THE former head of MI5 added her voice yesterday to opposition to government plans for 42-day pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects.
Baroness Manningham-Buller told the House of Lords she did not believe the proposal to extend from the current 28-day limit was "in any way workable".
Her comments came as peers debated the Counter-Terrorism Bill, which scraped through the Commons
by just nine votes last month.
Lady Manningham-Buller is the latest in a string of high-profile figures from the security and legal establishment to come out against the 42-day plan, following the former lord chancellor, Lord Falconer; the former attorney general, Lord Goldsmith; the Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini; and the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald.
Her successor as director general of MI5, Jonathan Evans, took the rare step last month of issuing a public statement to say the Security Service was standing aside from the debate over 42 days, as it was not an appropriate body to advise the government on detention limits.
In her maiden speech to the Lords yesterday, Lady Manningham-Buller said: "I have weighed up the balance between the right to life – the most important civil liberty – the fact that there is no such thing as complete security, and the importance of our hard-won civil liberties. Therefore, on a matter of principle, I cannot support 42 days' pre-charge detention, although I do understand there are different views."
The full article contains 253 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
