Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

The main reason people could abscond during control orders was not as a result of what the Home Secretaries wanted, which was 24-hour-a-day confinement; it was that, under the Human Rights Act and European Convention on Human Rights, the Home Secretaries were not allowed to authorise such confinement, but had to leave people eight hours to go about their normal business, whatever that was. That was an open invitation to undermine the very essence of the confinement under control and surveillance that was the essential requirement for control orders. It may be right or it may be wrong, but it was the main factor that allowed those under control orders to abscond.