Head-to-head: Terror bill

Many of the suspects have been held at Belmarsh prison

The government faces a crucial day in its attempts to pass legislation to deal with terror suspects who cannot be successfully prosecuted.

Liberal Democrat Lord Thomas of Gresford is one of the most strenuous critics of the bill, and believes it must have a "sunset clause" that means the bill will lapse in November when new legislation will be needed.

Home Office Minister Hazel Blears believes it is time for the House of Lords to accept the decision of the Commons, but has not ruled out agreeing to a sunset clause and reviewing it again further down the line.

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Lord Thomas

The position is that a sunset clause would mean that whoever is in power after the next election would immediately have to get down to it and to produce, with the consultation of all the other political parties, a new bill.

That is very different from looking at this dreadful bill that they are trying to push through at the moment and simply renewing it.

A government such as the present one would push through approval of the bill on a renewal in the Commons with its majority and then it would go to the Lords. What are the Lords to do?

The bill is bad and it should be brought to an end Lord Thomas of Gresford

We don't like to vote down the elected house unless its absolutely essential and would we in those circumstances say 'well, no, no, no we are going to stop this bill and ignore what the Commons has said'.

[A review is] not a safeguard at all, it's all smoke and mirrors.

I don't think we can simply accept assurances made by the current administration - it could change and change quite dramatically.

The bill is bad and it should be brought to an end and something new, and something that's more agreed by all the parties, should be put in place.

They have put in place a fall-back position which would extend the current provisions until November. That's why November appears in the sunset clause. During that time fresh legislation can be put in place.

In the meantime, as far as those who are locked up in Belmarsh are concerned, they can be given bail, if the government doesn't oppose it, on terms which are very close, if not identical, to the terms of the control order.

So they would be in precisely the same position.

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Hazel Blears

I think that we've made some dramatic movements in the last week or so around judicial involvement.

We've offered annual renewal of this legislation, as well as independent review, as well as a three-month report back to parliament and we've offered to consult with the police about continuing to look at prosecution.

I think what we've got now is some measured law, a good legal framework to deal with what we've always said, a small number of people we can't prosecute through the traditional criminal justice system.

We've responded properly to the decisions of the courts in this country Hazel Blears

We have to have a legal framework that does protect the people of this country.

The sunset clause says that the legislation should expire in November. [Former health secretary] Frank Dobson made some very practical points that by the time we have an election, we then have a summer recess, we'd only have weeks to look at legislation.

We've got a timescale [now] because we had the House of Lords decision on 16 December. We had to respond to that. We waited properly for the outcome of our legal system in this country.

Now we've responded properly to the decisions of the courts in this country - which is a bit of an irony considering some of the discussion that's gone on the last few weeks.