Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

That is an important point.

As the Committee will know, under schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000, there is the power to stop and question individuals who are suspected of involvement in terrorism. The annual report on the Terrorism Acts by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC, that was published in July this year gave facts and figures about that power. It included the number and ethnicities of the people who have been examined under schedule 7 in recent years. Although he noted that there was not overwhelming evidence that the power was exercised in a “racially discriminatory manner”, he noted:

“It remains imperative that police should exercise their considerable powers in a sensitive, well-informed and unbiased manner”.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Would the proposal in amendment 17 not be stronger if there was a time limit within which the Home Office had to reply to the application to remove a passport, so that the court would have to consider the matter in a timely manner? There is a parallel in the people who are denied entry to this country or are deported from this country and who have to appeal from a third country. The fact that there is no time limit means that the injustices that such cases often involve can go on for a very long time.

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[Mark Field]

Perhaps I do not share the great faith in the bureaucratic competence of the Home Office that was expressed by the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It was the opposite.

[Mark Field]

I guessed that that was the case. I was being slightly ironic. One issue with the notion that we could have appeals is that if there was a great emergency and the passports of many dozens or even many hundreds of people were seized, the appeals process would become unwieldy. One hopes that such a situation will not come about. If there was a small number of individuals at any one time, it would be quite manageable, but if there was a large number, that would make it more difficult.

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[James Brokenshire]

Ultimately, those facts will concern any challenge that may be made, and a review may be undertaken of the proper exercise of the power and oversight provided for in the Bill. The right hon. Member for Delyn commented on the nature of the protections in the Bill. I hope that will assure the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) about the way such things would be advanced and protected, and that oversight is provided to deal with the issues he has raised.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Will the person whose passport or travel documents are removed be informed of the reason they have been taken away? The maximum time the passport can be held without going through a legal process is two weeks. When does the Minister envisage that there will be a review of that decision, and when can the person reasonably expect to get their documents back and be allowed to travel? The points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) were clear—the issue is one of access to a judicial process, rather than an executive decision, which is effectively what the removal of the documents would be.

[James Brokenshire]

The hon. Gentleman leads me neatly to mention a number of protections in the Bill, and to say how we will ensure that the exercise of this power is proportionate and suitably circumscribed by a range of stringent safeguards. Some of the points about the need for speed and assurances about the exercise of such powers have been well made. A powerful power is being advanced in schedule 1, and those who exercise it must be satisfied that it is necessary to retain the relevant documentation. The different mechanisms available to challenge a decision underscore why we regard current protections as proportionate to this power.

In essence, officers who might exercise the power would be governed by a specific code of practice that would specify how they are to use it. Paragraph 2 of schedule 1 states that the constable must have

“reasonable grounds to suspect that the person is there—”

in the port—

“with the intention of leaving the United Kingdom for the purpose of involvement in terrorism-related activity”.

The officer then has to seek a further review by a senior police office of at least superintendent level to confirm that the power is appropriate in that case. There is a further review by an officer of chief superintendent rank within 72 hours of the officer’s findings, and that is referred to the chief constable who must remain satisfied with the case. Even from an administrative perspective there are a significant number of checks and balances to ensure that the power is being exercised effectively. If the documents are to be retained beyond the 14-day period, there is a court process and a review to consider how further oversight should be provided.

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[Jeremy Corbyn]

Does my right hon. Friend think that this will lead to a whole cadre of virtually stateless people who will congregate together in one place, and that will be a problem for absolutely everybody rather than one state? Surely, as he rightly says, a state has a responsibility towards its own nationals.

[Frank Dobson]

I understand my hon. Friend’s point. The whole proposition of exclusion orders seems to be predicated on the idea, first, that these people are totally rational; and secondly, that their greatest desire is to come back to Britain. Neither of those things will necessarily be the case, because some very odd people are going to be involved.

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[John McDonnell]

I seek some clarity on clause 9 on pages 5 and 6.

We know of two young men who have left my constituency to fight—we believe—in Syria, and we worked with one of the families, with the assistance of the Government, to enable them to go to Turkey to try and convince the young man to return. When I read his letters to his parents, I found them to be extremely sincere. He thought he was going to Syria to fight against the Assad regime—he called it “jihad”—to protect people being bombarded by the regime and to prevent what he considered to be war crimes. I also found him sincere in his hope that his parents would not be distressed. It was a rather sad leaving letter. At one point, he explained to his parents that there was still a few bob left on his Oyster card for them to use. It was a short, extremely moving letter from a young man in his late teens, early 20s, explaining his intentions. I believe that many young men, and possibly women, have gone out with what they and others would consider to be the best of intentions: to engage in a military action to protect people from the abuse of human rights by a dictatorial regime that, as we now know, was using gas and other weapons against its own people.

I am trying to find a mechanism to encourage people to come back and be reintegrated into our society because I think that a lot of people who went out realise they made a mistake; they might have thought their intentions virtuous in the first instance, but I think many of them would now acknowledge that they made a mistake and it has gone wrong. Clause 9, however, introduces significant offences. It states:

“An individual subject to a temporary exclusion order is guilty of an offence if, without reasonable excuse, the individual returns to the United Kingdom in contravention of the restriction on return specified in the order.”

It would be extremely helpful if the Home Secretary gave us greater clarity, either now or later, about what a reasonable excuse would be. I would not want practicalities—for example, a person not knowing they had an exclusion order against them—to be an issue. Clause 9(4) states:

“In a case where a relevant notice has not actually been given to an individual, the fact that the relevant notice is deemed to have been given to the individual under regulations under section 10 does not…prevent the individual from showing that lack of knowledge of the temporary exclusion order, or of the obligation imposed under section 8, was a reasonable excuse for the purposes of this section.”

We need to be clear about what a reasonable excuse would be in this instance.

Many of these individuals already led chaotic lives, but they are now in a zone of operations that in itself is chaotic, and I think that many will want to return. However, the fact that there is uncertainty about what would be a reasonable excuse for returning—of getting on that plane and coming back—and the risk of up to five years in prison or a summary conviction of up to 12 months could act as a disincentive.

I think we should be easing the path as best we can to as many as possible of those who want to come back to be de-radicalised or rehabilitated. In some instances, unless we are absolutely clear about the nature of these offences and, in particular, about what would be construed as a reasonable excuse for return when the person does not know whether a temporary exclusion order is in place, it could provide a disincentive to carrying out the purpose that the Government, the Opposition and others want to happen—the process of managed return.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I shall speak briefly because I know the Home Secretary is about to reply. Following the speech of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) about the general direction in which anti-terror law has gone, I want to make two essential points. Ever since I have been a Member, we seem to have had some piece of anti-terror legislation before us every year. I assume that there is a very large department in the Home Office that is writing next year’s anti-terror Bill and the one for the year after that. I am sure there will be an ambition to do that.

The theme that runs through all such legislation is an attempt to give greater and greater executive powers to the Home Secretary, which are usually rowed back by a combination of the courts and parliamentary action; then, a year or two later, we come back to yet another counter-terror Bill in respect of which the Home Secretary, no doubt with the very best of intentions, is nevertheless given a high degree of executive power. It is no part of our duty as elected Members of Parliament to undermine an independent judicial process and hand executive powers to Ministers, on the basis of which they can either detain or exclude people under any process whatever. That is fundamental to what I understand our democracy to be.

Although there is—ultimately, I suppose—some degree of judicial oversight when an excluded person finally comes back to this country, I would have thought that the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) are surely true and important. If someone goes abroad, albeit on the basis of perhaps misguided notions about what they can do when they reach the zone of conflict to which they have gone, they will be there and will subsequently be prevented from returning. That might render them at risk of imprisonment by another judiciary, which might have much less concern for human rights than anyone here, and they could then be tortured and all kinds of terrible things could happen to them. Would the possession of British nationality on the part of someone affected in that way require the British Government to intervene on their behalf to stop them being tortured, given that the Government opposed their return to Britain in the first place? This whole process is full of many complications and contradictions, which I hope have been adequately thought through by the Home Secretary in introducing this legislation.

Secondly, I want to note the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth). We are involved in a process of making subjective judgments about who goes where to fight for what, and for whom. My right hon. Friend made the point that if somebody goes to fight for ISIS in Syria—I wish they would not; I have no truck whatever with ISIS—they will be deemed to be a terrorist and a dangerous person. If they go to fight for the Syrian Government, I presume the same point applies, but if they fight for the free Syrian army, which is supported by the Americans and the British, and they do things as despicable as they would in any other force, are they then deemed to be all right? Do they then have to prove which particular force they joined in Syria’s three-way civil war?

There is a further complication. If someone enters Syria from Turkey to fight with the Kurdish forces, having been taken there by the PKK, which is a listed terrorist organisation in Turkey, they would nevertheless be on the side of the Kurdish forces against the forces of the Syrian Government and against ISIS. There are an awful lot of contradictions surrounding how we decide who is a good fighter and who is a terrorist; who is struggling for liberation and who is a terrorist. There was a time when people involved in Umkhonto we Sizwe in South Africa were known as terrorists; they were later welcomed to this country as freedom fighters. Things can turn full circle.

None of what I am saying is intended to give any succour, comfort or support to ISIS, but I feel that we should think about this rather more carefully and avoid the knee-jerk reaction of saying, “These are bad fighters and those are good fighters, so we will ban these and allow those in.”

[Mr George Howarth]

My hon. Friend has already answered the question that I was going to ask, but I will make my point anyway. I am sure he agrees that there is no comparison between the barbaric acts that are being committed by members of ISIS and what was done by the freedom fighters in South Africa.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Of course that is true. I have no truck with those who commit those barbaric acts, and nor does any other Member.

Our job is to scrutinise legislation, and that is exactly what we are doing tonight. We can vote to change some of the amendments tonight, or we can return to the issues on Report. However, I hope the Home Secretary understands that a great many of us are deeply concerned about the principle of dealing with British nationals in this way, as we would be in relation to any other country. We are concerned about the long-term consequences: about what such treatment does to those people, and about the increased radicalisation of others. My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) talked about that.

I have encountered young people who have been attracted to what ISIS is doing. They say that what the west did in Iraq and Afghanistan was appalling, and was questionably legal in the case of Afghanistan and definitely illegal in the case of Iraq. We are living with the consequences of the war on terror of 2001, and if we continue to try to create legal obstacles and make value judgments about people without considering the overall policy we are following, we will return to legislation such as this again and again, year after year.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

That is a humbling thing. It is, however, a lamentable fact that my constituent Omar Hussain appeared on the BBC to express considerable support for ISIS. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that such people need to be subject to special measures when they return to the United Kingdom?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I have no support for ISIS whatsoever, and obviously that should apply to someone who has committed crimes, but we should bear in mind that expressing a political point of view is not in itself an offence. The commission of a criminal act is clearly a different matter, but expressing a point of view, even an unpalatable one, is sometimes quite important in a democracy. We should be slightly cautious about announcing that we will start to deal with people on the basis of a general view that they have expressed. We should think seriously about where our foreign policy has brought us, and what our legislative position now is.

[Steve Baker]

I am very much inclined to agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but the problem is that this particular individual expressed support for beheadings with a knife. I feel that the practical realities mean that we must take special measures in the case of such people.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I would want that person to have some kind of treatment, or I would want measures of some kind to be taken, but expressing support for something and doing it are two rather different things.

There are very unpleasant parallels in the British colonial past. I sat through the hearings in the High Court when the Mau Mau people were seeking compensation. The way in which they had been treated by the British Army in Kenya in 1955 was disgusting and disgraceful beyond belief. We are now going through a horrible, vile period in Syria. We must understand where we have come from and how we will get through this period without denying our own civil liberties and encouraging more people to join in this whole ghastly process.

[Mrs May]

This has been a constructive and well-informed debate. Some Members have raised practical questions and others have raised questions of principle, but it was the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) who brought home to us why we must look at the issue of our terrorism legislation when he explained that his own constituency had been affected by not the theory but the actuality of terrorism, and that people had lost their lives as a result. So this is not an academic discussion; we are talking about a real threat to this country, and we need to do everything we can to combat that.

The hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) talked about the balance between civil liberties and national security. I have always taken the view that without our security we cannot enjoy our civil liberties, but I would simply point out that this Government reviewed counter-terrorism legislation when we came in and took a number of steps such as reducing the period of pre-charge detention from 28 to 14 days, so we have been very conscious throughout of the need always to be aware of the freedoms we hold dear and the desire to ensure we can maintain them.

I am grateful for the constructive tone adopted by most of those who spoke in the debate. There will of course be discussion of the details and consideration of how best to achieve our desired objective, but many of those who spoke recognised the legitimate aim of what the Government are doing. It is perfectly legitimate to try to ensure we can manage the return to this country of those who may pose a threat to the people of the UK.

The right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) talked about the complexity of the situation we are dealing with, particularly in relation to Syria and Iraq. People going out there, sometimes with the best of intentions, may find themselves being radicalised. People may go out to fight or work with one particular group but get caught up in fighting with other, more extreme terrorist organisations. So it is a very complex picture; I understand that.

The right hon. Gentleman raised the question of whether people would be looked at in categories, and described a number of categories. As I have said, individuals will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Whether they meet the criteria set out in the Bill will be considered, and that will include looking at them in much the way he described, and putting in place the appropriate measures in relation to particular individuals. Of course, such considerations will be made in consultation with operational partners, notably the security services and the police, but that this will be done on a case-by-case basis is a very important element that people should remember.

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[Mrs May]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that the power to remove a passport from an individual—the royal prerogative power—is not subject to an automatic court process. This is more akin to that royal prerogative exercise in the removal of a passport than it is to the imposition of the sort of measures that can be within the terrorism prevention and investigation measures.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Let us be clear: a judicial review is not an appeal; it is an examination of process. It is no more and no less than that. To call it a judicial oversight is really not correct.

[Mrs May]

The point is that there is a process in which the courts consider whether the decision by the Secretary of State to exercise the temporary exclusion order was reasonable. Let me come back to the point made by the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick). If we look at the difference between a royal prerogative power and the terrorism prevention and investigation measures, the restriction on an individual that can be imposed through a TPIM is far greater than that imposed through the exercise of the royal prerogative power. This power of the temporary exclusion order is more akin to the royal prerogative power, which is why I believe that the proposals in the Bill are appropriate for the sort of measure that we are putting in place.

As the Bill goes through its various stages in this House and the other place, there will be further discussion on the issues that have been raised by hon. Members today. What we are proposing is a new power, but it is both necessary and proportionate. As I have said before, it will not render anyone stateless. It will ensure that those who have been fighting abroad and who want to come back to the United Kingdom do so in a managed way and on our terms, and it is compliant with all our domestic and international legal obligations. I invite all those who have tabled amendments to withdraw them, and the Committee to agree that clauses 2 to 11 should stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 3 to 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

To report progress and ask leave to sit again.—(Mel Stride.)

The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again tomorrow.