Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2024

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Thursday 25th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I will respond to the Minister’s statement by first thanking our intelligence, security and police services, as well as the Home Office staff, for their work in protecting us all. The Government’s first duty must always be to protect national security and the public. The people who undertake the challenging work of making sure we are always one step ahead of those who wish to cause us harm will always find support from these Benches.

We strongly support the introduction of this order. Terrorgram, named for its use of the online messaging platform Telegram, is an online collection of violent neofascists who distribute and promote material that incites right-wing extreme terrorist activity, both in the UK and across the world.

As the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, said, the propaganda distributed by this network targets violence against ethnic minorities, religious groups, women and the LGBT community. Telegram groups promote a dangerous, violent, misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic ideology. They glorify terrorist attacks, such as those committed by Anders Breivik, incite violent terrorist attacks and distribute bomb-making guides and other dangerous instructional material designed to aid would-be attackers. The dangerous consequences of their actions occurred only recently, as the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, said, when people were murdered in the LGBT nightclub in Bratislava by a terrorist who thanked Terrorgram in his manifesto. The Government’s welcome update of the definition of terrorism and this proscription order will provide a much-needed tool to prevent such attacks from being repeated here in the UK.

In the light of evidence connecting right-wing ideologies and violent terrorist acts to misogynistic views, can the Minister expand on what more the Government can do to counter this? Are there plans to update the Prevent programme to include incel ideology and violent misogyny as extremism? How is the Home Office working to prevent young men from being exposed to extreme misogynistic ideologies at a young age? What work is being done with other government departments to combat this threat? More broadly, what are the Government doing to assess and confront the online hate and extremism that form the basis of many terrorism threats?

I would welcome the Minister speaking more about the Government’s counterextremism strategy. Beyond the list of organisations defined as terrorist that the Government have said they will release, will a full, updated counterextremism strategy also be published? The previous strategy was published in 2015. The way Terrorgram uses online networks and platforms and intersects with other violent neo-Nazi organisations across the world demonstrates the growing complexity of the threats we face. As the terrorist threat evolves and becomes harder to predict and prevent, our understanding of the causes, nature and the consequences of the threats we face must also evolve.

The Government’s hate crime strategy has also not been updated since 2015. Terrorgram’s violent, bigoted ideology sits within a context of rising levels of hate crime across the UK. Hate crimes against transgender people hit record highs in England and Wales last year, and the Community Security Trust recorded a 147% increase in anti-Semitic incidents since 7 October, compared with 2022. It is important to have proscription orders in our arsenal of weapons against hate, extremism and terrorism, but they cannot be the only weapon. Can the Minister outline whether the Government plan to publish a new hate crime strategy?

This order is very welcome. Proscription is the right response to a dangerous and complex network that threatens our way of life, our public safety and our national security. This House and the country are united in protecting us all and we fully support the order.

I have one final question for the noble Lord. This clearly is a vile, disgusting group, so why have we waited so long? Why did we not bring this order much earlier? Some of the things they have been involved in, over quite a long period, are things we all abhor. With that, I support the order.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord very much indeed for his support and the support of his party. We have covered some ground here and I will do my very best to answer the questions.

Why have we decided to proscribe the Terrogram collective now? I think I explained much of this in my opening remarks but to proscribe an organisation the Home Secretary must believe that it is concerned in terrorism and it is right that any decision to proscribe must be proportionate and necessary. As the House has heard, Terrorgram involves itself in preparing for terrorism through instruction material. It also promotes and encourages terrorism through its publications which contain violent narratives. As proscription is such a powerful counterterrorism tool, cases are scrutinised carefully to ensure that the decisions we take are lawful, consistent and proportionate. Proscription sends such a strong message of the UK’s commitment to tackling terrorism globally and calling out this activity wherever it is committed, but the evidence has to be very carefully scrutinised and that is, in essence, the reason why it has taken a while to get to this point.

The noble Lord also asked me about what is happening with the counter-extremism strategy and what has replaced the old one. The Government remain very much focused on disrupting the activities and influence of extremists, supporting those who stand up to extremism and stopping people from being drawn into terrorism. We keep our response to extremism under constant review, for the reasons the noble Lord laid out, in particular things such as the CREST research that he referred to. We have to make sure that it is best placed to tackle evolving threats. The Government’s current focus is to use existing mechanisms to analyse, prevent and disrupt the spread of high-harm extremist ideologies that can lead from community division and radicalisation into terrorism, particularly those that radicalise others but deliberately operate below counterterrorism thresholds. Where there is evidence of purposeful actions that are potentially radicalising others into terrorism or violence, proportionate disruptive action will be considered.

The noble Lord made comments on incel and misogyny. We will not tolerate the spread of the harmful ideologies that can lead to these sorts of activities. There is a wide range of offences and powers that can be used to counter the threat from these areas and we are working to maximise their use. Of course, we know, as the noble Lord said, that the extremism landscape is constantly evolving and therefore that we have to continually seek to build and refresh our knowledge of the threat it poses. From 1 April 2023, the Government instructed all police forces in England and Wales to identify any violence against the person, including stalking and harassment, or sexual offences where the crime is deemed to be motivated by a hostility towards the victim’s sex. The implementation of sex-based hostility recording illustrates the Government’s commitment to ensuring that we have a better understanding of these abhorrent crimes, and that will obviously assist us in future policy development.

I conclude by again offering my thanks for the House’s consideration of and support for this very important measure. As I have outlined, it is proportionate and necessary in our ongoing effort to tackle terrorism to protect the public and to defend our values. There is no place whatever for the vile ideology espoused by the Terrorgram collective, and we will not stand for it. We will never relent in showing up terrorism for what it is: a poisonous, corrosive force that will always fail. With that, I commend the order to the House.

Asylum Seekers: Rwanda

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Thursday 21st March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I agree in certain circumstances, but we are talking about failed asylum seekers. These people will be offered the opportunity to work, but in Rwanda.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, is it the Government’s position that there will be a finite number of places and that some of the people who go there voluntarily will take some of those places but that will not have any effect on the deterrence of the Government’s policy?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, as I have also said many times from the Dispatch Box, this scheme and the Rwanda scheme are uncapped, so there is no finite number of places.

Rwanda Treaty

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Friday 8th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

What is a great worry to the Government is that the costs of the migration system, as I mentioned earlier in answer to my noble friend, have doubled to £4 billion this year. As the noble Lord has just rightly referenced, we are spending £8 million a day on hotels. That is clearly unsustainable and I do not think it represents value for money.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Taylor asked the Minister a simple question: have Ministers been required to issue letters of direction to instruct civil servants to proceed with this, because of the issues with this scheme? The answer is either that, yes, they have, or no, they have not. Which is it?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The answer is that I do not know. I will have to write to the noble Lord.

Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Safe Routes

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, no, I am afraid the Government are going to be consistent in this particular regard. As I said earlier in my initial Answer, there is no provision within our Immigration Rules for somebody to be allowed to travel to the UK to seek asylum or temporary refuge, so I do not think that visa is on the table.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, since the passing of the Illegal Migration Act, how many children have come over on small boats, how many are now subject to removal provisions and how many made those crossings unaccompanied?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am afraid I do not have those statistics. I will write to the noble Lord.

Police Uplift Programme

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The Government’s support for Sir Mark Rowley has been very clear indeed, and I am happy to wish him very well in his endeavours over the coming months. He has a very large set of responsibilities on his shoulders and, as far as I can see, he is discharging them well. The noble Lord asked me about operational policing in London. He will be aware that the responsibility for that, as the police and crime commissioner, is with the Mayor of London.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, 41% of crime is fraud, so why does the Minister keep using figures that do not include fraud?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The fraud strategy will be published this week.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am sorry if I sounded complacent to the noble Lord. It was really just a reflection on the statistics of this, as with any normal distribution—the noble Lord will know how normal distributions of population cohorts and so on work out. That is all that that comment was meant to reflect. As regards the numbers of police that have been recruited, I have commented extensively on the vetting processes. The dismissals review, which I referred to earlier, is concluding this month. I hope that we will have a lot more to say very soon on how that process will be strengthened.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I am sorry: the Minister has not answered my question about the fraud strategy. The Government have been consistently excluding fraud from the reporting of crimes —why?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. I am sorry if I seemed to evade the question. The simple fact of the matter is that I cannot comment on the strategy because I have not seen it, it is due to be published this week, and it will address all the various questions that the noble Lord has asked me—in other words, I do not know.

Police National Computer

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Monday 24th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend is right to point out that we are trying to get to the bottom of the Horizon issue. That is why Sir Wyn Williams has been tasked to hold his statutory inquiry. Fujitsu is a core participant and is co-operating fully. Accountability depends on evidence, so I think it is proper to let Sir Wyn hear it before judging any possible consequences.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, was any consideration given by the Government to the public perception of awarding such a vital contract to a company with such a shocking record? Can the Minister confirm clearly whether Fujitsu was the only company that actually bid for this contract? If that is the case, how can we be assured of a genuinely competitive process? How will this improve standards? How do we get good value for money and end up with results which, when you consider the role of this company, is truly shocking? I endorse all the words of the noble Lord, Lord Polak: it is appalling that this company can get anywhere near another government contract.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As I said earlier in answer to another question, it was the only viable alternative. Other companies were invited in and, for reasons most of which were around the time it would take to implement new systems, Fujitsu offered the only solution. Of course, I agree with the public perception argument; however, I do not think we had any alternative.

Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

2nd reading
Friday 8th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I will take the noble Lord’s point and investigate it further—I will leave it there for now.

I close my remarks by again thanking noble Lords for their insightful and thought-provoking contributions throughout this debate. I understand that this remains an emotive issue. I will ensure that the department continues to reflect on these debates in considering the Government’s approach on this important issue and I will look forward to further debate on these points in the future.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

The noble Lord did not really mention anything about the point that many noble Lords made on the action needed in the channel. One problem here is that, for all the talk, there is a lack of action by the Government to deal with the issue in the channel. Hundreds of people cross in boats every week. What is happening? We get lots of “We’re doing this and we’re doing that”, but the fact is that, every week, hundreds of people, brought across by criminals and people smugglers, arrive on our shores. That is part of the problem. The noble Lord may not have any figures to hand but it is part of the problem that needs to be addressed.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that point. I am aware, as he is, of the high-level discussions happening on the other side of the channel. I should refer to something that will make me extraordinarily unpopular, which is of course the Rwanda scheme. That was an attempt to sort this problem out, which noble Lords opposite do not like very much.