Compromise or principle? Labour savages ‘fudge’ on control orders
By Ian Dunt
The government’s long-awaited review of counter-terror laws has been branded a “political fudge” by Labour.
Home secretary Theresa May revealed the plans to the Commons this afternoon, after months of behind-the-scenes struggles between her and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, specifically over the issue of control orders.
Issue of the Day: Control Orders
Ms May said the rules would be reformed so that they were in “keeping with British values and our commitment to freedom, fairness and rule of law” while still keeping Britons safe from terrorist attack.
Control orders would be replaced by “better focused and more targeted restrictions”. Ms May’s replacement system, dubbed Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures, quickly earned the abbreviation ‘Tpims’.
Many MPs on the Labour benches laughed when Ms May announced that curfews would be replaced by an “overnight residence requirement”.
Labour argued that the change was one of name only, but Ms May insisted that the current limit of 16 hours had been scrapped and that the individual would be offered much greater flexibility.
The new regime will apply a limit of two years on control orders unless new evidence is presented.
Control orders will no longer be used “simply as a means of parking difficult cases indefinitely”, Ms May insisted.
A “reasonable test of evidential belief” will be introduced – a higher standard than the current “test of reasonable suspicion”.
Controlees will no longer be forcibly relocated, and instead will be excluded from going to particular areas or meeting with certain people.
Mobile phone and internet access will be allowed, although controlees will have to supply police with their passwords. They will be free to work and study as they wished. Foreign travel will be prevented.
The police will have a strengthened legal duty to keep their conduct under continual review.
The current control order regime will be extended until the end of the year, when the changes will be implemented.
New shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the control order reform was a “political fudge” which showed what happened when the “rhetoric of opposition comes up against the reality of government”.
She continued: “The proposals she has set out are not an alternative approach. They are simply amendments.
“The deputy prime minister told the BBC he had abolished control orders. Isn’t the truth that he has simply abolished the name?
“This has been a chaotic review – delayed, confused, driven by leaks and political horse trading. It’s a review with serious gaps. The public and people who work to keep us safe deserve better than this.”
Ms May also confirmed that stop and search will be reformed, but that a tightened power will be introduced for when there is a “credible threats of imminent terrorist attack”, such as the 2012 Olympics.
The reform should also end the increasing cases of photographers being accosted by police for innocent activity.
Local authorities will be prevented from using the surveillance powers found in the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) unless they are dealing with a case where the custodial sentence could amount to more than six months imprisonment.
The reform should end the cases where residents are spied on by their local council for fly-tipping or other minor offences.
Suggestions that anti-terror laws be expanded to cover groups who “promote division” were ruled out on the basis that “to do so would have serious consequences for freedom of expression”.
The deportation of foreign nationals suspected of terror activists will continue and be expanded, Ms May said.
Criticism of the practise, which sometimes sees deportations to countries with poor human rights records, was dismissed by Ms May who said there was “no evidence that it’s inconsistent with our human rights obligations”.
Labour said it would back the expansion of the deportations, together with reforms to local council surveillance, changes to stop and search and, in principle, the reduction of pre-charge detention to 14 days, as announced by immigration minister Damian Green last week.
But Ms Cooper reiterated her objection to the lack of emergency legislation allowing the government to quickly increase the limit in the case of a terrorist attack.
Later speakers said emergency legislation could be passed within 24 hours as long as there was cross-party agreement.
Civil liberties group Liberty, which has campaigned for years against control orders, was disappointed by the outcome.
“We welcome movement on stop and search, 28-day detention and council snooping, but when it comes to ending punishment without trial the government appears to have bottled it,” Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said.
“Spin and semantics aside, control orders are retained and rebranded, if in a slightly lower fat form. As before, the innocent may be punished without a fair hearing and the guilty will escape the full force of criminal law.
“This leaves a familiar bitter taste. Parliament must now decide whether the final flavour will be of progress, disappointment or downright betrayal.”
Amnesty International UK Campaigns director Tim Hancock said: “The Tpims proposal is less drastic than the previous control orders regime, but still retains significant restrictions on the rights to liberty, privacy, expression, movement and association.
“The review also suggests that the government actively pursues more deportation arrangements with other countries. Amnesty International deplores this continuing quest to employ unreliable, unenforceable assurances in order to return people to countries where they risk being tortured.”
Alex Deane, srector of Big Brother Watch, said: “This is a classic case of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
“The injustice remains. The violation of the presumption of innocence remains. No matter how serious a judge claims things to be, or how gravely he shakes his head – no assurance from a judicial source should be regarded as an acceptable substitute for a proper trial process. A judge is no substitute for a jury.
“Nobody will be fooled by this childish slight of hand – except perhaps the Lib Dems, because none are so blind as those who will not see.”
The counter-terror review began in July 2010 with the Home Office promising a rapid process, but protracted behind-the-scenes wrangling quickly turned it into a tortured battle of wills between the coalition partners.
