Counter-Terrorism Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson). I agree in large measure with many of his points and, like him, I have a constituency interest—both broad and narrow—in the Bill. My broad interest is that, as some hon. Members know, I represent the largest number of Muslims of any Conservative Member. The vast majority of mosque-going Muslims in Wycombe are of the mainstream Barelwi school, as is often the case elsewhere in Britain. They are peaceful, moderate and broadly Sufi. They condemn terror unequivocally and oppose extremism, viewing both as fundamentally anti-Islamic. They make a huge contribution to our town. Of course, I am not suggesting that Barelwis are the only Muslims who have such an outlook or make such a contribution. The pirs, or spiritual teachers, whom they follow are strongly anti-extremist. I am thinking of men I have met such as Shaykh Muhammad Imdad Hussein Pirzada, a former High Wycombe imam, whose al-Karam school, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), has obtained the best GCSE results in Nottinghamshire for three consecutive years, and Pir Syed Abdul Qadir Jilani, a scholar of formidable erudition whose Mawlid procession in London last Sunday I was honoured to attend. Barelwis and other mainstream Muslims recognise that terrorists and separatists are ultimately seeking to extinguish their mainstream version of Islam by targeting and grooming their children for conversion to an extreme ideology. I perhaps take a more serious view of the weight of ideology than the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Galloway), although he acknowledged that it was a factor. The House will agree that we should not lightly legislate in any way that makes the position of such mainstream Muslims more difficult. I thus turn to the proposal to hold people without charge for up to 42 days, which leads me to my narrower constituency interest in the Bill. As the House has heard, an Operation Overt trial begins this week. One of my constituents and a former inhabitant of High Wycombe face serious charges. I am told that one of these men was held for 28 days—