King’s Speech

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I start by welcoming the noble Lords, Lord Timpson and Lord Hanson of Flint, to their places, and congratulate them on the excellent maiden speech already delivered and that that is no doubt yet to come. They have been garlanded with tributes this evening and I look forward to getting to know them both and working with them on home affairs matters.

I also take this opportunity to pay tribute to their shadow predecessors, the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby—who I welcome back to his place, although I have to admit I would prefer it if it was this place—and, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. They always worked very constructively with me and when we disagreed, we disagreed well. I was slightly sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has moved to the MoD, because he was very good at castigating me for spouting nonsense from the Dispatch Box—which obviously I did only very rarely—but I had looked forward to reciprocating, and indeed kept a Hansard scrapbook of some of his finer rhetorical highlights. On the subject of rhetorical highlights, I commend my noble friend Lord Goodman on his powerful maiden speech. He made many important points, but one struck a personal chord: that his great-grandfather lasted six months longer on the Somme than mine.

I cannot deal with the entire humble Address in the time available, and justice was dealt with very comprehensively by a number of my noble friends, including the noble and learned Lords, Lord Stewart, Lord Bellamy and Lord Garnier, and the noble Lords, Lord Sandhurst and Lord Wolfson of Tredegar. There were many other noble Lords who made very important contributions on the subject of justice as well; I cannot name all of them in the time available. I wonder, having heard all of the discussions, whether the ambitions of the noble Lords opposite will clash. There is obviously tension between what the Government are proposing with regard to so-called minor crimes and what they are saying about not imprisoning for minor crimes. I wonder how that tension will be resolved.

I say that we will work with the noble Lords opposite because that is the intention of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition. Matters of national security, public safety, border integrity and criminal justice are too important to be party-political footballs. As I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, will say, national security is the first duty of government. To that end, I was very pleased to see that the new Home Office team includes the Member for Barnsley North, Dan Jarvis, as the Security Minister. I have watched his career from afar and am reassured by the last Security Minister, my right honourable friend Tom Tugendhat, that he will do a first-class job.

While it is invidious to single anyone out, I will also say how pleased I was to see the Member for Birmingham Yardley, Jess Phillips, be given the crucial role of leading the Government’s efforts on violence against women and girls. I wish her well. I hope she will acknowledge that there was progress under the previous Government in this area, but I also acknowledge that there will always be more to do, as was also eloquently expanded on by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, and my noble friends Lady Owen of Alderley Edge and Lady Newlove. I am very much looking forward to the Private Member’s Bill of my noble friend Lady Owen. I also say how personally sorry I am that abortion clinic safe access zones were not commenced when I was in post. I hope the new Government will be able to overcome the bureaucratic inertia where I failed.

I will also take this opportunity to praise the civil servants in the Home Office. The noble Lord, Lord Hanson, inherits a first-class private office. I hold them all in very high regard, but more broadly I say that it was a pleasure to work with so many very good people who really do have the country’s best interests at their core. I am pleased that my noble friend Lord Patten reminded us all of that. I will return to this theme.

The loyal Opposition will work with the Government. We will of course also scrutinise the legislative programme to the best of our abilities. In terms of the crime and policing Bill, it is to be regretted that the previous Government did not have the time to pass our Criminal Justice Bill, which contained important measures, including on anti-social behaviour, assaults on retail workers and deepfakes, among many others.

I join my noble friend Lady Bray in applauding the intention to focus on neighbourhood policing, but I also note that the previous Government delivered on our promise to recruit 20,000 more police officers. Indeed, this country has more policemen now than ever before. Unfortunately, it is not just about numbers. As I am sure the noble Lord has already found out, it is also about culture, so I welcome the Government’s intention to sort out the many cultural failings that we have seen in the police. Police leaders have a job to do in rebuilding public trust, not least because they owe that to the vast majority of good men and women who serve. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made some important points on accountability, which were reinforced by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and, very powerfully, by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, the noble Lord, Lord Mann, and my noble friend Lord Godson also reminded us that there is a good deal of work to do with regard to defending democracy.

Crime is a fast-evolving landscape, so I hope the Government will continue to work with our online fraud charter, a world-first agreement with 12 of the biggest tech companies to proactively block and remove fraudulent content from their platforms, with Facebook, Instagram and Amazon among the signatories. If I may, I also suggest that the noble Lord visits the City of London Police who lead on fraud. I went earlier this year and wish I had gone sooner to get an idea of what their excellent teams are up to, particularly with regard to victim support.

The Opposition also broadly support Martyn’s Law, as my noble and learned friend Lord Stewart noted, which we intended to introduce in the previous Parliament. The previous Government also introduced the National Security Act, the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act and the Investigatory Powers Act, all of which will make the Government’s efforts on these important subjects a good deal easier. I thank the Government for their support on these subjects when they were in opposition.

I thoroughly endorse the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, about the threat landscape and how to prepare for its evolution. She is entirely right.

I now turn to migration and borders. When in Opposition, those in the party opposite voted against the Government on this subject on more than 130 occasions, all while claiming that they shared our ambition to stop the boats and smash the gangs. So far, as my right honourable friend the shadow Home Secretary has noted, they have cancelled the Rwanda scheme without bothering to notify the Government of Rwanda, in effect announced an amnesty for illegal migrants and yesterday announced the closure of the “Bibby Stockholm” next January. On a more positive note, I join my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne in commending the Government’s announcement of the aid—although I do not think £84 million will go anywhere near far enough.

Returning to the other matters in turn, as my right honourable friend the shadow Home Secretary noted, would the Government have treated one of our European partners as they treated the Government of Rwanda? I doubt it, but I am not entirely surprised. My noble and learned friend Lord Stewart of Dirleton and I sat through 47 hours of debate on that Bill and are well aware that noble Lords did not like it very much, but we were both shocked by some of the intemperate language that was used—not, I stress, from the Front Benches—which we often charitably described as “post-colonial”. I suggest that many noble Lords need to reflect on their contributions to those debates.

Noble Lords might not have liked the Rwanda Bill, but it was starting to work as a deterrent, which was its stated intent in the Bill. It is not just we who are saying that; the Irish Government said so too. As the noble Lord will have discovered by now, it was also of considerable interest to our European allies, who were quietly supportive and are actively exploring similar schemes. Before I am informed that arrivals were up this year, let us not forget that the people who run these gangs may be venal, but they are not stupid, and they are also evidently dedicated psephologists who predicted the new Government’s amnesty. My noble friend Lord Jackson asked some very pertinent questions on this and I hope that the Minister will be able to answer them.

As to the “Bibby Stockholm”, which, I remind noble Lords, was good enough to house oil rig workers, two specific questions spring to mind. Where are the 400 occupants going to be sent? Have conversations been had with relevant local authorities?

We want to see the gangs smashed and the borders secured, and Rwanda was one of the tools designed to achieve that. The new Government have made much of the border command that they intend to establish, but this is simply reinventing the wheel. The Small Boats Operational Command already exists and does all that it is claimed the new body will achieve. I hope that, amid all the focus on this new wheel, the men and women who serve in the Small Boats Operational Command, so ably led by General Duncan Capps, Phil Douglas at the Home Office and Chris Tilley, do not get lost in the noise. They are in the channel every day risking their lives to save others. I had the privilege of visiting them recently, and I intend to campaign to make sure they are considered for the new Wider Service Medal, which the last Government introduced in March this year and which is available to civilians

“working outside the traditional criteria of existing operational medals”.

I invite the Government to work with me on that.

On the day I visited, we rescued 67 people in the middle of the channel, 57 of whom were young men from very safe countries. They were not desperate; they were economic migrants. The few women were mostly Vietnamese and, believe me, their stories were harrowing. I remind the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, that they had all left the safety of France on an unseaworthy boat. They were treated with kindness and respect, as is quite right, but they should not have been there in the first place. The Minister will argue that the Government will quickly return all those arriving from safe countries, and of course we wish them well with that. However, the criminal gangs will merely intensify their advertising efforts in countries that are not on the safe lists, so to my regret I predict that the boats will keep on coming.

Speaking personally—this is not official opposition policy yet—I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mann, about the need for ID cards. One of the principal reasons why people leave France in the first place is our, frankly, lax approach to identity.

While on the subject, I commend the efforts of the French authorities. They have done a significant amount of work that does not get reported. In many cases they are confronted with significant violence and threats from migrants who are about to board boats. That obviously necessitates a slightly more intense policing effort on their behalf and, as far as I can tell, they have discharged that with commendable responsibility.

In conclusion, there is much in the new Government’s programme to welcome, and we will do our best to be supportive. We already regret some of the missteps on borders and migration, but I have no wish to be churlish because we all want the Government to succeed. As I have said, I have doubts in some areas but no shortage of goodwill, and we will not oppose for the sake of it—certainly not 130 times. I wish the Minister the very best. To quote my noble friend Lord Goodman, we will accentuate the positive and try to eliminate the negative. We will be constructive, and I promise him that, if and when we disagree, we will disagree well.