Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-01-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Angela Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation and for writing to me earlier in the week with further information. I am genuinely grateful; like his predecessor, who is also here tonight, he has always been willing to engage with us and assist us by providing information. He will appreciate that we do not have access to the same security information as the Government and we take the information given by Ministers on trust. We support this order and recognise the need to have such protections in place. The judgment that we make has to be based on our trust in Ministers and the information that they provide to the House. The information given here is quite clear I will raise just two issues with the noble Lord, which I have mentioned to him. One is about the Prevent programme. It is quite clear when we hear of cases like this, of extremism and the dangers and fear it brings and the horrific terrorist acts that are inflicted, we must do everything we can to deter young people from becoming radicalised to the extent that they wish to commit such violence in this or any other country. The Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, which we are currently discussing—it has two days in the Chamber next week—addresses just that issue and how important it is to deter young people from being caught up in extremist views. It is a question of extent: holding views is one thing, but if that leads to terrorism and engagement in terrorist activities, clearly that is extraordinarily serious and has to be tackled One way of doing that is through the Prevent programme, which the Bill places on a statutory footing, and we welcome that. But we need to think long-term on these issues. Over the past few years the funding for Prevent has been cut from £17 million when we were in government to less than £3 million. If we are serious about tackling such issues, we cannot think, "What’s the next issue? What’s the one after? What’s happening next week or next month?"; we have to think long-term. I was appalled that at one point the number of local authorities receiving funding from Prevent fell from 90 to just 23, although I think that is improving now. We support Prevent being on a statutory footing but I urge some longer-term thinking to ensure that we tackle this at source and prevent any more of our young people being caught up in such abuse of their religion I told the Minister as we came into the Chamber that I would briefly raise this second matter. I mentioned the issue of trust and us not having access to the same information as the Government. In this case, I think we do have information. I was reading the Hansard of the debate last night in the other place and was absolutely horrified to see that there is a Twitter account for JAA, glorifying violence and terrorism and directing readers to other places they can get such information. It is an English Twitter account, in English; there are links to the Arabic site as well. This account has more than 14,000 followers. My honourable friend Diana Johnson, the shadow Minister, raised this last night, and I am appalled that when I looked on Twitter today, just minutes before I came into the Chamber, I saw that that account is still active If we are serious about dealing with young people and tackling such terrorism, we have to look at how social media is being used and use all the powers available to us to do something about it. Surely the Government are aware of this. The Minister will probably say the same as the Minister said last night—that it has been reported to the appropriate body, which is dealing with it. However, there are powers in place and we have to look to those who engage with social media and those responsible for it. I do not expect to be able at the click of a button to access a Twitter account glorifying such horrendous terrorist acts I make a plea to the Government. The powers are there. Referring this problem to a body that is going to look at it and think about it is not good enough, and I hope that by tomorrow if I look at that account it will be closed down.