Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We did indeed take evidence on that very subject when we went to Washington. As the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) made clear, this was a recommendation of the Select Committee and we said to the Government, ““Here is an example of a tool that can be used to find out who these terrorists are so that if you prosecute, you can have a successful prosecution.”” That is why we put it forward. The Government have not quite accepted it. When the Prime Minister last addressed the House on the issue, I suppose he accepted the principle, but he said that there were lots of practical difficulties, no doubt associated with the security services, which were reluctant to have intercept evidence used in prosecutions, but that is certainly what we were told by the Americans. I will not go down the route of whether they thought 28 days or 42 days was desirable, because that would open up another debate and I think the House has probably had enough of that over the last 10 days. On intercept evidence, the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) is right, as the hon. Member for Eastleigh pointed out. On post-charge questioning, that is exactly what the Home Affairs Committee suggested and exactly what the Government accepted. Finally, let me make these remarks in the same spirit that the Government have approached counter-terrorism legislation over the last six months. I urge the Minister to consider this area and provide as much information to Parliament as possible, so that when we vote and decide on those critical issues, we are the best informed that we possibly can be with the information provided by the Government.