CONSERVATIVE
New Forest East

HOME AFFAIRS – TERRORISM PREVENTION - 21 January 2014

HOME AFFAIRS – TERRORISM PREVENTION - 21 January 2014

Dr Julian Lewis: I am following the right hon. Gentleman’s [Alan Johnson's] argument closely. Although I intend to vote with the Government, I find common ground with him on the question of relocation in one respect. Does he agree that, if terrorists move away from the more spectacular type of attack to the type that involves just a small number of them, and if people are not physically located away from one another, it makes things much harder? There will be nothing to intercept if people plan low-level attacks by meeting face to face.

[Alan Johnson: Relocation does not have to be part of an order – it would be within the Home Secretary’s box of tools. There would be no argument whatsoever if there was an agreement that that might be counterproductive. I do not think we are over those kinds of threats yet – I take issue with that – but I take the general thrust of the hon. Gentleman’s point. It would be a different matter if relocation was objected to by the courts, but that is not the case.]