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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
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| Minister warns over terror plot | Minister warns over terror plot |
| (30 minutes later) | |
| Security Minister Lord West has said there is "another great plot building up again" and said the terrorist threat to Britain was "rising". | Security Minister Lord West has said there is "another great plot building up again" and said the terrorist threat to Britain was "rising". |
| Lord West was addressing peers the day after they threw out government plans to extend terror detention limits. | Lord West was addressing peers the day after they threw out government plans to extend terror detention limits. |
| "The threat is huge", he said, adding that "large complex plots" had dipped for a while, but were now on the rise. | "The threat is huge", he said, adding that "large complex plots" had dipped for a while, but were now on the rise. |
| Several peers criticised the home secretary's implication that 42-day opponents took security "lightly". | Several peers criticised the home secretary's implication that 42-day opponents took security "lightly". |
| Lord West said Jacqui Smith had not meant the comments "in exactly the way they have been taken", to protests from peers who said he should "disassociate himself" from the comments which they said had caused "enormous offence". | Lord West said Jacqui Smith had not meant the comments "in exactly the way they have been taken", to protests from peers who said he should "disassociate himself" from the comments which they said had caused "enormous offence". |
| 'Absolute nonsense' | |
| He told peers that while some measures had been taken over the past 15 months to make Britain safer "this does not, I'm afraid, mean we are safe". | He told peers that while some measures had been taken over the past 15 months to make Britain safer "this does not, I'm afraid, mean we are safe". |
| He said: "The threat is huge. The threat dipped slightly and is now rising again with the context of severe, large complex plots, because we unravelled one the damage it caused to al-Qaeda actually faded slightly. | He said: "The threat is huge. The threat dipped slightly and is now rising again with the context of severe, large complex plots, because we unravelled one the damage it caused to al-Qaeda actually faded slightly. |
| "They are now building up again. There is another great plot building up again and we are monitoring this." | "They are now building up again. There is another great plot building up again and we are monitoring this." |
| It has failed miserably and I don't think anybody sensible would revisit it David DavisConservatives Davis 'vindicated' over 42 daysPeers throw out 42-day detention | |
| Later he denied claims that people were being detained arbitrarily for up to 28 days - the current pre-charge detention limit - telling peers suspects were not just "dragged off the street". | |
| He said: "This is an absolute nonsense. We have had the security services, GCHQ, SIS, SO15 - these people have been monitored, tracked, listened to, spotted, seen who are they talking to". | |
| Lord West also said he thought "we'd done rather better" during the debate in the Lords on Monday about the bid to extend terror detention limits to 42 days and was "horrified" at the scale of the government's defeat - the measure was thrown out by 309 votes to 118. | Lord West also said he thought "we'd done rather better" during the debate in the Lords on Monday about the bid to extend terror detention limits to 42 days and was "horrified" at the scale of the government's defeat - the measure was thrown out by 309 votes to 118. |
| Within two hours of the Lords debate on Monday, the government announced it was dropping the 42-day proposal from the Counter-Terrorism Bill. | |
| But the home secretary said she had written the plan into a separate one-page bill which could be pushed through Parliament quickly in the case of a national emergency. | |
| Earlier David Davis, the former shadow home secretary who stepped down in protest at the measure and was returned as an MP after a by-election on the issue of civil liberties, said he had been "vindicated". | |
| "It has failed miserably and I don't think anybody sensible would revisit it," he said. |