Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill (First sitting)

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)]

Q This is perhaps a follow-up to Mr Newlands’s earlier question about viewing material over the internet. There is no doubt that a lot of people out there wish to do us harm, but can you foresee any situations in which people who may be fairly innocent—with mental health problems, for example—could be caught up in the Bill inadvertently? We have, for example, seen some cases involving people with autism who have been pulled into the counter-terrorism area—probably through their mental health issues—almost by error. Can you see any safeguards in the Bill, or in the justice system, that would protect people in those circumstances, so that they would not be unnecessarily criminalised, with all the anguish that goes with that?

Gregor McGill: There is a statutory defence, so that would give some safeguards. As I suggested earlier, prosecutors have to apply the code for Crown prosecutors, which means that they have to ask themselves whether there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of a conviction and, if they are satisfied that that test is met, whether it would be in the public interest to prosecute.

In certain circumstances, if a person was suffering from a mental health issue, that could be a reason for not prosecuting. In certain circumstances it could be a reason for prosecuting. A prosecutor has to look at the particular aspects of each case and make a decision based on what the evidence shows, but I think that there are sufficient safeguards in the legislation and the core process.

Of course, all court proceedings are overseen by independent judges. They are very independent and have an overriding duty to ensure that any court proceedings are fair. That is their overriding duty, and they are very active in ensuring, through the management of criminal cases, that criminal proceedings are fair at all stages. I would say that there are sufficient safeguards within the legislation, and in the wider way in which cases are investigated, prosecuted and tried, to ensure that the rights of everyone in the proceedings are protected.

Assistant Commissioner Basu: The spectrum for mental illness is huge. If people do not have the mens rea, they would not be charged. There would be alternative ways of dealing with that individual. If they do have the mens rea, it depends where they are; we have charged people who have got mental illness issues. Having low levels of mental illness does not mean that someone cannot consciously commit an atrocious act. The investigative process as it stands today, and always has, is that you have to be fit to be detained, fit to be interviewed, and fit to be charged. There is a lot of medical advice before it gets to a charging decision and a prosecutorial process in front of an independent judge. Again, there would be court measures around someone’s fitness to plead or stand trial. I think that there are sufficient safeguards.

Just to be clear about who is drawing vulnerable people in, it is not legislation or the investigative process or the Crown Prosecution Service; it is radicalisers, who rely on the fact that some people are vulnerable and need safeguarding. We have measures within the police to try to prevent those radicalisers getting to those people. That is called Prevent, and we do not talk about that great work enough. It is about trying to stop someone being criminalised in the first place. I and my statutory partners have a lot of people working on doing precisely that—stopping people getting drawn into this and becoming subject to any of the legislation in the first place.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Q A very quick question: in clause 3(2), on obtaining or viewing over the internet, it is clear that,

“on three or more different occasions the person views by means of the internet a document or record containing information of that kind.”

That is quite clear—three clicks and you’re out—but how do you define views? What is the definition of views? Is it a five-second YouTube advert or the like? Is it 10 minutes? Is it an hour? What is the definition of views when it comes to that?

Gregor McGill: I do not think it is defined in the legislation, is it?

[Andrew Bowie]

Q What if somebody clicks on it by accident, views it for three seconds, says, “Oh,” and then moves away from it?

Gregor McGill: That is the point I would make. The analogy I always draw is with things such as indecent images of children. When we are prosecuting cases like that, if someone clicks on a website with indecent images of children once, they might think, “I didn’t want that. I’ll click off.” I would say that no prosecutor would say that the code for Crown prosecutors was met in those circumstances. If you had one click and you were on there for a considerable period of time, that might be different. If you had one very short click, but then you went back and looked again, and then you went back and looked again, that is beginning to show a pattern of behaviour.

[Andrew Bowie]

Q It goes back to Mr Newlands’s question about the period of time. Is it over a 25-year period? Is it a 10-year, five-year or one-year period? If it is a matter of seconds over a 25-year period, that is not really a pattern of behaviour.

Gregor McGill: No, and those are the factors that a prosecutor would take into consideration in asking themselves whether the evidential test was met and, even if it was in those circumstances, whether it would be in the public interest to prosecute.

[Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

Q I would like to move us on to corporations and local authorities. I was a councillor in Tower Hamlets at the time when we had three of our schoolgirls go to Syria, and it became clear that it was not just a counter-terrorism issue but a safeguarding, welfare and child-grooming issue. I wonder in what ways this legislation proves that you are working with local authorities. Do you think there are still any gaps in that working? I would also be interested if you could talk a little about how the Prevent agenda tries to build children’s and other people’s resilience against radicalisation, as one of the best ways of trying to stem the whole phenomenon of Islamic and far-right radicalisation.

Assistant Commissioner Basu: I am on public record as saying that I think Prevent is the most important pillar in the Government’s strategy. What we are facing is a generational challenge. If I think about minors who are being influenced in all the kinds of ways that we have discussed here today, I talk about returning families, mothers and children who have been exposed to atrocities in war zones, who I have to treat as a potential threat as well as a potential safeguarding issue. I have talked about the fact that we see people still actively inspired and encouraged to travel to a war zone where the caliphate does not exist. There are still people being influenced by that.

I think of a case that I investigated less than 18 months ago, which has come to trial, of four young people who were trying to travel to Syria to fight. That links to the section 58 offence, because two of them downloaded material and therefore were chargeable with a section 58 offence. For two of them, there was no evidence under the current legislation to be allowed to interdict them at that time. They were not susceptible to Prevent, which is a voluntary scheme to help people who want to help themselves. That is the difficulty.

Where the Government have brought in desist and deradicalisation programmes that are mandatory for convicted offenders, at least that gives us a further opportunity to try to safeguard. That is another important aspect or evolution of where Prevent has been. But as I have just said, the number of people in policing and in our statutory partners, post the 2015 legislation, that made statutory partners aware of their responsibilities and gave them a legal duty to effectively deal with anyone they suspected was being drawn into terrorism, has made a significant difference. That is not least because the education sector, where you will be well aware that we had huge problems convincing people that safeguarding and not prosecution was our aim, is now the biggest referrer into Prevent—very recently, I think, it was 1% more than policing itself.

There has been a sea change. What we tried to talk to people about is that you do not need to teach teachers about safeguarding. It is absolutely engrained in their character as something that needs to happen. This was no different from a child being abused or neglected; it was exactly the same principle. We believe that is working effectively and will continue to work in the future. Probably the most important thing is that people are resourced and equipped to handle what is going to be an increasing case load, particularly if we see more people returning from theatres of war.

What we described here is a radicalisation process that is still ongoing. My colleagues in the Home Office will see social media and sentiment showing that there is still a growth of extremism in this country. You made the point about making people resilient and able to counter that narrative or to combat an ideology—a good academic we use talks about it being like fast-food ideology. Kids are being exposed to one or two lines of rhetoric from the Koran that mean nothing in isolation. The issue is in trying to teach people what that actually means, or trying to teach a young white lad in north-east England who has been told that white supremacy is the way and who understands nothing about the history of what that actually means. It is important to try to increase their resilience, and we do a lot of that type of work as well.

I do not think we talk enough about that kind of work. We do not hear from enough people doing that kind of work and some of the dramatic effects that they have had in changing people’s ideology, which has meant that those people do not become criminals—they become useful members of society, and are advocates for a better way of life.

I go back to the Peel principles: my job is to prevent crime, not just to detect it. Save life and prevent crime—those are my two primary duties, and the Prevent strategy is precisely about that. Stop criminalising people and be effective, but I cannot do that myself. Those with the skills to do that are in education, health and social services. One of our greatest challenges is probably to properly equip them to do the work that we signpost to them.