Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Commons Chamber

In Committee, the Minister talked about the number of 18 to 21-year-olds being involved in serious terror offences as being very low, suggesting that fewer than five were in prison at any one time. I hope very much that that is the case, though, as the Minister admitted, it is just an estimate. As I have said several times, I question the accuracy of that estimate. In a letter he sent me on 6 July, he said that only two under 18-year-olds and 10 18 to 20-year-olds were convicted of terrorism or a terrorism-related offence in 2019. I accept his point that not all those offenders would have been sentenced under the new legislation, had it been available—perhaps only a couple each year, but a couple each year would mean that over a number of years, far more than five would actually end up serving these longer determinate sentences. I will leave that argument there, since I am tying my tongue in knots, but I do not doubt that we will return to the subject again.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

May I ask why an actual age is not included in amendment 30? There is an allusion to an age, but not a specific age. Will he outline why that was not included in the amendment when it was drafted?

[Alex Cunningham]

Personally, I thought the amendment was clear. It lays down very specific issues in relation to young people. That is why we tried to detail in Committee that young people are different and need to be treated differently.

[Joy Morrissey]

If we are talking about the age at which a person is convicted of a crime and serves this type of sentence, it would have been clearer if an age was included in the amendment, whether that was 13, 15 or 18, just to further the case for why young offenders should be given a less severe sentence.

[Alex Cunningham]

The hon. Lady tempts me to start to rehearse all the arguments around the age of maturity. We know that children up to the age of 18 are treated differently under the law, much as the group between 18 and 20 are supposed to be treated differently. There is more and more evidence all the time. In particular, there have been some studies in Scotland—I am looking at the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) for the SNP—that are starting to talk in terms of, “Maybe we should be looking at 25 as the age of maturity.” That is all the more reason why we have to think carefully about how we treat young people in the justice system, because young people ought to be treated differently. They have a better chance of being rehabilitated, and it is important we give them that chance.