Report on Control Orders in 2011

Government response, Cm 8443, September 2012

This report covers the last year of control orders and is intended as an epitaph on the control order system as a whole.  It also looks forward to their replacement, terrorism prevention and investigation measures (TPIM). Control orders are placed in their international, domestic and historical context.  Their workings are explained, and an assessment given of their effectiveness, enforceability and fairness.  The annexes include sample control orders, Home Office costs, a summary of judgments and obligations on controlled persons.  There are 7 recommendations set out in the report.

The report recommends:

• Ensuring that TPIMs are used only as a last resort, when prosecution, deportation or less intrusive executive measures are not a feasible alternative (recommendations 1, 2)

• ensuring that no individual measure is imposed unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that it is necessary for purposes connected with preventing or restricting the individual’s involvement in terrorism-related activity (recommendation 3)

• ensuring the highest possible degree of fairness in the closed material procedure, by giving sufficient information in all TPIM cases to enable the subject to give effective instructions and by addressing the consistent concerns expressed by Special Advocates (recommendations 4, 5)

• improving transparency, in the form of the quarterly reports issued under TPIMA 2011 (recommendation 6)

• inviting Parliamentary Committees to consider how best the independent reviewer can assist them in future with the task of keeping the necessity for and operation of TPIMA 2011 under parliamentary review (recommendation 7).

“Select Bibliography of Terrorism Resources”, a House of Commons library note of April 2013, has links to the many Select Committee reports that examined control orders over the years.