Security in the UK

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, this has been a well-informed—one might even say learned—debate, and I hope that I do not bring the tone down too far. It is obviously a huge topic, so I am going to pick a few issues where I feel the Government have got it extremely badly wrong. I would have added digital issues as well if I knew more about them, but as it is I have four.

The first issue is Prevent. No one would disagree that prevention is better than cure, but at the same time you have to make sure that what you put in place actually functions. I argue that Prevent does not: it has far too many failings. It has targeted too many innocent people, including children. At this stage, it does not have the respect of the communities that it is meant to be engaging with and has become counterproductive. Part of the problem is that it is vague and prone to misapplication, particularly because its definition of extremism is so broad. The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, QC, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, has described the definition as “hopeless”. Despite a declared intention to introduce a counterextremism Bill, there is not yet a statutory definition of extremism. The only working definition of it is the Prevent one:

“vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values”.

That is just too broad and encompasses far too many people.

The NGO Liberty has done a very good briefing on Prevent, which I can pass on to noble Lords. Its three recommendations are: repeal the statutory duty, which has absolutely failed and brought Prevent into disrepute; drop the focus on non-violent extremism; and establish an independent review of Prevent. We have had something close to this from the Prime Minister, but we really do need to move on with it. We need a community-led, collaborative approach to tackling extremism. The vast majority of people want to help to defeat terrorism, and we tend to ignore them. What the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, called a “culture of resistance” is exactly what we need. We need to engage with people and get them to trust us.

My second issue is the Government’s declared intention to establish a commission for countering extremism. We still do not know much about this commission, but we understand it will be statutory and called “the Commission for Countering Extremism”. Apparently it will,

“identify examples of extremism and expose them”.

It also includes proposals to regulate online spaces with a digital charter. We already have laws that fulfil these needs; we do not need any more. We need to use the laws we have and resource them properly. Part of the problem is that the agencies responsible just do not have the resources to do the job. The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Max Hill QC, has said that we do not need new laws to tackle the current terrorist threat. Despite this, the Government are still going to try to legislate and not even just for terrorism, but for what they call “non-violent extremism”. What does that mean? Is it ideas that are difficult, unpleasant or offensive or just ideas that the Government disagree with? The simple fact is that it is impossible to agree a definition of what constitutes an extremist. We all have very different ideas—personally, I would argue that the DUP is an extremist organisation. It is quite dangerous to set up a commission responsible for defining, identifying and exposing people whom it thinks are extreme. As I have said in your Lordships’ House before, I am concerned that we will create our own distinctively British brand of McCarthyism.

I also have concerns about press freedom. It is surely a fundamental British value that our press is free and reports on all our strange ways, whether we are politicians or members of the public. I also have concerns that people will be seen as criminals through thought crime. They will not actually commit a crime; they will just be thinking about it. However, that does not make them criminals.

I am also curious to know whether we will have our own equivalent of the European Court of Justice. I think I saw something today about our having an interim relationship with it. I would like to know more about that, if possible. Where will people take their cases when they feel that the Government have been intrusive or that they have been overpoliced? Where does the DUP sit in deciding all these things? How much of a voice does it have? I would like some answers to those points. At the moment, there are more questions than answers, so anything that we can be told would be great.

My third issue concerns policing. Given the more than decade and a half during which I was a severe critic of the Met, when I sat on its police authority and then on a policing committee, I did not think that I would defend it quite so fiercely today. It has experienced massive budget cuts, which were far too fast and far too hard, which meant that no rational decisions could be made. The Met had to cut many millions of pounds every year. Personally, I think that has created a Met police force which perhaps is no longer quite fit for purpose. Although one might argue that its budget is not changing, if the budget is static while costs are rising, the force is much worse off.

The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime said recently that the Met already has a budget shortfall of £170 million for national counterterrorism work. That is work over and above its responsibility as a police force for the capital. That money is normally expected to come from the Government, so will the Government please pay that back to the Met? I would like to know that. Personally, I think that the Government should, of course, pay that, but somehow the magic money tree cannot be found when it is a question of Londoners’ safety. I find that quite offensive. If we are to forge better relations with communities so that we can have vital intelligence on all kinds of crime, including terrorism, many more community police officers are needed. That means understanding how we can prevent attacks on our freedoms. It is what the noble Lord, Lord Bach, called neighbourhood policing. There just is not enough of it anymore, which means that communities do not have an easy way to express their fears and concerns if they think they are a little too mild to report officially.

My last issue concerns Saudi Arabia. As a politician, I understand that we sometimes have to work with some very unpleasant people and we have to sit down with them and negotiate with them. We might loathe them, but we have to keep a dialogue going. However, we do not have to sell them arms. Saudi Arabia is a brutal dictatorship. It is one of the world’s worst Governments in terms of human rights abuses. We should not be selling it arms. Today the High Court ruled that the case brought by Campaign Against Arms Trade was not valid and that it was perfectly legal for the Government to sell Saudi Arabia arms. I would argue that, if it is legal, the law needs to be changed. We also all know that “legal” does not mean ethical— tax avoidance springs to mind, for example, in this context.

The Labour leader has said:

“If Theresa May is serious about cutting off financial and ideological support for terrorism, she should publish the suppressed report on foreign funding of UK-based extremism and have difficult conversations with Saudi Arabia, not hug Saudi and allied Gulf states even closer”.


It is very embarrassing that we are selling arms to a country that is responsible for human rights abuses in its neighbour Yemen. It is bombing hospitals, schools and wedding parties. How do we square with our conscience the fact that our arms are being used in that way? I would like to know a little more about publishing that report. We heard a little about that earlier, but I would like to know more about publishing it. Is it true that the Saudi royal family is involved in some way in the foreign funding of extremist terrorist groups here, because that is what people appear to be saying? It would be good to know that. If it does involve Saudi financing of groups here in the UK, that is absolutely unforgivable, and the Government need to do something about it.

Does the Minister truly believe that we need more laws to fight terrorism, or does she accept that we have enough laws and we just have to apply them properly? We already have a lot of intrusion into our private lives, and we have a significant amount of repression of people who think a bit differently. I find that unacceptable. Theresa May herself said something about celebrating the diversity of Britain, but everything the Government are doing seems to be closing down that option.

Finally, to echo the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, how far are we prepared to go in reducing our own freedoms as a response to people who are trying to take them away? It seems to be the exact opposite of what we should be doing—we should be celebrating our freedom and allowing more of it rather than closing it down.