Anti-terrorism laws can be scaled back without risk, says watchdog

David Anderson, QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, said more could be done “to reduce the intrusions of the law” without damaging public safety because of a reduction in the risk posed by al Qaeda-linked terrorism in Britain.

He said in a report to Parliament that changes should include an overhaul of random stop and search powers used at ports and airports to ensure that checks were “intelligence-led” and could not be viewed as “state-sponsored victimisation” of ethnic or religious groups.

Mr Anderson said that bail should also be available for the first time to some “peripheral players” arrested under terrorism legislation in cases in which the public would not be placed in danger by their release.

He also called for the long-standing bans on some extremist groups to be lifted as a further element in what he said would be a “cautious rebalancing” of the law in favour of liberty.

Mr Anderson’s comments, in his annual report on the operation of the terrorism laws, come only a day after Jonathan Evans, the director-general of MI5, warned that this country is facing a “new and worrying” threat from British-born terrorists created by the events of the Arab Spring.

Mr Evans added that the terrorist threat would “outlast the Olympics” and dismissed the “perception in some quarters” that the risk had “evaporated. He warned of a potential “resurgence” without continued “hard work” and perseverance by police and the intelligence agencies.

In his report, Mr Anderson concedes that terrorists in Britain could still “inflict death, injury and fear on a much larger scale” than they have so far achieved, but says that changes such as the abolition of control orders and the scaling back of random stop and search powers should now be built upon.

“I have concluded that there is more that can be done to reduce the intrusions of the law without endangering public safety,” his report states.

“We have some of the most extensive and effective counter-terrorism laws in the world. All the more need to keep them under review so that they impinge no further than is necessary on individual liberty. I believe that a cautious rebalancing could be achieved without materially increasing the risk from terrorism.”

On searches at ports and airports, Mr Anderson says there is a need for a more “proportionate” approach and that future searches should be intelligence-led, rather than random.