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Mr. Hogg: Yes. It is an important point. If surveillance is maintained, we see the identity of those associated with the suspected person and we learn a great deal about what they are saying and about their financial records, for example. In some cases, it leads to admissible evidence and a prosecution.

I move on to my two final points. The Home Secretary referred to the safeguards in the Bill. Like the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews), I do not believe that they are in any way adequate. I draw very much on what the hon. and learned Gentleman said. He made a distinction between the safeguards regarding non-derogating powers and those regarding derogating powers. On the non-derogating powers, the hon. and learned Gentleman was entirely right when he said that this is but judicial review—not irrelevant, but it does not go to the question of fact. It merely seeks to determine whether the Home Secretary has acted reasonably within the law. That is very different from examining the known facts.

I concede at once that in respect of the derogating powers the court has a greater role to play. It examines the merits, but it is a partial examination because, of course, the evidence is not disclosed to the detained person. The detained person does not have an opportunity to read the documents and may not know the nature and identity of the accuser. They are not necessarily represented by a person of their own choice. The special advocate cannot take from the detained person what we lawyers call instructions. The process is very imperfect—the Father of the House reminded us of the case of Judith Hart, whom the security services falsely identified. I commend to the House a letter in The Daily Telegraph yesterday from one Edward Greene, who tells readers how his father was interned under the then internment procedures because of a false allegation that was deliberately made to MI5, which had paid a man to produce the names of suspects. That sort of thing is bound to happen.

To take up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, the problem is not only the nature of the process, but the fact that the person facing the allegation does not know the allegation and cannot test it. That is true whether the control order is initiated by a Minister or by a judge, so the objection is not to this form of control order, but to control orders themselves.

Drawing on my personal experience as well as my knowledge of the law as a member of the Bar, let us not forget that many miscarriages of justice have occurred within the context of a judicial process. If one does not have a judicial process, one can be certain that yet more miscarriages will occur, which is the inevitable consequence of the legislation that the House is being asked to approve.
 
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My final point is a word on the process by which the Bill is being hurried through, which is a scandal. The Bill was published for the first time yesterday and today is its Second Reading. Inevitably, the public have not had the opportunity to communicate to us, their representatives, what they think about it, which surely undermines the constitutional practices that we value. The Bill will leave this House on Monday under the tightest of guillotines and after the barest of scrutiny, which is an outrageous way to treat a matter of this importance.

The Home Secretary has said that the Bill is necessary. When we asked him why it is necessary, he asked, "What about the detainees in Belmarsh?" The detainees in Belmarsh can be released tomorrow, because they present no danger to the state. Why do they present no danger to the state? Because we know and they know that they will be under the very closest supervision and surveillance. It is fanciful to suggest that they would do anything to make contact with terrorist organisations in those circumstances, which, if they are guilty, would provide admissible evidence against them and expose their terrorist network. They will not do such things, and if they walked the streets tomorrow, they would do no harm to this state. I say this with regret, but this Bill has a great deal more to do with general elections than it has to do with the security of the state.

I remind the House of the words of Lord Hoffmann, whose background is South African. Perhaps he overstated the case, but this is the conclusion to his judgment on Belmarsh:

We face that question tonight, and I urge the House to reject the Bill.

6.9 pm

Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon) (Lab): Returning to the remarks of the hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), I am here to support the Bill, although I cannot say that I welcome it. None of us welcomes the Bill, because of the circumstances in which it has arisen, but I accept the necessity of its introduction.

We need to recognise the Law Lords' decision, recognise its basis and act on it. Those who advocate kicking the Bill into touch and extending the part 4 powers while we come up with something else to replace them are effectively condemning those people who are currently detained in Belmarsh to many more months of detention while the House grinds on and makes its mind up. I do not want those people, who have been found to be unlawfully detained, to be detained any longer than is absolutely necessary.

I do not agree with the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) that these people do not necessarily pose a threat to our society. We must recognise the nature of the threat that we face, which is different from the terrorism that we have experienced in this country in the past. The Home Secretary ably set out the different nature of the terrorism we now face; the terrorism of mass murder
 
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that is aimed not against specific high-profile targets but at soft targets and the general public wherever they can be murdered in their thousands.

Let us be realistic. Those who advocate the criminal law must recognise that it provides no deterrent to suicide terrorism. If people are prepared to die in the commission of those offences, the criminal law will hold no fears or terror for them. The fear of a lengthy jail sentence to them is an irrelevance. We must recognise the sort of people we are dealing with. It is difficult discussing those in Belmarsh because they have not been identified, but from the information that is publicly available, we can see that they are very dangerous indeed.

The one who has been named, Abu Qatada—even from the information that is in the public domain—can be seen to be an extremely dangerous individual and a close associate of al-Qaeda. He is believed to be al-Qaeda's leading operative in Europe, someone in whom security services throughout Europe are interested. To suggest that simple surveillance is the answer to such people is clearly wrong. Abu Qatada was under surveillance before the power to detain came into effect. The night before—one does not know whether he had a tip-off—he gave the security services the slip and went on the run. It took nine months to track him down again. That is the sort of person we are dealing with, and simple surveillance would not be the answer.

I believe that we are dealing with a relatively small number of people. There are less than a dozen in Belmarsh, and the security services have an interest in perhaps a similar number of UK nationals. We are not looking at a huge round-up of UK or foreign nationals, or at the sort of round-up that happened during the second world war. We are not looking at a "Casablanca"-style round-up of the usual suspects. We are looking at a relatively small number of people who are perceived to be a threat to our society.

Mr. Llwyd: The hon. Gentleman understates, or mistakes, his case. The Home Secretary said that there were 1,000 people in the UK who were connected in some way with al-Qaeda. The hon. Gentleman refers to a dozen: a slight difference.

Mr. Dismore: There may be people who are supporters or advocates of al-Qaeda, but that does not necessarily mean that they are directly associated with or involved in terrorism such that they would fall within the powers in the Bill. From my discussions with people in Scotland Yard and elsewhere, I believe that that is the sort of number they are looking at.

The preference is to try to put people on trial in court. There have been 701 arrests, 119 people have been charged under the Terrorism Act 2000 and 135 have been charged under the general criminal law with murder, grievous bodily harm and firearms, explosives and other offences. There are trials under way, but one of the problems is the reporting restrictions, which mean that nobody really knows what is going on.

One trial has been going on for six months and is expected to last for some time yet, but most people in the House today would not even know of its existence. I understand that another trial is to start on Monday, and again we will hear little about it; further trials are due to
 
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take place throughout the year. I think that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner was right to criticise the extent of the reporting restrictions imposed by the courts and the Attorney-General on some of these trials. Yes, of course we have to ensure that those involved have a fair trial, but some of the blanket restrictions that have been imposed are counter-productive. We need to be able to explain to the public what is going on to remind people of the particular problems that we are trying to deal with. If, for example, the Muslim community were aware that people are not simply being locked away and forgotten about, but are being put on trial within the correct process, they would be reassured that people do have the benefit of due process through the courts.


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