Terror Attacks

Dominic Grieve Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments and the constructive way in which she is approaching this. The Government look forward to working with her to make sure that we have a constructive, united approach to this enemy that is trying to attack us.

The right hon. Lady asked particularly about new legislation. She is right that Max Hill has said that he does not see the need for new legislation, but he also said that he does see the need for a review of sentences, so we will certainly look at whether we can have tougher sentences. On our potential new legislation and approach, I ask her to hold fire for now on concluding that to be the case until we have done this review. Looking backwards, our review over the next few months into why so many terror attacks took place will be critical. For that, we will have independent assurance in the form of David Anderson. We will also have a review looking ahead to what else we can do.

As I said in my statement, we feel we have entered a new phase. That may mean that we need to introduce new legislation, but we will not rush to do that based on the attacks. We will look at doing that depending on what we find out from these reviews. I ask her to keep an open mind on that, depending on what conclusions the reviews reach.

I yield to no one in my respect for the work of the police, particularly the work of the counter-terrorism police in the past few months. We all recognise the enormous extra work and effort that has gone into following up on the attacks and keeping us safe. We have protected the police budget from 2015. There has been a lot of scaremongering about changes to the budget, and I repeat here, in the House, that it will be protected. We will ensure that we always give the security services and the police who work to keep us safe the resources that they need.

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I greatly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. I want to raise just two or three points. First, I particularly welcome the review of the sentencing guidelines. That should happen because of the evidence that individuals who commit acts preparatory to terrorism may be receiving sentences that are insufficient, although clearly they need to be proportionate.

The second issue concerns the response and how our security services work to deal with the threat. My right hon. Friend will know that the Government have invested considerably in that. The money spent and the number of officers available have been greatly enhanced. Equally, it is right that, because of the classified nature of the work, some details cannot be given to the House. That emphasises to me that one of the problems in the past three and a half months has been that we have not had an Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament to provide the sort of scrutiny that might be helpful to hon. Members in understanding what has gone on, what should happen in the future and whether any improvements could be made. I therefore gently urge my right hon. Friend to make representations to the Prime Minister that that should be given priority.