Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 9th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie. I congratulate him on it and welcome him to the House. I am sure the whole House will be looking forward to his future contributions. In the other place, he had a reputation for and record of original thinking, forensic inquiry, plain speaking and ruthless honesty, and we saw some of that in his maiden contribution in this House. Even his most severe critics would never describe him as a yes-man. Witnesses who sat in front of him in the Treasury Select Committee at the other end of this building would be ready to testify to that, even if they did not always wish to testify to his committee. His words today illustrate a thoughtful, analytical and fearless approach to the issues that come before your Lordships’ House, and I am sure his future contributions will continue that. It was also a pleasure to hear the maiden speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier. His contribution was well up to the quality of this debate, which has, so far, been excellent and well informed.

Turning to the Bill, I associate myself with the words of my noble friends Lord Marks, Lady Hamwee and Lord Thomas and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi. In coalition days, she and I had many a quiet chat to see whether we could restore some sanity to the situation, but we did not always succeed as we wished. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said wise words about how extremism without violence must not be tangled up in our thinking about offences.

I want to focus on Clause 19. It is a very minor provision in the Bill; indeed, it appears under the subheading “Miscellaneous”. It deals with the granting of enabling powers to local authorities to nominate people who should go to Channel panels. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, commented on this to some extent. The Explanatory Notes to the Bill explain that, in 2016-17, 6,093 people were referred to Channel panels, and that 332 of those 6,093 were given support as a result of discussion in those Channel panels. Channel panels are established and run by local authorities, and up to now referrals to them have been exclusively in the hands of the police. The proposal in Clause 19 is to allow local authorities to have that right to refer people to the Channel panels that they themselves organise. It could be seen as just operational tidying up, but there is a little more to it than that. The Government’s impact assessment says of it that it is a magic provision; the word “magic” does not appear but it does say the provision will provide a saving to the police and no additional cost to anybody else. So what could possibly be wrong with it?

I suggest to your Lordships that there are some aspects that need to be looked at a bit more carefully than this entry under “Miscellaneous” currently grants: first, the reputation and effectiveness of Prevent itself—the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, has said some powerful things about that; secondly, the workloads and competences of those running Channel panels; and, thirdly, something about their success rate and performance.

First, on reputation and effectiveness—this case has already been strongly made by the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, and apart from saying “Hear, hear” I cannot add much more—Prevent is counterproductive and its apparent impact is skewed. A careful reading of the report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, especially page 24, sets out the case again.

Secondly, on workloads and competences, I make the point that those 6,093 referrals in a year mean 115 referrals a week to Channel panels. The outcome of those Channel panels is that six people a week receive support after referral. Let us just take those figures again: 115 cases come up each week, of which six are, on inspection, decided to be appropriate to receive Channel support. My first question is whether the Minister is satisfied that the 6,000 who are being referred in the first place are in fact an appropriate 6,000, and whether she is satisfied that only 6% of them subsequently being seen as requiring intervention by Channel panels suggests that the right people are coming forward and being selected.

My second question is: what analysis has the department done on which participating agencies are most likely to produce the false positives—the 109 people that week who are referred to a panel but for whom Channel support is not thought to be appropriate. Who are the people who are getting it wrong, and what can be done for them to get it right? What feedback and learning is there from the cases that do not get Channel support, and where evidently those nominations were inappropriate for one reason or another? What change is Clause 19 expected to produce to those outcomes? Is the clause’s intention that there will be more referrals as a consequence of local authorities having the right to refer, or is it supposed that in some way there will be more priorities for action by Channel panels as a consequence of those referrals? What is the driver for the change, something on which the Explanatory Notes are completely silent?

That brings me to the success and performance of Channel panels and the Prevent system as a whole. What happened to the 332 who received Channel support in 2016-17? Who was missed? The Explanatory Notes quite rightly point out that there were five terrorist incidents where deaths occurred, and seven terrorists were directly involved there. The noble Lord, Lord King, brought forward some other figures about the quite substantial number of attacks that were intercepted and where plots were foiled. Had any of those people come into the 6,093? Had any of them come into the 332 who were referred to Channel? In other words, is Prevent actually doing what the name suggests it should be doing, or is it simply a cosmetic overlay on a system that is widely seen as clumsy and counterproductive at best?

The Joint Committee on Human Rights wanted to see an independent inquiry. The Government’s rejection of that was really quite abrupt; they said such a claim was unfounded because there had been so many external and internal reviews that basically everything was fine and everything was known. I therefore hope that the questions that I have posed can be simply answered by the Minister today or, if not, that she is ready to answer them in Committee when we get there. It is necessary for the Government to justify the change that is proposed and the base from which that change is being made. What in fact is happening to the 94 out of every 100 people who are referred who have no further action taken regarding their case? I hope that when we get to Committee the Minister will be able to fill in some of those gaps. If not, I will certainly be returning to these matters at that time.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 29th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the power to designate an area is a significant power, as pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. However, I think it is a desirable power, provided that we amend the Bill slightly in the way we have discussed. I am not clear why anyone would want to go to a designated area other than for any of the purposes we have outlined in Amendment 17.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

I should like to add to the remarks of my noble friend Lady Hamwee by making two points. First, if one looks at the current situation in Syria, there are clearly many women there who do not have the freedom to leave. Will they have committed an offence simply by virtue of being held as virtual or real captives? These are aspects which need to be looked at quite seriously.

I want also to make the darker point that, at the moment, we are focusing on the Middle East and terrorism as we appreciate it there. However, if this legislation had been in force in 1936 or 1937, I wonder what would have been the realpolitik of designated areas within Spain. We need to understand that legislation passed for one reason can sometimes be adapted and used in a completely unforeseen way or, as I am perhaps suggesting, in a foreseeable way. I would like to hear what the noble Earl might have to say about these two points.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it is probably best if I write to the noble Baroness in response to her specific questions. The broad answer is that we have thought of the practicalities. As regards informing people who are already in the designated area that it has been designated and that they therefore have 28 days to leave, there would be FCO travel advice that would almost certainly have pre-existed the designation. The regulations would be given significant publicity, including as part of the requested debate of the designation regulations. There would be a notice on the government website and we would consider other methods of publicity depending on the area being designated.

On the question of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, about innocent people who have already been caught up in events and the situation within a designated area, the reasonable excuse defence would kick in. As we said in our earlier debates, where it is perfectly obvious that someone is in a designated area for an innocent reason, it is almost unthinkable that the authorities would spend time trying to make a case against them. Their reasonable excuse would be advanced and the circumstances of the case, if they are innocent, would be obvious from the outset. As I have said, we have had the reasonable excuse defence in place for 18 years and, as far as I am aware, there have been no instances of innocent people being arrested or convicted.

That is as far as I can go at the moment, although I am conscious that I have not completely covered the issues raised. However, I will write and copy my letter to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 12th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, first, I support the basic intention behind my noble friend’s amendment, but I will in a few moments try to put it into a much more contemporary context than, with respect, she did. In any event, I ask the Minister to advise the House whether such an amendment is necessary at all. If somebody makes a reference to a panel and then sits on the panel, to me as a lawyer with quite a lot of experience dealing with judicial review, that would be immediately judicially reviewable as a plain example of apparent bias, and the decision would likely be overturned and have to be reconsidered from the beginning. I hope that we will hear the Minister tell the House that that is indeed the way in which the situation is perceived, and that it is not the practice for people making the recommendation, if they are local authority employees, to sit on the panel, though of course their recommendation is part of the evidence—that is what we will call it—that the panel hears.

I turn to my point about context. I urge your Lordships to regard this as an important change that has taken place over the years. Both before 2011—when I ceased to be the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and was succeeded by my noble friend Lord Anderson, who did such a wonderful job in that role—and since, I have visited many Channel projects around the country. In the early part of my time visiting those projects, they were run by the police and their involvement was deeply resented by some local communities. In some areas, the police were very sensitive; in some, they were less so; but they always were seen by many communities, particularly in the West Midlands, as threatening to prosecute people and going outside their role of dealing with reported or suspected crime, investigating it and charging people.

In the best local authorities, where there must be a Prevent co-ordinator, this work has been devolved to ward level. Birmingham, the largest local authority in Europe, I think, is a very good example—despite the Trojan horse issue—of that being done with great success. In Birmingham, local authority staff—often social workers but sometimes those involved in education and sometimes those given offices to act only with the Channel project—identify vulnerable individuals and refer them for consideration by panels. In such cases, the police do not have to be involved at all. Indeed, as I understand it, in the majority of cases they are never involved. This is dealt with as a problem to be handled before any question of crime is considered and, in most cases, there is no need for police involvement because there is no crime. The reference takes place before crime. That is a successful Channel reference, almost by definition.

In the areas I visited, the police have acquiesced in that approach, recognising that their role is to become involved only if a reference is, first, unsuccessful and, secondly, moves into the area of potential crime. I urge your Lordships to take the view that the changes set out in the Bill simply reflect changes in the context of Channel since the 2015 Act was brought into force.

We heard from my noble friend Lady Howe about “false positives”. I think we should be wary about that phrase. I say this with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. He was a very distinguished operational police officer for decades. I am sure that during that time, he arrested or authorised the arrest of a fair number of people who were acquitted. That is normal in the world of policing. In the very difficult world of counterterrorism, it is also normal. It would not be right to be hung up on statistics about false positives when one bears in mind the clear evidence of the considerable success of the Channel project.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for giving me such full attention in her speech: I appreciate that. According to paragraph 3.2 of the Prevent report that the Government published in March this year, the police made 1,946 referrals to the Prevent programme, which was 32% of the nominations made. The education service, by which I think they mean schools and colleges, made an almost identical number of referrals, 1,976, also described in the government publication as 32%. The question that I am happy to hear repeated by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, is: are those figures appropriate? Is the net catching too many fish? I understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, which is perfectly fair, but the same paragraph of the same report says that 2,199 cases “required no further action”, which is 36% of those referred. The total of those referred to “other services” is 2,748, which is 45%. If one adds those two together, over 80% are referred or require no further action.

Where are they referred to? Thirty per cent are referred to education, 17% to the police, and 29% to local authorities. Exactly what all this means will come up in the debate on the following amendment, as will whether the reporting system is giving us the kind of information and insight that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, just tried to throw on the subject. I await the Minister’s response with great interest. I certainly support the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, in moving the amendment today.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Clause 19 provides for a local authority to have the power to refer a person who is vulnerable to or at risk of being drawn into terrorism to a Channel panel for support. Amendment 54 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, would place a requirement in the Bill that the person who previously referred the individual cannot be the representative of the local authority on the panel.

The noble Baroness set out a clear and compelling case for the amendment, and I will be happy to support her. She addressed a number of points that need to be responded to by the Minister in this short debate. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, also made an important point about the risks to decision-making if you are the person making the referral and you make decisions as well. It may be that the Minister will say that the points made by the noble Lord will be taken into account by the local authority anyway, so it would not get into that situation, but he made a very valid point.

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Moved by

[Lord Stunell]

55: Clause 19, page 21, line 19, at end insert—
“( ) After subsection (3) insert—“(3A) The Secretary of State must ensure the collection and annual release of statistics on—(a) the religion, and(b) the ethnicity,of identified individuals referred under subsection (2).””

[Lord Stunell]

Amendment 55 relates to the recording of information about those who are referred into the system and provides that we should collect information on ethnicity and religion. The amendment’s current phrasing of “religion” may not be the most elegant way of putting it, and “what religious belief, if any, the individual professes” might capture the purpose more clearly. In any case, I see the amendment as a ranging shot for the debate on Amendment 57 which will follow. Its purpose is to give some meaningful and useful additional information which would be published in the annual statistical review to which I referred in the debate on the previous amendment.

There are numerous statistics at the moment, some of which have already been quoted. Perhaps the most outstanding is that, in 2016-17—the statistics for 2017-18 have not yet been published—6,093 people were referred to the process. As has already been said, a very much smaller number actually went into a Channel programme: some 6% of those who were referred. There are various staging posts along the way, which meant that some 36% of people were filtered out because nothing needed to be done and 45%—almost half—were referred in a different direction not related to terrorism at all, although they might have had vulnerabilities that needed to be addressed. That left 19% who got as far as serious consideration, of whom approximately one-third were directed into a Channel programme.

All that is in the current summary. The summary also states the gender of those referred, says something about the age profile, and says quite a lot about the region of the country from which they come. However, it says nothing about the ethnicity, culture or religion of those who are referred. As was said earlier and is well known, at a time when there are significant community fears and suspicions about the way that this programme operates, the absence of that information makes it very difficult for anybody, including the Minister, to rebut their fears that the system operates in a discriminatory way, possibly as a result of unconscious bias or as a result of people looking slightly too Muslim. How do people actually get into the programme? We do not know how it works. Are there groups of the population who find themselves disproportionately targeted, or not? Given that 94% of those who are referred do not finish up in the Channel programme, is the ethnicity of the 94% who do not make it into the Channel programme different from that of the 6% who get through all the filters?

At Second Reading I made a number of points about the referral rate and a procedure which I described as producing duds. However, I should qualify that immediately by saying that only 36% of referrals were duds, 45% showed vulnerabilities but had nothing to do with terrorism, and 19% merited further investigation on grounds of potential vulnerability to terrorism. The police made 32% of all the referrals. Therefore, my first question to the Minister is: did they get it more right than schools, universities and colleges, which also referred 32%? In other words, is it stop and search revisited, or did most of the Channel cases which finished up in the Channel programme itself come from the police referrals, indicating that the police were in fact uniquely good at getting it right? We do not know because we do not have the fundamental information needed to assess it.

We therefore do not know whether communities are proportionately or disproportionately referred or which referring agency is better or worse at hitting the target—that is, getting relevant people referred in the first place and through to Channel programmes at the end of the process. Are Asian men disproportionately reported and therefore in the 94% but then not seen as at risk? That would perhaps be evidence of unconscious bias in how referrals are made. Or perhaps that is not the case, in which case the Minister could stand and face community representatives and say that the evidence supports the contention that it is always done fairly and proportionately. There is also a small subset where more information might be useful operationally anyway. The religion and ethnicity crossover is relevant when there are converts and newly radicalised white referrals. How many of those have there been? We do not know the answer to that either.

The Minister might say that to extend the statistical reach in this way is costly and disproportionate and all those kinds of things. However, the public good that would come from being able to answer these questions is substantial, and it is well worth recording something that would be blindingly obvious to the people on the Channel panel, who will automatically take into account the ethnicity and the religious and cultural background of the people they are assessing. In case the Minister goes the other way and says that the amendment is too narrow in the information it would add to the statistical summary, I should add that Amendment 56 is the catch-all that would allow Ministers to tell us what other factors need to be taken into account to make this a meaningful document. I beg to move.

[Lord Sheikh (Con)]

My Lords, I will talk about the Prevent strategy in greater detail when we discuss Amendment 57. At this stage, I would like to say that there is disquiet among Muslims regarding the application of the Prevent strategy and it is felt that a review is necessary.

The Home Office should gather and publish figures to see whether the strategy is disproportionately affecting any particular ethnic group or religion. I understand that the Government publish data on the age, gender and region of residence of those referred under the Prevent programme, together with the type of concerns raised. It is important that there is complete transparency and people are given all the appropriate information, including details regarding ethnicity and religion. This will enable us not only to have a complete understanding of all the issues but to take appropriate remedial action. As regards Muslims, we need to involve members and leaders of the community, the mosques, the imams, Muslim centres and the media. We can then make arrangements for all the people to get involved and provide the necessary guidance and support.

Islam is indeed a religion of peace and forbids any form of suicidal act or terrorism. We need to explain to people who are misled about the true principles of Islam, once we have examined the total extent of the problem. I therefore support the amendment.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I shall start by addressing Amendment 55. I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that it is very important that both the Prevent programme and the Channel process are open to public scrutiny, and, to this end, we support calls for greater transparency. Indeed, we have already published two years-worth of Channel statistics, covering 2015-16 and 2016-17—the latter in March of this year. We are committed to publishing these statistics on an annual basis, and expect to publish 2017-18 data towards the end of this year.

The data is extensively quality assured before publication to ensure accuracy. However, due to the provisional nature of the dataset and the need to further develop and improve our data collection, it is currently published as “experimental statistics”, indicating that the information is, as I said, at an early stage of development. As such, we look for feedback from users on what information is included, while working to improve training and guidance for those responsible for providing the data and assessing its quality and limitations.

We absolutely appreciate that figures on ethnicity and religion are likely to be of interest to users of these statistics, for all the reasons that noble Lords have outlined. Working through the Home Office Chief Statistician, we are happy to explore the inclusion of such data in future publications. However, I should stress that whether this proves to be possible will depend on a number of factors, including the quality and completeness of the data. To give an example, currently at least half of the records supplied to the Home Office do not include ethnicity or religion, so publication of such variables could be misleading at this stage. However, that is not a no; it is saying that we will work on statistics that will be useful to the public and provide for wider transparency.

Turning to Amendment 56, I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, recognises the significant role that a Channel panel can have in helping to safeguard very vulnerable individuals. Although the Government agree wholeheartedly with the intent of the amendment, I will set out why we do not think it is needed to achieve this end.

Section 36(4) of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 requires the Channel panel to prepare a plan for an individual whom the panel considers appropriate to be offered support. Section 36(5) sets out what information must, as a minimum, be included in such a support plan—that is, how consent is to be obtained; the nature of the support to be provided; the people who will provide the support; and how and when the support will be provided.

The current wording of the Act does not preclude other information being included in the support plan, but it should also be recognised that this is not the only place where information about the individual being discussed is recorded. The vulnerability assessment framework, for example, contains relevant information about the particular vulnerabilities of the individual, drawing on all the information from the various panel members. Panel minutes will contain the record of the multiagency discussion and a risk assessment is also completed. All these documents are brought together within the case management file.

The Government agree entirely with the thrust of the amendment, which is that it is essential that the panel is aware of, takes account of, and indeed records, all matters relevant to the safeguarding needs of the individual. As noble Lords will know, that is the bread and butter of what Channel panels are about, and I reassure the Committee that the statutory Channel duty guidance makes it clear that this is the case. Paragraph 71 of the guidance, for example, says:

“The panel must fully consider all the information available to them to make an objective decision on the support provided, without discriminating against the individual’s race, religion or background”.


However, the support plan is not necessarily the right place to record that information. It is intended instead to be a simple, unambiguous document that sets out exactly who will do what and when with regard to the actual support being provided. Requiring panels to include other information here, rather than in other parts of the case management file, would be likely to diminish rather than add to its value within the process.

The noble Lord asked whether Prevent was discriminatory. The statistics reflect the type of extremism being referred and what happens at each stage of the process. It is important to note that one-third of all cases provided with support were actually referred for far-right concerns. He also asked which agencies had the highest and lowest conversion rates from referral to support. I will be happy to look at the underlying statistics and see whether that analysis is actually possible, and I will get back to him on that.

I hope that I have given the noble Lord sufficient information so that he will feel that he can withdraw his amendment, on the understanding that the Home Office Chief Statistician is looking precisely at the issue that he raised in Amendment 55.

[Lord Stunell]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who contributed to the debate, and I particularly thank the Minister. If I may say so, for a ranging shot we seem to have done very well. We look forward very much to seeing the Minister convince the statisticians that the much-needed information can be made available in a timely fashion. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 55 withdrawn.

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[Lord Stunell]

My Lords, I support the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lady Hamwee, and I see it as being on behalf of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. That committee’s report set this out very clearly. For most of the last 45 years the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and I have been on the same side of the enterprises we were jointly engaged on, but on this occasion, not so much. I very much prefer the evidence provided to the Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, to that of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, on this occasion. We have the evidence of concern and I personally, if challenged, cannot say that I have seen a project which was not successful or which was delivered with distorted priorities, but the debate in the Committee so far has been about much more than individual projects and how well an individual project does or does not deliver, just as a debate about education in this House is not about how one particular school does or does not deliver. It is about the quality of the product overall, and that is surely what this review should be aiming to assess.

I note that at Second Reading the Minister said in winding up that there was evidence that Prevent was working well, and she cited the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. At the same time, the Government’s Explanatory Note says that the specific changes in Amendment 19 will save police resources. Clearly, there is a need to save police resources, and therefore we had the discussion earlier about whether the amount of effort the police are putting in, capturing fish that are then thrown back into the sea, is the right strategy or tactic to follow. It is clearly appropriate to ask that question in relation to other referring agencies as well.

The fact is that at the moment we do not know the answer. Statistics will be part of the answer, but we also need to look at outcomes. What we have at the moment is not an annual evaluation but an annual tabulation, which is not very useful, in some ways. It is as though an Ofsted report were produced in which the only information was the attendance register, with no attempt to evaluate the curriculum or the attainment level. There is nothing so far available to the Committee or to policymakers about the choices, the content or the outcomes of the programme as a whole and I believe that there certainly should be. I entered the search term “Prevent strategy evaluation” into the GOV.UK website and it brought up two documents. The first was the annual statistical review, which as I pointed out is not actually doing that job, and the second and only other document was a Youth Justice Board report, Preventing Religious Radicalisation and Violent Extremism, published under the imprimatur of the DCLG back in 2010. There may be other evaluations—there may, indeed, be very useful reports drawn up by various other people—but the Government have not seen fit to reference them on the website and in that sense they have certainly failed the transparency test, even if stuff has been going on.

It might be worth while quoting a couple of paragraphs from that Youth Justice Board report of 2012:

“The review found that the evidence base for effective preventing violent extremism interventions is very limited. Despite a prolific output of research, few studies contained empirical data or systematic data analysis”.


Then, after some examination of overseas projects, and the tos and fros of that:

“These programmes provide some potential learning points for future UK programmes, chiefly around the need for those engaging with radicalised individuals to carry authority and legitimacy, and to be equipped with profound ideological knowledge”.


An immediate question arises as to whether, in the subsequent six years, that paragraph’s lessons have been carried through, making sure that those who are delivering the programme or, indeed, carrying out the filtering process that we have been discussing this afternoon are in fact,

“equipped with profound ideological knowledge”.

I have a sense that that may not be true in all cases, although no doubt it is in some.

When one starts a process which, as the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, and at Second Reading, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, very eloquently explained, arouses the concerns of the community that it is supposed to safeguard, and at the other end we see the inability of the Government to demonstrate that they are producing results at the far end of the project, the time for an independent review is clearly now.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 17th December 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Stunell]

31: Clause 19, page 21, line 37, at end insert—
“( ) After subsection (3) insert— “(3A) The Secretary of State must ensure the collection and annual release of statistics on—(a) the religion, and(b) the ethnicity,of identified individuals referred under subsection (2).””

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Paddick and I tabled Amendment 31 because of the serious concerns expressed on all sides about the impact of the Prevent strategy on minority—particularly Muslim—communities. The noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, has been among the most eloquent in putting that view to the House. This has emphasised the fact that Prevent risks becoming counterproductive rather than counterterrorist. It is really important for the House to consider that critique and to respond to it and make sure that the legislation does as well.

There are concerns from within some of those communities themselves. At Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, spoke about that very eloquently. I have been approached by a number of organisations which work in the field of deradicalisation and minimising radical risks for those in minority communities; they have passed on their concerns as well. There are also concerns from the professional associations which represent some of those professionals who are required to be reporters and are drawn into the Prevent strategy. A senior clinician from my own area of Stockport has made the point that it undermines patients’ trust in the conversations they might have with their GP because they fear they might be reported. The professional teaching associations have some of the same concerns about the burden being placed on schools to deliver the Prevent strategy.

The fact is that there is a cost. It is our job to ask: is it worth it? Is the value worth the cost? We need to look at what measures Prevent is subject to. How is Prevent evaluated? How does anybody decide that it is effective? Can it be shown that unconscious bias is not present when people are selected for potential referral? In view of the debate we have just had, that question of unconscious bias might need to be nearer the top of our minds than we might otherwise have thought. Can the Minister really expect to get away with the argument that she deployed last time round that it was in part justified because there was a valuable by-catch, as it were, of other people who, although not being radicalised or in need of Channel support, in fact showed other, non-terrorist vulnerabilities? The question, then, is: how do we make Prevent more transparent? How can we make it so that, on the one hand, those who have fears and criticisms about it can be satisfied and, on the other, the Government can satisfy themselves that they are not in the same position that they were a few years ago about stop and search, where they actually did not know the answer to the criticism that was being levelled at police services?

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[Lord Stunell]

I thank the Minister and other noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I am glad that neither she nor I believe that Prevent is beyond improvement after the magic year of 2015, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, imputed to me. I am very grateful for her words of encouragement. The key issue here is the perception referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and the widespread misapprehension, as the Government see it, by the minority community of what Prevent is and does. The best way to overcome that is to have more transparency and information. I welcome what the Minister has said today and therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 31 withdrawn.

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[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, it is interesting that eight years ago today, Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself in Tunisia kicking off the Arab spring, which brought devastation to the whole of the Middle East and dramatically increased the number of terrorists. It is appropriate that we are discussing a counterterrorism Bill, because this is such an important issue.

I have some sympathy for my noble friend Lord Harris’s safeguarding comments. There is no doubt that the alliteration was very useful. I found the four Ps a useful reminder when talking to the media at the time, and there is no doubt that there is a strong element of safeguarding within the Prevent strategy. But as I have said, Prevent is a curate’s egg. Some bits have done very well and some bits have not. It has not hit the right places. There is no doubt that there has been traducing of it by some people, which is unfortunate, but of the four strands, the reality is that Prevent is probably the most important in the final analysis. I had the other three firmly under my control when I was in the Home Office, but not Prevent. It was separate, which is unfortunate because it is such an important strand. The way that I believe we will finally defeat terrorism is by getting this right.

Therefore, it is important that we review what is going on. I strongly support the amendment. It is absolutely appropriate that we have a review and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile; I am not quite sure how the review should be undertaken and by whom, but the Government should consider it. I am certain, however, that we should have a thorough review to look at this before we move forward.

[Lord Stunell]

My Lords, I support the amendment. We have rehearsed this issue at each stage of the Bill and I remind the House that a wide range of external organisations share the view that there should be a review. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and now from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that such a thing might add value. The Government have struggled to resist the reasoning put forward. The bottom line seems to be that the Government do not want a review and it is extremely difficult to penetrate why that might be when one looks at the advantages that flow from having one.

It is important to understand that activity is no guarantee of effectiveness. A lot of work goes on, but how effective is it? We heard evidence from the noble Lords, Lord West and Lord Harris, that it is not uniformly good. Certainly, the impression of those who believe themselves to be the targets of Prevent is that it is not uniformly good. The Minister needs to answer in detail what the Government’s reservations are about any sort of review along the lines of the amendment.

I noted carefully what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, had to say about the Prevent oversight board. He said that it had not met often enough. Providentially for his case, it had met in the last week, but he did not disclose how long before that it last met. If the next meeting is in six months and he thinks that is soon enough, I presume the gap was quite extensive.

I notice that my supposition was, to some extent, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, who said of last week’s meeting that he was glad the Prevent oversight board was at last showing some signs of life. I hope I am not putting words into his mouth; I think that is what he said. Bearing in mind the qualified support that has come for the Prevent oversight board’s activity and effectiveness, I wonder whether the Government are really satisfied it is the right vehicle for a review, a substitute for a review or gives all the answers that a review would. It seems likely that that is not the case.

Other specific concerns have come to light since our previous debate. I have been approached by an outside organisation that, until this year, was a provider of Prevent projects to those who had been referred. It pointed out to me that it has now been superseded, at short notice in its opinion, by a private provider. It alleges that there is no effective procurement policy for those programmes. Far too often, it appears to depend on the knowledge and contacts of a Prevent co-ordinator, rather than a rigorous management process. I hope the Minister will be able, at least in principle, to give some reassurance on that. To help her in giving that reassurance, could she say something about the proportion of projects that are delivered through NGOs, the proportion delivered through private companies and the proportion delivered through local authorities or other public services directly? Have those proportions changed over the last four or five years, as my informant alleges? If there has been a change, was it cost-driven or based on an evaluation of whether particular projects were the wrong part of the curate’s egg, and were therefore dropped, or were too expensive for the results?

All of this raises the question of what results and criteria are being used in allocating, renewing or discontinuing such contracts. Surely evaluation is a key part of that; therefore, review of the process seems all the more necessary. I hope, for all the reasons that have been rehearsed, not least that one, that the Minister is able to accept this amendment today.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, Prevent is an important part of the Government’s anti-terrorism strategy. We have heard about a number of problems relating to it, which have been there for a while. I am persuaded that it is therefore sensible to review the policy and see whether it should be changed, replaced or whatever.

The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, said he could not understand why the Government were resisting this idea. I can tell him exactly why. It is because the Home Office ploughs on regardless. Even when the tractor’s wheels are stuck in the mud, they go on spinning. That is why the Home Office needs constant help in knowing when things should be reviewed. I strongly suggest that my noble friend tears up the brief that says “Don’t review” and says, “Yes, we’ll look at it”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

If the noble Lord will indulge me, I was about to explain how the Prevent programme is evolving and being scrutinised, including through Contest. Perhaps I may go back to the comments made by the Commissioner of the Met:

“There is an awful lot of very, very good work that has gone on under Prevent in relation to all forms of extremism, not forgetting extreme right-wing, which takes up a big part of it. There have been hundreds of people who have been turned away from violent extremism by their engagement with Channel and other aspects of Prevent, and that is all positive”.


Prevent is not about restricting debate or free speech, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, might suggest. On the contrary: as the Government have said previously, schools ought to be safe spaces in which children and young people can understand and discuss sensitive topics, including terrorism and extremist ideologies. An independent study of education professionals found that almost three-quarters of them believe that the Prevent duty has not stifled classroom discussions of extremism, intolerance and inequality.

Since it was launched in 2011, Prevent training has been completed more than 1.1 million times to enable front-line practitioners, including teachers, to recognise the signs of radicalisation so that they know what steps to take, including, where appropriate, how to make a referral to Channel. This has positively supported teachers in discussing the risks of radicalisation with those in their classes. To our knowledge, no event or speaker has ever been cancelled or banned as a result of the Prevent duty. It is about upskilling individuals, not curtailing them. The Government believe that it is imperative that young people learn how to challenge dangerous beliefs which are all too easily accessible online. Since February 2010, some 300,000 pieces of illegal terrorist material have been removed from the internet.

In addition to the examples of increased transparency that I outlined in Committee, which included the annual publication of Prevent and Channel data and increasing the number and geographical reach of community round tables, there is increased cross-party engagement, led by the security Minister. Also, as mentioned earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, on 28 November the Home Secretary chaired the latest meeting of the Prevent oversight board, which brings together other Secretaries of State, operational partners and independent members to review delivery and to provide the strategic challenge noble Lords have talked about. I therefore understand the concerns of noble Lords.

[Lord Stunell]

Is the Minister able to tell us when the preceding meeting of the oversight board was held, and what the gap was?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am not, but I suspect the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, can.