Counter-Terrorism And Sentencing Act 2021

Overview of the Act

1. The purpose of the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act is to strengthen the approach taken to the sentencing and release of terrorist offenders, and to enhance the management of terrorism risk through civil powers. It will ensure that serious and dangerous terrorist offenders will spend longer in custody, reflecting the seriousness of the offences they have committed, which seeks to provide better protection for the public and more time in which to support their disengagement and rehabilitation through the range of tailored interventions available while they are in prison. It will also improve the ability to manage the threat posed by individuals involved in terrorism as well as to monitor terrorist offenders following their release from prison, allowing the government to intervene more effectively when this is required.
2. The provisions in the Act are intended to strengthen the approach to the sentencing of terrorist offenders through:
   1. The creation of a new type of sentence for the most serious terrorist and terrorism-related offenders (aged 18 or over), with a minimum custodial term of 14 years and an extended licence period of between 7 and 25 years.
   2. Removing the possibility of any early release from custody for dangerous terrorist offenders who have committed a serious terrorism offence and who receive an extended sentence.
   3. Increasing the maximum penalty available for particular terrorism offences.
   4. Amending the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 (2008 Act) and the Sentencing Act 2020 to require the court, in cases where it appears that any non-terrorism offence with a maximum penalty of more than two years was committed in the course of an act of terrorism, or for the purposes of terrorism, to actively consider whether the offence was committed with a terrorist connection and should be aggravated as such. This will also trigger registered terrorist offender (RTO) notification requirements in a wider range of cases.
   5. Adding offences to the extended sentence regimes, so that where an offender is deemed dangerous and a terrorist connection is found by the court, they will spend longer in custody and be subject to an extended licence period on release.
   6. Adding all terrorism offences with a maximum penalty of more than two years to the Sentence for Offenders of Particular Concern (SOPC) regime, ensuring terrorist offenders sentenced in future are subject to a minimum mandatory period on licence.
   7. Creating new equivalents of the SOPC regime for under-18 terrorist offenders in England and Wales, and for terrorist offences (whether committed by adults or those under 18) in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
3. The Act will also improve the government’s ability to manage the threat posed by individuals involved in terrorism and monitor terrorist offenders on release from prison, through:
   1. Increases to the length of maximum licence periods for serious and dangerous terrorist offenders sentenced to an extended sentence to 10 years in Northern Ireland and England and Wales 1.
   2. Strengthened licence supervision for terrorist offenders (aged 18 or over) by extending the application of mandatory polygraph testing for some terrorist offenders released on licence in England and Wales 2 .
   3. Amending the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIM) Act 2011 (as amended by the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015), to: lower the standard of proof for imposing a TPIM notice; specify new measures which can be applied to TPIM subjects; strengthen some of the existing measures, and extend the length of time for which a TPIM can last from two years to five years.
   4. Amending the Serious Crime Act 2007 so that Counter-Terrorism Policing can make a direct application to the High Court for a Serious Crime Prevention Order (SCPO) in relation to individuals concerned with terrorism, to reduce the administrative burdens associated with an SCPO and support their use in terrorism cases.
   5. Strengthening the RTO notification requirements, by adding the offences of breaching a TPIM notice and breaching a Temporary Exclusion Order (TEO) to the list of relevant terrorism offences that trigger the RTO notification requirements.
4. In addition, the Act will remove the statutory deadline for the independent review of Prevent (while maintaining the legislative commitment to undertake the review), to ensure the review has sufficient time to fulfil its terms of reference.