Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

I apologise for interrupting the Minister so soon. Does she agree, given the debates on control orders last year, that the Government would not have got the 2005 Act on the statute book, were in danger of losing a Bill and saved it only by promising fresh legislation in spring 2006, when both Houses of Parliament could reconsider, from the base up, the principle of the Home Secretary having powers to deprive someone of or limit their liberty? Is not it a disgrace that that promise is reduced to one-and-a-half hours’ debate about an order on the eve of a recess, thus enabling the Government to retain powers that the vast majority of Members of Parliament in both Houses did not believe they should hold when they first sought them?