Terrorism Bill

I rise to defend and support the 90-day proposals outlined in clause 23. I have probably put more written questions to the Home Office in the past four years than most of my colleagues in the House put together. I am passionately interested in the activities of the Home Office, especially the processes and procedures that the police and other criminal justice institutions employ in the execution of their duty. I have frequently and regularly met operational officers, officers who write operational guidelines and the officers and agencies who review them. My interest, for constituency reasons, has centred on the investigation of serious sex offences, and I have spent years trying to ensure that the practices and procedures employed in the investigation of those serious crimes are robust. But they are not: procedures are constantly revised in the light of operational experience. The procedures and guidelines governing the investigation of such crimes were laid down years ago. With hindsight, they proved open to abuse by many different parties, but I know absolutely that when the police first got to grips with the reality of the undisclosed sexual abuse in the UK, they pulled together existing informed knowledge—as they will in relation to terrorism offences. They did so because that is their professional duty, and that is what the authorities have also done in the face of the growing spectre of terrorism. It is a source of regret to me that with few exceptions, few of my colleagues in the House have ever troubled themselves to object to, or scrutinise, the practices and procedures employed by the police in the interrogation of sex offenders. I understand that, but colleagues are far quicker to leap to the defence of terrorist subjects, and their rights, than to those of a serial sex abuser. Why? Terrorists and sex abusers violate everything that we hold dear. Why do we operate double standards for scrutiny of the legal procedures governing sex abuse and terrorism investigations?