Debate on the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill
In the debate on the programme motion, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Beverley Hughes), said that we needed to suspend our normal expectations because of the emergency situation. I am not sure what she meant by that, but no emergency justifies the suspension of our normal expectation that the House should pass legislation that is robust, defensible and fair.
I congratulate the Home Affairs Committee on its excellent report, and in particular its Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), on his hard work on winning from the Home Secretary the concession of a five-year sunset clause. Of course it is an improvement on the status quo, but I ask my hon. Friend to cast his mind back to the last Parliament, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) was Home Secretary. He was a past master at the art of the carefully calibrated concession—just enough to get people voting with the Government but not enough to alter the substance of the legislation. I hope that in this Parliament we will not get caught up with such concessions because, a few years on, no one can remember what the concessions were but we know that we are lumbered with thoroughly bad legislation. The Chairman of the Select Committee is to be congratulated on his body fight for the concession—
Mr. Mullin: The Select Committee considered the proposals in detail and concluded that it agreed with the Government that there is a small category of people who cannot be deported or extradited and who constitute a danger to the state. The Committee is not disputing the Home Secretary's reason for bringing the core part of the Bill to Parliament. We wanted a sunset clause because we hope that in five years the emergency will be over.
Ms Abbott: I do not think that anybody in the House disputes the Bill's intent; it is the letter of the Bill that we are attempting to debate under the onerous restrictions of the programme motion. I give the House a general warning to beware, as we scrutinise the Bill, of the carefully calibrated concession and always to return to the substance of the Bill and ask whether it is acceptable. The new clauses that would introduce more detailed sunset provisions would be preferable even to my hon. Friend's hard-won concession, but as we go through the Bill, we will find many substantive points to which many of us wish to speak.
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Ms Abbott: Further to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), one of the proscribed organisations is the PKK, a Kurdish nationalist organisation. In Stoke Newington, hundreds of people call themselves members of the PKK and go on marches. My local superintendent of police says that he cannot pick up hundreds of such people. Yet those people, who have joined what they perceive to be a legitimate nationalist group and have no intention of bombing or murdering anyone, will be at risk of incarceration if the Bill goes through unamended.
Mr. Blunkett: This is a red herring; we will not pick up everyone who has been on a march or in a room with a particular group. We are talking about people who have connections with and are believed to be involved with such groups. I am clarifying the position about links precisely to avoid red herrings.
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