Counter-Terrorism Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

As others have said, control orders are a difficult concept. Many of us have experience of control orders in respect of other legislation and know how they have worked and how their effects have been felt. Although the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) and his colleagues have not been able to challenge fundamentally the use of control orders as provided for in the 2005 legislation, their new clauses propose that preconditions and conditions should be attached to the use and deployment of such orders, which is to be commended to the House. The preconditions and conditions that would be attached to control orders are entirely reasonable. If the Government are telling us in respect of other measures in the Bill that the opinions, feelings and findings of the Director of Public Prosecutions should be relevant and should motivate moves by the Secretary of State and Parliament, surely in the case of control orders, we can hear from the DPP about the prospects of a prosecution. That would not become a one-off, jeopardy judgment, because the other proposals provide that it could be subject to further review, on a timely basis, every quarter, while other aspects of the control order would also be subject to review. It would be entirely unreasonable, given all we have said about control orders being repellent to some of us, and given what the Government say about such orders being a matter of last resort, to refuse the proposals of the hon. Member for Hendon and others. I know that time is tight because of the programme motion, so we cannot go through them all, but I endorse what was said by the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve)—the Government could signal a degree of openness and consideration by agreeing to new clause 5. That would allow further consideration of the consequential and related issues as the Bill progresses.