Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

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

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I support my noble friend. I do not know whether he used the words “confidence”, “trust” and “perceptions” but he certainly alluded to them when speaking about the operation of Prevent—that is something we will come to in the next group of amendments. He referred to the public good that comes of transparency. I understand that local authorities that are in receipt of freedom of information requests about the local operation of Prevent are advised by the Home Office to say that they cannot answer, on grounds that include national security, health and safety and—something I was particularly puzzled by—commercial interests.

When questions are asked about the delivery of Prevent projects, the generic answer is apparently that to disclose information could reveal commercial interests and negatively affect the commercial viability of the organisations that deliver the projects. I am sure that the Committee will be interested in how the Home Office suggests that requests for information of this sort should be answered. I do not expect the Minister to disclaim the way in which the Home Office has been advising, if it has been—or at any rate not without taking some advice. But the issue of commercial confidentiality throws a light on this that I had not expected to see.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I just want to clarify one point. I believe that the information about the difference in referrals to Prevent that end up at a Channel panel is in the Home Office information bulletin. So the answer to the noble Lord’s question about whether a police referral is more likely to get through than education or local authority referrals is that it is just over half as likely to get through if it is initially a police referral. Therefore, I think that your Lordships can take some comfort from this being, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, suggested, genuinely about safeguarding rather than a criminal justice intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran]

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly to this amendment. It is an understatement to say that noble Lords feel strongly about Prevent and the need for an independent review. I agree with noble Lords who have talked about a lack of trust in Prevent. My own experience has been of talking to some very successful Prevent projects which, when I suggested that I might refer to them in my speech at Second Reading, asked me not to refer to them in public. Those are ones I wished to cite as doing a fantastic job, so I think that an effort to address some of that mistrust is very well placed.

My reflection is that there is a lot of existing information which, as the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, suggests, might help to fill some of the gaps that noble Lords have talked about. Critical within that is the role of the new Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, but also, from the police perspective, there is what I used to call HMIC, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, but now have to remember is called HMICFRS, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services. The first annual review of the counterterrorism independent advisory group will be published in June next year. Through a more multiagency lens, which I think is really important in this area, there are the local strategic oversight boards and the scrutiny panels. I confess to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that I have not yet attended one—it is clearly in my plan—but I understand that the scrutiny panels are open to the public. There have also been some multiagency peer reviews as well as some more recent independent evaluations, such as that by the University of Huddersfield.

I want to hear the thoughts of my noble friend the Minister about the potential to aggregate and analyse this information. It feels to me like a missed opportunity to bring data transparency to the programme, but also for those who are implementing Prevent on the ground to share learning—and then, of course, potentially to share some much more publicly. I appreciate that this may not address the full range of concerns raised by noble Lords, but I think it could go some way towards a practical solution that can be delivered quite quickly ahead of a more formal independent review.

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Most of what I was going to say has already been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, as we are both on the committee. I want to add to what has been said that the Joint Committee is concerned that the Prevent programme is being developed without first conducting an independent review of how it is currently operating. We are also concerned that any additional responsibility placed on the local authority must be accompanied by adequate training and resources, to ensure that the authorities are equipped to identify individuals who are vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism. We also reiterate our recommendation that the Prevent programme must be subject to an independent review.