Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Anderson of Ipswich

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 12th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich]

My Lords, I support the amendment. The independent review of terrorism law in this country dates back to the 1970s. It offers us in Parliament an assurance that in return for consenting to some exceptionally strong laws, whose operation is often shrouded in secrecy, a security-cleared person will be appointed to report on their application.

More recently, in a development pioneered by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, the post of reviewer has become a token of good faith to the general public. Successive reviewers have criticised the Government where it is justified but their approval, when offered, has proved most helpful in dispelling myths and reconciling all sections of the public to controversial aspects of these sadly necessary laws, whether or not they are found to have been mistakenly applied in particular instances.

However, as has been said, Prevent has never been subject to the remit of the independent reviewer and is expressly excluded from the remit of the counterextremism commissioner. I would be the first to accept that policies must be decided by Ministers accountable to Parliament, but external review of the operation of a policy can be of particular value when potential conflicts between state power and civil liberties are acute but information about the use of those powers is tightly rationed.

Prevent is a well-intentioned, voluntary strategy that has achieved striking success, without a doubt, but it is handicapped from reaching its full potential by mistrust, in terms of both individuals and organisations that are willing to work with it. Criticism can fairly be aimed at some of the groups that devote themselves to promoting that mistrust. In my experience, such criticism is generally returned with interest, but blaming others is not enough. One has to ask why an anti-Prevent narrative, promoted by a controversial few, has been allowed to become so prevalent, not only in Muslim circles but more generally among the chattering classes of liberal Britain, and why there appears, from what I am told, to be more mistrust of anti-radicalisation programmes in this country than in comparable places, such as the Netherlands and Denmark.

For some years, I have thought that the Government should combat this hostile narrative through more transparency, wider engagement and commissioning a no-holds-barred independent review. On transparency, they have acted; I applaud the personal efforts of the Security Minister, Ben Wallace. The resulting, regularly published figures are a very good start and are now central to any informed debate, as indeed they were in previous debate on amendments to Clause 19.

On the other two fronts, we have further to go. This strategy is too important not to do as well as we can. An independent operational review with comparative reach would provide public reassurance where it is justified and constructive challenge to the Government where improvement is possible. I accept that it would be more useful if the Government wanted it, but the argument for a review does not depend on the prior identification of specific defects. I hope that the Government will agree to work with the amendments in a spirit not of self-harm but of self-help.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I am not sure whether the noble Lord includes me among the chattering classes, but I forgive him anyway. Does he accept that those who feel mistrust are not the sort of people to make formal complaints and put their views on record, which is perhaps part of the problem with having cases where we can point a finger and say, “This is a problem and this is where the mistrust comes from”?

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich]

We have heard echoes of mistrust within this Chamber today from a number of noble Lords, so I do not suggest that it is limited to those who are incapable of expressing themselves or have no outlet by which to do so. Nor, for the sake of emphasis, do I suggest that such mistrust is justified. That would be precisely the point of a security-cleared independent review: to get to the bottom of whether things are as they seem and as they should be.