Terrorism: Contest Strategy

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I start by associating myself with the remarks of other speakers in this debate and my noble friend Lord Beith on the earlier Statement. Our thoughts are very much with those injured and affected by the appalling act of violence in Streatham yesterday. That is a concern shared right around the House today. It is a tragic and unwelcome backdrop to the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and indeed to his Bill.

I live in Stockport, just nine miles from the Manchester Arena. On 22 May 2017, many young people from Stockport went to the Ariana Grande concert at the arena that ended in death and devastation. One of the 22 people killed was Martyn Hett, a larger-than-life character who lived in Stockport as well. His mother, Figen Murray, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has been tireless in pressing for the security at and surrounding major events and arenas to be improved. Like others who have spoken, I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about the various slightly overlapping, and to some extent contradictory, comments from government Ministers over the past three or four months in response to that fairly simple and straightforward request.

The loss of Martyn’s life and the lives of the other 21 people killed in Manchester was a tragedy that has left families, friends and the local communities they come from grieving and devastated. However, we should not overlook in any way the trauma of the more than 100 people who were physically injured, and the many more who were traumatised by what they saw and experienced on that terrible night. As the subsequent inquiries have shown, the associated collapse of the Vodafone emergency phone system meant that, for the parents and relatives seeking news of people they knew to be present at the arena, the risk and fear were very deep indeed.

On the positive side, it led to a huge surge of public support and engagement by people young and old across Greater Manchester, pledging to back the city and defy the terrorists. That response has come from every community. I echo what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark said. Across ethnic and religious divides, people are determined not to be held to ransom by the terrorists.

I speak in this debate with some hesitation. All the other speakers have first-hand and direct experience of, and in some cases senior responsibility for, matters absolutely at the core of the debate. I am not in that category, but I will pick up some of the points made. I look forward to hearing whether the Minister will tell the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that he can withdraw his Bill, and to her explaining why perhaps he should not for the moment. I suspect that is where we will be at the end of this evening’s discussion.

The right reverend Prelate urged us not to lose sight of our values. That is a really important point and I will come back to it in my concluding remarks. We can indeed make everything safe and secure, but we lose our freedom and civil rights if we do so. How do we get that balance right? It is of interest, to me at least, that the noble Lords, Lord Anderson and Lord Carlile, who have experience of looking at this very much from the inside, made a point about the Government not being excessive or making things too onerous in their or the public’s response to these things, and for us to be proportionate and careful what we wish for. I was really impressed by the figure that there are 625,000 organisations and venues in this country. As someone with limited responsibility for at least one of those, I can just imagine the Pandora’s box that opens if we get the shape of future reaction to these incidents wrong.

I hope the Minister will respond in full to the points raised, if not now then later in writing. I will add three points to that list. The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation submitted his report three months ago. It is important that we hear from the Minister that that report will be available to us to weigh up when we consider future terrorist legislation. If it is coming in the next 100 days—now, I think, the next 70 days—the sooner we get it the better. It would be a mistake to go back to the days of the Blair Government, when there was a Home Office security Bill every nine months. As I recall, whole chunks of one were often repealed by the next before they had even come into force. Surely we can aim to do better than that.

My second question concerns the independent review of Prevent, which this House prevailed on the Government to commission last year. I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, had to say; it will be very interesting to consider the progress of that. There are six months left of the statutory period set for the publication of that review. I am not aware of a reviewer even having been appointed yet. I may be ill informed on that, but can the Minister advise us of progress and when we can expect to see the review?

My third question is not directly terror-related but concerns the Gold Command system, which comes into effect when major incidents occur. Consequent on the Manchester Arena event, the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, prepared a report for the Mayor of Greater Manchester. It made some significant criticisms of the Greater Manchester fire and rescue service. The House of Lords briefing said that this had now been tackled in a root-and-branch way. That is good, but phase 1 of the Grenfell inquiry made essentially the same points about London’s fire and rescue service. Again, fundamental reviews are being carried out. In these two major incidents, then, the two largest authorities and fire and rescue services in the country both had two significant failures. How satisfied are the Government that every part of the country has robust senior command processes in place that have been stress-tested and are properly staffed?

It is a fundamental task of the Government to keep their citizens safe and secure from violence. It is also a fundamental task of Governments in democratic states to preserve and uphold the rights and freedoms of all their citizens. In a democracy, freedom and security must go hand in hand. As the Government’s intentions become clearer, on this legislation and on other events, it will be on these Benches that we try to ensure that freedom and security go hand in hand.

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[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank everyone who has spoken in this debate, and I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for securing it, coming as it does today, the most unfortunate of days, following the attack in Streatham. I am sure all our thoughts are with the victims who were injured. I join other noble Lords in thanking the police, who ran towards a man who they thought might be wearing a suicide vest. Our police are the bravest in the world.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, I hope we can come out of this debate with a clear sense of purpose, and I will do my best to provide that clarity. I join the noble Lords, Lord Anderson, Lord Harris and Lord Kennedy, in praising the work of Figen Murray and her team. Her son Martyn Hett was one of the 22 people killed in the Manchester Arena attack in 2017. I was here when the Westminster attack happened and, like the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, I could not believe my bad luck when I was in Manchester when that happened.

To answer head-on the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, who wanted absolute clarity up-front in my speech, I shall quote the Security Minister on his support for Martyn’s law. He said:

“The Prime Minister, Home Secretary and I are all 100% behind Figen and are working to improve security measures at public venues and spaces. We are working quickly to come up with a solution that will honour Martyn’s memory and all of those affected by terrorism. I am pleased that last week Manchester City Council announced new licensing rules,”—


the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, referred to this—

“but we are committed to going further and making Martyn’s Law a reality for all public venues across the UK. I am committed to working with Figen and others to ensure that we are all safe at the public venues and spaces we enjoy.”

On that note, the first duty of the Government is to protect the public. Contest is the UK’s comprehensive counterterrorism strategy. It places importance on ensuring that the whole of government, police, local authorities, the private sector, communities and, indeed, individual citizens work in partnership, using all the tools we have available, to counter the threat from terrorism. I shall quote the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, here because he talked about proportion and balance. As he said, it is also important to protect our freedoms and that this is not all about terrorist attacks. We are talking about different types of threats, all of which affect people’s lives. To address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, different interventions will be required for different threats, places and buildings.

The attacks of 2017, the attack at Fishmongers’ Hall and the horrors at Streatham yesterday were an absolute tragedy. The Government have carefully considered where more can be done to ensure that we effectively engage with and provide advice to all responsible parties. Today, of course, that seems all the more pressing.

Since 2017, counterterrorism policing has developed a programme of sectoral and regional engagement days to provide the latest advice and guidance to those responsible for crowded places. It has developed new and revised training and awareness products for staff at crowded places and, in conjunction with the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure—CPNI—it has produced a range of new advice and guidance, including an extranet accessible by trusted stakeholders. The Action Counters Terrorism awareness course is a recently developed e-learning awareness training programme freely available to all online, and I encourage noble Lords to try it.

Engagement with crowded places stakeholders is undertaken by counterterrorism security advisers—CTSAs—who provide advice, targeted awareness-raising sessions and training courses to site owners, operators and staff, and, as noble Lords have mentioned, local authorities. Further efforts made with public authorities include establishing regular engagement with local authority chief executives and others in key strategic positions to plan and prepare for threats at the local level and share best practice. The CPNI has developed the security considerations assessment, which supports businesses in reducing their vulnerability to attack. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, working with CTSAs and the CPNI, has updated and revised the National Planning Policy Framework and guidance to emphasise the role the planning system plays in ensuring that appropriate security measures are in place to help mitigate terrorist threats.

The Government have also been working closely with industry to develop new and innovative screening technologies for use in crowded places, and we are working with Pool Reinsurance to develop a new information-sharing platform. The £9.6 million project is being funded by Pool Reinsurance and is a ground-breaking collaboration between business, industry and the public sector that will make the country safer by providing secure expert advice and training to businesses and public sector organisations to help them develop their counterterrorism approaches.

Some specific points were made about different aspects of this issue. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, talked about LFR—live facial recognition—being a possible tool in our armoury. Of course, as he said, it is not a panacea, but for specific threats on specific occasions, it might be an additional tool. He and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, talked about how you now naturally expect a bag search when you go to the theatre, as I experienced last week.

The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, asked when the report of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation will be published. The answer is that it will be published in due course. The Government will carefully consider the recommendations and we will update the House. However, that does not answer the noble Lord’s question about whether we will be able to see the report.

[Lord Stunell]

I think that the point is that, if it contains relevant information, we should have it in preparation for the legislation that is due to be brought forward in 70 days.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich]

If I have remembered the legislation correctly, it requires the report to be published on receipt. If it was received in October, why has it still not been published?

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 17th December 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Stunell]

31: Clause 19, page 21, line 37, at end insert—
“( ) After subsection (3) insert— “(3A) The Secretary of State must ensure the collection and annual release of statistics on—(a) the religion, and(b) the ethnicity,of identified individuals referred under subsection (2).””

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Paddick and I tabled Amendment 31 because of the serious concerns expressed on all sides about the impact of the Prevent strategy on minority—particularly Muslim—communities. The noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, has been among the most eloquent in putting that view to the House. This has emphasised the fact that Prevent risks becoming counterproductive rather than counterterrorist. It is really important for the House to consider that critique and to respond to it and make sure that the legislation does as well.

There are concerns from within some of those communities themselves. At Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, spoke about that very eloquently. I have been approached by a number of organisations which work in the field of deradicalisation and minimising radical risks for those in minority communities; they have passed on their concerns as well. There are also concerns from the professional associations which represent some of those professionals who are required to be reporters and are drawn into the Prevent strategy. A senior clinician from my own area of Stockport has made the point that it undermines patients’ trust in the conversations they might have with their GP because they fear they might be reported. The professional teaching associations have some of the same concerns about the burden being placed on schools to deliver the Prevent strategy.

The fact is that there is a cost. It is our job to ask: is it worth it? Is the value worth the cost? We need to look at what measures Prevent is subject to. How is Prevent evaluated? How does anybody decide that it is effective? Can it be shown that unconscious bias is not present when people are selected for potential referral? In view of the debate we have just had, that question of unconscious bias might need to be nearer the top of our minds than we might otherwise have thought. Can the Minister really expect to get away with the argument that she deployed last time round that it was in part justified because there was a valuable by-catch, as it were, of other people who, although not being radicalised or in need of Channel support, in fact showed other, non-terrorist vulnerabilities? The question, then, is: how do we make Prevent more transparent? How can we make it so that, on the one hand, those who have fears and criticisms about it can be satisfied and, on the other, the Government can satisfy themselves that they are not in the same position that they were a few years ago about stop and search, where they actually did not know the answer to the criticism that was being levelled at police services?

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[Lord Stunell]

I thank the Minister and other noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I am glad that neither she nor I believe that Prevent is beyond improvement after the magic year of 2015, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, imputed to me. I am very grateful for her words of encouragement. The key issue here is the perception referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and the widespread misapprehension, as the Government see it, by the minority community of what Prevent is and does. The best way to overcome that is to have more transparency and information. I welcome what the Minister has said today and therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 31 withdrawn.

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[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, it is interesting that eight years ago today, Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself in Tunisia kicking off the Arab spring, which brought devastation to the whole of the Middle East and dramatically increased the number of terrorists. It is appropriate that we are discussing a counterterrorism Bill, because this is such an important issue.

I have some sympathy for my noble friend Lord Harris’s safeguarding comments. There is no doubt that the alliteration was very useful. I found the four Ps a useful reminder when talking to the media at the time, and there is no doubt that there is a strong element of safeguarding within the Prevent strategy. But as I have said, Prevent is a curate’s egg. Some bits have done very well and some bits have not. It has not hit the right places. There is no doubt that there has been traducing of it by some people, which is unfortunate, but of the four strands, the reality is that Prevent is probably the most important in the final analysis. I had the other three firmly under my control when I was in the Home Office, but not Prevent. It was separate, which is unfortunate because it is such an important strand. The way that I believe we will finally defeat terrorism is by getting this right.

Therefore, it is important that we review what is going on. I strongly support the amendment. It is absolutely appropriate that we have a review and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile; I am not quite sure how the review should be undertaken and by whom, but the Government should consider it. I am certain, however, that we should have a thorough review to look at this before we move forward.

[Lord Stunell]

My Lords, I support the amendment. We have rehearsed this issue at each stage of the Bill and I remind the House that a wide range of external organisations share the view that there should be a review. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and now from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that such a thing might add value. The Government have struggled to resist the reasoning put forward. The bottom line seems to be that the Government do not want a review and it is extremely difficult to penetrate why that might be when one looks at the advantages that flow from having one.

It is important to understand that activity is no guarantee of effectiveness. A lot of work goes on, but how effective is it? We heard evidence from the noble Lords, Lord West and Lord Harris, that it is not uniformly good. Certainly, the impression of those who believe themselves to be the targets of Prevent is that it is not uniformly good. The Minister needs to answer in detail what the Government’s reservations are about any sort of review along the lines of the amendment.

I noted carefully what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, had to say about the Prevent oversight board. He said that it had not met often enough. Providentially for his case, it had met in the last week, but he did not disclose how long before that it last met. If the next meeting is in six months and he thinks that is soon enough, I presume the gap was quite extensive.

I notice that my supposition was, to some extent, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, who said of last week’s meeting that he was glad the Prevent oversight board was at last showing some signs of life. I hope I am not putting words into his mouth; I think that is what he said. Bearing in mind the qualified support that has come for the Prevent oversight board’s activity and effectiveness, I wonder whether the Government are really satisfied it is the right vehicle for a review, a substitute for a review or gives all the answers that a review would. It seems likely that that is not the case.

Other specific concerns have come to light since our previous debate. I have been approached by an outside organisation that, until this year, was a provider of Prevent projects to those who had been referred. It pointed out to me that it has now been superseded, at short notice in its opinion, by a private provider. It alleges that there is no effective procurement policy for those programmes. Far too often, it appears to depend on the knowledge and contacts of a Prevent co-ordinator, rather than a rigorous management process. I hope the Minister will be able, at least in principle, to give some reassurance on that. To help her in giving that reassurance, could she say something about the proportion of projects that are delivered through NGOs, the proportion delivered through private companies and the proportion delivered through local authorities or other public services directly? Have those proportions changed over the last four or five years, as my informant alleges? If there has been a change, was it cost-driven or based on an evaluation of whether particular projects were the wrong part of the curate’s egg, and were therefore dropped, or were too expensive for the results?

All of this raises the question of what results and criteria are being used in allocating, renewing or discontinuing such contracts. Surely evaluation is a key part of that; therefore, review of the process seems all the more necessary. I hope, for all the reasons that have been rehearsed, not least that one, that the Minister is able to accept this amendment today.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, Prevent is an important part of the Government’s anti-terrorism strategy. We have heard about a number of problems relating to it, which have been there for a while. I am persuaded that it is therefore sensible to review the policy and see whether it should be changed, replaced or whatever.

The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, said he could not understand why the Government were resisting this idea. I can tell him exactly why. It is because the Home Office ploughs on regardless. Even when the tractor’s wheels are stuck in the mud, they go on spinning. That is why the Home Office needs constant help in knowing when things should be reviewed. I strongly suggest that my noble friend tears up the brief that says “Don’t review” and says, “Yes, we’ll look at it”.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

If the noble Lord will indulge me, I was about to explain how the Prevent programme is evolving and being scrutinised, including through Contest. Perhaps I may go back to the comments made by the Commissioner of the Met:

“There is an awful lot of very, very good work that has gone on under Prevent in relation to all forms of extremism, not forgetting extreme right-wing, which takes up a big part of it. There have been hundreds of people who have been turned away from violent extremism by their engagement with Channel and other aspects of Prevent, and that is all positive”.


Prevent is not about restricting debate or free speech, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, might suggest. On the contrary: as the Government have said previously, schools ought to be safe spaces in which children and young people can understand and discuss sensitive topics, including terrorism and extremist ideologies. An independent study of education professionals found that almost three-quarters of them believe that the Prevent duty has not stifled classroom discussions of extremism, intolerance and inequality.

Since it was launched in 2011, Prevent training has been completed more than 1.1 million times to enable front-line practitioners, including teachers, to recognise the signs of radicalisation so that they know what steps to take, including, where appropriate, how to make a referral to Channel. This has positively supported teachers in discussing the risks of radicalisation with those in their classes. To our knowledge, no event or speaker has ever been cancelled or banned as a result of the Prevent duty. It is about upskilling individuals, not curtailing them. The Government believe that it is imperative that young people learn how to challenge dangerous beliefs which are all too easily accessible online. Since February 2010, some 300,000 pieces of illegal terrorist material have been removed from the internet.

In addition to the examples of increased transparency that I outlined in Committee, which included the annual publication of Prevent and Channel data and increasing the number and geographical reach of community round tables, there is increased cross-party engagement, led by the security Minister. Also, as mentioned earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, on 28 November the Home Secretary chaired the latest meeting of the Prevent oversight board, which brings together other Secretaries of State, operational partners and independent members to review delivery and to provide the strategic challenge noble Lords have talked about. I therefore understand the concerns of noble Lords.

[Lord Stunell]

Is the Minister able to tell us when the preceding meeting of the oversight board was held, and what the gap was?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am not, but I suspect the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, can.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to speak in support of Amendment 46. I want also to put on the record my thanks to the Minister for facilitating the meeting with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and me.

It is not my intention to repeat what the noble Baroness has said, but I want to say clearly that I agree with all of it. The Minister asked her and me whether we could think of any examples of confusion resulting from the inconsistent approach set out in guidance as to when non-violent extremism can be addressed in responding to the Section 36 duty, which pertains narrowly to terrorism, and when it cannot. I shall set out at least two examples.

Before I do so, however, I want to say that, even if there were no examples, it would still be important that when a lack of clarity was highlighted we did not wait for a problem before recognising the need to take action. I am a great believer in recognising where there is potential for problems before they make their presence felt and intervening to address the source of the difficulty in question.

Paragraph 129 of Mr Justice Ouseley’s judgment clearly demonstrates that he has already identified a tendency for people to misconstrue the guidance as it relates to the definition of the threshold that has to be crossed for consideration of non-violent extremism to become relevant. He states: “However often that phrase”—that is, preventing people being drawn into non-violent extremism—

“is used, it starts, in my judgment, from a fundamental misreading or misunderstanding of the guidance. The guidance is about the s26 duty; it is therefore about preventing people being drawn into terrorism through non-violent extremism. Non-violent extremism which carries no risk of drawing people into terrorism is not subject to the guidance. Once the risk is established that a non-violent extremist does pose such a risk, the guidance applies. It is not at issue that preventing people being drawn into terrorism is a legitimate aim”.

In my judgment, this is no more than sufficient justification for the Government to recognise the importance of intervening in order to bring the requisite clarity. This could be done relatively easily by employing Mr Justice Ouseley’s definition of when non-violent extremism is relevant to discharging responsibilities under the terrorism Act 2015 and when it is not.

Despite this, I will now turn to two specific examples, starting with the experience of the National Union of Teachers, which has asked:

“How are schools and sixth form colleges expected to incorporate the Prevent strategy into their existing safeguarding policies? The Prevent duty guidance is again lacking in detail on this point. It says schools ‘will need to consider the level of risk to identify the most appropriate referral, which could include Channel or Children’s Social Care, for example’. It also requires these policies to ‘set out clear protocols for ensuring that any visiting speakers—whether invited by staff or by children themselves—are suitable and appropriately supervised’”.


Crucially, however, the NUT then goes on to observe that the guidance,

“does not indicate which acts/behaviours warrant a referral to Channel or Children’s Social Care”.

This clearly illustrates the problem.

The NUT is not saying that it cannot see terrorism, which is fairly easy to identify. Its difficulty pertains to the lack of clarity regarding what else is relevant, and at the heart of that challenge is knowing what non-violent extremism is engaged and what non-violent extremism is not engaged. On the basis of some parts of the guidance, one could think that all non-violent extremism is relevant. On the basis of the legal definition in his judgment, however, Mr Justice Ouseley is very clear that non-violent extremism is relevant only if it is connected to terrorism in the sense that it,

“risks drawing others into terrorism before the guidance applies to it”.

He then, of course, looks at it from the other perspective, saying:

“If there is some non-violent extremism, however intrinsically undesirable, which does not create a risk that others will be drawn into terrorism, the guidance does not apply to it”.


These are the tests that should be being applied but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has demonstrated, the current guidance does not uphold them and does not have a clear and consistent definition of when non-violent extremism is relevant for the purpose of discharging the Section 36 responsibilities and when it is not relevant. Having considered this NUT example, it is also helpful to have regard to the 2016 Joint Committee on Human Rights report on counter- extremism. Again in relation to education, it states, at paragraph 46, that:

“On 21 June 2016, the Times reported that ‘in schools 1,041 children were referred last year to Channel, the de-radicalisation programme; in 2012, the year it was extended nationally, only nine children were referred’. Evidence on the proportionality of such referrals is almost entirely anecdotal at this stage. Yet it is far from clear that it was envisaged that so many children would be referred. Tell MAMA has stated that it has ‘received a number of cases involving schools and where Muslim young people have been interviewed on the back of alleged comments that they have made within the school environment’. They argue that some of these individuals ‘believe that they have been targeted because of their faith’”.


In other words, the JCHR is questioning whether the scale of referrals is appropriate.

If teachers are overreferring, this is not because they are seeing lots of terrorism in our schools. It is almost certainly because they are seeing what they perceive to be non-violent extremism and think that it provides a basis for a referral. Clearly, if non-violent extremism as a whole is in play, it provides a very broad basis for making referrals that would be consistent with these numbers. This misreading is, of course, entirely consistent with Mr Justice Ouseley’s observation that preventing people being drawn into non-violent extremism arises out of,

“a fundamental misreading of the guidance”.

He is very clear that, legally, the relevant Section 26 duty—and we may add by extension the relevant Section 36 duty, since both are confined to terrorism—engages non-violent extremism only to the extent that it can be shown to be connected to terrorism by playing a part in drawing people into it.

When we are confronted by a general tendency for people to misread the guidance, we can safely assume that the guidance is not clear. That is precisely what the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has shown, by looking at the relevant texts. The Minister told the noble Baroness and me that these concerns could be addressed within 12 months because the guidance documents would be up for review by then. However, given that there is evidence suggesting that non-violent extremism is being applied generally, without regard for the appropriate legal constraints, reviewing the guidance is now a matter of considerable urgency.

It was your Lordships’ House that set the legislative framework providing the foundations for the Prevent and Channel duty guidance when we scrutinised and passed the 2015 Act. The evidence highlighting that the guidance is not clear and that it is being misread, to allow it to be applied to non-violent extremism not licensed anywhere in the legislation that we signed off, should be a real concern to every Member of your Lordships’ House.

In this context, while I appreciate that in the normal course of events there will be an opportunity to review the guidance documents in 12 months, I am not persuaded that it is appropriate to leave the many public servants who are expected to discharge this duty with guidance that we know is vulnerable to being misread for possibly as long as another 18 months, depending how long the review lasts. Mindful of this, I ask the Minister to take this matter away between now and Third Reading to see whether, mindful of the practical implications arising out of the lack of clarity, it might be possible to bring forward a review.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said, I do not think there is necessarily a need to rewrite the entire guidance documents. What is required is a clear statement at the start of the documents and in the glossary that says words to the effect of, “Any reference to extremism in this document must be read as engaging only non-violent extremism, to the extent that it is connected to terrorism, in the sense that it can be shown to play a part in drawing people into terrorism. Non-violent extremism which carries no risk of drawing people into terrorism is not subject to the guidance. Once the risk is established that a non-violent extremist poses such a risk, the guidance applies. It is not an issue that preventing people being drawn into terrorism is a legitimate aim”. I believe this would bring much-needed clarity. I look forward with great interest to what the Minister has to say in response.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I cannot in any way match the forensic and destructive analysis of the present situation provided by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Morrow. I thank them for that. I think that the Minister has some serious answering to do on those very technical points—the case was argued in much detail.

I want to very briefly make a much broader point. When we make weapons of law in this place, who will wield them in the future? The very compelling point by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that one person’s non-violent extremism is somebody else’s common sense, is one that we ought to have very much in our minds. We should regard that as being precious and part of our heritage as citizens of this country.

It is also something that changes over time. I want to confess to the House that, on one reading of history, I am a non-violent extremist. I am a supporter of the views of Thomas Helwys, who fled this country in 1605 because of the tract that he published which stated that every man should be free to worship his own God, in his own way, whether Catholic, Jew or Muslim. He very sensibly fled to the Netherlands for four years after publishing that tract. He subsequently returned to this country, was arrested and was imprisoned for life in the Tower of London. That is an example of the fact that fashions change and things change in our own country. They also change geographically. In the European Union, 10 years ago it was perfectly safe and proper to be a lecturer at George Soros’s university. Now you are an enemy of the state.

Who holds the weapons concerning what is extreme and what is common sense? I hope the Minister will consider that point as well as the forensic and detailed critique provided by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Morrow.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 12th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, first, I support the basic intention behind my noble friend’s amendment, but I will in a few moments try to put it into a much more contemporary context than, with respect, she did. In any event, I ask the Minister to advise the House whether such an amendment is necessary at all. If somebody makes a reference to a panel and then sits on the panel, to me as a lawyer with quite a lot of experience dealing with judicial review, that would be immediately judicially reviewable as a plain example of apparent bias, and the decision would likely be overturned and have to be reconsidered from the beginning. I hope that we will hear the Minister tell the House that that is indeed the way in which the situation is perceived, and that it is not the practice for people making the recommendation, if they are local authority employees, to sit on the panel, though of course their recommendation is part of the evidence—that is what we will call it—that the panel hears.

I turn to my point about context. I urge your Lordships to regard this as an important change that has taken place over the years. Both before 2011—when I ceased to be the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and was succeeded by my noble friend Lord Anderson, who did such a wonderful job in that role—and since, I have visited many Channel projects around the country. In the early part of my time visiting those projects, they were run by the police and their involvement was deeply resented by some local communities. In some areas, the police were very sensitive; in some, they were less so; but they always were seen by many communities, particularly in the West Midlands, as threatening to prosecute people and going outside their role of dealing with reported or suspected crime, investigating it and charging people.

In the best local authorities, where there must be a Prevent co-ordinator, this work has been devolved to ward level. Birmingham, the largest local authority in Europe, I think, is a very good example—despite the Trojan horse issue—of that being done with great success. In Birmingham, local authority staff—often social workers but sometimes those involved in education and sometimes those given offices to act only with the Channel project—identify vulnerable individuals and refer them for consideration by panels. In such cases, the police do not have to be involved at all. Indeed, as I understand it, in the majority of cases they are never involved. This is dealt with as a problem to be handled before any question of crime is considered and, in most cases, there is no need for police involvement because there is no crime. The reference takes place before crime. That is a successful Channel reference, almost by definition.

In the areas I visited, the police have acquiesced in that approach, recognising that their role is to become involved only if a reference is, first, unsuccessful and, secondly, moves into the area of potential crime. I urge your Lordships to take the view that the changes set out in the Bill simply reflect changes in the context of Channel since the 2015 Act was brought into force.

We heard from my noble friend Lady Howe about “false positives”. I think we should be wary about that phrase. I say this with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. He was a very distinguished operational police officer for decades. I am sure that during that time, he arrested or authorised the arrest of a fair number of people who were acquitted. That is normal in the world of policing. In the very difficult world of counterterrorism, it is also normal. It would not be right to be hung up on statistics about false positives when one bears in mind the clear evidence of the considerable success of the Channel project.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for giving me such full attention in her speech: I appreciate that. According to paragraph 3.2 of the Prevent report that the Government published in March this year, the police made 1,946 referrals to the Prevent programme, which was 32% of the nominations made. The education service, by which I think they mean schools and colleges, made an almost identical number of referrals, 1,976, also described in the government publication as 32%. The question that I am happy to hear repeated by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, is: are those figures appropriate? Is the net catching too many fish? I understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, which is perfectly fair, but the same paragraph of the same report says that 2,199 cases “required no further action”, which is 36% of those referred. The total of those referred to “other services” is 2,748, which is 45%. If one adds those two together, over 80% are referred or require no further action.

Where are they referred to? Thirty per cent are referred to education, 17% to the police, and 29% to local authorities. Exactly what all this means will come up in the debate on the following amendment, as will whether the reporting system is giving us the kind of information and insight that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, just tried to throw on the subject. I await the Minister’s response with great interest. I certainly support the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, in moving the amendment today.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Clause 19 provides for a local authority to have the power to refer a person who is vulnerable to or at risk of being drawn into terrorism to a Channel panel for support. Amendment 54 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, would place a requirement in the Bill that the person who previously referred the individual cannot be the representative of the local authority on the panel.

The noble Baroness set out a clear and compelling case for the amendment, and I will be happy to support her. She addressed a number of points that need to be responded to by the Minister in this short debate. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, also made an important point about the risks to decision-making if you are the person making the referral and you make decisions as well. It may be that the Minister will say that the points made by the noble Lord will be taken into account by the local authority anyway, so it would not get into that situation, but he made a very valid point.

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Moved by

[Lord Stunell]

55: Clause 19, page 21, line 19, at end insert—
“( ) After subsection (3) insert—“(3A) The Secretary of State must ensure the collection and annual release of statistics on—(a) the religion, and(b) the ethnicity,of identified individuals referred under subsection (2).””

[Lord Stunell]

Amendment 55 relates to the recording of information about those who are referred into the system and provides that we should collect information on ethnicity and religion. The amendment’s current phrasing of “religion” may not be the most elegant way of putting it, and “what religious belief, if any, the individual professes” might capture the purpose more clearly. In any case, I see the amendment as a ranging shot for the debate on Amendment 57 which will follow. Its purpose is to give some meaningful and useful additional information which would be published in the annual statistical review to which I referred in the debate on the previous amendment.

There are numerous statistics at the moment, some of which have already been quoted. Perhaps the most outstanding is that, in 2016-17—the statistics for 2017-18 have not yet been published—6,093 people were referred to the process. As has already been said, a very much smaller number actually went into a Channel programme: some 6% of those who were referred. There are various staging posts along the way, which meant that some 36% of people were filtered out because nothing needed to be done and 45%—almost half—were referred in a different direction not related to terrorism at all, although they might have had vulnerabilities that needed to be addressed. That left 19% who got as far as serious consideration, of whom approximately one-third were directed into a Channel programme.

All that is in the current summary. The summary also states the gender of those referred, says something about the age profile, and says quite a lot about the region of the country from which they come. However, it says nothing about the ethnicity, culture or religion of those who are referred. As was said earlier and is well known, at a time when there are significant community fears and suspicions about the way that this programme operates, the absence of that information makes it very difficult for anybody, including the Minister, to rebut their fears that the system operates in a discriminatory way, possibly as a result of unconscious bias or as a result of people looking slightly too Muslim. How do people actually get into the programme? We do not know how it works. Are there groups of the population who find themselves disproportionately targeted, or not? Given that 94% of those who are referred do not finish up in the Channel programme, is the ethnicity of the 94% who do not make it into the Channel programme different from that of the 6% who get through all the filters?

At Second Reading I made a number of points about the referral rate and a procedure which I described as producing duds. However, I should qualify that immediately by saying that only 36% of referrals were duds, 45% showed vulnerabilities but had nothing to do with terrorism, and 19% merited further investigation on grounds of potential vulnerability to terrorism. The police made 32% of all the referrals. Therefore, my first question to the Minister is: did they get it more right than schools, universities and colleges, which also referred 32%? In other words, is it stop and search revisited, or did most of the Channel cases which finished up in the Channel programme itself come from the police referrals, indicating that the police were in fact uniquely good at getting it right? We do not know because we do not have the fundamental information needed to assess it.

We therefore do not know whether communities are proportionately or disproportionately referred or which referring agency is better or worse at hitting the target—that is, getting relevant people referred in the first place and through to Channel programmes at the end of the process. Are Asian men disproportionately reported and therefore in the 94% but then not seen as at risk? That would perhaps be evidence of unconscious bias in how referrals are made. Or perhaps that is not the case, in which case the Minister could stand and face community representatives and say that the evidence supports the contention that it is always done fairly and proportionately. There is also a small subset where more information might be useful operationally anyway. The religion and ethnicity crossover is relevant when there are converts and newly radicalised white referrals. How many of those have there been? We do not know the answer to that either.

The Minister might say that to extend the statistical reach in this way is costly and disproportionate and all those kinds of things. However, the public good that would come from being able to answer these questions is substantial, and it is well worth recording something that would be blindingly obvious to the people on the Channel panel, who will automatically take into account the ethnicity and the religious and cultural background of the people they are assessing. In case the Minister goes the other way and says that the amendment is too narrow in the information it would add to the statistical summary, I should add that Amendment 56 is the catch-all that would allow Ministers to tell us what other factors need to be taken into account to make this a meaningful document. I beg to move.

[Lord Sheikh (Con)]

My Lords, I will talk about the Prevent strategy in greater detail when we discuss Amendment 57. At this stage, I would like to say that there is disquiet among Muslims regarding the application of the Prevent strategy and it is felt that a review is necessary.

The Home Office should gather and publish figures to see whether the strategy is disproportionately affecting any particular ethnic group or religion. I understand that the Government publish data on the age, gender and region of residence of those referred under the Prevent programme, together with the type of concerns raised. It is important that there is complete transparency and people are given all the appropriate information, including details regarding ethnicity and religion. This will enable us not only to have a complete understanding of all the issues but to take appropriate remedial action. As regards Muslims, we need to involve members and leaders of the community, the mosques, the imams, Muslim centres and the media. We can then make arrangements for all the people to get involved and provide the necessary guidance and support.

Islam is indeed a religion of peace and forbids any form of suicidal act or terrorism. We need to explain to people who are misled about the true principles of Islam, once we have examined the total extent of the problem. I therefore support the amendment.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I shall start by addressing Amendment 55. I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that it is very important that both the Prevent programme and the Channel process are open to public scrutiny, and, to this end, we support calls for greater transparency. Indeed, we have already published two years-worth of Channel statistics, covering 2015-16 and 2016-17—the latter in March of this year. We are committed to publishing these statistics on an annual basis, and expect to publish 2017-18 data towards the end of this year.

The data is extensively quality assured before publication to ensure accuracy. However, due to the provisional nature of the dataset and the need to further develop and improve our data collection, it is currently published as “experimental statistics”, indicating that the information is, as I said, at an early stage of development. As such, we look for feedback from users on what information is included, while working to improve training and guidance for those responsible for providing the data and assessing its quality and limitations.

We absolutely appreciate that figures on ethnicity and religion are likely to be of interest to users of these statistics, for all the reasons that noble Lords have outlined. Working through the Home Office Chief Statistician, we are happy to explore the inclusion of such data in future publications. However, I should stress that whether this proves to be possible will depend on a number of factors, including the quality and completeness of the data. To give an example, currently at least half of the records supplied to the Home Office do not include ethnicity or religion, so publication of such variables could be misleading at this stage. However, that is not a no; it is saying that we will work on statistics that will be useful to the public and provide for wider transparency.

Turning to Amendment 56, I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, recognises the significant role that a Channel panel can have in helping to safeguard very vulnerable individuals. Although the Government agree wholeheartedly with the intent of the amendment, I will set out why we do not think it is needed to achieve this end.

Section 36(4) of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 requires the Channel panel to prepare a plan for an individual whom the panel considers appropriate to be offered support. Section 36(5) sets out what information must, as a minimum, be included in such a support plan—that is, how consent is to be obtained; the nature of the support to be provided; the people who will provide the support; and how and when the support will be provided.

The current wording of the Act does not preclude other information being included in the support plan, but it should also be recognised that this is not the only place where information about the individual being discussed is recorded. The vulnerability assessment framework, for example, contains relevant information about the particular vulnerabilities of the individual, drawing on all the information from the various panel members. Panel minutes will contain the record of the multiagency discussion and a risk assessment is also completed. All these documents are brought together within the case management file.

The Government agree entirely with the thrust of the amendment, which is that it is essential that the panel is aware of, takes account of, and indeed records, all matters relevant to the safeguarding needs of the individual. As noble Lords will know, that is the bread and butter of what Channel panels are about, and I reassure the Committee that the statutory Channel duty guidance makes it clear that this is the case. Paragraph 71 of the guidance, for example, says:

“The panel must fully consider all the information available to them to make an objective decision on the support provided, without discriminating against the individual’s race, religion or background”.


However, the support plan is not necessarily the right place to record that information. It is intended instead to be a simple, unambiguous document that sets out exactly who will do what and when with regard to the actual support being provided. Requiring panels to include other information here, rather than in other parts of the case management file, would be likely to diminish rather than add to its value within the process.

The noble Lord asked whether Prevent was discriminatory. The statistics reflect the type of extremism being referred and what happens at each stage of the process. It is important to note that one-third of all cases provided with support were actually referred for far-right concerns. He also asked which agencies had the highest and lowest conversion rates from referral to support. I will be happy to look at the underlying statistics and see whether that analysis is actually possible, and I will get back to him on that.

I hope that I have given the noble Lord sufficient information so that he will feel that he can withdraw his amendment, on the understanding that the Home Office Chief Statistician is looking precisely at the issue that he raised in Amendment 55.

[Lord Stunell]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who contributed to the debate, and I particularly thank the Minister. If I may say so, for a ranging shot we seem to have done very well. We look forward very much to seeing the Minister convince the statisticians that the much-needed information can be made available in a timely fashion. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 55 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stunell]

My Lords, I support the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lady Hamwee, and I see it as being on behalf of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. That committee’s report set this out very clearly. For most of the last 45 years the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and I have been on the same side of the enterprises we were jointly engaged on, but on this occasion, not so much. I very much prefer the evidence provided to the Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, to that of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, on this occasion. We have the evidence of concern and I personally, if challenged, cannot say that I have seen a project which was not successful or which was delivered with distorted priorities, but the debate in the Committee so far has been about much more than individual projects and how well an individual project does or does not deliver, just as a debate about education in this House is not about how one particular school does or does not deliver. It is about the quality of the product overall, and that is surely what this review should be aiming to assess.

I note that at Second Reading the Minister said in winding up that there was evidence that Prevent was working well, and she cited the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. At the same time, the Government’s Explanatory Note says that the specific changes in Amendment 19 will save police resources. Clearly, there is a need to save police resources, and therefore we had the discussion earlier about whether the amount of effort the police are putting in, capturing fish that are then thrown back into the sea, is the right strategy or tactic to follow. It is clearly appropriate to ask that question in relation to other referring agencies as well.

The fact is that at the moment we do not know the answer. Statistics will be part of the answer, but we also need to look at outcomes. What we have at the moment is not an annual evaluation but an annual tabulation, which is not very useful, in some ways. It is as though an Ofsted report were produced in which the only information was the attendance register, with no attempt to evaluate the curriculum or the attainment level. There is nothing so far available to the Committee or to policymakers about the choices, the content or the outcomes of the programme as a whole and I believe that there certainly should be. I entered the search term “Prevent strategy evaluation” into the GOV.UK website and it brought up two documents. The first was the annual statistical review, which as I pointed out is not actually doing that job, and the second and only other document was a Youth Justice Board report, Preventing Religious Radicalisation and Violent Extremism, published under the imprimatur of the DCLG back in 2010. There may be other evaluations—there may, indeed, be very useful reports drawn up by various other people—but the Government have not seen fit to reference them on the website and in that sense they have certainly failed the transparency test, even if stuff has been going on.

It might be worth while quoting a couple of paragraphs from that Youth Justice Board report of 2012:

“The review found that the evidence base for effective preventing violent extremism interventions is very limited. Despite a prolific output of research, few studies contained empirical data or systematic data analysis”.


Then, after some examination of overseas projects, and the tos and fros of that:

“These programmes provide some potential learning points for future UK programmes, chiefly around the need for those engaging with radicalised individuals to carry authority and legitimacy, and to be equipped with profound ideological knowledge”.


An immediate question arises as to whether, in the subsequent six years, that paragraph’s lessons have been carried through, making sure that those who are delivering the programme or, indeed, carrying out the filtering process that we have been discussing this afternoon are in fact,

“equipped with profound ideological knowledge”.

I have a sense that that may not be true in all cases, although no doubt it is in some.

When one starts a process which, as the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, and at Second Reading, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, very eloquently explained, arouses the concerns of the community that it is supposed to safeguard, and at the other end we see the inability of the Government to demonstrate that they are producing results at the far end of the project, the time for an independent review is clearly now.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 9th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie. I congratulate him on it and welcome him to the House. I am sure the whole House will be looking forward to his future contributions. In the other place, he had a reputation for and record of original thinking, forensic inquiry, plain speaking and ruthless honesty, and we saw some of that in his maiden contribution in this House. Even his most severe critics would never describe him as a yes-man. Witnesses who sat in front of him in the Treasury Select Committee at the other end of this building would be ready to testify to that, even if they did not always wish to testify to his committee. His words today illustrate a thoughtful, analytical and fearless approach to the issues that come before your Lordships’ House, and I am sure his future contributions will continue that. It was also a pleasure to hear the maiden speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier. His contribution was well up to the quality of this debate, which has, so far, been excellent and well informed.

Turning to the Bill, I associate myself with the words of my noble friends Lord Marks, Lady Hamwee and Lord Thomas and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi. In coalition days, she and I had many a quiet chat to see whether we could restore some sanity to the situation, but we did not always succeed as we wished. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said wise words about how extremism without violence must not be tangled up in our thinking about offences.

I want to focus on Clause 19. It is a very minor provision in the Bill; indeed, it appears under the subheading “Miscellaneous”. It deals with the granting of enabling powers to local authorities to nominate people who should go to Channel panels. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, commented on this to some extent. The Explanatory Notes to the Bill explain that, in 2016-17, 6,093 people were referred to Channel panels, and that 332 of those 6,093 were given support as a result of discussion in those Channel panels. Channel panels are established and run by local authorities, and up to now referrals to them have been exclusively in the hands of the police. The proposal in Clause 19 is to allow local authorities to have that right to refer people to the Channel panels that they themselves organise. It could be seen as just operational tidying up, but there is a little more to it than that. The Government’s impact assessment says of it that it is a magic provision; the word “magic” does not appear but it does say the provision will provide a saving to the police and no additional cost to anybody else. So what could possibly be wrong with it?

I suggest to your Lordships that there are some aspects that need to be looked at a bit more carefully than this entry under “Miscellaneous” currently grants: first, the reputation and effectiveness of Prevent itself—the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, has said some powerful things about that; secondly, the workloads and competences of those running Channel panels; and, thirdly, something about their success rate and performance.

First, on reputation and effectiveness—this case has already been strongly made by the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, and apart from saying “Hear, hear” I cannot add much more—Prevent is counterproductive and its apparent impact is skewed. A careful reading of the report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, especially page 24, sets out the case again.

Secondly, on workloads and competences, I make the point that those 6,093 referrals in a year mean 115 referrals a week to Channel panels. The outcome of those Channel panels is that six people a week receive support after referral. Let us just take those figures again: 115 cases come up each week, of which six are, on inspection, decided to be appropriate to receive Channel support. My first question is whether the Minister is satisfied that the 6,000 who are being referred in the first place are in fact an appropriate 6,000, and whether she is satisfied that only 6% of them subsequently being seen as requiring intervention by Channel panels suggests that the right people are coming forward and being selected.

My second question is: what analysis has the department done on which participating agencies are most likely to produce the false positives—the 109 people that week who are referred to a panel but for whom Channel support is not thought to be appropriate. Who are the people who are getting it wrong, and what can be done for them to get it right? What feedback and learning is there from the cases that do not get Channel support, and where evidently those nominations were inappropriate for one reason or another? What change is Clause 19 expected to produce to those outcomes? Is the clause’s intention that there will be more referrals as a consequence of local authorities having the right to refer, or is it supposed that in some way there will be more priorities for action by Channel panels as a consequence of those referrals? What is the driver for the change, something on which the Explanatory Notes are completely silent?

That brings me to the success and performance of Channel panels and the Prevent system as a whole. What happened to the 332 who received Channel support in 2016-17? Who was missed? The Explanatory Notes quite rightly point out that there were five terrorist incidents where deaths occurred, and seven terrorists were directly involved there. The noble Lord, Lord King, brought forward some other figures about the quite substantial number of attacks that were intercepted and where plots were foiled. Had any of those people come into the 6,093? Had any of them come into the 332 who were referred to Channel? In other words, is Prevent actually doing what the name suggests it should be doing, or is it simply a cosmetic overlay on a system that is widely seen as clumsy and counterproductive at best?

The Joint Committee on Human Rights wanted to see an independent inquiry. The Government’s rejection of that was really quite abrupt; they said such a claim was unfounded because there had been so many external and internal reviews that basically everything was fine and everything was known. I therefore hope that the questions that I have posed can be simply answered by the Minister today or, if not, that she is ready to answer them in Committee when we get there. It is necessary for the Government to justify the change that is proposed and the base from which that change is being made. What in fact is happening to the 94 out of every 100 people who are referred who have no further action taken regarding their case? I hope that when we get to Committee the Minister will be able to fill in some of those gaps. If not, I will certainly be returning to these matters at that time.

EU Settlement Scheme

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I think that my right honourable friend the Minister for Immigration met with representatives of the3million group. I will inquire as to whether she is going to go through each of the 125 questions. I have to say that I do not know. I will get back to the noble Baroness or I will ask the Minister to write to her.

At this point, perhaps I might take the opportunity to revisit an answer I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. I talked about the EU public policy test for the implementation period when he asked me about criminality and then I started to talk about UK deportation rules. I should not have talked about UK deportation rules because it will remain the EU public policy test. He may or may not have noticed that I switched tack, but I would like to clarify that now.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, the most welcome phrase in the whole Statement is that officials will be looking for reasons to grant rather than reasons to refuse—that will be a tremendous change of culture for the department. I do not believe that any civil servant in the Home Office, the Border Agency or the Passport Office has ever earned a bonus in the past for issuing more visas than the quota. Can the Minister assure the House that this is going to be a genuine culture change within those agencies: otherwise, I fear that, whatever the good intentions may be at ministerial level, the outputs will look dismally like they always do on these matters? Of course, I am sure that Commonwealth family applicants will be looking for the same kind of approach by officials when their applications are considered. Perhaps she could give us some guidance on whether this culture change is going to reach to the furthest edges of the Home Office.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I think that it became clear, when my right honourable friend became Home Secretary, that culture change was afoot across the Home Office. He talked about a more humane approach to decision-making and about the end of the hostile environment, which would instead become a compliant environment. The wording of the Statement today was no accident. It reflects a much more positive attitude to people who make applications and tries to help them. As I say, I do not think that that is accidental and, since my right honourable friend became Home Secretary, his actions have shown that.

Manchester Arena Attack Review

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I knew that I had left something out in my response to the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. That was, of course, the mental health and other problems that victims may face in the aftermath of an attack and the short-term, medium-term and long-term effects. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, we rapidly put together a cross-government Victims of Terrorism Unit to work closely with Manchester. It identified and resolved issues affecting the provision of an effective and co-ordinated response to victims of terrorism. That runs alongside the work we have done across systems, including in the third sector and the private sector, to improve and strengthen the support that is so vital to victims in the aftermath of a terrorist attack.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I associate myself with the Minister’s remarks on the emergency services and the response of the community across the whole of Greater Manchester, including in my own borough of Stockport. A good friend of mine spent two very anxious hours outside the arena that night, hoping that he would be able to collect his daughter, and was quite unable to get any of the information that he needed to find that out. In the event, she was safe and well, at least physically, but the failure of that emergency helpline system caused real anxiety to a large number of people at a very difficult time of their lives. I hope that the Minister will understand that and apply as much pressure as she can—or as the Government are able to do—to make sure that this kind of slip-up does not occur in future.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I join the noble Lord in complimenting the response from the community on the night of the attack. I was at the vigil in Albert Square the day after the attack. I also went over to the Islamic centre in Whalley Range, where there were representatives of all faiths from all parts of Greater Manchester and beyond. The feeling of solidarity among all sectors of the community across Greater Manchester was quite incredible. However, the noble Lord is absolutely right that the lack of communication caused incredible distress to people on the night. I take on board his point and the points of other noble Lords that we must make sure that such an almost elementary failing does not happen again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that a huge amount of work through the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund has gone into education and building schools, including in Helmand. Given the work that is taking place in the run-up to the troop draw-down and beyond, I hope not only that those schools will continue, but that more schools will join them and extend education to more Afghan children.

[Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

T6. Will the Secretary of State tell the House what progress has been made since the G8 on cutting illicit financial flows from developing countries, and on setting up a public register of the beneficial ownership of those companies?

[Justine Greening]

I reiterate that a consultation on beneficial ownership is under way. Since taking up this role I have increased the amount of funding that my Department gives to the Met police to track down and prosecute those involved in illicit illegal flows, and they are doing an excellent job.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan]

Tax is one of the main themes of the G8, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it absolutely clear, including in his speech at the Davos world economic forum last week, that it is one of his top priorities for our presidency.

[Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

T4. What is being done to ensure that the companies of the world smell the coffee, as the Prime Minister wants, when it comes to developing countries receiving their tax income?

[Mr Duncan]

It is the policy both of our presidency of the G8 and of DFID more generally in our work in poor countries to get far greater transparency from global corporations and to ensure that they pay their fair share of tax and that they do so to the most appropriate tax regimes in which they work.

Tax (Developing Countries)

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I am delighted to take part in this debate. I have been away from the real world for the past two and a half years, but I have now returned, which gives me an opportunity to join in with some of these things that have wider significance.

Before the last general election, I spent an interesting and helpful year on the Select Committee on International Development. I remember a number of reports from that time, but two seem relevant to the report before us. One was “Aid Under Pressure”, which considered the pressures of the worldwide downturn and climate change. That report stated that development needs in the third world are as pressing now as they ever have been and that significant problems must be confronted. The second relevant report was on urbanisation, which documented the fact that we are now at the tipping point where half the world’s population lives in urban areas. We live not in an agricultural world, but an urban one. In many cases, there are far more small-scale enterprises with productive outputs, with the possibility of their raising revenue for public services. The challenges of doing that are immense, because so many of those enterprises are informal and the land that they are on is often held informally. I remember visiting Nigeria and looking at a DFID project to facilitate the registration of land rights. Property cannot be taxed if the owner is not known. A business cannot be made to pay tax on anything if its existence is not known. The report is a logical follow-through on that, considering the next steps that need to happen.

In so far as establishing my credentials goes, I should say that I, too, met the Christian Aid bus when it came to my constituency. Perhaps hon. Members present who did not meet the bus should draw that to our attention!

Successive UK Governments should take pride in the achievements of the UK in supporting and promoting international development and in the aid targets we have set ourselves and are now, under this Government, achieving. But as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) said eloquently, not all our constituents think we are on the right track. They are critical of many aspects of our aid programme. It is therefore important not only that we assert the reasons for having an international development programme, but that we require countries that we are helping to have systems of governance, public administration and taxation that are robust enough to support development in their own right, as far as they can. This document’s recommendations seem to point in the right direction. I will make some points about that in a moment.

All this has to be underpinned by a much wider understanding inside the UK about why it is important to support international development. There is a moral case—many people, perhaps including those on the Christian Aid bus, would put that well at the front as the best reason—but we must recognise that for many of our constituents the moral case is ambiguous at best and, at a time when our economy and public services are under pressure, it is not self-evident in every respect.

We need to make the utilitarian argument as well. If we want less worldwide conflict and migration and we want growth in UK trade and more exports and jobs, we need a peaceful, well-developed world. It is in the UK’s interests to support that and to encourage it to happen.

Of course, those who would criticise the international aid programme would always centre on the criticism that says that it is all wasted and that corruption and, as this report documents, evasion mean that the people there are not doing all they can to help themselves. I go strongly on the moral case, but I always think it is important to say to my constituents that there is an essential utilitarian case for aid as well.

This document goes some way to showing that you can have your cake and eat it. Part of the aid and development programme is about helping countries stand on their own feet and showing how our aid and development programme, and the UK’s policies, can contribute to that desirable aim of having free-standing, self-supporting third world countries that can prosper without the need for subventions from this country or others.

The report contains 16 recommendations. The Government have accepted seven, partially accepted six and disagreed—they do not say “rejected”, which would be too abrupt—with three. Seven yeses, six maybes and three noes. Not all of the 16 recommendations are of equal significance or importance in terms of getting us in the right direction. I am delighted that the Government have accepted seven. Having looked at the recommendations and the Government’s responses, there is nothing that I need to comment on. However, I am sorry about the other nine recommendations and I want to spend a little bit of time picking out one or two of those.

On the partial agreement on getting sound, transparent tax regimes, recommendation 4 states that the Treasury should be pressing Crown dependencies to meet those standards. Clearly, what is good enough for the United Kingdom ought to be good enough for our Crown dependencies as well. The Government’s somewhat wishy-washy response about whether they thought it was a good thing, an achievable thing or anything to do with them was a little bit disappointing. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister, whom I also welcome to her role, will be a little bit more robust than the Government have been in their formal response and will say that this transparency question is important.

The Government say that they do not want to go any further than the global forum concept, but that does not seem sufficient. They have described it as not being the most fruitful way forward. I encourage my hon. Friend the Minister to tell us what is the most fruitful way forward and how the British Government intend to adopt that, instead of the Committee’s recommendation. Obviously, if the recommendation is being rejected because the Government want to go further, I am with them on that. But it is a good idea for them to spell that out to us more solidly.

The Government disagree with recommendation 6, relating to the UK getting something comparable to the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, saying that they are

“fully committed to tackling tax evasion and”

see

“transparency and information exchange as key tools but”

do not think that this is an appropriate means to achieve it. There is some wording that I am almost certain the Minister did not put in—it sounds as though Treasury civil servants added it—saying that that Act

“has created significant difficulties for the US”.

Perhaps the Minister could spell out what those significant difficulties are. The US does not seem to think that it has significant difficulties. It is fine to turn down the best machine tool we have because we think that the blade is a bit blunt, but if the people using the tool find that it is working perfectly well, we should have an independent assessment of that or a reassessment by the Government.

The Government response says:

“The aim of this overall approach is to develop a comprehensive network of tax information exchange agreements which will enable the UK”—

Government—

“and others to gain access”.

It seems as though they are offering to do everything that does not do anything, and not getting down to the nitty-gritty of what will make a difference. The Committee came up with a valuable, practical and operational way of doing it, which the United States Government are putting in place. It is for this Government to say more distinctly what they intend to do instead, not simply that they do not think that that is appropriate to UK circumstances.

Recommendation 10 is about ministerial responsibility. My hon. Friend the Minister and I, until fairly recently, had some shared experience of ministerial responsibility. I tempt her to agree that the time has come to set up yet another of those inter-ministerial groups, which draws together people from different Departments to consider in the round and with professional support exactly how the Government can do things. Unless I am very much mistaken, my hon. Friend has a piece of paper in front of her stating that the Government are always joined up, they always work together and nothing ever drops the gaps. I entirely support her interpretation of events, but a minor reinforcement of the process by the setting up of an inter-ministerial group could be a further helpful step in the right direction.

Recommendation 13 relates to CDC, which has had what might be called a chequered media profile, and I remember some discussions from when I was on the International Development Committee, as well as the media comment. It is disappointing that the Government have not sought to turn CDC into a much more outward-looking and ethical institution. It ought to be a transparency exemplar when promoting commercial aid and development projects in different countries. There ought to be no question of stuff not being automatically available. Indeed, the Government response is in partial agreement:

“CDC is committed to obtaining further improvements in tax transparency and disclosure, but this will take time.”

Basically, implementation of the Committee’s recommendation would result in CDC overall doing less, not more investment in poorer countries. Paradoxically, however, the response goes on to state that the CDC will continue

“to ensure…fair and full payment of taxes by its investee companies to the countries in which they are based.”

That is fine, but the problem that the Government seem to be claiming is inhibiting their adoption of the Committee recommendation is that they do not want to put the companies at a commercial disadvantage by making them more transparent in their tax affairs, yet they go on to say that they will ensure that those taxes are paid.

For a company that is supported or invested in by CDC and that is performing in such a country, to pay all its taxes as it should would put it at a commercial disadvantage to every other company in that country, which would not be paying its taxes. The disadvantage is in whether it has paid the tax and not in whether it tells people that the tax is paid. The Government have somewhat confused themselves, and I would like them to convert their partial agreement into full agreement with recommendation 13. We have a particular piece of kit—CDC—that is in British Government hands and ownership, so it should be used as the absolute paradigm of good behaviour and best practice in promoting investment.

I hope that gives a flavour of how I believe the Government should respond, but I also want to make a point to do with the lobbying—the presentation—by my good friends in Christian Aid and the consortium; it relates to the £160 billion. No one, and I am sure that the Government do not make this mistake, should imagine that the £160 billion is floating around, waiting to be used for development in third-world countries. If the money comes from somewhere, it will presumably come from the profits of the companies—some would say no bad thing—but if it comes from those profits, the companies would be less profitable, which itself has implications. I am afraid, although it is not necessarily a zero-sum game, it is certainly not a £160-billion-sum game, and we need to be realistic about that. [Interruption.] With the embarrassing noises going on in the background, I draw my remarks to a close.