Abu Qatada

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Henley

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am advised that leap years do not come into it.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, it appears that all the discussions and advice were handled verbally. Are we to believe that that is the case? Is there nothing in writing or a paper trail to say specifically that these deadlines were properly arrived at? If not, why can that not be published?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I can only repeat the answer that I gave to the noble Lord’s noble friend, Lord Hunt. I said that we have been in constant contact with the court, that all legal advice and legal precedents indicated that this was the case, and that the difference between the timing for the referral, which had to be within three months, and the timing for the judgment—that is, after—made it quite clear that midnight on the 16th was the moment in question.

Public Disorder: Uninsured Claimants

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Henley

Monday 19th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the Government have been monitoring the situation. My honourable friend the Minister for Policing has met representatives from the West Midlands police force, the Greater London Authority, the Met and the Greater Manchester police force. He has met the insurance companies, Kit Malthouse and a vast number of people. We are doing these things as quickly as possible. We extended the deadline by which people could make claims by 42 days. We have the whole subject under review, as I made clear in response to another question, and we will respond to those reviews in due course.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, the Minister has been asked for figures three times. He keeps saying that the situation is under review and is being monitored. It is not monitoring that is required—it is action. Will he do something about it?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I totally reject that. I have made it clear that we estimate that there have been something of the order of 5,000 claims. We estimate that those claims total some £200 million to £250 million. That does not mean that all those claims are valid. Before we pay out public money, we want to make sure that they are valid and we will do that properly. We want to make sure that the uninsured are paid first and then deal with those who were insured, making sure that the insurance companies are repaid. That is why we are talking to the ABI.

Crime: Metal Thieves

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Henley

Thursday 15th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, in view of the danger to life in hospitals and the very possible serious damage to life due to metal theft on the railways, is the Minister satisfied that there are sufficient penalties available once the criminals—either the thieves or the receivers—are caught? I would not normally call for harsh sentences but in view of the salutary sentences given to the rioters, should we make sure that there are salutary sentences for those engaged in this dangerous and life-threatening trade?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my memory of the Theft Act is sketchy but, as I remember it, it provides for seven years for theft, something considerably longer for burglary—which most of this would come under—and makes very severe long sentences available for handling. It is the handling we want to get at because it is the fence who deals with the metal who provides the value to it.

UK Border Agency

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Henley

Monday 7th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I take note of what my noble friend has to say. We inherited these machines and will try to make sure they operate as well as we can. Whether it would be right at this stage to spend very large amounts of taxpayers’ money on installing new machines is another matter. Obviously, as my noble friend says, we want to reduce delays, because delays cause major annoyance to a great number of individuals and cause damage to business. We will do what we can. At the same time we need to maintain border security, which is one of the reasons why we want to make sure that biometric details on passports are properly read.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

I am not sure whether I heard the Minister correctly. Did he say that there was a cut of 5,000 in the staff required, but no discussion about the effect of those cuts? It is a bit rich now to come to the House and say, “We’re going to try to find out the optimum number”. Surely that is a dereliction of duty.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, of course there has always been discussion about how many people are needed to maintain the appropriate level of protection at our borders. However, very difficult decisions have to be made in this, as they do regarding the police and other matters. Obviously, it might be a matter on which John Vine would also want to comment in his report. That is a matter for him: he is independent. The important thing is that Ministers made appropriate decisions at the time of the spending review about what was appropriate, which, in terms of making decisions, we have had to do across the whole of government.

St Paul’s Cathedral

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Henley

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend makes an interesting point. Whether an empty tent is litter is a matter that I am not going to argue now. I go back to the principle that this is something on private property and, therefore, is not something on which the Government currently have powers to intervene.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords—

EU: Common Fisheries Policy

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Henley

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I thought that I had dealt with that point in answering my noble friend on discards. We think that the wasteful practice of discarding fish should be brought to an end. We are doing a great deal already within the United Kingdom to make sure that it is being reduced by various practical measures relating to net sizes and other matters. We will also continue, in the negotiations for reform of the common fisheries policy, to make sure that we do all we can to bring it completely and utterly to an end.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, it is not quite as simple as saying that discards shall be abandoned. What happens to the undersize fish caught by fishermen at sea? Will they count against national quotas or regional quotas? Are we going to rely solely on changing net sizes? That is very important, but you cannot avoid discards if you fish in the sea.