My Lords, first, I declare an interest, as my wife is an adviser on the Prevent programme in the further education sector. The importance of this amendment was driven home yesterday by comments from Jonathan Hall, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, when he said that terrorist prisoners are not being prosecuted for radicalising fellow inmates and that extremism is being encouraged behind closed doors in our prisons. Although I broadly support the major provisions of the Bill that are intended to ensure that serious and dangerous terrorist offenders spend longer in custody, they surely have to go hand in hand with a rigorous programme of rehabilitation and deradicalisation.
The Government’s claim that longer sentences will allow more time in which to support disengagement and rehabilitation is, frankly, fanciful in the light of experience over the last few years. Even the impact assessment published alongside the Bill acknowledged that there is limited evidence of the impact of longer prison terms on reoffending and that there is a risk of offenders radicalising others during their stay in custody. So far, the Government have been less than convincing on how they are to tackle the evident problems in our prisons with terrorist offenders, so my amendment seeks to ensure that Ministers have to publish a strategy setting out how a programme of rehabilitation and deradicalisation is to be applied to those sentenced under Part 1 of the Bill.
The importance of gripping this was certainly underlined by Jonathan Hall yesterday, when he announced that he has decided to review terrorism in the prison estate in England and Wales. As he said,
how terrorism is detected, policed, disrupted and prosecuted when it occurs within the prison estate is relevant to the overall effectiveness of terrorism legislation. Mr Hall said that he is particularly focused on acts within the prison estate that amount to criminal offences, such as encouraging terrorism or disseminating terrorist publications, the status and influence of convicted terrorist prisoners within the prison estate, and whether there is any connection to prison gangs. His review is of course highly relevant to my amendment, and particularly to its timing, but it does not detract in any way from the need for a concerted government strategy.
It is not as though Ministers did not know that they had real problems here. In 2016, the review by former prison governor Ian Acheson warned of a growing problem within prisons. Anti-terrorism legislation passed in the aftermath of 7/7 had led to a significant increase in conviction rates for terrorist offences. He identified that, progressively, more of those offenders were held outside the high security estate and that some were proceeding through the offender management system towards release into the community. Such prisoners extended the threat of radicalisation beyond those arrested for terrorist offences. Other prisoners, both Muslim and non-Muslim, serving sentences for crimes unrelated to terrorism were then vulnerable to radicalisation by Islamist extremists. Acheson argued, four years ago, that
“a central, comprehensive and coordinated strategy is required to monitor and counter it”
and
“focus on greater coordination with the police.”
The Government responded in time by creating a new Security, Order and Counter Terrorism directorate. Specialist units were promised to allow greater separation and specialised management of the highest-risk individuals, with improved capacity for responding swiftly to serious violent incidents. Improved staff training, tightened vetting and removal of extremist literature were also promised, alongside greater focus on the safe management of corporate worship. For all those fine words, little progress has been made. Indeed, last week it emerged that only a handful of nearly 200 people in prison for terror-related offences were in the separation places recommended by Mr Acheson.
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These failures cannot be divorced from more general failings in our overcrowded and understaffed prisons. I come back to Ian Acheson because his more recent analysis in 2019 for the Centre for Social Justice pinpointed the issues faced. He said:
“Our prisons are in a terrible state … The most recent failings have been driven by a reduction in the number of prison officers working in our prisons, but longer-term failings have included a defeatist attitude towards tackling drugs and addiction, and a failure to keep the prison estate up-to-date and fit-for-purpose … Squalor, indolence and brutality have become normalised within the walls of many of our jails—particularly those local and medium security establishments that deal with short-term offenders … Ruinous cuts, inflicted on front line staff as the prison population increased, have made a mockery of a rehabilitation culture when staff routinely suffer serious assaults and cannot themselves feel safe at work”.
This is hardly the atmosphere in which to conduct rehabilitation and a successful deradicalisation programme. It is abundantly clear that the Government do not have a cohesive and credible strategy and it is incumbent on them to recognise that and come forward with credible and funded programmes to turn this around.
My amendment, with the distinguished support of the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, would require that within six months of the Act coming in to force, the Secretary of State must publish a strategy setting out how a programme of rehabilitation and deradicalisation is to be applied to those sentenced under Part 1.
I understand that Mr Hall’s review announced yesterday will clearly be important in updating our understanding of the challenges and that a government strategy would clearly be informed by that and, to some extent, the timing of it. However, it is not credible nor right that the Government should seek to extend sentences for terrorists without a parallel determination to improve rehabilitation and deradicalisation programmes. I very much hope that the House will support this. I beg to move.