Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon]

Minister, those who are involved in terrorism may have—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman disappoints me. We had all this yesterday. The hon. Gentleman cannot address the Minister as “Minister”; he has to address him in the third person. It is my ambition that the hon. Member for Strangford will get that right.

[Jim Shannon]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I endeavour to follow your instructions and I will do my best.

I seek assurance that those who are involved in terrorist activity, be it providing safe houses, physical assistance, cars or weapons, and who play a smaller role will also feel the brunt of the sentencing for their minor role in a bigger terrorist atrocity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes]

I should reveal to the House, for those who were not here yesterday, that I had a charming exchange with the right hon. Gentleman, where I described him as a “dear friend” and he described me as a “kind of friend”. I was rather slighted actually, but he made up for it later by saying that it was offered in good humour, and I took it in the same spirit, I have to say.

The right hon. Gentleman is right. One of the things that is important about debates on terrorism in this House is that they do not follow narrow party lines. We try to build consensus, as we face common threats and shared challenges. He is right. Rather like Prevent, we do need to be scrupulous about analysing effectiveness. It is right that the Government should do that and, again, without putting words into the mouth of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, still less provoking action on his behalf, the Select Committee will look at that, together, I imagine, with the Home Affairs Committee and others. There are all kinds of bodies in this august establishment that will play a role in ensuring that the application of what is a new development is effective. So I do not think that that is an unreasonable point, and I am more than happy, in the spirit that I have just described, to amplify it. However, I think that the Government are on the right track and I praise the Lord Chancellor for this in recognising that the bar did need to be lowered for TPIMs.

The other point that I want to make is in relation to Prevent and Channel. This is a complex area because, as I described, the character of terrorism is complex, as is our response to it. I am a pretty robust supporter of Prevent. It has critics; it has always had critics. It is certainly right that we have good oversight of Prevent—I tried to bring that about while I was the Minister and I do not think that that was always the case in the past—and that we measure its effect, too. I am not sure that that was always done as well as it could have been, and I am speaking about Governments of all colours here.

Having met Prevent co-ordinators and seen their work at first hand in various parts of the country, I know how much difference they make. It is not just about Islamist terrorism, although I suppose that is what most people will think that we are focused on today. It is much more broad than that. It is identifying problems of all kinds. I was proud, as the Minister, to introduce the Prevent duty, as some here will know, which engaged the various public bodies that are at the frontline of radicalisation—I am thinking of health professionals, schools and others—and also engaged communities and provided them not only with a responsibility, but, I hope, extra support in identifying those people, particularly young people, as it is often young people who are corrupted in this way, and in trying to act before they did something horrible, dreadful or shocking. I do support Prevent and, while I think that it should be reviewed, I also support the provision in the Bill to extend the review process. I make no comment on who should do it—that is for others to comment on—but I note that the Bill extends it and I think that is the right thing to do.

I come to the part of my speech that will perhaps be more challenging for some here—I hope not too challenging. None the less, I would rather be straight- forward, as I always try to be. It is about the issue of sentencing. Public order and faith in the rule of law depend on popular confidence in the justice system. The justice system is in part retributive. We have fallen into the trap of believing that the only purpose of criminal justice is to rehabilitate. Of course, that is a purpose—in the case of terrorism, as I have made clear, de-radicalisation is crucial—but public sympathy for all we do, and all our security and intelligence services and the police do, depends on people believing that justice is being done, and is being seen to be done. That is hard to reconcile with early release at all.

If we spoke to our constituents about early release, I suspect a very substantial number would find it pretty hard to cope with in the case of serious crime at all—or what they perceive as serious crime—and all the more so with terrorism. I think our constituents, whether they are in South Holland and The Deepings or Tottenham, or any other part of this kingdom, and regardless from which community they come, would be surprised if they knew we were releasing so many people who have committed those kinds of offences.

I am going to draw my remarks to a conclusion shortly—I can see you, with typical charm, combined with authority, moving to the edge of your chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I particularly welcome the Government’s approach to early release. It seems to me that the various provisions in the Bill that increase minimum sentences and provide the courts with the ability to look again at the tariff, and in some cases, increase maximum sentences, are entirely in tune with popular sentiment and the threat we face.

Let me end by saying this: the Bill, in my judgment, is apposite and appropriate. We are speaking of those whose purpose is to murder and maim—let us be under no illusion and have no doubt about that—and in the struggle for civilised life, in the cause of virtue, on our side there can be no fear, no guilt and no doubt.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before we move on, we will now have to have a time limit. It will initially be 10 minutes, but I warn hon. Members that that is likely to reduce significantly in the near future.