Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

I shall speak also to Amendment 53. This would be a new clause dealing with a matter that I regard as of the utmost seriousness. It is addressed in particular to mental health issues. The proposed new clause is by no means an opposition to mechanisms for addressing protection of the public and the prevention of terrorism. It is a separate issue about how measures are applied in practice and about the impact of those measures. I have mentioned the matter already today but it is important to repeat it as the context for the provision. It concerns in particular tipping the individual, his family and members of his community into the precise action that we are seeking to avoid; to avoid tipping an individual into breach of the restrictions on him, which is a criminal offence and may turn into a criminal someone who is not a criminal and has no criminal record; and to avoid our failure to recognise that at the centre of all this is a human being. The moment my new clause was published I saw a drafting error, but I will speak to it as I intended it to be. It would provide for an assessment to be made on the likely impact—my drafting error is that I failed to refer to the actual impact—of the imposition of measures, or the variation of them on the individual and his immediate family every three months, when measures expire or are repealed or revoked, and thereafter at intervals which the individual may request. The assessment I talk of would include an evaluation of the impact on mental health. It should be made by an independent person appointed by the Secretary of State but not only by that person. I suggest that of course the person should be appropriately qualified, but shall work in conjunction with the nominees of the individual who can make separate reports. That is an important point because it is all too easy and obvious that independent experts appointed by the Secretary of State, as has happened with control orders, are perceived as agents of the Secretary of State being there to gather evidence and information. I have proposed the new clause for the reasons I have already given and because one needs to increase the opportunity for transparency around this whole area. I have said that the costs should be met by the Secretary of State because I thought that someone might ask about that. It seems to me that the numbers of cases we are talking about are small and this would be entirely proper given that the measures applied are potentially so very stringent. Amendment 53 would bring these assessments within the remit of the independent reviewer. The experience of control orders has been not only that in some cases they are very damaging but that the controlee is essentially broken. I want quickly to share with the Committee the story I heard earlier this week of a controlee who had failed to report to the police on time. I asked how late he had been and was told that it was one hour. His control order of course required him to report at a particular time and having failed to be there on time he was charged with a breach of his order. He found himself in Pentonville. The shocking part of the story is not just that: it is that the individual will not apply for bail. For him, being in Pentonville is preferable to being under a control order. That is what the state has done to some individuals. If that is what we are going to do to them in order to protect the rest of society, we should know what the impact is.