Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Bill

Lord Beith Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 24th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord in his powerful speech, and I will return to his key point. But I first want to indicate that the Constitution Committee was concerned about and very much regrets that this is a fast-tracked Bill whose scrutiny is therefore curtailed. The committee points out that scrutiny of the second terrorism Bill, which we are expecting later in this Session, must take account of the provisions of this Bill, which will be revisited at that point. Indeed, the Government’s Explanatory Notes almost imply that that is an alternative to the post-legislative scrutiny that they are not providing for. My noble friend Lord Marks has tabled an amendment for Committee—and I have added my name to it—requiring a one-year review. Even though many of the effects of this Bill will take time to show, the way in which it has been rushed through as fast-tracked legislation requires it to be reviewed early.

There is fairly widespread agreement on requiring all offenders covered by this Bill to be subject to Parole Board assessment as a condition of early release. That is a necessary response to the threat posed by ideologically driven terrorists who may have been convicted of lower-level offences but show no clear sign that they are likely to desist from terrorist activity when released. It is right and not an egregious form of retrospection that existing prisoners should now face a Parole Board assessment, but I question whether that could not better be done and would not better address the more serious retrospectivity concerns at the halfway stage, when they currently expect to be released, rather than at the two-thirds point.

At either point, the power of the Parole Board not to release is, in my view and in all the circumstances, a reasonable variation of the way in which the total sentence is to be served. It is not clear to me that much if anything is gained for public safety from denying that assessment until a later point in the custody of existing prisoners—a later point that either they or the sentencing judge would expect to be the one when they would be released. The sentence is the whole of the sentence, not just the custody part: the assumption that custody is the only significant part of the sentence is wrong, and it bedevils much discussion of criminal justice policy more widely. However, I see no justification for the move from half to two-thirds for the point at which the Parole Board makes the assessment in respect of existing prisoners.

That brings me to the reality of the threat. These people will be released—fairly soon in many cases. A year or two added to the period of custody solves nothing. It does not of itself turn terrorists into peace-loving, law-abiding members of the community. Moreover, it is a fallacy to say that committed terrorists are a danger only when they are released. Some of them could pose more harm through their activities in prison than they might do outside. Prison presents them with a ready supply of vulnerable, resentment-filled potential recruits and with the time and opportunity to groom and train those people to do massive damage when they are released.

A transformation of the prison system is required, so that it has the means, the people and the skills to engage in a serious deradicalisation programme. I simply do not recognise as the present reality of the prison system the description that the Minister gave us of the measures that the Government either are undertaking or believe they will be able to undertake in that respect. It will require effective separation of radical recruiters from those whom they seek to draw into their evil activities and structures. It will be impossible to do these things while our prison system is hopelessly and increasingly overcrowded, understaffed and underresourced. We need to take some of the other pressures off the prison system, including from longer sentences, to enable this to be achieved at all. As the noble Baroness said earlier, it also requires a substantial commitment to the probation service and other relevant agencies such as the police and the security services.

We also have to consider the warning from Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer, that the Bill creates a situation in which standard determinate-sentence offenders will be released without ever having been subject to licensing conditions, even though they have been judged as high risk and therefore not released until the full term has expired. This, he points out, creates a cliff edge at release, when it might have been more effective to have at least a period of release under strict licence conditions as a prelude to unconditional release at the end of the sentence.

We will look into these issues at Committee stage later tonight, but we need to remind ourselves that the potential of this Bill to reduce or eliminate future terrorist activity is small. It will affect relatively few terrorists or potential terrorists—mainly those it has been possible only to convict of lower-level offences—and it relies on a prison system that does not have the capacity, skills, resources or even space to prevent terrorists from posing almost as great a danger from inside prison as they will pose when, inevitably, they are released.