It is absolutely right to look at both violent and non-violent extremism. If the Home Secretary has listened to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles has said on the issue over many years, she will know that the previous Government’s work was about looking at both violent and non-violent extremism and at the process of radicalisation from beginning to end. The whole point of providing counter-narratives is to tackle non-violent as well as violent extremism.
It is unfortunate that the Home Secretary chose to narrow the programme in the way she did and handed over community-led Prevent programmes to the Department for Communities and Local Government, which simply did not pursue them. The police have done very good work, but narrowing Prevent to just a police-led programme means that it has simply not been effective, and there have also been considerable gaps in the programme.
On the Secretary of State’s power of direction, there will questions not only about how she intends to use it, but about what safeguards will ensure that she does use that power inappropriately.
The next challenge is how to deal with those who have become radicalised and pose a serious threat. Wherever possible, those people should clearly be prosecuted and passed through our courts. We know that there are difficult cases in which that is not possible, but people still pose a serious terror threat. It will come as no surprise to the Home Secretary or the House that we welcome the return of the relocation powers. She told the House in 2011 that the removal of the relocation power was a deliberate and desirable part of TPIMs. She said:
“Forcible relocation will be ended”,
and individuals
“will have greater freedom to associate.”—[Official Report, 26 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 308.]
The Home Secretary defended her decision on relocation after Ibrahim Magag absconded in a black cab on Boxing day in 2012 once his relocation order had been revoked. She said at the time:
“I am confident in the TPIM package that was available”.—[Official Report, 8 January 2013; Vol. 566, c. 165.]
She also defended her decision in 2013, when Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed fled in a burqa after his relocation order was revoked.
No powers are perfect, but it is significant that no terror suspect has absconded under a relocation order. The Home Secretary has said in the House that she made those changes because control orders were under threat in the courts and TPIMs were not. In fact, both the former and current independent reviewer of terrorism legislation have made it clear that relocation orders were never under threat in the courts. It was a policy decision that was taken by the Home Secretary and the coalition.
The truth is that TPIMs have not worked. Despite the increased terror threat, only one is in place at the moment and it relates to someone who has left prison. TPIMs simply do not contain enough powers to be useful for the agencies or the police, or to be worth the extra effort involved. The independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson, concluded in his review:
“A power to relocate subjects away from their home areas would be of real practical assistance…in distancing subjects from their associates and reducing the risk of abscond. It would also facilitate monitoring, save money and could help restore faith in a TPIM regime that has withered on the vine.”
It is not because of the increased terror threat that the regime has withered on the vine; it is because the TPIM regime simply was not effective without the relocation orders that it needed.