Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Michael Connarty. Not here.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

T5. Has the Secretary of State given specific advice to prisons, probation services and magistrates about historic sex abuse? If so, what is it?

[Chris Grayling]

No. It is for the courts to pass sentences. It is for our prisons and probation service to deal with the matter. The national probation service will focus on the most dangerous sex offenders. Our prisons are managing increasing numbers of historic and current sex offenders. We now have a number of prisons that specialise in that and are doing excellent work with those offenders. Let us hope that those numbers do not continue to rise, but if they do we will be ready to tackle that problem.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

What the hon. Gentleman says is absolute nonsense. Names were not drawn from a hat. There was a carefully constructed process of selection and a proper appeal mechanism for those who were unhappy with where they had been allocated.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Recorded rates of reoffending are going to plummet in Bassetlaw because police cells have shut, there are fewer police, and now 800 years of local justice are to be ended by getting rid of the criminal court. Does the Secretary of State not worry that he will wake up one night with destroying local justice on his conscience? What is he going to do to ensure that we can have reoffenders prosecuted locally in Bassetlaw?

[Chris Grayling]

I am not aware of the individual circumstances of the hon. Gentleman’s local court, but I can tell him that any changes being made to the listing procedures in our courts in Bassetlaw are being made at the instigation of local committees, local magistrates and other representatives of the justice system, who are taking a decision in the best interests of the area.

Worksop Magistrates Court

Lord Mann Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

“British justice is the envy of the world,” said the Government in the previous debate. Elizabeth I, James I, Henry III, Henry VIII, Richard I, Richard II, Richard III, Mary Queen of Scots and many, many more monarchs of this country have rested overnight in Bassetlaw. In 617, King Edwin defeated Aethelfrith of Northumbria in a battle that established some of the initial boundaries across the country that we now call England. During the reign of King Alfred, England was divided into shires and counties and then subdivided into hundreds of wapentakes, one of which was Bassetlaw. It was reinforced and confirmed in the Domesday Book when the modern geographic area of Bassetlaw was granted by William the Conqueror to Roger de Busli, a well known northern baron. Why is that relevant to British justice today? Well, the basis of law—the law that the Government say is the envy of the world—is precisely this geographical, political, social and economic history that has meant that, as an entity, Bassetlaw has existed in the concepts of law in this country for 1,000 years.

The local courts, which determined where residents could graze their lands and the rights of tenants under the dukes who resided there, have gone on for the past 1,000 years. Bassetlaw has been the home of many great dukes, including Norfolk, Newcastle, and Portland who, as landowners, administered justice in disputes on their land. Following the dissolution of the abbeys during the reign of Henry VIII—soon after he had visited the great priory of Worksop—the Earl of Shrewsbury was granted the land in Bassetlaw that used to belong to the great priory abbey. The local records note that Gilbert, the new Earl of Shrewsbury, had to pay a tax of 100 shillings to the court when his father died in what was known as knight’s duties. He became a Privy Counsellor to Elizabeth I and was also made a knight of the garter. He gave to the monarch, on behalf of the manor of Worksop, the gloves that were held in the right hand of the monarch in every coronation for many hundreds of years.

It is important to remember that while common law was only introduced in Bassetlaw during the reign of Henry III, canon law had been administered at the local abbeys by monks who were trained to try cases involving the Church. That is how justice in this country was developed—how it originated. Bassetlaw was there at the beginning of English justice. All the way through—be it through the canons or the dukes—justice has been administered in Bassetlaw, by Bassetlaw, for Bassetlaw. The Social and Economic History of Nottinghamshire says that

“summary justice in Nottingham was mainly administered in these local courts”—

such as in Retford and Worksop—

“to which the tenants almost always made suit. The majority of the lords possessed the rights of the gallows, the pillory, the tumbrel…together with the assize of bread and ale.”

All that history and the basis of justice are now threatened for the first time in 1,000 years by the cutbacks of this Government. It is this Government now, in this year, who are proposing a single site for youth work. They are not talking about Bassetlaw, or Retford court, which was closed by the previous cuts of the previous Secretary of State. They are talking about youth work going to Mansfield, with the new single family courts. Worksop is being offered only as an occasional court, “as an overspill”.

New criminal work will never be commenced again in Bassetlaw, shifted to Worksop. There will be no listings of trials at Worksop any more because under this Government and their police cuts the cells at the court room, run by the police, have been mothballed. What does that leave for justice in Bassetlaw in the Government’s consultation document? TV licence offences, while at the same time the coalition Government are consulting on decriminalising TV licence offences. That leaves local taxation enforcement, to quote from the consultation document, “for the time being”.

This is the death of the last remaining court in Bassetlaw—Worksop court—through a thousand cuts. Bit by bit, justice has been stripped away; so have 1,000 years and so has the basis of the law we gave to the rest of the world, which this same Government claim is the envy of the rest of the world—although not for long, if the principle of local justice administered by local people is stripped away from the very place where it was founded.

What are the practical implications? In their document, the Government suggest a small journey—a 30-mile round trip—failing to recognise the geographical size of Bassetlaw. It takes more time, to pick an entirely random comparison, to journey across Bassetlaw by car than it does to journey from this place to Basingstoke. It takes more time to get into Worksop from the villages of Bassetlaw than it does to get from Worksop to Mansfield by public transport. If a person is lucky and buses are available, they could potentially get to Mansfield and the courts in three hours but not in time to turn up for the start of court. Having got there, they would not be able to get back home. That means that magistrates, the basis of local justice, will no longer be able to be recruited from Bassetlaw. Witnesses wishing to appear in court who do not have access to their own transport will not be able practically to make a return journey and, if they do, on the one train they could take from Worksop that gets to Mansfield in time they would be sitting in the same carriages as those they were giving evidence against.

What kind of justice system is that, that we say is the envy of the world, when the Government, through their measly cutbacks, reduce to nothing 1,000 years of justice in Bassetlaw? How will those who are not financially well off, those without access to transport, those who are infirm and those who are unable to drive, either because they no longer have a licence or have not yet acquired one, be able to get the courts and get back? The real hidden cost will be in police officers chasing youths who have failed to turn up in time in court over the 550 square miles of Bassetlaw, an area bigger than the whole of Greater London. Police resources will be wasted on people who have failed to turn up in court when charged with small offences.

Once the Government have cut to ribbons what is left, stripped out criminal trials in Bassetlaw and denuded it of any real opportunity in the field of justice, the last little bits will be taken away because the next cut will be the final cut: the closure of Worksop court. What will that mean when that happens, which will be a matter of months if the consultation goes through? The area that helped create British justice and produced MPs such as the Earl of Liverpool, the last Prime Minister and MP before my good self to live in Bassetlaw while representing Bassetlaw, or Gladstone, who was not an MP for Bassetlaw but spent four years living there—that is what is being thrown away, but this is far greater than that.

Where did the Great Reform Act, which eventually led to this country exporting the universal franchise and the current system of democracy to everywhere in the democratic world, come from? It came from Bassetlaw and the great reformer John Cartwright. Because of the rotten borough of Retford, the Great Reform Act, when it was written, was inspired by events in Bassetlaw. Legal brains from Bassetlaw led to the Great Reform Act and created the model of democracy that this country gave the world, but this is about more than that.

The essence of democracy and the fact that there was so much local democracy in Bassetlaw also led to the confidence that meant that the people who became the pilgrim fathers nearly 400 years ago—the anniversary is in 2020—and formed the United States of America could create the ethos behind the constitution of the United States. Those people were brought up, bred, schooled, educated and churched in Bassetlaw. The history of local justice inspired them to be the ones who dared to go out and have the vision that led to the United States. World democracy was exported by this country. British justice, to quote the Government in the previous debate, is the envy of the world. That 1,000-year-old system of local people in the local area administering local justice is now being kiboshed by this Government and their penny pinching cuts.

My demand is that the Minister should tear up the consultation, reject the death by a thousand cuts of the final court in Bassetlaw, Worksop court, and say to the world that British justice will in the future be the envy of the world and that we will have the principle of local justice administered by local people in the local area. If it has been good enough for 1,000 years in Bassetlaw, it is good enough for a number more years to come. I demand that the Government withdraw these proposals and guarantee the future of Worksop court.

Shrewsbury 24 (Release of Papers)

Lord Mann Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

The Johannesburg principles were written a long time ago, but let me quote from them now. This is what was said about freedom of information and the state:

“A restriction sought to be justified on the ground of national security is not legitimate unless its genuine purpose and demonstrable effect is to protect a country's existence or its territorial integrity against the use or threat of force, or its capacity to respond to the use or threat of force, whether from an external source, such as a military threat, or an internal source, such as incitement to violent overthrow of the government...In particular, a restriction sought to be justified on the ground of national security is not legitimate if its genuine purpose or demonstrable effect is to protect interests unrelated to national security, including, for example, to protect a government from embarrassment or exposure of wrongdoing, or to conceal information about the functioning of its public institutions, or to entrench a particular ideology, or to suppress industrial unrest.”

That was not written about this country. It was written in Johannesburg about South Africa under apartheid, about North Korea, about China, and about all the rest of them. However, it applies to this Government now.

That Tory from Aldershot has gone now, but when he quoted from his letter, he forgot to mention the capacity in which he wrote it. At the time, he was secretary of the Society for Individual Freedom. He did not tell us what that organisation was about, but I can tell the House that it worked with BOSS, the South African Bureau of State Security. A book has been written about it, and this is how it described that Aldershot MP’s organisation:

“it’s almost certainly a British intelligence front organization which is mainly used for disseminating Establishment-type propaganda.”

That was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) went on to form a new organisation called “Freedom Under Law”, along with Francis Bennion, to counter anti-apartheid. And what did Francis Bennion do in 1972 to my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), who was campaigning against apartheid? He took out a private prosecution against him for criminal conspiracy. This is what has been going on, and this is why people do not want those files to come out.

Who was it who funded the Economic League’s secret committee—a secret committee in a secret organisation? McAlpine. Even I was put on a blacklist. Who put me on it? I believe that it was one Russell Walters, who today works as Tory researcher, and who was chief of staff for that would-be Tory leader, the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie). He was working for the Economic League. There was also a bloke called Ned Walsh, a liar, who said throughout these events that he worked for the unions. In fact, during the 1960s and 1970s he was working for the Economic League, infiltrating the unions. That is the conspiracy.

[Katy Clark]

I am intervening on my hon. Friend because I think that he may need some more time. Does he think that this quotation from Construction News, published on 17 December 1970—a very long time ago—gives some indication of the power and influence of the construction industry? The paper said of a private Christmas dinner organised by McAlpine in 1977:

“Anyone who can hold a private party and make it virtually impossible to get a Cabinet quorum cannot be without influence of friends.”

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman may need more time, but it will come out of the hon. Lady’s time, because the winding-up speeches must start at 2.40 pm.

[John Mann]

The fact is that McAlpine was based in that part of the world, and it is no coincidence that this was picked on.

We know what these people do. They did the same during the miners’ strike. What they do is randomly pick out people and claim conspiracy, which is exactly what they tried to do to my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath and others in the anti-apartheid movement. That is the mindset of some of these people. They believe that they have some sort of supreme knowledge, and then they claim to defend freedom.

These people are not the friends of freedom; these people are the enemies of freedom. That is why those Johannesburg principles were written, and that is why they apply not just to South Africa under apartheid, not just to North Korea and the lunatic running it, not just to China and the repression of working people there, but to this country and to western democracies. Freedom is about the right to go about your business. It is about the right to engage in protest, including industrial protest. It is about the right to hold your Government to account, and to ensure that if there are documents out there, they are brought to light. Such documents are already slowly emerging. We have seen the documents about Hillsborough, and in future we will see documents about Orgreave and the miners’ strike, and many, many more. There is an information revolution going on in this country, because people are fed up with the secrecy of the state and those misfits around it who set up organisations claiming conspiracies when there is no conspiracy because it suits their political ends—and some of them clearly even participate in events like this but are still elected to this Parliament.

If this is a coalition Government, this Liberal Minister needs to demonstrate that he is part of the coalition. The Liberals have always told us they stand for individual freedoms. Well, prove it; release these documents. These people who have had to fight against this for years deserve it, but there is a bigger cause, too: the rest of us. This is about defining freedom in this country. That is what this debate is about, and why this Liberal Minister has to act.

Interpreting and Translation Services

Lord Mann Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

In three minutes, I will summarise my concerns for the Minister and the Chamber. I used to own a large interpreting company, and I looked at this form of interpreting and whether, even on a micro scale, it was possible to break into that market. It is not, because it is not possible to manage quality control. With other forms of interpreting, a range of techniques can be used; anyone can work through what the control mechanisms on quality should be, if they know what they are about. When it comes to this form of interpreting, that is not possible. Capita—or any other large conglomerate—cannot possibly manage quality. By definition, it does not know what the quality is, because it cannot employ the people who know what the quality is. I do not have the time to go through how techniques to do that can be devised for other forms of interpreting, but that is how I grew my business, and I grew it to a very large one.

This is nonsense, regardless of Capita, and we know how bad Capita is from the shambles that it made of the miners’ compensation scheme, when, again, it did not have the managerial experience. That was something that could have been managed, in theory, but it was hopeless. Managing quality cannot be done by a large corporate of that scale; it is not simply about Capita.

Also, the real flexibility needed in providing these services involves knowing the people because, in essence, there is a trade-off—a negotiation. The employer will say, “I desperately need you tomorrow, because we suddenly have this case”—or this prisoner, or whatever else—“and you have to do it, because I have no other option. X, Y and Z are not available; you will have to cancel your hospital appointment and do it.” That trade-off in the real world, with real people, works. Trying to put a conglomerate in charge never works, and that is why, even on a small-town basis, my company decided that it was not worth approaching Government to suggest that we attempt to run part of the system and contract in the interpreters. It is not possible, aside from the other issues of whether a company is any good or not.

That is the fundamental issue that the Ministry of Justice and the Minister need to address. They do not know what they are talking about, and they have created this system. Whoever runs it, it will not work, and it cannot work. Even if it continued on a mediocre basis, quality cannot be assured—ever. That is a fundamental problem for British justice, and it is one that the Minister needs to address. [Interruption.]

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind the public that we do not allow clapping in Westminster Hall.

Protecting Children Online

Lord Mann Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

I will tell the hon. Lady what I am going to do if she stops heckling me from the Front Bench. This is the kind of conduct that the Opposition seek to bring to the debate.

Since 2008, the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, set up by the previous Government, has brought together industry, charities, law enforcement and academia to focus on developing measures to keep children safe online. In October 2011, under the auspices of UKCCIS, and under this Government, the internet service providers developed a voluntary code of practice on the implementation of internet parental controls. A year on, the biggest four internet providers met their commitment to offer parental internet controls to new customers. Now, in a further step, the biggest five have committed to delivering whole home, network-level parental control tools by the end of this year. That will allow parents to set, with one click, parental controls on all devices in the home.

When we began these discussions with ISPs, they told us that that was not technically possible, so we have moved a huge way forward. Making it easier for parents to block adult and age-restricted material was a Bailey recommendation and that has been achieved. Network-level filters for domestic broadband was also a recommendation of the independent parliamentary inquiry into online child protection.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

The Minister has highlighted the success with the five ISPs. How does that compare with agreements reached in other countries in Europe and the United States?

[Mr Vaizey]

We can hold our heads high as being far more advanced than many other countries around the world. I will happily write to the hon. Gentleman with details of what other countries are doing and where we rank compared with them. It is also important to point out that those five ISPs cover the vast majority of customers using the internet at home.

The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland said that we have not implemented the recommendations of the Bailey review, but I remind her that this Government set up that review because of this Prime Minister’s passion to protect children from the sexualisation of society. As Reg Bailey himself said in his recently published review of progress:

“I have been pleased to see that many parts of industry have risen to the challenge”

and that good progress has been made against his recommendations.

Bailey called for greater transparency in the regulatory framework through the creation of a single website for regulators. ParentPort, launched in 2011, is a single website, created by media regulators, through which parents can complain about inappropriate material. Bailey also called for a reduction in on-street advertising containing sexualised imagery that is likely to be seen by children, and the Advertising Standards Authority has issued guidelines on the use of such images in outdoor advertising. He also recommended restricting the employment of children as brand ambassadors and ensuring that magazines and newspapers with sexualised images on the cover are not sold in easy sight of children and that the content of pre-watershed TV programming better meets parents’ expectations.

Those recommendations and others have been met. Of course, that is not to say that every recommendation has been met in full. There is still work to do on, for example, online music videos.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I do not profess any specific expertise, but if I have any, it is in relation to the work done on hate crime on the internet. I congratulate the Minister on his work with us. I also congratulate his predecessors, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), and Barbara Follett, who is no longer a Member of the House, on their initiatives. All have been effective, and are appreciated.

I initiated a working group in the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism two years ago. We have managed to get senior executives for content from most of the world’s biggest internet companies to sit on the group, including executives from Apple, Google, Facebook, PayPal, Microsoft and Twitter. We also have one of the key interlocutors in the US on free speech, Professor Jeffrey Rosen, and, from the Ministry of Justice, the seconded Association of Chief Police Officers lead on hate crime, Paul Giannasi.

A report has been produced—it has not yet been circulated, but will be in the next week in this country and throughout the world—that the Minister and the Government will find useful. The report is on the problem of hate crime, but the problem is the same as online protection of children in respect of the grey areas that need to be tightened, the technical solutions and approaches, and the mindset in the industry.

Part of the problem the group has identified is the shadow internet. It is fine setting up solutions, but if that happens in separate countries, people will break them if they want to—they have relatively easy ways to do so. The debate so far has concentrated on websites and search engines, but, in fact, even when it comes to child abuse, gaming is as big a problem and a vastly growing one. Texting, smartphones and social networking are equally significant, growing and changing problems—the modality is changing.

The group makes six recommendations in the report on hate crime—they are relevant to the debate. The first recommendation is to create clear policies and include them within the terms of the service of the internet company. That would be a significant change. The working group has the key players and the decision makers—they are not the sub-decision makers, but the actual decision makers. That recommendation is achievable, and it would be significant.

The second recommendation is for mechanisms to enforce those policies. How do intermediaries, including national Governments, enforce them? For international industries, the role of intermediaries, whether they are specialist groups or national Governments, is a second key principle in the approach that should be taken.

The third and vital recommendation, which resonates with this debate, is to establish clear, user-friendly processes to allow users to report abuse. Those processes are not currently there, but they are achievable. If mechanisms are in place, progress ought to be relatively straightforward—far more straightforward in relation to child abuse than hate speech, where issues of illegality are far more complex—where there is criminality. Clearly, there are technical solutions—I will not go so far as to suggest the software that the CIA has recently, allegedly, used—if the processes are in place.

The fourth recommendation is to increase transparency about terms of service enforcement decisions: case studies. For example, if an individual is prosecuted because someone has reported something that their child has stumbled across, the Government and other third parties have a critical role in how it will be reported and made public.

The fifth recommendation, which is probably specific to hate speech, is to encourage counter-speech. It is the same concept as the splash concept.

The sixth recommendation is to unite the industry. The industry will not always be American—with its concepts of free speech—so it is critical to achieve agreement within the industry while it still is.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

If I can bring the hon. Gentleman back to the third recommendation, he makes a good point about reporting and taking down material. The IWF does a good job in that area. Apparently, last year 1.5 million adults came across abusive content on the internet, but only 40,000 reports were made to IWF, which has the powers to do something about it. There needs to be much greater publicity on how to report to ensure that action can take place.

[John Mann]

Publicity on how to do so and technical ease of use in doing so, so that the democratic internet world can hit back effectively and the industry can be monitored, are key. The key members of the working group who really know what they are talking about would be more than happy to meet the Minister, if he would find that useful. We could bring them over from the US.

To get access to the right people, I went to meet industry leaders in their headquarters in California, and I made the point that their brands were in danger. If the users and third parties, albeit national Governments, can show successes in prosecutions, the industry will throw far more resources at the issue. The industry does throw at lot of resources at it. A third of all Facebook employees are dealing with it, because the dangers to its brand are so fundamental, but at the moment it is less of an issue for other companies. They do see the dangers to their brand, however, which is why senior people from PayPal now turn up to meetings.

I intervened on the Minister—it was not a hostile intervention—on agreements in other countries. One danger is that different countries will do different things. Of course, that is not an excuse for any Government to hold back, but the French Government are taking various legal actions against some of the key internet giants, as are the Italians, and there is a danger that the approach will become too bitty. May I suggest to the Minister that he try to up the stakes and achieve European Union consensus from Britain’s lead? If Britain is ahead of the rest of the European Union, that is a good opportunity to set the standards that others can push up to and take forward. That would be pragmatic and significant. We attack the industry—I am happy to attack the industry in various ways—but it does not want terrorists using its platforms to kill people and it does not want paedophiles using their products to abuse children. That is obvious to me and it is also obvious to the industry.

[Geraint Davies]

Some years ago when I first came across Twitter, I tracked a few people who were following various trends and discovered an image of a man who had been beheaded. I wondered then about the extent to which Twitter could be used as a route into child abuse and what should be done about it.

[John Mann]

I am pleased to say that Twitter participates in the working group that I have managed to initiate. The issues are complex, but all these issues are complex. Last night, I went on to the internet using a mobile device to seek the speech made by the Rev. Leslie Hardman when he went into Belsen concentration camp in 1945. I was immediately content blocked. These issues are not all straightforward, but some outcomes are exceedingly obvious and straightforward. I put it to the Minister that the industry and politicians have a mutual interest. That is the industry’s vulnerability. Finding the tools to expose those who refuse to participate properly and effectively is the key to real progress. If the Minister united the industry around that in Europe, he would make a phenomenal mark. My working group would be delighted to provide any help that it can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I still do not think that the Opposition understand the nature of the financial mess they left behind and what we have to do to balance the books. I also think that the public would expect me to do what I can to maintain a strong prison system and a strong court system at the same time as having a legal aid system that provides justice while being affordable. That is what we are doing.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

9. How many prison staff have current unspent convictions for firearms offences.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that over 45,000 personnel records are held by the National Offender Management Service and to determine firearms offences for all staff would involve extracting information from those files at disproportionate cost, but I can reassure him that all new recruits to the service undergo security vetting, and as part of this procedure, checks are made on criminal convictions. Any criminal conviction or caution received by staff or recruits is assessed carefully before a decision on recruitment or continued employment is made.

[John Mann]

Rebecca Knighton was sacked using fabricated evidence, Steve Casey resigned following the illegal use of CCTV, and now, I understand, a senior manager has been convicted of a firearms offence but not sacked. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the managerial chaos at Ranby prison?

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Gentleman would not expect me to comment on the basis of what I know at present about the cases that he has raised, but I will certainly look into them and come back to him on what we think can best be done.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Mann Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

We always keep an eye on proposals by local authorities to reorganise their library services and we will certainly keep an eye on those proposals.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

3. What recent assessment she has made of safety within football stadiums.

[The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)]

Current policy on safety at football stadiums in England and Wales has developed as a result of the Taylor report, following the Hillsborough tragedy. Thankfully, there have been no major incidents resulting from safety failures at those stadiums since then.

[John Mann]

Unfortunately, safety is configured on what has happened previously, not on what could happen in future. Is it the case that all football stadiums in this country have been tested for mass evacuation on nothing other than a computer model that presumes perfect behaviour by all in the stadium?

[Hugh Robertson]

Guidance is issued by the Sports Grounds Safety Authority, which produces “The Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds”, commonly known as the green guide. That includes guidance on the importance of inspections and testing of contingency plans, including full evacuation procedures. The guidance is there. If that is not happening, that should not be the case.

Police (Complaints and Conduct) Bill

Lord Mann Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I have very great confidence in that. There are two points to make in response to the hon. Gentleman, the first of which is that similar sanctions under the conduct regulations are not in any other Bill, so it would be anomalous suddenly to pluck out the sanction for this offence and put it in legislation. Secondly, and more importantly in practical terms, given the enormous and understandable public interest in the matter, the relevant chief officers will be extremely keen to ensure that they use their powers to take sanctions—ultimately, officers who break the conduct regulations in that way can be dismissed. The conversations I have had with senior officers in recent days suggest that that is the case.

I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) that the IPCC has said that the investigation will be the biggest it has ever undertaken. The Government recognise the additional burden that such a large investigation places on it. We have made it clear that we will ensure that the commission has both the powers and the resources it needs to conduct its investigations into Hillsborough. We take that commitment seriously, which is why we have introduced this fast-track Bill.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

The IPCC has accepted two separate complaints, which may or may not overlap. One is in relation to Orgreave in 1984, and the other is in relation to the mystery over the investigation into Norman Bettison for an alleged major theft in August 1987. How will the IPCC be able to look at those two investigations when it has such a heavy burden placed on it, particularly if it finds anything that in any way crosses over because of the individuals involved or anything else?

[Damian Green]

I should restrict my remarks to Hillsborough, which is the purpose of the Bill; it is deliberately narrowly drawn. It is for the IPCC to decide how to use its resources. The Bill gives a power to the IPCC to consider events previously investigated by its predecessor body, the Police Complaints Authority, but it is for the IPCC to decide whether exceptional circumstances obtain to allow it do so. It is for the IPCC to decide whether to accept individual complaints. On the hon. Gentleman’s other complaints, may I urge Members on both sides of the House not to indulge in debate and speculation about individuals? I would not want anything said on the Floor of the House to jeopardise any live investigations being conducted by either the IPCC or the police.

Since the publication of the panel’s report, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I, and Home Office officials, have liaised closely with the IPCC, which has identified two additional powers it needs urgently in order to take forward its investigations into Hillsborough. Those powers are contained in the Bill.

As many hon. Members will know, discussions with the IPCC regarding its powers have been taking place for some time. I am aware of the calls for wider reform of the IPCC and how police complaints are handled more generally. Let me be clear to the House that those discussions are still taking place. The Home Affairs Committee, to which I gave evidence last week, is coming to the end of an inquiry into the IPCC. Naturally, the Government will want to study the Committee’s conclusions and recommendations before coming to a final view on any wider reforms to the IPCC. If there are other gaps in the IPCC’s powers, we will plug them as soon as is practicable, but the Bill’s focus is on gaps in the commission’s powers that it has identified as preventing it from undertaking a thorough and exhaustive investigation in Hillsborough without delay.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

The previous Government passed a perfectly sensible piece of legislation when setting up the IPCC to prevent it from becoming a body that would investigate every controversial police case that had been investigated by its predecessor body. The reason for including this provision in the Bill is that the IPCC has told the Government very firmly that it needs the power to investigate a case that has already been investigated by the PCA, for the reasons that I have given relating to what happened on that day, and that it wants the high hurdle of “exceptional circumstances” to be set. One element that would enable it to get over that high hurdle would be the arrival of significant new evidence in a public interest case. As the hon. Gentleman says, the fact that there is evidence of statements having been altered on an industrial scale certainly hits the target as far as new evidence is concerned.

[John Mann]

To clarify, if during the IPCC’s investigations into Hillsborough, it comes across other major events that might not be in the public domain at all yet might give some indication not of what happened at Hillsborough or how it happened, but of why certain things happened, will it be able to look into or pass on relevant information at a future stage? In other words, can the IPCC look at things that are not directly related to Hillsborough but that come out as reasons for actions that are, on the face of it, unrelated but could be worthy of investigation in themselves?

[Damian Green]

Again, it will be a matter for the IPCC to decide what to do with the evidence it finds. Inevitably, in this kind of investigation, the evidence it finds will be public. I think I can see where the hon. Gentleman is trying to go. As I say, the IPCC has considerable powers of investigation and it could make things public that might enable someone to make a complaint, at which point it would have to decide whether its powers were sufficient or whether its new powers conferred under this Bill could be triggered. The underlying point is that the IPCC is independent: it is for the IPCC to decide what best to do with the evidence it finds during the course of its investigations.

The Bill is narrow in scope, but crucial to the process of achieving justice for the 96 individuals who died as a result of the Hillsborough disaster, for those who were injured and for the families and friends of all involved.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

We have no intention of narrowing the definition, and we do not believe that the definition in the Bill does that. I can say, however, that our policy is to end legal aid for most private family law applications relating to, for instance, divorce, ancillary relief and child contact. The main exception is legal aid in domestic violence cases, which we are anxious to retain.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

12. What assessment he has made of the level of compliance by local authorities with the requirements of his Department on health and safety in cemeteries.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)]

Responsibility for health and safety in local authority cemeteries lies with the relevant council. The Department published guidance on the safety of burial ground memorials in 2009 and burial authorities have been encouraged to take account of it, but there are no plans to initiate individual assessments of compliance.

[John Mann]

The Minister says that there are “no plans”. Luckily, the new administration in Bassetlaw council has dug up the stakes that were put in by the last Conservative administration, at huge cost to the taxpayer. Why are the Government not sorting out the abuse of a change in the regulations that was made in 2009? Local authorities across the country are still doing nothing about it, much to the disgust of those who visit cemeteries.

[Mr Djanogly]

The hon. Gentleman’s expertise in this area is renowned, so perhaps I can write to him on the specifics of the cemetery in his constituency. I just point out to him that the Ministry of Justice has no responsibility for health and safety in local authority cemeteries.