Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s proposal to increase the maximum time police can hold terror suspects without charge to 42 days won a strongly contested vote in the House of Commons yesterday (June 11).

Although nearly 37 MPs from Mr. Brown’s own Labour Party joined forces with Conservative and Liberal Democrats to vote against the proposals, this failed to defeat the provision that the government said is needed to deal with complex terror plots.

The new provision would give UK police two extra weeks than under current 28 days to question someone arrested on suspicion of a terrorist offence before they are required to either charge or release the person.

The passage of the provision in the Commons came despite strong opposition by those who said this would affect the freedom and civil liberties of terror suspects.

Opponents “Opportunist”

Tony Lloyd, chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, has said the result leaves the government "very much in tune with what the nation wants" and accused other parties of acting "opportunistically" in opposing it, while Lord Carlile, the government's independent reviewer of anti-terror legislation, said he was also pleased with the outcome. "I'm satisfied that Parliament has done the right thing today,” BBC reported.

With Prime Minister Brown facing a major test of his leadership over this provision, he had personally called Labour MPs to explain the need for the extension.

Opening the debate in the Commons, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said it is possible to safeguard civil liberties and rights and to protect people, and that today’s threat is more complex and international than ever before as terrorists use technology to cover their tracks; and that the police may need longer to get to the bottom of a case and bring evidence, in circumstances where they have had to move early to intervene before a plot is carried out.

Both Prime Minister Brown and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith say there may be occasions when the police need a lot longer to hold a terrorism suspect before they can bring a charge for a specific crime because of the "scale and complexity" of a threat. Many investigations that have come before the courts have involved detailed computer evidence which, according to the police, is increasingly found in encrypted forms requiring huge effort to decode.

The length of time a terrorism suspect can be held without charge has changed significantly in the UK in the last eight years. A change in the counter-terrorism laws in 2000 introduced the basic 48-hour detention, extendable to seven days with the permission of the courts. In 2003 that was doubled to 14 days - and the Terrorism Act 2006 took it to 28 days. That four-week limit came after then Prime Minister Tony Blair was defeated in a bid to introduce 90 days. Gordon Brown initially floated the idea of 56 days after coming to office in 2007 - and later settled on 42 days.

The new provision will next have to be debated and approved in the House of Lords before enactment.