Clarke under pressure to reveal detention advice
Charles Clarke is coming under increasing pressure to reveal the exact wording of the attorney general’s advice about the detention of terror suspects.
It comes a day after the home secretary mistakenly revealed to MPs that Lord Goldsmith was in favour of the controversial proposal to detain terror suspects for up to ninety days without charge – a disclosure that broke parliamentary rules on confidentiality.
He has since backtracked, claiming that what he had said “did not come from the attorney general personally”.
If true though, it contrasts with the attorney general’s view outlined by his spokesman last month, where he said there was a case for a detention period longer than 14 days, but he was “not convinced” there was a case for a detention period of 90 days.
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Mark Oaten, has now called on the government to publish the full advice, saying that there was too much “uncertainty”.
He said: “Whatever the normal arguments about the confidentiality of the attorney general’s advice, this announcement from the home secretary relates to views that are already in the public domain.
“On such a controversial measure, it is now in everyone’s interests for the advice to be published.”
Earlier this week the government delayed a vote on plans to extend the maximum time a terror suspect can be detained from 14 days to three months because it was certain the measure would have been defeated by the House of Commons.
Mr Clarke is now in discussions with opposition parties about the measure, which forms part of the controversial terrorism bill, and it is likely that a 28-day comprise will be considered.
But Tony Blair has insisted that the compromise would not be good enough, arguing that as prime minister he had to give police and the security services the powers they needed to tackle terrorism.
He told BBC News: “Now, my position is very clear as prime minister. I have no doubt that if the police and those who head up our anti-terrorist operations are asking us for these powers, we should give it to them.”
“This is not an issue to play around with. This is about the security of this country,” he said.
The prime minister added: “We’ve got to decide whether the civil liberties of people who are detained as terror suspects for up to three months . come before the civil liberties of the vast majority of people of this country to be protected from terrorism.”
Police argue that the current limit of 14 days to detain terror suspects without charge does not give them long enough to gather information needed to charge the suspect.
But both opposition parties along with lawyers and civil rights groups have concerns about this aspect of the terrorism bill, which they say is the equivalent to giving someone a six-month prison sentence.
The government’s majority was cut to one when MPs voted on new plans to create an offence of encouraging terrorism. This led to Mr Clarke abandoning plans for a vote on the detention of terror suspects pending discussions with the opposition.
For more information see politics.co.uk’s briefing on the terrorism bill.
