Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

On the hon. Gentleman’s latter point, I am not suggesting that. On his former point, I do not want to pre-empt what the House does with the order. If the House does not pass the order today, 28 days cannot be extant, because we will be back to 14 days. I apologise if I have not made myself clear. We think that, at the very least, the case has been made. Certainly the alleged plots since that time have substantiated the position on 28 days. We need to take a collective view, hopefully based on consensus, on whether, in utter extremis—I know that we use 28 days in extremis—there should be some way of going beyond 28 days when required. There are currently six cases that went to full term in relation to the 28-day period. I will come on to discuss that in some detail. In three cases there were subsequent charges; in three there were not. This relates partly to my clumsy point about evidence. The issue is as much about looking at where we are going over the next couple of years, in terms of the threat, as it is about assessing where we have come from. That is why I do not like the use of the word ““evidence”” in that narrow literal sense. I am not saying—in a hidden way or otherwise—that it is all about 90 days at this stage and the consultation is a big cover for that. We want a serious and sustained consultation on whether 28 days will suffice, whether we need some sort of mechanism portal, or whatever else, to go beyond that in extremis, as I said to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, or whether we need to settle on something beyond 28 days, which may or may not be the 90-day limit that was discussed at the time.