Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

My Lords, I offer my thanks to all noble Lords who have welcomed me to this post and, more importantly, for the tributes that they have paid to my predecessor, my noble friend Lady Browning, who served in the Home Office, albeit briefly, and in other departments in a previous Government with great distinction. We all wish her well. After the particularly thoughtful earlier intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Reid, I intended to keep party politics out of this debate. However, after the savaging to which I have just been subjected by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser—accusations of political fudge by the coalition Government and so on—I ought to remind him that there are considerable divisions in all parts of the House, possibly nowhere more so than on his own Benches. Not all his party agrees with the line that he, the shadow Home Secretary and others are taking. Certainly, that is true of possibly four Members on his Benches today and I am sure there are many others. The noble Lord had one or two supporters from his Benches but not many more than that. Within the coalition there are always differences. As my noble friend Lord Howard made clear, without a single party in government, these matters have to be debated within the Cabinet and within the Government, and one has to come to a proper conclusion. The important thing, as he made clear, was getting the balance right. I was grateful that my noble friend felt, with one or two doubts, that we had got it broadly right. My noble friend Lord Phillips also said that we had got it broadly right. That is what we will debate in due course as we cover these matters. We have had a very good, full and constructive debate today. I am grateful to all those who have contributed. We have heard a wide range of different views and it is important that we continue to discuss these issues and the different views that we take. One of the points on which I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, is the importance of scrutiny of the Bill in this House. I positively look forward to the Committee stage, and Report after that, when we shall get down to that in detail. The Bill needs careful consideration by this House. It is something that this House is particularly good at. The debate has also confirmed yet again the importance that this House places on our liberties—not just the civil liberties of individuals but the right of all members of society to enjoy those liberties free from the fear of terrorism. Civil liberties are at the core of our society, the rule of law and respect for individual liberties being the very things that those terrorists wish to destroy. A great number of very detailed points have been put to me in the course of the debate. I do not intend to answer all of them at this stage; we would be here for a very long time. However, I shall go through some of the broader themes that have come up to give some indication of where we are and what we are thinking. We will no doubt debate those in much greater detail in Committee, as is right and proper. I also want to deal with some of the worries that have been put forward. In particular, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, talked about the enhanced TPIM Bill and seemed to think that it was lacking in scrutiny. The important point to remember about the enhanced TPIM Bill—although, as I stressed in my opening remarks, we do not want to have to make use of it—is that it will be debated in due course. That is the point of giving it pre-legislative scrutiny. It will mean that it can be debated in a measured manner at an appropriate time, and not just in moments of crisis. That will be a matter for the usual channels to arrange in due course. The first and most important point that I shall deal with, which was raised by my noble friend Lord Goodhart, the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Morgan, and others, is the idea that the TPIM system—with which we propose to replace control orders—will operate outside the rule of law. It will not operate outside the rule of law. We are here today in Parliament, in the Lords, debating this Bill. If enacted, it will have been passed by Parliament, just as the previous Bill was—many of us remember those long hours in 2005. The regime that follows that will be fully overseen by the courts. The Secretary of State’s decisions will be constrained by legislation and the Human Rights Act and, again, be fully overseen by the courts. I forget who it was who said earlier of a particular issue—I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Desai—that, either way, it would be tested in a court of law. We can be pretty sure that everything will be tested in a court of law in due course. Seeing two former Home Secretaries in the House, I imagine that Home Secretaries get rather used to that. It happens to other Secretaries of State, and I think that all Ministers are aware of the problems it can lead to. As I said, I want to deal with some of the points that have been made and some of the difficulties that many noble Lords see in the Bill. I want to address the whole question of the removal of relocation powers. Many from the Official Opposition, my noble friend Lord Howard and others feel that we have gone too far in removing those powers, which they believe are essential for national security. We have been clear that we will do nothing that risks our national security or the safety of citizens. Schedule 1 to the Bill contains all the powers that we need for all but the most exceptional circumstances. The exclusion regime that we propose is not the same as relocation but it will allow a certain degree of exclusion from particular places, such as named buildings, streets or towns. Exclusion from airports, ports and international railway stations will also be possible. Other restrictions include the requirement for an individual to stay overnight at a designated address, preventing him contacting certain individuals and preventing him travelling overseas. Together with the additional resources that we will provide for the police—this is the important point—those powers are sufficient to manage the risks that we face. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, who asked why we had still been using relocation powers over the past year if that was the case—he rightly said that there had been some use of them. I make it clear that it is our view that the public can be protected by a less intrusive and more targeted regime, which is what we are replacing the current regime with and what the Bill will bring about. However, we want to make it absolutely clear that the new regime will be complemented by those additional resources for the police and the security services allowing more surveillance and so on. Those additional resources will inevitably take some time to put in place. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, got it absolutely right when he implied that it takes time to train people in the art of surveillance. Therefore, it takes time to put them in place. That is why the full range of control orders, including relocation powers, are still being used at this time. However, we do not believe that they will be necessary in the future, when we have moved on and the rest of the provisions are in place.