Asylum

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Higgins (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, we have time. I suggest that we go first to the Cross Benches, if we go round in order, and then to my noble friend Lord Higgins.

[Baroness Afshar]

My Lords, is there any awareness of cause and effect in this process as to why all these people are coming out? Which countries have contributed to this problem? Is there a moral duty to think about what has caused this process? The people who come are the best, and they serve the countries to which they go to the best of their ability. I have done so and I am sure that many others might do so also.

Syria: Christian Refugees

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wright of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, it is not necessary for the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, to sit down because it is the turn of the Labour Benches.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

My Lords, people of many faiths and none have sought refuge from oppression not only in Syria but elsewhere. Accordingly, are they not entitled to expect to be regarded in a much more benign and civilised way than this Government have exhibited so far?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords—

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, the House is calling for my noble friend Lady Berridge. I suggest that we hear from her, and if we are brief we can get to the noble Lord.

Airports Commission

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder if the Minister would make an educated guess—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

Order. It is actually the turn of the Liberal Democrat Benches.

Police and Crime Commissioners

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, you are testing me today. This is a difficult one. I think the best thing to do is to move on to the next Question.

Population: International Migration

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Skelmersdale (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Labour Benches.

[Lord Tomlinson]

My Lords, will the Minister explain to the House how the Prime Minister got immigration figures so stunningly wrong when looking at this country’s need for overseas students? He promised us that immigration would be controlled at tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands. His words in emphasising that were, “No ifs, no buts”. If he can get those figures so stunningly wrong, why should we believe any of the statistics that are coming from the Government on immigration?

Independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her characteristic bipartisan approach on this. I know from my right honourable friend the Home Secretary that one of the most important things for survivors, particularly as we approach the end of this Parliament, is confidence that we are acting in a cross-party way so that there will not be disruption thereafter. That will be welcomed by them.

I shall deal with a number of the points that the noble Baroness raised. In relation to the missing files, as I have said, my right honourable friend has been very clear that we do not know whether there was a cover-up. That is one of the things that we need to get clear. We need to focus on it and get to the bottom of it. The Home Secretary and the Cabinet Secretary have written round, and we expect early and full compliance with that inquiry, as should have been the case with the earlier Wanless and Whittam review.

The noble Baroness asked about Ben Emmerson QC as the counsel. That was discussed with Justice Goddard and she is content with that approach. The noble Baroness also asked about the important issue of timing. We have been hearing evidence lately about the Chilcot review dragging on. That is not something that we want to do. The Home Secretary has said that she is considering—but will first discuss with the chairman of the panel, of course—whether there might be a target date. However, we would certainly expect to get regular updates and for survivors to be kept updated about the progress being made. Any evidence that comes to light must be passed immediately. That is the crucial role which Chief Constable Simon Bailey will play. He will be the link, the conduit, and the link with the Director of Public Prosecution’s office, so that we ensure that any prosecutions and information are dealt with immediately.

I think those were the principal points that the noble Baroness raised. If there are other points, I will come back to them later. I am grateful for her support.

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, before the clerk starts the Clock for Back-Bench contributions, and as there are many noble Lords in the Chamber today for this very important statement, I thought it might be helpful if I reminded the House that Statements are an opportunity for brief questions. We want to ensure that the maximum number of noble Lords who are interested and wish to ask my noble friend Lord Bates a question get an opportunity to do so. If we could ensure that we follow the guidance in the Companion and keep to brief questions, I would be grateful.

EU: Justice Opt-ins

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston)]

My Lords, forgive me, but we have not yet heard from the Liberal Democrat Benches, so we shall hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, first. We have plenty of time for other noble Lords to participate in this Question.

[Baroness Ludford]

Can the Minister confirm that the famous corpus juris was in fact purely an academic research report, not a European Commission proposal? Its only product has been the idea of a European public prosecutor, in which the UK is not participating. Can he further confirm that all other EU action against crime is firmly founded on mutual recognition, as promoted by the UK, and that there is no European jurisdiction or European criminal code?

Police Integrity

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for her general welcome for this Statement. I know that in another place similar support was given to the Home Secretary’s Statement. This is good news. I shall start with the last point made by the noble Baroness, which was on rebranding. Do we want a new body? I do not think that is necessary. The IPCC has good leadership under Dame Anne Owers and it has a sense of direction, which is now supported by the Government through this Statement. Although I cannot anticipate what may be in future Queen’s Speeches, I am fairly confident that legislation on this matter will not be long delayed. Indeed the Statement drew attention to that.

The IPCC is currently engaged in a lot of extremely serious investigations. The Statement referred to them as probably lying at the heart of the realisation that we need to look afresh at how we investigate the police, and at what new framework we should establish. This is the Government’s response. We believe in beefing up not only the powers but the resources of the IPCC. The noble Baroness asked where those resources were coming from and whether there was any fresh government money. The Statement rightly said that they were coming from the existing budgets of police forces—certainly in the main that will be the case. However, the matter will be discussed with each police force.

A Statement such as this is clearly indicative rather than absolutist. Certainly we will debate the issues that it raises over the next few months. However, it is important, when the Government have something to say on an issue as important as this, that they demonstrate to the House, through the way they present the issues involved, their direction of travel. That was the purpose of the Statement today.

The noble Baroness asked a large number of questions. There was a radio programme called “20 Questions”. I did not count the noble Baroness’s but I felt that she asked a fair number. I will do my best to answer them, but she very kindly said that I might write to her. It might help if I wrote on some of these matters and put a copy in the Library of the House.

The noble Baroness asked how public the professional register would be. It will be a public document. It is intended that organisations such as the Security Industry Authority and private security firms will be able to take note of these matters. It will not be just for police officers to note who has been in effect deregistered from the police service as a result of misconduct.

The parallel organisation to the IPCC is the College of Policing. With its code of ethics, it will provide the framework in which the new sense of purpose about integrity can be addressed. The noble Baroness asked whether it would cover matters such as the identity of children. As she knows, that is being investigated by Chief Constable Creedon at the moment, and he will report on the full implications. That is just the sort of issue at which I expect a code of Essex—sorry, ethics—to look. I apologise for that slip of the tongue.

The noble Baroness also asked how one would define “serious” and “sensitive”. One tends to know what is serious and sensitive when it turns up. This will be about the relationship between the IPCC and individual police forces. Individual forces have just as great an interest in making sure that the public are supportive of them and perceive that the integrity of the police is based very locally within each police force.

I have a few further points to make. The list is designed to ensure that all those who are dismissed as a result of misconduct proceedings, or would have been dismissed had they remained in service, cannot find employment in another force. That is the principal purpose behind it. They are struck off from being a police officer in the future. We envisage that the list will be used by other employers—I have mentioned employers in the security industry—to consider whether or not to employ such dismissed officers.

I hope that the noble Baroness will allow me to write to her on the other questions which I have not addressed, and I hope that I have assisted the House in giving some sense of the thinking that lies behind the Statement.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, before the clerk starts the clock for Back-Bench contributions, in the interests of ensuring that as many noble Lords as wish to do so are able to contribute in the 20 minutes which now follow, perhaps I may remind the House that this is an opportunity to put brief questions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Whitty]

The Minister is a more avid reader of the New Statesman than I am.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I must remind noble Lords that this is a Statement, not a debate.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

It is of course very important to keep oneself well informed, even if it is just to inform one of where people are going wrong. This issue is a very serious one. I do not think there is any dispute about the fact that crime figures are falling. There are matters of definition, which I think it is going to be in everyone’s interests to get tidied up, but the allegation that these figures are being manipulated is a very serious one. Unfortunately, I cannot attend the meeting which the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who is not in his place at the moment, has called for this evening. I would like to have gone to it but I am on duty in the Chamber. However, I have asked an official to attend because it is very important that the Home Office follows these arguments and listens to what is being said.

Justice and Security Bill [HL]

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, the amendment concerns the power to withhold information from the ISC and at what level the decision should be taken. The Bill states that the decision should be taken by a “Minister of the Crown”. The amendment proposes that it should be at the level of Secretary of State in the relevant department and not just a Minister of the Crown. The response I was given in Committee was that the Cabinet Office does not have a Secretary of State and therefore it would be the Minister of State. As somebody who was the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, that did not seem appropriate. Every department has a Minister who sits in the Cabinet. The reason for putting the amendment before the House today is to propose that, as a minimum, it should be a Minister who is at the equivalent level of Secretary of State. That would be justified because the explanation given by the Minister in Committee for lowering the threshold was not adequate given such a change in power.

We have sought to tighten up the drafting to make it clear in the Bill that in all but exceptional circumstances the power to withhold information from the ISC should be exercised only by a Secretary of State unless there is no Secretary of State in that department. In that case, it should be exercised by a Minister of comparable rank such as the current Paymaster-General who is a member of the Cabinet as well as the most senior member in the Cabinet Office. The amendment is simply to specify that a reference to a Minister of the Crown should be interpreted as a Secretary of State for that department except where there is no Secretary of State where it should be someone of the equivalent rank.

I hope that that is clear and I hope that the Minister can accept or at least reflect on this because it would be a significant change if it was not the Secretary of State seeking to withhold information. I beg to move.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I hope in responding to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, that I can give her some assurance so that she feels able to withdraw her amendment.

The Bill provides that Ministers may decide that information should be withheld from the ISC on two grounds. First, the Minister may consider that it is “sensitive information” as defined in the Bill, which in the interests of national security should not be disclosed to the ISC, and secondly for the reasons that we just discussed.

Currently, under the provisions of the Intelligence Services Act 1994, information can be withheld from the ISC on the same grounds, but the decisions to withhold are taken, in part, by agency heads rather than Ministers. These powers to withhold information from the ISC have been used very rarely in the past, and we would expect the equivalent powers in the Bill to continue to be used sparingly, only in exceptional circumstances; however it is important that these safeguards are retained as there will continue to be material the nature of which is so sensitive that access to it must be very narrowly restricted in the interests of national security.

Where agencies’ material is concerned, the Bill provides that decisions to withhold information from the ISC must be taken by the Secretary of State. However, where the ISC requests information from another government department, a decision to withhold is taken by the,

“relevant Minister of the Crown”.

That means, for these purposes, such a Minister as is identified in the memorandum of understanding between the Prime Minister and the ISC or, where no Minister is so identified, any Minister of the Crown.

The effect of the noble Baroness’s amendment would be that in circumstances where the Bill enables a Minister of the Crown to withhold information from the ISC, that power would rest with the Secretary of State for the department whose information is to be withheld, or for departments without a Secretary of State, a Minister of the equivalent level, identified in the memorandum of understanding.

The reason that we have included provision for the exercise of the power by a Minister of the Crown rather than a Secretary of State in respect of material held by government departments is that there may be some departments where there is no Secretary of State. The noble Baroness referred to this. For example, the post of Minister for the Cabinet Office is a Minister of State position rather than a Secretary of State position.

The current ISC has, over its history, taken evidence on, and made recommendations relating to, the Joint Intelligence Organisation and the central intelligence functions of the Cabinet Office. The Bill formalises the ISC’s oversight role for bodies such as the Joint Intelligence Organisation so the Cabinet Office can expect more requests from the ISC for disclosure of information in future. It is therefore important that a Minister of the Crown should be able to make decisions about when and what information should be withheld from the ISC. This may not just be about the Cabinet Office. It may be that, in the future, other government departments involved in security and intelligence functions will not have a Secretary of State. This provision would also cover those circumstances.

I appreciate the intention of the amendment, which is to ensure that the Minister of the Crown making the decision to withhold information from the ISC is of appropriate seniority. I hope that I can reassure the noble Baroness that that is also the Government’s intention. We hope to publish, before Third Reading, a document which sets out the areas that the Government expect the memorandum of understanding to cover, premised on the assumption that the ISC-related provisions in the Bill are enacted, substantially, in their current form.

In that document, we will state that it is the Government’s intention that the Minister making such decisions should be of appropriate seniority and should have sufficient knowledge of the work of the department in question. The document will state that it is the Government’s intention that, for the Home Office, the Minister making such decisions should be the Home Secretary, for the Foreign Office the Foreign Secretary, for the Ministry of Defence the Defence Secretary and for the Cabinet Office a Minister of State. As I said, I hope that that gives the noble Baroness enough assurance for her to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Gilbert]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but surely the more important question is whether or not the Minister is required to let the committee know that he is not telling them something. If he does not tell them that he is not telling them something they will not know that they have not been told something. Anyone with any experience of ministerial office at all knows perfectly well that that is the principal work of civil servants when they want to undermine Ministers and they do not like government policy. They do not tell Ministers things. We are entering an opaque area and I cannot see any answer to those questions in what the noble Baroness said.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The point of this debate and the amendment that we are discussing right now is the authority of the relevant Minister to decide whether or not to withhold information from the committee. It is not about whether the committee has the right to request information. The committee has under its wider remit the ability to request information from government departments, but it is for the relevant Minister to have the authority to be able to decide whether to agree to that request. This is about the authority of the Minister.

[Lord Gilbert]

On the same point, is there an obligation on the Minister anywhere in the legislation to inform the committee that he is withholding information from it?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

That is not the issue that we are debating right now. If I may, I will have to come back to the noble Lord. I would think that that detail will be covered.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Can I help the Minister? Surely, if the committee has asked a department for information, it will know if it does not get it back that it has been refused. The issue is whether it will know which Minister refused the information.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his assistance. That is absolutely right. If the committee requests the information, because the MoU will make it clear which Minister within a department is responsible for responding or deciding whether or not the department should provide that information, obviously the Minister has an obligation to respond to that request.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I am not sure that the noble Baroness has understood the central point that I am making and if she has, she has not answered it to my satisfaction. The query that I have with this amendment is the level of the Minister who can exercise a veto. I entirely agree that it is an exceptional measure that will be used only in exceptional circumstances. It takes the power from the agency’s head so that it rests with the elected representatives of the Government who are ultimately accountable to Parliament. But I have not heard from the noble Baroness an adequate justification from the Government as to why they have chosen to downgrade the level at which the veto is held from a Secretary of State to a Minister of State.

I mentioned the Cabinet Office because that was the department mentioned by the Minister previously. The noble Baroness responded and said that it could be another department that does not have a Secretary of State. The point being made is the level of Minister who can withhold information and exercise a veto against the ISC. It is entirely reasonable that it should be the Secretary of State or a Minister at the same level, not downgraded to a Minister of State level.

North Wales Abuse Allegations

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for her response to the grave Statement that we have had to make to the House today and for her general welcome for the way in which the Government are responding promptly to the issue. I agree with her that perhaps the most serious issue is whether there has been institutional blindness, if one can put it like that. I absolutely agree that this must be the key to the agenda going forward in order to make sure that the interests of victims are properly recognised, that the police prosecute without fear or favour, and that justice is seen to be done.

The noble Baroness asked whether there would be restrictions on these investigations. Police investigations are police investigations and they go wherever the evidence takes them. She asked, too, about the funding. The Government understand that there will be resource pressures because these investigations will involve all of the authorities engaged in them in additional work. The Home Office will encourage those organisations to apply to it so that any extra additional costs can be considered as part of the funding provided to them by the Home Office.

The thrust of the noble Baroness’s questions was whether it would be better to wait and set up an overarching inquiry in order that the lessons may be learnt. I do not believe that that is the right approach. I believe that these allegations demand immediate investigations. The lessons that will be learnt by these investigations may well require a comprehensive review of child protection in this country—that is a reasonable conclusion to come to—but I do not believe that the House would thank us if we stood by and delayed the investigations involved. I hope that I have the support of the noble Baroness in that. If I have misunderstood the noble Baroness, I apologise. I think the Government are on the right track here and doing what the House would wish of them.

On the question of organisational change and whether it will impede or assist these investigations, as the noble Baroness said, this issue has been debated over time and in all ways. All I can say is that Keith Bristow will be heading up an organisation which has considerable resources available to it through the National Crime Agency. These bodies will be there to do their task, to assist him to achieve our objective of better child protection for all young people.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, perhaps I may assist the many noble Lords who I am sure will want to contribute today by reminding them that the Companion advises that, in order that as many people as possible are able to contribute, today is an opportunity for brief comments and questions only.