Huhne on Control Orders

• [Mar 01] Christopher Huhne (Eastleigh, Liberal Democrat): ' . . THE Liberal party's position on control orders is well known, and it has not changed over the past year. They are a violation of fundamental rights and an expensive failure to boot. What has changed is the Government's legal problem. The control order regime has been dealt a major blow by the House of Lords judgment in the case of the Secretary of State for the Home Department v. AF, in which nine Law Lords were unanimous in their view that failure to disclose adequate details of the case against people subject to control orders breached their right to a fair trial under article 6 of the European convention on human rights . . '

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will attempt to be brief.

I am always pleased to follow Mr. Dismore, with whom I am in great agreement. I thought that the Joint Committee on Human Rights report was very informative and thorough, as one has come to expect. I was disappointed by the speech made by Mr. Blunt, who rather reminded me that when the Conservative party says that it is in favour of change, it is perhaps time to be a little sceptical. The historical record of the Conservative party's commitment to change suggests that it is usually in favour of change only when everyone else has already made it happen.

The Liberal party's position on control orders is well known, and it has not changed over the past year. They are a violation of fundamental rights and an expensive failure to boot. What has changed is the Government's legal problem. The control order regime has been dealt a major blow by the House of Lords judgment in the case of the Secretary of State for the Home Department v. AF, in which nine Law Lords were unanimous in their view that failure to disclose adequate details of the case against people subject to control orders breached their right to a fair trial under article 6 of the European convention on human rights.

Control orders are one of the worst examples of the Government's determination to use any excuse to sacrifice hard-won and traditional safeguards for our freedoms. They are hugely illiberal, involving Ministers making decisions on whom to hold, they fly in the face of the assumption that all people are innocent until proven guilty, and they are imposed on people without any reason or evidence for justification being given.

Just some of the punitive measures include electronic tagging, a curfew, bans on foreign travel, and as we quite correctly heard from Mr. Dismore, a requirement to move, as well as reporting daily to a police station, a ban on access to the internet or mobile phones, the vetting of all visitors and the monitoring of all movements. The average length of a curfew is now 12 hours, and the maximum length is 16 hours. That is quite a catalogue.

Those sanctions do not just have a dramatic effect on the controlee, but often on whole families, including young children. We must not underestimate the damage being done in ethnic minority communities to the good standing of the authorities in attempting to tackle terrorism. That is the human face of control orders, and it is unacceptable. The Home Secretary can comfortably sit in his Whitehall office, dishing them out, yet this example, along with many others, shows how control orders affect the lives of hundreds of people. The consequences are symbolic of the real menace of control orders: the cost to our hard-won civil liberties and our human rights.

Control orders violate the right to a fair trial. The people under them do not know what they have been accused of, let alone what evidence there may be to support an accusation. That is the essence of Kafkaism. It is the bad dream, the nightmare: "We are arresting you. We cannot tell you why. We cannot tell you how good the evidence is against you. But you will be subject to these conditions until we change our minds."

Secret evidence is so convenient. Clearly, the evidence is not good enough to give those subject to control orders a traditional fair trial, in an open court, with an appropriate sentence if convicted. The standard of evidentiary proof required for the Home Secretary to have reasonable suspicion is much lower than that of being beyond reasonable doubt needed by a jury to convict. Perhaps I am old-fashioned. If there is not enough evidence to prove criminality beyond reasonable doubt, we cannot just lock up someone indefinitely anyway. But the Government get around that by simply withholding what evidence they have from the accused, so no challenge can be made on its authenticity or legitimacy and no appeal against the evidence can be made.

There are no time limits. Control orders have lasted for very long periods. Some cases have gone on for more than three years, despite Lord Carlile stating in his report in 2009 that he does not believe that they should be used for more than two years. That amounts to indefinite detention. I ask again, as I did, sadly, last year-this is groundhog day-is that really acceptable as part of a supposedly democratic criminal justice system?

It is not just the Liberal Democrats who have repeatedly pointed out the failings of control orders. There have been many high-profile court cases, not least over the past year, that inform and support our position. Seven orders in total have been quashed by the courts. As I mentioned, in June 2009 the House of Lords ruled unanimously that sufficient detail of allegations must be disclosed to suspects to enable them to give effective instructions to the special advocates representing them.

Less than two months ago the High Court then quashed those orders and ruled that the controlees in question-AE and AF-could seek compensation against the Home Secretary. As Amnesty has pointed out, the Home Secretary's decision to prioritise the secrecy of the evidence over the security threat posed by those two men calls into question the very necessity and utility of the orders in the first place. Yet, despite the sounding of that death knell, the Home Secretary and the Minister still blindly press on, wasting taxpayers money on legal action after legal action, when they should be considering whether control orders have any future at all.

According to a parliamentary answer provided in February, the total cost of legal proceedings relating to control orders stands at more than £10.5 million. As well as the money spent on defending legal challenges to the regime, the cost of policing control orders is extremely high, yet the efficacy of the orders is questionable. We have already heard from other hon. Members that seven controlees have absconded-a worryingly high proportion. Lord Carlile's report states that some controlees still manage to maintain contact with terrorist associates. Given those facts, how can control orders be described as anything other than a shambolic expensive failure?

The only other common-law nation that has tried a similar system is Australia, and it now has no one under a control order. Surely, the moral is that we should dispense with this affront to our justice system entirely and spend those extraordinary amounts of money on surveillance-if, indeed, intelligence suggests that a person represents an ongoing threat to the security of this country.

Let me turn again to Conservative Members, whose position so far as been, extraordinarily, positively Augustinian. Whereas St. Augustine asked the Lord to make him virtuous but not yet, the Conservatives want to become liberal and stand for the rule of law, but not yet. Every year a Conservative spokesman comes to the House, criticises the Government and control orders, and then goes away wringing his or her hands. That is not protest; it is impotence. Having heard the remarks of the hon. Member for Reigate, I have no confidence that the Conservatives in government would do anything differently. Certainly, their voting record does not suggest so.

The Government may argue that control orders fill a gap in the criminal justice system, dealing with suspects who cannot be tried in a traditional court, or locked up indefinitely. None of that is true. There are many alternatives, and as I said in my intervention on the Minister, the conviction rate for terrorist offences is already high. The threshold text has been relaxed and gives substantial extra flexibility for intervention. We also support greater use of plea bargaining to encourage those on the periphery of terrorist plots to testify against ringleaders-and, as has been mentioned by other hon. Members, there is the option of introducing intercept evidence. Our colleagues fighting terrorism in the United States and Australia find it extraordinary that we are making such a meal of allowing intercept evidence to be admitted in court.

To conclude, we believe that control orders are at odds with the fundamental principles of a liberal and democratic society-the right to freedom and a fair trial, and the presumption of innocence over guilt. As in previous years, we will not support their renewal this year, and we urge Members in all parts of the House to vote with us today to end these illiberal and ineffective orders. We must remember that we are fighting terrorism to defend the values that the House holds dear, and for which it has fought over many generations. What we must never do in fighting terrorism is to become what we are fighting-and that is the risk if we again vote in favour of what the Government want.

• . . John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington, Labour): I believe that the Minister has waived his opportunity to respond. I want briefly to put a few points on the record.

When we had this debate several years ago, the House was packed and the debate was incredibly controversial. At that time, the Government used a number of arguments. Their first was that these were temporary measures and that the full architecture of the prevention of terrorism legislation had not yet been put in place. We have had five years since then, with an annual criminal justice Bill of some sort and a whole range of other measures brought forward to tackle the prevention of terrorism. There is no longer an argument left that these are temporary measures. The other argument that Ministers always advance when they have difficulty in justifying a case is based on saying, "We know more than you do because of the information that's been given to us by the intelligence services." That is the argument that took us into the Iraq war and cost 500,000 lives. I do not have the confidence in the intelligence services that other Members have displayed, certainly not after the cover-ups that we have experienced on the torture of prisoners and the collusion in the torture of people to gain information.

As we have heard, we are talking about people who have been put under control orders because they are possibly the most dangerous people in the country. The situation then degenerates into farce when they abscond and we have a Minister making statements to the House and elsewhere to reassure the general public that no one is at risk as a result of their absconding.

I want to place on the record-this might be the last opportunity to do so before the general election-my tribute to the work that my hon. Friend Mr. Dismore has done through his Committee in exposing the absolute ineffectiveness and injustice of control orders. I also want to place on record my respect and admiration for Gareth Peirce and the work that she has done in defending several of these people valiantly while at times being attacked in the media and elsewhere. Through her evidence-we have used it time and again in recent years-she has been able to demonstrate the brutality of these orders, particularly the new, lighter order of internal exile, and their effects on individuals and their families.

I give the Government a warning: this policy is having ramifications across communities. We said that it would be a recruiting sergeant for terrorism, and I believe that it is a recruiting sergeant for those who are anxious about what is happening to their communities as a result of this illiberal legislation. It is completely counter-productive, and regrettably, we are rehearsing the same arguments five years on. Again tonight, hon. Members who are not even present for the debate will vote the order through, and it will have a direct, detrimental impact on all our communities.

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8:44 pm

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David Hanson (Minister of State (Crime and Policing), Home Office; Delyn, Labour): I am grateful for the comments of my right hon. and hon. Friends, and those of Mr. Blunt, about the work of my right hon. Friend John Reid and others. I can only say-

One and a half hours having elapsed since the commencement of proceedings on the motion, the Deputy Speaker put the Question (Standing Order No. 16(1)).

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The House divided: Ayes 206, Noes 85.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Resolved,

That the draft Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (Continuance in Force of Sections 1 to 9) Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 1 February, be approved.

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