Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Eighth sitting)

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th July 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Once again, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe.

I speak in support of new clause 5, in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West, which calls on the Secretary of State to review the effect of the measures in the Bill on children and young offenders. Much of the new clause relates to young offenders, and I agree that the impact of this Bill on them must be huge. We simply cannot treat young offenders in the same way as fully matured, grown adults, who fully understand their actions. The impact on their mental and physical wellbeing should be a fundamental consideration on how we carry out justice in this country.

The new clause also leaves room to consider the more general impact on children who are not accused of a crime. Children are often victims in the pursuit of justice, when they have done nothing to deserve the situation or warrant being the victims of a crime. All too often, children of offenders will pay the price for their parents’ crimes. This crime will also have serious effects on women. Only 9% of children whose mothers are in prison are cared for by their fathers, in the absence of their mothers. Only 5% of children remain in their family home when their mother goes to prison. A fifth of women prisoners are lone parents before imprisonment.

I am not aware of the background of Members in this Committee, but I cannot imagine how it must be for a child to see their parents taken away from them for a long period of time and having to live in a different way, with different people. Victims of crime never deserve to be so. It is imperative that this House recognise the true impact of our legislative decisions and how they affect the most vulnerable, in this case children. We support this new clause on that basis.

The young offenders of today do not have to be the reoffenders of tomorrow, but we need to make an effort and carry out the research to stop that happening. There will be children and young offenders caught up in terror crimes. It would be naive of us to think that there is any crime that children cannot be drawn into, but we have a choice about how we respond. We have the opportunity to ensure that they are not defined by the actions of their youth and that the actions of others will not disproportionately affect their lives.

I hope that the Minister will be able to support this new clause, as we do, and act to acknowledge that we must put the focus on how children and young offenders are treated and impacted.

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West for moving the new clause, and for the eloquence and passion with which she described its various component parts.

The Bill already treats people under the age of 18 very differently from those aged over 18. It has different provisions, as we have already debated. Therefore, people who are children in the legal sense of the term—people who are under the age of 18—are already treated completely differently by the Bill, compared with those over the age of 18.

In relation to those aged between 18 and 20, 18 and 21, or 18 and 24, depending on where the line is drawn, there is clearly a wider debate to be had about the way that their brains mature and about the opportunity to reform those people, compared with people who are a little bit older. However, in the context of the Bill, I emphasise that we are talking about the most serious terrorist offenders. We are not talking about the average 20 or 21-year-old. We are talking about people who have committed the most serious terrorist offences.

It is worth reminding ourselves what level of severity has to be met before somebody gets the mandatory 14-year minimum term, all of which gets spent in prison. To qualify for that sentence, it has to be a serious terrorist offence. The offender has to be found to be dangerous—a finding that the judge makes on reading a pre-sentence report, so the judge can take that into account. It has to be an offence—one of the most serious offences—that ordinarily carries a life sentence. Most chillingly of all, it has to be an offence where there was a risk of causing multiple deaths, and the person carrying out the offence would have known or should have known about that. So we are talking about offences of the most exceptional gravity.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Fourth sitting)

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

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

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 35, in clause 1, page 1, line 8, at end insert—

“(ab) In subsection (3), after ‘if’ insert ‘the court has found beyond reasonable doubt that’”.

This amendment determines that a court must decide beyond reasonable doubt that an offence has a terrorist connection.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship yet again, Mr McCabe. Hansard should have our notes, as we have already forwarded them.

We support the Bill but, as hon. Members can see, we have identified some ways in which we believe it could be made better. We will get into the details of that over the coming weeks. Terror attacks have shaken this country: people have lost their lives; people have lost their livelihoods; loved ones have been lost; people have suffered life-changing injuries. Nothing we do or say in this House can bring back those people who have died or heal those people who have been so badly injured, but we can try to ensure that justice has been achieved.

In his speech on Second Reading, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) talked specifically about some of the terror incidents that we have seen in this country and the conclusions we can draw from them. Two possible conclusions were that prison sentences are not long enough and that deradicalisation programmes in prison are not working.

That is why Labour seek to work with the Government on this Bill, starting with amendment 35. We hope to make the case for why we believe there are some amendments that would improve the Bill. Ensuring that Government legislation does not discriminate unfairly against protected characteristics is a key part of what we will try to achieve throughout the process.

Terrorism is often conflated with Islamic extremism, yet the fastest-growing terrorist threat comes from the far right. We want to ensure that the legislation is fair and proportionate. It must go hand in hand with a coherent deradicalisation strategy alongside the Bill, working to minimise the risks of an offender committing further terrorism offences once they leave prison.

Many of the amendments that we will ask the Committee to consider are simply probing amendments to better understand the Government’s thinking, and to give the Minister more time to think about the different issues as we progress through this stage of the Bill. However, there are other amendments that we believe the Government should adopt, if the Bill is to achieve what it sets out to do and be seen to be fair. We will go further into the detail, but I hope we can have healthy and robust debate about how to move forward, and prove to the public out there that politicians from different parties can work together.

Amendment 35 determines that a court must decide “beyond reasonable doubt” that an offence has a terrorist connection. The purpose of this probing amendment is simply to clarify that the finding of a terrorist connection for the new offences that the Bill brings into scope will be subject to the same “criminal standard of proof” as is currently the case, and would effectively amend section 69(3) of the sentencing code, covering offences aggravated by terrorist connections.

We believe we should spell out in the Bill the need to ensure that there can be no reasonable doubt about the connection, because it can have serious ramifications for the offender and the legal system. The House of Commons Library briefing on the Bill states, under the provisions in clause 1:

“If the court determines that there was a terrorist connection, it must treat that as an aggravating factor when sentencing the offender. The presence of an aggravating factor may result in a higher sentence (within the statutory maximum) than would otherwise be the case.”

The Library briefing paper goes on to say:

“The finding of a terrorist connection can also trigger terrorist offender notification requirements and may result in the court ordering forfeiture in a wider range of cases.”

The briefing goes on:

“Such a finding also engages the restrictions on release contained”

in the Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Act 2020, which

“requires that all determinate terrorist or terrorism-related offenders must be referred to the Parole Board at the two thirds point of their sentence before they can be considered for release.”

The Bill’s equality statement acknowledges that

“Asian/British Asian and Muslim individuals within the Criminal Justice System (CJS) have been disproportionately affected by terrorism legislation relative to the percentage of Asian/British Asian and Muslim individuals in the total population.”

The equality statement goes on to the say that the provisions in the Bill are

“unlikely to result in indirect discrimination within the meaning of the Equality Act”.

However, the Lammy review highlighted evidence of disproportionate outcomes for BAME individuals at the sentencing stage and in decision making by judges and magistrates.

While the review found decision making by juries to be largely fair and proportionate, the same was not found when considering decision making by sentencers. That is relevant to the clause, given that the finding of a terrorist connection is at the discretion of the judge, taking account of any representations made by the prosecution or the defence. That is concerning, given the findings of the Lammy review, which are currently being discussed on the Floor of the House. We believe that BAME individuals may be at increased risk of discrimination, with their crime considered to have a terrorist connection.

Amendment 35 would amend section 69(3) of the sentencing code to require that the court must find “beyond reasonable doubt” that an offence has a terrorist connection. The House of Commons Library briefing paper, which colleagues will have read, says that clause 1 would

“greatly increase the number of non-terrorist offences that can be found to have a terrorist connection”,

whereas currently only specified offences can be found to have such a connection. The widening of what can be found to have a terrorist connection will, I fear, disproportionately affect ethnic minorities. That is why we must press the Minister on how he will guarantee decisions are made on the measure of “beyond reasonable doubt”.

There is also the question of what case law is used to guide sentencers as to what constitutes terrorism, as well as what constitutes a connection to it. Some of the commentators on the Bill are not entirely convinced about what the Government are trying to achieve. I can understand that, as there are already a lot of specific terrorism offences.

Unamended, the Bill seems to create the potential for sentencers to grow their own definitions, both of “terrorism” and “connection”. Can the Minister give examples of where the absence of the provision addressed in clause 1 has resulted in an injustice or an insufficient response? There are concerns that the provision could do more damage than anything else. A wrongfully determined terrorist connection could fuel or develop a grievance against the authorities that might not have existed before. We cannot ignore the impact a wrongful terrorism sentence would have on an individual’s life. We cannot take that sort of chance. We must be sure; we must be beyond reasonable doubt.

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I share the concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North in relation to the burden of proof and the potential implications of the Bill in disproportionately convicting ethnic minorities by widening the scope of what a terrorist connection is under this legislation.

This is a sensitive subject. Terrorism and the actions of extremists have instilled fear, caution and a sense of doubt in many communities across our country. An act of terror and of any extremist is abhorrent. Those individuals should indeed be brought before a court of law and tried for their crimes, not least because of their direct action causing injury, committing murder or traumatising those who come anywhere near their path and because of the wider implications that will be felt across the country and the world in our age of quick-fire communications and social media.

In my generation, I have seen this in how the Oklahoma bombing instilled fear; in how 9/11 changed the world; and in how 7/7 changed my perspective and that it could happen here at home. The murder of Lee Rigby proved that even those who protect us are not always safe. The slain nine churchgoers at Emmanuel African Methodist Church and the Manchester concert bombings showed that no one, even those in the most innocent of settings, is off limits. The hateful act of violence that took Jo Cox proved that our own political discourse has taken an awful turn.

These acts by rampant extremists and the murderous death toll that they leave behind, the radical ideas that brought them to this path and the many plots that have been foiled that we will never know about show us that these crime, or crimes yet to be committed, are heinous. They also prove that we must determine, as this amendment seeks to do, that these crimes or plots are not small and should be taken with the utmost seriousness.

I have three concerns about widening the terrorist connection provision under this legislation and lowering the burden of proof. First, we are leaving it to sentencers to determine their own definition of what constitutes a terrorist connection. Secondly, it creates a form of suction like a vacuum that will imprison even more ethnic minorities and put them behind bars under terrorist legislation which will see them lose their freedom longer than they need to. Thirdly, and even worse, it potentially radicalises them while they are in prison.

There is a danger, as seen in clause 1, that by allowing any offence to be capable of having a terrorist connection, one’s judgement will inevitably come into play. This punishment carries a sentence of two or more years. It would not be amiss to say that everyone holds biases, including those who administer our laws and hand down sentences. By widening the scope and effectively leaving it open to interpretation, the Government want us to believe that we will capture individuals who may have slipped through the net thus far as ordinary criminals or should have been convicted of terrorism. Can the Minister point us to data that back this assumption? The likelihood is that we will just imprison people for the sake of being seen to be attacking the issues of terrorism and extremism.

We are already aware that ethnic minorities are disproportionately sent to prison under our legal system. We are also acutely aware that black and Asian men, particularly those of Islamic faith, are more likely to be seen as threats and harbouring extremist views. The Lammy review conducted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham highlighted some concerns about how our criminal justice system sees these individuals. The odds of receiving a prison system were around 240% higher for black, Asian and minority ethnic offenders compared with white offenders. Research commissioned by the review also found that at the magistrates court, black, Asian, mixed and Chinese women were all more likely to be convicted than white women.

The number of Muslim prisoners has more than doubled over the past 17 years. In 2002, 5,502 Muslims were in prison. By 2019, this had risen to 13,341. While in prison, Muslim prisoners described having their faith viewed by prison authorities through a lens of risk, according to the research, which also found that prisoners believed that this put them at greater threat of being radicalised. Given the biases in the system and the extraordinary likelihood of women from ethnic minorities receiving a prison sentence, what do the Government think this legislation will mean for ethnic minorities? Do they really think that lowering the burden of proof and expanding the scope of what constitutes a terrorism offence will do anything to keep these young men and women away from the hands of those who wish to radicalise them?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I thank the shadow Minister for his detailed exposition of some of the risks that we must seek to navigate and overcome. For justice to function, we must make sure that it is truly even-handed and fair in assessing anyone who comes before the court, regardless of their background, race or religion.

[Taiwo Owatemi]

Is the Minister not concerned that, without proper consideration of the impact of the Bill on many BAME communities, relationships between these communities and authorities may worsen?

[Chris Philp]

Let me come on to that point, which is the substance of the amendment. The amendment calls for an assessment prior to the clause coming into effect; it does not ask for an assessment afterwards but beforehand. I submit to the Committee that the impact assessment published with the Bill and the accompanying equality statement, which looks specifically at questions of racial and religious discrimination—or the potential for those things to happen—has already thoroughly analysed the Bill’s potential impact. That detailed analysis, which obviously included a review by Government lawyers and others, concluded that nothing in the Bill would unlawfully discriminate against people of a particular ethnic or religious background within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010.

Of course, the provisions in the Bill are simply based on a measure of criminality—has somebody committed a specified offence? Is there a terrorist connection? Nothing in any of those provisions is biased for or against anyone from any particular background, as is the case with all laws that Parliament passes.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 11th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 13, in clause 4, page 3, line 8, at end insert—

“(5A) Regulations under subsection (1) must provide that EEA nationals, and adult dependants of EEA nationals, who are applying for asylum in the United Kingdom, may apply to the Secretary of State for permission to take up employment if a decision at first instance has not been taken on the applicant’s asylum application within six months of the date on which it was recorded.”

May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship again this afternoon, Mr Stringer? The amendment would give European economic area and Swiss nationals who apply for asylum in the UK the right to apply to the Secretary of State for permission to work if a decision has not been taken on the applicant’s asylum application within six months of the date on which it is recorded as having first been made.

The amendment is the legislative outcome of the Lift the Ban campaign, a movement headed up by Refugee Action and with the support of more than 200 organisations, including the likes of Oxfam and the British Red Cross; trade unions, including the National Education Union, Unison and the TUC more broadly; industry players such as Ben & Jerry’s and the Confederation of British Industry; and organisations such as the Adam Smith Institute. We worked on the drafting of the amendment with Refugee Action, as well as with legal professionals, and we are of course truly grateful, as ever, to the Committee Clerks. The proposal is limited to EU nationals to ensure that it falls within the scope of the Bill.

This amendment was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston in the Bill Committee on the previous version of this Bill during the 2017-19 Parliament. At that point, the Government argued that the UK is allowed to treat an asylum claim made by a citizen of an EU country as automatically inadmissible unless exceptional circumstances apply, and that a claim made by a non-EU EEA national would be considered on the basis that it is likely to be clearly unfounded. The implication was that there would be no one who would benefit from the amendment, and in any case treating asylum seekers from the EEA differently from those from the rest of the world on the grounds of their nationality was not only illogical but discriminatory.

The Minister and I know, though, that the amendment sets out the proposal in principle, within the bounds of what is permissible in respect of the scope of the Bill. It gives us the opportunity and the platform to outline the case for change, and I am delighted that it also has the support of SNP Members.

In August and September 2018, the Lift the Ban coalition conducted a survey with a group that had direct experience of the asylum process and found that 94% of all respondents said they would like to work if they were given permission to do so. We have all met asylum seekers: they are people not dissimilar to ourselves who have often had to flee their own countries when faced with immediate danger. They are often skilled, able to work and want to work. Rose is one example. She is currently in the asylum system, so I appreciate that she is not an EU national, but hers is the experience that we could start to change and transform if the Government accept the merits of the amendment.

Rose has been waiting for a decision on her asylum claim for three years. Not having the right to work while she waits for a decision on her asylum claim is not only putting pressure on her family life but damaging to her children, who are unable to understand why she cannot work. She said:

“Not being able to work, it cripples you…As a parent, you feel that you are not good enough…When you have kids, their daily needs—there are things that you need to give them. If I were working, I would not have to go to charity shops all the time to get hand-me-downs for my kids.”

Rose wants to be given the opportunity to be productive and show what she is capable of. She said:

“I want to work so I can prove myself to my children.”

The amendment would give people in the future asylum system from EEA countries the opportunity to use their skills and make the most of their potential. It would improve the mental health of people such as Rose in the asylum system by giving them a sense of worth and purpose, and it would enhance the opportunities for integration into their new communities, as well as allowing them to satisfy the strong work ethic that Rose clearly has and wants to pass on to her children.

The impetus for this change has only been intensified by the coronavirus pandemic. The brilliant campaigning and advocacy from the group Freedom from Torture has shone a light on the pittance that asylum seekers receive in support rates. At present, people in the asylum system receive a little over £5 a day per person in allowances. While at the onset of the crisis the Chancellor increased universal credit by £20 a week to “strengthen the safety net”, no proportional measures have yet been introduced for asylum support rates.

The uncertainty and rise in demand for specific items due to the pandemic has only exacerbated the difficulty faced by asylum seekers in finding the supplies they need to keep themselves and their families healthy and safe. Even before the onset of coronavirus, 52% of Refugee Action survey respondents reported having to use a food bank at some point within the last 12 months. If the Government are not minded to increase asylum support rates, it is both moral and logical to grant asylum seekers the right to work after six months. To forbid both options is to back some of the most vulnerable people in our society into an unescapable corner.

The Government could transform the financial health of a vast number of asylum seekers by accepting the amendment. Additionally, it would allow asylum seekers to play an active role in getting the British economy moving again, following the immense disruption caused by the pandemic. Refugee Action estimates that this change in policy could benefit the UK economy through net gains for the Government of £42.4 million. This would also be an overwhelmingly popular policy. Refugee Action carried out a survey of the public where 71% agreed that people seeking asylum should be allowed to work.

Accepting the amendment would help to fix the structural and deeply entrenched problems that exist with the current system. People seeking asylum in the UK can only apply for the right to work after they have been waiting for a decision on their asylum claim for over a year. The UK is the global outlier in time taken to give people in the asylum system the right for work. Ireland, Hungary, France, the United States and Poland, to name just a few, all have a much swifter process.

Even then, the few people who are granted such permission are rarely able to work in practice because their employment is restricted to the list of professions included on the Government’s shortage occupation list. This is the equivalent of putting square pegs in round holes, and disregards the skills and potential of many people in the asylum system. Refugee Action found that 74% of survey participants had secondary level education and 37% had an undergraduate or postgraduate degree. People in the asylum system can and should work in a wide variety of jobs that are hugely beneficial to both the UK economy and public wellbeing.

My involvement with the campaign is largely thanks to two amazing women in my own constituency. I pay tribute to Veeca Smith and Florence Kahuro, who set up the wonderful and incredibly effective local campaign group Sisters United. I am sure they would be delighted to meet the Minister in the not-too-distant future—I am sure he would struggle to get a word in edgeways. They are absolutely brilliant. They both sought asylum in the UK and founded the group to offer peer support to others in their situation and campaign for simple things such as accommodation that is not plagued by health and safety issues, and the right to go out and earn for themselves.

I hope that the Minister will appreciate the broad consensus that exists behind this amendment and accept the multitude of benefits that adopting the amendment would bring. It is time we treated people in the asylum seekers with dignity and as people with unrecognised potential to contribute to our society.

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.

I rise in support of amendment 13 and lifting the ban. As with any legislation, there is a requirement to strike a balance between addressing the issue at hand, in this case our withdrawal from the EU, while also being practical and compassionate to ensure that people are not hard done by. The reality is that thousands of asylum seekers in the UK who came here for refuge are unable to work—unable to properly provide for themselves and their children and possibly loved ones, and unable to make what has been a difficult life a reasonable and normal one. Instead, as the Refugee Council highlights, these people must live on as little as £5 a day, which many of us here in this Room could not even countenance. That is £5 a day to feed themselves and loved ones, buy toiletries, pay for transport to go about their everyday lives, and do any other thing that a normal person would do.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill (Second sitting)

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 9th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Will the Bill give us the power to do that more?

David Goodhart: It will make flows more predictable, because they will be under our control. If, as I was saying right at the beginning, it turns out that the system is, in a sense, too liberal, it can be made less liberal and the numbers can be brought down, because people coming in need to have a visa; they are not coming in willy-nilly.

This also has an impact on the integration story. If your immigration going forward is overwhelmingly skilled workers and students—there will still be areas like asylum where this does not count—you are talking about mainly highly skilled people who will, at the very least, speak English well, which is a pretty important thing when it comes to integration.

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Q My first question is to British Future. You said earlier that the public’s biggest concern in immigration is ensuring that they are treated fairly. Do you believe that the Bill will allow EU citizens to be treated fairly?

Jill Rutter: This is very much a skeleton Bill, and most immigration policy is determined in immigration rules. It is an issue in itself in that there have been thousands and thousands of immigration rule changes since 2010. The rules are presented to Parliament, which can only accept or reject them. No MP—even those well versed in immigration policy—can keep up with all the changes in the rules. We need to think about root-and branch-immigration reform. I do not think the current commission on simplifying the immigration rules will come up with the answer.

Perhaps we should look at what social security does. Social security is another complex area where most policy is determined in secondary legislation. There is the Social Security Advisory Committee—independent experts who scrutinise the law and make recommendations in plain English to Parliament—but we need a proper system of scrutiny. I cannot really answer your question about the Bill itself, because most of what will happen will be determined in either the rules or the operation of immigration law in the Home Office.

The last thing to say is that you cannot have an efficient immigration system on the cheap. Britain does very well in the speed at which it processes visas and citizenship cases compared with many other countries, but it performs badly when it comes to asylum cases. We need a properly resourced Home Office and for staff to be trained and supported, too.

[Taiwo Owatemi]

Q Given that the Bill will affect a large number of EU nationals living in the UK, how can the Government ensure that those affected are aware about the effects of the Bill on their daily lives?

Jill Rutter: The Government have invested quite a lot in terms of informing people about the EU settlement scheme. However, that information campaign needs to be extended, particularly when we come close to the cut-off date, and it must be methodical. There should be an information campaign, but we should also use employers and councils, people who actually have contact with EU citizens, to disseminate information. Employers could do a lot with their work force.

David Goodhart: May I make a point on this? One thing the Government should be looking out for down the road is that it is almost certainly the case that a few thousand people, possibly even tens of thousands of people, will not be captured by the EU registration scheme for whatever reason. The truth is that we are going to have a de facto amnesty for those people. That sets a precedent, and I imagine there will be all sorts of challenges, in that people representing the interests of non-EU illegal immigrants are going to say, “Well, these people are in effect illegal now, and yet you’re giving them an amnesty. What about us?” There are estimated to be about 1 million illegal immigrants in this country, so there is a potentially a legal minefield ahead of us on that one.

[The Chair]

Right. I think that ends our session. Thank you very much to our witnesses for coming and giving your evidence. We are very grateful.

Examination of Witnesses

Bella Sankey and Adrian Berry gave evidence.