Constitution and Home Affairs

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

It is a great pleasure to close this debate, which, as the shadow Home Secretary has just said, was marked by a significant number of maiden speeches, 22 in all. The debate was opened by a rather uncharacteristically rambling speech from the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). He loitered somewhat over the reforms of 1832, but his history lesson was bettered only by the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) who gave everybody in the Chamber a rather more eloquent and distinguished historical lesson. I am sure we shall hear more from him, as was said earlier.

The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), who has just closed for the Opposition, gave an amusing speech. He ran through the contributions of every Member who made a maiden speech today. I do not intend to comment on every one of those speeches, but I want to tell all 22 new Members who spoke today that making a maiden speech is a daunting experience for anybody, yet they all rose to the challenge with a remarkable degree of eloquence. Many of the speeches were extremely amusing. I am not sure what the problem of blowing one’s nose is in West Suffolk, but I dare say we shall find out at some stage. We heard delightful, enticing descriptions of constituencies such as the one from my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), although of course it will now only be known as the site of Dobby’s demise.

I particularly want to mention the maiden speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Stourbridge (Margot James) and for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), and the hon. Members for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle), for Darlington (Mrs Chapman), for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), for East Lothian (Fiona O’Donnell), for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) and for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson). They all have one thing in common, which is that they are women. I welcome the new intake of women Members to the House of Commons, which I am particularly pleased to see.

I am especially pleased to welcome my hon. Friends the Members for Stourbridge and for Oxford West and Abingdon, whom I have worked with over the years. They represent very well the change that has taken place in the Conservative party and in the make-up of its Members of Parliament.

I want to mention two characteristics relating to the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis). The first was that his speech referred to the all-important topic of shoes, although I was disappointed that my hon. Friend talked about the shoes of my right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary. My hon. Friend also has the distinction of being the only person to present me with a bouquet of flowers after I made one of those tours to visit organisations in the constituency before the election. He has indeed started well in this place.

I shall try to cover as much ground as I can, but I will not be able to mention every point that has been made in this important debate. It is the first time I have wound up a debate opened by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg). A few weeks ago, I sat at the Cabinet table with him for the first time and then held my first meeting with him.

Coalition Government has brought many first-time experiences for us all, but nowhere is the coalition stronger than in the field of home affairs. After the years of encroachment on our freedoms, we will restore our civil liberties. After the years of trying to run the police from Whitehall, we will free the police and empower the communities they serve. After the years of allowing immigration to soar out of control, we will bring it back to the reasonable levels of the 1990s.

We have before us a unique opportunity to work together to make Britain a brighter, safer and fairer place for all. The spirit of the coalition can be found running through the legislation that we seek to pass—a spirit of freedom, fairness and responsibility. Those themes are particularly prevalent in the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office. The programme that we have announced will manage the delicate balance of protecting our citizens’ safety and liberty.

Before I comment on the legislative programme, let me make this commitment: the Government will never compromise the security of the British people, and we will protect our civil liberties. Where they have been lost, we will fight to restore them, and we will fiercely preserve those that already exist. That was interestingly summed up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who said that the new politics is ushering in ancient rights—it is indeed—and we will review legislation on a number of counter-terrorism measures, including on control orders, to which he specifically referred in his speech.

[Keith Vaz]

I welcome the Home Secretary to the Dispatch Box. One of her first decisions was to announce a review of the case of Gary McKinnon, a constituent of the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes). That decision is welcome. Does she have a timetable for when she thinks that she will conclude her review of that case?

[Mrs May]

I am not able to give the right hon. Gentleman a timetable at the moment. Indeed, I took a decision that we would agree to an adjournment of the judicial review that was due to take place towards the end of May. I was asked whether I would do that and received further representations from Mr McKinnon’s legal representatives. I am waiting for those further representations to be received.

[Mr David Davis]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her response to my question. I raised another issue—28-day detention, which is coming up for annual review very shortly. There are stories in the press this evening that she will review that limit as well. In the light of the Government’s commitment to telling the House before they tell the press, can she tell us anything about that?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving me an opportunity to respond to that point. As he has just said, the decision is up for renewal towards the end of July. No decision has been taken at the moment, but I can assure him that Parliament will be informed of any decision that is taken. That question partly leads on to the freedom Bill. Protecting the country from terrorist attacks is, of course, of primary concern, but striking the right balance between safety and liberty is something that the previous Administration got horribly wrong. We have seen a significant erosion of individual freedoms, and power has been diverted from the citizen to the state. That is why we are legislating to roll back the state, to reduce the amount of Government interference and repeal unnecessary laws, but our commitment to protecting the public will not be compromised. The freedom Bill will help us to balance an individual’s right to privacy and liberty against the collective safety and security of the entire country.

At the heart of our reforms is the desire to build a stronger society with responsibility and fairness at its heart. We will enable people to take back responsibility for themselves and their families. We are determined to value the British people, to invite them into the debate and to listen to them—something that was sorely lacking under the previous Administration. The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) talked of linking the Government and the people—a worthy aim indeed, but it is a pity that the last Labour Government did not do that. For 13 years, they took powers to the centre and away from people and communities.

[Mr Tom Harris]

The first Bill Committee on which I served as a Back Bencher after being elected nine years ago was the one that considered the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Throughout the 39 sittings in Committee, the Conservative party constantly made requests for the measures to be watered down. Now that the right hon. Lady is in government, can she confirm that that Act will not be watered down but, in fact, strengthened?

[Mrs May]

The Government and the Conservative party will take no lessons from Labour about being tough on crime. I remember that when I came into the House in 1997 the Labour Government had been elected on the slogan, “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.” What did we see? Criminal justice Act after criminal justice Act, new offence after new offence, and nothing to do with the causes of crime.

[Alan Johnson]

Will the Home Secretary please confirm—now she has seen the statistics, now there can be no ambiguity about it—that crime has gone down by 41 per cent. since 1997? Violent crime is down, burglary is down, theft is down, domestic violence is down, murder rates are down. Will she confirm that that is the case?

[Mrs May]

I was rather amused by the right hon. Gentleman’s reference— [Hon. Members: “Yes or no!”] I was rather amused by his reference to the fact that, as an incoming Home Secretary, I was inheriting the best legacy that had been left. I have to say to him that, of course, figures produced by the House of Commons Library have shown that it is wrong to say that violent crime has gone down. It has not. It has gone up. The Home Secretary who left a good legacy to his successor was in fact the former Member of Parliament for Folkestone and Hythe, the right hon. Michael Howard, under whom crime did indeed go down.

A number of hon. Members have referred to the Identity Documents Bill. As I am sure every Member of the House is aware, the new Government have made a commitment—

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Lady please give way?

[Mrs May]

I am going to make a little progress, if I may. [Interruption.] I am going to make a little progress.

The new Government have made a commitment to abolish the costly and unnecessary national ID cards. They are typical of the Labour Government’s blatant disregard for public opinion and common sense, and we aim to abolish this pet Labour project before the summer recess.

I say to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), who is one of those who mentioned ID cards, that we were always clear in opposition that we would abolish ID cards. The Liberal Democrat party was also clear in its opposition to ID cards. As my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) said on a number of occasions, anybody buying an ID card was effectively buying a souvenir. That Bill has already been introduced. We will cancel identity cards and we will cancel the national identity register.

I note the passionate speech made by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) about ID cards and CCTV, but what she said about CCTV, and what the shadow Home Secretary said, betrayed Labour’s approach to these matters: either all in favour of something or all against. We are talking about not abolishing CCTV, but ensuring that it is properly regulated.

I have touched on the delicate balance between the protection and freedom of our citizens, but part of maintaining that balance involves enabling people to take responsibility for themselves. To build a free and fair society—the big society—we all need to work together. That is why the Government will be introducing the police reform and social responsibility Bill. That legislation is emblematic of the guiding principles of this Government. We will make police officers more accountable to the public they serve and in so doing replace the bureaucratic, centralised control of recent years with local, democratic accountability.

I say to the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) that I made that point absolutely clear in the speech that I gave recently to the Police Federation. Directly elected individuals will in no way interfere with the operational independence of the police. I welcome the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who, from the point of view of a member of a police authority, supported our proposals on directly elected individuals.

It was a great pity in the early stages of the debate that, on the issue of constitutional reform and the dissolution of Parliament, there seemed to be at best a misunderstanding of the Government’s position among a number of hon. Members, and at worst a wilful misrepresentation of it. Of course, the powers for the House to pass a vote of no confidence in the Government, on the basis of a simple majority, will continue to exist. They will be reinforced by powers relating to the dissolution of Parliament.

Regarding the Opposition amendment, I thought that the past 13 years had almost never happened. Endorse their record on crime, they say. After 50 criminal justice Acts—

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the amendment be made.