Counter-Terrorism Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz). He is entirely right to say that there is always a difficult balance to be struck between individual liberty and collective security. Speaking for myself, my presumptions always favour the former. Save in exceptional circumstances, I do not ever favour the latter. It is from that perspective that I approach the Bill, which I think favours the state too much at the expense of the individual. Left to my own devices, were there to be a Division, I would vote against the Bill in the Lobby. I regret that our fire will, I think, have to be postponed until later stages. Before I say anything about the Bill in detail, I have three preliminary points that are relevant to the totality of what I want to say. First, we need to keep in mind the fact that there have been four substantial pieces of legislation since 2000 that have touched on terrorism. Indeed, a whole host of other powers and offences are relevant. When there is an argument for change, a compelling case for it has to be made. Secondly, and differently, we need to keep in mind the fact that when we give powers to officials, those powers are always capable of being abused, and almost certainly will be. When we consider the implementation of powers, we should never do so from the perspective of the ideal implementation, but always from the perspective of abusive implementation. My last point, too, is related to that. We must remember that when the House surrenders powers to the Executive, we never get them back. The effect is cumulative. Whenever we examine a Bill that surrenders powers, we must keep in mind not just the present but the past and the prospective. The overall weight is what ultimately matters. The Bill is important, and I had hoped to have more ample time to concentrate on five matters: pre-charge detention, inquests, restrictions on the press and whistleblowers, asset-freezing proceedings and post-charge questioning. I recognise that in the five minutes and 40 seconds remaining to me, I will not have an opportunity to do that. In any event, right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken about pre-charge detention, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), the shadow Home Secretary, have said all that I could sensibly say about that. I shall therefore concentrate on matters that have, perhaps unfairly, received less attention. Oddly enough, the first such matter is inquests. The changes with regard to inquests are very important, and it is indicative that the Home Secretary did not refer to them at all. I suspect that she had a good reason not to do so, as I am about to outline. Let us keep in mind the fact that the changes to inquest law are being made against the background of the Defence Secretary going to the High Court to try to restrict a coroner's ability to reach unflattering verdicts. I acknowledge at once that jury trials in inquests are relatively rare, but they can be very important, especially when there is a need to secure public acceptance of the verdict. That was the motive behind the decision of Lord Justice Scott-Baker in the Princess Diana inquest—and quite right, too. The Bill does two things with regard to inquests. First, it gives the Secretary of State an unappealable right to dispense with juries in circumstances set out in clause 64. Those circumstances are if the Secretary of State thinks that it is in the national interest, or that having a jury would imperil the relationship between the United Kingdom and another country, or that it is "““otherwise in the public interest””—" an all-embracing phrase. Such a decision will be unappealable, subject to judicial review. I can well understand that a Government faced with defaults on the part of its agents would conclude that it was not in the public interest for society as a whole to know about those faults. The second limb has to do with the relationship between the UK and another country. Let us say that one of the people on the special rendition planes died, and that the person had been dead when the aircraft was on British soil. I can see that this Government would say, ““Oh, no, no, we don't want a jury-based inquest into that; it might imperil our relationship with the US.”” This is very dangerous stuff.