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Mr. Robathan: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend, who is making a very eloquent speech, but he has introduced into the debate something that as far as I am concerned has not been mentioned before: a specific threat—I am quoting, I think, exactly what he said—to this Chamber of something being thrown into the Chamber.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is a matter for debate. It is not a point of order for the occupant of the Chair.

Sir Patrick Cormack: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Of course it is not a point of order. I
 
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am making a point that is entirely relevant to the debate and therefore it is important that colleagues should know about that. I believe that we have a duty to consider something else, and it came to me during the debate. I have been slightly distressed by some of the comments, including sotto voce comments, that I have heard. I respect everyone who is a robust defender of parliamentary democracy. I have dedicated my life to that and hope that I will do so until the end of my days. However, what we need to do—I will talk to the Leader of the House and my colleagues on the Commission about this—is probably to arrange a series of briefings for Members of the House, so that they may share some of the information that we have been given on a strictly confidential basis. It would be the right thing for us to do, because that would dispel some of the manifest ignorance that is present here today.

Mr. Andrew Turner: I certainly do not wish to introduce any further note of dissent into the debate but some of us remember being told before that there was an immediate or imminent threat, not to this House but to this nation, and some of us feel that we were misled. However, the point of my intervention is to ask my hon. Friend whether he would give me reasons for voting against the amendment, which so far no one has done.

Sir Patrick Cormack: I am delighted to give those reasons. I say in passing that I do not accept the thrust of what my hon. Friend sought to say in the first part of his intervention, because I believe that what we were told we were told in good faith. However, I am not going to rehearse all the arguments. I believe that what was done last year was entirely justified, but that is my personal view. As for the amendment, the answer in effect is partly that given by the Leader of the House and partly that given by me in my intervention on the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler). While I will not particularise, the screen we have is not wholly as effective as a permanent screen would be. I do not rate the aesthetic considerations as paramount, but I believe that they are real. However, I am concerned about security, not aesthetics. Secondly, having been persuaded that we live in such perilous times that the most comprehensive review of security in this place is necessary and is going on—we must not forget the context in which we are discussing this matter—the sooner we can have the maximum protection, the better.

The permanent screen will give maximum protection. It will take between 15 and 18 months for it to be ordered, fabricated and erected, and the only time in the next two years when we can do that without further extensions of parliamentary recesses—we have just had such an extension, for that purpose—will be in the long summer recess of 2005. We therefore need the approval of this House, and I beg colleagues in all parts of the House, if they care about this place and access to it by anybody on the street who wants to come and listen, to support the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader today.

3.31 pm

Mr. Siôn Simon (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab): There are some strange misconceptions in this debate; it is almost surreal. If it were the case that were it not for
 
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the screen, we would all be murdered, there might be something in it—but that is not so. All the screen does is protect us from the people sitting behind it—not from those in front of it or in Central Lobby, or from the serried ranks of journalists. If I were a terrorist—or the kind of sleeping infiltrator whose entire life was dedicated to annihilating or subverting our democracy and traditions—with the wherewithal to get my hands on a little phial of lethal anthrax, I should probably also have the initiative to write to my Member of Parliament, whom I had taken the trouble to get to know a little, and ask him to get me a seat in front of the screen.

Mr. Heald: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there is a difference, even these days, between someone who queues up and comes in off the street and a member of the parliamentary Lobby?

Mr. Simon: It is true that I can tell the difference between a member of the public—indeed, a member of the human race—and a member of the parliamentary Lobby. The point remains; I do not think that the screen is likely to be a significant deterrent to a resourceful terrorist. What it does is to send out all the wrong signals about us, our Parliament and our democracy to the people whom we are supposed to represent.

Mr. Hain: If my hon. Friend does not think that the screen will be a serious deterrent, why does he think that MI5 recommended it to us?

Mr. Simon: The screen tells us that the head of MI5 and her minions are no doubt excellently cognisant of the evil machinations of terrorists and that, although she understands terrorism very well, she perhaps does not understand Parliament particularly well. Anyone who understood Parliament would not put a screen half way up the Strangers Gallery, because they would know that any resourceful terrorist would just go in front of it.

Mr. Hain indicated dissent.

Mr. Simon: The Leader of the House shakes his head. I do not in any way impugn the motives or the sincerity of the Commission, the Leader of the House or any of the people who have made the decision. I just do not agree with them.

The one time that the Leader of the House and his able sidekick were nodding vigorously was when the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) said that just because we cannot do everything is not a reason for doing nothing. That is a good point—one in politics generally that I make all the time. On this occasion, however, it is better to say that there is no point doing something that is foolish. Doing something foolish is not better than doing nothing.

I have a couple more random points. Several speeches, the preponderance of which have been in favour of the screen, in a Chamber that is clearly more hostile because of it, have mentioned the peculiarity of the concentration and predictability of the timetable in this Parliament, compared with others. That is just not true. I was in the Assemblée Nationale, I think at the same time as my hon. Friend the Member for
 
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Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell), where we watched Government question time. The President was not there, but the Prime Minister and the whole Cabinet were, and there was certainly no screen, although that event was perfectly predictable. Most Parliaments are quite predictable; there is nothing particularly unique about this place in that sense.

That thing—that screen—sends a signal to our constituents that we are frightened. It says to Mr. Terrorist, "I am frightened of you. You have made me change my ways. You have put a barrier between my Parliament and my people." It says, "You are winning, Mr. Terrorist. I am running, I am hiding." British democracy should not hide from terrorists; that is not the way. The screen is based on a misconception. By having it, we are telling people that they can come in and bring their anthrax, and that if they get a ticket, they can go into the Gallery with it. We are telling people that they are welcome to swing their anthrax around Central Lobby, and that if they can get an invitation to lunch with a Member in the Strangers Dining Room and lob a bit of chemical weaponry around there, that is no problem. The only place where there will be no point in their taking their anthrax is up there where the screen is. What is the point of that?

Mr. Hain: On the logic of my hon. Friend's argument that we are frightened, he would not have armed police guards or concrete bollards outside, or airport-type security here. He would have no security at all. My point to him is that this move is about reducing risk. The Security Service advice was about reducing risk, for the good reasons that the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) explained.

Mr. Simon: No, that is not true, because the screen does not work. All that it is, is a symbol. It is a physical barrier symbolising something that is metaphorically very important. It is telling people, "You can't come in. You can't turn up and walk into the same Room as your Member of Parliament, feel what they feel, see what they see and hear what they hear", and that is wrong.

My final point, although I am conscious that the motion and amendment do not really allow for the full expression of this, is that hon. Members are wrong when they suggest that we should give the screen time. We all know what happens to temporary structures that are erected, especially when evaluation is impossible, as several hon. Members have said. We do not want to give the screen time. We need to get rid of it before we get used to it.

3.38 pm

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