Prime Minister Tony Blair this evening called on the Conservatives to drop their opposition to his anti-terrorism legislation after it was approved by the House of Commons by comfortable majorities in a series of votes.

Following a series of concessions to win over rebels on the Labour backbenches, there was no repeat of the scenes last week when the Prevention of Terrorism Bill scraped through the Commons by a margin of just 14 votes.

MPs set up a fresh confrontation with the House of Lords by voting down a series of amendments made by the peers earlier this week, including a demand for a “sunset clause” to require Parliament to review the legislation before the end of this year.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke announced today that he would accept a key demand of the Bill’s critics for judges, not politicians, to decide on the imposition of all “control orders” restricting the activities of terror suspects.

He agreed that the Bill should return to Parliament annually in order for MPs and peers to decide whether its provisions are still needed.

Following MPs’ approval of these concessions, Mr Blair said it was time for Tories to accept the will of the elected house.

“Enough is enough,” he said, urging Conservative leader Michael Howard to ensure that Tory peers allow the Bill through when it returns to the Lords tomorrow.

Speaking in his office at the Commons, Mr Blair said: “The directly-elected House of Commons has now made its view very, very clear indeed.

“The security service and the police are advising us that this legislation is necessary to combat terrorism effectively.

“The Conservative Party - and even people on my own side - should stop trying to water this legislation down, dilute its effect, and understand it is necessary, it is right to protect the civil liberties of the vast majority of people in this country who want to be protected against terrorism.”

With much-reduced rebellions among Labour ranks, all of the Government’s proposals went through the Commons by a majority of 84 or more.

MPs voted down the “sunset clause”, which would have set a limit of eight months on the Bill’s powers, by a margin of 100.

They rejected by 89 votes a Lords amendment which would have raised the standard of proof required for a control order imposing restrictions such as electronic tagging, curfews or telephone bans.

The Government already accepts that the most serious orders - effectively amounting to house arrest - should be imposed only if suspects are deemed to present a risk on “the balance of probabilities”, and the Lords wanted this standard applied to all orders.

But Mr Clarke insisted that judges should be able to impose less stringent orders on the basis of “reasonable suspicion”.

“Were we to set a higher test, I am advised that some control orders could not be sought and some potentially dangerous individuals could slip away,” he said.

“I’m not prepared to operate in those circumstances.”

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