Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Bill

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & 3rd reading & Committee: 1st sitting
Wednesday 12th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for those indications about sentencing. Does he agree that the review needs to consider all terrorist offences, including relatively minor ones—such as offences under sections 57 and 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 relating to possession of materials—that might in and of themselves not attract a particularly long sentence? Given that they are responsible for almost half of all terrorist sentences handed out, does he agree that they need to be considered as part of the review?

[Chris Philp]

We will consider all terrorist offenders as part of the review. Of course, the sentencing provisions I just described would not be appropriate for all terror offenders—just the most serious—but I assure my hon. Friend that we will be considering the totality of terror offending. Of course, the Streatham offender had committed one of the offences that my hon. Friend just described—possession of terrorist material—so we must be mindful that even when someone commits an offence that, on the face of it, is at the less serious end of the offending spectrum, they can none the less go on to do quite serious things. The Government are extremely mindful of that.