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I do not think we have had any sufficiently convincing evidence in favour of 42 days. If we are to make such a major change in the way we deal with people before they are charged, we need a bit more evidence than the arguments that we have heard so far from the Government. I say that with sadness because I am a supporter of the Government, and I wish they did not put people like me in the position of having to oppose a key feature of their legislation. I would much rather that I was not in this position and could attack the Tories and all sorts of other things, but that is not the world we are in today. I say sincerely that I regret that my Government are doing this when they should not. I am sure that all noble Lords support civil liberties and that they believe passionately that we must do all we can for the security of our people. I am sure that we all agree that the safety of people in this country is very important, but the judgments we are making today about how we give effect to our beliefs will determine the pattern of civil liberties in the future. Even if people supporting the Government believe in civil liberties, I fear their effect will go the other way. It would be a step back in this country if we were to do that.

I hope the Government will think again. It is clear that this measure will not go through this House and that the onus will be on the Government to say, “What can we do to get this measure through?”. Listening to the arguments, it is fairly clear what changes they should make.

7.16 pm

Lord Ahmed: My Lords, there is no doubt in my mind that we have to defend our country and its citizens against those who may have evil and malicious intentions that lead to havoc and chaos and instil fear in civilians. Over the past few weeks, I have been consulting various groups from my community, and my fear is that the proposal in the Counter-Terrorism Bill for 42 days’ pre-charge detention will play into the hands of extremist groups and individuals and increase anti-Muslim feelings. It will be counterproductive as it will lead to damaged community relations and will further alienate the people we are aiming to integrate into our society. It is unjust and violates people’s rights. It will inevitably undermine the UK’s moral authority around the world. We have a proud history of respecting civil liberties from the early days of Magna Carta and the principle of habeas corpus. It is for these reasons that I will be opposing the Government’s proposed extension of pre-charge detention to 42 days.

I should like to draw noble Lords’ attention to some points that have gone some way in helping me make my decision. For many decades we have been a target for terrorism, whether by the IRA or others. However, I am proud that we have kept our traditions of freedom, justice and respect for individual rights, except for a short period when the counterproductive

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measure of internment was used in Northern Ireland, as mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, and my noble friend Lord Dubs. Your Lordships will be aware that until 1974 crimes related to terrorism were generally dealt with through ordinary criminal law procedures. However, from 1974 to 2000 successive Governments sought to build upon the new statutory regime that had been implemented. The Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Acts that were introduced after 1974 were reactionary measures passed in response to various terror attacks. The first such Act was passed in 1974 in response to the IRA attacks in Birmingham. One feature of the Act was that it allowed police officers to hold terror suspects for a maximum of seven days before they were charged.

Although it was initially envisioned as a temporary measure, at intervals, the Act was renewed, reflecting the built-in sunset clauses, until 1989, with significant amendments in 1976, 1984, and 1989. These arrangements came to an end with the Terrorism Act 2000, which consolidated and amended earlier provisions, and introduced new measures. The 2000 Act was the beginning of a new chapter that took UK terror laws into a new era.

Since 2000, this Government have introduced six pieces of legislation relating to terrorism. Before us today is yet another anti-terror Bill for our consideration. I am disturbed by the fact that it proposes to extend the pre-charge detention limit to the magic figure of 42 days. In 2006, the Government advocated 90 days, 60 days or any figure that they could pluck out of thin air. The 42 days seems to be another bingo or lottery number that they have dreamt up.

I pay tribute to those Members of Parliament who stood firm on their principles and voted against this proposal. In particular, I applaud the courage of the 36 Labour MPs who refused to accept the extension of pre-charge detention, which illustrates the true essence of British democracy. If only MPs who aim to integrate young Muslims into British society had voted against this draconian measure, it would never have come to this House.

Many distinguished and influential members of our society have voiced their opposition to various features of the anti-terror legislation. They include the former Prime Minister, Sir John Major, and Sir Ken MacDonald. We have already heard the noble and learned Lords, Lord Falconer and Lord Goldsmith, the noble Lord, Lord Condon, and the noble Baroness, Lady Mallingham-Buller, in her eloquent maiden speech, oppose the 42 days. The former Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and the former Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, as well as organisations such as Amnesty International, Liberty and Human Rights Watch, have all expressed their concerns.

Where is the real evidence that we need 42 days? In November 2007, even my noble friend Lord West was not convinced. Is it not amazing how a cup of tea at No. 10 Downing Street two hours later can change someone’s priorities as well as the strength of their beliefs? It is unfortunate to hear so many stories about

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knighthoods, peerages, financial incentives and political sweeteners being offered in order to garner support for this outrageous proposal.

I am aware of only one so-called Muslim leader who supports the Government on this issue. I was shocked to learn that the same individual who supported the Government in the Sun, the Daily Telegraph, and the English section of the Daily Jang, in the Urdu side of the Daily Jang stated:

“Even seven days without charge is unacceptable to the British Muslim Forum”.

How can the Government be proud to be in bed with such an individual? I suppose that when you are desperate, want to sound tough and are doing it at the expense of that community, you need someone who epitomises Judas. Is it not funny how history repeats itself and we have the Mir Jaffars and Mir Sadiqs among our communities today?

I understand that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has granted a substantial amount of money to a project called “I am the West”, which has been described as a deradicalisation programme, headed by the chairman of the British Muslim Forum. I should be obliged if my noble friend could confirm whether the £4.6 million granted for this project was given to an organisation headed by this man and on what basis this fund was allocated to this organisation. Would he be kind enough to tell the House whether the CBE granted to this man was a gesture of thanks for his unconditional support for these proposals?

This has been a sad experience at the expense of our liberties and human rights, and at the expense of the habeas corpus principle which is embedded in the Magna Carta and our basic British principles that we so rightly defend. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, who is not in his place, and others have reminded the House how popular this measure is with the public and that the job of this Parliament is to respect public opinion. I wonder why he and others did not ask the Government to respect the more than 70 per cent of the Irish community who were against the Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008, or to respect the more than 70 per cent of the British public who demanded the right to a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, or to respect the millions of people who marched on the streets of London to stop the war in Iraq.

With all due respect, even today, if we asked the public whether those paedophiles who ruin the lives of children should be hanged in Parliament Square, I am convinced that the overwhelming majority would vote for it. So why are we selective in pointing out public opinion when it suits our arguments, but remain deadly silent when our public demands that we should withdraw our troops from Iraq? Why do we remain silent on issues of morality, human rights and wars which are launched on fabricated evidence?

Last week, I asked a young man about the Government's proposal and he said, “Sir, I believe that our anti-terror laws are now on a par with McCarthyism and the experience of the Jewish community within Europe during the last century”. I cannot support the 42 days on the one hand, yet talk about the experience of the Muslim youth on the other, as the junior Minister did last week. If that is how young

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people feel, I am afraid that the Government’s rhetoric about winning hearts and minds will be doomed to failure. You cannot demonise peoples’ faith and marginalise young individuals, then expect to win any support from those you have alienated.

Finally, I love this country, its people and its diversity. Already, the spying culture, the stop-and-search and control orders, and demonisation is creating a wedge between the mainstream society and young Muslims. The ACPO report, entitled Hearts and Minds and Eyes and Ears stated that,

“increasing numbers of young Muslims have become alienated from mainstream society that they could even lend their support to ... terrorism”.

The Government’s measure in this Bill will only further alienation and segregation, and create radicalisation. I will wait for this Bill to return to your Lordships’ House to ensure that we bury this part of it before it becomes law.

7.27 pm

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I wish to concentrate on two issues, neither of which contains any legal arguments: the role of the police and the impact of the Counter-Terrorism Bill on our diverse society, a point that was well made by the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed. No one disputes that it is the duty of the Government to ensure the safety of all their citizens. However, we should bear in mind three factors. First, there is no such thing as total security, a point that was well made by the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, in her maiden speech. Secondly, the Government alone do not have the capacity to provide security for all their citizens. Thirdly, active citizen participation is essential if we are to tackle terrorism and the factors that give rise to it.

We must never forget that community participation is conditional on how the community views government action in relation to the protection of civil liberties. These are the essential values that we hold as a democratic nation and for which we have fought for decades. They are not something that we should surrender lightly. Unfortunately, the Counter-Terrorism Bill is one step in that direction.

We have seen over the past few years attempts by the Government to erode values that have stood the test of time. Look at the adverse and disproportionate impact of proposals such as for the abolition of jury trials, the collection of DNA samples and the data of innocent citizens, identity cards that seek disproportionate information about individuals, and now counterterrorism measures that strike at the heart of our fair and just judicial process.

My main concern is the role of the police in aiding and abetting the political process. We owe a huge debt to our police officers for the way in which they protect our community, but I part company with them when they indulge in the political process. During the Brixton disorders in the 1980s, we were privileged to have the wisdom of Lord Scarman, who redefined the traditional approach of policing by consent. We must add to this the principles of non-partisanship and the full accountability of the rule of law, which has served us so well for the past 200 years. I am afraid that these

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principles are being sacrificed. No one can dispute that there is now considerable interference on the part of the police in our political process.

I do not question the right of chief officers to brief the Government—some do it well—within the confines of their relationship with the Home Office. But I question the need for serving officers attending Parliament in chauffeur-driven cars to voice their opinions to parliamentarians. This sacrifices their independence. It erodes the confidence of communities in the principles of non-partisanship and brings the police into disrepute. In the Police Foundation’s John Harris memorial lecture last week, Shami Chakrabarti said:

“For in order for democracy to flourish for more than a brief moment, fundamental rights and freedoms and the rule of law must be protected by independent professionals. Not just the right to free and fair elections but interconnected rights to speech, protest, privacy, conscience, association, equal treatment, fair trials and against arbitrary detention and inhuman and degrading treatment. It is easy to see politicians and judges as the moving and fixed parts of the machine respectively. However the constitutional positioning of the police service is equally important. It seems clear to me that in contrast with other systems, the British policing tradition places the service under the rule of law rather than the political pillars of the constitution”.

It is easy to dismiss these words, coming as they do from a seasoned campaigner from Liberty. However, she has hit the nail on the head, because past experiences clearly demonstrate that we remove non-partisanship at our peril.

The nearest that we came to losing the semblance of local policing was during the miners’ strike. Strategy and operational methods directed centrally left an ugly scar on our mining communities. It is not my intention to comment on the rights and wrongs of that strike. Suffice it to say that, after decades of such actions, the trust between local police and what is left of the mining communities remains at a low ebb. I do not exclude the Association of Chief Police Officers. After the London bombings of 7/7, it was the first in line asking for new policies, with the 90-day detention at the top of its list. It is important to ask a simple question. Does ACPO represent the police point of view? If so, what consultation took place to ensure that this was so? Obviously the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply in this case and let us not forget that ACPO is substantially funded by the Home Office.

I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Dear, a one-time ACPO member, chief constable and HM inspector of police, does not subscribe to ACPO’s point of view, and I commend the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Condon. The noble Lord, Lord Dear, eloquently set out a case for why the provision for 42-day detention in the Counter-Terrorism Bill cannot stand up to scrutiny. I had long dealings with ACPO when I was at the Commission for Racial Equality and I had contact with a large number of chief officers when I was a member of the Police Complaints Authority. A number of senior officers have told me that operationally a 42-day detention is not necessary. That clear dissent has not been allowed to surface.

My concern is not just 42 days. Police have at their disposal substantial powers over citizens. If wrongly used, these could be oppressive. Take stop and search.

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If there is one clear example of adversarial relationships between police and ethnic communities, it is the use of such powers. I have nothing against the use of stop and search if it is based on sound intelligence, but the Government’s monitoring clearly demonstrates that it has been used disproportionately against minorities. To this day the Home Office is in a quandary over how to ensure that there is discretion and fairness in the way in which stop-and-search procedures are used.

We must also not forget the implication of the measures that the Government are seeking. If, by a miracle, the Counter-Terrorism Bill were to be on the statute book, what example would we be setting to the rest of the world? Dictators across the international scene would breathe a sigh of relief because long detention without a fair trial would play into their hands. The Mugabes of this world would be laughing their heads off on their way to their presidential offices.

My noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill spoke about the impact of this legislation on human rights. The Government can take credit for setting up the Equality and Human Rights Commission. My noble friend Lord Lester has been a pioneer in this field and we owe a debt of gratitude to him. I do not wish to go into details about the opinions that the EHRC sought from the UK’s leading public law and human rights barristers, but it should leave us in no doubt about the impact of the Bill on human rights provisions. Suffice it to say at this stage that the commission is on record as saying that it will use its powers to challenge the lawfulness of the Bill’s provisions if they are enacted.

My main concern is the impact of this Bill on community relations. Like it or not, at the best of times there remains an uneasy relationship between different communities. We continue to argue about our multicultural, multiethnic and multiracial society. We should add to the mix the war in Iraq and the growth of terrorism. The sense of shared values and the notion of citizenship are becoming a mask of acceptable language used to discuss what to do about the problems of the Muslim community in Britain.

To balance this, statements are made about promoting community cohesion, fostering shared values and preventing violent extremism. However, community cohesion is often addressed within the framework of race and religion and, more specifically, within the context of Islam. A little while ago, Jonathan Freedland noted in the Guardian,

“a kind of drumbeat of hysteria in which both politicians and media have turned again and again on a single, small minority, first prodding them, then pounding them as if they represented the single biggest problem in national life”.

How else can we explain the comment made by Shahid Malik MP, the government Minister who said that it has become legitimate to target Muslims in the media and society in a way that would be unacceptable for any other minority? He went on to say that many British Muslims now feel like,

“aliens in their own country”,

as society turns “a blind eye” to their persecution. The Home Office should take notice of one of its own

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Ministers who says that this has the effect of segregating society and undermining efforts to deal with extremism and terrorism.

We have a duty to ensure that no community feels isolated and lives in fear. The measures that we take should not stereotype communities as extremists. Large numbers of Muslims and other minorities are law-abiding citizens. Despite pressures, they have been loyal to this country. Extending the period of detention for the very few will have an impact on the whole community. We will pay a heavy price for these short-term measures in the long-term prosperity of our country.

7.39 pm

Lord Judd: My Lords, techniques of terrorism cannot be disinvented. The challenge is to contain and minimise the likelihood of their deployment and to isolate or marginalise those who would be prepared to deploy them. In this, Governments have a priority responsibility. It is their duty to protect those within their jurisdiction and it is therefore right that we should pay generous tribute to those servants of the state and to Ministers themselves who tirelessly seek to honour that responsibility.

I have been greatly impressed of late by those in the front line of the essential battle for hearts and minds who have told me that what arguably matters most is the credibility of transparent integrity and consistency in all that is done. Like those operational policemen who have explained their anxieties, I am not convinced that the possibility of 42-day pre-charge detention will help. Quite the reverse. Like them, I fear that it will be counterproductive—that the advantages will be outweighed by the disadvantages. It is likely, as my noble friend Lord Ahmed has just said, to play into the hands of the manipulators and could well amount, in effect, to acting out a script written by bin Laden himself. The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, has covered the same area. It will certainly give ammunition to the manipulators.

Most of the Islamic community and most followers of other faiths are certainly not open to such manipulation, but acts of terrorism do not require large battalions. They are undertaken by small numbers of dedicated people. Just a few more carefully selected additional recruits can prove hugely significant.

Terrorists operate more effectively when there is a climate of ambivalence—when significant numbers of people, who themselves totally reject acts of terrorism, nevertheless sometimes believe that the cause with which terrorists attempt to justify their action may well be valid. That is why it is dangerously naive to argue that there is no recognisable political agenda with which the terrorists seek to identify. We may not like the agenda or support it and we may totally condemn, without reservation, the self-defeating, cruel methods applied for pursuing it, but to pretend that it is not there fosters the ambiguity to which I have just referred.

The agenda is about value systems and the prevailing global, economic, social, environmental and power structures in the world. It is about Palestine, the Middle East and the existing traditional order in a number of Arab states. It is about overt and covert racism, exclusion, oppression, humiliation and a search for identity. In this context, I have been deeply impressed by police

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and others actively engaged in the hearts and minds work who have suggested to me that people with whom it is essential to be in dialogue and to whom it is vital to listen include militants who are not, at least as yet, terrorists. Such militants, they believe, have street credibility. Hearts and minds processes have to be as inclusive as it is possible to make them. Policing is only highly successful when it is undertaken with the community.

That is why we have to take seriously, and be seen to take seriously, the perceived injustices that determine the agenda. That is why support for meaningful negotiations in the Middle East is highly relevant and why every sinew should be stretched to bring Hamas into those negotiations. It is why G8 summits matter in terms of economic, social and environmental justice for the world. It is why our immigration system and the real human experiences of those caught up in it matter so much. It is why the vocabulary and demeanour of the media and politicians towards these ethnic minorities and would-be immigrants are so crucial. It is why the temptation to play to the gallery of prejudice, apart from being utterly distasteful, is potentially disastrous.

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