Counter-Terrorism Bill

My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest as the Home Secretary’s representative on the Metropolitan Police Authority. As such, my role is to provide lay oversight to the Met’s national and international work, primarily security and counterterrorism. Over the past four years, I have spent much of my time encouraging the police to be as sensitive as possible to the impact of what they are doing in potentially strengthening the single narrative of those who seek to lure some vulnerable young people down the road to violent extremism. The police understand that their job is just as much about ““prevent””, to use the jargon of the CONTEST counterterrorism strategy, as it is about pursue and protect. What I say is very much in that context. As part of my role, I am regularly briefed on current operations and on the developing threat picture. While I have enormous admiration for the skill, dedication and determination of the police and staff in the counterterrorist command, those briefings dispel any complacency that that admiration may afford. I need not remind your Lordships that yesterday was the anniversary of the 7/7 bombings. I hope that I do not demean those who died by pointing out that, as terrible as that atrocity was, the intention of the perpetrators was to kill and maim even more people, as was the intention of the perpetrators two weeks later in the failed bombings of 21/7—and as was the intent of those who planned one year after that to blow up holiday airliners in mid-air, with a view to killing thousands of passengers and perhaps many more people on the ground as the debris rained down. That desire to achieve mass casualties distinguishes the current terrorist threat from those in the past. Today's terrorists do not utter warnings; they are ready—indeed, keen—to die as part of their attack, and the objective is not a definable political negotiation. Mass casualties are an end in themselves. That is very different from the threat from the Welsh nationalists in the 1960s described in such detail by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. It has been a pleasure to follow so closely the noble Lord, Lord Dear. He had a very distinguished policing career, including four years as an assistant commissioner at the Met followed by five years as Chief Constable of West Midlands Police. Of course, when he relinquished that role in 1990, we had yet to see this modern terrorism in the UK or indeed anywhere in the West. The experience on which he draws is of a different era. Moreover, not only is the terrorism of a different nature, so too are the investigative challenges. That is the essence of why this Bill is before your Lordships’ House today. There is much in this Bill, and the detail will be considered carefully in this Chamber, but the focus of attention is clearly on the provision to allow pre-charge detention for up to 42 days in a very tightly defined emergency situation. Frankly, it is specious to try to build international comparisons. We have heard about the short period for which people can be detained in the United States. I merely point to the very unsatisfactory lesson of Guantanamo Bay. Why might this proposal ever be necessary? I will give your Lordships some examples of the reasons why a longer period of pre-charge detention will sometimes be justified. Six weeks ago, a young man was arrested in hospital, where he was suffering from injuries he received when allegedly trying to detonate a bomb earlier that day in a restaurant in Exeter full of families with children. It was some days after that arrest before the doctors were prepared to allow the police to question him. The individual has, of course, now been charged, but the lesson about detainees who may have injured themselves is clear. Three years ago, when the police entered what turned out to be the bomb factory for the 7/7 bombers, they came upon a bath tub of suppurating gloop. It took more than a week of drones going in to try and establish what was in the bath before officers were given the all-clear to search the premises properly and neighbours could be reassured that it was safe to go back to their homes. In that instance, the bombers were not in custody, but it is easy to see implications for a 14-day or 28-day limit with the clock ticking and when the premises of those being held cannot even be searched for the first 10 days or so. Then there is the complexity of what is found in such searches: in a recent case, more than 100 hard drives, each containing gigabytes of data, were seized and needed to be examined. The data are often encrypted and when unencrypted are in Arabic or the key material is tucked into the middle of otherwise innocuous files. With the best resources and the best experts available, it takes weeks to go through such material. Frequently, multiple jurisdictions are involved: some countries are not as prompt as others in responding to queries and the overseas activity itself may well be critical in determining whether a charge, and which one, is justifiable. That is why 14 days would never have been adequate for some of these investigations and why up to 28 days was needed. Remember also that, because of the potentially terrible consequences of delaying an intervention, the police cannot spend as long as in the past building a case before arrest—the consequences of a miscalculation could be hundreds dead. So the police intervene earlier than they did in the past and more work needs to be done after arrest before charges can be laid. The Bill does not automatically extend the potential period from 28 days to 42 days. It does so only under very limited circumstances. Those circumstances would imply a quantum leap of seriousness from what we have seen so far: an even bigger plot, multiple unrelated plots, or a plot involving CBRN materials seriously hampering the ability to investigate. Under those circumstances, even a reluctant DPP might certify that a longer period was necessary—and is not the reluctance of the DPP a safeguard against this power being used other than in extremis? It would not happen without Parliament debating whether the generality of the circumstances were serious enough to merit the temporary time-limited extension of the period, with each individual to whom the longer period applied having the extension in their case approved by a judge at least every seven days. These are carefully worked out safeguards. I would rather that Parliament enacted them now, after proper and thorough debate, so that they may be used—and I hope the circumstances never merit it—in the precisely defined and limited way that the Bill sets out, as opposed to this House and the other place meeting in an emergency sitting following some appalling incident and rushing through a Bill in a day and a night to provide less well scrutinised and thought-through powers. Some would tell us that these powers may not be needed. They point out that there have been no instances in the past year when the extension from 14 to 28 days was used. That, of course, is correct. But we know that these devastating plots are long in gestation—after the comparative failure of the first World Trade Centre bombing in 1993, planning for the second far more destructive attack began almost immediately, and those plans were enacted a full eight years later. One year's comparative quiet, particularly when the Metropolitan Police and others have been so successful in disrupting recent activity, should be no cause for complacency. The fact that the 28-day power has not been used in the past year does, however, provide a reassurance to those who believe that a power once given will be used to excess by the police. There are known networks operating in this country, undoubtedly linked to al-Qaeda and planning we know not what. No doubt, there are other networks about which nothing is known. The events of recent months raise the spectre of the lone individual, perhaps radicalised on the net, self-taught in terrorist techniques, perhaps seeking to emulate the so-called martyrdom of those who have gone before in London, Glasgow, Beirut, Bali, Baghdad or the West Bank. There are those who say that the other provisions in this Bill make the possible extension to up to 42 days unnecessary. To them, I say that I hope that they are right, but if they are wrong the public expect us to legislate for belt, braces and string. If the power may be needed in extremis, then let us legislate now, thoughtfully putting proper safeguards in place. For that reason, I support the Bill.