Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), who is standing down at the next election. We shall miss his wise words and the eloquent way in which he put the case for engagement and against terrorism. I join him, and both the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary, in condemning the events in Paris. We know that the community in Paris and in France as a whole—along with the community here—utterly condemn what has happened. We hope that people of good will in that country and in the rest of Europe will come forward and ensure that we recognise the great strengths of diversity and the importance of understanding different cultures and religions, while isolating those who wish to undermine the values of our society.

I commend those on both Front Benches for the way in which they have dealt with this difficult Bill and for the progress that has been made. I, for one, thought that it would not be possible for the Bill to complete all its House of Commons stages by now, but it has done so. I think that the Opposition’s constructive approach—matched, I hope, by the Government’s approach in the form of a pledge to table amendments in the other place—will enable us to be a House united in our condemnation of terrorism and a House united in the method by which that is achieved.

As I have said before, however, I do not think that legislation is enough. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome was right to say that we do not welcome Bills of this kind. We would rather not have them, because we would rather not have terrorism. We need legislation because it enables us to provide a framework for the incredible people who work in the police and the security services and who do things that we could not possibly even imagine doing. They are on the front line, dealing with such problems, every day. But what we must do, both in government and in opposition—what every Member has a responsibility to do—is ensure that communities are fully engaged in the fight against terrorism.

I am not saying that the communities are not engaged. They condemn those who wish to undermine our values. When we frame legislation, however, we use words such as “prevent” as though communities were able on their own to prevent what is happening. I think language is extremely important, and that is why I prefer the language of engagement. It should be “engagement, engagement, engagement”. We should be constantly working with communities. We cannot tell them to inform the authorities that someone is behaving in a way that causes them concern. Mothers will be fearful of reporting on their children, because when one woman did so, her son was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Following that case, women will believe that if they try to prevent their children from going abroad, those children be sent to prison for years and years with no prospect of rehabilitation.

These are complex and difficult areas therefore, and although we want these issues reported, we need a counter-narrative to make sure that, whenever the terrorists go on to the internet and prosecute their case for violence, we have an alternative. The people who run our internet services therefore need to do much more. The Prime Minister spoke about the dark net, and I contacted Google as I was very keen to get into the dark net, to try and see exactly what was going on in there, and Google told me, “It’s called the dark net because we can’t get into it.” That is the problem. There are areas on the internet that even the most sophisticated and clever people in our security services are not able to penetrate. That is how the terrorists and those who support their cause have been able to prosecute their case.

We need to get the internet providers to do much more. They need to take down more sites. They need to be more vigilant. They should not wait for complaints; they should act with speed and efficiency. That is clear. It has been clear to the Home Affairs Committee, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) for all the work he has done; he is particularly eloquent on these issues when we look at counter-terrorism and conduct inquiries into these matters.

The problem has moved from the madrassahs and the schools and, I have to say to the Home Secretary, from the universities to the prisons and on to the net. So the old days when we could find the imam who was preaching the cause of terrorism have gone. There is now one-to-one radicalisation. Those who go into prison may become radicalised while there, and, unfortunately, they are not monitored sufficiently when they come out. That is what the Select Committee found in our last report. They then radicalise other people. With the best will in the world and the best resources put forward by the Government, it is very difficult to isolate people who are in prison if they are mixing with others who have different views and if they want to blame somebody else for their plight.

That is why, rather like the Jesuits, we need to deal with this at a much earlier stage. The counter-narrative needs to start much earlier. If we fail to do that, we will, in a sense, allow a whole generation to believe some of the stories that are recurring in certain parts of the country. That is why we commended the work of Google and its work with Abdullah-X, who informed us in his broadcasts that peer group pressure leads to people deciding to give up their way of life in this country and suddenly choosing to go and fight in Syria or in another country. They give up everything—the love of their parents, the support of their families and all their friends—because they believe they are fighting for a better cause. We cannot sit by and wait for that to happen.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) keeps telling us, the counter-narrative must begin now. We must be as aggressive as we can be now. We cannot wait for any more people to go. Ten years ago, Members could stand in the House and the Home Secretary could come to the Dispatch Box and not fear the fact that 500 British citizens had left this country to go and fight abroad. The figure was much less then.

The figure now is much higher in France and the rest of Europe than it is here. Thankfully, our numbers are lagging behind those of the rest of Europe. Taken as a whole, however, this is a real problem and it is getting worse. That is why the Select Committee has said on numerous occasions that what we need is a firm international platform to deal with counter-terrorism. This is done bilaterally at the moment, and we suggested the expansion of Interpol, with all the good work international organisations such as Interpol and Europol do, and that there should be an international platform involving countries of good will. We cannot allow every country into this, because we cannot be sure about every country, but those who are on the right side—if I can put it like that, in a diplomatic way—should work together on an international platform to identify those responsible.

We talked about the need to support countries such as Turkey. Turkey is an international hub: it is where people go before travelling on to Syria to carry on with their fighting. It is essential that we use all our resources to deal with these issues, but unless we work with families and communities as equals, we simply will not win this battle. We cannot prevent someone who is the subject of an order from going into a mosque, putting on a burqa and disappearing. We have to tell communities—no, “tell” is the wrong word; we have to work with communities and try to persuade them to come forward.

In France, there are ways of reporting these things, just as there are here. There, they have the “green line”. Here, we have the anti-terrorist hotline. When parents in this country are having a discussion at breakfast about the possibility of their child going off to fight in Syria, they do not sit around saying, “I think we should ring the anti-terrorist hotline.” Of course they do not want to report their children for terrorism. We need to look again at the language of effective reporting, so that we can encourage people to report their suspicions without fearing that their family unit could be destroyed. Every member of the Muslim community I have spoken to condemns what is happening out there in Syria. They condemn the people who are going out there to fight. I remember listening to a father being interviewed on BBC television. When he was told that his son had died abroad, he did not even know that he had gone to fight. Families sometimes do not know these things.

We need to ensure that there is effective monitoring, not only of those who come out of prison but of those involved in these activities. The Government and the Opposition work closely together to bring forward orders under prevention of terrorism legislation. Whenever Ministers come to the Dispatch Box to say that they want to ban this or that organisation, there is unanimity in the House that that should happen. It is quite right that the Government should be supported in that way, because they have information that we do not have. However, the ability of organisations to change their names and the ways in which they engage in terrorism is a cause for concern, and we need to be careful about that.

On exclusion orders, I understand why the Government are seeking to exclude people. I understand the logic and the reasoning behind the proposals; the Home Secretary appeared before the Select Committee in December and told us why she thought they were important. However, the practicalities will provide problems, which is why it is important that we assess what the Government are doing in the near future. There will not be time to do that before the general election, but it will be worth assessing how the provisions are working.

I recently met a delegation from Pakistan, which has its own severe troubles. The delegates were interested to hear about the Home Secretary’s exclusion orders. They asked me and my colleagues what we thought would happen if Pakistan decided to exclude any of its citizens who had been involved in these activities and prevent them from returning to Pakistan. Once those people were in Europe—and in the United Kingdom, in particular—we would be lumbered with them. If other countries decide to do what we are doing, there could be real problems. We would have to keep here certain people we would prefer to send away. International co-operation and bilateral conversations are therefore absolutely critical.

I support the Bill. Many of the recommendations that we have made in the past seven years are in it, at least in part. Like the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, I wish that this could be the last counter-terrorism Bill that the House had to consider. I will be fighting the next election, and I hope that I will be returned to the House by the electors of Leicester East. If they want me back here and I am returned, I anticipate seeing more counter-terrorism legislation being introduced. I would be very much against having more, but if we have to have it, we have to have it. I hope, however, that we will look at the practicalities involved, so that when we put this kind of legislation through the House, we carry communities with us and ensure that the proposals are as practical as possible.