Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Alex Chalk Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 11th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I think I have said three times that we broadly support the Bill in principle, but we are Her Majesty’s Opposition and we are entitled to set out our reservations on Second Reading.

There is much in the Bill about increasing sentences for terrorism-related activity. I say seriously to the Home Secretary that he also needs to look at what more could be done to guard against radicalisation in prison. A certain amount has been done in trying to separate imams and so on from other prisoners, but the fact is that too many young men not of a Muslim background get caught up in extremist ideology while behind bars. We cannot continue to have a situation where people emerge from prison more radicalised than when they went in.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

On that point, does the right hon. Lady agree that we should be concerned by reports that emerged from Belgium that the suspect in the appalling and brutal murder of two police officers was a small-time crook who, it appears, had been radicalised in custody? Does she therefore agree that she should support all the Government’s excellent efforts to try to deal with this important issue?

[Ms Abbott]

I think Members are seeking to have me say what they want me to say and are not listening to my speech. What I am saying is that it is all well and good to put more people in prison for longer, but there is more we could do about radicalisation in prison. It is shocking to me to see young men, who had no connection with Islam before going into prison, coming out of prison as Islamic radicals. We can do something about that, because while they are in prison they are in the hands of the state. I think there is more that can be done.

In Dave Anderson’s review, he called for greater collaboration between the counter-terrorism police, MI5 and neighbourhood police, but—I make no apologies for repeating this—the Government have cut police numbers by 21,000. In practice, their cuts have undermined Dave Anderson’s recommendations. We cannot have greater collaboration between counter-terrorism and neighbourhood police if the numbers of neighbourhood police are being cut. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has said that coping with counter-terrorism is putting an unsustainable strain on the police. The head of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Sara Thornton, said:

“Fewer officers and Police Community Support Officers will cut off the intelligence that is so crucial to preventing attacks.”

New laws, whatever their merits, are no substitute for effective policing, and not just counter-terrorism policing. Ministers will tell us how much more they are spending on counter-terrorism, but almost as important as actual counter-terrorism officers is ordinary neighbourhood policing, which is our frontline against terrorism. Laws, whatever their merit, become a dead letter without enough police officers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands).

We meet in the shadow of a grim situation for our country. As the shadow Home Secretary said, in 2017, 36 people were killed and, since 2013 alone, some 25 terrorist plots have been foiled. I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to my constituents at GCHQ, who through their hard work, dedication and professionalism have, I feel sure, contributed to the foiling of a good number of those plots both in the UK and overseas.

I entirely support the Bill, but it is absolutely right, and the duty of the Opposition and all Back Benchers, to scrutinise these matters with great care. I sense the same spirit in this House this evening as there was when it dealt with the Investigatory Powers Act 2016: a spirit of constructive discussion, and at times criticism, to ensure that the provisions we arrive at strike the balance between liberty and security. I remember being in the House listening to discussions on the Investigatory Powers Bill. I am entirely sure that the end statute was better for the process of debate that took place in this House.

I want to examine some of the provisions in the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill and explain why it is appropriate. In simple terms, the Bill serves to clarify existing measures, to extend in a common-sense way their provisions, and in appropriate circumstances to modestly strengthen penalties. I will deal with those three headings and explain why in my view the provisions are justified.

The Bill seeks to

“clarify that the existing offence of displaying in a public place an image which arouses reasonable suspicion that the person is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation covers the display of images online”

as well as in the analogue world. That is appropriate. It clarifies the position and for the position to be otherwise would make a nonsense of the digital world we are in, so I anticipate that that will not be controversial in Committee.

However, I want to deal with the point raised by the shadow Home Secretary about extending the offence of inviting support for a proscribed organisation to cover expressions of support that are reckless as to whether they will encourage others to support the organisation. The concern has been raised that moving the mens rea from intention to mere recklessness risks broadening the ambit of the offence too greatly. It is absolutely right to have this discussion because it would be a matter of grave concern if we inadvertently broadened an offence so that it unintentionally caught people within it that we were not comfortable being caught within it. Having thought about it, however, my view is this provision is on the right side of the line and I will explain why.

Let us suppose the facts were as follows. The defendant deliberately went to his friend’s house from school and said, “I really think you should be joining this proscribed organisation”—be it Isis or al-Muhajiroun—and his intention was to get that individual to sign up, but in the room at the same time was his friend’s younger brother, aged 16, and he was not in any way intending for that younger brother to be radicalised but was being reckless as to whether that would happen. In those circumstances, if the message was in fact heard by the younger brother rather than the contemporary friend, should the law have this loophole so that the defendant could not be liable in those circumstances? That would be nonsense. It would create an unconscionable loophole because the mischief at which the legislation is aimed is the propagating of propaganda material that encourages others to support proscribed organisations.

[Sir Edward Davey]

I agree that we should be debating these issues, but can the hon. Gentleman point to anywhere in case law where there is real development of the concept of recklessness compared with the concept of intentionality?

[Alex Chalk]

That is pretty much everywhere, and I will give the right hon. Gentleman an example. How about an allegation of assault? Let us suppose the defendant goes out in the high street in Kingston in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency with a baseball bat and starts swinging it around outside the pub, being reckless about whether someone might be struck by it. If he does recklessly strike someone’s jaw and they have a fractured jaw, the defendant can, and will in those circumstances, be convicted of a section 20 offence of grievous bodily harm. So the law does recognise that where there is recklessness, that can be sufficient mens rea for a large number—probably even the majority—of offences against the person. So to that extent all this measure would do is make sure the new legislation chimes with existing legislation.

The second provision I want to deal with has already properly been discussed: to

“update the offence of obtaining information likely to be useful to a terrorist to cover terrorist material that is just viewed or streamed over the internet, rather than downloaded to form a permanent record”.

First, we need to consider what material is being addressed here. It could be digital copies of “Inspire”, an online publication produced by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. One edition of that publication contains material giving instructions about how to make a bomb using household materials; these are step-by-step instructions on how to manufacture an improvised explosive device with materials that we could buy in a hardware store and a regular supermarket. That is extremely serious and dangerous material if it gets into the wrong hands. Another example of the kind of material published in these online magazines is instructions on how to wreak the maximum amount of destruction using a vehicle in a crowded area.

To be caught by current provisions, such material has to be downloaded, but that creates a loophole because an individual who chooses to view this pernicious content by simply restreaming it could be outside the net. That would be ridiculous, particularly as every time one of these items is streamed, it will create digital artefacts on the computer. So an individual who downloads it—who has the full digital content on their computer—is liable to be prosecuted, but an individual who keeps streaming it, notwithstanding that that leads to some digital artefacts on their computer, would be outside the net. That would be truly perverse.

So while it is right to say that we should be mindful of the risk of people coming within the ambit of this provision, so long as the defence of reasonable excuse exists, we can be confident that that proper balance is struck.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am not a liberal on any of these issues, but there is a problem with this. One difficulty the security services face is dealing with the amount of material that is out there and targeting the right people. If someone who has viewed such material three times can be pulled in by this provision, does that not throw the net rather wide, making it more difficult for law enforcement to target the right people?

[Alex Chalk]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise that question, but I do not think that is the case. We accept that an individual deciding to view this material online and then download it on to their computer so that they can watch it at their leisure three times commits an offence—and we do so because terrorist offences often escalate quickly from the viewing of such materials. Given that we accept that, would it not be perverse to say that an individual who simply views this material three times—and while doing so takes account of the instructions in that material to build a bomb or wreak havoc with a vehicle—would be outside the law? That would be a bizarre anomaly, and it would say more about the digital habits of that individual than the pernicious nature of the content. So while we should always be mindful of the point the right hon. Gentleman makes, in my view the risks of doing nothing simply leave open huge loopholes that terrorists, who are increasingly digitally savvy, can exploit, so this is a proportionate and appropriate step to take.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

rose—

[Alex Chalk]

I am not going to give way again on that point.

If I may, I will move on to the issue of increasing the maximum penalty. At the moment, the maximum penalty under section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is just 10 years’ imprisonment. The Bill proposes to increase that to 15 years. It is important to make the point that, certainly until the recent sentencing guidelines increase, someone pleading guilty to being in possession of material that might be of assistance to a person planning an act of terrorism could expect to be sentenced to just 14 or 15 months and to be released in seven months. We have to recognise, when we are dealing with these kinds of offences, that part of the necessity for the legislation is to ensure that dangerous people are kept out of circulation. In those particulars, this proposal is necessary and proportionate.

Elsewhere in the Bill, there are common-sense extensions including the proposal to add terrorism offences to the list of offences for which an individual can be subjected to a serious crime prevention order. That makes perfect sense, because SCPOs enable the authorities to continue to manage an individual convicted of a terrorism offence. In the interest of balance, it is important to note that the proposed legislation also contains protections for individuals. For example, it introduces a statutory bar on the admissibility as evidence in a criminal trial of oral admissions made in an examination at a port under schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act, so it would be wrong to get the impression that this is one-way traffic. Overall—certainly so far as part 1 is concerned—these measures serve to clarify and to extend in a way that chimes with common sense. They update the law, and they will lead to a modest strengthening of penalties, which is a calibrated, proportionate and modernising approach that I am happy to support.