Queen’s Speech

Debate between Lord Clinton-Davis and Lord Henley

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

The criticisms that I make of the Home Office are but mild by comparison with what we have just heard.

I believe that this Queen’s Speech is dreary and largely irrelevant to the needs of this nation. It fails to focus on real public concerns. Public works, increased economic growth and youth unemployment are but three of the issues that are highly relevant at this time. I have attended many Queen’s Speeches, but I cannot recall one that had so many deficiencies.

Tonight, I propose to concentrate on home affairs and law and justice. As far as home affairs are concerned, I will make several criticisms of the Home Office, but I say at once that we are delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who is a friend of many of us, in his place. The Home Office is often regarded as the ministry of the non-living. Whether that description is well merited is by the way. Mistakes can all too readily prove irrecoverable. That is not necessarily the fault of the Secretary of State, but it is the Secretary of State who carries the can. Of course the Home Office is too large and delegation often occurs, often with fatal, or near fatal, results, and it is the Secretary of State who is held responsible.

Prison policy is a good example of this deficiency. For the most part, prisoners can be obdurately unyielding. My experience as a defence solicitor is that frequently prison guards and prisoners do not begin to comprehend the other’s problems. Admittedly, I go back a long way, but I doubt whether there has been much change. I realise that work is often undertaken in uncongenial circumstances, leading inevitably to an inbuilt resistance to change, but there have been some shining examples to the contrary. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is one of them. He made every effort to detect and tackle mistakes during his tenure of office.

Terrorism, frequently having an international dimension, clearly falls within the Secretary of State’s responsibility. Terrorism can often be accompanied by a messianic ideology. The Secretary of State has to reconcile effective defensive measures with democratic standards, and that is by no means easy, as the Secretary of State has clearly demonstrated, but surely some humility is called for rather than something we hear too often: an irritatingly abrasive mood of “I know best”. I am only too well aware that the Secretary of State has numerous other responsibilities. Is it not time therefore for this vast ministry to be split up, for a ministerial inquiry to be established and for this to be effected immediately?

As far as law and justice are concerned, this House—

[Lord Henley]

It might be helpful if I get to my feet and interrupt the noble Lord to remind him that his party split up the Home Office. Prisons and criminal justice have gone to the Ministry of Justice. We are a much smaller department than we ever were.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

That may be but it is still too large. I do not know whether the noble Lord had any responsibility for that—

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I could not have had any responsibility for it because it was done by the previous Government. I think the noble Lord will remember that I was not a Minister in the previous Government; they were a Labour Government.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

That may be but I still regard the Home Office as much too large.

Although the House devoted a great deal of its time in the previous Session of this Parliament to examining a Bill that got scant attention in the House of Commons, I fear that the system will prove to be far more expensive than our present one in the long term; and that the changes envisaged by the Government will prove to be divisive and largely ineffective. They will also have a deleterious effect on people seeking to undertake civil cases.

In my day—I speak of a very long time ago—criminal cases seldom lasted beyond around three months. Nowadays it is common practice for serious criminal cases to last for a year or more. How, then, can we revert to a more acceptable time limit without adversely affecting justice and the civil components of legal aid? Even though this is a desirable goal, I wonder how much time the Government have devoted to resolving this vast problem. I will readily give way to the noble Lord, who is intent on intervening in my speech at all times.

We have spent much time in the Lords trying to resolve some of the more serious dilemmas on the civil side. Defeats were inflicted on the Government but they remained resolute to be irresolute. Justice will undoubtedly have suffered as a result. I fear that I will be disappointed in my quest for the Government to conduct a further inquiry into this matter. However, an inquiry is called for and ought to begin immediately.

Piracy

Debate between Lord Clinton-Davis and Lord Henley

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Is there a time limit for the further work that is being undertaken by the Government?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, there is no time limit and it would be wrong to impose one at this stage. All I can make clear is that the Prime Minister has asked for further work to be done.

Abu Qatada

Debate between Lord Clinton-Davis and Lord Henley

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my noble friend is right to point to the development of modern means of communications over the past 20 or 30 years and the advantages that they give to extremist preachers of this sort, which was never the case in the past. That is one reason why it is very important that we have very tight controls on what forms of communications will be available to Qatada in his house, with his family, when he is subject to bail.

My noble friend asked about other countries and rightly pointed to the problems of deporting individuals to a large number of countries throughout the world because of their human rights record. That is something that we are simply stuck with; there is not much that we can do about it, because of the nature of the countries that we are talking about and the nature of what goes on. Certainly, that imposes enormous costs on us. I cannot give my noble friend precise figures of the costs of Abu Qatada over the past 10 years. However, I think all noble Lords will be pretty sure that they must have been fairly large costs considering that he has spent some five years in prison and is now going to be living at home, presumably surviving on benefits of some sort, along with his wife and five children. The same was true beforehand and there are all the costs of supervision that my noble friend mentioned, which are also very great indeed. Yes, keeping the security of this country is not a cheap option.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Is it not clear that this man has made outrageous and bloodthirsty comments about a variety of circumstances, particularly concerning the Jewish community? Is there any evidence that those threats have been resiled from? If not, that is highly relevant in the circumstances which the Government have to consider.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am not aware that those have been resiled from but I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, for emphasising the particularly nasty nature of this man and the sort of threats he has made, to Jewish people and to a great many others. That significant fact ought to be taken into account and I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing it to the attention of the House.

Police: Custody

Debate between Lord Clinton-Davis and Lord Henley

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I accept my noble friend’s point and share her concerns on these matters. On policing, for which the Home Office is responsible, we are committed to delivering a police service that promotes equality, does not discriminate against anyone because of their race and is effective in rooting out and tackling racism. Where there are disproportionate numbers in one group as opposed to another, that invites further research. That is something we should do. However, at this stage I would not want to comment on why there are, as my noble friend puts it, more black people in prison than there are at the Russell group universities.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Would the Minister say that racism of any kind is unacceptable in our society, especially as far as the police are concerned? Would he distance the Government from the racism practised by certain sections of the police today?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I do not accept that the police act in a racist manner. I do accept that where one group is disproportionately involved in crime it deserves some degree of analysis and is something that we need to look at. However, I totally reject the noble Lord’s complaint about racism in the police force. That allegation has been made in the past. It is something that the police have addressed over the years and something that they have dealt with themselves.

Flooding: Cornwall

Debate between Lord Clinton-Davis and Lord Henley

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the response to the flooding in Cornwall; and what action is being taken to avert or diminish a future incident of this kind.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, the response to last Wednesday’s flooding in Cornwall was truly a team effort. Over 250 properties in all were flooded and people were evacuated overnight. I would like to echo the praise given by the leader of Cornwall Council for the emergency services and offer sympathy to those whose lives have been disrupted. We will review what happened with partners to see whether lessons can be learnt about the future handling of such incidents.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Is it the case that flood defences, pumps, telephone warnings and ditches were deficient and that longer-term defences are likely to be hit hard by the cuts, thereby imperilling thousands of people, despite promises to the contrary? All this is happening when, as the Secretary of State for Climate Change has acknowledged, extreme weather is becoming more and more frequent.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I do not accept the noble Lord’s first point. Environment Agency teams were out there before the floods happened, clearing out streams and culverts and doing all that they could to make sure that things were mitigated as far as possible. Sadly, the weather was so extreme that these measures were not able to cope with what happened. Something of the order of one and a half inches—that is 38.8 millimetres, if the noble Lord prefers that measure—of rain fell in one hour and, quite frankly, what was in place could not cope with that. I do not accept what the noble Lord said about cuts. We will be spending something of the order of £2.1 billion on flooding and coastal erosion over the next four years, which is only a very small reduction on the previous four years.