Charles Clarke

Conservatives have expressed anger that Charles Clarke's anti-terrorism plans are to be "rammed" through the House of Commons.

The home secretary's controversial legislation was due to be published this week, and will be debated at second reading on Wednesday.

The Prevention of Terrorism Bill will then pass through its committee and remaining stages next Monday.

That announcement prompted shadow Commons leader Oliver Heald to say: "We are angry that this measure is to be rammed through the house with our time for debate ruthlessly curtailed."

For the government, Peter Hain rejected the "synthetic" anger of the Tories.

"There is no plan to ram this through the House of Commons," he added.

Plans published

Clarke will publish his plans tomorrow following his consultation with opposition party leaders.

Last Friday Clarke and the prime minister held talks with Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy in a bid to find a compromise on the issue.

However, the talks appeared to end in acrimony with the Conservative leader issuing a statement in which he attacked Clarke's plans as "fundamentally flawed".

For the Liberal Democrats, however, Kennedy appeared satisfied that there had been some movement on the issue of judicial oversight of the "control orders".

With time running out if the government is to get legislation on to the statute book before a general election, Clarke is expected to make the final decision on how he intends to proceed.

Last week, Clarke insisted the government would not reconsider its position on ruling out the use of phone tap evidence in courts.

He said the government had a "strong desire to enforce emergency legislation which respects and takes account of the law lords' judgement and puts a new regime in place for renewal required on March 10".

"I confirm... the essence of that regime will be a regime of control orders strongly supported by the police and the security services with an appropriate level of judicial involvement in avocation of those controls," he said.

Rule of law

However, Howard insisted that the innocence or guilt of any terror suspect "must be determined by a court of law – not by the home secretary".

"If they are found guilty, they must be detained in a prison cell, not their living rooms," he added.

"The same argument applies to intermediate control orders. If there is a case for them, they should be imposed by a judge not by the home secretary.

"Internment without trial will only create martyrs.  It can be a very effective recruiting sergeant and we could find ourselves confining one known terrorist, only to recruit 10 others."

The Lib Dem leader, however, seemed somewhat more pleased with the way his discussions had gone, saying there had been signs of "movement".

But he said discussions fell short of the home secretary agreeing to remove provisions in the proposed legislation which would give him the power to authorise the control orders.