Counter-terrorism Review

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I have named no figure on the funding to be made available. I was very clear in my response to the shadow Secretary of State that I was not going to name a figure. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, as a former Home Secretary, will understand why we are not doing so in respect of the work of the security services. I can say that the Security Service and the police will both receive new money.

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

I certainly welcome the Home Secretary’s statement about the increase in surveillance, but she will be as aware as the rest of the House that in the last few weeks we have seen a heightened threat level from Irish dissident activity on the mainland as well as a series of scares about a very serious armed incident inside this country. If surveillance of known terrorists increases, how will she balance that against the increased threat from unknown terrorists?

[Mrs May]

We are, of course, very conscious of the severity of the threat that this country faces. That is why the threat level is currently set at severe, which means that a terrorist attack is highly likely. We are constantly undertaking with the security services, the intelligence agencies and the police painstaking day-by-day work, which is necessary to ensure that we not only prevent activity by those already known as terrorists, but that we identify others who might be in the process of trying to undertake terrorist activity. I pay tribute to the police and the security services, particularly to West Midlands police, for the operation undertaken before Christmas, which led to the arrest of 12 individuals and the charging of nine of them for terrorist-related offences.

Oral Answers to Questions

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend would like to congratulate the large number of regular police officers and police community support officers who have responded, often unpaid, to the crises of the past few weeks, including the bomb at east midlands airport, the violence here in Westminster and so on. In view of the spending review, how will we cope in future with the need for surging officers when those occasions occur?

[Nick Herbert]

As my hon. Friend knows, we prioritise counter-terrorism funding to policing, and it has received a measure of protection in the funding settlement. We will, of course, continue to prioritise it.

Aviation Security Incident

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his suggestion, and of course that understanding and knowledge of the Yemeni community here in the UK are important to us. The Government have been working closely with the Yemeni Government to try to support them in doing what they want to do, which is to ensure that al-Qaeda is not in Yemen and is not able either to make attacks in Yemen or to use the country as a launch pad for attacks elsewhere. We will continue to work with the Yemeni Government to do all we can to provide them with the support that they need to conduct that task.

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

The Home Secretary will be aware that the borders of this country do not start and stop with the white cliffs of Dover. Will she outline what resources she intends to deploy directly in support of the Yemeni Government, and, if necessary, as the Department of Homeland Security has done, to work in that country?

[Mrs May]

I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that work is already under way with the Yemeni Government. Indeed, following the attempted Detroit bombing on 25 December, measures were put in place under the previous Labour Government, and have been continued under this Government, to work with the Yemeni Government and to provide them with various levels of support, particularly around airport security, which was crucial to the attempted bombing of that plane. That work is being funded by the Foreign Office and will be continued. More widely, the Foreign Office has been part of the Friends of Yemen group, bringing in others to ensure that we do all we can to provide the sort of support that the Yemeni Government need in their battle against al-Qaeda, and to help us to fight al-Qaeda, too.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow both my right hon. and charming Friends, the Home Secretary and the deputy—sorry, shadow—Home Secretary. I am sorry; that was a Freudian slip, but almost a deliberate one.

Let me begin by wishing you a happy Bastille day, Mr Deputy Speaker. It seems appropriate, given the subject that we are discussing. I shall not recommend that we storm the barricades, but I do intend to divide the House on the motion. I tell Members that now, so that it is clear where we are going. We may not trouble the scorers greatly in the Lobby against the Government, but, given the historic role of the House in defending the liberties of our monarch’s subjects, I think it important that a policy which, whatever its rights and wrongs, has so far led to the imprisonment of three innocent people for 28 days is one on which the House should decide explicitly and not on the nod.

I welcome the Home Secretary’s intention to have a six-month review of counter-terrorism policy, but I say to her that, in my view, there is plenty of very clear evidence to demonstrate that 28 days is too many. I will also go through some of the points the shadow Home Secretary raised in his speech. These are not just matters of principle; they are matters of high principle and hard fact.

The shadow Home Secretary said he recognised that there are concerns that an authoritarian approach to counter-terrorism policy might have the deleterious effect of creating more radicalised Islamists—more potential terrorists—than a more traditional liberal British approach would. That is clearly the case. The hard fact supporting that assertion was given by the head of MI5 in his last speech to the country, when he said that there are 2,000 persons of interest—those are his words—to MI5, which is a 25% increase on the previous year’s figure. If the increase continues at that rate, no amount of security will defend us from the consequences of our own actions.

Radicalisation is, of course, created by more than just authoritarian policies, but such policies do drive it. Anybody who talks to the leaders of Muslim communities up and down the country will know that—they will pick that message up time and again. At the forefront of that trend is the 28-day policy. In relation to home-grown terrorism, detention without charge is the biggest recruiting sergeant for our opponents.

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it was interesting that the shadow Home Secretary did not choose to mention the threat we currently face from republican terrorism coming from the north of Ireland? In view of the fact that we are approaching the internment day anniversary of 8 August, would it not be an extremely powerful statement to reduce the detention period from 28 to 14 days now, rather than to wait until later?

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend makes a very good case, and he knows Northern Ireland terrorism better than most people in this House. He also knows that internment was one of the best recruiting sergeants for the Provisional IRA and others in that period. So yes, he is right.

The second hard fact I want to draw on relates to the reasons given to me for 42 and 90 days by John Reid, the predecessor as Home Secretary of both my right hon. Friend the current Secretary of State and my friend the shadow Secretary of State. When John Reid briefed me, as shadow Home Secretary, on his Government’s proposals for those periods of detention, the most telling argument he had—to be fair, it was telling—was the prospect of the British agencies being overwhelmed by multiple prospective attacks at the same time. The circumstances he listed were as follows: multiple plots against multiple targets at multiple locations, with not all the information involved being in our control—perhaps some of it was coming from foreign intelligence agencies such as the Pakistani service—and with the plot already starting to be carried out, so that it was necessary to move quickly.

That was the case the then Home Secretary made, and within a month or so of his briefing me on it we almost had a rehearsal in Operation Overt, the Heathrow plot, to which the shadow Home Secretary referred. It was thought at the time that 10 aircraft had been targeted, although it now turns out that the true number was seven, as well as multiple locations—there were many suspects at the beginning in at least three different locations. There were also concerns about gaining access to some of the houses and other places where evidence was thought to be located, and foreign evidence was involved, too. It was a facsimile of the case John Reid had described.

Counter-terrorism and Security Powers

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and recognise that, given the experience that he has, ensuring that the police and others have the proper powers to combat terrorism is extremely important. In responding to him, may I take the opportunity of paying tribute to the work of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, particularly last night and yesterday in Northern Ireland, given the difficulties and the troubles that arose in relation to a parade. I assure him that I fully recognise that the first duty of Government is to protect their citizens, and it is against that background that we will be conducting the review.

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

In recognition of the shadow Home Secretary’s last question, I do not believe that there is any complacency in countering terrorism from this Government. However, there might be a temptation to concentrate too much, or exclusively, on the threat from Islamist fundamentalism. Will the Home Secretary assure me that the grave dangers from Irish republicanism will also be dealt with and reviewed as part of the process?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. He makes an important and valid point. I can assure him that we are well aware of the increased threat that arises from dissident republicanism. That is why resources have been looked at in dealing with it in Northern Ireland. We are very conscious that there are diverse terrorist threats to the UK—they are not all from one group or one type of person.