Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill — House of Lords, 2015-01-28
Topic: Law and Crime
David Stephen Geoffrey Pollock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, my name is also attached to the amendments in this group and I strongly support the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips One of the most arresting testimonies that I have heard recently concerns the way in which the alienation and radicalisation of young British Muslims has been related to a rising tide of Islamophobia. It would be wrong to suggest that the existing Prevent strategy is grounded in Islamophobia, but there are clear indications that it has added to the sense of alienation. In other words, the strategy has already become counterproductive. By placing the strategy on a statutory basis and by mandating acts of surveillance on the part of various public institutions, the damage that has already been done is in danger of being exacerbated. The danger can only be averted if the Prevent agenda is pursued with sensitivity and with a light touch and if it is subject to careful and ongoing parliamentary scrutiny. Amendment 115A and the other amendments with which it has been grouped seek to ensure that there will be some scrutiny at the outset. I observe that these amendments are conformable with Amendments 112C and 112E, which concern the need to review the guidance on subsequent occasions The consultation document titled Prevent Duty Guidance gives an indication of what might transpire if the strategy were unleashed in an unbridled manner. It has the potential to give rise to an era comparable to the post-war era of anti-communist persecution in the United States, known as the era of McCarthyism. The document describes a duty to prevent people from becoming terrorists and a duty to challenge terrorist ideas. These duties will be imposed on specified institutions: hospitals, schools, prisons, young offender institutions, universities and local authorities. The intention is that the Secretary of State should have the freedom to specify the duties that will be incumbent upon each category of institution, without submitting them to parliamentary scrutiny. Little regard has been given to the potential within the institutions for fulfilling such duties. Nevertheless, it is proposed to establish an inspection regime that will determine whether the duties are being fulfilled. If they are not fulfilled, then it is proposed that penalties may be imposed. Specially appointed agents may be assigned to the institutions to ensure their compliance with the statutory obligations. We are told that the specified institutions must demonstrate evidence of productive co-operation with local Prevent organisations, the police and local authorities. Those in positions of leadership must ensure that the staff of their institutions implement their Prevent duties effectively. To this end, they will need to ensure that the staff are appropriately trained People suspected of being involved in terrorist-related activities must be reported to the police. If I understand correctly, terrorist-related activities are deemed to include non-violent extremism, which would make the category very wide and ill-defined. All the activities in fulfilment of the duties must be recorded, and reports of compliance must be made available on request These provisions are quite sufficient for the creation of a totalitarian police state. If that sounds far-fetched, that it is only because, in view of the nature of British society and its ingrained resistance to tyranny, such an outcome seems unimaginable. However, I suggest that our complacency in itself is not a sufficient protection against tyranny. Instead, we need to ensure that our legislation does not sanction such dangerously oppressive powers. To fulfil the various injunctions of the statutory Prevent strategy, the institutions will need to establish specialised units. The Home Office will be charged with monitoring all the resulting Prevent activity and ensuring that every specified institution has a suitable inspection regime An immediate concern is the expense that would be entailed in even a partial fulfilment of the agenda of the statutory Prevent programme. In this connection, I can speak of what I have experienced within the university environment. There are already precedents that provide ample warning of the deleterious effects of centrally directed inspection regimes. I have in mind the quality-assurance regimes to which universities have been subjected since the late 1980s. These have entailed considerable expense. They have pre-empted the time of lecturers and others, who have been required to provide extensive documentation of their activities and to submit reports to demonstrate compliance with the nostrums of the regimes. They have inhibited flexibility and innovation and imposed a heavy workload. This is exactly what we should expect from a centrally imposed, statutory Prevent agenda. The superfluous compulsory training courses that it mandates and the reports of compliance that will be demanded are aspects that are all too familiar to those who have served in universities in recent years. The injunction that lecturers should spy upon their students will subvert the essential relationship between staff and students. It will make it difficult for those charged with the pastoral care of students to discern what is actually happening in their lives. The injunction that all visiting lecturers should submit their material to prior inspection is absurd and unworkable; others have already commented on this point Finally, I should say that there is no evidence that I am aware of to suggest that the existing voluntary Prevent programme has been effective in averting terrorist outrages. Instead, this has been achieved by careful police work that has depended on the close co-operation of the Muslim community. To an extent that cannot be determined, it has been assisted by covert—that is to say, non-intrusive—surveillance and cyber-intelligence. It is these aspects of the counterterrorist strategy that need to be enhanced. A statutory Prevent strategy will be of no assistance in either connection.