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The Earl of Onslow: If I am right—and, as always, I am open to correction, being a modest man—this process would not be subject to judicial review. So it does not matter what the subsection says. It does not matter whether it says Xbelief" or Xsuspicion". Whatever the Minister says goes. The fact that an Act of Parliament says one thing does not basically matter if, at the bottom, it states, XThis is not subject to judicial review". That is where the tyranny starts. That is tyranny.
Earl Russell: The noble Earl is a little bit of a pessimist for once. We have not yet debated Amendment No. 104 standing in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, and the amendment to it, Amendment No. 104ZA in the name of the noble Lord; nor have we debated clause stand part. In relation to the amendment before the Committee, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, has just said. This is a considerable power. The Secretary of State ought to be pretty sure before he uses it.
Lord Morris of Aberavon: Will the Minister kindly confirm what I suspect to be the appropriate interpretation—I may be wholly wrong—first, that the two limbs go together? The word Xand" is an important part of the subsection. There must, first, be a belief that a person is a risk to national security. That is the engine that brings him within the purview of the clause. If that is not there, the operation would be a complete non-starter. That needs a Xreasonable belief". That is obviously a high standard.
As regards the second limb, there may well be some doubt, some uncertainty, something less than a Xreasonable belief"—as the Minister indicated earlier, there may not be a surety—as to whether the person is a member of a particular organisation. That can be conveyed in a lesser degree of importance than the much more important matter that he is Xreasonably believed" to be a risk to national security. Will the Minister please confirm that?
Lord Rooker: I am grateful to my noble and learned friend. He is absolutely right. If there is a rock solid belief, a surety, that the person is an international terrorist, then there is another avenue for dealing with the matter. It is because we do not know, because we have a suspicion that the person is an international terrorist, coupled with the fact that the person's presence in the UK is a threat to national security. There is a weakness in the second limb, it is true; but that is the whole point of it. If we look for surety, we have another route—through the Terrorism Act. If we take no action, it means that even when we have suspicions that people are international terrorists, we leave them walking free. The purpose of the Bill is not to let that happen.
Earl Russell: Will the Minister provide one more piece of information? When decisions on asylum have been taken to appeal, what proportion of the Home Office's suspicions have proved to be justified?
Lord Rooker: It depends what kind of applications the noble Earl is talking about. They could be nationality applications, where there is a statutory process. They could be asylum applications, or marriage applications. I am not sure. There are areas where more than 50 per cent of Home Office decisions are secured on appeal. But off the top of my head I could give only one. It would be unfair merely to give the figure for asylum applications. That would not be right. We are not talking only about asylum seekers. There is a misnomer here; it would be wrong to equate.
The point is that this provision is subject to appeal. That is what SIAC is all about. Those noble Lords who were able to stay to the end of the debate two days ago to listen to my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General explaining how in the Bill there is a greater degree of scrutiny than there would be under straightforward judicial review will probably hear that explanation repeated today. So this is not tyranny. That is an outrageous and offensive remark from the noble Earl, Lord Onslow. The Minister's action is subject to review by judges of the High Court. To call that tyranny is an absolute nonsense. I reject it outright.
The Earl of Onslow: The noble Lord said that I am accusing him of tyranny. If you allow Ministers to do something on suspicion, that is verging on tyranny. That is why my ancestors fought in the Civil War. Noble Lords opposite may laugh at English liberties, but I say to them: do not; they are too important. They are the liberties for me to stand up and bully the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and for the noble Lord to stand up and say that I am talking rubbish. That is what English liberties are all about. If we are not very, very careful, because we do not like one Arab who does something nasty and we suspect that he is wrong, we shall be in danger of holding back English liberties. That is something for which I have been in Parliament all my life and I shall go to the stake for. So when I use the word Xtyranny", I use it totally advisedly. I have read my history. I have read my Stuarts and I have read my Gibbon. I know what I am talking about. The important thing is for the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, to be able to tell me that I am talking rubbish. That is why English liberties are so important—and that is where the Bill goes wrong.
Earl Russell: I wonder whether I may ask the noble Earl—who is making a very serious point—to find a slightly more parliamentary way of expressing it.
The Earl of Onslow: The answer to that is XNo"!
Lord Rooker: The only way I can express it is that we have a Home Secretary and a democratically elected Government. He will make the decision based on the reasonable grounds that a person he believes is a threat
to national security is in this country and some action should be taken. He is doing it to defend the liberties of the people who live in this country.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: I am having some difficulty in understanding the procedure of this place, and the exchanges that have just taken place do not make it any easier for me to get to grips with it. I thank my noble friend for sharing those important thoughts with the Committee. I am only sorry that he was not so open-minded in regard to this little amendment. For several minutes I had the impression that it had been hijacked. The Minister generally impresses the House from the Dispatch Box, but on this amendment he has not been as clear as he normally is.
The clause applies only when a decision is taken that there is insufficient admissible evidence to use the vehicle of the Terrorism Act, because certain allegations cannot be proved. That is why we are here. I am grateful to those who have joined in the debate, and particularly to those who have taken this point. Against that background, it is all the more important that the Home Secretary's decision to issue a certificate should be based on something more substantial than suspicion.
I understand the point made by my noble and learned friend Lord Morris, but I want the Minister to think about the issue again. We have to grasp the fact that the clause could result in a person being imprisoned indefinitely without trial. We understand the reasons for that and the relevance of the Terrorism Act. This is no light matter. I believe that it is proper to insist that the basis on which a certificate can be signed and issued should be belief—even though that belief cannot be proved in court to the satisfaction of a jury—because it is a stronger foundation than merely suspicion. That said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I am likely to return to it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 103B:
- Page 10, line 38, leave out Xan international" and insert Xa"
The noble Lord said: I crave the indulgence of the Committee for a few moments because this is my first time on my feet today. I welcome the rather limited flexibility apparent in the Minister's opening remarks this afternoon. Any signs of flexibility in the treatment of this Bill are welcome. I was pleased to hear those comments. We shall have to wait and see the substance of those points before we are able to make a judgment on them. Does the Minister accept that, in part, the problems that we all face with the Bill, which make his flexibility all the more welcome, are caused by the breadth and scope of its content? Had the Bill been more focused, perhaps the more limited parliamentary supervision that we are able to give it would have been more acceptable.
I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 104A and 110A. The purpose of the amendments is to remove an anomalous distinction. They would make the Bill comply with the Prime Minister's words in another place, when he said:
- Xthe legislation that we propose will apply to terrorism wherever it occurs—whether inside the United Kingdom or outside, or whether it is international or domestic".—[Official Report, Commons, 4/10/01; col. 684.]
The first two amendments deal with the use of the word Xinternational" in subsections (1) and (2) of Clause 21, and Amendment No. 110A would remove the unnecessary and improper distinction from subsection (4).
That distinction leads to an oddity. Subsection (4) says:
- X'international terrorism' does not include terrorism concerned only with the affairs of a part of the United Kingdom".
There is then a question over the position of possible sub-groups of the Irish Republican Army, such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, whose members have previously undertaken UK-wide bombing. Are they international terrorists or exclusively United Kingdom terrorists? One could go on, because there has been plenty of publicity about the international links between most terrorist organisations. We know that PIRA has had links with Colombia and Libya. Does that make them international terrorists? All terror organisations are involved in criminal activities, particularly with regard to the drug trade as a source of funding for imports of arms and explosives. It cannot easily be said with any certainty that there is such a thing as a purely UK terrorist organisation. We think that such distinctions are invidious and fly in the face of the remarks that the Prime Minister made before we got near to this Bill.
We do not think that the amendments attack in any way the purpose or intention of the Bill. Even with the amendments, this part of the Bill would still contain the necessary distinctions to enable it to function properly, as the Government desire. If the Minister is still in his flexible mode, I suggest that he could accept the amendments without destroying the integrity or intention of the Bill. I beg to move.
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