The Committee has already reported several times on the main human rights issues raised by the Counter-Terrorism Bill. The main purpose of this Report is to comment on the adequacy of the additional safeguards which the Government has indicated it intends to bring forward to meet the human rights concerns about its proposal to extend the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 42 days. The report explains the Committee's conclusion that the additional safeguards are inadequate to protect individuals against the risk of arbitrary detention (paragraphs 1-2).

Ministers at first argued that this proposal was justified by the high level of the terrorist threat. Now they argue that the threat is growing. But the Committee has still not seen any evidence which demonstrates that the threat is growing. It recommends that the Government provide Parliament with the evidence on which it relies when it says that the threat from terrorism is growing (paragraphs 4-9).

There is so far no information in the public domain about the use made of the extended power to detain without charge for up to 28 days since it was last renewed in July 2007. The Committee recommends that the Home Secretary makes the information publicly available in time to inform the debate at the Bill's report stage in the House of Commons (paragraphs 10-12).

Despite the Committee's earlier recommendations, the Government has not included in the Counter-Terrorism Bill a provision to improve the existing arrangements for parliamentary review of the operation of extended pre-charge detention. The Committee puts forward amendments to the Bill to improve the arrangements for parliamentary review (paragraphs 13-19).

The Government has indicated that it intends to bring forward some additional safeguards, modelled on the Civil Contingencies Act, to ensure that the proposed power to extend pre-charge detention to 42 days is not abused. The Committee reiterates its view that the Civil Contingencies Act does not already provide the power to extend the maximum period of pre-charge detention, and that it would be undesirable in principle for such a power to be available under the Civil Contingencies Act because the safeguards in that Act are inadequate. The Committee would be opposed to any proposal to amend the Civil Contingencies Act to allow the Secretary of State to extend the period beyond 28 days by emergency regulations.

The Committee considers the adequacy of the additional safeguards which the Government says it intends to propose. In the Committee's view, some of the suggested definitions of what is meant by "exceptional need" do not appear to raise significantly the threshold for the use of the power. A requirement that the Secretary of State should simply make a declaration to Parliament that there is exceptional need would not be much of a safeguard without making it a precondition of the exercise of the power. Nor would a requirement for parliamentary authorisation of the Secretary of State's decision within 7 days be a very significant safeguard either. The exceptional need would relate to a specific investigation which means that the debate in Parliament would be heavily circumscribed by the risk of prejudice to future trials.

The additional safeguards are not likely to include any additional judicial safeguards for the individual at hearings to extend their detention. The lack of proper judicial safeguards at such hearings is one of the main reasons why extending the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 42 days, without any additional judicial safeguards, would be in breach of the right to liberty in Article 5 ECHR. The Committee is not therefore persuaded that the additional safeguards being considered for the Bill provide sufficiently strong safeguards to meet the human rights concerns it has expressed about this aspect of the Bill (paragraphs 20-40).

In any event, as the Committee has explained in earlier reports, no amount of additional parliamentary or judicial safeguards can render the proposal for a reserve power of 42 days' pre-charge detention compatible with the right of a terrorism suspect to be informed "promptly" of the charge against him under Article 5(2) ECHR. The Bill is therefore incompatible with Article 5(2) on its face and a derogation from the UK's obligations under Article 5 would be required to make such a power available (paragraphs 42-44).

The Government argues that the reserve power will be used only in truly exceptional circumstances of a grave threat from terrorism. Article 15 ECHR already provides for the possibility, in principle, of extending the period of pre-charge detention in a case of genuine public emergency threatening the life of the nation, to the extent strictly required by the emergency. If there is a genuine emergency within the terms of Article 15 ECHR the Government should make its case for such a derogation rather than seek new legislation now. In the Committee's view the Government has not made its case. There is a case for providing in advance a detailed framework for the exercise of the power to derogate from the right to liberty in a genuine emergency, to ensure that the necessary safeguards against disproportionate exercise of the derogating power are already firmly in place. Neither the Civil Contingencies Act nor the Bill with the additional safeguards constitute such a measure because the emergency threshold is too low and the safeguards are too weak. The Committee recommends that the opportunity be taken to provide a clear framework for any future derogation from the right to liberty in this context, incorporating the necessary safeguards against improper derogation (paragraphs 45-55).

The Committee urges the Minister to meet the special advocates to discuss the Committee's recommendations and to report to Parliament on the outcome of that meeting (paragraphs 56-58).

The Committee welcomes the Government's proposal to place the disclosure and use of information by the intelligence services on a statutory footing. However, it cannot accept the Government's argument that the existing safeguards are working well and there is therefore no need for express safeguards to accompany the statutory power to acquire, use and disclose information. In the Committee's view the recent examples of questionable information sharing by the intelligence services, which risk making the UK complicit in torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment, show that there is a need for substantive legal safeguards to guarantee against the arbitrary and disproportionate use of the power to disclose and use such information. The Committee proposes amendments to strengthen safeguards (paragraphs 59-73).