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Geraint Davies (Croydon, Central) (Lab): Have the right hon. Gentleman and the other proponents of prevarication who support the amendments considered
 
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placing a screen down the centre of the Chamber, so that he and others could sit near the Strangers Gallery while we sat on the other side in safety?

Mr. Forth: I shall treat that intervention with the respect that it deserves.

This debate is a very important occasion. It is one on which we are given an opportunity to consider our role, our relationship to security—both specifically and more generally—and the matter of messages and symbols. It is in that context that I hope the House will agree to the amendments, which will give us an opportunity to return to the issue when we are better informed and when we have made a much better assessment of where we are going and why we want to go there.

3.58 pm

Mr. Robert Marshall-Andrews (Medway) (Lab): There is a canard abroad. I have heard it whispered that those of us who bitterly oppose this thing do so because we wish, in some way, those on the Front Bench to be put at greater risk. Nothing could be further from the truth, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, I can reveal to you that one of the reasons that I habitually attempt to take this particular seat during Prime Minister's questions is so that I can, if necessary, suddenly interpose my own body between the Prime Minister and the public or indeed the Press Gallery—[Interruption.]—and even the Leader of the House.

Important points are involved. First, I fundamentally and truthfully believe that such a measure will, in the long run, increase the risk for Members in the House. If the motion is passed and there is a permanent screen, that will be a small victory. It will not be a victory for the Serjeant at Arms, with whom I have considerable sympathy, or for the security services, with which I have infinitely less sympathy after the events of last year, or for the Metropolitan police commissioner, for whom I have a great liking and admiration. It will be a victory for the grim list of organisations appended to the Terrorism Act 2000, including Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah, the IRA, the Ulster Volunteer Force, al-Qaeda and so on, which will have the enormous satisfaction of knowing that simply through their existence and the threats that they say they pose they will, to adopt a note of pomposity, have turned the mother of Parliaments into a Lilliputian assembly that, they would perceive, is cowering behind a wall of glass. Those are criminal organisations, and should be treated as such—they should never be endowed with the status of warriors. They should not be treated as warriors but with contempt.

I do not remember speaking well of Baroness Thatcher in the House before, but I shall do so now. When she was bombed, only hours afterwards she was at the Conservative party conference carrying on with the democratic process. We should remember that indomitable spirit of politics, because we are sending a message—to utter another pomposity—not just to our constituents but to every terrorist organisation that is hoping to undermine and destroy our democratic way of life through the threat that they pose.

Secondly, this building does not belong to Members of Parliament. It is a royal palace but it is also, in the best sense, the people's palace. They come here not because
 
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of sufferance or invitation from us but as of right. They have a right to be here, not as voyeurs or listeners, but to participate in the process. Of course, they cannot speak while they are here, but their very presence alters the warp and weft of what we do. When the House laughs, as its does, fortunately, on occasion, that laughter is echoed by the people who sit there and are with us. When the place is sad or solemn, that sadness and solemnity is felt not just down here but throughout the Chamber. Any interference with that is a gross distortion and intervention with the body politic—they will know it, and we will know it. There could not be a stronger metaphor for the alienation of people from politics than what we are proposing to put up.

Of course, there is risk, but we are here to take risks. We are not here simply to soak up the many benefits and privileges associated with being a Member. We are here to bear and share the risks that our people bear and share. What rights have we over, for instance, those who preside over public order or public matters? What about the thousands of judges—I do not hold a special brief for them—or the counsel who appear before them? What about the thousands of jurors who go into a jury box every single day in public courts—institutions that, the Leader of the House will not mind me reminding him, are the among the most noble in the country. Those jurors are at risk, but are we going to put glass screens up in the public gallery in all our courts, thereby changing their very nature and the way in which they operate?

We must accept the risk and, although the Leader of the House gave the notion short shrift, I am unapologetic in arguing that our action will increase the risk to people behind the screen. They are at as much risk as us, and if we isolate ourselves by an absolute action we will increase the risk to them.

Mr. Heald: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that, apart from Parliament, nothing is more important than our courts being able to function and being open to scrutiny from the public? He knows as well as I do that where courts are thought to be at risk for various reasons, security measures are taken. He will have been to Winchester and seen them.

Mr. Marshall-Andrews: On occasions. I have some experience of courts. I know of no plans to put up glass screens between the court and the public gallery. On occasion we put up screens, and it is one of the ways that we deal effectively with terrorist cases—on occasion. That is why I accept from the Leader of the House that a temporary screen in the Chamber may—I do not know—have been necessary, but a permanent screen is certainly not necessary.

Sir Patrick Cormack: The hon. and learned Gentleman, as always, makes an eloquent speech, but he is advancing a spurious argument. There may be occasions when it is necessary to take proper protective measures in court, but there is a weekly occasion to which a number of us have referred when the whole of the Executive and most of the Legislature are assembled here.

Mr. Marshall-Andrews: I am sorry to disagree with the hon. Gentleman, for whom I have enormous respect.
 
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If we are speaking about the ability to foresee events of a strategic nature, the courts are no better and no worse off than we are. Massive trials involving terrorists are well publicised. We know when they are to take place. Terrorists know when they are to take place. I have never been in a position where screens have been erected between the public gallery and a court in those circumstances—never. With great respect to the hon. Gentleman, his argument will not wash.

The problem is that it will be perceived outside, with a great deal of justification, that we are protecting ourselves—I take the hon. Gentleman's argument that this is democracy, but what will be perceived is that we are protecting ourselves and letting the rest go hang. We must bear the risk, and we must be seen to share it with others and with our constituents.

We take risks when we hold our surgeries. I have no more intention of holding my surgeries behind glass than I have of sitting in the Chamber behind glass, because my constituents have a right to see me not through a glass darkly—that may improve the situation in some respects—but face to face, both in those circumstances and here. If we vote for a permanent screen we will be contributing not to national security, but to national neurosis. There will be no end to it. I very much hope that the amendments will be passed, in which case the substantive motion will fall, but if they are not, I hope the substantive motion will be defeated in due course.

4.7 pm

Mr. James Arbuthnot (North-East Hampshire) (Con): I should like to take up a point raised by the hon. Member for South Antrim (David Burnside), who made a distinction between a defined threat and a specific threat. I should like to pursue that into the difference between a threat and a vulnerability.

We have not been told whether there is a defined, specific threat to the House. That is probably not that relevant. One week there may be a defined threat, and the next week that threat may have diminished. One week there may be none, and the next week a defined threat may be heard about. By the time a defined, specific threat is discovered, however, it may be too late to do anything about it.

One thing that no hon. Member has questioned in the debate so far is that the House, and the Chamber particularly, is vulnerable. It is obviously vulnerable. Nobody has questioned that. It is not just a potential target for terrorism—it is an easy potential target. It is not just an easy potential target—it is an attractive, easy potential target, and not just for terrorists. It is a target for hoaxers as well. That could be just as disruptive to the life of this country as real terrorism, and just as bad in publicity terms for the terrorist threat. If a powder or a gas or a liquid were released into the Chamber, it would be impossible to tell for a long time precisely what was contained in it.

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