Hillsborough
Lord Mann Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Mrs May
It is extremely unfortunate that, at various stages, South Yorkshire police did not provide all the evidence, but I was pleased that they were willing to respond to and provide information to the independent panel. It is in everyone’s interests that we should be able to get to the full truth and to see justice done.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
Perhaps the biggest risk to safety in football stadiums today is that posed by a panic mass evacuation, following a bomb scare, for example, or a terrorist incident. Will the Home Secretary confirm that there is no requirement on any stadium to have a test mass evacuation using real people, that no such tests have been carried out and that every football stadium in the country relies on computer simulations to determine whether its mass evacuation plans will actually work?
Psychoactive Substances
Lord Mann Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Norman Baker
I do not think that is correct. Certainly, with regard to those substances classified as severe, with the top rank of measures, we would not be able to countermand the EU description applied to the substance unless the European Commission agreed to do so on application from the member state, so I do not think that is correct.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
I know that the Minister has his finger on the pulse when it comes to the use of drugs in this country. What percentage of legal highs that come into this country are ordered via the internet from other EU states?
Norman Baker
I am not sure whether I heard the question correctly, but the acquisition from the internet of legal highs is, fortunately, a minority activity at the moment, but we need to keep an eye on it. The majority of legal highs are sourced elsewhere.
Norman Baker
The Government and law enforcement agencies have investigative resources, so we monitor these things very closely, which I hope is what the hon. Gentleman would expect us to do.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
It must be rather galling for the most European of all parliamentarians, the Minister, having to be dissing the EU and its great works in one of his first outings. I was surprised, however, that he did not take more credit for the work that he, his predecessor, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), and his Department have done in encouraging this EU proposal. Of course, it was a Liberal Democrat who predecessed him—
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
I am entirely unhappy about the use of the word “dissing”, but I think “predecessed” demands further investigation. I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman could clarify both those terms.
John Mann
It is a late hour and I have had no substances of any height during the day, but I have been building up my adrenalin, looking forward to this debate.
I have been monitoring what the Home Office has been doing in this field. Whenever I speak to people from other countries, they keep telling me how the British Government—this coalition Government—are out there seeking their views and trying to learn from them. Portugal is one of the leaders of the move towards drug legalisation across the world, but the Czech Republic is following—that makes two EU states—and the European monitoring body on drugs is based in Lisbon.
John Mann
I would like to make my point first, so that the hon. Gentleman can understand it in its fullness.
It is this Government who have been going and listening to the legalisers. I suspect that the European Commission is making an attempt over time to pull together these strands, backed by several senior police officers in this country, so that they can evaporate the problem of drugs and say that crime will reduce, because if we legalise lots of things and do not criminalise others, we will not need to spend as much money on policing, because crime will be falling all the time. What is happening with this Government—it is why the Minister has encouraged this proposal from the EU and now wishes to demolish it—is an attempt to block legal highs being made into illegal highs so that crime does not go up, because they are not providing the police in areas like mine that are disproportionately impacted by the current legal highs.
I carried out my own public inquiry in Worksop town hall this January into the question of legal highs, asking the young people, the police, the health service and others what was going on. It was interesting to find out that it was not only young people who were taking these substances. It was also middle-aged people, although not perhaps elderly people. It was the people who participate in what the Government call the night-time economy and what I would call pubs with late licences. People are tanking up at home on cheap alcohol then going out to the pubs and nightclubs and taking these substances. The owners of the pubs and clubs complained to my inquiry that their biggest problem was that people were taking cheap pills and other highs instead of buying alcohol.
By the way, allowing pubs to have late licences was the worst error of the last Labour Government. My biggest error in this place was not to speak out and try to alter that policy as it was going through because applying a city solution to areas like mine was totally inappropriate. One pub in my area is open till 5 in the morning, but nobody is drinking beer or spirits; they are allegedly—according to all the information I have—taking all sorts of substances that the Government will not deem illegal because they do not want the police to arrest people, though the police are not there anyway, because the Government have cut their numbers; and there are not even any police cells left in my area to put people in, and the police community support officers are about to take over neighbourhood policing. But nobody is being arrested for using legal highs in the pubs, and of course they are not because the highs are legal. This is part of Home Office policy.
Jesse Norman
I continue to be dazzled by the hon. Gentleman’s linguistic dexterity, which is reaching almost Prescottian heights, but will he tell us whether this great experiment in constructing a parliamentary speech out of a single sentence has the possibility of reaching a full stop?
John Mann
I would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman was listening.
For two days, I got together young people, the police and the health service in my area, along with my expert panel which 10 years ago looked at the problem of heroin and this time looked at legal highs, among other problems. We analysed more than 400 submissions to find out exactly what was happening. We went out and asked the users of the illegal drugs what was happening with the legal highs. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would like to be informed about this, because his close coalition ally the Minister, and the Minister’s predecessor, have not got a clue what is going on with legal highs in this country. Some of the chief constables are increasingly saying, “Let’s legalise drugs; let’s not go any further with legal highs, so that we can get crime down.”
The European Union is heading in exactly the same direction. That is why the Czech Republic has just backed the same approach as Portugal has taken. The European monitoring body’s research is nonsense, but it is quoted by the Minister and others in the Government all the time as the factual basis for what is happening around Europe. But the statistics on this—as on so many other things—that are compiled around Europe simply do not compare with what is going on here. They do not compare at all.
In this country, we have a growing problem with legal highs. The problem is that people are taking cheap pills instead of spending money on alcohol, and the real problem with that is that they do not know what the pills are. People are taking things that give them a stimulus when they go out, but the compounds could contain anything, and on rare occasions there are tragic consequences. The bigger problem is that this is building up an atmosphere of semi-legality. People are taking things that ought to be illegal because they are dangerous, and they have no idea what they contain. They take them presuming and hoping that they are fine, and the Government are not prepared to put a system in place to deal with—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I am struggling to understand how the hon. Gentleman is going to relate all this to subsidiarity. [Interruption.] Thank you; I do not need prompting. We are not having a general debate here. He has referred to Europe, and I hope that he is going to refer to the question of subsidiarity mentioned in the reasoned opinion.
John Mann
Thank you for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am constructing an argument to demonstrate precisely how the European Union has got itself into this absurd situation of what might be called a caterpillar race between the European Commission and the British Government over who can be the slowest to deal with the problem of legal highs. Frankly, my constituents’ problem is that this Government are doing nothing—
John Mann
I dare not digress.
Like the Government, the European Union is doing nothing other than create an excuse for allowing the growth of legal highs without criminal sanctions. Some European Union countries think exactly the same way as this Government think. They are saying, “The more we create illegal drugs, the more criminality there will be; the less we spend on police, the more that criminality will grow, and the public will not like that.” That is the problem that the Minister should be addressing. I put it to him that he should go back to look at the origins of this proposal and withdraw the Government’s policy of going around these legalising countries to see what we can learn from them. Instead, he should be looking at the problems in areas like mine.
Dr Huppert
I tried to intervene earlier on this point. The hon. Gentleman keeps talking about countries like Portugal as though they are legalising drugs. Does he not realise that Portugal has not legalised drugs and has no plans to legalise them? What it has done is to decriminalise them—a huge difference, which the hon. Gentleman should try to understand.
John Mann
I am familiar with the system in Portugal, having met the Portuguese and seen the myths created by their policy. Yes, the nuances of language are important for the law, but I am talking about the objective of allowing police cuts in areas like mine, which are the areas with the biggest problem with legal highs. This is part of a deliberate Government strategy. I put it to the Minister that as well as taking this back to the European Union, he should tell it that it has no remit in this area, no expertise to give and no valid data. He should stop relying on EU statistics and the EU agenda in setting Government policy. He should listen to the good people of Bassetlaw who say, “We don’t want legal highs in our clubs, pubs and streets; we want systems to make them illegal, and then we want the police in place to prosecute on the basis of them.”
Mr Stephen O'Brien
Has the hon. Gentleman not dissed himself by his previous argument? He suggests that we need to go much faster to get the impact that he seeks in order to respond to his Bassetlaw constituents who have given him all this evidence, but this is the only method by which we can do it at any pace that is going to meet the need.
John Mann
The right hon. Gentleman is half right. If we cede it to the European Union, its caterpillar will go even more slowly in reaching the lettuce than our caterpillar. My concern is that our caterpillar is spending so much time in the European Union debating these matters that the lettuce always avoids him.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am so grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way in his brilliant speech, but I have a worry that he is confusing caterpillars with snails. It is snails that are notorious for their slowness, not caterpillars.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I think it is time that we left the subject of caterpillars and lettuces and got to the matter in hand.
John Mann
I implore the Minister to reject this European Union attempt further to weaken our approach and to resist what his predecessor did, which was to go around these EU countries looking for ways to weaken our drug laws—precisely what this Government are sneakily doing in order to justify cuts in policing and the closing of police cells in areas like Bassetlaw.
Policing (Bassetlaw)
Lord Mann Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
It gives me pleasure, or a level of pleasure, to introduce this debate on policing in Bassetlaw. However, that pleasure is tempered by what I have to say about the crisis in policing that is beginning to unveil itself in Bassetlaw. Other parts of the country are suffering a similar crisis, and they will continue to suffer it in the future.
A few years ago, I spent time with the police. I went around on the beat at night, at weekends and in the daytime, and I sampled the work of the local police. One sergeant told me, “The way we police in Nottinghamshire is that we know the criminals.” That approach raises two questions. First, if we know the criminals, why are they at large? Secondly, and more seriously, if “we know the criminals” has been the culture in the Nottinghamshire police over the years, what about the crimes that were not just undetected but unreported, because they were not known to be crimes at the time?
The classic, very real examples are historic sex and child abuse, along with domestic violence. Those problems were not recognised as existing, but in the aftermath of the publicity about Savile and others, case after case was raised in my constituency surgeries. I heard an extraordinary number of historic allegations. It is not for me to judge whether they are true, but, on the balance of probabilities, if a lot of people come forward with entirely unconnected allegations, confident that something will happen, some, if not all, of those allegations must be true. If a constituent comes to me with such allegations or other serious allegations, I take the approach, as I am sure other Members do, that we should take a rational approach and ensure that our constituent’s voice is heard.
If the police claim to know the criminals, there is a problem in the culture. I have challenged the approach of the Nottinghamshire police directly on many issues, including in the House, but that culture did begin to be seriously turned around. However, in turning around culture, working practices, attitudes and approaches, there is a huge imperative to ensure that specialism is built up. Yet, in Nottinghamshire, and specifically in my constituency, the wrong kind of cuts are taking place. This debate is not the place to discuss Government economic policy, so I will not go into that, save to say that I have suggested more than 30 alternative cuts that could be made in different areas, but not in policing, because the cuts to policing are the wrong kind of cuts.
In the past three years, the 999 service has been in crisis. However, those wishing to make cuts in Bassetlaw forget the nature of the people of Bassetlaw. We are not averse to standing up and defending our 999 services. When the fire service proposed closing Retford fire station at nights, there was a huge public campaign in 2011. That resulted in not only the reversal of the decision, but a decision to build a brand-new fire station and the shifting of fire training to Retford. We stood up for our public service.
When the ambulance service decided to close our ambulance stations, we did not stand by and have some intellectual argument; the people of Bassetlaw put in more than 90% of the submissions to the consultation, as we did with the fire service proposals, and the decision was reversed. When the hospital tried to close accident and emergency services, our response was, “No, that will not happen.” Last week, the Secretary of State for Health cited Bassetlaw hospital, with its new, seven-day A and E working, as the model for the rest of the country. Yet, in the past three years, the A and E has been under direct threat of overnight closure and a reduction in emergency services.
The same is true of the proposals for the police: we will not accept the prioritisation of the police being reduced to such a level that we lose a critical service. Let me give two precise reasons why. First—I cannot go into much detail, but I will on another occasion, if I am given the opportunity—disaster management planning is in chaos. Mine is one of the areas most at risk, with motorways, the east coast main line, airports and power stations. Disaster management is no longer properly planned. Should there be a major disaster in my area, there will be problems with ambulances and fire engines, given what we have seen already, and so it is with the police. The police cannot respond to a major disaster if they are not working at the time, and there are many times of the week when whole swathes of Bassetlaw are denuded of police.
The second problem—we have not seen many of these closures yet, but there will be more—is the closing of custody suites and police cells. At some stage, there will doubtless be an attempt to close the courts too. What does that mean? Let me give the bare statistics, because they are astonishing. Every local police officer tells me that the police do not make many arrests, because there is nowhere to put the person who has been arrested. If officers make an arrest, they have to take that person miles to Mansfield, which takes police officers off the job, leaving no police officers in Bassetlaw.
Miraculously, public order offences have collapsed in Bassetlaw—they are going off the scale. Clearly, peace and harmony have broken out overnight on the streets of Bassetlaw! No, they have not. The police simply cannot arrest people, because they have nowhere to put the brawlers, the drunks and the fighters on a Friday and a Saturday night; they have to take them to Mansfield and Nottingham.
Shoplifting, however, is booming, and the figures are going up. Why? Because there are no police on the streets deterring the petty, casual repeat offenders from stealing from shops, but people in the shops still have the integrity to report shoplifting. Frankly, people are not bothering to report shed break-ins and such things, because they never get the police to come. Someone attempted to break into my office last week and I am still waiting for the police to attend. What they say in my area is, “If that happens to the local MP”—and I expect no special privilege—“what on earth will they do for the rest of us?”
Since 2010, Nottinghamshire has lost 314 police full-time equivalents—gone. That is on top of the back office people who have gone; and my area takes the brunt of it. The police must concentrate on Nottingham, where there have been a record number, relative to population, of murders in the past decade. Of course, they need a strong and permanent presence there and I would not deny them that. It is a higher police priority than Bassetlaw, which is right, fair and proper; but we become the poor cousins, so that there are times when there are no police, or when the few who are there are so stretched that they cannot do the job.
I and the police can name the streets in my constituency where they have lost control, and the criminals who run those streets because policing has reached such a low level. Those people are not being arrested for the minor offences that it would be easy to arrest them for, which would nip in the bud their attempts to bully and intimidate the community.
I also see what is happening alongside that, with the specialist police. For example, there is a wholesale failure to investigate historic sex abuse cases properly. There are plenty of examples, and it would be unfair and improper to list them, with the possibility of revealing identities; but that is the other side of the coin, and it affects my constituency dramatically.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes a strong and passionate case on behalf of his constituents. Does he believe that the establishment of the National Crime Agency will be helpful to Bassetlaw police, or will it take resources away? Alternatively, is the jury still out, because we do not know how things will work in the new landscape?
John Mann
In my view the jury is out. One of the cases that I have told the police about, on six occasions, has never been prosecuted; but I am certain from the detailed evidence that I have given on six separate occasions, with different witnesses and different forms of evidence, that we have plenty of cases that fall between the national and the local. The problem is that if there are not resources and expertise in the local police force they do not produce the evidence for what, in fact—in the case that I have cited six times to them—is, for my area, very major crime with all sorts of criminal add-ons. Again, I cannot give details, because that would probably identify the person or persons involved. That shows, however, the problem that exists, and the dilemma for the Nottinghamshire police force.
There are have been £35 million of cuts so far, and 314 full-time equivalent front-line officers have been lost. If it is then announced that there must be further cuts in the next three years, which is what is being said, at least 100 more will have to go. We have some great police community support officers, but if all that is done is to replace the police officers with PCSOs, that is not the way to provide a police service in my area.
My demand to the Minister is something that is beyond his powers—to change Government priorities, and to fight for the police service with the Treasury and others. What I have been describing are the wrong kind of cuts. As to the things that he does have the power to do, it is his duty as a Minister of the Crown to stop the situation that means my constituency gets a second-class service compared with other places. It is not an acceptable solution to bring in G4S, with some mobile canteen operation to sling people into, and to privatise the making of arrests in Bassetlaw—as if that is appropriate compared with a well funded professional police resource, with police cells in the police station. On the streets they say—they will be singing it in Bassetlaw—“G4S, you’re having a laugh.”
That is not good enough for my constituents. It is not good enough to close our police cells. It is not good enough that the number of public order offences is going down because local police say they cannot arrest people because cells are not available; and that shoplifting rates are rocketing because there are not police on the streets and Nottinghamshire has been denuded of them. Of course, as I have always argued, Nottinghamshire has, relatively speaking, never had a proper police funding formula; but within that situation the good people of Bassetlaw are being let down. We are not prepared to accept that.
I am looking for vision and courage from the Minister. If he can achieve the reopening of the police cells that were arbitrarily closed and keep them going, he will get a warm and friendly welcome from the people of Bassetlaw, just as the hospital and fire chiefs who reversed their plans now do. Do the right thing, and set the right priorities, and we will be happy. At the moment, the Minister and the Government have a major fight on their hands.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing this debate on policing in his constituency. He is always a firm and passionate advocate for his constituents, as he has shown today, even if I may disagree in several respects with the analysis that he has given.
The crime rate remains too high, but the reality is that it is falling, and has fallen. Recorded crime has dropped yet again, by more than 10%, under the present Government, and the recent crime survey reports that crime has more than halved since its peak in 1995. In Bassetlaw recorded crime fell by 4% in the 12 months from June 2012 to June 2013 and it is down 6% in the Nottinghamshire force area over the same period.
That is important, positive news, and shows that police are rising to the challenge of making savings while cutting crime and providing a better service to the public. England and Wales are safer than they have been for decades. However, I agree that the crime rate remains too high. That is why we will continue with measures that keep pace with the changing nature of crime and improve our ability to combat emerging issues. That is why the landscape that we have established is important—to make it possible to respond to those emerging challenges.
On 7 October the National Crime Agency was launched, to deal with the most serious national-level crimes. Just as importantly, it is intended to be a centre of expertise on dealing with specialist crimes such as cybercrime and organised crime, and to use its skills and capabilities to work with the regional organised crime units to provide linkage between the national, the regional and the local. The Government have put that landscape in place to ensure that the right skills are in the right places, and that some of the issues that have been confronted before—the gaps where regional or local criminality meets national capability—are more effectively joined up.
I pay tribute to the work of the Nottinghamshire police, of Chief Constable Chris Eyre and of Paddy Tipping, the police and crime commissioner. Many of the points made by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw this morning can be directed at the PCC and the local police, because we have put in place that direct reform of the landscape, central to which has been giving people a direct say in how their communities are policed. The election of police and crime commissioners represented the most significant democratic reform to policing in decades, giving the public a voice at the highest level, holding forces to account and helping to restore trust.
Importantly, PCCs are best placed to understand the needs of victims in their communities and to work with the police to cut crime. Indeed, the commissioner in Nottinghamshire is working closely with the chief constable to find innovative solutions to deliver better and financially sustainable policing to the people of Nottinghamshire. They are looking at ways to increase police visibility and the number of police constables and PCSOs involved in neighbourhood policing, which can only be good news for the people of Nottinghamshire and of Bassetlaw.
James Brokenshire
As with all parts of the public sector, the police must play their part in helping to tackle the deficit. I understand that this debate is not about economic policy, but the Government are having to take measures to deal with the financial problems that were left by the previous Government.
Unquestionably, the police will still have the resources to do their important work. What matters is how officers are deployed, not necessarily how many there are. All forces need to look at how front-line services are delivered, so that the quality of service provided is maintained and improved. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has made it clear that there is no simple link between officer numbers and crime levels, between numbers and the visibility of police in the community, or between numbers and the quality of service provided. Budgets are falling, but forces are prioritising front-line delivery and crime continues to fall.
The police and crime commissioner is looking at ways to increase police visibility in Nottinghamshire; his work has seen an increase in the number of PCSOs, and there are also ambitious plans to do with the recruitment of special constables, which I strongly endorse. Those are examples of how PCCs can work together with their chief constable to deliver real impacts in the communities that they serve. Moreover, PCCs will become stronger as people become more used to their existence and see their effect locally.
The hon. Gentleman made some sweeping comments on the ability to cope with major disasters. There is, however, detailed planning, led by the Cabinet Office, with exercises and other steps escalating from the local and regional all the way up to Cobra and the national-level response that can be triggered. There is just such a detailed approach—the risks are analysed and assessment is made of whether the right capabilities are in the right place to deal with them. Indeed, joint working is taking place between the police, the ambulance service and the fire service to ensure a strong response to serious terrorist incidents, to take one specific example.
Furthermore, it is right for the Government to continue to reflect on the important role that PCCs have in ensuring good, solid emergency response in their local areas. The hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware of the recommendations contained in the Knight review, which looked at whether police and crime commissioners should have a more direct role in the context of the fire service. The Government are considering that—we are examining the recommendation from the Knight report, to see whether it would be appropriate, and we will be providing a formal response in due course.
It is also important to stress that we have scrapped targets for the police and done away with the myriad types of meaningless and counterproductive box-ticking that the police were subject to for far too long. The Government announced a reducing bureaucracy package in 2012, seeking to save up to 4.5 million officer hours nationally—the equivalent of more than 2,100 additional officers on the beat. A programme of work is being developed, with the aim of further freeing up police time in a context of diminishing resources, so it is about how best to use technology and process modernisation.
We are working towards transformational change, which will be recognised on the front line. The approach of scrapping targets, therefore, is important, as is the use of technology and the work to do with better co-ordination and commissioning of services between forces. Rather than wrapping the police up in bureaucracy, we are driving increased transparency and accountability. Our reforms are making the police more responsive to the public. Thus, the police.uk website—of which the hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware—has had more than 600 million hits since its launch in January 2011. On average, the site receives more than 300,000 hits per day. It strengthens accountability, as well as the information available to the public, so that they can hold policing in their area to account.
Another of our reforms is the College of Policing, which is about driving up standards and developing policing as a profession among officers of all ranks. That is central to a new focus on evidence-based policing—distilling and identifying what works in fighting crime and spreading it throughout all 43 forces. The College of Policing will devise a code of ethics to be issued to every officer, which will equip the police with the leadership skills at every level to ensure that it is followed. Good leadership, like anything else, is born of hard work and professionalism. Leadership can and must be taught, in particular when the ramifications of police decision making can mean the difference between life and death.
James Brokenshire
As a Minister, it would be wrong of me to comment on that, because that is precisely the role of the police and crime commissioner. In conjunction with the chief constable, the PCC determines such local priorities and what works well in the context of policing in Nottinghamshire, and that is the right place for a response to be provided on the appropriate way to ensure that front-line policing operates effectively within the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and in Nottinghamshire more generally.
The hon. Gentleman also commented on getting resources in the right place, and Chief Constable Chris Eyre has led in establishing and supporting the east midlands special operations unit, which represents an important way to draw together the strands of expertise and to share and collaborate with other forces so that the specialist capabilities to support neighbourhood and front-line policing are in the right place. The PCC also continues to explore further options for collaboration, including with the other emergency services, to create even more opportunities to provide a better and more cost-effective service.
Neighbourhood policing can and will be preserved through the innovation and ingenuity of forces in changing how they work to deliver the same or better outcomes with less. We will all see and reap the benefits of a well-managed, self-confident, open, transparent and scrupulously honest police force. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s debate this morning for holding policing to account and for raising the issues that he identified as important to his constituents. It is right and proper that we have had such a debate.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Mann Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Harper
Yes, we are confident that they are. Last week I met the chair of the all-party group on migration, the noble Baroness Hamwee, to discuss the report. The Government will consider the recommendations in that report, but my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has set out clearly the objective of the family migration rules: to ensure that those who want to make their family life in the United Kingdom are able to support their families, rather than expecting the taxpayer to do so.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
T9. Reductions in overdose deaths; reductions in in-patient A and E admissions for drug addicts; reductions in house burglary; increases in employment of drug addicts in treatment—on all these indicators, Bassetlaw is outperforming the rest of the country. Why?
The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne)
It must be because Bassetlaw has an outstandingly talented local MP, I assume. The hon. Gentleman is right to draw the House’s attention to the three strands of the Government’s strategy: reducing demand, restricting supply and building recovery. Great progress is being made on all three in Bassetlaw and elsewhere.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Mann Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
3. What recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of use of the drug MCAT in the UK.
The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne)
The Government started collecting data in the crime survey for England and Wales in 2010-11. MCAT has been banned since April 2010 because it is harmful to human health. We should not underestimate the impact of the drug, although consumption appears to be falling. Between 2010-11 and 2011-12, mephedrone use “in the last year” fell from 1.4% to 1.1% among 16 to 59-year-olds and from 4.4% to 3.3% among 16 to 24-year-olds.
John Mann
Happy new year to you, Mr. Speaker.
I will be reconvening my heroin panel of 10 years ago in the next few weeks, and MCAT is one of the issues that we will be considering. I also wish the Minister a happy new year. Will he agree to meet my panel when it comes down to London and to receive our report on the growing plague of MCAT in my constituency and elsewhere in the country?
Mr Browne
I thank the hon. Gentleman through you, Mr Speaker, for that happy new year welcome, which I reciprocate. I will be happy to meet the group. As I said, we do not underestimate the harmful impact of the drug. Its consumption is considerable, and we would like to see it reduced further.
Hillsborough
Lord Mann Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
In paying tribute to the families for their campaign, I want to thank them for something additional: empowering people across the country. One of the things we will find in future months and years is that a lot of people now feel empowered to take on the establishment, be it the state or whoever else. That is a change. I certainly do not intend to use my time to go through all the major issues that people have been bringing to me, but Hillsborough and the campaign of the families has been cited as the reason for doing so—to quote one person: “I wish I’d had the courage to speak out before.” We are going to see more people speaking out about more things. That is part of the legacy that we will see, because the campaign has had such an effect.
I will list one of those issues, however, because the revelations today—about an hour ago on the BBC—of what happened at Orgreave would without question not have come out without the Hillsborough campaign in the last year. The two are directly linked, because what happened at Orgreave was a comparable cover-up of statements made by the police. One of the police constables—now retired—has been prepared to speak out, spelling out exactly what happened and who did what. I salute his courage in doing so, but the culture that came out of what happened in the aftermath of Orgreave—done by the same police force and the same chief constable, albeit in co-operation with other police forces as well—was a prelude to what happened in the cover-up over Hillsborough just five years later. We need to learn the lessons from that.
One of those lessons is about the need for people to feel confident in speaking out from the inside about what is going on. I hope that everyone has read or will read the police statements, which are easily accessible and now in the public domain. I think I am the only MP in this debate speaking from Nottinghamshire. I have a lot of Nottingham Forest supporters in my constituency, and as I said in the last debate, it could quite easily, by fluke or coincidence, have been Nottingham Forest supporters at the other end.
There are two statements that I would like to pick out—I will quote from them—because they are quite extraordinary. It is not just the Liverpool fans who were reviled, but the Nottingham Forest fans. The lie and the myth in the police statement about Liverpool fans urinating was in fact a lie about Nottingham Forest fans urinating down from the stands on to other Nottingham Forest fans. Strangely, it was never reported anywhere in Nottinghamshire and there were no complaints about it. It is a lie—not a statement altered, but a lie.
Last night I read another statement by an officer, who was promoted immediately afterwards, as many were, who claimed—the timing would have been approximately around 3.40 pm—that he saw 100 Liverpool fans charge across the pitch towards the Kop. He said that he then saw fights in all the stands. That is besmirching not only the Liverpool fans but the Nottingham Forest fans. There were no such fights in the stands.
My constituent Val Yates was on the pitch trying to save lives at the time. I asked her last night what I should say today. Her answer contained some language that was not quite parliamentary, so I will cut to the chase. She told me to say thank you to the Notts Forest fans, because they were coming on to the pitch and trying to save the lives of the dying. That is what was going on, yet that police constable stated that he saw something else happening at the time. This is part of what needs to be prosecuted further: deliberate, calculated, obscene lies.
Val also told me to “Go for ’em”. Well, I will go for one that has not yet been named: Hammond Suddards solicitors. Oh, of course, apparently we cannot attack solicitors, as they are representing their clients, but looking at the report, it is clear that they were instigators in changing the statements and are probably the people who rewrote the statements. Hammond Suddards, the great big firm of solicitors in Yorkshire, needs to go in front of the Law Society to be fully investigated, and held to account for what it did in perpetrating these lies.
I do not have time to go into the current state of disaster planning, but the Government need to ask whether such an occurrence could happen again. I would like them to look precisely at the rights of families in disasters, and at whether the Government are making the right decisions to ensure that the rights of families are being properly looked after and that they will be in future, if, heaven help us, another disaster occurs. That is a fundamental lesson to be learned from this.
The Government also need to look at the current configuration of emergency planning. Let me quote from a disaster planning meeting that was held in South Yorkshire two weeks ago:
“The public will be horrified, but they won’t find out”.
That comment related to the fact that ambulance capacity in the county is currently running at 98% to 99%. That means that, in the event of another Hillsborough, ambulances would have to be taken off emergency calls to go to it. They cannot rely on the north midlands for help, because the reconfiguration of services last week cut the number of ambulances available there. This is a fundamental issue. Disaster planning is not being incorporated into changes in the ambulance services. Indeed, from what I can see, the services have not even been consulted.
Let me turn to football safety certificates. Everyone thinks that stadiums are safe now, but they are not. A mathematical model, based on perfect evacuation using perfect communication, is used to determine the issue of a safety certificate. That needs to be looked at, as does stewarding. At the moment, the stewarding situation is a huge mish-mash from one ground to another. Finally—Patnick, the MP who lied. Who told him, and will he have the courage to say who told him to spread his lies that week about Hillsborough?
Hillsborough Disaster
Lord Mann Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
I have been listening in appropriate awe to the brilliance of the speeches, particularly from the Members from Sheffield, Liverpool and around Merseyside, which is highly appropriate to the subject. They have delivered in terms of the quality of the argument and the eloquence with which they have put it. I trust that those who edit and those who own The Sun will be listening in to the debate and will be preparing their front pages in anticipation.
I am one of those who, for the past 25 years and more, has never allowed a copy of The Sun into my house. Whether I will again or not I do not know, so perhaps I will not see the apology that is due, but it is due because the evil committed by that newspaper shocked any decent person in this country.
I was asked to speak in this debate by one of my constituents, who pressed me repeatedly. One could hear the trauma in the e-mails that she sent me, repeatedly demanding, first, that I sign in support. I told her that I already had done so and had done in the previous Parliament. Then she said, “I need you to be there. I need you to be representing me at the debate.” I said I would be there. Then she said, “I need you to speak in the debate.” I represent the nearest Nottinghamshire constituency to Hillsborough and have many Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest supporters and a handful of Liverpool supporters in it. I have no idea which team she went to support that day.
I remember listening on my little radio to what was going on that day and recalling the only time I had stood in the Leppings Lane end for a semi-final, which had been a few years before. When I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), I remembered going through that tunnel. I cannot remember whether we were in section 3 or 4, but I remember more and more people coming in until we could scarcely move or breathe. Then, all the little kids, including my brother, who was tiny at the time—I was not much bigger—had to be lifted up, passed on hundreds of people’s hands and put down to the front because there were no crash barriers then. Probably thousands of people had to be moved on to the side of the pitch that day. That was some years before, so the lessons had not been learned.
I can think of other stadiums, not only in Sheffield, where I have been in similar situations. As a kid I used to be put on a stool; I started on a stool that was bigger than I was and then moved to one that was a bit smaller. I have been in stadiums where I stood on my stool, lost it in the first few minutes and did not get it back until after full time, but I went backwards and forwards and my feet never touched the ground.
I recall going to places like Chelsea in the ’80s and seeing the venom directed against ordinary football supporters, particularly visiting supporters, as though they were some sort of scum who should not be there. That was the climate that existed at the time and that was how football fans on all sides would have been seen there. There are many members and supporters of Nottingham Forest in my constituency, and every one of them stands alongside the supporters of Liverpool football club, as do all other supporters across the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton said, “There but for the grace of God go we.” Was it the toss of a coin that decided who went in one end and who went in the other, because it will have been no more scientific than that? Every time I have been to semi-finals at the same ground I have ended up in different ends each time. There is no science to it; it is luck. It is only a matter of luck that it was not Nottingham Forest supporters in the Leppings Lane end that day. That is the point.
Vernon Coaker
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is really important that the people of Sheffield and, above all, the people of Liverpool, the families of the 96, the supporters of Liverpool football club and all decent people across the country know that the people of Nottinghamshire and Nottingham and the fans of Nottingham Forest stand absolutely with them today in their horror at what happened on that awful day and in their support for the motion before the House?
John Mann
There is not a supporter of any football club anywhere in the country, and certainly not a supporter of Nottingham Forest, who does not stand shoulder to shoulder with the fans and the people of Liverpool in demanding the truth and demanding justice, because it could easily have been on the toss of a coin that Nottingham Forest supporters were in the Leppings Lane end on that fateful day, and exactly the same thing would have happened. That tragedy was nothing whatever to do with the fans and supporters of Liverpool football club—nothing whatever. They just happened to be the unlucky ones—the ones in the wrong place at the wrong time, when the wrong decisions were made by people in authority. Any of us who went to football matches could have been there.
I have seen a vast amount of football. I have seen Liverpool football club, up at Anfield and elsewhere, and I have never once wanted them to win a game when I have been there, and to be honest I never will, but there is no finer set of football fans—football supporters—in this country or anywhere else in the world. That is the quality of the people of Liverpool, that is the quality of the people who support Liverpool football club, and that is why all the football world, not least the supporters of Nottingham Forest, stands alongside them.
We have had progress. We want to see full justice. These people deserve justice, and it is about time it happened.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Mann Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Lynne Featherstone)
I can inform my hon. Friend that the Home Secretary held a constructive meeting with the Association of Chief Police Officers, the police and representatives from the social media industry and the companies have made clear their commitment to removing illegal content and, when appropriate, closing accounts, whether at the request of the police or because of a tip-off from other users. It was agreed to step up co-operation to ensure that these processes are working effectively.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
T2. Due to Government cuts, Worksop police cells are to close this month. Local police officers have asked me to ask the Home Secretary this: how exactly will that closure contribute to crime reduction in Bassetlaw?
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
It is entirely a matter for the chief constable and police authority how they deploy their resources. There has been some rationalisation of custody and we are also very supportive of those forces that seek to contract out custody facilities and in so doing improve their service and save money.
Metropolitan Police Service
Lord Mann Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
When did Mr Ed Llewellyn pass on the Guardian dossier to the Home Office?
Mrs May
I am not aware that there was a Guardian dossier. There was information that was generally available to the public, as I understand it. There is an issue here about the role of the Home Office that Opposition Members sometimes fail to grasp. It is not the job of politicians to tell the police who to investigate or arrest. It would be a very sorry day for our police and our democracy if we ever went down that road.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Mann Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
9. What recent estimate she has made of the number of people who are addicted to a class A drug.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
The chaotic lives of drug addicts make it difficult for the Government to make an official estimate of the total number of people addicted to Class A drugs. However, for two drugs in this category—opiates and crack cocaine—the Government estimated in 2008-09 that there were more than 320,000 users in England. Figures for 2009-10 will be available later this year.
John Mann
We know that it is difficult for the coalition partners to agree on drugs, but surely that is no excuse for their total inaction and silence on drugs policy and on tackling drugs since coming into power. When will we see some action on drugs and some drugs policy emerge from this Government?