Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Second sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 25th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Q It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe, on my first Bill Committee. Mr Dawson, I want to pick up on the length of sentence. You say, in your submission, that merely increasing the length of time that people spend in custody

“risks further alienating them and giving them grounds for grievance against the authorities”.

You are in effect saying that the Bill should include measures to ensure that effective deradicalisation programmes are provided. What would they look like?

Peter Dawson: The Prison Service runs two programmes at the moment. I said earlier that the evidence base for those was small, because it is innovative work, but they are clearly worth while. The most valuable work that is done in prisons in terms of changing people’s attitudes and behaviours is the day-to-day example that is set around them—the supporting of their growing up and giving them reasons that make life worth living that are nothing to do with their ideology. It is an incessant process, a slow process and an uncertain process, but it is about the impact of everybody in prison on that individual.

What people whose lives have changed dramatically would say is this—I can think of someone I know who committed two murders and who would tell this story. Very often, a particular individual, in the course of a sentence, makes a connection and is able to help that person to grow up and see a different future for themselves. The faith that that key person shows will often drive change in behaviour more than any particular programme.

I have said it before, but the one thing that I am absolutely clear about is that I have never seen anybody coerced into rehabilitation. The particular theory that academics talk mostly about now is called desistance theory. It is about what causes people to change their route in life. That rests very heavily on the idea that somebody has to be able to see a better life for themselves in the future. The academic work tends to support that but, I think, so does all our experience. So I would say that we should not look to prison for magic solutions; we should look for the extreme skill among staff of all sorts, and volunteers in prisons too, in establishing relationships that slowly change the way that somebody thinks about their future. When prisoners go out, however, those promises have to be met. That is why we are saying that rehabilitation is what happens after prison, as much as what happens during it.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Q Are there any other measures for the rehabilitation of terrorist offenders that you would like to see in the Bill?

Peter Dawson: I do not think there is anything that I would like to see in the Bill. The question that I hope the Committee will ask is what we do not yet know about the circumstances of the cases that have prompted the Bill. Both the Fishmongers’ Hall attack and the attack in Streatham have been subject to serious case reviews. I certainly have not seen those reviews published.

In both cases, it seems to me that there are questions to ask about whether the existing framework of law would have been adequate had different decisions been taken. That is not to point a finger of blame but simply to say, if we have an existing structure that was not used to best effect, that we should think hard before changing the structure and changing it in a way that raises some of the problems that I have described.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss Dines]

Q Thank you for your evidence, Professor Grubin. I am interested in your view of how valuable the polygraph test is in assessing an offender’s intention in the long term, in comparison with the other tools available by way of standard psychological testing.

Professor Grubin: It is not valuable at all. You cannot use polygraph testing as a means of testing intentions. The polygraph is looking specifically at behaviours. Your colleague referred to concrete, very narrow questions of the type, “Have you done this?” They can be screening-type questions, or they can be very specific, such as, “Did you rob the bank?”, “Did you shoot the gun?” or whatever. It is not a tool for eliciting intentions or validating responses to those sorts of question.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Q You said that in normal circumstances the test is 80% to 90% accurate. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North raised questions about those with mental health problems and the issue of immaturity. I want to ask you about some other categories as to whether there are also concerns about the accuracy or appropriateness of tests: people with learning disabilities; people who are neurodiverse or have personality disorders; and non-English speakers. Are there concerns about the use of polygraph tests for those people and for any other vulnerable people?

Professor Grubin: For people with an intellectual disability, you are absolutely right that the accuracy of the test decreases once IQ drops below a certain level. In the sex offender testing, we will typically test down to 60, but we are much more cautious with the test outcome. It is still valuable, because of the disclosure aspect; you still get information and information gain—the point about information gain is the main one I want to leave you with—from the test, even with someone with an intellectual disability.

Again, examiners need to be trained; they need to address their questions in a different way, one that is much more concrete. The test has to be modified. It has to be shorter because of fatigue and issues such as that. So, you are absolutely right that accuracy decreases, but you must remember that nothing hinges on a test outcome alone. If it is a deceptive response and you have no other concerns, you would still look further. You might say, “We have to be more cautious because of IQ.”

There is no evidence to suggest it works any differently with people with personality disorders from how it works with anybody else. Again, because of misunder- standings about how polygraph works, people think, “It does not work with psychopathic individuals because they don’t feel anxiety.” First, the test is not based on anxiety. Sometimes when we do talks, and we will have an examiner, we can do demonstrations of polygraph testing. We used to like to get a volunteer from the audience who we can hook up. I try to pick somebody who is also a psychopath, so we can kill two birds with one stone. I know that here we would not be able to do that, but in the audiences I speak to there are often one or two psychiatrists who would fit the bill for a psychopath. There has been some testing of personality disorders and there is no evidence that the test itself is any less valuable. Again, part of the training of the examiner is that they need to know how to interview these individuals, because of the challenges that they may present.

I believe the third group you were thinking about was those with neurodevelopmental disorder or autistic spectrum disorder. Again, the evidence is that the test works just as well with them as with anybody else, but you have to make allowances in the interview, because of the concrete nature of a lot of their thinking, language difficulties and so on. You need to take that into account in terms of the interviewing, but there is no evidence to suggest that the test itself works any differently with them from how it works with anybody else.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Q My last question was about non-English speakers.

Professor Grubin: We do test with interpreters, and they seem to work just as well. Again, it does take training for the examiner to know how to work with an interpreter, and the interpreter needs training as well. Certainly, security services in other countries use it with interpreters quite regularly.

[Laura Trott]

Q Professor, you talked about a failure rate of up to 20%. What drives that failure rate? Is it the fact that people are tricking the test or that the examiner is making a mistake? What are the drivers behind that 20%?

Professor Grubin: There is a range of reasons that people can give either false positives or false negatives. Apologies for not looking at you while I am answering. Sometimes it is because the test hasn’t been set out properly, the examinee hasn’t been prepared properly in the pre-test interview or the questions haven’t been formulated well, and so on.

The examinee may have some other experience that is close enough to the way the question is being asked to cause that sort of response. For example, there was a very good study carried out in Israel. I won’t go through all the details of it, but they were able to debrief afterwards as we were with police officers who were applying for promotion. There were two false positives. The ground troops knew that these two people had been telling the truth, but they were said to be lying. One of them had said that he had previously made an insurance claim in Israel. At that time, the insurance companies in Israel would test people making insurance claims to see if they were honest or not. He said that he was being honest, but he was told that he was lying. He couldn’t get that out of his mind during the test. That causes the cognitive processing we were talking about, and it made him respond in that way.

The other person was more interesting. The experiment itself was about a test that the examinees could cheat on. You would know if they cheated or not. The second police officer said that he cheated when he took the test, but there was something wrong when he took it and the examiners had him do the test a second time. When he did it the second time, he said, “I don’t think I had better cheat again,” so he did it honestly. When he was asked if he had cheated on the test the second time, he said that he was thinking about having cheated the first time, which is why he reacted as he did.

There are other reasons as well, but it is hard to explain without going into the details about how polygraph testing works. Basically, you are comparing the relevant questions that you are interested in with so-called comparison questions. If those comparison questions are not evocative enough to elicit a response when a person is telling the truth to the relevant question, or vice versa, when they are too hot and the person is much more concerned about that question than about the relevant one, you can also get mistakes on the test.

The final reason is that sometimes we just don’t know; it just happens.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Third sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We have five minutes left. I call Ruth Cadbury, and then Sarah Dines.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Q It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Robertson.

Thank you very much for your contribution, Mr Fairhurst. In response to the last question, you covered Muslim terrorist offenders. You have talked about deradicalisation, incentives to go straight and the success rate—the small percentage of terrorist offenders who reoffend. Do those figures and your general thoughts apply also to the growing number of far-right terrorists we are now seeing coming into the criminal justice system?

Mark Fairhurst: This is a completely new dynamic, but let me tell you this: if we have prolific far-right extremist offenders in the general population, they will be able to influence and recruit far more prisoners than Islamist extremists ever could. They will get more support. They will be a similar threat to what IRA prisoners were. They will have a lot of contacts in communities. They will be able to get staff details and addresses, and be more of a threat. That is why it is absolutely essential that we open the other two separation centres. What we do not want is, first, a situation where you have far-right extremists in the same centre as Islamist extremists or, secondly, a situation where a prolific right-wing extremist offender is recruiting in the general population and causing chaos. We really need to rethink this.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Q Is the potential for deradicalisation among those prisoners there in the same way as it is for those prisoners you talked about earlier?

Mark Fairhurst: Yes, without a doubt. At the moment, we only have these two programmes: healthy identity and desist and disengage. We need to look at alternatives, because the far right is a completely different dynamic. It has not really raised its head above the parapet in our prisons at this moment in time, but I can assure you that it is on its way, because it is on the rise.

[Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Q Mr Fairhurst, you touched on polygraph testing, which is a new tool that would be used on licence under clause 32. Do you think it would be a useful tool, delivered not by prison officers but by specialist providers, to avoid the situation that you highlighted, where people are released, having undergone a rehabilitation programme—a deradicalisation programme—that has clearly failed? Is the polygraph therefore going to be a useful, essential tool?

Mark Fairhurst: Yes, I agree with that. It will be an essential tool, but it would also be essential if we had an incentive to release people early, and prior to their release they were given a polygraph and asked about their future intentions. That is something else to consider. I agree: it is very useful. I have no opposition to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We have time for maybe one or two more questions, if anybody would like to ask one.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Q Professor Silke, we have covered the issue of prisoners, but what impact do you think the changes to the TPIM regime will have on public safety?

Professor Silke: I am not a fan of TPIM. The main saving grace of the approach has been that they have been used sparingly, and that has been consistently the case from control orders onwards. That probably is their main saving grace: they are only used in a handful of cases. The problem is that it is punishment without conviction, which is always problematic in a system of justice such as the one we have. The changes proposed are similar to some that have existed in the past. I would encourage the Government in general to look at alternatives to TPIM. If we are in a case where we are talking about five or six individuals who are under those measures, are there not alternative arrangements that could be used to monitor or otherwise manage the risk associated with those individuals, apart from a TPIM approach?

[Ruth Cadbury]

Thank you.

[The Chair]

If there are no more questions, Professor Silke, thank you very much for your evidence. It has been very useful.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. (Tom Pursglove.)

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Fourth sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

This is about a young person’s future life. They may well have done the most horrible and tragic things, but even those people deserve an opportunity to prove that they can do better. This amendment would help to achieve that.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I rise in support of amendments 37, 45 and 46, standing in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North. I want to cover some general principles in what is my first opportunity to speak in this Bill Committee. Like the Government, we are committed to keeping the public safe and we share the desire to ensure that attacks such as those at Fishmongers’ Hall and in Streatham never happen again—attacks where convicted but released terrorists were able to kill and maim innocent people.

We recognise the importance of adequate and appropriate punishment in sentencing, but punishment and sentencing must go alongside rehabilitation. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham said on Second Reading:

“We must not lose faith in the power of redemption—the ability of people to renounce the darkest chapters of their lives and move towards the light.”—[Official Report, 9 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 213.].

For that, those offenders need an effective deradicalisation programme tailored to their motivation and circumstances, and they need hope—hope that before too long they can rejoin their family; that they can get meaningful work. They could even steer others away from the path they took before. I point out that programmes have operated in prisons in Northern Ireland with convicted paramilitaries on both sides of the troubles. In the later years of the troubles, those men became beacons of peace and reconciliation, educating young people towards positive paths.

Some contributions on Second Reading sometimes felt like support for a policy that almost veered on “Lock ’em up and throw away the key”. However, as many submissions and expert witnesses to this Committee have said, removing hope from these offenders and the opportunity to prove they are safe does not make the rest of us safer. I might add, even locking up people indefinitely, as the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford said earlier, does not protect us anyway. It does not prevent them from radicalising others. It spawns martyrs, not to mention the cost to the public purse of incarcerating prisoners for ever longer periods. As we heard this morning from the Prison Officers Association, there is also the danger to prison officers of attacks from angry men who have no hope of release in the foreseeable future.

I fear that some aspects of the Bill are born from a reaction to the terrorist atrocities in the last seven months and have been brought in without due research into what might work to further reduce the risk of attack from radicalised individuals, whether they are of a Daesh/ISIS persuasion, from the far right or, as a number of terrorists in the UK still are, rogue Irish paramilitaries.

The Fishmongers’ Hall and Streatham attacks were both committed by offenders who had been released automatically halfway through their sentence with no involvement of the Parole Board. Of course, with Labour support, the Government have now brought in the Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Act 2020, which ends the automatic early release of terrorist offenders and ensures that any release before the end of a sentence is dependent on a thorough risk assessment by the Parole Board. I am therefore not quite sure why the Government want to take the Parole Board out of sentencing now, without any adequate alternative provision being put in place.

Before I make some specific remarks, Dave, the father of Jack Merritt, who was killed in the Fishmongers’ Hall attack, wrote poignantly about how his son would have perceived the political reaction to his death, because of course Jack Merritt worked in the criminal justice system on the rehabilitation of offenders. Dave wrote:

“What Jack would want from this is for all of us to walk through the door he has booted down, in his black Doc Martens. That door opens up a world where we do not lock up and throw away the key. Where we do not give indeterminate sentences, or convict people on joint enterprise. Where we do not slash prison budgets, and where we focus on rehabilitation not revenge. Where we do not consistently undermine our public services, the lifeline of our nation. Jack believed in the inherent goodness of humanity, and felt a deep social responsibility to protect that.”

As I said, I support the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South—

[Alex Cunningham]

Stockton North!

[Ruth Cadbury]

My apologies.

Amendments 37, 45 and 46 relate to under-21s. I wish that they went a little older, possibly to 25, because they consider the issue of maturity. I declare a certain interest because for many years I was a trustee and, latterly, the chair of the Barrow Cadbury Trust, which initiated and funded the Transition to Adulthood Alliance about 15 years ago. Over a number of years, the alliance worked with a number of non-governmental organisations, the Ministry of Justice, Ministers, Opposition Members and so on to the point where maturity has now been introduced into sentencing practice and several other areas of the criminal justice system. I fear that we are going to lose that in this Bill.

When considering maturity, it is really important that we work on the basis of all the research that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North mentioned and use that research to reduce the risk of serious harm to members of the public and to enhance the rehabilitation of the offender. The Committee has heard powerful evidence, particularly this morning, about the different motivations that people have for becoming terrorists or terrorist sympathisers, such as political, religious or psychiatric.

Sentences and rehabilitation must take account of the different motivations of different offenders. As we heard this morning, we probably also need to have tailored support, which needs to come into the pre-sentencing reports. One of the amendments says that the court must also take account of reports from local authority officers who have worked with the offender prior to the point of considering sentencing.

[Alex Cunningham]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comprehensive speech. She talks about resources and specialised facilities. The evidence we heard from some people in earlier sittings suggests that the system is not fit for purpose. Would she welcome from the Minister, as I would, a statement about how the Government will ensure proper provision for rehabilitation in our prison system?

[Ruth Cadbury]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. As others have said, it would have been better if there had been proper risk assessments of a number of aspects of the Bill, because many clauses do not seem to be evidence-based. We know that we have funding problems within the prison system. We know that we have, as we heard this morning, disjoints between various elements of the course through the system for offenders. There is an awful lot of work to do, and there are a number of respects in which I do not feel that the Bill is fit for purpose. It would have been better if it had been based on proper evidence of what works to reduce the threat to the public and improve rehabilitation.

Children have long been treated differently in sentencing considerations, and the amendments would enable particular considerations for young adults, particularly of their maturity. Mr Hall, the independent reviewer, was concerned that, unless these considerations are taken into account, we risk locking people up for too long, building bitterness and a refusal to engage in the prison system, and actually, on eventual release, potentially a greater risk. He considered that longer and more punitive sentences do not in themselves ensure that people are less dangerous on release, and that while extending sentences for serious offenders may, of course, keep them out of our harm’s way for a temporary period, we do not want them to leave prison more dangerous than when they entered.

Early release provides prisoners with the incentive to behave and show that they are capable of reform. We heard powerful evidence that prison staff are at increased risk of harm where hope is lost. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North said, many studies show that young terrorist offenders are much more likely to reform than older offenders, yet the Bill treats a young adult who has just turned 18 the same as an older offender. Are the Secretary of State and the Minister concerned that the Bill effectively gives up on those offenders?

We need to look at the evidence, not the tabloids. We need a flexible response that is offender-based, and it must be tailored. If we really want to enable rehabilitation and reduce the harm to the public, I hope that the Minister will consider the amendment.

[Chris Philp]

I will speak to the amendments relating to younger offenders. There are a couple of things to be clear about first of all. For the sake of absolute clarity, offenders who are under the age of 18 are not subject to the 14-year minimum prison sentence. Only offenders over the age of 18 are subject to those provisions. The amendments relate to offenders aged between 18 and 21, so we are discussing a very specific cohort.

I agree and concur with many points that the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth made about rehabilitation, and about the increased opportunity for rehabilitation for younger people. It is of course the case that younger people are more open to change—particularly as their brains mature—than older people, and it is right that we try to work with them to achieve that. I would not dispute that as a general principle, but clause 4 as drafted applies to an extremely small subsection of those offenders aged between 18 and 21. It by no means applies to the generality of offenders, including terrorist offenders, aged 18 to 21. It applies to that narrow subsection who have committed a serious terrorist offence, as we have discussed already, but it also requires a finding by the judge, following a pre-sentence report—something the shadow Minister referred to in his amendment and in his speech—of dangerousness. What a finding of dangerousness means in law is that there is a significant risk of the offender causing serious harm by committing further serious terrorism or other specified offences.

There are already two hurdles to jump: a serious terrorist offence, followed by a finding of dangerousness based on a pre-sentence report. However, there is also a third hurdle that must be jumped before a younger offender aged 18 to 21 would fall into the scope of this clause, which is that, at the time of committing the offence. they were aware, or should have been aware, that their offence was very likely to result in or contribute to multiple deaths. That is a well-established test dating back to section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000. We are talking about an extremely small subsection of offenders aged 18 to 21 and a very small subsection even of terrorist offenders—those who meet all three of those criteria.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Fifth sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 2nd July 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Philp]

These are relatively technical amendments. The purpose of Government amendment 16 is to apply the same period of rehabilitation to the new sentence for terrorist offenders of particular concern as that currently applied to sentences in respect of grave crimes under section 91 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000. The rehabilitation period is specified in section 5 of that Act and varies depending on the length of sentence given. It begins on the day the sentence is completed, including any time spent on licence.

Government amendment 29 amends the statutory instruments referred to above in order to align the new special sentence of detention for terrorist offenders of particular concern for under-18s with sentences imposed under section 91 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000. Those are the central amendments.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Can I just be clear? For certain offences, under-18s will be treated in exactly the same way as adults when being sentenced. If I have got that wrong, can the Minister please explain?

[Chris Philp]

No. The rehabilitation periods are different and lower for children—quite rightly, for the reasons we debated earlier. All we are doing is creating consistency between the rehabilitation period for adults who commit the various offences and the rehabilitation period for children who commit various offences. We are not making the rehabilitation period the same for children as it is for adults.

The purpose of clause 22 is to address a gap in sentencing options for those under 18 who commit a terrorism offence where custodial sentencing options are limited to a maximum two-year detention and training order, due to the offender not meeting the criteria required to impose long-term detention for offences punishable by less than 14 years in custody.

The new sentence ensures that those convicted of a terrorist offence—we are talking about the serious terrorist offences—spend a substantial period of time on licence to enable that very important rehabilitative work to be undertaken in the community, and to limit the risk that they may pose to the public. That will also ensure greater consistency between the approaches towards sentence and release for under-18s and adults, although under-18s will of course be typically serving shorter prison sentences.

Under the current framework, some terrorist offences can attract only a detention and training order of up to two years, with only half that being served in detention, or an extended determinate sentence where the child is considered dangerous and the sentence is at least four years. That is a consequence of the fixed-term sentences under section 91 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000, and they are available only for specified offences. Terrorist offences are not a specified category.

As some terrorist offences carry a maximum sentence of less than 14 years, the only custodial sentencing option is therefore the detention and training order. Essentially, the clause fills the gap between those two sentences by creating the SOPC-type offence for under-18s. Of course, the length of sentence will be entirely a matter for the discretion of the judge, and the judge will have the pre-sentence report available in making that determination. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury said in his intervention, that pre-sentence report will include considerations regarding not just the offender’s chronological age but their mental maturity. Judges will of course continue to have discretion to ensure that they are balancing the offender’s maturity with the appropriate kind of sentence.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 22 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 23

Terrorism sentence with fixed licence period: Scotland

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Sixth sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 2nd July 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

As the Minister said, the Bill brings a new facet to criminal justice by creating the serious terrorism sentence in an earlier clause but removing early release for those who prove to the Parole Board that they have been rehabilitated to the extent that they could be released from a custodial sentence.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and other hon. Friends said on Second Reading, we do not oppose the changes, because they apply to the most serious offenders who pose the greatest risk to the public. However, as we heard from a number witnesses, the changes carry risks of which we should be cognisant following the adoption and implementation of the Bill. We all have experience of judicial processes and policies that have changed because of various Bills, and there has been regret because the unintended consequences were not considered fully at the time. I also have concerns that the clause applies to under-18s. That raises further issues, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North has already covered, about the vulnerability of young offenders and also their ability to reform.

I draw the Committee’s attention to the note on the Bill that was published by Jonathan Hall, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. He also referred to this in his evidence to the Committee last week. His note stated:

“Firstly, to the extent that the possibility of early release acted as a spur to good behaviour and reform for offenders who are going to spend the longest time in custody, that has now gone…Secondly, the opportunity to understand current and future risk at Parole Board hearings has also been removed.”

I am not clear what has replaced it, notwithstanding that early release has been removed. What is the full process to replace the Parole Board to understand current and future risk? Jonathan Hall was also concerned that

“child terrorist offenders, whose risk may be considered most susceptible to change as they mature into adults, have lost the opportunity for early release.”

Of course, they will be in their 30s by the time they are released from custody.

Peter Dawson of the Prison Reform Trust told us that the Parole Board could release early, and he pointed out that more often than not the Parole Board does not release people early. He confirmed that it is an important part of identifying terrorist risk.

Jonathan Hall also said:

“The role of the Parole Board is quite an important part of identifying terrorist risk, and if you don’t have that role then you lose that insight.”––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 12, Q20.]

We have also had evidence from witnesses saying that the opportunity for someone to prove that they have reformed—this is particularly true for young offenders—is removed by the changes made by the Bill.

I do not know how many Members have had a chance to look at their emails in the past couple of hours, but two and a half hours ago we received evidence from the Bar Council, which says that this clause needs to be scrutinised with particular care. It does not address many clauses, but it says that clause 27 “stands out”. It says:

“We would question how Clause 27 fits with the obligation placed on the court to have regard to the reform and rehabilitation of offenders when sentencing (s.57(2) of the Sentencing Code). This provision would not appear to be the subject of an exception to the s.57(2) obligation, in contrast with the express carve out from s.57(2) relating to the imposition of life sentences for specific terrorist offences (Clause 11).”

I return to Peter Dawson of the Prison Reform Trust, who said:

“The problem with denying all hope of release on a conditional basis by a judgment about whether the person can be released safely or not is that it denies hope and affects the whole of the prison sentence…The possibility of parole is essential to the process that reduces risk.”––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 32, Q72.]

In its evidence, the Prison Officers Association described graphically what the loss of hope means for prison management and for the risk of violence against prison officers.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady accept what Mr Fairhurst from the Prison Officers Association said in response to a question from me about the rehabilitation and deradicalisation programmes for terrorist offenders? He said that there needs to be a full review of those programmes, and they are exactly what one would hope would turn people around if they were to be released early. The clear sign at the moment is that they are not good enough to enable early release, so prisoners need to serve the full term in custody.

[Ruth Cadbury]

What the hon. Gentleman says would be fine if we had that review of the Prevent programme and the programmes in prison. As several of my colleagues have said, the Bill does not provide for a review of those processes, so we have one side without the other, and that is a cause of concern for me and some of the witnesses.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Further to the matter that the hon. Member for Aylesbury just raised, do we have a commitment from the Government to undertake a full review of the methods that he described?

[Ruth Cadbury]

That is what I was going to say. I think there needs to be a review of this, as and when it is implemented.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is quoting from the Bar Council. I want to make the Committee aware, in reference to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, that I am a member of the Bar and have practised at the Bar of England and Wales.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The Bar Council is a very authoritative body that needs to be listened to when we are introducing legislation that affects issues such as sentencing.

On the POA point, Peter Dawson pointed out clearly, in relation to violence against prison officers, that when hope is lost and the atmosphere and the management of prisoners gets much more difficult, we have nowhere to move terrorist prisoners who are already in specialist separation centres. He said that removing hope of early release increases that risk. I would like the Government to commit to a review if the proposal is implemented in this way. Obviously, we support the motivation behind it.

I have one more question for the Minister. Might the option for this sentence, with the loss of early release, lead to unintended consequences in charging and sentencing? Would sentencers avoid it and impose a lesser sentence? I am sure that the Government do not intend that.

[Chris Philp]

Let me briefly respond to one or two of the points that the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth made. She referred to the fact that if the sentence is served in full, there obviously will not be a Parole Board assessment prior to release. She asked about the risk assessment that would take place. I asked Mr Fairhurst from the Prison Officers Association about that in our evidence session on Tuesday morning. Even where there is no Parole Board involvement because release is automatic, there are a whole load of other review and evaluation mechanisms that can be used—for example, multi-agency public protection arrangements, careful monitoring by the prison staff and prison governor, and involvement by the National Probation Service in preparation for the release point. With the example of the Streatham offender, those kinds of risk-assessment measures led to a security services team monitoring him, which obviously had the result that it did. That is an example, as Mr Fairhurst said in evidence, of the risk assessment process working very effectively. That is what we would expect to happen in cases in which release is automatic.

The hon. Lady also asked: what happens when hope is lost? What if a prisoner is in prison and there is no prospect of early release? Does that not mean that it will be hard to get them to behave well? I want to make some points in response. First, the vast majority of prisoners, who have committed a range of offences, way beyond terrorist ones, are serving standard determinate sentences and are released automatically—typically at the halfway point—without any Parole Board intervention. The vast majority are subject to automatic release at a particular point. The second risk, particularly in relation to terrorist offenders, is that of false compliance, if they think that by pretending to comply with the deradicalisation programme, they might get released early. That is not necessarily an entirely healthy incentive and we should be mindful of that possibility.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Eighth sitting)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th July 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Alex Cunningham]

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

We have talked in great detail about the many provisions in the Bill, but we have also talked about the many missing provisions, best evidenced by my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North, who discussed Prevent and the need for an end date for the report on its effectiveness to come into place.

One key area where we could do better in is the deradicalisation programmes in prison. While the minimum sentencing for terror offences has been increased, there is a suggestion that we could simply be delaying inevitable further offences unless we take action to use the offender’s time in prison to deradicalise them. We can only do that if there is an effective deradicalisation programme in place.

We have heard evidence that few people convicted of terrorism offences go on to commit further crimes, but some do. We have also heard evidence that these programmes are not entirely fit for purpose; perhaps, with these new longer minimum sentences, they really need a good overhaul. That is why the new clause has been tabled: to ask the Secretary of State to conduct a review of the impact of the provisions of the Bill on the effectiveness and availability of deradicalisation programmes in prison. Perhaps the Government could just tag it on to the Prevent inquiry and get two for the price of one.

The impact assessment for the Bill claims that longer incapacitation of terrorist offenders will enable

“more time in which to support their disengagement and rehabilitation through the range of tailored interventions available while they are in prison.”

However, the amount of time during which individuals have access to deradicalisation programmes in prison is not a key factor in determining their success or otherwise; rather, it is the effectiveness and the availability of the programmes in prison that has come under increasing scrutiny.

We need to know what is happening in prisons. What programmes are being delivered, who are they delivered to, who are they delivered by, when are offenders undertaking the programmes, how many deradicalisation programmes one offender in for a minimum sentence is expected to cover, and how is the success of programmes delivered? Those are just some of the questions that such a review would look into.

We need to understand the effectiveness of the programmes, where they work, where they do not and what can be improved. Currently, the main deradicalisation programme in prisons is called the Healthy Identity Intervention, which delivers one-to-one, individually tailored sessions. It is supplemented by the Desistance and Disengagement Programme, which can be offered to both prisoners and those released on licence.

Neither the Healthy Identity Intervention or the Desistance and Disengagement Programme courses have undergone any form of evaluation process to date, so perhaps the Minister will agree that a formal review is long overdue. It is a key part of our justice system, and rehabilitation should be at the centre of that, because people are released back into society. Putting someone back into society who has not been rehabilitated simply increases their chances of reoffending.

I remember the evidence from some of our witnesses—in particular from Mark Fairhurst who, at the start of his evidence, spoke of the role of key workers, the Parole Board and a range of professionals working with the offender. It was all very positive and very much to be welcomed. He went on, however, to say that an extended sentence, where an offender serves their whole sentence in prison,

“incentivises people not to behave correctly or to go on deradicalisation courses.”––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2020; c. 69, Q145.]

All the more reason why Ministers should understand more about how the deradicalisation system works for the offender and for society.

I would particularly like to see data on the average length of time for which an individual has been assessed as needing to undergo a deradicalisation programme before they actually undertake it. I am concerned that in such cases time is of the essence. The offender is likely to feel incredibly hostile to a system that has just imprisoned them. There cannot be an indefinite wait for them to be put on to a programme if they are willing to do it. Not getting on with it just allows more time for further radicalisation and mistrust of the legal and justice system.

In addition to that evidence, Professor Andrew Silke, who has studied efforts to deradicalise those in prison for terrorism offences, has reported that some prisoners who said that they were willing to participate in a programme were never put on one before their release. That could easily be rectified. We cannot and must not take chances. We need to ensure that the programmes are readily available as and when they are needed, and that there are no delays due to capacity issues or availability.

Where insufficient resources or structures are found in prisons, the Secretary of State must take action to resolve that. They must provide the resources to ensure that it is not a lottery and that no risks or gambles are being taken on the rehabilitation of a terror offender. It is really surprising that the Bill has nothing to say on what measures will be taken to ensure that effective deradicalisation programmes are available to individuals in prisons who need them. Arguably, simply by increasing the length of time that people spend in custody the provisions of the Bill risk further alienating them and giving them grounds for grievance against the authorities, placing them at greater risk of radicalisation.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I apologise for not being present to hear my hon. Friend’s earlier speech, which I gather was excellent, as I was in the House. Does he agree that deradicalisation programmes are even more important for young offenders? The data and evidence produced over the years and provided to this Committee shows that younger offenders—certainly under-25s—are more susceptible to influences, so deradicalisation, when done effectively, is even more effective in reducing reoffending when young offenders are eventually released.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I have no doubt that she is correct. Young people are far more able to change their ways and benefit from the programmes. It is therefore essential that these programmes are in place. That is why I have spent most of my time in the past couple of weeks talking specifically about young people and how they differ from older people.

We all agree that rehabilitation is desirable and preferred, and a core cog in our justice system. Let us commit ourselves not only to talk about it, but to learn about it and ensure we deliver an effective system. The evidence so far to the Committee has suggested that it is not always effective. We need to deliver on that.

I am hopeful that the Minister will accept that a review is needed and that we need a greater understanding, just as we will have with the Prevent strategy. We need that greater understanding to ensure that the terror offenders have the support—and it is support—that they need in prison, so that when they are released into society, they can be the sort of citizens that we need them to be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West for moving the new clause, and for the eloquence and passion with which she described its various component parts.

The Bill already treats people under the age of 18 very differently from those aged over 18. It has different provisions, as we have already debated. Therefore, people who are children in the legal sense of the term—people who are under the age of 18—are already treated completely differently by the Bill, compared with those over the age of 18.

In relation to those aged between 18 and 20, 18 and 21, or 18 and 24, depending on where the line is drawn, there is clearly a wider debate to be had about the way that their brains mature and about the opportunity to reform those people, compared with people who are a little bit older. However, in the context of the Bill, I emphasise that we are talking about the most serious terrorist offenders. We are not talking about the average 20 or 21-year-old. We are talking about people who have committed the most serious terrorist offences.

It is worth reminding ourselves what level of severity has to be met before somebody gets the mandatory 14-year minimum term, all of which gets spent in prison. To qualify for that sentence, it has to be a serious terrorist offence. The offender has to be found to be dangerous—a finding that the judge makes on reading a pre-sentence report, so the judge can take that into account. It has to be an offence—one of the most serious offences—that ordinarily carries a life sentence. Most chillingly of all, it has to be an offence where there was a risk of causing multiple deaths, and the person carrying out the offence would have known or should have known about that. So we are talking about offences of the most exceptional gravity.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I entirely accept the important point that the Minister raises and how the issue is about severity. However, Labour Members keep raising the point about maturity. Whether it is stealing apples or being involved in planning a major terrorist incident where loss of life is potential or actual, maturity is an issue. As colleagues have said several times, and there is a raft of evidence, young people under 21—they get more mature as they get nearer 25—are at risk of coercion and radicalisation, and their very immaturity draws them into these crimes, however severe. All we ask in this new clause is that there should be a review and that maturity should be taken into account, in the same way that it is now taken into account in the context of sentencing those over 18.

[Chris Philp]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s intervention and the sentiments behind it, but I am not sure I entirely agree that this very small number of offences can be compared with the theft of apples. We are talking about a tiny handful of people who have committed the most serious offences where multiple people could have been killed and where the judge has found that the offenders are dangerous. Had they simply been misled, or coerced even, it might be open to interpretation as an exceptional circumstance, although we expect the exceptional circumstance derogation to be extremely rare—as the name implies, it is truly exceptional. Should truly exceptional circumstances exist, there is that opportunity open to the judge, but it would have to be truly exceptional.

To emphasise again how small the numbers are, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton North, reading out my letter when we debated a previous clause, said that, last year, in 2019, of the 22 people convicted of terrorist offences, only four were aged between 18 and 20, and not all of those would meet the criteria for the serious terrorist sentence that we are talking about, so the numbers are microscopically small, thankfully, for those aged between 18 and 20. There is also the exceptional circumstance override, and we are talking about offences of the most serious kind, which have to pass three or four different hurdles before qualifying for the assessment that we have just described. In that context, where the offending is so serious and the risk so grave, the approach being taken is a reasonable one, but I accept the more general point about maturity in other, less serious contexts.

On the question of a review, given that the numbers are so very small, I am not wholly convinced that a bespoke review is the right thing to do, but, of course, there will be a regular review, as I might say frequently in the coming clauses, at the three-year mark, where it is right that the matter gets considered.

The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West raised some points that will require consideration. It might well be that nobody at all aged 18 to 20 ends up being affected by this measure, in which case it will be a pretty short consideration. Mandating it by statute is not necessary. There are other review mechanisms. As we saw when we debated the Prevent review earlier, if we have too many statutory reviews, we end up tripping over our own shoelaces by failing to meet all the deadlines that we have created.

The questions are serious. I understand and respect them. We will need to debate them in future, quite properly and rightly, but putting this measure in the Bill is a step that we do not need to take this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Conor McGinn]

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

As we have reiterated throughout the passage of the Bill, our overriding priority, which is shared on both sides of the Committee, is and always will be to keep the public safe, including from those individuals who seek to attack our values, destroy our way of life and divide us through abhorrent acts of violence and terror. The remarks made this morning by the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford were a testament to that and the response to it. We in Committee were privileged to hear the speech, which was worthy of a wider audience. I hope to hear her invoke some of what her friend Louise said again on the Floor of the House on Report, because it was very valuable.

Following the shocking and tragic incident in Reading a matter of weeks ago, we need to take stock of the new and emerging threats from terrorism. The agility that the Minister has asked for in amending TPIMs should be applied when it comes to looking at the threat from lone actors. That is why we have asked for a judge-led review into the Government’s strategy on tackling the dangerous and growing menace of lone attackers. Reading was the third time in less than a year that we have witnessed such devastation on UK streets, each with a lone attacker at its core, callously intent on mayhem and destruction in our communities.

Our proposal would make provision to address the systemic response needed to that phenomenon. The new clause asks the Government to order a judge-led review of the effectiveness of current strategies to deal with lone terrorists. It should address counter-terrorism sentencing policy, as the Bill does, as it applies to terrorist offenders and the interaction and effectiveness of public services with respect to incidents of lone terrorist attacks.

Fundamentally, the review would seek to build firmly on previous research and expertise, such as the extensive work carried out by Lord Anderson that has provided a valuable insight into how we can improve and better connect the current systems. It would include an analysis of a wide range of key public services, including our probation and prison system, whose value and potential have been closely reflected on throughout these debates, but also mental health services, housing providers and local authorities, each of which can intervene at critical points. That is also why we need to get on with the Prevent review, which will play a critical part in addressing some of those issues.

There is absolutely no question about the high skill, dedication and bravery of our police and security and intelligence services. We need to do everything we can to support them as they set about their task of tackling extremism from root to branch, which is not easy. The fall in terrorism-related arrests to its lowest level in six years is concerning, particularly at a time when radicalisers and dangerous extremists increasingly operate through more and more sophisticated networks of hatred online, which are often understandably difficult for the authorities to monitor and intercept.

While the dangers of Islamist extremism persist, the menacing threat from far-right extremism is growing at a deeply disturbing rate. Far-right cases now make up almost a quarter of Prevent referrals and nearly half of all adopted Channel cases. All the while, the number of individuals in custody for terrorism-related offences and subscribing to those vile and hateful ideologies is up by one third on last year. That is on top of already record levels and steady rises over recent years.

We must urgently face up to this threat. We need to see that coherent and comprehensive strategy which, at this moment, I am afraid to say, appears to be lacking. The suspect in the Reading case was believed to be known to multiple public agencies and to have had a history of significant mental health issues; so too did the London Bridge and Streatham attackers. So many of our vital public services have interactions with individuals, which give them real concern, but they must have the necessary tools to intervene and work together in the most effective and efficient manner possible, ultimately to save lives and keep people safe.

The Lord Anderson review of 2017 outlines interesting pilot work on multi-agency centre pilots. They involve the identification of newly closed, high-risk subjects of interest; the sharing of data by MI5 and counter-terror policing with other agencies, such as local authorities and Government Departments; and the enrichment of that data from the databases of multi-agency partners. I wonder whether the Minister would write to me or enlighten the Committee on what is being done to address the existing barriers that were identified by the review to local partners’ involvement in managing subjects of interest, including the challenges of resourcing.

Lord Anderson said that

“some local authority representatives cautioned against unrealistic expectations of services such as mental health and community safety… against, what was described to me as, a background of widespread recent degradation of local services”.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting so clearly the risk of lone offenders, who are often not clearly linked to any particular organised network and are operating off not much more than hate, mental health problems and the internet. I think of David Copeland, who, in the space of two weeks, used nail bombs in violent attacks, causing death and injury to the black community in Brixton, gay people outside the Admiral Duncan in Soho and the Asian community in east London. Does he agree that there are potential new threats, as the independent reviewer pointed out in his evidence, such as the incel movement?

[Conor McGinn]

I do. My hon. Friend has eloquently outlined the development of the terrorist threat and its changed dynamics, as well as the fundamental point that hatred and terrorism does not discriminate. It is not homogeneous, because it is perpetrated by different people with different motives, nor does it discriminate, because fundamentally other people are hurt by it.

In asking for this, we are saying to the Government that those three attacks in different places, perpetrated by different people with no connections, over a relatively short space of time, provide evidence of a new and increasing threat. Coupled with the increase in right-wing extremism and the manifestation of that through referrals to Prevent and arrests, that needs to be looked at very carefully. Things have moved on since Lord Anderson’s very good report in 2017.

It is time that the Government looked at that again to identify the issues Lord Anderson raised and what they have done to break down some of the barriers that he identified in 2017 that were preventing us from apprehending these people at various junctures throughout their journey—from starting out with an extremist ideology to, on their own, as lone actors, committing the most heinous crimes, causing the types of suffering, hurt and heartache that were expressed so eloquently earlier today.