Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

I have no doubt that the effect in communities that have suffered from people being held under control orders is a feeling of great injustice, or that that feeling fuels resentment and becomes a recruiting sergeant for people to join a fight that we do not want to exist. We should learn the lesson from the cases of those held for the maximum period of detention without charge for terrorism offences. The 42 days debate made it clear that half of those held for nearly the maximum period—three people—were released without charge and without further surveillance or suspicion. It is very hard to prove a negative, which is why we insist in the British criminal justice system that someone is innocent until proven guilty. We heard nothing from the Minister today to suggest that there is any exit strategy from control orders, yet the danger of the courts holding against a prolonged control order has to be serious. At the very least, as the JCHR has proposed, there should be a statutory presumption against a control order lasting beyond two years. Another reason for ending the system is that prosecutions are surely better than control orders, which have clear holes, as we have seen from the number of people absconding. Let us proceed instead to fair trials. The Minister said that there is gap between letting out someone who is entirely innocent and proceeding to a fair trial, but I urge the House to consider the fact that several developments have closed that gap substantially since control orders were introduced. The Minister has not addressed any of those developments. As has been said, the fact that there have been no urgent orders in the past year tends to reinforce the argument.