Counter-terrorism

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

In the couple of interventions I made on the Minister and on the shadow Minister, I returned to a point I made in the lead letter in The Sunday Telegraph of 8 March. Following its lead of the previous week, I said that we were talking not about just an accident, but about a failure of legislation in dealing with the question of human rights and the charter of fundamental rights in relation to all the matters we are now discussing and to the whole problem of counter-terrorism. The Minister has had a pretty hard time from me over the past couple of years on this subject, but I wish to say to him that I acknowledge that difficult issues are clearly involved here. I am not denying that for a minute. But many of us were deeply disturbed when in a recent discussion—I cannot give the precise details but I am paraphrasing—the question arose as to whether taking action against terrorism would have human rights consequences. In that instance, the human rights lobby indicated that human rights should prevail.

I find that view completely impossible to understand, not least because the first human right is the right to be secure—the second, and equal, human right is the right to life. We have only to consider what happened in the case of Lee Rigby or in the case of the terrible murders that have been taking place in parts of the middle east to realise the difficulty that such a view represents. On the simple proposition that human rights does not trump terrorism, we have to be absolutely clear. I am very glad to see a slight nod from the shadow Minister, because she knows that this is true. But the trouble is that there is a tremendous amount in these documents—I will not make a long speech on this, but will simply get it on the record. We discussed judicial oversight in relation to an amendment when these matters were before the House of Commons. I cannot remember whether the amendment was defeated or withdrawn, but it then went into the House of Lords and it was that shambolic debate that we recall. Judicial oversight has now come in. My point is about the substance of the issue: if judicial oversight is part and parcel of these issues before us today, then on the basis that the judges have to obey the law and the law does invoke the question of human rights, be it under the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act, or the more difficult and invasive charter of fundamental rights, which is justiciable by the European Court of Justice, we have got a real problem on our hands in dealing with terrorism. The reason why many people whom we have tried to deport—in some cases for more than a decade—were not deported was to do with human rights. Everybody should be in favour of human rights, but there are questions over how they are applied and what the procedures and thresholds are.

I conclude with this thought: we have not got it right. As I said in that letter in The Sunday Telegraph, tinkering with control orders, TPIMs and the rest of it might go some way to dealing with the problem but it will not resolve the issue if people can launch a challenge in the courts based on human rights or the charter of fundamental rights. They will not be deported and they will not be dealt with.

In the Prevention of Terrorism (No. 2) Bill that I introduced in 2005, I proposed that we should override the human rights laws to ensure the security of the citizens of this country. I said that habeas corpus was absolutely fundamental. All people who are accused of a crime, whether of terrorism or anything else, are entitled to a fair trial and due process. If we have those two things, and we override the Human Rights Act and the charter, we are in a position to deal with the problems, to satisfy the requirements of fair and judicial process and to ensure that the people have a proper trial.

My final thought is on this question of whether terrorists can get away with what they do. We know that there are many sleeping terrorists, so we are talking about a question not of if there is some form of terrorism, but of when. We should remember that the charter of fundamental rights, which came in under the Lisbon treaty, is much more difficult to deal with than the Human Rights Act, because of sections 2 and 3 of the European Communities Act 1972. In the context of the judicial process as a whole, it is imperative to recall that those on both Front Benches during the Lisbon treaty debates wanted to exclude that charter.

In one of his last statements to the House, Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister, said that we had an opt-out from the charter. We in the European Scrutiny Committee took evidence on that matter. Lord Goldsmith, who analysed and negotiated the arrangements in the Lisbon treaty, gave evidence. Sadly, those arrangements did not work and we are now finding that the European Court of Justice is continuously getting involved in applying the charter on a case-by-case basis. My concerns about the charter remain in relation to terrorism. Unless we resolve that, we will not be able, either under these orders or other terrorism legislation in general, to provide the security and stability that the people of this country deserve.

[Mr Speaker]

I was pleased to hear the words counter-terrorism towards the end of the hon. Gentleman’s oration. We are all reassured.