HL Deb 13 May 1975 vol 360 cc617-30

3.27 p.m.

Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH rose to move, That the Draft Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1974 (Continuation) Order 1975, laid before the House on 1st May, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, your Lordships will recall the circumstances in which the Act was passed. The campaign of bombing in Great Britain which began with the planting of car bombs in London in March 1973 continued intermittently throughout 1973 and 1974. Up to the middle of November last year, 21 people had been killed in bomb incidents in Great Britain and 570 injured. Then, on 21st November last year, there were the bomb explosions in two public houses in Birmingham. Twenty-one people were killed, and nearly 200 injured. As a result of these bombings, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary decided to introduce the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Bill. This, with the co-operation of all Parties, passed through Parliament in a matter of days and became law on 29th November.

It was never envisaged that the Act could put an end to terrorism. If legislation could have achieved that, my right honourable friend, or one of his predecessors, would have introduced it much earlier; what the Act did was to confer on the Home Secretary and on the police certain exceptional powers which it was thought would prove useful against terrorism. The powers, or some of them, are in some degree contrary to our traditions and would not have been thought acceptable except in the extreme situation which faced us at that time.

My right honourable friend has made it clear that he does not regard the Act as a legitimate permanent part of our legislation, and its provisions lapse six months after it came into force—that is to say, on 28th May this year—unless they are renewed. The effect of the draft Order before your Lordships is to continue the provisions in force for a further six months from that date.

It is the intention of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary to allow the Act to lapse as soon as it is safe to do so. But that time has not yet come. The ceasefire in Northern Ireland is fragile; and until the situation is more stable we cannot afford to relax our precautions. I need only remind your Lordships that on 26th February this year a police officer—Police Constable Tibble—was shot dead in Hammersmith, and that subsequent police investigations led to the discovery of what was plainly an IRA bomb factory. We must assume that plans exist for the resumption of terrorist activities in Great Britain if the ceasefire comes to an end.

There are four main groups of provisions in the Act and your Lordships will wish me to explain the use that has been made of each. Sections 1 and 2, which constitute Part I of the Act, deal with proscribed organisations. Section 1 makes it an offence to belong or profess to belong to a proscribed organization, to solicit or provide support, in money or otherwise, for a proscribed organisation or to arrange or address a meeting on behalf of such an organisation. Under Section 2 a person commits an offence if in a public place he wears any item of dress or carries or displays any article in such a way as to arouse reasonable apprehension that he is a member of a proscribed organisation. Proscribed organisations are specified in Schedule 1 to the Act. The Act as passed specified the IRA and gave the Secretary of State the power—which has in fact not been exercised—to add to the Schedule.

Successive Governments of both Parties were for a long time reluctant to proscribe the IRA. Our criminal law has traditionally addressed itself to the individual rather than to the organisation, and the proscription of organisations is, so far as I know, unprecedented in Britain in peace-time. But my right honourable friend took the view after the Birmingham bombings that it would be intolerable if it were still to be lawful to belong or profess to belong to the IRA, to collect money for it or to display support for it in public by banners or by other means. Sections 1 and 2 of the Act are not themselves designed to prevent terrorist acts; they are designed to prevent affronts to the British public, and in this they have been successful. I do not believe that the time has yet come when it would be right to allow processions or collections in support of the IRA to be resumed.

I come now to Part II of the Act. Under Sections 3 to 6 the Secretary of State is empowered, if he is satisfied that a person is concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, or is attempting or may attempt to enter the country with a view to being so concerned, to make an exclusion order against that person. The effect of an exclusion order is to prohibit the person against whom it is made from being in, or entering, Great Britain or, if he is not a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, from being in or entering the United Kingdom.

My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has made 50 exclusion orders. Forty-three of these were served on the person concerned, and 11 people exercised the right to make representations objecting to the order. These cases were referred to advisers nominated by my right honourable friend, and after considering their reports he revoked five of the orders. In two other cases representations have been made and the cases are outstanding. Thirty-eight of the orders have been enforced, and 21 people were removed to Northern Ireland and 17 to the Irish Republic. Seven of the exclusion orders were not in fact served. In five of these cases the person concerned is believed to be outside the United Kingdom. In the other two cases the person concerned was charged with murder and my right honourable friend revoked the orders before they were served.

The exclusion order procedure is in some respects a distasteful one, and I need hardly say that my right honourable friend exercises the most scrupulous care in its application. The nature of the evidence in these cases is such that it cannot be made public and, as was made clear when the Bill was introduced, there can be no question of open proceedings or the public presentation of evidence. One special safeguard for people against whom an exclusion order is made is provided by Section 4. A person who objects to the order may make representations to the Secretary of State, who must then refer the matter for the advice of one or more persons nominated by him. As has been announced, the Home Secretary has nominated the noble Lord, Lord Alport—and I am glad to see that the noble Lord is with us this afternoon—and Mr. Ronald Waterhouse to advise him under this section. We are most grateful to them for the time and care they have devoted to this task.

It was never intended, of course, that the exclusion order procedure should be used instead of criminal proceedings where such proceedings would normally have been instituted. Exclusion orders are designed to be used where proceedings in court cannot be taken, for example because of the sensitivity of the evidence. The powers in Sections 3 to 6 of the Act have enabled my right honourable friend to keep out of Great Britain—or in some cases the United Kingdom—a small but significant number of dangerous men and women. In present circumstances it is impossible to allow these sections to lapse and these people to return.

I come now to the final two sections of the Act to which this Order relates. First, Section 7: this empowers a constable to arrest without warrant a person whom he reasonably suspects to be a person guilty of an offence under Sections 1 or 3 of the Act, a person concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, or a person subject to an exclusion order. A person arrested under Section 7 may not be detained for more than 48 hours, but the Secretary of State may extend this period to a total of seven days in any particular case.

The object of this provision is to enable the police to hold people whom they have good reason to believe are involved in acts of terrorism but whom they cannot immediately connect with specific offences. It enables the police to make inquiries and check police records in order to establish whether there is evidence on which specific charges can be brought or, if not, whether there is evidence on which it would be right for the Secretary of State to make an exclusion order. A total of 355 people have been arrested under this power, and in 91 of these cases my right honourable friend authorised extended detention for a period of up to seven days. In 27 cases my right honourable friend signed exclusion orders and the persons concerned were removed. In 13 cases the person concerned was charged with criminal offences. A high proportion of the people arrested under Section 7 would have been arrested under normal police powers if the Act had not been in force. What the section does is to strengthen and extend police powers of arrest in relation to suspected terrorists. It has been fairly extensively used, and with positive results, and it would be helpful to the police to retain it.

Finally, Section 8: under this section the Secretary of State may by order provide for, among other things, the examination of persons arriving in, or leaving, Great Britain or Northern Ireland, with a view to determining whether any such person appears to be a person concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, whether any such person is subject to an exclusion order, or whether there are grounds for suspecting that any such person has committed an offence under Section 3(8) of the Act. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary made an Order under Section 8 immediately the Act came into force. This Order confers powers on examining officers (who in Great Britain are, in practice, normally constables) to examine travellers and to arrest and detain them if necessary. The powers are similar to those conferred on immigration officers by the Immigration Act 1971.

Ever since the car bombs were planted in London in March 1973 the police have maintained a high level of surveillance at ports dealing with the Irish traffic. The surveillance is easier and more effective if the police carrying it out have statutory powers and do not have to rely solely on the co-operation of the public, however readily that co-operation may generally be forthcoming. This work at the ports is essentially preventive, as indeed is the Act as a whole, as its name implies. Eleven people detained at the ports have subsequently been made subject to exclusion orders and removed, but, quite apart from this, the presence of police officers at the ports acts as a considerable deterrent to the movement of terrorists and their equipment. For the present, we need to keep this surveillance as effective as possible, and for that purpose the powers in the Order made under Section 8 are still required. My right honourable friend has made it clear that he would not wish the Act to remain in force any longer than is necessary, but he is satisfied that it would be premature to give up now the additional powers which the Act confers and which the experience of the last six months has shown to be valuable. Accordingly, I ask the House to approve the Order. My Lords, I beg to move.

Moved, That the Draft Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1974 (Continuance) Order 1975, laid before the House on 1st May, be approved.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)

3.40 p.m.

Lord BALNIEL

My Lords, I think it is right that the House should put aside some time for a short debate on the Prevention of Terrorism (Continuance) Order. The House was reminded by the Minister of State that the original Act was introduced six months ago following upon a horrific atrocity committed in Birmingham and against a background of a rising tide of violence. By the time the Act was introduced something like 40 people in Great Britain had been killed—and this of course does not include Northern Ireland—and some 700 people had been injured. It was beginning to bring home to us in this Island, although to a much lesser degree, something of the aspects of ordinary everyday life in Northern Ireland. The House will remember that the original Bill was introduced in a great hurry, with very little notice. All its stages were passed through another place in one day, and indeed the debate continued until a very late hour at night. Although I was not present, I understand that the principle of the Bill was discussed in your Lordships' House before the Bill had been presented to your Lordships, and all stages—Second Reading, Committee and Report stage—were taken formally" on the nod "the next day.

The original Bill was taken in this very remarkable manner partly because of the strongly expressed wish by the Government to reinforce the powers which they required so as to maintain law and order in the country, and partially, I believe, because at the time both among the public at large and among Members of both Houses of Parliament there was a strong desire to vote on the Bill and get it through without embarking on widespread discussion. But it is correct as a general principle that the introduction of legislation in great haste, against a background of a violent sense of outrage, can be an unsound base on which to frame it. This is particularly the danger when the legislation affects the civil liberties of individual people. Of course, the rush to get the Bill through last November, and the very great sense of indignation which existed in Parliament, was a reflection of the danger which was being posed by terrorism towards this country—an extreme danger which existed then, and which I believe exists today. Because of that danger we supported the Bill in the House last November. We support the continuation Order today.

We are in fact engaged in a war against terrorism which is being undertaken by criminal gangs marked by their inhumanity and their ruthlessness, and society must have the power to fight this war and, indeed, to win it. In some ways the Act certainly affects the liberties we have been used to having in this country in peace time. This is particularly true of the power, to which the Minister referred, to exclude people from Great Britain. It is also true of the power of the police under this Act to detain a person for questioning for a period of 48 hours, and, if the authority of the Secretary of State has been obtained, to detain a person for seven days. I agree with the Government that such a power of exclusion is not a legitimate permanent feature of legislation in this country. Although it is undoubtedly an infringement of liberty, its purpose is to protect a much greater liberty, namely, the right of ordinary people to go about their business and live their lives in peace and safety. For that reason we do not hesitate to support the Order which has been presented to us.

Nevertheless, there are questions which should perhaps be asked before we allow the continuation Order to pass. I believe that there is no need to rehearse the arguments for the Act. In general the Act has struck the right balance. We saw the long sequence of events—Aldershot, Guildford and Birmingham, the explosion in the Tower of London, the horrifying destruction of a bus on a motorway and explosions in the Chelsea pubs. We saw a horrifying sequence of events, and too frequently it seemed to the public that the murderers were getting away with murders of people who were utterly innocent of any conceivable offence—utterly innocent even in the eyes of the murderers themselves. It simply is not tolerable to sit back and wait for fresh crimes to he committed before a Government can step in to stop them. The time came last November for the State and the authorities to take the initiative to hunt down suspected terrorists; to find them, to prosecute them where possible, to imprison them and, if necessary, to exclude them where it is not possible to obtain a conviction in a court of law. I think it was necessary for the State to take these powers so that it could fulfil the fundamental responsibility of any State; that is, to protect people from murder and to protect property from destruction. In very difficult circumstances, I think the right balance has been struck by the Government. They have to find a balance between, on the one hand, taking in peace time the necessary powers to wage a war against terrorism, and on the other hand preserving, so far as they can, the rights and liberties of individual people.

But if we are going to allow the Government these substantial powers, far greater powers than had ever been allowed to a post-war peace time Government, then it is right that we should have every six months, as we have had today, a report from the Government as to how effective the legislation has been. It seems to me that an Act like this can only be justified if it is working. We have to judge it on its pragmatic effect, to judge whether it is in fact curbing terrorism. I thought that the Minister in giving his report indicated at least a measure of progress. He listed a number of persons who have been detained and a number of persons who have been excluded. Certainly he did not embark rashly upon any promise that we are about to see the ending of terrorism in Great Britain, but the general impression created by his speech was one of advance that was to some extent heartening.

I should like to ask the Minister one or two questions. First of all, if I understood aright, he said that nearly 400 people had been detained under the Act. May I ask whether this has resulted in criminal convictions being secured? Here I am not so much meaning criminal convictions of the individuals who have been detained and questioned; but whether the result of the questioning has been that the police have obtained information and been able to secure convictions against other criminals and other terrorists.

This new power must be used with great care because presumably the over-whelming majority of people who are being detained tend to come from the Irish community within Great Britain. If the new powers were used carelessly, there could be a danger that the Irish community might feel that the Act is directed against them. This of course is far from the truth. The Irish community overwhelmingly in Great Britain, and in Northern Ireland, consists of people of the very greatest sense of loyalty. They share with every other section of the community a sense of shame and horror at what is sometimes being done by others in their name. Indeed, we must appreciate that success in the war against terrorism will, to a large extent, rest with the good will and support which we obtain from the Irish community in Great Britain.

Secondly, I would ask whether the police themselves feel that they now have all the reasonable powers—obviously not excessive powers but reasonable powers—which they need to fight the campaign against terrorism. We have mentioned the power of detaining a person for 48 hours, or alternatively, where the authority of the Secretary of State has been obtained, the power to detain a person for seven days. Other powers are given to the police; for instance, the power of search. When obtaining a warrant they can search houses where they believe that terrorist material is stored or being made. Indeed, in an emergency a senior police officer can undertake a search on his own authority without obtaining a warrant from a justice of the peace. This is a major and an important power, but I believe that in the circumstances it is necessary. I should like to ask the Minister—because the success of our efforts against terrorism will depend on the police—whether he can say, not only that the police are satisfied with the powers they are given but that their strength is adequate and that it is growing in numbers.

Clearly, the roots of this problem lie in Northern Ireland, and only when the people of Northern Ireland can learn to live together in peace will this appalling tragedy come to an end. I personally do not believe that political concessions—political appeasement—or constitutional devices such as conventions or assemblies or power-sharing, all of which are completely necessary in constitutional terms, will have much effect on the mentality of the kind of people who have committed these atrocities in Great Britain as well as in Northern Ireland. What they want to do is to create such hatred of the name of Ireland in this island that the people of Great Britain will want to be rid of it and withdraw the military forces who are there to defend law and order. The kind of terrorists and gangs we are having to deal with will not be affected by constitutional change. They will be brought to heel, curbed and halted only by very skilled police work. They will be curbed only when there are adequate numbers of police and when the organisation is really good. They will be curbed only when the intelligence system, which not so long ago was very effective in this island but which appears to have faltered in the last year, has been rebuilt. Let us make no mistake; to rebuild it requires great courage by a number of persons serving in the police forces.

I want to ask a further question. What has been the effect of proscribing the IRA? There is no doubt that the public has been heartily glad not to see on television those pictures of scenes of self-glorification by the IRA. They were the grossest affront to people in this country. People were gravely offended by the parades, by men who dressed up in bizarre fashion to create a sinister impression by wearing berets and dark glasses. The public were offended by seeing funerals of IRA members turned into political demonstrations. They were offended when drinking in pubs to find that money-raising campaigns were being conducted to raise money to shoot down soldiers. But proscription of an organisation is, so far as I know, unique in post-war history in this country. When I was concerned with Northern Ireland in a Ministerial capacity, certainly, all the advice we received at that time—it was before any terrorism had developed in Great Britain—was that the balance of advantage lay against proscribing the organisation. For reasons of public concern, a decision has been taken to proscribe the IRA, and I should like to ask whether the police are satisfied that this has been a step in the right direction.

Finally, I would turn to what undoubtedly is the greatest infringement of liberty. This is of course the power to exclude a person from Great Britain. In practice it means deporting him either to the Republic or to Northern Ireland, where presumably many of the persons would be detained. I understand from the Minister that 21 persons have been excluded and deported to Northern Ireland and 17 have been excluded and deported to the Republic. This must have been an extremely difficult decision for the Government to take. It certainly caused offence in Northern Ireland, where it has appeared to create an impression that we are weakening as a result of terrorism—we are weakening in our concept of the indivisibility of the United Kingdom. It must have been an extremely difficult decision; I am certainly glad I did not have to take it myself. I am bound to add that I fully support it now that the Government feel it is necessary to take it. Terrorism has spread out from Ireland and, if it is to be eliminated, it must be contained in as small an area as possible. None the less, I think the noble. Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, will not think that I am in any way unconstructive when I say that this is an aspect of the Order which we shall have to look at very closely every time it is renewed. We wish to support efforts to curb and eliminate terrorism, and I have no hesitation at all in supporting the Government in this grim necessity of reintroducing the Order for the prevention of terrorism.

3.59 p.m.

Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH

My Lords, I am sure that the House is indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Balniel, for having made a characteristically helpful and constructive speech on what is a crucially important question relating, as he rightly says, to the liberty of people in Great Britain to live their lives in safety. That was the purpose of the Act passed last November, and it is the purpose of the Order before your Lordships today. Before coming to the detailed points he has raised I will say only this. I think it is right that the Executive should be made to justify swingeing powers of this kind which raise fundamental questions of civil liberties. As my right honourable friend said in another place when the Act was introduced, he would certainly have hesitated to introduce legislation of this character unless an extremely grave situation existed in this country. That was the situation which confronted us in November of last year when there occurred the terrible bomb explosions in Birmingham, leading to such widespread loss of life.

If I may, I will deal now with the detailed questions which the noble Lord, Lord Balniel, has raised. He asked about the powers under Section 7 of the Act. As I endeavoured to point out in my speech, as a result of the powers under Section 7,355 people were arrested, and in 91 of these cases my right honourable friend the Home Secretary agreed to give to the police the extension of powers for which they asked; namely, to commit these people into custody for a period of between 48 hours and seven days.

The noble Lord asked whether these powers were of significant help to the police in obtaining information. Indeed, they were. Obviously, it is difficult to quantify and to say that in so many cases it led to the conviction of the guilty or, as it did in some cases, to exclusion orders being made against others. Nevertheless, it was of great benefit to the police to have this intelligence. It did something to strengthen our powers to protect people in this country from the effects of terrorist outrages.

The noble Lord asked, secondly, whether the police consider that they have adequate powers. It is extremely difficult to answer on behalf of every police officer who is dealing with IRA terrorism. By definition, on many questions they have almost as many opinions as politicians. However, it is right to say that as I have Ministerial responsibility in this particular area, I spent a substantial amount of time, both at the end of last year and at the beginning of this year, in talking in particular to port units of the police who, as I indicated in my speech, are involved in the surveillance of the Irish traffic, both at airports and seaports in Great Britain. I think I am right in saying that I can recall no considerable body of opinion among the Special Branch and other officers who are involved in this matter that they wanted additional powers. They took the view then, and they take the view now, that they have adequate powers. This Act confers real and significant authority upon them, and I think they are gratified that the House has given these powers to them. I do not believe that there is any significant body of evidence to suggest that they think that these powers are inadequate.

To return to Section 7 and the question which the noble Lord asked, one of the great advantages of seven-day detention orders—whereby, with the concurrence of the Secretary of State, people who are suspected of terrorist offences can be kept in custody for up to seven days—is that it takes a significant amount of time to make fingerprint checks and to carry out certain forensic tests on evidence. Substantial numbers of these people have been arrested following major terrorist attacks in this country. To take just one example, a significant group was arrested following the murder of Police Constable nibble in Hammersmith.

The noble Lord then came to a fundamental point; namely, the strength of the police. If we confer additional responsibilities on the police, it is obviously essential that reasonable steps are taken to ensure that the police are adequately up to strength, particularly in the forces which have to deal with a great deal of this work. The House will be pleased to know that in the last four or five months there has been a gratifying improvement in police manpower. A number of forces are still substantially under strength, as in London, in particular. The Metropolitan Police force is still heavily under strength, and it would be foolish for any Home Office Minister to give any impression other than that the manpower situation in London remains, highly unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, even in London, in the month of April—the last month for which we have figures—for the first time there was a significant improvement. In the four months up to the end of March there was an increase of 1,065 men in the net strength of the police. I think this is an important improvement. It has greatly assisted a number of the forces who are having to bear the brunt of carrying out the obligations conferred on them by Parliament. It has given them a great deal more power to deal with these particular problems. For the first time, it is an encouraging indication of the success of some degree of Government policy. Also, I am bound to say that a fairly significant improvement in police pay at the end of last year had some part to play in this improvement in the police manpower situation. Nevertheless, for the first time for a significant period there has been an improvement in the police manpower situation, and I am sure that the House will be glad to know of it.

I will end as I began, by admitting that the Government are asking for substantial powers. However, I think that what I have said today and what has been said by the noble Lord who followed me has indicated the seriousness of the problem which still confronts us in countering IRA terrorism in Great Britain. In these circumstances, I hope that the House will agree to the continuation of these powers.

On Question, Motion agreed to.