Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Sixth sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 2nd July 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

As the Minister said, the Bill brings a new facet to criminal justice by creating the serious terrorism sentence in an earlier clause but removing early release for those who prove to the Parole Board that they have been rehabilitated to the extent that they could be released from a custodial sentence.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and other hon. Friends said on Second Reading, we do not oppose the changes, because they apply to the most serious offenders who pose the greatest risk to the public. However, as we heard from a number witnesses, the changes carry risks of which we should be cognisant following the adoption and implementation of the Bill. We all have experience of judicial processes and policies that have changed because of various Bills, and there has been regret because the unintended consequences were not considered fully at the time. I also have concerns that the clause applies to under-18s. That raises further issues, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North has already covered, about the vulnerability of young offenders and also their ability to reform.

I draw the Committee’s attention to the note on the Bill that was published by Jonathan Hall, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. He also referred to this in his evidence to the Committee last week. His note stated:

“Firstly, to the extent that the possibility of early release acted as a spur to good behaviour and reform for offenders who are going to spend the longest time in custody, that has now gone…Secondly, the opportunity to understand current and future risk at Parole Board hearings has also been removed.”

I am not clear what has replaced it, notwithstanding that early release has been removed. What is the full process to replace the Parole Board to understand current and future risk? Jonathan Hall was also concerned that

“child terrorist offenders, whose risk may be considered most susceptible to change as they mature into adults, have lost the opportunity for early release.”

Of course, they will be in their 30s by the time they are released from custody.

Peter Dawson of the Prison Reform Trust told us that the Parole Board could release early, and he pointed out that more often than not the Parole Board does not release people early. He confirmed that it is an important part of identifying terrorist risk.

Jonathan Hall also said:

“The role of the Parole Board is quite an important part of identifying terrorist risk, and if you don’t have that role then you lose that insight.”––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 12, Q20.]

We have also had evidence from witnesses saying that the opportunity for someone to prove that they have reformed—this is particularly true for young offenders—is removed by the changes made by the Bill.

I do not know how many Members have had a chance to look at their emails in the past couple of hours, but two and a half hours ago we received evidence from the Bar Council, which says that this clause needs to be scrutinised with particular care. It does not address many clauses, but it says that clause 27 “stands out”. It says:

“We would question how Clause 27 fits with the obligation placed on the court to have regard to the reform and rehabilitation of offenders when sentencing (s.57(2) of the Sentencing Code). This provision would not appear to be the subject of an exception to the s.57(2) obligation, in contrast with the express carve out from s.57(2) relating to the imposition of life sentences for specific terrorist offences (Clause 11).”

I return to Peter Dawson of the Prison Reform Trust, who said:

“The problem with denying all hope of release on a conditional basis by a judgment about whether the person can be released safely or not is that it denies hope and affects the whole of the prison sentence…The possibility of parole is essential to the process that reduces risk.”––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 32, Q72.]

In its evidence, the Prison Officers Association described graphically what the loss of hope means for prison management and for the risk of violence against prison officers.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady accept what Mr Fairhurst from the Prison Officers Association said in response to a question from me about the rehabilitation and deradicalisation programmes for terrorist offenders? He said that there needs to be a full review of those programmes, and they are exactly what one would hope would turn people around if they were to be released early. The clear sign at the moment is that they are not good enough to enable early release, so prisoners need to serve the full term in custody.

[Ruth Cadbury]

What the hon. Gentleman says would be fine if we had that review of the Prevent programme and the programmes in prison. As several of my colleagues have said, the Bill does not provide for a review of those processes, so we have one side without the other, and that is a cause of concern for me and some of the witnesses.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Further to the matter that the hon. Member for Aylesbury just raised, do we have a commitment from the Government to undertake a full review of the methods that he described?

[Ruth Cadbury]

That is what I was going to say. I think there needs to be a review of this, as and when it is implemented.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is quoting from the Bar Council. I want to make the Committee aware, in reference to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, that I am a member of the Bar and have practised at the Bar of England and Wales.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The Bar Council is a very authoritative body that needs to be listened to when we are introducing legislation that affects issues such as sentencing.

On the POA point, Peter Dawson pointed out clearly, in relation to violence against prison officers, that when hope is lost and the atmosphere and the management of prisoners gets much more difficult, we have nowhere to move terrorist prisoners who are already in specialist separation centres. He said that removing hope of early release increases that risk. I would like the Government to commit to a review if the proposal is implemented in this way. Obviously, we support the motivation behind it.

I have one more question for the Minister. Might the option for this sentence, with the loss of early release, lead to unintended consequences in charging and sentencing? Would sentencers avoid it and impose a lesser sentence? I am sure that the Government do not intend that.

[Chris Philp]

Let me briefly respond to one or two of the points that the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth made. She referred to the fact that if the sentence is served in full, there obviously will not be a Parole Board assessment prior to release. She asked about the risk assessment that would take place. I asked Mr Fairhurst from the Prison Officers Association about that in our evidence session on Tuesday morning. Even where there is no Parole Board involvement because release is automatic, there are a whole load of other review and evaluation mechanisms that can be used—for example, multi-agency public protection arrangements, careful monitoring by the prison staff and prison governor, and involvement by the National Probation Service in preparation for the release point. With the example of the Streatham offender, those kinds of risk-assessment measures led to a security services team monitoring him, which obviously had the result that it did. That is an example, as Mr Fairhurst said in evidence, of the risk assessment process working very effectively. That is what we would expect to happen in cases in which release is automatic.

The hon. Lady also asked: what happens when hope is lost? What if a prisoner is in prison and there is no prospect of early release? Does that not mean that it will be hard to get them to behave well? I want to make some points in response. First, the vast majority of prisoners, who have committed a range of offences, way beyond terrorist ones, are serving standard determinate sentences and are released automatically—typically at the halfway point—without any Parole Board intervention. The vast majority are subject to automatic release at a particular point. The second risk, particularly in relation to terrorist offenders, is that of false compliance, if they think that by pretending to comply with the deradicalisation programme, they might get released early. That is not necessarily an entirely healthy incentive and we should be mindful of that possibility.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Fifth sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 2nd July 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Philp]

These are relatively technical amendments. The purpose of Government amendment 16 is to apply the same period of rehabilitation to the new sentence for terrorist offenders of particular concern as that currently applied to sentences in respect of grave crimes under section 91 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000. The rehabilitation period is specified in section 5 of that Act and varies depending on the length of sentence given. It begins on the day the sentence is completed, including any time spent on licence.

Government amendment 29 amends the statutory instruments referred to above in order to align the new special sentence of detention for terrorist offenders of particular concern for under-18s with sentences imposed under section 91 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000. Those are the central amendments.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Can I just be clear? For certain offences, under-18s will be treated in exactly the same way as adults when being sentenced. If I have got that wrong, can the Minister please explain?

[Chris Philp]

No. The rehabilitation periods are different and lower for children—quite rightly, for the reasons we debated earlier. All we are doing is creating consistency between the rehabilitation period for adults who commit the various offences and the rehabilitation period for children who commit various offences. We are not making the rehabilitation period the same for children as it is for adults.

The purpose of clause 22 is to address a gap in sentencing options for those under 18 who commit a terrorism offence where custodial sentencing options are limited to a maximum two-year detention and training order, due to the offender not meeting the criteria required to impose long-term detention for offences punishable by less than 14 years in custody.

The new sentence ensures that those convicted of a terrorist offence—we are talking about the serious terrorist offences—spend a substantial period of time on licence to enable that very important rehabilitative work to be undertaken in the community, and to limit the risk that they may pose to the public. That will also ensure greater consistency between the approaches towards sentence and release for under-18s and adults, although under-18s will of course be typically serving shorter prison sentences.

Under the current framework, some terrorist offences can attract only a detention and training order of up to two years, with only half that being served in detention, or an extended determinate sentence where the child is considered dangerous and the sentence is at least four years. That is a consequence of the fixed-term sentences under section 91 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000, and they are available only for specified offences. Terrorist offences are not a specified category.

As some terrorist offences carry a maximum sentence of less than 14 years, the only custodial sentencing option is therefore the detention and training order. Essentially, the clause fills the gap between those two sentences by creating the SOPC-type offence for under-18s. Of course, the length of sentence will be entirely a matter for the discretion of the judge, and the judge will have the pre-sentence report available in making that determination. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury said in his intervention, that pre-sentence report will include considerations regarding not just the offender’s chronological age but their mental maturity. Judges will of course continue to have discretion to ensure that they are balancing the offender’s maturity with the appropriate kind of sentence.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 22 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 23

Terrorism sentence with fixed licence period: Scotland

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Fourth sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

This is about a young person’s future life. They may well have done the most horrible and tragic things, but even those people deserve an opportunity to prove that they can do better. This amendment would help to achieve that.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I rise in support of amendments 37, 45 and 46, standing in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North. I want to cover some general principles in what is my first opportunity to speak in this Bill Committee. Like the Government, we are committed to keeping the public safe and we share the desire to ensure that attacks such as those at Fishmongers’ Hall and in Streatham never happen again—attacks where convicted but released terrorists were able to kill and maim innocent people.

We recognise the importance of adequate and appropriate punishment in sentencing, but punishment and sentencing must go alongside rehabilitation. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham said on Second Reading:

“We must not lose faith in the power of redemption—the ability of people to renounce the darkest chapters of their lives and move towards the light.”—[Official Report, 9 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 213.].

For that, those offenders need an effective deradicalisation programme tailored to their motivation and circumstances, and they need hope—hope that before too long they can rejoin their family; that they can get meaningful work. They could even steer others away from the path they took before. I point out that programmes have operated in prisons in Northern Ireland with convicted paramilitaries on both sides of the troubles. In the later years of the troubles, those men became beacons of peace and reconciliation, educating young people towards positive paths.

Some contributions on Second Reading sometimes felt like support for a policy that almost veered on “Lock ’em up and throw away the key”. However, as many submissions and expert witnesses to this Committee have said, removing hope from these offenders and the opportunity to prove they are safe does not make the rest of us safer. I might add, even locking up people indefinitely, as the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford said earlier, does not protect us anyway. It does not prevent them from radicalising others. It spawns martyrs, not to mention the cost to the public purse of incarcerating prisoners for ever longer periods. As we heard this morning from the Prison Officers Association, there is also the danger to prison officers of attacks from angry men who have no hope of release in the foreseeable future.

I fear that some aspects of the Bill are born from a reaction to the terrorist atrocities in the last seven months and have been brought in without due research into what might work to further reduce the risk of attack from radicalised individuals, whether they are of a Daesh/ISIS persuasion, from the far right or, as a number of terrorists in the UK still are, rogue Irish paramilitaries.

The Fishmongers’ Hall and Streatham attacks were both committed by offenders who had been released automatically halfway through their sentence with no involvement of the Parole Board. Of course, with Labour support, the Government have now brought in the Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Act 2020, which ends the automatic early release of terrorist offenders and ensures that any release before the end of a sentence is dependent on a thorough risk assessment by the Parole Board. I am therefore not quite sure why the Government want to take the Parole Board out of sentencing now, without any adequate alternative provision being put in place.

Before I make some specific remarks, Dave, the father of Jack Merritt, who was killed in the Fishmongers’ Hall attack, wrote poignantly about how his son would have perceived the political reaction to his death, because of course Jack Merritt worked in the criminal justice system on the rehabilitation of offenders. Dave wrote:

“What Jack would want from this is for all of us to walk through the door he has booted down, in his black Doc Martens. That door opens up a world where we do not lock up and throw away the key. Where we do not give indeterminate sentences, or convict people on joint enterprise. Where we do not slash prison budgets, and where we focus on rehabilitation not revenge. Where we do not consistently undermine our public services, the lifeline of our nation. Jack believed in the inherent goodness of humanity, and felt a deep social responsibility to protect that.”

As I said, I support the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South—

[Alex Cunningham]

Stockton North!

[Ruth Cadbury]

My apologies.

Amendments 37, 45 and 46 relate to under-21s. I wish that they went a little older, possibly to 25, because they consider the issue of maturity. I declare a certain interest because for many years I was a trustee and, latterly, the chair of the Barrow Cadbury Trust, which initiated and funded the Transition to Adulthood Alliance about 15 years ago. Over a number of years, the alliance worked with a number of non-governmental organisations, the Ministry of Justice, Ministers, Opposition Members and so on to the point where maturity has now been introduced into sentencing practice and several other areas of the criminal justice system. I fear that we are going to lose that in this Bill.

When considering maturity, it is really important that we work on the basis of all the research that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North mentioned and use that research to reduce the risk of serious harm to members of the public and to enhance the rehabilitation of the offender. The Committee has heard powerful evidence, particularly this morning, about the different motivations that people have for becoming terrorists or terrorist sympathisers, such as political, religious or psychiatric.

Sentences and rehabilitation must take account of the different motivations of different offenders. As we heard this morning, we probably also need to have tailored support, which needs to come into the pre-sentencing reports. One of the amendments says that the court must also take account of reports from local authority officers who have worked with the offender prior to the point of considering sentencing.

[Alex Cunningham]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comprehensive speech. She talks about resources and specialised facilities. The evidence we heard from some people in earlier sittings suggests that the system is not fit for purpose. Would she welcome from the Minister, as I would, a statement about how the Government will ensure proper provision for rehabilitation in our prison system?

[Ruth Cadbury]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. As others have said, it would have been better if there had been proper risk assessments of a number of aspects of the Bill, because many clauses do not seem to be evidence-based. We know that we have funding problems within the prison system. We know that we have, as we heard this morning, disjoints between various elements of the course through the system for offenders. There is an awful lot of work to do, and there are a number of respects in which I do not feel that the Bill is fit for purpose. It would have been better if it had been based on proper evidence of what works to reduce the threat to the public and improve rehabilitation.

Children have long been treated differently in sentencing considerations, and the amendments would enable particular considerations for young adults, particularly of their maturity. Mr Hall, the independent reviewer, was concerned that, unless these considerations are taken into account, we risk locking people up for too long, building bitterness and a refusal to engage in the prison system, and actually, on eventual release, potentially a greater risk. He considered that longer and more punitive sentences do not in themselves ensure that people are less dangerous on release, and that while extending sentences for serious offenders may, of course, keep them out of our harm’s way for a temporary period, we do not want them to leave prison more dangerous than when they entered.

Early release provides prisoners with the incentive to behave and show that they are capable of reform. We heard powerful evidence that prison staff are at increased risk of harm where hope is lost. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North said, many studies show that young terrorist offenders are much more likely to reform than older offenders, yet the Bill treats a young adult who has just turned 18 the same as an older offender. Are the Secretary of State and the Minister concerned that the Bill effectively gives up on those offenders?

We need to look at the evidence, not the tabloids. We need a flexible response that is offender-based, and it must be tailored. If we really want to enable rehabilitation and reduce the harm to the public, I hope that the Minister will consider the amendment.

[Chris Philp]

I will speak to the amendments relating to younger offenders. There are a couple of things to be clear about first of all. For the sake of absolute clarity, offenders who are under the age of 18 are not subject to the 14-year minimum prison sentence. Only offenders over the age of 18 are subject to those provisions. The amendments relate to offenders aged between 18 and 21, so we are discussing a very specific cohort.

I agree and concur with many points that the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth made about rehabilitation, and about the increased opportunity for rehabilitation for younger people. It is of course the case that younger people are more open to change—particularly as their brains mature—than older people, and it is right that we try to work with them to achieve that. I would not dispute that as a general principle, but clause 4 as drafted applies to an extremely small subsection of those offenders aged between 18 and 21. It by no means applies to the generality of offenders, including terrorist offenders, aged 18 to 21. It applies to that narrow subsection who have committed a serious terrorist offence, as we have discussed already, but it also requires a finding by the judge, following a pre-sentence report—something the shadow Minister referred to in his amendment and in his speech—of dangerousness. What a finding of dangerousness means in law is that there is a significant risk of the offender causing serious harm by committing further serious terrorism or other specified offences.

There are already two hurdles to jump: a serious terrorist offence, followed by a finding of dangerousness based on a pre-sentence report. However, there is also a third hurdle that must be jumped before a younger offender aged 18 to 21 would fall into the scope of this clause, which is that, at the time of committing the offence. they were aware, or should have been aware, that their offence was very likely to result in or contribute to multiple deaths. That is a well-established test dating back to section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000. We are talking about an extremely small subsection of offenders aged 18 to 21 and a very small subsection even of terrorist offenders—those who meet all three of those criteria.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Third sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We have five minutes left. I call Ruth Cadbury, and then Sarah Dines.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Q It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Robertson.

Thank you very much for your contribution, Mr Fairhurst. In response to the last question, you covered Muslim terrorist offenders. You have talked about deradicalisation, incentives to go straight and the success rate—the small percentage of terrorist offenders who reoffend. Do those figures and your general thoughts apply also to the growing number of far-right terrorists we are now seeing coming into the criminal justice system?

Mark Fairhurst: This is a completely new dynamic, but let me tell you this: if we have prolific far-right extremist offenders in the general population, they will be able to influence and recruit far more prisoners than Islamist extremists ever could. They will get more support. They will be a similar threat to what IRA prisoners were. They will have a lot of contacts in communities. They will be able to get staff details and addresses, and be more of a threat. That is why it is absolutely essential that we open the other two separation centres. What we do not want is, first, a situation where you have far-right extremists in the same centre as Islamist extremists or, secondly, a situation where a prolific right-wing extremist offender is recruiting in the general population and causing chaos. We really need to rethink this.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Q Is the potential for deradicalisation among those prisoners there in the same way as it is for those prisoners you talked about earlier?

Mark Fairhurst: Yes, without a doubt. At the moment, we only have these two programmes: healthy identity and desist and disengage. We need to look at alternatives, because the far right is a completely different dynamic. It has not really raised its head above the parapet in our prisons at this moment in time, but I can assure you that it is on its way, because it is on the rise.

[Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Q Mr Fairhurst, you touched on polygraph testing, which is a new tool that would be used on licence under clause 32. Do you think it would be a useful tool, delivered not by prison officers but by specialist providers, to avoid the situation that you highlighted, where people are released, having undergone a rehabilitation programme—a deradicalisation programme—that has clearly failed? Is the polygraph therefore going to be a useful, essential tool?

Mark Fairhurst: Yes, I agree with that. It will be an essential tool, but it would also be essential if we had an incentive to release people early, and prior to their release they were given a polygraph and asked about their future intentions. That is something else to consider. I agree: it is very useful. I have no opposition to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We have time for maybe one or two more questions, if anybody would like to ask one.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Q Professor Silke, we have covered the issue of prisoners, but what impact do you think the changes to the TPIM regime will have on public safety?

Professor Silke: I am not a fan of TPIM. The main saving grace of the approach has been that they have been used sparingly, and that has been consistently the case from control orders onwards. That probably is their main saving grace: they are only used in a handful of cases. The problem is that it is punishment without conviction, which is always problematic in a system of justice such as the one we have. The changes proposed are similar to some that have existed in the past. I would encourage the Government in general to look at alternatives to TPIM. If we are in a case where we are talking about five or six individuals who are under those measures, are there not alternative arrangements that could be used to monitor or otherwise manage the risk associated with those individuals, apart from a TPIM approach?

[Ruth Cadbury]

Thank you.

[The Chair]

If there are no more questions, Professor Silke, thank you very much for your evidence. It has been very useful.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. (Tom Pursglove.)

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Second sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 25th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Q It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe, on my first Bill Committee. Mr Dawson, I want to pick up on the length of sentence. You say, in your submission, that merely increasing the length of time that people spend in custody

“risks further alienating them and giving them grounds for grievance against the authorities”.

You are in effect saying that the Bill should include measures to ensure that effective deradicalisation programmes are provided. What would they look like?

Peter Dawson: The Prison Service runs two programmes at the moment. I said earlier that the evidence base for those was small, because it is innovative work, but they are clearly worth while. The most valuable work that is done in prisons in terms of changing people’s attitudes and behaviours is the day-to-day example that is set around them—the supporting of their growing up and giving them reasons that make life worth living that are nothing to do with their ideology. It is an incessant process, a slow process and an uncertain process, but it is about the impact of everybody in prison on that individual.

What people whose lives have changed dramatically would say is this—I can think of someone I know who committed two murders and who would tell this story. Very often, a particular individual, in the course of a sentence, makes a connection and is able to help that person to grow up and see a different future for themselves. The faith that that key person shows will often drive change in behaviour more than any particular programme.

I have said it before, but the one thing that I am absolutely clear about is that I have never seen anybody coerced into rehabilitation. The particular theory that academics talk mostly about now is called desistance theory. It is about what causes people to change their route in life. That rests very heavily on the idea that somebody has to be able to see a better life for themselves in the future. The academic work tends to support that but, I think, so does all our experience. So I would say that we should not look to prison for magic solutions; we should look for the extreme skill among staff of all sorts, and volunteers in prisons too, in establishing relationships that slowly change the way that somebody thinks about their future. When prisoners go out, however, those promises have to be met. That is why we are saying that rehabilitation is what happens after prison, as much as what happens during it.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Q Are there any other measures for the rehabilitation of terrorist offenders that you would like to see in the Bill?

Peter Dawson: I do not think there is anything that I would like to see in the Bill. The question that I hope the Committee will ask is what we do not yet know about the circumstances of the cases that have prompted the Bill. Both the Fishmongers’ Hall attack and the attack in Streatham have been subject to serious case reviews. I certainly have not seen those reviews published.

In both cases, it seems to me that there are questions to ask about whether the existing framework of law would have been adequate had different decisions been taken. That is not to point a finger of blame but simply to say, if we have an existing structure that was not used to best effect, that we should think hard before changing the structure and changing it in a way that raises some of the problems that I have described.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss Dines]

Q Thank you for your evidence, Professor Grubin. I am interested in your view of how valuable the polygraph test is in assessing an offender’s intention in the long term, in comparison with the other tools available by way of standard psychological testing.

Professor Grubin: It is not valuable at all. You cannot use polygraph testing as a means of testing intentions. The polygraph is looking specifically at behaviours. Your colleague referred to concrete, very narrow questions of the type, “Have you done this?” They can be screening-type questions, or they can be very specific, such as, “Did you rob the bank?”, “Did you shoot the gun?” or whatever. It is not a tool for eliciting intentions or validating responses to those sorts of question.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Q You said that in normal circumstances the test is 80% to 90% accurate. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North raised questions about those with mental health problems and the issue of immaturity. I want to ask you about some other categories as to whether there are also concerns about the accuracy or appropriateness of tests: people with learning disabilities; people who are neurodiverse or have personality disorders; and non-English speakers. Are there concerns about the use of polygraph tests for those people and for any other vulnerable people?

Professor Grubin: For people with an intellectual disability, you are absolutely right that the accuracy of the test decreases once IQ drops below a certain level. In the sex offender testing, we will typically test down to 60, but we are much more cautious with the test outcome. It is still valuable, because of the disclosure aspect; you still get information and information gain—the point about information gain is the main one I want to leave you with—from the test, even with someone with an intellectual disability.

Again, examiners need to be trained; they need to address their questions in a different way, one that is much more concrete. The test has to be modified. It has to be shorter because of fatigue and issues such as that. So, you are absolutely right that accuracy decreases, but you must remember that nothing hinges on a test outcome alone. If it is a deceptive response and you have no other concerns, you would still look further. You might say, “We have to be more cautious because of IQ.”

There is no evidence to suggest it works any differently with people with personality disorders from how it works with anybody else. Again, because of misunder- standings about how polygraph works, people think, “It does not work with psychopathic individuals because they don’t feel anxiety.” First, the test is not based on anxiety. Sometimes when we do talks, and we will have an examiner, we can do demonstrations of polygraph testing. We used to like to get a volunteer from the audience who we can hook up. I try to pick somebody who is also a psychopath, so we can kill two birds with one stone. I know that here we would not be able to do that, but in the audiences I speak to there are often one or two psychiatrists who would fit the bill for a psychopath. There has been some testing of personality disorders and there is no evidence that the test itself is any less valuable. Again, part of the training of the examiner is that they need to know how to interview these individuals, because of the challenges that they may present.

I believe the third group you were thinking about was those with neurodevelopmental disorder or autistic spectrum disorder. Again, the evidence is that the test works just as well with them as with anybody else, but you have to make allowances in the interview, because of the concrete nature of a lot of their thinking, language difficulties and so on. You need to take that into account in terms of the interviewing, but there is no evidence to suggest that the test itself works any differently with them from how it works with anybody else.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Q My last question was about non-English speakers.

Professor Grubin: We do test with interpreters, and they seem to work just as well. Again, it does take training for the examiner to know how to work with an interpreter, and the interpreter needs training as well. Certainly, security services in other countries use it with interpreters quite regularly.

[Laura Trott]

Q Professor, you talked about a failure rate of up to 20%. What drives that failure rate? Is it the fact that people are tricking the test or that the examiner is making a mistake? What are the drivers behind that 20%?

Professor Grubin: There is a range of reasons that people can give either false positives or false negatives. Apologies for not looking at you while I am answering. Sometimes it is because the test hasn’t been set out properly, the examinee hasn’t been prepared properly in the pre-test interview or the questions haven’t been formulated well, and so on.

The examinee may have some other experience that is close enough to the way the question is being asked to cause that sort of response. For example, there was a very good study carried out in Israel. I won’t go through all the details of it, but they were able to debrief afterwards as we were with police officers who were applying for promotion. There were two false positives. The ground troops knew that these two people had been telling the truth, but they were said to be lying. One of them had said that he had previously made an insurance claim in Israel. At that time, the insurance companies in Israel would test people making insurance claims to see if they were honest or not. He said that he was being honest, but he was told that he was lying. He couldn’t get that out of his mind during the test. That causes the cognitive processing we were talking about, and it made him respond in that way.

The other person was more interesting. The experiment itself was about a test that the examinees could cheat on. You would know if they cheated or not. The second police officer said that he cheated when he took the test, but there was something wrong when he took it and the examiners had him do the test a second time. When he did it the second time, he said, “I don’t think I had better cheat again,” so he did it honestly. When he was asked if he had cheated on the test the second time, he said that he was thinking about having cheated the first time, which is why he reacted as he did.

There are other reasons as well, but it is hard to explain without going into the details about how polygraph testing works. Basically, you are comparing the relevant questions that you are interested in with so-called comparison questions. If those comparison questions are not evocative enough to elicit a response when a person is telling the truth to the relevant question, or vice versa, when they are too hot and the person is much more concerned about that question than about the relevant one, you can also get mistakes on the test.

The final reason is that sometimes we just don’t know; it just happens.

Policing and Crime

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the Members who have made their maiden speeches today. I value the experience of Members from different parties and their knowledge of their local constituencies.

Like many Members here today, my own constituency has seen a rise in knife crime and in young people becoming caught up in crime. As others have said, people are experiencing more robberies at knifepoint and more stabbings. There has been an increase in knife injuries coming into West Middlesex University Hospital’s A&E department, and last March we had the tragic death at knife point of a young man in Isleworth.

Over the past year, I have engaged in a range of work listening to people and their experiences. I conducted a survey of residents. I discuss knife crime whenever I go to schools, talking to students as well as headteachers and other adults in those schools. I brought together local people at two public events to discuss the problem and to see whether we can find solutions. On knife crime, over the past year I have heard from young people themselves and their parents, and from youth workers, social workers, headteachers, teachers, police officers, councillors, specialist staff who work with young people, and, as I said, the A&E staff at West Middlesex hospital.

What people tell me is that, first of all, they are seeing fewer police on the streets. The cuts to London’s policing resulting from the £700 million cut to the London Mayor’s police budget has meant that, in effect, our neighbourhood teams are half the size they were eight years ago. Reported crime is too often dropped, and crimes are taking longer and longer to come to a resolution. Young people themselves are scared of being victims; sadly, they are so frightened they end up carrying knives. Young people and parents tell me that drug gangs, using sophisticated mind games based on befriending and misplaced loyalty, are too easily drawing young people into dealing or carrying drugs. Young people and their parents have told me how young people are unwillingly drawn in by the offer of food to somebody who is hungry, by the offer of a place to hang out for somebody who is living in overcrowded flat, or by the offer of cash to somebody who wants to help their mum out with the weekly shopping. These young people do not wake up one day and decide to be criminals. Those most at risk are those with the least money, the least space and the least capacity—young people with special educational needs or family issues—and they are the most likely to be caught.

The experience of recent years is that in addition to the halving of the visible police presence, we have lost a range of other public services, including the welfare and pastoral support in schools that young people, particularly those experiencing difficulties, need. Local authority funding has been cut, meaning that youth services have had to be cut. Hounslow Council has had to cut almost all mainstream youth services in our borough. Youth workers are often at the frontline, so they know who is hanging out with who, where young people are at risk, which young people are at risk, and where the drug gangs and the serious criminals are drawing them in. They are best placed to provide diversionary activities and positive support to those young people. One headteacher told me this morning about a young person she is worried about. She has tried to report the situation to both social workers and the police, but they are overstretched. They want to help, but they do not have the capacity. These are all examples of the cuts in the public services that we all depend on and need if we are to be free of crime and knife crime.

We have had some good news locally. We have some great police community support officers who really know their communities and their young people. We have had violence prevention work from the London Mayor, which is starting to make a difference. We have had Home Office funding for a peace project with the youth offending team, which is working with schools, and that is positive. As a result of my meetings, parents who are worried about their young people getting caught up in crime are starting to meet together as a support group. However, these little drips are not enough.

I pay tribute to the work of the police officers in our area. They are skilled, dedicated and committed, but they are struggling with the lack of resources and lack of support. They are only an emergency service, and too often a reactive service, and they can tackle crime and its causes only if they have the support of other agencies.

Young people tell me that they do not mind stop-and-search if it is done properly and respectfully, with the policies being carried out properly and the body-worn cameras switched on. The Government, however, must take responsibility for this crime wave after 10 years of austerity in public funding, cutting away all the services that I have outlined and which we need to support young people. We need to take account of the public health experiences in Scotland and other places and have a wraparound public health approach to knife crime, because it works. However, that needs to be adequately supported by a group of services, so that a range of qualified, experienced staff in all services are addressing the problem. Will the Government and the Minister please stop chasing headlines, focus on what works and listen to those involved? We can get tough on crime only if we get tough on the causes of crime, and then we need to invest, invest and invest in the solutions that work.

TOEIC: Overseas Students

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

As I have said, those with questionable tests were given the chance to resit the test at the time. We are clearly stating that the route via an article 8 claim to a family life is one that we wish to enable people to pursue, and they should make another claim. Obviously, I cannot stand here and comment on individual cases, but we are giving people the opportunity to make an article 8 claim, and I hope that that provides a mechanism going forward.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I am afraid that I disagree with the Minister, and agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) that this is part of the hostile environment: 35,000 people did not cheat. We do not know how many did, but a large number of people did not, and these are the people who are coming to our constituency surgeries to seek justice. I have met some who have the higher-level IELTS—international English language testing system—qualification, which shows that they have a higher level of English literacy and speech than is needed for the TOEIC qualification, so there is no way they were cheats.

I received an email a couple of years ago from a constituent who had almost completed three years of his degree at London South Bank University, and was not allowed to complete it because of the TOEIC situation. When he applied to complete it, the university would not let him because too much time had elapsed. This situation applies to many. They have paid a fortune in fees and livings costs to be here. What recompense will the Government give those who can definitely be proven not to have cheated? They should be given an opportunity for a further test. Will the Minister, whoever that person is, meet the high commissioners from the countries in which the most people are affected, to try to sort out something positive from this mess, for the sake of the people affected and their families, and for the reputation of this country?

[Caroline Nokes]

I remind the hon. Lady of the numbers: 33,663 UK tests were invalid and a further 22,476 were questionable, so we are talking about 55,000 tests. The independent expert who carried out the review found that the likelihood of false matches was less than 1%. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, where individuals have wrongly been accused of cheating, it is important that they be allowed to find a means of redress, but it is absolutely not the case that this is part of a hostile environment. These numbers are part of systematic criminal fraud.

Serious Violence

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The National Citizen Service does some very important work. We should recognise the way in which it helps young people by giving them activities, bringing them together and, potentially, turning them away from what could be a difficult life involving crime. As I said earlier, the early intervention youth fund is already supporting 29 projects across England and Wales, and it is estimated that by the end of March 2020 it will have helped at least 60,000 children and young people. I think that demonstrates its reach.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I appreciate the efforts the Home Secretary is making in describing the wonderful work that a very few limited projects are doing, but I would suggest that they benefit—and I am sure that they do benefit—a relatively small number of young people.

When I was lead member for children and youth services in Hounslow about 12 years ago, I was told by young people, including so-called vulnerable young people, that they appreciated the good, specialist work that youth workers and others were doing with them, but they did not want to go into a facility with other young people and be labelled vulnerable. They wanted to participate in a universal youth facility, to be seen as part of the crowd, and perhaps to do some specific work, as and when, with those specialist workers. Effectively, the only youth work that is currently being done is for those so-called vulnerable young people. They feel labelled and separated from others, because the universal provision has all but disappeared in most of our local authorities.

[Sajid Javid]

I am afraid it is simply not the case that the only funding that is being provided is for—to use the hon. Lady’s words—vulnerable young people. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) mentioned the National Citizen Service. That is open to everyone. A moment ago, I referred to the onside youth zones, including the £5 million youth centre that has just opened in Dagenham and is supported partly by taxpayers’ money. It too is open to everyone, and I suggest that the hon. Lady go and take a look. I think that she will see all types of young people there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

Let me take the opportunity to thank my hon. Friend for his work as a children’s Minister. He speaks with experience. He is absolutely right to talk about the model that OnSide represents. It is a vital partnership between local authorities, and therefore taxpayers, and people in the local community, including local businesses and local benefactors. In many cases, they have come from that community and have a stake in it, so they want improvements to be made. It is exactly the kind of model that has a strong future.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I appreciate the effectiveness of the work of universal youth services, such as OnSide, but unfortunately they are few and far between. OnSide presented its proposal for Hammersmith, and I asked whether my constituents would be able to attend. It said, “Ah, no—it’ll only be for young people who live in Hammersmith.” Surely the Home Secretary is saying that we need something of the scale of OnSide in every community so that every young person can go to one nearby. Is that not about reinserting the funding for universal youth provision in every community, which has been cut by such devastating amounts, as the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee said?

[Sajid Javid]

I agree with the hon. Lady that I want more of those types of youth facilities in more communities. The action we are taking by working with our partners will certainly allow that to happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the excellent speakers we have heard so far, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), who is no longer in her place. From the point of view of the lives of two young people, she explained the difference that adequate resources across swathes of the public sector makes to the life chances of children, as well as the cost to the public purse. I could not put it any better, and her speech will remain in my memory for a long time to come.

In my constituency in the past year, we have seen an increase in muggings at knifepoint. In March in Isleworth, a 17-year-old man was knifed and tragically died. It seems to be the case that most of the victims and perpetrators were teenagers, starting out on life. The perpetrators were known to some of the victims; they were part of a tit-for-tat feud, perhaps drugs-related. Other incidents were random attacks on young people for their phones or bank cards. Hounslow, my borough, has one of the lowest levels of violent crime incidents in London, but that does not really feel good to my constituents because violent crime has increased overall everywhere, including in Hounslow. At least the Home Secretary has admitted that fact.

The police have clearly been the focus of debates on violent crime and knife crime, which is where I am focusing my speech, but we cannot just talk about the police in terms of responses to persistent crime and crime incidents, particularly in certain areas. Those responses work well where the police work with other agencies. For instance, following a spate of muggings on Chiswick back common, the public worked with police, the council, local businesses, youth workers and so on to find solutions, and it really worked. Between a public meeting held in December in response to the attacks and the follow-up meeting in March, the number of incidents had gone down to zero. However, the problem is that the police in London are working with one hand behind their back. Extra patrols in one hotspot are viable only until another hotspot is identified elsewhere and the police have to be moved on to work there. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford described the cost to the public purse and police time of every serious injury and murder from violent crime. She asked: could not that time—that resource—be better spent? Of course it could.

We are starting from the baseline of serious police cuts—3,000 fewer police officers in London, or more than 80 fewer in the Borough of Hounslow. We have seen a similar cut in the number of local police community support officers, so that the ward teams are less than half their strength in 2010. That is all as a direct result of the one-third cut in Government grant to the London Mayor’s budget. By 2022, the Metropolitan police will have lost about £1 billion in funding since 2010. The London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, is doing what he can and he is contributing to frontline policing, but the scale of the cuts causes delays in responding to crime, less outreach and less community policing, where officers get to know the youngsters on their patch.

I am really pleased that the Mayor of London has adopted the public health model. He has learned from the experience in Glasgow, which has been mentioned. He has put some money back into the Metropolitan police budget—£234 million—which has brought back some extra police officers, but nothing like as many as we have lost. Even if the police were funded at the same level as in 2010, we all know that credible action by the police working in conjunction with others is not the solution. It may simply move the problem. Perhaps the police are successful and lock up serious offenders, which puts them out of action for a while, but actually, by the time the police are involved with a young person, whether the victim or an alleged perpetrator, it is too late. The police are dealing with the symptoms of the problems, not what has gone wrong.

To understand the impact of cuts in my constituency, as a result of the trigger-point incidents I have met local police, headteachers, school and college students, councillors and many others. I wanted to know what my constituents felt about the rising incidence of knife crime, so in April I hosted a crime summit in Isleworth—it was already being planned before the tragic murder. I am also currently distributing a crime survey to ask local people about their experience of serious youth crime, as well as their views on the causes and solutions and on support for young people and their parents. I have already received a lot of replies. People want action. They see the impact of crime on their community and on their children. They want to make a difference, but they want the Government to take action and to commit real funding to the places where it is needed.

In one response to one of the questions, “What do you think is the cause of the problem?” was written the word “criminals”, but we all know that we cannot put people into pigeonholes and define one group of young people as criminals and everybody else as the public. I think everybody in this debate and all the other respondents to my survey understand that. In the survey, the issue of police numbers was frequently raised. People know that the police are under-resourced and they see the pressure that is putting on services such as crime reporting, police-community engagement and so on.

The most common issue raised in the survey was the lack of and cuts to youth services. People see youth services as part of a range of solutions. They are not just something for children to do after school while they wait for their parents to come home. They are a place for children to socialise, meet responsible role models, learn a skill or a sport and touch base with somebody who can help them with their problems. They are a place for counselling services, homework clubs and so on. Those things need a base, which has to be open at the times and on days when children need them. I was very upset to hear a Government Member talk about youth clubs not being nine-to-five. Good quality, well funded youth clubs do not just open after school during the week; they are open at weekends and during the holidays.

As I said, my constituents do not label those caught up in crime as someone else’s fault or as someone else’s child. That became clear when several mothers raised with me their worries about their own youngsters, asking themselves, “Is my child at risk of getting caught up? Are they carrying a knife, whether for protection or planned use?” The reality is that it makes little difference if a child is maimed or killed. One other worrying thing we are finding is anecdotal evidence that, faced with stop-and-search, girls are carrying knives for the boys. Parents want a safe space to share their concerns about their children.

Young people told me that in almost all cases the youngsters they knew—they may or may not have been speaking for themselves—who were at risk or were involved in gang activities, carrying knives and so on, were doing so reluctantly. It was not their voluntary choice. They were often caught up in something. One example involved a young person who had no food at home because there was no money to buy food. Hanging around after school or college outside a chicken shop, somebody said, “You a bit hungry, mate? I’ll buy you a meal.” “Oh, okay, fine.” That young person was then caught up: “When are you going to pay me back?” That is just one simple example of how easy it is for young people who do not have any money, who have time on their hands or are looking for role models, to get caught up in gang and non-consensual activity. That just illustrates why we need better quality early intervention.

Every headteacher and school manager I have spoken to over the past three years, often about school cuts, has told me that the impact of the real-terms cuts on their schools, including primary schools, has meant that too often they have had to cut services such as welfare, counselling, mental health support, affordable after-school activities and so on—all the things that they know keep children positively occupied. We all remember what a teacher said the other day on “Question Time” on the BBC when she challenged the Minister. She said that teachers know who these young people are, so they would prefer that, rather than giving them more work to do, the Home Secretary supported them in the work they are trying to do with the children who are vulnerable.

The silo nature of Government does not help. It is good that the Home Office team and their Opposition shadows are leading the debate, but where are the Ministers from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department for Education or the Department of Health and Social Care? It is not just the responsibility of the Home Secretary and the Home Office.

Funding is at the centre of this issue across the country, whether in cities or towns, urban or rural areas, for local authorities, police services, charities or other services. My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, said that the Home Office is providing new funds of around £35 million annually, but that should be set against the £768 million cut per annum on youth services across the country. The figures for all of the Home Secretary’s wonderful new projects come to only 5% of the cuts made to youth services. Local authorities used to receive a substantial amount of their total income from MHCLG, yet those grants have been cut by more than 50%, and more in areas of greater deprivation.

As has been said in numerous debates in this place, cuts to local government have meant cuts to all services, particularly non-statutory services, of which youth services are among the most prominent. Let us have no illusions about these politically driven austerity policies. Austerity is not about economic necessity; it is about cutting the public sector. When the public sector is cut, there are cuts to youth services, police services, education and so on.

Early interventions, such as children’s centres, basic welfare and early counselling, benefit most the young people who are at the greatest risk of being victims or perpetrators of crime. We need to see them restored. We need more school nurses and specialist mental health services in schools, as well as local counselling services. Cuts to leisure services mean that pools and sports centres may stay open, but only if the price rises beyond the pocket of young people from low-income families, so again they are excluded.

Too many communities are having to deal with the heartbreaking impact of violent crime, and the Government are still being too slow to act. I appreciate that the Home Secretary acknowledges the seriousness of the issue, but Ministers cannot just offer warm words. One-off funding announcements are a drop in the ocean compared with the funding lost to youth services, schools, colleges, the police and so on. That is the real issue that needs addressing. We need sustained investment in our communities in early intervention, youth clubs and frontline policing. The warm words of Conservative Members are meaningless when their austerity is the root of the problem.

Windrush Scheme

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I should just point out that the two debates to follow are very heavily subscribed. I am happy to try to accommodate remaining would-be questioners on the understanding that each of them will put a single-sentence question. We will be led in this important matter by Ruth Cadbury.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

The Home Office said last year that Windrush applications would be turned round within two weeks, but my constituent, who has retired after many years working as an NHS midwife, is still waiting, six months later. When will the Secretary of State admit that the overstretched immigration system cannot cope with Windrush generation cases and apologise to those who are living in limbo?

[Sajid Javid]

Most applications are being turned round within a matter of weeks, but if the hon. Lady sends me the details of that case, I will take a closer look at it.

Future Immigration

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

In looking at skills we have been led by the evidence and an objective analysis, and the MAC has set that out. Skill levels have been defined, having looked at the regulated qualifications framework levels of skill, which are well defined already. The MAC has also suggested, rightly, that we take other factors into account, and we have had discussion in the House today about salary thresholds and how we will look at that issue further. There is also a multi-skilled route, so it is not linked to any qualification or salary, and that is the short-term workers scheme.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

People from non-EU countries and their families, including many of my constituents, have borne the brunt of the Home Office’s hostile environment, so they were very receptive to the targeted message to them from the leave campaign in the referendum saying that if we left the EU, the UK would free up non-EU immigration. Naturally, many local people bought that message. So was there any truth in that message? Or will there be just as many unreasonable refusals for EU citizens in the future as there have been up to now for non-EU citizens?