Terrorist Attacks

Lord Christopher Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I will be advised on whether this is correct but my understanding is that the authorities have sufficient powers to apprehend and intercept anyone who is known to have joined a terrorist organisation overseas when they return to this country, and those people should expect to be subject to arrest and detention where appropriate. There are provisions in law for removing passports from certain individuals, but I would need further advice as to the conditions of those, and I will write to my noble friend about that.

[Lord Christopher (Lab)]

My Lords, I got the impression while the noble Earl was speaking that the general public might have no real comprehension that they, too, have a part to play, and think that this is essentially something that can be left to the services. I am old enough to recall what we did just before the last war with the “Careless Talk Costs Lives” and similar campaigns. On the whole, those were remarkably successful. I am sure that no one wants to panic, but I believe that someone could examine how that was done. For example, people buy considerable quantities of certain chemicals. Every year, I buy two hundredweight—to use an old term—of a certain chemical for gardening purposes, although I will not mention the chemical. I was asked what I use it for. The noble Earl has mentioned a similar example. Actions like that could provide the public services with more information than they get now.

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his suggestions; indeed, they resonate very closely with comments made by David Anderson in his report, when he talked about the need for the public sector and the private sector to work together rather more than they do to keep the public safe. I would go further. The Government cannot and should not seek to carry out their work without drawing on the significant expertise that the private sector and, indeed, private citizens can offer. This is not about spying on innocent people; it is about enlisting the support of retailers, for example, both online and physical, to report any suspicious activity. We know that schemes such as Neighbourhood Watch have been extremely successful in their own way in preventing household crime. Perhaps that is something that could be developed rather further to encompass the kinds of crime that we are now discussing.