Counter-terrorism and Security Bill
Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Lindsay Hoyle(9 years, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
I beg to move, that this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.
Mr Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments 2 to 39.
Mrs May
On the day the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill was last considered by this House, news of the appalling events in Paris and the brutal murders at the office of Charlie Hebdo were still unfolding. What followed was a two-day manhunt for those responsible, a horrific attack on a Jewish supermarket and further murders of innocent people. Those attacks were yet another reminder of the very grave threat we face from terrorism, a threat that we have discussed in this House on many occasions. I am certain that everyone in this House is committed to ensuring that the police, MI5 and others have the powers and capabilities they need to keep the public safe. That is why we brought forward the Bill and sought its swift progress through Parliament.
Since the Bill was sent to another place, it has been the subject of robust scrutiny. A number of substantial amendments have been made to ensure that these new powers will deliver the optimum capability for our agencies, and to reassure the public that they will be used appropriately and proportionately. They were all Government amendments, which were broadly welcomed by their lordships, and I hope and expect that they will find similar favour in this House. I will now turn to the amendments themselves.
Two amendments were tabled by the Government to part 1 chapter 1 of the Bill, which concerns the temporary seizure of travel documents from individuals reasonably suspected of wishing to travel overseas to engage in terrorism-related activity. Amendments 1 and 2 make provision for civil legal aid to be made available where appropriate at the hearings of applications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to extend the 14-day time period in which an individual’s travel documents may be retained. This is an issue in which the Joint Committee on Human Rights took considerable interest. Legal aid is already available for judicial review proceedings in England and Wales, and in Northern Ireland, subject to individuals’ meeting the statutory means and merits tests.
Turning to temporary exclusion, as I have made clear to this House at earlier stages, the Government are absolutely committed to the appropriate and proportionate use of this power. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Security and Immigration indicated on Report, we carefully considered the constructive suggestions from David Anderson, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, on the matter of judicial oversight, and following that consideration, we tabled amendments to introduce oversight of the power in line with his recommendations. Specifically, the amendments propose the creation of a permission stage, before the imposition of a temporary exclusion order, and a statutory judicial review mechanism to consider the imposition of the order and any specific in-country requirements.
Communications Data and Interception
Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Lindsay Hoyle(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I must move on. We have to get everybody in. I think the Home Secretary has enough to go on.
Mrs May
I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. Communications data in particular are an absolutely vital tool in investigations and in bringing criminals to justice. They have been a particularly important tool in recent cases of child abuse, and they are also important with regard to the serious crimes I mentioned earlier, including murder. It is vital that we have access to this tool, in order to be able to keep people safe and bring perpetrators of those crimes to justice.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Last but certainly not least, the hon. and gallant Gentleman Bob Stewart.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I believe we have a duty to pass this fast-track legislation quickly. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, unless we do so, the police and the security services will not have the powers that may stop innocent citizens of this country dying?
Border Checks Summer 2011
Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Lindsay Hoyle(13 years ago)
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Several hon. Members
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We want to hear what the right hon. Lady has to say. We want a debate on Home Affairs, so let us listen to what is said. If she does not wish for hon. Members to intervene, she will not give way. If she gives way, that is fine, but at the moment, we must listen to her.
Mrs May
I will not give way.
I was about to deal with the questions raised by the shadow Home Secretary. She has repeatedly said that I have not answered her questions. If she reads Hansard, she will find that I have, but let me answer them again. She asked for the precise terms of the pilot scheme that I authorised. I have just set out those terms. I authorised the pilot, under limited circumstances, to allow UK border force officers to use more intelligence-led checks against higher-risk passengers and journeys, instead of always checking EEA national children travelling with parents and in school groups against the warnings index, and always checking European nationals’ second photographs in the chip inside their passport.
The shadow Home Secretary also asked whether I, Home Office Ministers or Home Office officials signed off the operational instruction distributed by UKBA. The answer in all three cases is no. This was a regular operational instruction, and she should know that Ministers—neither under this Government nor under the last—do not sign off such instructions. UKBA operational instructions are signed off by UKBA officials. She asked whether the operational instruction distributed reflected Government policy, and I can tell her that yes, it did, in that it allowed for a risk-based assessment—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) should know better than to keep standing.
Mrs May
The operational instruction did reflect Government policy because it allowed for a risk-based assessment when opening the biometric chip of EEA passports and checking EEA national children against the warnings index when they were travelling with parents or as part of a school party.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We do not need advice from the Back Benches, especially from the back row.
Mrs May
The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford asked how many people Ministers expected would not be checked, and whether an impact assessment would quantify that figure. The answer is that under the terms of the pilot I authorised, all adults would be checked against the warnings index, as would all non-EEA nationals of any age, which, incidentally, was not always the case under the Labour Government of whom she was a member.
Let me reiterate: whatever the shadow Immigration Minister keeps saying, the only incident of which I am aware when passengers were waved through passport control without any checks at all did not occur during my pilot. It happened in 2004, at Heathrow, under the right hon. Lady’s Government.
Let me tell the House what this Government are doing to secure our border: a National Crime Agency with a border policing command and e-Borders to check passengers in and out of the country. We have tough enforcement: 400,000 visas were rejected last year and 68,000 people with the wrong documents were prevented from coming to Britain. We have policies to cut and control immigration: economic migration—capped; abuse of student visas—stopped; and automatic settlement—scrapped. There are compulsory English language tests, tough new rules for family visas and changes to the Human Rights Act. We have a clear plan to get net migration down to the tens of thousands.
What do we hear from the Opposition? Nothing. Nothing on the cap on economic migration. Nothing on the clampdown on student visas. Nothing on settlement. Nothing on sham marriages. No wonder, when the Leader of the Opposition’s policy adviser said that Labour lied to the public about immigration—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. Nobody will be able to hear anything either in the House or on the television broadcasts. I am sure everybody on both sides of the House wants to hear the Home Secretary.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I remind the House that there is a six-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.
Protection of Freedoms Bill
Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Lindsay Hoyle(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker
I understand that, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has been very helpful.
Mrs May
I think the hon. Gentleman, and I take a different view on the issue he raises about scientific research and the application of freedom of information provisions. However, although we disagree, I am happy to ensure that an appropriate Minister will be available to meet Universities UK and discuss this matter with it.
I have already paid tribute to the members of the Committee and to all Members who have contributed to our various debates on the Bill. I wish to pay particular tribute to the tireless and sterling work done by the Department’s Under-Secretaries, my hon. Friends the Members for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone). They have steered the Bill through its parliamentary stages with great skill—and, I must say, significant patience in dealing with all the issues that have been raised. I also thank all the officials who have worked on the Bill.
As a result of Members’ scrutiny, the Committee and subsequently the House have agreed a number of important changes to the Bill. We have clarified the circumstances in which DNA may be retained for a period where someone has been arrested for, but not charged with, a serious offence. We have further clarified the extent of regulated activity, including bringing those working with 16 and 17-year-olds within scope and making provision for statutory guidance to be issued to regulated activity providers. We have also provided for the establishment of the new disclosure and barring service to give a more efficient end-to-end service to employers and voluntary organisations. Further, we have strengthened the protection for motorists in private car parks at the same time as we have provided further help for landowners to combat unauthorised parking.
We are fortunate that in this country, it has not taken bloody wars and violent revolutions to weave into the very fabric of our society and parliamentary democracy the freedoms and liberties that we hold so dear. We take them for granted at our peril. Once lost, they are not easily regained. They need to be nurtured and protected. It is in this spirit that I wholeheartedly commend the Protection of Freedoms Bill to the House, and look forward to its safe and speedy passage through the other place.
Women (Government Policies)
Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Lindsay Hoyle(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mrs May
The premise on which the hon. Gentleman began his intervention was incorrect, because he failed to recognise that we are dealing with a structural deficit. This is not about the world recession, but about the structural deficit that was built up by the previous Labour Government.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We must remember that this is a debate about women. We do not want to go too far talking about the deficit. I know that the two tie in, but we are in danger of having a deficit debate rather than ensuring that the women’s debate is heard.
Geraint Davies
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that something like a third of the deficit was excess investment—
Mrs May
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Answer came there none to my challenge to the hon. Gentleman.
The Government’s action is taking Britain out of the danger zone, but we are also taking action to deal with Labour’s record deficit in a way that protects the most vulnerable, whether they are men, women or children. We have therefore had to take some difficult decisions on public spending, but in a way that has allowed us to protect the public service on which women most rely—we are increasing spending on the NHS in real terms every year. The Opposition cannot say that they would do that, because they would cut spending on the NHS.
Yes, we have had to implement a public sector pay freeze, but that has allowed us to protect against more public sector job losses. Even as we implement the pay freeze, we are protecting the lowest-paid public sector workers, almost two thirds of whom are women. Again, the Opposition cannot say that they would do that.
Yes, the Government have had to make tax changes, but as we have done so we are lifting 880,000 of the lowest-paid workers out of income tax altogether, the majority of whom are women. That was opposed by the Labour party, which is surprising given that it claims to be committed to redistribution.