21/11/2005

Terror bill faces Lords

The government’s anti-terror legislation is set to face another tough battle in the House of Lords.

The Conservative leader in the Lords, Lord Strathclyde, said that peers would examine the legislation on a “line-by-line” basis, while Liberal Democrat leader Lord McNally said that the Bill would receive a “thorough going over” in the Upper House.

The government was defeated in a Commons vote on plans to increase the maximum detention period for terror suspects to 90 days earlier this month. MPs rejected the proposal by 322 votes to 291, giving Tony Blair the first defeat of his Premiership. Instead, they voted in favour of increasing the maximum limit from 14 days to 28 days.

Commenting on the legislation, which was introduced after the July 7 bomb attacks in London, Lord Strathclyde said that the Bill was important, because it dealt with national security, but he said it was also controversial. He said: “There’s a tremendous responsibility on the House of Lords to look at this in a careful manner and that is what I expect to happen in the weeks ahead.”

However, on Sunday, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said that the Bill was not “knee-jerk legislation”. He said: “The proposals in the Bill do not represent overnight panic in response to the July attacks on London, but are the culmination of proper policy development.”

Lord Goldmsith added that the danger came from a “knee-jerk reaction from the civil liberties lobby.”

(KMcA/SP)

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