Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Bill

Bell Ribeiro-Addy Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 12th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising such a thoughtful point. That certainly is something we would be prepared to study and consider, because we are always keen to learn from other jurisdictions. We will be bringing forward wider measures as part of a counter-terrorism Bill in the next few months. One provision we have in mind is greatly extending licence periods following release, which is in the spirit of what she suggested, so I thank her for her constructive proposal.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)]

I have heard Members throughout the debate talking about ending automatic release as if it was a new thing, but the Minister will be aware that the measure already exists in section 9 of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019. Is he confused, like me, as to why the change was not made retrospective then, because that legislation came in direct response to the terror attacks that happened throughout 2017? The Government could have made the change then, which Labour Members would have supported, as we did when they set up the Prevent review.

[Chris Philp]

Of course, the Government and Parliament think carefully about retrospection and rightly take a circumspect view. Several changes to sentencing have been made over the past five or 10 years, including the introduction of extended determinate sentences, whereby release at two thirds of the way through a sentence is a matter for the Parole Board following an assessment of dangerousness by the sentencing judge. Sentences for offenders of particular concern were extended a short time ago to include terrorist offenders who do not have an EDS or life sentence, and SOPCs include a Parole Board assessment at the halfway point. A great deal has been done in the past few years in this area, but the two recent cases, including, of course, the one in Streatham just a week and a half ago, underline the need to go even further than before, which is why this Bill is before the House today.

The number of offenders affected is small. As the Lord Chancellor said in his excellent introduction, only 50 offenders are involved, because all the rest are covered by other sentencing types. Even a small number of offenders, however, can cause a high level of harm, as we have seen, which is why it is important that we go further with today’s Bill. The next such offender is due for release by the end of the month, and that is why we are acting so quickly to ensure that legislation is in place prior to that release.

I thank Members from across the House, including the Labour spokesman, the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), and the SNP spokesman, for the constructive and supportive tone of their speeches. This is a good example of Parliament working in a cross-party way in the national interest, and I am grateful for the approach they have taken today.

Some of the questions raised today touch on wider issues in this area, one of which is the question of resources, raised by the hon. Member for Torfaen in his opening speech. I confirm to the House once again that another £90 million will be spent on counter-terrorism policing next year, bringing the budget to £900 million. That very significant increase in resources was announced just a short time ago.

We clearly need to do more on the prison estate. Between 2017-18 and 2019-20, the prisons budget has increased from £2.55 billion to £2.9 billion, a 15% increase, and over the last three years there has been a welcome increase in the number of prison officers serving in our prison estate from 18,003 to 22,536.

Of course, we are also investing in the quality of the prison estate. The next financial year, which starts shortly, will see an extra £156 million invested in the prison estate’s physical condition, in addition to a £2.5 billion programme to build 10,000 additional prison places over and above the 3,500 currently under construction at Glen Parva, Wellingborough and Stocken.