Theresa May sets out plans to replace control orders
Rolling coverage of all the day's political developments including PMQs at midday
1.48pm: Labour's David Winnick says the proposals on control orders will be "very disappointing to many of us". He wanted the government to go further in getting rid of them.
1.45pm: Here are the conclusions from Lord Macdonald, the Lib Dem peer appointed to review the conclusions of the counter-terrorism review.
I conclude that there is no doubt that the Review's recommendations, if implemented, would achieve the government's primary aim of rolling back State power, where to do so would not present a disproportionate risk to public safety.
The reduction in pre-charge detention to 14 days, the repeal of section 44, the greater regulation of local authority surveillance and the outright removal of those aspects of control orders that most resemble house arrest, are all to be regarded as reforms of real significance. They point to an unmistakable re-balancing of public policy in favour of liberty.
Further explanation from the government of the precise circumstances in which it believes that any remaining restrictions may properly be placed upon individuals in the absence of criminal investigation, charge or conviction, will reveal how far ministers intend to drive this important process.
1.43pm: Labour's Jack Straw asks if the extra 20m going to the police to fund surveillance will come from the reserve or from the Home Office budget.
May says she has not confirmed the figure. (It has appeared in the press.)
1.41pm: David Davis, the Conservative civil liberty campaigner, says that May should have replaced control orders with police bail.
1.40pm: Labour's David Blunkett, the former home secretary, urges May to get the judges to agree to new rules on the use of intercept evidence. He says that one person subject to a control order has said that he wants to stage a terorrist attack. The police cannot prosecute someone who has killed himself, Blunkett s! ays.
1.38pm: Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Lib Dem leader, says the proposals are "finely balanced". He says May's approach has been better than Labour's.
1.35pm: May is responding to Cooper. She says the new orders will be "significantly different" from control orders. Curfews can last for up to 16 hours, she says. The new overnight residence requirements will not last that long.
May also rejects the idea that the process has been a shambles. She says Labour tried to legislate for 90-day pre-charge detention, and eventually had to settle for 28 days.
1.32pm: The Home Office has now published details of the review on its website. Here's the 46-page report. And here's the report from Lord Macdonald, the Lib Dem peer and former director of public prosecutions who oversaw the review.
1.26pm: Cooper is still responding to May.
She says Labour is willing to look at alternatives to control orders. But May's proposals are not an alternative. They are just "amendments" to control orders.
She asks May to explain the difference between an eight-hour curfew and an overnight residence requirement.
Nick Clegg has said that he has abolished control orders, she says. But he has just abolished the name.
Cooper says three individuals have been under control orders for more than two years. Will those orders be revoked?
Will there be enough resources for an increase in surveillance?
Winding up, Cooper says this has been a "chaotic review". It has concluded in a "fudge". The rhetoric of opposition has come up against the reality of government.
1.20pm: Yvette Cooper is responding for Labour.
She says she welco! mes the fact that there was a review. But it would have been better to have carried out the review alongside the review of the Contest strategy.
She says Labour supports the government's approach to deportation, and its approach to proscribed groups. Does this mean Cameron has abandoned plans to try to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir?
Labour supports the restrictions on surveillance powers.
But Cooper says she is "concerned" about the impact of the changes to stop and search powers in Northern Ireland. Is May sure the police will have the powers they need?
On 28 days, she complains that the emergency legislation is still not available. May has said she could extend the limit to 28 day using an order. But her own review says this order-making power would take too long. Cooper says the Moscow attack has shown that you can never predict what will happen. What would she do if she needed 28 days now?
Cooper says May's approach has been "a complete shambles".
1.18pm: May is still making her statement.
She says she will consult the opposition about draft anti-terror legislation.
The control order legislation will be published "in the coming weeks". The current legislation will be renewed until the end of this year.
May finishes by thanking the police.
1.13pm: May is still delivering her opening statement.
On the deportation of foreign nationals suspected of being engaged in terrorism, May says the review concluded the current policy was sound and that a wider range of countries should be included.
On control orders, May says prosecution will always be the government's priority. But where that is not immediately possible, no responsible government could allow these individuals to carry on their activities. Control orders will be abolished. They will be replaced by "better targeted" measures. The government will bring forward legislation to bring this into effect. The new orders will last two years.
May says curfews will be replaced by "overnight residence ! requirem ents". This prompts laughter from MPs.
People under the new orders will have greater freedom to associate with others.
The police will have to provide regular reports on the prospects of bringing these individuals to court.
May says she is also publishing a written statement about the next steps being taken towards allowing the use of intercept evidence in court.
1.08pm: May say the threat from terrorism is as severe as it has been.
But too much anti-terror legislation was unnecessary.
May says she is "delighted" Ed Miliband has said he will support the government in saying it will not support the abuse of state power.
She thanks Lord Macdonald for the contribution he has made to the review.
On pre-charge detention, she has already announced that this has come down to 14 days. The police, prosecutors and the government are clear that 14-days should be the normal maximum. But in exceptional circumstances 28 days may be necessary. Draft legislation will be produced allowing the maximum period to be extended to 28 days if necessary.
On stop and search powers, May says that the law will be replaced with a tightly-defined power allowing stop and search powers to be used in specific areas.
There will also be measures to stop these powers being used against photographers.
On surveillance powers, May says they will only be used in relation to offences that carry a sentence of six months or more.
1.07pm: Theresa May is making her counter-terrorism statement now.
12.57pm: William Hague is still making his urgent statement about the BBC World Service job cuts. Here is the written statement that he has issued. I have not been following the statement very closely, but he seems to be getting a hard time. The Tory MP Andrew Tyrie has just urged Hague to think again.
12.35pm: Verdict: We're probably going to spend the next four years l! istening to David Cameron and Ed Miliband arguing about the economy, and I hope it gets better than this. It's not that the exchanges were particularly bad; it's just that they were a bit flat and uninspiring. I thought Miliband's first, one-sentence question was effective, but when he used his second slot to ask a straight, factual question - can you confirm that growth would have been zero without the snow? - Cameron disarmed him with an uncharacteristically direct reply: Yes. Miliband had Cameron on the defensive throughout but, to use the combat analogy that I know many of you hate, he never quite delivered the killer punch. Cameron, as usual, was much better at these rhetorical flourishes. The line about the "golden inheritance" got a laugh and his question about why, if Ed Balls was such a good shadow chancellor, Miliband did not appoint him first time around was effective, and artfully phrased. But both jibes were shamelessly disingenous. I was typing furiously, and so I may have missed it, but I don't remember Miliband saying that Labour left a golden inheritance. And I don't even recall him talking about Ed Balls being a good shadow chancellor. Cameron criticised Miliband for preparing his lines in advance, as he did last week. Miliband should take no notice. Cameron knows full well that having your soundbites pre-cooked is essential at PMQs. His best lines were unleashed in response to comments Miliband did not actually make.
12.31pm: Labour's Sheila Gilmore tells Cameron not to follow the mistakes made by Ireland.
Cameron says that if the government had followed Labour's deficit reduction strategy, the deficit would still have been higher than Portugal's in four years' time.
12.30pm: Paul Haynard, the Conservative MP for Blackpool North, says the town should get UNESCO status.
Cameron says the government is committed to helping Blackpool have a strong future.
12.29pm: Jesse Norman, a Conservative, asks Cameron to support a full investigation into PFI deals.
Cameron! says th e public accounts committee should investigate some of the "appalling" decisions that were taken. He notices that Ed Balls is nodding and he says that Gordon Brown's two "henchmen", Balls and Miliband, were in the Treasury when these PFI deals were being signed.
12.28pm: Labour's Stella Creasy asks Cameron if he will support a proposal to tackle loan sharks.
Cameron says he wants to encourage credit unions. But he wants to ensure he does not drive out responsible lenders.
12.26pm: Cameron says parliament took big steps in the last parliament to improve support for people with autism.
12.25pm: Kris Hopkins, a Conservative, asks why hospices cannot reclaim VAT.
Cameron says that he will look at this. But he has to consider the consequences.
12.23pm: Labour's Tom Watson says Cameron should get another police force should investigate the way the Met has handled the phone-hacking affair. Cameron does not endorse this, but he says the law should be followed "wherever it leads".
12.20pm: Nigel Dodds, a DUP MP, asks when Cameron will stop Sinn Fein MPs getting parliamentary allowances.
Cameron says that Gerry Adams is now a Baron of the Manor of Northstead. He has "accepted an office of profit from the crown". Adams is resigning as an MP, because he is standing for election in the Irish Republic. Yesterday we were told that he was refusing to resign the traditional way, which involves applying to be Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead, or Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds (two supposed offices of profit - which don't actually pay any salary). But Cameron's comments suggest that a solution has been found, and that Adams is leaving.
12.19pm: 12.17pm: Labour's Graeme Morrice asks if Cameron will work with the devolved adminstrations to produce a proper compensation scheme for those affected by contaminated blood.
Cameron says there! was a " basic unfairness" in the compensation arrangements introduced by the previous governments. He is glad Andrew Lansley has improved compensation for hepatitis C sufferers.
12.13pm: Snap verdict: An underwhelming exchange which followed the usual pattern - sensible questions from Miliband, which were incisive but a bit short on punch, and responses from Cameron notable for their shiny bluster.
12.09pm: Miliband says Cameron has signalled he is not going to do anything. "This is how out of touch he is." While cuts are being lost in the public sector, but they are not being created in the private sector. Will Cameron put his "arrogance" aside and admit he does not know how to create jobs?
Cameron says Miliband should not write his questions in advance. He has replaced a shadow chancellor who does not understand his plan with one who does not agree with it. Under Labour, cuts would have started this year. Miliband wants to borrow money he does not.
Miliband says he's surprised that Cameron raised personel issues. Cameron clung on to Andy Coulson for months. He says people know what David Davis meant when he said Cameron was out of touch.
Cameron asks why, if it was such a good decision to have Ed Balls as shadow chancellor, Miliband did not appoint him in the first place. He quotes from what Mevyn King said in his speech last night about staying the course. (See 9.37am.)
12.06pm: Miliband says Cameron does not get it. Without growth, you cannot reduce the deficit. Will Cameron change his strategy?
Cameron says you have to do everything to get the deficit down. He quotes the OECD head, Angel Gurria, who said today: "If you don't deal with the deficit you can be assured that there will not be growth because confidence will not recover."
Miliband says Cameron has taken a choice. Is Cameron saying he will press ahead irrespective of the figures?
Cameron says we have heard a theory that the! re was a "golden inheritance". This is a laughable proposition. The government was spending 120m a day on interest. Miliband and Ed Balls were in the Treasury at the time.
12.04pm: Ed Miliband starts with condolences to those killed in the Moscow bombing.
Can Cameron explain the cause of the disappointing growth figures?
Cameron says the figures are "disappointing" even when you exclude what the ONS said about the weather. Britain has a very difficult economic situation because of the deficit and because of the banking boom and bust. But it would be a mistake to ditch your plans on the basis of one quarter's figures.
Miliband says Cameron said Britain was out of the danger zone. Setting aside the bad weather, there was no growth. Will Cameron confirm that?
Yes, says Cameron. Britain is no longer linked with countries like Greece and Ireland and Portugal. Before the election people complained about there being no credible deficit reduction plan.
12.03pm: Esther McVey, a Conservative, says the enterprise allowance will be announced in Liverpool on Monday.
Cameron says the government wants to do everything to help growth in Merseyside.
12.02pm: Gregory Campbell, a DUP MP, asks if Cameron will cut fuel duty. The government raises 600m a week from fuel duty, he says. When will the fuel stabiliser be introduced?
Cameron says there is "a very strong case" for looking at this. But he does not approve of making tax changes outside a budget.
12.01pm: David Cameron starts with condolences to those affected by the terrorist attack in Moscow on Monday. The terrorists should "never be allowed to win", he says.
12.00pm: PMQs is about to start. The May statement on control orders will come at about 1pm.
11.56am: William Hague will respond to the urgent question about the World Service job cuts. Labour's Denis MacShane tabled the question.
11.49am: And here is what the Lib Dems and the coalition have said about control orders.
This is from the Li! b Dem ma nifesto.
We will ... scrap control orders, which can use secret evidence to place people under house arrest.
And here's what the coalition agreement says about control orders.
We will introduce safeguards against the misuse of anti-terror legislation.
The Conservative manifesto does not seem to mention control orders.
11.38am: Here's a control order reading list for anyone who wants some background on the Theresa May announcement.
A report on control orders from the joint committee on human rights. Published in February 2010, it said that the system of control orders is no longer sustainable".
The submission from Liberty to the government's review of counter-terrorism legislation.
A Liberty briefing note about control orders.
Douglas Murray in the Spectator defends control orders.
11.30am: The Speaker has granted an urgent question on the World Service job cuts. This will come at 12.30pm, and it means the statement on control orders will not start until about 1pm.
11.12am: Tim Farron, the Lib Dem president, wasn't impressed by Ed Miliband's interview in the Independent. (See 10.41am.)
We are very flattered that Ed Miliband is so enamoured with Liberal Democrats that we appear to be the only thing he talks about these days. I suspect most Labour MPs would prefer him to develop some policies instead.
This is Jekyll and Hyde politics: he flutters his eyelashes in sugar-and-spice interviews trying to woo the Liber! al Democ rats and at the same time he orchestrates his unelected dinosaurs in the Lords to obstruct real reform
If Ed is serious about working together on progressive politics, then there is the perfect opportunity to do so on fairer votes.
Every progressive in Britain will be disappointed that Ed's talk about reform are eclipsed by his actions to block the most important democratic change since universal suffrage. He will be judged by his actions, not his words.
On the subject of voting reform, the parliamentary voting system and constituencies bill has got its 14th day in committee in the House of Lords this afternoon. Benedict Brogan says on his Telegraph blog that the crisis over the bill has reached "boiling point".
11.09am: David Davis, the Tory backbencher, has told PoliticsHome that the government has "missed a trick" on control orders.
Control orders have been incredibly harmful to our cause and the sensible policy would have been to sweep them away completely and to replace them with something more effective. The government has failed to do that and missed a trick in the battle against terrorism.
10.41am: You can read all today's Guardian politics stories here. And all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today's paper, are here.
As for the rest of the papers, I'm just going to mention the Ed Miliband interview in the Independent. It contains various lines worth noting.
Miliband says members of the SDP should now feel comfortable with Labour! . He has already had "a good chat" with Lord Owen, and he will be meeting Shirley Williams soon.
What happened in 1981 was a tragic moment for Labour. It kept us out of power for another 16 years. I think we now have a better chance than we have had for a generation of healing the split that cast a shadow over British politics for a long time. I feel that Labour politics now is much closer to the SDP's politics then than where the Liberal Democrats are now.
Miliband has offered to cooperate with the Lib Dems on the issues on which they agree. Last week he met Nick Clegg. "Mr Clegg's response to Mr Miliband's overtures was wary and, while they didn't break the mould, they did break the ice," Andrew Grice writes.
Miliband says he is "still discovering things about myself". This seems to be a reference to his ability to stay calm in a crisis.
He says he is not getting distracted by the highs and the lows of the job.
I am a pretty level-headed person when it comes to the ups and downs. I am an eternal warrior against despondency and complacency. It's part of the job description. In the downs, I don't read the newspapers, and I think it comes with the territory. In the ups, I don't say 'roll on Downing Street'. You have got to be the person who recognises that this a long road to travel.
10.38am: Alastair Campbell has been having a go at Mervyn King today too. On his blog he said King was "straying perilously close to political territory these days".
It is one thing to make statements aimed at helping the Bank fulfil its remit of meeting an inflation target something it is currently failing to do. It is quite another to chime in behind the Tory government's 'no alternative' defence of cuts, wage restraint and general misery.
10.00am: Graduate unemployment has doubled since the start of the recess! ion, the Office for National Statistics said today. In the third quarter of last year the unemployment rate for new graduates was 20%. Before the start of the recession it was 10.6%.
9.56am: Mark Hoban, the financial secretary to the Treasury, has announced moves designed to improve consumer protection in the mortgage market. They include the Financial Services Authority taking responsibility for regulating second charge mortgages from the Office of Fair Trading.
9.37am: Ed Balls, the new shadow chancellor, has gone head to head with Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England. In his speech in Newcastle (see 9.19am), King essentially endorsed the coalition's approach.
The UK economy is well-placed to return to sustained, balanced growth over the next few years as a result of a fall in the real exchange rate combined with a credible medium-term path of fiscal consolidation. Of course, there will be ups and downs as the squalls from the world economy blow us around. But the right course has been set, and it is important we maintain it.
Balls was asked about this on BBC Breakfast. According to PoliticsHome, He made the point that the Bank of England doesn't always get things right.
When we went into the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1990, everyone said 'what a great thing' - it was a total disaster. The one thing you can be absolutely clear about is everything has gone in the wrong direction in last few months since they [the government] changed Alistair Darling's approach not to cut too quick and too early ... The danger is that is going to make it worse this year that's why the Governor and the Chancellor need to have another look at the facts.
I'm not sure Alan Johnson would have had the intellectual confidence to tell Mervyn King that he had got it wrong.
9.23am: And this is what two union leaders h! ave been saying in response to Mervyn King's comments about falling living standards.
Paul Kenny, the GMB general secretary, told the Today programme that even moderate union members are considering strike action.
We are seeing, frankly, from areas of our membership, areas that have traditionally been very, very moderate and quiet, we are seeing calls for industrial action ballots. We are seeing people very angry about the fact that there doesn't seem to be a balance of justice in this. What they don't see is there's a strategy that says we are going to win this fight. There's a growing level of concern that there's no light at the end of the tunnel. It's all bad news.
And Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT, said in a statement that he had instructed his negotiators to increase their wage demands in the light of King's comment in his speech (see 9.19am) that he expects inflation to rise "to somewhere between 4% and 5% over the next few months" before falling back next year.
On Monday we re-open pay talks with Network Rail where we have already rejected a 5.2% pay offer - King's comments show we were dead right to say that that offer isn't enough to protect our members in this economic climate.
Today I have instructed all of our negotiators to factor in Mervyn King's inflation warning into current pay talks. He has raised the bar for our claims across the transport sector with his warning shot and this trade union will not sit back and allow inflation to erode our members standards of living.
Our members didn't create this crisis and we will not pay the price for it particularly while Mervyn King;s cronies down in the City, who did drive the UK economy over the cliff, are partying like it's 1999.
9.19am: If you want to read the Mervyn King speech in full, it's available on the Bank of England's website (pdf). Here's the key passage about pay falling in real terms.
So why is th! ere so m uch unhappiness about inflation at present? The answer is clear. The three factors I described higher import and energy prices and taxes have squeezed real take-home pay by around 12%. Average real take-home pay normally rises as productivity increases money wages normally rise faster than prices. But the opposite was true last year, so real wages fell sharply. And given the rise in VAT and other price rises this year, real wages are likely to fall again. As a result, in 2011 real wages are likely to be no higher than they were in 2005. One has to go back to the 1920s to find a time when real wages fell over a period of six years.
9.12am: And two key peers have both been giving interviews about the control order statement today. Lord Carlile and Lord Macdonald are both Lib Dem lawyers. (Carlile is a QC, and Macdonald used to be director of public prosecutions.) They have both played a role in the review of counter-terror legislation. (Carlile is the government's independent reviewer of terror legislation and he submitted proposals to the May review. Macdonald was appointed to oversee the May review.) But, in the past, they have taken different stances on this issue. Carlile has defended control orders; Macdonald has called for their abolition.
Carlile was on BBC News earlier. He sounded like someone who believes he has won the argument. According to PoliticsHome, this is what he said:
Control orders have protected the public and the courts have found that they're proportionate. Every person who is subject to a control order at the moment has been found by a judge to be rightly suspected of being a terrorist ... In every case, as the result of decisions by the highest court in the land, people who are the subject of a control order are entitled to be told the gist of the case against them. They are also provided with special advocates highly qualified advocates who can advocate on their behalf ...
I believe that the Government! has tak en a very mature view of this. They've come a long way from the manifestos which were written when they hadn't seen the evidence. I believe that ministers from both Coalition parties now recognise that there is a special system of law needed for a very small number of people.
Macdonald was on the Today programme. He was slightly more cagey, and he would not comment directly on what will be in the announcement, but he suggested that a watered-down version of the control order regime will remain.
Public security is absolutely paramount and I'm quite sure the review won't be making any recommendations that compromise that. We also need to have an adult relationship between citizen and state and I think we need to recognise that some risks have to be run in order that we can live freely. I think there was an over-reaction on our part to some of the threats that we face and we saw some powers enacted that did go too far. This review has been an attempt to redress that.
8.58am: Let's look at control orders first. Lord West, the former Labour security minister, was on the Today programme. PoliticsHome was monitoring his comments. He made two main points.
He said that the government was essentially keeping control orders. It was "a bit of a porky pie" to suggest otherwise, he said.
Basically, it's a bit of a porky pie if the Coalition say "we have got rid of control orders". We have to have mechanisms in place to try and protect the nation and I'm very pleased actually, from hearing the evidence we're getting that the coalition are not actually getting rid of control orders. They will say, they will give them a different name or even not give them a name but actually the fundamentals of having to keep a very close eye on people ... are still there.
He said that control orders were now only imposed on people "who wish to do serious risk to our country". He knew this, he said, because he had reviewed t! he files relating to the eight control orders currently in force.
8.41am: On the one hand, it's an easy day for Ed Miliband. The economy has stopped growing, the head of the CBI has accused the government of not having a proper growth policy in a speech that at times reads like a Labour press release and the governor of the Bank of England has warned workers to expect wages to fall this year. PMQs should be a breeze.
On the other hand, it's a difficult day for Ed Miliband. The economy has stopped growing, the head of the CBI has accused the government of not having a proper growth policy in a speech that at times reads like a Labour press release and the governor of the Bank of England has warned workers to expect wages to fall this years. If Miliband can't dominate PMQs today, it's hard to imagine when he will ever come out on top.
As well as PMQs and the ongoing debate about the economy, we've also got the announcement today about the replacement of control orders. It's going to be a day for heavy serious politics. Here's a full list of what's coming up.
11am: Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, speaks at the New Local Government Network conference.
12pm: Prime minister's questions.
12.30pm: Theresa May, home secretary, announces the outcome of the review of counter-terrorism legislation. As Alan Travis reports, civil liberties campaigners fear that May will replace control orders with a regime that just amounts to "control orders lite".
2pm: Sir David Richmond, former UK special representative to Iraq and former director general of defence and intelligence at the Foreign Office, gives evidence t! o the Iraq inquiry.
On the Today programme we've already heard Lord West, the former Labour security minister, saying that the government will be telling a "porky pie" if it claims to have got rid of control orders and Paul Kenny, the GMB general secretary, predicting more strike action.
I'll post the quotes in full soon. As usual, throughout the day, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at around 1.30pm, after the May statement, and an afternoon one at 4pm.
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