Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 (Continuation) Order 2021

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move that the order, which provides for the continuation of the Secretary of State’s TPIM powers, or terrorism prevention and investigation measures, for a period of five years, be approved.

The Government take all necessary steps to protect the public. The threat we face from individuals and groups who wish us harm is significant and enduring. It is vital that we have the tools necessary to keep this country safe. It is right that our first response to terrorism-related activity should be to prosecute or deport those involved, but it is not always possible. That is why we continue to require the powers conferred on the office of the Home Secretary within the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011. Section 21(1) of the Act states that the Secretary of State’s TPIM powers will expire at the end of five years from the date the Act was passed. Due to the continuing threat to the UK from terrorism, and following consultation with the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and the director-general of the Security Service, there can be no doubt that TPIMs remain an essential component of our toolkit to manage the threat from terrorism.

The Act provides the Secretary of State with powers to impose a TPIM notice on an individual if the conditions set out in Section 3 of the Act are assessed by the Secretary of State to have been met: namely, that she reasonably believes that the individual is, or has been, involved in terrorism-related activity, and reasonably considers that it is necessary, for purposes connected with protecting members of the public from a risk of terrorism, to impose the measures on the individual.

In addition to the power to impose a TPIM notice, the Secretary of State has powers to extend and vary a TPIM notice that is in force, and to revive a TPIM notice that has been revoked. Since the introduction of the Act in 2011, 24 TPIMs have been imposed. As of the last published set of figures on 21 October, five TPIMs were in force. If the TPIM powers are not extended, these five dangerous individuals will be at large without any measures in place to reduce the risk they pose to the public. TPIMs are imposed as a tool of last resort, when the Security Service judges that there are no other means, or that a TPIM notice is the only satisfactory means, to manage that risk.

I shall now outline some of the background to TPIM powers for the Committee. TPIMs are civil preventive measures designed to manage the threat posed by individuals who cannot be prosecuted for a terrorism-related offence, or deported in the case of foreign nationals. There is no question that TPIMs are extraordinary measures. That is why the 2011 Act provides for broad judicial oversight, including a requirement for High Court permission to impose the measures, except in urgent cases where the notice must be immediately referred to the court for confirmation; an automatic review hearing in each case, unless the individual requests that the hearing be discontinued; and rights of appeal for the individual against the refusal of a request to revoke or vary a measure.

The TPIM legislation also places a duty on the Secretary of State to consult on the prospects of prosecuting an individual before measures may be imposed, and a duty to keep the necessity of measures under review while they are in force. The Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act 2021, which amended existing measures and introduced new TPIM measures, also reintroduced a requirement on the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation to publicly report on the operation of the TPIM Act.

The TPIM Act has been extended once, in 2016, by this House. Unless a new order is made under Section 21(2)(c), the powers in the Act will expire at midnight on 13 December this year. Just as was the case five years ago, it is absolutely essential that we have all the necessary powers to protect the public from terrorism-related activity. Having consulted as required by the Act, the Home Secretary has decided, due to the significant terrorist threat facing this country, to make this statutory instrument to provide for the continuation of TPIM powers for a further five-year period, which is the maximum allowable in the legislation.

It is essential that our counterterrorism strategy enables us to tackle the full spectrum of activity. TPIMs have been endorsed by the courts and successive Independent Reviewers of Terrorism Legislation, while the police and the Security Service believe that they have been effective in reducing the national security risk posed by those subject to the measures.

Our message is clear: we remain steadfast in our determination to defeat terrorism and we will take every necessary action to counter the threat from those who hate the values that we cherish. The safety and security of the public is our number one priority, and I commend the order to the Committee.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, here we are again: the five-yearly renewal of the TPIM scheme, which has been in place since 2006. I oppose these restrictive measures, which are an extrajudicial way of interfering with the rights and liberties of people who cannot be convicted of any crime.

I am curious to know whether the Home Office has explained to the Prime Minister that it is doing this. I ask because, while MP for Henley in 2005, Boris Johnson wrote of the Act in his Telegraph article of 10 March:

“It is a cynical attempt to pander to the many who”—


forgive my language here—

“think the world would be a better place if dangerous folk with dusky skins were just slammed away, and never mind a judicial proceeding; and, given the strength of this belief among good Tory folk, it is heroic of the Tories to oppose the Bill. We do so because the removal of this ancient freedom is not only unnecessary, but it is also a victory for terror.”

I hope that the Minister will at least pass this back to the Home Office to make sure that the Prime Minister is happy with this renewal. It must be so difficult for Ministers to do anything without Boris Johnson having opposed it somewhere at some point in the past; there is always an article somewhere that one can track down. Our Prime Minister is so very often so wrong, but on this rare occasion he was so right: it is heroic to oppose these measures, and the Greens in your Lordships’ House will register their opposition every five years when this continuation order comes round. I actually hope this will be the last time.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

As Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation in 2016, I had no hesitation in recommending the second renewal of TPIMs in that year. I share the Government’s view that TPIMs, although they involve a particularly severe deprivation of liberty and intrusion into private life, may be an appropriate tool for dealing with a small number of individuals who are believed to endanger the public but whom it is feasible neither to prosecute nor to deport.

However, close scrutiny of TPIMs is important, all the more so since the maximum duration of a TPIM was significantly increased by the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act 2021. I am here to raise with the Minister one concerning development that has arisen since my time as independent reviewer: the refusal of legal aid to TPIM suspects who cannot afford to progress the automatic review of each TPIM that is provided for in Section 9 of the TPIM Act 2011.

Jonathan Hall QC, the current independent reviewer, reported to the Government in November 2020 that, in the previous year, three subjects of so-called light-touch TPIMs, known as JD, HB and HC, requested the court to discontinue the reviews in their cases and that

“the absence of funding was a factor”.

In each case, they had been refused legal aid. The independent reviewer’s report, published in March 2021, recommended that, subject of course to means, legal funding should swiftly be made available to TPIM subjects for the purpose of participating in Section 9 review hearings. Mr Hall informed me this afternoon that, more than eight months after publication, there has still been no response from the Home Office to this recommendation. Can the Minister say when a response will be provided?

In the hope that it may influence the substance of any response, which, I might add, I do not expect today, I shall make four points. First, on 12 October 2020, the Government wrote to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, defending the TPIM regime on the basis that, among other things,

“all TPIM subjects have an automatic right to have a court review the imposition of their TPIM and each of the measures imposed. This hearing also provides an opportunity for the subject to hear the national security case against them.”

I assume that in the last sentence the reference is to the gist of the national security case, which is now provided to the TPIM subject. It is plain from what I have said, and from what the independent reviewer has said, that there is, in reality, no automatic right to review and that there will be no such right for as long as legal aid is refused to TPIM subjects on grounds other than means.

Secondly, it would be unacceptable if funding were to be denied because of a misapprehension that a Section 9 review is a form of challenge that requires a TPIM subject to establish reasonable prospects of success. As the independent reviewer explains in his report, Section 9 review was designed not as an add-on but as an integral part of every TPIM. Furthermore, it is not feasible to apply a merits criterion to the grant of legal aid, because the requirements of national security mean that TPIM subjects do not know, and will never be told, the full reasons for the Secretary of State’s decision to impose a TPIM.

Thirdly, if the aim is to save money or a desire to avoid giving money to lawyers for suspected terrorists, that aim is not only misguided but likely to be counterproductive. The legal aid issue affects very few cases—just three in 2019, as I indicated—but is bound eventually to lead to prolonged litigation about the fairness of proceedings.