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

David Hanson Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 General Committees

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I welcome you to the Chair of the Committee, Mr Davies. It is a pleasure to see you joining Mr Speaker’s Panel of Chairs. I am sure you will have a long and fruitful career on the panel, and I hope today provides a useful starting point for your chairmanship. I also thank the Minister for how he has approached the issue today. He has reached out the hand of friendship, and I gladly offer it him back. We support the regulations in principle and we will not vote against them. He is right to say that terrorism and the growth of terrorist potential are some of the greatest challenges that we face in the United Kingdom as a whole.

I had the privilege of serving in the Home Office as the Minister with responsibility for policing and counter-terrorism during the previous Labour Government, a post the Minister now holds. I was also involved with the Ministry of Justice, looking at extremism in prisons. He is right to say that people can be drawn into terrorist activity through communities, universities or prisons. We need to have a strong strategy to ensure that we prevent that from happening in the first place. Prevention is part of a number of tools that the Government and communities have to ensure that we support resilience in our society as a whole.

The Minister is right to point to the pressures from ISIS, the changing nature of social media and the challenges we face generally. The way that he phrased the debate on terrorism was around the threat from ISIS and the radicalisation of people involved in a warped view of the Muslim religion, but having been a Northern Ireland Minister for two years—I can see that the hon. Member for Belfast East is here—I am conscious that there is more than one form of terrorism, more than one form of extremism and more than one form of people being indoctrinated.

I represent a lovely constituency in north Wales where in February a lone wolf neo-Nazi attacked an individual in a supermarket in my town as an act of terrorist revenge for the death of Lee Rigby. He was radicalised in his bedroom by material pushed through by neo-Nazis that gave him a warped view of society. Terrorist activity can happen even in sleepy parts of Wales, so the Minister’s point is well made: prisons, particularly vulnerable communities, higher education institutions and universities are vulnerable to extremist ideology. The Government have a duty, as do we as a Parliament, to give support to tackle that issue. If I have one point, it is that we should widen the debate to talk about all terrorism and not focus just on one type, but he has our support on this matter.

The regulations show the occasional strength of parliamentary democracy. When the counter-terrorism legislation went through Parliament in February, there was concern in the House of Commons and the House of Lords about certain aspects of how the Prevent strategy was being developed. As a result of pressure from Members of Parliament and Members of the House of Lords, the Minister and his predecessor have brought forward proposals that go some way to mitigating those concerns.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) would normally be here today, but she is on constituency business, so I am representing the Home Office shadow team. Who knows what I will be doing next week? I will put this on the record, just in case, but I calculated yesterday that on Saturday I will have done 17 years and 46 days on the Labour Front Bench. I may get to 17 years and 47 days on Sunday, but we will have to see what happens. That is a small aside.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

With your permission, Mr Davies, may I say on behalf of many of my colleagues that we hope that that long period will be extended still further?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hanson]

We are slightly digressing, Mr Davies, and I would not wish you to pull me up in your first moments in the Chair. Whatever happens, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North would have been here, and she wanted me to recognise that there have been some changes. For example—I know that the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway will recognise this—we are particularly pleased that there is now an agreement to include Scottish bodies in the Act. There have been discussions with the Scottish Government—they could have started earlier, but at least they have now reached a conclusion—so that Scotland is involved in the United Kingdom response to issues of Prevent. I am pleased to see that the Government have clarified in particular how universities should balance their duty to protect freedom of speech with their duties under the Prevent agenda; there is an element of agreement on those issues.

I must say that this was not originally going to be part of the business before Parliament, but amendments pushed mean that Parliament now has a say on the guidance and it will, I hope, with our support and the Government’s, confirm the guidance today, as will another place in due course. Overall, the guidance seems far better. The original guidance was, in my view, too prescriptive, with too much focus on procedure rather than on the cultures in which extremism can flourish. We are pleased with the new focus. I am particularly pleased to see, for example, that the section on nurseries has been amended. Although small children could be extremists, I doubt that they would be. Again, there are issues about how young people’s vulnerability to extremism is tackled.

Having said that, I want to give the Minister an opportunity to reflect on some of the points put to me and to other Committee members. This very day, I received in my inbox a parliamentary briefing from Universities UK. Helpfully, the Minister has received the same briefing, as undoubtedly all of us have. Whatever changes have been made—the regulations are not amendable, so the Opposition have no amendments—it would be useful for the Minister to reassure Universities UK on one point. In its briefing, it says that

“we remain concerned about the guidance’s provision for external speakers who hold views which could be classed as ‘extremist’. While there is no longer a blanket ban, universities are required not to allow any event to proceed where ‘the views being expressed or likely to be expressed constitute extremist views that risk drawing people into terrorism or are shared by terrorist groups’ unless the university authorities are ‘entirely convinced’ that these risks can be ‘fully mitigated’”.

I put to the Minister the first three words of that quote: “we remain concerned”. If Universities UK says in a briefing to all Members “we remain concerned”, it is my duty to ask the Minister to give some reassurance during his response to the debate to reduce that level of concern. Again, universities undoubtedly have the potential to have speakers who can involve people in being radicalised, whatever political persuasion or warped ideology might be present. The key question is how to protect freedoms of speech so that we do not discriminate against people who have views that we do not like, but also how to deal with those who have views that potentially radicalise individuals who hear them.

The key remaining concern, judging from this submission, is how universities can monitor that, how they will be accountable for it and, in particular, whether it involves a de facto ban when there is any doubt about risk. It is important that the Minister clarifies, if he can, what his definition would be and how he would respond to that. If he cannot, can he agree to meet Universities UK again to give it the assurances that it wants? Universities UK is asking us in the briefing to clarify with Ministers the intention of the guidance, and particularly whether it will involve a de facto ban if the university has any doubts about the speakers involved.

As ever, it requires a bureaucracy to monitor who is coming, what they will say, the quality of their contribution and whether it is potentially radicalising. It is important for the Minister to reflect on that briefing; I know that he has had it. I know the difficulties that he will face, but if he has the opportunity today it is important for him to reflect and to give a response.

I have some more questions. I would welcome an assurance from the Minister that he will keep the guidance under review. Will he look at issues to do with the involvement of health bodies, training and co-ordination in future, and in due course the experience of the statutory instrument in practice, and then report back to Parliament as and when he can? He mentioned Ofsted looking at some issues, which I welcome, because it is important. It is also important for the Minister to agree to the publication, perhaps 12 months from now, of how things have worked in practice and to report on the outcome in respect of the concerns, including those expressed by Universities UK.

The concerns are not those of Universities UK alone. Today I and, I am sure, other Members received a parliamentary briefing from the University and College Union, representing university and college lecturers, who express their concern not about the principle of preventing, but about whether and how that will be managed. Given such concerns, the Minister’s assurances would be helpful, in particular on how we review things—will he review in 12 months, will he produce the review and will any documents by Ofsted be published?

If there are to be amendments to the document, I would welcome the Minister’s assurances that they, too, will be debated and approved by Parliament. In particular, will he comment further on the revised definition of “extremism”? When we held the privileged position of being Ministers, we used a definition, and the current Government and the previous Government have one, but there is still work to be done. I would welcome an assessment, with a timescale, of the definition of “extremism”. That is important not for us, but for those people who have to use the document practically. I have been around for far too long not to know that we can pass many things in this House with worthy discussions and debates, but that, passed down the line, they mean nothing to the people who have to implement them, although ultimately those people are accountable for the challenges when things go wrong. It is important that we have a strong and clear definition.

Nurseries, the Youth Justice Board, every university, every college, every further education establishment, every prison and, potentially, every police force and, down the line, health authorities and other boards will have to look at this document, interpret it and work with Prevent co-ordinators locally on it. They will have to be accountable for it. My challenge to the Minister is this: who trains? What assessment is there of the cost implications of the work? Who monitors? Who will assess when things are going well or badly? If the clarity of purpose is not there in the first place, when things go wrong—as they automatically always do—how do we hold people accountable?

I give the Minister the hand of friendship on the document. It is better than it was, but concerns remain—relevant because they were brought to our attention by the people who will have to implement the document—so it is important for him to be clear about how he will assuage those concerns, how he will monitor use of the document and how he will ensure that it serves its purpose. Will he come back to the House to report on the document’s usage and to ensure that Parliament agrees any changes, if it is to be improved or changed?

I wish the Minister well and I hope that the Committee will support Government Members in giving the statutory instrument a fair wind today.