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Tuesday, November 22, 2005

House of Lords terrorism debate 21.11.05

I have attached my contribution to this debate and the link - which I hope works better then my last attempt - to the rest of the debate.

Lord Soley: My Lords, it may be something of an understatement to describe the previous speech as intriguing, but I shall leave it to the Minister as I do not have an answer to those questions. For many years I have not been alone in struggling with the difficult question of how to confront and defeat terrorism, while at the same time defend our civil liberties and protect the rights of minorities who get caught in the net and become easy recruits for terrorism, wherever it may be. I am not alone in having been through that, and all of us from time to time have adjusted our positions. An important message to give to people outside is that the Bill is not internment, which locked up thousands of people without a release date being set, judicial input, or the police or security services having to record the interviews either by audio or visual means. Exactly the same applies to the Prevention of Terrorism Act as it was in the 1980s and early 1990s. Then, up to 6,000 people a year were being detained for seven days without access even to a solicitor, never mind a judge, and were being held without access to the audio or visual tapes that are now kept by the police. Incidentally, that is where some of the wrongful convictions to which the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, referred came from. Indeed, one of them was of a person known to me in the Guildford case when I was a probation officer. She was held under that provision and released. The fascinating thing about her was that she was held for seven days without access to a solicitor. At the beginning of those seven days, she was denying that she had committed the offence; at the end, she was admitting it. That is not because she was brutally treated; as she would concede and has said since, she was a confused and mixed-up young girl on drugs and was therefore easily caught in that sort of net. 21 Nov 2005 : Column 1427 The other thing that it is important to understand is that we began to get more sophisticated in our handling of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, in particular, but also internment. I was never in my career the chairman of the 1922 Committee, so I cannot be too sure of my facts here, but I suspect that both the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, who will speak next and, possibly, the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, knew that the numbers that we were pulling in under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and internment were providing easy recruits for the paramilitaries. At its height, the use of exclusion orders under the Prevention of Terrorism Act totalled about 250 people a year excluded from one part of the United Kingdom to another. In my view, later supported by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, in his report on the Prevention of Terrorism Act, that constituted internal exile—something that we had not had since the days of Henry VIII. So we must watch our language: things have changed dramatically for the better. That is why many of us have been able to consider things differently now. I am sad to have to say this, but I say to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that he is very unwise to have adduced the position of the Liberal Party, because throughout the 1980s, when the party wanted to position itself to the Right of the Labour Party politically, it supported both those Acts without any of the safeguards that we now have. Now that, for what I regard as rather daft political reasons, the party wants to position itself to the Left of us, they are opposed to the Bill. That is a classic case of what people expect in this country: the Tory Party to drive on the Right, the Labour Party to drive on the Left and the Liberals again saying that it is entirely an optional matter which side of the road to drive on, it depends on the weather. That is not a very sensible stance. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for whose comments I shall wait with some interest, said, and in my view thanks to the final few years of the Conservative Government under John Major and to the present Government, Britain now has more protection for defendants than most other countries. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, that the United States is about the worst model that we can follow. At present, the United States tries to catch people outside its jurisdiction and hold them out there. That is unacceptable. Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? Lord Soley: My Lords, I am not sure whether I get injury time here, but I shall give way nevertheless. Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, it is a very quick point. Does the noble Lord agree that I was talking specifically about dissemination of 21 Nov 2005 : Column 1428 publications and universities? I agree with every word that he said about how the United States treats people outside its country. Lord Soley: My Lords, I understand that, but some of the people whom it is trying to hold outside are people whom it thinks are disseminating information, so the matter is not as clear-cut as it seems. However, I understand and accept the point that the noble Baroness makes. For rather different reasons than have been given by others in this debate, I agree that the issue of glorification is difficult. I think that most of us know the intense feeling about some statements made by some people in one particular mosque in north London. That provokes people massively, to the extent that two mosques in my constituency when I was still a Member of the Commons also complained bitterly about what was being said in that mosque and wanted action taken against it, even before the terrorist attacks. The danger in addressing that is the Government have drawn up this glorification provision, which will not be used very much. As I think that my noble friend Lady Scotland will tell us when she replies, prosecution depends on either the Director of Public Prosecutions or the Attorney-General or both deciding to go ahead. So the chance of a librarian being charged under that is very slight. The danger is that we will not use the provision and people will still feel that things are being said outside that are unacceptable and unforgivable. Another part of me feels that I would rather have those people out in the open where I can see them. I rather suspect that the security services might. As the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, said, they are often just loud mouths, but those who go to listen to them may be a bit more involved, so it can be useful to know them. I also want to address the issue of 28 days briefly but in a wider context because I suspect that we now have the worst of all worlds—again, I shall listen to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, with interest. It is probably true to say that 28 days is not enough if we are to go down that road. In seven days, a person will often have confessed. If they have not confessed in seven to 10 days, they are unlikely to. The reason for a longer period is not so much about questioning as about searching computer databases and, above all, obtaining information from overseas. I end with this final suggestion to the Government. I do not think that we can solve the problem in one fell swoop, we must keep working at it. I think that the time has come to recognise that what we started with control orders in this country and now with the Bill is to take a significant step down the road used in several European countries of holding people while investigating under the investigating magistrate system. In the Bill and with control orders, we put a judge in charge—which is absolutely right—who is then to question people on a weekly basis to ask how the process is going and whether we still need to hold a person. He can hear the person in their own defence. That is not dissimilar to what is done in continental Europe. I do not recommend that we go down the 21 Nov 2005 : Column 1429 French road, where they hold people for up to four years. That is appalling. But there may be a way forward here in the longer term—not in the Bill, I accept—by recognising that we have adopted part of the continental system for this narrow area of terrorism and adapted it to our needs. I am not sure that, in the long run, it would not be better if we tried to reach a balance and recognise that we are doing that and that we do so only for terrorism and no other offence. I do not suggest the importation of continental law into Britain, but the case for doing that for terrorism is very strong. Sadly, we will not be able to leave these debates behind us for some years yet, I suspect, but it is important that we never give up focusing on the difficult balance between the three aspects of civil liberties, the rights of minorities and the need to defeat terrorism. If we get those right, I suggest that we start to consider in a more strategic, long-term way bringing an aspect of continental law into our law in a way that is unique to this country—and we are quite good at that—to get over some of the hurdles that we have all faced in the past. http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199697/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds05/text/51121-04.htm#51121-04_head2

Clive:
On 17 December 1998, you said: "... the dictators who have so disfigured the face of the 20th century need to be stopped. When we cannot stop them here and now, we need to be able to put them on trial before the International Criminal Court when they lose power, as we will eventually do."

Do you object to Saddam Hussein being tried in an Iraqi court instead of the ICC? Do you, like President Talabani, support the execution of Saddam Hussein and others in his regime?

In the same debate, you stated: "One of the tactics that the Americans and British Government might seek to employ would be to encourage the Shi'a in the south of Iraq, or the Kurds in the north of Iraq, to rise up against Saddam Hussein. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, unless the United States Government and the British Government were to offer very substantial and effective military assistance, the probabilities are that the Shi'a and the Kurds would be crushed, with great loss of life? Does the right hon. Gentleman therefore agree that, unless the United States Government and the British Government are willing to provide substantial and effective military cover for the Shi'a and the Kurds, they should not be encouraged to rise up against Saddam Hussein?"

Why did you support giving military assistance to ethnic groups in Iraq, but refuse to even meet representatives of ethnic minorities from Iran?

Are you a supporter of the regime in Tehran? Is sympathy for the mullahs of Iran the motivation for your support for the arming of Iranian-backed groups in Iraq? Is it also a reason why you have branded Iranian opposition groups as untrustworthy? Are you glad that Iraq is now run by the terrorists, criminals and fanatics of SCIRI and Dawa?

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