Ukraine

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Judd

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords—

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Judd

Monday 3rd March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, last Thursday in the Moses Room we were debating terrorism. In the context of that debate some of us were raising the issues of immigration. This is a specific and good example of the danger that some of us foresee. Forgive me if I repeat a bit of what I said on Thursday. Extremists operate best in a climate of ambivalence, one in which a significant number of people—particularly young people but not only young people—are pursued by doubt. They may not like what the extremists do. They may actually abhor the actions themselves, but they sometimes wonder whether those extremists are perhaps acting on their side.

This does not create a climate in which everyone is busting a gut to co-operate with the security services. There are anxieties and doubts. Ruthless recruiters for extremism play on that kind of ambivalence. I can think of no area such as the one that we are debating that illustrates better the point that I am making. If it can be said that we have double standards of justice and that we do not live up to the ideals that we like to proclaim to the world as essential, and if it seems that freedom is not a complete but a relative principle—something that you like to apply when you can and when it is inconvenient you do not apply it—sometimes very intelligent people begin to raise queries. It does not take many people to be in such a state of anxiety and doubt for the extremists to make more recruits. It takes only a very few people in the age in which we live to do terrible things in the context of terrorist action. If we are going to win the cause of wooing people away from terrorism and extremism, it is a battle for hearts and minds. That kernel of toughness should be in all that we do. The battle for hearts and minds means that we should live up to the principles we proclaim and make them transparently clear in all the practice of policy throughout the penal system and, particularly because of the complications of international terrorism, in the sphere of migration.

I hope that when the Government consider their response to these issues they do some connective thinking and ensure that at the very time when we are desperately anxious about, for example, the implications of Syria in terms of accentuated terrorist activity, we are doing nothing that inadvertently even marginally plays into the hands of extremists.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I very much agree with what has just been said by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and what was said by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth.

I will be very quick because the debate is going on. It is worth remembering that in 2008 the European Commission produced a directive which said that the maximum period for detention was normally six months and that in exceptional cases 12 months could be added to that, with an absolute limit of 18 months in every single case. It is not to the great credit of our dear country that the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland both decided to opt out of that directive. Consequently, we, as one of the world’s oldest and most stable democracies, have to our discredit the shame of having people detained in prison conditions month after month, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, pointed out. We should say that the time is well over when we can continue to try to justify this kind of thing.

We could have a limited period; for example, the Federal Republic of Germany has a maximum period of two months as normal practice. We have already heard that France has 45 days. Spain has a serious terrorism problem—as serious as ours, possibly more so—yet retains two months as its normal limit. It is beyond my understanding and belief how this country has continued to leave this issue without seriously addressing it and saying that the time has come for us to opt back in to the directive and ensure that we never exceed 18 months for any case at all.

Justice and Security Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Judd

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, perhaps it is an appropriate moment for someone who is not a lawyer to add a layman’s word. We debated these issues very fully at Second Reading and I believe that the helpful amendments before us are a good attempt to try to meet some of the anxieties that were expressed then. Speaking as a layman, what has always been important to me is the principle which has emerged from the history of our judicial system: someone who is accused of an offence should know the case against them so that they can defend themselves. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, talked about how there is an element of unfairness in what is happening. That is true, but I think it is more fundamental than that. It is not just about unfairness; it is that we are breaching the principles of justice as they have emerged. That is what has happened because of the dreadful and appalling security issues which have arisen. As these procedures are applied, every possible effort should be made to keep the priority of justice at the forefront. Anything that can be done to achieve this should be pursued.

I am fearful that a certain sort of tendency could develop, but it should not be assumed that this is a change of gear which can easily be made in the process of a case. There must be a real and specific reason for doing it, and it should be limited to the fewest possible occasions. Even then, it is terribly important that we are certain that the principle of justice has been very much in the forefront of the minds of the judge and of everybody else before we pursue the technique.

We know that in the cause of combating terrorism and the extremism that leads to terrorism is crucial not to give ammunition to the cynical extremists who seek to exploit the impressionable with plausible argument. I cannot think of anything that has the potential to give more ammunition to an extremist wanting to recruit an impressionable person than for him to be able to say, “Look, there has not been proper justice in this case”. From that standpoint, the arguments we are putting forward are central to the issue of anti-terrorist and security policy itself. I am absolutely convinced of that. The people who have put forward these amendments are doing us a good service in terms of upholding the principles of justice and avoiding the terrible pitfalls of counterproductivity in the fight against extremism and terrorism.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I should like to follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd, in what one might call a very short interval for non-lawyers to speak. He has pointed to some crucial considerations that need to be borne in mind. I will turn for a moment to Amendments 58 and 59, which are crucial to a fair outcome of this complicated debate. In doing so let me say that I strongly agree with those who have argued for gisting as a way of moving a bit closer towards a just outcome for those who cannot be openly represented and, indeed, cannot instruct their representatives how to behave. It helps the people concerned feel that some sort of justice has been done.

We heard in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, the attempt to define national security in a way that would narrow down the implications to what was really of crucial importance to the nation. The response from my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench showed how difficult it is to make a definition of that kind. However hard we try there are always ways in which it is, as he said, either too narrow or too broad.

In Amendment 58, tabled by my noble friends Lord Thomas and Lady Hamwee, and Amendment 59, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and my noble friend Lord Lester, we have a way of getting back to a balance between what is represented by the need for security and what is represented by, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, the principle of justice upon which the whole of the British legal tradition has been based. That is exactly right. We have heard a paean of praise to our judges, saying that they are very capable of making difficult balanced judgments of this kind. The attempt to give back to them the decision about what that balance is is one that we can reasonably feel is in competent hands, where justice is likely to be the outcome.

What happens if one does not have Amendments 58 and 59 in this Bill? We have neglected this, or perhaps we had an earlier brief discussion about this at the beginning of the day’s proceedings but we have moved a long way since. What happens if one regards national security as having such a primary place that one forgets the interests of justice almost altogether? An example of it is the attitude of the general public, where they believe themselves to be put in a position of extreme difficulty and inconvenience because of a ludicrous pursuit of security. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, gave us an example of that.

Let me give another one, the way in which the concepts of health and safety are now held in almost universal ridicule by the population of this country. They were an attempt to go too far, to intervene too much, to interfere all the way through, in the ordinary rights and liberties of citizens. When you are told that you have to cut down a chestnut tree for fear of a conker falling on somebody’s head, or when you are told that you cannot allow young boys to try climbing a tree, you get to the point where the general public feel that this is a ludicrous overstatement of so-called security and safety, and they become disinclined to take any notice. That is a trivial example.

There are more serious examples. My political memory goes back quite a long way. In our history we have cases all too often forgotten, where security has trumped fairness and justice and left behind a real weakness in our democracy. Perhaps the supreme example of that was the decision to introduce the principle of internment into Northern Ireland’s politics. Just before this I was the Minister of State for Northern Ireland. It meant two things quite quickly. The first was a strong sense of a breach with what has been a long tradition of this country, at least as far as its internal justice is concerned. Secondly—and I will never forget the words used—this became a recruiting sergeant for terrorism. Even Lord Whitelaw, at that time Secretary of State, noticed how counterproductive internment was and how it led to more and more young Irish men and women letting themselves be recruited—signing up—for the production of terrorism. Internment was brought in in 1971 and was eventually dropped. Only after it was dropped was the path open to the Good Friday settlement and to what today is, if not a perfect, at least a much better outcome of the situation in Northern Ireland.