Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (Risk of Being Drawn into Terrorism) (Guidance) Regulations 2015

Debate between Baroness Sharp of Guildford and Earl of Erroll

Thursday 17th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I want to say a few things about these regulations because of the opportunity they give me, as the revised Prevent duty guidance is also being reissued in general. I rise because my wife is the chair of governors of a moderate learning difficulty academy in Bedford. She was finance governor for a long time and then took it to academy status as chairman. She has worked very hard for it for many years but the burden on the governors now of all these sorts of things is becoming unbearable, to the extent that all the good people will probably be lost. She has been told several times by the local authority that she has a strong board of governors but they are reaching the end of their tether because of the weight of things that come up under inspections, criticism and provisions such as these. Your Lordships should realise that the academy is not a large establishment.

When the school’s member of staff who was the child safeguarding officer, and who was therefore Prevent-trained, happened to leave they suddenly realised, because something had changed, that the person they thought was properly trained was no longer properly qualified. So suddenly, overnight, they were threatened with closure—the advice given from outside was that they should not open over the weekend—because they would not have a member of staff who had the right training in position on the day. They got around it because over the weekend one of the governors went through online training, which was held to be adequate. However, there is the weight of trying to get through this sort of stuff for a person who is trying to do another full-time job. People are well qualified in other areas but they all now have to know about it. It is not just this but all the other stuff that goes with it for the school.

In those governors’ case, because they are dealing with children with difficulties they also have to understand all the different monitoring systems for achieving targets. They have to monitor whether statements are being upheld while maintaining privacy and anonymity, because they are not allowed to know who the children are—only certain members of staff can. At the same time, they also have to make sure that these systems all work. If they fail, the governors are held responsible now, as there is a legal requirement for them to do that.

I am saying this only because the regulations are very well meaning. We do not want this sort of stuff going on in our schools: we do not want what is now called radicalism preached or people’s minds being warped. I entirely agree with that. But the Government must just be careful when they introduce these regulations that they do not lose all the good people who are currently, voluntarily, running schools and such like. Otherwise, who will run these things? The Government will have a big and expensive problem, because they will have to pay people to do it properly. They will not find enough people, because the other thing we have noticed is that when these schools need to hire new people, the staff are not available—there is huge competition for people in this area. The Government will suddenly find that they have to close schools because of the regulations, as they cannot get the people. That will be a problem, and children will just not be educated. I do not know what the Government are going to do about that. It is a government problem, so it goes back over to them. This is only a general point, so I do not particularly need a reply, but I would like the Minister to take this back to the Department for Education and to all the other bodies that these things come out of and just ask them to look at the compound effect of all these things.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations and for reminding us of the lengthy debates that we had last January, particularly on the issue of freedom of speech in universities and the tension that is created between the Prevent duties that were then being proposed and the right of freedom of speech. Picking that up, we on these Benches very much welcome the new guidance that is being issued on external speakers and events. Gone is the prescription of the draft regulations that were presented to us in January—Members may remember that it was suggested, for example, that all external speakers should be required to provide a summary of what they were going to say 14 days in advance. Those of us who come from a university background knew quite well that it would be practically impossible to persuade people to do that sort of thing.

We very much welcome the much more down-to-earth and, I think, reasonable and sensible advice. Most further education colleges and universities are already co-operating fully with the authorities on the Prevent duty. Recent events, such as young people and families disappearing off to Syria to fight for ISIS and some of the events here at home, make everybody well aware of the dangers that we face these days from young people being drawn into terrorism in one form or another. There is also the power of the internet and social media in this respect. The main difference now between what was being proposed and what is now being proposed is that the Prevent duty is, as we stressed when we discussed the Bill, going to be compulsory: it is now statutory, and no longer a voluntary activity. In that case, it requires a different set of guidelines.

Some of the issues I want to raise with the Minister overlap with those already mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and therefore I will not go into detail about them. First, as the Minister explained, various sets of guidance are being issued here. Not only is there the separate guidance for Scotland from that for England and Wales but there is the older guidance, which has already been issued, relating to schools, the health service, prisons and so forth. This really picks up the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, because this guidance was discussed at some length in March. I think he is right. The issue of the burden placed on schools, for example, and many authorities in terms of implementing this guidance, and their ability to do that, was raised. I would also question the degree to which the collaboration that is written into the guidance is feasible.

One difficulty that one faces when bodies—schools, health authorities, youth services, police, and so forth—are required to collaborate is that it requires setting up meetings, which is often extremely difficult. Time is very pressured for those people. The aspiration that there should be collaboration all round is sometimes honoured as much in the breach as in the—what is the word? What is required is aspirational more than anything else.

I was somewhat intrigued to see that the reissued guidance points up the fact that it has been revised. The Minister today and the Minister in the House of Commons last week stressed that there were no substantive differences in the guidance, and I take it that that is the case. I assume that they are purely drafting changes, because if there are any substantive differences it would be helpful to know about them.

In relation to the genuinely new guidance about how to handle speakers and events at universities and further education colleges, I very much welcome the degree to which the new regulations leave decisions to the relevant authorities and have dropped the prescriptiveness of the draft regulations that we saw in January. In particular, I welcome the recognition that the authorities need to balance the risk of exposure to extremism with the legal duty to ensure freedom of speech.

I echo the query raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, on whether the authorities—the universities and colleges—should be entirely convinced that any risks that they incur through having speakers on the premises who might be regarded as extreme can be fully mitigated. As Universities UK says, there will always be some level of uncertainty involved. The double requirement of being entirely convinced that the risks are fully mitigated is practically impossible to fulfil, and could be interpreted as providing a de facto ban on such speakers. In his response to the Commons, the Minister made it clear that that did not constitute a blanket ban on such speakers. I ask the Minister today whether it would therefore be fair to interpret that instruction as meaning that the authorities can go ahead with inviting a “risky” speaker if they are satisfied that, as far as they can be, the risks are mitigated and that they have taken all reasonable action to ensure that.

I also assume—again, perhaps the Minister would clarify this—that in such circumstances it is vital that there should be an audit trail if these issues are to be monitored. In other words, if anything should go wrong, it is vital for the university or college to have the evidence to show that it took all reasonable action to mitigate the occurrence.

I also pick up the point about paragraph 19 and the comma. The Minister offered to look at the issue of the comma again, and I wondered whether he had done so. As was pointed out, in grammatical terms, there is a different interpretation if the comma is there.

Finally, I pick up the point at the end of the guidance to universities. The Minister made it clear that the authority that will monitor this will be the Higher Education Funding Council for England, for England and Wales. What sanctions will it be able to impose on universities? The regulations just state that the Minister will appoint an appropriate body and that a separate monitoring framework will be published. The Minister announced in the Commons debate that HEFCE is to be the body for higher education institutions. Are we likely to get any more detail about that?

For example, in relation to the further education institutions, it is made quite clear that Ofsted is the monitoring body and that if that institution does not come up to scratch, various sanctions can be imposed: withdrawal of funding through the Skills Funding Agency, reconstitution of the governing board and even dissolution of the college as a whole by the Secretary of State. HEFCE does not have quite the same clout as the Skills Funding Agency since universities now receive much of their funding through fees and separately. Nor does the Secretary of State have the right to dissolve any university. Are we likely to see more detail on how HEFCE will exercise these responsibilities? In general, from these Benches we welcome these new regulations and regard them as a very great improvement, certainly on the draft regulations as we saw them in January.