Downing Street Says » Cabinet/Anti-terror legislation

The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) briefed journalists on this morning’s Cabinet meeting. The Cabinet collectively expressed their sincere thanks to the emergency services, the police, staff working on London Transport, and those involved in trying to identify the bodies, for their work during the past week.

The Home Secretary informed Cabinet that he would be meeting Mark Oaten and David Davis on Monday to discuss anti-terrorism legislation. The aim would be to make the discussion as open and productive as possible, and in that spirit he would making the current list of proposals for the legislation available to them in advance. On Tuesday the Prime Minister would host a meeting with Muslim community leaders, which would also include Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy. On Thursday the Prime Minister would chair a meeting in Downing Street with senior members of the intelligence agencies, the police, and relevant ministers. As the Prime Minister had already made clear, we stood ready to give the police and the security services any powers they required as a result of this atrocity and the investigation. We would review theAnti-Terror Bill in this light, informed by the outcome of the meeting between Charles Clarke and the two opposition spokesman and by feedback from the summit with the Muslim community leaders. The following week the Prime Minister would meet with Charles Kennedy and Michael Howard to try and move forward on a cross-party consensus.

The Home Secretary also reported to Cabinet that he had he had instigated an immediate review of the powers he had as Home Secretary to exclude people from this country who were likely to incite terrorism. He already had the power to exclude someone from the UK if their presence was not conducive to the public good and 14 people were excluded in 2004 on that basis. 12 of those had been excluded on national security grounds. They included a radical Pakistani cleric who had been in the country on a visitors visa and spoke at a mosque in Glasgow to encourage Jihad. He had been permanently excluded from the UK in the summer of 2004. As part of the review, the Home Secretary would look at, for instance, the relationship between exclusion decisions made by other countries, such as the US or EU member states, and our own. For example he would look at the possibility of those applying for entry into the UK excluded from another country automatically being triggered for consideration by the Home Secretary and decision on exclusion. He would also look at how we could ensure that those who sought and granted asylum or indefinite leave to remain, could not subsequently incite or ferment terrorism. In other words we could put conditions on someone’s terms of asylum or indefinite leave to remain. If they subsequently broke those conditions that asylum leave would be revoked. The Home Secretary said that he would report back to his Cabinet colleagues next week. On prosecution the Home Secretary said that we were already strengthening the police and Crown Prosecution Service’s ability to prosecute extremists who ferment terrorism. The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, which received its third reading in the House of Commons on Monday, would, if passed, create a new offence of incitement to hatred on the basis of faith or non-faith. This would protect Muslim communities from incitement to hatred, but also, the PMOS emphasised, it would enable the authorities to prosecute extremist Muslims who incited hatred against other faiths and communities. So the legislation would work both ways. On deportation, almost anyone who did not have British citizenship could be deported if it was considered that it would be conducive to the public good if they were. That was provided that they would not be subject to inhuman or degrading treatment, in other words torture, on their return. This applied to those suspected of terrorist activities, who were currently subject to control orders and those who incited terrorism now, and in the future. Since the turn of the year the Government had been working, in particular with North African countries to secure Memoranda of Understanding, which would allow deportation to proceed to those countries. The Government would redouble its efforts to reach agreements with those countries and Cabinet agreed that it was vital to secure these agreements and that every diplomatic effort be made to do so.

Asked if we were aiming to get legislation through before the end of this Parliamentary session, the PMOS said that part of the consensus that we sought with the opposition parties was about the content and the pace of the legislation. He would not pre-empt that discussion. Before the summer break, people would see what the Government’s proposals were. What we wanted to do first and foremost was get the opinion of the opposition parties, consult with the Muslim community and also, very importantly, hear the views of senior members of the intelligence agencies, the police and the relevant ministers. At the end of that we would take account of all those different factors. That would influence decisions about content and pace. We should not get ahead of ourselves. We had said consistently that we would act, very firmly, on the advice of the police and security services.

Asked why, given that the Home Secretary already had powers to remove those not conducive to the public good, he needed further powers, the PMOS said that this was all part of the consideration that we had to make. That would be part of the review that the Home Secretary would be carrying out. We should see where that process of review, already underway, would take us. Asked about what further measures the Government might consider suggesting, the PMOS said that in the Government’s manifesto they had proposed to deal with acts preparatory to terrorism and acts condoning terrorism. Those would obviously be two key planks of the proposals but there would other aspects as well which had not been highlighted to date. We would have to wait for the detail of that.

Put to him that the Prime Minister had said that the plan was to stick to the current timetable on legislation and asked if that had changed at all, the PMOS said that we had to balance firstly the desire for a consensus on how we moved forward, and the implications for that on how we moved forward in terms of timing and so on, and secondly the views of the police and security services. He would not give a fixed analysis now of what might happen because those were two factors which would influence what would happen. It was better that we listened to what people told us about content and pace and then respond, rather than make absolute statements at this stage. Asked if were seeing an acceleration of the legislation that was already going to be forward in any case, the PMOS said that we were seeing an expression of willingness in the House of Commons to reach a consensus. We were seeing a series of meetings which would try to reach that consensus. We were also seeing input from the police, the security services and the Muslim community. There were new factors which we had to take into account. What the impact of those factors would be on how we proceeded was better to say afterwards rather than at this stage.

Questioned about deportation powers the PMOS said that the Government would look to see if it could tighten existing powers and add on procedural matters such as the automatic referral of somebody who had been excluded from another jurisdiction. Asked about the Memoranda of Understanding, the PMOS said that it was precisely the point with regards to deportation procedure that if we could get an understanding about the treatment that someone would receive, then that would obviously be a key influence on whether they could be deported or not. Put to him that it might be considered odd to ask the Algerian government, for instance, to promise that they wouldn’t torture people, the PMOS said that he wouldn’t get into discussing individual countries, particularly during the process of negotiation. We were looking for a way of removing the obstacles that were currently blocking the way in terms of the ability to deport people. Asked how many of those currently under control orders might be deported, the PMOS said that he would not get into individual cases. We needed to separate out the principles of the legislation and that would work its way through in terms of individuals.

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» Thursday, July 14, 2005

Cabinet/Anti-terror legislation

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