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Mr. Hogg: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the necessary implication of the release of those people is that they should not have been held for three years in the first place?
Mr. Marshall-Andrews: It is wonderful how the right hon. and learned Gentleman manages to anticipate almost the precise words that are about to fall from my mouth. In the past three years, successive Home Secretaries—well, mainly one Home Secretary—have repeatedly told SIAC that those people are so dangerous that they cannot possibly be released from the misery and solitary confinement in which they have been interred. Now, they are all to be let out, because repentance is a wonderful and beautiful thing. Perhaps they have repented, but the idea that they have done so simultaneously would represent the greatest collective apostasy since St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians. It is clear that SIAC has been misled for the past three years about those people in Belmarsh. The new Home Secretary, however, has taken a different view, which demonstrates the arbitrary nature of the power that the Government are attempting to achieve.
Secondly, much adulation has been heaped on our security services and I am certain that some of it is deserved. However, the Iraq war is fresh in our minds, along with the duplicity, lies, twisting and distortion of the security services' manifesto. We all know what happened: the information that the security services gave the Government was manipulated before it was placed before the people. The second dossier created on the basis of that intelligence destroyed forever people's faith in this and probably any Government's purveying information accurately and using it in a judicial or any other capacity. That is why Home Office briefings have been received with such contempt both inside and outside Parliament. They are perceived as worthless documents because no one believes the construction placed upon them.
Thirdly, we have every reason to distrust the measure because British subjects will be placed under its aegis as a result of the rulings, speeches and opinions of the
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House of Lords. Is it coincidental that, when the Law Lords provide an opinion, there are suddenly risks from British subjects? Were there were no risks from them before that? If there were, why were we not told about them? If there were grave risks before that, why did someone not come to Parliament and say so? The Bill is a gross manipulation and distortion of the Law Lords' ruling.
I struggled to find a harmless analogy for what the Government are doing. The best I could come up with is that of a boy who is viciously bullying some people at school, all of them girls. He is hauled up before nine school governors who tell him that he must stop it. He says, "Fine, I'll stop it. I'll cut out the vicious bit and bully everyone." That is precisely the way in which the Government have reacted to the House of Lords judgment. The analogy is harmless and I hope that the point is not lost, even on the Home Secretary.
The substance of the Bill is the supposed effect of judicial overview. I shall say slowly, clearly and distinctly, in case anyone on the Front Bench is listening to what is being said in this House, that there will be no judicial overview as to the fact of the vast majority of the control orders that are envisaged in this Bill. That should be repeated. There will be no factual judicial overview of any of the control orders that affect the right to work, the right to travel, the right to associate, the right to be seen in a specific place, the right to move, the right to have a passport, the right to be with specified people, the right not to be tagged, and the right not to be electronically monitored. For all those control orders, there will be no judicial overview as to fact. If people in this country realised that, their reaction would be very different from what we are told is the popular reaction at the moment.
There will be greater judicial overview of house arrest, but, as has repeatedly been said, those who seek to challenge it in the courts will be bereft of and denied by statute all the information, disclosure and discovery that they need to put before a judge, because the Government have decreed—I pointed the relevant clause out to the Home Secretary—that they do not have to disclose that material to anyone. What is more, even if someone achieved their aim and the court decided that the decision was flawed, they could be re-arrested on another control order the minute they walked out of the door. That process was refined in South Africa time and again under the 108-day rule.
While referring to South Africa, I pay tribute to the wonderful speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett). I shall remember it for a long time after I leave this place.
The procedures that the Government propose to put into effect can be found at the end of the Bill. The Government have arrogated to themselves the right to create rules covering evidence, the burden of proof, lack of evidence, and the amount of disclosure. Those completely new rules of court will be introduced by statutory instrument and without proper consultation or scrutiny in this House.
Mr. Dalyell: Can my hon. Friend explain to a non-lawyer what is involved in the rules of disclosure in obviously delicate circumstances?
Mr. Marshall-Andrews:
I can, but it would take me a couple of hours. Very briefly, let me tell my good and
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hon. Friend that under the present criminal justice system, it is implicit that the prosecution, if in possession of any factual, documentary or other material that might assist the defence, must disclose it to the defence.
Mr. Cash: I want to ask a simple question. In light of what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said in his compelling speech, does he think that there is a cat in hell's chance that this legislation will not be overturned by the Law Lords again?
Mr. Marshall-Andrews: I know nothing about the other place. I still live in the forlorn hope that the Bill might be overturned here—if not now, then on Monday.
It cannot be repeated often enough that we will never decrease the sum total of human wickedness by decreasing the sum total of human liberty. If we act in that way, we run the extreme risk of increasing the sum total of human wickedness by denying these very liberties to those who deserve them. Looking back over the past seven years, I am very sorry to reflect on the number of occasions when I have had boringly to repeat that phrase.
6.55 pm
Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann) (UUP): The hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) referred to the vigour with which the Home Secretary introduced this debate, and I think that he meant that critically. We would normally refer to the Home Secretary's vigour, which was very much on display today and yesterday, with approbation. We can contrast that with the manner in which Northern Ireland affairs are dealt with; indeed, that contrast was very apparent yesterday. However, having said that, I am not entirely happy with the Bill for a number of reasons.
As several Members have said, there is no need to rush through the Bill in this way. The Prime Minister said this afternoon that that was necessary because the Government had to act after the House of Lords judicial ruling. No, they did not. The Human Rights Act 1998 was drafted in such a way as to enable Parliament to disregard rulings made under that Act if it so wished, and that could be done in this case. Furthermore, as was pointed out, given that the Home Secretary said that he would not introduce derogation control orders, other parts of the legislation could have been proceeded with and we could have left consideration of this matter in greater detail for another day. There was no need to rush through this legislation.
I am also not happy about the content of the Bill. First, I am unhappy about the breadth of the control orders. Other Members have already referred to issues relating to paragraphs (a) to (o) in clause 1, and reference has also been made to the moving speech of the hon. Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett). Her experiences in South Africa demonstrate the impact that orders of this nature can have. There is also a practical point that I raised in an intervention on the Home Secretary. I am unclear how these orders will be enforced. Reference has been made to tagging, but tagging merely helps to identify where a person is; it does not identify his activities.
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It will not be possible to enforce these control orders without a massive operation by the police and the security services. There will have to be surveillance of people who are subject to such orders and that will take up a tremendous amount of time. That will not be surveillance of people who are active in terrorist organisations, because once the control orders are imposed, that will reveal to the organisation that the authorities are aware of that person and they will probably cease to be active within that organisation. Therefore, we will be devoting a great deal of resources to monitoring someone who is no longer the threat that they once were. The terrorist organisation will then recruit someone else, whereas if we merely maintain surveillance, we would be watching someone who was active, so we would be using our resources much more efficiently. Unless there is more to this provision, I continue to have great difficulty with its breadth and with the question of enforcement.
Much reference has been made to judicial procedures, and in the early part of the debate we discussed the question of when judicial proceedings should take place. As the debate went on, it became clear that that was not the real point. The real point about judicial proceedings was made by the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) and the hon. and learned Member for Medway—that the judicial proceedings provided for under the Bill are not judicial proceedings as we understand them, but only a shadow of a judicial proceeding, because material is not disclosed and because the defendant, if we can use that term, is not told what the case against them is.
It being Seven o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
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