Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill — House of Lords, 2021-02-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Stephen Parkinson (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate on this group. Amendment 29, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, would require the Home Secretary to secure the permission of the court before signing a TPIM extension notice. We do not think that that is a necessary amendment to the Bill. To demonstrate why, it might be helpful to the Committee if I explain first the process by which the Home Secretary considers whether a TPIM notice should be extended, a process that will remain in place after the removal of the time limit as proposed by the Bill. I hope that that provides some reassurance to the Committee both about the thorough consideration which goes into whether the continuation of a TPIM is necessary and about the robust judicial oversight that is already built into the process At this stage, I should say in response to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, which I was certainly hoping to treat as rhetorical but which the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, rightly picked on, these are rightly not matters in which special advisers are involved. They are questions for the Secretary of State and Ministers When extending a TPIM, the Home Secretary will consider the Security Service’s assessment as to whether it remains necessary. It is true that significant weight is placed on the professionalism and expertise of the Security Service, but the process is not simply a tick box exercise. The Home Office routinely challenges the Security Service’s assessments to ensure that they are robust. The scrutiny is demonstrated by the public comments which have been made by successive former Independent Reviewers of Terrorism Legislation, who, for instance, have noted that through the quarterly TPIM review group meetings all TPIM notices in force are reassessed, including whether the measures imposed or the TPIM notice itself are necessary and proportionate, and what the exit strategy is for the notice If the Home Secretary considers that the extension of a TPIM notice is necessary, she will then consider whether the current measures remain necessary and proportionate to restrict the individual’s involvement in terrorism-related activity, or whether any of them need varying. To address the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, this can be in the form of a removal, a relaxation, or further restrictions This might be a good point to talk a little more about rehabilitation. To answer the question that the noble Baroness asked about whether somebody who has been subject to a TPIM could theoretically be subject to another, yes, they could, although that would have to rely on a separate national security case or evidence of terrorism-related activity. TPIMs are not designed as a tool of punishment; they are a tool of prevention and rehabilitation. Part of them involves encouraging subjects to attend what are known as desistence and disengagement programmes to assist with their rehabilitation and to turn them away from behaviour that leads them to be subjects of concern Decisions to extend a TPIM notice are not taken lightly but are based on detailed assessments by the Security Service and counterterrorism policing’s experience of managing the subject. The assessment that the Security Service provides will not only be based on the original national security case put forward for the imposition of the TPIM; it will also include the intelligence, both covert and overt, gathered over the course of the preceding 12 months. This could include evidence of further terrorism-related activity or non-compliance that does not reach the criminal threshold or which cannot be exhibited in open court. When extending a TPIM notice, the TPIM subject is invited to make representations before a decision is made. These are put before the Home Secretary. As I outlined in our debate on the previous group, the 2011 Act established robust judicial oversight of the TPIM process. I will set out what that means. I hope to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, on some of the existing safeguards. The court will consider at a permission hearing whether the Home Secretary’s initial decision to impose a TPIM was "obviously flawed" and will overturn a notice or its measures where that is the case. This is known as a Section 9 hearing. If I understand the amendment, this is a process that the noble Baroness and the noble Lord would like to see replicated when a notice is extended beyond a second year Section 16 of the TPIM Act provides an appeal route for TPIM subjects to challenge any refusal to vary their notice or to extend it, in addition to the Section 9 hearing. The in-built appeal route available through Section 16 makes it difficult to see in practice what the amendment would achieve in establishing an additional safeguard beyond that In addition to the Section 9 hearing and the Section 16 appeal process, the TPIM Act also requires the Home Secretary to keep under regular review the ongoing necessity of a TPIM notice under Section 11. This responsibility is also taken seriously. It is why the Home Office runs the quarterly TPIM review groups, where all TPIM subjects are discussed, including the notices to which they are subject and whether these remain proportionate and necessary I turn to Amendment 30, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. I thank him for outlining it. His amendment would amend the 2011 Act so that a TPIM notice can be extended on "one or more" occasions if the conditions in Section 3 of that Act continue to be met. Currently, a TPIM notice can be extended only once and therefore has a maximum duration of two years. However, we respectfully disagree with the noble Lord on the need for his amendment. It would prevent a TPIM notice being renewed for as long as it is necessary for the purposes of public protection. Instead, it would set a new upper limit of four years. While we disagree with the noble Lord’s amendment, I should say at the outset that we support its principle in so far as it recognises that there are circumstances where it may be necessary to impose a TPIM beyond the current two-year limit, which the Government contend is too short There are several policy and operational justifications for Clause 38. First, experience has shown that there are TPIM subjects who pose an enduring risk beyond the two-year limit. This has meant that a new TPIM has had to be imposed after reaching the current limit and, as a consequence, a dangerous cliff edge has been created while the individual is at large in the community without the appropriate risk management tools in place before a new TPIM can be imposed. That has happened on more than one occasion. ACC Tim Jacques spoke to this risk when he gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee in another place.