Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (Continuance in force of sections 1 to 9) Order 2007

My Lords, I, too, am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I speak after three extremely powerful speeches, all of which I agree with in their totality. I shall be as brief as I can and shall add a few extra points. The Minister began by describing this as a serious issue, which is an understatement, and promised to write to us to respond to the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. That will not do. It is not good enough to write to us. We need to know today the Home Office’s responses to the five main issues that we raised in our report. That may seem unreasonable since the report was published only yesterday, but it is not, because the Government managed to arrange matters in the other place in such a way that there was precious little time even to consider the report of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. Most of the issues raised in the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights arise out of the case law—the extremely powerful cases and the judgments of, for example, Mr Justice Beatson and Mr Justice Sullivan. Anyone who reads those judgments, as I have done, will have a sense of dismay that we have come to this situation in a country that prides itself upon the rule of law. On behalf of the committee, if I may, I say that we expect the Minister to reply today to the main issues within our report that have been so clearly summarised by my noble friend Lord Judd. The Minister sheltered behind the report of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew. My noble friend is a great man, a great lawyer, a great public figure and a great statesman, but even he would not say that compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights was his task and his report did not deal with that. The Joint Committee on Human Rights, which is not controlled by the Government and is all-party and beyond party, has a distinguished, specialised legal adviser and its report cannot simply be brushed aside as recent or as in some way eclipsed by the report of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I respectfully insist that when the Minister replies she deals with our main points.