Terrorism: Contest Strategy

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, it is an enormous pleasure and privilege to follow my noble friend Lord Anderson of Ipswich. He has given us a cogent and balanced picture of the issues that face us in this debate, and we are most grateful to him. I also thought that the debate was opened with great skill by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey.

Knowing as I do the noble Baroness who will be answering this debate, and respecting her as I do, I have a suspicion that we will all emerge from this debate with a shared sense of purpose even if we do not have a precisely shared mechanical view of what should happen. Whatever happens as a result of this debate and of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I am sure that we will be making progress in dealing with safety in public spaces.

The last part of my noble friend Lord Anderson’s speech was particularly important. It did of course relate to Martyn’s law and to the safety of public spaces. Indeed, if one looks at the controversy now about facial recognition, there are issues about where and how it should be used and the proportionality of it, but in certain spaces I would suggest that it is another of the tools that is legitimately used in the right places, for the right purposes, and subject to proper controls. Moreover, in itself it meets some of the aspirations of Martyn’s law.

It is very important that we should not have a siege mentality about terrorism. Some of the reasons for that have already been given, but my view is that if we enter into a siege mentality, then we give a victory to the terrorists which we would not wish to offer them. Also, many places of public resort are today increasingly conscious of their interests in taking proportionate protective measures. My noble friend Lord Anderson talked about the duty of care in negligence. Plainly, those operating in some public spaces know perfectly well because they have been advised about it by their lawyers or their trade associations that they have a duty of care to people coming into those premises by taking reasonable measures to protect their customers. It is right that in some cases that duty of care may extend to terrorism provision.

On Friday night, I went to the theatre to see Tom Stoppard’s incredible new play. In the entrance to the Wyndham’s Theatre, there was a bag search, which you expect now. Last week, I went to Central Hall for the Holocaust memorial service, the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the freedom of Auschwitz and the surviving prisoners there. Again, it took a few minutes, but there was a proportionate search there. That is what should occur in the right places. I am also of the view that this should be a reasonably elastic concept, and that if Martyn’s law is legislated for it should be sufficiently broad not to be too prescriptive.

I give one example of an experience I had when I was a much less distinguished Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, immediately before the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. I went to Gatwick Airport and was given the training it gives to people who work in shops, cafés and so on in Gatwick Airport. I spent a day there; it was fascinating and rather entertaining. It completely changed the way I look around when I go through airports anywhere in the world today. There are good examples and some awful examples. The good examples are certainly mostly in the United Kingdom, because that kind of training—which I believe started with the City of London Police—has been offered throughout the country. I believe that sort of training should be made available not just in iconic public spaces such as airports, where there have been terrorist difficulties in the past, but in the high streets of this country. Not just the big department stores, which already use such training, but the high street in general should be conscious of its responsibility and of the opportunity that such training gives to make shops, theatres and cinemas safer places.

There may be some benefit in making some requirements of the kind that may well be envisaged in the Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, which I have not yet seen, but we should be careful to ensure that we do not create unnecessary controversy. In the Prevent strand of counterterrorism policy, about which I know a little but not as much as some people give me credit for—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I am glad to see that one or two noble Lords here understand the joke behind that, for which I hope I will be forgiven.

Some of the issues that have arisen during Prevent have caused difficulty. The Prevent duty is not always as successful as we intended it, perhaps because the way it is defined is not as clear as we intended it. The notion of British values has caused a great deal of difficulty, because British values in Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, et cetera, in north Wales are different from British values in Dorking. We need to be conscious that British values vary around the country, so when we impose duties we need to be clear that we are imposing something universal, not offensive and more connected with proportionate rights and duties of citizens than with opinions of those of us who are part of the political class.