Terrorism Bill

The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) was a little unkind to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) when he damned him for the grave offence of offering some measure of support to the Government whom we assumed the hon. Member for Sunderland, South supported. The reality is that even the hon. Member for Stone had some misgivings about elements of the Bill. No one in the House today—not even the Home Secretary—wants to have to deal with this kind of legislation. However, we do not find ourselves in the circumstances that we would like to be in, and we have to deal with the circumstances as they are. The former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), rightly said that the Government had two competing duties. The first is their duty to protect the lives of the citizens of this kingdom; the second is their duty to protect those people’s liberties. Because that tension exists between the two duties, the Government have to strike a balance. Most of today’s debate has been about determining the point at which the balance should be struck. I said in an earlier intervention that I was struggling with one issue. In fact, there are two. First, the Home Secretary indicated that he was considering the issue of definitions, particularly in relation to the glorification of terrorism, and I hope that progress will be made on that in Committee—progress must be made, as the current position is unworkable. Secondly, in relation to the 90-day issue, I intervened on the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) in the hope of drawing out some answer to the problem that I faced. The Home Secretary has made a strong case as to why additional time in detention is necessary. We are dealing with a new world, with different technologies. The proliferation of CCTV across the United Kingdom is such that when an incident occurs, the investigating authorities can view it from various standpoints and gather information. The issue of computers was mentioned, and it was not adequately dealt with by the shadow Home Secretary’s answer that although it might take time to get around the problem of encryption, a suspect who withholds information should be charged and could be held on that charge. The reality might be different. Three people might be responsible for what was intended to be a series of suicide bombings, two of whom might have given up their lives in the process. Those two might be the ones responsible for the encryption, and no matter what legal redress one might have against the remaining person, he could not decode the files even if he wanted to. That is one of a series of different possibilities that would prevent such a solution.