Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, I think that this amendment has a lot of merit. It certainly raises some very important issues. Ahead of this Bill, I met with people from the insurance industry. They very much made the point that time and money could be saved by incorporating some of these security provisions at the design phase of public buildings.

The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, made a very powerful case for why this amendment would make sense. Clearly, retrospectively trying to put in measures for effective and safe evacuations and invacuations is frequently going to be harder and less cost-effective than building them in at the planning and architectural design stage for new public buildings. As others have hinted, this amendment is perhaps not for this Bill but for a future planning Bill, but it raises a common-sense and important set of issues. I look forward to Minister’s reply.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, my two colleagues mentioned the situation in Northern Ireland. The Minister will be very familiar, from his service there, with a lot of this. A lot of the protections that were put in place were against blast. Terrorist tactics have changed and will continue to change. You cannot simply look at what the threat might have been 30 or 40 years ago: look at the threat that we face today, but in 10 years or 20 years, it may be very different.

The trick will be to have flexible thinking going into the actual design, so although the nature of the threat will change over time there will at least be a bit of future-proofing—that is the language we would need to use. All those lessons should be learned. I served on the Northern Ireland Police Authority, which had to deal with the threats to buildings in those circumstances and to other Civil Service facilities. The Minister will be very familiar with all that. The key is for those who design or adapt buildings—because more buildings are going to be adapted than built from scratch—to show a bit of flexibility in those processes and put a little thought into what might be coming down the road. Our buildings were largely protected against blast, which would not necessarily be the only thing that is at risk.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 43, tabled by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister. This has been a very interesting debate. The amendment seeks to introduce a new clause requiring the Secretary of State to

“consult with local authorities on integrating counter-terrorism measures into the planning and design of new buildings which are likely to be designated ‘qualifying premises’ for the purposes of this Act”.

It further calls for the introduction of measures to ensure that anti-terrorism design principles are incorporated into building projects, particularly those in high-risk areas.

The importance of designing safer urban environments from the outset cannot be overstated. In an era where the threat of terrorism continues to evolve, our approach to public safety must also adapt. The integration of counterterrorism measures into the planning and design of buildings offers a forward-thinking solution that enhances security while reducing the need for costly and disruptive retrofits. By embedding security principles into architectural design, we can create spaces that are both functional and secure. Measures such as blast-resistant materials, secure perimeters, control access points and natural surveillance through open and well-lit layouts can significantly reduce the vulnerability of public spaces.

Many countries have already embraced the concept of designing out terrorism. For example, in the United States and parts of Europe, urban planners and architects routinely incorporate security features into the design of transport hubs, commercial centres and public venues. The United Kingdom should not lag behind in adopting similar best practices. This amendment encourages a collaborative approach between the Government, local authorities and the construction industry to ensure that new developments are designed with security in mind. Local authorities are uniquely positioned to provide insights into the specific risks and needs of their areas, making their involvement in this process essential.

Incorporating counterterrorism measures at the planning stage is not only more effective but more cost-efficient. Retrofitting existing buildings to meet new security requirements can be expensive and disruptive, often requiring extensive modifications that compromise the original design and functionality. By contrast, proactive design reduces long-term costs and creates environments that seamlessly balance aesthetics, functionality and security.

I must stress that this amendment does not seek to turn our urban landscapes into fortresses. Good design can enhance both security and public experience without compromising the openness and accessibility that define vibrant communities. By working closely with architects, planners and local authorities, we can ensure that security features are thoughtfully integrated and do not detract from the usability and beauty of public spaces. I fully associate myself with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, on this issue.

The amendment rightly prioritises high-risk areas where the likelihood of terrorism incidents is higher due to factors such as foot traffic, symbolic importance or previous threats. By taking a proactive approach in these areas, we would not only protect lives but bolster public confidence in the safety of shared spaces. In conclusion, the amendment would strengthen the Bill by embedding security into the very fabric of our built environment. It demonstrates a pragmatic and forward-looking approach to counterterrorism that balances safety, efficiency and community needs. I urge the Government and noble Lords to support this amendment as it represents a vital step forward, creating a safer, more resilient United Kingdom.

Asylum Seekers: Hotels

Lord Empey Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I have considerable sympathy with the Ministers of this Government and previous Governments with regard to hotels. However, the Minister answered a Question last week and I got a sense of complete complacency, not only in Parliament but in government, about the position that all this immigration is leading us to. The truth is that the system is completely out of control and has been for some considerable time. We talk about dispersed accommodation and integration, which I fully support, but if you have 20,000 people per week coming into the country, how do you disperse and integrate them? The numbers are just uncontrollable, given the shortages of accommodation that we already have.

Then we say, “Well, we’ve got waiting lists in the health service”. Of course we have waiting lists in the health service. If you are increasing your population at that rate, how could it be anything else? The question is a basic one and it goes back to the fact that it is gangsters who are running these people, taking money off them and putting them into harm’s way in the channel in the hope that they will get to the other side, although they have already pocketed the money. Although the Government have made a commitment that they are going to tackle that as their number one priority—the Prime Minister has been very explicit about it—I would like to hear from the Minister what progress has been made.

We have a long tradition, of course, of opening our doors—it goes back to the Kinder trains in the 1930s and 1940s; of course, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is one of the shining examples of the success of that—but as a country, we just do not have the capability or capacity to deal with the numbers and we are just not facing up to it. Look at what is happening around the world; look at what is happening today in the United States and why it is happening. Look at what has happened in other countries in Europe and look, in a few weeks’ time, at what might happen in Germany. We cannot just keep sweeping this under the carpet.

Part of the problem goes back, I think, to the good will that was genuinely expressed over 70 years ago when we were dealing with the 1951 refugee convention. On 30 July last year, I asked the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, a Written Question:

“To ask his Majesty’s Government whether they are discussing with other countries amendments to the 1951 Refugee Convention to take into account the changed world circumstances”.


The Answer was:

“The Government is not discussing amendments to the Refugee Convention with other countries”.


Why not? It was done with good will and the right intentions quite a number of years ago, but it is out of date and we need to address it. I hope the Minister can give us some comfort on that.

We are under international obligations, and that is why we need an international solution, but we also have national obligations. We have just taken a heating allowance of £200 a year off pensioners who are earning just over £12,500 a year, yet it costs £145 a night to house anybody who comes in on a boat, and they also have access to our health service and so on, while other people in our own community do not. We have to be compassionate on one side, but we also have to be realistic on the other.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for giving us an opportunity to debate this issue. We have had a number of Questions on it, but it is worthy of a debate in this short time we have. I will try to answer the points that noble Lords mentioned in their contributions.

If the noble Lord will forgive me, I will start with the noble Lord, Lord Patten, who asked whether we have a plan to look at blue Monday five years hence. I hope it will help him and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, if I mention some points very briefly, which I hope will satisfy the noble Lord, at least in part.

First, we have to speed up asylum claims, because they are taking too long to be determined. As my noble friend Lady Lister mentioned, we have a proud record of accepting asylum claims, but we have to adjudicate them. The longer we take to adjudicate them, the longer people need to be in hotels and dispersed accommodation. So the first task the Government have to undertake is to ensure that we complete and assess asylum claims as quickly as possible. To do that, we have put in an extra 1,000 staff, deployed from different parts of the department, in part from the savings from the Rwanda scheme which was scrapped.

Secondly, we need to speedily remove those who do not have a claim for asylum. Since 4 July, the Government have taken 16,000-plus people who have failed the asylum system from hotels and returned them to a place of safety—a country that they have been deemed able to return to.

Thirdly, and this is the nub of the discussions we have had so far, we need to look at how we close hotels, because they are a costly way of operating asylum accommodation. We have already closed the “Bibby Stockholm” and scrapped the use of Scampton in Lincolnshire, and we have plans to reduce the number of hotels over the course of this Parliament. It will take time, but by March this year we will have nine fewer hotels than we inherited in July last year. The noble Lord will expect me to say this, but I find it strange that under his jurisdiction and his Government, the number of hotels went from zero in 2015 to a peak of 400 in 2023 and is now just settling at the 260-270 mark. There is a record that we have to pick up on and work with, which I am trying to do in a constructive and positive way.

To answer some of the points mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Empey and Lord Green, we have put in place the new Border Security Command—which will require legal back-up in a Bill later this year—with Martin Hewitt as its head. That is designed to try to take some of the pressure not off asylum accommodation, which is legitimate, but the illegal entry to the UK by criminal gangs organising for people to make dangerous crossings to potentially seek asylum, who in some cases have no basis for asylum but still come across in illegal gangs. The Border Security Command will be part of the plan to try to overturn that.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, asked about what we are doing with our international partners, and we have some international policy objectives. We do not have a phobia about talking to Germans, Italians or the French. We have a Calais Group in place to look at the issues there. Our Border Force control is looking at what is happening in Germany, working with Germany upstream to reduce the pressures there and to ensure that people claim asylum legitimately in their first port of call, rather than coming to the United Kingdom.

We have scrapped the Rwanda scheme, which was a disincentive and a waste of money. We have put that money into the areas I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Patten, such as speeding up asylum claims, finding places to reduce the use of hotels and commissioning good, dispersed accommodation. I take the point mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord German, that we want to get people through the system as quickly as possible, so they are determined to be legitimately here and able to work, or not legitimately here, and a way is found to deport them. That process needs to have integrity and speed.

There are issues arising from and discussions about the levels of migration, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Green. The Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill, which is a Liberal Democrat-inspired Bill, not a Government Bill, has legitimate objectives at its core, which I accept and understand. A big migration White Paper is due shortly; it will look at the very pressures that have been talked about in this House by my noble friend Lady Lister and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield, and at how we deal with integration and the potential shortfall in skills. It will consider how we deal with asylum issues generally, all the questions that are dealt with in the family reunion Bill, and how we create a wider 5-year plan—going back to the noble Lord, Lord Patten—to ensure that we can deal with those issues over that period. Those are all key issues.

To the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield and others who have mentioned it, I say that the hotel costs which are the focus of this debate are simply eyewatering and not a good use of taxpayers’ money. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, mentioned, they are not even a good way of ensuring the safety and security of the people in those hotels, particularly women fleeing persecution. The costs were £8 million per day under the previous Government. They have dropped to £6 million per day following the work we have done to reduce them. It will take time but, I say again to the noble Lord, Lord Patten, it is part of the plan to get that figure right down and, over a period, end the use of hotels, but we have to deal with the demand issues first. These include legitimate asylum claims, which my noble friend Lady Lister mentioned; we should be place of sanctuary, somewhere that accepts people who are fleeing persecution, and do so in a proper and effective way without hotels.

We have to be cognisant of the fact that we still have to deal with the continued demand, as has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Empey. We need to focus on reducing the pressure on the system from those who are seeking to come here illegally.

We have increased dispersed accommodation by 8% in the past few months of this Government’s tenure—the first time that we have been in office to do so. Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money had already been spent on large sites at Scampton and Bexhill, and the “Bibby Stockholm”, by the previous Government, and we have tried to row back on that. We have reviewed asylum spend, and it is important that we look at the bigger picture. In 2023-24, when the noble Lord’s party was in office, the Home Office spent £4.7 billion on asylum support, the vast majority on hotels. We are continuing to explore how we can save taxpayers’ money, and we are on track to save £4 billion over the next two years. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Patten, that it is part of the plan to reduce the amount of money spent on asylum accommodation by speeding up the claims, scrapping accommodation such as the “Bibby Stockholm” and ensuring that the Rwanda policy is changed, so that we can use that resource to clear the backlog of asylum decisions.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for securing this debate. This Government inherited an asylum system under exceptional strain. When we came into office, there were tens of thousands of cases at a complete standstill, and a growing a backlog. In reference to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord German, asylum seekers were therefore living in limbo, accommodated in hotels which not only cost exorbitant sums but are profoundly detrimental to the wellbeing of vulnerable individuals, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, mentioned. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield highlighted that there is real pressure on hotels from collections of individuals, which has led to forces that are not conducive to integration, security and acceptance. The focus has been on hotels rather than on dispersed accommodation, where people go about their daily lives in a dispersed way.

For all those reasons, the Government are actively working towards a more sustainable and cost-effective solution to accommodate asylum seekers away from hotels. I have to be honest with the House: it will take time. It is a challenge, and it cannot be done straightaway, but the Government’s objective is very clear. In the manifesto, we said that we would end the use of hotels for asylum accommodation and, at a date to be determined, that we will do. I will be accountable to this House, as my right honourable friend the Home Secretary will be to the House of Commons, in ensuring that we do that in future. The resource that is being eaten up by asylum hotels is the very same that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, mentioned, can be used elsewhere for more positive activity. I will look at the detail of what she mentioned and drop her a note.

I will check on my noble friend Lady Lister’s lost letter. I thought I had sent it, but maybe it got lost in the system over Christmas and the new year. We will find out where it has gone, and if it does not have a stamp on it yet, it will have one shortly. She may even find that I use the new method of email, as a matter of some speed, to get the correspondence to her in short order. I will look at that as a matter of urgency and get back to her.

I hope that today’s debate has been useful. There are challenges. On all sides of the House, we accept that we have the challenges of wider migration, hotel accommodation and its cost, making a plan and illegal migration into this country. In the short time that I have had, I hope I have set out the Government’s prospectus. With that, I hope that the House can hold me to account in due course on the delivery of that proposal.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

Before the Minister sits down—

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I have sat down. The time has gone, I think.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

We have time. As I have known the noble Lord, Lord Empey, for such a long time and worked with him in such a constructive way, and even though the clock is flashing, I will take his intervention.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

Before the Minister sits down—again—could he respond to my point about the 1951 refugee convention. He talked about demand. This is part of the legal framework and our international obligations, which I think need revision, with our partners across the rest of the world who were party to it in the first place. If he cannot give me a response now, he can write to me—or email me.

Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Search, Seizure and Detention of Property: Code of Practice) (Northern Ireland) Order 2024

Lord Empey Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my registered interest as a member of your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, in which we considered this SI in some detail. I welcome my noble friend to the Front Bench. We well recall him serving as a Minister in Northern Ireland; in fact, I succeeded him in the Department for Social Development and I remember the handover meeting very well. The following day, he went off to be a Minister of State here.

I welcome this statutory instrument. It is important that we move to a normal society in Northern Ireland, that the proceeds of crime are adequately addressed and that people refrain from crime in Northern Ireland, where we have the association of crime with paramilitarism. They are two scourges in our society that must be eliminated.

I have certain questions for my noble friend. While this is a reserved matter, the code is to be published by the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland. When will it publish the code, and will it be by way of a statement in the Assembly? Maybe there has already been one. Is an assessment available of the success of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 in Northern Ireland? I realise that will require a detailed answer, so I would be content if my noble friend could provide one in writing. I note that there is no impact assessment; can he indicate why? Will the police resourcing of the implementation of the code come out of the Northern Ireland block grant? There is a little difficulty there in that policing resources in Northern Ireland, in both funding and people power, are gravely overstretched.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, there is obviously a conspiracy here: the people running the Football Governance Bill have obviously decided to keep us all occupied here so that we are not dealing with them. Perhaps we should go into the Chamber later and see if we can make a contribution.

There are two sides to this: the devolved issue and the national issue. I want to explore the interface between the two and ask whether, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, mentioned, there is a resource implication. In other words, are any additional resources required? With crypto assets and so on, we are dealing with very sophisticated people who have access to complicated software and things like that. Are we capable of dealing with that as quickly as we can?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

As the Minister responsible for this order, I have not had any discussion with Naomi Long or the Department of Justice on these matters, but I hope it will give some confidence to my noble friend to know that it is my intention to meet our counterparts in Northern Ireland. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has, I believe, already met the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, and I intend to do the same. I have a potential visit to Northern Ireland planned for the new year to discuss areas of mutual co-operation. I will make sure that this issue is raised as one of many items on the agenda of any future meeting in January. With that, I commend this order to the Committee.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

Will the Minister reflect again on the resources issue? If he does not have any material to hand, he could write to us, which I imagine would be easily achieved.