Lords make major changes to terror bill
The House of Lords has refused to back down on its opposition to the Government’s anti-terror laws in the penultimate day of parliamentary debate on the subject.
The Lords has voted to re-introduce four key amendments back into the bill.
Peers voted for greater judicial involvement in the issuing of control orders, a new ‘sunset clause’, a higher burden of proof and for a new committee of the Privy Council to review the bill’s operation.
But speaking as the peers voted against the first part of the legislation this morning, Tony Blair made it clear that he was not prepared to accept any further concessions.
His comments set up yet another day of political ping-pong in which the Prevention of Terrorism Bill is passed between the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
The current anti-terror laws expire on March 14 and the Government has until tomorrow night to get new laws on the statute books.
The Government has already made a number of key concessions on the bill, including increasing judicial involvement in all control orders, not just the most severe of house arrest, and making the bill subject to an annual review of Parliament.
But today the Lords voted by a 150 majority, 250 to 100, to re-introduce a ‘sunset clause’ into the legislation. But following an amendment from Labour peer Baroness Hayman this would be for one year, rather that the eight months proposed by the Conservatives.
The Lords also backed a Conservative proposal to establish a committee of the Privy Council to review the operation of the act, to raise the burden of proof required before a control order could be issued to ‘on the balance of probabilities’ and for even great judicial involvement.
Speaking earlier, Mr Blair again rejected demands that a “sunset clause” be inserted that would see the legislation expire on November 30, saying it would issue a “signal of weakness” to terrorists.
He also ruled out increasing the burden of proof needed to impose control orders from ‘reasonable suspicion’ to the ‘balance of probabilities’.
This Conservative-backed Lords amendment was rejected by MPs yesterday by a majority of 89, as was the sunset clause.
“We have made concessions on this legislation – there’s now no reason not to support it,” the Prime Minister said.
“The House of Commons has voted very, very clearly. We need this legislation to protect the security of people in this country and I hope they now change their position and allow the clearly expressed view of the House of Commons to prevail.”
Speaking at the same press conference, Home Secretary Charles Clarke criticised the Conservatives’ support for the change in burden of proof.
He claimed that they proposals would mean no control order could be issued against some people that the police and security services believe to be dangerous.
