Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury (LD)]

My Lords, the night is wearing on. It is nearly half-past nine and there are another seven speakers to come. I have chucked away my speech: I am going to make a few rather jagged points and sit down. I commend, as other noble Lords have done, our two maiden speakers who, as I am sure we all agree, did extraordinarily well. Their presence here will be of great value to us over the years to come.

I want to tell my noble friend the Minister that I understand what an intensely difficult task it has been to put the ideas behind this Bill into print. It is almost impossible to arrive at precisely the right conclusion. However, the House of Commons did move in the right direction and it is clear from the speeches tonight that the bulk of opinion in this House is that we have some way to go, that we can go there and we can do it without undermining the essential protection for which the measure is needed. We are considering this in the aftermath of the dramatic events in Paris at the weekend. It is impressive that nobody has been carried away by that, but we have paid due deference to it. This has been the House of Lords at its best: measured, completely lacking in partisanship and extremely thoughtful.

The difficult balance between public safety and human rights needs the most careful and prolonged contemplation. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, I regret the time we have been given for this measure and I do not think it is necessary to push it through before the election. I feel very strongly that, if we insist on legislating before the election, the consultation and report which the independent reviewer, David Anderson, is in the process of undertaking should mean that Part 5 is left out of the Bill. I will come back to that in a minute.

The danger is that the intangible values are given less credence and force in our deliberations than the tangible effects of terrorism, which are only too obvious and dramatic. A corpse will always carry more conviction than philosophy, but here at least we realise that that is a short and dangerous road to take. The background to all this is that we must get the culture as beneficent as it can be vis-à-vis our minorities—our Muslim minorities in particular—and create what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham called a culture of fraternity and my noble friend Lord Paddick spoke of at some length using different language. We have to help sustain a culture of inclusion, of mutual value and co-operation and of tolerance. A number of speakers have remarked on some of the interesting work being done by the churches. In my own small town of Sudbury in Suffolk we have an amalgamation called Churches Together, which includes non-Christian as well as Christian faiths. That is far more important than this Bill. The fruits of the work that we do at grass-roots level, through communities, will determine, far more than legislation, whether this country lives in peace or in fear.

I agree with the majority of speakers on the legal aspects of the Bill. Particularly, I could not disagree with a word said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, and my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford. We absolutely have to have judicial oversight. If we cannot have it because there is a genuinely instant and plangent emergency, then we must have it as soon as possible after the emergency. We must have reference to this House when regulations are issued and we must have affirmative resolutions in matters as important as these. In Part 5, guidance is issued by the Secretary of State that does not come through Parliament at all. That is not right.

We have had some distinguished contributions on Part 5 from the noble Lords, Lord Hannay of Chiswick and Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett. I want to put their comments in a fuller context because I think it makes what they said even more compelling. Part 5, which runs to some 12 pages of small print and has two chapters, applies to not just universities but also to “specified authorities”, which, in Schedule 1, are a whole range of bodies, including health authorities, police authorities, probation authorities—you name it—and, of course, education authorities. But the thing to remember is not just that the authorities covered by Part 5 must have,

“regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”,

as stated in Clause 21(1), but that guidance will come in on the back of that which they have a duty to follow. The Secretary of State can issue directions if he considers that any of these specified authorities is not doing exactly what it should do vis-à-vis the guidance. Ultimately, enforceable mandatory orders can be issued under Clause 25(2). That is heavy-duty regulation and it is all in pursuit of a statutory demand—namely, to have,

“regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.

That is so vague that I suggest it will give a thousand lawyers a thousand years’ work to define. My noble friend the Minister smiles at me as he knows that I am a lawyer, but there are limits, and I think that this part of Chapter 1 of Part 5 goes too far.

Nobody has referred to Chapter 2 of Part 5, which covers local authority support panels. Local authorities include all district and county councils. Their function is somewhat the same—that is, to assess,

“the extent to which identified individuals are vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism”.

That statutory obligation is placed on every single district and county council. They have to have a support plan for each individual, which they have to review, revise and assess, and they are governed by guidance. Even worse, they have to have partners—although I should not say that because that prejudges the utility of the measure—which are as voluminous as are the specified authorities in Chapter 1 of Part 5. Indeed, they are the same sort of bodies. The partners are under a statutory obligation, set out in Schedule 4, to co-operate with these local authority panels. If they do not do so, there is potentially a punitive regime for such a failure. The bureaucracy attendant on Part 5 is massive, whether you are dealing with Chapter 1 and the duty to prevent people entering terrorism, or Chapter 2, which deals with identifying individuals who are vulnerable to terrorism and then supporting them with plans and so on. That is a massive creation of bureaucracy, both locally and centrally.

I would not mind if I felt that it would work but I have a terrible feeling that, quite apart from the in-principle issues raised by Peers vis-à-vis the freedom and culture of universities, I concur with every word that they said about the complete inappropriateness of lumbering universities most of all, but schools and probation services too. I speak as someone who was chancellor of the University of Essex for 10 years. This part of the Bill is severely misconceived. I deeply hope that it will be excluded for the time being. If on further reflection and after David Anderson’s report it appears necessary to do something along these lines, so be it. We will do it. However, the voluntary aspect of the status quo is essential to its effect. I am sure that we can build on the status quo. The Government could fund support for what is being done, and no doubt provide inspectors who could go round the country and see what is being done, but we do not need a statutory framework.

I could say so much more, but 10 minutes have gone and the night is old. I will end merely by saying, “Je suis Charlie”. Perhaps I will not; your Lordships will think that I am a Charlie.