Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

On the day that the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 came into force, 11 March 2005, the Prime Minister said that"““there will be every opportunity for people...to put forward amendments to make arguments about the legislation without putting at risk the entirety of that legislation””." We had hoped that today would provide that opportunity because we believe that the control order regime is, for various reasons that have been explained, imperfect and in need of extensive revision. In particular, we maintain our serious concerns that the standard of proof required for the Secretary of State to sign non-derogating control orders, which was referred to earlier, is too low; that the power to impose such orders should reside with the court, not the Home Secretary; that they should be strictly time-limited; and that they should be subject to regular and thorough reviews on the possibility of proceeding beyond the orders and towards prosecution. Those are not flippant reservations. They have been expressed already in the debate today. They have been reinforced by the excellent work of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and others. They cannot simply be ignored from one annual debate to the next. Yet, despite repeating those reservations at every turn of the debate during the last two years since the legislation was introduced, we find ourselves forced into a corner on a vote that provides no opportunity for amendment. It is reasonable to ask whether those long-standing reservations have been strengthened or weakened by the experience of control orders since we last debated them here 12 months ago. The record is not an encouraging one. As has already been observed, three of the 18 controlees have absconded, escaping the strictures of their control orders altogether. The High Court has ruled against the Home Secretary on no fewer than three occasions. The latest ruling, from Mr. Justice Beatson, made last week, is typical: the control order was quashed on the grounds that it amounted"““to a deprivation of liberty and only the courts, not the Secretary of State, have power to make such orders””—" in other words, the Secretary of State exceeded the powers given to him—and because"““the Secretary of State failed to consider properly and fully whether the controlee could be prosecuted for criminal offences rather than being made subject to a control order””." The latter observation, as others have pointed out, is crucial, and it is echoed in the second report of the independent reviewer of control orders, my noble and learned Friend Lord Carlile of Berriew, released two days ago, in which he states that"““continuing investigation into the activities of some of the current controlees could provide evidence for criminal prosecution and conviction””." That builds on his telling observation in his first report, published a full 12 months ago—this is not new—in which he said:"““I have seen letters from chief officers of police in relation to each controlee certifying that there was no realistic prospect of prosecution. Little is given by way of reasons.””" That is compelling evidence, and our fears that control orders would remove the pressure on the police and others to bring charges and pursue prosecutions have considerably increased, rather than diminished, with time. We should be devoting more time to working out how to bring more terror suspects to court rather than simply renewing an increasingly flawed control order regime, which even the current Home Secretary has agreed is ““full of holes””. More could be done, for example, to clarify the so-called threshold test used by the Crown Prosecution Service in terror cases so that charges can be brought even in cases where all the necessary evidence is not yet fully available, for instance because of the complexity of computer-based evidential trails, but there is a good prospect that it will become available. As the Attorney-General has tentatively suggested, we should re-examine the circumstances in which the police can question suspects after charge. If we relax the rules to allow more extensive questioning, with clear safeguards against abuse in place, we would make it far easier for the police to continue investigations after formal charges had been laid. We must find a way to introduce phone-tap evidence in court, with protections for the security services so that agents and surveillance methods are not compromised. As the Government have accepted, intercept evidence could be vital in delivering terrorist suspects to trial.