Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, Schedule 1 to the Bill provides for the seizure of passports from persons suspected of involvement in terrorism. Paragraph 2 deals with the seizure of passports at a port, and paragraph 2(8) sets out what the officer undertaking this exercise must tell the person. He must tell him that he is suspected of intending to leave Great Britain or the UK—there is a slightly different provision for Northern Ireland—

“for the purpose of involvement in terrorism-related activity”,

and that the officer is entitled to exercise the power to seize. Reciting those statutory grounds does not seem to be enough. There is no provision on the face of the Bill for the person to be informed of at least the gist of the reasons for the suspicion.

The draft code of practice, which has been out for consultation, includes some notification requirements but it does not include this one. As the Joint Committee on Human Rights pointed out, the draft code provides that,

“where a senior police officer authorises retention”—

this is at a different stage—

“the individual must be given a written notice which should … inform the person that they may … request reasons for the retention of their travel documents … Elsewhere, the draft Code provides that a police constable exercising the power … must issue the person with reasons for its exercise … ‘if requested’ and if travel documents are returned within the”,

first period which is provided by the schedule,

“they are to be accompanied by a notice reminding the individual that they may formally request reasons as to why their travel documents were seized and retained”.

None of that addresses the need to tell the person straightaway.

I should like to see in the Bill the JCHR recommendation,

“that the Code should provide that a person subject to the exercise of the power should be informed of the reasons for its exercise at the earliest opportunity in every case, and not merely where the individual makes a request”.

That is very fundamental, not only to the exercise of the power but as to how it is perceived. We rightly spent a good deal of time in Committee—and will, I am sure, spend more time—on the difficulties of perception and perceived discrimination against certain groups, which perhaps is a different issue from actual discrimination but is a very real issue.

In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, supported my point. He said:

“No one would suggest that all detailed reasons must be given, but if someone is told that their passport is being taken away they should be told the essence of the reasons why if this power is to be acceptable and not criticised as obviously unfair”.—[Official Report, 20/1/15; col. 1236.]

It was building on that phrase “the essence of the reasons” that I have provided in my amendment for a summary of the reasons and not for the detail. I am aware that there may be security issues around that.

In Committee, the Minister gave a very long response to the group of amendments of which this was one—I think that there were 24 amendments—so it was quite an achievement to cover the ground. I fear that I did not manage to extract from the response a reply to this specific point. At the end of his reply, I asked him whether some comments he was making applied to gisting, and he said that they did not. Therefore, it seemed to me appropriate to bring the matter back at this stage in the hope that I will hear that we could include something like this in the Bill but certainly in the hope of hearing a detailed defence of the Government’s position. I beg to move.

[Baroness Buscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and I should like to say strongly that I do not support this amendment. There was a very good reason why we said that reasons should be given “at the earliest opportunity”. We absolutely accepted that there will be occasions on which it simply is not reasonable, either on security grounds or because of the speed with which the information is travelling in relation to the possible perpetrators from whom the passport is being taken, to expect the police to have reasons to hand. The phrase “at the earliest opportunity” leaves it sensibly open for the police to be able to respond in good time with some information as to why this has taken place. The committee discussed at great length that to expect a summary there and then on the spot—which is what the noble Baroness is asking for—would probably be too difficult in certain circumstances.

We have to accept that some of the information will probably arrive without much notice to those who have the difficult task of removing the passport. Given that the person will already be at a port or an authority in order to leave the country, surely it is right that in such cases we give trust and time to the security services and the police to do what they have to do in an emergency—that is, to remove the passport—and then, at the earliest opportunity, state the reasons.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I meant to ask the noble Baroness a question before she sat down. My noble friend Lady Hamwee emphasised that this is about providing a summary of the reasons for the suspicion. That is not proof or anywhere near it—it is not even a great deal of detail—but a summary of the reasons for suspicion. The requirement has quite a low threshold and would at least provide a basis on which a person may comprehend why these powers were being exercised. It seems reasonable and not too high a threshold to expect of the security services and the police.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, this is the Report stage and in order for me to speak a second time it has to be accepted that the noble Baroness asked me the question before I sat down. The whole point of this is to allow for a reduced bar, in a sense, which is not sufficient for the power of arrest but is something less. It is wrong in any way to box in the security services and police in a difficult situation where, because of security reasons, they may not even know whether they can give the information.

I am trying to set the scene. We are talking about a different world from the one in which it is accepted that there would be a warrant for arrest and reasons given, where there would be understanding and matters would be beyond suspicion. All I am saying is: “Please can we give the security services and the police the freedom to act, sometimes with extreme speed, to stop someone leaving the country—someone who may want to do something on the mode of transport—without having to give such information?”. In any event, the summary probably would not satisfy—it is not meant to satisfy—the person from whom the passport is being taken.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment and wish to address the comment made by my noble friend previously. It is quite a serious matter for a family, who may have spent a great deal of money purchasing tickets and planning a holiday, to arrive at a port or an airport to leave and then to have their passports, or one family member’s passport, seized. It seems to me quite reasonable to provide that person with a summary as to why their passport is being seized.

There is also the issue that there needs to be some accountability; otherwise, there is a danger of the whole system being seen as racially profiling people for whatever reason. We have learnt lessons from what happened with stop and search—there was not always sufficient intelligence or reasons given for people being stopped and searched. Further, a report published in 2013 by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary documented the poor training of officers who are exercising the power. It seems eminently sensible to have an extra layer which provides a safeguard and a degree of accountability around what is a no small matter of a passport being seized.

Recently I was travelling back from Paris with my son, who happens to have a Muslim name. He was questioned when we got to immigration control and we almost missed our Eurostar back home. He was asked whether he had been to Turkey recently. He does have family in Turkey and it would be entirely reasonable for him to go there, but he was singled out because of his name; there was no other reason. As it happens, he has not travelled to Turkey in the past year, but we were detained for some time and it was a worrying thing. His passport was not seized or anything like that, but the incident indicated to me that because of my son’s name, and for no other reason that I could see, he was questioned. My son is not a frequent traveller to Turkey and we had been on a day trip to Paris. He was questioned very seriously and we were within a minute of missing our train back. That showed me that this can be done quite randomly and with no proper intelligence.