Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I suppose it is axiomatic that defence of the realm is the first priority for any British Government, but what is it defence against? Today in the UK we face the gravest threat to our safety, freedom and way of life since the end of the Cold War with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. We are not alone. It is a threat faced by much of the developed world and often more immediately by developing countries in every continent. The threat is that from political Islam. I first heard this phrase through President Sisi of Egypt, himself a devout Muslim, who is one of the doughtiest opponents of political Islam. It is, he said recently, “antagonising the entire world”. Some Muslim clerics have bravely denounced political Islam as a distortion of the religion of Islam, although many have remained silent. Let us hope that some of them now speak out.

I believe that political Islam ticks all the boxes to be identified as an international fascist movement. It is conceptually undemocratic. It is wholly intolerant. It is racist. It is in fact secular, with its leaders being drawn, and many of its supporters attracted, from among the fanatical, alienated, criminal and psychopathic elements that lurk at the bottom of every society. It inflicts on men, women and children unbridled brutality and cruelty that is truly psychotic. By combining modern management methods with the latest cyber and communications technologies, as well as the lesson of history on the effectiveness of terror as a weapon, which the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, referred to, it has been horrifyingly successful so far. Its stated aim is to establish a worldwide caliphate apparently recalling the days of the Ottoman Empire, which in 1923 Ataturk replaced with a secular republic in Turkey.

We are told that political Islam has succeeded in recruiting some 15,000 foreign fighters from 80 countries, the majority of them to ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The seduction of many of these appears to involve offering sexual delights. I have myself seen a film on ISIS in which one of its leaders promises recruits, “The virgins are waiting for you”. In north-east Nigeria, where Boko Haram continues to wreak havoc, killing more than 4,000 people last year, schoolgirls are being kidnapped to become sex slaves of the fighters of that terror group.

In the longer term, the destruction of political Islam must come through the collective rejection of it by the Governments and religious leaders of the Muslim world. Meanwhile, we have to defend ourselves from it, and this Bill is concerned with that defence. Its aim, therefore, must have our support. However, the methods that it proposes manage, in some areas, to be both inadequate and sometimes injudicious. I shall focus on some of the inadequacies.

First, in Part 1, with its powers to disrupt the travel of people suspected of involvement in terrorism, I suggest that one of the most urgent and easiest measures—not in the Bill—would be to require all British passport holders to notify Her Majesty’s Passport Office of any other passport they hold. I have, over several years, repeatedly sought to introduce this requirement. I have never sought any limit on other passports of British passport holders. All I ask is that details of them are available in the records of the Passport Office and that they are revealed to immigration staff when scanning British passports. The Home Office has always opposed my proposal. Now surely its time has come.

Other, very simple but necessary, changes to passport administration should include the automatic electronic cancelling of passports—I think that the idea of physically seizing passports is rather old hat—particularly, for example, those of all deceased persons. There is currently a silly little gap in this regard. Quite often, these passports are flogged off on the black market. I think that the General Register Office should be made responsible for the immediate notification of deaths to the Passport Office. The cancellation of passports of all persons while in custody or serving custodial sentences is also appropriate. We have heard of people suspected of terrorism, even on bail, getting out with their passports intact. The courts can already require the surrender of passports but I think that electronic cancellation would be simpler.

Secondly, there needs to be much more rigorous vetting and control of the integrity of Border Force staff and all those concerned with the processing and issuing of visas. In January 2012, my noble friend Lord Henley, in a Written Answer, gave me details of 29 convictions of Home Office staff for misconduct in public office in the previous five years—that is, one every two months. The seriousness of the offences is indicated by the sentences passed: 18 were sent to prison for two years or more, and in one case nine years. Twenty-one of the 29 were employed in what was then the UK Border Agency. Considering the improbability of detection, the scale of what in many cases was abuse of the administration of the immigration system for private profit suggests that this behaviour may be responsible for a significant failure to secure our borders.

The Answer to the Written Question gave an indication of the sort of profiling needed in the recruitment procedures. Interestingly, my noble friend Lord Bates, updating the list in an Answer on 6 January, omitted to give the names of those convicted. When I inquired about the reason for this omission, I was told that the Home Office,

“do not consider it appropriate to include sensitive personal data in our response, ie the names of individual offenders”.

Convictions and sentencing in this country are done in public. What is this Home Office playing at, trying to conceal from Parliament names of its employees who have been sent to prison for misconduct in public office? Given the ease with which people could get jobs in the border agency in order to make money from such practices, is not the possibility of terrorists infiltrating the Home Office to threaten our country a much more serious risk? For example, given what the Government said yesterday about Boko Haram, would it be wise to employ people who might have such sympathies or indeed connections? During the Cold War there was an elaborate system of positive vetting to prevent those with communist sympathies being employed in sensitive areas. I hope that the Minister will be able to assure us that all government departments and agencies are now equally vigilant on the threat from political Islam.

Finally, I draw attention to the extremely unsatisfactory situation regarding the electronic monitoring of our national borders. I refer of course to the e-Borders system, which is one of the biggest failures of government computer procurement. The main contract with the American-based company Raytheon, signed in 2007 and worth around £750 million, was terminated by the present Government in July 2010. After binding arbitration, the Home Office has been left to pay Raytheon £224 million. Now we are talking about the need for more resources for the police and security services. That, by any standards, is big money.

What we should have is electronic scanning and recording of the passports of every person arriving at and leaving our borders, by land, sea or air. This information should be stored, probably for at least five years. That is simply not happening. Although there is now fairly extensive scanning of arrivals, even that is not complete, nor is it recorded. However, scanning and recording on departure is every bit as important. That is virtually non-existent. How do we know that those who have been admitted for a limited period have departed? How do we know that those who should not have been allowed to depart have not got out of the country?

A full e-Borders system is of the highest priority in protecting us from terrorism. When I have raised this question I have been fobbed off with the suggestion that the monitoring of exits is “intelligence-led”. That is simply not good enough.

I hope very much that the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee will urgently consider the consequences of Raytheon and the action that is now needed. I hope that the report of the National Audit Office, which is reviewing this fiasco, will be published soon and reported on by the Public Accounts Committee.

There are three problems in making this legislation fit for purpose. First, the Home Office is traditionally extremely resistant to any suggestions as to how it could better perform its duties. The “not invented here” factor meant that it took me 10 years from the time the legislation requiring it was passed to get the invaluable electronic firearms register established—10 years. Secondly, the Home Office is not taking the measures it could do under existing legislation. There is a lot of new legislation but it is a matter of doing what could already be done. This is largely because—as demonstrated by Raytheon—it is lacking in the computer skills and capabilities to defend our borders. Thirdly, I am afraid that the performance of the Home Office certainly does not indicate that—in this area at least—the “gentleman in Whitehall always knows best”, as has been demonstrated by a number of contributions this evening. This House must scrutinise and, where necessary, amend this legislation fully and fearlessly.