I am grateful to all noble Lords for their broad welcome for the amendments which have been put forward. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, we have listened in the other place, which is why my honourable friend the Minister for Security and Immigration, James Brokenshire, said that he would seek to bring forward measures in this House. We have listened to the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and what we have proposed has been moulded by and fits in with what he sought to set out. We have also been significantly influenced by the persuasive report of the Constitution Committee, to which I referred earlier. Again, I thank my noble friend Lord Lang for his thoughtful work, which has been extremely helpful. That has all come together and we have made our recommendations and presented the amendments.
Let me deal with some of the points raised, in no particular order. However, certainly on the human rights side, I stand by the declaration that I made in the Bill. It is a very important statement in terms of giving assurance to people about the proportionality of what is being proposed regarding temporary exclusion orders and how they will operate.
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The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, asked what was going to happen in-country when these orders are applied. This has been described by
some people as a way of managing the return of the individual who is there. We will have issued the temporary exclusion order on the basis of a belief that the person has been engaged in terrorism or terrorism-related activities. That notice will have been served in person, or, more likely, to their last known address. That would be communicated to them before they return home. Part of that is for a very obvious reason: particularly if they are boarding an aircraft—and some terrorist organisations focus their threat on air travel—we want to be absolutely sure that they are accompanied by a police officer during their return to the UK, for example, or that they agree to be on a specific flight and to be met by a police officer, and that when they arrive back in the UK they agree to undertake certain in-country commitments.
This relates to the point of my noble friend Lady Warsi about the duration of these orders. The two years relates to the potential in-country element, so that when they return to the country there could be a stipulation about taking part in a deradicalisation programme, or something similar, or agreeing not to travel, which could be in place for up to two years. It is more likely that they would be switched to one of the other mechanisms, particularly if there was evidence that they had been engaged in terrorist activities and we wished to engage in a prosecution on that basis. So we hope that the amount of time they would be, as it were, at a port, seeking to return, would be very short, and that they would have access to consular facilities in-country. Then they would return and the in-country element of the exclusion order would be part of the conditions for their return to the UK.