Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

There are now literally millions of refugees in Lebanon and children are being born there who are effectively stateless. That is not a recipe for a peaceful middle east, is it?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to say that the huge stresses and strains in the region will have long-term consequences. That is why we need to do our bit with our humanitarian response and recognise the long-term security consequences both in the region and here in Britain.

Let me turn to the Bill’s measures and how they respond to the challenge we face. More needs to be done to prevent young people from being radicalised or drawn into extremism in the first place. The Home Secretary has said that she wants to strengthen the Prevent programme, which we welcome, and we hope that putting it on a statutory footing will help do that. She will know, however, that getting the Prevent programme right is not simply about legislation. The programme has been narrowed over the past few years, which has led to criticism from the Intelligence and Security Committee, which noted in its report last week

“the relatively low priority (and funding) given to Prevent in the CONTEST programme as a whole”.

The Committee concluded:

“The scale of the problem”—

by which it meant the number of people travelling—

“indicates that the Government’s counter-radicalisation programmes are not working.”

We know that Prevent support for local community programmes has dropped from £17 million to less than £3 million over the past few years. Although the Home Secretary talked about the promotion of a counter-narrative, the evidence suggests that far less work is being done now than a few years ago to promote counter-narratives within communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

More judicial oversight is needed in this area and we will certainly table amendments. It is also important to clarify what the powers are intended to achieve. It appears that they are not intended to achieve exclusion at all and have a very different intention.

[Chris Bryant]

My right hon. Friend is right to raise such queries. May I add two others that she might want to put to the Home Secretary? The first is what constitutes serving notice on somebody. Presumably this happens in another country. How is that notice to be served? How will somebody be deemed to be suitable to have that notice served on them? Secondly, at what point does the exclusion start? Is it before they get on an aeroplane or a boat to come to this country, or is it at they moment they arrive in this country? Once they are in this country, what happens to them? Are they effectively deported?

[Yvette Cooper]

Again, my hon. Friend raises important questions. The independent reviewer said that the policy was an announcement in search of a policy. It started with an announcement by the Prime Minister at a press conference. To be fair to the Home Office, it probably worked hard to try to turn it into some kind of sensible measure that might achieve something as part of the Government’s counter-terror policy but that could still have the label “temporary exclusion order” attached to it in order to keep the Prime Minister happy. The House needs to understand exactly what the Home Secretary’s intention now is. This is not a hugely responsible way to make counter-terror policy or for us all to be able to understand whether it gets the balance right between the powers and measures that are needed and the safeguards that are needed as well.

The Home Secretary has described this as a policy to manage return. The intention behind that is sensible, requiring people to co-operate with the police and security agencies and to attend Channel interviews if they have been involved with ISIL or have been in the region. That is important, but there are some practical questions about how the policy will work—first about co-operation with other countries, secondly about bureaucracy in the process, and thirdly about the safeguards and the judicial oversight.

What happens if a country does not want to co-operate? Have countries such as Turkey said that they will co-operate? Will they immediately deport people? Will they detain people at the airport? How will those orders be served and what will the response be?

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that the directive went considerably further than the regulations we passed in this country. As I recall, the European directive was drawn up in the wake of the 7/7 bombings in London and the terrorist attacks that took place at that time and was designed to provide a framework to ensure that different European countries could legally take the necessary action to investigate terrorism. However, the decision we took in the UK was to implement it much more narrowly, to ensure that safeguards were in place and to ensure that there were safeguards in the operation of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. I think that those safeguards now need to go further in the light of changing technology, and it is important that we do that.

I recognise that the Home Secretary wants only to maintain the status quo and to ensure that powers are not suddenly lost over the summer, but the problem for us is that the status quo is being challenged by the pace of new technology, by the struggle of police and agencies to keep up, by the limitations of a legal framework that dates back to 2000, by the weakness of oversight that does not meet modern expectations, by the Snowden leaks, by the global nature of the internet and by private companies that, in the case of most of us, hold, access and use far more of our private data than any police force or intelligence agency might do.

[Chris Bryant]

Although the Government keep on saying that the status quo is remaining as the status quo, 10 years ago it was the status quo that all electronic communications of MPs were covered by the Wilson doctrine. Earlier this year the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General said quite the reverse when he stated that metadata about MPs’ communications was now being kept by the Government.

[Yvette Cooper]

My understanding is that the Government do not keep metadata on UK citizens and that the data retention directive is about the information that companies hold, but I would certainly be very surprised if companies were able to separate out the billing data for MPs, for example, from that of any other British citizen. It would be startling if they were able to do so. My hon. Friend is right that one would expect things such as the data retention directive to cover not just MPs but all UK citizens in that way, but my point is that the Government cannot take for granted the need to restore the status quo. We need to debate it and we need reform.

My real concern about how the Government handled the issue is not only about the delay in introducing the legislation after the Court judgment in April and the limited time we have to debate it. It is bigger than that. It is about the Government’s failure to rise to the bigger challenge and debate of the past 12 months. They have said almost nothing in response to the Snowden leaks, to provide either reassurance or reform. They tried to limit the debate over the draft Communications Data Bill, drawing it too widely, and have never been clear about what they really wanted and needed to achieve. They have not faced the new challenges of the digital age and recognised the importance of changing technologies and expectations. They have not started a serious review of the legal framework or the powers and oversight needed. The Home Secretary made a speech a few weeks ago that set out some of the safeguards needed, but it has taken time for Ministers to do that.

European Union Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I know that the hon. Gentleman has immense expertise on the details of the legal changes, but he and I have a long history of disagreeing over what is important in a particular case, and I suspect that we will continue to do so.

[Chris Bryant]

Is not one of the problems with the Bill the fact that it makes the decision on whether to hold a referendum justiciable, and therefore a matter to be decided by the courts, when it is surely a political decision for which elected Members of Parliament ought to take the rap at the ballot box if they get it wrong?

Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Yvette Cooper

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman is right that there are many members of the Government who have indeed campaigned against poverty for many years, which is why their betrayal of the people whom they have stood up for is shocking. He will recall, too, that it was the Labour party that legislated and changed the law to restore the link with earnings. He should look rather carefully at the increase that, in practice, pensioners will receive over the next few years compared with the old standards. He will find that the new proposals are rather less generous than they appear at first sight.

[Chris Bryant]

Is there not also a real danger that the Government are presenting us with a straw man on housing benefit? In many of the constituencies that have the biggest problems in the land in trying to get people into work, it is not a question of people being paid more than £400 or of their living in houses that are too large, but of people living in houses that are not large enough and not looked after well enough by unscrupulous landlords. What we need to do if we want to help young people to grow up in households where there is work is to give them real opportunities to work.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that the key is helping people into jobs, yet the Budget cuts the number of people in work, increases the number of people on the dole, cuts the help for people to get back to work, as well as cutting the income of carers and the severely disabled, cuts help for kids, and hits the elderly with a VAT hike. Nothing in the Budget will get a single extra person back to work. Instead, it cuts the number of people in work.