Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Anti Terror Legislation Bill.
Anti Terror Legislation Bill
Asked if it was true that the Government would rather extend the current legislation, rather than have no laws at all if no agreement was reached by Friday, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said, as he had said this morning, that the Government still believed that the current legislation would be passed. We believed that the balance of the bill was correct, but he advised people to wait and see what happened when the bill returned from the Lords.
Put to him that there must be a "game Plan B", the PMOS said that equally what happened at this stage was that we worked to get the legislation through within the parameters that we believed were feasible.
Asked if the Government could contemplate a situation where there was no legislation, and would there be a situation where people who were being detained would walk free, the PMOS said that what the Government was interested in was national security, and not a potential blame game, and that was what would guide the Government’s actions. In terms of the legislation we still believed there was a balance to be stuck between national security and people’s concerns. We would keep trying to strike that balance.
Put to the PMOS again that surely the Government would not want a situation where there were not laws on the statutory books which ensured the detention of people it believed posed a threat to the country, the PMOS replied that the whole purpose of what the Government was doing was to respond to the advice from the police and the security services about the dangers that they believed certain individuals posed. The PMOS said it would therefore be very strange if that was not also what guided our actions over the next few days.
Asked if there was any further indication of whether the bill would be overturned in the Lords, the PMOS said we were not in a position to say yet. We were waiting to see what state the bill came back from the Lords in, and we would respond to that accordingly. The important thing, as the PMOS had said this morning, was that we retained the ability in those few cases where we believed this legislation was necessary, to act, and to act with speed. Equally, it was important that we did not send any signal to either the terrorists or to the police and the security services, other than the strength of our intent to respond to the threat identified.
Asked if the Prime Minister would become personally involved in this issue today, the PMOS said it could be assumed that the Prime Minister was involved in this, as he was very clearly involved in identifying the priorities for us in the situation, and in being in contact with the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary was very much in the lead in dealing with this issue, and was approaching it with the seriousness with which the situation deserved.
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