Serious and Organised Crime: Prüm Convention
Tom Tugendhat Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Mrs May
No. I have to explain to my hon. Friend that we are able to determine the database, and that how we hold that database and the information that is held on it are matters for national decision. Articles 2(1) and (3) of the principal Prüm decision say that we need to inform the general secretariat about which profiles will be made available for searching under Prüm, while article 5 makes it clear that the follow-up process to a hit is subject to national law, not EU law.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is making a very persuasive case. I ask for a moment of clarity regarding the expansion of judicial engagement into areas that have formerly been for the court of Parliament, which has been a form of mission creep that can be seen in various areas. Will my right hon. Friend make very clear the precise remit of the UK courts on this matter, so that when it comes to a judicial review—as I am sure, sadly, it will—or a trial in front of the Supreme Court, it will be able to look back at the words my right hon. Friend has spoken from the Dispatch Box today. It would then be able to see the will of Parliament in the decision and not the interpretation that is chosen at that particular moment.
Mrs May
I am happy to confirm that I am willing to comment on the application of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and how it affects our position. As for the legislation that we are bringing forward, if my hon. Friend looks at the command paper, he will see that we are making clear those areas where national laws apply. As I tried to explain earlier, the Prüm decisions are all about the exchange of data, not the manner in which the data are held here in the UK. Article 72 of the treaties makes it clear that how we deal with DNA for our own security is a matter for member states, not for European jurisdiction. As a further safeguard, we will ensure that if a person was a minor when the DNA or fingerprints were taken, demographic details could be released only if a formal judicial request for assistance were made.
Finally, I referred earlier to an oversight board and I will establish an independent oversight board to ensure that Prüm operates in a just and effective manner. Both the biometrics and information commissioners will have seats on that board, and so will the Scottish Police Authority and the other bodies from Scotland and Northern Ireland that I have mentioned.
It was on account of all those clear and stringent safeguards that the National DNA Ethics board felt that it could write to me in support of our decision to recommend participating in this system. I therefore hope that those who I accept have principled civil liberties concerns will listen to its views.
Costs are associated with implementing this capability. When the Labour Government initially signed us up to Prüm, they estimated that it would cost about £31 million —about £49 million in today’s prices. That was without providing any safeguards and without ensuring that Scotland and Northern Ireland would benefit fully and be fully involved. I have looked at this very carefully and am pleased to tell the House that at the same time as ensuring that the operational benefits are nationwide and that UK citizens get the protections they deserve, the Government will need to spend only £13 million. The money spent implementing Prüm will be recouped many times over in savings that the police will make through using it.
Hon. Members will have read about Zdenko Turtak, who earlier this year attacked and raped a woman, leaving her for dead in Beeston. In investigating this crime, the West Yorkshire police had only the victim’s statement and the attacker’s DNA on which to proceed. Suspecting that the assailant might have not been British, they submitted forms to Interpol and had the DNA profile searched against profiles held in other European countries. It took over two and a half months for a match finally to be reported by Slovakia. During that time, the police pursued over 1,400 separate lines of inquiry at a cost of £250,000. If the United Kingdom and Slovakia had been connected through the Prüm system, that initial hit, instead of taking two and a half months, would have taken 15 minutes. Just think of the time and money that that would have saved the police, not to mention the benefit to the victim of knowing that her attacker would be brought to justice.
Policing
Tom Tugendhat Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
I am very proud to be the second Kent Member to speak in this important debate, because we in Kent are very proud of our extremely effective police force. It has faced some of the greatest challenges with which our nation has struggled—a few months ago the chief constable, Alan Pughsley, said that some 900 migrants were coming into the country each month—and it has to deal with the immediacy that being a front-line county in our great kingdom involves.
I am extremely proud of Alan Pughsley’s work. He has done something remarkable: he has managed to increase the proportion of warranted officers on the frontline to 92%, which is the highest percentage for six years. That is a phenomenal achievement. Kent has some 3,000 warranted officers and 352 police community support officers, and they do a fantastic job. When I hear Opposition Mems bad-mouthing them or accusing them of failing in their duties, I feel offended for them, because they are performing their duties amazingly.
The officers in my constituency have done fantastically well too. The West Kent divisional commander is Chief Superintendent Julia Chapman, whose team has done fantastic work in West Malling, Tonbridge and Edenbridge. She is ably supported by two district commanders, Chief Inspectors Gill Ellis and Roscoe Walford. Sadly, Chief Inspector Ellis is moving on. I send her every good wish for her future career, but I am very sorry that she is not staying in Tonbridge, where she has done such fantastic work.
One of the PCSOs has done fantastically well in West Malling. Phillip Harrison has been the PCSO on duty on Remembrance Sunday for at least three years—probably more—and he will be there again this Sunday. Very quietly, like so many PCSOs, he will be carrying out his duties armed only with his strength of character and his personality, and he will do that phenomenally well.
Anna Turley
I am delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman pay tribute to PCSOs, because I genuinely think that creating them was one of the best things that we did as a Labour Government. I am sure he shares my despair and horror at the fact that so many of their jobs have been cut, because they do very important work and often free up regular officers to carry out much more serious and heavy duties. I appreciate his support for a Labour Government policy.
Tom Tugendhat
I am happy to welcome Labour policies when they work, and PCSOs do work. They are a brilliant innovation. I particularly welcome the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice in supporting them, and the amount of work that he has personally done in ensuring that they have every opportunity not only to serve in their current roles but to be promoted to warrant service if they wish—and, indeed, many do.
I am very grateful that PCSO Harrison will be there. These individuals across Kent—this whole team—have in the last year seen a reduction in crime of 6%. I know that that is not down to them alone; it is down to a network, and that network starts in Kent and spreads to the whole of the United Kingdom. That co-operation, which is led very much by the chief constable, has done an amazing amount to ensure the people of Kent are safe. Chief Constable Pughsley has ensured that we have been innovative in introducing new technologies, and I am grateful that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) has mentioned some of them. I would just like to raise one of them. In January, Kent Police introduced TrackMyCrime which I hope many other police forces will be introducing soon. It has seen the time taken for a crime report fall dramatically. It has also increased the satisfaction of those reporting crime. It is fantastic to say—or, rather, it is a mixed blessing—that 3,000 have been victims of crime and have used it; it is sad that there have been that many victims, but it is great that that many have used it, and the satisfaction levels have been very good.
The presence of police is not just about individuals, nor just about bricks and mortar, although I do know we all take very seriously the important decisions that will be taken over the location of police stations over coming years. The police station in Tonbridge and that in West Malling are extremely important. I welcome the work done in outreach—many policemen are now operating in our communities from council offices and, indeed, from supermarkets and mobile police stations, but it is not just about that; it is also about the work done across our whole nation.
That is why I am going to take a few moments to welcome the Bill introduced to this House earlier today. The draft Investigatory Powers Bill is absolutely essential. It is essential for ensuring that the intelligence the police need to do their job is available to them. It is essential to ensure that our intelligence services can co-operate effectively with the police so that we have the kind of integrated defence network we need to ensure that our communities are safe, not only from terrorism, violent crime and indeed child pornography and paedophilia, but also from more run-of-the-mill crimes that sadly blight the lives of so many of our constituents. I am delighted that the Bill is now before the House and will soon, I hope, become an Act.
Finally, I very much welcome the democratisation of police forces that we have seen under this Government. I know I am probably the only one in Kent who says this, but I welcome the new police and crime commissioner. That is not a universal statement in Kent—there are divergent opinions—but at least we know in Kent now who is taking the decisions.
Damian Green
Indeed, we do know who is making the decisions and we can hold the PCC to account. That is particularly important in that before the current PCC became the PCC she chaired the police authority so she was doing roughly the same job only with no public accountability. There cannot be a better example of the democratic improvement of having PCCs.
Tom Tugendhat
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right and speaks for me, because that is exactly what I was going to say.
Knowing now who actually takes the decisions on police priorities, the location of police stations, the use of resources and the priority of innovation, it is essential that when we get to the PCC elections—in 2016 in my area—we focus on who we want. These decisions are no longer for anonymous apparatchiks who hold secret sway over our policing; they are for people who are empowered with a huge burden of responsibility, and I greatly welcome the quality of candidates who are stepping forward on the Conservative side. I hope very much there will be excellent candidates from the other sides as well, because we need the best candidates for this job—not party political, but the best candidates. I am delighted to say that we have put forward some of those.
The growth in interest in technology should continue. It is not a process that is going to stop; in fact, it will accelerate as the criminals exploit ever-greater technological innovation, whether through secret messaging on WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, through exploiting online banking to commit greater fraud or through phishing—in the internet sense—for greater riches. It is therefore absolutely right that our police step into that world and that our security services help them. I welcome the work being done in this area by the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice and, in particular, by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.
Refugee Crisis in Europe
Tom Tugendhat Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
I stand here proudly as the grandson of a refugee who came here in the 1920s. When my great uncle came as a Jewish refugee from Austria later in the late 1930s, the nation’s security was in such question that he was interned, as was every other adult Jew leaving Austria or Germany. I therefore welcome the Government’s efforts to take the nation’s security seriously while not damaging the right of refugees to come. It is right that, as we have done in the past, we balance our security with our generosity.
It is also right that we treat the cause, and not just the symptom, so I welcome the Government’s position. It is easy to say we should take more individuals, in theirs ones and twos, tens and even thousands, but unless we address the cause, we will be talking about millions, not thousands. Only 3% of the population has so far left the region, leaving 97%, and it is right that Britain has made the single largest contribution per capita in helping those people. That 97% is being helped by Britain. That is what we are doing for Italy and Greece. We are stopping the migration by supporting those in the region.
More than that, we are helping Syria. It is not enough to take the fittest, the strongest, the cleverest and the richest—those able to make the trip—and to integrate them into our societies to have them as our professors, our doctors and our lawyers. They would undoubtedly contribute handsomely to our future, but they should not be stolen like that.
Civil wars tend to last between seven and 12 years. Tragically, we are already four years into this one, but that means—I hope this is true—that we are approaching the final stages. I cannot tell the House whether that is guaranteed or not—nobody can—but we all hope very much that the war will end and soon. At that point we will want the people nearby to be able to go back and rebuild their society.
That is why I call on Her Majesty’s Government to do one more thing than they are already doing: to use the good offices of the Foreign Office and the efforts of the Minister for the middle east, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who has done much already on this, to talk to our allies in the region—the Jordanians, the Turks, the Lebanese and the Iraqis—and to extract financial support from our Gulf allies and the other wealthy nations so that the camps can be used not just as refuges, but as lily pads from which we can jump back into Syria with economic development. If we can turn the camps—as others have in other parts of the world—into zones of industry and economic growth for refugees in exile, they can re-import their labour, their ideas and that drive back into Syria, so that instead of needing to have a Marshall plan lasting 30 or 50 years to support Syria, it will rebuild itself in half that time.
It is possible. The Government are making the right noises and doing exactly the right things. I would encourage them to go further and harder on that path, but I am very grateful for the work of the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister.
Reports into Investigatory Powers
Tom Tugendhat Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
I may speak very quickly to get through everything I want to say, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I will refer to the reports by the ISC and the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, not the two later reports, which we have not really had an opportunity to read or consider properly. The report by David Anderson, QC, aptly entitled “A Question of Trust”, has rightly been complimented in the House for its thoroughness and rigour. Perhaps we should give a warning to those who might want to read it, though—do not drop it on your foot. Anderson’s recommendation that the law on investigatory powers should be made both comprehensive and comprehensible has also been widely endorsed, and it is surely right. If it is unintelligible to a lay reader, it will seem esoteric and inaccessible to all and will therefore not inspire public confidence.
I would like to focus on the main bone of contention, which is who should have authority to grant permission for access to the content of people’s private communications. The ISC’s report, for all its strengths, offers an insider’s view. The Home Secretary no doubt found much more to agree with in that report than in others, not least because she found herself extensively quoted in it. After hearing evidence that, in my view, was heavily weighted towards Ministers and officials from the security services, the ISC came down squarely on the side of the status quo. It concluded that the current system of ministerial authorisation of interception warrants should be maintained. I listened with some interest to the comments of the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) on that issue.
The Committee appears to have reached its conclusion based almost wholly on the recommendations of Ministers themselves, with the concerns of civil liberties groups being given comparatively short shrift. In concluding that Ministers were better equipped than judges to make decisions on warrants, the Committee relied on arguments some of which, in my view, were based on flawed logic. I will give one example. It argued that,
“Ministers are able to take into account the wider context of each warrant application and the risks involved, whereas judges can only decide whether a warrant application is legally compliant.”
The example that the Committee provided by way of support for that rather extraordinary claim was the diplomatic fracas following the allegations in 2013 that the US National Security Agency had tapped the German Chancellor’s phone. The ISC’s less than subtle implication was that whereas a Minister would have the wisdom to reject such an application, judges would be too clueless to understand the requirements of international diplomacy and could not possibly be trusted to understand the diplomatic implications of such a decision.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady not accept that Ministers and judges have a different role? The report recognises that the role of a Minister is to represent Her Majesty’s Government across a broad swathe of areas, including international policy, and the role of a judge is to adjudicate on a question of law.
Emily Thornberry
Yes, of course, but it underestimates the subtle role that judges have come to play in recent years. For example, the development of administrative law has meant that judges have to be able to balance a number of factors. Are we essentially saying that the only way for Ministers to have some form of oversight of the security services is by giving permission for intercepts? There must be greater oversight than that. For example, if there was a suggestion that—I am plucking an idea from the air—we should tap the phone of the President of France, are we saying that the Home Secretary would not be aware of it if there were a system of applying to the court? If that is our current system, we need to examine it carefully. We need to ensure that our Ministers have some form of oversight of the security services, but that does not preclude the need for judges as a back-up. Surely Ministers would welcome the idea that they can not only make their own judgment but have it backed up with the authority of a judge.
The caricature of judges as being completely out of the world does not bear up, in my experience. I have to declare an interest at this point—I am married to a judge, and there have been times when my husband has been duty judge. Although the phone has not necessarily been passed to him while he has been in the bath, it is quite right that judges are flexible and can move quickly to make decisions as and when necessary.
Emily Thornberry
I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman, and I want to try to keep to your strictures, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am not doing very well—I have only three minutes left if I am to do so. I suspect that I might not, but I will go as fast as I can.
Judges do not live in a vacuum. Their job requires them to have some form of judgment. There have been great challenges to the establishment, and the public have great scepticism about not only politics but all sorts of pillars of the establishment. I find it interesting that the judiciary is one of the few areas that are not challenged in the same way. Whenever a difficult issue needs to be decided on or there has been a crisis, it does not take people long to call for a full judicial inquiry. When we are talking about trust in the highly contentious field of investigatory powers, it seems to me that it would be a mistake for Ministers not to call for the back-up of the judiciary. When we are considering a radical overhaul of the legislative and regulatory framework, we need to be bold.
There is great sense in David Anderson’s report. He talks about the establishment of a new body, which is the backbone of his recommendations, not just one of many proposals that he has put forward. It is absolutely essential, and last time we discussed the matter in this place I was a little alarmed to hear the Home Secretary refer to it as being only one of many recommendations. Actually, the body features in about 50 of the recommendations, so I hope that it is not pushed aside as being a peripheral issue. Clearly, it is not.
Transparency is another important part of David Anderson’s report. The new commission would not only take on responsibility for approving warrants but would incorporate the retrospective audit functions currently exercised by the interception of communications commissioner and the intelligence services commissioner. Those officers currently fit into what I see as a deeply foggy regulatory arrangement, which in many ways is reminiscent of Wall Street before the crash, when not a single one of the half a dozen or so agencies that were given the job of regulating and supervising the banks seemed to be able to exert its authority sufficiently or even know what was going on under its nose, let alone have the power to stop it.
The Home Secretary said to the ISC at that stage that it was important for the decision to be taken by somebody who is democratically accountable to the public. I understand that, but the reality is that thousands of warrants for interception are issued under RIPA. We do not know what proportion of applications the Home Secretary does not approve when they appear on her desk, because both she and successive Governments have refused to say. The current Home Secretary admitted in evidence to the ISC that the proportion of applications she approves is very high. That is not surprising, given that reviewing such applications takes up such a significant proportion of her day and it is not as though she does not have lots of other things to do. She relies heavily on the judgment of her officials—we would, of course, expect her to do so—but we have to be careful that it is not a rubber-stamping exercise. I am sure it is not, but we have to be mindful about what it looks like when we are considering a question of trust. Let us look at the reality before deciding whether a change would be a bad thing.
Taken together, David Anderson’s proposals represent a radical overhaul of the existing framework. I do not believe they are the worse for that. When looking at the report, we must go back and say to ourselves that, in the end, we need a radical overhaul. We need to bring the public with us. We need to be unafraid to bring in additional expertise. A clearer framework in which we can have traditional oversight of such sensitive things as intercepts must be a good thing.