Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

I am sorry, but I do not entirely understand the relevance of the noble Lord Carlile’s comments on control orders to the matter at hand today, which is the period in which police can detain someone without charge. They are separate legal issues and I do not see the connection. Perhaps I am missing something. The hon. Gentleman refers to evidence. Given how far and fast we have changed the law in this respect, we believe that it is important that any reopening of the debate needs to be premised on overwhelming evidence. The Minister seemed uncomfortable about—I think he said he cavilled at—the notion that he might need to display evidence. I think he was uncomfortable for the simple reason that, as far as I am aware, there is as yet no overwhelming evidence that a period beyond 28 days is ever deemed necessary. If I understand the Government’s case correctly, it is based on the assumption that although that has not yet happened, it will happen in the future. The alleged Heathrow bomb plot in particular has set alarm bells ringing in Whitehall and elsewhere with the prediction that it will be replicated in future, which would make the task of marshalling evidence and bringing charges in 28 days almost impossible. If my premise is correct, I should like the Minister to explain how the assumption has arisen. Where and in what way has analysis been conducted to suggest that last year’s alleged complex Heathrow bomb plot will definitely be followed, as night follows day, by an even more complex plot? I do not imply that that concern has not been well argued or is not sincerely held, but I suspect that part of it flows from a feeling that the police may not have the resources to deal with the sheer complexity of such a plot and of an evidential trail that would stretch across the globe, as it tends to in such cases—hidden in hard drives and so on. Is it not incumbent on the Government to be more candid about the existence of a resources issue? Should they not state clearly that it may be a question less of simply seeking to extend indefinitely the period of detention without charge than of trying to give the police the resources with which to do the job? The Minister spoke eloquently, if perhaps a little uncharacteristically, of the need to establish cross-party consensus. That is a welcome development, but may I remind him politely that the clock is ticking? We have talked about cross-party consensus for several weeks, and I hope he will not think it churlish of me now to suggest that talk should be transformed into action. I am as yet unaware of any organised mechanism enabling such a consensus to be identified and established. The Minister referred to changes that the Liberal Democrats and others have advocated for some time, such as making intercept evidence available in court, allowing post-charge questioning, developing the practice of plea bargaining with the aim of gaining informants from among those who operate on the penumbra or margins of terrorist plots—plea bargaining is already used in serious organised crime cases, and I believe it could be used more in terror cases—and considering the so-called threshold test deployed by the Crown Prosecution Service when it brings charges in such cases. All those possibilities need to be examined. If the Minister agrees on that menu of possible changes, does he also agree that it is at least sensible to consider them first, for the sake of natural chronology, before once again pitching us all into a febrile debate about the time during which the police can detain people without charge? If we are to take a responsible and measured approach, we should think about those issues before deciding collectively to reopen the Pandora’s box of 28 days.