My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. As some have remarked, Amendment 31 might have as easily sat in the previous group as this one. I turn first to that amendment, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Hunt of King’s Heath and Lord Bach. It aims to increase the oversight that local policing bodies, including police and crime commissioners, have of TPIM notices in their area. It would require the Home Secretary to notify the relevant local policing body when a TPIM notice is imposed in their area, and when a TPIM is withdrawn, ends or is relocated, so that it no longer falls within their area. It would also require the local policing body to provide six-monthly reports to the Home Secretary, which could include recommendations regarding variations to the TPIM and its continued necessity.
Because of the operational nature of the amendment and the impact that it would have on existing processes, officials at the Home Office have consulted colleagues in Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters on it, and they support our view that it is not needed in the Bill. Engagement with police forces is already an integral part of the TPIM regime. The Home Office works very closely with CT policing, both nationally via CTPHQ and with regional CT units, before a TPIM is imposed and during its lifetime, including regular engagement at quarterly TPIM review group meetings chaired by the Home Office. This well-established process ensures that TPIMs are imposed only following engagement with, and ultimately the consent of, the relevant local police force. This existing practice also means that local community impact assessments are kept up to date, which supports the effective and efficient management of the TPIM subject by the Home Office and operational partners.
Given the current close working relationship that we have with operational partners in the ongoing management of a TPIM subject, there is no need for the local policing body to produce six-monthly reports; review meetings are already in any event held at more regular intervals than the amendment would require reports to be written, and those meetings already consider the types of issue that the amendment is seeking to ensure are included in any report. The amendment would also distort existing roles and responsibilities; it would be inappropriate for the relevant local policing body or police and crime commissioner to put recommendations for varying a TPIM or its continued necessity directly to the Home Secretary. Those judgments are, quite rightly, led by the Home Office in conjunction with the Security Service, which makes fully informed recommendations based on its expert assessment of national security risk. Like the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, I think the examples that noble Lords gave of stop and search and other decisions are in a different category from the imposition of a TPIM.
It is vital that TPIM oversight and management processes protect the highly classified information that flows through a TPIM regime, including the details of the TPIM subject and the underlying national security case against them. The Government, CTPHQ and the Security Service are concerned about how the amendment could work in practice with regard to sharing and disclosure of such highly sensitive information. The close working relationships already in place and well-tested processes on information-sharing between the Home Office, CT policing and the Security Service make it unnecessary.
I turn to Clause 40, which amends the existing overnight residence measure in Schedule 1 to the TPIM Act to strengthen the ability of the Home Secretary to specify certain hours when a TPIM subject must remain at a specified residence. Taken literally, the amendment in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, would remove Clause 40 from the Bill altogether and prevent several operational benefits from being realised. That is why the Government cannot support it.
Having a residence measure at our disposal is vital in managing an individual of national security concern and the risk that they pose to the public. That has long been the case, but our engagement with operational partners has established that the existing overnight measure could and should be improved to allow for greater flexibility in the way in which it can be imposed—specifically, by introducing a requirement for a TPIM subject to remain within his or her residence at specific times during the day, as well as overnight, when this is assessed as necessary and proportionate to manage the risk that they pose. The updated residence measure that Clause 40 introduces will allow the Home Secretary to specify a period that could be longer than overnight or spilt into varying segments throughout a 24-hour period, if considered necessary.
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The noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, asked me to give some concrete examples; I am happy to do that. A TPIM subject who is a radicalising threat to children, for instance, might have a curfew imposed between 8 pm and 9.30 am and 3 pm and 4.30 pm every Monday to Friday to prevent them interacting with children and students on their way to and from school. These curfews could be in addition to an overnight requirement between, say, 8 pm and 6 am every night. To give another example, a TPIM subject might be a suspected attack planner, and a curfew could be imposed for weekends during local football games to ensure that the subject is at home and away from crowded places during those matches.
It is important to highlight that the total number of hours for which a TPIM subject could be restricted to their place of residence through this measure will be subject to the overriding restrictions on length of curfews established by case law relating to Article 5 of the ECHR. We are clear that this measure should not, and will not, amount to an unlawful deprivation of the individual’s liberty. To answer the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, we are not proposing to specify a time limit in the legislation
because we do not think that is necessary. We are aware of the case law that exists on this issue, which guides that, in practice, the residence measure placed on a TPIM subject would likely not exceed 16 hours a day without constituting an unlawful deprivation of liberty.
As with all measures, its applicability will be carefully considered on a case-by-case basis in the context of each individual TPIM subject. There will not be a blanket approach to its use. Any recommendations made by operational partners in relation to when a TPIM subject should remain at their place of residence will be imposed by the Home Secretary only after careful consideration as to whether the measure is necessary and proportionate for purposes connected with preventing or restricting the individual’s involvement in terrorism-related activity.
I hope that that provides reassurances to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and I invite them not to oppose the clause.