Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2020

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the case for adding the Feuerkrieg Division to the list of organisations proscribed under the Terrorism Act seems strong. Its very name, Fire War, is calculated to convey violence and hate, and I trust the Home Secretary to be acting on sound intelligence about the activities of this group. The current Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall QC, has called it

“a violent extreme white supremacist group”.

If this SI passes, it will join National Action and the Sonnenkrieg Division as banned far-right groups. It is encouraging that the system is getting to grips with this strand of terrorism as well as with others.

However, I want to say something about the unsatisfactory state of affairs regarding the list itself, expressed forcefully by successive independent reviewers such as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and by the current one. In his 2015 report, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, called the continued proscription of 14 groups which no longer met the statutory test

“an affront to the rule of law.”

During the passage of the last counterterrorism Bill he sought unsuccessfully to get a review scheme, with support from my party.

Mr Hall’s first report, relating to 2018, was published in March this year. In it he noted that proscription has powerful effects on persons and groups beyond the proscribed body itself. This is particularly true for agencies and charities working overseas. But unlike for financial sanctions or designated area orders, proscription is neither time-limited nor subject to periodic review. He concluded that

“there is little excuse for not keeping the list of proscribed organisations up to date.”

He noted that in its sole decision to date, on the PMOI case in 2007, the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission stated—albeit obiter—that it was the duty of the Secretary of State to hold periodic reviews. Mr Hall went on:

“The judges observed that … it was ‘incumbent’ on the Secretary of State to ‘consider at regular intervals’ whether the power to deproscribe should be exercised”,


because

“it cannot have been Parliament’s intention that an organisation for which there were no longer any grounds for believing is currently concerned in terrorism should remain on the list ‘for any longer than is absolutely necessary’.”

The court was told at that time that the Home Secretary did carry out approximately annual reviews, but this practice ended in 2014. Mr Hall’s recommendation, perhaps to get round the Government’s objection, however flimsy, that they would have to divert resources to regular review exercises, was that proscription orders should automatically lapse after three years, unless extended. When will the Government agree to that sensible reform?