Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

I rise to briefly support the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, but do so from an angle that has yet to be mentioned in the debate this afternoon. I base it on my own experience over the years. Exercising the duties given to me in Northern Ireland, I saw at first hand the burden that successive Secretaries of State had to carry on behalf of the Executive in situations of dire necessity demanding often urgent and serious decisions in a matter of hours. The former Secretaries of State who grace this House—I see the noble Lord, Lord King, in his place—will recognise the roles of the judiciary and the Executive. The Bill has been thoughtfully carried to this stage, and I am aware from my own contacts of the thought and preparation that have gone into the terms before us. The Minister will obviously want to argue that the right way to do this in the case of urgent and very sensitive issues is through the work of the Executive and their decisions. In his position, many noble Lords would argue the same. However, where in the sensitive and urgent situation of widespread terrorism a whole community is faced with what should be protection by the Executive, there is a tendency not to value the importance of the community’s confidence in how those decisions are made. In those years to which I referred in my own lifetime of experience, in the discussions to which I was privy and decisions that were taken where my own opinion was sought, there was no doubt of the urgency and necessity of moving as quickly from the level of executive or political decisions to what could be transparently seen as the decisions of the judiciary. The important point I am simply trying to underline is that, in our discussions this afternoon, let us bear in mind the question of the confidence of the community in decisions that are made at this level. I beg to suggest that, where those decisions are made by the judiciary, there is much more acceptance by a hard-pressed community under a situation of terrorism than in the other case. This is not to downgrade the integrity of any executive decision, and I am not doing that; I am simply saying that we must take a broader view. For that reason, I support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd.