Terrorism Bill

They do, and the hon. Gentleman is right that Lord Carlile’s report was produced before the Bill was published. Nevertheless, the core question remains: is there an ability to charge? Earlier, the hon. Gentleman cited the encryption cases and outlined his concerns about them. I can do no better than quote from the speech that the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson), who is in his place, made on Second Reading. On encryption, he said:"““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.””—[Official Report, 26 October 2005; Vol. 438, c. 388.]" The point that I am making in quoting the hon. Gentleman is that I agree that the number of times on which any pre-trial detention would be needed would be narrowed, but the circumstances might still exist in which we were unable to bring charges, even in relation to lower-level terrorist charges.