National Crime Agency
Debate between Karen Bradley and Baroness Hoey(10 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Karen Bradley
No, I will not, given the time we have left.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan), who apologised for having to leave before the end of the debate—
Karen Bradley
No. I am sorry, I need to make progress. My right hon. Friend, a former Minister for Northern Ireland—there should be a collective noun for former Ministers of Northern Ireland, because we have many in the room today—explained clearly the importance of the issues in the light of his great experience. My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) pointed out that, in a way, he has a land border with another member state—the only such non-Northern Ireland Member in the room—and expressed clearly the need for the NCA to operate throughout the whole of the United Kingdom.
A number of Members, including the hon. Members for Upper Bann (David Simpson) and for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who chairs the Home Affairs Committee, and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham, talked about the need for proceeds of crime measures to be extended to Northern Ireland. I very much agree with those points. Depriving organised criminals of their assets makes it harder for them to return to crime and perhaps acts for many as a bigger deterrent than jail. I refer Members to the changes we are putting through in the other place through the Serious Crime Bill, which will assist us in dealing with asset recovery. Clearly, extending those provisions to Northern Ireland would be very important in improving that recovery rate.
The hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) talked about the oversight mechanisms, and usefully clarified her party’s concerns about accountability. It is probably useful if I make some points now about the accountability proposals. There are no statutory mechanisms, about which she asked, providing for NCA accountability in Northern Ireland at the moment, but David Ford’s proposals provide that the NCA director general will attend meetings of the Policing Board on request—including urgent meetings, with reasonable notice—and this will be in statute. NCA officers will need the agreement of the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland to exercise policing powers in relation to an offence, and the PSNI will then produce a community impact assessment.
On covert techniques, in all cases the NCA will obtain the agreement of the PSNI prior to their use, save for where the request is related to a case of police corruption. That would be enshrined in a memorandum of understanding, made under schedule 24 to the Crime and Courts Act 2013. The human rights adviser of the Northern Ireland Policing Board will have access to the surveillance commissioner’s report on the NCA, in a non-redacted form, in connection with the NCA work associated with criminality in Northern Ireland.