Abu Qatada

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Anne Main

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The issue with the European Court is not so much one of whether certain cases should be fast-tracked; rather, the question we need to ask is which cases should be going through to the European Court. One issue we need to look at is the fact that when cases have gone through every single level of judicial consideration through national courts, appeal to the European Court is too often seen as a natural thing to happen at the end of the process. That contrasts with the original intention, which was about defining some very key points of law relating to human rights. That is the issue on which we need to focus.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Yet again, it seems that the rights of terrorists trump the universal right of people in this country to feel that they have safety on their side. This must be costing some police force an enormous amount of resources. Would it not be better to allocate one police officer to go with Mr Qatada and hold his hand throughout the time he is in Jordan than to allocate someone to hold his hand here when he will potentially walk out of the door three months later?

[Mrs May]

As I said in answer to an earlier question, the European Court has upheld the memorandum of understanding on the basis of assurances in relation to the treatment of Abu Qatada himself were he to be returned to Jordan. The issue it has raised is that of a fair trial, and concerns the evidence that has been obtained from others and whether that evidence was obtained with or without torture.

UK Border Force

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Anne Main

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

The Home Secretary read out a litany of occasions on which rules had been relaxed under the last Government. Is she aware of the guidance that was given in each of those cases, and does she believe that that relaxation may have contributed to a laxity in the system which has led officials to feel they need not always follow the rules to the letter?

[Mrs May]

I am aware of some of the guidance that was published at the time, which stated, for instance, that details of EEA nationals arriving on services that had been assessed as low or very low risk should be checked only on a targeted basis. Various relaxations were introduced at the time. I have asked the chief inspector of the UK Border Agency not only to assess what has been happening across the board in terms of checks, but to examine the processes for ensuring that Ministers’ decisions are properly undertaken, recorded, passed down and acted on, and that no one goes further than that.

National Crime Agency

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Anne Main

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The hon. Lady raises an important issue. As she says, we have already announced that the missing children aspect will be going to CEOP. We are now looking at the wider work on missing persons to see where it is appropriate for that to sit. It might be that it is appropriate for that to be within the National Crime Agency. We will ensure that decisions are taken so that there is no opportunity for this to slip between two stools, because it is an important area of work.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s admission that the agency will pull together a lot of strands that had a silo mentality within the previous Government. On illegal immigration, given that under the previous Government many illegal immigrants came into the country, disappeared and could not be found, could it be that through this new overarching structure we will now have a greater way of informing intelligence, so that anybody with local information on the ground will be able to help and feed in information to the correct place?