Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Paul Goggins Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I have made clear the assurances that we have received. I know how the hon. Gentleman approaches these matters, and we have had numerous debates on numerous issues over the years. We have sought assurance. In preparing the Bill and the change to current practice, the Government have proceeded by seeking to assure ourselves that appropriate measures are in place to mitigate the risk posed by those who are suspected of being involved in terrorism but cannot be deported or prosecuted. As I have said consistently in relation to TPIMs, the legislation and the enhanced capabilities that the police and the Security Service will have ensure that there is a balanced package of measures that will operate as we intend. We are satisfied that the preparations in hand will lead to the changes envisaged by the Bill following Royal Assent.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I commend the Minister for the visit that he made to the Metropolitan police, but his assurances this afternoon go nowhere near far enough. Since his visit to the Metropolitan police, has he had a chance or has his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had a chance to talk to the Prime Minister about the matter? On 11 August, when Parliament was recalled, I asked the Prime Minister to consider delaying or preferably cancelling the new provisions, particularly in relation to relocation. The Prime Minister said:

“I will certainly look very carefully and closely at what he says.”—[Official Report, 11 August 2011; Vol. 531, c. 1074.]

I have not had a chance to speak to the Prime Minister about that, but I am sure the Minister has. Will he update us?

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We should be mindful of the fact that whatever resources we put into counter-terrorism, there are those outside who have the time, the space and, in some cases, the fanaticism to be able to challenge what we do, and we should always be extremely cautious in dealing with issues of this kind.

[Paul Goggins]

it is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who always speaks with great wisdom and judgment on these issues, and who chairs the Home Affairs Committee.

I do not intend to detain the House long. We have already had a good debate on the amendments. The Minister quoted remarks that I made on Second Reading; he quoted them accurately, and I stand by them. I believe that the terrorist threat that we face is one that we are likely to face for a considerable time, that the emphasis should be on trying to reach a consensus on what we should do about it, and that, if we can reach such a consensus, we should make provisions and make them permanent.

I do not think for a minute that making provisions permanent means that everyone will forget about them; far from it. There would still be an opportunity for Government reviews if Ministers felt that that was appropriate. My right hon. Friend would still have his Select Committee inquiries, and he might well pick counter-terrorism as one of the issues to be discussed. I venture to suggest that no one would silence my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) if there were not an annual debate on the renewal of counter-terrorism provisions. All those things would still happen—and, as the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) pointed out, legislation could be repealed at any time. That option is always open to the Government. Therefore, in saying that I believe that such provisions should be made permanent, I do not believe that we should take our eye off the ball or stop considering and scrutinising those things, although I tend to agree with Lord Carlile that the sense that annual renewal is part of the scrutiny process is a “bit of a fiction”.

It is evident, however, that we do not have consensus on the Bill. In fact, I venture to suggest that the gap between us is larger now than when we started to consider the Bill. We have seen the issues that are at stake, so the differences between us are quite substantial.

I welcome the steps that the Minister has taken to bring forward the opportunity for review and renewal by each Parliament. I also welcome the amendment proposed my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) that calls for annual renewal. Even more important, I support her amendment 20, which would not allow any of the provisions to come into operation before the resources were clearly in place and the police and Security Service were signed up to that.

My amendment 8 is intended to be a practical amendment to give absolute clarity in relation to the implementation and commencement of the Bill. My concern throughout the passage of the Bill—on Second Reading, during the Committee stage, during the summer and still now—is that the Bill weakens protection. It is not as robust as what went before it. When we add that to the likely threat and risks that we will face next year, the year of the Olympics, which we celebrate and want to be a great success, we have a toxic mix that could put lives at risk.

Let us look at the facts. We know that 12 individuals are subject to control orders. We know from the Minister’s latest report to the House that three of those individuals already reside in the Metropolitan police area. We do not know where the other nine would call their home, but we suspect that a large number of them are from the London area, so that would be a huge move back to London by people who are very high risk individuals indeed, when terrorists who have been convicted of serious crimes are coming out of prison. I have had answers from Ministry of Justice Ministers showing that 45 convicted terrorists will have a release date in 2010-12, or at least that is the earliest release date. Add those potential 45 to the potential 12 and all their associates, and we have a substantial risk. To take that risk when we could delay the implementation of this Bill is a risk too far.

[Bob Stewart]

Surely anyone under a control order or under TPIMs is under surveillance. It would be very silly for someone under surveillance to do something related to terrorism because it might be found out. I would have thought that, once someone was under TPIMs or under control orders, their chances of being an active terrorist were hugely reduced. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree?

[Paul Goggins]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his earlier comments on surveillance, the need to ensure that people are properly trained and the need not to pretend that we could introduce the level of skill that is required in a very short time. It takes time to train an individual. There is no perfect solution, because someone who is under surveillance can, if they are very skilled, slip that surveillance until such time as the people carrying out the surveillance catch up with them.

[Bob Stewart]

Some people have got away from control orders, and that is likely to happen again under TPIMs.

[Paul Goggins]

If the hon. Gentleman is referring to people who have absconded from their control order, I think he will remember from our discussions in Committee that that relates principally to the very early days of control orders. From recollection, there has not been an abscondence for four years, and that related largely to foreign nationals who were the subject of control orders. However, he made a powerful point earlier on the need to ensure that people are properly trained to carry out surveillance.

Given the toxic mix that I described, on 11 August I raised with the Prime Minister the possibility of delaying this Bill—certainly some elements of it in relation to relocation. He said that he would look “carefully and closely” at what I said. I have written to him since. I have not yet had a reply but I hope that I will soon. I will look carefully at his argument if he, as the Minister earlier suggested he would, sticks to the Government’s current position, because I think that that is a risk too far.

I am happy to pay tribute to the principled position that the hon. Member for Cambridge holds and sticks to doggedly. It is different from the principled position that I hold but, because he is consistent it allows us to have a good debate. He accused me of using amendment 8 as a last-ditch attempt to keep control orders going. I humbly put it to him that that is not the case. I believe that the risks associated with the early introduction of this weakened legislation, in a year of great risk, are too great. I join hon. Members on both sides of the House when I put public safety above all else.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Listening to the debate and arguments about the comparative merits and demerits of TPIMs compared with control orders, and listening to the exchanges on whether a sunset clause for five years is better than annual review and renewal, I am reminded of what Talleyrand is meant to have said about Voltaire and Robespierre: when I think of either, I prefer the other. We are all caught in a situation where there are clearly problems with control orders, but we should be under no illusions: there will be serious problems with TPIMs too—problems of principle and of practice.

May I deal first with the sunset clause and the question of renewal? I have a lot of sympathy with the argument of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and others that the practice of Parliament in annual renewal and the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 has not exactly inspired huge confidence in the robustness of that challenge or the thoroughness of that review. But just because Parliament has perhaps had a habit of being derelict in its duty in relation to annual reviews, we do not have the right to dismiss the case for subjecting measures as exceptional as these are to annual review.

We are always told that one Parliament should not bind another. When it comes to exceptional measures, one Parliament simply should not discharge itself from due consideration. It is not enough for us to say, “If we go for the five-year sunset clause in the absence of annual reviews, Members such as the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and other concerned Members will be diligent enough to create opportunities for themselves by way of Adjournment debates or use of the Backbench Business Committee to subject these things to review.” There are things that we as a Parliament should hold in common responsibility. The due protection of civil liberty, alongside the due protection of public safety, are among them.

I accept that these measures—whether control orders or TPIMs—will be put through, but for exceptional measures that depart from the normal criminal law and give Executive power to use secret intelligence and to deploy strict controls on an individual’s freedom, this Parliament should not just say, “We are content to let that run for five years and see where we stand thereafter.” If Parliament is going to approve these measures, it should at least give itself the duty to look again in a year to see whether they are still needed in this form or whether there should be improvements.

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[James Brokenshire]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s case, and care will be required, but the House often considers topics in relation to which matters are before the courts. The emergency legislation deals with the principles, not with individuals. The House has demonstrated clearly that it is able to do that and to consider and debate matters where care is required.

Amendments 1 to 4 address situations where more stringent measures are needed to protect the public than those available under the Bill. Amendment 1 would in effect place a version of the enhanced TPIM proposals formally on the statute book through the Bill. We debated an almost identical amendment in Committee. It would add a new paragraph to schedule 1, allowing the Secretary of State to impose any measure, in addition to those otherwise specified in schedule 1, on an individual where

“there is a serious terrorist threat”

and where such measures are

“necessary for the protection of the public.”

It reflects the position in the enhanced TPIM Bill that the test for imposing such additional measures would be raised from “reasonable belief” of involvement in terrorism-related activity to being satisfied on the “balance of probabilities” that this is the case.

Amendments 2 and 3 offer an alternative approach to providing for the use of additional measures to that set out in amendment 1. Instead of provision being made on the face of the Bill, the Government would be able to add further measures to schedule 1 by order. Amendment 2 envisages that Parliament would approve those measures in advance; amendment 3 provides for retrospective parliamentary approval and so seeks to address other concerns. Amendments 1, 2 and 3 highlight a difference in approach between those on the Opposition Benches and my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Government Benches.

The Government’s position is that the Bill provides a robust and effective set of measures to manage the risk posed by suspected terrorists whom we cannot prosecute or deport, and it will be complemented by additional funding for the police and Security Service for covert investigation. The Government consider that more stringent powers will be required only in exceptional circumstances. So although the Government agree with the Opposition that there may be a need for additional measures to those contained in schedule 1, we believe, as we flagged up in our counter-terrorism review, it is right that those more stringent powers are not on the statute book or available at all times through an order-making power, as amendments 1, 2 and 3 would provide, but are contained in draft emergency legislation that is introduced only if required. This is also reflected in the Government’s approach to extended pre-charge detention.

Furthermore, the Government consider that it is appropriate for the measures available to the Secretary of State to be set out on the face of primary legislation, and to have been agreed in advance by Parliament. That is the clear approach adopted in the Bill before us, and it is also the approach that we have taken in the enhanced Bill. Indeed, I would argue that the more stringent nature of measures available under the enhanced Bill is an even greater reason for them to be clearly defined and agreed by Parliament, rather than decided on an ad hoc basis by the Secretary of State. The Government are therefore not in favour of amendments 1, 2 and 3. For the reasons that I have set out, I ask hon. Members not to press them.

Amendment 4 is specifically concerned with what would happen if the additional measures are required during a period when Parliament is dissolved. The same issue was raised during pre-legislative scrutiny of the emergency Bills for extended pre-charge detention. The Government have listened to the concerns expressed and new clauses 5 and 6, which I have already outlined, directly address the point. I trust that this means that Opposition Members will be content to withdraw their amendment.

[Paul Goggins]

I shall speak to amendments 1 to 4 and voice my support for Government new clauses 5 and 6. Throughout Second Reading and consideration in Committee, I have supported the principle of placing in schedule 1 a list of conditions that would be available to the Secretary of State under the TPIMs regime. Under control orders there is no such list. The Home Secretary can impose any condition, subject to accountability to the court. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) has continued to remind the House throughout the debate, there is that continued oversight over the existing regime.

The problem with schedule 1 is that the list of conditions that it provides is inadequate. For example, it requires that the Home Secretary must—not may, as I hope we will discuss later—allow someone subject to a TPIM to have access to the internet and to have a mobile phone and a land line. There is no option; the Home Secretary must do that. Equally, the Home Secretary has no power to relocate an individual away from an area if she judges that to be necessary. I hope that we will soon debate that aspect as well.

The nagging concern that hon. Members—on both sides of the House, I hope—have is what happens when the Home Secretary has intelligence about an individual that requires a certain measure to be put in place, and she cannot do so because it is not in schedule 1. The good news since we considered the issue in Committee is that the Home Secretary has clearly recognised that there may be circumstances where the list of measures in schedule 1 is not sufficient, and she has now published draft legislation, the enhanced TPIMs Bill, that will allow relocation and curfew and will prevent access to mobile phones and the internet where that is necessary. I support the fact that in that Bill she is giving herself the powers to introduce an enhanced TPIM if Parliament is dissolved and she judges it necessary at the time.

The bad news is that the only way that the Home Secretary could exercise these enhanced powers when Parliament is sitting is via fresh primary legislation. I assume that the Home Secretary intends that there should be a rigorous process of pre-legislative scrutiny in relation to the enhanced TPIMs Bill that has been published. Presumably it will be scrutinised by a cross-party Committee and presumably the Committee will be made up of Members from both Houses. Perhaps the House will consider making the Committee Chair a well-respected Cross Bencher, such as a former Cabinet Secretary with huge experience of Government business. The Committee would be expected to take evidence from all the experts and, on the basis of that evidence, it would then be asked to come to a unanimous view on the matters before it.

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[Dr Huppert]

I am following the right hon. Gentleman very carefully. Is he arguing that the Secretary of State should be able to do anything that he or she wants, but that, if Parliament later gets around to saying that it disagrees, because of course there is no time limit on when it has to agree, the condition has to end? Until that point, any measure whatever could be imposed on somebody who had not been convicted of any crime. Is that what he is arguing for?

[Paul Goggins]

I want the Home Secretary, having the insight, information and intelligence that she has and knowing the risks involved, to have the power to do something about the situation—and to do so immediately. It is important that there is some accountability to Parliament at a later date, and under amendment 3, when Parliament considered the matter at a later stage, it would be possible for either the House of the Lords or this House to decline to give an affirmation, at which point the power would lapse. It is important also, however, that the Home Secretary has the power to act.

This is a very interesting situation. Here am I, an Opposition Member, trusting the Home Secretary to exercise her judgment as the Home Secretary in relation to individual cases, and, by the way, her record on relocation in particular is first-class, and I applaud the way in which she has pursued the two cases that we know about. So I trust her judgment. Interestingly, however, her right hon. and hon. Friends do not seem to share my confidence in her. I trust her to exercise her judgment. She has access to intelligence and information, and she has a huge responsibility. I do not want to tie her hands so that she has a limited range of powers and is unable to exercise her responsibilities properly; I want to give her the powers that she needs.

[Hazel Blears]

Government Members seem to forget that because we live in a country that has a proper judicial system, should the Home Secretary exceed the reasonable use of her powers and impose a condition on somebody who is subject to a TPIM that is not justified by the evidence, it would be a matter for the judges. An application could be made to say that the specific measure was outwith the terms of the legislation. In every order, the Home Secretary has to show that the particular measures that she is imposing are necessary for the protection of the public. The idea that the Home Secretary could act in an arbitrary manner, without reference to the information and intelligence that she has, is absolutely ludicrous. The process will be subject to proper judicial oversight in our democratic country.

[Paul Goggins]

I am pleased that my right hon. Friend has once again had the opportunity to remind us all of that oversight, which is not flimsy, but stringent.

[Dr Huppert]

First, I was going to comment that I have perhaps had experience of more Home Secretaries whom I did not trust on these issues than those I did. Perhaps that will change over the years and there will be more Home Secretaries who are more trustworthy on civil liberties. I hope that that is the case.

There is a point about judicial oversight, but there is also a point about Parliament having the chance to comment on what powers it thinks are acceptable. There is a range of things that the Home Secretary could argue are necessary but that Parliament would find simply unacceptable. Will the right hon. Gentleman also confirm that under—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. The interventions in this debate are rather long. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be generous enough to let the hon. Gentleman in for a second bite.

[Paul Goggins]

I am bringing my remarks to a conclusion now, Mr Deputy Speaker. In response to the hon. Gentleman, I have worked with a number of Home Secretaries and I have seen this Home Secretary in operation. They—even those colleagues in my party—have represented a range of different political views, but I have trusted every single one of them with the difficult decisions that they have had to make about terrorist suspects and others. That is bar none, including the current holder of the post. I ask the hon. Gentleman to reflect on that. We have to trust our senior politicians sometimes. That has to be within limits, of course, such as the judicial scrutiny and the powers in the Bill.

Frankly, I think that this Government are in the worst of all places. They have acknowledged that the measures in schedule 1 may not be sufficient in certain circumstances, yet they are tying the Secretary of State’s hands behind her back and will not give her the powers that she needs against the risk posed by a small number of individuals. The Government are in a terrible place and they need to think intelligently to get themselves out of it.

[Dr Huppert]

Thank you very much for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker, particularly given that I went on slightly too long. I apologise for that.

I agree to some extent with the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) in that I am uncomfortable with new clause 5, but it is for completely different reasons, as he might imagine. On the issue of trusting the Home Secretary, it is not a question of trusting an individual; I would not trust anybody with that kind of power unchecked by this Parliament. For me, that is a matter of principle, and it is not a reflection on any individual. I am quite sure, despite what was said earlier in the debate, that I will never have that responsibility—I am sure that he is very glad about that—but I would not trust myself to have those powers either.

I would like the Minister to clarify some issues, because we have not had the chance to go through this in detail in Committee. I am uncomfortable with the idea of having emergency legislation to step up the powers, because I simply cannot envisage any circumstance in which I would want to see it used. However, in the review the Government have taken the line that there are some hard to foresee possibilities where it might be needed. If that is the case, I think it is right to proceed in this way. I do not necessarily agree with the Government and would have liked the review to have gone even further, but I can understand where they are coming from.

If that is where we are coming from, there is clearly a need to have some way of installing the measure when Parliament is not sitting. Some have misunderstood this point as meaning that the power will be available to the Secretary of State when Parliament is in recess. It is clear that if the situation was so urgent that we needed to reduce the civil liberties that we give people during recess, we should be recalled. It would be important that we were recalled. However, there is a difference when there is no Parliament that can be recalled. If there is to be such a system, although I am not happy about it, I am pleased with this system and understand it. I am also pleased that the Government have accepted the need for parliamentary scrutiny. That is a move forward from their previous position, as I mentioned earlier.

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[James Brokenshire]

I know that the hon. Member has made that point before. I responded to him then as well. I think that the House is able to debate the principle of the underlying issues, although in relation to detailed, confidential briefings and so on, we would seek to provide more detailed information to Opposition spokespeople on privy counsellor terms, as appropriate, in order to assist debate. However, we believe that Parliament is able to consider emergency legislation in that way. In many ways, it is important to put out the draft legislation now to ensure that there is a mechanism—a tool—that has been considered coolly and calmly outside some of the febrile situations that understandably arise in the sorts of horrendous situations that, sadly, we have seen in the past. That is why it is important that we have the scrutiny that would be applied by a Joint Committee—and obviously it is for the House to resolve the matters around that. That is an important way of ensuring that legislation is considered in a more rational way.

[Paul Goggins]

The Minister has been very generous in giving way this evening. He has refused to be drawn on “second-guessing”, as he put it, the level of threat that would lead him or the Home Secretary to believe that these enhanced TPIM powers were necessary. However, he said that part of his consideration would be whether the threat was “imminent”—that was the word he used. An “imminent threat” could mean the next 12 hours, the next 24 hours, the next 48 hours or the next week. How does he square that level of risk with the fact that he is prepared to put measures in the Bill that would require separate primary legislation that might take at least a week to procure—perhaps even longer during recess? How can he square those two things? In my view, they simply cannot be squared.

[James Brokenshire]

It was precisely to ensure that legislation could be secured quickly that we have published the draft Bill now—to aid in that consideration and to ensure that matters could be dealt with swiftly. I recognise that the right hon. Gentleman does not accept the principle of emergency legislation, and I know that he has taken that approach consistently. There is a difference of view about the enhanced powers and the basis on which they are set, and I do not think that we are likely to resolve that difference between us.

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[Hazel Blears]

I have not used any other country as my inspiration. What I have used, as my commitment in new clause 1, is a genuine analysis of the evidence provided by the police and other experienced people in the field in asking what measures we can take to ensure that the public are properly protected from the serious harm intended them by some of the most dangerous people in this country. It is right and proper that our Parliament should decide of its own volition what the appropriate measures are. We do not always look to other countries, which have very different legal systems to ours. I am absolutely convinced that the power of relocation can add to the security of this nation, which is my prime and most important concern when looking at this legislation.

I want to emphasise the point that the kind of people subject to either control orders or, in future, TPIMs are unfortunately some of the most dangerous people we could ever have to deal with in this country. There has been some suggestion that people who have been prosecuted through the criminal justice system are somehow more dangerous than those who are subject to administrative orders. If hon. Members looked at the judgments of High Court or Court of Appeal judges who have seen the intelligence and the information about the people upon whom we seek to impose such orders, they would perhaps revise their position. There are currently only 12 such individuals subject to control orders, and the expressions used by judges in relation to them include “trained soldiers” and “committed terrorists”, determined to be martyrs to their cause and determined, whatever steps we take, to cause the maximum harm to innocent people in this country. Those are statements by judges, not given to florid language, having seen the intelligence that the services hold in relation to some of those people. We are talking about a maximum of a dozen people who are very dangerous indeed. That is the measure that we must use in asking what powers we seek to use, whether they are proportionate and whether they are the right powers. It is my submission that the power of relocation of some of the most dangerous people in our country—committed terrorists—is a proportionate.

[Paul Goggins]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend will give more details later about the case of BM, which involved one of the two relocation appeals challenged by the Home Secretary, successfully on both occasions. To underline what my right hon. Friend has just said, BM conceded in the hearing that took place—this was not a point made by the security services; he conceded it—that he is indeed

“committed to terrorism, in particular to terrorism in Pakistan”,

and that he

“wishes to carry out that commitment by travelling to that region”

to take part in terrorist acts himself. It is by his own admission that that is the level of threat that he poses.

[Hazel Blears]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: in that case BM did concede that he was determined to carry out terrorist activity, and it was right that the power of relocation, which the Home Secretary had imposed relatively recently, was upheld as a necessary power to protect the public. This is not a case of draconian Governments, or authoritarian or totalitarian regimes wanting to impose controls for their own sake; it is always a matter of balance, and trying to mitigate the risk and draw the line in the correct place, so that we can maintain essential freedoms in this country, which include the freedom of the public to go about their law-abiding business without being threatened with death and destruction by some of the most committed terrorists in this country.

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[Paul Goggins]

I thank the Minister for his generous remarks about right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches. In return, let me say that whatever differences we have had—and we have had a few, in Committee and again today—he has been courteous, generous, thoughtful and constructive throughout. I thank him for that. Indeed, it is quite ironic that Opposition Members keep arguing that he and the Home Secretary should be trusted more. It is Members on the Government Benches who do not seem to want to do that.

When the Bill was first published and when we debated it on Second Reading, some commentators described it as “control orders lite”. Many comments were made to that effect and, indeed, on close examination much of the wording in the Bill appears—shall we say?—to be very similar to the wording of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. However, it has become absolutely clear in our debates that there are substantial differences between us in relation to the two-year limit, relocation, which has been debated again today, access to telephones and crucially—this is increasingly important—the timing of the commencement of the Bill’s provisions. We in the Opposition have tried through amendments to make constructive suggestions.

Let me say that party advantage in this case is cast aside, and I know that the Minister understands and believes that. This is about protecting the public: that is the only thing that motivates me and my right hon. and hon. Friends to get the legislation right. However, I now fear that the Government are in the worst of all places, because in publishing the detailed draft legislation last week they conceded that the provisions in the Bill that we are now debating are not sufficient in certain circumstances. There may be circumstances where the enhanced powers would be required, yet because primary legislation would be required to bring them into force, the hands of the Home Secretary are tied. Time is crucial, and my right hon. and hon. Friends and I would certainly want to give the Home Secretary those powers, so that she can use them when she judges that to be appropriate. I hope that further consideration in the other place will lead to at least some changes, so that the Home Secretary is empowered to protect the nation rather than having her hands tied behind her back.

I would caution hon. Members on pre-legislative scrutiny, because, as I told the Minister earlier, I was on the Committee that considered the draft legislation for pre-charge detention. That Committee came to a unanimous view—that such legislation is unsatisfactory and unreliable —but apart from one concession, I do not think that it found a listening ear among Ministers.

Let me finish. I have paid tribute to the way in which the Minister has conducted these debates, but surely he must find it at least ironic, if nothing else, that two days after we completed consideration of the detail of the Bill in Committee the Home Secretary wrote to the court in the case of BM to say that a relocation condition was essential. Thank goodness she was successful and the judge found in her favour. Relocation may be necessary on occasions; it should be in the Bill, as should the other measures I have mentioned.