Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (Continuance in Force of Sections 1 to 9) Order 2010

My Lords, the purpose of the order before the House today is to renew Sections 1 to 9 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, which expire after one year unless renewed by order subject to affirmative resolution in both Houses. The effect of the order will be to maintain the powers set out under the Act until the end of 10 March 2011. This will allow us to continue to use control orders to tackle the threat posed to the public by suspected terrorists whom we can neither prosecute nor deport. It is important to remember that there have been a number of significant terrorist attacks, and attempted attacks, on our country and across the world in recent years. These have sought to undermine our fundamental rights and values through the indiscriminate murder of innocent people. I can assure the House that the threat to the United Kingdom from international terrorism remains real and serious—the threat level was again raised to "severe" by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre on 22 January. Recent trials and investigations have shown that numerous terrorist networks are continuing to plan and attempt to carry out attacks. There are no simple solutions to cope with this threat. We need a broad range of responses to reduce the risk of further terrorist attacks. All these responses must ensure public security while protecting our values and civil liberties. These values underpin all our work, as is already clearly articulated in our counterterrorism strategy, CONTEST. It bears repeating that prosecution continues to be, and will always be, our preferred approach when dealing with suspected terrorists. Terrorists are criminals who attack the values that we all share. Criminal convictions demonstrate this in the clearest fashion. There have been 217 convictions for terrorism-related offences since 11 September 2001, with 29 further defendants awaiting trial at 31 March 2009. These figures demonstrate the considerable success that the police and intelligence agencies have had in disrupting terrorist plots and the success that the Crown Prosecution Service has had in prosecuting these individuals. We remain committed to enhancing further our ability to bring forward prosecutions. We introduced new offences relating to terrorism in 2006 and 2008 to ensure that as much terrorism-related activity is prosecutable as possible. We have made provision for new mechanisms to facilitate prosecution, such as post-charge questioning. As set out in the Statement to the House on 10 December by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, the Government are undertaking further work to establish whether the problems identified by the programme of work recommended by the Privy Council Review for the introduction of intercept as evidence are capable of being resolved. We will report back by Easter. I remind the House that the original Privy Council Review report noted the review by independent senior criminal counsel of nine current or former control order cases. That concluded that the introduction of intercept as evidence would not have enabled a prosecution to be brought in any of those cases. Where we cannot prosecute a suspected terrorist, and the individual is a foreign national, we seek to deport him. In this regard, deportation with assurances agreements which allow us to assess more precisely whether a particular removal is in conformity with our international human rights obligations, and to demonstrate it at appeal, remains a crucial tool in our counterterrorism efforts. Notwithstanding all our efforts, and despite continuing to improve our ability to prosecute or deport, we are unfortunately left with a small group of suspected terrorists whom we cannot prosecute or deport. Control orders are intended to protect the public from the risk posed by such individuals irrespective of nationality, ethnicity or religion. The national security case for control orders therefore remains as strong as ever. For the past five years, control orders have proved a valuable and targeted tool in our fight against terrorism; effectively a last resort. They are preventive measures. Each order places a tailored set of obligations on an individual to help prevent or restrict him from engaging in terrorism-related activity. They are not imposed arbitrarily, nor are they imposed widely—there are currently only 11 control orders in force, and only 46 individuals have ever been subject to one. Noble Lords will be aware that the key development relating to control orders during the past year was the House of Lords 2009 judgment in AF & Others. In the light of the Strasbourg judgment in A & Others, the Law Lords concluded, reluctantly in a number of cases, that in order for control order proceedings to be compatible with Article 6, the controlled person must be given sufficient information about the allegations against him to enable him to give effective instructions to the special advocate. I should make it clear that they reached this conclusion in relation to the stringent control orders that were the subject of the particular appeal before them. It is clear that this judgment puts the Government in a difficult position. We have to balance the importance of protecting our public from the risk of terrorism posed by the individual against the risk of disclosing sensitive material which would harm national security. Some suggested that the judgment meant that the regime was no longer sustainable. Our view was that the control order regime remained viable, although we acknowledged the importance of keeping the situation under review as the courts applied the judgment to particular cases. So far, only two control orders have been revoked on Article 6 grounds without being replaced by new orders. Moreover, the High Court has upheld four control orders since the House of Lords judgment, following proceedings that were compliant with the Article 6 test laid down in AF & Others. The Government therefore remain of the view that the regime remains viable. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, reaches the same conclusion in his most recent independent report on control orders. The judgment should also finally put to bed the argument of some noble Lords that control orders are in some way an affront to human rights. That is clearly not the case. The protection of human rights is a key principle in our all our counterterrorism work, including the use of control orders. It has inaccurately been claimed that the judge in control order cases considers only procedure and not the merits of the case. In fact, a judge must agree that there is reasonable suspicion of involvement in terrorism-related activity, and that the order and its constituent obligations are necessary. The judge also specifically ensures that the order and the court proceedings in relation to it are compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights. We remain firmly of the view that the legislation and the order before us today are fully compliant with the European Convention. We consider the community impact of a control order both at the point of its imposition and during its lifespan. Alongside this is a wider programme of ongoing engagement with key opinion formers and community leaders which seeks to address, among other concerns, the impact of counterterrorism legislation, including the use of control orders. Apart from viability and fairness, the other major argument that people put forward against the use of control orders is that they do not work. The Government do not agree with this assertion. Of course we accept that control orders cannot entirely eliminate the risk of an individual’s involvement in terrorism-related activity in every case. In most cases, however, control orders have restricted and disrupted that activity and, in some cases, they have successfully prevented involvement in terrorism-related activity. The reports of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, support this conclusion. His 2009 report made clear his view that control orders were "largely effective". His 2010 report examines individual cases in greater detail. He concludes, for example, that three orders have, posed by those individuals and, in another case, that the control order is "an effective intervention". The recent report concluded that the legislation should be amended as soon as possible to provide the police with a power to search controlled individuals. Noble Lords will be aware that we tabled such an amendment to the 2005 Act during Commons Committee consideration of the Crime and Security Bill, which is currently before Parliament. I have made a couple of references to the latest annual report on control orders by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I draw noble Lords’ attention to his conclusion that, This view is shared by the two statutory consultees—the Intelligence Services Commissioner and the director-general of the Security Service—who support the proposal to renew the legislation for a further year. I place on record the Government’s thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for his fifth annual report, which will no doubt inform today’s debate. We will of course reply to that report formally in due course. We still face a serious threat from terrorism. We need to protect the public while ensuring that our fundamental rights and values are safeguarded. Control orders are by no means a complete or, indeed, perfect solution to the threat that we face, but they are an important, necessary and, I believe, proportionate part of our overall approach. I have absolutely no doubt that the risk to the public would increase were the Act not to be renewed. No Government could allow that to happen. I commend the order to the House. Amendment to the Motion