My Lords, Amendments 37 and 40 concern “lone terrorists” and the review of the strategy concerning them. Amendment 37 ensures that the Government will order a judge-led review into the effectiveness of current strategies to deal with lone terrorists, including, but not limited to, current “counter-terrorism policy” and “sentencing policy”. My right honourable friend Nick Thomas-Symonds has called for such a review, following the shocking and tragic incident in Reading on Saturday 20 June 2020, which was the third time in seven months that such devastation caused by a lone attacker has been seen on UK streets.
The review would undertake an assessment of the systemic response needed to address this threat, building on prior research and expertise. It would include an analysis of various public services: probation services, prisons, mental health services, housing providers and local authorities. Professor Ian Acheson, who completed a report for a Conservative Government, said last year:
“Our unsafe prisons provide a fertile breeding ground in which predators, peddling extremist and violent ideologies, can prey upon the vulnerable, creating significant risks to national security and the public at large.”
What steps are the Government taking to put forward a deradicalisation strategy in the prisons?
Amendment 40 looks at MAPPA—multiagency public protection arrangements—and its purpose is to encourage the Government to define which agencies are included
within them. I have received a short briefing on this from Napo, and the point that the probation officers make is that the input into the MAPPA arrangements varies according to the individuals one is dealing with: it may be local faith-based groups, housing providers, social services, education providers or substance misuse agencies—a multitude of organisations could be called on to work within the MAPPA system. In this example—and, I have to say, in all examples that I have come across—the system is all about integrated working, and it would be helpful if the Government could offer some perspective on the agencies that they think should be working within the MAPPA system. I beg to move.