Committee (3rd Day)

Part of Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill – in the House of Lords at 4:30 pm on 28 January 2015.

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Photo of Baroness Brinton Baroness Brinton Party Chair, Liberal Democrats 4:30, 28 January 2015

My Lords, I want to make a couple of brief comments on Amendment 103A. I echo my noble friend Lady Warsi’s comments about a review of the Prevent strategy, for all the reasons that others have spoken about. We also need to look at where different approaches have been taken. I think I spoke at Second Reading about Watford, but what I did not say is that Watford took only the community money; it did not take the surveillance money. Actually, Watford was the one place in which, on the Sunday after the Paris shootings, the traditional march in honour of the birth of the Prophet became a march in honour of those who had died. Members of the community other than those of the Muslim faith joined in that march. That is where community work through Prevent is at its best. My worry is that we have not seen a proper survey of Prevent, although it has been in operation for the best part of a decade.

I return briefly to Amendment 103A. My noble friend Lady Sharp said that the reasoning behind this probing amendment might seem slightly contradictory, but it seeks to get to some word definitions. There is a further problem around definition: the Bill itself talks mainly about “terrorism” while the statutory guidance talks about “extremism”, but the balance between the duty on extremism versus terrorism is quite distinct. I certainly cannot marry up the clauses in the Bill with some of what is set out in the guidance. I would be grateful if my noble friend could help with this as well.

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