(13 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe have been absolutely clear about the need for forces to ensure that the cuts are made to the back office, procurement, IT provision and so forth. Forces must focus, in line with what chief constables up and down the country are saying, on front-line policing—on visible community policing—which is of benefit not only to forces in terms of catching criminals, but of course to local communities.
What discussions has the Home Secretary had with police forces about the potential to increase police visibility by, for example, reducing the 100 or so processes that the police and police staff have to go through between the reporting of a crime and the final appearance in court?
I am pleased to say that a number of discussions are taking place with police forces about how we can ensure that we bring greater efficiencies into the whole criminal justice system in order to get the benefits and make the gains to which my hon. Friend referred. I am not just discussing that with the police forces; together with the Police Minister, I am discussing it with the Attorney-General and the Lord Chancellor.
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberI thank the right hon. Gentleman for that response. During the Labour leadership campaign, he said:
“as many of us found in the election, our arguments on immigration were not good enough.”
Listening to him today, I realised that Labour’s arguments on immigration are still not good enough. He made a number of claims about what the Labour Government did on immigration, including the claim that they introduced transitional controls when new member states entered the EU. I seem to remember that when the first tranche of new member states entered the EU, that is precisely what they did not do, despite every blandishment from the Conservatives to encourage them.
The right hon. Gentleman then said that the previous Government took action on the points-based system limits. I accept that, but what happened? They closed tier 3 of the points-based system of entry into the UK, but nothing else, so when tier 3 shut down, the number of student visas went up by tens of thousands. That is why this Government know that when we deal with one part of the immigration system, we must act across the whole of it.
I made the figures for the tier 1 and tier 2 caps that we are introducing absolutely clear in my statement. The right hon. Gentleman asked whether the UK Border Agency could manage the cuts and keep our borders secure with the changes in personnel that will be made, and the answer to that, unequivocally, is: yes, it can.
Finally, the right hon. Gentleman asked me to confirm what I said in my statement, which is that we aim to reduce net migration from the hundreds of thousands back down to the tens of thousands—[Hon. Members: “When? By 2015?”] If he is to criticise the Government’s plans on immigration, the right hon. Gentleman must have a plan. So far he does not even have an immigration spokesman, let alone an immigration policy. The British people, who according to his own words felt that Labour was no longer on their side and no longer stood up for them on immigration, will not listen to him until he has an immigration plan.
If the cap is set too low—in other words, at a level that stops UK businesses creating wealth and jobs—or too high, how quickly can it be adjusted, and how will the adjustment process work?
We are confident in the work that we have done, and in the fact that we have got the cap—and, crucially, the changes to policy—right. The announcement is about not just the figure, but the change in policy. The Migration Advisory Committee will undertake an annual review, so it will be able to advise the Government on what the figure should be in future, after considering how behaviour has adapted to the policy changes that we are introducing.
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberI congratulate the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) on securing this important debate. He is right that this might be the first such debate in Parliament, but it was clear in the general election that the issue was being widely discussed. Indeed, I shared a number of platforms on immigration with the Minister. We attended some very lively, well-attended debates, where a wide range of quite colourful views were expressed. I welcome the fact that Parliament is able to debate this issue, and we should be able to do so openly and without running the risk of being accused of racism. Clearly, the subject is of great concern to all our constituents, so we need to be able to talk about it maturely and openly, which is what I think we are doing today.
I had wanted to tell the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) that he made a nice try of splitting the coalition, but he will have to try a little harder. [Interruption.] Oh, he is here, so he will hear this. It may be difficult for him to understand the concept of two political parties forming a coalition, working together on policies and improving them as a result, but he will have to get used to that over the next four and a half years.
All of us in the Chamber would agree that immigration needs to be more effectively managed. The hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), who made a good contribution, talked about the need for policy to be firm, competent and timely. That is not an issue that previous Conservative and Labour Governments, and possibly the Lib-Lab pact Government, have addressed very successfully. Unfortunately, that has undermined public confidence, and the temperature of the issue has been raised by the lack of effective controls.
It is therefore right that our first focus should be on making the system work effectively and well. The coalition agreement is clear, for instance, about restoring exit controls. In recent years, the lack of such controls has meant that we have never had a real handle on immigration, because we simply have not known how many people have arrived in the UK and subsequently left. I hope that restoring those controls will give us greater clarity. Both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats argued for a UK border force to be brought into operation, which will have a major impact in that respect.
As the hon. Member for Lewisham East said, immigration does not lend itself to simple solutions, and there are difficult issues that we are not debating today that the Government must nevertheless address, including, for instance, the indefinite detention of people who cannot be deported from the UK, either because they would be deported to countries where there is a real risk, such as Somalia, or because they are dissembling about where they come from, and the country to which they want to be deported is unwilling to issue travel papers. The Government face and will need to address such difficult issues, but they are not the principal focus of the debate.
It is the view of all parties represented in the House that, fundamentally, immigration has benefited Britain. People coming to this country have given a very great deal to our economy, culture and society. We must make the immigration system more effective. Of course, that means that people who come to settle in Britain should learn the language, but it does not mean that we should pull up the drawbridge. We need to be careful about immigration measures to ensure that they do not damage the UK economy. We do not want people to be turned away from the UK if we know that they would make a substantial contribution to our economy.
Does my hon. Friend agree that successive Governments have followed a misguided policy of multiculturalism? Rather than helping to bring people of different cultures together, the policy has acted to divide them. Our approach should be to learn from that. We should emphasise the things that people who are settling in our country have in common with the people who are already here.
I agree with some of what my hon. Friend says. I went to an international school in France from the age of eight to 18. All lessons apart from English language, history and literature were conducted in French. Other languages were used in other sections of the school for children from other countries around the world. The school ensured that all students were fully committed to French society and to learning about French history and culture, but at the same time, students could retain a stake in their countries of origin and study their history, language and literature. If the hon. Gentleman means that immigrants should integrate and absorb the basic principles of being British, I agree with him, but I hope that he can see the real value in those immigrants retaining their own culture and language, because that allows them to make a contribution to British society. I hope we agree on those points.
We need an immigration policy that is beneficial to the UK, and various organisations have raised questions about our policy. I am sure that the Minister has been on the receiving end of the briefing from Universities UK and the Association of Medical Research Charities, and that he is ready to respond positively to their concerns. The briefing concentrates quite heavily on controls that could stop researchers who could make a substantial contribution to medicine if they come to the UK under tier 1. They are worried about past salary being one of the principal considerations. Often, academics and researchers have not previously received salaries commensurate with those in the finance sector or law and so on. Therefore, some regard must be given to ensuring that people who will make a contribution will not be disallowed from coming in. We know that people make such contributions, and some have won Nobel prizes following their contributions to research. In addition, research developments very often lead to economic or business applications.
Universities UK and the Association of Medical Charities are also concerned about tier 2. Academics and researchers are not listed as shortage occupations, but they are often in specialised, niche markets, in which very few people have the same skills either in the UK or beyond.
The Minister will have seen the briefing from the British Chambers of Commerce, which is similarly concerned about tier 1. A point was made earlier about people who come to the UK under tier 1 and subsequently ended up working as pizza delivery drivers. Clearly, if that happens, something has gone dramatically wrong with the system. We need to ensure that we allow entrepreneurs, who we know will make a substantial contribution to the economy, to come to the UK, but at the same time we want to ensure that people with skills and flair come here to do the work that we expect them to do under tier 1. Ensuring that the system operates in that way is one of the challenges that the Government face.
In conclusion, the coalition agrees on the need to tackle the issues before us. Clearly, on some issues, businesses have lobbied all Members heavily with their concerns, and I know that the Government have listened carefully and will address them in their response.
In this spirit of consensus and the coalition agreement on what to do in the future and now, what is the coalition’s position on an amnesty for people already here who have no prospect of being sent back?
When an intervention starts, “In the spirit of consensus”, I always start to panic. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was referring to a previous amnesty policy advocated during the general election campaign, but he will know that that was not one of the policies that moved into the coalition programme. I and my colleagues are comfortable with what the coalition Government are doing. All we want, and all Conservative Members are seeking to do, is to improve an outstanding policy proposal from the Government.
Clearly, we need to deal with problems in the immigration system and ensure that integration is promoted, but the coalition will not turn that message into one whereby we present immigration as always being a problem, or turn to measures that could do more harm than good to the UK economy.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to take part in this debate, which is important to my constituents and the country as a whole. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) on securing it.
I want to make a couple of points absolutely clear. First, nobody on either side of the House or in our communities supports an open-door policy. As a community activist who served in local government for more than 28 years as an elected official, I can say with full confidence that nobody in this country supports that open-door policy. The second point concerns the fear of being accused of racism, from which this debate has grown. Everybody now wants to have a fair, mature and common-sense debate. I am sure that colleagues feel the same, and do not fear accusations of racism when they speak their minds. I do not think they will be so accused.
I state firmly and clearly that this country has benefited enormously from various waves of immigration over a very long time, and I was glad to hear, in this and previous debates, that everyone agrees. I am glad that nobody has contradicted that statement. My constituency is testament to the benefit of immigration. Over time, it has welcomed immigrants from all over the world—from Wales in the mid-19th century, Ireland at the turn of the century, the West Indies after world war two, and India, Pakistan and other south Asian countries in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. More recently, people from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Somalia and eastern Europe, including a large number of Poles, have joined the area. I am proud to represent such a rich and diverse constituency, with such an excellent record in economic entrepreneurship and business growth.
Before I discuss issues surrounding immigration and economic recovery, I would like to make some further, personal points about immigration. There are certain perceptions about the arranged marriage system. There are Members who feel that everybody who goes through the arranged marriage system uses it to enter a marriage of convenience. I have to say that all marriages are marriages of convenience, and not only for immigration.
I was born in a village called Mandhali, in the state of Punjab in India, and I came to this country 42 years ago, as a young man in an arranged marriage. I began my working life in this country as a bus conductor, and I have worked hard ever since, attending university on a trade union scholarship and eventually becoming a day centre manager for adults with learning disabilities, and entering this House three and a half years ago. My children were born and educated in this country, and along with their families they are now making a significant contribution to the communities where they live.
My experience is not atypical. Many of my contemporaries who arrived in this country at the same time I did took on jobs for which they were overqualified, but over the years they have built up businesses and advanced in their careers. Their children have succeeded in their education and are making major contributions in the professions and businesses of this country. That is the personal story of many of my constituents and many other immigrants to this country over many years, and it is a positive story. The House should not forget that.
I want to address a number of other issues that are relevant to both the country and my constituency. First, on border controls, the previous Government were moving in the right direction with the points-based system, but there were problems with that system and there still are. Restricting the numbers of specialist south Asian chefs to train people in this country is still a problem in my constituency and in many other parts of the country.
I would like to draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the Federation of Bangladeshi Caterers, whose president runs a restaurant in my constituency and whose approach to the issue is to work with the community in this country to ensure that people who are not in work can acquire the skills to work in their restaurants.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving that information. Many businesses are trying hard, but that same Bangladeshi restaurant owner or the chef working at that restaurant must have told him that it is not an easy profession to teach. It takes a long time to do a chef’s job properly, starting from an apprenticeship. I am not a chef—I am not a cook in general—but I understand the process that people have to go through, because I have seen it. They need an apprenticeship, but many young people in this country are not taking up the profession. In the face of that disadvantage, restaurant owners have no choice but to recruit people from the Indian subcontinent.
On the other Government policy—a cap on highly skilled migrants—it makes no sense to stop entrepreneurs coming to this country when we desperately need their skills to get us out of recession. I know that the Business Secretary understands that problem, but has he spoken to the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister about it? He should do, and quickly.
I am fully in favour of the UK Border Agency enforcing on businesses a requirement not to employ illegal workers, but I ask that that enforcement is intelligence-led and not disruptive to legitimately operating businesses. Many businesses in my constituency complain about insensitive raids by the UK Border Agency that are fruitless and harmful.
On visas for students from non-EU countries, I welcome the Government’s move to face-to-face interviews for prospective students from south Asia. That is necessary to stop bogus applications, but we must not stop genuine students coming to this country. Colleges in my constituency, such as Ealing, Hammersmith and West London college, are making a tremendous contribution to the London economy with many non-EU students.
In my constituency we have strong business connections with the growing Indian economy. I am glad that the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, and before them the previous Prime Minister, took a significant approach to build and to strengthen the relationship with India. That relationship should not be a one-way route. Investment and people are going not just from here to India; many investors from India are keen to come here and to invest. At present, Indian investors are the largest investors in this country. When we discuss immigration, we must also address those issues.
We act as an economic bridge to that rapidly growing world economic power. We must ensure that our immigration policies do not limit that huge economic opportunity by stopping highly skilled migrants from India working in the UK, or not allowing students from India and south-east Asia to come to this country on working holidays. The economic prize is great, and crucial for economic recovery. I urge the House to seize it.
I will, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for acknowledging that there has been progress even though there is some way to go.
That brings me to the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) made about the sensitive nature of these matters and how we should deal with people. The Government have come forward with cuts in the spending review of 20% for the Home Office, and the UK Border Agency also faces cuts of 20%. How does the Minister feel about those cuts when it comes to dealing with existing asylum and other legacy cases in the Home Office? What does he think will happen as a result of the 20% reduction? Will it help with enforcement and the ability to deal with illegal immigration?
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East talked about immigration advisers and the problems that some of her constituents have faced. A number of hon. Members agree that there are problems with the accreditation and registration of advisers. Some people are being exploited way beyond their means and we have to put that right.
I take the point made by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) about the coalition agreement, but there are many outstanding issues that the Government have to face. If we are to have a fair immigration policy to which our constituents will respond, we need to discuss all the issues. Of course, the press will publicise the immigration cap, but other issues need to be addressed, and if we do not get them right and have a positive discussion, all the good that comes from this debate will be lost because people will lose confidence in what we are trying to achieve.
If that is the case, I am happy to acknowledge the work that has been done.
I have been in the House for 16 years, including three years in opposition, so I know that it is easy for the Opposition to ask why this or that has not been done and that things are not so easy when one becomes a Minister—one has to consider the expectations of a wider range of people. I hope, then, that the Minister will take my next comment as a positive criticism. A number of organisations and commentators have commented on the immigration cap. The Financial Times has said that the Prime Minister’s pledge to bring immigration down to 1990s levels will hit outputs by as much as 1% and cost the Exchequer £9 billion a year in forgone tax revenues by the end of the Parliament. What is the Minister’s view on that? Is there confusion in the Cabinet about the immigration cap? We keep hearing about different Ministers saying different things. It is important to get these things right to regain people’s confidence.
The previous Government made much progress with e-borders and the introduction of UKBA and the points-based system. I accept that some issues need to be put right, but there was a genuine intent to move forward. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead has said, we have to act constructively. The job of the Opposition is to hold the Government to account. We will be considering how to recalibrate some of the ideas and issues that we think important concerning the next steps, but we want to work with the Government on getting this issue right and preventing extremists on either side from damaging the good that migrant workers have done for our country.
EU immigration is a major concern, and although the Minister will disagree with the previous Government about how the problem came about, he will not want to suggest that the immigration cap affects EU workers. We should get the issue out in the open, stop pandering to national newspapers and ensure that the education, housing and schools issues that we face—all the impacts that migrant workers can have on our communities—are dealt with properly.
The Opposition will be supportive where we can be, critical when we need to be and will try to work with the Government to ensure that our immigration policy is fit for the current economic climate.
My hon. Friend makes that point, and that is why we are considering these issues very carefully.
The balance at which the Government must arrive is one whereby the IT sector is addressed as the Minister wants but the Japanese ambassador’s concerns that very senior engineers may not be able to come to the UK as part of an ICT arrangement, thereby stopping the creation of seven jobs in the UK, are taken into account.
My hon. Friend speaks with experience of the IT industry. He was involved in that industry before coming to this House, so he offers a fair degree of knowledge on this point. We are examining these issues extremely carefully in the context of the reforms and changes that will be made.
Employers have indicated to us that they are mainly concerned about the tier 2 route, rather than the tier 1 route. We know from recent research that looked at a sample of highly skilled migrants that nearly a third of tier 1 migrants did not find highly skilled work. An example of that is the individual who was issued with a tier 1 visa and later became duty manager at a well-known high street chain of fried chicken restaurants. Perhaps that highlights some of the challenges involved in this matter. We cannot afford a mismatch between what employers need and the profile of those coming to this country. We will therefore have to ensure that those coming to do skilled work are undertaking a suitable job with a sponsoring employer.
At present, the minimum skills level for a job is a national vocational qualification level 3, and the English language requirements are at a basic level. In the shortage occupation list, some wage levels are as low as £7.80 an hour. The question that we need to consider carefully is whether that is really the right level of skilled migrant, when we have many unemployed people in this country. We believe that many employers are currently using migrant workers to fill vacancies because they cannot get the right people from the domestic or European labour market. That inability to recruit local talent is frustrating when we have people out of work in this country. That is why the Government are using their welfare reform policy to get people back to work. British employers need to be committed to developing a skills base here, and we need them to look first at people who are out of work and who are already in this country.
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberI remind the hon. Gentleman that the previous Government proposed compulsory forced mergers. We do not intend to go down that route. Where forces wish to merge, if there is a sound business case and the merger has the consent of local people, we will not stand in the way. We believe that forces can make significant savings by sharing services and collaborating, without having to merge.
How can the cost of elected police commissioners be minimised so that it reduces the impact on police officer numbers?
We do not wish elected police commissioners to cost any more than police authorities currently do. The exception is that there will be the cost of the elections, which will be once every four years. That will be met by separate funding. It will not come out of the police budget.
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberFirst, I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) on the significant and important role she has played in pushing this issue, and also on securing the debate. I echo the comments of various previous speakers about the role Anthony Steen has played in pushing this agenda and bringing it to the notice of Parliament; I agree with the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) that it is a great pity that he was not present today to participate in, and perhaps open, the debate.
Anti-slavery day provides us with an opportunity to reflect on our ancestors’ role in this trade and on the fact that it is still an issue today. We are reminded of that almost daily. Literally a couple of minutes before the debate started, I had a chance conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) who has just been meeting to discuss the issue of St Helena. Apparently two of what he believes are the largest concentrations of graves of slaves anywhere in the world have just been found on St Helena. The island was used as a transit point and the slaves who had, presumably, died on the boats were off-loaded and buried on it. There are events even now that remind us of that past, therefore.
I also attended an event a couple of weeks ago to do with black history month. One of the speakers pointed out that although she was Jamaican her surname was clearly Scottish, and that that was because her ancestors had been slaves in an area where the landowner and keeper of the slaves—if I can put it that way—was Scottish and had passed on his surname to all the slaves working on his land.
Even more recently—just a couple of days ago—a Romanian gang was broken up. It is alleged—we will have to wait for the court case verdict—that it was responsible for using children for begging in the UK. Slavery is therefore not only a topic that we need to reflect on historically, but one that is present today.
I thank the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) for drawing attention to the work of Thomas Clarkson, of Wisbech in my constituency, who did so much to gather the evidence on which the case was put by William Wilberforce in this place. Does the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) agree that one of the problems—one of the pockets—is to be found within the diplomatic community? Although this is a complex area in terms of the legal framework, diplomatic immunity should not be grounds for allowing conditions akin to slavery to exist.
That is a very pertinent and topical point, although it might be slightly beyond my pay grade to respond to it on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Perhaps the Minister may use his response as an opportunity to put across the Government’s perspective on that point.
Many forms of slavery are alive and well today, including bonded labour. People can enter bonded labour for something as simple as the cost of medicine for a sick child, and it then locks them into providing labour free or in exchange for food and shelter. That can be labour that they have to provide 365 days a year and it can be impossible for them to get out of that arrangement. As many hon. Members will know, Dalits fall into that category. Those are peoples in both India and other parts of the subcontinent who can end up in lifelong servitude, which often gets passed down through generations.
How does my hon. Friend suggest that we deal with that? Hundreds of thousands of people are involved in bonded labour in India, but India is a mature democracy, although one to which we still provide some development assistance. How and where does he suggest that we exert influence to help bring about the end of bonded labour in mature democracies such as India?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The only tool at our disposal is the one that we are using at this moment: raising the issue and using that as a gentle encouragement to the Indian Government, and other Governments in the subcontinent, to respond to these challenges.
The time available does not allow an in-depth discussion about trafficking, although we had a fairly full debate on it just a couple of days ago. Inevitably, and correctly, that debate touched on the EU directive, and I simply wish to restate what I said then. I welcome the fact that the Government are reviewing the directive, but I hope that if it is clear at the end of that review process that the directive pushes us significantly beyond where we are on tackling human trafficking, the Government will then opt in to the directive.
In order to allow others their opportunity to speak in the debate, I shall finish by discussing just one other important point—the legal framework to tackle slavery in the UK. It is only this year that we have legislated to deal with an offence of forced labour or domestic servitude. At least we now have clarity, because the legislation is in place. Is the Minister in a position to tell the House whether there have been any prosecutions or convictions under that legislation, which has recently come into force? People will want to express emotional views in this debate, so I wish to conclude simply by saying that it is regrettable that we are having to have an anti-slavery day debate, because slavery is alive and well in the world. I hope that in future years—perhaps a number of years from now—such a debate will not be necessary.
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
It is a pleasure, Mr Streeter, to see you in the Chair this morning. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) on securing this important debate.
I echo what the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) said about the excellent work done on human trafficking by the now retired Member for Totnes, Sir Anthony Steen. He was, it will be agreed, a colourful figure—he was often frank and occasionally unguarded in his comments—but he deserves to be remembered for his excellent work on raising the profile of the matter and for establishing the Human Trafficking Foundation. I also support what the hon. Gentleman said about the need for better training for officers and others engaged in dealing with the problem, and the need for guardians to support children through the unpleasant and doubtless un-nerving process of going through the courts.
We know that human trafficking is a big problem, but it is fair to say that the scale of it is a little hard to determine. The United Nations estimates that 70,000 new victims arrive in Europe each year and stay a couple of years; that compares with a total population working in the sex industry of something in the order of 140,000. The market as a whole is said to be worth €2.4 billion a year. A substantial amount of money is being spent on this horrific trade—or service, if I can put it that way. The Association of Chief Police Officers estimates that an estimated 30,000 sex workers in the UK have been trafficked into the country, coming principally from China, Thailand and other parts of south-east Asia, and from eastern Europe.
That report was fairly controversial in that it extrapolated from interviews with women who were working in brothels in London a national figure of 2,600 victims of sex trafficking. All one can know for certain is that those women would have been under huge pressure not to confirm the way in which they had arrived in the UK, which makes it difficult to establish how many victims there are other than it is a very large number. What is certain, however, is the number of convictions. Since the Sexual Offences Act 2003 came into force in January 2004, 46 men and women have been convicted and jailed for transporting willing sex workers—I am sure that we could argue about what constitutes a willing sex worker and discuss the economic pressure that they may have been under to come willingly to the UK for such a purpose—and 59 people have been convicted of transporting women who were forced to work in the sex industry. What is also clear is the excellent work that the POPPY project is doing and the number of women that it has been able to help. In the past six and a half years, it has helped and supported around 500 women.
Hon. Members who have local newspapers—as Members of Parliament, we all follow our local newspapers carefully—will be aware that the newspaper group, Newsquest, has been actively trying to ensure that no local papers carry ads publicising such services, and I commend such work.
What makes this issue even harder to resolve is the conflict that exists between trying to establish whether someone has been trafficked here or whether they have come here of their own volition. Hon. Members will be familiar with the research that was published by Dr. Nick Mai of London Metropolitan university—again, we have to read between the lines of the responses that were given—in which he conducted detailed interviews with 100 migrant sex workers in the UK. He astonishingly states that for the majority of people, working in the industry was a way to avoid the exploitative working conditions that they had experienced in their previous non-sexual jobs. I take that with a pinch of salt because such people are working in an industry that is illegal and on the margins, and their status in the country is uncertain. The suggestion that they come here to work in such an industry because it provides better working conditions than the ones that they might have experienced before requires some scrutiny, but that is what his research apparently found. That makes it harder for authorities such as the UK Border Agency to err on the side of thinking that people have made a conscious choice to come to the UK for this purpose rather than erring on the side of assuming that people have been trafficked, which is what we want. Such an attitude is also adopted in relation to children who are, all too often, treated as criminals rather than people who have fallen foul of trafficking.
Members will be familiar with the concerns expressed by the anti-trafficking monitoring group about trafficked children who have gone into care and subsequently gone missing. The review into 390 cases of suspected trafficked victims handled by the UK authorities gave some quite alarming statistics about how many of those victims subsequently disappeared.
In theory, the national referral mechanism, to which other hon. Members have referred, allows the police and social workers to refer suspected cases to the appropriate authorities, but again there is legitimate concern that the people who are being referred are being treated as part of an immigration issue rather than as a crime issue, or as victims of trafficking who require support. If the police are succeeding in identifying people who are responsible for human trafficking, it is not being followed through in terms of the number of convictions. For example, only five people were convicted of human trafficking for sexual exploitation in the first six months of this year compared with a figure in the low 30s in previous years. Therefore, we are not seeing many successful prosecutions.
Will the Minister give us an update—I know that this is not his brief—on what the Crown Prosecution Service is doing to improve its prosecution policy in relation to these cases, and does he believe that it will be successful?
In conclusion, I will refer to the UK opt out of the EU directive, which was clearly a controversial decision by the coalition. The coalition has been criticised by many campaigning groups for not signing up to the directive, and I must say that I have some sympathy with the concerns that have been expressed. I know that the Government will consider the impact of the directive, and I strongly hope that if they decide that the directive will help to address the issue of human trafficking, they will not be put off adopting it simply because it is prefixed with the word “EU”. If the directive is effective at tackling the issue, it is incumbent on us as a Government to support it.
I have one more sentence, so I will not give way. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will get another opportunity to speak. I just wanted to conclude my remarks by saying that we have an anti-slavery debate on Monday and a debate on the issue on Thursday. Regrettably, it is clear that slavery is alive and well in our society today and it is something that all parties here this morning want to address, and I certainly want to play a role in doing that.
(13 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberThis is indeed an historic occasion and it is gratifying that the coalition has been able to deliver so early in its life such a significant change and such an improvement in our civil liberties. This is clearly the first stage in a much wider programme. Members on the Government Benches have been accused of being obsessed with civil liberties, but it is a sign of how regressive or repressive the Labour Government had become that they characterised supporters and defenders of civil liberties as people, or Members, who were obsessed with that subject over and above any other.
The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) spoke of the so-called myth that the previous Government had an agenda that was contrary to civil liberties. However, they gave us identity cards, which we no longer have. We also had pre-charge detention, control orders, fingerprinting in schools and DNA retention. In my view, that constituted a full-frontal assault on our civil liberties, and we are right to try to redress the balance. He also said that there might be only £84 million-worth of savings—I do not know whether he actually used the word “only”. Even if that figure is indeed right, in the current context those are savings that we need to achieve.
In my view, and that of the coalition Government, this Bill is just the first step in a programme of rebuilding and restoring our reputation as a nation that values civil liberties and is willing to defend them whenever they are under assault.
(13 years, 11 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, in your first debate in Westminster Hall. I congratulate you on your appointment to the Panel of Chairs. I wish you all success in that position and in chairing many more debates in the weeks and months ahead.
In securing the debate today, I wish to address the issue of so-called legal highs, which are new psychoactive synthetic substances. The coalition Government will not lose sight of the harms caused by all drug use. Within our objective of making society a safer place for young people, we need to be responsive to such new threats and new harms. Over the past 18 months or so, there has been a proliferation of so-called legal highs, which are often drugs with a similar molecular structure to a controlled drug, but they have been deliberately altered by unscrupulous manufacturers to subvert our laws by producing an entirely new compound which, although the pharmacological effects may be similar to or greater than the controlled drug, are not already controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
Those selling these potentially harmful drugs advertise them as legal and safe, often under purposely enticing brand names such as Fast Lane, Silver Bullet and many others, including Ivory Wave, to which I will refer later. They often label them as “not for human consumption” or “research chemicals”, or describe them as pond cleaner, plant food or bath salts, with the aim of circumventing medicines legislation—a purely insidious ruse. Another alarming feature is the way in which legal highs are advertised and sold over the internet, creating a more connected global marketplace, thus increasing the ways in which it is possible to buy drugs, which can be accessed by people of all ages.
A further layer of complexity is highlighted by the research from test purchases referred to in the latest report on naphyrone by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Although people who sell legal highs often brand them as legal, test purchases demonstrate that they may contain any number of illegal substances, especially cathinones, legal stimulants or other active and inactive constituents. Simply because a drug is marketed as legal does not mean that it is safe or, indeed, that it is legal.
There is no starker reminder of the problem than the UK’s experience with mephedrone, which was rapidly established in the UK and was eventually brought under the control of the Misuse of Drugs Act with cross-party agreement in the final days of the last Parliament. The hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) is here this afternoon, and I know that he was involved in work to secure that position.
I want to discuss first the harms of such drugs, because that is at the root of our concerns and responsibilities. It is becoming increasingly clear that those substances are far from harmless and can have similar health risks to drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines. The ACMD—our independent expert advisers—has provided full assessments of harms on a range of substances that could be described as the first generation of legal highs: gamma-butyrolactone or GBL; synthetic cannabinoids; benzylpiperazine or BZP; and related piperazines and cathinones, including mephedrone and naphyrone. It is clear that some of those substances are so novel that there is little research into the short, medium and long-term risks that they pose.
What we can conclude from the ACMD’s reports to date is that those drugs—in some cases, more properly described as chemicals—are far from safe. By way of example, the harms associated with mephedrone identified by the ACMD include anxiety and paranoid states, and the risk of over-stimulating the heart and nervous system to cause fits and delusions as well as the risk of dependency. The recently published 2010 annual report by the national programme on substance abuse deaths advises that mephedrone has been detected in a total of 38 deaths in the UK, and was the sole direct cause of death in at least two of them. In a further two cases, mephedrone was implicated but there were also underlying health issues. Mephedrone has been implicated in two cases of death by hanging and was a contributory factor to another two deaths by natural causes. A remaining 29 cases await the completion of inquiries by the coroner or the procurator fiscal. It should be emphasised that the risks associated with the substances are increased if they are used with alcohol or other drugs.
For the reasons I have set out, action to address the health risks arising from the use of legal highs, including new ones coming on to the market, is a priority for the coalition Government. We need to reduce the supply of, and the demand for, new substances. Our response must be wide-ranging, encompassing prevention, education, treatment and enforcement, and at its core is our legislative response. As with all drugs, enforcement action must be taken at home—at local and at national levels—at our borders and abroad, to create a hostile environment for those selling legal highs on the internet and in so-called “head shops”.
In many ways, policing legal highs presents particular challenges for law enforcement, but I am encouraged that with joint working across law enforcement we are beginning to gain a better understanding and application of the full range of tools and powers available. We are working closely with the Association of Chief Police Officers and other agencies to develop a comprehensive and robust approach to tackle the mis-selling of illicit substances such as legal highs, by taking local, targeted action. ACPO guidance has been updated and is available to all police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
My Department has also called on local trading standards teams, through local authority chief executives, to work in partnership with the police to deal with the sale of legal highs, taking full account of the latest evidence that something branded as legal is not necessarily so, and to make appropriate referrals to the police and otherwise apply their responsibility for enforcing offences under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. Trading standards and the police, in a number of locations, are working closely with a range of partners, including drug treatment agencies, schools and youth services, to gather intelligence and to tackle sales from head shops and the internet.
In Norfolk, for example, all retailers believed to be selling legal highs have been visited by local trading standards officers. In Suffolk, following effective action by the police and trading standards, all known retailers have now agreed not to stock or to supply legal highs. We should also remember that it is illegal to sell, supply or advertise legal highs for human consumption under medicines legislation. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency will take appropriate measures to control and enforce medicines law.
The UK Border Agency has undertaken effective enforcement action against criminal gangs that traffic such drugs across our borders, by seizing and destroying shipments of illegal drugs and of legal highs that have been subject to an import ban under the open general import licence. The Serious Organised Crime Agency has actively developed approaches to identify importers, distributors and sellers of legal highs. That includes activity in conjunction with law enforcement partners and in parallel with work conducted by Europol and by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction to gather intelligence on suppliers of legal high substances on the internet. Productive discussions have taken place with the competent authorities within source countries, mindful of their internal laws and regulations.
Along with referrals for enforcement action where appropriate, SOCA has also taken action to disrupt such activity by using preventive tools, such as the removal of websites, either in tandem with more traditional activity or independently. As part of a wider initiative to disrupt criminal activity, SOCA has closed 113 websites that offered mephedrone or naphyrone for sale after the respective bans.
Those trafficking banned substances face a substantial term of imprisonment—up to a maximum of 14 years—and, where they have profited from any illegal trade, the courts have the power to seize their property and other assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. We are also strengthening our forensic capability to identify new illicit drugs and emerging legal highs by creating a virtual reference library of characterised chemical standards. Working with forensics providers, the library will allow new evidential methods to be used to enable the police and UKBA to enforce the law. We are introducing technology at the borders to support UKBA in identifying any new drugs imported into the UK. That work will feed directly into our early warning capabilities.
Enforcement action of that kind is effective. We continue to monitor the impact of the recent bans on mephedrone and naphyrone, but indications are that they have curtailed availability, with law enforcement agencies able to take swift action to seize drugs and, to some degree, with retailers self-regulating themselves. Since the bans were introduced, UKBA has made a number of detections. It has stopped more than 128 kg of chemicals that it suspects to be mephedrone from entering the UK, and has seized more than 125 kg of naphyrone. Early indications from the police and forensics providers suggest that there has been a sizeable number of seizures of mephedrone since the ban in April this year. I hope to see the anecdotal information translated into national statistics in due course.
Prevention of drug use is an absolutely important element of the coalition Government’s approach to drugs. Young people need to be empowered to make the right decisions, and we all have a role to play in helping them to do that by changing attitudes towards any drug use. Young people need to be aware of the dangers of substances, including emerging legal highs. Parents must take a certain amount of responsibility for this. We know that young people listen to and trust their parents on such issues, and that parents can be hugely influential.
We also need to ensure that we get the balance right between communicating information accurately to the media and young people to deter use, and avoiding inadvertently raising interest in experimenting with new substances as they emerge. Interest in mephedrone and searches to buy it online increased with media coverage. In June, I wrote to the organisers of music festivals to make them aware of that, and asked them to review the measures that they put in place to ensure that their festivals are as safe an environment as possible.
Since 2005, the FRANK service has been offering a universally accessible service for anyone wanting help, information or advice on drug issues. The service, which is available by phone, on the web or by e-mail, can put people in touch with local services in their area and send out free information materials. FRANK also provides partners such as schools, youth services, charities and local services with an effective means of engaging with young people through the distribution of leaflets and classroom packs to deliver drugs education.
Later this month, we will launch a campaign to raise students’ awareness of the dangers of so-called legal highs and the risks associated with the use of such substances. We have established a partnership with the National Union of Students to deliver the campaign, which will launch during the freshers period to coincide with the new university year and the run-up to Christmas. Our work will seek to educate students on health risks associated with the use of legal highs and inform them of the possible illegalities of using such substances. As part of that campaign activity, I will write to university vice-chancellors to make them aware of the issue.
The FRANK service will be a key vehicle for communicating those messages. It provides up-to-date information on legal highs to young people, parents and carers via its website, helpline and text service. FRANK’s key messages on legal highs emphasise, first, that just because a drug is legal to possess, it does not mean that it is safe, and, secondly, that it is likely that drugs sold as a legal high may contain one or more substances that it is illegal to possess.
Previously, head teachers and authorised school staff had the statutory power to search without consent only those who were suspected of carrying a knife or other weapon. On 7 July, the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), announced that, as of 1 September—very recently, at the start of the term—that authority would be extended to include legal highs and several other articles. Our drug laws need to change more quickly to protect the public, and to combat the unscrupulous manufacturers and suppliers who seek to make huge profits at the cost of the health of the public, especially young people. As set out in the coalition agreement, the coalition Government have made it a priority to introduce a system of temporary bans as such substances emerge, .
The underlying purpose of the temporary banning power is to enable us to legislate quickly, while at the same time providing the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs with the time and space that it needs to formulate its full advice. The power is subject to parliamentary scrutiny, and while it targets supply, it does not criminalise young people unnecessarily, particularly when the true nature of the substance may still be in question.
I want to make it clear that the temporary banning power is a key and necessary tool in our legislative response to this changing landscape, but our preferred approach to drug control will remain the one which the advisory council and the Government have adopted for the past 40 years: a full assessment by the council before any controls are invoked by Parliament. I also wish to endorse and, as advice leads us, continue to adopt the use of generic definitions in our drug legislation to capture not only the substance encountered in the UK but its related compounds.
The Government intend to amend the UK-wide Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 in this first Session of Parliament. The power will have the following features: orders placing a drug under temporary control will be subject to a 12-month time period or earlier revocation if, for example, the drug becomes subject to permanent control in that time; it will be applied to trafficking offences including possession with intent to supply, offer to supply, supply, importation, exportation and production; it will apply class B current maximum penalties and/or an unlimited fine on indictment and six months and/or a £5,000 fine on summary conviction; and it will subject an order for temporary classification to the negative resolution procedure, and retain the affirmative resolution procedure with Privy Council Order in Council for permanent control.
I wish to highlight three features. First, the possession offence ordinarily prescribed for illegal drugs under the 1971 Act will not apply. A possession offence would send the strongest message, but our focus is on targeting importers and suppliers to curb availability, not to criminalise users, especially young people, while the full nature of the substance is mostly uncertain. However, we will ensure that law enforcement officers have the power to seize and retain a drug under temporary classification.
Secondly, as with drugs brought under permanent control, the role of scientific advice is both integral and necessary to ensure that any temporary ban is invoked on a necessary and proportionate basis. The advice that the advisory council has provided is key to the effectiveness to date of the UK’s legislative response, and it has enabled the UK to lead the world in responding to such challenges. It is proposed that the council discharge this role under a temporary banning power in line with its statutory position to provide expert independent advice, including on a drug’s likely psychoactive properties, as well as an indication of likely harmfulness, and legitimate use, for which we would have to consider the impact of control, as we do for drugs subject to permanent control.
We are working closely with the advisory council to develop a protocol under which we would work under a temporary banning power. The council and the Government also need to oversee the development of a more systematic approach to providing early warning of new substances. Thirdly, it is my intention to apply the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to drugs that are subject to a temporary control order, so we will seize property and other assets from those who are caught peddling such drugs out of pure greed, recklessly or deliberately disregarding the harm that they cause. Pursuant to our wider communications response, a clear and consistent narrative around the temporary class will support the proposed new power, to ensure that it is not less effective than the current system of control, and that users do not continue to use a drug subject to temporary classification with impunity.
Can the Minister clarify one aspect of the temporary ban? If the advisory council subsequently finds that the drug is not in fact dangerous in any shape or form, what will happen to anyone who might have been prosecuted for supply?
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. In circumstances in which legislation subsequently changes, the criminal sanction still stands. That is why we have focused on the supply and public harm issues, rather than creating a possession offence.
If the ACMD were subsequently to determine that a drug under the temporary classification was not to move into a permanent classification, and someone had been convicted after an offence had been identified and a prosecution secured, that offence would still stand. That underlines the need for the protocol with the ACMD, which I have mentioned, allowing us to seek advice from it on the use of the temporary ban in the first place. That may be done on a more fast-track basis, but certain tenets need to be applied to that process, because the intention in using the temporary ban is not, as I have said, to circumvent the existing system but to use it. Issues to do with mephedrone and other legal highs have highlighted the potential need to act quickly, from a public harm perspective, and that is the focus of our intent.
I welcome this debate and many of the steps that the new Government are taking, which follow the previous Administration’s effective and determined approach to tackling this difficult problem. I am glad to have the chance to speak in this debate, because there is a problem with the way we discuss so-called legal highs. Perhaps we need to find a better way of branding such drugs, which cause a great deal of harm to individuals and communities.
A number of issues that the Minister mentioned were also big issues in Barrow. I want briefly to mention a number of matters. First, he made an interesting point about the responsibility of traders to act in a way that minimises the harm to which young people can be subjected. I am glad that he gave an example of traders acting responsibly. However, I have to say that in Barrow, my personal experience prior to the election was not the same: local shops refused to cease stocking mephedrone before the temporary ban was put in place. Such an example calls into question whether the new powers that the Minister is suggesting, which are welcome, will go far enough in the important interim period that he rightly identified—in which a drug becomes controversial and notorious and the process to put a temporary ban in placed is started, and during which sales can increase.
The point made about the legality of so-called legal high drugs before they are in the public domain is apposite. We knew from personal experience—I should say that that this is not my personal experience—in Barrow of a substance called Shake ‘n’ Vac: a repackaging of mephedrone, which received a lot of attention during the mephedrone debate. That substance was sold in quantities of 1 gram for £15, purportedly as carpet cleaner, with the words, “Not for human consumption” written on it. It was laughable to suggest that the traders in question might believe that it was carpet cleaner, and it was clear that they did not. Is there not a way of immediately enforcing current law if it is sufficient to stop such products being mis-sold? If that is not possible under the current law, should it not be tightened? Could there not be a power to place an immediate suspension on suspicious substances, even before a temporary ban? If that power were used wrongly, traders could seek financial recompense, but in cases that seem as clear-cut as those experienced in my area, the chances of success would be slight.
I take the theoretical point, but I am not sure whether, in the real world, one would come remotely close to such circumstances. Frankly, if my proposal catches some rogue traders who are prepared to dupe people, we could probably live with that. The level of damage that is being perpetrated and the risks to which young people are being exposed mean that we must make decisions that fall within the bounds of common sense, and I believe that they would be readily accepted. I am interested to hear more about what the Government can do.
My final point concerns agreement on how important it is to clamp down on this malicious and immoral practice. Can the Minister guarantee that, given the severe budget constraints on the police and the whole of Government, this work will not suffer in the months and years ahead?
I welcome you to the debate, Mr Davies. This is the first debate in which you have been in the Chair, and the first in which I have participated under your chairmanship. I thank the Minister for initiating the debate. The problem of legal highs activates communities, and that was certainly my experience when a shop in my constituency, suitably called Your High, opened round the corner from a primary school and down the road from a secondary school. I am pleased that it has since shut, but it generated a lot of concern in the community, so it is right that we are debating the matter here.
I was interested and pleased to hear the Minister refer to Ivory Wave, which is the current so-called legal high, and I agree with the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) that we should find another phrase. Perhaps “soon-to-be illegal highs” might be appropriate. I was interested to hear the Minister refer to mephedrone but not meow meow. I understand from my street adviser, Grant Sibley, that only politicians and journalists refer to meow meow, and that mephedrone is the appropriate word.
This debate is focused on legal highs, but hon. Members will be aware that a wider drugs consultation is under way that looks at that issue, for which the closing date is 30 September. I hope that it will be possible for us, not now, but over the coming months and years, to have a more open and frank discussion about tackling drugs. All hon. Members here today know that the subject is difficult for politicians to address, because sometimes the most effective solutions as suggested by the evidence may not be politically acceptable, but we must address the problem in an evidence-based way. When people such as the former president of the Royal College of Physicians says that a blanket ban is not necessarily the most effective way of tackling the drugs issue, we must consider that and assess the implications, if any, for Government policy. We must find a way of creating space in which it is safe for politicians to debate these matters and to rely on what evidence-based solutions might recommend.
I was intrigued, interested and pleased that the Government are considering the approach to drugs adopted by the Portuguese and Spanish Governments. I see the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) smiling, and I am sure that he will refer to Liberal Democrats being soft on drugs—that is a standard Labour phrase—but the fact is that Spain and Portugal have adopted a different approach towards personal possession. It is interesting that the all-party consensus in those countries about what might have been expected to be the consequences of such an approach did not transpire when that policy was implemented. I am not advocating that policy, but I am advocating that we should be allowed to debate it, analyse it and come to our own conclusions without being buffeted around by some of the media.
I shall focus more narrowly on legal highs. I agree that we need a new name, and perhaps the Minister will provide us with a definition of a legal high, if we are to continue to use that phrase. He rightly identified the need to educate people on the dangers associated with so-called legal highs, and it is clear, regrettably, that whatever is being done at the moment is not sufficient. As and when a legal high is found to be a toxic substance and becomes illegal, the producers simply move on to another product, a hybrid product, or simply rename the product. Unfortunately, people then go out and buy it. It is strange, but I suspect that some of the people who buy such products examine the list of ingredients for E numbers in products bought from supermarkets. They may avoid such products, but be happy to buy something with zero knowledge of what may be in it. It may contain herbal or chemical ingredients that may be toxic and are probably illegal, yet they buy it. Whatever we are doing educationally, it is not having the impact that it should. I agree that parents have a role to play, but in some families the matter is not discussed, so there is also a role for schools, which should perhaps include other drugs such as alcohol and be more proactive in addressing that concern.
I shall focus specifically on legal highs. The briefing that was prepared for this debate refers to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, but there is also the Medicines Act 1968. The Medicines Act can be used when something is said to have a physiological effect or a potentially harmful effect on the body, and we might be able to use it as well as, or instead of, the Misuse of Drugs Act to deal with some of these products. If so, will the Minister tell us whether there would be any advantages to doing that and what they might be?
I have some further specific questions. The Minister has responded on the issue of the temporary ban, and I understand his point. If we have a temporary ban—my colleagues and I support such a move—there is a very small possibility that a substance that is subject to such a ban will subsequently be found to be totally harmless. A person might be prosecuted and possibly found guilty and sent to prison, but we might subsequently find that the reason for doing that no longer exists. As the Minister said, it is essential that the ACMD’s protocol is clear and sufficiently robust. None of us would want a temporary ban to be imposed, only for the substance subsequently to turn out to be a perfectly harmless herbal product. We need to be confident that the protocol stands up.
These people know what the law is when it is put in place, but they choose to break it. By the hon. Gentleman’s logic, if the advisory council came back at some point and said that cocaine was not actually that harmful after all, everyone who had been convicted of cocaine possession or distribution would be told, “It’s okay. You can come out.” Is that what he is suggesting?
Fortunately, I am 101% certain that no one will come back and say that cocaine is harmless—if anything is certain in a drugs debate, it is that. All that I ask the hon. Gentleman to accept is that someone might think, perhaps quite rightly, that there is evidence that a herbal product is harmful, with the result that a temporary ban is imposed, but the product might subsequently prove not to be harmful. That is all that I am flagging up as an issue. All that I am saying is that we must make sure that the protocol is tough and ensures that such things do not happen.
Once the temporary ban has been imposed, what time scale would the Minister expect the advisory council to use in implementing the protocol? Would there be a maximum time frame in which a response would be required? Furthermore, will the advisory council have to take into account a balance-of-probabilities consideration at any point when determining whether something is harmful? Any clarity that the Minister could give us on that would be gratefully received.
The final issue that I want to mention is the impact of khat. The Home Office online report highlighted the concerns about khat. I do not know whether it referred to medical problems, but, interestingly, the most commonly cited social problems related more to
“tensions arising in response to a family member spending time and money”
on the product, than to any other consideration. Apparently, the link between the use of this particular herbal stimulant and offending was minimal. I would like to hear whether the Minister has more up-to-date information on the issue and whether the Department is considering it. I have certainly been lobbied by a local councillor who has concerns about the use of khat in their area. Will the Minister tell us, although perhaps not now, what progress is being made on the issue?
To conclude, we need to respond to legal, or soon-to-be illegal, highs, and I was happy to support the previous Government when they introduced the mephedrone ban. We need to be geared up to respond to these issues quickly, but I hope that we can also debate them more widely. In that way, we can make sure that whatever we do is the most effective way to tackle the crime and health consequences associated with drug use.
I welcome you to your role as Chairman, Mr Davies, particularly as this is your first debate in that role. I can imagine that the Minister’s heart sank when he saw you coming into the Chamber, given your robust and independent manner. When you sat in the Chair he probably relaxed slightly.
I was not going to respond to the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), but I shall briefly say that I hope he will reflect on the opening comments of his short speech, because he is usually a thoughtful contributor to debates. To start by saying what a difference an election makes and then completely to misunderstand the history of the issue did not do him any credit on this occasion, unusually. That is not least because Professor Nutt’s disagreement was with the previous Government, not the current Government—I do not know his views on the current Government’s drugs policy—but the Minister was gracious enough in his opening remarks at least to allude to the continuity that is important in these matters. I was grateful for the support that his party in opposition offered on the important matter of drugs and legal highs. We had our disagreements but I think there was much more support than difference. I hope that we shall be able to offer the Minister that degree of support. Perhaps if the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate had been here for the opening remarks he would not have said what he said.
The debate is timely and has allowed the Minister to build on his announcement of last month about legal highs. He has set out the programme by which the Government want to tackle the issue, and, as I have said, we want to be as supportive as we can be. I share the nervousness of my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) about continually using the term “legal high”, but I suppose they are legal until they are not legal. I hope that someone can come up with a new term, but that is not the real point, which is how to tackle the emerging problem quickly enough to avoid the harm that in some cases is already being done, particularly to young people. The Minister knows that we share the Government’s concern about legal highs. We also share their broad approach, including in relation to consultation. If it is built on the pillars of preventing drug taking, disrupting supply, strengthening enforcement and promoting drug treatment there is a lot that we can agree with.
There is common cause in tackling legal highs not just because it is the right thing to do but because the previous Government began that journey, in relation to spice, GBL and mephedrone. I am grateful for the update from the Minister on how he sees that ban working out. I was encouraged by his remarks and look forward to hearing more. He knows, although there was an election in between, that we supported the Government with respect to naphyrone when they brought forward a ban in July. I am pleased that the generic approach is continuing, because that is the right one. It prevents manufacturers from tweaking compounds to try to stay ahead of any ban, and, in the words of the chair of the ACMD, it permits a systematic approach. That is important and I am reassured by the Minister’s assurance that it will continue.
I want to talk about the temporary ban, which has been the subject of comment in the debate. It is true that the introduction of a temporary ban would be a new development, but it is not an entirely new idea in discussions in this country, and it is part of the law in other countries. It may have the potential to make a real difference, not least in combating the frustration that is particularly acute among the families and friends of people who are victims of the relevant substances. I shall examine the temporary ban provisions, and we want to be as supportive as we can.
The Minister mentioned the importance of the press and other media, which is a double-edged sword, in my experience. The media can get involved when a substance such as Ivory Wave emerges, and give it publicity. They can campaign, as has happened in the past with some substances that we went on to ban, and can play an important part. The downside is that the media reaction is often to call for a very quick, if not instantaneous, response, without really understanding the need for evidence, and sometimes without even having the facts about what has happened to victims. If that provokes a knee-jerk reaction—that may be a danger with the temporary ban, if we are not careful—that will not be a good basis for drugs policy. We must be aware of that, but I know that the Minister does not operate in a media vacuum, and he will know from the trawl that his staff do through the newspapers and other media every day how those campaigns can take off.
As the Minister has said—I am grateful for the reassurance that there will be a degree of continuity in the way the issues are considered—it is important that the advisory council should be given time to examine the scientific and medical evidence for the harm that a drug might do, and then report to the Home Secretary, who would have time for due consideration. The problem with that approach, as we discovered, is that it takes too long and we get to the issues too late, as the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate suggested, although not in a particularly helpful way. We knew about the need to act swiftly, and tried to do so. The new Government followed, in the case of naphyrone, and used a similar agreement to obtain the change in the law that we recognised was important. The matter will go further because, as I understand matters, the temporary ban will be a 12-month ban on imports, pending final advice from the advisory council. I want to ask in passing why the method that I think the Minister used, and which we certainly used for mephedrone, is not sufficient. That is, using the open general licensing system so that the existing legislation can be used. I think that I know the answer to that, but I should be grateful if the Minister could tell me.
The Government and various commentators have pointed to other countries that have temporary bans in place. Perhaps the Minister will help the debate by writing to hon. Members and listing those countries that have temporary bans and detailing the substances that are subject to those bans. New Zealand is the country most often mentioned but as far as I am concerned—this point was picked up by Professor Iversen in his comments to the Select Committee—New Zealand currently has no substances in the holding pen, or in class D or class X, or whatever one wants to call it. If his officials are looking again at practices in New Zealand, the Minister might also wish to look at the term “harm reduction,” which occurs more in New Zealand’s drug policy than in ours, particularly with reference to treatment. Perhaps it is possible to learn from that.
I would like to pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness about what would happen if a substance were banned temporarily but then the ACMD—unusually, as this is unlikely—recommended that it did not need to be banned because it was not harmful. Would the Government be subject to a legal challenge from businesses that had not been able to import those substances? The issue might come back later. Those substances are not illegal—that is the whole point. Returning to the analogy with cocaine, we cannot say, “Well, those substances were illegal.” As I understand it, those substances would not be illegal because the legislation would not have been passed.
As hon. Members know, GBL was extremely dangerous, which is why it was banned. However, it contains a chemical that is used in hundreds and thousands of household and industrial products. If a substance such as that was the subject of a temporary ban, but then found not to be harmful, I shiver at the thought of what businesses might do. The Government must be aware of that—I am sure that they are—and they must have a defence in place when they present the evidence. What if the ACMD came to a different conclusion and the Government were left with a bill?
As I understand it, a breach of a temporary ban could mean jail sentence of up to 14 years and/or an unlimited fine for suppliers and manufacturers of a substance. If I remember rightly, that equates to the sentence for the supply of a class B drug. A legal high could find itself in that category, but there is no offence of possession. If the same substance was a class B drug and it was found in someone’s possession, there would be severe penalties. However, we are told that if someone possesses a substance that might end up as a class B drug, they would not be subject to those penalties even if there were a ban on possession. As I understand it, New Zealand has not gone down that route but there is an amnesty. After a six-month period, if someone is caught with a drug that has been temporarily banned, they are subject to the full force of the law under which possession is an offence. We must be careful with that issue.
To some extent, I agree with the Minister when he says that we do not want to criminalise young people. That was not our intention, and it is not the intention of the present Government. However, in going down that route, any Government will be in danger of sending out a mixed message and in relying entirely on the health reasons for why certain substances should not be taken, rather than having the back-up of the law and the penalties that come with that. There is an element of that in the way that many drugs policies are enacted on our street; agencies do not automatically go out of their way to criminalise young people as there are warnings and other things that they can use.
The Minister’s comments from 19 August have been seized on, even today, by some in the media and some bloggers—including some in the legal profession who should, quite frankly, know better—to say that that was the first step towards the legalisation of drugs for personal use. The Minister shakes his head, but I mention that so that in his concluding speech he can reassure me that that is not the case. The next step taken by the bloggers was to claim that they knew who was behind the policy, because the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister—and, we learn today, the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington—appear from their comments to have some sympathy with that view.
The hon. Gentleman accused me of wanting to say that the Liberal Democrats are soft on crime. I am not going to say that—this is probably the first occasion on which I will not say that. However, I would like a reassurance from the Minister that the coalition Government are not going soft on drugs. I do not think that they are, but I will give him the opportunity to reassure people. The subject is open to misinterpretation. When the Minister’s officials are found to have taken a particular interest in Portugal, which the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington picked up on, that raises the question of whether we are heading along a route towards the legalisation of drugs.
Let me inform the hon. Gentleman that members of the Home Affairs Committee went to Portugal and Spain and therefore have first-hand evidence of what has been done there. I seek reassurance that when sound, factual evidence is produced to show what is effective in tackling drug crime and addressing health issues, the hon. Gentleman will sign up to that.
I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the assurance he seeks because he is sending me along a route he knows I cannot go down. There is a great deal of evidence that if we both studied this issue, he would reach one conclusion and I would reach another. The Government are looking around for all sorts of ideas from elsewhere—they are not the first Government to do that; all Governments do it. We are getting our schools policy from Sweden, although I gather that we are not getting our drugs policy from Portugal. It is no bad thing to learn lessons from abroad, but we need a drugs policy for this country that reflects the evidence and takes into account the views of the public. The hon. Gentleman’s view about public opinion on this matter is different from what I believe to be the case, yet we look at the same evidence. I cannot give him the commitment he asks for, but I support his call for a mature debate on drugs policy. That is what the consultation will do. However, if he thinks we have had an immature debate on drugs policy today, I disagree with him.
Politicians always think that they back the public because they hope the public will back them. The hon. Gentleman misses my point—perhaps I am not explaining it sufficiently to him. We can take the evidence, but we must also take into account what the public think about such matters. There is an argument to say that scientific evidence alone can be collected on the harm that a drug would do to someone’s health, and that the judgment can be made entirely from that. However, that is not the basis on which the advisory council is set up. Other factors must be taken into account, not least the attitude of the public, which I hope is informed by the evidence, as the hon. Gentleman suggests it will be. I hope we will get to that position. He and I disagree on this matter, as he believes the public to be in one place and I think they are somewhere else. The Government must be absolutely clear—the Minister has the opportunity to do this in his winding-up speech—and ensure that what is being suggested about legal highs is not open to misinterpretation, and that we are still following a tough approach that the Labour party will be pleased to support.
In reality, anyone can make an economic case for the legalisation of drugs. That is dead easy. Look at how much it costs to enforce drug legislation. Anyone can make that case even if they are amateurs at economics. However, if anyone believes for one minute that freer access to drugs will not lead to more drug abuse, they are mistaken. If anyone thinks for one minute, looking at the crime implications, that if drugs were legalised, drug traffickers would give up crime, they are mistaken, because the people who traffic drugs are criminals and will traffic whatever they can to make some cash out of it, whether it is people, substances or anything else, so we need to be very careful before we go down that route.
I want to say something about the practical aspects of the policy. My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness picked up on some of those points. The Minister mentioned trading standards. I know that if he has a similar portfolio to the one I had, he could give a different priority to trading standards every day of the week. Monday it could be alcohol sales; Tuesday it could be knife sales; and Wednesday it could be legal highs. That is not to diminish the importance of legal highs, but it says something about trading standards, which too often are the Cinderella services in councils. They are not the ones that are financed enough to do all these things, and if councils are facing the sort of cuts in their budgets that we have heard about, the Government must be absolutely clear that they are not offering anything, in combating legal highs, that will be delivered on the ground, because the people are not there.
The Minister talked, at least in the press releases that went out on this issue, about the shipments and importation of drugs, including legal highs, and he mentioned the importance of officers who work abroad, SOCA and others. I have seen them in the field, doing the work that they do, and I pay tribute to their work, because they are among the bravest people I have ever met. They often operate in very difficult circumstances. The hon. Gentleman reaffirmed the importance of starting our drugs policy not at our borders, but somewhere else in the world. That is very important, particularly at times when money is tight.
However, it is the internet that is very important when it comes to the buying and selling of legal highs. It is not a criticism of this Minister, because he knows more about tackling crime on the internet than most people, to say that Governments, by and large, are behind the curve on that. It is really difficult stuff. It is very difficult to work out how we tackle crime on the internet in the way that we can tackle crime in the real world, but it is very important that we do that.
Even if we can identify the suppliers, it is extremely difficult sometimes to find out what the substance is. The Minister talked about the problems with Ivory Wave. The situation was the same with mephedrone and other things. Forensic investigation is required; and more often than not, the cost of forensic investigation comes out of police budgets. Again, therefore, we must ensure that the Home Office is fighting its corner to make sure that the forensics budget is there for the police and, of course, that there are sufficient police officers to make it effective on the ground where it matters.
Communications is very important, but communications budgets in Departments are precisely the ones that the Government are examining to see what savings can be made. If that budget is under pressure in the Home Office, I say to the Minister—although he already knows—that FRANK is very good but it is not enough. There must be a communications budget that goes beyond the FRANK website. Again, this is about fighting the corner to ensure that when there is a campaign, for students or anyone else, it is financed and financeable; otherwise we offer something that we cannot deliver.
When the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), introduced the ban on naphyrone, she was unable to say how much that ban would cost. To some extent, she got away with that at the time, because we were keen to ensure that the ban was in place, but it is a fair question: how much will the ban cost?
This Minister said—I support him in this—that the proceeds of crime, the assets of drug traffickers, should be targeted in tackling the problem. I agree, but we know how difficult it is to get at assets, particularly from drug traffickers, because they can hire the best lawyers as well as stashing those assets away in the names of friends and family. Targeting the proceeds of crime and seizing assets should be happening anyway. That is precisely what the assets legislation is in place for.
The Minister also knows—I imagine that he still has responsibility for proceeds of crime—that there is much debate about who gets the proceeds of crime. The Home Office used to get the first 50% and the rest was shared between the police and other agencies. If money is to be diverted into tackling drugs, which I think is a great reason for doing it, then unless more money is guaranteed, someone will get less. People have to be absolutely clear that they can deliver on that.
I have spoken for longer than I thought I would, but we have had a useful exchange of views—I hope so, anyway. My final point is this. I have had long discussions with my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), who was not only a well-respected drugs Minister but a very distinguished teacher. We talked at length about drug education, and I agree with the Minister: I think that drug education is very important. Many schools do have drug education and much of it is very good, but the question that we need to ask is whether it is effective. Is it actually, given the money that goes in—I am not advocating cutting it—effective? Is the money that goes in effective? I ask that because of the very bright and intelligent young people who have their lives ahead of them, who have huge potential, who have had drug education at school, who have gone to music festivals and stood in nightclub queues and been given information and who have got the message about the risk to their health, but who still take these substances. They put their health at risk and, in some cases, there are tragic consequences. They use legal highs alone. They mix them with other legal highs and other drugs. Sometimes they mix them with alcohol. As a Member of Parliament and as a parent, I am concerned. Why, when young people know the risks, do they still do that? If we can find the answer to that question, we will not spend quite as much time in this place talking about bans and legislation.
I note the point that the hon. Gentleman has made, but clearly it was his Government who sent out some very mixed messages, even if he was not personally responsible for the decisions that underpinned them.
I want to cover as many as possible of the points raised during the debate, which has been helpful and constructive on the issues and challenges surrounding legal highs. It also touched on the drugs strategy from a broader perspective. I do not regard this as an opportunity for that broader debate, but it is important to recognise that the coalition Government are consulting on their new drugs strategy. We intend to publish the new drug strategy by the end of this year. Our strategic vision is set around the framework for the future delivery of drugs policy with four key themes, to which the hon. Gentleman has already alluded: preventing drug use; strengthening enforcement, criminal justice and the legal framework; rebalancing treatment to support drug-free outcomes, which is an important point to emphasise; and supporting recovery to break the cycle of drug addiction.
The Government are opposed to the legalisation of drugs and to decriminalisation for personal use. It would run entirely counter to our health and education messages. In many respects, the equation of safety with legality, as we have been debating on the issue of legal highs, makes that a very direct construct. On the possession of legal highs, I say to the shadow Minister that the temporary ban is, as it suggests, intended to be only temporary—a maximum of 12 months. If advice supports the classification of a drug within that 12-month period, we would act within that period. It may therefore happen in less than 12 months, which would then create the possession offence. Our approach with the temporary ban is to act quickly to stop supply and prevent harm, which is why we have tailored it as we have. It does not send out mixed messages, due to legality—in its broadest sense—being equated with safety. We have seen that and seen how the classification of drugs can have an impact on whether someone perceives a drug to be safe. That goes back to my original point on the equation of safety and knowledge, which has been highlighted.
We do not support the legalisation of drugs. Many drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine are clearly addictive and harmful to health, and our educational message, to young people in particular, is that illegal drugs are harmful and no one should take them. To legalise their supply for personal consumption would send the wrong message to the majority of young people, who do not take drugs on a regular basis, if at all, and, alongside that, it would increase the risk of drug use and abuse.
On the specific point about the Portuguese model, we are against that proposal. The Government are determined to prevent drug use and strengthen enforcement against supply, which is why we are asking experts for their views on a range of issues, so that users are strongly encouraged to address their dependency. That wider debate and consultation is taking place, but we are not looking at the Portuguese model, and do not think that it is the right way forward.
I cannot comment on the countenance of reporting in The Observer, but I can send out a very clear message from this debate—the Government do not believe that decriminalisation is the right approach. Our priorities are clear. We want to reduce drug use, crack down on drug-related crime and disorder, and help addicts come off drugs for good. That is the emphasis of Government policy.
I would like to come on to the specific points that have been raised, and, in particular, the important point raised by the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) on the Medicines Act. The Act applies to medicinal products, so we need to establish certain key components—in other words, that a substance has psychoactive properties and is potentially meant for human consumption. That is where those who have sought to subvert the law through using certain phraseology in their advertisements have sought to obviate medicines control legislation.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that we remain in close contact with the Department of Health, as well as trading standards, to see how we can use the Medicines Act more effectively and to explore those options. I agree with him that it is absurd that products can be marketed as bath salts and other things, and are “not for human consumption”, when implicitly they may be intended to be so used, or there is recklessness. We are carefully exploring this area to see what enforcement options exist.
The points about the protocol and triggers are important. The purpose of the working protocol is to set out our engagement with the ACMD, and, through it, any legal controls on dealing with legal highs would be enacted. I am in close consultation with the ACMD to develop that working protocol, because it is important to give reassurance that the temporary banning power is appropriate. As I said to the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), the Government remain committed to the general response to the drugs being based on the existing framework under the Misuse of Drugs Act and on how the ACMD normally operates. Clarity over the protocol and the triggers, and setting it out in the working protocol with the ACMD are important to give reassurance on how we would use the temporary banning power.
It is difficult to second-guess the issue or look into a crystal ball. We are in close consultation with the ACMD on the development of the working protocol, which I would not wish to pre-empt. In all the discussions I have had with the ACMD, it is clear that if a newly emerging psychoactive substance is identified, the intention is that advice would be sought on the associated harms. We would seek its advice on whether a temporary ban would be appropriate, so it is about working around that and the identification. Hon. Members also made points about the early warning system, and working with the ACMD on that and picking up things early enough to deal with appropriately.
(13 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberIt is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), from my neighbouring constituency, who, as always, does a very good job of defending her constituents’ priorities. She said that she has never come across anyone who has complained about their civil liberties being impacted by the police. Well, having spent five hours contained by the police at the G20 protest, I personally feel that on that occasion my civil liberties were infringed, along with those of 2,000 or 3,000 other people who were present at that event.
The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), who has unfortunately just left the Chamber, was very helpful in telling us what he was going to tell his constituents about what the Liberal Democrats were doing in the coalition Government. I wanted to tell him—he will have to read it in Hansard—what we will be telling his constituents about the economic scorched earth policy that his Government adopted when they were in power. We will also point out to them that he, like many other Labour Members, suffers from the characteristic amnesia that has afflicted the Labour party since the general election.
I was greatly entertained by what was not exactly a leadership bid by the old Home Secretary, but at least a bid to secure his position as shadow Home Secretary in any future Labour shadow Cabinet. His speech may have had some credibility on the Labour Benches, but those in the wider country will perhaps have wanted a demonstration of some humility for the part that he played in creating the calamitous economic car crash that the coalition Government now have to turn around. But of course he made no such acknowledgement of the part that he played, nor of the fact that we have had to borrow £150 billion in the past year. I am afraid that with his rather facile asides he demonstrated the same ingrained—perhaps it is ingrained in his DNA—denial culture that is far too often demonstrated by Labour Members.
I am critical of the previous Government’s economic incompetence, but not uniformly critical of their record in power. They achieved some very positive things of which they can be proud. For instance, I support the safer neighbourhood teams. I support the role that police community support officers play and the impact that that has had not only on crime locally but on the perception of crime. I hope that irrespective of what police forces up and down the country will face as a result of the economic circumstances that we are in, they will be able to maintain their presence on our bstreets. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) did a good job of demonstrating how much can be achieved in increasing police presence on our streets. That does not necessarily require there to be more police officers but simply better use of the available time.
The consultation paper “Policing in the 21st century” sets out where the coalition Government are going. I welcome the debate that they have kicked off in relation to several police and justice issues, whether it be licensing and banning the sale of below-cost alcohol, short-term prison sentences, or the system of temporary bans on legal highs, which we will debate tomorrow. Those are good matters for us to discuss as a Parliament. I welcome the reforms that are set out in that paper.
Prior to the general election, for the Liberal Democrats as a party, the creation of elected police commissioners was undoubtedly the most controversial proposal that the coalition is now taking forward. I want to explain why we are supporting that proposal within the coalition. The key to this is the checks and balances that will be in place to cover the activities of elected police commissioners, and we need to focus our attention on those. I welcome the fact that there will be a strong duty on commissioners to collaborate with other commissioners to ensure that cross-border issues are addressed, because that was one of our fundamental concerns.
As regards the powers that the panel will have, I hope that we can get the coalition Government to move a little further in relation to the strategy or budget that the elected commissioner is to adopt, because those are matters that the panel could have a more decisive say over. Perhaps, similarly to what happens with the Mayor’s budget, a two-thirds majority might be required to oppose the commissioner’s budget or strategy and for that then to have to be reviewed. The coalition Government should consider that carefully. With better checks and balances, it is possible to ensure that elected police commissioners work and can be fully representative of communities. I hope that there is still time to consider elected commissioners as a pilot project. It is always worth rolling something out in a small way to start with and measuring its effectiveness before introducing the whole scheme, so I hope that even at this late stage that can be considered.
I am pleased to see the Minister for Equalities on the Front Bench, because I wish to raise the question of how we can ensure that the whole cohort of elected police commissioners do not look like me and most of the other male Members in the Chamber. It would be regrettable if the system ensured that the only people who could get elected were white, middle-aged males and there was no representation of any other gender or ethnicity among the commissioners. I hope that the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice will respond to that point in his summing-up.
Although it is a matter for debate between the Government and the Mayor of London, I should like some clarity on the future of the Metropolitan Police Authority if the Minister is able to give it. There is some confusion about whether it will be abolished, as “Policing in the 21st century” suggests, or whether its administrative functions will simply be absorbed into city hall. Also in a London context, is the Minister entirely happy with elected commissioners being able to delegate their role to another individual? The coalition Government are rightly selling elected commissioners on the basis that there will be one strong person with whom the population can identify, and that people will know who to contact and who is responsible. If their power is delegated to someone else, I believe that link will be broken.
I wish to mention one further issue in the short time that I have left, which is the absorption of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre into the national crime agency. I am sure that the Minister is aware that CEOP has concerns, particularly about its ability to continue to work in a wide partnership with a host of organisations, such as social services. Those organisations may find it difficult to continue the partnership process if CEOP is absorbed within the NCA completely. I hope that the Minister will be able to provide some reassurance that the situation will be manageable within the NCA and that the strong links and positive partnership that exist will not be damaged.
I am pleased to have had a chance to speak in today’s debate. I welcome what the Government have set out in “Policing in the 21st century” on where policing will go in the next few years, but there are still some concerns about elected police commissioners. I hope that the coalition Government will address those concerns to ensure that commissioners are representative of their communities and deliver an agenda that the entire local community will support.
(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberI thank the hon. Lady for her question, which shows not only that matters European divide different parties, but that people within the same party take different attitudes. She assumes that opting in to the order will mean extra costs and extra burdens for UK police, but I repeat what I said in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood): we are talking about codifying arrangements that already exist. We are not suddenly being asked to sign up to something new that has just been plucked off the shelf. The suggestion is for practical co-operation that codifies and simplifies arrangements that already exist and that benefit police forces here in the UK.
I welcome the statement. It is right that we should opt in to orders that slash bureaucracy, help us fight crime and do not infringe our sovereignty. Does the Home Secretary agree that it is important for her to work not just with her counterparts, but with Members of the European Parliament, to ensure that we strengthen the privacy and human rights safeguards in this order?
I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution, and I hope that we can all work with MEPs to ensure that the directive that we end up with as a result of the negotiations in the coming months does what he suggests—slashes bureaucracy and makes it simpler for our prosecutors and police to ensure that justice is done. In doing that, we are all of conscious of the need to protect civil liberties.