Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend the Minister as I suspect—I do not know—that he will not agree to the amendment.

First, I say to the noble Baroness who has just spoken that there is no mention of a particular community in the legislation. It is because, as we all know, it is predominantly people from the Muslim community who have been carrying out these appalling atrocities that those labels are being banded about. The Muslim community has to accept and understand why that is.

Furthermore, the other day I heard about something which I think amplifies why what the Government are seeking to achieve is incredibly difficult. I understand why they want to put this duty on a statutory basis. What I am going to say is almost more shocking to me than what happened in Paris. Somebody I know quite well was telling me the other day that his wife was shopping in a supermarket about three weeks ago in Manchester. She was scouring the shelves, as we do, when she stopped because she could not help overhearing a group of young British Asian Muslim girls talking about going to Syria.

This makes my heart jump when I talk about it and when I think about it. What does that say? It says that there are young people out there of different ages, and probably from different financial backgrounds, who have varying exposure to other faiths and so on and who, we are now hearing, find the idea of going to Syria quite cool. In other words, the importance of Prevent and of the need to try to deter these young people from thinking that somehow it is the right thing is absolutely paramount now. Therefore, we have to find every which way to send out a message, even though it may seem rather severe because it is on the face of the Bill. The threat that we face is severe.

Some of the people coming back from Syria now have carried out the most appalling atrocities. We do not want them talking to these girls, whether it is in supermarkets, in schools or in clubs—wherever it is—and encouraging them to think that it is cool. There has to be another point of view. There has to be a way that we encourage—we urge—all public authorities to do what they can to help these girls and many others like them who may be taken down the wrong path. I understand where my noble friend is coming from and the spirit of these amendments, but I do not think that we should shy away from sending a powerful message through this legislation that we have to do everything to support young people in preventing harm.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, my name is attached to Amendments 13A and 13B. I want to comment on my noble friend Lady Buscombe’s contribution a minute ago. I am not sure that it helped the Minister. I think it explained why we need Amendments 13A and 13B, because the most important thing about implementing Prevent is to recognise that each of our communities differs and that each community, area and specified authority should have due regard to the impact in order to understand it and to pass that message back to central government to understand the change in the nature of terrorism and radicalisation.

That is why I believe that Amendment 13B is valid. It is an extra tool in the box to make sure that we are monitoring what is happening, at whatever level and in whatever specified authority, to the range of people it is going to affect—including, interestingly, pupils who are under sixth form and under student age. What is happening is not consistent across the country. There may be young girls in one area talking about going to Syria; there are young Muslim British girls in other areas who are appalled by that. As a society we need to understand the nuances of that. The briefing that we have had from the Muslim Council of Britain sets that out very clearly. The one thing that we must do is to make sure that we do not have alienation on a grand scale. We need to understand that what is happening is not the same in every single community.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, support my noble friend in Amendment 13A. I want to share my experience as a former leader of Sheffield City Council to say how difficult this is. We make a grave mistake by talking about the Muslim community as though it is a homogenous group of people. They are people with many different beliefs, different processes and different understandings of what is happening worldwide. When I was leader of Sheffield City Council, very strict central guidelines came in with Prevent. That ended up setting not just community against community but different people of the same community against each other, because we were not allowed to have leeway to make judgments or to put in place policies and practices that were relevant to our local context.

What became clear to me, and to many other council leaders across the country, was that unless we got it right from a bottom-up approach, by working with and for those different people in the community, we would alienate more people than we brought in. One of the key findings of the Audit Commission report on the last Prevent programme back in 2008 was that there should be more of a bottom-up than a top-down approach. I have no doubt that the Government’s intentions are well meaning. I have no doubt that there is a view that if you have a set of guidelines from somebody in Whitehall, it is applicable across the country. However, my personal experience tells me that it is best to be more bottom-up than top-down on these issues, otherwise we will not just set community against community but cause tension because of the people within those communities who have different opinions.

I ask the Minister to consider this amendment very seriously. Past experience of my own and the Audit Commission report of 2008 make it very clear: a top-down approach which does not take this into consideration as a major part of implementing Prevent will have unintended consequences and will mean that we have good intentions but bad implementation of something that we all support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 14A, to which the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, spoke. I very much welcome Amendment 15D, tabled by the Minister, which goes a very long way to addressing the concerns that were expressed around the House in Committee and have been expressed again here today. It puts on the face of the Bill that these new Prevent duties for universities are to be read and understood alongside their duties to protect freedom of speech—and, indeed, that particular regard must be given to free speech.

Some noble Lords have expressed concern today about a lack of clarity, but free speech is not absolute, even in universities. It has to be balanced against other considerations; the balance must depend on the particular circumstances, and the guidance will be of particular importance in this regard. All the more welcome, therefore, is the amendment that we will discuss in a later group that ensures that the guidance must be approved by a positive resolution of both Houses.

I most respectfully do not agree with my former tutor, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that Amendment 15D will make no difference to the law of the land. I would expect the courts to say, reading the new clause as part of the Bill, that the Part 5 duties must not unreasonably or unnecessarily restrict or impede the performance of the universities’ core function, which is and remains to promote academic inquiry.

I have two questions for the Minister concerning his Amendment 15D. The first arises out of the fact that the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, and me refers both to freedom of expression and academic freedom. The Minister’s amendment does not mention academic freedom. Can the Minister confirm—I hope he can give a positive response to this—that it is unnecessary expressly to mention academic freedom in his amendment, because in the context of a university, academic freedom is implicit in the very notion of securing freedom of expression? That would be my understanding, but I would very much welcome his reassurance on that.

Secondly, there are limits to the scope of the Minister’s Amendment 15D, because it incorporates the duty of freedom of expression in relation to three aspects of Part 5 of the Bill. New subsection (2) applies freedom of expression to the duty of universities under Clause 25(1). New subsection (3) applies this freedom of expression duty to the role of the Secretary of the State in issuing guidance under Clause 28 and the role of the Secretary of State when considering whether to issue directions under Clause 29.

However, there are two important aspects of the Part 5 scheme to which this new clause on freedom of expression does not appear to apply. One is the duty of universities under Clause 28(2) to “have regard” to the guidance, and the other concerns the duties of monitoring authorities under Clause 30. The freedom of expression duty applies to neither of those important matters, and I am concerned about that. So this is my second question. Will the Minister tell us—he might be unable or unwilling to answer today, but I would very much welcome an answer before Third Reading on Monday—whether there is a reason why his new freedom of expression clause, which I welcome, does not apply to Clause 28(2), the duty of universities to have regard to the guidance, or Clause 30, the duty of monitoring authorities? Would he please look at the matter before Third Reading to consider whether it might be better to include those matters also within this new provision?

[Baroness Brinton]

I have attached my name to Amendment 14C, and rather than repeat the points made by my noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford, I will say just that I endorse them. I will make a comment and then ask my noble friend the Minister a question on his Amendment 15D—which, as many other noble Lords have said this evening, takes us some way forward. I am grateful to the Minister and his civil servants for coming back with a proposal that means that we can actually discuss some of the boundaries—and therein lies my question. This relates to guidance: in particular, we discussed in Committee the revisions of the guidance to some of the very specific duties about checking presentations and making sure that people had been trained in specified authorities.

I have a more fundamental question about paragraph 50 in the current guidance, which I do not believe was proposed to be amended. It says that,

“universities must take seriously their responsibility to exclude those promoting extremist views that support or are conducive to terrorism”.

It is the phrase, “their responsibility to exclude”, that I want to focus on.

I am not sure that the qualifying statement,

“that support or are conducive to terrorism”,

is sufficiently clear as to provide reassurance. It is already illegal to directly or indirectly encourage others to commit terrorist acts, and universities are obliged to exclude those who do so. Beyond this, it is not clear which views should be understood to be conducive to terrorism. Non-violent extremism is not generally unlawful, and the Prevent strategy defines extremism as,

“vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values”.

These values and concepts include those that are rightly the subject of debate and consideration in universities. It is not appropriate for universities to be required to exclude those who lawfully oppose them.

In a letter to the Times on Monday, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills stated that the Bill,

“addresses terrorism and not extremism”,

which he described as, “a highly subjective concept”. I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that the Secretary of State’s comments will be fully reflected in future versions of the guidance; and that universities will not be required to exclude from campuses those who, while acting within the law, advocate views that are classed as extreme.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I will briefly remark on the labyrinthine complexity of the law in relation to education and universities as it is already. I have a terrible anxiety that this Bill—well intentioned as it may be—along with the guidance, will add a dimension of further complexity that will be counterproductive to a quite significant degree. It is going to make the task of the authorities in schools and universities—and I should declare an interest as a former chancellor of the University of Essex—burdensome to a remarkable degree. I support this group of amendments, but very much hope that the Minister, who has a gargantuan task in shepherding through this Bill, will tell us whether there is any prospect at all that this side of the finalisation of our deliberations, anything could be done to cast light and clarity on what I believe is a forest fit only for lawyers.

Finally, I echo what many others have said, most recently the noble Lord, Lord Deben: that it is so easy to contrive a situation in legislation that is counterproductive. I have a fear bordering on a certainty that the good intentions of the Bill will prove to be just that: because what I believe the Government have not taken nearly enough into account is that universities are engines of enlightenment, truth, fact and tolerance. However, what is being imposed upon them will have a chilling and bureaucratic effect, particularly—I repeat—via the guidance that, we must not forget, as the Joint Committee on Human Rights put it, will expose universities to being found,

“in breach of the new duty and therefore subject to direction by the Secretary of State and, ultimately, a mandatory court order backed by criminal sanctions for contempt of court”.

I fear that it will end up undermining the unique virtues of the university sector. Of course, that would be the ultimate farce because the Bill is designed to uphold the values of which universities are exemplars.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

The reason why there was no hue and cry from the colleges and universities is that they just ignore it. It is a shame on Universities UK that it produced guidelines that are so ridiculous that people cast them to one side. I am afraid that this has led to a diminution of respect for the organisation, and that has been a problem across the board.

[Baroness Brinton]

Does my noble friend not agree that the difference between the UUK guidance and the Bill is that the Bill gives the Secretary of State powers to act against the university whereas at the moment the UUK guidance merely advises universities to think about something? I hope that the Minister will recognise that.

[Lord Bates]

I am grateful for both those interventions. However, I think they make my point: the fact that the guidance is there to put in place in universities for speakers but it is just brushed aside and ignored seems to give some veracity to the arguments put forward by the extremism task force, which reviewed our counterterrorism strategy and arrived at the conclusion that there is something to be said for having a more statutory footing.