Security in the UK

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I will concentrate on the issue of terrorism. I guess that if we had not had the attacks in Westminster, Manchester, on London Bridge and in Finsbury Park, we would not be having this debate today. I also want to acknowledge the significant experience among noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, who is a police and crime commissioner, has perhaps the most up-to-date experience. The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, is a former director-general of the security services, and the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, is not just the former chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority but the author of a recent report on London’s preparedness for a terrorist attack. I noticed some non-verbal reactions to what the noble Lord was saying. However, the fact is that among his 127 recommendations were that the authorities should consider barriers to protect pedestrians from the sort of attacks we saw in Nice and Berlin—a recommendation that was made prior to the London Bridge and Westminster attacks.

However, on a positive note, the noble Lord will be pleased to see that at the Pride in London event on Saturday, significant changes had been made to ensure the safety and security of those who participated, including—I noticed in particular—police vehicles parked across all the side-roads leading to the event to prevent a vehicle attack. So, some of the lessons from that report have clearly been learned.

The noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, with his experience in Northern Ireland, is of course a former chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee; the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, is a former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee; and the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, is another member of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

With regard to my own experience, I was the police spokesman in press conferences following the 7 July bombings in 2005, and I was the Metropolitan Police’s community relations lead after the failed attacks on 21 July 2005. I visited the officers at different police stations around London who were involved in the body recovery of the victims of the 7/7 bombings, and, with other noble Lords who have spoken today, I was in the Palace of Westminster when Keith Palmer was murdered and others lost their lives. I have been talking to the officers around the estate every day since to ensure that the response from the authorities has been appropriate. I was at home, 10 minutes’ walk away from Borough Market, when the attack happened there. So I have professional experience of and personal involvement in these issues. However, I do not have any inside knowledge, nor have I had any briefings from the police or the security services on the most recent attacks.

This is a debate, and on some points I have to acknowledge that what I will say is no more than an educated guess, albeit one informed by experience, research and analysis. I would welcome a challenge from the Minister in her response should she not agree with anything I am about to say.

Many noble Lords have given their assessment of the security situation. The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, most powerfully described the contrast between the situation now and the challenges she faced 10 years ago. Eighty plots have been disrupted in the last four years, and there are 3,000 subjects of interest and 500 active investigations. The key here is of course to try to differentiate between people who espouse extremism and those who are prepared to carry that through with a violent attack. My noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem talked about the attack on Lee Rigby and the fact that a Facebook entry was found subsequently in which the attacker said that he wanted to kill a soldier. The fact is that there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of similar threats in posts made by people who had no intention of carrying out, or the ability to carry out, such an attack, but how do you differentiate between the different apparent warning signs?

The most important message that I want to deliver today is that we need a mature and considered response to what we have experienced. Although the situations may be different, we may be able to take some comfort from what has happened in the past. I have already referred to 7 July 2005, when four suicide bombers set out to detonate their devices on four Underground trains. One appeared to lose his nerve and ended up on a bus rather than an Underground train, and then detonated his device. Fifty-two innocent people lost their lives.

Two weeks later, a copycat group of would-be bombers tried to repeat what happened on 7 July. Even though it was apparently not in the original plan to explode a bomb on a bus, they tried to detonate three devices on the Underground and one on a bus. Thankfully, all failed to explode. Those responsible were quickly tracked down, prosecuted and convicted, including one who was returned to the UK very swiftly as a result of the European arrest warrant. There were no further attacks of that nature. Even though at the time it looked as though there would be a series of such attacks, in reality they never materialised.

On 22 March this year, Khalid Masood drove a car along the pavement on Westminster Bridge, killing four pedestrians, and then abandoned the car and fatally stabbed PC Keith Palmer. My personal view is that, if the fixed-point armed officers who had been in place until recently had been in place immediately behind the unarmed officers at the entrance to the Palace, that attacker could have been stopped even sooner and potentially Keith Palmer’s life could have been saved. Unfortunately, that fixed post of two armed officers standing immediately behind the unarmed officers was replaced by a patrol. The patrol, understandably, went to see what had happened on the bridge because they heard screaming and the sound of the car crashing, leaving those unarmed officers exposed.

On 3 June, three attackers drove a van along the pavement of London Bridge and then abandoned the van and fatally stabbed people in Borough Market. Eight innocent people lost their lives. It appeared to me to be a copycat attack of the 22 March incident.

In April 1999, David Copeland, a right-wing extremist, waged a 13-day terror campaign against minorities in Brixton, Brick Lane and Soho. He exploded three sophisticated nail bombs, killing three and injuring 162. He made the bombs himself. He was diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia but was none the less convicted of murder.

On 22 May this year, Salman Ramadan Abedi exploded a bomb packed with nuts and bolts in Manchester, killing 22 innocent people and injuring hundreds more. He made the bomb himself. We do not know what his mental state was at the time but it appears to have been an attack similar to that carried out by Copeland.

The point I am trying to make is that we may not be living in unprecedented times as far as successful terrorist attacks are concerned, but the picture painted by open-source material of the activity of people suspected of terrorism, as the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, set out, clearly shows that an unprecedented number of plots have been thwarted. Nor must we forget the attack on Jo Cox and on the Finsbury Park mosque—both, again, apparently from the right.

I am afraid that I cannot move on without taking issue with the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater—it has become a bit of a tradition between the two of us. If I recorded correctly what he said, he described Daesh or ISIS as a “religious sect” and he talked about “Islamic extremism”. My belief is that Islamism, as opposed to Islam, is a violent political ideology that looks to overthrow democracy and liberal values using a corruption of Islam as an excuse. As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, said—I see he has returned to the Chamber right on cue—it is probably more to do with politics and history than religion. It is a political ideology, not a religion or a religious sect, and I believe that “Islamic terrorism” is a contradiction in terms. I said that in a press conference following the 7 July 2005 bombings, and I stand by what I said.

What should the Government’s response be? The noble Baroness, Lady Vere of Norbiton, talked about reviewing the counterterrorism strategy and the length of sentences for terrorism offences. However, as the noble Lord, Lord King, pointed out, the nature of terrorism has changed, certainly since the time of Irish republican terrorism—we did not have suicide bombers in those days. One has to ask: how many suicide bombers would be deterred by longer prison sentences for terrorist offences?

I also take issue with what the noble Baroness said about bilateral agreements with European partners. I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, will correct me, but counterterrorism intelligence exchange tends to be on a bilateral basis, whether it is with the “Five Eyes” countries or individual European countries. However, when it comes to law enforcement and prosecuting people for terrorism offences, the structures tend to be EU-wide: Eurojust, the European arrest warrant and the European Court of Justice all play a central role in bringing people to justice. Those are two separate issues. In exiting the EU we will have a real problem in the prosecution of people, even if we do not have as much of a problem on intelligence exchange, as the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, pointed out.

Of course people expect the Government to respond to such outrages, and it is important that the Government review their strategy and tactics and the emergency response to such events. However, this needs to be done carefully and in a considered way. We need to look at the nature of the threat. As I have just said, it is not like Irish republican terrorism, which used to be based on a formal, hierarchical organisation that could be infiltrated, planning logistically sophisticated attacks. Islamism is a violent political ideology that wants to overthrow democracy and liberal values, and is perhaps more akin to the Red Army Faction, conducting guerrilla tactics against society.

Rather than a conventional organisation, ISIS is more a political idea that inspires people. There are two types of extremists: the first, intellectuals who have a corrupt and distorted view of Islam, which drives them to recruit the second, the foot soldiers. These are usually vulnerable, impressionable young men with a criminal past, who are encouraged to continue their previous criminal and violent behaviour in the name of Islamism. I draw the probably imperfect parallel between sophisticated, organised drug dealers who import and distribute illegal drugs but never leave their fingerprints on the packages, and the street dealers—petty criminals who are seen as disposable and easy to replace if they get arrested, leaving the masterminds unaffected.

Many suicide attackers are people who can get together on one day and carry out an attack the next. Even more sophisticated attacks can involve only person, and so communications between people are not necessarily helpful. What was helpful in every one of these attacks were changes in behaviour of those involved, as noticed by friends, relatives and neighbours. We heard that in the London Bridge attack, where a neighbour who was interviewed said that they were suspicious of the way that one of the people involved was behaving on the day of the attack by asking about how to hire a van and so forth. That is why many noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Bach, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Judd, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, all mentioned the importance of community policing. If we are to encourage people from communities to come forward with information about changes in behaviour in those to whom they are close, those communities must have trust and confidence in the authorities. They have concerns about passing information to the security services because they do not know what the security services will do with it. A familiar and trusted face in the community to act as a conduit and provide reassurance is what community policing provides. That is why in our manifesto we had £300 million extra a year that could have been used to recruit an additional 8,000 community officers.

I have mentioned to the Minister before the fact that since 2010 we have lost almost 20,000 police officers and 24,000 support staff. When I mentioned that in an Oral Question, the Minister said that she did not recognise the figures. I hope that she can now say whether mine are correct. If not, perhaps she could write to me with the real figures as far as the fall in policing resources is concerned. As the noble Lord, Lord Bach, has said, some cuts were clearly necessary. All public services had to tighten their belts to try to balance the books. But these cuts have now gone too far. It is not just cuts to community policing, but resilience in the face of terrorist attacks and the increased security that is required. We now have officers outside here whose days off are being cancelled—they are only getting one day off a week instead of two. They are working 12-hour shifts and becoming exhausted because there is not the capacity and resilience to be able to respond in these sorts of emergency situations.

As far as the internet is concerned, the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, talked about the German approach of fining social media companies if they fail to act in taking down terrorist material. We know from our exploration of the issues around imposing age verification on adult websites that fining overseas-based tech companies is impractical. The only way that it can be done is to ask UK-based internet service providers to block websites that fail to comply with age verification, but that would not be a proportionate response to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and similar internet giants. We need international co-operation, particularly with the United States. An initiative started by Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister to appoint the Prime Minister’s special envoy on intelligence and law enforcement data sharing, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, is an example of the sort of international co-operation required. The new Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Max Hill QC, said that the suggestion of punishing technology companies such as Facebook and Google for not acting on unacceptable content was not the best course of action because they needed to be “brought firmly onside”. Pushing material on to the dark web where counternarratives cannot be set alongside the violent political ideology of Islamism is not the way to go. We are very fortunate to have the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, in the House. We should listen very carefully to what she says from her position of expert knowledge.

Weakening encryption makes us all, including the Government and business, open to exploitation by criminals and hostile foreign Governments, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, said. Even end-to-end encryption does not prevent the tracking of useful metadata: who is communicating with whom, even if the content is not readily accessible? Equipment interference, where individuals who are suspected of serious crime or terrorism are known, provides a solution to accessing the content of end-to-end encrypted messages.

What about the question of more legislation? In the light of the spate of recent attacks, it is understandable that we should review the current situation in terms of practices and legislation. We have set out our position in a policy paper entitled Safe and Free which was approved at the party conference last autumn. It states that we believe that there is no need to change our position in the light of the recent attacks. The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 goes too far in terms of some blanket surveillance, and we are not alone in saying that. The pressure group Liberty has been given permission by the High Court to challenge the legality of some of the measures in the Act.

On the question of more legislation, Max Hill QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, told the BBC less than a month ago:

“It’s perfectly natural that we should all feel that we must do more, we must do something to combat what we are facing. My view coming into the scrutiny which we are told the prime minister wants to conduct is that we do have the appropriate laws in place, and that essentially the police and security services, and those whose job it is to keep us safe, do have the powers at their disposal.”


We have no objection to the complete surveillance of suspects where there is reasonable cause to suspect that they are involved in terrorism. What we object to is the storing of vast amounts of data on every member of the UK population on databases vulnerable to being accessed by criminals and hostile foreign powers, just in case less than 1% of those records comes in handy in future prosecutions. The security services have consistently maintained, as they did when the former Labour Government tried to introduce 90 days’ detention of terrorist suspects without charge, that the internet connection records of every UK citizen are not necessary for them to keep us safe.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, talked about the Prevent strategy and the definition of extremism. The definition as set out in the Government’s counterterrorism strategy is too broad. By their definition the DUP would be included, so clearly something somewhere is not right. There are serious concerns about the Government’s Prevent programme. Indeed, the former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation shares our views on it. He wrote in the Evening Standard that many in the Muslim community felt unjustifiably targeted by Prevent and asked, if there is evidence that their concerns are not justified, why the Government will not produce it; they refuse to publish the results of their own internal review and refuse to allow an independent review of Prevent. He goes on:

“Prevent is controversial, to the point where reputable community organisations refuse to engage with it … Significant reform is required”.


We agree.

We need a mature and proportionate response to the threat we face. We have the best police and security services in the world, which are doing everything they possibly can to keep us safe. The recent spate of terrorist outrages are not a sign of failure; the many more plots that have been thwarted in recent years are a sign of success. The police and the security services deserve our respect, our admiration and our wholehearted support, but they can succeed only with the help and support of all communities in the UK. To do that, our laws and the way we use them must win their trust and confidence.