Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Lord Judd Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Lords Chamber

I return to the formal status of Prevent. I have to say that it feels like a very top-down approach, and alienating in the ways which have been referred to, to which I am sure we will return. Two very different programmes have been established in other countries: the Aarhus model in Denmark, which is quite formal and structured, and the Hayat programme in Germany, which is very much a grass-roots approach and is very nuanced and sensitive. Both programmes are regarded as successful and both are publicly funded, but I think that neither is a creature of statute, unless my research is inaccurate. We could learn lessons from those.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that a great many of your Lordships are involved in higher education and universities. I am a very committed member of court at Lancaster and Newcastle universities and an emeritus governor of LSE, having been a governor for 30 years.

This amendment obviously relates very closely to the next group. Therefore some of the things that I will say on this amendment will have application to the next group.

I beg the Minister and his colleagues to treat this matter very sensitively and not to come to any absolute conclusions before they have heard the existing reservations. The concept of the autonomy and freedom of the university is fundamental to our concept of higher education, and to the model of our university lives which is held out to the world and makes it so attractive to students, including postgraduate students, from all over the world. Whatever the Government’s intentions, they must be very careful that what is proposed will not be widely perceived as formalising matters to the point of turning the university into an agent of government. How can we have statutory responsibilities of this kind without beginning to suggest that universities must act for the Government in this respect?

Of course we want the co-operation and good will of the universities in this matter and of course there is a desperately dangerous situation in which we live, and I accept that those dangers are not diminishing. However, this makes the battle for hearts and minds more important than ever. It makes the winning of a real commitment to freedom and to the things that we stand for and are trying to defend in our society more important to leaders, not only in this country but across the world. Within a university, that is best achieved in the context of free discussion and debate. That is the whole point. This matters because unacceptable extremist ideas can be approached face on and argued out. Sensitive potential recruits for extremism can see that there is a better way. Do we feel that we are engaged in a battle for hearts and minds or do we not? If we see that that is the only lasting hope to win this battle, everything else that we do is just putting fingers in the dyke. The fundamental issue is to win the good will and the conviction of people across the world to a better way. That can happen very much—I will not say best, as that is a big claim—within our universities. This is a tremendously important issue that concerns the whole fundamental concept of the university, how it is seen and the atmosphere in which it operates.

When the noble Baroness introduced the amendment, she referred to the rush and to the failure to have proper consultation. I forget which American statesman said that the difference between an academic and a politician is that an academic argues for a conclusion while a politician has to argue for a decision. I see the potential hazards of this business of consultation in this sphere. However, if there are anxieties—they do seem widespread—there has not been adequate consultation, and that is a serious matter. Whatever is proposed, it will be strongest if it has the good will of the universities rather than all the reservations and anxieties that have been expressed by them.

For all these reasons, I commend the amendment of the noble Baroness and ask the Minister—I do not want to embarrass him but he is a thoughtful and considerate man, and I have great regard for him—to think very carefully with his colleagues before insisting upon their proposals exactly as they are.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am slightly bemused by this grouping because it contains two very different amendments. Both seek clarity but the second amendment, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, raises the issue of whether the operation of the various duties can be delivered, given the resources that have been made available.

The material produced by London Councils highlights my concern that the Government are underfunding what they want to do regarding counterterrorism. The concerns of London Councils are simply that, given the duties being placed on those councils—which will be magnified across the country in other local authorities—the sums of money that the Government propose to put aside for counterterrorism are inadequate. I am also aware that the money being made available to the police service is considered by many to be inadequate.

In a Written Answer sent to me today, the Minister tells me that it would be completely inappropriate to say what sum of money has been made available for the counterterrorism police network. That is a slightly puzzling Answer because the reality is that the sums of money flowing to the counterterrorism network, in practice, go though the Metropolitan Police accounts and end up in papers put before the London Assembly. The figures are ultimately in the public domain, although they might take a while before they emerge.

My understanding is that the counterterrorism police network has suggested that implementing what the Government expected would—given the current stage of threat—require something like an additional £30 million a year. Again, my understanding is that the sum of money being made available—although I appreciate that the Minister can neither confirm nor deny this because of the position he has taken—is rather less than that. In fact, my understanding is that it is less than one-third of the sum required. Therefore, clarity about whether it is practicable to operate and bring these matters to fruition is important, which is presumably the purpose of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.

The amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, also seeks clarity on what people are trying to prevent. I have a feeling that she is widening the definition of what authorities are required to prevent. Asking them to prevent people being drawn into terrorism is one thing; asking them to prevent people being drawn into,

“activities which may lead to”,

terrorism broadens the definition beyond all recognition.

--- Later in debate ---

These are tremendously difficult areas, which I am sure we will keep returning to over the next four groups, but on this group I want to put on record what the working definitions are and some of the evidence that has led us to believe that this needs to be put on a statutory footing so that it can be applied consistently across the country, and so that the effectiveness of Prevent can be evaluated independently of government so we know how it is working towards the aims that we all seek.

[Lord Judd]

I am sure the Minister will agree—this is not either/or—that it is a matter of winning the war and not just the battles, although the battles are crucial to winning the war. That is the point about the university context. It is the whole environment, the whole perception and the whole atmosphere that matter. Will the Minister accept that some of us are genuinely afraid that if this is got wrong and it is perceived as too heavy-handed, to say the least, it could press people towards extreme views?

I always have in mind a conversation I had with a police officer working on the front line of this issue. He said that this battle is crucial among militants with street credibility who may even have toyed with nasty things, but have not done them. Those are the people we have to win back, and if we are pushing them away from us so that there is no communication and no possibility for dialogue and winning back, how are we helping our war?

[Lord Bates]

Of course, many of us subscribe to the view that one of the greatest forces against extremism is the freedom of speech that exists within universities so that people’s radical views can be challenged, and should be challenged, in an open way. Nothing being brought forward today says that the Government are going to tell any university who it should invite to speak. Nothing is going to tell any university who it should have on its faculty or in its student body. That is for the university to decide. All we ask is that at a time of national alert on issues of terrorism universities have due regard to their responsibility to the challenges and vulnerabilities of their institutions and the students who are in their care. That is where we are coming from on this. On the great sweep of what the noble Lord said, I fully endorse it.