Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I rise to support the thrust of the argument made by the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). We have worked on these issues in tandem so many times that if they were put on to a DVD, we would be in danger of compiling a box set between us. However, by returning to the same subject again and again and often in the same terms in our campaign to get the Government to do more in this field, we are illustrating the principle that the Government ought to be applying when they do that—namely, if one is to win an argument about or involving ideology, it is not good enough to set out one’s stall a single time as though one were a university professor and to think that that is the end of the matter. One must keep the message coming over and over again until one gets one’s own way. We are saying that what is lacking in the machinery is the ability to consolidate and wage counter-propaganda warfare—I use that term in a non-pejorative sense—against this barbaric ideology, and we are talking about doing it in a way that will have an effect at a much earlier stage of the process than most of what is proposed in the Bill as it stands.

It is quite understandable, in the light of atrocities such as 9/11 at one end of the spectrum and what happened in that restaurant in Sydney in Australia at the other, that the Government’s first concern must be countering and impeding what in IRA terms used to be called the “men of violence”. I fully accept that as long as there is a totalitarian ideology at large in the world, in most societies, even democratic ones, there will always be a few people extreme enough, unbalanced enough, criminal enough or at a loss and vulnerable enough for indoctrination to subscribe to it. Even in this day and age, we can find supporters of Aryan theories of Nazism and supporters of Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism, but the key point is that those supporters are absolutely isolated from the wider communities in which they live. We are not concerned about the ability to prevent, by persuasion or counter-indoctrination, every last person who is susceptible to becoming an extremist from becoming an extremist. We are talking about ensuring that that minority remains a minority and that their poison does not leach out into the wider community and, in particular, that the counter-measures taken by the state against what they are doing do not have the effect of radicalising the wider community.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is always very generous in these debates. Although I agree with almost everything he says, I have a small concern and perhaps he could talk me through some of it. He talks about “combating” extremism and ideology, but does he not think that the whole notion of combat and conflict was one of the things that got us into this trouble in the first place?

[Dr Lewis]

I disagree. When one is dealing with an intolerant ideology, one cannot simply say that one will, through some calm rationalisation, remove all the barbs, evil and poison. I am talking about what must be done to counter the pernicious ideology with which we are confronted.

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[Caroline Lucas]

Again, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I would not be as relaxed about the tabloid rhetoric as he is. I certainly do not think we should be stoking it in this Chamber because that sends out a message that is heard out there and makes young people believe it is too dangerous to come back. I am aware of people from my constituency and the wider area where I live who are out in places such as Syria and do want to come back, but are terrified of doing so. It is not in the interests of wider security that we just send out the same messages; we have to have different messages and learn from countries that seem to be doing a better job on some of this work than we are.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Lady was on to a powerful theme when she was describing some of the other initiatives we witness across Europe. I am familiar with some of the programmes in Germany and Denmark that she mentioned. Would she say that the major difference in character is that Prevent seems to be a more prescriptive solution whereas the initiatives in Europe are much more organic and involve the community more? The language of “combat”, “taking on” and “fighting” seems to be the prevalent language in Prevent. If the Minister and the Secretary of State were to look a little more carefully at the European models, they might find a more useful model of working within our communities.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He rightly says that in this country it feels very much more as though deradicalisation is done to people, rather than being something people get involved in, and therefore own and are more likely to be part of.

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[Caroline Lucas]

I definitely thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution, which is immensely helpful and really sets us back on track to where I think we are best placed to move forward on the issue.

I will begin to draw my comments to a close, because I have spoken for longer than I had originally anticipated. In conclusion, analysis of successful deradicalisation programmes suggests that the most effective identify how individuals become radicalised, rather than simply labelling them. They examine whether and how the process can be reversed, and how Government-led initiatives can help ensure that committed terrorists avoid illegal activity after they are released from custody. We know what some of the ingredients are; we have talked about the importance of family members, education, vocational training and religious dialogue, for example.

Religious engagement is one of the more contentious elements of deradicalisation programmes. It may be effective in reforming radical Islamists, but primarily because it provides an environment that is conducive to behavioural reform, not necessarily because it encourages ideological reform. Some of the reports from the Council on Foreign Relations seem to suggest that focusing on rehabilitation, rather than ideological change, is particularly sensible if it is acknowledged that committed ideologues might not give up their beliefs but might just change their behaviour, which I think is what we want them to do.

These programmes are not about being soft on terrorism. On the contrary, as I said at the beginning, they are an add-on to, rather than a substitute for, good counter-terrorism laws. I hope that Members will join me in calling for a review of deradicalisation and counter-radicalisation best practice in order that we might equip ourselves as effectively as possible for the substantial challenges we face from jihadi and other terrorist groups.

[Pete Wishart]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir—the more Scottish National party Members we see in such positions, the better—and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). She made several pertinent points, particularly on the need to look at experiences from across Europe, and I shall listen carefully to the Minister’s response. It struck me that there is an attempt to look at some of the measures that other countries are adopting to try to tackle this serious issue, but there are also different things being done across the United Kingdom. I wish to focus my remarks on what we are trying to achieve in Scotland.

We are absolutely committed to ensuring that law enforcement agencies and other bodies have all the tools they need to tackle terrorism effectively. We take that particularly seriously in Scotland. We believe that we have robust but different measures in place to tackle these issues. We have massive concerns about what is proposed in the Bill, particularly in part 5. We are concerned that it might cut across some of the initiatives in our Prevent strategy.

It is natural that in Scotland we look at things differently from the rest of the United Kingdom. We face a different range of issues, we have smaller ethnic minority communities, and we have not had the same sort of tensions within our communities, so obviously we look at things differently. I like to think that we therefore look at things a little more holistically, and certainly more holistically than a Conservative-led Government would, or even—if I may be so brave as to say it—than a new Labour Government would.

Our Scottish Prevent strategy shares the same objectives as Prevent across the rest of the United Kingdom, but it differs in some pretty serious and significant ways, particularly in how it is delivered. I think that it does all it can to reflect our Scottish context. Our approach uses Prevent though a safeguarding lens, with an emphasis on keeping people safe, on community cohesion, on participative democracy and on making sure that it is consistent with the needs of, and risks to, all our communities. The Scottish Government’s Prevent strategy for tackling violent extremism works with and through key sectors, including higher and further education, the NHS, the Scottish Prison Service and local authorities. Prevent delivery also benefits from Police Scotland’s model of community engagement and the strength of the relationship between our Muslim communities and the police service.

We sometimes ignore the cultural context, but it is important. One of the most impressive features of Scotland’s Asian community is its willingness and eagerness to adopt what is seen as Scottish identity. We have what is called the bhangra and bagpipe culture. Particularly in Glasgow, where we have a large Muslim community, it is striking how eager the community is to take on board some of the central, defining features of Scottish culture and to get involved. We saw that during the referendum campaign, as Mr Weir in particular knows. One of the fastest growing groups in the movement was Scottish Asians for independence, because there was a natural affinity with what we were trying to achieve as a nation, and there was something about what we were trying to do in order to transform society that proved attractive to many people who had come from countries such as India and Pakistan, which had in their own way secured their independence from the United Kingdom at some time in history.

This feature in Scotland differs significantly from the rest of the United Kingdom. Efforts have been made by the Scottish Government, Ministers and colleagues to try to ensure that the cultural context is taken into account when we approach issues such as radicalisation. I am sure the Minister has seen on his trips to Scotland how the Muslim community, particularly from south Asia, has been integrated in our society and our community. We should all be impressed by that, and perhaps the Minister can learn from our experience.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion made a powerful point about how we start to approach these matters and look at some of the community dimensions. We cannot be prescriptive. We cannot talk down to communities or expect them to respond to our stimuli, our suggestions and our objectives. I shall not dwell on what my hon. Friend said, but we have to work with communities. This process has to be organic, a conversation within communities and groups, to ensure that we come to the right conclusions.

The one thing that I want to add to what my hon. Friend said is that we must also look at the external environment. We have to try to understand what motivates people to get involved in what the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) rightly describes as barbaric activity. There is one thing that this Government have never done, and it surprises me how little work has been done on it. I encourage the Minister to look more closely at it: there is very little profiling of people who have gone out to the middle east to get involved in such activity. We do not have a sense of the pull factors, the reasons why people go there and get involved, because we do not ask them. We are too busy locking people up and all the other things that go with that.

We spend very little time trying to understand what it is that drags people to engage in such awful behaviour and activity, and I suspect that our reluctance to do that has much to do with the results that we are likely to find. When we see people being interviewed about their involvement in such activity, they are not people who would concern the Government on a day-to-day basis—people who have just emigrated from Pakistan or the middle east. They tend to be second or third generation who have been here for a long time. The ideology has not been brought here; it is an ideology that has emerged and grown within our communities.

When we listen to people being interviewed by broadcasters trying to understand what informs the way they behave, they all seem to be pretty respectable, cultured, almost middle class, standard citizens of the United Kingdom. They do not seem to conform to the traditional vision, if I may say that, of jihadists, and the caricatures that develop around that. We fail to get that right, to understand and to do the necessary work to profile—

[Hazel Blears]

I have some sympathy with the argument that the hon. Gentleman is developing on working with communities, which is the approach that I have always wanted to emphasise. Does he accept that one of the reasons that many of the people who are born and brought up in this country and have lived here for very many years then decide to go to Syria, or to create a terrorist plot here in Britain, is that they have been influenced by an ideology based on hatred and a complete rejection of other people unless they agree 100% with their very narrow world view? We have debated whether we use the word “combating” or “countering” in relation to this ideology, which has its roots in Salafi thinking. It is about a violent version of Islam that supposedly justifies this kind of terrorist activity. There is quite a lot of research on this, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware of some of it.

[Pete Wishart]

Indeed. The right hon. Lady is partly correct. There is something that draws people in, but our failure to understand some of the motivations and pull factors is a fault that we have.

I do not want to labour my next point because I had an exchange about it with the hon. Member for New Forest East on Second Reading. It is that people feel such a sense of injustice and frustration about not being able to use the traditional, normal political process to exert some sort of change that they are driven to get involved in these activities. People are not born genetically programmed to become jihadists and terrorists: something fundamental and significant happens during their journey that influences them and makes them get involved. We fail to understand that.

We also fail to take responsibility for what we may have done in setting the external stimuli in this regard. For example, we fail to acknowledge the disaster that was the Iraq war and how that cause became a recruiting sergeant for a generation of young Muslims who, with their perverted sense of justice, saw no alternative but to get involved in these terrorist activities. We do not even need to debate this: we can see the line going all the way back to when it started. Yes, there were issues before Iraq and before some of the other difficulties in the middle east, particularly in relation to Palestine, but it is when we get to the invasion of Iraq that we can see the exponential growth in these activities.

We have to take responsibility for that. We have to acknowledge that the decisions we have made and the environment we have created perhaps give rise to some of the massive frustrations that people have. People are not born predisposed to be terrorists, to be jihadists, to be the most barbaric type of murderers. Something happens along the way and a frustration develops. Unless we address our responsibility for creating these conditions, we fail.

[Hazel Blears]

The hon. Gentleman and I have debated this on previous occasions. Does he think that ISIS is killing Yazidis and Christians because it has a grievance about British foreign policy?

[Pete Wishart]

No, of course not. If I may put it ever so gently to the right hon. Lady, that question is not worthy of her. There are conflicts right across the middle east that we fail to understand but only condemn, but in some way we are the major power in all this. We are the interveners in these types of activities, and we therefore have responsibilities in that regard. Of course this does not reflect UK foreign policy, other than perhaps at the margins.

[Mr Mike Hancock]

I apologise for not being here when the hon. Gentleman started his speech. I agree that the Iraq war was undoubtedly the tipping point, and most people now recognise that it was a mistake, but that has not stopped young Muslim men becoming radicalised. All the baring of our chests and saying “We were wrong and it was a terrible thing to do” has not changed what has happened by one iota.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman is right. Of course it has not changed behaviour, but we owe it to ourselves to acknowledge this issue. It is a flaw that runs all the way through a lot of the programmes to counter, or combat, radicalisation that we embark on. Unless we understand the external stimuli and the environment that were created, I am afraid we will not have any great success in these things.

There is another factor that informs this and it is some of the debates that we have in this House. If I were a young Muslim listening to some of the poisonous debate about immigration that takes place nowadays, I do not know what I would make of being told, “You’ve got to stay away from here; you’ve got to be kicked out, or sent back, or whatever”—all the inflammatory language that this House hears almost on a day-to-day basis when we debate these things. We have got to be careful, for goodness’ sake. We cannot just believe that it will all of a sudden be reasonably accepted and adopted, and that nobody will mind that this language is employed when such debates take place. Again, let us just be careful about what we do to contribute to the environment that has been created or the conditions leading to such frustration.

[Mark Durkan]

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right to warn of the dangers of hon. Members helping to feed the very things they say they want to fight. If there are those who are out to sow the seeds of radicalism, extremism, cynicism and alienation, people should take care not to propagate those seeds by measures that, in relation to international policy, only feed the cynicism of those who see them as double standards, or in relation to this country, even propose to create a twilight zone around the very concept of citizenship. How does that help to counter the very disillusionment of which the hon. Gentleman speaks?

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman because he is right to say that we must see this in the round. That is one of the reasons why I have difficulties with what is suggested in the Bill. I will not support the amendment moved by the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), as I think she knows, because I just do not like this type of language. It does not really address the difficulties we face and the things we have to take on. In looking at anti-radicalisation or ensuring that our communities are resilient in fighting against such messages, as the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) set out so eloquently, we must work holistically—in the round—and ensure that that is combined and merged with all other community issues that would help us.

We are trying to work towards that in Scotland. Historically, we have taken that approach. We have had responsibility for the Prevent programme for eight to 10 years, and I believe that we have made real progress. With our distinct legal system, we have our own means of doing this sort of thing, and we are making great attempts and efforts to do so. We just take a different view of such things: we have a different type of community and a different approach to the issues that have emerged during the past few years.

The Minister for Security and Immigration is now deep in conversation, but I hope he will allow us to pursue our agenda on such matters. Scottish public bodies that were initially listed in schedules 3 and 4 are no longer included, so I hope that the Minister, when he finishes his conversation, might be of a mind to allow us to make our own progress when it comes to such things. The Minister is now back with us. I was saying—I know he missed this—that Scotland has been excluded from the schedules of public bodies. I know that there have been conversations with the relevant Scottish Minister, and that the Minister for Security and Immigration understands that we have our own particular agenda for this sort of thing.

I hope that in time—perhaps amendments tabled during the remaining stages of the Bill will help him to come to this conclusion—we can have our own strategy without the combat and the fighting language that we do not like. We do not think it works or believe that it adds much to achieving the objective that we in this place all want, which is to make our communities safer and resilient enough to ensure that we get the right type of result and response. I hope that the Minister will be open to further suggestions that will exclude Scotland from part 5 and allow us to pursue our own agenda. We do not like some of the language, and we do not believe it works. Perhaps even in his response, he could satisfy me and my colleagues that we will be allowed to pursue our own agenda and do this our own way.

[Mr Mike Hancock]

I come to this debate with a great deal of sadness about what has happened in my own city. Six young men went out, of whom four are now dead, and one returned to the UK and is now starting a very lengthy prison sentence.

One of the saddest moments in my 45 years’ experience of politics was reading the letter that one of the lads wrote to his parents and left for them when he went to Syria. His parents sat in front of me in the office not saying that they wanted us to fight back, but really begging for something to happen or for someone to take the initiative. They could not understand how this very well educated young man, who was at university—he had a glittering career before him—could walk away from university and go to Syria without discussing it with anyone, not his local peer group or, most importantly, his parents. The last words of the letter were, “Don’t worry about what’s going to happen to me when I come back because I have no intention of coming back.” His parents read into that that he had every intention of fighting, wherever it took him. How sad it was for his mother to read that letter.

We have tried desperately hard with the community in Portsmouth. We have a large Bangladeshi community and four mosques. Portsmouth has a great, integrated society. Everyone was horrified that our city was highlighted in the way that it was and nobody could understand how it had happened. The imams in the mosques did not know, the people who run the madrassah did not know and the extended families of the young men did not know how it came about that these young men were radicalised in such a way that they were prepared to walk away from everything they had in front of them, put their lives on the line and even put it in writing that they did not believe they would be coming back. Some sort of fightback is required on the part of all of us who care about the young men and women who have done that.

I do not share the view that giving disproportionately long prison sentences to people who come back will help the situation. I do not know whether other Members have spoken to young Muslim boys who have been in prison or whether they understand the pressure that those boys are put under in prison by much older members of the faith and the other issues that they raise. We need to find a mechanism to sort that out. I am in favour of the various things that the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) exposed so eloquently. The Bradford example is a fine one. However, none of them offers an easy solution to finding the right role model who can put the alternative case to these young men and women, and do so in the right place.

Nobody has yet suggested that there is an easy way out of this situation. I have first-hand experience of the pitiful state of the families who are devastated when their young sons or daughters are killed and taken away from them. Surely the Bill goes some way towards starting the process that the mother who sat opposite me in my surgery called for when she said, “For goodness’ sake, Mike, we’ve got to find a way of preventing this. I’ve got an 11-year-old son and I’m worried about what will happen to him. What is he thinking? How will it affect him and his peer group when they talk about their brothers who have been killed fighting in a war in Syria?” It is no good just saying that they were mistaken and that they did not believe in what they were going to do. They were believers in what they were going to do and they knew the risks they were taking. They were so certain about it that they were still prepared to do it. We ignore that at our peril.

Again, I agree entirely with the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles that we have to start lower down the age range. We need to find a mechanism for very young people.

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More importantly, I want to turn to the implications of clauses 21 and 22 for the devolved Administrations in Wales and Scotland. While counter-terrorism is a retained power, clause 21 will cover a number of bodies that are otherwise entirely accountable to the Welsh Assembly or the Scottish Parliament. The Opposition welcome provisions in clauses 23 and 24 that would demand consultation with the Scottish and Welsh Governments, but can the Minister confirm that, regardless of the specific set-ups in Scotland and Wales, devolved bodies will be covered by the same guidance as English bodies? It is noticeable that no Scottish institution is included in schedule 3. Presumably that is because consultation with the Scottish authorities has not yet concluded. Is the Minister expecting, or intending, to add to schedule 3 while the Bill is going through the remaining stages?

[Pete Wishart]

I presume from her comments that the hon. Lady does not want Scotland included in this. I am sure that she has heard about the different, more holistic approach that we have. Could she help us to persuade the Minister to allow us to do our thing uninterrupted by what has been proposed in the Bill?

[Diana Johnson]

We are at the Committee stage of the Bill, looking specifically at the Government’s provisions. Scotland is covered by Prevent. I am concerned that within schedule 3, which lists the bodies that are covered by the duty, there is nothing from Scotland. That worries me. I want to hear from the Minister why that is and what discussions are being held. As the rest of the Bill applies, I assume that there is a gap that needs to be filled.

On Northern Ireland, when the Government introduced the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, they neglected to consult the Northern Ireland Executive. The result is that, after four years, the National Crime Agency still does not have a remit to work in Northern Ireland. I am concerned that we could end up with a similar situation with Prevent and the agenda in Scotland.