CHARLES CLARKE hinted yesterday that he was ready to back down on plans to hold terrorist suspects for up to three months without being charged.

The Home Secretary told MPs that the Government wished to proceed with new anti-terrorism powers “on the basis of consensus” and he would rather reach agreement in the Commons than the Lords. Mr Clarke said that police had made a compelling case to extend detention without charge from 14 to 90 days, but later spoke only of the need to increase the permitted time.

His comments, as he opened the second reading of the Terrorism Bill, were interpreted by MPs as a signal that he may offer to shorten the length of time for which terror suspects may be held before being charged or released.

Several Labour MPs, however, declared themselves ready to vote against such a measure when the Bill comes back next month. Chris Mullin, former chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, asked why the case to hold people without charge for up to 90 days was so urgent.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats said that such a provision should be replaced by alternative steps to answer concerns raised by police chiefs who say that they need more time to complete increasingly complex terrorist inquiries.

Mr Clarke attacked the Lib Dems for voting against the Bill’s second reading, accusing them of breaking the spirit of trying to seek cross-party agreement on the measures. He said that their position meant they were not prepared to accept any new counter-terrorism measures.

Mark Oaten, for the Lib Dems, denied this, saying his party had wanted to reach a consensus but could not support a Bill that contained such a measure; it would back the legislation if the extension to detention without charge was removed.

Much of yesterday’s debate focused on proposals in the Terrorism Bill of offences of indirect encouragement or glorifying acts of terrorism, which a succession of Labour MPs said could penalise opponents of the world’s oppressive regimes and lead to their arrest if they set foot in Britain.

John Denham, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said he would have committed such an offence by supporting the revolutionary Left-wing regime in Nicaragua during the 1980s. Other Labour MPs voiced concerns for opponents of regimes in Zimbabwe and Burma, protesting that the Bill’s definition of terrorism was too wide. Mr Clarke agreed to look again at its wording.

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