Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). I am not a lawyer, a former Home Office Minister or a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, so I will speak with humility. I would like to start by paying tribute to the members of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Members of the other place who have already done much to illuminate and improve the workings of the Bill.

The Bill clearly sits at the juxtaposition of justice and national security. As a result, it involves less than perfect solutions, in both directions. No one pursuing absolute principles of open justice or fairness would reach for the closed material procedure, public interest immunity certificates, confidentiality rings or in-camera hearings to try to achieve a measure of justice in the national security context. It is unarguable that extreme caution and extreme conservatism—with a small c—should be our starting point in approaching limits to those fundamentals of the rule of law of which we are so rightly proud here in the UK.

I have previously made it clear that I had significant reservations about the Bill. I accepted the principle that the closed material procedure might be appropriate in exceptional cases and as a last resort—that was also the position of David Anderson QC, who, unlike the majority of us here today, has been able to review some of the evidence that forms the Government’s case for the Bill—but I was not so happy with the details of the Bill in its original form.

I will restrict my remarks to part 2, which deals with the secret courts provisions. In particular, I found it difficult to accept the lack of discretion available to judges; the inequality of arms; the failure to ensure that CMP would be triggered as a last resort and only when strictly necessary; and the order-making power in clause 11. A Bill containing such provisions did not give the impression of limiting our traditions of open justice and fairness reluctantly, or of doing only the minimum to achieve the Government’s stated aims of preserving our vital intelligence links while enabling the Government to defend themselves against civil claims. I must be honest and say that I would have struggled to vote for such a Bill.

The Lords amendments have put a different Bill before us today, however; they have addressed every one of the points that I have just raised. They have strengthened the Government’s attempts to achieve their stated aims. I am pleased that the Government have accepted the amendment that will enable judges to exercise a measure of discretion. Replacing the word “must” with the word “may” might not seem like much to the casual observer, but to the non-state party in court, that will mark the difference between an obligation on the judiciary to grant CMP, on the one hand, and confidence in an independent decision made in the courts and not the Home Office, on the other. Our judiciary has so far shown itself to be trustworthy when it comes to protecting our national security interests, and decisions of the courts must clearly be theirs and not the Government’s, if the judiciary is to command respect here and abroad.

I was sorry to hear that the Minister without Portfolio was not convinced by arguments to allow judges to take into account whether alternative, existing procedural measures might be more appropriate in the first instance. Many of those measures provide more minimally invasive ways of excising national security material from the mass of evidence in a case and therefore keep more of the proceedings in the public eye. Put more clearly, rather than reaching for the total blackout of the CMP in the first instance, combining existing mechanisms such as PII certificates, confidentiality rings and in- camera hearings could well be more effective. That could achieve a more open justice, not compromise too greatly on fairness and still preserve the safety of intelligence for the majority of cases. It is important for us to know that that will be the default position, and that the CMP will not become the lazy or inappropriately risk-averse option rather than a necessity due to the nature of the evidence in specific cases or the desire of the applicant to rely on the sensitive information in their argument.

There will always be hard cases, such as that of al-Rawi, that prove that PII certificates might not be appropriate, perhaps due to the sheer volume of sensitive material involved, but such hard cases do not make good law and they prove nothing more than that there will be exceptional cases in which PII will not work and that this new alternative might be necessary. I think that we can trust the judiciary to work that one out. I also think that that course of action is sensible and the very least that can be done to reassure all parties to the litigation and the public that a decision to invoke CMP was strictly necessary and that all alternative solutions had been ruled out first.

I am pleased that the Government have also accepted the argument on equality of arms. It is worth remembering David Anderson QC’s evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights on this matter. He said:

“I am a little baffled by this. It is very much part of the Government’s justification for the Green Paper and the Bill that a closed material procedure can achieve fairness for individuals whose claims would otherwise have been struck out.”

It is illogical to exclude an application for CMP if the Government are arguing that the procedure would achieve fairness in such circumstances. I hope that the Government will continue to put forward that justification.

So far, I have made the case for the Government retaining amendments that have already been made, and I am grateful to them when they have done so. I would also like to discuss an issue that has affected many special advocates, who have made it clear that CMPs are “inherently unfair”. That is inevitable, given the circumstances, but the situation should be mitigated as much as possible. A major problem that special advocates have identified relates to their inability fully to represent clients when they are unable to disclose sufficient information to elicit effective instructions from the client. This obviously turns on how effectively and consistently the “AF No. 3 gisting obligation” is applied. Lord Carlile, in his evidence to the JCHR, explicitly acknowledged that that obligation should apply to all proceedings as a default. I am not yet convinced that the language in clause 7(l)(d), which states that the court need only “consider” providing a summary, matches that interpretation.

I hope that the Government will address that matter in Committee. Unless they demonstrate good faith in relation to open justice and state that disclosure will be the default position except in truly exceptional circumstances, it will be difficult to persuade a sceptical public that the measures proposed today are necessary and proportionate. I am afraid that I disagree with the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) about the removal of clause 11. His points on individual courts might be true, but an order-making power that does not define the courts involved should not be included in the Bill. It is appropriate that such extreme measures should be fully debated in the House.

Any measure that threatens the rule of law in the UK, or that sends a message that we do not uphold the highest standards of openness and fairness in our judicial system, is to be abhorred. However, when the choice is between no justice—due to national security material in evidence causing cases to collapse—and a measure of justice achieved by CMP, we have an uneasy choice to make. If we can hedge CMP around with sufficient protections for both parties—by keeping the amendments that will ensure sufficient judicial discretion and equality of arms and allow courts to ensure that CMP in civil courts is limited to truly exceptional cases as a last resort, and by ensuring that the gisting obligation is honoured—then and only then will the gains in fairness just about make up for the losses in openness. If those protections are not put in place, however, we will lose fairness and openness, and it will be extremely difficult to justify these changes.

Immigration

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Gentleman is being very unfair to my colleagues. What they have done in this debate is, rightly, set out the widespread concerns that exist across this country. I am trying to talk about what the consequences of further steps would be, as those are where my concerns lie. I represent part of this great city, with its very diverse population. All the electorate in my constituency want a reduction in net migration and in population growth, but they do not want to see the economic consequences of taking that policy too far. This is a question of striking the right balance.

I wish to make a couple of other quick points. Some question whether there is a correlation between population growth and economic growth, but if they examine the parts of the country that have seen the most significant population growth in recent years, they will see a correlation with the areas that are performing best economically. A sort of chicken and egg situation applies, because an area that is doing well economically tends to encourage people to move there because they think they can find work there. There does seem to be a correlation at a local level within our country.

I briefly wish to pick up on what the Prime Minister said in relation to the reshuffle. He said that every Department should be actively

“involved in the effort to get the deficit down and get the economy moving.”

I agree that that is the central test. The Government must deliver the manifesto commitment on net migration. Equally importantly, we must give people confidence that the system is working and that the people coming into the country are those who are doing so legally through a properly run immigration system. We must also not lose sight of the clear economic benefits that a well managed migration system can bring.

My hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) made an excellent point about the pressure on public services, but he also kindly acknowledged a good intervention—the British Medical Association has sent all Members a briefing on this—on the contribution that migrants make in delivering many of our public services. So, again, there is a balance to be struck.

For many of the things that the public are really concerned about, other solutions are available alongside a reduction in net migration. One of the real issues we have with the pressure on land for development is the significant reduction in household size. If, across this House, we could develop policies to try to prevent the level of family breakdown, that would reduce the pressure on housing. Another issue that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) raised was the regional imbalance around the UK. Parts of this country are very heavily populated, with real density, and they are often the areas that are seeing the biggest increases in population, but that is not the case uniformly across the UK. Half of all the population growth in the past 10 years was in London, the south-east and the east of England.

We could make much more of a national effort on infrastructure. Personally, I would have liked to see more cuts in current spending and more investment in infrastructure on the capital side.

Finally, if we are serious about this issue, we should consider not only non-EU immigration but migration from within the EU. The debate is a bit more complicated, in my opinion, than the motion makes out.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Gavin Barwell]

I cannot, I am afraid.

Although I support the principle of delivering our manifesto commitment, I cannot support the specific wording of the motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

It does not feel very congested in the Rhondda, I have to say. Sometimes this debate is conditioned strongly by the problems in the south-east of England. It is also a problem for our economy that we are far more dependent on one area—London and the south-east of England—than many countries in Europe. The more that we can to do shrink the country and extend financial opportunities around the country, the better.

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis of Latin America. The biggest and fastest-growing cities in the world are all in Latin America and many parts of it face vast congestion. I just think that he is wrong on those facts.

The vast majority of British people value the presence in British universities of international students. We all see that as a positive for the British economy, because if people study in this country and then go back to their country, they are—we hope—more likely to have a positive experience of this country and to do business with us in the future. That is without mentioning the amount of money that having international students pumps into the British economy.

In addition, the vast majority of people in this country want to protect our reputation for welcoming refugees from oppression, torture, violence and oppressive regimes around the world. Although free movement within the European Union undoubtedly has its problems—that is felt not just in the United Kingdom, but notably at the moment in Spain—it is vital to the free market on which the British economy depends.

Linking immigration to population is not as straightforward as many hon. Members have suggested this afternoon. Those who come to this country often leave. If we changed the number of people coming into the country in some categories, we would lose the bounce effect from the people who leave after a few years.

[Nicola Blackwood]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Lady really has not been here for the whole debate, but I will give way to her.

[Nicola Blackwood]

The hon. Gentleman is very kind. I speak as the daughter of a migrant, but he is free to patronise my contribution at any moment he chooses. Does he agree that a significant problem with regard to numbers, which as far as I am aware has not been raised, is that it is incredibly difficult to have an informed debate about immigration when the data collection on those who are in the country and those who exit the country is not complete? We need to fix that problem if we are to form a proper evidence-based policy on immigration.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Lady makes a very fair point, which is related to the next point that I was going to make. Several hon. Members have referred to the number of students, and 60% of non-EU migrants to this country are students. My contention is that the vast majority of those students return to their country of origin. Their whole aim is to come here, study and take their skills back to their own country. The evidence is not cast-iron on any side of that argument, but let those who say that the vast majority of students stay here prove it. I simply do not believe that to be the case.

I return to the figure of 70 million mentioned in the motion. Several hon. Members have been profoundly misled about the figures, because if net migration were zero in every category for the next 25 years, the population would grow to 66 million by 2035, up 6% from what it was in 2010. If net migration were tens of thousands, which as a couple of Members have mentioned is the Government’s declared aim, the population would be 70 million just after 2035. I do not think the measures that are currently being taken will achieve that declared aim, so they would have to be redoubled, if not trebled, for us to achieve what the motion proposes.

In addition, intra-company transfers under tier 2 were at 29,000 in 2010, roughly the same number in 2011 and 29,571 in 2012, but none of them entitles somebody to settlement in this country, so tackling them would not affect the final figures to which the motion refers.

I also object to the phrase “all necessary steps”. Even if the Government were to achieve their declared aim, the population would reach 70 million just after 2035. I suppose that if we were taking all necessary steps, we could theoretically tear up all our asylum commitments. The number of them has fallen in recent years to 19,804, but they are long-standing commitments. Would we really want to tell people fleeing Mugabe or a vicious regime elsewhere in the world that they could not come to this country, and that we would no longer respect those commitments?

We could cut the cap on tier 2 migration below 21,700, but it is already undersubscribed. Only half the certificates of sponsorship were taken up in the last year. If we cut intra-company transfers by installing a cap, I believe that we would dramatically harm the UK’s opportunity to act as an international hub.

We could encourage more people to leave the country and make them emigrate by increasing the threshold for settlement to more than £35,000, but that would touch only some 3,000 people at best. We could curtail non-EU migration, but not without cutting demand. According to many employers, the danger is that they would simply seek to employ more EU migrants. The key point is that we have to deal with demand for migrant labour in the UK. For instance, we need to deal with pay and conditions in many parts of the country, so that it makes sense for British people to work. We need to ensure that people have the skills to be able to take the jobs in key industries such as construction and hospitality that are currently being taken by migrants. We also have to tackle the vectors of mass migration around the world, particularly war, famine, poverty and climate change. On that basis, I do not think it would be right to support the motion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We have cut the budget deficit by a quarter in two years but, obviously, it is immensely challenging to get the deficit down. I note that Labour’s answer to getting the deficit down is to borrow more—to borrow an extra £200 billion. The one way you cannot get borrowing down is to put borrowing up.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

Q3. My constituents were delighted when BMW announced the investment of £250 million to increase Mini production and called its Oxford plant the heart and home of this great British success story. Does the Prime Minister agree that this kind of inward investment is vital to kick-start the economy and that we must do more to prioritise policies to make the UK more attractive to investors?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend and I have neighbouring constituencies and many constituents who work at BMW at the old Cowley works. It is very good news that BMW is investing another £250 million in that plant on top of the £500 million announced last year. That is safeguarding over 5,000 jobs in the Oxford, Swindon and Hams Hall plants. It is part of a huge recovery story for the British motor manufacturing industry. We are now net exporters. That has not happened since the 1970s and it is a huge credit to Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, Toyota, BMW—to all those companies that are investing in and choosing Britain. They are not choosing Britain because of the weather; they are choosing Britain because we have cut corporation tax, because we are investing in apprenticeships, because we are investing in the infrastructure that they need, and because they know that this is a country open to business.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Far too many noisy private conversations are taking place in the Chamber. Let us have a bit of order for Nicola Blackwood.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

T6. I am sure that the Minister will join me in applauding the work of the Archway Foundation, which for 30 years has been combating loneliness in my constituency. Like many charities, it is struggling increasingly with excessive regulation. What steps is he taking to combat red tape to let charities do what they do best, which is to help those who are most in need in our communities?

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)]

I am delighted to congratulate the Archway Foundation on its work. My hon. Friend is right that there is too much that gets in the way of charities and voluntary organisations in doing their work. That is why we are undertaking what is probably the most comprehensive review of the regulation and legislation that affects the sector.

Public Disorder

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

I join the Prime Minister in praising the bravery of the emergency services and echo the disbelief of the House that children as young as 11 and 12 have been involved in the violence and criminality of the past few days. Can the Prime Minister tell the House whether the age of any of the rioters prevented the police from using anti-riot techniques?

[The Prime Minister]

I will certainly look at what my hon. Friend says. Of course, the age of criminal responsibility is 10, and we do not have any proposals to change that, but she raises an important issue about whether the police at any moment needed to hang back because of the very young age of the looters—some of the people doing the looting were under the age of 10—and I will certainly get back to her about that.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is very simple: tell the truth to the police and to the inquiry.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that having failed the victims in 2006, when the Met and the Government ignored the Information Commissioners’s Office’s warnings, and having failed the victims in 2009, when the Met’s eight-hour review dismissed evidence in its own possession, we should not fail them now by simply apportioning blame? What we need is real reform of our police, our media and our politics.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The fact is that we can go back over these reports and over the missed warnings, and the inquiry will be able to do that too, and we should use that information and use this once-in-a-generation chance to try to get media regulation right.

Phone Hacking

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman speaks some very wise words. There are ways of setting up a regulatory system that is effectively independent, that is non-statutory, that does not have the Government’s fingertips all over it, as it were, and that can do a good and trusted job, as we see in the case of advertising standards. In any case, this matter will not now be for us, but for the inquiry, and it is important that the inquiry should look into it carefully.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement and the terms of the public inquiry that he set out, but will the public inquiry consider the role that mobile phone companies have played in the scandal, and will there also be consideration of the responsibilities that they may have to their clients, to protect their privacy?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It takes, as it were, two to blag—someone to ask, and someone to give. We do need to consider the matter. The inquiry will have a huge amount of evidence to go through, and it will need to ensure that it has proper technical expertise to get to the bottom of the matter.

Constitution and Home Affairs

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to give my maiden speech today, although not quite so grateful to follow the excellent maiden speeches of so many of my colleagues on both sides of the House. They have set the bar almost impossibly high.

Many Members will know my predecessor, Evan Harris, as an energetic and uncompromising Member of this House, and although we often disagreed on points of principle, he was one of the few politicians who never put popularity above principle. I know that he will go on to make a significant contribution elsewhere. Dr Harris was not my only predecessor to make an appearance on the campaign trail. Far too often on the doorstep, constituents would look at me, sigh, and say, “Well of course, I remember Airey Neave”, or “Now John Patten, he was a good constituency MP.” It is a little too early to work out exactly where I will end up in that illustrious line-up, but I hope that it will be recorded that I did everything in my power to serve the constituents of Oxford West and Abingdon with integrity and commitment, and that I became the dedicated constituency representative that they so deserve.

Let us be honest—there could not really be a better constituency to represent. My home town, Oxford, is surely one of the most beautiful cities in the world and its history of scholars, authors, artists, inventors and Prime Ministers fills library after library. I am particularly pleased that, even after boundary changes, I still have the opportunity to represent my undergraduate and graduate colleges—St. Anne’s and Somerville.

Oxford university and Oxford Brookes have international reputations in field after field. I know that many scholars and students are watching the university fees review with anxiety. I know exactly what it is like to pay tuition fees, having been in one of the first years to do so, and we must ensure that university funding reform is open and fair, properly supports students from more disadvantaged backgrounds, creates an academic environment that supports research, and enables our top universities to remain competitive—and even become more so—on the international stage.

Oxford West and Abingdon’s excellence is not confined to education. The NHS in Oxfordshire hosts many centres of excellence and an enormous number of dedicated health professionals—my father for one. I know that they join me in welcoming the coalition Government’s commitment to increasing NHS spending and to introducing the revolutionary idea of letting local health professionals set local health priorities.

As we struggle to maintain the recovery, it is ever more important that we support Oxfordshire’s vibrant private sector. That includes ventures at every stage of growth, from start-up university spin-offs in biotech and renewables at Begbroke science park to long-standing international publishers such as Oxford University Press and Blackwell.

Beyond the dreaming spires lies Abingdon—a beautiful market town that is one of the oldest continuous settlements in the UK. However, Abingdon’s fantastic location on the banks of the Thames and the River Ock has been a thorn in its side, creating difficult traffic problems and allowing terrible floods in 2007. Climate change means that there is an increasing risk of flooding in that area. As research shows, it is incredibly important to maintain our commitment to flood defences, which are far cheaper than the catastrophic results of unmitigated flooding. Those defences are much needed by the residents of Osney, Abingdon and nearby villages such as Kidlington. I look forward to supporting their campaign for them.

However, I have chosen to speak in today’s debate because of my commitment to another local campaign. Despite chronic under-reporting, research shows that domestic abuse accounts for 16% of violent crime. It affects one in four women and one in six men. Despite the fact that most people still think of it as a women’s issue, a third of victims are men.

The social and economic impact of domestic abuse is becomingly increasingly unsustainable. Domestic abuse claims more repeat victims—that is more police time and more repeat visits to A and E—than any other crime. It leads to the murder of four women and one man a fortnight, and affects four children in every class of 30. All that costs our economy an estimated £23 billion a year, and front-line services bear the brunt. In the current economic climate, that will only get worse. United Nations research has confirmed what common sense has told us for years: unemployment and financial instability exacerbate domestic abuse.

Surely if those on both sides of the Chamber can agree on anything, it is that no one should fear being raped or beaten in their own home, forced into marriage or killed in the name of honour. However, there are still worrying gaps in provision. In theory, the introduction of sexual assault referral centres is a good thing, but the nearest one for us is in Slough—a long way to go for someone who has been brutally raped. To add insult to injury, my local rape crisis centre currently faces a funding crisis. There is also the gender problem. Although roughly a third of victims are male, only 1% of refuge space is available for men. In Oxfordshire, there is no provision for male victims fleeing domestic abuse.

There is also a serious lack of perpetrator programmes. Despite the fact that a quarter of male probationers and 17% of male prisoners are domestic violence perpetrators, there is such a shortage of places on those programmes that, recently, some courts were expressly prohibited from using them as a sentencing option. No perpetrator programmes are available in Oxfordshire.

However, we have one thing to boast about: the champions network. When research revealed that victims can go to as many as 10 agencies before finding the help that they need, the Oxfordshire county domestic abuse service decided to short-circuit the problem and train a network of volunteers in other agencies. They were called champions. They are seen as the lead on domestic abuse issues in their agency and they can advise colleagues on management of individual cases and ensure access to local resources. There are now more than 300 champions in 60 agencies. They are all volunteers, all trained and they all make an enormous impact. As far as I am aware, it is the only network of its kind in the UK. I am proud to be a champion myself, to speak up for that excellent work. I thank the Deputy Speaker for giving me the chance to speak in this debate.