Debate on the Address

I join others in paying tribute to the former Members of the House who are no longer with us. I join, too, in the compliments made to the proposer and seconder of the Queen’s Speech, but I shall not try to join in the debate on the conception and gestation of the Cardiff bay development project. I welcome the Queen’s Speech and the Bills outlined in it, which address the big issues that confront us: security, climate change and pensions. It is a Queen’s Speech for a Government who are looking to the future, prepared to spell out hard facts, face up to difficulties and introduce legislation to address them. I shall concentrate my remarks on the proposed climate change Bill, but first I want to say one or two things about security and the war on terror as it has exercised a number of Members. Any country at war has a dilemma in striking the appropriate balance between security at home and the civil liberties that it is fighting to protect. That dilemma is far more difficult now than in any previous wartime situation. Most previous wars have been against a defined enemy operating from a defined geographical base, but now we are fighting a completely different war, against opponents who may, in day-to-day activity, be indistinguishable from friends and working colleagues. None the less, the vision of the society that they are trying to bring about is medieval and theocratic and denies people basic human rights and equality of opportunity. Striking a legislative balance that enables us to identify and put away such people while protecting the civil liberties that enable them to thrive is extremely difficult. At present, the judicial system and, possibly, a media lobby seem to concentrate on protecting the civil liberties of a group of people who are hellbent on destroying ours. They do not have the balance right, but the Government’s proposals on identity cards and, perhaps, on the extension of the 28-day detention period are appropriate as part of the balance of provisions that are necessary in our judicial system to address the scale of the security problem that we face. In common with many other MPs, I spent 20 days with the West Midlands police during the summer as part of the police and parliamentary scheme. I regularly asked whether identity cards would help the police in their everyday professional duties. Across the board, in all departments, the answer was yes. Opposition Members cannot disregard and reject such consistent advice from a body of people who are engaged day to day in dealing with the problems. I also spent some time with the high-tech group, looking at internet security issues and at how the police trace internet and paedophile crime. We have a real problem in respect of security, because although the people we are trying to counter have the most simplistic vision of society, they use the most high-tech, skilled methods to perpetrate their message and to operate within the community. From my conversations with the police and civilian staff who daily try to decipher internet codes and encryptions to locate the criminals who use the internet and mobile phone technology to promote their activities, it became obvious that 28 days is insufficient for the police to carry out inquiries on the scale necessary to deal with such criminal activity, whether terrorist or not. We can argue about other crimes, but nobody would deny that the modern terrorist operating with highly sophisticated means has a potential for destruction that we have never faced in the past from more conventional enemies. We need to look at a different legislative framework, in particular the extension of the 28-day period, so that our police have the tools available to undertake the highly complex investigations necessary to identify those people and bring them to judgment. That is part and parcel of an appropriate and correct balance in our judicial system between freedom and security.