Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

My Lords, it is a privilege and a responsibility to take part in the debate this evening. I come from one of the most beautiful towns in the whole of the United Kingdom—Llandudno. I think I know the community of 22,000 people, and we have a Buddhist centre, a synagogue and, within reasonable distance, a mosque. We have Anglican churches—that is, the Church in Wales—and we have Welsh nonconformist churches. We are one group together. I remember that, at the time of tensions in Northern Ireland, the Roman Catholic priest and I were singing carols together outside the English Methodist church. At a local level, we are getting on well together.

However, when you come here you sometimes find that you have to struggle to gain at this level what we are already experiencing at a local level—not only in my town but in many other places. Sometimes we have battled here and we have won arguments. On immigration, we have mainly seen the end of detention of children for immigration purposes. We have seen other strides forward. At other times, we fail. We struggle, and I know that some of us have struggled very hard for the right of asylum seekers to be employed within six months of their arrival here.

It is difficult to get this message through. In this world we want people to be partners together. I was delighted that my noble friend mentioned the four Albanians—two Muslims and two Christians—who walked together in the demonstration in Paris. That is what I would like to see throughout the UK. We can be the example, where we are able to have multifaith groups. They exist in many places and people are able to say, “My brother, my sister, my family; we are one family”. We could really tackle a lot of these stresses before they become threatening. That we can do and here is an opportunity in some way or another to encourage it.

However, the world is full of uncertainties. I am not the only one who remembers the time when it was better to be red than dead—so some said. Others said that it was better to be dead than red. There are uncertainties and there is always some difference, as there is here between security and liberty. We are trying to see where is the line that needs to be drawn. This Bill seeks to draw that line. It has been improved but, as many have said, there are many improvements that we yet wish to see. We are grateful to those who have already battled for improvements. I sometimes measure our civilisation by Alan Paton’s values. Noble Lords will remember Paton as the author of Cry, the Beloved Country. In a lecture in 1953, he declared himself a liberal and defined the term thus:

“By liberalism I don’t mean the creed of any party or any century. I mean a generosity of spirit, a tolerance of others, an attempt to comprehend otherness, a commitment to the rule of law, a high ideal of the worth and dignity of man, a repugnance of authoritarianism and a love of freedom”.

That is my level.

What happened in Paris is a tremendous tragedy in so many ways. How does Alan Paton’s dream inspire not only Paris, France and the leaders of the free world but us in this country? What exactly does freedom of speech mean? Who should have it and under what circumstances can it be limited? The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, got it right in his recent article. He said:

“This is the bottom line: in a free society, people have to be free to offend each other. There is no such thing as a right not to be offended”.

Here we are protected by parliamentary privilege. We are able to make remarks that we would be arrested for outside this House. Because the occasion demands it—and today it certainly does—we must be free to speak truth as we see it, be that right or be it wrong, without fear of what could be done to us.

The Bill does four things that we need to tackle. Others will disagree. Threats to our freedom can often come from within these walls as well as from without. We have to ensure the presumption of innocence, the right of abode, the right to privacy and freedom of speech. I want to focus this evening on one of those four: freedom of speech. In Chapter 1 of Part 5, Clauses 21 to 26 refer to,

“regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.

It does not say “from being terrorist” or “from terrorist acts” but from being drawn into terrorism. Surely, this means the spoken word. I am just asking a question; I do not have the answers. Is this not an assault on the very free speech that all sides of the House have spent this week swearing to defend?

Is the Home Secretary giving herself the right to determine what can and cannot be said in many of our public institutions, including universities? I believe this is so. Is she granting herself the power of sanction over those institutions that fail to abide by her ruling? Under Clause 24, the Home Secretary “may issue guidance” and give directions. Under Clause 25, any failure to abide by this guidance could result in her enforcing the guidance “by a mandatory order”. Is this the freedom of speech that was meant when the four Albanians and the 40 or 50 leaders of the free nations marched to the statue of the republic in Paris? Is this what we speak of when we proclaim our support for free speech? What is the limit? Who has the authority somehow to destroy what we believe is a fundamental right to freedom of speech—the freedom to say things we agree with and tolerance of the things we do not?

In a Written Question—the Minister might remember this—I have tried to get the Government to define what someone has to say to be considered an extremist under these provisions. I understand that they had a very helpful discussion on what an extremist is. The Minister knows that I have not received a satisfactory answer. The vagueness of what is termed extremism means that the powers that the Home Secretary is granting herself could be applied to rooting out any ideas she chooses. It need not be only those of Islam. It could perhaps apply to liberalism or socialism, if she so wished. The powers give her that right. Of course, the target here is radical Islam. However, there is nothing in principle to prevent the powers being used to purge other ideas that the Home Secretary might disagree with.

These are difficult questions. Before I finish, I again quote the words of the Deputy Prime Minister from his recent article:

“The same laws that allow satirists to ridicule Islamists allow Islamists (and other extremists) to promote their views … But when they peacefully express views which the majority of people find odious, we need to remember what is at stake. Free speech cannot just be for people we agree with. If it is to mean anything, free speech has to be for everyone”.

The threats that face us are real; they are growing and they cannot be ignored. If we are to remain a free society—this is what our discussion in Committee and on Report will enable us to do—we must protect those cherished freedoms and not undermine them in any way, as, I suspect, some clauses of the Bill threaten to do.