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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1020-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
THE GOVERNMENT'S COUNTER-TERRORISM PROPOSALS
Tuesday 9 October 2007 SIR IAN BLAIR QPM and MR PETER CLARKE CVO OBE QPM Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 112
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday 9 October 2007 Members present Rt Hon Keith Vaz Mr Jeremy Browne Ms Karen Buck Mr James Clappison Mrs Ann Cryer Mrs Janet Dean Patrick Mercer Gwyn Prosser Bob Russell Martin Salter Mr Gary Streeter Mr David Winnick ________________ Witnesses: Sir Ian Blair QPM, Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and Mr Peter Clarke CVO OBE QPM, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Head of Counter Terrorist Command and National Co-ordinator of Terrorist Investigations, gave evidence. Q1 Chairman: Sir Ian, Mr Clarke, can I declare this session open and thank you very much for coming to give evidence to this Committee. Sir Ian, last year the Committee concluded that none of the evidence we have reviewed of current and recent investigations would have justified a maximum detention period. What specific evidence do you have to put before this Committee and to persuade Parliament that we should have a longer period? Sir Ian Blair: I think, first, the Metropolitan Police and the Association of Chief Police Officers has retained the same position for quite some time now. We do not have a case that has required us to go beyond 28 days. Our position remains that the number of the conspiracies, the number of conspirators within those conspiracies and the magnitude of the ambition in terms of destruction and loss of life is mounting, has continued to mount, is increasing year by year and a pragmatic inference can be drawn that at some stage 28 days is not going to be sufficient. The worst time to debate whether an extension should be granted would be in the aftermath of an atrocity and, therefore, we still maintain the position that, subject to cross-party consensus, if Parliament can find a way in which that period can be extended that would be a very good position to be in. That is our position and has remained so for some time. Q2 Chairman: Have you asked the Government for an extension? Sir Ian Blair: No. Q3 Chairman: Is this something which comes from ministers? Sir Ian Blair: No. We have outlined that exact position again and again. It is the same position: there is no case that we have so far had but we believe that cases will emerge and when that happens we should be in a position that Parliament has discussed this and made its own conclusions before we face an atrocity. Had the bombs gone off in Haymarket then we could have been facing loss of life in the hundreds and that would have been a difficult time to discuss an extension of this particular power. Q4 Chairman: I am going to put to you two quotes, one from the former Prime Minister and one from a serving minister, and I want to ask you which is nearest to your current views. This is what the former Prime Minister said on 25 August 2005: "What I am trying to do here, and this will be followed up with action in the next few weeks, as I think you will see, is to send a clear signal out that the rules of the game have changed". The Minister for Security, speaking only two weeks ago, said "With the best will in the world where we are now as a Government means that we are coming round to the view that says actually the rules of the game have not changed and to suggest the rules have changed is actually to help the other side more than our own side." Which of those two views is now closest to your position at the moment? Sir Ian Blair: I am afraid I am going to give a yes and a no to that. I do not think the rules have changed or should change in the sense of the balance of the rule of law but I think the circumstances have changed. Peter, who has long experience in this field, will know that when we were fighting or opposing the IRA - and I do not want to glamorise the IRA in any way -they, with very few exceptions, did not want to die, they did not want to cause mass casualties and they gave warnings. None of the three apply to the group of people with whom we are now in opposition. The circumstances have changed. The quality and quantity of the threat has changed. What you have to find is the balance between human rights, civil liberties and the protection of the public from atrocity and that remains very difficult. Q5 Chairman: It would not be right to raise the limit just on a precautionary basis, would it? You really have to have hard evidence before you start going for an extension. Sir Ian Blair: I am afraid that is not a position that we take. Obviously it is a matter for legislation. If I take a completely different analogy and we look at something in the nature of an epidemic, if you can see the epidemic moving towards you then you start to take precautions before it arrives and that is the position that we are in, I think. It is very interesting to look at other countries' experience. The way other countries deal with this is by prolonged periods of detention under judicial oversight and in a way we are not far off that because once it gets past 14 days this is a matter for the Crown Prosecution Service to present to a High Court judge as to the length of time and the rationale for detention. Of course, if you look at other countries, if you look at France you are looking at years; the same with Germany, you are looking at 12 months; we are doing it in a very different process and I just think we all need to think very hard about what the consequences would be of a catastrophic incident on public opinion and public safety. Q6 Martin Salter: This may be a more appropriate for Peter Clarke. As someone who has supported extending the period and endorses the precautionary principle which means we can legislate better outside a period of crisis, can you explain to the Committee the trend in terms of your investigations? In our briefings we have been told quite clearly that although you have not had to go over 28 days there have been some very, very serious suspects who have eventually been charged on the 28th day. What is the general trend in terms of the level of investigation and the need for more and more time? It was not that long ago when you only had seven days and then 14. Can you give us a flavour of how the investigation has proceeded and what time you need? Mr Clarke: Thank you. The trend which we outlined in the autumn of 2005, which we were picking up from the investigations which we had been conducting, if you like, since 9/11, and in particular since 2002, was towards an ever growing scale and complexity. This was scale and complexity in terms, as the Commissioner has said, of the number of people involved in these conspiracies but also of the way in which they were being conducted, the use of computers and encrypted data, international connections in every single case. What we were seeing was that each case seemed to get bigger and bigger. It was in the wake of the case which the last time I gave evidence to this Committee I could not go into too much detail about because it was sub judice, this was the so-called Operation Rhyme which is Dhiren Barot and his associates, that we began to think actually we are into territory here which is new and long haul and we might need to think about different ways of investigating in a way which best serves public safety. That was what drove us to put forward the suggestion that there needs to be some sort of facility for us to investigate while people were held in detention beyond what was then acceptable. Although Parliament took the decision that there was insufficient evidence of the type that it was looking for to justify an extension to the 90 days that was suggested, nevertheless those trends have continued. Without going too deeply into statistics, what we can say is that taking the totality of the cases we have had fewer cases actually under investigation in the last year, marginally, but the number of documents, exhibits, computers, telephones and the rest has increased. So the scale of each case is getting larger. Q7 Mr Winnick: How many of those held under existing limits, previously 14 days and for the last year or so 28 days, having been released were later charged with terrorist offences? Mr Clarke: Of those that have been released I cannot recall one who has been recalled to be charged with terrorism, although I could check that. What I can tell you, if it helps, in terms of statistics is that since the permissible time for detention was increased to 28 days in July 2006 some 204 people have been arrested under provisions of the Terrorism Act. Of those, 11 have been detained for between 14 and 28 days and, of those 11, eight were subsequently charged or were charged with terrorism offences. Q8 Mr Winnick: It does not really answer my question. My question is: of those who were released, how many of those were later charged with terrorist offences? I put it to you that as far as I understand the position, and you will correct me if that is not so, no-one. Mr Clarke: That is my understanding. If I do find that is not right I will submit it in writing to the Committee. Q9 Patrick Mercer: The police have now had over a year's experience of operating the new 28 day power. What lessons would you draw from that experience and would you have any objection to the Metropolitan Policy Authority carrying out a review of how you have exercised your new powers, as recommended by the Joint Committee on Human Rights? Sir Ian Blair: I think the lessons that we draw are actually in similar statistics that we gave to Mr Winnick which are that actually we exercise these powers immensely sparingly. We do not wish to detain people for long periods of time and when we do we carry out the most searching investigations possible so that the likelihood is that when somebody is released we are unlikely to find any more evidence. In terms of the MPA we have noted, as have the MPA, the JCHR's recommendation. The issue will be whether the MPA itself is a proper body because this really is about looking, as I said earlier, not so much at police procedures but about judicial procedures because we are here looking at what is the evidence or information presented to a High Court judge beyond 14 days and how does that work rather than an investigative process. Obviously the MPA will consider it in due course. Mr Clarke: I think another lesson to be drawn from it is that there is no suggestion whatsoever that the power is used to hold people who are suspected of the most serious offences for longer simply because they are suspected of those most serious offences. I have to be slightly careful because the case I am thinking of is sub judice but the alleged plot to bring down airliners from August 2006, some of those who were charged with the most serious elements of that alleged conspiracy were actually charged within the 14 day period. As soon as the evidence became available - we are working very closely with the Crown Prosecution Service - those charges were brought forward. Those who remained longer were those against whom we were seeking to find out whether or not they were involved and to what extent. Quite simply, there is no interest for us in holding people for any longer than we need to because, in a sense, once they are charged and then into the judicial system we can focus then on those remaining suspects. It is in our interests very often to charge people as soon as we possibly can. Q10 Patrick Mercer: Do you agree that irrespective of whether the 28 day limit is extended the Metropolitan Police should submit an annual report to Parliament on the operation of terrorist detention powers, containing full statistics and analysis of each case in which an individual has been detained for more than 14 days? Sir Ian Blair: If that is the wish of Parliament then we can, yes. Q11 Mr Winnick: Sir Ian, Mr Clarke, in order that there should be absolutely no misunderstanding, no-one in this room, for one moment, under-estimates the acute terrorist danger. Even if the atrocities had not occurred in 2005 we know there are murderers, psychopaths, out there who want to inflict slaughter indiscriminately and in the process take their own lives. We have no illusions on that score whatsoever and we pay tribute to the police - all of us - regardless of political affiliation - for what is done day in and day out to safeguard our community from mass murder as indeed, to a lesser extent, as you have already said, during the 30 year campaign of terror by the IRA who wanted to and did carry out mass murder here and in Northern Ireland itself. What I want to put to you first of all, Sir Ian, is what do you believe would be the likely impact on relations with the Muslim community if, indeed, the 28 day limit was extended, if people were held, say for 56 days or longer, and then released without any charge? Do you feel it would worsen relations between the police and the Muslim community? Sir Ian Blair: Can I start by making clear to the Committee one particular thing which really relates to what you said at the beginning which is, of course, Peter Clarke retires in January and I would like to pay tribute to his five years in probably one of the most difficult posts possible to undertake in policing so, Peter, thank you very much. In terms of the impact on the Muslim community, it certainly will not ease it; it will not ease the feelings of the Muslim communities but I think the most important aspect is how is this explained, what are we trying to do here. What we are trying to do, as you so well put it, Mr Winnick, is to protect people from atrocity. Again, many Muslims have talked to me about how they felt after the events of this summer and a recognition from them that had the bombs gone off how much more difficult things would have become for them in their community. It is not the relationship with the police but with other communities in Britain. I think all this is is about a balance, what is the right balance here. Are we protecting those communities properly by keeping the limit where it stands or would it be better for the limit to be further extended so that police work could possibly be more effective? Q12 Mr Winnick: Do you accept rather like with the Irish the overwhelming majority of Irish people in Britain, whatever views they may have had over the political issue of a united Ireland, were totally opposed to terrorism? Would you accept that the overwhelming majority of Muslims living in the United Kingdom are opposed to terrorism in this country? Sir Ian Blair: Absolutely. Q13 Mr Winnick: Arising from what I said about the possibility of antagonising such people whose loathing of terrorism is no less than ours, if you take Forest Gate, for example, would you accept, Sir Ian, that antagonism was caused when it was totally unnecessary and it could have been dealt with differently? Sir Ian Blair: I accept that difficulties arose out of that operation. I do not think it was in any sense unnecessary. As you will be aware, the Independent Police Complaints Commission examined the Forest Gate operation and found that the police action on the intelligence the police had at that stage was inevitable. Q14 Mr Winnick: On my question, do you know of any representative body of Muslims, be it the Muslim Council of Britain, who are in favour of extending the limit or any other representative body, they may not be representative but insofar as Christians, Jews and Hindus have such bodies so have Muslims? Has any such organisation representing Muslims said to you that they are in favour of having an extension beyond 28 days? Sir Ian Blair: No, I have not come across that but then nor does it surprise me. Q15 Mr Winnick: ACPO has put forward a view, together with our next witness who is coming before us at 11.15, that in fact there should not be a particular limit on pre-charge detention that in fact it should be left to the judges to decide. In other words, putting it as crudely as possible, Parliament should say "We abdicate our powers, we have total confidence in the judges and the judges will solely decide whether X, Y or Z, A, B or C should be held." Is that a close view with yours? Sir Ian Blair: Far be it from me to suggest that we do not have total confidence in judges. I think this is just too difficult a matter to leave wide open because if you leave it wide open in terms of the length of time you do produce a situation, which I know is not what Lord Carlile is suggesting or the President of ACPO is suggesting, which can be represented as detention in perpetuity and that cannot be right. This is where I differ from the Liberty proposal, for instance. I believe this is not a matter that should just be left open, it has got to be decided by Parliament. That is where the Joint Committee on Human Rights is. I think it is very difficult because you are selecting something entirely arbitrary but I think I have enough faith in the officers of the Metropolitan Police and other services that there will be a time by which we have extracted all the evidence that is available. Somewhere out there between 50 and 90 days is a limit which would seem very sensible. Q16 Mr Winnick: That is a very frank answer to my question. Would it not be the case - I do not want to put words into your mouth obviously - if that view of ACPO, which you have disagreed with, was put into effect, leaving it to the judges and no fixed time of proper detention laid down by Parliament, would that not be seen as internment? Sir Ian Blair: Again, that was why I did not use that term. We can use any number of terms if you leave the space just empty and that is why I think we have to have a point of closure. Q17 Chairman: Following on from Mr Winnick's question, if you get the extension you want of 28 days, you accept it will have a disproportionate effect and impact on the Muslim community? Sir Ian Blair: I think it will be a matter which will have to be explained very carefully to the Muslim communities and couched in a protective mode. If we can recast this language to be the language of safety rather than the language of criminal investigation then I think we help. I do think it is unfortunate that we have become fixed on a number of days as a limit but that is where we are. Q18 Chairman: What percentage of those detained under the current limits are of the Muslim faith? Sir Ian Blair: I am going to ask Peter but it is a significant proportion. Q19 Chairman: Over 50%? Mr Clarke: Well over 50%. I do not have the exact figure. Q20 Chairman: 100%? Mr Clarke: I doubt it is quite 100% but, to be quite honest, probably not far off. Q21 Chairman: Not far off, so almost everybody detained have been Muslims. Mr Clarke: But remember there still are some issues of dissident Irish Republicanism so there will be a proportion there but, by and large, most of those who come into custody when asked say that they profess the Muslim faith. Q22 Ms Buck: On the issue of co-operation within the Muslim community and the intelligence that comes forward from it, do you see any risk that an extension of time, with the potential which we have already seen to some extent that there will be people who are innocent or no evidence can be put forward to press a charge, for a longer period even than the existing 28 days, would have the perverse effect of reducing the flow of co-operation and information from within the wider Muslim community? Sir Ian Blair: That remains a possibility because it is how this will be couched. What is the language that is used? How is this presented? Of course, if people are held for longer then the level of concern rises. All of this is inevitable. The question is if our concerned predictions work out in three or four years' time will we still be debating this issue because if the scale of what we are facing continues to rise then I am afraid we are going to end up coming back to this unless we get to a decision at some point. Q23 Mrs Cryer: It was something you said, Sir Ian. You said in order to keep the Muslim communities on board we will have to be very careful in explaining what we are doing and why we are doing it. I have a problem in that I have a large Muslim community and if I had one of my constituents being held without charge how on earth would I know what to say to my Muslim community in order to keep them on board because I would not know why he was being held because it is detention without charge? Sir Ian Blair: That is in a way moving away from the general to the particular. Q24 Mrs Cryer: Yes. Sir Ian Blair: The answer was about the general communities as a whole. With the particular I think it is extremely clear why somebody has been arrested because arrests of this nature are announced as being arrests and held under the provisions of counter-terrorism legislation. I have to be very careful here. There was a phrase that Ms Buck used about no evidence. Remember we are looking for, at the end, sufficient evidence so I think there is a very clear question, if we keep saying "no evidence/innocent" as opposed to what is quite right if they are innocent because there is insufficient evidence. Q25 Mr Streeter: I am just trying to tease out a little what a new law might look like that you would find acceptable. What would be your reaction to a judge being only able to grant an extension beyond the 28 days in very tightly defined specified circumstances, for example multiple plots, links with multiple countries, et cetera? How would you react to a law shaped in those terms? Sir Ian Blair: I am going to ask Peter to come in behind me. I think provided we were able to put forward suggestions to what that shape would be, what we are really talking about here is the complexity of the evidence trail and the amount of information that we are facing. You can say that in different words but if we just talked about links to foreign countries, I do not know of a plot that we have had recently where there is not such a thing. I am absolutely sure that whatever we had would have to be very tightly, judicially controlled. The judge would have to be able to see the scale of what we were facing in order to grant anything beyond 28 days. I come back to the point that Peter made earlier on, we do not want to hold lots of people for this period of time. We recognise what an affront to our normal way of handling these cases this is but we also say we are in completely uncharted territory. Q26 Mr Streeter: If I may just come in on that point. We can only shape a law not based on the goodwill of a third party but checks and balances, we have to cover every situation. Sir Ian Blair: Yes. Mr Clarke: My immediate response to that is if we are going to try to circumscribe very tightly the circumstances in which there could be an extended period of detention in terms of the particular features of an investigation that would give rise to that and justify it, I think we need to be just a little bit careful because, as I explained earlier, what we are dealing with here are trends. Terrorists are changing the way in which they operate, they are developing, they are adapting all the time. If we were to restrict ourselves in our ability to respond to changes in terrorist methods then I think we might be not acting perhaps in the best possible way. My other sense of this is that at the moment the applications for warrants of further detention are quite rightly contested, they are adversarial in nature and they do take a considerable amount of time, quite properly, as they should. My immediate feeling would be if we were again to set out a set of precise circumstances which could give rise to further detention whether this would extend that process still further and eat still more into the time that is available for investigation as opposed to judicial review of the investigation. Q27 Mr Streeter: Can I just test the last point you made there about the hearing for an application at the moment. You mention it is a full adversarial hearing, is that right, there is someone batting on behalf of the person in detention? Mr Clarke: Yes. Q28 Mr Streeter: Obviously that is in camera? Mr Clarke: Yes, it is not a public hearing but it is in front of either a district judge in the early stages or a High Court judge after 14 days. The Crown Prosecution Service will be representing the application and the defendants are always represented and can apply. It is usually done by video link but can be done in person as well. Q29 Mr Streeter: We are aware of one case in which the police asked for a certain amount of time for detention and the judge granted less. Mr Clarke: Yes. Q30 Mr Streeter: Has that happened in other cases as well and do judges sometimes impose conditions that you may or may not wish to see imposed? Mr Clarke: There have been occasions when we have not been granted the period that we have asked for. It is not a tremendously frequent feature but I would like to think that is not because judges are in any way compliant, and far from it, but I think it is because before we make any application and before we ask for an application for any period of time we discuss this very closely with the Crown Prosecution Service and they can only put forward an application which they feel, obviously in their independence, is justified. Q31 Bob Russell: Could you clarify something which I think you said in response to the Chairman before I put my question. 240 people have been arrested. Mr Clarke: 204. Q32 Bob Russell: 204, of whom 11 were charged in the period 14 to 28 days? Mr Clarke: No. 204 were arrested during that period since Parliament granted the extension from 14 to 28 days. Of those 204, 11 have been held in detention between 14 and 28 days, so on 11 occasions the new power has been exercised by the courts. On eight of those 11 occasions those people who were detained were charged. Q33 Bob Russell: Just 11 charged? Mr Clarke: Eight charges out of 11 detentions. Q34 Bob Russell: Between 14 and 28 days. Mr Clarke: Yes. Q35 Bob Russell: I do appreciate that because Option 3 which has been put is the proposal that emergency powers under the Civil Contingencies Act could be used to hold suspects for a further 30 days beyond the initial 28 days. Is this a serious option which should be considered? Sir Ian Blair: I think I referred to this earlier on. This is the suggestion by Liberty to that end. In my view, while it is helpful in the sense that it is legislation that already exists, it fails two tests. One, although it can be granted straight away, it has to be subject to parliamentary scrutiny within seven days, so you are back into this bit that you are debating a police operation in Parliament and I am not sure that is right with people in custody. Secondly, of course, it does require a declaration of an emergency and, again, in terms of public safety that is not necessarily where we would want to be. It might be but it is not a necessity. Q36 Bob Russell: The Civil Contingencies Act makes provision for such a scenario, does it not? Sir Ian Blair: But only by calling a public emergency and then subject to parliamentary debate. You would be debating whether the extension of a further 30 days was right while we had people in custody, and I am not sure that is the right place. Mr Browne: Can I put a suggestion to you, Mr Clarke. I want to echo what Sir Ian said about thanking you for your service on the record. The suggestion I want to put to you is this, which is that as you lie in bed at night, racking over in your mind your day's work and your plans for the following day and aware as you are, unlike nearly everybody else in this room, of the detail of a lot of the investigations that are on-going, whether you look at the debate that is taking place in the House of Commons on the 28 days, more or less, and think that the politicians are detached from the reality as you see it on a day-to-day basis and that you are being required to fight this terrorist threat with one hand tied behind your back. Q37 Mr Winnick: I think that requires a politician's answer, Sir Ian. Sir Ian Blair: Fortunately it was addressed to Peter. Q38 Mr Browne: You may wish to answer this question in January rather than now. Mr Clarke: Let me take the first part. Thanks to the outstanding quality of the team I have working for me, I do not have too many sleepless nights. That is the first point I would like to make. Secondly, do I think that we are fighting this without the help of politicians, absolutely not. When I look back over the last few years, I think that we have moved the body of law in this country from a body of law which was fit for a different era to a body of law which is now fit, by and large, for the threat that we face. I will take just one example, the implementation of the offence under Section 5 of Acts Preparatory to Terrorism. I think that has filled an absolutely yawning gap in our defences. It was a hugely important piece of legislation. It has been used, and I am sure will be used again in the future, but it did get us away from what I described before as a nonsense of trying to use 19th century common law to deal with 21st century terrorism. I would say that we have enjoyed the support of Parliament and politicians. Q39 Mr Browne: To follow that, from your day-to-day experience at work and what you see and confidential information that you have access to, do you think the public are behind you in terms of their understanding and analysis of the threat that we face? With respect, I take your point that there are people who have a civil liberties perspective and the difficulty for elected politicians is to try and get the appropriate balance, and it may be you do not please all the people or you do not please anybody by trying to strike what is deemed to be an appropriate balance, but with your particular perspective on it do you think that people trying to strike that balance on behalf of the wider public simply are not realising the full scale of the task which confronts you every day? Mr Clarke: I think there has been a shift in public understanding in the last few years. If we go back to 2002-03, particularly the early part of 2003 when you remember the so-called Ricin case, the deployment of military assets at Heathrow Airport, there was a lot of criticism and comment that the threat was being over-egged, that it was being over-played and it was worrying from a police perspective that somehow we were being drawn into an allegation that we were over-egging this threat for political purposes, to justify aspects of foreign policy or whatever. No, that is not a place obviously where we want to be. The difficulty was that it was hard to show the public the reality of the threat because although we were interdicting plots and arresting and charging terrorists, those cases were taking two or three years to come to court and so we were constrained in what we could publicly say about the reality of what we knew. At times during that period I suppose I probably would say that there were times when I was slightly frustrated at not being able to get across what it was we were seeing on a day-to-day basis. I think that has changed, not only because of the attacks in July 2005 but because there have now been a series of major trials where people have not only been convicted but have also pleaded guilty. In this year alone, since January 2007, 37 people have been convicted in the courts in the UK of terrorism offences, 15 of those pleaded guilty and that is a number which has taken me by surprise because I thought that all of these cases would be contested but they have not. Q40 Bob Russell: I wonder if I could continue with my first prepared question, the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, and the legislation for the 21st century. Sir Ian, are you saying that it is not a serious option that should be considered or is it, in the words of the Home Office Minister, Tony McNulty, "mad" and "draconian", bearing in mind this is a recent Act of Parliament? Sir Ian Blair: This puts me in an interesting position. The answer to that is I do not think the proposal is mad but I think it fails these tests. It fails test one, you would still require a parliamentary debate, and test two you would have to declare a state of emergency. If we are in the business, as we described, of trying to couch all this in the language of community safety, declaring an emergency before you start does not seem to me to be the right place. I do not dismiss it at all, I think it is a very interesting proposal but I do not think it is the right proposal. The right proposal is for Parliament to draw its own conclusions at the right moment when there is not some dreadful event going on. Can I come back, if I might, to Mr Browne's point. There is one thing that I think is missed, which is why is it that the police, and to some degree the Home Office, keep coming back to this issue. We have put ourselves into a position where there are a lot of people saying "This is not a matter for the police to keep talking about" but we are talking about it because we are so concerned by the threat. Anybody who receives the briefings that we receive recognises that we are in a very different place than we were five years ago, that is why we keep coming back. I think that has to be part of the thinking of Parliament as well. Q41 Bob Russell: There could be a fourth option, gentlemen. What do you think of the proposal for judge managed investigations on the continental model? Sir Ian Blair: I think my position on that is that you are trying to introduce something completely different into the criminal process. With all respect to judges, I could not do their job and I do not know of many of them that could do Peter's job. If you are looking at the French judicial system, the examining magistrate is far closer to a detective than any judge that I know of. I think in a way we are trying to rebadge something. The answer must be that the best possible system, unless you are going to change completely from an accusatorial to an inquisitorial system, is to use the best team and the best skills that you have got, which is some of the people sitting next to me and the team that he commands with full judicial oversight. Asking a judge to direct the investigation seems to me to be inappropriate. Q42 Bob Russell: Having ruled out options 3 and 4, and bearing in mind that only eight people were charged in the period of 14 to 28 days, are you still of the view that you need more than 28 days? Sir Ian Blair: I have made that position clear. I think the prospect that we will need more than 28 days at some time in the not too distant future is so real a prospect that Parliament needs to consider it. Q43 Patrick Mercer: We have alluded to the difficulties of fighting the IRA and the phrase internment has come up. Certainly from my experience, and I am sure from yours, this was used endlessly by the IRA as a propaganda tool. Is there any evidence that our current opponents will try and manipulate our current debates about length of time of detention to their own propaganda purpose? Sir Ian Blair: I have not come across that. Peter, have you? Mr Clarke: No, I have not come across any evidence as such. Q44 Mrs Dean: Could we turn to possible alternatives to extended detention. In the Committee's 2006 inquiry you will know that many witnesses argued in favour of allowing the use of telephone intercept evidence in courts, and that is done in other foreign jurisdictions. Could you tell us what views on the desirability of admitting such evidence in court you submitted to the Privy Counsellors' review? Are you able to tell us anything about the progress of that review? Sir Ian Blair: I do not think it is for me to tell you about the progress. I have met, and in fact Peter and I have met, Sir John Chilcott and his team, and I think our position remains almost where everybody's is, which is that a court should have the best evidence available and the best evidence may well be intercept. The difficulty remains how you can produce a system which provides for the evidential use of intercept in the very adversarial nature of our criminal justice system. The principal difficulty is probably not only trying to find how you can use something like public interest immunity - and we can all think of things that are like that - or special advocates or whatever, but the concept that the enforcement or intelligence services would have to transcribe everything that they hear, that is just a burden that we do not know how to deal with. Until we do find a system which is compatible with Article 6 of the Right for a Fair Trial we are going to be in some difficulties. I have always been, in recent years, in favour of intercept as evidence. I think there is an absurdity that we can have intercept produced in a foreign country allowed in a court here and not our own, but I do not know of a system that will allow it. Nobody yet has come up with this burden. It would take hundreds of hours transcribing the kind of material that we listen to and I am not sure that we want to do that. Q45 Martin Salter: Can I ask about the logistics. I cannot understand the case you are making, Sir Ian. Interception takes place regularly as part of your counter-terrorism activities, so presumably at any one time there are several hundred individuals who may be subject to some form of intercept. Presumably the only intercepts you have got to transcribe are the evidence that you would need to put in front of the court. I was getting the impression that you were saying if you were to go down the road of submitting intercept evidence, every single interception would be subject to this massive bureaucratic task of transcription. Sir Ian Blair: Peter can correct me if I get this wrong but unless I misunderstand the situation we would be talking about having to transcribe every interception in relation to this particular case. Everything, because that is what the defence would require or could require and nobody could rule it out under the current rules without seeing a transcript of it. Q46 Martin Salter: How is intercept evidence provided in other countries? How do they get round this problem? Sir Ian Blair: I am going to ask Peter that. One of the things is although they use it, they use it far less extensively than we do. Mr Clarke: In other countries there are very different regimes about how the material is submitted in the court, how it is protected, how it is summarised and so on. The point the Commissioner is making here about the requirement to transcribe is probably this, that under our disclosure rules in criminal cases there is an obligation on the crown to disclose anything which could be of relevance to the case, and in particular that which might undermine the prosecution case or support the defence case. The question then comes down to who is going to make that judgment. At the moment crown counsel, prosecution counsel, will look at the material that is available and decide which is relevant and which, therefore, needs to be disclosed to the defence. There is an argument which says actually that could sit outside the crown, the prosecution team, and should sit perhaps with an independent judge to decide what material is relevant. In the case of intercept, before anyone can make that judgment as to whether it is relevant or not, they are going to have to see the material. All the material that is available will have to be transcribed and of course in current circumstances much of it will have to be translated as well. Whether it is done by the crown or by a judge, someone is going to have to read the material. Q47 Mrs Dean: Can you see a way through it? It has been discussed for a long time, is there a way that it can be corrected? Mr Clarke: If the Commissioner cannot, far be it from me to find a way! Q48 Mrs Dean: I think that is put to both of you. Sir Ian Blair: I will go on the Attorney General, if he can't! Mr Clarke: There may be ways. I think one would probably have to start raising presumptions in law about who is on the end of the telephone, for instance, because at the moment that would have to be corroborated by one means or the other, or you would have to say that there would not be a need to put all the available interception in front of whoever it is that decides whether or not there is relevance. That is a major step and a huge departure from our current laws of disclosure. I think it is very, very difficult indeed. Sir Ian Blair: If we were in a case which had 500 telephone calls which had been intercepted and we only produced the record of a 30 second conversation between Martin Salter and Karen Buck and said that proves the conspiracy, that is the difficulty we are in. Q49 Martin Salter: We normally take a couple of minutes! Sir Ian Blair: That is the problem, that is what remains the problem. Somebody is going to have to look over those 200 telephone calls to see if there is anything that should be revealed to the defence, that is a huge burden. Q50 Mrs Dean: If the problems could be overcome, do you agree with Liberty that allowing intercept evidence, whilst not a magic bullet, would at least ensure that charges could be brought in most situations? Sir Ian Blair: If the evidence was there, yes. The answer is as I said at the beginning: we ought to be doing everything to produce a regime which allows intercept evidence to be given. Mr Clarke: This is an area which is rich in anecdote and quite often a little light in fact. I have heard it suggested that the use of intercept in evidence would radically alter the number of prosecutions which could be brought. I have to say, based upon my personal experience over the last five or six years or so, in terrorism cases I have seen very few cases where intercept evidence would actually have made any fundamental difference to the case. On the balance of advantage in the use what I find is that it is hugely useful as a means of steering us towards those areas of investigation, or other types of surveillance, where we can then gain evidence of the conspiracy. It is absolutely indispensable in that case. Because people use guarded speech, because they do not get on the telephone and say "Let's go and blow up the post office tomorrow" for instance, it is easy to over-estimate its importance, I think I will put it that way. Q51 Mr Streeter: Surely the importance for you is that you can gather intercept evidence and it leads you or steers you to collect your evidence that you can have admissible in the court in a different way. You have to work harder to get it in a form that you can use but the fact that you can listen to people planning their crimes is the most useful and important of all. Mr Clarke: I think that is precisely the point. We will perhaps gather from intercept evidence that person A is going to meet person B, but that does not tell us anything about what they are going to talk about when they meet. What will help us is if we can then gain the opportunity to find out what they are going to talk about when they meet and to cover that by other means of surveillance. That is the important thing, it points us in the right direction. Q52 Mrs Dean: Last question on that issue: I take it from what you are saying you do not believe if you could use intercept evidence that it would prevent the need to extend the 28 days. Am I right in thinking that in your view there is still a need to have longer than 28 days to hold people? Sir Ian Blair: I do not think the intercept argument changes the position that we have over 28 days. If I can just deal with one last aspect about intercept. I would hope that the Committee would endorse some of the current proposals to make sure that our technological ability to carry out this activity is maintained in the face of technological changes that lie in the future, and that is a very serious issue for us. Q53 Mrs Dean: Can I just ask a question about post-charge questioning. What are the implications of the Government's proposals to allow suspects to be questioned after charge in terrorist cases? Will this have a significant impact on the police's ability to investigate suspected terrorism? Sir Ian Blair: I think as far as we are concerned we would certainly not be averse to this but I do not think it is, again, a particularly significant change, certainly in terms of detention, because the vast majority of terrorist suspects say nothing. So you are in a position merely of gaining a further ability for an adverse inference to be drawn from that silence but, as you have already told them that, that may not be very helpful. Q54 Gwyn Prosser: Sir Ian, the Government wants to bring in increased sentences for people convicted of offences connected with terrorism but not specifically terrorism offences. Can you give us your view on this and how would it help you in your fight against terrorism? Sir Ian Blair: I think it is a very logical proposal, and Peter can probably fill in some more on this. One of the features of terrorism is that it needs money and there are a lot of other crimes that are committed which then fund terrorist activity. Yes, I think we would want to see something of an aggravated offence in this nature. Peter? Mr Clarke: Yes, I would support the proposal. Again, we need to perhaps think about which offences we are considering in terms of capable of being aggravated by an element of terrorism. Quite often we charge people with minor fraud, for instance, where we have intelligence and we suspect that the money is going towards supporting terrorism but we do not have sufficient evidence to charge under a terrorism act with fundraising for terrorism so we end up with the ordinary criminal offence of fraud. If there was going to be an aggravating factor built into that we might just need to think about the burden of proof required to bring in the aggravating factor in terms of sentencing. Would it be the same standard beyond reasonable doubt or would it be a lower standard to enable the judge to take cognisance of it? Q55 Gwyn Prosser: Do you have a view on whether that decision on enhancement and connection should be taken during the course of the trial or by the judge during his sentencing deliberations? Mr Clarke: My instinct on this is that, cautious as I am of the length of time that trials take already, if we were to introduce it as a trial factor would it lengthen still further the time that these trials take? Perhaps it should be something for the judge's discretion based upon the material before him. Sir Ian Blair: It should not just be added automatically, as it were, only to terrorism offences because a lot of the offences that we charge are not under terrorism acts. Murder and conspiracy to murder are not terrorism offences. Q56 Mr Streeter: Going back to your general theme that you require an extension from 28 days to hold people so that you can investigate and come up with better evidence looking at the complicated telephone records, computer records and the international links and so on, so it is about finding more time to do all that, is there another way of solving this problem, just bearing in mind the civil liberties issues here, in terms of more resources maybe to do what you need to do more quickly? For example, in a fantasy world here, if you had double the manpower to investigate terrorist crimes or better technology, is that another way of cracking this particular problem? Sir Ian Blair: It is a very fair offer from your party, if I may say so. My own view is that it is not the solution and the reason for that is, of course, you can use more people to do the groundwork in the sense of examining the computer, examining the scenes and so on. We do need an awful lot of people to do this but in the end all this has to be sifted and put into place by a small number of controlling minds and that takes time. That is certainly my view but Peter is a bit closer to that place. Q57 Mr Streeter: Just to intercept half the answer there, are there times when you are waiting for something, for a laboratory to analyse something and so on? Could that be speeded up? Mr Clarke: Some of these things can be but not necessarily simply by the application of resources. Let me give you an example which perhaps might illustrate something, and again I have to be careful because the case is sub judice. In a recent very serious investigation we applied a chemical treatment to the walls of a garage which was being searched as part of an operation. It takes two weeks for the chemical treatment to develop the fingerprints. As a result of that, fingerprints, hand marks were found high on a garage wall. As a result of that the officers decided they must search the roof space and within the rafters of the garage. Secreted within the rafters was a pen drive which, subsequently, we will say provides absolutely critical evidence in probably the most serious terrorist trial coming before the courts in the coming months. The chemical treatment in itself took a fortnight to three weeks before the material could be developed and then what is on the pen drive has to be downloaded, analysed and assessed. That is just one example and there are many others where some of these treatments do take a long time but purely on the forensic side of life. I think the main thing is, as Sir Ian says, it is not a cavalry charge, this has to be focused and the risk is if you just throw the resources at an investigation you will miss critical pieces of evidence because not everybody can be fully aware of every single aspect of a very large wide-ranging investigation. There comes a point where you need to focus your effort, where, as the Commissioner said, a few controlling minds need to apply themselves to it, so there is a sequential element to this as well as, obviously, the application of resources where necessary to speed things up as quickly as possible. Chairman: Sir Ian, Mr Clarke, thank you very much for giving evidence to us this morning. You have been here for over an hour and answered over 30 searching questions from my colleagues. No matter what the Committee decides I think we would all like to place on record our appreciation for the work that has been done by the Metropolitan Police in the fight against terrorism and in particular to Mr Clarke to wish you well in your retirement next year. Witness: Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, a Member of the House of Lords, Independent Reviewer of the Government's anti-terrorism legislation, gave evidence. Q58 Chairman: Can I call on the Committee to say welcome to our next witness, Lord Carlile? Thank you very much for coming this morning. I think the last time you gave evidence to us was in February 2006. Lord Carlile, the Government proposes to invite Parliament to reconsider its decision to set the limit for pre-charge detention at 28 days. Is there any evidence of increased threat that would justify Parliament revisiting a decision taken so very recently? Lord Carlile of Berriew: There is certainly evidence of increased threat, to answer your question directly, and, indeed, I noticed on the strap line on the television screen just about half-an-hour ago that it is being suggested by the Government and by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, in particular, that there is an increased threat. The material I have seen, as Independent Reviewer of anti-terrorism legislation and, indeed, the Glasgow/Haymarket event exemplifies this, shows that there is an increased threat of terrorism activities. Whether that threat is sufficient to increase the 28-day provision is another matter and needs to be considered on a case-by-base basis and in the light of such evidence there is, some of which you have heard in the last hour or so. Q59 Ms Buck: Lord Carlile, the police have obviously now had a year's experience of reviewing the operation of the extended powers. I just wondered what lessons you think we could draw and what you would draw from what you understand to be the police's experience of the implementation of the powers to date? Lord Carlile of Berriew: The police's experience is that the extension to 28 days, which was the result, of course, of Mr Winnick's amendment, has been helpful. In one recent operation three people were held for more than 27 days; two of whom were charged, one of whom was released without charge. There is no evidence, as I believe you have heard from others, of a case in which it can be shown that detention beyond 28 days would have made a material difference. However, there is a significant number of cases that have not been tried yet, certainly in excess of 30 terrorism trials, and the evidence that we shall obtain from those remains to be seen. My own view, having looked at material in relation to terrorism investigations for the last 53/4 years, is that I anticipate (I regret confidently, because of the nature of terrorism arrests and inquiries), that there may well be a very small number of cases, albeit possibly cases of the utmost importance, in which 28 days may prove to be insufficient. Now, it is a matter for Parliament whether it wishes to provide for that eventuality. That is a matter for Parliamentary judgment; all I can do is give my opinion insofar as it provides any expertise into that debate. Q60 Ms Buck: If I noted them down correctly, we were told by Sir Ian Blair and Peter Clarke just now that there were 204 cases that were charged under the terrorism legislation, of which 11 went between the 14 and 28 day extension, of which I think eight were convicted. Would you regard that sort of profile, in terms of numbers, as being what you would expect, and that you would be talking about a relatively small number of cases, and that that kind of profile would continue further if there was an additional extension, so we would only be talking, perhaps, about (obviously, one would not know about the circumstances and there would be variations) a very small number? Lord Carlile of Berriew: I agree entirely with what you said. My estimate, and it can be no more than a guesstimate, I suppose, is that over the next five years there might be two or three cases in which a full investigation by the police might be hamstrung significantly by the absolute limitation of 28 days. Now, whether two or three cases in the next five years - which may be the most important cases of all or may not - is sufficient to extend the 28 days is a matter for judgment. In my view, for what it is worth, in the interests of national security it would be justifiable, subject to certain rules. I just want to add something else, though, in answer to your question. When this issue is discussed we never seem to discuss the possibility that some people, under a new system with better judicial supervision, albeit with a limitation beyond 28 days, might be held for a shorter time as a result of the stronger judicial scrutiny, by whatever method (there are many recipes) of the detention period. I do not think the argument is therefore all one way, by any means. Q61 Ms Buck: Would you expect that to happen or would you be surprised, perhaps, two or three years into the full implementation of the Act, if we did not have cases like that, and would it worry you if we did not have cases like that, because it would call into question exactly how effective that scrutiny was? Lord Carlile of Berriew: It would surprise me if there were no cases in which the police, if you will forgive the double negative, did not have difficulties of the kind I am suggesting are likely to occur. My reason for saying that is largely drawn from my experience of examining in detail the information in relation to control order cases. I see all the information, in effect, in relation to control order cases, including a good deal of background, closed material. I deduce from that that terrorist groups are becoming ever more sophisticated; they are highly surveillance-conscious; the security of their computer and communications systems is increasing all the time. They have to be arrested early in many cases because you cannot afford the risk of allowing the plot to run - unlike, say, a robbery case. So I think the investigation of those cases is a great challenge; more akin to the kind of investigation we see on the continent, of which, perhaps, we have seen an unhappy example in the McCann case. Q62 Ms Buck: As you will be aware, Lord Carlile, the Joint Committee on Human Rights recommended that the Metropolitan Police carry out a review of the police's powers under the Act. I just wondered what you thought the merits and demerits of that would be. Lord Carlile of Berriew: Are we talking about the full range of powers under the Terrorism Act or do you want me to confine my answer to arrest detention? Q63 Ms Buck: Yes. Lord Carlile of Berriew: My view is that it is a good time to carry out a complete review of these powers. I have said consistently since I started to report on this that I would like to see stronger judicial supervision than we have at the present time. That is no criticism of the criminal district judges who deal with it now, but my view is that we should insert into the system something taken from the continent, but my choice would be to have senior circuit judges - not High Court judges - who deal with crime all the time, scrutinising each arrest situation on site in a sort of mini-courtroom at Paddington Green until they necessarily and inevitably replace it. I can go into much more detail than that, but that is a short answer to your question. Ms Buck: I am sure colleagues have many questions, so perhaps not. Q64 Mr Browne: I apologise for being caught by the promptness of the proceedings starting - a new Chairman of our Committee and a new regime! The question I wanted to put to you, Lord Carlile, (and I hope this has not already been covered in your answers) was whether you think the precautionary basis is sufficient for extending the 28-day period of detention? We have just heard from the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who appeared to take that view, as I understood his answer, which was that we ought not to be looking to base this extension on specific cases possibly within the context of a time of public anxiety and that we are better to err on the side of caution and extend it now, when there may be a quieter period, because you are better safe than sorry. Is that the view you take? Lord Carlile of Berriew: The Government's second and third options, in my view, would be impossible to provide in a coherent way that would deal with cases. So, inevitably, my answer to you is yes, I agree that the precautionary basis is a sound starting point. However, I have consistently and repeatedly, though it has sometimes been ignored, argued that if there is to be something beyond the 28 days then we can improve the whole process by introducing stronger civil rights protections. It has long been my view that the 28-day process when it was introduced, when the extension took place from 14 to 28 days, failed to provide the additional safeguards against arbitrariness and unfair detention, which should have been inserted at that time. Of course, it was a time of high political debate and things were done as they are, particularly in your House, in something of a hurry. I feel that we should now move on to the next stage, which is to provide an enduring framework, an enduring system, with better civil liberties protections. Q65 Mr Browne: The only follow-up to that is that people are concerned, as I am and, I am sure, everybody in this room is, about civil liberties. The precautionary principle strikes me as a dangerous one because if you are trying to get the appropriate balance between civil liberties, on the one hand, and national security and protection of the public on the other, and you are always erring on the side of maximum precaution for protecting the public, you will inevitably get to the point where you are stretching the detention period, stretching the powers of the State to observe that precautionary principle at the expense of the liberties of the individual citizen. Do you not regard that as a threat to the balance? Lord Carlile of Berriew: It is a risk and it is a risk that one recognises, but I think to describe it as a significant risk within our system is unrealistic. It may be that one day a malign government will turn up and all bets will be off civil liberties, but we do not live in that world, in reality. My view is that we have to have a coherent starting point, and the coherent starting point is this, in my opinion: there are two sets of civil liberties at stake here; one is the civil liberty of the mass of the citizenry. Every citizen in this country has a civil liberty which is that national security should be protected, so that their kids are not blown up in a bus in Tavistock Square. That is a very important issue that is not talked about very often. On the other hand, one has the extremely important civil liberties of a much smaller critical mass of people, but they are just as important as individuals, who might be held in custody arbitrarily and for the wrong reasons for an excessive period of time. How do you create that balance? As it happens in this country, we have a very sophisticated system of judicial review of administrative action, in which the judges have shown themselves to be quite fearless - apolitical judges have shown themselves to be quite fearless - in enforcing civil liberties. Indeed, at the moment, we use as our template the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act. I think if you take the balance I was talking about a moment or two earlier, and if you insert the judges - and I recognise there has to be a maximum, that is one of the realities of political life - and if you insert a reasonable period which would enable the police to deal with that worst case that might well arise in the future as a real possibility, then I think you have a sufficient answer to concerns about the precautionary principle. That is my advice, but it is not my judgment that determines this, it is yours. Q66 Mr Browne: You seem to be saying you are in favour of the precautionary principle but only up to a point. The reason I say that is because one could better protect the public even further if, for example, internment was introduced. Lord Carlile of Berriew: No. Q67 Mr Browne: That would be a better precaution than potentially allowing somebody to walk free who you might have good reason to believe, even if you did not have sufficient evidence to prosecute, was a threat to public safety. So, actually, the people who are arguing in favour of the precautionary principle appear to me to be arguing for an extension of a small number of days but they do not follow their convictions through with great aplomb to a really precautionary point where the public security would be even more enhanced than it otherwise would. Lord Carlile of Berriew: I have heard the term "internment" used by others in this argument. If I may say so, with respect, in my view it is enormously misleading. Nobody is talking about internment. The history of internment in this country is, to quote Churchill: "In the highest degree odious". The history of regulation 18B from 1940 onwards, the appalling history of internment in Northern Ireland, which was achieved on the basis of second-hand, hearsay evidence with judges being used merely as rubber stamps (and I know some judges who did it and they hated every second of it) has a very unrespectable history. What we are talking about here is using the system of checks and balances, which is our everyday stock-in-trade in the courts, in a way that is proportionate to the threat and the risk. In my view, proportionate to the threat and the risk is some modification of Mr Winnick's amendment with a stronger system of balances, or checks (whichever you care to call it), put in place to make it a more civil liberties-compliant regime. Chairman: Mr Winnick has a quick point on this. Q68 Mr Winnick: Lord Carlile, you were in favour, were you not, of the 90 days Government proposal, with various judicial safeguards? Lord Carlile of Berriew: I am in favour of an extension beyond 28 days. Q69 Mr Winnick: At the time, Lord Carlile ---- Lord Carlile of Berriew: I am going to deal with that, if I may, Mr Winnick. Q70 Mr Winnick: If you would answer my question. With respect. Lord Carlile of Berriew: I am not necessarily in favour of 90 days. I say that because it is not for me to judge what is the correct maximum number of days - that is a political decision. The intellectually respectable view, in my opinion, if I may say so, is that we need a proper system of checks and balances. Now, in a world of absolute perfection you would say to yourself: "Well, the judges are going to provide that ultimate decision, so you do not need to set down the number of days at all." I recognise ---- Q71 Mr Winnick: We are coming to that, Lord Carlile, with respect. I am simply asking you; I am not trying to misdirect you in your answer. You gave the impression, and certainly the Government used your arguments to try and justify the 90 days at the time, two years ago, in November 2005, that you were in favour of the Government's proposal. Lord Carlile of Berriew: I was not in favour of the Government proposal because I wrote a report that contained the 90-day suggestion before the Government ever suggested it to me or to anyone else. So by a process of ----- Q72 Mr Winnick: So you are claiming credit for the 90 days? Lord Carlile of Berriew: Just as a process of empirical reasoning it struck me that if one had to choose an arbitrary figure an absolute maximum of 90 days might be an appropriate figure. Q73 Mr Winnick: Do you have any regrets that Parliament decided not to proceed with 90 days? Lord Carlile of Berriew: I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever, if I may say so. I respect enormously the process that led you as a senior backbencher to rebel against the Government and secure something else. I completely understand why that was done. Chairman: We are not going to examine Mr Winnick's voting record! Q74 Mrs Cryer: Lord Carlile, even if we do not go along the path of extending the detention-without-charge period upwards of 28 days from where we are, we have already extended from 14 days to 28 days. Do you think it would be appropriate were the Metropolitan Police to give a report to Parliament, yearly, on their terrorist detention powers, and include a report on each case and giving statistics for all those cases where someone has been held longer than 14 days and up to 28 days? Lord Carlile of Berriew: I would say that would be an excellent idea. My experience of the Metropolitan Police is that, on the whole, they are very willing to do that kind of thing if it is going to increase the transparency of what they do. So, yes, I am in favour of that proposal. Mrs Cryer: Thank you. Q75 Patrick Mercer: Lord Carlile, does your work as reviewer of anti-terrorism legislation involve significant liaison with the Muslim community? Lord Carlile of Berriew: Yes, so far as it is possible to achieve it. Indeed, my work involves liaison with the Muslim community and other communities. I spend quite a lot of time in Northern Ireland where I deal with communities there, too. Liaising with the Muslim community does involve the question: "With whom do I liaise?" This is not intended as any criticism whatsoever of the Muslim community, and indeed there are Members of Parliament here who have significant Muslim communities in their constituencies who may be able to advise me of community groups I could talk to. I do find it difficult to identify who represents which parts of the Muslim community, which is as diverse as any other community - the Christian community or the Jewish community or whatever. I liaise as far as I can. Q76 Patrick Mercer: In view of that and bearing in mind what you were saying about Northern Irish communities as well, what is your response to the argument that extending the pre-charge detention limit still further would not only damage community relations but, also, make it less likely that the police will receive valuable information from members of that or other communities? Lord Carlile of Berriew: My answer to that is that there is no evidence whatsoever that this issue would cause difficulties with the Muslim community - certainly none that has been presented to me. You may have some, but it has not been presented to me. I suppose it is a matter of opinion, in the end, but if I look at the level of co-operation that takes place - I am just hesitating because I am not sure what I am free to talk about openly - and if I reflect on the level of community activity that sometimes takes place around arrests and, indeed, in relation to control order cases where it is known that someone is the subject of a control order, on the whole there is very good liaison between those who represent the Muslim community locally in a public way and the police. I am going, shortly, for example, to Glasgow where the Strathclyde Police, who are very good at dealing with terrorism issues and have a lot of experience of it, have built very strong liaison with the Muslim community. It is really irrespective of statutory provisions. There are obviously going to be arguments, such as that implicit in your question, but I am doubtful whether they carry very much substance. Q77 Chairman: Lord Carlile, surely you accept that the extended detention period disproportionately affects members of the Muslim community? Lord Carlile of Berriew: As a fact, of course I accept that it affects - not disproportionately, it only, in present circumstances, affects - members of the Muslim community because it is, as a matter of fact, in I think every case, Muslims who have been detained. Q78 Chairman: Does it not worry you that a certain section of the community is being singled out in this way? Lord Carlile of Berriew: It worries me a great deal that people who are being arrested are almost inevitably Muslims, because I believe that the vast majority of Muslims, apart from an infinitesimal percentage, disapprove very strongly of terrorism, but I do not believe that from that one can necessarily extrapolate, ergo, the extension of detention from, say, 28 to 56 days is going to make relations with the police worse. I see no evidence for that, none has been given to me and I do not think it is logical. There are other things that radicalise young people, of course, like foreign policy, for example, but that is a different matter. Q79 Chairman: Have you not sought to engage with, for example, the Muslim Council of Britain? You say there is nobody you can deal with who represents the Muslim community; if you were dealing with Catholics you would go to the Archbishop of Westminster. Lord Carlile of Berriew: I have dealt with the Muslim Council of Britain, of course, and with other bodies, but I have also dealt with Muslim bodies that say that the Muslim Council of Britain does not represent them. So my problem is getting a proper, representative view. If I were to go (I used to be a Welsh MP) to Wales and try and get a view of Christians in Wales I would have the same problem because I would not know whether to go to the Welsh speaking Baptists or the Church of Wales, or what. I have the same problem with the Muslim community, but it is sometimes expressed rather more frankly by the Muslim community - which may be helpful. Q80 Ms Buck: Would you accept, though, that there is an issue that (as an MP who had constituents in Guantanamo Bay, who came back into this country having been held in Guantanamo Bay and not charged) the broader community sees people being held who are then released without charge, who have been detained currently up to 28 days (in the future possibly for considerably longer) who are then not charged, and that those people returning into communities, perhaps in larger numbers and perhaps after a longer period of detention, could be part of that radicalising process? So a great deal of care has to be taken, as we all understand, to make sure that we are not in a situation where we have individuals who are returning after sustained periods of detention with no charge. Lord Carlile of Berriew: Guantanamo Bay is a very specific problem. I recently asked an American Supreme Court Judge what he thought of the European view of Guantanamo Bay, including the declaration in an obiter dictum of an English judge who said (if I remember rightly) that it was "a blot on democracy". The Supreme Court judge in question's reply was in three words: "Guantanamo - it's offshore". That, for me, is a completely inadequate response. I am afraid it is inevitable that because of the unjust system which the Americans are operating in Guantanamo Bay, which involves a high degree of arbitrariness and a low degree of evidence, people are going to return to this country who have committed no offence and, naturally, are going to resume their ordinary life in the community. That needs to be explained, and I have sought to explain it in three sentences just now. However, it is not our fault; it is the Americans' fault; they bear the responsibility for that, and that is absolutely clear to jurists round the world, including a lot of respectable, North American jurists and judges to whom I have spoken about the subject. Q81 Mr Winnick: Whether or not the Muslim Council of Britain is a representative body (as you say, who knows, in any community - Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Sikh - whether any of these groups are as representative as they claim), do you know, Lord Carlile, of any group of Muslims who have said they are in favour of extending the detention period beyond 28 days? Lord Carlile of Berriew: I do not. Q82 Mr Winnick: That is the answer you gave previously when you were last before us. Lord Carlile of Berriew: I do not know of any group that is in favour of extending it beyond 28 days. I am not sure that any Muslim group, apart from the MCB, has expressed a view to me on the subject, but I would assume that they would all be against it. Q83 Mr Winnick: The police today confirmed that, as far as they had the latest figures, no one who had been held in detention and then released has been charged with terrorist offences. Do you accept that is the position? Lord Carlile of Berriew: As a fact that is certainly correct. Q84 Mr Winnick: It is of some interest, is it not? Lord Carlile of Berriew: It is of some interest, though the conclusions one draws from that are not necessarily inevitably that they were innocent of any terrorist activity. The argument I have heard presented on some occasions is that because the police were - I am referring, in my mind, particularly to an incident that occurred in Scotland some years ago - unable to complete their enquiries and if they had been able to complete their enquiries there might have been charges. I cannot point to such an incident with any certainty. Q85 Mr Winnick: That could be used, could it not, Lord Carlisle, (I do not want to pursue this) if it had been 56 days or longer and someone had been released; the police could always claim if they only had more time. Lord Carlile of Berriew: Absolutely, they could, yes. Q86 Mr Winnick: Lord Carlile, you have been, at least about three or four months ago, much in the news because you said, in effect, unless you were misquoted (which I do not think you were, but if you were you would tell me), that Parliament should not, in fact, lay down a maximum period; that it should not be the role of Parliament to do so but it should be left to the judges to decide in individual cases whether a person should continue to be kept in detention or not. Lord Carlile of Berriew: First of all, I have never said that it is not the role of Parliament to decide. Indeed, I have gone out of my way, by referring to your amendment, Mr Winnick, to say that I recognise that Parliament has a very important role, if it wishes to decide. What I have said, and these are the terms I have used repeatedly, is that in an intelligent argument on this issue a number of days is entirely arbitrary, so that you cannot say with a logical empirical analysis that 14 or 28 or 30 or 56 or 90 days - or any particular number of days - is actually the perfect cut-off point. I have recognised that Parliament will set a cut-off point. My view is that, probably, even if there was a limit of 90 days, almost nobody, perhaps nobody at all, would be held for 90 days if there was a proper and fully human rights-compliant system of judicial control. I just add this, as I have said earlier: there would be a number of cases, in my view, in which people would be held for a lesser time. Q87 Mr Winnick: At the end of it all, Lord Carlile, you said (and I think you are confirming it) there should be no statutory maximum limit on pre-charge detention. Lord Carlile of Berriew: No, what I said was if one looks at the argument as an intelligent argument then a maximum statutory limit is not part of that argument. But, if I may add the "but", I have said repeatedly that I recognise that Parliament will impose a limit and that that is absolutely the right of Parliament to do. Q88 Mr Winnick: It is not in question whether or not Parliament should do that, and I agree with you: hopefully, Parliament will always set a limit. I would be very disappointed if that was not the case. That is not the question I am putting to you. I am asking you simply to confirm that as far as your views are concerned - not what Parliament would decide or otherwise but whether in your view - there should be any maximum amount of time laid down by Parliament. Yes or no. Lord Carlile of Berriew: It is not capable of an absolute yes or no answer because it depends upon the judicial protections that are laid down. If the right judicial protections are laid down then the number of days is probably irrelevant because the judges would determine the right maximum number of days in that case. That does not permit of an absolute answer to your question. Q89 Mr Winnick: What it does do, Lord Carlile, is say, in effect (unless, of course, someone else apart from myself round the table has a different interpretation) that Parliament should not decide on the particular number of days but it should be left to the judges. We are all for the judicial safeguards that you have mentioned and which I do not doubt for one moment, as someone concerned with civil liberties and a long record in doing so, you wish to see - I do not question that in any way whatsoever - but what you are really saying is that Parliament should abdicate its responsibility as far as days are concerned and leave it to the judges, who in their good sense would decide whether or not a person should be held for a particular period of time. Lord Carlile of Berriew: I do not co-opt the word "abdicate" because I think that Parliament can set out statutorily the standards which judges have to apply. In those circumstances, yes, I think having a number of days is immaterial. Q90 Mr Winnick: Thank you very much. The Director of Liberty, whose concern with civil liberties is no less than ours, described your comments and that of the ACPO as, in your case, "a public champion for internment". Lord Carlile of Berriew: Yes. She did that at the conference of the political party to which I belong, and without informing me that she was going to do so. I regard that as a complete misrepresentation of the position. I have said what I have said about internment; I regard internment of any kind as completely unacceptable. The question that has to be asked of the Director of Liberty (for whom I have very great regard, by the way) is: recognising as she does that there are certain cases which require special measures, what would she do? We do not actually get an answer from her as to what she would do. I would highlight, particularly, the control order cases in which she recognises that there are cases in which some special measures are needed but she will not tell anyone what she would do about those cases. That is not her responsibility, her responsibility is to defend civil liberties, but I think it would be helpful if she was prepared to take on the other half of the challenge as well. Q91 Mr Winnick: One final question, if I may: you have had a pretty long career, Lord Carlile, as a politician in the House of Commons and in the Lords and you are a distinguished lawyer. If we had, which you have suggested, with judicial safeguards, where Parliament (let us leave aside the word "abdicate") decided to do what you would like, not to set down a particular maximum number of days and leave it to the judges instead, do you really believe that would be looked upon other than as internment, certainly by the Muslim community, and indeed by many other people? Lord Carlile of Berriew: I believe that if Parliament set out and presented in a proper way a system of safeguards that ensured that people's civil liberties were protected, then it is as likely to be believed as many other government policies. Mr Winnick: You really believe that, do you? Q92 Ms Buck: Lord Carlile, the Government's options paper talks about any potential extension of a time limit being only in exceptional circumstances and talks about a few of those potential exceptional circumstances. Do you feel that there are any merits in taking that further and actually looking at specifying what those circumstances may be, and whether there is any feasibility in doing this, either, in a sense, with some statutory force or, possibly, in some other way, of monitoring and helping to take the communication of the justification of that decision out into the wider community? Lord Carlile of Berriew: I think specificity is important and communications are vital. One of the things I have tried to do in my nearly six years as independent reviewer of terrorism legislation is make it known that there is an independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, so that there can be a wider public debate on these issues. On one occasion, for example, I took a terrorism road show round a number of cities to try and involve the public and the academic community, and it was moderately successful. I went to five cities around the country. So presentation and communication is important. I think one has to be reasonably clear-headed about looking at the options. My own view is that option 2 and option 3 in the Government's paper are completely unrealistic. The issue is about evidence that can be admitted in a courtroom. In my view, if we were to go down the road of option 2 and option 3 we would not be touching the issue of admissibility in a courtroom. Furthermore, option 2 involves, for example, a critical case taking place in, say, early September with Parliament sitting a month later, and the notion that we could wait for a month until Parliament was ready to consider a case is absurd. Option 3, which is Liberty's suggestion, in my view creates the possibility of Governments in this country doing something we have never done before, which is declaring states of emergency - the sort of thing we look at aghast when it happens in other countries. I would be appalled, frankly, if we gave the Government the option of declaring states of emergency based on a single case which may arise from a free-standing, self-starting group of radical, violent jihadists somewhere in England. Chairman: We will be coming later to examine option 4. Q93 Ms Buck: Just to follow up the question of specificity, though, you said it is something that you welcome, and I do not think anybody would argue against specificity. Is there not, however, in reality, a risk to specificity because when one looks at the nature, not just in terms of terrorism but criminal behaviour generally, trying to kind of narrow down and label the circumstances in which a judge would, for example, grant an extension of those pre-charge detention powers, to particular sets of circumstances, could backfire on you in lots of ways. Lord Carlile of Berriew: There are useful legislative devices, as you know, which are used; for example, the court shall take into consideration, without excluding all other possibilities, a list of factors. I do not think one should remove judicial discretion entirely. My overall view is that the more you communicate with the public the more the public are likely to understand and accept what you are doing. I think what has happened in the last five years in Northern Ireland demonstrates it, actually, in terrorism and in politics in general. Q94 Ms Buck: Just one last question. Maybe this is something that came up in your terrorism road show, but were you able to listen to what Peter Clarke was telling us earlier? Lord Carlile of Berriew: No, but I am familiar with it. Q95 Ms Buck: He actually used an example of practical circumstances - it was post- the 28-day deadline - where a treatment was put on garage walls to locate fingerprints. The chemical treatment takes over two weeks to reveal that information, and that information led on a trail which found other evidence which was potentially very useful. It is the examples which can be so powerful in helping communication rather than the abstracts. Lord Carlile of Berriew: I agree. Q96 Ms Buck: Is that something that we can build on? Is there a way of actually using some of those examples to communicate with people why changes are sometimes needed? Lord Carlile of Berriew: Yes. I can think immediately of another example. Supposing a terrorist suspect is arrested and at the time of arrest force is used upon him or he suffers an injury as a result of the events going on around him. He may well be arrested by a police office or a member of the public leaping upon him and saying: "You are under arrest". Time starts to run. He may not become conscious for another three months. You have had a situation recently in which someone was unconscious but, unfortunately, he died. Whether he was under arrest or not is a matter of interpretation which might be resolved differently on either side of the border. Incidentally, there is an entirely separate but very important cross-border issue that needs to be discussed at some moment. So one can think readily of examples where time can start to run and run out before you could complete the enquiries. Chairman: Thank you. Could we now go to Martin Salter. Martin Salter: Chairman, my question was really about judicial scrutiny of detention, and I think Lord Carlile dealt with it in his very comprehensive response to Mr Winnick's contentions and Mr Winnick's occasional question. Chairman: Do you have any other questions to put? Martin Salter: No. Mr Clappison: I think Lord Carlile has made fairly clear his view on option 3, declaring a state of emergency. Unless he wishes to add anything to what he said. Q97 Chairman: Lord Carlile, you cannot answer the questions before they are asked! Lord Carlile of Berriew: I am very sorry, Chairman. I do apologise. It must be because I have sat on Select Committees. Chairman: I hope nobody sent you the questions! Q98 Mr Clappison: We have very properly explored the civil liberties aspect. This was a very proper Parliamentary concern and a concern for particular communities. We also need to bear in mind the very serious consequences of this type of offending, which is arguably more serious in its nature than types of terrorist offences we have seen in the past directed against this country - arguably. Could I ask for your views on the Government's proposal for enhanced sentences for terrorist offences - that is, enhanced sentences for offences of an ordinary criminal nature which are related to terrorism but which are not specifically terrorist offences, as I understand it? Lord Carlile of Berriew: Yes. This may be something that I was the first to suggest, actually, and I do have a firm view on this. My view arises from my experience of scrutinising the control orders cases since control orders were introduced. There is plenty of evidence available that people whom it would be difficult for one reason or another to prosecute for terrorist offences could be prosecuted for what the Police Service of Northern Ireland call "ODC" (ordinary, decent crime), such as, for example, credit card fraud. There have certainly been plenty of instances in which, let us call them putative terrorists, may have committed quite large scale credit card fraud, telephone card fraud, and other similar offences. My view is that if there is a terrorist purpose or connection, which can be proved to the criminal standard, then the sentencing judge should be able to take that into account in passing sentence by enhancing the sentence. My view is that - and I hope I am not anticipating another question - once the conviction of the substantive offence, the credit card fraud, has taken place, judges are well able then to adjudge and give reasons for their judgment as to whether or not it is a case in which enhancement would be available. It would then be a matter for the judge as to whether enhancement should be imposed within whatever sentencing guidelines are issued by the sentencing guidelines council of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division. Q99 Mr Clappison: If I may say, it sounds a bit like the aggravated (?) sentences which are, quite rightly, available for offences aggravated by a racial motive. I think I am right in saying that those sentences carry an additional maximum penalty on top of the ordinary maximum penalty for offences of that type. Would you be in favour of the same sort of thing here, or do you think the maximum penalty as it stands would be sufficient? Lord Carlile of Berriew: No, I am in favour of increasing the maximum penalty because of the terrorism connection, and I anticipate that it would be possible to impose, possibly, an extra five years. Again, that is really a matter to be dealt with at the Committee stage of a Bill. Q100 Gwyn Prosser: Lord Carlile, the Chairman just managed to stop you giving your specific views on the Government's option 4, but I think we have gathered what that might be. We are talking, of course, about the judge-managed investigation. In our 2006 report the Committee talked about the importing of some elements of the continental French system into British judicial matters. I think everyone agrees that we need to go along those lines to make the direct oversight by a judge work. Others have said that you cannot just pick and choose which bits, and that if you are going to adopt that in some areas you have to adopt it wholesale. First of all, would you like to spell out your view on option 4 and just tell us whether you think it would be worth the cost of changing our judicial system to such a degree? Lord Carlile of Berriew: When you talk to French lawyers one of the first things they say is: "We wish that we had your system", and when you talk to British lawyers about this subject we tend to wish we had part of the continental system. I certainly would not wish to import the continental system into this country. The juge d'instruction system in France (and I discussed this with Judge de Bruges (?) now retired) involves the judge not as a judge in any sense that we understand; the judge is, in effect, a super-prosecutor in that system. We have already got pretty super prosecutors, thank you very much; I think they do their job, on the whole, rather well. What I think we could import is a flavour of the French judicial system, which is to appoint a judge - and a properly experienced judge, which is why I am in favour of a senior circuit judge with long criminal experience - to supervise and approve or disapprove the activities of the police during the detention period. It would require very careful thinking out. I do not think it would be realistic to have oral adversarial proceedings during the course of a period of detention in Paddington Green. I think most of the representation, if not all, could be done in writing. We might consider importing a special advocate into the procedure as well. However, I believe that it would provide the extra protection with an element imported from abroad. This is probably what the Newton Committee really had in mind when it made its recommendations some years ago. I am not sure there is anyone here who was on the Newton Committee, but I think if you were to speak to people who were they would probably confirm something along those lines. Q101 Gwyn Prosser: So your preferred option, in a nutshell, is option 4? Lord Carlile of Berriew: Option 4, I think, would involve an absolute sea-change; it would be slow and it would not improve the system. Option 1 with the importation of a judge in a special role would provide the best of both systems, really - or the best we could do, anyway. Q102 Mrs Cryer: Lord Carlile, I think it must have been Shami Chakrabarti, again, who said that while not a magic bullet, intercept evidence would ensure that charges could be brought in most situations. I wonder if I could have your view on what she said. Also, could you tell us: have you submitted evidence to the Privy Counsellors' review on intercept evidence and, if you did, what you said? Lord Carlile of Berriew: To answer the second question first, yes, I have met the Chilcott Committee. To answer the first question, I have said to the Chilcott Committee, as I have always said, that in my view intercept evidence should be available (with an emphasis on the "able") for terrorist and other cases. I do not share the view that it is a silver bullet, by any means. I do not believe that intercept evidence would enable controllees (the subjects of control orders) to be prosecuted for criminal offences, save, possibly, in the rarest of circumstances. I believe that the use of intercept evidence would be unlikely to facilitate the prosecution of sophisticated terrorists, because they know they are going to be intercepted. The techniques that terrorists use to avoid being intercepted are well-known to the security services, and they may not be very technical in themselves but they are very careful (I mean the terrorists) in avoiding interception, but it might make a difference, because terrorists make mistakes; they can be sloppy on the telephone. It might make a difference in a small number of cases. My belief is the use of intercept evidence would make a big difference in the investigation of other types of crime. The FBI routinely, in federal drugs investigations, use intercept, wire taps, as part of sting operations as the primary method of investigation. I think if intercepts were available the police might well do that on numerous occasions, say, for example, international money laundering cases. I doubt it would make much difference in terrorism cases, but I am certainly not opposed to it; in principle I am in favour of it. I do believe that it represents considerable logistical problems because of the difficulties of transcription - the sheer volume of material, the need not to open the warehouse door after disclosure (because it is inappropriate and not in compliance with the guidelines) - but I believe that those issues could be overcome. The final thing I would say about it is there has to be an absolute protection of national security. That is something that has been taken into account over the years in Northern Ireland in the pulling of some prosecutions in the face of potential disclosure issues. Q103 Mrs Cryer: Can I also ask you about questioning after charge in terrorist cases? The Government have put proposals forward to allow suspects to be questioned after charge. Do you think that this could have a significant impact on the ability of the police to investigate suspected terrorists? Lord Carlile of Berriew: I think it ought to be possible and I think it might have an impact. I shall be writing a report very shortly on the Government's proposals. Today is part of the process that will lead to that report and I shall be writing it in the coming days. My view is that we have to look with care at the consequences and civil liberties implications of questioning after charge. Do we allow an adverse inference to be used in the event of the suspect refusing to answer questions? That, in itself, raises a number of questions, such as does the adverse inference provision have any utility at all in any event, in practice? What amendments do we make to Code C, to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the code on questioning in detention of suspects? So it is a complicated issue but, in principle, I think it might make a useful contribution. Q104 Mr Clappison: I do not know if you would be prepared to give us any foretaste of your report, or should we wait for it? Lord Carlile of Berriew: I think traditionally one says "wait and see" but I have given you a fair foretaste of it already in an attempt to be helpful to this Committee. Q105 Mr Clappison: Thank you, that is much appreciated. Can I ask specifically if there are any new counter-terrorism measures, apart from the one we have discussed, that you would like to see in the next sections of the Bill? Lord Carlile of Berriew: I am grateful for that opportunity. I mentioned briefly some cross-border issues. When the Glasgow Airport/Haymarket event took place (and I am still looking into this) my clear understanding, having spoken to police officers here and in Strathclyde, is that there are some cross-border issues that need to be sorted out. English procedure does not trump Scottish procedure, and vice versa. If I give you a very simple point: the caution in Scotland is the old caution - "You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so; anything you say may be taken down in writing and given in evidence", or words to that effect - and in England we have the new caution, with the adverse inference built in. What is the effect of the wrong caution being given if, ultimately, the trial takes place in the other jurisdiction? That is a very, very simple example of the problems that can arise, but there are other problems relating to the transfer and continuity of exhibits, the transfer of prisoners and, if there is a cross-border issue, does the questioning take place in Govan, which is the Scottish Paddington Green equivalent, or in Paddington Green? One has to remember that these cross-border issues could apply not only between England and Scotland but between England and Northern Ireland, particularly as justice is due to be devolved in May of next year to the Northern Ireland Assembly, and, also, between Northern Ireland and Scotland. So we need to get these cross-border issues right, and recent events have shown that to be an additional issue, which I would like to see in the legislation. Q106 Mr Clappison: Is the Government aware and seized of this problem? Lord Carlile of Berriew: The Government is seized of this problem in the sense that I have raised it with officials in the Home Office. I shall certainly include it in my report. It is a piece of tidying up, which we have learnt from experience. I do not think anybody is to blame for it not being covered in advance, but we need to get it right for the future. Q107 Chairman: Lord Carlile, have you met with the new Home Secretary to discuss these issues? Lord Carlile of Berriew: Yes. Q108 Chairman: You have. How often do you meet --- Lord Carlile of Berriew: I have met the new Home Secretary once since she was appointed to discuss these issues. I have met Mr McNulty fairly regularly. We do not have, as it were, regular diary meetings but we meet when we need to or want to. Home Office Ministers give me access to themselves when I ask. Q109 Chairman: What about the Prime Minister? Have you talked to him about this? Lord Carlile of Berriew: I have not talked to the Prime Minister about these issues. Q110 Chairman: Would you welcome a meeting with him? Lord Carlile of Berriew: I would be very happy to meet the Prime Minister on any occasion. Q111 Bob Russell: He has people round for tea now! Lord Carlile of Berriew: I speak to Home Office officials very regularly indeed. I go into the Home Office often and take the opportunity to speak formally and informally to officials, as I do to people outside, of course. Q112 Chairman: Lord Carlile, thank you very much indeed for coming here. What you have said today has been of great use to us. Thank you. Lord Carlile of Berriew: Thank you. |