Student Visas

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

For the avoidance of doubt, I had better declare an interest. From time to time, I receive remuneration from the higher education sector for work I do with it.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing the debate. After being a council leader for Sheffield and an MP for the city for 24 years, I thank him for drawing my attention to the international college’s work. I was unaware of the extent of that work—every day, I am on a learning curve.

There seem to be two aspects to what we are debating. The first is the macro. That relates to the overall issue of migration and its impact on our country and the politics in which we are all engaged. The second is the unauthorised, the unauthenticated and the unacceptable. That relates to those colleges and institutions that either do not exist or, if they do, do not provide what they say on the can they offer. In addition, such institutions do not offer courses of sufficient quality to students of sufficient quality.

Those two aspects are getting slightly mixed up, although that is not because the first matter is not important. To coin a phrase from the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, I certainly have scars on my back from the near four years I was Home Secretary in terms of the two major pieces of legislation that we introduced and the changes we made. That included the two-thirds reduction in asylum, the security and immigration provisions on French soil, the measures regarding liaison officers at airports across the world and a substantial tightening up of how we operated visas. Such policies provided a foundation on which my Government subsequently built and this Government have been building. The issue is incremental. If we take a step in one direction, we find that the plastic bottle has bulged out in another. I suggest to the Minister, who is deeply committed to this matter, that immigration will affect this Government, as it did previous ones.

As the issue has been mentioned, I would like to say how much I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) about embarkation and e-Borders. I was responsible for kick-starting e-Borders, but I claim no credit or discredit whatsoever for the contract that was let. In fact, when the 20-year rule comes in, there will be letters on file from me as a Back Bencher advising against what was done. The speed of operation to get this right is critical because, if we do not know who is leaving, we really cannot make a judgment about whether the system is working. That applies directly to students who have fulfilled their courses and/or their term afterwards for permission to work. If the system is working properly, much of what we are debating would be seen in that broader context, and we would not be so obsessed with artificial targets for future migrants. We would be able to deal with the issue of what a migrant actually is and provide a proper definition in a way that removes the harder edge of politics.

It is inevitable that there will be politics involved in discussions on immigration. We might then debate issues and not end up with policies that damage the country, rather than enhance its well-being. I do not intend to repeat what has already been expressed, because time is pushing on and extremely good points have been made. Even those points that I have doubts about have been enlightening. I would, however, like to reinforce some of the key points that have emerged.

First, the economic value to this country is not just the money that comes into the universities or the local community, but the way in which those who have benefited from both the study in, and the experience of, our country add to our potential economic value in years to come, as they become the advocates for Britain and part of global institutions and enterprises, whose connection with and alumni from our institutions make an enormous difference to Britain in this global economy and international trading world.

Secondly, to take up the point made by the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), our universities are able to offer that social responsibility much better if they have a higher level of agreed income. The income that is coming in from overseas, free as it is from issues of debt repayment and the difficulties that we have debated over recent months, adds to a university’s ability to contribute to the wider community and the social well-being of our country. The issue is much broader than whether the university itself has an enhanced income, important as that is.

Thirdly, there is an issue about whether we really want numbers of legitimate, verified students, with the right qualifications in the right quality of institution, in this country. If we listen carefully to the debate, we will hear that everyone pays lip service to the importance of legitimate students coming here, but we then hear a different nuance, namely, “But they are foreigners and that is dangerous, because our electorate do not really like foreigners.” We need to get off that and on to where migration policy has not worked properly—even the measures for which I was responsible did not always work—and the importance of enforcement. We need proper inspection and enforcement, including clamping down on those colleges that do not really exist or are just an excuse for people to get into the country. Moreover, if our legitimate university and higher education institutions, both in the public and the embryo private sector, are not checking whether students are taking up their courses, enforcement is the crucial element. That is the end at which we need to ensure that we get this right, rather than trying to reduce, per se, the number of legitimate students coming into the country. That is critical.

In 2000, I led a delegation, which included the Higher Education Funding Council and this country’s leading universities, to China. The Chinese welcomed us and were very pleased to have a two-way arrangement with us that includes students coming on a temporary basis to learn our language and about our systems. That was a good thing to do, and anything that damages it would be a major mistake.

That brings me to my central point. It is the message we send that is absolutely critical, and the message that has been received outside this country is the wrong one. It is not that we want to avoid the illegitimate, the unacceptable and the fraudulent, either in terms of the provision in our country or of those coming in for reasons other than to study properly. The message that is being received outside this country, as has already been said, is, “You will not be welcome.” Will the Minister do everything possible, along with our embassies and high commissions, to change the message, so that it is received properly and understood by students and industry? Sponsored students are very important, and major enterprises across the world need to know that their potential employees, or those who are sponsored by them, are welcome in this country.

I want to touch briefly on the complications that we face. Many of them could be overcome if there was greater flexibility in the transition period—there is no question about that. It is no good for the Minister, who intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central, to say that, if firm offers were made before 21 April, certificates would be honoured. As was pointed out almost immediately, many of those offers are conditional and do not therefore apply. In some sectors, including professional bodies and professional courses, the number of certificates has been capped arbitrarily, sometimes at levels including those that have been taken on from institutions that no longer exist or have been deregulated. They have, therefore, been punished for picking up students who were badly treated by those that did not come up to standard.

I would like us to address why we do not use highly trusted sponsor status and the oversight mechanisms of professional and private sector operators, which will now be operated by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education—I congratulate it on the speed with which it has moved—rather than a complicated system that does not rely on enforcement and inspection, but on the front end rather than the back end. To complicate matters, it is crucial—this has been said by the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller)—that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills gets its act together with the Home Office, so that they speak the same language and that those with expertise share it. For instance, on professional qualifications for accountancy, why suddenly drop in, as the statement and assessment did on Monday, that there has to be approval at gold or platinum level by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, when it has preferred providers of its own? These professional qualifications are a bit like the guild system in mediaeval England.

I counsel the Minister to be very careful not to get involved in what is corporatism. For somebody who is a declared libertarian, that is a dangerous position to be in. We should not put into the hands of those who have a specific interest in particular providers the ability to exclude other providers. That is a dangerous game in terms of the kind of oversight that we would expect.

In brief, I do not think that any Member present does not think that it is a good idea to progress on the road of tightening up in relation to those who have been fraudulently operating the system or those who come here and are not legitimate students. Let us all agree on that. We might even agree that those of us who tried in the past did not come up to scratch in achieving the goals that we set ourselves. A little humility from all of us on that might not be amiss. It is important that the lessons of history are learnt: sometimes, speed leads to the obverse of the objective that is sought, and a little give and take—sensibly, openly and without criticism when people are flexible, so that we give the Minister a bit of leeway—might achieve the overall goal that he and, I believe, BIS seek, namely a system that works and welcomes people into this country, because it is good for our economy, good for our social life and good for the future of Britain.

National Crime Agency

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for an important question. The establishment of the NCA will require legislation. We aim for that legislation to be in place so that the NCA can be fully operational in 2013, but we believe that this is an important area and that we need to start working before then. The transition to the NCA can be eased by work such as developing the organised crime strategy, starting to develop the co-ordination capability on organised crime within the Home Office, which we are doing and, as I have just indicated, starting to develop the co-ordination capacity in relation to economic crime. These are the precursors for a more seamless transition to the NCA.

As we develop the agency, we intend to establish a position for an individual who will head the work. An individual at chief constable level will be appointed fairly soon—within the next few months—and will be able to work within the Home Office over the period before the NCA is set up. At that point there will be a transition for a permanent individual to be established as the head of the NCA.

We want to learn lessons—for example, from the setting up of SOCA, where there were some difficulties in terms of personnel and their move over to SOCA. We will be looking at the lessons to be learned from that.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Home Secretary on the prettiest little speech rewriting history that the House has heard for some time. I plead guilty to having been responsible for launching the Serious Organised Crime Agency. I had hoped for a 50% remission, but I will have to settle for a third instead.

The truth of the matter is that SOCA has had enormous successes but was bedevilled by the over-emphasis on intelligence rather than on enforcement, yet this afternoon the Home Secretary once again placed intelligence at the centre. In the new economic crime directorate, the new border directorate and the relationship with Customs and Excise, who will be responsible for the emphasis on economic and, by its very nature, cybercrime—the Treasury directing the policy or the Home Office laying it down? We had problems with that, and I did not hear any explanation of how the present Home Secretary intends to get round that difficulty.

[Mrs May]

I am sorry about the approach that the right hon. Gentleman took in his comments. If he had listened carefully both to my statement and to the response I gave to his right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary, he would have heard me make it clear that I think SOCA has done good work over the past few years, but I believe, and I think those involved in SOCA would agree, that we can do more. We can build on the experience that it has built up. By making SOCA the organised crime command within the National Crime Agency and being able to take advantage of the synergies across the law enforcement agencies and police forces, we will be able to do a more effective job in the future.

On the intelligence issue, yes, there will be an intelligence capability at the NCA. That is important, but the difference is that the NCA will clearly be a crime-fighting body and the commands within it will be crime-fighting commands.

In relation to cybercrime, which the right hon. Gentleman referred to, there will be a cybercrime unit at the NCA which will cross all the commands, because cybercrime is both a crime in itself and a tool for the execution of other crimes.

Prevent Strategy

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my right hon. Friend for bringing that letter to the attention of the House and, in doing so, raising a very important aspect of the work on which we wish to focus. There is a great deal more to be done in prisons, and a number of steps that we intend to take are set out in the Prevent strategy today. I should be very happy to receive a copy of that letter, if he feels able to share it with me, so that we can look at the specific allegations that have been made, but we intend to work more carefully with prisons, prison staff, the National Offender Management Service and those going into prisons to deal with individual prisoners in order to try to ensure that we do not see the sort of activity taking place that he has identified.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Who could possibly disagree with the three objectives that the Home Secretary has set out? But she has not done herself or her Government justice by seeking to make party political points about those who had to deal—I did not have to—with the reality of post-7 July 2005. I have just one very simple question. How can she this afternoon talk about building on our institutions and on an understanding of our values and history while the Education Secretary is proposing to withdraw citizenship from the school curriculum?

[Mrs May]

In relation to my comments on the previous Government, we did a proper review of the Prevent strategy to identify those areas where change was necessary. We have done that, and I have brought to the House a number of areas where we believe the previous Government’s strategy was flawed and where it is necessary to make changes, which I have set out before the House today.

In relation to what is happening in education, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is quite clear about the necessity of ensuring that values are indeed taught in our schools, but that that is done in a number of ways, including through the proper teaching of our history.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Who would ever have believed that it would be a Conservative Home Secretary who took the Home Office back to the pre-Michael Howard era, when there was an overwhelming belief that neither the Home Secretary nor the Home Office had any part to play in reducing crime, co-ordination across boundaries or understanding the sophistication of organised criminality? Today, of course, e-crime and cybercrime can be added to that list.

Who would have believed that a Conservative Home Secretary would oversee a 20% cut in policing in this country, or chide a Labour Opposition for being obsessed with police numbers? I was proud to be the Home Secretary for the four years when we increased the uniformed police service by 15,000 officers. That was what the communities that we represented were demanding, and that was what they got. That was why there was a 43% reduction in overall crime in this country, and a much greater reduction in burglary and car crime.

Perhaps the Home Secretary could never in her wildest dreams have realised that she was going to come to the House and say that she could not present a protocol for the relationship between the new elected police and crime commissioners and chief constables, because the Government had not yet managed to put it together. They do not know what the relationship is going to be.

The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice rightly quoted the document about accountability that I presented to the last Home Secretary but one. He was right to say that I was concerned about power lying where accountability was held, and that, of course, is with the chief constable, the leadership team and the neighbourhood commanders who respond directly to the neighbourhood that they represent. I was proud to introduce the neighbourhood beat teams and police community support officers, which brought us close to our neighbourhoods.

Now we are going to see total confusion, with policy decided by an elected police commissioner and delivery decided by a chief constable who has to do as they are told, and with no proper, organised cross-boundary working. There will be a breakdown of direct accountability, including in the role of elected councillors, and of the partnership approach that is so crucial to the reduction of crime and the engagement of the citizenry. That engagement is part of the process needed to ensure that we can continue to have the tremendous legacy that we left the current Government.

Student Visas

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question, because it enables me to clarify a point about students who currently do so-called pathway courses for English language. One of the points made clear to us by the university sector was that it often has arrangements with colleges to allow students without the required level of English to come and learn it at a pathway college and then progress to university. They will be able to continue to do so, but the students entering the college must be sponsored by the university. The university’s highly trusted sponsor status will cover those students, and undergraduates who wish to progress to postgraduate studies will be able to do so. Our requirement for progression is that it is clear that academic progression is taking place, and obviously moving on to postgraduate study is exactly that.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

As a lifelong expert in hyperbole, I advise the Home Secretary to ease off on it in the message to undergraduate and postgraduate students across the world. Some £25 million will be lost to the university of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam university from legitimate overseas students in the coming year. Will she promise the House that in taking the necessary tough measures in one area she will change the hyperbole and send the message to legitimate students across the world that they are welcome in the United Kingdom?

[Mrs May]

As I said in my statement, the message to the brightest and best students around the globe is clear: Britain’s world-class universities remain open for business. However, as I have said to the university sector, we need to work together to ensure that that positive message is the one given, not the negative one given by the shadow Home Secretary.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I understand the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making about his experience in relation to the Omagh bombing. I believe that it is possible to shorten that period to ensure that we can recall Parliament in such exceptional circumstances if that is needed. It would be wrong for hon. Members to expect that the only circumstances in which that would be required would be towards the end of a 14-day period of pre-charge detention. The period that would be available for the recall and for the new measures to be put through might be a little longer than the right hon. Gentleman is considering.

I want to move on to stop and search, which is the other aspect of counter-terrorism legislation that we will deal with in the Bill. As well as scaling back the excessive counter-terrorism legislation of the past, we need to stop the misuse of these laws. The extensive and disproportionate use of stop-and-search powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is one example of that misuse. It has eroded public trust and dented public confidence. But the evidence, particularly in Northern Ireland, has demonstrated that when there is a credible threat of an imminent terrorist attack, the absence of such powers might create a gap in the ability of the police to protect the public.

The Bill therefore repeals section 44 and replaces it with a tightly defined power which would allow a senior police officer to make a targeted authorisation of much more limited scope and duration for no-suspicion stop-and-search powers. These would be authorised to prevent a terrorist attack only when there is a specific threat. The new power to search a person or vehicle would be subject to a number of additional safeguards, including a requirement that a senior police officer should reasonably suspect that an act of terrorism would take place and that the use of these powers was necessary to prevent the act of terrorism. The duration of any authorisation must now be no longer and no greater than is necessary to prevent the act of terrorism.

The purposes for which an officer may search a person or vehicle will be limited to looking for evidence that the individual is a terrorist or that a vehicle is being used for the purposes of terrorism. The Secretary of State would have the option of amending the authorisation, rather than only accepting or refusing it, as previously. Finally, the Secretary of State will be required to prepare a code of practice containing guidance on the use of the powers. These changes will provide the police with the powers that they need to deal with terrorist threats, while also ensuring that the public are not needlessly stopped and searched. The measures will also prevent the misuse of stop-and-search powers against photographers, which I know was a significant concern with the previous regime.

As recommended by the counter-terrorism powers review, I have considered whether the police need these revised powers more quickly than the Bill would allow. Given the current threat environment, I have concluded that they do. The most appropriate way of meeting the legal and operational requirements is to make an urgent remedial order under section 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998 to make immediate changes to the legislation. I will be doing this shortly. This is only an interim solution. The proposed new powers will remain in the Bill to ensure full scrutiny of the provisions.

Another important area where we will roll back the state’s power to common-sense levels is in the vetting and barring and criminal records regimes. The previous Government created the vetting and barring scheme with reasonable intentions, but, as with much that they did, their implementation was disproportionate and over-reliant on the state. There is no doubt that a small minority pose a risk to vulnerable people, including children, but requiring more than 9 million people to register and be monitored is not an appropriate response. We should be encouraging volunteers, not treating them like criminals.

The Bill will therefore introduce a new regime, whereby employers will be given a much more central role in ensuring safe recruitment practices, supported by a proportionate central barring scheme. We will retain the sensible features of the vetting and barring scheme, but will not require registration or monitoring, which means that there will no longer be an intrusive state-run database containing the details of 9.3 million people. The scheme will cover only those who have regular or close contact with vulnerable groups. This will create a more convenient and proportionate system for both employers and voluntary organisations and the people seeking to work or volunteer with children or vulnerable adults.

On the criminal records regime specifically, the Bill will enable criminal records disclosures to become portable, through a system which allows for continuous updating. This would enable an employer to establish whether new information had been recorded since the certificate was issued. It will also remove the provision requiring a copy of a certificate to be sent directly to an employer. This will allow an applicant legitimately to dispute the information released on the certificate, without this information already having been seen by the employer.

To administer the new scheme, the Criminal Records Bureau and the Independent Safeguarding Authority will be merged into a single, new organisation. These changes will ensure the continued protection of vulnerable people and children, while at the same time allowing those who want to volunteer to do so without fear or suspicion. It will end the unnecessary state scrutiny of law-abiding people.

As well as dealing with recent illiberal laws, today’s Bill rights historic wrongs. Consensual sex between men over the age of consent was decriminalised in 1967, yet more than 40 years on, gay men can still be penalised and discriminated against because of convictions for conduct which is now perfectly lawful. It is right that we should change the law and wipe the slate clean. The Bill establishes a scheme whereby an individual with a conviction that would today not be considered an offence would be able to apply to the Home Office to have the conviction and caution disregarded. If an application were approved, details of the conviction or caution would be removed from police records and the individual would be able legally to conceal their previous conviction in any circumstances. It would also no longer appear on a criminal record disclosure.

Greater transparency is at the heart of our commitment to open up government to greater scrutiny and to allow public authorities to be held to account, so the Bill makes a number of changes to the Freedom of Information Act to extend its provisions. We will consult the House authorities on these provisions before the Committee stage to ensure that parliamentary copyright is properly safeguarded. The Bill also makes changes to the Freedom of Information Act and to the Data Protection Act to enhance the independence of the Information Commissioner.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary will be surprised to hear that I agree with quite a lot of the Bill, but on data protection, will she consider a constituent of mine who is extremely worried about the amount of information being collected about him and retained? For privacy reasons, I will not give his name, but let us call him Mr N Clegg. He is worried that in the next four weeks information will be gathered from him which he does not wish to give and which he does not wish the Government to retain. It is called the census. What advice would the right hon. Lady give to my constituent in such circumstances?

[Mrs May]

I was waiting for the dénouement of the right hon. Gentleman’s question. There is a requirement for people to fill in the census. It is an extremely useful tool for Government. Previous Governments wanted a census because it informs Government in the production of policy. What I would say to the right hon. Gentleman’s constituent is that the census can provide useful information better to inform Government to produce better policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

I will discuss the DNA database later. It is important to have safeguards, but it is equally important to ensure that proper processes are in place to protect people against crime.

[Mr Blunkett]

I want to reassure my right hon. Friend that my DNA is on the database, and I have never been arrested or convicted of anything. I was proud to do that because I thought that it was an example that would encourage people not to see the database as something that should be feared, but as a safeguard and a real asset to policing and security.

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point. In many cases, the DNA database is also a way of protecting the innocent by ensuring that they are not wrongfully convicted of crimes. DNA evidence will ensure that the person who is guilty of the crime is convicted.

Let me cover some of the areas of the Bill where we agree with the Government. We agree wholeheartedly with removing old convictions for gay sex, which is now legal. We think that it is right to remove them, just as we thought that it was right to abolish section 28 and introduce civil partnerships. We also agree that we should remove the restrictions on when people can get married or become civil partners. If people want to get married at 2 o’clock in the morning and can find someone nocturnal enough to conduct the ceremony, Parliament should not prevent them from doing so.

We support sensible extensions to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. As the party that introduced that Act, we believe that it is a vital way of ensuring proper transparency and accountability. In passing, I would appreciate it if the Home Secretary would have a word with the Chancellor and ask him to stop blocking my freedom of information requests on the impact of his changes on women.

We agree that action was needed against rogue car clampers. In fact, the Opposition Chief Whip, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Ms Winterton), has run some fantastic campaigns against wheel-clamping bullies. Some action had been taken to legislate for new licensing measures, but we are ready to support alternatives that work and will discuss those in Committee.

We also agree with tighter restrictions on stop-and- search powers, which were being used more widely than originally intended under the legislation. The Home Secretary will be aware that her predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), had already taken some action in that area and that the provisional data had shown a significant drop in stop-and-search cases in 2009-10, but we are ready to support sensible changes that bring the legislation more closely in line with the original intention. As I have said to the Home Secretary before, I am still worried about the implications in Northern Ireland. I hope that she will be able to reassure me, and the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, about the measures that she is taking in those areas.

For all those reasons, we will not oppose the Bill on Second Reading, although we have serious concerns about some elements and believe that significant amendments will be needed in Committee.

I also agree that in some cases the implementation of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 has gone beyond Parliament’s original intention and that further safeguards are needed. Again, we will scrutinise the detail, as it is important that the new procedures are not so bureaucratic that they prevent councils from doing a sensible job. We believe that communities across the country will be concerned if they find that a new code of practice makes it harder to get the CCTV they have been campaigning for, because they know it is critical to preventing crime and antisocial behaviour in their areas.

There is a massive contradiction in the Government’s approach to councils’ powers and abilities. In the Bill before us, the Home Secretary wants to make it harder for councils to gather information or to use surveillance. Yet, in her other Home Office Bill, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, which is also going through the House at the moment, she wants to give local councils extra powers to seize people’s property if byelaws are breached. So she does not want council officers watching people, but she does not seem to mind them taking people’s property away.

The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill states that byelaws will be able to

“include provision for or in connection with the seizure and retention of any property in connection with any contravention of the byelaw”.

Local councils have byelaws on things such as dog fouling, mud falling on roads, music outside churches or, in the case of Westminster, giving out free refreshment, all of which could be covered by future byelaw seizure powers. The Bill before us contains an entire clause entitled “Protection of Property from Disproportionate Enforcement Action”, but at the very same time disproportionate enforcement action is being actively encouraged in the other Bill. Imagine: a council cannot monitor the noise from a nuisance neighbour, but it can, if a child is playing a tune in the church square, seize the recorder; it cannot check if any dog fouling is taking place, but, if an officer happens to pass by at the critical moment, they can confiscate the dog.

So what on earth are the Government up to? We are used to chaos and confusion in this Government, but that is usually because the Deputy Prime Minister says one thing while the Home Secretary does another: he abolishes control orders; she renames them; he abolishes antisocial behaviour orders; she introduces criminal behaviour orders. We know that she does not agree with lots of what the Deputy Prime Minister says and does, but now it seems that she does not even agree with herself. Such chaos and confusion is absurd when it comes to council byelaws, but it is rather more worrying when it comes to counter-terrorism, because the process has been chaotic from beginning to end.

We can agree to support limiting pre-charge detention to 14 rather than 28 days, on the basis of the evidence from experts, but we also take very seriously the conclusion of the Home Secretary’s own counter-terrorism review, which states that the Government must provide for the possibility of needing to hold someone for longer in exceptional circumstances.

The right hon. Lady’s original plan was to allow the old limit of 28 days to lapse without even showing us the review or telling us the Government’s plans. Then, the Immigration Minister told the House that the draft emergency legislation would be put directly in the Library. Then, the Home Secretary said that it would not and the order-making power to increase detention to 28 days would suffice. Then, we learned that the Government’s own review stated that the order-making power would not be fast enough. Then, the Home Secretary said that she would consult the Opposition on the emergency legislation so that it could be agreed as soon as possible. We are still waiting on that one. The legislation has finally been published, but, while the draft Bill refers to three months, the explanatory notes refer to six months, and the Government’s intention is still not clear.

Counter-terrorism Review

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his contribution. I am particularly grateful to him for pointing out, from his experience, that it is perfectly possible to pass legislation in one parliamentary day, as did a Labour Home Secretary. Of course, the crucial factor then was consensus across the House, and I hope that we shall be able to achieve that again, should it be necessary to bring forward the emergency legislation to which I referred in my statement.

My right hon. and learned Friend also reminds us that is has been important for the coalition Government to ensure that we rebalance the needs of our national security with our civil liberties. I was disappointed that the shadow Home Secretary made no attempt to apologise for the way in which the previous Labour Government infringed people’s civil liberties.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

May I sympathise with the Home Secretary in having to balance the protection of the British people with the political embarrassment of the Deputy Prime Minister? As she has already said, we all agree that prosecution and conviction would be preferred in cases where conspiracy to commit terrorist acts, or the preparation of such acts, are the issue. Will she therefore consider one more attempt to approach the senior judiciary and the legal profession to get agreement to change the rules on disclosure and admissibility of evidence, so that we can use due process through the courts in difficult circumstances such as those of the man known as AM who is being held on a control order? He has declared that he wishes to take his own life, and thereby the life of the British people. The consequence of that would be that we could not prosecute or convict him, because he would be dead.

[Mrs May]

I note the points that the right hon. Gentleman has made. On the issue of the admissibility of evidence in court, the Government will produce a Green Paper later this year—some time in the summer—that will deal with the whole question of the use of closed evidence in legal proceedings. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will look forward to that with great interest. On his first point, I merely say that both parties in the coalition Government went into the election absolutely committed to the need to rebalance our national security and our civil liberties. The package I have announced today does just that.

Counter-terrorism

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. We need to strike a new and better balance, not just in the interests of civil liberties but in the interests of security. The wider the co-operation we have with the police and security services, the more secure we will all be. The better balance we are now striking is a significant step forward in achieving that.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I was the Home Secretary who increased the time from seven days to 14, not 28, and I think there is good reason for a balanced and sensible approach. But why are we able to have just one announcement on one part of the review without evidence today instead of the total review being announced? Do we have to wait until next Wednesday simply because the Home Secretary happens to be at an informal meeting in Budapest as part of her duties within the European Union? What is the difference between today and next Wednesday?

[Damian Green]

The right hon. Gentleman rather makes my point. I repeat that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said last week that the Home Secretary would make a statement next week, and I am now able to reveal that it will be next Wednesday, so he asks the correct question: why are we doing this now? We are doing it now because the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) asked an urgent question and I have shocked him by giving a substantive answer. I make no apology for that.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

May I pay tribute to the Home Affairs Committee’s work on the issue? I shall finish talking about what is in the Bill and will then comment on the issue raised by the right hon. Gentleman, which is not covered in the Bill.

We shall allow local councils to charge a late-night levy on licensed premises that open after midnight to help to pay for late-night policing and other services, such as taxi marshals or street wardens. On the issue raised by the right hon. Gentleman, which is not included in the Bill, the Government remain committed to banning the below-cost sale of alcohol and we will bring forward proposals on that shortly.

Right hon. and hon. Members will not need me to tell them of the growing concern about the availability, use and potential harm of so-called legal highs. We supported the previous Government in the action they took to ban mephedrone, and we have taken legislative action against a similar but even more potent drug: naphyrone. The existing arrangements for bringing a drug under control using the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 remains our preferred approach. However, it simply takes too long to respond effectively to these new and fast-evolving substances. In the meantime, their availability in the UK goes unchecked and we run the risk that they will gain a foothold—as mephedrone did—and that they will cause damage on our streets and harm to our young people. The power in the Bill to make year-long temporary class drug orders—temporary banning orders—will strike the right balance between swift action and expert advice. The offences in the Bill are rightly targeted at suppliers and traffickers, and carry significant penalties.

On a different issue, I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members from all parties would agree that for too long the historic Parliament square has been subjected to unacceptable levels of disruption and abuse caused by long-term encampments occupying the site. The actions of a small minority have also prevented others from enjoying an important public space. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 tried to deal with the disruption on the square by targeting protest as a whole, but it went too far and missed the point. The continuing occupation of the square and last week’s violence, on which I updated the House earlier, have shown that those measures have not worked. The Bill will restore the right to peaceful protest around Parliament by repealing the relevant sections of the 2005 Act.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I confess that I was responsible for the original clause in what became the 2005 Act. I would like to apologise for that, because we did not quite get it right. However, it is not the drafting of the legislation that matters but whether people are prepared to implement it. The Home Secretary will certainly have my support if she can manage to get the police and the local authority to work together to do something, rather than simply talking about it.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s point. I think it is fair to say that the whole of Parliament thought that previous attempts to deal with the matter had succeeded and that people were disappointed when we discovered that that was not the case. I can confirm that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), who deals with crime prevention, has been working very closely on the matter with the Metropolitan police, the Greater London authority, Westminster city council and, indeed, with the House authorities where relevant. Those parties are willing to work together to ensure that we keep Parliament square clear of encampments. The Bill does not deal with the problem of permanent encampments by restricting protests across the board; it bans the use of tents, other equipment and the unauthorised use of loudhailers in Parliament square.

Public Order Policing

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for his observations. Difficult judgments are made about the routes of these marches. He refers to the decisions, or the desires, of the NUS. One of the disappointments of what has happened so far is that, although the police have engaged with the NUS and discussed possible routes, a significant number of people have, sadly, come along purely to cause trouble, and the police have been dealing with them as best they can.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I endorse what the Home Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) said about violence helping only the exact opposite cause to that which the students seek to espouse. Will the report that will be produced on Friday deal in detail with the breakdown of and lapse in intelligence and communication, which is highly unusual with the protection service? Above all, will she say whether, under the police Bill, she would report to the House at all if such a demonstration took place in London, or more likely in Leeds, Liverpool or Sheffield, and there was a breakdown of law and order?

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his opening remarks. In relation to what the report on royal protection will go into, he referred to a couple of matters on which there has been press speculation, such as the communications equipment. That is exactly the sort of issue that the report will consider. It will look in detail at exactly what happened, and will come out on Friday, although the amount of information that can be made public will be limited.

On the second point, I say to the right hon. Gentleman that I am here making a statement, and that we already have the equivalent of a police and crime commissioner in London—the Mayor.