Counter-Terrorism Bill

My Lords, that would be totally bonkers. I do not know where the two-to-one prediction comes from. I would not go down that route. My noble friend Lord Ahmed raised my so-called U-turn. We had a bet in my office about who would mention it. There were many likely candidates, but he was not one of them, so I was a little surprised, and no one wins the money. I felt it was my duty to look closely at whether there was any other way to resolve some of these problems. I looked at them. I looked at throwing resources at them, at whether there was some other method of legislation and at whether there was some way round them. I also wanted to ensure that there were proper safeguards in place. At that stage, I did not want 56 days on the statute book. I wanted something that came into force only if we needed it and that had all the safeguards. I am happy that we are now in the right ballpark with a few minor amendments. I am happy with that. My noble friend Lord Ahmed does not know me if he thinks that someone can sit on me and make me do a U-turn. He has a lot to learn about me if that is what he believes. I was rather surprised by his comment. My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer raised the threshold test. It has been available since 2004, which is before the debates on the 2006 Act. It is a useful tool, but it cannot be used in every case. It does not mean that we can charge on the basis of reasonable suspicion. We could not charge someone if all we had on him was intelligence material, no matter how compelling it might be. The threshold test does not replace the full-code test used by prosecutors. All it means is that in some cases we can charge using a lower threshold if we are reasonably certain that sufficient admissible evidence will become available in a reasonable amount of time to meet the full test. That is why the threshold test has proved useful at the current 28-day limit and why it could be equally useful at, say, 29 or 30 days, but it simply does not remove the need to extend pre-charge detention altogether. My noble friends Lady Ramsay of Cartvale, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Robertson and other noble Lords talked about intercept as evidence. I do not want to go into that at great length because it is late and we will have a chance to talk more about it. We are taking the Chilcot report ahead swiftly and with consensus. It has nine tests. I reiterate that what we get from intercept are the crown jewels. We have to be certain that we do not give something away. The people who wish to destroy our way of life and kill us are getting cuter and cuter and they pick up these things, so we have to be extremely careful. It is an area in which we hope we might be successful because there might be occasions when it will help, but it is not a silver bullet and will not resolve the issue of pre-charge detention. I say to my noble friend Lady Ramsay of Cartvale that we are listening very carefully to what she has been saying about this in the context of the coroners’ courts. I am not going to go into detail on the coroners’ courts. It is an issue of great complexity, and I can see that the House wishes to have a great debate on it. There will be opportunities in Committee and on Report to do that. In terms of international comparisons—