Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for his careful explanation of the Bill. I would very much like to welcome him to his new portfolio and well deserved promotion, and I look forward to working with him. I echo his tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, for her stewardship of the Home Office brief. I very much enjoyed debating the—perhaps I may say—unlamented police Bill as it went through your Lordships’ House. She was a very good debater and listener who will be very much missed from the Front Bench. The security of this country is of paramount importance and the Official Opposition would always wish, wherever possible, to support Her Majesty’s Government in their counterterrorism policies. The introduction of control orders was controversial because they can impose intrusive restrictions on individuals who in most cases will not have been convicted of a terrorism offence on the basis of closed material. We would always prefer to prosecute terrorist offences through the courts. Control orders are not desirable but I believe that they were necessary to deal with a discrete number of individuals who for one reason or another could not be prosecuted but posed a terrorist threat. The decision to introduce control orders has been vindicated through the way that the public has been protected from the risk of terrorism, but also as evidenced by the vigorous judicial process undertaken in relation to control orders. The parties opposite, when in opposition, made a great deal of their concerns over control orders. In government, I suspect that the Home Secretary has come up against reality, but still feels obliged to introduce this Bill. It is a flawed Bill, it is a fudged Bill. It seems to owe as much to the needs of the coalition as it does to national security. Just as we see a faultline running between the two governing parties on European human rights legislation, so we see a faultline in the legislation in our debate today. On the one hand, we have the Bill, which the Government say—and the Minister repeated it this afternoon—provides greater safeguards for the civil rights of suspected terrorists. But we also have another Bill—the draft emergency Bill, which the Home Secretary will carry around in a back pocket for the inevitable moment when this Bill is found wanting. The problem with a faultline is that there can often be a gap. I hope that national security will not fall into it. At the heart of my concern is the fear that the Home Secretary’s powers to deal with the most difficult cases are being weakened. Nowhere is that more evident than in the central issue of relocation without consent. Relocation powers have proved to be extremely useful in disrupting terrorist activity and have been regularly described by the police as one of the most effective powers that they have. How many of the control orders in force have relocation as part of them? In evidence to the Public Bill Committee in another place, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Osborne said: "““The relocation issue has been very useful for us being able to monitor and enforce at the current time. Without that relocation, and depending on where people choose to live, that could be significantly more difficult””.—[Official Report, Commons, Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill Committee, 21/6/11; col. 5.]" The Home Secretary clearly thinks so. In May of this year, just five months ago, the Home Secretary argued in the case of CD that he needed to be removed from Greater London to protect the public from a terrorist attack. The judge in that case said: "““I have concluded that the relocation obligation is a necessary and proportionate measure to protect the public from the risk of what is an immediate and real risk of a terrorist attack.””" In July of this year, the Home Secretary said in the case of BM that relocation outside London was ““fundamental”” to preventing terrorist activity. In that case, BM admitted that he was committed to terrorism. The Home Secretary believes that those powers, which were needed three and five months ago, are not needed now. What has really changed in that period? Ministers claim that they will put more surveillance in place but again, the senior representative of the Metropolitan Police, in evidence to the Public Bill Committee, said this: "““To get the resources we anticipate we need will take more than a year in terms of being able to get people trained and to get the right equipment””.—[Official Report, Commons, Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill Committee, 21/6/11; col. 9.]" It is simply not credible that the security environment has changed so substantially in the past three or five months that the powers needed then are not needed now. Are the Government really saying to this House—in Olympic year, of all years—that the powers are needed less in the coming year than they were last year, when the Home Secretary felt that she needed to use them five times? Of course, Ministers have already conceded that additional powers may be needed, so they have published draft emergency legislation, as the noble Lord, Lord Henley, remarked at the end of his speech. That will give the Home Secretary powers to impose what have come to be known as enhanced TPIM notices which make it possible to impose stringent restrictions on individuals, including relocation without consent. We have the rather extraordinary position of the Government saying, ““We do not like control orders so we are getting rid of them, but until we do that we are going to go to the courts and argue vigorously for their use, and we will keep emergency legislation just in case this Bill turns out to be inadequate””. The Government want to go further: from a position of apparent opposition to control orders, remarkably, this Bill now contains in Clause 26 a provision that allows the Home Secretary to impose the enhanced TPIM notices which should be the subject of the emergency legislation during the period between the dissolution of Parliament and the first Queen’s Speech of the new Parliament. I suggest that if extraordinary provision such as that is needed, the Home Secretary needs it now and it should be in this Bill.