My Lords, I begin by apologising to my noble friend Lady Sharp for not being in my place for the first minute or two of her remarks.
I am grateful also to my noble friend Lord Ashton for briefing me on the remarks that she made, which I will try to address. I will put some general comments on the record in relation to these amendments. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, has mentioned, I dare say we will return to this in subsequent groups, but there are some particular issues here which I take it are about trying to get definitions and workings on the record. I will then deal with some of the specific issues which have been raised.
I will outline the broad objectives of the Government’s Prevent programme. Prevent aims to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism, and deals with all kinds of terrorism. It targets not just violent extremism but non-violent extremism, which can create an atmosphere conducive to terrorism and popularise views which terrorists exploit. Prevent activity in local areas relies on the co-operation of many organisations to be effective, but currently co-operation is not consistent across the country. We have seen people being radicalised sufficiently to want to travel to Syria and Iraq from many places which did not realise that radicalisation was an issue for them. New threats can also emerge quickly, and the steps which authorities take to comply with this duty will enable them to be spotted, and acted on, quickly. The new duty created by Chapter 1 of Part 5 will improve the standard of work on the Prevent programme across the country. This is particularly important where terrorism is a concern, but all areas need to understand the local threat and take action to address it. We will issue guidance setting out the type of activity that specified authorities should consider in fulfilling this duty.
I turn now to the individual amendments. Amendment 103A is a probing amendment that seeks to focus the scope of the duty on preventing people from being drawn into “activities which may lead” to terrorism, rather than simply “into terrorism”. The process of radicalisation is complex, as a number of noble Lords have mentioned; it is not simply a case of taking part in certain activities. There will be background factors, such as an individual’s failure to integrate, disrupted childhoods or growing up in an extreme subculture. There could be influences which push an individual towards a terrorist group such as family, friends, extremist ideological material et cetera. Individuals need to be receptive to the terrorists’ messages: for example, they may be disillusioned with previous beliefs or be naive and lack ideological knowledge to counter the terrorist ideology that they are being exposed to.
The effect of the amendment would be to apply the duty only to activities which may lead people into terrorism. The duty, as currently drafted, includes these activities in its scope, but this amendment would limit it to cover only these activities. These activities would need to be defined, but this will be difficult, if not impossible, to do, because the activities themselves may not draw people into terrorism—as I have said, it is a combination of factors which draw people into terrorism. The Government are determined to make the implications of the Prevent duty as clear as possible for those affected. This includes being clear about what is expected of specific authorities under the duty, so comprehensive guidance, on which we are currently consulting, will set out how we expect authorities to
comply with the duty. Amendment 103B would prevent the duty from applying to specified authorities until a report on the operation of the duty had been laid before Parliament.
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I am grateful to my noble friends for explaining what this amendment is seeking to achieve. We consider that the guidance to be issued under Clause 24 is the proper place to set out the types of activity that specified authorities should consider when complying with the duty. The draft guidance, which we are consulting on, will set out how we expect key specified authorities to comply with the duty.
The starting point for all specified authorities will be an assessment of the risk in their area, institution or body. I acknowledge the point made by my noble friend Lord Scriven in relation to Sheffield: that there are particular local factors that we need to recognise and the people best placed to tackle them are the people on the ground. Where a risk has been identified, they should develop an action plan in order to address it. All we are asking is that people actually undertake that process of developing a local action plan. If it is specific to their university because of exceptional circumstances, in many ways the argument would be: all the better.
I was asked how this might work, so I will give some illustrations. Local authorities should ensure that publicly owned premises are not used to disseminate extremist views—it seems obvious but that is part of putting these things on the record. Further education providers should have policies in place relating to the use of IT on their premises. Schools, including governors, should make sure that they have training, to give them the knowledge and confidence to identify children at risk of radicalisation and know where and how to refer children and young people to get the help they need. The health sector should ensure that training is provided to front-line staff to ensure that, where there are signs that someone has been or is being drawn into terrorism, the healthcare worker can interpret those signs correctly and is aware of and can locate support for them. Prisons should offer support to an individual vulnerable to radicalisation or move them away from an individual of concern. Those who are at risk of radicalising others should face the removal of privileges and segregation from others. The police should support individuals vulnerable to radicalisation—for example, through the Channel programme—and support partner organisations in Prevent work.
The public consultation has provided ample opportunity for interested parties to scrutinise and influence the guidance. The final guidance will have benefited from the extensive consultations and expert input—including, of course, significant contributions to these debates in your Lordships’ House. Specified authorities have been consulted on the guidance, which will set out what they must do to comply with the duty. Therefore, we believe that it is not necessary at this point for a report on the operation of the duty to be laid before Parliament before the duty applies to specific authorities.
Having dealt with the amendments that have been presented, I will try to deal with some of the issues raised in the course of what has been a very good debate. First, on the point about whether this is evidence-based, this is something that we have tried to build on. In BIS—the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills—there are regional co-ordinators who have been visiting universities routinely since 2012 and working with them to make sure that they have a Prevent programme in place for dealing with matters. In fact, having spoken to the head of that programme, I understand more about how they work. They have a very good working relationship with many universities, but not all. Some universities are very co-operative and some are not. The regional co-ordinators have visited all 150 universities, and in many ways it is their experiences that we are building on in trying effectively to bring the standards of the rest up to the standards of the best. What we have in the consultation—in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Judd—is not drawn from empirical evidence in terms of those interviews and work.