Terrorism Bill

I thank the Home Secretary for the statement that he made in his contribution, although I regret that the moves, particularly on procedure, could not have come earlier, especially as the criticisms were well known to the Home Office. Nevertheless, I welcome the fact that, even at this late stage, those moves were made and there was an offer to review the safeguards for any continuing detention. Moreover, if we are moving in that direction, as I mentioned earlier, we should think of extending that to the period beyond seven days, let alone 14 days. The Home Secretary may wish to consider that, as it relates specifically to terrorist offences. I am mindful that, in the concessions that he made, the right hon. Gentleman covered most, if not all, the amendments that we had tabled both as probing amendments and to improve the safeguards in the Bill. For those reasons, I seek to press only amendment No. 9, which I understand is accepted. I am pleased that, in a small way, I may have contributed to achieving greater consensus throughout the House. I seek leave to withdraw amendment No. 8 which, as the Home Secretary rightly noted, was only a probing amendment. That leaves the issue of the duration of any extended period. Again, it is with some regret that I see that, despite criticism from an enormous number of people across the spectrum, the movement by the Government has come only when the Government appeared to be facing defeat if they did not do something about it. I regret that because I had hoped that, in building consensus, we could do better. If the Government are genuine in their desire to hold consultations with all parties in the House and will do so—the Home Secretary has given me an assurance privately behind the Speaker’s Chair that that will take place within the next few days, so that it is not a last-minute matter on Tuesday night, and that all the amendments that are tabled will be given to us with proper time to consider them—the proper way of proceeding at this stage is for those consultations and talks to take place.