Counter-Terrorism Bill

I am coming to the point that my right hon. Friend makes. Part of the reason for introducing the legislation as we did—for the process that we have gone through, and for the pleasure that I had of appearing before his Select Committee three times—was to ensure that we gave the most effective consideration to all the issues, including the one that he has raised. I can give him an undertaking that it is the sort of issue we need to examine carefully as the Bill progresses through Parliament. To understand the growth of the challenge, and how the nature and scale of terrorism has changed, I offer a simple comparison. In 2001 the police investigated the last major IRA case, in which they had to analyse the content of one computer and a handful of floppy discs. The suspects used their own names, and their activities were confined to the Republic of Ireland and the UK. In 2004 the police and the security services had to investigate Dhiren Barot, the key conspirator in an al-Qaeda operation in the UK. The case led to the seizure of 270 computers, 2,000 computer discs and a total of 8,224 exhibits.