Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 9th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Williams for introducing the Bill. I could not think of anybody better to do that and it will certainly make expressing any concerns that I have much more difficult. I am also grateful to my honourable friend the Security Minister, Ben Wallace. I consider them both to be not just political colleagues but friends. I congratulate my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier on his maiden speech and look forward to my noble friend Lord Tyrie’s maiden speech. Both are unfashionably expert and inspiringly principled and have the ability to be politely awkward. They will fit in well.

I wholeheartedly support measures designed to keep us safe. As someone who has been targeted by extremists throughout most of my public life, from being attacked by al-Muhajiroun and its supporters in Luton to numerous threats by email and on social networks—and who for the past two and a half years has been on a target list for ISIS—I, along with my family, have had to live in the shadow of some of those who seek to cause Britain harm. So although I support some of the Bill’s provisions—for example, the increase in the custodial sentence for those who were aware of and do not disclose information on terrorist offences—as a lawyer, I am also concerned that we should make more criminal law only if the current law and policy are simply incapable of being applied or, indeed, applied better.

Sadly, I have some concerns about the drafting of the Bill, both in the mischief it seeks to remedy, as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, and the way in which it seeks to do so. We must not become a country that polices thought, as was explored by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle. As Liberty succinctly put it, the Bill,

“pushes the law even further away from actual terrorism, well into the realm of pure speech and opinion”.

We must not cite exceptional circumstances to justify a blanket law change.

Of course, we are just over a year on from a seven-month series of terror attacks on UK soil. Five attacks led to 36 deaths and dozens more injured. A further 17 both religiously inspired and far-right inspired attacks have been thwarted since. It is entirely right in these circumstances for the Government to look again at what more could be done to prevent such attacks in the future. Much commentary has taken place since the attacks and recommendations have been made, yet, interestingly, some of the most informed voices, including eminent academics such as Professor Clive Walker—who has been researching and writing about Britain’s counterterrorism laws since the 1980s, and who also happens to be my former university tutor—have argued that new laws are not the answer. Professor Walker has said:

“The failure to identify major legal gaps is further emphasised by the findings of the three weighty reports”—


post the attacks—

“none of which called for major legal changes”.

There is much to concern us in the individual clauses and I hope that we will have the opportunity to scrutinise these further as the Bill passes through the House. Concerns include the proposed three clicks offence, which has become the one click offence—an offence which reverses the burden of proof and, rather than focusing on the ill-intentioned creators and well-resourced publishers of material, seeks to criminalise end users, whether innocent or not. The proposed publication of images offence creates a new offence of the publication of an image,

“in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that the person is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation”.

Apart from the obvious point, as stated by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, that what this offence seeks to cover is already covered by existing legislation, it risks criminalising a broad range of legitimate behaviour by academics, journalists and human rights activists—a concern voiced by the UN special rapporteur on human rights. A person risks imprisonment not for being a member or supporter, but for merely publishing an image that could be construed as arousing reasonable suspicion. This is in a space where images can have a historical context and meaning far broader than a relatively modern and often cynical adoption by a terrorist group; the Irish flag is one such example.

Today I want to focus in detail on one aspect: the lack of debate, engagement and consultation surrounding the Bill—an issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. Taking the example of the late-introduced proposed designated area offence, there was a lack of engagement with those groups likely to be disproportionately impacted by the Bill, such as journalists, human rights activists, British citizens with family in areas of the world that could be so designated, aid workers working in areas of acute humanitarian crisis, a community I am a part of—British Muslims—and, of course, a community which most Members of your Lordships’ House are part of: the naturally curious. Alongside the potential for mistakes and the clumsy application of this proposed offence, the scope for abuse of the use of designated areas is real—as a carrot or a stick to pressurise or seek favour with foreign countries and to legitimise or deem illegitimate political disputes around the world. Selective use of this provision would leave people helpless even where there is no risk of harm to the United Kingdom and, for example, could deter the proper reporting of a conflict. The much simpler answer would be something I have advocated for many years: that in a globalised world with multiple identities, many of which overlap borders, rather than zoning no-go areas, make a simple “no fight” rule and criminalise any person who travels abroad to take up arms in any conflict for any foreign despot, group or even Government, so that if you are British you fight for and on behalf of the British Armed Forces and no one else.

Intervention at an earlier stage is one of the reasons cited for the Bill in the Government’s explanatory factsheet. This early-stage intervention is nothing new: it is the Prevent strand of the four pillars of the Contest strategy, alongside Prepare, Protect and Pursue. It is a policy which has been in play since 2003 and in the public domain since 2006. It is a policy which fundamentally was about communities leading the battle of ideas to challenge some of the views and behaviour that could become the basis for terrorism. It is a policy which has significantly shifted over the past decade. I agreed with all four strands of the original Contest strategy, including the early thinking behind Prevent. For me, the Prevent policy was—and still should and could be—a battle between violence and democracy, based on a belief that everyone has a right to their view, providing that it does not break the law or incite or encourage someone else to break the law. Democracy, if it works, should be able to temper unsavoury views—although the latest US presidential election has left many questioning that notion.

The battle of ideas about violence and the justification of it is one in which government need to be a player and quite rightly stand against groups that promote such. It is right that the battle of ideas and views on everything from tax to torture, from farming to family to foreign policy, and from welfare to wind farms is debated and accommodated through our parliamentary democracy. The battle of ideas was but one part of the Prevent work, alongside tackling discrimination, engaging communities and addressing grievances. The Prevent strategy, however, over time slowly started to shift its emphasis.

The process of understanding—not accepting, but understanding—why British Muslim communities themselves felt that people were being drawn into violent extremism became a less important issue for politicians and policymakers. The Muslim communities’ views, which themselves were varied and broad on the drivers of terrorism, were sidelined and we saw the start of a process of disengagement between government and British Muslims. Rather than doing counterterrorism with British Muslims to defeat the menace of terrorism collectively, we chose to do counterterrorism to Muslim communities. Through this approach we both created an obstacle to confronting and defeating terrorism and alienated a large community of law-abiding citizens. We “othered” them.

Putting Prevent on a statutory basis in the last months of a coalition Government, with both Labour and Liberal Democrat eyes being on an election rather than legislation, has been the subject of much criticism and mistrust. It is a policy which I as well as academics and senior police officers, along with many others including the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, as the ex-Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, have called to be independently reviewed. That policy is opaque and inconsistent—its flaws were outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe—while the published statistics on referrals which lead to action act as a net, which catches and has damaged as many lives as it has potentially saved. In this climate, with much respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I believe that it would be entirely inappropriate and counterproductive to expand its reach. If the Government are genuinely committed to early intervention then they must start by engaging openly, honestly and transparently. A cohesive country is a more secure country. Engaged communities are more cohesive.

Let me end on an issue that I have been arguing for while inside government and since, in private conversations with colleagues and in detail in a book. I now raise it on the Floor of your Lordships’ House. It is time for the Government to end their policy of disengagement with British Muslims, which started under the last Labour Government and the leadership of the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears, in 2007. John Denham tried to restore sanity when he replaced Hazel Blears in 2009 but months later, when the coalition Government were formed in 2010, the policy returned. It continues to be applied today.

Successive Governments have adopted that policy of non-engagement with a wide range of Muslim community organisations and activists. More and more groups and individuals have, over time, simply been seen as beyond the pale, often for something they said or did in the past, or for what someone they were associated with said or did. Time and again the message from government is: if you are a British Muslim and have ever believed, thought, said or even flippantly commented on an issue in a way which could be seen as extremism today, then however historic your view there is no road to rehabilitation. There is no path to redemption, no meeting, no engagement. So if in your youth or your heady days of activism—or simply during your political journey—you have not believed and said exactly what we, the Government, say and believe right now on the issues of politics, faith, women, minorities or homosexuality, then you are persona non grata. Imagine if that approach was used against us politicians. Certainly, many in this House have moved on in their views on many issues: the rights of women and minorities and LGBT rights, to name a few. We have all made mistakes. I have made mistakes.

This policy is ludicrously impractical at a time when the need for engagement with and understanding of our Muslims is greater than ever before. It is also dangerously counterproductive. Over half of British Muslims are under the age of 25; a third are under the age of 15. They are in the media spotlight almost daily. They have access to more connections, information and travel than ever before. Last year, terrorist offences were either done by individuals who purported to belong to a faith that they follow, or aimed at the Muslim community itself. They are in the front line and have seen a 77% increase in attacks against them in 2017, and they are disengaged by government.

The issues around terrorism can be properly responded to only with a whole-community response. This includes the Government, the police and the communities of which British Muslims are an essential component. The policy was originally driven by a small number of politicians and commentators influenced by the now much-discredited and failed neo-conservative thinking from the United States, although the election of Donald Trump has planted this divisive thinking into the mainstream. There is real unease about it at the heart of the Civil Service, at senior police officer level and within local authorities, to name a few examples. Over a decade into this approach, I am yet to be convinced that not engaging with and not listening to a community is the best way to influence it.

I said at the outset that we should make criminal law only if the current law and policy is simply incapable of being applied, or applied better. Ending the policy of disengagement is a simple and necessary step that requires no legislation. It would be a start with immense security benefits, possibly even more so in the long term than the offences proposed in this Bill.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 17th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, Prevent is an important part of the Government’s anti-terrorism strategy. We have heard about a number of problems relating to it, which have been there for a while. I am persuaded that it is therefore sensible to review the policy and see whether it should be changed, replaced or whatever.

The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, said he could not understand why the Government were resisting this idea. I can tell him exactly why. It is because the Home Office ploughs on regardless. Even when the tractor’s wheels are stuck in the mud, they go on spinning. That is why the Home Office needs constant help in knowing when things should be reviewed. I strongly suggest that my noble friend tears up the brief that says “Don’t review” and says, “Yes, we’ll look at it”.

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House—and I have spoken to both our Front Bench and the clerk—I will refer slightly to the last amendment, which does actually refer to the current amendment. I was in the Chamber when this amendment was called.

I want to put a couple of things on record—first, my views on Prevent. I have written about this extensively. I will not plug the book, but it is available on Amazon. In that book, I talk about Prevent in detail. I talk about how, when the policy was started in 2003 and first published in this iteration in 2006, I supported it. It was effectively an upstream intervention into areas where we felt we could intervene, predominantly with young people and British Muslims at that time, although we are increasingly dealing with far-right extremism now. We were predominantly intervening with young people who may be attracted into terrorism. How could anybody disagree with that principle?

In my book—and this is the issue that I raised with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile—I work through the various iterations of Prevent. It has changed from what it was in 2003 to what it is now in 2018. It started as a policy specifically designed to be run as an internal discussion within communities of what could be considered to be extremist views. It was supposed to be a genuine, non-criminalised safe space and a battle of ideas—something I fundamentally supported—but it became a policy that was done not by the community but to the community. This is an issue I have consistently raised: what the policy became and the way it was then implemented; the level and quality of training, the material being used, the way it was implemented in different schools and differently across different communities. All of this—with 100 pages of citations if that helps the noble Lord—is detailed in the book, because it was important to say clearly that a principle of policy that I supported has, over time, become fundamentally flawed in its implementation and lost the trust of the communities we were trying to influence.

As a British Muslim parent whose children are likely to be vulnerable and to be approached by those who want to lead them astray, whether into extremism, terrorism or elsewhere, I would be the first in line to say this policy needs to be supported. But I do not want a policy on our books, which has statutory basis, which is badly implemented.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I read the noble Baroness’s book with great interest and I am glad to see that she is now taking part in our debate. Does she not agree that the iterations she describes in her book show the progress from a Prevent strategy run by the police to one now not run by the police? All the best examples of Prevent are run by NGOs, private sector groups or local authorities. The police are involved in Prevent only when there is evidence of an offence having been committed. Is that not real progress, which we ought to laud and welcome, in the changes to Prevent? I expect to agree with the noble Baroness on this point.

[Baroness Warsi]

As the noble Lord is aware, I took part in the Bill’s Second Reading debate and made my views clear to the Minister and to many colleagues in the House, publicly and privately. My views on this are on record and, when we vote, I will make them clear.

As I have said, it is not so much a question of who delivers Prevent—the police or third-sector organisations —but that it is delivered so that the communities trust the policy. It is clear that, as it stands, British Muslim communities do not trust Prevent. Therefore, as somebody who supports the principles behind it, I feel it is appropriate and entirely right to have an independent review. We are not asking for Prevent to be forgone completely. Many Members of this House are saying we should keep the good bits.

[Lord West of Spithead]

Perhaps I may say to the noble Baroness that it is not that every part of the Muslim community has no trust in Prevent. I am not aware of that, and I have been involved in it for quite a long time. Certainly, there are sections which have real problems with it and that needs to be addressed, but there are also sections which are pleased that this work is being done. Does she agree that that is correct?

[Baroness Warsi]

That is the point. When Prevent has been applied correctly and has been led by and with the community, it has made real progress. When you speak to practitioners on the ground—those who have ignored much of national policy; those who have ignored the rules on engagement and disengagement with British Muslim communities and have spoken to whom they want, when they want and how they want—you find that they have built really strong relationships which have allowed sections of the policy to be implemented properly.

Even if you speak to officers like Mr Neil Basu, who was referred to earlier, he himself will say that the biggest challenge for the police has been operating Prevent within a policy of disengagement with British Muslim communities whereby more and more individuals and organisations are simply seen as beyond the pale and are not engaged with. There is a challenge when large sections of the British Muslim community are disengaged and distrustful of a policy that will not be independently reviewed. I can tell my colleagues in government that if it were independently reviewed, it would enjoy more support and therefore would be more effective.

The noble Lord suggested that I believe that the British Muslim community is monolithic. I say to him as someone who is a Muslim and now 47 years of age that I am acutely aware that the British Muslim community is not monolithic. If he would care to read the first four pages of chapter one of my book, he will see that I explain that British Muslim communities are black and brown and Asian and Persian. They come from all over the world and have different theological beliefs and practices. They dress, eat and behave differently. He would then realise that I am a huge advocate of a diverse British Muslim community from many backgrounds. It is therefore wrong of him to attribute to me on the Floor of this House something which I have simply not said.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. As the noble Lord, Lord West, has said, the Prevent programme is one of the core pillars of the strengthened Contest strategy which was published in June of this year. The strategy was developed taking into account views across the breadth of delivery. The Prevent programme serves as a key pillar in our response to the heightened terrorist threat we face now and in the coming years.

The programme is designed to safeguard and support those vulnerable to radicalisation, both on the far right and Islamist, as my noble friend Lady Warsi said. It is designed to stop them becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, said, we should have no qualms about doing so, just as we should safeguard them from sexual exploitation. That point is often forgotten but it is very pertinent. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, expressed her concern about freedom of speech and civil liberties, but terrorism is an infringement of civil liberties of the severest type. I am also sorry to disappoint my noble friend Lord Marlesford, but the Government remain firmly of the view that an independent review of Prevent of the kind envisaged in this amendment is not necessary at this time. Perhaps I may take a few moments to explain why.

As has been said, Prevent is a safeguarding programme that works. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has described how Prevent is the only show in town and the intention is to help those who are vulnerable and are being targeted and exploited by radicalisers. Sir Rob Wainwright, the former head of Europol, has described Prevent as the,

“best practice model in Europe”,

for tackling extremism.

In Committee I outlined how Prevent was not the beginnings of state surveillance, as it has been portrayed sometimes; rather, it is a locally driven programme that works with communities to deliver resilience-building activity and prevent some of the most vulnerable in our society becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. In Committee the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, challenged a number of noble Lords to identify a specific local Prevent project which had given rise to concerns. It was very telling then, as it is now, that no noble Lord has yet identified such a project. The noble Lord talked about how private and public NGOs are now working on Prevent projects. Moreover, to answer the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, about the proportions being delivered by each, while I do not have the exact numbers, perhaps I may write to him.

While Prevent is successful at safeguarding individuals from becoming radicalised, it is not always well understood. I agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord West, about promoting the safeguarding aspect of Prevent. It also supports partners to run a programme of engagement events with their communities. These events seek to engage members of the public and provide opportunities to hear at first hand from practitioners and community organisations about Prevent delivery, as well as acting as an open forum for discussion about its implementation. Further, Prevent does not target any one group, as is often said. It helps to address the growing and pernicious threat from the far right and to provide support for those referred due to concerns about Islamist extremism, among a range of other extremist beliefs. Indeed, the latest statistics, published just last week, show that of those individuals who received Channel support in 2017-18, near equal numbers were referred for concerns relating to far right extremism and to Islamist extremism.

On the positive impact of Prevent, I would remind the House of what Cressida Dick, the Commissioner of the Met police, said in June in evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee.