Charles Kennedy

Liberal Democrats | Ross Skye & Lochaber

Kennedy: Instinctive Response Of This Labour Government Is Authoritarian

Charles Kennedy, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, at Prime Minister’s Questions today said that ‘whenever presented with a problem the instinctive response of this government is authoritarian’ and with this in mind he asked Mr Blair ‘after two terms of a Labour government where would our civil liberties be left, were there to be a third?’.

Mr Kennedy also asked the Prime Minister ‘why is it he seems to be so convinced that there will be more accountability built into the system by the Home Secretary taking a decision over whether somebody’s locked up’ rather than that decision being taken by a judge.

Text of PMQ exchange follows:

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Mr Kennedy: Returning to the proposed terrorism measures can I ask the Prime Minister, following on from those exchanges, why is it he seems to be so convinced that there will be more accountability built into the system by the Home Secretary taking a decision over whether somebody’s locked up and that being subject to a judge’s re-examination. [interference] the decision being taken in the first instance by the judge on an adequate burden of proof.  [interference] more accountability to be achieved at the expense of overturning what are long-standing, fundamental principles of justice?

Prime Minister: That I entirely understand as a point. It is a completely different point, obviously, from the one being made by the Conservative Party. The reason why we have decided, however, that it is right that the Home Secretary, in the first instance has these powers is really for speed of action. That then has to be taken before a court within seven days. And obviously you would hope to do that far more swiftly than seven days but the key thing is to get the control orders in place, and as I say as I understand it he is not opposed to those. He would like us to go in front of a judge first. Now the reason we have chosen this method of doing it is because we will bring it, obviously, before a court – very quickly – seven days maximum but there may be circumstances, and this is the thing that we’re concerned about – there may be circumstances in which the Home Secretary has to act very, very quickly and there could be a delay in bringing it before a court that could cause difficulty. I think one of the things I should also say to the right honourable gentleman and I’d like to say this to the House and wider to the country: there are large numbers of people that at the moment we are surveying in this country today that we keep under surveillance cos we believe they may be involved in the planning or funding or the procurement of weapons for terrorist [interference]. What is extremely important is that we have the maximum speed of movement to disrupt these [interference] if we decide that though we don’t have the evidence to secure a conviction, we nonetheless reasonably suspect that they are engaged in such terrorist activity. But I come back to the point I made a moment or two a go. The essence of this for us is the existence of the control orders. The reason we’ve introduced executive orders that are subject to judicial review is because there may be – all be it a limited number of circumstances – in which the speed of action means we need the executive order first.

Mr Kennedy: Mr Speaker, as we all know all too sadly, our country is no stranger of course over the years – over decades – to both the threat and the reality of terrorism. But isn’t it worrying that where the principles of justice are concerned that now under three successive Labour home secretaries: house arrest today, ending trial by jury, ID cards in the future. Whenever presented with a problem the instinctive response of this government is authoritarian. Now after two terms of a Labour government where would our civil liberties be left, were there to be a third? 

Prime Minister: First of all I have to say to him I really don’t accept that identity cards are the same type of issue at all. I think that identity cards are a necessary sensible measure in the modern world and I am sorry that he and the Conservative Party are against it. Actually in respect of terrorism rather, again I have to say this: this is a situation – let us be very, very clear – were there to be a serious terrorist act in this country and afterwards it was thought we had not taken the measures necessary, believe me no one – no one – would be talking about civil liberties. They’d be talking about why we hadn’t done more to protect their security.  Now I agree it should only be in the most exceptional circumstances that these powers are taken, but [interference] on this point: I do not believe that terrorism today that we face is the same as the IRA terrorism, hopefully of the past. I don’t believe it is. I think these people would kill thousands of our citizens if they could. I think it is terrorism without limits. I think in the use of suicide terrorism it’s different. I think in these circumstances, for these limited number of cases, my best judgement is that those considerations of national security have to come before civil liberties, no matter how important those civil liberties are.