Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability
Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts(7 years, 12 months ago)
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Alex Salmond
Yes. The loss of faith in the political system is another dramatic consequence of the disastrous events in Iraq.
Alex Salmond
Let me finish this point, before I give way to the right hon. Gentleman.
This point was raised in the Liaison Committee, when Chilcot was asked about weapons of mass destruction. He was asked repeatedly whether a reasonable person could have come to the conclusion the Prime Minister had come to. The best exchanges were between the Chair of the Committee and Sir John Chilcot on the well understood test of a reasonable man. The Chair asked:
“Would a reasonable man—another human being—looking at the evidence come to that conclusion?”
Sir John Chilcot replied:
“If you are posing that question with regard to a statement of imminent threat to the United Kingdom”—
The Chair said: “I am.”
Sir John Chilcot went on:
“In that case, I have to say no, there was not sufficient evidence to sustain that belief objectively at the time.”
Given the length of time the Chilcot inquiry spent considering this exact point, it may be the opinion of many hon. Members that Sir John Chilcot’s expression of this carries rather more weight than that of hon. Members desperate to defend the indefensible.
Mr Hanson
Did not Sir John Chilcot, when asked this question in the Liaison Committee, say:
“I absolve him from…a decision to deceive Parliament or the public”.
We cannot have it both ways. We have had the Chilcot report and parliamentary accountability: Chilcot said that the former Prime Minister did not deceive this House or the public.
Alex Salmond
The trouble with that intervention is that the right hon. Gentleman does not go on to read the next sentence in that exchange, which I shall read for his erudition:
“However, he also exercised his very considerable powers of advocacy and persuasion, rather than laying the real issues, and the information to back the analysis of them, fairly and squarely in front of Parliament or the public. It was an exercise in advocacy, not an exercise in sharing a crucial judgment”.
European Council
Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts(8 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The UK will be continuing to play its role in the Council of Europe. I want us to continue to have a good relationship with the member states in the EU and with the EU itself—I think that is in all our interests.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Did the Prime Minister find time in her busy weekend to emphasise to European colleagues how much we value things such as the prisoner transfer agreement, Europol and the European arrest warrant? Will she confirm that, whatever negotiating she does, nothing will lead to the watering down of those commitments?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman will know my commitment to the relationship that we have with other member states of the European Union in relation to justice and home affairs matters. I have had a lot of questions this afternoon about the detail of the discussions that I had on Brexit at the European Council. Of course, the main topics that we discussed at the European Council were Russia, migration and trade. Negotiations and discussions on the detail of our negotiations will be for the future.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Ben Gummer
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right that hacking poses a serious threat to our national infrastructure. I will be able to make more announcements in the next few weeks that I hope will colour the detail that he is seeking.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Ben Gummer)
The Cabinet Office is responsible for delivering a democracy that works for everyone, supporting the design and delivery of Government policy and driving efficiencies and reforms to make government work better.
Ben Gummer
It is not for me to revisit the arguments over the House of Lords, and as our manifesto made clear, that is not a first priority of this Government. The right hon. Gentleman will be glad to know that, over the past few years, we have reduced the cost of the House of Lords quite considerably. [Interruption.]
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Matthew Hancock
Yes, I think councillors do an excellent job at what councils are meant to do, but councils are not meant to set foreign policy, and attempts at local foreign policies that are discriminatory are potentially illegal, and we make that clear at every opportunity.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Was it wrong for my local authority to boycott South African goods in the 1970s?
Matthew Hancock
Where a national boycott is in place and where a national decision has been made, local authorities should of course follow that, but these decisions are rightly for the Foreign Office and not for local authorities; the country cannot be run by having hundreds of different foreign policies.
Voter Registration
Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Matthew Hancock
The hon. Lady asks a reasonable question, which we will be looking at in the lessons learned exercise. I would pick her up on one point, though. On the issue of clarity around what people should do now, it is incumbent on all of us to get out there and say that people should register now. We will come forward with legislation, should we choose to—[Laughter.] I think the House can gather that it is highly likely. Should we choose to, we will come forward with legislation setting out the deadline, but what matters right now is that people get on the website, which is currently working, and register to vote. Let that message go out loud and clear.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
What guidance would the Minister give to those who want to vote by post? I am still not clear what is happening with the 5 pm deadline this evening. If someone registers today and is informed tomorrow that they can vote, but only by post, will the Government not be open to judicial challenge?
Matthew Hancock
No; the two issues are separate. If someone wants to register, or applied to register yesterday, but is not available to vote on 23 June, a postal vote could not be organised in time, but they can still vote by proxy. That opportunity is available, so that they can express their democratic wish.
Debate on the Address
Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I am going to make a little progress, but I promise to give way a lot more.
For decades we have been cramming people into crumbling prisons that were built for a different age, many of which, frankly, are now unfit for human habitation. These buildings do not help rehabilitation. Indeed, they are rife with bullying, intimidation and violence. So we have made a £1.3 billion commitment to get rid of ageing prisons and build nine new prisons with modern, fit-for-purpose facilities. Once again, this is bold reform from a progressive, one nation Conservative Government.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Can the Prime Minister explain to the House why figures for suicides in prison, attacks on prison staff and contraband going into prison have gone up? Could it be anything to do with the fact that there are 7,000 fewer prison officers than there were in 2010?
The Prime Minister
As we were discussing this morning, one of the reasons for these problems is the availability of legal highs in our prisons, which we need to deal with, but I do not think that it is right simply to lay this at the door. What we need is prisons that are run well, where the management are in control, and where they are able to turn around the lives of the people who are there. It is all very well for Labour to ask questions, but they had 13 years to reform our prisons. It took a reforming Tory Government to put it on the agenda.
We cannot extend life chances unless we also tackle the menace of extremism. In our country there is still discrimination that we must fight, opportunity that is blocked and glass ceilings that need to be smashed. But I think that we should all be proud of the fact that when we look around the world, we see that Britain is already one of the most successful multiracial, multi-faith democracies anywhere on earth.
Angus Robertson
May I make a little progress? I will be happy to come back to the hon. Gentleman.
The SNP’s alternative Queen’s Speech would deliver a Scottish home rule Bill, which would involve a strong package of powers for the Scottish Parliament. The wording is quite important, because of course the people of Scotland were promised home rule and near federalism. My degree is in politics, and I have had a look at federal systems around the world. There are a number of parties in the House that favour federalism, but we do not live in a federal state in the UK, and nothing in the Scotland Act comes remotely close to “near federalism”. That was not in the Queen’s Speech. It would have been good to see it there; perhaps the Government might think about it, but I hae ma doots—“I have my doubts,” he says, looking at the poor Hansard writers.
The Government are unlikely to deliver a Scottish home rule Bill, but perhaps, given the unhappiness on the Treasury Bench about the House of Lords for the first time in a long while, the time has come for even the Conservative party to realise that there is a need for parliamentary reform. Let us be serious. We work in a Parliament where the second Chamber is not elected by anyone. Let me say that again: the second Chamber of the Parliament described as the mother of all Parliaments is made up of people elected by nobody. This is the 21st century. Please let us get on with replacing the House of Lords.
Angus Robertson
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will support our proposal.
Angus Robertson
I stand corrected, but I still think that that is totally unacceptable.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the Gracious Speech debate. Like the right hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) and the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) for their contributions. It is a tough gig to undertake, but they did so with aplomb.
Today’s debate is very general, so I want to make some general comments before focusing on the same issues that the right hon. and learned Member for Harborough raised about prisons. As ever with a Gracious Speech, there are things on which we can agree. I look forward to the measures on tackling radicalisation in prison and generally. I think that they will contribute to putting in place a framework to reduce radicalisation and to stop young people from all communities turning to warped views of the Muslim faith, or indeed, as happened in Mold in my constituency, radical activity based on a national socialist view of the world. It is important to consider those measures in detail and to support them.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), I have a lot of time for the Investigatory Powers Bill, not least because I have spent three months considering the draft Bill in detail with several hon. Members and putting in place measures to ensure that the state can have access to the information that it needs to stop paedophilia, terrorism, money laundering and other criminal activities, but also building in protections. The Bill was before the House in the previous Session and I look forward to its progressing with some amendments in this Session.
I cannot argue—nobody could—with measures to support and honour the military covenant. As a former Northern Ireland Minister, I look forward to further progress on the Stormont House agreement. The Prime Minister’s activities on anti-corruption and money laundering are welcome. We will see the proof of the pudding in due course, but there is broad support in the House for tackling tax evasion and corruption.
Although I am an Opposition Member, I will not dismiss all aspects of the Gracious Speech, because there are things in it that we should examine. However, some issues leap out about which we have real concerns. The right hon. and learned Member for Harborough coined a phrase, which will become welcome across the House: the current British Bill of Rights is “a demented moth” banging its head against a light.
Mr Hanson
The right hon. and learned Gentleman corrects me. I want to ensure that the facts are correct, so I take his point. I share his concern that we will throw away the Human Rights Act, which a Labour Government passed in the 1997-2001 Parliament, and replace it with a British Bill of Rights, which throws away our commitments to the European Court in Strasbourg. That does not just throw away our commitment to being part of the wider European Union; the European Court of Human Rights covers countries that are currently not in the European Union, such as Russia, where we face potential challenges. We are sending the wrong signal by ditching the Human Rights Act.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) that ditching the Human Rights Act would be a comfort to would-be tinpot despots throughout Europe. It should be resisted, and this party will certainly do so.
Mr Hanson
On this occasion—and on the day Plaid Cymru supported the Labour First Minister in Wales—I am grateful for Plaid Cymru’s support. The issue jumps out of the Gracious Speech as one that will cause political controversy. The voice of the right hon. and learned Member for Harborough is therefore valuable because it sends a signal to the Government that the Bill will not have an easy passage.
The Gracious Speech also covers strengthening the economy to deliver security for working people, increasing the life chances of the most disadvantaged and supporting the development of the northern powerhouse. The Government have support on all three issues, but I ask them to consider what they mean in practice. In my part of the world, we have a claimant count of 2.8% of the population; 23.6% of the population are deemed as being incapacitated, and unemployment is 4.8%. We have major challenges in the steel industry, and with zero-hours contracts and second bedroom occupancy—the so-called bedroom tax. We still have 690,000 people living in poverty in Wales. If the Government are serious about some of the issues that they claim to be serious about in the Gracious Speech, they need to consider some real policy changes to support business and industry, work with the National Assembly and tackle poverty, which is partly caused by current Government policy. In my constituency and elsewhere, poverty is increasing because of Government policy on benefits and unemployment, while taxes for some of the richest people in our society are cut.
If the Government are serious about the northern powerhouse, they need to work closely with the Mersey Dee Alliance in north-east Wales and north-west England to ensure that we get the benefits from whatever the northern powerhouse means. I am pleased to see the Minister for Children and Families in his place. He knows the importance of Crewe and HS2 to north-east Wales. He knows the importance of electrification of the line from Crewe to Chester and onwards to north Wales. He will also know the importance of direct links to Manchester airport to ensure that not only Cheshire but north Wales benefits from the northern powerhouse, and he knows that it is important to reopen the Halton curve quickly to link north Wales to Liverpool airport and Liverpool. Those are all infrastructure projects that are technically badged “the northern powerhouse”. I am still not sure what the northern powerhouse means to the people of Cheshire and north Wales, particularly Flintshire in my constituency, but if it is to mean something, the Government need to flesh out carefully the finances and the long-term infrastructure projects that benefit Cheshire and north-east Wales and contribute to supporting the cities of Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds and others that are critical to the economic success of the north.
If the decision goes wrong on 23 June and we leave the European Union, the north will be particularly hit by that loss of European influence. I am pleased that the referendum is mentioned in the Gracious Speech and I hope that there will be a yes vote on 23 June.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
The decision to close the BIS office in Sheffield and move it to central London has already been mentioned, and my right hon. Friend talks about the infrastructure projects necessary for the northern powerhouse to succeed. Does he agree that senior civil servant and policy-making jobs must be in the north and across the regions, so that they can be the eyes and ears of the northern powerhouse and deliver those vital projects?
Mr Hanson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point, and it is important that the northern powerhouse is not just about the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Tatton. That appears to be the northern powerhouse, but in my view it must be backed up and supported by civil servants, and I support my hon. Friend’s wish to maintain a strong presence in Sheffield and the north. North-east Wales looks to Liverpool and Manchester as much as it does to Cardiff for economic growth and activity, and we need cross-regional support on infra- structure projects, and people on hand to work with that.
Those are my initial observations on important issues, but I wish to focus on the points about prisons that were raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Harborough. He was gracious enough to acknowledge that for two years and one month I was prisons Minister when he was the shadow Minister, so I hope that I speak with some experience of dealing with what are difficult challenges in the prison system.
In the Gracious Speech the Justice Secretary indicated that there will be a prisons Bill, and I look forward to that—perhaps I may even make a bid for pre-legislative scrutiny by the Justice Committee, on which I sit. The Bill as trailed so far suggests that there will be a lot of discussion about the autonomy of prison governors to consider a range of issues, and six prisons have been identified by the Government to pilot and trail those reforms. We have prisons with “potential for reform”—whatever that might mean—and the potential for new-build prisons. That comes on a day when the Coates review has announced two statistics that put into context the points made by the right hon. and learned Member for Harborough. For example, today’s review shows that 42% of adult prisoners were excluded from school, and 24% of adult prisoners currently in the prison estate spent some or all of their time as young people in care before they reached the prison system.
Long-term, deep-seated issues have been highlighted by the Coates review and need to be examined by the Prison Service as part of the prisons Bill, but that raises some questions. I will not rule out support for the Bill—I do not yet know what my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench will think about it—but we must test what it will mean in practice, and now is as good a time as any to do that. What real autonomies will prison governors have at a local level? Will they have autonomy over pay and conditions? If so, that would be a matter of great concern. Will they have autonomy over procurement, education and employment practices? What autonomies will they have, and how will they exercise them in the Prison Service when the Ministry of Justice in central London is managing the prison population and sector as a whole—the hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned many of the pressures on prison population movements.
Who will judge prison governors and monitor their activity? What benchmarks will we set on that prison service, and how will we judge and monitor them? What will be the relationship with the chief inspector of prisons? What outcomes are expected from the six potential reform prisons? How will we judge whether prison governors have made a difference, particularly given that many prisoners in many prisons—I will speak about Wandsworth prison in a moment—have mental health problems or long-standing drug or alcohol problems. Many prisoners had long-standing unemployment problems before being imprisoned, and perhaps do not spend sufficient time in prison to benefit from schemes such as the Timpson scheme in Liverpool, which I had the pleasure of opening in 2006 or 2007 with the brother of the Minister for Children and Families, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Edward Timpson). It is a great scheme—I cannot walk past a Timpson establishment without wondering whether the person working there has been trained and supported by the family and firm. [Interruption.] I do go in sometimes as well.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman speaks with great expertise and eloquence on these issues, about which he knows a great deal. Notwithstanding the correct decision of the previous Labour Government to move to a social investment bond at HMPs Doncaster and Peterborough, in 13 years his Government failed to tackle recidivism among prisoners serving short sentences. Why was that?
Mr Hanson
I do not wish to get into too much of a party-political debate with the hon. Gentleman, but recidivism and reoffending did fall. It did not fall to the extent I would have wanted, but it did fall. The key point is to find employment prospects for those who are in prison, and deal with their drug and alcohol problems. We spent considerable extra resources on drug treatment projects, unemployment, schemes such as the Timpson training academy at Liverpool and other prisons, and on trying to make connections with outside employers. However, there is still a hard cohort of people, and one problem that the current Prison Service will face concerns those who are in prison for more violent offences and have longer sentences. We must consider how to deal with that.
What are the measures on which prison governors will be judged? For example, Wandsworth prison is a category B prison that currently holds 1,877 prisoners. Some 45% of sentenced prisoners currently in Wandsworth are imprisoned for less than one year, and 15% are in for less than three months, 6% for under a month, and 11.9% for less than six months. They will not be in prison for very long or so that a prison governor can make an impact on the recidivism of that prisoner. When the Bill is introduced, the Government need to give real thought to what happens in prisons such as Wandsworth, where 45% of the 54% of sentenced prisoners spend less than a year in prison, and the majority are there for under six months.
How do we judge a prison governor when an individual in that prison has mental health problems, or needs housing or employment outside prison? I worry that the Government are considering setting up a reform project for six prisons, at a time when some of the pressures on prisons are of their own making. For example, when I was prisons Minister, there were 7,000 more prison officers in prisons than there are today. Over six years this Government have reduced the number of officers, and assaults on prison staff have risen by 41%. Incidents of suicide and self-harm in prison have increased, and there are pressures on education and employment services.
One might expect a Labour MP to say those things, but as the right hon. and learned Member for Harborough mentioned, the Justice Committee—on which I sit, and which is ably chaired by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill)—last week produced a report on prison safety. I would like the Government to consider and respond to these points. The report’s conclusions state that
“overall levels of safety in prisons are not stabilising as the Ministry of Justice and National Offender Management Service had hoped, let alone improving. This is a matter of great concern, and improvement is urgently needed.”
It goes on to state—this is key to today’s Gracious Speech —that
“it is imperative that further attention is paid to bringing prisons back under firmer control, reversing the recent trends of escalating violence, self-harm and self-inflicted deaths, without which we firmly believe the implementation of these wider reforms will be severely undermined.”
There is a real challenge for the Government to consider not just a reform prison programme for the future, but also what needs to be done now. I commend the cross-party report, and I look forward to the Government’s response. It also states that prison staff are not being retained, that recruitment is not matching the number of people who are leaving, and that there are fewer prison officers than are needed for an effective Prison Service. It is not sufficient for the Government just to put their wishes in the Bill and hope to reform prisons. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), knows that, and he needs to work with the Justice Secretary to deliver on those issues.
I intervened on the right hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) from the Scottish National party on reform of the House of Lords, which we need to look at. The former Deputy Prime Minister and former leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg), raises his hands in frustration, but many of us wish to change the House of Lords. I say this to the right hon. Gentleman, but it also goes to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron): the spectacle two weeks ago of a hereditary peer place being filled by three votes from the Liberal Democrat Benches filled me with horror.
Tim Farron
The right hon. Gentleman is not the only person who thinks that that was a comical and outrageous spectacle, but does he not realise that his party’s failure to back the Liberal Democrats in the coalition Government to abolish and then reform the House of Lords is why we still have that outrage?
Mr Hanson
Let us put that to one side—we can revisit that. [Interruption.] No, I have always voted to abolish the House of Lords. I am simply suggesting that there could be common currency on looking at elements of reform. If the Government are to make changes to the Lords in this Parliament, let us get cross-party consensus on, for example, abolishing hereditary peers. If we do not abolish them, we could stop their elections. My noble Friend Lord Grocott has said that, when a vacancy occurs, we should no longer have elections. This House of Commons is being reduced to 600 Members, yet membership of that House is being increased, and hereditary peers are replaced by an electorate of three—the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale thinks as I do that that is ridiculous—so let us try to make changes.
Mr Jackson
I find myself uncharacteristically agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman—I am speeding on the road to Damascus. My worst vote in the previous Parliament was to oppose House of Lords reform, but let us remember for the record that a ludicrous proposal was put to the House without consensus—the proposal was for one 15-year non-renewable term. That obviously was not acceptable, but there is a basis on both sides of the House for further discussion on House of Lords reform.
Mr Hanson
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support and I agree that it is uncharacteristic for us to agree. Having said that, if the Government are introducing a Bill to change aspects of the House of Lords, let us look at changing aspects of it that are blatantly ridiculous. Hereditary peers are one such aspect. If the Government do not include that in any Bill, I give notice now, for what it is worth, that I will table an amendment to stop that practice and make changes. I am sure that that will put the Government and the business managers in a state of trepidation, but it is worth giving that notice now.
My final point is on Wales. There was no specific mention in the Gracious Speech of the Wales Bill, which was in draft form in the previous Session. It fell apart for a range of reasons that we do not need to go into, but that has caused a vacuum that is yet to be filled.
In the Gracious Speech, the Government say that they will
“establish a strong and lasting devolution settlement in Wales.”
I do not know whether that means that a Wales Bill will be forthcoming—I hope there will be so we can examine it—but I would be grateful if, in the next five or six days of debate, the Government and the Secretary of State for Wales confirmed that a Wales Bill will be considered in this Session.
Hywel Williams
The wording in the Gracious Speech is ambiguous, but I am given to understand by other channels that the Bill will be simpler and hopefully much better. The previous draft was described by a well respected academic in Wales as the very worst devolution Bill he had ever seen. That was one of the milder comments on the Bill.
Mr Hanson
I look forward to that Bill with excitement, but I want to add one new idea—it is revolutionary in many ways—arising from the recent elections to the National Assembly for Wales. My idea is that people who stand for Assembly elections should be registered to vote in Wales at the time of the nominations.
If I wish to stand for Flint Town Council, I have to live within its boundaries, as I do; if I wish to stand for Flintshire County Council, I have to live or work within its boundaries; if I wish to stand for the UK Parliament, as I have on every occasion since 1983, I have to be registered in the UK to vote; if I want to stand for the European Parliament, the same is true; and if I want to stand for police and crime commissioner in my area, I have to be registered in that area. On 5 May this year, some individuals—I count 21, but there may be more— did not register to vote in Wales and did not live in Wales but were on the ballot paper. Although there are arguments about it, it is worth exploring how an individual gets on the ballot paper when they do not live within that area.
For me, this is not a nationalist argument. My argument is that the arrangements for elections to Flint Town Council, Flintshire County Council, the UK Parliament, police and crime commissioner and the European Parliament are reasonable. A few people stood for the Monster Raving Loony party who lived, for example, in Malpas in Cheshire, Manchester, Ashbourne in Derbyshire, Belper in Derbyshire, London, Kent and Lincolnshire. We had Conservatives who lived in Leicester, the Wirral, Kent and Oswestry, and Liberal Democrats who lived in Northampton. One member of the United Kingdom Independence party, Neil Hamilton, a former Member of this House, lives in Wiltshire and he was elected. As far as I am aware, he will stay in Wiltshire. Mr Reckless, who also served in this House, recently found a property in Wales prior to standing.
I simply make the point that some of those individuals were elected when they could not have stood for the town council, the county council or Parliament. That does not seem right and I hope the Government consider it as part of their proposals.
Overall, some parts of the speech I welcome, but some parts I will violently oppose. I want explanation of some parts of it, and I want additions to other parts, particularly on hereditary peers and Wales.
G20 and Paris Attacks
Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts(9 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We face cyber-attacks not just from states, but from radical groups and individuals. We have made a lot of progress in recent years in funding our cyber-defences, but I think that should be a major feature of the strategic defence review we will discuss next week.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
The first duty of the Government is to protect their citizens. The Prime Minister has set out with absolute clarity the steps required to do that, for which his statement is welcome. Will he, however, say more about what steps he will take to secure action against those who are buying contraband goods from ISIL—not just the Syrian Government, but individuals and companies?
The Prime Minister
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks. There are of course sales of antiquities, to which he may be referring, as well as of oil. We are trying to crack down on all those things, and we are looking at what more we might have to do in this country to assent to some of the conventions in that area.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
3. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Justice on releasing all Government papers relating to the Shrewsbury 24 campaign.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr Oliver Letwin)
I have not had any discussions with the Justice Secretary, but, as I promised the House I would some months ago, I have now completed the review of the material held by the Cabinet Office, which has not yet been released.
Mr Hanson
I am grateful for that answer. It is 40 years since my constituents first faced the issues at Shrewsbury, 18 months since this House voted to release the papers and currently seven and a half years before they will be released. Could the Minister, having conducted that review, now come to this House to make a full statement releasing those papers?
Mr Letwin
No. I have no intention of authorising the release of those papers, which relate to the security services. When the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister in the Ministry of Justice he brought that matter to the then Justice Secretary and the papers were not released. Since then, we have made the decision to hold those materials. However, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman— this is the material point—that the Cabinet Secretary and I both reviewed them and both came to the firm conclusion that they do not relate in any way to the question of the safety of the conviction of the Shrewsbury 24 and, crucially, all of those papers have been released to and been reviewed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, so that it can make that independent, impartial judgment on this very important question of justice.
Tunisia, and European Council
Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We can ban the preachers, but we must also look at their use of media—not just social media, but some individual television channels—and make sure that where messages endorse extremism and violence, we have a way of stopping them. This is a very important issue.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
On the day before this terrible incident, a neo-Nazi was convicted of a machete attack on a random individual in a supermarket in Mold in my constituency—in broad daylight on the streets of north Wales. He had been radicalised by internet content, which is equally as bad as internet radicalisation that leads to the Islamic attacks such as happened this week. I welcome what the Prime Minister said, but will he genuinely look, with the internet providers, at how we can stop that type of information being brought into people’s bedrooms from where lone wolves can use it to warp their approach to life?
The Prime Minister
I will certainly do that. We have acted together with the Internet Watch Foundation to take down many pages of extremism. The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The arguments about violent and non-violent extremism also apply to the extreme right. This House would never condone the idea that we should tolerate the National Front but go after Combat 18. We would never do that when it comes to fascism, so we should not do it when it comes to Islamist fascism either.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
3. What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on implementation of the UK’s domestic and international legal obligations on human rights.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
6. What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on implementation of the UK’s domestic and international legal obligations on human rights.
The Attorney-General (Jeremy Wright)
I have regular discussions with colleagues about a large number of important issues. As the House knows, by convention advice the Law Officers may have given is not disclosed outside Government. However, domestic and international human rights remain an important aspect of our law and key considerations in the Law Officers’ work.
The Attorney-General
As I think the hon. Gentleman knows, I make a distinction between what is in the convention, which I wholly support, and the interpretation of the convention given by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, with which I have some disagreement, and I do not think we should confuse the two. Neither do I believe that it is axiomatic that the only way to have a good record on human rights is to be a member of the European convention on human rights and a signatory to it. Countries such as New Zealand, Australia and Canada, none of which, obviously, are signatories to this document, all have a very good record.
Similarly, it is not right to assume that countries that are members of the European convention on human rights have a spotless human rights record. That clearly is not the case either; one need only look at some of the countries that are signatories to see that. Membership of the convention is neither necessary nor sufficient for a country to have a good human rights record, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that a future Conservative Government will be utterly committed to the maintenance of human rights, both domestically and abroad.
Mr Hanson
I know the Attorney-General’s primary job is to advise the Government, but on this occasion, just for old time’s sake, could he advise me? Given the Conservative party’s plan to scrap the Human Rights Act 1998, what rights do my constituents currently have that they will not have under the next Government if the Conservatives are elected?