King’s Speech

Lord Patten Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, we are all lucky to have been here to listen to the notable maiden speech by my noble friend Lord Goodman of Wycombe. On the grounds of transparency, I must tell noble Lords that I have known him for many decades, and we are friends. Over those many years, he has developed his thinking, and his maiden speech is evidence of his very deep knowledge of those key issues of social cohesion and community integration, following, as we heard, 10 years as an MP of Jewish heritage representing an awful lot of Muslims. Faith and trust matter to both those heritages very much indeed. Then, much to my surprise and delight, I next saw him when he popped up as an interviewer for my favourite newspaper, the Catholic Herald, showing his extreme breadth of interest in these matters.

Before addressing the pressing issue of prisons, I want to make two points of a more general nature that are relevant to the topics of both today’s debate and every other debate on the King’s Speech. First, I heartily wish to hear no further—we have heard much too much of it—excoriation or abuse of civil servants as the “blob” or, worst of all, as experts. I rather like experts, particularly if they are about to operate on me surgically. Needless to say, there are good, bad and indifferent civil servants, just as there are good, bad and indifferent Ministers—I am tempting myself, but I will not go on—and good, bad and indifferent businesspeople and academics, but none should be caught up in the vulgar crossfire of culture wars. I would like to see all that pushed to the footnote of debate. Political culture wars are, to use the jargon of my daughter, so yesterday. We do not need them any more.

I would also like to see very much more transparency. I talked about transparency as I began my speech, and we have an awful lot of think tanks now that send us valuable information and brief us, but we have very little information about the think tanks that exist—who they are, why they are there and who pays for them. I am not suggesting the regulation of thinking—some sort of Ofthink variant of Ofwat—but what I would like to see very much is absolute transparency in where think tanks get their funds, because more and more they are moving to the centre of our political discourse: they are often quoted in the mass televised media almost ex cathedra, as able to make judgments on Governments and Oppositions. I believe that they are almost morphing into some new fifth estate. So I would like to know where the money is coming from that pays for the briefings that we get.

On prisons, so much has been said and will be said again that I do not want to go over the same ground, but I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, said in his admirable opening speech: prisons are key to our internal security and we should be very grateful indeed to all the prison governors, prison officers, prison chaplains, educators and others who strive, very often in filthy and disagreeable conditions, to make sure not only that dangerous inmates do not escape but that other inmates come out hopefully not wanting to go back inside again and, indeed—that old-fashioned but good word—are actually reformed.

I know there has been no proper evaluation since the two government departments that we now have were sprung out of the old Home Office back in 2007 and I would love to see that—from a think tank, perhaps, if I knew where the money was coming from. What I do know is that all the good-will words about the need to do good in prisons, to do good in crime prevention, are not worthless—but they have to be substantiated, and the sums of money that are needed is the one sum that dare not speak its name, which is how much it is going to cost. We have heard nothing of that from the Front Benches on either side.

UK: Violence Against Women and Girls

Lord Patten Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, I will make three points about this very serious and demanding issue. First, dealing with it may take a much longer time than any of us would like; secondly, identifying early, or identifying at all, those likely to abuse or kill is one of the greatest challenges that we face; and, thirdly, any situation is likely to be intertwined with other parallel issues of concern, such as rough sleeping, homelessness and the rest.

First, alas, there are no quick fixes, however much new money or however many new laws come along. I stress that I applaud measures such as the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the Health and Care Act 2022, the regularly updated tackling violence against women and girls strategy, and the recent review by Clare Wade KC, as well as all the interagency co-operation that is going on and developing all the time. But, alas, none of that will bring about change overnight, even taken together at top speed.

This is because crime prevention is a very long march. The late Mary Tuck, who was a distinguished Home Office expert—I actually like experts—taught me never to think that nothing works; it is just that, sometimes, things take a long time to work. They are helped by changing social attitudes in the background; we have lots of examples of that in the past with smoking, seat belts and the rest. However, this process must begin with the young getting it—“it” being that violence is a bad and not a solution for whomsoever is involved.

Domestic violence has a number of manifestations—including the vanishingly small number of attacks by women on men in the home and the much greater number of lethal attacks on children by women and men who are in partnership in the home—but, of all these, the worst manifestation is that which this debate concentrates on: violence against girls and women. Getting the message across starts early—it has to start early—but one also has to remember, as Mary Tuck, the Home Office civil servant, again taught me, that just when you think you have taught one generation, there is another generation waiting in the wings, coming along as teenagers who will grow up, to be dealt with next.

Secondly, I have pondered how some potential attackers could ever have been spotted. Take, for example, because this is a UK-wide debate, the terrible Arthur’s Seat killing in Edinburgh of the young solicitor, Fawziyah Javed, and her unborn child. She was a professional, her killer husband was in the optical world, both were educated British subjects, she had her own voice and Police Scotland said at trial that there was no evidence at all that this was a so-called honour-based piece of abuse. At least I suppose now that her husband, who killed her and went after her money, is in prison and cannot do it again.

Lastly, I think we have to look after those in our own home areas. I just point out that, having lived around here, around the cathedral and the Palace of Westminster, for many decades, time out of mind, I have been greatly struck in recent months that suddenly, this year, I have noticed among the rough sleepers around Victoria Station, where there is an epidemic of rough sleeping, a disproportionate number of women. Some of those women are actually seen black-eyed and with cuts across their faces—all the signs of abuse. That has struck me terribly hard, and I think the Met and Westminster City Council need to get on and sort this out before something much more terrible happens.

Islam: Tenets

Lord Patten Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

The noble Lord’s exegesis on Islamic theology was concerning and, in one or two parts, I think confusing. I do not criticise him for that because I am neither a theologian nor a philosopher. I therefore cannot judge how much scholarly water some of his assertions hold, but I must say that I have previously reflected whether it might be a good thing if many of our government ministries had a moral philosopher or two on their staff to advise Ministers about the rectitude of the course that they were about to enter into.

I do know that there is no text in the great books of the three Abrahamic religions that directly promotes or sanctions terrorism. While the record shows that Judaism has been pretty restrained over the millennia in the matter of religious violence within or without its communities, alas, one cannot say the same about the Christian religion in England—Catholics and Protestants in particular were going at each other for hundreds of years, busily burning and then, to make a change of pace, disembowelling each other in the interests of religion. I am extremely sorry that that ever happened.

Right reverend Prelates are extremely busy doing stuff in their dioceses, but it is a pity that we do not have a right reverend Prelate on their Bench to listen to what is going on this afternoon. Perhaps the most reverent Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and his brother of York might look at this issue, because we really need their wisdom here. In exactly the same way—there are not so many formal Jewish rabbis in this place—it would have been good to have a noble Lord, Lord Sacks, as it were, to give his views.

Mercifully, the bad habits of the Catholics—and I happen to be one of those; that is a declaration of interest and complete transparency—and Protestants in dealing with each other was dropped a few centuries ago, although sometimes the theological debate can still be pretty robust between us. Christians have, in a phrase, grown out of it. Now in the final long, drawn-out act involving the Islamic world, we must be equally robust in asserting that terrorism and religion do not sit together. One is not an excuse for the other; only perverted minds seek to use religion for their perverted ends. I wonder how many so-called Islamic terrorists have actually read the Holy Koran in detail.

What is to be done? We have lots of advice on this. The new de facto Sunni ruler of Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammad bin Salman, has just started bouncing around about the issue with his characteristic vigour, and said on 26 November of Islamic terrorism:

“We will pursue it until it disappears completely from the surface of the earth”.


Heigh-ho! That really is hyperbole on stilts at a time when Saudi Arabia is violently and in the name of religion pursuing proxy wars against other brands of Islam all over the Middle East and Africa, from Yemen to Libya and back. Such terror simply begets other terror.

A very important issue that was not touched on by the noble Lord in his concerning introductory speech is how much a debate on Islamic terrorism must begin with a clear recognition that, all too often, it is a case of Muslim on Muslim—Sunni on Shia with, for example, that terrible attack on the innocent Sufis in the Sinai at holy prayers in their mosque a week or two ago. Then of course, in the Middle East, Alawites and Ismailis feel a degree of fear, and feel threatened. However, we in this place and in the West cannot enforce what we see as reason on the Islamic world, nor can we be thought to be lecturing it about deep-seated and sometimes fracturing theological debates which we do not perhaps understand. I certainly do not understand some of them. In the end, the Islamic world has to sort itself out and, just as the Christian world did in England and elsewhere, grow out of the kind of stuff that it seeks now to do with us. I do not expect this to happen very soon. I happen to have a very close Muslim friend, who I have known for 20 or getting on for 25 years. We were speaking only yesterday, and I asked him how many decades it would take for the Muslim world to come out of this present epoch. He paused and said, “It won’t take decades—it will take centuries”. That is a very foreboding thought, grim but realistic. Dealing with Islamic terrorism, or what claims to be Islamic terrorism, is going to be how we live for a very long time.

The only approach to this is to treat all terrorism equally, wherever it comes from. Terrorists are terrorists by definition, regardless of their purported cause. Our security services do a very good job in keeping an eye as much as they can, particularly when things are going quiet. If you just go across the water to Ireland north and south of the border, there is that old saying that there is always a “pike in the thatch” from people on both sides of the religious divide. I believe that that is the case there—and sometimes, when things are quiet, we have to be extremely concerned.

Sometimes defending life means ending life, and that excellent and experienced Minister from his time in Iraq onwards, Mr Rory Stewart, has reminded us about that in another place. Our defences must ever be strengthened, which is why the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill making its way through your Lordships’ House, enabling us to target groups such as Daesh or al-Qaeda, is so essential to delivering safety at home and our foreign-policy aims abroad. But it is always where things seem to be quiet that terrorists will suddenly appear.

As somebody who works in financial services in the City of London, I rejoice to see how they have been put at the service of religion in making it a centre for Islamic finance in this world. My noble friend Lord Sheikh knows much more about this stuff than I ever will. We are very complacently saying that it is terribly good that we have all this going on in the City of London, but those people who use terror look to places like that and businesses like that with venom, so we must not let our guard drop.

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2017

Lord Patten Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Minister—I had not anticipated this debate starting quite so early. I well understand the need to control the supply of methiopropamine, or MPA, and I applaud the Government for seeking the professional opinion of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs and for following its recommendations. As we know, Governments have not always consulted the ACMD, nor have they always followed its recommendations, so that is to be commended. It is unfortunate that the ACMD and the Government have decided that the most appropriate instrument for the control of this drug is the outdated Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, rather than the Psychoactive Substances Act. The main consequence of this decision is that the users of MPA will be subject to a criminal record and criminal penalty if found in possession of this drug. Users are likely to be people with severe health problems and in need of help and support.

The Minister will be aware that I and about 100 other MPs and Peers who are members of the APPG for Drug Policy Reform would be grateful for an indication from her, if at all possible, of when the Government will invite the ACMD or another independent body to review the operation of the 1971 Act and, indeed, the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 and analyse the consequences of these Acts on: the level of addiction to the many banned substances; the substitution of new and perhaps even more dangerous substances for a banned substance immediately following a ban; and the level of use of alcohol and tobacco in response to the bans on these alternative drugs. I would be grateful if the Minister could inform the House whether the Government have any plans to evaluate the efficacy of the 1971 and 2016 drugs laws, particularly in the light of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime proposition at the UNGASS in 2016 that evidence-based public health policies are here to stay.

Does the Minister agree that neither of our drugs laws—neither the 1971 Act nor the 2016 Act—were in any way based on evidence that those legislative propositions would actually achieve the objectives that any Government want? For example, we know that the experience in Ireland of an almost identical law to our Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 was an increase in psychoactive substance misuse and drug deaths—anything but the result that the Government would hope, and that we would all hope, would be achieved by a new drugs law.

The Government refer to monitoring the control measures through the regulatory framework at paragraph 12.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum. I would be grateful if the Minister would indicate whether any analysis of the impact of the ban on this drug, and of the bans on other drugs, will be undertaken. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.

[Lord Patten (Con)]

In strongly supporting this statutory instrument I have three points. First, the Government have acted with commendable speed to implement the recommendations on MPA given by the advisory committee about four months ago, as the Minister said. However, I seek confirmation that they will always be as swift as possible in the implementation of such future recommendations of these experts. That is provided, of course, that they agree with them—the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has pointed out that from time to time they have not necessarily agreed with the experts in their recommendations.

I like, respect and need the views of experts, particularly those of my doctor and my dentist. I value expert advice all the way down the line, but in the end, even they may not always be right, whatever “right” turns out to be. In the end, yet again, Ministers have to decide. It is sometimes difficult for Ministers to turn down expert recommendations, but they have to make their decisions not as experts but in the public interest as members of the Government. I support them also in making those difficult decisions.

Secondly, we have many other experts around to help us, such as those in the World Health Organization’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence. That committee gave its views on this very matter last November. It advised, just like the advisory committee, that there is no known medical, research or therapeutic use for MPA; it is just used to abuse and there is no get-out in saying that it can be medically helpful in any way. It has all the side-effects that the Minister pointed out, as well as one that I think she missed—talkativeness, something that some would claim sometimes affects Members at both ends of the Palace of Westminster. I would not suggest, of course, that this is due to substance abuse; it is just due to genetic problems or lack of self-control.

Of course, the World Health Organization has its own problem with experts. Having given expert and excellent advice on this issue, its experts then concluded that the elected dictator President Mugabe should be hallowed for a while as its goodwill ambassador, rapidly backtracking when it spotted that on that occasion they had made a major mistake.

Thirdly, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who knows much more about this stuff than I ever will, pointed out that you sometimes get substitution. I worry that there are harder substitutes coming in, particularly the ever-stronger strains of cannabis such as Nova OG, produced by cultivation companies in the United States, and described by one marketing organisation in the United States—hard to resist—as,

“extremely potent, top-shelf, designer bud”.

“Queue up and have this” if you cannot get the other stuff that we are trying to make impossible to get. I apologise, because I am a latecomer to this subject and to this debate, that I did not give the Minister earlier notice, but will she be ready and prepared to ask for the advice of the advisory committee on these much stronger strains of cannabis and to act just as quickly if it is thought to be a danger in the United Kingdom? Of course, a letter in the Library of the House would be a very adequate response to that point.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

Since I, too, was caught out by the earlier than anticipated start of this debate, I can thank the Minister for only that part of her explanation of the reasons for and purpose of the draft order that I actually heard. The purpose of the draft order, as has been said, is to make it an offence to possess, import, export, produce, supply or offer to supply the drug methiopropamine, or MPA, without a Home Office licence. MPA is a stimulant, psychoactive substance that has been subject to temporary control orders, the latest of which is about to expire—at the end of next month, if memory serves me right. There is evidence of MPA having adverse effects when taken, including abnormally fast heart rate, anxiety, nausea and breathing difficulties. I have to say that my list is more abbreviated than that given by the Minister when she introduced the order.

MPA has been associated with a number of deaths in the last five years and, as the Minister said, there were 46 cases where MPA was found in post-mortem toxicology, with MPA being implicated in the actual cause of death in 33 of those cases between 2012 and 2017.

MPA has not infrequently been marketed as a legal alternative to cocaine. In June of this year the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the ACMD, indicated that MPA continued to be misused and, as a result, was having harmful effects that could constitute a social problem. The ACMD recommended that MPA should now be permanently controlled as a class B drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971—which means, as I understand it, that among other things, including higher maximum sentences, possession of MPA also becomes an offence, which is not the case for substances controlled under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016.

The ACMD also found that MPA had no recognised medicinal use, or industrial or commercial benefits other than potentially for research. I simply conclude by saying that we support the decision to accept the ACMD’s recommendation, and hence we support this order.

Criminal Finances Bill

Lord Patten Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, the UK, generally with all-party support, has an excellent leadership role internationally in efforts to combat financial crime and the terrorism that all too often feeds of it. For example, landmark measures were brought forward by the Labour Government. I would pick the then Bribery Bill, introduced in another place in 2009 by Jack Straw. That was a landmark on which much later policy has been developed, helping conceptually in the lead-up to the Bill before us. That steady, all-party drumbeat of support has brought me into very happy coalition with, for example, Diane Abbott, the shadow Home Secretary in another place. One finds these coalitions spring up in the most unlikely way. I also know the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, will take me seriously when I say that I join his coalition on kleptocracy in London, not just because of the money laundering that is probably involved, but because of the devastating effect it has on the occupancy of properties in so many London boroughs. Hear, hear to everything he has said.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Dear, I welcome so many of the provisions and tools made available by the Bill, such as the new unexplained wealth orders and the developing suspicious activity reports. There is nothing for any decent, honest person, foreign or British, to worry about in these. These provisions started in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002—I spell it out in full to avoid the POCA/poker linguistic dilemma that my noble friend Lord Faulks pointed out. These have worked very well. In particular, I welcome the bringing together of public and private information sharing in a proper, public/private partnership against financial crime. This has not been noted thus far, but I think this is an international first, so the data held by UK law enforcement agencies can be brought together with that held by regulated entities in the private sector undertaken by banks and so on. This will help us in combating money laundering. It is certainly an international first and an approach that should be followed throughout in the battle against the ever mutating cybercrime, which is one of the biggest threats to international economic and indeed social peace on the globe.

That is all good macro stuff and I warmly support the Bill, as I guess my noble friend the Minister has noticed, but I would like to move from the macro to the micro picture and to a legislative dog in this context which has yet to bark, and I hope will not even whimper. I seek confirmation that there is no intention on the part of HMG to introduce provisions that would impose legislation in this or in any other way directly from Westminster on to Gibraltar. I hasten to make, as it were, a declaration of non-interest in this matter. I have no financial interests in Gibraltar and I do not intend to have any. My wife and I simply ended up there on a short holiday, but I was rather taken by the little place and that has subsequently spurred an interest in and contempt for the persistent, disgraceful and costly incursions by Spanish state vessels into our territorial waters there.

Financial services, in which, like others in this House, I have interests in and knowledge of here in the United Kingdom, have flourished in Gibraltar. I have gone into the matter in a little detail and I think that they are based on very high regulatory standards. It is my understanding that the relevant UK departments are content with the present arrangements. Indeed, back in December 2016 my right honourable friend the Prime Minister stressed this in the House of Commons following an exchange of notes between us and Gibraltar saying that we are content with the current arrangements and that the UK’s law enforcement objectives are being met. I believe that that has been confirmed by my noble friend Lady Anelay at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Setting aside the undoubted legislative can of worms that would be opened by seeking for the first time to impose legislation from Westminster, and thus setting a precedent for those who have unfriendly feelings towards that little place and therefore could use it in a malign way, I stress that a great deal has gone on lately. Gibraltar has set up a register of beneficial ownership under the terms of the fourth anti-money laundering directive. This builds on Gibraltar’s record of effectiveness in the exchange of information. Indeed, the OECD has recognised that, admittedly using a phrase that is not a ringing endorsement, in a recent review and has classed Gibraltar with the UK, the US and Germany in the top category known as—they do not like to overspeak in the OECD—“largely compliant”, so Gibraltar is there with those other countries.

I simply seek a reconfirmation from my noble friend on the Front Bench, if confirmation is needed, that HMG have no intention of allowing the provisions of this Bill to extend by default to Gibraltar with its entirely independent legislative arrangements, curious though they are. If my noble friend does not have time to address this point during her wind-up remarks, I will fully understand. She may choose to write to me and place a copy of that letter in the Library of the House.

EU Action Plan Against Migrant Smuggling (EUC Report)

Lord Patten Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, the first time that I can recall ever hearing the term “economic migrant” was when it was used in the other place by the then Home Secretary Douglas Hurd. His phrase neatly encapsulated a growing issue then for the UK and our European neighbours, but it was rather more of a challenge than a crisis. It was something new and it seemed to be in manageable numbers at the time. Fast-forward from the later 1980s, when I heard my noble friend Lord Hurd of Westwell, as he now is, use that phrase, to 2016, and just as the new economic normal for western Europe has become ever-low everything—low inflation, low interest rates and therefore low economic growth—the migrant issue has mutated from a border issue to a supposed economic and social existential event, in parallel with that low economic growth and therefore relatively low European capacity to deal with some of these issues because the money is not being produced by a growing economy.

The events that are now being played out in the Mediterranean Sea, with its never-ending toll of death and tragedy, appal us all. Operation Sophia, under a mandate now to be renewed, has done its best with some planes, some helicopters and some other military borrowed assets and a few ships to do a lot to save often economic migrants from death in its search and rescue tasks, which my noble friend Lord Horam referred to in his speech, as the pressure grows. I certainly do not decry that search and rescue effort; it is a vital humanitarian issue. But its law and order, border patrol activities have caught few of the organised criminals behind the sickening people-smuggling scams that we see. Why is this? It is because the intelligence needed to manage the task of dealing with them is highly underdeveloped. The European writ large has neither the people on the ground nor the writ to control the supply of this great and growing surge of people from states in economic difficulty down through Africa.

They are coming up through the very often ineffective and imperfect, if not sometimes in danger of failing, state of Libya—or, to me, what now seems to be the two almost separate blocs that reflect the way Libya is divided today between east and west, as it was back in the time of the Roman Empire with Cyrenaica to the east, centred on what is modern Benghazi, and Tripolitania to the west, centred on Tripoli. I hope I have that right. I am no classical scholar, but I see the noble Earl, Lord Oxford and Asquith, in his place and he can doubtless correct me if I have my historical geography of the later Roman Empire a bit wrong. But whatever, there are flows from the east and to the west where those Roman provinces once reached deeply down into Africa. Today the flows of migrants from Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea are funnelled up towards Benghazi while those further to the west from Niger, Mali or indeed Nigeria flow towards Tripoli.

The intelligence-gathering efforts that should inform a renewed Operation Sophia mandate are in their infancy, and we must be straightforward about that. There are certainly a lot of action plans along with a blizzard of acronyms and a welter of “contact groups”, “policy cycles”, “hot spot approaches”, “thematic groups” and much more of what to me is the impenetrable language of the action plan, but not enough people there on the ground. With great respect, I sometimes see more acronyms than there are actual feet on the ground. What is needed is a much greater effort to target more aid and to anchor more people with the foundations of hope to stay at home, which most want to do, whether in Ethiopia, Sudan or Chad. I am very proud of what the UK has done in this context and I am a strong supporter of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in the way in which he has increased our overseas aid effort and targeted it better, whether that be in Syria or in some areas down in Africa. I only wish, not to beat about the diplomatic bush too much because that is not my way, that other countries such as Germany and France, which could afford to spend more, would do so. They are not spending anything like as much as the United Kingdom and they should get on with it.

What is also needed—perhaps being even less diplomatic—is to deal with Libya itself. It is a fulcrum of instability as well as a funnel of migration of the most desperate sort, helping to damage global stability. There have been UN-type mandates within Europe in the Balkans in the past few decades and there are others presently in sub-Saharan Africa. There may soon need to be some sort of mandate offered to the Libyan coast in order to create a less penetrable land barrier with the Mediterranean to stem the flow in a way that we have not yet managed to do. There may need to be helpful European shoes in greater numbers on the ground in Libya than there are now helping to stop migrants from reaching the sea and to support the hard-working Italian and British ships in their Operation Sophia tasks, which otherwise will be with us for decades. Let us hope that the good Libyan people will soon ask for that help. My noble friend the Minister will probably not be able to answer me today—why should he when I have not given him any notice?—but have they ever asked for that kind of help? Perhaps he could write to let me know if they have and what our response has been.

As the Sophia or its successor mandate is renewed, and important though ships and other borrowed military assets are, the real challenge is for the countries of Europe, members of the EU or not, to develop not just the projection of soft power into Africa but its actual use quite deep in Africa as well as in the Middle East, to develop and sustain those intelligence-gathering activities on the sources of migration, and to develop the ability to help more people in those countries to stay put for a better life at home rather than ending up on, or more tragically in, the Mediterranean.

CEPOL Regulation: United Kingdom Opt-in

Lord Patten Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, I am something of a neophyte in debates on Europe at any level, let alone among the swamps, pitfalls and complexities of regulations such as these, which the noble Baroness understands so well. So anyone such as me, coming brand, spanking new to such issues, is bound to look first at the matters we are considering at a general level. It is good to stand back sometimes, to ask questions such as whether, in its present European police college role, CEPOL can be judged to be a success in its task of developing the talents of our UK senior police officers and their ability to co-operate well with our European partners.

I have not stumbled on much evidence or evaluation so far that would help answer the key question: if CEPOL did not exist, would we seek to invent it now? Yet via these regulations, which I have flirted with—the detail is, indeed, challenging in parts—we are being asked to be party to the invention of a much expanded operation; no longer just in relation, as now, to senior police in the UK and in Europe, but leaping into a new world, as the Commission proposed on 16 July this year, with, to quote from the leaden language,

“learning activities for law enforcement officials of all ranks, as well as customs officers and other authorities”.

Apart from anything else, these “other authorities” are ill defined. The open invitation to mission creep and incremental extension of activity and powers in border matters is obvious, and all at a time when cross-border issues and immigration changes are of much concern, as we read and heard today, to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. My other right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer insisted this morning on the BBC that David Cameron and the Conservative Party always put the national interest first.

Needless to say, I agree with that, to reassure the Minister. But is it in the UK interest to opt in to a proposal from the Commission for a brand-new law enforcement training scheme—LETS, as it is known—which is already deeply embedded in Article 3 of the draft CEPOL regulations? It strikes at the very core of the UK’s present right to decide how senior police officer training should be delivered and introduces the idea of training at all levels of police and for all those at our customs and immigration controls. The phrase, “other authorities” is, as far as I can see, absolutely wide open to embrace our different security services, for which there seems to be no clear carve-out in the regulations. If there is not, that would be a very serious matter indeed.

Any opt-in will, I believe, automatically apply to Gibraltar, which is all too often under siege from Spanish customs officers and their other border officials, which is a European scandal of the first order: the Spanish should be ashamed of themselves. So, in strongly supporting the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, it is clear to me that if we opt in now, we will get full-bore LETS by the back door. That is something that I sense the Home Office would not wish to see. I seek some reassurance from the Minister on that, as well as on the fact that these new regulations would leave the proposed new body, with its inbuilt mission creep capabilities, absolutely free of any scrutiny by national Parliaments such as ours—scrutiny that I think is highly desirable.

I strongly believe in practical co-operation across borders in law enforcement. I want to reassure the noble Baroness that I would be daft not to do so. I strongly support that, but collaboration should not be extended to clash head-on with subsidiarity—the subsidiarity that presently, and quite rightly, allows the UK to decide how the training of police, customs and other border enforcers should be delivered. We should not therefore exercise our right to opt in on these issues until they are sorted out.

Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2012

Lord Patten Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, the Government are determined to do all that they can to minimise the threat from terrorism to the UK and our interests abroad. Proscription of terrorist organisations is an important part of the Government’s strategy to tackle terrorist activities. We would therefore like to add the organisation Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan, known as Ansaru, to this category. Having carefully considered all the evidence, the Home Secretary believes that Ansaru meets the statutory test for proscription and that it is appropriate to exercise her discretion to proscribe it. This is the eleventh proscription order amending Schedule 2 to the Act.

Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000 provides a power for the Home Secretary to proscribe an organisation if she believes it is currently concerned in terrorism. The Act specifies that an organisation is concerned in terrorism if it commits or participates in acts of terrorism; prepares for terrorism; promotes or encourages terrorism, including the unlawful glorification of terrorism; or is otherwise concerned in terrorism. If the test is met, the Home Secretary may then exercise her discretion to proscribe the organisation. In considering whether to exercise this discretion the Home Secretary takes into account a number of factors. These factors are: the nature and scale of an organisation’s activities; the specific threat that it poses to the United Kingdom; the specific threat that it poses to British nationals overseas; the organisation’s presence in the United Kingdom; and the need to support other members of the international community in tackling terrorism.

Proscription is a tough but necessary power. Its effect is that a listed organisation is outlawed and is unable to operate in the UK. It is a criminal offence for a person to belong to a proscribed organisation, invite support for a proscribed organisation, arrange a meeting in support of a proscribed organisation, or wear clothing or carry articles in public which arouse reasonable suspicion that an individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation.

Given the wide-ranging impact of proscription, the Home Secretary exercises her power to proscribe only after thoroughly reviewing the available relevant material on the organisation. This includes open-source material as well as intelligence material, legal advice and advice that reflects consultation across government, including the intelligence and law enforcement agencies. These decisions are taken with great care by the Home Secretary, and it is right that both Houses must approve the order proscribing a new organisation.

Having carefully considered all the evidence, the Home Secretary firmly believes that Ansaru is concerned in terrorism. Noble Lords will appreciate that I am unable to go into much detail, but I am able to summarise. Ansaru is an Islamist terrorist organisation, based in Nigeria, which publicly emerged in January 2012. It is motivated by an anti-Nigerian government and anti-Western agenda and is broadly aligned with al-Qaeda. Ansaru is believed to be responsible for the murder of British national Christopher McManus and his Italian co-worker, Franco Lamolinara, in March 2012.

The proscription of Ansaru will contribute to making the UK a hostile environment for terrorists and their supporters, and will signal our condemnation of this organisation and its activities. I should make clear to noble Lords that proscription is not targeted at any particular faith or social grouping but is based on clear evidence that an organisation is concerned in terrorism.

Finally, I have already said that the Government recognise that proscription is a tough power that can have a wide-ranging impact. Because of this, the legislation provides for an appeal mechanism. Any organisation that is proscribed, or anyone affected by the proscription of an organisation, can apply to the Home Secretary for the organisation to be de-proscribed. If refused, the applicant can appeal to the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission, a special tribunal that is able to consider the sensitive material that often underpins proscription decisions. I believe it is right that we add Ansaru to the list of proscribed organisations under Schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000. I commend this order to the House.

[Lord Patten]

My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend in what he said about the proposed proscription of this organisation. Acting swiftly and early is one of the best ways of attempting to prevent terrorist activity, and I wish that we had done more of that in earlier decades. The swift action that my noble friend proposes is excellent.

I also welcomed what the Minister said when he stressed again the view that proscription is not aimed at any particular religious faith, calling or group. That is something that we have to shout from the political and ministerial rooftops, because there is always the suspicion that, as news of an action mutates and develops around the world, people will think this is anti-Islamic, anti-Catholic or whatever. I applaud what my noble friend said and I hope that government Ministers such as him will never miss the opportunity of saying that we are blind to religion but eagle-eyed in the prevention of terrorism.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his presentation on the SI today and for ensuring that a copy of the Home Secretary’s letter was sent to me prior to the debate. As I made clear when we had a similar order previously, of course we support the Government on issues of national security and we work on the basis of cross-party co-operation. I am grateful to him for his explanation of how decisions are reached, which is helpful for the House. I appreciate that the process of obtaining evidence on which action can be taken is often complicated. This week, and during the Committee stage of the Justice and Security Bill, we have discussed how the Intelligence and Security Committee operates. One of the things that became clear is that evidence is obtained from a number of different sources and it is often only by putting it together like a form of jigsaw that the true picture can be obtained. That is a complex matter to address. The Home Secretary has to be satisfied on the basis of the accuracy of that information in deciding what action can be taken—and taken as quickly as possible, as the noble Lord, Lord Patten, pointed out.

As the Minister said, a group can be proscribed under Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000 if it,

“commits or participates … prepares for terrorism … promotes or encourages terrorism, or … is otherwise concerned”.

That illustrates why it is so important that information is accurate and up to date. My understanding, which was confirmed by the Minister’s comments, is that the Government are acting today against a group that was only indentified as a separate, independent entity earlier this year, in January 2012. I also commend the Government on their speedy action, given the processes that have to be gone through to reach this stage.

Obviously the Opposition do not have access to the same information or intelligence data as the Government, but we have seen some of the publicly available information and we are satisfied that the Home Secretary is justified in her judgment that Ansaru meets the criteria required under the Act and we support the Government in the Motion to proscribe this group. We are particularly concerned about the links, which the Minister confirmed, between Ansaru and the kidnap and murders of Christopher McManus and his Italian colleague Franco Lamolinara. The treatment of these two men was barbaric and despicable. It is quite right that the UK Government take action against any group which is prepared to commit such acts of terror against UK citizens.

From reports, it would appear that Ansaru is linked to, or is a breakaway group from, the long-established Boko Haram sect. That sect is not proscribed. I appreciate and understand that the Minister cannot always provide detailed information to your Lordships’ House, but will he ensure that the status of Boko Haram is kept under review? I appreciate that, so far, the actions of this group have been mainly confined to Nigeria. I hope that the Government will not hesitate to take action to proscribe Boko Haram if links to the UK, or any credible threats to UK citizens at home or aboard, were to emerge.

Finally, as I mentioned in similar debates, when the Prime Minister, David Cameron, was in opposition he repeatedly attacked the then Labour Government for not proscribing Hizb ut-Tahrir. The Minister has been very clear on this today—that any action to proscribe a group has to be taken on the evidence available. I know how complex and difficult it can be to get all that evidence and present it in an appropriate manner. The party opposite has now been in power for two and a half years and Hizb ut-Tahrir has still not been proscribed. I am not going to make the same points as were raised against us when we were in government. I thought at the time those comments were inappropriate and irresponsible, and it would be inappropriate and irresponsible of me to make similar ones now. All I ask for is an assurance that the Government are keeping the activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir under observation and review and that should there be evidence that this group should be proscribed, that matter will be presented to your Lordships’ House.

Olympic Games: Security

Lord Patten Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that technology can obviously always play a very important part in security but it would be a very rash and foolish Government who relied only on technology. In the end, one needs to have feet on the ground and to have people there who are properly trained and accredited to do the right job.

[Lord Patten]

My Lords, in declaring my interest as a member of the advisory board of the British Olympic Association, whose foremost concern is for the training, welfare, health and, above all, security of British athletes, I congratulate my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Home Office very warmly on the action that she has taken. Is my noble friend the Minister convinced, looking forward not back at any post-mortem that might happen, that in the next few weeks—and indeed more than that—the chief executive and top management team of LOCOG have the capacity and capability to be good customers of the security that they are paying for and commissioning? They are in the front line, and have been for many years, in commissioning the security that we have had. Secondly, I also ask my noble friend for an absolute assurance that as the Olympic Games morph and transmogrify into the Paralympic Games there will be no diminution whatever in the level of security provided during the Paralympics as compared to the Olympics, because soft targets are easy targets.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I give an assurance to my noble friend that we will maintain security at whatever is the appropriate level on the advice that we receive from those who have an interest in security matters. It is therefore unlikely to be relaxed as the Olympics morph, as my noble friend put it, into the Paralympics. As regards the assurances that he would like from me personally about LOCOG, I have not been involved in any discussions with the officials and management of LOCOG but my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has, as has my honourable friend Mr James Brokenshire. I think they could give assurances to my noble friend that they are satisfied that it will ensure that we maintain the right level of security.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Patten Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten]

My Lords, I wish to address two points: first, the matter of Parliament Square; and, secondly, the matter of police commissioners. However, before that, following the example of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, I wish to make one foray into generalities. I do not speak as a police expert, as your Lordships will know, but I believe that we need a police covenant in this country to parallel the military covenant, when that is finally formalised and published, as the Government have undertaken to do.

This excellent Bill, making provision for the administration and governance of police forces, will in the end be effective only if we move successfully back towards a new settlement in the public mind about the police, who do a difficult and dangerous job, sometimes getting killed at home in the civilian front line exactly as do our servicemen and servicewomen in their front lines abroad. We seem to have gone from Dixon of Dock Green to the idea that the police are somehow devils in uniform in just about a generation, as we also seem to have lost that intrinsic British balance between the right to a quiet life and the right to demonstrate.

We saw that not too far from my West Country home near Bristol on Good Friday, with crowds wishing to express their displeasure at a particular supermarket chain morphing from retail nimbys into stone, then bottle, then firebomb-throwing yobs in an instant, injuring police heads and breaking teeth with abandon. A nanosecond later, out came the usual suspects to blame the police for it all, locally and nationally—for violence, for pushing too hard, for using the wrong tactics, for being too heavy-handed or too light-handed, for kettling or not kettling enough. Strange how in fiction the police are often alleged in times of difficulty to go out to round up the usual suspects—no need for that on Good Friday, because the usual suspects were out in numbers, often on autopilot, coming out to speak for anarchist, community, liberal or human rights groups, blaming the police for all the ills of the demonstrations that took place.

I think that we are very lucky to have the police that we have and believe that we need to find ways both nationally and locally to formalise a covenant with them. That is something that we need to think about in government and that chief constables and the new police commissioners will need to do.

That generality explored, I turn to Parliament Square, where we have seen, and I have witnessed, violent and unreasonable protests leading to injuries to the police and an appalling misdirection of police effort and resources away from fighting crime in other parts of the capital. Knowledge that there is going to be another demonstration in Parliament Square outside the Palace of Westminster is a much welcomed burglars’ charter to those in that trade who want to operate in our outer boroughs, so I applaud the action that my noble friend is taking with the Government to strengthen our powers in Parliament Square to remove nuisances and to try to prevent them from happening there in the future.

I have looked with interest at the map of Parliament Square, published as an annexe to the Explanatory Notes. Having had some interesting maps in an earlier professional manifestation, I studied this map with care. Sadly, it lacks the traditional indication of where true north lies. The map is produced by the Greater London Authority, so I suppose that we can fairly blame Mr Mayor for that failing, unlike some of what I think were rather unfair criticisms made by the noble Lord, Lord Blair of Boughton—he is not in his place, but I hope that one or two of his noble friends will draw my remarks to his attention. Also, there is not much detail at the edges of the map; there is terra incognita. The ancients, drawing their maps cartographically in the old days, had this problem. They used to run out of knowledge of what was at the edge of their maps, so they would put, “Here lie dragons, here lie monsters, here lie supporters of AV”, or whatever else.

We need some reassurance that the police with their new powers over Parliament Square will be able to act with the same determination in the matter of the pavements immediately opposite Parliament Square, for fear that there may be displacement activity and that those people removed from Parliament Square may move to Bridge Street, St Margaret Street or Great George Street—new betented encampments may spring up by the displacement of activity in Parliament Square almost as traditional as morris dancing to the streets around the margins. That is the one question that I would ask the Minister to think about letting me know the answer to, in future if not tonight.

Thirdly, lastly and briefly, I, too, am prepared to come out and be unpopular. I declare myself as very much in favour of police and crime commissioners. Indeed, had I not made the pledge to dear Lady Patten, I would have thought it an appealing post to stand for, but I do not think that I shall. The problems for police commissioners are excellent and interesting and I predict that, after all the huffing and puffing that has suddenly erupted in your Lordships’ Chamber, unlike in another place, such commissioners will very quickly become part of our civic warp and weft. It is important for people to have the opportunity truly to recommend local views and to be truly accountable to local people. The Government’s plans for police commissioners chime with the new, or at least reborn, Tory localism, meeting the honourable Liberal Democrat localism, which I thought was well established until I heard some Liberal Democrat views of dissent this evening. This is an excellent Bill and it has my strong support.