Even those of us who are instinctively loyal to the government, and sceptical of some of the wilder claims of the civil liberties lobby, find it hard to understand, still less defend, the proposal to increase the maximum period of detention for terrorist suspects from 28 to 42 days.

The arguments are being exhaustively canvassed in the media as we approach next week’s vote. In every case to date charges have been laid within 28 days. Other comparable countries which face a terrorist threat all have shorter maximum detention periods (Australia’s is 12 days). Sufficient powers already exist (in the form of control orders) to cover the hypothetical situation where the police are convinced that someone is guilty but need longer to assemble the evidence.

As the Department for Public Prosecutions has made clear, in terrorist cases it is not necessary to apply the normal guideline of a 51 per cent probability of conviction before charging. The nightmare scenarios – five or 10 simultaneous plots aimed at multiple airports resulting in thousands of casualties – would almost certainly constitute a national emergency, triggering the powers available under the Civil Contingencies Act which permits a maximum detention period of 58 days. It’s little wonder, then, that almost nobody outside government ranks appears to support the proposed extension: not the DPP, not Lords Goldsmith or Falconer, not senior ranks of the police and counter terrorism officials.

As matters stand, the extension may pass, or it may not; either way, considerable reserves of precious political capital will have been expended on a measure which is basically unnecessary. This is all the more regrettable because we do need to strengthen our counter-terrorism laws. A far more pressing issue than detention periods is the question of deportation of terrorist suspects, as exemplified by the recent case of Abu Qatada.

Recently, Abu Qatada was granted bail by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), a special court which deals with national security cases. Qatada, a Jordanian national, was described by Mr Justice Collins in 2004 as a ‘truly dangerous individual’ who was ‘at the centre in the United Kingdom of terrorist activities associated with Al-Qaeda’.

How did this person come to be granted bail? In 2004, the Law Lords decided that indefinite detention of suspected terrorists (in prisons like Belmarsh) was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. Qatada was therefore released (albeit subject to a control order). In 2005 the Home Secretary decided that Qatada should be deported to Jordan, and he was then detained pending deportation. Qatada has now won his appeal against deportation; the appeal court has concluded that deportation would amount to a breach of his human rights. The government is appealing to the House of Lords. In the meantime Qatada is back on the streets, albeit that his bail is subject to stringent conditions.

The legal reason for this situation is that although Qatada has been convicted in Jordan of terrorist offences, there’s a ‘high probability’ that some of the evidence relied upon by the Jordanian courts was obtained through torture. So in deference to the prohibition of torture Qatada gets to stay in the UK, and because he’s already been held in custody for too long, he gets bail too. With all due respect to the judges, bailing this man back onto the streets of London is a ludicrous way for our system to be dealing with an individual who is ‘at the centre of Al-Qaeda activity in the UK’.

As I’ve argued elsewhere, there is more that the government could do to strengthen the torture convention, expose the horrors of torture and thereby hasten its elimination. Right now, however, we have the worst of both worlds. We do too little to challenge the use of torture in other countries, but in deference to the convention’s prohibition on torture, by default we allow Jordan to dump Qatada – a man who should be their problem, not ours – on us. It isn’t a sensible way to fight terrorism, nor is it an effective way to enforce international norms regarding torture, since it means that Jordan’s problem is exported to the UK.

As Charles Clarke has argued, we need a serious and considered debate about how best legally to confront terrorism in modern circumstances. That’s a debate which the government needs to foster and lead. If necessary, by legislating. We should certainly be challenging and condemning torture, but relieving other countries of their obligations to deal with their home-grown terrorists is no way to do it. The political capital being expended by the government in fighting for the 42 day reform would be better invested in sorting out other aspects of our counter terrorist laws, the Abu Qatada problem most of all.