Investor Visas: Money Laundering

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, there are schools, hospitals, nationality and honours. Is it possible for people with enough money to buy anything from a Tory Government?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The question, in my respectful submission, is not well aimed, and there is no question of persons being able to buy their way into the United Kingdom. There is a means by which they can invest in the United Kingdom, but they are subject to very clear checks, which have been improved since 2014.

Immigration: Harmondsworth

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

It is certainly the case that 92% have been there for less than four months, and the time is reducing. Of course, those who have been there for longer than four months—in fact, for longer than 28 days—are often people who are working very hard to avoid their removal. They are perfectly entitled to do so, but they are trying to frustrate the system. We have concerns about public safety. That is the reason why they are there and have not been granted bail.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

Order. Why does not the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, ask a question?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, we have gone through four Questions this morning. Has the Minister, like me, been thinking, “How long will it be before we can forgive the Liberal Democrats for not dealing with these problems when they were part of the coalition”?

[Lord Bates]

I am out of time.

Police: Body-worn Cameras

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

They will have the standing of authorised professional practice, which comes under the College of Policing. That is published and it is open to review. However, we have changed the procedure from the Home Office guidance on body-worn cameras issued in 2007 to give the National College of Policing and chief constables greater power and authority to make those decisions, although that is public and will be open to scrutiny.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for answering the questions that are posed to him, unlike some of his colleagues, who ignore the questions and read from a ministerial brief. Will he consider having a word with them?

Airports: Expansion

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I can assure the noble Baroness—I speak for all my noble friends on the Front Bench and beyond—that we always seek to give answers faithfully from this Dispatch Box.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

Will the Minister confirm that airports policy is now being co-ordinated by Sir John Chilcot?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

That may be the noble Lord’s view; it is certainly not mine.

HS2

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I do agree with the noble Lord, although I am a bit perturbed by his suggestion that I was around in the 1830s—perhaps he is suggesting I have aged at the Dispatch Box. Nevertheless, there is a valid case to be made here. The primary case for HS2 is establishing links throughout the whole country but it is also important, as the noble Lord said, to address the capacity challenges we currently face on our rail network.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that the real economic case for HS2 depends on its extension to Edinburgh and Glasgow? Since there are no objections to it in the north of England and Scotland, would it not be sensible to start building now, as quickly as possible, in the north of England and Scotland? That would also provide a market for British steel.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I commend the noble Lord—he is a great champion for Scotland and for the United Kingdom. The investment we are making in our rail network across the board, not just in HS2, underlines our commitment to ensuring that the whole country is connected. As the noble Lord will be aware, we have laid plans: we are moving forward with the first stage of HS2 in 2017, and great investment is being made in transport for the north and connectivity across Scotland. He makes a very valid point about connectivity across the country, and it is certainly a principle that I support.

Airports Commission

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

There is no dithering. Let us be quite clear here: it was the previous Government under the current Prime Minister, the same Prime Minister, who commissioned the report. The report was commissioned in 2012. The findings were received—very detailed analysis I am sure the noble Lord recognises—and there were 70,000 responses contained within the commission’s report. Therefore, it is quite right that a considered opinion is given to the commission’s recommendations, and that decision will be made not in due course, as I say again, but as the Prime Minister—the head of the Government—has made clear, by the end of this year, that is 2015.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder if the Minister would make an educated guess—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

Order. It is actually the turn of the Liberal Democrat Benches.

Severn Bridge: Tolls

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I am always grateful for my noble friend’s interventions.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that in Scotland, all parties agreed to the abolition of the tolls? There have been no adverse effects and it has all been beneficial. If it is good enough for Scotland, why is it not good enough for Wales?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Crossings in Scotland are a devolved matter, as the noble Lord is aware.

Police: Reduction in Numbers

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

That is an interesting point. I was not aware of that particular fact but, on looking at the figures again, the number of fatalities from road traffic accidents, fortunately, has been coming down. The noble Baroness said that that was in relation to Essex, but the number of fatalities has come down from about 1,900 in 2010 to 1,730 last year. We want to continue that downward progress.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that the Scottish Government want Police Scotland to take over responsibility from the British Transport Police in Scotland? Will he or the Home Secretary—I presume he has her ear—have a word with the Scottish Government and explain the importance of cross-border policing as far as the transport police are concerned?

[Lord Bates]

That is a very important point which ought to be considered. Certainly I shall mention it to the Home Secretary when I have her ear this afternoon.

Terrorist Attack in Paris

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, before we move to the main business of the afternoon, can I raise, yet again, this artificial time for questions? There were a number of distinguished Members eager to answer questions but because of our rules, we are allowed only 20 minutes and then the guillotine comes down. In any sensible Chamber, it would be left to the Chairman to allow further time. That should be for the Lord Speaker or the Chairman standing in. I have raised this again and again. The Procedure Committee seems totally incapable of giving some flexibility to deal with these things properly, so that we can give some time to matters of importance. I hope it will have another look at it.

Justice and Home Affairs: United Kingdom Opt-Outs

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to follow that brief but very powerful intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood. I start by very sincerely commending the Minister for his diligence. If I am right, he has been on parade on the Front Bench every day this week. He dealt with the Bill before this, of which he did every stage throughout the whole of yesterday and today, and now he is dealing with this business. He must have done something awful in a previous life to deserve that. I certainly think that he, more than any of us, will have a well-deserved holiday the week after next. I know where he is going; I am sure he will enjoy it. I hope I am not going to be too hard on him today, but like my noble friend Lord Hannay I will be a little hard on the Government.

I agree absolutely and completely with the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey. This has been a totally unnecessary and costly exercise, one that has kept us, the Government and the other place preoccupied for far too long, when, as has been said by a number of Members on both sides, we could and should have been doing many other more important things. This opt-in, opt-out, opt-in, opt-out was described by one member of our European Union Committee as a sort of European hokey-cokey. That is what it has become. The way it has been dealt with has become a bit of a farce, but it is a matter of great seriousness.

As my colleague the shadow Home Affairs Minister in the other place, the right honourable David Hanson, said, what was supposed to be the Government’s great show of repatriation and Euroscepticism—the great opt-out—has in fact become the great opt-in. That is shown by the number of important measures we are opting back in to. Any idea of a great repatriation has been mere window dressing for the purposes of the right-wing, anti-European Union Back-Benchers. From time to time I find it irritating that one person in particular, Sir William Cash—I am a friend of his in a number of ways—should have such a huge influence on the way in which the Government determine their European policy. It is astonishing. It is about time he was stood up to. My noble friend Lord Hannay was saying how much the other place seemed to ignore our report. I hope we will stand up to them in our European Union sub-committee and say that we want to ensure that these matters are considered rather more conscientiously and in a more balanced way than is done by the chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee in the other place.

Let us look at what has happened. Some of the measures we are opting back in to are major, important measures, and we are rightly opting back in. The European supervision order allows British subjects to be bailed back to the UK rather than spending months abroad awaiting trial. That is very important. The prisoner transfer framework decision helps us to remove foreign criminals from British jails. We are rightly opting back in to both those important things, as well as the measure providing for joint investigation teams, the European criminal information system and the Naples II convention, which is the principal tool for customs co-operation. Why did we even contemplate opting out of them? Many of the ones we are opting out of, to give this whole exercise some very small degree of credibility, are very insignificant and minor matters. As my right honourable friend David Hanson said, they are,

“not relevant, not appropriate and not needed now”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/7/14; col. 500.]

For example, we are opting out of a directive on international crime that closed down years ago. Measures on cybercrime and mutual legal assistance that we are opting out of have been superseded by other measures to which we have signed up. Measures such as accession never applied to us in the first place. Therefore, it is of no import that we are opting out of such measures. We are opting out of some other measures simply because we have legislation dealing with those issues already. For instance, the Bribery Act 2010 and hate crimes legislation mean that we do not need some of the measures that we are opting out of.

The fact that we are signing up to so many important measures, and that many of the measures we are opting out of we are not doing on the basis of repatriation, shows that the Government’s critique of Europe holding far too much power and far too much jurisdiction over us is overblown. Let us remember that it is a Conservative Home Secretary who is pursuing this strategy, which basically now admits and agrees that a lot of these measures are absolutely necessary. These are not federalist land grabs by the European Union. I hope that this debate will provide an opportunity for a message to go the House of Commons to treat this matter seriously.

Finally, I hope that the Minister will give us a clear indication in his reply as to when this matter will be finalised. The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, who in many ways is my noble friend, spelt out the timetable and the number of days that there are in which we are able to make this decision. We will not be back until the middle of October and this has to be done by the end of November. There is not a lot of time for it to be done. As we know, not just Europe but Whitehall will be on holiday for a good few months. I hope that the Minister will give an indication in his reply as to when we will come to a decision. As a member of the European Union Committee, I am glad to have the opportunity to talk on this matter. I hope that those Members of this House opposite who I know are aware of the importance of our membership of the European Union will stand up and be counted and face up to some of the people at the other end who are not quite as enthusiastic as we are.