Ed Balls: Civil liberties stance damaged Labour's reputation

Published on Sunday 21 November 2010 11:18

Ed Balls has suggested that Labour is ready to back moves to cut the period of pre-charge detention to 14 days, admitting that his party may have made the wrong decisions on the issue in government.

Shadow Home Secretary Balls said in an interview that he would back the halving of the current 28-day limit if it would not effect the efficiency of security services and police.

In what marks one of the most significant policy shifts since the election of Ed Miliband as leader, Balls conceded that Labour's reputation had been damaged by moves to increase the potential period of detention without trial to 90 days.

"Even 42 days was a step too far. Our reputation as a party which protected liberty as well as security suffered as a result," Balls said.

"Our approach should always be that if the evidence shows we can go down from 28 days without impeding the police and security services from doing their jobs, then we ought to do it."

An attempt to introduce a 90 day pre-charge limit under Tony Blair was defeated after a Commons rebellion in 2005, with a 28 day limit being implemented the following year.

This could be reduced to 14 days after Home Secretary Theresa May launched a review of current legislation in July, saying that her personal preference would be a two week maximum.

Mr Balls also said that he would support the scrapping of control orders if a workable alternative was introduced.

"They are such exceptional measures that in an ideal world of course we would want to manage without them," he said.

On both control orders and pre-charge detention, Mr Balls' final position will depend on the evidence of the police and the security services to the Government's review.

But he also emphasised his intention to move away from the approach pursued under Mr Blair and Mr Brown.

"I'm quite clear we must always strike a balance between protecting our country from the risks of terrorist attacks on the one hand, and preserving our democratic freedoms and fundamental liberties on the other: it should never be a case of one or the other," he said.

"In government, I've no doubt that my Labour colleagues did their best on every occasion to get that balance right in the face of the real and dangerous threats against the country, but did we always succeed? Probably not."