Draft Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 (Continuation) order 2016

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 General Committees

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I fully support what the Minister is proposing. These are very important measures. However, in the past couple of years, a number of individuals have gone missing while on these orders, and statements have been made to the House by the Minister’s predecessor about the individuals who have gone missing. Can the Minister update the Committee on how many of those individuals have now been apprehended?

[Mr Wallace]

After the absconsion of two individuals—I think that that was the number—a review was done, looking at the operational failures that perhaps allowed that to happen, and that review was submitted to David Anderson, the reviewer of terrorism legislation. It would not be appropriate to give the details of the review, because obviously that might expose vulnerabilities in our capability, but certainly the lessons have been learned and addressed.

[Keith Vaz]

It is always good to learn lessons when mistakes occur, and obviously I do not blame the Minister—the system clearly let us down—but my question was whether those two individuals have been apprehended, or are they still out there in the public space?

[Mr Wallace]

The right hon. Gentleman may not understand, but we do not comment on individual TPIM cases, for reasons, obviously, of operational security. However, he should take some comfort from the fact that the lessons from what led to those individuals absconding have been learned and measures are in place to do so. I can point him to the statistics for the number of people on TPIMs: there was one, and now we are at six for this year. I can certainly say that, where possible, we use them. We certainly do so as a last resort, but where we need to use them, we will. I think that we are in a better place than we were with control orders.

Under part 2 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, a TPIM notice can require the individual to reside in a property up to 200 miles away from their own residence without their consent, ban the individual from possessing certain weapons and require the individual to attend appointments arranged by the Secretary of State.

A key objective of the TPIM Act was to introduce a more focused regime that protected the public from the risk of terrorism but increased the safeguards in place to protect the civil liberties of those subject to the measures. There are several differences between the TPIM Act and the previous control order regime, including the strengthening of the legal threshold required to impose an order from “reasonable suspicion” under the control order legislation to “reasonable belief” for TPIMs. That threshold was strengthened even further to “the balance of probabilities” under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. Additionally, control orders lasted for a maximum of 12 months, but there was no limit to how many times they could be extended. In a small number of cases, they lasted for more than four years. Under the TPIM Act, notices last for a maximum of 12 months and are extendable only for a further year. Evidence of new terrorism-related activity is required to justify a new TPIM notice.

An automatic right of appeal is built into the TPIM legislation. That allows individuals who are subject to TPIM notices to challenge through the courts the Home Secretary’s decision to impose them. However, unlike the previous control order regime, no TPIM has been quashed by the courts. In accordance with section 21 of the TPIM Act, the director general of MI5, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation and the intelligence services commissioner have all been consulted, and they all recommend the continuation of the Secretary of State’s powers. I commend the draft order to the Committee.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

This is my second outing as shadow Minister, although it is my first in Committee. The Minister and I faced each other yesterday, and he will be relieved to know that, as with the Criminal Finances Bill, the Opposition support the draft order.

The draft order will renew for a further five years the Secretary of State’s power to issue TPIM notices. Such notices are rarely used, but as was pointed out, they remain a vital last resort in ensuring our national security. As the Minister explained, the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 enables the Secretary of State to restrict an individual’s freedom of movement, association and financial action where that person is under suspicion but cannot yet be prosecuted or deported. Those powers enable the Government to prevent and investigate terrorist activity and ensure that our security services never have to wait for a terrorism plot to be carried out before they act. The Secretary of State can use such powers by issuing a TPIM, with the approval of the High Court. As has been explained and the Committee is now aware, TPIMs, like all aspects of our counter-terrorism legislation, were reported upon by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation in 2013. We have had all that explained to us.

I want to touch on the two fundamental things that were changed as a result of those 2013 recommendations. TPIMs were tightened up, so that the Government could restrict where an individual may reside, which had been part of the control order regime. In the original debate in 2011, the Labour party argued that because of Liberal Democrat forces, or something like that, the Government were softer than we were on that issue, but that has been rectified. That recommendation was important, because individuals might find it easier to abscond if they can keep in touch with their former networks and the usual gang. There are two examples of people absconding: Ibrahim Magag and—this is close to home for me—Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, who, completely coincidentally, visited the mosque right next to our Labour party office in Acton on a Friday and escaped in a burqa. People in Acton still remember that.

[Keith Vaz]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her appointment. She mentioned the so-called burqa case. She will have listened to the Minister’s reply to me that lessons have been learned from how that situation arose. We of course accept the Minister’s assurances that things have been tightened up, but does she agree that given that both cases resulted in statements to the House to inform Members that those individuals had gone missing, the Committee is entitled to know whether they are still at large or have been found? Does she agree that that would reassure the citizens of not just Ealing but the rest of the country?