Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Lord Walney and Ed Davey

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Davey]

I hear what the Minister says, and I know that he knows there is not a lot between us on this, because we are all trying to get to the same objectives. However, the points he makes could be argued against the US position, and because we are close allies, we could close that gap. It would not be terribly great for Senators to oppose this Bill—they have Senate ratification —as they would be held to account by their citizens for getting in the way of sharing information to catch paedophiles.

As British politicians here, from all sides and including the Minister, we should stand up for British principles. Yes, we want to catch these appalling criminals, but we must make sure that we advance justice and human rights. I do not think we should see these things as separate and deal with them separately—we can bring them together. It would be a good step for this House to stand up for this principle, which we all share and which is and has for a long time been Government policy, and say to our close friends in the US that we believe we can come to some agreement.

The Minister made it clear in his response that the treaty is still in development. The hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) talked about how a lot of people in the US, particularly in the State Department, are expecting us to do this, so it is not unreasonable that we do, and I hope that the Minister, who is highly respected across this House and whose Bill we utterly support, can understand why we are trying to make this extra push. We are doing this to help him in his negotiations.

[John Woodcock]

Listening to this debate, I found myself nodding along with the shadow Minister, as often I do. He made a well-honed speech about the bipartisan approach that has long been taken on the death penalty and the UK’s opposition to it on both sides. I tried to reconcile that with his party’s position, which is to oppose new clause 1. I was agreeing with what he was saying and I have some sympathy because the reasoned approach that he characteristically takes at the Front Bench is not matched by the diktat that comes down from the shadow Home Secretary and the leader of his party.

I have to say to the shadow Home Secretary: for the second time this week, she has ended up in a position where I and others are further to the left than her on a key issue. I sat behind her on Monday night, when she was explaining to the House why it was right to abstain on the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill. The Lords have rightly, and in a way that is welcome, forced a concession from the Government—to me, new clause 1 seems substantive in writing into the Bill the requirement for this and any future Government to seek assurances on the death penalty. As has been rightly said, that approach has long been practice but it was, in terms of extradition, in a way that was quite troubling, disregarded in the instance of Mohammed Emwazi and others.

New clause 1 has been tabled after pressure from the Lords. It is a step forward in legally codifying opposition to the death penalty. As I understand it, the Labour party is going to try to force its Members of Parliament to vote against it, in the hope that they will then get to an amendment which would be unworkable and would indeed wreck the chances of a treaty, as the Minister has convincingly set out. Assuming that new clause 1 goes through—I will certainly be voting for it and I am encouraging many Labour colleagues to vote for it or abstain—we are not, as I understand it, going to get to the Labour amendment, by which they appear to be setting store. I am afraid that that epitomises the deep oppositional politics that has always been a hallmark of the shadow Home Secretary and the Leader of the Opposition. It is an example, I am afraid, of why it would be so deeply troubling for the nation if they were given the chance to stand at the other Dispatch Box and have the authority to act as Home Secretary and Prime Minister.

This seems to have been another week when precedents are changing in this House. As I understand it, the Labour Whip is no longer binding on either Back-Bench or Front-Bench MPs, and it seems to be possible for Labour Front-Bench MPs to break their own Whip and remain on the Front Bench. I do not know if there is a requirement to go and sit in the Smoking Room to be exempt from what would otherwise be the strictures of the Front Bench.

This means that Labour MPs are being forced into making a false choice on human rights. We have to uphold human rights as a country. If we do not uphold them, the law will bring the Government into line, as it may yet do in the case of the so-called “ISIS Beatles”. The Labour leadership are forcing a choice on this incredibly important action to gain the treaty to speed up action against paedophiles, and on action to be able to convict British terrorists. They are forcing their MPs to choose one or the other. It is a false choice and one that I hope MPs will reject. I hope they will vote for new clause 1, so that we can go ahead with a strengthened Bill, which the country needs.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Debate between Lord Walney and Ed Davey

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Davey]

It is a real privilege to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). Had he pressed his amendment, I would have voted for it. I agree with everything he said in his general remarks and with what he said about the real challenge being to balance security and the need to tackle people who threaten our way of life with the protection of the values that make our way of life. He made that point specifically by building on the progress that we saw made in the other place with Lords amendment 3, which is very welcome, and I hope the Minister will cover that point in his response to the debate.

This House should thank Members in the other place because, as we heard the Minister say, they strengthened the legislation in several areas. They particularly strengthened it in respect of concerns that I and others had about civil liberties and freedoms, to make sure that innocent people were not inadvertently caught by some of the new offences that will be created. Lords amendment 1 in particular makes it absolutely clear—to be fair to him, I think the Minister had this in mind—that journalists and people doing academic research will have extra special protections.

We have talked about Lords amendment 3, but Lords amendment 13 on the review of the Prevent strategy—I intervened to ask the Minister about it—is really welcome and will support the Prevent strategy in its objectives. Both today and when we have discussed the matter before, the Minister has rightly said that there are a lot of good things about Prevent, and I agree with him. One of my concerns, which was why I supported the case for a review, was that some of the people who criticised Prevent gave valid criticisms, which I hope will be taken on board during the review, and others made the point that whether or not Prevent was doing the right work and whether or not it was successful, it had lost the trust of some communities. I hope the review will support the work that the Government rightly want to do by rebuilding trust. The review can play a positive role in the meeting of the objectives that I think we all share in this House.

One issue that did not find favour in the other place relates to something the Minister said about proscribed organisations. My colleagues in the other place wanted to see whether there could be a relatively regular review of the list of proscribed organisations. Indeed, Lord Anderson, who is well known and has huge experience in this policy area, said he believed that at least six of the organisations on the proscribed list really should not be there. I hope I can tempt the Minister to say, if he feels able to, whether a process of review of proscribed organisations already goes on somewhere and, if not, whether he would favour one, either specified in the Bill or dealt with outside it. I hope he will look into that, because it would be helpful and welcome.

In closing my brief remarks, let me just say that it is good that the Government have either agreed to accept the amendments made in the other place or to come forward with concessions.

[John Woodcock]

Far be it from me to be a discordant voice in this House, but I have real concerns that the House of Lords have not strengthened the Bill and may have fundamentally weakened parts of it, particularly in respect of the terror travel ban, which, as I said earlier, I have been campaigning for the Minister to adopt for well over a year.

I do not know whether you have had a chance to see the British satirical film “Four Lions”, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it recounts the exploits of four hapless British wannabe jihadis from my home city of Sheffield who are determined to wage jihad. The film opens with one of them getting an invitation to attend a wedding in Pakistan. He knows full well that there is no such wedding, and in fact he and his friend are going over there to be part of a jihadi training camp in the Pakistani mountains.

Although that film is fiction and satire, that excuse is commonly used by people who are overwhelmingly suspected of going over to areas with high levels of jihadi activity to train as foreign fighters, with the potential to then bring that training, knowledge and extremism back to British shores. The whole point of the designated area offence was to make that more difficult. I fully endorse the push of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) to get official recognition for aid workers and journalists. I recognise that there would be a total outcry if someone who verified themselves as a legitimate journalist or aid worker were captured by this legislation. I find it almost impossible to concede that that would happen if they were in fact genuine, but if the measure does give reassurance to development agencies and to members of the fourth estate, I can understand it and agree that it is a good thing.

However, I have real concerns about the list of family excuses, which will surely prove incredibly difficult to disprove once they have been stated. Now that they are up in lights in the Bill, it will become that much harder to bring any prosecutions, and that much harder to deter people from travelling to become foreign fighters, which is, of course, what the legislation is intended to do. It is supposed not to catch people once they are there, but to deter them from travelling in the first place. Clearly, I am in an unusually small minority in this House in expressing that view, but I fear that we will come to rue agreeing such wide-ranging and easy-to-fake excuses in the Bill, and we may need to return to it in future months and years.

Finally, let me just say a word on the review of Prevent. It is of course right that any Government should seek periodically to review flagship parts of any policy. Certainly, in the critical area of preventing extremism and preventing terrorism gaining a grip in our own communities, I very much hope that this review is carried out and is understood in the spirit of remaining robustly in favour of the overall goal of Government, which is to be able to find ways to intervene to stop extremism taking hold. We need a dispassionate analysis of how, in its working, Prevent is able to recognise and potentially to call out the attempts to undermine the programme, which go beyond legitimate concerns, but are, in fact, tools of the very extremist organisations that would fill many young people and British citizens with the hate and terror that can lead to them going abroad to fight jihad, or, in the worst case, bringing terror on to British streets.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Debate between Lord Walney and Ed Davey

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock]

No, I am not giving way. Sit down. Sit down. After that absurd non-point of order, I am not going to give way. The hon. and learned Lady has had her opportunity, and her party has had its opportunity, to set out why they believe that they can actually add to the security of the United Kingdom. They have just summarily failed to do that, as her party, I am afraid, has done over many years in this place.

[Sir Edward Davey]

rose—

[John Woodcock]

I will of course give way to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton.

[Sir Edward Davey]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and he should know that I have a lot of respect for him. Therefore, I would ask him gently if he would go away and look at the words of David Anderson QC, just two years ago, on an almost identical amendment. That very respected independent reviewer of terrorism legislation said that this type of amendment would not work and was not needed.

[John Woodcock]

I am of course aware of David Anderson’s views, and I am afraid I simply do not agree with him. Will the measure solve the problem of British citizens being brainwashed into supporting jihad? Clearly, it will not—I will say a little more about the Prevent strategy in a moment—but it is surely a valuable extra tool that has been shown to be severely lacking in the UK’s arsenal in the past few years, given the hundreds of people who have come back from the terror hotspot of Daesh-controlled Iraq and Syria and not been prosecuted.

I will wind up my remarks by talking about Prevent. I heard what the shadow Minister said about the official Opposition’s motion on review, and I have no doubt that those views are sincerely held, but I will not support him on the amendment, if it is pressed to a vote. I agree that Prevent should be continually under review, but I am concerned about the head of steam that has developed, sometimes from my good friends in this place, which has given the impression that there is something fundamentally at fault with Prevent. There are of course those in Muslim communities who question it, but the responsible position for people in this House and beyond is to make the case for the Prevent programme’s valuable work and to highlight the number of people who feel that their lives or the lives of their loved ones have been saved through it.

Ultimately, those who want to discredit Prevent and want it to fail are those who want to give a very different message to our young people. I hope that those on my side of the House—it remains my side of the House, at least—will reflect on the language and tone that they use when describing Prevent.

Nuclear Management Partners (Sellafield)

Debate between Lord Walney and Ed Davey

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

When I visited Dounreay I was incredibly impressed by its work force and management team and I know how much my right hon. Friend has been supporting them over a considerable period. I can give him the reassurances he seeks. The contract with the PBO has worked because it has been easier to specify the scope, as my right hon. Friend rightly pointed out. As a result, significant efficiencies have been made and significant savings to the taxpayer have been accrued, so the PBO model has worked well on that site.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) for his leadership? He has been calling for this decision for some time. Will the Secretary of State assure us that he will work with my hon. Friend and the community to ensure that the change in management structure properly gives the area an opportunity to use the incredible civil nuclear engineering expertise available in west and south Cumbria to reach out to new markets and create new growth opportunities?

[Mr Davey]

I think the change will help those objectives. Of course, it is not the only measure; a number of other measures need to come together to deliver for the economy of west Cumbria.