My Lords, I support what the noble Baroness has said. There cannot be any doubt that the power to exclude British citizens from their own country is a wholly exceptional power of the sort that we have not seen before. In fact, it is warranted by the threat that emanates from the globalisation of terror and the ease with which young men in particular, but some young women as well, can pass in and out of parts of the world that are controlled by terrorists, and of course the threat that they represent to us when they return from those zones.
However, it is the exceptional, drastic nature of this power, warranted though it is, that requires that procedural fairness is absolutely guaranteed by the processes under which the power is exercised. It is because the power is so extraordinary that it is so important, in order to avoid the scenario that the noble Baroness was talking about at the outset of this debate—that we observe the highest degree of procedural fairness. To that extent, I support what she has been saying.
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