Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, I should point out to the House that on page 7 of today’s Order Paper the note to the item on the prevention and suppression of terrorism—a note with which I am sure all hon. Members are entirely familiar—correctly stated at the time of publication:

“The instrument has not yet been considered by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.”

I thought it proper further to advise the House that although that was true at the time of the publication of the Order Paper the instrument has since been considered today by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments under the august chairmanship of the hon. Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie). No technical observations on the instrument have been made. I think that the House will feel that it is greatly to the credit of the Joint Committee that it has worked so expeditiously. We shall now proceed and I call Mr Patrick Mercer.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.