Clause 24 — Power to issue guidance

Part of Alcohol Labelling (Pregnancy) – in the House of Commons at 2:57 pm on 7 January 2015.

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Photo of Diana R. Johnson Diana R. Johnson Shadow Minister (Home Affairs) 2:57, 7 January 2015

Let me begin by expressing my horror at the terror attack that took place in Paris today. I am sure that the thoughts of the whole House will be with the family and friends of the victims of that attack, and, of course, we all stand in solidarity with the French people at this time.

Part 5 of the Bill contains measures to counter extremism in communities and to deal directly with vulnerable individuals. As Ministers will recall, it was the last Labour Government who introduced both the Prevent agenda and the Channel programme, and we remain absolutely committed to supporting and, indeed, strengthening both policies. Obviously the Government reviewed Prevent when they came to office, and it is important for us to view the measures in the Bill in the context of the changes that they introduced. I think that those changes are a rather mixed bag, and I am not sure that they were particularly successful.

Both Prevent and Channel require a partnership between central Government and local agencies, and amendments 7 and 6 are intended to ensure that the Government support local bodies in the delivery of both programmes. While we agree that Prevent should involve local delivery, it seems to us that the recent problems stem from central Government. There has been a marked decline in Prevent’s funding, which has fallen from £17 million a year to just £1 million. Some of that clearly resulted from a conscious decision, but there also appears to have been mismanagement. Every year £5.1 million has been allocated for local delivery, but I understand that over the past four years more than 60% of it has gone unclaimed.

In Committee, I raised a number of concerns about the delivery of Prevent at national level, and about the monitoring and support supplied by central Government to local agencies. I am sure that the Minister for Security and Immigration, James Brokenshire—although I am pleased to see the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, Karen Bradley in the Chamber today—recalls that I spoke at length about my concern about the performance of the Department for Education. I do not want to go through all that again, but I think that the Government’s role should be formalised in the Bill so that we know what is expected of them.

So, we have no problems with the principle of the general duty on public bodies to prevent terrorism, but this could mean a number of different things, and it is therefore important that the guidance is as full and effective as possible. In Committee, we tabled an amendment to mandate the issuing of guidance. As a consultation on the draft guidance was then issued—I think on the last day before the Christmas recess—we have not tabled that amendment again, but we do still feel that the guidance that has been issued, and which is subject to consultation, should be subject to a very full debate and approval by both Houses of Parliament. That is why we have tabled amendment 7.

I shall raise some issues with the current guidance but first I want to emphasise the potential scope of the guidance. Under the enabling provisions as currently drafted in the Bill, the guidance could be written and rewritten by the Secretary of State at will. The guidance is very important because it could have a bearing on free speech, academic freedoms and patient-doctor relations, but under the Bill as currently drafted, Parliament would have no role in overseeing what is in it.

My other concern is that one set of guidance will apply to numerous bodies, as set out in schedule 3, so will have to apply in very disparate settings. There are also real issues as to how the guidance will cover Scotland and Wales. The consultation document states:

“Where English and Welsh authorities are different, however, the guidance has so far been drafted only to apply to the English authorities. It is the hope and intention of the UK Government that Scottish authorities will be included, and that this guidance will be applicable to authorities in England, Scotland and Wales.”

The guidance is therefore supposed to cover all countries in the UK, but consideration has, at this stage, been given only to England. Will there be fresh consultation looking specifically at Wales and Scotland once agreement has been reached with the respective Administrations about which bodies within those countries it will apply to?

There is similar confusion over two-tier local authorities, which was also a matter I raised in Committee. The guidance that has been issued simply states:

“In two-tier areas, county and district councils will need to agree proportionate arrangements for sharing the assessment of risk and for agreeing local Prevent action plans”,

but nothing more is said about how that is going to work and how the relative burden should be shared between different authorities. I have to say that I do not think that local government will find this guidance helpful in the way it is currently drafted.

In addition to these issues about where the guidance is to be implemented, there are a number of issues with the guidance itself. My key concern with the document is that there is very little help for public bodies in identifying what terrorism actually is. The document talks about tackling both violent and non-violent extremism, but contains very little to help public bodies identify either. I think we can draw important comparisons with child abuse and domestic violence in this regard. Improving best practice in those areas has required better understanding of the indications of abuse. Everyone agrees we should stop child abuse and violent extremism, but in both cases the problem is that public bodies have often failed to spot the key signs. This document does not do enough to remedy that for extremism and terrorism.

The guidance is very strong on procedures, but short on content. There is a real danger that the guidance could result in a series of time-consuming tick-box exercises performed by public bodies at all levels, without any improvement in the identification or understanding of violent extremism, and that is something we should all want to avoid. For example, there are frequent instructions for bodies to conduct risk assessment exercises, but no guidance on how they should conduct such an exercise, or what factors they should prioritise. If we look specifically at health care we see that duties are placed on a whole host of bodies, and then Monitor, the Trust Development Authority and the Care Quality Commission are all expected to monitor compliance. However, it is envisaged that those bodies—which are already over-stretched—should just check that processes have been followed. I therefore question whether this is the most effective way of ensuring that the Prevent agenda is implemented.

I have similar concerns about the higher education sector. The document’s references to that sector envisage that the Higher Education Funding Council for England will be conducting monitoring and evaluation of the processes that the sector will have to undertake. I wonder whether the Minister might be able to help me understand what happens in Wales and Scotland—as far as I am aware, HEFCE covers only England.

When I met Calie Pistorius, the vice-chancellor of Hull university, which is in my constituency, and its student union president, Richard Brooks, I was very impressed when I learned from both of them about the procedures and practices already in place at the university for dealing with external speakers and room bookings, for example, and for making sure that everybody understands their responsibilities and that there is effective communication. The university and its student union have been identified as one of the best examples of working together to ensure that issues of concern to Prevent are dealt with effectively on that campus, and I pay tribute to them for the work they are doing.

All this focus on processes in the consultation document risks detracting from outcomes and wasting time and effort. At a time of huge cuts in the public sector, we should be trying to minimise the burden on public bodies, particularly those facing very low risks.

Much has been made of this guidance applying to nurseries. Mr Davis has raised that, and he makes the important point that that setting will generally face a low risk, as will district councils in the Outer Hebrides, for example, yet these bodies will still have to fulfil the processes under Prevent. The guidance document therefore needs to include some differentiation to enable this to work in practice. I want to ask the Minister about childminders in particular, as they are identified in the consultation document. What exactly is a childminder expected to do to fulfil the Prevent requirements, especially as we know that small children—boys and girls—often like to play and act using toy guns and swords? What does the Minister think childminders should be expected to do in such circumstances, in light of the Prevent consultation?

Throughout the document there is a real failure to deliver a proper analysis of the problem. The introduction makes clear that the focus should be on “Islamist extremists”, and it is clear that a much lower priority is given to white supremacists, for example. I want to ask the Minister a couple of questions about that. Can she tell me how many referrals to the Channel programme have been for people proclaiming white supremacist views? It would be helpful to have the numbers on that. We have seen the rise of the far-right parties across Europe, and in recent days the demonstrations in Germany. Recent cases such as that involving Anders Breivik show that we should never be complacent about the dangers from the far right and white supremacists. Will the Minister address that point in relation to the Prevent consultation document?

Why does the guidance refer to “Islamist extremists” as though that was just one single thing? The guidance states that the aim of Prevent is to tackle Muslim extremists who have an anti-west agenda, yet we know that the current conflicts in the middle east—particularly those in Syria and Iraq, which are fuelling ISIS—are not between Muslims and the west but are intra-Muslim conflicts. Intra-Muslim tensions have also been identified in numerous UK cities and linked to a series of attacks. We believe that the Prevent agenda should address such intra-Muslim conflicts as well. At the moment, those elements seem to be absent from the guidance.

In Committee, my right hon. Friend Hazel Blears talked about counter-narratives. The Muslim community is trying hard to combat sectarianism with a narrative of peace and unity, and we support it in doing that. Public bodies should be supporting community bodies in doing that, but they need guidance on how best to undertake that work. Again, that is completely absent from the consultation document.

That leads me to my second overall criticism of the consultation document: the lack of evidence to support what is in it. If the consultation document had said that a particular piece of research revealed a problem with Prevent delivering in certain areas or identifying certain issues, it would have been much easier to understand the measures in the document, but such evidence is not there. As I said in Committee, the Government do not seem to have done enough to monitor the implementation of their revised Prevent agenda across the country and across different bodies. They are now reacting in a blanket fashion because they have not done the necessary work to identify the weaknesses of the revised programme. It is welcome that the guidance includes some brief details about what the Home Office will do to support public bodies, but this could be expanded on, and it seems almost entirely limited to the Prevent priority areas. What about the rest of the country? These duties will be placed on public bodies throughout the country, not just those in the Prevent priority areas.

I want to ask about the Prevent priority areas, because they are a little muddled. Under the previous Government, there were 92 priority areas. This Government reduced the number to 23, but they then realised that that was not quite right. They reinstated funding to some areas, such as Greenwich, and the number of Prevent priority areas rose to 30. The consultation document says that there will be 50 Prevent priority areas, yet the Bill’s impact assessment refers to about 90 local authorities facing high risk. This is a bit of a mess. Do the Government know how many high-priority areas there are? Will the Minister tell us the actual number? Is it 90 or 50? In the light of the issues that I have raised, it is important that Parliament should have an opportunity to scrutinise the guidance, once it has been finalised. At the moment, all we have is the consultation document, which has large gaps in it.

I turn to amendment 6 and the Channel programme, which will be placed on a statutory footing alongside the rest of Prevent. As with Prevent, it is a policy area of enormous importance, and the Opposition support efforts to strengthen it. Once again, however, the Government are placing obligations on local authorities without making provision to ensure that they will be properly and fully supported by central Government.

Clause 28 provides for the creation of local assessment and support panels in every local authority, but once again the Bill is being implemented before a decision has been made about what will happen in Scotland. The Bill puts on to a statutory footing only a small part of the Channel process, and of course what it is putting into statute should already exist. It is surprising that the Government have not been able to provide evidence of how many councils have already created such boards, given that that information has been asked for.

The first stage of the Channel programme is not covered by the Bill. That is the stage at which an individual is referred to the police because of concerns about radicalisation. Under the current system, numerous local bodies can make a referral including schools, colleges, universities, youth offending services, local authority troubled family teams, charities and voluntary groups. The police then conduct a screening process. Only after that does the statutory footing appear to kick in.