Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 24th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Carlile, I am less concerned with the legal niceties of the purpose of the proposed legislation than with the inadequacy of current arrangements needed to ensure that that purpose can be realised. It is all very well introducing knee-jerk legislation to ensure that terrorists remain in prison for longer, but the Government should ensure that they have a robust strategy to try to prevent them offending again on release. Presumably formulation of that strategy will be included in the tasks of the promised royal commission, about which I have asked questions of the noble and learned Lord the Minister both in our debate on the Queen’s Speech and by letter, but I still do not know any details of its timing, chairman or terms of reference.

Unfortunately, as Kenny MacAskill MP, a former Justice Minister in Scotland, said, the nub of the problem is that no Government can ever reassure the public that a terrorist whose outlook is based on either a perverted ideology or a deep-seated hatred, whatever their religious or racial background, can ever be deradicalised or will never reoffend. Consequently, the authorities—particularly the Prison and Probation Service—is faced with an impossible task, but there are various measures that can be taken to help it.

The noble and learned Lord the Minister, in his letter of 13 February to all Members of this House, drew attention to the forthcoming counterterrorism Bill, dealing with sentencing and release, which he said would include further provisions. However, before that, I have six questions to ask him, some of which were raised, but not answered, in the other place.

Some noble Lords have made reference to the 2016 report by Ian Acheson, which included the following sentence:

“There were serious deficiencies in almost every aspect of the management of terrorist offenders throughout the system.”


The Secretary of State responded that things had moved a long way since then. However, the validity of that statement must be in doubt following the dreadful incidents that the Minister and other noble Lords have outlined, and my first question is: what things have moved?

The Secretary of State also said,

“rest assured that whatever resources are needed in order to deal with this issue, we will devote them to this particular line of important, intensive work.”

Financially, he detailed that £90 million had been made available for unspecified “counter-terrorism activity”, in addition to the £900 million made available to “support for counter-terrorism”. He also announced extra resources for,

“doubling the number of specialist probation officers”—[Official Report, Commons, 12/2/20; col. 866.]

and the introduction of more specialist psychiatric and imam involvement. My second, third and fourth questions are: how much of this financial provision will be made available to the Prison and Probation Service; how many specialist probation officers trained to work with terrorists are there; and is there a trained specialist in each National Probation Service area?

Turning to the all-important deradicalisation programmes, several noble Lords have pointed out that there is no evidence that any actually work. In his summing up in the other place, the Minister mentioned theological and ideological intervention and healthy identity, as well as deradicalisation programmes. This leads on to my fifth and sixth questions: what proportion of convicted terrorists can regularly attend such programmes; and what exactly did the Secretary of State mean when he said that there is a constant self-searching among those responsible to make sure that programmes are properly calibrated?

Other matters raised in the other place include the possible fusion of the independent review of the Prevent programme announced last year—although it has a statutory deadline of this August, it still has no named reviewer—with the review under the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, and the appropriateness or otherwise of current arrangements to deal with the demands of this high-risk, high-level cohort. In his note on the legislation of 19 February, the independent reviewer said that while consideration by the Parole Board of all terrorists prior to release is sensible and to be welcomed, he is unclear why such consideration needs to be delayed until they have completed two-thirds of their sentence, because conditions in prison are so bad that prisoners may be exposed to worse influences than if they are released.

In addition to these announced reviews and a tailored review of the Parole Board to make certain that it can take on the extra workload, MPs recommended scrutiny and assessment of deradicalisation programmes and a review of the qualifications and certifications of imams and madrassas working in prisons. In other words, there are many more issues to consider than merely keeping terrorists in prison for longer. Therefore, as was pointed out by the shadow Minister in the other place, a strategic, rather than knee-jerk, approach to this issue is required. This brings me back to the promised royal commission and counterterrorism Bill; I look forward to making a contribution in both of these.