Opposition parties knock back Brown's terror detention plan

Opposition parties have rebuffed Gordon Brown's latest attempt to create a cross-party consensus over his plans to extend the amount of time that suspected terrorists can be held without being charged.

The Prime Minister has launched a new drive to win enough support in Parliament to increase the current 28-day maximum period and is prepared to drop his original proposal to double it to 56 days. He wants to shift the debate away from a number of days to the safeguards that would apply during detentions.

Mr Brown is expected to offer additional protection for people being held. Each seven-day extension after 28 days would have to be approved by the Home Secretary as well as the Director of Public Prosecutions and a High Court judge. Further safeguards are likely to be offered in the next few weeks.

Ministers point out that the Tories and the pressure group Liberty have argued that under the 1994 Civil Contingencies Act, people can already be held for up to 58 days if the Government declares a state of emergency. Mr Brown does not want to use this power, believing it would give the "oxygen of publicity" to terrorist groups. But he does want to raise the 28-day limit.

David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said the Tories would support temporary emergency powers in exceptional circumstances. But he said the Government seemed to be proposing a "permanent undeclared state of emergency", which the Opposition could not support, with not "an ounce of evidence" for extending the 28-day limit.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "How does Gordon Brown seriously think he can forge a national consensus ... without new evidence and with utter disregard for the strong opinions of those who believe it would be a step too far?"

There is little sign that Mr Brown is winning over the Labour MPs who rebelled against Tony Blair's defeated plans to raise the limit to 90 days. David Winnick, a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "I'm not persuaded." Mark Fisher, another Labour rebel, said: "The Government has no evidence in front of it that there is a need to extend 28 days."

Lord Carlile of Berriew, the independent reviewer of terrorist laws, criticised the contradictory signals coming from ministers and accused them of "muddled thinking." But he did not believe they would use the Civil Contingencies Act, which would be a "very bad idea". He said that, with better judicial scrutiny, "very few people", perhaps one or two, would be held for more than 28 days and "quite a lot of people who have been held for up to 27 days and some hours would be held for a rather shorter time".