Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

On the hon. Gentleman's last point, I can do no better than to paraphrase the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who, on page 136 of his excellent little book ““Celsius 7/7””, talks about the broad Islamist threat in precisely those terms: as and when the threat increases, it is right and proper that a democracy takes all the power it requires, within its value system, to meet that threat. Equally, as and when that threat abates, so should those extraordinary powers. As I said, without going down the pathway of the Counter-Terrorism Bill, all that we seek to do in going beyond 28 days is predicated rightly and properly on the annual renewal of 28 days' detention. For terrorist cases, 14 days is the norm, 28 days is the exception, and beyond 28 days—I shall not dwell on that debate—is utterly the exception to the exception. Partly to answer the hon. Gentleman's point further, that is why we did not come back to the House with a proposal for a universal extension beyond 28 days, annually renewed or otherwise—we have sought to outline why there are grave and exceptional circumstances in which a period beyond 28 days is required. Broadly, I am grateful to the House for the nature of the debate. It should be a detailed debate. As I said, as and when greater collective awareness of the ins and outs of those detained beyond 14 days is possible, that will happen. I hope that that can happen by next year, not least because a goodly number of those suitably charged beyond 14 days are already in the courts, and some are about to go before them, so matters will be resolved one way or another. None of the 11 charged beyond 14 days have yet been convicted, and to return to the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), they are allowed due process before we start crawling all over the statistics relating to how they got to that position in the first place. As and when all the information is available on those detained beyond 14 days before charge, it will be right and proper to dissect that information retrospectively. As I said in my opening statement, this is a serious and sensitive matter—we do not depart leisurely, or in anything but a very serious spirit to respond to a threat, from the 14-day norm accepted by the House for terrorism offences. I accept the broad sweep of colleagues' comments that, hopefully, post-charge questioning, intercept as evidence, resources, greater use of the threshold test, and greater use of acts preparatory and other elements put into legislation, will mean eventually that more people are charged as close to arrest as possible. But I am afraid that I do not share the faith of the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) that any of those elements will eradicate the need to go beyond 14 days, given the nature of the current threat. As I said during last week's debate, collectively, things such as the broader prevention agenda and the broader battle for hearts and minds—for want of a better phrase—should obviate the need for using such extraordinary legislation, by ensuring, first, that more and more individuals are dissuaded from the path of violent extremism in the first place, and secondly, that they are charged much closer to arrest than is currently possible. However, I cannot guarantee that. It is the Government's responsibility to make the judgment on the balance between guaranteeing public safety and otherwise. In answer to some direct questions, at least nine of the 11—if not all—were transferred to prison at day 14 and then brought back for interview, principally at Paddington Green, as and when required. In passing, let me say that the detention of individuals beyond 14 days is about not just interviewing them, but as much, if not more, about the investigatory process in which the police need to be engaged to get the evidence in order to put questions to such individuals in the first place. Invariably, as in the code, such individuals are transferred to prison post-14 days and then returned for interview. Code H says clearly that there should be eight hours' complete freedom from questioning on any given day. It is not the case that, other than during those eight hours, there is routine questioning on a regular basis. Often in terrorist cases, the investigation goes on and the individual will not say anything, and there is an iterative-type process. That goes back to the point about the times that individuals were apparently interviewed after 14 days—a point made with a degree of sophistry, I would say, by those to whom I referred earlier. Interestingly, there has been no case whatever of an accusation of oppressive questioning by any of the individuals kept post-14 days. On the other point made by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley), a Crown Prosecution Service paper—I think that it was already published—has set out in detail the extension process, and is still available on the website. We have not done a special paper on the impact of questioning on the right to a fair trial and those other elements of which he spoke, but that might be worth considering. At the Report stage of the last Bill on this matter, I said clearly that there would be a review of the impact on communities of all our counter-terrorism legislation. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) made an entirely fair point in that regard. Although there are plenty of assertions about the impact post-14 days of the legislation that we are renewing today, there is no significant evidence. But as I said at a conference on stop-and-search powers last Saturday, although we are considering section 44 and the code of practice associated with it, such stop-and-search powers will have more impact on communities than the legislation under consideration. We have published information on numbers held and charged, and will try to prepare more. I am afraid that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East slightly misreads the Bill considered last week, in the sense that we seek not to consult the relevant Select Committee Chairmen on the process, but inform them—unless I have misread the Bill—