Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I shall not take that personally. Because the Select Committee met at the same time as the Opposition Front Benchers called for this debate, I was not able to be here for the excellent speech of the shadow Home Secretary or to hear what the Home Secretary had to say. I would like to take up the theme started by the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson)—and, indeed, continued by the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland)—in urging us to look beyond any partisanship in dealing with counter-terrorism issues.

One feature of our discussions on the Floor of the House—and it applies to Select Committee discussions, too—is the need to understand that we are living in a very dangerous age. That highlights the importance of our trying to build on the consensus that I believe is so important when dealing with counter-terrorism issues. The Select Committee is in the middle of its inquiry into counter-terrorism and is just about to look at a report on TPIMs that will be published next week. I have just read the report. I shall speak very briefly about it because, having just read it, I do not want inadvertently to leak any of it. When Members get the chance to read it, I hope they will find it to be a measured and all-party report. One feature of a Select Committee is that progress is made on an all-party basis.

I shall flag up three personal concerns. First, what on earth is going to happen to all the people who are on TPIMs and are about to be removed from them? That is an important question, and I hope that the Minister will answer it. I entirely accept what the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) said in his intervention on the hon. Member for South Swindon—that if we go to the trouble of making people subject to TPIMs, we need to think about what it will do to those people if the orders are suddenly stopped. One problem with control orders and TPIMs has been the lack of engagement with those who have been subject to them. The Government will have to introduce some kind of measure to replace the one that is about to expire for so many people, so I hope we will be able to ensure not only proper monitoring of those individuals, but appropriate engagement with them.

We heard evidence in our last session from Cerie Bullivant, a young man who, through association with another individual whose brother was a subject of interest to the security services, was put under a control order. His view was that control orders and TPIMs were exactly the same, but he felt that his life had been transformed by the experience—he became even bitterer because he had been made the subject of such an order. When we are dealing with situations of this kind, we must have these orders, but we must also engage with these people. If we do not, when the order ends, we will be in the same position or an even worse one than when we started.

Secondly, I am still not clear about what has happened to the two individuals who have escaped from their TPIMs—Ibrahim Magag and Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed. We have had no explanation of what action has been taken. I recall statements being made by Ministers and I know there was a dispute about whether the passports had been retained by the Home Office and the police. Frankly, however, we must have clarity on those points of detail. We know the circumstances of the two individuals who decided to break their orders, but as we come towards the expiry of the orders for the others, we still do not know where these people are. Presumably, we will make no attempts to find them, for what is the point of trying to find people when their orders have expired?

Finally, I want to say something about foreign fighters. The Committee took evidence from Charles Farr of the Home Office, and we have heard speeches from the head of the security services. These are issues of great importance to the House. What concerns us is not just those who go abroad, but those who come back and then infect other people with their ideology. We need a new counter-terrorism strategy that brings the community on side with us so that they are our eyes and ears. We cannot simply feel that we can prevent this happening; without engagement, we will not be in a position to deal with these dangerous times.