Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Sixteenth sitting)

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 17th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clauses 158 to 161 stand part.

That schedule 18 be the Eighteenth schedule to the Bill.

Clause 162 stand part.

[Sarah Jones]

I want to speak briefly to the clauses, which we support. I begin by paying tribute to Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt, whose lives were so tragically cut short at the Fishmonger’s Hall attack. Protecting the public is the overall and overriding priority for us all, and clauses 157 to 162 would help law enforcement and counter-terror policing to better manage and monitor the risks when terrorist offenders are released on licence.

Lone attackers intent on causing carnage have taken the lives of innocent people, injured more and caused enormous suffering to all those affected. In the year ending June 2020, 34 sentenced terrorist offenders were released from prison custody. Between July 2013 and June 2020, 265 terrorist prisoners were released from a custodial prison sentence, but the statistics do not show which of those were released on licence. It would be helpful if the Minister had any statistics on the number of terrorist prisoners released on licence in recent years.

As we know, this is an issue of heightened importance since the atrocities at Fishmonger’s Hall and Streatham. The perpetrators were terrorist risk offenders or were on the authorities’ radar to a certain degree. The Opposition have repeated called for a review into lone actor terrorism and the need for a clearer strategy to tackle it.

It emerged in the spring that the Home Office had in fact conducted a review of that kind but through an internal unit, so few details are known about it. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) pressed Ministers for more details about the review and for its key findings to be shared confidentially with us, but we have had no response. All along, we have said that we want to work with the Government to get these crucial matters right and to strengthen national security, which is our top priority. We can do that better if we have the right information and if there is full transparency by the Government about where the system needs to improve.

Overall, we welcome the provisions in clauses 157 to 162 that will insert four new sections into the Terrorism Act 2000, providing for new powers to manage terrorist offenders. We were pleased that the Government asked the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall, QC, to review multi-agency public protection arrangements regarding the management of terrorist offenders and other offenders of terrorism concern. In the joint letter by the Justice Secretary and the Home Secretary to Jonathan Hall, QC, they wrote that

“officials consulted all operational agencies, including counter-terrorism, police and the National Probation Service, which confirmed how useful the new powers would be and in what circumstances they might be used.”

Labour welcomes this statement.

In the evidence sessions for the Bill Committee, Jonathan Hall, QC, made some important points, one about a specific safeguard, which I would like the Minister to respond to. Jonathan Hall, QC, said on the power in clause 159 to apply for a warrant to search the premises of a released offender, which he supports, that

“it would be possible to apply to a judge for a warrant that would allow you to enter on any number—potentially an infinite number—of occasions. If you think about released terrorist offenders on licence, their licences can last a very long time—for example, 10 or 15 years—so perhaps the Committee may want to think about whether it is appropriate to have a power that would authorise multiple entries into a person’s premises throughout 10 or 15 years. The power of multiple entry under warrant does exist when you are talking about a live operation, and the police find that quite useful. I am not quite sure whether it is justified in the context of this particular risk.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 51.]

Since this is our first chance to discuss small points of detail in the Bill, it would be helpful if the Minister could respond to the point that Jonathan Hall, QC, made.

Furthermore, on clause 158 Jonathan Hall, QC, had a question about the purpose of this search, in that the clause is drafted in a way that makes its scope wider than that of the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011. Can the Minister say what precisely is the purpose of the search, and can she respond to the point made by Jonathan Hall, QC, that it may be that the purpose of the search goes a bit wider than necessary?

Finally, Jonathan Hall, QC, said in March that the Government have not taken any steps in the Bill to address the fact that there is no proof that the desistance and disengagement programme for released terrorists is working. Can the Minister point us to anything in the Bill or elsewhere that addresses that point?