Terrorist Asset-Freezing (Temporary Provisions) Bill

Let me make it clear that we will support the Bill tonight. We agree with the Government that there need to be proper controls in place to prevent terrorists and suspected terrorists from having access to their financial resources and the financial system. However, the Government need to recognise that we are here tonight, pushing through this emergency retrospective legislation, because they failed, despite many warnings, to put the asset-freezing regime on to a proper legislative footing. If they had heeded those warnings, we could have dealt with these issues through the proper consideration of a proper Bill, rather than with the three-clause emergency Bill before us today. Each of us wants to ensure that our country is protected from terrorist threats. There are many aspects to those threats, but one of the essential elements is finance—the money to buy the plane tickets, to buy chemicals, or to rent a lock-up garage. Although the three orders at the heart of the Bill cover only 33 people and £151,000, that would be sufficient to fund terrorist activity. By denying terrorists or those suspected of participating in terrorist acts access to their funds and the financial system, we are restricting their ability to mount further terrorist acts. If we freeze the assets of terrorists or suspected terrorists, it helps us to thwart the acts that they were planning, which is something that the Prime Minister emphasised when he was Chancellor. In a speech at Chatham House on 10 October 2006, he set out clearly the importance of this issue, ranking the importance of tracking terrorist assets alongside that of the code breakers of Bletchley Park during the second world war. He said that"““we can create what some will call a modern 'Bletchley Park' with forensic accounting of such intricacy and sophistication in tracking finance and connections that it can achieve, for our generation, the same results as code breaking at the original Bletchley Park did sixty years ago.””" He stressed that it was important not just to be able to track assets but to take the right steps to freeze those assets. He went on to say:"““Tomorrow the Privy Council will lay before Parliament a new terrorism order which will give the Treasury the power to stop funds reaching anyone in the UK suspected of planning terror or engagement with terror.””" Of course, it was the 2006 order that was quashed by the Supreme Court on 27 January. Now we know what the Prime Minister meant when he went on to say:"““And, as terrorist finance operates on a global scale, we know that we are only as strong as our weakest links.””" So what was the weakest link? It is now clear that it was the order about which the Prime Minister boasted. The modern-day Bletchley Park was neutered because the order was quashed.