Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-12-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this amendment is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. Before I get to the substance of it, I would like to say that lacking in the debate so far today has been the recognition that it is essential that communities work together with the police and the security services in order to defeat terrorism. In fact, when I was a serving police officer and Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Grieve was the head of the counterterrorism department at New Scotland Yard, he said exactly that: it is communities that will defeat terrorism, not the police and the security services working alone That was back in the days of Irish republican terrorism, which, in terms of conventional ways of defeating terrorism, was an easier foe to defeat. The Irish Republican Army was a traditional hierarchical organisation that could be infiltrated, and which worked on large-scale spectacular terrorist attacks, so it was much easier to detect than the current threats we face. At the time, DAC John Grieve was talking about the fact that people from Ireland were coming over to the UK and, for example, renting garages to store large quantities of explosives and so forth, so the community could provide information to the police on that sort of activity. Now we see lone-wolf attacks or groups of friends who do not communicate with each other but come together very quickly to carry out far less sophisticated but none the less deadly attacks, regrettably, as we have seen over recent years. The support and co-operation of the public is therefore even more important now than it was when John Grieve was head of the counterterrorism department Trust and confidence come from confidence in what the state is doing to defeat terrorism through legislation and activity. That is why we have tabled this amendment. We have discussed at earlier stages of the Bill both Schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act—which provides the power to detain people at the border and at airports in order to question them as to whether they were about to engage in terrorist activity—and Schedule 3 to this Bill, which provides an even wider power Our initial position was that these powers should be exercised only if there was reasonable cause to suspect that the individual being detained and questioned was involved in terrorism. The House heard compelling arguments from, among others, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, as to why that reasonable suspicion threshold could hamper the work of those keeping us safe at the border. We still have concerns about that. The House having not accepted that that should be part of the way that Schedule 3 and Schedule 7 operate, we have tabled this amendment, which requires the Government to report on the religion and ethnicity of people who have been subject to powers under those schedules The Liberal Democrat Campaign for Race Equality has received a number of complaints from people who say they have been detained at airports and have even missed flights before they were allowed to go on their way, and have received no compensation. There is a feeling in some communities that Schedule 7 powers—Schedule 3 powers have yet to come into force—are being unfairly targeted on Muslims and people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. This amendment would bring transparency to the exercise of the powers under Schedules 7 and 3 by requiring the Government to produce a report detailing how those powers are being exercised, including statistics on the religion and ethnicity of the people subject to them. I beg to move.