Priti Patel: Terrorists will serve '14 years minimum' following Streatham knife attacks

Priti Patel has assured there will be tougher sentencing following the government’s emergency legislation announcement which will see the end of automatic early release of convicted terrorists.

The Home Secretary joined Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield on the sofa, where she said the UK needs to put a stop to terrorist offenders after two people were killed at the hands of convicted terrorist Sudesh Amman in Streatham on Sunday - just two months after Usman Khan's attack at London Bridge in November.

Discussing the recent incident, Priti said, “Those two individuals did not go up in front of anybody… they did not go through a parole board process. They were not assessed, they were not checked over essentially. We cannot keep having terrorist offenders… we’ve got to stop that, we’ve got to stop them from having early release and this automatic release where they’re not checked and they’re not sitting in front of a parole board.”

Quizzed by Holly on what the government are doing to prevent the "loophole" that has seen terrorists back on the streets, Priti agreed that there is work to be done, starting with increasing the minimum sentence to 14 years.

"I think first and foremost, the public would expect them to serve their full sentences… We have to remember that, people cannot automatically be deradicalised," Priti explained before claiming offenders would be “supervised and assessed” throughout their assessment.

"We are also bringing in a Counter-Terrorism Bill… Those individuals that are perpetrating Counter-Terrorism activities, the minimum sentence they will get is 14 years. They don’t even get that right now… They will serve that as a minimum sentence.”

Elsewhere, Priti insisted everyone should find comfort in knowing intelligence services are doing their best to keep us safe.

“I would say we are safe actually, thanks to their [the intelligent services'] amazing work", Priti said.

"It’s not just watching people, we are safe because of the intelligent and security partnerships and networks that we have across the world, with our counterparts internationally. And how we pool that together… We’re constantly trying to be ahead of the curve, which is why we work in the way we do.”