Huhne and Beith quiz Smith

1.43.02pm GMT Sat 1st Nov 2008

• [Oct 13]: Christopher Huhne (Shadow Secretary of State for Home Affairs, Home Affairs; Eastleigh, Liberal Democrat): Whatever the Home Secretary says, this was a crushing defeat for the Government, because they not only lost the vote in the Lords, but comprehensively lost the argument, . .

. . and now they are in humiliating retreat. I believe it is an old naval command to say, "Make smoke, beat the retreat", and this Bill is precisely making smoke.

These excessive powers were a dagger-thrust at our hard-won liberties. Does the Home Secretary now recognise that the longest period of detention without charge in any comparable democracy is 12 days in Australia, which is less than half the current period in Britain, let alone what she was proposing? [Interruption.]

Michael Martin (Speaker): Order. Members must allow the hon. Gentleman to be heard. It is unfair when Members, particularly on the Front Benches, shout across the Chamber.

Christopher Huhne (Shadow Secretary of State for Home Affairs, Home Affairs; Eastleigh, Liberal Democrat): Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Far from making us safer, which is the Home Secretary's principal contention, will she now admit that her changes, repeated in this new Bill, would have alienated minority communities in the same way that internment alienated the Catholic community in Ulster? Democracies put a torch to their own traditions at their peril, because they abandon the high ground and get down in the dirt where the terrorists want us. Does the Home Secretary now recognise, in failing to threaten the Parliament Act and in putting forward this fig leaf of temporary provisions, that her majority in the Commons was press-ganged by her Whips, and that she had no mandate from her manifesto and no moral authority to press ahead, since her majority is based on just 35 per cent. of the popular vote?

Jacqui Smith (Home Secretary; Redditch, Labour): At least the hon. Gentleman has taken a consistent position throughout this debate. He has never recognised what those who are actually engaged in countering terrorism have recognised is the case: that there may well come a time when somebody needs to be held for longer than 28 days. He has continued to use frankly fallacious arguments about comparisons. In having clear judicial oversight of detention, all our proposals and current provisions in this country are in line with our international responsibilities. We have been through all the approaches in other countries, such as in France with its investigating magistrates, which enable them, in serious cases of terrorism, effectively to hold people for longer than 28 days before they reach the equivalent of a charge.

Frankly, when we are trying to engage in a serious debate about terrorism and the hon. Gentleman reverts, as he has done on previous occasions, to the charge that this is internment when it is fundamentally different, we know that he has run out of arguments and that he is not willing to face up to his responsibilities. I am afraid that that has been the approach that the Liberal Democrats have taken throughout this whole process.

. . Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed, Liberal Democrat): If this is to be a serious discussion, does the Home Secretary really want to stand by the view that the former Lord Chancellor, the former Attorney-General and former heads of the Security Service have been prepared to ignore the terrorist threat for fear of taking a tough but necessary decision? Surely they actually believe that the measures are not necessary in their present form and could be damaging. She must engage seriously with that argument and not produce that kind of statement.

Jacqui Smith (Home Secretary; Redditch, Labour): The people to whom the right hon. Gentleman refers have been willing to engage in the debate. It is not them that I am criticising; it is his party and the Opposition, who have been unwilling to engage in that discussion.