Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

I accept that there will always be an element of speed required on occasion to examine issues such as the temporary exclusion of an individual, but this will not always be an urgent matter. The Government will know of and will be tracking individuals seeking to return; they will have intelligence on that and will be able to prepare and take action on individuals. I know from my experience of being a Minister in a range of Departments that if speed on legal requirements is needed, it can be done. I have often as a Minister authorised legal action to be taken in the morning that is taken through the courts on the very same day. I have done that in the Ministry of Justice in regard to prison strikes and in the Home Office in relation to a range of other measures—it can be done. The question is: is the Home Secretary’s decision on these matters the fount of all wisdom? It may well be—let us not put too fine a point on it. There will be occasions when the Home Secretary is making a perfectly rational and valid decision based on evidence that someone is a potential threat to the UK and therefore needs to be excluded. The question for the House is simply this: should there be an opportunity for someone other than the Home Secretary—the courts—to make a judgment as to whether the Home Secretary has acted proportionately and within the law, and has justifiable reasons for so acting? That could be done in camera or in public—that is for us to consider—but we are making our proposal because the same provision is in place for TPIM legislation. If TPIM legislation is dealing—and I know from personal experience that it is—with those at the very sharp end of the potential terrorist threat, where evidence is around but necessarily cannot always be shared in public, then that can also be done in the case of temporary exclusion.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I welcome Labour’s conversion to judicial oversight in the matter of temporary exclusion orders. Given that the right hon. Gentleman has moved so far to reach this place, will he and the Labour party now support such oversight for other counter-terrorism measures?

[Mr Hanson]

As someone who had the privilege of holding ministerial position in the previous Government, I can say that we often had judicial oversight of a number of measures or sunset clauses. We are not late coming to this matter. This is a rerun of a debate that we had in Committee in December. I am grateful that the Minister has had Christmas and new year to reflect on these issues and to hear some wider argument from his own Members.

It is clear that the Government face difficult challenges not just from the Opposition but from Members on their own Benches. In Committee on 15 December, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said that he had some concerns about this provision not having judicial oversight. In a long intervention, he said:

“I had not intended to speak today…What concerns me today is the issue of the Home Secretary herself exercising the power. I am concerned that it comes about without prior judicial approval or, indeed, without being a power of the court, which would be my preference.”––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Security Public Bill Committee, 15 December 2014; c. 1219.]

Those are the words not of the Opposition but of Government Back Benchers. I notice that the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) is in his place. [Interruption.] I hope to be able to attract his attention. I am not sure which source he spoke to, but his words are quoted in the Independent on Sunday so they must be true. He said that he was “sympathetic” to the amendments and “would find it hard” to vote against them. I hope that he reflects on those points today. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), who until very recently was Solicitor-General, said:

“There is disquiet about a few aspects of this Bill in its detail.”

Our new clauses back up the concerns of the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), which he expressed before the Bill went into Committee. There is real disquiet from a number of Members. Indeed, I am pleased to see the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) in his place. According to the Independent on Sunday, he said that he would

“listen to all the arguments with some care”

before deciding which way to vote. Undoubtedly, he is listening to the arguments with some care before deciding how to vote. I know that he is a good colleague of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden. I wish to place it on the record that concern over these matters is growing. In fact, a late entrant to this festive party appears to be the Liberal Democrats.

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[Sir Menzies Campbell]

The question is one of the Home Secretary having to persuade the court that he or she was entitled to make the order that was sought. In doing so, consideration would have to be given to all the individual circumstances that lay around that application. When one has gone a step further to judicial review, the question is not whether the decision was right or wrong but whether it was reasonable. That is a wholly different element of judicial oversight from the one that the amendments seek to achieve.

The Minister is a sensible individual, and he will, I am sure, understand the extent of the unease—that is perhaps the best way to put it—about this matter across the Floor of the House. He has within his power the opportunity to remove that unease by being sympathetic towards the points that have been made in the speeches we have heard so far.

[Pete Wishart]

After almost four days of debate, this Bill has almost burst into life after I do not know how many hours. Today there have been all sorts of threats of Back-Bench rebellions. The Liberals were going to get up to something; there was going to be a vote against the Government; and there are newspaper articles suggesting all sorts of things. I thought we were going to have a really exciting debate.

Who could believe that something as important as counter-terrorism and security could attract so little attention from Members of this House? [Interruption.] I would say to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) that I have spoken at every stage of these debates. I have turned up and played my part, and I feel that I have contributed to the debate, but where are our Labour friends and colleagues? They have made two contributions during these remaining stages; I do not know how many they made in Committee of the whole House. We are hearing a bit more from our Conservative friends today. I very much enjoyed the speech by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve); it was a worthy contribution and something we should be hearing more of.

Why so quiet? What is going on? Is it because this is rushed legislation that has gone through so quickly that people have not been able to keep up with what the Government intend to do? Our constituents will find it very peculiar that this debate has secured so little attention and so few contributions.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Perhaps the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is that most Members of Parliament support the Government line.

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[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Perhaps I could help a little. Obviously we want to get to the new clauses and amendments rather than discussing who has turned up and who has not.

[Pete Wishart]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Unfortunately I missed the beginning of this debate on temporary exclusion orders. I apologise to the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), because I wanted to welcome the Labour party out of the anti-civil liberties wilderness. These are actually worthy amendments. I do not think I have congratulated the Labour party on any measure it has taken on civil liberties and security in the course of the past 15 years. This is the Labour party of 90 days’ detention, of ID cards, of control orders, of national databases—

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I have listened with great interest to the hon. Gentleman’s contributions throughout the passage of this Bill. While he is on the subject of the Labour party, will he tell us whether he is likely to support the amendments tabled in the names of my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) and others?

[Pete Wishart]

That is what I am doing. I am congratulating the Labour party. This evening, for probably the first time in 15 years, I will be rushing through the Lobby to support the Labour party. Come on board! Re-establish the Labour party with its civil liberties—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. We need to get to the new clauses and amendments. I understand that you want to try to make this into a political broadcast, but I am not into that at the moment. I am into hearing your views on the new clauses and amendments, not on the history of the Labour party for the past 15 years.

[Pete Wishart]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

We have these amendments today because there has been an intervention from David Anderson, the anti-terrorism supremo. We all have to listen very carefully to what David Anderson says about this. He is absolutely spot on, of course. With measures such as this, we need judicial oversight. A number of us could possibly trust the Home Secretary to carry out her function in approaching this with a reasonable degree of professionalism, as one would expect from a Home Secretary as upstanding as the current one. David Anderson gets to the heart of all this: the burden of proof, being able to test matters in court, and the rights of the individual who has been subject to these charges and has no recourse to justice to be able to test them in court and try to determine their innocence. That is not possible as things currently stand, and that is why I very much support what is on offer today.

We have to give people the opportunity to respond to particular charges laid against them. The idea that suspicion that they are involved in a certain activity is enough to stain their reputation and means that they have no opportunity of recourse to justice or to put their case is not good enough. These perfectly good amendments would be a very useful intervention. The Labour party has given us an opportunity to re-examine the issue.

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[James Brokenshire]

There are a number of issues that require further consideration. It is better to get this right and to consider things carefully, and the debates we have had in this House have enabled us to advance in that regard. Rather than, as has happened in other cases, having legislation rushed through both Houses of Parliament, we have enabled good and proper scrutiny of this legislation, to ensure that it is appropriate and we get it right.

[Pete Wishart]

Obviously, I cannot speak on behalf of Labour Front Benchers, but I hope they are not prepared to accept the Minister’s dissatisfactory response. Not only did the Opposition table these amendments last year but David Anderson said these things in November 2014, and the Government have failed to act. Why should we believe that they will do something now?