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Tories pledge to review terror measures
17 Nov 2009Taxpayers have spent £656,500 on the living costs of terror suspects subject to control orders since 2005, figures obtained by the Conservatives showed.
The Opposition said the sums spent were the equivalent of £120 per week for each of the 24 held under the controversial system which can amount to near house arrest.
Under the orders, brought in after indefinite detention was ruled unlawful, suspects face restrictions on where they can live and who they can see.
Some orders place suspects under curfew or require them to wear an electronic tag.
The Home Office provides money to pay the rent, Council Tax, utility bills and telephone bills of the suspects, who may also qualify for benefits.
Shadow Security Minister Baroness Neville-Jones said: "Control orders deny due process to the defendant, do not provide a reliable remedy to the security problem posed by terrorist suspects, and on top of all that cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.
"A Conservative government would review the morally objectionable and costly control order regime with a view, consistent with the security situation, to replacing it by the trial of suspects through the normal court system."
The figures were obtained through a freedom of information request, the party said, complaining that the Home Office took more than twice a 20 working day requirement to respond.
In September Home Secretary Alan Johnson ordered a wholesale review of the control orders regime following a House of Lords ruling that anyone placed under an order without knowing the basis for it was being denied a fair hearing. Two have so far been revoked as a result.
A Home Office spokesman said: "The UK faces a real and serious threat from terrorism.
"We need to protect individual liberty whilst maintaining our nation's security. We must protect the most important of civil liberties - the right to life - whilst also protecting our other fundamental values.
"This is a challenge for any government but the UK Government has sought to find that balance at all times. The protection of human rights is a key principle underpinning our counter-terrorism work at home and overseas.
"Terrorists are criminals who seek to undermine these rights and values.
"When dealing with suspected terrorists, prosecution is, and will continue to be, our preferred approach. Where we cannot prosecute, and the individual concerned is a foreign national, we look to detain and then deport them.
"For those we cannot either prosecute or deport, control orders are the best available disruptive tool for managing the risk they pose."
Reader views (1)
This review can have only one acceptable conclusion: If someone is deemed to be a threat to our safety and security, of a magnitude that justifies restrictions being placed upon them, they should be either incarcerated or deported. No halfway house, and no bloody benefits!
- Keith Lonsdale, Doncaster, 17/11/2009 13:24
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