It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell). The learned discussion between him and the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) is slightly reminiscent of the legal discussions that we have in the Intelligence and Security Committee, where we are blessed with three Scottish Queen’s Counsel members.
As a former counter-terrorism Minister, I am well aware of the difficulties of legislating in this area. Most of us wish that this legislation was not necessary. No politician in a democracy takes lightly action that will inevitably impact on the rights of individuals unless there is a compelling case to do so to protect our citizens as a whole.
The framework against which we set this legislation should be the test that we apply to our agencies and all the work that we do. I am talking about the fact that any action must be lawful, necessary and proportionate, and that should be our guide in our scrutiny of this Bill today. That is the language of universal human rights, and we should judge any proposals against that test, which is well established in our law.
Inevitably, this area will be contested territory; it always has been. I remember trying to take control orders through this House. It was one of our last all-night sittings. We sat throughout the night and had some amazing discussions at 4 am, some of which were intelligible and others of which were not, so I know how difficult it can be. It is contested territory, and that is as it should be in a strong democracy. I have no doubt that the debate over the next few weeks will be intense, passionate and occasionally noisy. It is up to us here in this House and in the other place to determine whether the proposals before us are necessary and proportionate to the threat that faces our country.
Lots of Members this evening have set out the nature of that threat. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) that if we look at the analysis, we can see that we have a problem in this country. We have at least 500 young men and women who have gone out to Syria, 250 of whom have probably come back. By comparison, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia have thousands of people who have gone out to be part of the conflict in Syria, so we should put the matter in perspective.
If 250 people have come back, perhaps one in nine or 10 of them will be radicalised to the extent that they may want to do us harm in this country. If that is the case, we are talking about 25 or 30 individuals who have come back trained, radicalised and experienced in conflict.
That may sound like a small number, but in actual fact it is a significant and serious threat. The resources required to have 24-hour surveillance on 25 to 30 people in this country are absolutely immense, and I am concerned about the resources that are being made available, even with the extra £130 million that the Prime Minister announced the other day.
Professor Peter Neumann from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation has done some interesting work on segmenting the kind of people who go out to fight in Syria and the people who come back. He has grouped them into three categories.
First, we have the disturbed people who undoubtedly have mental health problems and who are particularly susceptible to the kind of narrative that is promulgated and that draws them into extremist activity.
The second category is the dangerous. It includes those who are simply evil people and want to do us harm. They have records on social media of enticing other people to go out and take knives to people, chop their heads off or blow people up—they are dangerous people within our society. Interestingly, he describes the third category as the disillusioned. That includes all the people who have gone out to fight in Syria, perhaps in sympathy because they have seen on their televisions the terrible things that have happened to refugees and innocent families, but when they have got out there they have discovered that ISIS is a different proposition from what they thought. They never contemplated the viciousness, brutality, crucifixions and beheadings and they often find themselves fighting and killing other Muslims because of the factional and sectarian nature of the forces in Syria. It is an interesting analysis.
I do not for one moment subscribe to the idea that there should be some kind of amnesty and that people should be allowed simply to come back into this country without facing any sanctions whatsoever. I absolutely believe that when people have committed criminal offences they should be prosecuted, convicted and put away for a long time.