Hereditary Peers By-election

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Robathan

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Meston and Lord De Clifford, and hope they contribute well to this House, notwithstanding the excellent and amusing comments of the noble Lord Grocott. I will also say—I am not a hereditary Peer myself—that the hereditary element in this House, elected now in some quaint way, in fact contributes a great deal more than many of us life Peers.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

The noble Lord ought to speak for himself.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Robathan

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 26th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I would like to say everything I said on Amendment 7: we need effective rehabilitation, deradicalisation and reintegration of terrorist offenders. Right-wing extremism is growing. Research by HOPE not hate found that one in four people in Britain believe at least some element of QAnon conspiracy theories. These conspiracies allege that the world is run by satanic paedophiles who eat babies and want to kill 90% of the world’s population. The only logical solution for anyone who believes that is to fight and kill the people in charge, to stop it happening. The attack on the Capitol was only the beginning of such madness.

We are likely to see violence here in the UK too as a natural consequence of growing belief in these conspiracy theories. However, whatever the motivation of terrorists, the common theme is that they have been brought into such a deeply flawed belief system that they are prepared to inflict severe harm on other people. The only option is to repair those belief systems so that the perceived wrongs are no longer so severe as to justify harming innocent people.

I hope the Government can see that this problem will happen and will expand. We need better legislation to cope with it, and better practices inside and outside prisons.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and agreed with a great deal of what he said—and I understood it all. I realised that that was because he is not a lawyer either. Nevertheless, even as just a layman, I think we all appreciate how hugely difficult this issue is. I also listened to the very sensible comments of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile; he has huge experience of this matter. It is terribly complicated, and wishful thinking will not make it go away.

The strategy we are talking about is very important, but this has been going on for at least two decades and I do not have total confidence in deradicalisation or rehabilitation. Neither does Jonathan Hall, who is currently carrying out his review. We talk about rehabilitation but Usman Khan—who the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, mentioned—killed his mentor, Jack Merritt, who believed in his redemption and had faith in his deradicalisation, because Khan managed to lie successfully. Do polygraphs and lie detectors find this out? I do not know.

I agree with many of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and others. This hugely complicated issue needs further thought and deep consideration of how, if at all, we can solve these problems. With religious fanaticism or a fanatic ideology, is it possible to deradicalise people? I do not know. Are we talking about what was mentioned earlier, those no-hope sentences? I hope not. Should we throw away the key as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, suggested some of us want to do? I hope not, because I think people have to have some hope. However, I do think we need to have greater depth of thinking in this. I say to the Minister that we need to be looking at this in such depth that it may be we are still discussing it in a year’s time.