Business of the House (Today)

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and John Redwood

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to focus the Home Secretary’s mind, if I may. I find myself in the strange position of agreeing with the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) when he says that every Member came here tonight expecting to be debating 35 measures; Members in all parts of this House believed that to be the case over the weekend. I also find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) when he says that this business is being done in an underhand way, because all Members of this House expected to come here this evening to debate this matter and the issue of the European arrest warrant.

Strangely, I also find myself in agreement with the Home Secretary, in that I am led to believe that she wants to debate and vote on the European arrest warrant. Let me let you into a secret, Mr Speaker: so do we. We would like to vote on the European arrest warrant and to give the Home Secretary our support, and I believe the Liberal Democrats would like to support her, too. We happen to take a view that murderers, child pornographers, bank robbers and fraudsters should be brought to justice in this House—[Laughter.] And perhaps elsewhere.

I disagree strongly with the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), and the hon. Members for Stone (Sir William Cash), for Aldridge-Brownhills (Sir Richard Shepherd), for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and, I suspect, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). They do not want to sign up to the European arrest warrant for reasons that we need to debate. I thought that today was about that debate. Over the weekend, I was expecting to have that debate today, as I am sure did all Members of this House. It now appears that that is not going to happen. Let me offer the Home Secretary a way out.

[Mr Redwood]

The right hon. Gentleman might wish to correct the record. I can assure him that we, like him, wish nasty people to be locked up after proper prosecution. The argument is over who has the ultimate control over our criminal justice system to do so.

[Mr Hanson]

Well, let us have that argument. First, let me offer the Home Secretary a way out. For the purposes of today’s debate, we will vote against the programme motion, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has said. I invite those Members who are dissatisfied with today’s proceedings and—dare I say it—the Liberal Democrats who do not hold Government positions, to join us in that.

The UK’s Justice and Home Affairs Opt-outs

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and John Redwood

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

I am relaxed on that, but I do want the European arrest warrant put in place. We have had some safeguards, but I will outline in due course why I want to see it put in place. It would be helpful to have clarity on when the discussions will be concluded and can be voted on. I appreciate that the Home Secretary has some difficulties, but it would be helpful to the House, for the reasons set out by my right hon. Friend, to have an indication on when we can expect to have a complete package to vote on.

[Mr Redwood]

How will the right hon. Gentleman feel on 15 June next year, when some of us will commemorate Magna Carta’s 800th birthday and he will have been party to giving away a very big, fundamental principle under that charter of English law and English jurisdiction to a foreign power we cannot control?

[Mr Hanson]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that, as a Welsh Member of Parliament, I take a great interest in such matters. I will look at this from the perspective that I think the Home Secretary is looking at it from, which is: what is in the interests of reducing organised crime, child trafficking, prostitution, drug running and terrorist activities, and ensuring that we prevent future victims and have the best possible protections in place for the United Kingdom across Europe following negotiations?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hanson]

The hon. Gentleman should reflect on what he has just said. The removal from the United Kingdom of an individual who has committed a heinous crime in this country to their own country for conviction, sentencing and incarceration benefits the United Kingdom. Equally, if an individual commits a crime abroad that requires them to be brought back to justice here—or if they commit a crime here and flee abroad, as the Home Secretary said—and they are then brought back here, that is beneficial to victims and to justice.

[Mr Redwood]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hanson]

I am trying to make some progress, but of course I will give way.

[Mr Redwood]

We entirely agree that it is often in the UK’s interest to do that, and that is exactly why we would rapidly introduce a piece of legislation in this House allowing sensible arrangements to get rid of nasty people.

[Mr Hanson]

I want to focus on some key issues that, again, the Home Secretary mentioned. Which rational hon. or right hon. Member of this House would not want a prisoner transfer agreement between European nations? Which rational person in this House would want to have trials in absentia because of the lack of an agreement? Which rational person would not want the joint operation teams, which the Home Secretary mentioned, to bring criminals to justice? Which right hon. or hon. Member would not want supervision orders across EU borders? Which right hon. or hon. Member would not want the collection of fines across Europe, Eurojust tackling serious organised crime or, indeed, the arrest warrant to bring criminals back to justice?

[Mr Hanson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution, but what those effective means are is a fair debate to have. I believe, as I think his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary does, that those things are best done through European co-operation. Indeed, the European arrest warrant has been of interest today, so let me quote from a statement made last year:

“Since 2009 alone, the arrest warrant has been used to extradite from the UK 57 suspects for child sex offences, 86 for rape and 105 for murder…63 suspects for child sex offences, 27 for rape and 44 for murder were extradited back to Britain to face charges. A number of these suspects would probably have not been extradited back to Britain without the arrest warrant. We owe it to their victims, and to their loved ones, to bring these people to justice.”—[Official Report, 9 July 2013; Vol. 566, c. 178.]

That was the Home Secretary, speaking last year. I say to the hon. Gentleman that, irrespective of his views, those individuals were brought back by that arrest warrant. The alternative suggestion, made by the right hon. Member for Wokingham, is one where we negotiate X number of individual arrest warrants—

[Mr Redwood]

One.

[Mr Hanson]

I happen to think—it is a matter of debate and it will develop during the afternoon—that this is a far better way of dealing with the problem than we have now.

Today’s debate is one in a series. We have waited and waited; we have had debates and debates; the bus arrives, with not one, but two or three coming at once; yet the Home Secretary has not yet brought the final measures before the House. To be honest, I think that the right hon. Lady would rather be at the dentist having her teeth pulled than be here having the discussion she is having with her right hon. and hon. Friends. She has been brought to this debate by the three Select Committees, which are eventually getting the Home Secretary’s capitulation to common sense and Europe-wide justice and co-operation. It has, I think, hit the right hon. Lady, after looking at the matter in detail, that it is rather useful for our police to have access to criminal records or driving offences for when European lorry drivers tear up the M1 or the M6.

The truth is that the Home Secretary’s opt-out strategy ultimately becomes an opt-in strategy. The measure of the complexity of the negotiations is indicated by the fact that she is now acting in the interests of Britain rather than in the interests of Conservative Back Benchers and the Eurosceptic Members here today. She has promised to garner favour with the Tory right, but she is ultimately opting into measures that we support because she now understands that the police want European co-operation and that criminals are not Eurosceptics. She understands that our ability to bring them to book and to get justice for their victims should not be compromised.

The issue of the transfer of powers is interesting. The right hon. Lady has said what she is opting into, but she has not said what she is opting out of. These are not really significant matters. She has looked at opting out of issues such as signing joint proceedings on driving licences that are not in force and are out of date. We are not signing up to a directive on international organised crime that was closed down two years ago. We are not signing up to guidelines on working with other countries on drug trafficking, but we will carry on doing that anyway. We are not going to sign up to measures on cybercrime or mutual legal assistance because they have been superseded by other measures to which we signed up instead. We are not signing up to minimum standards on bribery because we are meeting them under our own Bribery Act 2010. We are not signing up to measures to tackle racism because we meet them under hate crime legislation that is in place. We are not signing up to measures on accession because they never applied to us in the first place, and we are not signing up to receive a directory of specialist counter-terrorism officers because someone will probably send it to us in the post instead.

The measures that the Home Secretary is signing up to are sensible ones, whereas the ones she is not signing up to are either from the past, superseded, not relevant or not appropriate for us. The right hon. Lady has posed as the great Eurosceptic champion of the Conservative Government when what she has done is to sign up to things that I would sign up to, which many of her hon. Friends would not sign up to. The things that she has not signed up to are things that are, as I say, not relevant, not appropriate and not needed now.

Finance (No.2) Bill

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and John Redwood

Monday 8th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

As the House will be aware, my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) referred on Second Reading to the fact that we want to bring forward a provision on tax relief in order to help to support the video games industry. Although, undoubtedly, new clause 1 would not do that in every respect, I want to put it before the House, so that we can have an in-principle debate about video game industry tax relief. The new clause provides an opportunity for the House to consider enhanced relief based on UK expenditure on video game production.

The new clause suggests that we might consider qualified tax relief for the video game industry, and that it should be based on strict criteria: the video game must be for commercial release; it must be a British video game, assessed on the basis of a points system; and it must meet a 25% UK expenditure threshold, whereby 25% of the total expenditure on the production and development of the video game is UK expenditure on goods or services. We intended to look at that issue, and I would have tabled a much more detailed new clause, but the advice was that we could not. I hope that I have, however, tabled sufficient proposed changes for the Government to consider bringing back at a future date, or supporting the principle of, tax relief for this vital sector in the United Kingdom.

The video games industry is a real success story for British industry, and we look to support it in detail. As I am sure that the Minister is aware, research from TIGA, which represents the gaming industry, shows that over a five-year period games tax relief could create or save about 3,500 graduate-level jobs, secure £450 million-plus in new and saved development expenditure, and generate about £415 million in new and saved tax relief. I hope that it would do so in a way that ensures that the cost to the Treasury amounts to about £192 million over five years, which would be more than paid for by the jobs and investment, and encouragement to the industry, that that would develop in due course.

My hon. Friends the Members for Dundee West (Jim McGovern), for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) have been very vocal in supporting such a tax relief. I hope that the Minister will consider it in principle, so that we can begin to develop a cross-party consensus in due course.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

If it works for this industry, why does it not work for others? Why is the right hon. Gentleman limiting it to this one industry?

[Mr Hanson]

Our proposal is based on an existing tax relief for the film industry, which has been very successful in helping to generate extra revenue for that industry and keeping production in the United Kingdom. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will be interested to know that the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) said this on 13 April—I accept that that was in the middle of an election campaign, so we will take these words as being from that particular time:

“We are committed to a tax break along the lines of the video games tax credit. We have been calling for tax breaks for the video game industry for the last three years.”

In the spirit of cross-party co-operation, the hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster), who then held the esteemed position of Liberal Democrat shadow spokesman for Culture, Media and Sport—the Lib Dem spokesmen are now all subsumed into one entity—said:

“Liberal Democrats support the introduction of a Games Tax Relief. Following consultation on the details, we would implement the Relief as soon as possible.”

At that time, my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey, who is shadow Chief Secretary, the then shadow Culture Minister, who is now a Minister, and the then Liberal Democrat spokesperson supported this proposal, as did I. Since then, however, it has vanished without trace—until today’s debate.

The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) may oppose tax reliefs generally. However, such a relief has been proved to work in the film industry to date. Unfortunately, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his Budget:

“we will not go ahead with the poorly targeted tax relief for the video games industry.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 175, c. 512.]

I want to test with the Minister whether that is an in-principle opposition to tax relief for the video games industry. If not, is his opposition based on a poorly designed scheme by the previous Labour Government or on poorly targeted suggestions in today’s proposals? Is there, in principle, room for discussion, so that it would be possible for him to bring back, at some point, a tax relief that meets the objectives of the hon. Member for Bath, the Under-Secretary and ourselves, and that would, I hope, help to support the video games industry?

[Mr Redwood]

Just to clarify the point, the right hon. Gentleman should know that I believe that lower tax rates result in more revenue. I am delighted to see that he is now a recruit to that cause, but I suggest that he should not limit it to one industry.