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Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West): In respect of stop-and-search powers and the lacuna in section 13A of the PTA, can my hon. Friend tell me how many IRA terrorists whom he knows are black? Whom does he think will be stopped on the streets of London?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. The hon. Gentleman may like to provide that information later this evening, but it is not appropriate to a guillotine motion debate.

Mr. Corbyn: Either on Second Reading or outside, I shall certainly discuss experience of the PTA with my hon. Friend.

We have been presented with a ludicrous choice of options at the conclusion of this debate. We have almost as much time on the guillotine motion as on the substance of the Bill. During the Committee, there are a possible 17 debates to be held, all on important matters. Those of us who tabled amendments certainly thought them through carefully, albeit quickly, last night. The idea that we can properly debate 17 issues in three hours, if necessary voting on all of them, is just not credible. Time will run out, and if the House divides on earlier amendments, we shall not reach the later ones, which will therefore receive no consideration at all.

The likelihood is that there will be a number of legal challenges to parts of the Bill. It will look pretty thin if the Home Secretary's defence in court some years hence is that Parliament did not even discuss the matter. Parliament will not have discussed the matter because the Home Secretary proposed a motion to deny the House the right to discuss it and to deny to hon. Members the right to table amendments.

When we have a difficulty or an emergency, it is up to the Home Secretary to convince people that the difficulty or emergency exists. I cannot speak for everybody, but many people in my constituency have suffered under the

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prevention of terrorism Act in the past. Many people now recognise that the PTA is obsolete and unnecessary legislation and a denial of civil liberties. The Bill is a further denial of civil liberties and the House should not debate it today. The Bill should be laid on the Table so that we can discuss it properly after due consideration, and so that all interested parties can put forward their points of view.

If Parliament is to mean anything, it must be able to represent the views of the people who have sent us here. It is simply not possible to do that if we rush legislation through less than 24 hours after its existence has even been intimated in the media by the Home Secretary. I hope that the House will not agree to the guillotine motion and, therefore, will not enable debate to take place on the Bill today.

4.50 pm

Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West): Like other Opposition Members, I have to confess that I remain totally confused and uncertain about why we are being asked to rush such important legislation through the House in less than 24 hours. If we listen to the Home Secretary and to the Leader of the House, we get two conflicting explanations. The Home Secretary said yesterday:

"In recent weeks, I have discussed with senior police officers whether there were any additional powers that would strengthen their ability to safeguard the public. I have listened carefully to points that they made. The proposals that I am announcing today are designed to meet the real needs that they have identified. The additional powers will be accompanied by proper safeguards to ensure that they are used only where there is a real operational requirement. They are essentially practical and technical measures, but I believe that they are necessary changes, which will increase public safety."--[Official Report, 1 April 1996; Vol. 275, c. 35.]

The Leader of the House this afternoon, however, chose to argue that we were living in unusual, if not unique, circumstances. I again failed to be convinced about those unusual, if not unique, circumstances. Sadly, over the past 25 years, we have experienced terrorist outrages, including serious incidents in London. We have also experienced ceasefires introduced by paramilitary groups and, sadly, those ceasefires have been withdrawn. We can all also agree that we have had Easter before. I therefore do not understand the unusual and unique circumstances that the Leader of the House, unlike the Home Secretary, has used to justify this emergency legislation.

The fact that we have a timetable motion-- a guillotine--to drive the measure through the House in such a short space of time reveals the Government's basic lack of confidence in their case. As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said earlier, if the Government were so convinced of the need for the legislation, why on earth could they not have the confidence to come to the House and convince us of the need without a guillotine motion? If nothing else, such an approach would have provided additional time for us to consider the measure. The guillotine motion is very revealing.

What is unusual and unique is that we have a peace process. It may be that the peace process is--sadly--losing momentum and unravelling, but what signal and what message would be sent out by the British House of

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Commons this afternoon on the peace process by rushing through draconian emergency legislation as we are being invited to do?

Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn): My hon. Friend is right to say that the peace process is in some difficulty at the moment. Will he also acknowledge that the reason for the difficulty is that the IRA decided unilaterally to break the ceasefire and has committed bomb outrages since?

Mr. Madden: That is absolutely right, but I am sad that my hon. Friend has been persuaded of the case for this emergency legislation to be rushed through the House. In the IRA, the people who will be aided and abetted by what we are being asked to do this afternoon will be the hawks, the hard men and the people who want to continue the terror campaign.

I remember many of those magnificent and impressive peace demonstrations that took place in London, Belfast and Dublin. I do not recall any of the placards saying "Please renew the PTA" or "Please extend the PTA". Not one of those demonstrations called for the Bill.

When the Home Secretary made his statement yesterday, I regret that he was not able to say a word about a matter that would be of major assistance to rebuilding momentum in the peace process, marginalising the hard men in the IRA and restoring the ceasefire. I refer to the repatriation of Irish prisoners to the Irish Republic. I hope that the Home Secretary will soon be able to make a decision about repatriating Patrick Kelly and others who have applied to be transferred to prisons in the Irish Republic. In my view, that would make a major contribution to rebuilding confidence in, and the momentum of, the peace process.

This is not a minor Bill. It consists of seven clauses and a schedule. It has not been produced in the last week. As my hon. Friends have suggested, it has been sitting in the Home Office for a considerable time. We must ask ourselves why the Government have chosen this moment to bring it out of the filing cabinet and invite the House of Commons to pass it. I am not convinced by the case that has been made. Why were we not given even a scintilla of information about the proposals by the Home Secretary when the PTA was renewed on 14 March? I would have thought that that would have been a way of seeking and obtaining the confidence of the House, but that is not this Home Secretary's way.

On that occasion, the Home Secretary spent most of his time gratuitously insulting my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) for deciding officially that the Labour party would not oppose the renewal of the PTA but would abstain. Yesterday, however, it was all bouquets and praise for my hon. Friend. That change of attitude and behaviour in the Home Secretary came because he wanted something from the official Opposition, but not all of us in the Labour party will abstain on this measure tonight. A number of my right hon. and hon. Friends will oppose the guillotine motion; will vote against Second Reading; will propose amendments, if we get the chance; and will vote against Third Reading.

Mr. Greg Pope (Hyndburn): My hon. Friend has made an interesting point in suggesting that the Bill is being rushed through so quickly so as to gain party political

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advantage for the Government. If that is the case and if that is what my hon. Friend believes, would it not be the utmost foolishness to aid and abet the Home Secretary by voting against the Bill?

Mr. Madden: I have always believed that people should act as they believe. I believe that the Bill is thoroughly bad and, therefore, I will vote against it as a Member of Parliament. My hon. Friend should understand that the Lobby does not belong to anyone. We vote as individual Members representing our constituents. We are asked to exercise our best judgment on their behalf in all matters, and that is what I intend to do on this occasion, as I have done on all previous occasions.

I regret that the Bill is being rushed through because it denies us all an opportunity to consult individuals and groups in Northern Ireland who for many years have had to put up with the search powers that are proposed in the Bill. When the Home Secretary winds up, will he say how many arrests, charges and convictions for terrorist-related crimes have resulted from the powers to search pedestrians that are available in Northern Ireland, which are similar to the ones in the Bill?

I gave the Home Secretary's office notice this morning of a question about information which I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be able to provide later in the debate. In his statement yesterday, he said:

"It may reassure the House to know that the existing stop-and-search powers have been invoked only in the City of London and in the Metropolitan police areas in the aftermath of South Quay. In the City, the powers have applied for the full 28 days allowed on each occasion; in the much larger Metropolitan police district, they have been applied for periods of between seven and 10 days at a time. They remain in force at the moment, and rightly so."--[Official Report, 1 April 1996; Vol. 275, c. 36.]

How many people have been arrested, charged and convicted of terrorist-related crimes as a result of those powers? How do the existing stop-and-search powers vary from those in the Bill? It is also important for the House and the public to be absolutely clear about what these powers imply.

If the Government had not subjected us to the panic measure of trying to push the Bill through the House, we would have been able to talk to people in Northern Ireland about their experiences of what happens and what has happened there over many years as a result of such powers. I remind the House that clause 1(2) states:

"This section confers on any constable in uniform power to stop any pedestrian and search him, or anything carried by him, for articles of a kind which could be used for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of such acts of terrorism."

Subsection (3) states:

"A constable may exercise his powers under this section whether or not he has any grounds for suspecting the presence of articles of that kind."

Yesterday, the Home Secretary spoke about safeguards, and today, several of my hon. Friends asked about those. What are they? They do not appear in the Bill, but unless they are real, we can rightly claim that the legislation is a return to the hated sus law. Under the legislation, for a period of up to 28 days, large numbers of people, in a completely arbitrary area, can be stopped and searched without any explanation or justification. Because of the time factor, we have not been able to take evidence on

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that issue. We have not been able to table amendments and we shall certainly not have adequate discussion of the matter.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, in politics generally and in Irish politics in particular, perception is all. I appeal not only to the Home Secretary but to the Government to recognise what will be the perception of the Bill that we are being asked to rush through. It will be exploited by the paramilitaries, whose propaganda machine will go into overdrive. They will say that the Brits have not learnt anything and will not learn anything, and that the only way forward is a return to terror and bombing.

Before the ceasefires came about, the Government promised that if they were introduced they would show generosity and imagination. It gives me no pleasure or satisfaction to say that, since the ceasefires were withdrawn a few months ago, and during the period that they were in operation from the summer of 1994, such generosity and imagination were singularly absent from all that the Government did. It was a question of delay and obstruction and of playing for time, and that played into the hands of those who were never in favour of the peace process or of democracy and who always argued that they could obtain their objectives by terror. The Government were materially at fault and I am disappointed to have witnessed that.

I am disappointed that, rather than being positive in relation to the peace process and Northern Ireland, we are again returning to the measures that have failed in the past. They are not relevant to today's problem. We need to show generosity and imagination to ensure that the peace process becomes reality. We must not return to this tired, arbitrary and possibly illegal legislation that has so failed us in the past.

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