Jacqui Smith to defy rebels with plans for 42-day detention without charge

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Jacqui Smith said yesterday that plans for 42-day detention without charge are going ahead - despite signs that a Labour rebellion is gathering pace.

The Home Secretary, speaking ahead of a vote on the Counter Terrorism Bill tomorrow, insisted the argument could be won.

She admitted the Government was legislating 'hypothetically' in case of a complex terrorist plot that meant police needed to hold suspects for longer than the current 28 days.

Attempts to extend the limit to 90 days in 2005 ended in Tony Blair's first Commons defeat.

Miss Smith told the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1: 'We don't think that at this point in time there is a justification for extending that maximum period, which is at the moment 28 days.

'But there is a consensus that

we might in certain circumstances in the future need that --for example, if you had a series of multiple plots which you had to investigate, if you had an extremely complex plot that involved a lot of international investigation.'

Miss Smith called on MPs to 'take their responsibilities seriously' and said she 'believed and hoped' the Government would win the argument.

But in a sign that the argument may be slipping away from Ministers, a senior Labour MP who backed Mr Blair over 90 days said he would now not support the 42 days proposal.

Andrew Dismore, who chairs the Joint Committee on Human Rights, said the Government had not made a case for the increase and the proposals did not have 'sufficient safeguards'.

The Hendon MP told BBC Radio 4: 'Whilst I voted for 90 days twoanda-half years ago, that was because there didn't really seem to be any alternative then.

'Now I think there is an alternative, a coherent package. We have now got experience of working with 28 days.'