Lords ready to kill off 42-day detention

MINISTERS were braced for a defeat of their plans for 42-day detention today as a former police chief warned the proposals would act as a "recruiting sergeant" for terrorists.

Lord Dear, former HM Inspector of Constabulary and chief constable of West Midlands police, hit out as he tabled a Lords amendment to kill off the scheme. Crossbencher Lord Dear, who was on an IRA hit-list, was joined by former intelligence chiefs Baroness Neville-Jones and Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller in a revolt in the Lords.

The Home Office signalled that it would press ahead with returning the measure to the Commons, but many observers expect today's defeat to mark the beginning of the end for the plans. Gordon Brown does not want to spend the next year battling over the proposals and is expected not to use the Parliament Act to ram it through the Lords.

Lord Dear believes that the Government's civil liberties "safeguards" in its anti-terror Bill will effectively turn Parliament into a court of law and trigger huge problems of sub judice for any accused. Former shadow home secretary David Davis, who resigned as an MP to highlight the threat to civil liberties, said he did not believe Labour backbenchers would support using the Parliament Act to force it through.

"I think it will be dead," he told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show yesterday.