I support the Bill, having not had the privilege of ever being a lawyer. Occasionally, that is quite useful as it brings an element of common sense to the debate. I support the Bill because I believe it is balanced, proportionate and needed. It has a subtle nuance of equilibrium between the rights and the powers, between the state and the law enforcement agencies and the rights of individuals. I say that not because of any ovine tendency, but because I happen to believe that it is true.
We have listened this afternoon to the Opposition parties in glorious abstention. Their absence from most of the debate underscores the lack of seriousness with which they take national security. They have sat slightly like the vestal virgins, positioning themselves as the guardians of the flame of some cherished civil liberty, often dancing on the head of a legal pin, where this test has not quite been met or that hurdle has not quite been covered. We will wait and see what happens on Report.
I speak as a father, a husband, a son—somebody, I hope, with common sense, who believes that at the heart of the Bill is the Government’s sincere intention to deliver what they were elected to do—that is, to strive
and to put in place mechanisms to defeat and frustrate terrorism, to protect our children and our young people, to try to address the problems of drug and people trafficking. Listening to the Labour Opposition, in years gone by, they probably would have complained that the magi had been intercepted and that Herod was allowed the slaughter of the first-born as a result.