Draft Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (Risk of Being Drawn into Terrorism) (Revised Guidance) Regulations 2023
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The Minister for Security (Tom Tugendhat)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (Risk of Being Drawn into Terrorism) (Revised Guidance) Regulations 2023.
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. This is the first time I have served under the chairmanship of the representative of my uncle and aunt, so it is a great privilege.
The draft statutory instrument was laid before Parliament on 7 September 2023. It relates to Prevent, which is one of the pillars of Contest, the United Kingdom’s counter-terrorism strategy.
If I may quote Sir William Shawcross, who earlier this year published an independent review of Prevent:
“Prevent has a noble ambition”.
Its aim is to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. The Prevent programme literally saves lives. It helps to tackle the causes of radicalisation and assists people to disengage from terrorist ideologies. In simple terms, Prevent is an early intervention programme that works to keep us all safe. I am a passionate advocate of this preventive approach.
To offer early interventions to those in need, Prevent needs the help of certain frontline sectors that are well placed to support communities to reject dangerous ideologies, or to recognise when someone they know could be susceptible to radicalisation. That is why we have the Prevent duty, which is set out in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. It requires frontline actors, including education, healthcare, local authorities, criminal justice agencies and the police, to support Prevent’s ambition. It sits alongside other long-established duties on professionals to protect people from a range of harms, such as involvement in gangs or sexual exploitation.
The Prevent duty guidance, which is the reason for today’s debate, exists to ensure that those working in frontline sectors have the information they need to support Prevent’s mission effectively. The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act specifies the authorities to have regard to that guidance.
I recognise, of course, that Prevent’s mission is not easy. The process of radicalisation is complex, and unique to the individual. A multitude of factors can lead someone to subscribe to extremist ideology or to commit terrorist atrocities. Factors often include exposure to radicalising influences, real and perceived grievances, and an individual’s susceptibility. The Prevent duty helps to ensure that people who are susceptible to radicalisation are offered timely interventions before it becomes too late.
Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack and extremist exploitation of the conflict in Israel and Gaza serve as stark reminders as to what happens when extremism is allowed to fester. The disturbing escalation we have witnessed in extremist rhetoric, both online and offline, aims to raise tensions, divide communities and fuel hatred. Delivering Prevent in the best way possible is vital to strengthen our united front against those insidious influences.
As Members will no doubt be aware, the independent review of Prevent was published on 8 February 2023. Within the review, Sir William Shawcross made 34 recommendations, all of which were accepted by the then Home Secretary and are well under way to being completed. We expect to deliver 29 of the 34 recommendations by February 2024, and the rest shortly thereafter.
The updated Prevent duty guidance, which is the subject of this draft statutory instrument, was issued on 7 September. It responds to several of Sir William’s recommendations. First, the guidance has updated Prevent’s first objective to make it clear that Prevent should
“tackle the ideological causes of terrorism”.
The ideological component of terrorism is what sets it apart from other acts of serious violence and it is on that that Prevent, as fundamentally a counter-terrorism initiative, must be focused.
Secondly, the guidance sets out requirements more clearly articulating the need for high-quality training so that radicalisation risks can be more effectively identified and managed. This will be supported by free Prevent duty training from the Home Office and a new face-to-face awareness training course. Updated training on gov.uk has already been provided for public sector staff subject to the Prevent duty.
Thirdly, the guidance provides professionals with an updated threat picture and introduces the details of the strategic security threat check, which helps Prevent recognise and respond to threats proportionately. In addition to responding to the independent review of Prevent’s recommendations, the guidance will assist statutory partners to understand how best to comply with the duty. It includes details of the capabilities they should have to be able to effectively identify and appropriately manage risk. It also advises on how they can help create an environment where the ideologies used to radicalise people into terrorism are challenged and not permitted to flourish. However, importantly the guidance does not confer any new functions on statutory bodies and reflects current best practice from across the sector.
I acknowledge the excellent work that many professionals already undertake. Every day, our agencies and law enforcement officers work tirelessly to stop those who wish to do us harm. Since March 2017, they have disrupted 39 late-stage plots in the United Kingdom. Our statutory partners are also crucial in that work, and I am immensely grateful for the valuable contribution they make to help keep our country safe by facilitating early interventions for those susceptible to radicalisation. It is in recognition of that, and to ensure close consultation, that a range of key governmental partners were engaged throughout the development of the updated guidance. I am pleased to report that their feedback has been positive.
Subject to the approval of this House, this statutory instrument will bring the new guidance into effect on 31 December 2023, replacing the outdated guidance from 2015. Officials are already working closely with key partners to roll out the guidance, and they stand ready to support its implementation. As I have made clear, Prevent is a vital component of our response to terrorism, but it is a joint effort. With this new guidance, the safety net is strengthened and the country will be safer, which is why I commend it to the Committee.
Tom Tugendhat
I thank all hon. Members on all sides for the tone in which the debate has been conducted. The hon. Member for Barnsley Central is absolutely right that the first time we met I was sent out to shadow him. I very much hoped I would not have to take his job because we were in a combat theatre. This time, sadly, he is gunning for mine. I assure him I will resist just as hard as we resisted together nearly 20 years ago.
It is a great pleasure to work with the hon. Gentleman on this. As many will know, trust between individuals is what makes this Parliament work when it works at its best. We oppose each other on various areas—or rather, he opposes me as I try to do the best for the Government of the country—but the co-operation we have had has improved our ability to co-operate on things that matter. This is something that matters.
I want to pick up on the points the hon. Member—
Tom Tugendhat
I apologise to the right hon. Member who is sitting at the back and ask him to forgive me. He is an old friend and, again, he has raised some interesting matters.
As a friend of Jo Cox and a friend of David Amess, I appreciate the equality of terror in all its horror, in all its pain and in all its agony. I do not think that any of us in this place require a lesson in that. I hear point made by the right hon. Member for North Durham, but I would just say that the services, the intelligence agencies and the police fully appreciate that. The right hon. Member will also know that his words about professionalism in the Prevent space are absolutely right. We have heard frankly disgraceful commentary about the professionalism of our Prevent individuals, who are conducting these services, which completely ignores the fact—and it is a fact—that Prevent is about making sure that all British citizens are treated equally. It is about making sure that there is no soft racism of cultural misunderstanding that tolerates the extremism in one community rather than another, because “that’s normal for them”. No—all British citizens deserve the protection of the British state. They deserve protection from violence used against them, but they also deserve protection from the radicalisation of their children or themselves. That is what Prevent is about. It is about equality; it is about the rights of British citizens; and it is about the right of every citizen and individual in the United Kingdom to be safe.
The hon. Member for Barnsley Central made some interesting points. The point about mental health is valid and true; we are working with the Department of Health and Social Care on that. It is a complicated area, because while it is extremely likely that an individual who seeks to do harm through terrorism may well be suffering from a form of mental illness, that does not undermine the fact that their ideology is radicalising them towards violence. I am afraid that the overlap between mental health and terrorism does not negate either side. The reality is that both can exist at the same time, and we must address both at the same time.
The hon. Member’s point about the recent protests was also extremely valid. One of the things that has shocked me most—I use the term appropriately, I think—is the number of people the police have identified and want to talk to about incidents of racism, antisemitism and vile hatred who fill positions of responsibility in our society. That is completely unacceptable. The normalisation of antisemitism that we have seen on the streets is utterly unacceptable. It is wrong and deeply harmful. Not only is it harmful in the fear that it spreads in parts of the communities that we are lucky enough to represent, but it is wrong because it normalises in the minds of young people attitudes and actions that could easily lead to their causing greater harm and pain. We are absolutely committed to this, and I know that the Prevent professionals working in this space are fully aware of the dangers that we face.
A lot of the engagement on the AI question that the hon. Member spoke about is covered in different ways in the Online Safety Act 2023. The work that has just been done by the Prime Minister at Bletchley Park—the hon. Member will know what a remarkable achievement it was to get all those countries around the table for the AI safety summit—was an extraordinary effort that started to address some of the questions he spoke about. I am delighted to have the hon. Gentleman’ support on that, because it will evolve. The reality is that artificial intelligence is an extraordinary process. It is not just an event, but a process by which the acceleration of algorithms produces information and consequences much faster than many other systems have allowed. We are seeing extremism operating in a very different environment. We are also seeing a very different environment in which the information flowing into algorithms and producing artificial intelligence is changing the way in which different people understand things. This is a question about not just the process, but the input.
The last point I want to make is on the question about mixed, unstable or unclear ideology. In response to the right hon. Member for North Durham, the reality is that while there is extreme right-wing terrorism, it is not in any way ignored; in fact, it is addressed very clearly by our policing and Prevent professionals. Sadly, a huge amount of it is emerging at the moment from the Muslim community. It is a real problem, and we are addressing it. To protect young men and women in the Islamic community, we need to be sure that we support them in a way that would support everybody in the United Kingdom and attack those centres of radicalisation. It also means that we must look at other areas where they are emerging. The question about incel violence—involuntary celibate violence, or mixed, unstable or unclear violence—is also emerging. Sadly, it has grown at different points. It is still a smaller percentage of the events that we see, but sadly it is far too present even now.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (Risk of Being Drawn into Terrorism) (Revised Guidance) Regulations 2023.