Clause 42
Counter-Terrorism Bill
11:15 am
David Heath (Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
This is a series of probing amendments to secure the response of the Minister on two principal points. We have not sought to argue against the notification procedure as a whole on the grounds of the utility of the procedure. We understand that this is a matter to ensure public safety, rather than an extra punitive measure on the part of the state against the accused. This is not part of the sentence; this is to ensure public safety following the expiry of the sentence. It is a principle that has been used before in the case of sex offenders and violent offenders. I have a concern that we have a proliferation of registers and notification procedures and an increasingly complex system, but I am not proposing to investigate or further dissect that matter now.
This series of amendments deals with two specific issues—first, how we deal with juveniles and secondly, how we deal with the insane and whether it is appropriate to use this notification procedure for those two classes of offenders, or whether there are more appropriate ways of dealing with them. I fully accept that simply because someone is young does not make them any less dangerous if they have a propensity to terrorist offences. I accept also that if someone is insane and has a propensity to terrorist offences, one must be aware of that, but I do think that there are regimes that may be more appropriate than the notification process before us today for dealing with those two classes of offender.
In the case of juveniles, one must hope that a young person who gets involved with terrorist connections and finds himself accused and convicted of terrorist offences is capable of rehabilitation and education and that that person has the opportunity not to pursue that course in their future life following any sentence that he may serve. It may be more difficult in the case of an adult, but we have always based our legal system upon a clear principle of rehabilitation of young offenders. That is particularly the case where there is a degree of idealism in the young that might be misplaced and inappropriately expressed in the form of support for terrorist activities, or indeed where there may be a coercive element, in the case of a young person who was in contact with people who are conspiring to commit terrorist offences. My only question is the appropriateness of this procedure to those two classes of offenders where I suspect that there is a better and more supportive, more appropriate way of dealing with them to ensure they do not re-offend and that the public safety is ensured. This is a rather bureaucratic and onerous process—the fact that it is onerous is not necessarily an argument against—but this process may not be the most effective way of dealing with them.