Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this brief debate. There have been some excellent contributions. First, I want to clarify something I said earlier which might have sent people down the wrong track. I talked about 42 responses which my noble friend Lord Phillips rightly pulled me up on as being a paltry number. That was the number of academic institutions which responded. In fact, the consultation produced 1,792 responses. Five consultation events were held—in Manchester, Cardiff, Birmingham, London and Edinburgh—that reached a further 300 delegates from specified authorities, including representatives of higher education. So there have been some additional responses. Of course, it would be excellent to see more contributions.

The point that was made eloquently by the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams and Lady Smith of Newnham, on the importance of engaging young people is absolutely right. It would seem perfectly within the spirit and letter of both the guidance and of what we are putting forward here for academic institutions to engage with student bodies and societies; in fact, they should. They should ask, “What is the best way of implementing this within our institution?”. This would be entirely in keeping with the type of approach that we want. We are not talking about the European Society at Cambridge—unless there are instances there in which people could possibly be drawn into acts of terrorism. That would be unexpected and a surprise. We are talking about how to prevent people being drawn into terrorism—so a wider debate, crucially one involving young people, is very important.

Another element, which relates to what my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury had to say in moving his amendment, is the impact of this. We have produced an impact statement on the Bill. My noble friend said that he does not accept what it says on page 7, but it does make some estimates as to the cost of implementing this across 2,000 higher and further education institutions in the UK. This is standard practice. For illustrative purposes, we assume that each institution requires one week of a junior officer’s time—a BIS liaison officer, working with the university—at a cost of £573. Also, it is not—

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

The Minister has given those figures, but it also says clearly in the impact assessment that there are some areas where the risk has not been assessed for Prevent requirement purposes. It is not possible to estimate accurately how much will be required for additional Prevent activities. So the figures in the impact assessment are completely irrelevant because, in many areas, the assessment as to what Prevent activity will be needed has not been done.

[Lord Bates]

That is a fair observation. We are in unknown territory, but in order to have an impact assessment, some basic assumptions have to be made. Those are the assumptions we are using to understand how this guidance would be implemented on the ground. Academic institutions might be able to undertake particular research about its effect.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have referred previously to the cost of the statutory duties—in relation not just to the substance, but to the infrastructure built by the Bill. This amendment refers both to,

“local authorities and other specified authorities”,

but I particularly had in mind local authorities. I am not sure that I have yet done so, but I declare an interest in that I am joint president of London Councils.

I have previously mentioned the “new burdens” principle, which might be expected to apply to these activities, and I have previously referred to some of the costs which have been estimated by the Government. London Councils is unconvinced by these.

My noble friend Lord Scriven will speak to this amendment, so I shall simply explain that, as a way of drawing attention to the costs, the amendment proposes an annual report to Parliament by the Secretary of State. The matter could be included in a report dealing with other matters. Maybe there should be some prospective reporting of the costs anticipated to be incurred.

On the first day of Report, I think it was, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, referred to the refusals to disclose money allocated to the Metropolitan Police for counterterrorism for security reasons, though, as he observed, some detail of that budget eventually comes into the public domain as it is scrutinised by the London Assembly. I used to chair the Assembly’s budget committee, so I remember all that.

There should be as much transparency in this area as possible. There is a lot of concern about the costs and, in any event, what money is spent on what is a matter of public interest. I beg to move.

[Lord Scriven]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Hamwee, and I thank the Minister for guiding the Bill so ably and patiently through the House. I am aware of the time, so I will try not to keep the House too long.

Until now, the debate has been about putting on to a statutory footing the powers that some specified organisations will have and some that they will not. The Minister, along with others who support this going on to a statutory footing, has indicated that this is to bring the rest up to the standard of the best. I know, as I am sure do many people who have had responsibility for public service and budgets, that bringing things up to the best does not necessarily mean being able to do it on the cheap; there is a cost associated with it.

Evidence has come from a number of organisations. In my former life as leader of a council, I was not one who participated in the Oliver Twist-type approach to budgeting by always asking for “more, please”; that is not the approach. However, when new burdens or new statutory responsibilities are being put on an organisation, it is only fair that it is adequately funded for those. As I say, evidence has come from a number of sources in the past couple of months about putting this on to a statutory footing—for example, from the Quilliam Foundation, the Local Government Association and a number of local authorities. More revealingly, the Audit Commission, when it did a report on Prevent in 2008-09, made it clear that resources were needed if this was going to be done effectively and efficiently. I assume that the Minister and the Government want to see this being done in that way.

It would be worth looking at the fact that historically something in the region of £140 million per year, or even more, was previously allocated to Prevent, and large cities were getting somewhere in the region of £600,000 per annum to deal with Prevent issues. I always go to impact assessments because they are very revealing, and I notice that in this one the Department for Communities and Local Government indicates that authorities will need somewhere between £4,000 and £40,000. Past evidence suggests that to do this to the best, large authorities need somewhere in the region of £600,000. It is telling that the impact assessment says that we do not have complete data on all the specified authorities that will be affected, and that is why there may be a discrepancy.

Manchester City Council, in a report that went to its cabinet only a few months ago, highlights specifically the financial burden that this is now having on a city such as Manchester, and says clearly that it cannot be sustained at its present level. So there is evidence historically; there are people who are not providers, or not public statutory bodies, such as the Quilliam Foundation, and existing providers of Prevent, who are saying that resources will be needed.

The London Borough of Sutton has done some work on the consultation and says that for such a borough, somewhere between £50,000 and £60,000 would be required for a Prevent co-ordinator—looking at local government, that is about the rate that such people are paid. Somewhere in the region of £250,000 would be required for new interventions, based on best practice from Wandsworth. Sutton also anticipates somewhere in the region of a £150,000 per annum increase in capacity for core safeguarding work, child protection and early work interventions.

This is not cheap. This is not work, if we are going to do it effectively, that can be done with existing resources; that is becoming very clear. The cost from Sutton does not include some of the extra work needed for administration and, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee suggested, some of the extra work needed for looking cross-border at a larger area.

Staff training is a full duty within the guidance. I quote from paragraph 37, which states:

“Local authorities will be expected to ensure that frontline staff have a good understanding of Prevent, are trained to recognise vulnerability to being drawn into terrorism and are aware of available programmes to deal with this issue”.

Staff training in itself will run into many hundreds of thousands of pounds for large authorities. Some of them have between 8,000 and 10,000 staff. The impact assessment states that it will cost £62 for 20 members of staff trained. For a local authority with between 8,000 and 10,000 front-line staff, as some of our large metropolitan authorities have, it will mean £31,000 to carry out just one section of the guidance. That is a significant cost.

I suggest that the duties placed on the public sector will be far more than the anticipated £10 million to £14 million per annum that the impact assessment suggests. I will give one example of why the figures are completely inadequate. Staff training is anticipated in the impact assessment to require an allocation by government of £300,000 per annum. There are 254,000 staff employed by the public sector in the north-east region. Assuming that only 50% of those are front-line staff, that is more than £300,000 per annum. Yet £300,000 per annum is being given for the whole country for staff training.

The amendment tries to get a commitment that, if we are going to go down the route of putting this onto a statutory footing and we want to make sure that local public bodies carry out best practice, adequate funding is provided. If not, the Government’s target of meeting best practice will not be achieved. Resources will not be available, particularly in the present climate in terms of public sector resources. So I ask the Minister the questions asked by my noble friend Lady Hamwee: will new burdens apply to the new duties that are to be put on the public sector, and will money be put forward annually, as the amendment says, before Parliament, so that local authorities and other public bodies locally will be compensated for the duties they will have under a statutory footing?

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[Lord Bates]

My Lords, in considering these amendments, I defer to the extensive and detailed local government expertise of my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Scriven. Before I respond to the specifics of the amendment, I repeat that in relation to the Channel guidance, we are consulting local authorities and specifically Channel panel chairs. We would be very happy to consult London Councils—Sutton was mentioned in particular—to take account of their views and concerns and to address them in any guidance that is issued. If other local authorities feel the same, that would be welcomed.

Amendment 15K concerns the costs of implementing the duties in Chapters 1 and 2 of Part 5. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the costs incurred by specified authorities and on the grant made to meet those costs. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has already announced £130 million of extra resource over this year and next to meet the increased terrorist threat from Syria and Iraq. Some of this funding has been earmarked for the implementation of the duty in the chapter. I am not trying to suggest that it is all going there. The vast majority, I think, is heading towards the security services for technology capability.

Channel panels already exist in all areas of England and Wales. Under existing arrangements, which should not change in practice as a result of this legislation, the Home Office provides funding for Channel police practitioners who co-ordinate activity in organising cases and supporting panels. Each of the nine police regions receives funding to support the Channel programme. For national security reasons, we do not publicly provide a breakdown of police counterterrorism spend by individual projects, capabilities, work streams or police force areas. Disclosure could identify areas where the threat to the national security of the UK is greatest and where there are vulnerabilities in different regions and capabilities. I hope that that helps in some way to explain the reasons behind this.

The Home Office also funds theological and ideological interventions—so that which is not provided by the local authorities is provided by the Home Office. We therefore do not consider that local authorities should incur extra costs as a result of the implementation of this chapter. Any statutory services provided would be met through existing funding.

[Lord Scriven]

The impact assessment states that extra work will happen because of the statutory duty, so the Government have made very clear that extra costs, not just to local authorities but to other statutory bodies within local areas, will be brought about by the new statutory duties. I am not clear what to follow as the specific guidance: the answer that the Minister is helpfully trying to give or the Government’s impact assessment, which is very clear about extra costs being associated with these new statutory duties—not just for local authorities but for other statutory bodies as well.

[Lord Bates]

I am happy to look at that. We are consulting on this. A little bit like the discussion we had on universities and higher education earlier on, it might be the case that there is some misunderstanding about the level of the duty which will be required as a result of this new law. That is the reason why the consultation will be very helpful. It is something that I will take away and reflect back on, and also feed back to colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government in relation to this, with whom we work closely. I will also perhaps write to the noble Lord with a little more information if I can. In the mean time, if the noble Baroness would be willing to withdraw her amendment, I would be grateful.