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The Government will also streamline the immigration laws and bring forward new laws on citizenship, possibly requiring applicants to do community service before being granted a British passport.
Senior Labour backbenchers have already indicated that they remain strongly against plans to extend the 28-day maximum detention time, possibly to 56 days.
Andrew Dismore, the Labour chairman of the joint Lords and Commons parliamentary committee on human rights, said the case had still “not been made” for extending detention without charge. “At the moment there hasn’t been any evidence of the existing 28 days being inadequate,” he told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One. “There have only been six people held beyond 14 days and that was in the airport plot last summer. And of those, only two were charged right up against the 28-day deadline and three were released.”
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, plans to publish a counter-terrorism Bill before the end of the year, which will include proposals to allow postcharge questioning of terrorism suspects and the drawing of an adverse inference from a refusal to say something during questioning that is later relied on in court.
Ministers are also planning to allow courts to impose longer jail terms for people convicted of ordinary offences, such as credit-card fraud, if they are linked to terrorism. Convicted terrorists will be banned from travelling abroad on their release.
The legislation will close a loophole that prevents police from sharing fingerprints or DNA samples taken from terrorist suspects held under control orders. Another move will allow MI5 to check any DNA sample they collect under their own powers against the national DNA database.
A draft Citizenship and Immigration Bill will streamline immigration legislation and allow the Government to include any proposals arising from a review expected to clarify the responsibilities that come with citizenship.
A new offence of inciting hatred against gay, lesbian, transgender and disabled people will be included in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which has been carried over from the last session of Parliament.
Jack Straw will clarify the legislation on self-defence so that people who use reasonable force to protect themselves or others have full protection under the law. When he announced the plan at the Labour Party Conference it was criticised as a preelection ploy, because the law had only recently been reviewed.
The Bill also bans possession of extreme pornography and brings in new powers to throw antisocial neighbours out of their homes. Noisy neighbours will face eviction under plans that extend powers used to close “crack dens”. The move would allow police to act against the occupiers of private and rented accommodation where there were complaints of excessive noise, rowdy behaviour, prostitution, disorder linked to alcohol and an increase in crime.
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Times Online |
