Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

I shall be brief and address myself directly to the public interest to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) has just referred. I wish to look at the order through the lens of community cohesion. It is undoubtedly true that in the struggle against al-Qaeda and the sort of atrocious incidents that we saw last weekend in London and Glasgow, the solution cannot be only one of security. The winning of hearts and minds, as both my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) and the Prime Minister have put it, is crucial. I represent the largest number and percentage of Muslims of any official Opposition Member of Parliament. When I meet them, as I regularly do, they make the point that al-Qaeda likes nothing better than to be able to portray events as a plot or conspiracy against Islam. I found that out only last weekend when it was put to me that the knighthood awarded to Salman Rushdie was part of an anti-Islamic plot, organised by the Government. Although I am not, of course, a great defender of the Government, I tried to put that point of view right directly. Arguably, approving the order and retaining the 28 days will make it more difficult to win Muslim hearts and minds. That cannot, of course, be the final consideration. In the delicate balance of civil liberties and national security, it must sometimes be the case that the weight is placed on national security. That is what happened when the 28-day period was approved without a Division. Since the question of 90 days has been raised this afternoon, I have to say that any move to that period would make it more difficult to win hearts and minds. While that consideration is not in itself conclusive, if a proposal for 90 days were put before the House, I would want to see much more evidence that there was a case for it. Indeed, I would want to see incontrovertible evidence before supporting it.