Calais Camp: Lone Children

Baroness Chalker of Wallasey Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble and learned Baroness asks a very pertinent question. As we have heard, the camp closure will begin soon. We have put in place various processes—as I have just said, we are speeding up transfers. We are working with NGOs and others to make sure that the process is speeded up. No unaccompanied child—or any other child—should be in the Calais camp. That is why we are redoubling our efforts, together with the French, to get those children to safety.

[Baroness Chalker of Wallasey (Con)]

While not wishing to dispute what my noble friend has just said in answer to another good friend on the Cross Benches, there is a need for the Home Office and other departments to put more staff on to this and not to leave it until there are complaints from Members of this House or another place, or from NGOs. I can envisage just how difficult this is, but you need the numbers to work through the papers as fast as possible—and I say that with a little experience.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I pay tribute to my noble friend’s experience; she has an awful lot in this area. We are putting more staff capacity into this. We are seconding a second asylum expert to France and we now have a dedicated team in the Home Office Dublin unit.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Baroness Chalker of Wallasey Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chalker of Wallasey (Con)]

My Lords, it is now some 19 years since I concluded my time of more than 11 years in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It was in that time that I became deeply aware of the need for proper legislation to assist the Government to protect our citizens. In the intervening 19 years, technology has changed out of all recognition, as many of your Lordships have already said. The Bill has been most thoroughly prepared, and I support it fully, but it may need some amendment—not major, because most of that work has been done, as has already been described.

Some will be surprised at my intervention in this very erudite debate, and it would be foolish at this hour to repeat the case for the Bill made so well by my noble friend Lord Howe in introducing our debate some hours ago and the detailed remarks that have been made about the different aspects of the service providers. I was very glad to hear from my noble friend Lady Neville-Jones when she spoke of the data outside the UK and the need to establish international agreements as the primary route for UK agencies to obtain data from the communications service providers—I agree with her. What I believe we need to do above all is to make sure that the Bill—the Act that it will become—is a template for other countries.

As noble Lords will know, I am involved in trying to encourage investment into the developing world. There is an urgent need for our legislation to be a template for other countries because no one, apart from the United States, is thinking in the terms that this Bill is thinking about what is needed. British companies, especially those in technology such as BT, are considering major investments overseas. They need to be satisfied that the legislation which will cover their operations in India, South Africa and many other countries is properly drafted. My concern is a little different perhaps from that of other noble Lords. It is that we get the Bill absolutely right, not only for the reasons that have been expressed here but so that we can work with others on security matters on a similar basis. We shall never be able to prevent all the criminal activity or the terrible sexual grooming using only UK measures and UK internet connection networks—we have to have, and set, an international standard. In thinking about the wider effect of the Bill, I suggest to my noble friend Lord Howe that we will need further amendments to it so that it is worthy of emulation around the world and minimises the risk of retaliatory action against UK communications service providers that are investing abroad.

We need to establish some international agreements as the primary route by which UK agencies obtain that data from overseas CSPs. I believe we should disapply the extraterritorial application of UK law in situations where it is done pursuant to an international agreement, in line with David Anderson’s recommendations. We should also ensure that overseas CSPs can bring their concerns to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner without conceding jurisdiction and permit the commissioner to see amicus curiae from effective parties. I hope we can set out the functions and responsibilities of the Investigatory Powers Commission, including a power to hear and respond to petitions from interested parties. I hope, too, that they extend the conflict of laws defence for overseas companies. We should not state in the Bill anything which might be construed as requiring a company to weaken or to defeat its security measures, which are a critical component of efforts to protect users from hackers and from other threats. This is a complicated area on which I have only very limited experience, but I believe we need to set the example for other countries and help to ensure that other Governments have laws with which we can work.

Tourism: Visa Restrictions

Baroness Chalker of Wallasey Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I accept what the noble Lord says, although he broadens the question way beyond the immediate and perhaps beyond my competence to answer it. All I can say to him is that we welcome visitors to this country, and that we as a department want to play our part in making sure that people who want to come here can do so as easily as possible.

[Baroness Chalker of Wallasey]

I am sure my noble friend is aware that it is not only tourist visas that occasionally give us major problems. In recent months, I have had instances not only from Brazil but from many other countries, particularly where people live outside a capital and where the visas are being issued only in a neighbouring country. I earnestly ask him to get the Home Office and the Foreign Office to look at this situation again, because it is denying us return visits that are well tied up with British investment.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My noble friend has a distinguished record as a promoter of British interests around the world, and I take very careful note of what she says. However, I reiterate that where we are dealing with countries where we require biometric co-ordinates, it has to be done properly, which sometimes necessitates it being an out of country application. I apologise that I cannot give particular details in response to my noble friend’s question, but I hope that assists her.

Police: Station Closures

Baroness Chalker of Wallasey Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord is a member of that police authority and will no doubt put those questions to the mayor in due course. The important point is that those decisions are made by the appropriate authority. It is not for us to micromanage these things; it is for us to make the appropriate resources available to the police. We accept that the cuts that we are having to make, which were forced on us by the previous Government, are difficult. However, they are challenging but manageable, and all police authorities will manage to achieve them.

[Baroness Chalker of Wallasey]

My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister encourage chief constables to use those early-retired persons who are prepared to volunteer their services both to man desks in police stations and to carry out other non-police but essential back-up tasks? This is working extremely well in a number of areas of the Metropolitan force, and I believe that it should be widely extended across the country.

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend makes a very good point indeed and I will certainly take it on board. It is quite right that we should make use of the expertise that we have to make sure that policemen who are still available for front-line duties can do them and are not wasted behind the doors of the police station doing bureaucratic jobs.