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Mr. Clarke: I want to make the situation clear, and I should point out that I simply do not accept my hon. Friend's description of the position of the Metropolitan police. I think the individual she was referring to was Sir Stephen Lander, the former head of MI5 and chairman designate of the Serious Organised Crime Agency. I commend to her his letter to the newspapers of a few days ago and his excellent interview on the "Today" programme against the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy)—I should have said "with", not "against"—on precisely that point. Our position is clear.

Vera Baird (Redcar) (Lab): I am very pleased that my right hon. Friend has said that he will consider sending all these files to the DPP, because that is an essential step. Is it not implicit in the application for a control order that the case in question has been impossible to prosecute? It is not appropriate for the Home Office to take such a decision when there is a constitutional figure—the DPP—whose job that is.

Mr. Clarke: I understand that point, which I will consider, and I know that my hon. and learned Friend has written specifically about it. There are serious issues on both sides of the argument, but hers is a well-made point that we can discuss.

Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire) (Con): The right hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. He said that 701 people had been arrested and he then gave the figures for those convicted. What category did the people currently in Belmarsh fall into? Was it thought that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute them?

Mr. Clarke: I am not prepared to discuss individual cases, but what I will say is that all the individuals whom the hon. Gentleman refers to are being dealt with under
 
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powers in part 4 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, and not under the Terrorism Act 2000, to which my statistics refer.

I said that I wanted to set out the motivating principles behind this legislation, and the first of them is getting a secure route to prosecution. The second is to protect our national security—that must be a key principle behind the resolutions—against the terrorist threat that I have set out. I argue that we need to provide control orders that give the police and the security services the means to apply control to those who are offering precisely the threat against which we have to protect ourselves.

Claire Ward (Watford) (Lab) rose—

Mr. Clarke: I will complete this point and then give way.

Mr. William Cash (Stone) (Con): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Clarke: As I have said on a number of occasions, I like to make my speech in little chunks and then give way to a group of Members; that is what I will do, if the House will permit me. [Interruption.] In the past, too many people have called me a big chunk rather than a little chunk, I am afraid.

The second motivating principle is the need to protect national security, and in particular to provide the control orders that enable us to do that. They give us the means to secure our country that the security services and the police have asked for, and the Newton committee report recommended them in paragraph 251. Indeed, they are widely seen as meeting the disproportionality criticism that the Law Lords set out. I believe they are necessary for the security of this country, which is a key motivating principle, and I argue that strongly. I accept that there are people who say they are necessary but question the way in which they are put in place. That is a legitimate area for discussion, but I argue that they are necessary.

When the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) makes his speech, will he respond to this serious point? What is the position of the main Opposition party on these matters? It is very important that we understand whether it supports control orders. I thought that the Leader of the Opposition was clear about that, but he became unclear when he met the Prime Minister last Friday, when he said that he did not want control orders at all, and he was less clear a moment ago. I gather that Andrew Marr was saying at lunchtime that he was unclear about the Conservative position, so it would be helpful if the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden could make that clear.

Mr. Trimble: I am concerned about a practical matter with regard to control orders. A whole range of activities is set out in clause 1. How will they be enforced as a matter of practice, not in theory? How can they be enforced without massive use of police resources and huge disruption for local communities?

Mr. Clarke: The resources issue is serious, as the right hon. Gentleman says, and one of the reasons why there
 
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has been a significant increase in resources for the security services in the comprehensive spending review is to try to ensure that we have those means. There is first the legal question and then the question of resources that he raises. We are making resources available to deal with the matter.

David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con): I am happy to give the Home Secretary an answer now. If he had read the Hansard of the debate that he was unable to attend—I think he was at the Home Affairs Committee—he would have seen that I dealt directly with the issue. We do not like the idea of control orders. We think that the method for their proposed use is flawed, but we are open-minded if they can be amended to meet our principal concerns about them. That was the point I made at the time in response to the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten).

Mr. Clarke: I am genuinely delighted at that clarification. It is a difference from the position of the leader of the right hon. Gentleman's party, but I am very glad that, in this case, it is the right hon. Gentleman's writ that is running. It is important that that should be the case, because I seek—let me be clear about this—all-party agreement to the proposition that control orders are part of the armoury that we need to defend ourselves against the terrorist threat. I am delighted that he has signed up to that.

Claire Ward : My right hon. Friend will recall that I asked him yesterday about the impact of a home detention order on members of the household. May I give him another opportunity to clarify his position on that? Will it be the responsibility of the Home Secretary and of the judge assessing the order to take into consideration the human rights of other members of the household and the impact on them? What legal redress, within the same time scale as the legal redress that my right hon. Friend is setting out, would be available to other members of the household, including minors?

Mr. Clarke: The short answer to that question is yes. It would be the Home Secretary's obligation to take into account the factors that my hon. Friend set out. The main legal redress would be through the appeal regime established against the control orders. Others in the household, or others around, could have that recourse to appeal their situation. I well understand my hon. Friend's particular concern, but it will be dealt with under the measure.

Mr. Cash: The Home Secretary has set out his motivating principles—

Mr. Clarke: I have only just started.

Mr. Cash: No doubt there are others to come. So far, does the Home Secretary accept that the prime motivating principle should be that the legislation should stand up, on his terms, to legal challenge in future? The Attorney-General is said to have doubts about that, but as I said to the Home Secretary yesterday, all he has to do is to bring in legislation stating "notwithstanding the Human Rights Act 1998" and then legislate accordingly. If he does so, there is no
 
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doubt that he would be able to ensure that the legislation would be upheld because judges would be under a requirement to do so. What is his answer to that?

Mr. Clarke: My answer is: wait until my third motivating principle.

Mr. Simon Thomas (Ceredigion) (PC): With regard to control orders and their ultimate use for administrative detention, the Home Secretary made it clear yesterday that, under the current advice he was receiving, he would not seek to derogate from the charter of human rights and that the current security situation did not demand the imposition of such orders in this country now. So, as a consensus seems to be emerging in the House about the use of control orders below administrative detention, why is it not possible for the Bill's provisions to go up to but not include that, so that we can have a proper debate about control orders without administrative detention? That would give the Home Secretary an opportunity to reconsider and all of us would have more time to consider the exact judicial role in respect of administrative detention. Surely, that would be a much better way to approach the issue.

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