Detention plans include major safeguards, Brown insists

Prime Minister Gordon Brown today insisted the Government's revised plans for extending the pre-charge terror detention limit to 42 days included "major civil liberties safeguards".

The package of concessions on the Counter Terrorism Bill were announced yesterday in a bid to stave off a major Labour rebellion over the issue.

At Commons question time, Mr Brown said: "With all the safeguards we have put in place, I believe it is right for the House to vote for the up to 42 days proposals that we are putting forward."

Labour's Sharon Hodgson (Gateshead E and Washington W) asked why Mr Brown felt the need to press for 42 days in next week's crucial Commons showdown rather than adopt alternative proposals to use the Civil Contingencies Act to declare a state of emergency.

Mr Brown said: "We have put in place what I believe are major civil liberties safeguards to prevent the arbitrary treatment of the individual.

"We put in place safeguards that require any order that comes before this House to be approved by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

"We would require a vote of this House - that is a second vote - before there could be any opportunity to go up to 42 days.

"We are putting in place the right for the independent reviewer to examine any case where the up to 42 days is used.

"At the same time, of course, a judge must review the case every seven days."

Mr Brown said in the 11 years he had been in Government, "we have seen how the complexity and the sophistication of the investigations that need to be conducted have grown".

He said significant figures including Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove and Peter Clarke, former head of Scotland Yard's anti-terror unit all "know that this power will be needed sometime".