Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Well, that is fine. The comments that Lord Carlile makes in his annual report are quite clear. There are still areas in relation to which people might be prosecuted. For instance, in section 58 of his report, he says:"““continuing investigation into the activities of some of the current controlees could provide evidence for criminal prosecution and conviction.””" The Minister will be aware of the court case in Manchester last week, in which Mr. Justice Beatson quashed the control order on suspect E, ruling that the Home Office had evidence that could have been used as a basis for prosecution. The Minister touched on the question of bringing the regime to an end in the fullness of time, but we had this argument last year. The inception of control orders was deeply contentious in the Commons. I worry very much that we will be rehearsing precisely the same argument this time next year and that nothing will have been resolved. Where are the provisions to end control orders? How do individuals ever get off a control order? Lord Carlile concludes that the"““orders cannot be continued indefinitely—that was never intended and would not be permitted by the courts. As a matter of urgency, a strategy is needed for the ending of the orders in relation to each controlee””." The noble Lord, whom the Government have charged with the oversight of the orders, is coming up with precisely the point that they must be urgently sorted out. A much more workable system must be put in place. The Minister referred to the control order review group. How many times has the group sat to date, and, in his view, how effective has it been? Surely the whole raison d’être for putting someone under surveillance is that he or she can eventually be charged, brought to court, tried and, if found guilty, sent down. We thus need to address yet again—exactly as we said this time last year—the whole argument about intercept evidence, its admissibility in court and the reason why we seem to continue stalling on this particularly important subject. We must also address the question of interviewing post-charge. There is legislation that allows that to happen, so I cannot understand why it is not applied and why we do not use the measure physically to bring people up in court and take them off control orders by either locking them up or setting them free. What are the Minister’s views on the efficacy of the control order regime? Only last week we heard that three individuals who had been intercepted on the Kenyan border were brought back to this country under grave suspicion of terrorism, yet released into the community without, as far as we know, any form of supervision—certainly any form of overt supervision. Might it not have been reasonable to use control orders to supervise those three individuals? Countries such as Singapore, Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines have rehabilitation programmes for their suspects who are either behind bars or on the equivalent of control orders. What have the Government done about that? What sort of rehabilitation programme do we have to try to bring these individuals round to a more rational, sensible and sane way of thinking? I have never heard anything about such an initiative from the Government at any stage. In conclusion, and to answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne), we will support the extension with great reluctance, but we must put the Government on notice that, in view of Lord Carlile’s latest report, we will not be able to sustain our position this time next year. Will the Minister assure me that there will be a review of all control order cases with the explicit intention of prosecuting when the evidence is available to do so? We have to bring the system to an end and we have to end the injustice. We have to take dangerous and subversive people off our streets, but the system does not allow that to happen.