Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, I have a sad sense of déjà vu, as this is a very real echo of the earlier Question from the noble Lord, Lord Balfe. I respect the insightful comments from noble Lords on that similar issue.
The whole country was unified last summer over the horror of events in Southport. It was indeed a brutal and senseless act of violence. We owe it to the memories of Alice, Bebe and Elsie to do everything we can as a society to ensure that such acts of brutality are not allowed to be repeated. Sadly, they appear to be repeating. We want communities to feel safe and individuals to go about their daily business, like Taylor Swift dance classes in the summer holidays, without fearing that there are dangerous people out there intent on hurting them.
It is deeply troubling that the Prevent learning review makes it clear that warning signs were missed in the lead up to that attack in Southport. These Benches have long raised concerns about the failures of Prevent. Indeed, as, the elected mayor of Watford when Prevent was first introduced, I remember the trouble that we had with our Muslim community in trying to get it to accept what Prevent was trying to do. It has had a very troubled journey through its many incarnations. For that reason, we welcome the decision to publish the learning review.
We also welcome the creation of the new Prevent commissioner. We are very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, will serve as interim commissioner. He is highly skilled and experienced in the complex issues that he will need to navigate that tricky road. I would welcome some details from the Minister on what powers the commissioner will have to enforce any recommendations and to ensure that they will be enacted. Recommendations must lead to actions and actions to swift, successful resolution with full transparency and accountability. Often, we do not have a very good track record in that regard.
Looking more widely, we have to ensure that our national security strategy is fit for purpose, given the wide range of threats we now face as a country. We clearly need to tackle extremist ideology, but not to forget those who are motivated not by any particular ideology, but rather by an obsession with violence or a hatred of society. Will the Minister say what the Government can do? What are they going to do to prevent people slipping through the net?
A point that often is not made is that we also have a duty of care to those individuals whom we ask to decide, for the safety of society, whether an individual is a threat to life. What is being done to support those people in that role? What training are they given to ensure that they can make the best possible decision on behalf of us all?
Finally, after the tragic murders in Southport last summer and the disorder on the streets afterwards, we saw communities coming together in far greater numbers to clean up the streets and affirm belief in something bigger than themselves. Protecting communities must be at the centre of everything that the Home Office does. What is being done to reassure the public that they remain safe from threats? What is being done to ensure that incidents such as this are not exploited by groups or individuals who would wish harm upon our communities?
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for their contributions. Like them, I want to start with the victims of this crime. They should be for ever in our thoughts when we deal with how we respond to these issues. Bebe, Elsie and Alice need to be remembered at all times. I remind the House that the perpetrator, whom I shall not name today, is now serving 52 years, a sentence passed by Mr Justice Goose in the Crown Court. That perpetrator will have a significant sentence as the result of the crimes he committed.
I am grateful for the welcome for the inquiry from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. The noble Lord asked me particularly about the timeline for the public inquiry. As the Home Office has already said, the inquiry will be non-statutory. We reserve the right to change it to a statutory inquiry if circumstances require. I hope that the noble Lord will know, because I have said this before, that the choice of chair, the terms of reference and the timeline for the inquiry are important matters that I will report back to this House on in due course.
Our first priority is to consult the families and the coroner who is undertaking a statutory duty in relation to this incident. We will therefore, at some point, be able to answer the noble Lord’s questions in a way that I cannot at the moment, but I commit to bringing this back to the House in due course.
The Home Secretary swiftly commissioned a review shortly after the murders which has brought forward 14 recommendations. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned two particular issues: data sharing and training. Recommendation 1 addresses data sharing and putting in place some measures to help with that. Recommendation 3 is about improving training. Having discussed the implementation of the 14 recommendations with officials, I can give a commitment that this House will have a report back by—I hope—this summer on the finalisation of those recommendations and the resulting practical action. The Government accept all 14 recommendations to be implemented in due course.
The noble Baroness and the noble Lord mentioned the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, who I am pleased to see in his place. I know he has a busy schedule looking at the issues we are discussing at the moment. The noble Baroness asked about the powers of the recommendations that the noble Lord may make. He is the interim commissioner. We have asked him to look at what happened in this case, and also to do a quick sprint on Prevent more generally. He, and whoever is appointed as the permanent commissioner, will have powers to make recommendations. I am still of the view that recommendations are to Ministers who will decide on those recommendations and be held accountable for them. I suspect that, in due course, there will be agreement on the outcome of any recommendations made. That will help to review independently, and to decide politically the way forward.
The noble Baroness also mentioned widening Prevent’s essentially terrorism role to look at other issues where people may have mental health challenges, be obsessed with violence or general hatred or have a whole range of other issues driving them that are not related to Islamist or far-right terrorism as we know them. We are looking at this and how it can be adopted. This is another issue that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, will look at in order to give what I hope will be a considered response to difficult and challenging issues.
Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, made a point about the community. What really impressed me about Southport after the attack was that the religious, civic and ordinary communities came together to reject the violence that had occurred in their town. They showed that the violence emanating from the violence in their town was also not acceptable or applicable and was rejected by the community. That was a valuable lesson. As political leaders, we need collectively to reject those who would exploit difficult issues for political ends. I am acutely aware that we have our political differences, but we should be standing together against terrorism, violence and the type of actions that led to the deaths of these three young girls.
I take some comfort from the response of the Southport community, while having to recognise that there are lessons to be learned because of mistakes that were made. As ever, those mistakes need to be rectified to ensure that we make positive change for the future. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, can assist the Government bringing his expertise to this area.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, this case, terrible as it is, shows the fine line that can exist at times between mental illness and terrorist offences, particularly where a single person is involved.
Prevent has struggled at times when police officers are trying to make decisions, based on intelligence or factual evidence, when mental illness is involved. I wonder whether the Minister might look at the unit in the Metropolitan Police called the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, may consider it. It was created in 2006 and has about 20 people in it. It was designed to protect royalty against people who become fixated on them. It is led by psychologists and psychiatrists. It makes a medical assessment of the threat, rather than just a criminal assessment as a police officer might do. It has police officers and mental health nurses who are able to access data from the health service as well as from the police. That balanced approach can be quite helpful. Sometimes, the way forward might be treatment, sometimes it should be criminal investigation with the consequences that might follow. This process has been quite well established for about 20 years, but it has never extended beyond royalty-fixated threat assessment. I wonder whether we all might learn from it.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe; he brings immeasurable expertise in his contribution to this debate. I will say two things in response. First, the Prevent programme still has to focus primarily on people who are being radicalised through a range of means and pose threats on both Islamist and extreme right-wing fronts—that is the main focus. But, secondly, this case shows that there are potential areas where we need to look at other issues, including misogyny, concerns around violence and its worship generally, and people just wishing to inflict hate on society for a range of reasons that are not politically or culturally motivated. I take what the noble Lord said, as there may be lessons that we could learn from it. I would be very grateful to discuss—with both the Metropolitan Police and the noble Lord, if he wishes—how we can widen the debate on looking at potential areas. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, will look at how we can draw a wider circumference around the support mechanisms to help with cases that fall outside the broad areas of Prevent but which still lead to the types of actions that Prevent is designed to prevent.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister and others for understanding that not everything can be squeezed into the rubric of “terrorism”, with its ideological motive and so on. I will make a small point on a previous point my noble friend made in reference to the sentence of 52 years. It is quite important to remember, and for the public to understand, that this was, rightly, a life sentence with a minimum of 52 years before any consideration of release; one would not always get that information from reading the newspapers. I hope that my noble friend will forgive me for making that clear.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
My noble friend is absolutely right. The 52 years is a minimum; it is a life sentence. Indeed, in his sentencing remarks, Justice Goose indicated that he felt that it was highly unlikely that the individual convicted would be released. That is a matter for well downstream. The concerns that we have around Prevent are things that we can resolve to stop that type of activity taking place in the future. As my noble friend knows, the reason a whole-life tariff was not imposed was because of the age of the perpetrator at the time of the event. I suspect that, if he had been older, a whole-life tariff may well have been given by the judge. My noble friend was right to add further definition to my comment, which was not meant to undermine in any way the sentence given.
Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. My thoughts are with all those affected by this tragedy in Southport. I am sure that the Minister will accept that there is a big difference between the decision-makers involved in Prevent—who are referred over 19 cases a day, and therefore 7,000 cases a year—and a reviewing officer who is looking at one particular case with the benefit of hindsight. I share the concerns that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, has about the decision-makers in such cases. Indeed, I do not think that it came out clearly in the review’s executive summary on the government website that, in this case, all the procedures and policies were followed by those involved in the decision-making. Therefore,
“it is the subjective decisions that have come into focus”.
Can the Minister explain how the Government will address the issues around subjective decision-making in such cases? Also, what does he think the impact will be on the considerable number of cases that these officers have to deal with now? Prevent is apparently expanding its definition to include a fascination with mass violence, in addition to concentrating on the areas of, say, Islamist and right-wing terrorism, which the Minister said the Government want Prevent officers to concentrate on.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord and for the experience that he brings to this issue. He raised two points; I will first answer the latter one about the potential widening of the definition. We are dependent ultimately on further advice from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, downstream. As I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, it will still mean that the focus is on Islamist and extreme right-wing terrorism, because those two issues are the most extreme areas that we need to resolve and deal with; they are where most cases come from. In the light of that, there may be—as in the first part of his question—additional pressures on case officers to look at how they work with different types of activity, which they may not be used to working with to date and on which they may need further training and support.
I hope that the noble Lord will have a chance to look at the 14 recommendations in the executive summary. The second states:
“Further training should be considered regarding the circumstances where visits to individuals during the initial assessment can be conducted”.
That further training aspect, alongside the other 13 recommendations that we have now accepted and will implement by this summer, will look at the range of issues that the noble Lord mentioned in the first part of his question.