Counter-Terrorism Bill

My Lords, we have had about as powerful a series of speeches laying out the principle of the Bill as it is possible to have on Second Reading. The debate certainly has, as my noble friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness said, tapped an extremely rich seam of experience. We were able to dwell on the issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, set out in her eloquent maiden speech, and on the merits of consensus, which she spoke about. The noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, put a different argument and talked about the merits of a political stance. The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, reminded us of the role that the barons should play. We have had an extremely productive start to our considerations of the Counter-Terrorism Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Brett, asked why now, and why we are going to make such an issue of this Bill, when we have had so many terrorism Bills already. The arguments laid that out very clearly. They laid out that the Bill is presenting us with a fork in the road. We have heard this evening that we have a very clear choice. We can choose whether to go with legislation that is eroding human rights and freedoms as a response to terrorism, or we can take a very different path, the path laid out by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, who talked of the assertion of our values. We believe that other paths can be taken, in the knowledge that there is a far better system of measures in place than when the other terrorism Bills were passed. My noble friend Lord Goodhart, who played such a role in the passing of those other Bills, reminded us that, in general, they were passed in a great hurry and there was not much time to dwell on the issues. We would credit the Government and the Minister in particular for the measures that are now in place that he talked about in his opening speech, such as the Office for Security and Counter-terrorism, the much-increased cross-departmental action and the much bigger budget spend on critical intelligence; he referred to £1 billion by 2011. We have a Minister who is a specialist with a whole spread of things that he cannot be specific about; but he mentioned his great quiver full of things to help us to counter terrorism. That is a big change since the last terrorism legislation, when those things were not in place, but when we still rejected the disproportionate measures that the Government were calling for then, such as 90 days detention. Surely, with those measures in place, we can reject any extension that is being called for. There are measures in the Bill on which there was clear consensus this evening, such as post-charge questioning. There are other measures that we will support, although we will question them, such as measures around the gathering of data, data-sharing and the need to examine with whom and why the data is shared. There are other measures that appear to be completely pointless at best and highly damaging at worst. Many contributions dwelt on parliamentary scrutiny being a pointless measure. Just some of the adjectives that I noted came from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Steyn, who called it illusory, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, who called it worthless, and the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, who was not at all convinced by it. In particular, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, gave a powerful exposé of the unworkable nature of such parliamentary scrutiny. That is the sort of measure that we want to take out. The JCHR commented powerfully that the proposed parliamentary safeguards were virtually worthless. We should start from the point of view that we want to strip out the pointless parts of the Bill. They add nothing, and actually diminish it. I am not sure that I have anything to add to the 42-day argument. The noble Lord, Lord Joffe, laid out in his four tests some profound and good arguments on whether 42 days’ detention was necessary. While we do not dispute the complexity of counterterrorism operations and we will agree mechanisms to increase powers to gather and share information, we would want to know what evidence the Government have for proposing 42 days. That issue was returned to time and again by noble Lords this evening. The evidence we heard on the other side from my noble friends Lord Dholakia and Lady Falkner of Margravine and the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, who made a powerful contribution, was that the legislation in this form could further split communities when it is the reverse process that is needed. My noble friend Lord Dholakia said that we must never forget that community participation is conditional on how the community views government actions in relation to protection of civil liberties. I cannot think of a more powerful contribution than that of the noble Lord, Lord Condon, and with all his experience I am sure that the whole House will have taken it deeply to heart. Of course, the contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, was particularly powerful. Given his recent experience of government, I felt that it may have been quite difficult for him to make, but he made it nevertheless—that was brave of him. We also have the contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. All those give us a great deal of evidence of why we should question deeply and reject 42 days’ detention. I shall spend a little time on Part 6, dealing with inquests, which has received very little comment. My noble friends Lord Lester and Lord Goodhart referred to it, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden, mentioned in passing that the Government would be inclined to get rid of the tiresomeness of certain inquests. I look forward to his expansion of that in Committee. In our discussions on the 42 days, we have been worrying that losing your liberty with no explanation is bad enough; but losing your life with no public explanation is totally unacceptable. I do not need to remind the House that it has been the duty of coroners since 1194, "““to investigate the circumstances of unnatural, sudden or suspicious deaths, and deaths in prison””." This Bill allows the Secretary of State to appoint coroners, disallow juries and to intervene in ongoing cases. The introduction of the concept of secret inquests with the Secretary of State, coroner and no jury—and possibly without the dead person’s family being present—flies in the face of the very reasons for inquests. Mr McNulty said in another place on 13 May that the Government were not talking about absolutely closed proceedings from start to finish, but that is just what the Bill allows for. It allows for it, "““in the interests of national security””." It is doubtful that we should agree to that because we have perfectly adequate PII systems. It allows for special procedures, "““in the interests of the relationship between the UK and another country””." I am certain that we should not accept that. The reasons for the death of a UK citizen cannot be hushed up just because it may embarrass our allies in arms or trading partners. Those on these Benches will never accept that it should. The Bill allows for special procedures, "““otherwise in the public interest””." This definition is so wide as to deal a body blow to the traditional inquest system. It could cover deaths in custody, deaths in hospitals and deaths in the military. In all those cases, public interest could be claimed when it was simply the case that the truth might undermine public confidence in the system. For example, the Secretary of State could claim that it was in the interests of national security not to expose an Army supply chain that was chaotic. Without answers, the public cannot renew the confidence that they may have lost in the system because of mysterious or unexplained deaths. Why are major alterations to the inquest system in the Bill? It seems to be an attempt to link changes to inquests with terrorism matters to make them more acceptable. Otherwise, the proposed changes could be in the forthcoming Coroners Bill. They might not be any more acceptable, but at least they would be debated in context. I am sure that Part 6 will get the full attention that it deserves in your Lordships’ House. All states have an obligation to protect people from terrorism. The perpetrators of terrorist attacks must be brought to justice. We will amend the Bill to ensure that the quality of that justice is undiminished.