Our coverage of the Commons debate on the bill enabling the Home Secretary to place individuals under house arrest appended the list from Hansard showing how MPs voted on the issue. One puzzle: the name of the Labour MP for Stevenage, Barbara Follett, is nowhere to be seen. This is odd, given that she made what was by far the most effective and moving speech against the proposed measures.
Here's part of what she said:
"I lived for many years in South Africa, during the dark days of apartheid. During that time, Britain's legal system was held up as a beacon of light and hope, as the prison bars of the apartheid state closed around us. In 1961, the South African Government introduced the General Law Amendment Act, which allowed people to be detained for 12 days without trial. By 1963, that had been extended to 90 days. By 1965, it was 180 days. Two years later, it became indefinite. At the same time, the apartheid regime was issuing control orders that restricted the right of some citizens to congregate, to work and, in some cases, to leave the confines of their own homes. Those orders had a devastating effect on the life of the suspect and his or her family. I should know—my first husband was served with one of them in 1971. He lived under it for five years, and it was only thanks to the generosity of the university at which he taught that he did not starve. He could not work, leave his home or travel to Cape Town to see his mother, and he barely saw his children.
[...]
My first husband was put under house arrest because the apartheid state believed that he was a threat to its security. He probably was; he was campaigning to give black people the right to vote and join trade unions. Given the structure of the South African state, he probably was threatening it because it believed that only whites could vote and join trade unions. House arrest hampered him, but did not stop him, which was probably why, just before his five-year order was due to expire, he was shot dead in front of our two young daughters in their bedroom. I tried to comfort them in the days that followed by telling them that we were going to go to Britain, where people were not detained without trial or put under house arrest. When one tries to tell a 13-year-old and a nine-year-old that not all parts of the world are as bad as others, one looks for examples, and we in Britain were that example. I am glad that I am here today so that my now 40-year-old and 36-year-old daughters can hear that we are still fighting to uphold that."
