The hon. Gentleman speaks with both great personal dignity and authority on these matters. I agree. We want the system to be agile and to be able to respond. The Bill places a very significant power on the Secretary of State. In seeking to ask the Government for assurances, we want to ensure the system itself is robust, because those protections allow authority and credibility in terms of being able to respond to the ongoing terrorist threat. The amendment we propose would ensure that there are reasonable and probable grounds for a TPIM to be issued. The higher bar would create safeguards without harming the robust nature or operational utility of TPIMs, which we want to be as impactful as they can possibly be to keep people safe.
We acknowledge that it was a Labour Government who, upon introducing control orders in 2005, imposed a standard of proof, as proposed in the Bill, to require only reasonable grounds for suspecting an individual had been involved in terrorism-related activity. That was then raised by the coalition Government in 2011 with the creation of the new TPIMs regime, and again by the Conservative Government in 2015. However, I cannot help but reflect on the words of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation to the Bill Committee, when he said:
“If it is right that the current standard of proof is usable and fair, and I think it is, in a word, if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 7, Q6.]
I think the Minister has to respond to that challenge. We need assurances from the Minister today, and an operational, administrative and procedural perspective for making those changes.
We would also like clarity on an exit strategy, given the indefinite nature of what has been proposed. Our concern with an open-ended or enduring TPIM regime is that it could see difficult cases languish, with no realistic plan for a resolution of any kind. Indeed, under the proposals, as the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation confirmed to the Committee, we could conceivably see someone who has been convicted of a terrorism offence being free from constraints before someone who has been placed on an enduring TPIM. That kind of situation is intolerable and I hope the Minister will again respond to those concerns, alongside the arguments of many colleagues in the House in relation to TPIMs and polygraph testing, which, while useful as an additional information source in certain contexts, we know is controversial and untested in the counterterrorism sphere. I do not think it would be unreasonable to run a pilot scheme, as per new clause 9,
so that before making such costly national changes we could see proper independent evidence of the polygraph’s reliability and utility in the specific context of terrorist offenders. We all want an effective and efficient TPIM regime to help to save lives and protect our country’s citizens from harm, and we want to work with the Government to get it right.
5 pm
On amendment 38, we have said all along that there is sadly little in the Bill on the Prevent strategy or, indeed, on how we counter extremism, radicalisation and hatred. The Prevent strategy has been a key part of this country’s counter-terrorism strategy and has kept people safe. The senior counter-terrorism officer who gave evidence to the Committee, Assistant Chief Constable Tim Jacques, said:
“Prevent is a critically important part of our role; it is absolutely vital. It is controversial, and has been controversial, but we engage in it, we operate, and we protect the public through Prevent every day.”––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 25-26, Q66.]
Given the centrality of Prevent as a tool, the Bill has missed an opportunity not just for the Government but for those who are trying to deliver the policy in communities against the backdrop of what appears to be a lack of purpose and clarity on the programme itself. Frankly, they deserve better. The Government commissioned an independent review of Prevent that was legally bound to report on 12 August this year, but it is clear that they will now miss that deadline, resulting in a further lack of clarity and, I fear, a further loss of credibility. The Bill actively seeks to remove any mention of any deadline at all, which only exacerbates matters.
The independent review was announced last January— 19 months ago—following a long-running request by Labour and other Opposition parties and civic society groups, but it has since been repeatedly delayed and postponed. The comprehensive review was and is the right approach—we still believe that to be the case almost two years later—but by now that review should have finished its work and reported to Ministers. In fact, that should have happened two months ago, but Government complacency and—arguably—incompetency have led us to the stage where they now say that they intend the review to report only by next summer. If that is the case, why not put a date on the face of the Bill rather than leave it open-ended?
In Committee, the Minister said that the Government’s commitment to complete the review was “absolute”, but that they did not want to fall into the same trap twice in relation to a statutory deadline, should “something unforeseen” happen. All our amendment 38 would do is reinstate a statutory deadline for the independent review, with a new one in place for 1 July 2021—just under a year from now—which I think any reasonable person would accept as being more than generous to the Government, given the delay that we have already had.
We accept and welcome the Government’s broader commitment to the review but, as I stressed in Committee, the introduction of a new counter-terrorism Bill before the Prevent review that was in the previous one has started makes clear the sheer quantity of time that has been wasted. There is a lack of clarity and continuing speculation and debate around Prevent that threatens to undermine the entire effectiveness and credibility of both the programme and the Government’s wider strategy.
In conclusion—I am conscious that other colleagues wish to speak—I hope that the Minister will look closely at the amendments, which are designed to assist and clarify some of the measures in the Bill and to seek the introduction of some measures that we feel ought to be in the Bill. I reiterate that we on the Opposition Benches will be uncompromising when it comes to supporting measures to tackle terrorism and keep our country and its citizens safe. That is and will always be our priority.