Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Lords Chamber

Thirdly, the way in which the system operates seems to have been misjoined. The end product envisaged in Part 5 is that the Home Secretary should take drastic measures and issue a mandatory order. He issues a mandatory order after he has issued directions, but he issues such an order not because a direction has been broken but because there has been a lapse under Clause 21. The two things quite often might be exactly the same, but one does not have to exercise great imagination to consider that you could have no breach whatever of the directions but a blatant breach of Clause 21. I am sure that the matter will be attended to in due course.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I shall certainly not repeat what has been said—I am sorry; has the noble Lord not finished? I thought that he had.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I have a little to go.

Perhaps I may end in this way. The motivations of the Government are probably very decent, proper and understandable, but the way in which they are going about them is extremely naive and in many respects barbaric. Let us imagine that, before a person can speak at a university, notice for 14 days has to be given. A sketch of the content of that speech has to be produced. Just imagine how three people, all of them now dead, would react to that were they alive. One would be Bertrand Russell; another would be Bernard Shaw; a third would be a 30 year-old Winston Churchill. Do you think that they would have accepted the invitation? Do you think that they would have felt themselves bound by that stricture? It is a situation which, at best, is ridiculous and, at worst, can be extremely dangerous and counterproductive.

Most Members of the Committee will have heard at some time or another quoted the immortal words of John Philpot Curran, who in 1795 said, if I remember rightly:

“The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt”.

We can, by overemphasising vigilance, destroy the very thing that we seek to protect.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I shall not weary the Committee by using all the arguments that have been so well advanced by noble Lords on all sides. They have been much more eloquent than I could possibly be. I support the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lord Pannick and Amendment 104 because I do not think that the Government have made a very convincing case for moving from a voluntary to a statutory basis. They are quite right in wishing to see all higher education institutions taking the Prevent strategy seriously and co-operating with it but they have not given any evidence that this voluntary approach—reinforced perhaps by a bit of naming and shaming—cannot bring everyone voluntarily within this framework. They have said little about the efforts they have made to do that, except to admit, which I very much welcome, that the majority of universities are actually doing this already. Therefore, I do not think that the case has been made for moving from a voluntary to a statutory basis.

There is a bit of a mixture in this grouping, ranging from a carve-out for universities and other proposals that fall short of that, which would leave universities within the Bill but would mitigate the problems from it. I hope that the Minister will address some of the other amendments—Amendments 105, 112 and so on—which would achieve that mitigation. It is extremely important that that should appear in the Bill.

Finally, I have a point to make about the guidance. The consultation on the guidance with universities, if I understand it rightly, concludes at the end of this week. Frankly, that guidance is pretty horrifying. It has caused a great deal of the concern that has been expressed around this Committee by the nature of its prescriptive detail, its intrusiveness and the absolute impossibility for most universities to carry out these provisions. Next week, on Report, the Minister could make clear in the most formal way the changes to the guidance that will be introduced before it is promulgated. I hope that the Minister will take that seriously. If he cannot agree to remove universities from this Bill, which would be my preference, he should accept some of the amendments that would mitigate the effects of it, make quite clear that the guidance will be radically altered and explain how it will be altered. He should explain, above all, some of the points that he put in his letter about the positive things that the Government are happy to continue to see happening in universities and not just give a long list of the negative things that they are going to try to clamp down on. I hope that can be taken to heart before we come back on Report.

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

The amendments here fall into two distinct categories. There is the root-and-branch objection to the whole idea that higher education institutions should be brought into Part 5 of the Bill and the proposal that they should be carved out, to use the expression of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. Then there are the amendments that seem to massage various provisions within Part 5 as it presently exists so that it becomes, apparently, compatible with the explicit statutory duties already placed on those institutions to promote free speech, freedom of expression, academic freedom and so on. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I very strongly support the first category, the root-and-branch objection. It seems to be a matter of the first importance that, for universities and higher institutions, nothing short of the express provisions of the criminal law—or, no doubt, the long-established principles of defamation—should operate as an inhibition on the freedoms that are here in question, which really are core values that go to the very heart of effective university life in a liberal democracy. It is small wonder that so little enthusiasm has been voiced in the Committee today in support of anything approaching Part 5 in its present form.

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[Lord Bates]

That is in my next paragraph, if the noble Lord will let me come to it.

However, I can equally understand the trepidation of many in your Lordships’ House, and I have heard the strength of feeling on this matter. On that basis, I will commit to considering this matter further, and to discussing it with my ministerial colleagues, before Report, in order to identify whether it would be possible to provide some additional comfort to noble Lords, and to the education sector itself.

This has been a very wide debate, with some 20 speakers. Many have made very specific points and asked very specific questions. I am conscious that this is the second group of amendments within six weeks to cover Prevent, but—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Could the Minister perhaps extend the period of reflection with his colleagues to cover the issues in the guidance, which have given rise to such concern, as well? I am talking particularly about overprescriptive guidance. The Minister addressed some of those issues in his letter of last night, but by no means all of them. As the period for consultation will have expired by this weekend, will he undertake to consider—no more than that—what he will be able to put on the record on Report to make it clear that the guidance to be issued will be very different from the draft guidance that went into the consultation?

[Lord Bates]

Well, yes, I am happy to say that we will continue to keep the whole thing under review. That is the whole point of the consultation. I accept that the fact that the consultation concludes on 30 January may cause some difficulties. However, all the points debated today and at Second Reading are very much part of that consultation. I shall certainly go as far as I am able towards providing what might be described as an additional “first draft” type of review of the guidance, as a result of the responses that have been received so far. About 160 comments have been received, in addition to the debates that we have had.

I was about to say that a substantial number of points have been raised in the debate, and I can go through them. My noble friend Lady O’Cathain, who happened to catch my ear during the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, asked me not to miss out the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester about religious institutions. There is a point here, which we took into consideration, about what is a private matter, such as religious faith and worship, and what is a public matter—that is, a public matter in public institutions of education—and about comparing the two duties and thinking about whether we should extend our guidance into those institutions.

That was one of the reasons why my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, decided to send the letter that he wrote to mosques and other religious institutions, recognising the importance of faith and urging them to play their part in the community-wide desire to keep our society safe.

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[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for moving the amendment and giving us the opportunity to consider the important issues that he has raised. I agree with him that it is quite proper that the Government undertake reviews of policy and strategies from time to time to ensure they remain relevant and effective. The Government comprehensively reviewed the Prevent strategy in 2011. Since then, we have kept the various elements of the strategy under review. This has been part of regular business and in particular part of the annual report on our counterterrorism strategy, Contest, which is laid before Parliament. In the light of that, we have expanded the Prevent priority areas to reflect the changing threat, prioritised those that we feel are most effective and increased guidance and support for the voluntary Channel programme. In addition, the Prime Minister’s extremism task force was established in the wake of the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby,

“to identify any areas where the current approach was lacking”.

That task force reported in December 2013, just over one year ago. One of its conclusions was that delivery of Prevent should be put on a statutory footing in areas of the country where extremism was of most concern. The duty outlined in Clause 21 does just that. It does not limit itself to specific areas of the country. As the subsequent geographical spread of travellers to Syria has shown, such travellers can come from areas beyond those of most concern and listed under the current arrangements for Prevent.

Reviews of strategies can take many months to complete. It would be wrong in our view if we were to ignore the findings of the extremism task force and delay the implementation of this important duty in order to carry out yet another review. Should such a review take place at some point and recommend, in the light of actual experience of the implementation of the duty, that changes be made—for example to the authorities listed in Schedule 3—then the Government would be able at that point to lay regulations amending that schedule, which would need to be approved by both Houses.

Regarding the report to be provided prior to commencement, we have already published impact assessments on the measures in the Bill. As for the comparable legislation in other countries, the UK’s efforts in the field of Prevent are considered by most of our allies to be several years in advance of where they currently are.

I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, who spoke on this, that when we are talking about a duty that is effectively about the upholding of democracy, tolerance and respect for others I do not think it is in any way appropriate to draw upholding those values akin to a totalitarian approach. I know that he was trying perhaps to provoke us into some further response. What we are talking about here is how, as a free liberal society, we react to a growing threat from within our society from people who seek to challenge those very basic freedoms and who pose a serious risk through potential violence to individuals, be they on campuses or in wider society. That was why when we had an extensive review of the Prevent strategy—which was launched in 2010 and, I think, published in 2011—it took the view that we should focus on national security as the priority of Prevent. That is why the Prevent programme has changed to being one of safeguarding and protecting people’s liberties in our society. I think that is right. It is kept under review, as I have tried to outline to my noble friend, and there are opportunities caused by that systematic review for Parliament to consider the progress of the strategy as it moves forward. In the light of that, I wonder if he might feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, the Minister will not be surprised to hear that his response is a little disappointing on this matter—predictable but disappointing. If the Government are not going to move in the direction suggested by these amendments and by some of the others that we have discussed, will the Minister register that it becomes ever more important that next week we hear from the Government not the full detail but some of the ways in which they intend to improve the guidance that they give to higher education institutions, to make it more positive and clearer about the Government’s support for our higher education institutions, which are some of the best in the world? We also need to hear from the Government their determination to allow some of the fears that have been expressed by those who have put forward a lot of amendments today to be met in some respects.

I hope that when the Minister reflects on this—as he agreed to do when we debated the previous group—he will think about how he can come forward on Report with clear and precise indications of areas where the Government are going to improve the guidance following the end of the consultation. I understand that it will take much longer to produce the full guidance, but I think that having that clear indication on the record will be helpful in our further consideration of the Bill.