Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 9th February 2021 Lords Chamber

The TPIM Act includes safeguards for the protection of the civil liberties of those subject to TPIM notices. All TPIM subjects are granted an automatic review on the imposition of their TPIM notice, and Section 16, as I say, provides an avenue of appeal for subjects who wish to challenge the decision to extend their TPIM notice for a further year. The Government have no desire to keep an individual on a TPIM any longer than is necessary and proportionate. However, protecting the public is the Government’s foremost priority and we must be able to restrict and prevent an individual’s involvement in terrorism-related activity for as long as necessary, rather than being confined by an arbitrary time limit on the length of a TPIM, which could put people at risk. These are the reasons why I respectfully urge noble Lords to withdraw their amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, I have received a request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.

[Lord Paddick (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. I have two questions. First, he spoke about Section 9 hearings and the appeal route under Section 16 making our amendment unnecessary. Can he tell the Committee how many times TPIMs have been revoked or restrictions eased as a result of each of these types of hearing?

Secondly, terrorism prevention and investigation measures are, as their title describes, temporary means of preventing terrorism taking place while an investigation tries to establish evidence to convict the person in a criminal court. Control orders, on the other hand, have been used in the past for public protection. If the Government are changing the nature of TPIMs and abandoning them as a temporary measure to enable an investigation to take place in safety, why do they continue to call them TPIMs? Why not now call them control orders, which are in fact what the Government are trying to use here?

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Clause 38 agreed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 30A. I notify noble Lords that at the end of this group we shall have a short break. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate and anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.

Clause 39: TPIMs: variation of measures

Amendment 30A

Moved by

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

We now come to the group beginning with the Question that Clause 40 stand part of the Bill. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.

Clause 40: TPIMs: extension of residence measure

Debate on whether Clause 40 should stand part of the Bill.

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Amendments 34 to 36 not moved.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 37. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate, and that anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in the debate.

Amendment 37

Moved by

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[Lord Paddick (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the imperfections of remote working have again unfortunately intervened. I did ask to speak after the Minister on the last group, and I hope the Committee will indulge me if I ask one question of the Minister about the former group. The Government are saying that they hope the new independent reviewer of Prevent will produce his report by August this year. In our amendment, by my calculation, we are setting a deadline of August next year. Perhaps when the Minister responds to this group, he could also answer the question of why a 12-month deadline beyond what the Government are proposing themselves is not considered a reasonable time for that review to be undertaken.

Turning to this group of amendments, Amendment 37 requires a review and report on the effectiveness of current strategies to deal with lone terrorists. Amendment 40 calls for a report on which agencies are included within Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements—or MAPPA—for the purpose of managing terrorist offenders. Both amendments are in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede.

In December 2017, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, published his independent assessment of police and MI5 reviews into the Manchester Arena attack and three other incidents in London—all of which involved lone terrorists—which killed a total of 36 people. The report made 126 recommendations, later consolidated into 104 things that could have been done better by counterterrorism officials.

In 2019, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, published a stocktake of progress on the recommendations in his 2017 report, including multiagency centres for managing the risk posed by those suspected of being engaged in terrorist activity, which presumably includes lone terrorists. I am not sure to what extent the review and reports the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, is calling for overlap with the work of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. Perhaps the Minister can advise the Committee.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I apologise to the noble Lord. The delay in getting messages to the iPad on the Woolsack meant that I did not get the message that he wished to speak on the last group. But I now call the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, continues to prove himself doughty in the face of technological challenges, and I am happy to address the question he would have asked in the previous group. He makes a valid point about the much longer timeframe proposed in his amendment, which we debated in that group. As I said, however, because Mr Shawcross is an independent reviewer, I cannot speak for him at the Dispatch Box. We must speak to him and see what he feels is the timeframe he needs. If we are able to have that conversation and he feels able to give a view before Report stage, we will of course come back and report it, but it is for the independent reviewer to make his assessment of how long he needs to do the thorough job required, as I hope the noble Lord will understand.

Turning now to this group, Amendment 37 would require the Home Secretary to commission a new, judge-led review of the effectiveness of the Government’s strategy to deal with lone-actor terrorists. While I welcome the constructive spirit in which the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, tabled this amendment, I must respectfully disagree over the need to add it to the Bill.

I reassure the noble Lord that a great deal of work is already under way to combat the terrorist threat, including that posed by lone actors. My right honourable friend the Security Minister talked in some detail about this in a speech he gave at RUSI in November last year—particularly the term “lone actor” itself. If the noble Lord has not seen it, it is well worth reading. I would be very happy to provide noble Lords with a copy of that speech if they would like it.

The Government have been clear that we will not hesitate to act where necessary. Following the attacks at Fishmongers’ Hall and in Streatham, we brought forward legislation to address flaws in the way terrorist offenders were managed. The legislation we are now debating marks the largest overhaul of terrorist sentencing in decades. It follows on from the Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Act 2020, which came into force in February last year. That Act was, as noble Lords will remember, emergency legislation. One of its effects was to prevent around 50 terrorist prisoners being automatically released after serving only half their sentence, by amending their release point to at least two-thirds of their sentence and ensuring they are released only after an assessment by the Parole Board.

Following the attack at Fishmongers’ Hall in November 2019, the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary commissioned Jonathan Hall QC to carry out an independent review of the effectiveness of the Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements, or MAPPA, when it comes to the management of terrorism, terrorist connections and offenders of terrorism concern in the community. MAPPA is the process through which the police, the Prison Service and the probation service work together and with other agencies—including children’s services, adult social services, health trusts and authorities, and youth offending teams—to protect the public by managing the risks posed by violent and sexual offenders living in the community.

That review found that MAPPA is a well-established process, and Mr Hall did not conclude that wholesale change is necessary. He made a number of recommendations on how the management of terrorists can be improved. In response to the review, the Government will shortly be bringing forward policing and crime legislation implementing a number of his recommendations, including new powers of premises and personal search, and an urgent power of arrest for counterterrorism policing.

This ongoing work builds on the response to the 2017 attacks. Three of the attacks in 2017 were carried out by lone actors, as was the attack in Reading, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, reminds us, which we sadly saw more recently. In 2018, the Government published a strengthened counterterrorism strategy, known as Contest, following operational improvement reviews overseen by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. As part of that strategy we have piloted new multiagency approaches at the local level—in London, the West Midlands and Greater Manchester—to enable MI5 and counterterrorism policing to share more information with a broader range of partners, including government departments, the devolved Administrations and local authorities. This has enabled us to identify, mitigate and disrupt threats earlier. Our superb police, and security and intelligence agencies work around the clock to keep us safe: they have disrupted 27 terrorist plots since 2017.

There are now more than 20 government departments and agencies involved in the delivery of Contest, and we have worked to build strong relationships with the private sector, the third sector and the wider public. We will continue to invest in these relationships and drive greater integration, recognising that to reduce the risk of terrorism we need not only a whole-of-Government but a whole-of-society approach. In the context of the wide-ranging work already under way and recently completed, the Government do not consider that the noble Lord’s amendment is needed.

I turn now to Amendment 40. This proposed new clause would require the Secretary of State to lay a report within 12 months of the Bill being passed, defining which agencies are included within MAPPA for the purposes of managing terrorist offenders. The agencies included in MAPPA are already listed in Section 325 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. As has been mentioned already, these include criminal justice agencies such as the police and the probation service, as well as other agencies, including mental health services, social services and NHS England. These agencies are placed under a statutory obligation to work together to assess and manage the risk presented by serious offenders.

Moreover, agencies with a legal duty to co-operate with MAPPA must have regard to statutory guidance issued by the Ministry of Justice. This guidance, which also sets out which agencies must co-operate, is publicly available. Agencies that do not have a statutory duty to co-operate with MAPPA are not obliged to engage. There are, however, no barriers in place to prevent this engagement for the purposes of assessing and managing the risks presented by serious offenders. It is our belief that the right agencies already have a duty to co-operate in place, and, as such, they are listed publicly in the Criminal Justice Act.

I have already mentioned Jonathan Hall’s recent review of MAPPA. On the question of the identity of the agencies involved in MAPPA, he raised no issues. He did, however, raise questions about the way in which MAPPA agencies share information with each other, and the Government have confirmed in our response to his review that we will clarify the position in upcoming legislation to put the matter beyond doubt. We believe, therefore, that since this knowledge is already publicly available and enshrined in legislation, there is no need for this amendment. I hope the noble Lord agrees and that he will be willing to withdraw it.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, we now come to the group beginning with Amendment 41, which is all government amendments. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate.

Schedule 13: Consequential and related amendments

Amendment 41

Moved by

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Amendments 42 to 65 agreed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 66. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister’s reply should email the clerk during the debate.

Amendment 66

Moved by