My Lords, I am curious about two of the sources of opposition to what my noble friend Lord King and others have proposed. One is that we somehow have plenty of time and that we do not need to rush. Terrorism is time-related, but it is not time-limited. The terrorist threat was there yesterday and the day before. It is certainly there today and it will be there tomorrow, I am afraid, and I fear the day after tomorrow as well. We do not have the luxury of time that many have suggested.
The other point that surprised me so much is the one about public concern. Of course, it is very easy to say to the public that there is a danger of a snoopers’ charter, which will interfere with everything that you are communicating and is very much against your interests. We know that technically that is simply not true. It is a fear and concern that has been fanned by politicians, quite often for their own purposes.
The noble Lord, Lord Butler, was so right to draw attention to the fact that a draft Bill has been prepared. As far as I can make out, that has been deliberately suppressed by one party for presumably some sort of political reason. It has not been brought forward for discussion. If you ask the public to choose between reducing the risk of death from terrorism to themselves or others whom they do not know, or a possible invasion of their privacy or the privacy of others whom they know or do not know, I have little doubt as to what they would choose.
There are ways in which the security of this country is not being maintained when the Government would like to maintain it. I take one example. It is clearly in our interests in the world of terrorism that we should know who crosses our borders—out as well as in. We have been given an example of the people who go to do jihad and all the rest of it. The fact is that a big attempt was made with the e-Borders programme. A
contract worth £750 million was given to Raytheon in 2007. It ran into tremendous difficulties and in 2010 the contract was cancelled. Since then there has been a great deal of judicial toing and froing and arbitration. The net result appears to be a debt to the taxpayer to be paid by the Home Office to Raytheon of £200 million. Something like that failed when it was tried. Let us at least do things that we think can be done. Do not let us say that we have until the day after tomorrow as things may happen tomorrow.