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Lord West, who advises the Prime Minister on security matters, told the House of Lords: “There is another great plot building up again and we are monitoring this.”

His comments came the day after the House of Lords forced the Government to abandon plans to extend detention without trial for terror suspects to 42 days.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, dropped the measure from the bill after it was defeated in the upper house but warned critics they were exposing the country to a greater risk.

During a debate on the Counter-terrorism Bill, Lord West repeated the government’s intention to keep the proposals in a separate piece of legislation to be introduced if needed in the face of an emergency.

He told peers: “Some of the measures that we have put into place in the past 15 months have made us safer, but that does not mean that we are safe.

“The threat is huge. It dipped slightly and is now rising again within the context of ’severe’.

“There are large complex plots. We unravelled one, which caused damage to al-Qaeda and the plots faded slightly.

“However, another great plot is building up again, which we are monitoring.

“We have done a great deal to protect ourselves and to look after our water supplies, our resilience, underground trains, our preparedness and communications.

“We have done all the things that we need to do, but the threat is building - the complex plots are building.”

The Daily Telegraph reported two weeks ago that security sources believed terrorist activity was nearing “critical”.

The threat level is at the “severe end of severe” according to sources who say the level of “ambient activity” among terrorist cells has increased in recent months and they are now operating at full stretch.

The source said: “We are not chasing shadows. These are potential threats to security and life. Police and the security network are operating at full capacity.”

The assessment, which has five levels, has only been “critical,” meaning an attack is “imminent,” during last year’s attack on Glasgow airport and the July 2005 London bombings.

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