Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (First sitting) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateSarah Dines
Main Page: Sarah Dines (Conservative - Derbyshire Dales)Department Debates - View all Sarah Dines's debates with the Home Office
(4 years, 2 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesQ
Mr Hall, thank you for the very thorough online report. It is over 200 pages, and it is obviously a very thorough piece of work. I want to ask a general question from the perspective of one of my constituents. Looking at the overall measures that the Bill would bring in, you must agree that they will make the average citizen safer.
Jonathan Hall: I think some measures certainly will. For some measures, I am less clear in my mind that they will. It would be going too far to say that some of them would have a negative effect, although there is always a question about whether people being in prison for longer will make them safer when they come out.
Something that I was struck by, when I started doing this job, was that most terrorism sentences are quite short. The reason for that is that counter-terrorism police want to go in early and stop attack planning. They may go in when they have intelligence, but before the evidence is really there. They may have secret sources that they cannot use in court. That often results in finding things on phones or computers, which results in lots of convictions for having attack manuals, but not many convictions for attack planning. In practice, that means that most people convicted of terrorism offences will come out after a period of time.
The police and MI5 are always thinking, “How can we make the risk as low as possible when that person eventually comes out?” Obviously, one of the issues that one has to confront is that prisons do not always end up making people more safe. Extending their time in custody for a bit makes someone safer in the sense that they are off the streets for that period of time, but it does not necessarily mean that they are safer when they come out.
All I would say is, yes, there are some bits that are definitely to be welcomed. Anything that allows additional monitoring, that increases licences and that allows the police more monitoring powers is to be welcomed. Some of the things I am less sure about.
Q
Jonathan Hall: I think it is the provision that allows a judge to say that any offence, if he or she finds that it is connected to terrorism, is a terrorism offence. That means that the police have a statutory ability to monitor that person for 10, 15 or up to 30 years. That is a really welcome change, which makes people safer.
Q
Tim Jacques: It would be helpful if the review came to an end. Whether that will finish the debate on Prevent, of course, is another matter. It may do that; it may not. We will continue regardless, but we are happy to engage in the review and see it concluded.
Q
Tim Jacques: Gosh—there are many examples. If you look at some of the relocation notification measures, because of the new variant, and because some of the terrorism prevention and investigation measures we now use are not relocation, there is potentially a flaw in the legislation as currently made out that subjects do not have to tell us where they are living. That is one small but fairly clear and obvious example. If we are not relocating them, which we are not all the time now, the law does not require them to tell us where they live, which seems an obvious gap. The Bill will enable us to manage the individual to use these measures in a different way, and potentially a less intrusive or restrictive way for the individual, enabling us to manage the risks that they pose to the public.
Q
Tim Jacques: I absolutely agree. Protecting the public is our No. 1 priority and sometimes that means we have to intervene regardless of evidence, because the risks to the public are so great.
Q
Tim Jacques: The police are a target for terrorist offenders, as are many institutions of the state. The police are the public and the public are the police, so by some of these measures, you protect the police and you protect the public.