Terrorism Bill

Since I have been Home Secretary, there have been no suggestions from any source, the police or the security services, that internment be adopted as a measure to deal with any of these questions. Were that suggestion to be made, I would consider it, but I am sure that the House will agree that the assessment of the operation of internment in the period in which it operated was that it was a counter-productive approach to terrorism in the circumstances. By the way, I reject the rhetorical comment—made not by my right hon. Friend, but by others—that the measures we are discussing today can in any sense be equated with internment. That is simply not the case.