Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

Lord Bhatia Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard
Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Lords Chamber

The Bill has given many the impression that the Government have made a decision to deal with serious terrorism by resorting simply to even tougher sentencing, but with too little consideration given to some of the more unpalatable consequences of that approach. I and my colleagues on our Benches do not believe that that impression gives the whole picture. From discussions we have had with Ministers and officials, it is quite clear that they are all determined to do the best they can to cope with an increasing number of convicted terrorists in our prisons—a number that will increase even further as the result of the Bill. However, that process can be greatly assisted by a transparent process of reviewing both the successes and the failures that follow changes of the importance of those included in the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Bhatia (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I fully agree that the different treatment is justified because of the consequences of the early release of the offender. The offender must remain for the maximum sentence of 25 years as stated in the Bill.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to the whole group but I have co-signed Amendments 24 and 25 in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, respectively. I signed those agreements because they seemed so sensible. It is all very well making up rules and imposing limitations on people’s liberty but, if you do not have the facts and you do not actually know what the statistics are, it all seems a bit academic. Post-legislative scrutiny is incredibly important, especially for Bills such as this which implement contentious and possibly damaging and complex arrangements. They can either work very well or be disastrous.

The Government are taking a very worrying approach to counterterrorism with this sort of “tough on crime” mentality where we just lock people up and throw away the key. We need an evidence-based, multidisciplinary approach to deradicalisation. We need to rescue people from these deeply destructive ideologies, recognising that they are pretty much groomed and brainwashed until their thinking becomes so warped that violence seems like a legitimate tool.

I agreed with every word that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said earlier about prisons. I have visited prisons and have spoken to a lot of people who have been in them and, quite honestly, there is a huge risk that issues and behaviours like this can spread in prison and in fact the prisons become a recruiting ground. That is pretty much how ISIS started, in the prison camps in Iraq, so we have a precedent for some quite damaging events coming out of locking people up. We have to be very careful that the Government’s attempts to imprison people indefinitely do not just make the problem much worse. Could we please have independent reviews and get the evidence base, and compare the Government’s approach with the other options, which could be much better?