Counter-Terrorism Bill

I fully accept the hon. and learned Gentleman's point. Parliament will almost be in the position of a gameshow audience. It will have to pronounce somebody eligible for conviction—as opposed to eviction—on the basis of some statement or comment made about a particular suspect. That is a dangerous position for Parliament to be in. In fact, it fundamentally compromises Parliament and would compromise the judicial process, too. Such a procedure would also be a recipe for all sorts of media comment, which would be uncontrolled. We do not know in what direction that speculation could go, and it could fundamentally prejudice any subsequent trial. We will be asking that to happen if we let the Bill go through in its current form. Given the experience of Northern Ireland—and, indeed, the experience of the Irish community in Britain—this House needs to be very vigilant when it comes to counter-terrorism legislation. The House cannot be like the Bourbons, who ““learned nothing, forgot nothing””. The fact remains that counter-terrorism legislation alienated lawful people; law-abiding and decent communities were made to feel like suspect communities and were fundamentally alienated. That meant that good people could not do good, following Edmund Burke's maxim that bad counter-terrorism law actually creates a situation where good people cannot do good. In her opening comments, the Secretary of State mentioned some of the soft measures that the Government are adopting to ensure that no ground is provided for the terrorist threat or terrorist sympathies to grow in this country. However, if the Government continue to emphasise the soft measures at community level and the outreach and engagement activities in which they are involved at the same time as they present hard and offensive measures such as this Bill, they will compromise the very people in the Muslim community whom they want to work with, promote and champion. Those people will not be able to touch any of those soft schemes without feeling fundamentally compromised, and they are likely to be resented in their own communities. They in particular will feel the heat. Their emotions will be mixed, but they will feel a sense of guilt whenever the power in the Bill is triggered and becomes a matter of controversy in their communities. That is why I ask Ministers to stop talking about the various soft measures—even though they are important and necessary to national cohesion and positive community building—as though they were some sort of compensating side dish that the Government are serving up with this hard and unpalatable legislation. That is not the way to move forward.