My Lords, Amendment 57 is another amendment that I am moving on behalf of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, my noble friend Lord Stunell and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence—who is also a member of the committee—have their names to it as well. This amendment calls for an independent review of Prevent. We are by no means the first to call for such a review.
The Government have said that, in the Bill, extending to local authorities the power to refer to the Prevent programme individuals regarded as vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism is not an expansion of the scope of Prevent but just a sensible measure to streamline the process of referrals. As the Minister may point out again, I proposed that in 2015. It seemed to me then—and in some ways does now—that it is odd that local authorities, which through social services and other services are at the heart of prevention and safeguarding, should be excluded from that part of the process. As I have said before, and will go on saying, the important word here is “safeguarding”. Other important words are “trust” or “mistrust”, “perception” and “independent”.
The committee took evidence earlier in the year on the issue of Prevent. Again perhaps to pre-empt it being pointed out, we reported—because we wanted to report fully on the evidence—that although a number of stakeholders had reiterated the call for an independent review there were concerns. A doctor and academic expressed concerns about local authority involvement. She said that healthcare professionals and local authority processes can mean that people go down the track into,
“incidences of dissent and illiberal political beliefs–rather than vulnerability to abuse in persons with formal care needs … People have a right to their beliefs without them being interpreted and medicalized as ‘vulnerabilities’”.
I agree that beliefs should not be medicalised, but what she describes is not what should be the catalyst for safeguarding.
The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, who I am sure will intervene in this discussion, conducted a one-off independent review of the Prevent strategy in 2011. However, unlike many aspects of counterterrorism law or terrorism law, this is not subject to continuous
review or oversight. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson—I am sure he will—may refer to his work. It is inevitable that I will trail his comments and pray him in aid, but I hope not to pre-empt him. In a submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee of the Commons two years ago, he said that he thought that,
“Prevent could benefit from independent review. It is perverse that Prevent has become a more significant source of grievance in affected communities than the police and ministerial powers”.
Two years ago, the Joint Committee picked up the subject when we expected there to be a counterextremism Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said then,
“reviewers can help the Government by challenging them … I cannot see anything being lost by reviewing the Prevent policy”.
I take that as at least not opposition. It may be support. I hope that it was not damning with faint praise.