wrong and probably insensitive, and I apologise.

Whatever stamp of terrorist we were facing in Northern Ireland, that terrorist was deemed to be a criminal. There are methods that we can use to handle those criminals. They are not soldiers; they are criminals. Therefore, surely it is up to us to deal with them in the same way, using the rules of bail along with other methods that we use to surveille those of whom we are suspicious. We do not need to take these individuals’ liberties away from them.

There are two points behind that idea. The first is that it is improper and undemocratic; the second is that it is plain damn silly. If we say to someone, “We are interested in you; we are surveilling you; we are keeping you under observation”, we immediately fail to harvest the intelligence that those individuals can give us. Not all of them are terribly clever, although some are, and many of them are very foolish, which is why they have fallen under suspicion in the first place. Foolishness, of course, should be aided and abetted by the security services because foolishness provides us with further clues and further evidence.

I will not detain the House further. Despite my instincts, I will certainly support the Government tonight on the basis that I understand that future legislation needs time to mature and to be properly formulated. The fact remains that I hope that the Home Secretary and her Ministers will look most carefully at what is proposed so that in the future we will deal with our enemies not only in a democratic and proper way, but in a thoroughly practical one.