Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2015

Debate between Lord Marlesford and Baroness Smith of Basildon

Thursday 26th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, as the Minister said, this is the 18th proscription order that your Lordships’ House has debated. In my case it is the ninth or 10th. As always, the key thing is the evidence that the Government are able to provide. We appreciate that we do not have access to the same intelligence information as the Government, so there is always an element of trust involved in these issues. Again, I am confident that the Government would not have brought this order before us today unless they were confident that there was a case for proscribing the organisations, and we support proscription.

It is clear in these cases that the organisations condemned themselves by their own words when they claimed credit for some of the atrocities that had been committed. The noble Lord referred to some of them in relation to Jamaat ul-Ahrar. I was pleased to see that its Twitter account has already been suspended, because I have previously raised issues about cases where social media has been used after proscription. That does not apply in this case. In both cases it is clear from the organisations’ own accounts that there is a strong case for proscription, which has our support.

I gave the Minister notice that I would be raising the following issue. He mentioned in his opening remarks —it is a completely valid comment—that when we proscribe organisations we support the international community. The fight against terrorism can never be for one country alone. As this kind of terrorism knows no borders, the only way in which the fight against it can work is if there is international cross-border co-operation and shared intelligence.

In view of that, I am surprised that HQN has been banned as a terrorist group by the USA since September 2012, by Canada since May 2013 and by the UN since November 2012. We are now at the end of March 2015, which seems quite a time lag. If Canada, the USA and the UN had information, was that not shared with us or did we not think before now that there was a case for proscription? I note that the attack on the British embassy vehicle was carried out in November 2014, and I hope that it is not the case—I am sure that the Minister can reassure me on this—that we wait for British interests to be attacked before we act, because these are international issues.

We are happy to support the order, but if the Minister is able to say something about why other countries have acted so much sooner than we have, that would be appreciated.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I support very much what my noble friend is proposing in this order, and in doing so I should like to say that the plethora of these splinter groups which are affiliated to what is now the umbrella body known as ISIS or Islamic State is an extremely worrying phenomenon. It is interesting to discover that new ones are constantly being created, which of course is quite a usual technique among terrorist organisations in order to avoid any disruption to their activities.

In that connection, I want once again to ask my noble friend about the Muslim Brotherhood, which is actually a very dangerous organisation. It, too, seeks to have theocracy with sharia law and is prepared to use violent methods to achieve that. As my noble friend will remember, the Muslim Brotherhood was started up in 1928 and in January 1949 it assassinated the Egyptian Prime Minister. It was banned by President Nasser after it tried to assassinate him in 1954. It was also responsible for the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in October 1981. The organisation is the trunk of the tree, the roots of which are the Wahhabi and the Salafists, and the branches of which are the various organisations to which my noble friend has referred.

At this point we are in more danger from terrorism in this country than probably at any stage in my lifetime, and it is getting worse and more serious. There are actions which could be taken which I much regret have not been taken on what are not very good grounds. A particular point which I do not apologise for returning to again is the need for tighter control over passports, in particular through the introduction of a system by which the British Government are at least aware of the other passports being held by British passport holders.

The Government recently announced the reintroduction next month of exit checks, which is thoroughly desirable. I am glad that that is going to happen, although I am a little worried about the mechanics of how it is to be done. Will the checks on exit be as thorough as those on entry? Apparently, the exit checks are going to be done by the agencies carrying the passengers—the shipping lines, train companies and airlines—rather than by immigration officers who check entrants.

It would be a great help if we had at least some knowledge of the second passports being held by people. There is no discrimination about it. I was very concerned by the argument used by the Home Office against this proposal because it struck me that it was totally out of proportion to the threat we face. Perhaps I may remind the Minister by quoting from the letter signed by his noble friend:

“If there were security benefits, we would look to make best use of such a database”—

that is, a database of second passports. The letter continues:

“However, we are not persuaded that this is the case. It would create a level of intrusion for all British citizens who hold dual nationality, who would be obliged to keep HMPO informed of any change to their second passport. There are legitimate concerns about imposing such intrusion on one particular class of UK nationals, which we do not believe would be outweighed by operational benefits”.

I suggest that, with the situation we face, the arguments against this are so trivial that it is absolutely astonishing that they have even been raised. We have had cases in recent weeks and months of people getting out of the United Kingdom who should have been kept in the country because they were on bail or wanted for terrorist offences. Of course, in many cases these sorts of people have other passports, so they may travel in and out when it suits them on British passports and then do other things on other passports.

All I am asking is for my noble friend to ensure, please, at any rate during the period when all of us are campaigning for our particular political persuasions, that the Home Office will continue to work on better methods of securing our borders and defending the realm. It is certainly true that a balance has to be struck between national security and human rights, but personal privacy, in such a period of crisis as we currently face, cannot itself rate highly against the need to introduce all necessary measures.

Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2015

Debate between Lord Marlesford and Baroness Smith of Basildon

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I support this order, as I would any measure that will protect us against the serious and growing terrorist threat that we face. The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has noted but not commented on the report, but I would like to make one or two points.

I shall refer in particular to the Muslim Brotherhood. It has been well described as the trunk of the tree that represents political Islam. The root is probably the Wahhabi sect. The branches of the tree include buddies such as those named by my noble friend, as well as other terrorist organisations, spreading from al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and, above all, ISIS. Together, these branches form an international fascist movement specialising in spreading terror and even seeking to dominate Europe—as well, of course, as Muslim lands.

In April last year, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister ordered an inquiry into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins, Her Majesty’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia. As my noble friend will know, the Muslim Brotherhood is at present in open armed conflict against the Egyptian Government of President Sisi, particularly in Sinai. The Muslim Brotherhood is also politically active in the UK. Indeed, I understand that a summit has been planned in London on 12 February under the umbrella of an organisation called Cordoba, of which the chair, a Mr Tikrit, is well known to security circles in both Washington and London. I also understand that Cordoba has recently had its bank accounts closed by HSBC.

I hope that my noble friend will be able to give some indication of when we shall be made aware at least of the conclusions of the Jenkins inquiry into the Muslim Brotherhood.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation and for writing to me earlier in the week with further information. I am genuinely grateful; like his predecessor, who is also here tonight, he has always been willing to engage with us and assist us by providing information. He will appreciate that we do not have access to the same security information as the Government and we take the information given by Ministers on trust. We support this order and recognise the need to have such protections in place. The judgment that we make has to be based on our trust in Ministers and the information that they provide to the House. The information given here is quite clear.

I will raise just two issues with the noble Lord, which I have mentioned to him. One is about the Prevent programme. It is quite clear when we hear of cases like this, of extremism and the dangers and fear it brings and the horrific terrorist acts that are inflicted, we must do everything we can to deter young people from becoming radicalised to the extent that they wish to commit such violence in this or any other country. The Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, which we are currently discussing—it has two days in the Chamber next week—addresses just that issue and how important it is to deter young people from being caught up in extremist views. It is a question of extent: holding views is one thing, but if that leads to terrorism and engagement in terrorist activities, clearly that is extraordinarily serious and has to be tackled.

One way of doing that is through the Prevent programme, which the Bill places on a statutory footing, and we welcome that. But we need to think long-term on these issues. Over the past few years the funding for Prevent has been cut from £17 million when we were in government to less than £3 million. If we are serious about tackling such issues, we cannot think, “What’s the next issue? What’s the one after? What’s happening next week or next month?”; we have to think long-term. I was appalled that at one point the number of local authorities receiving funding from Prevent fell from 90 to just 23, although I think that is improving now. We support Prevent being on a statutory footing but I urge some longer-term thinking to ensure that we tackle this at source and prevent any more of our young people being caught up in such abuse of their religion.

I told the Minister as we came into the Chamber that I would briefly raise this second matter. I mentioned the issue of trust and us not having access to the same information as the Government. In this case, I think we do have information. I was reading the Hansard of the debate last night in the other place and was absolutely horrified to see that there is a Twitter account for JAA, glorifying violence and terrorism and directing readers to other places they can get such information. It is an English Twitter account, in English; there are links to the Arabic site as well. This account has more than 14,000 followers. My honourable friend Diana Johnson, the shadow Minister, raised this last night, and I am appalled that when I looked on Twitter today, just minutes before I came into the Chamber, I saw that that account is still active.

If we are serious about dealing with young people and tackling such terrorism, we have to look at how social media is being used and use all the powers available to us to do something about it. Surely the Government are aware of this. The Minister will probably say the same as the Minister said last night—that it has been reported to the appropriate body, which is dealing with it. However, there are powers in place and we have to look to those who engage with social media and those responsible for it. I do not expect to be able at the click of a button to access a Twitter account glorifying such horrendous terrorist acts.

I make a plea to the Government. The powers are there. Referring this problem to a body that is going to look at it and think about it is not good enough, and I hope that by tomorrow if I look at that account it will be closed down.