Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Bernard Hogan-Howe (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support the intentions of the Bill. I will say a little about the context that has not already been covered by the many speeches we have heard today, and will then say little about three of the clauses that have been mentioned. Before that, I will respond to the excellent speeches of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, both of which were informed and entertaining. The noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, who is not here at the moment, referred at the end of his speech to extradition cases. Although he talked about three of the inquiries that have taken place, he did not refer to one police investigation which delayed the conclusion of the first inquiry. Should there ever be a judge-led inquiry, as he would prefer, I hope that the Belhaj case that the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to pursue will be made available to that inquiry, as it would provide vital information that would help inform any future decisions in that area Secondly, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, has concerns about Prevent. I do not particularly share those, but I agree with her that cohesion and integration are a vital element in preventing terrorism in the future. Usually we see two elements where we get radicalisation: a lack of integration and Middle East foreign policy. Those two things tend to repeat time and time again. This is not necessarily my view of Prevent, but minority communities have become so concerned about it, and it is a strong thing, not a weak thing, to review something. The time has come to at least look at it and perhaps move on. It has achieved a lot but may yet achieve more if we are able to be flexible We are still reaping the effects of two civil wars which started more than seven years ago: one in Syria in 2011 and the other in Iraq a few years later. At least 12,000 people travelled from Europe to fight, particularly in Syria but also in Iraq. We know that at least 15% of the 900 UK people who went died, and that about 55% of them have returned. Some went for humanitarian purposes and some to fight. We have seen the effects of that terrorism on the streets of Brussels, Nice, Paris and, sadly and more recently, London. The next phase of our fight against terrorism is now evolving. I suggest that the Bill is a good time for us to reflect on our preparations for that future It will have three distinct elements that we need to plan to combat. The first is the potential for those foreign fighters to return. They are brutalised, and dangerous because of their training and their motives but also because they are now in contact with a network of other terrorists, and they may still perpetuate conspiracies. The second is the release in the coming years, and even now, of the first wave of prisoners convicted of terrorist offences during the last five to seven years. Sometimes they were convicted of other criminal offences, because, although we believed that they had a terrorist motive, we could convict them only of a criminal offence In prison they met people called criminals. Many of the people who we are suspicious of and worried about do not have a criminal background. That is of great benefit, because it means that they do not have access to organised criminals, who are the means by which criminals generally get hold of firearms. They have now met a lot of people in prison, and on their release they will still have those associations, along with the people they met in prison who may have become radicalised Finally, the terrorists will have learned from the first series of prosecutions, because the prosecutor reveals the tactics by which they were caught, and that means that they will adapt. We see that with various generations of terrorists, who adapt their tactics to meet their failures, as they see them, when successful prosecutions occur I will not repeat the numbers we have already heard for what I always think of as the pyramid of doom: the 20,000 subjects of interest, the 3,000 subjects of current interest, and, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, the 500 security service operations. There are a further 600 counterterrorist police operations, so that is over 1,000 live operations dealing with this threat The point I am supporting is that it is clearly fair to say that we have a serious threat now, as described in the threat assessment, but the numbers alone are concerning. It is a real threat that we must all think about. It is, of course, evolving, and the vectors through which the threat operates are evolving too. We need to respond in a proportionate and incremental way; I would argue that, in legislative terms, the UK has responded incrementally. We have not seen the mistakes that, sadly, those with more experience of terrorism in Northern Ireland saw, when general internment caused more problems than it solved. We should approach the problem incrementally and see whether we can adapt; then, if we need to legislate, let us legislate to the problem, not use generic legislation. We need always to keep a majority in our society—and our minority communities in particular—on side The question is: if the threat has evolved in a way that requires new legislation, what is it that we are trying to address? The simplicity and volatility of the threat require us to intervene earlier to protect the public, individuals and groups. We need to make sure that a process that goes from planning to attack in a matter of hours is interrupted quickly. Also, offences previously considered peripheral and minor are now seen as indicative of a volatile, unpredictable actor. We do not want to wait for high-level offences before taking action, given how rapidly that threat can escalate; we need lasting disruptive impact and control of offenders, which is where lengthier prison sentences can have an impact The noble Lord, Lord Marks, is not in his place, but I agreed with a lot of what he said; the tests he applied were sensible. I agreed with an awful lot, but one of the reasons he gave for not extending sentences, if I understood him correctly, was that our prisons are already full and therefore we cannot get more prisoners in. If that is the case, we none the less ought always to find room for terrorists, even if that means excluding other people. In fact, the prison population is starting to drop now—albeit, I would argue, not enough, but we must always find space for terrorists if we consider that they are committing serious offences We must also think about technological changes; a significant amount of our coverage of people involved in terrorism concerns their online persona and methods of communication. As we have heard, it is 20 years since legislation set out the various ways in which we can monitor that technology. Particularly in the streaming area, this is a good time to make sure that we can monitor in the way that we need to, and prove offences. We know that radicalisation is happening in a very powerful and influential way by streaming video. It seems to be an incredibly useful way for people to get over quickly some very dangerous methods of implementing terrorist attacks There have been some criticisms of the Bill already and we have heard more of them today; I do not necessarily support them all. In the debates to come, I am sure that improvements will be made forensically to the eventual Act when it is concluded. There is a concern that the Bill will capture innocent or accidental online activity, but none of the proposed offences is absolute, as they are in child sexual exploitation offences. Intent has to be proved. In any event, all cases must pass three tests, including sufficiency of evidence and public interest. I know the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was not convinced by the public interest test, but I am; I think it is a thorough test, supplied by an independent prosecutor, with good lawyers in the CPS, and my experience is that they are quite hard to persuade of something I might find blindingly obvious.