Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Lord Condon Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Condon (CB)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lords, Lord Evans and Lord Green, on their excellent contributions to today’s debate. I look forward to further contributions from them.

I support the aims of this Bill and almost all of the proposals within it. As a former commissioner of police, I want my former service and the intelligence services to have the necessary powers to prevent and detect terrorism. On balance, I believe that the measures contained in the Bill are necessary, proportionate and should be supported. However, the Government must put forward a compelling case as we take this Bill through its various stages and show how these new measures are integral to an overall coherent strategy to prevent and detect terrorism. In assessing whether the Government have this strategy right, it is worth very briefly taking stock of the aims of the terrorists we face.

At the Second Reading of the Counter-Terrorism Bill in July 2008, I spoke in your Lordships’ House against extended detention without charge as a disproportionate distraction when faced with what we knew about the aims of the terrorists. I referred to a book, Governance in the Wilderness, written by al-Qaeda’s then chief theoretician. That book and others like it, then and now, that author and others like him, then and now, in al-Qaeda, Islamic State, ISIL and other groups, have a very clear manifesto for individuals and groups who wish to pursue a jihad against us. They advocate turning the developed world we know into a fearful and divided wilderness where only those under jihadi influence enjoy security and everyone else is in constant, disruptive fear for their safety. They see this struggle as a war of ideas and lifestyles which will be fought for decades or, in their terms, maybe even centuries. They want no form of legitimate power or influence or dialogue in our country. They do want to create parallel, extremist societies within this country, France, Germany and other countries with significant Muslim communities. They crave most of all and encourage an endless cycle of violent attacks, widespread publicity, repressive and divisive government responses and legislation—if they can get it—and the radicalisation and recruitment of further young people to carry out even more terrorist attacks. Any legislative response by us must be designed to break and disrupt that cycle of terrorism and not unintentionally to feed and encourage it. I believe that this Bill passes that test.

The men and women who carry out these violent acts may not be sophisticated. They are often very vulnerable people who have a distorted and perverted view of Islam and seek martyrdom as an end in itself. However, we should never forget that they have been indoctrinated and inspired by individuals and ideas which we must understand and which will take generations to combat. This is a very long battle for hearts and minds.

I understand and share the outrage at attacks such as those in Paris last week, but we must keep our collective nerve. We must emphasise the normality and general safety of our daily lives. Sadly, and inevitably, acts of terrorism will occur but not often enough for us to sacrifice the essential freedoms which define who we are and how we live together. If in legislative terms we run scared and overreact, the terrorists win and we fail all our citizens. But, again, I am confident that we are not overreacting with this Bill.

I will briefly raise two specific observations about the measures in the Bill. First, it contains a number of measures which address the specific gaps in the police and intelligence agencies’ powers to disrupt people seeking to travel abroad to engage in terrorist activities and to control their return to the UK. Other noble Lords have spoken about the proposed powers. I support these measures but seek reassurance from the Minister that we are also monitoring and learning from the actions taken in other European countries. Denmark, for example, which reportedly has the second highest rate of recruits to Islamic State, has adopted a programme of counselling, mentoring and training which has had reasonable success with young people returning from Syria and elsewhere. This so-called Aarhus model developed in Denmark’s second city seems to have significantly reduced the number of young people leaving Denmark to join Islamic State. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure your Lordships that we are learning lessons from this programme and others like it as well as putting forward our own proposals.

My second observation is about resources. As others have said, Part 5 of the Bill refers to the risk of being drawn into terrorism. The Government’s Prevent programme is designed to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. Clauses 21 to 32 apply the new general duty on specified authorities. Like the noble Lords, Lord Evans of Weardale and Lord Hennessy, and others, I am not yet fully persuaded of the need for a statutory requirement although I remain open to persuasion. But even if we do implement this new statutory duty, for understandable reasons police forces and local authorities continue to face dramatic reductions in budgets. The Bill’s impact assessment specifies £119 million over 10 years to fund some of the new measures. Like the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, I have fears about how the police service and others will respond to these new statutory duties. Can the Minister reassure us that the police service, local authorities and other partner agencies will have the resources to deliver the additional statutory duties contained in Part 5 if we go ahead with it?

In combating terrorism, we must be courageous and resilient but we must also be stoical and truthful with the public. We must acknowledge that violent acts of terrorism will probably be part of our lives for decades to come and we cannot legislate them away simply by a cascade of new tougher laws and powers. However, what we can do is dramatically reduce the likelihood and frequency of attacks with a coherent overall strategy with emphasis on both prevention and detection. I believe that the Bill is part of such an overall strategy. With laser-like intensity as we go forward, we will have at some stage to focus more on the perceived weaknesses in our ability to understand, monitor and disrupt the modern communications between terrorists and their supporters which so easily enable or facilitate violent acts.

Finally, we must be very careful that we do not encourage widespread public fear that our everyday lives are constantly in danger of terrorist attack. Vigilance must not be overwhelmed by despondency and anxiety. The victims of terrorism must never be forgotten, and they never will be forgotten, but their killers should become anonymous footnotes in our history and should not be allowed to change our way of life or the freedoms we enjoy. I support the Bill and look forward to more detailed debate in Committee.