Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 21st September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I remind the House that my wife is an adviser on the Prevent programme in the further education sector.

The horrific attacks we have seen at Manchester, Streatham and Fishmongers’ Hall have demonstrated the risk the UK faces from terrorism. I am broadly supportive of the longer sentences contained in the Bill for dangerous terrorism offenders. But we should be mindful of the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson.

But one concern I have, mentioned by other noble Lords, is the extent to which rehabilitation and deradicalisation programmes will be put in place to accompany the longer sentences. We know in the case of Fishmongers’ Hall and Streatham that the attacks were committed by individuals who had been convicted, had been in prison and, as my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer repeated, seemed to have been neither deradicalised nor deterred by their time in prison. Indeed, prison may have made them worse.

The impact assessment refers to research that shows a risk of offenders radicalising others during their stay in custody. This is well known, and I hope that when winding up, the Minister spells out the details of what is proposed for supporting and expanding the rehabilitation programme. Can she say how much progress has been made in implementing the report by Ian Acheson into Islamist extremism in prisons? My noble friend drew attention to the fact that the Government accepted only a small number of its recommendations. I remind the Minister of a paper published last year for the Centre for Social Justice, in which Ian Acheson had some trenchant criticisms of the prison regime:

“Unfortunately, our current prison system seems to catalyse rather than remedy the very conditions which create offending. Squalor, indolence and brutality have become normalised within the walls of many of our jails… Ruinous cuts, inflicted on front line staff as the prison population increased, have made a mockery of a rehabilitation culture when staff routinely suffer serious assaults and cannot themselves feel safe at work, let alone be able to deal with record levels of prisoner self-harm.”


These are simply not the circumstances in which you can expect to conduct successful deradicalisation programmes. These must go alongside the longer sentences proposed in the Bill.

As someone who was on the Front Bench opposing the introduction of TPIMs and the removal of control orders in 2011, I find it tempting to go back to those debates, but the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has pointed to a number of issues that have arisen since the abolition of control orders. I am afraid that as this is the Home Office’s second go at strengthening TPIMs, it only goes to show that what we warned about in 2011 needed to happen.

One issue in relation to TPIMs was raised with me by the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, David Jamieson. Obviously, TPIMs involve extreme resource-intensive measures which must be used proportionately and only when necessary. David Jamieson argues that some local oversight would enhance the ability of the Home Secretary to make an informed decision when considering a TPIM application, variation or extension. PCCs could submit additional information or make recommendations to the Home Secretary in respect of the community impact and the impact on local policing resources which, as I said, can be intensive as far as a TPIM is concerned.

In today’s debate on sentencing, one speaker raised the point that local authorities were not mentioned in the White Paper. I hope that the Minister gives some thought to this suggestion. Perhaps I will return with a probing amendment in Committee.