March
12, 2005
Charles Clarke will make emergency use of new anti-terrorism
laws this morning after he and Tony Blair finally bludgeoned them through
on Labour’s longest and most bitter parliamentary day.
The ten foreign terrorist suspects locked up in Belmarsh and other
prisons for the past three years and released on bail over the past two
days will have Mr Clarke’s control orders imposed on them to restrict their
movement and possibly their access to mobile phones.
The Home Secretary is expected immediately to use his “urgency”
powers in the Prevention of Terrorism Bill by making orders to subject the
men to the same stringent conditions as apply to their bail. The orders
will have to be confirmed by a judge within seven days.
Mr Clarke was granted his powers when the Bill received Royal Assent
after a marathon sitting of both Houses. The Commons sitting was the longest
since Labour returned to power in 1997 and one of the longest ever.
The breakthrough came in mid-afternoon as MPs and peers faced the
threat of having to sit all weekend because the Conservatives and Liberal
Democrats refused to drop their demand for a “sunset clause” under which
the legislation would have expired this November. Mr Blair had refused throughout
Thursday night and yesterday to give any concession.
But as a weary Commons met for the fourth time to consider the Lords amendments Mr Clarke offered Parliament a way out by promising that a terrorism Bill already planned for the next session would give a real chance to amend the new laws. He said that the Bill would be published in draft this autumn, be subjected to detailed pre-legislative scrutiny and then formally be brought forward next spring at the same time as an independent report on how the laws were operating.
The offer took the Conservatives by surprise and they at first
rejected it. But word came from the Lords that Tory peers were ready to go
along with the move and Michael Howard swiftly announced that he would accept
what he claimed as “a sunset clause in all but name”. The Liberal Democrats
also accepted it, but David Heath, their legal affairs spokesman criticised
Mr Clarke for not bringing it forward earlier.
In the relief that followed the breaking of the impasse, both opposition
parties quietly dropped their demands for a higher standard of proof for
control orders, the other obstacle in the way of a deal. After further sessions
of both Houses last night the Bill finally passed through. Mr Blair used
a hastily convened press conference to accuse the Conservatives of playing
games and toying with national security. “In light of the very strong vote
in the directly elected House of Commons it would be grossly irresponsible
to continue the game of playing about with this legislation when it is so
obviously necessary,” he said.
Mr Howard accused Mr Blair of being afraid to admit that he had given in to Tory demands for a sunset clause. This has been a good day for Britain and a bad day for Mr Blair,” he said. “The Prime Minister has been forced to announce a sunset clause in all but name. He just couldn’t quite bring himself to admit it.”
Carry on Westminster
A struggle over terror legislation with some wider implications
According to the Guinness Book of World Records,
the longest table tennis rally ever took place in New Zealand in 1977 and
lasted for 5 hours, 2 minutes and 18.5 seconds. The parliamentary ping pong
over the Prevention of Terrorism Bill between the House of Commons and the
House of Lords has far exceeded that margin. The record book describes that
marathon table tennis rally as “contrived”. Much the same applies to its
parliamentary equivalent. Tony Blair has spent months suggesting that Michael
Howard is Vlad the Impaler II. He has devoted the past few days to painting
him as a weak-kneed wimp who is Osama bin Laden’s unwitting ally.
The public has been witness to an extraordinary battle in which
ministers have hinted, implausibly, that the entire drive against terrorism
will be undermined if they do not get their way, while their opponents —
equally incorrectly — have left the impression that Charles Clarke, the Home
Secretary, intends to replace Magna Carta with rule by jackboot. In the
midst of all this, those incarcerated at Belmarsh prison and elsewhere,
the men whom Mr Clarke wishes to make subject to control orders, are released
on bail conditions that resemble those orders. […]
It should be acknowledged, however, that unusual circumstances
have produced this spectacle. These include that this was emergency legislation,
that there was a deadline (tomorrow) by which Parliament had to act, the
background of a widely expected general election, and the sensitivities of
both civil liberties and national security. That a complex compromise was
found is welcome. But it surely could have been hammered out far sooner.
There are, nevertheless, significant constitutional implications
to this untypical confrontation. The first lies in its root cause. The reason
that prevention of terrorism legislation emerged in the first place is that
the law lords, in a landmark 8-1 ruling, threw out a central element of
the Government’s anti-terrorism strategy. Ministers have scrambled to recover
since. It would have once been inconceivable that the courts would be so
assertive in the face of parliamentary sovereignty. The balance between politicians
and judges has plainly changed.
The balance between the two chambers has also altered. The reform
of the House of Lords has been an unimpressive affair, removing most but
not all the hereditary peers and without allowing for any elective element.
It is not sustainable in the long-term, but if ministers calculated that
the halfway House that they had created would be as supine as its predecessor,
they were badly mistaken. The Lords appear to have taken upon themselves
that they are not only entitled to be critical of proposals that were not
part of a party manifesto but that they have a special right to be forceful
when the matter in hand can be deemed constitutional in character. That instinct
will harden.
These are trends that thoughtful ministers, and aspiring ministers,
will need to ponder further. Many Tories have been happy to cheer on the
judges from the opposition benches. Their attitude would have differed if
in office. The Lords have enjoyed their role as champions of liberty. Yet
many of them have selective notions of individual freedom. It has often
been asserted that Britain is not a democracy but an “elective dictatorship”.
It has not looked much like that this week
March 11.
From Dr Charles Bourne
Sir, I dispute the government claim of a right
for the elected chamber to prevail. The maximum lifetime of the present
House is four-fifths gone, and its popular mandate a distant memory. The
constitutional absence of popular authority is underlined by the Prime Minister’s
taunting reference to forthcoming elections and the opportunity to put the
issue before the electorate.
The extent to which the Commons may presume to prevail is codified in the Parliament Act, and the constraints which prevent the Government from using it now are intentional and salutary: because of the Act the Commons may not force through new legislation immediately prior to calling an election unless the House of Lords approves.
Unless the anti-terrorist Act is time-limited
there are no assurances whatsoever that a new government and a new House
of Commons, not bound by the compromises of their predecessors, will ever
reconsider it.
That the House of Lords is a reformed chamber,
and that the Prime Minister had ample opportunity to reform it further but
declined to do so, significantly enhances its constitutional authority.
With the Commons entirely concerned with fighting the general election,
I think it wholly right for the Lords to persist as long as necessary to
prevail.
Yours sincerely, CHARLES BOURNE,
36 Avenue Road,
Leamington Spa CV31 3PE.
