Public Order Policing

Alun Michael Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

In any such instances, the police have a balance to attain when policing protests. It is right that they should be accountable for their actions, and that the IPPC looks into questions and complaints about police actions, as with the individual who was seriously injured. However, it is also right for us to make it absolutely clear that the violence was the fault of those who came along determined to perpetrate it.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I was particularly impressed with the intelligent, engaged and reasonable way in which many students came from my constituency to the House to lobby me as an MP, but is it not sad that the Home Secretary said nothing about them in her statement? What is she doing to encourage the police and the protest organisers to work together so that the voice of reasonable, legal protest is not silenced?

[Mrs May]

The police have the job not only of protecting Parliament and keeping our streets safe at such times, but of ensuring that peaceful protest can take place. That is what they were doing. Significantly, they ensured that pedestrian access to the House was open at all times so that a number of students who wished to come and lobby their Members of Parliament could do so. They had their voice heard and Parliament was able to debate unhindered the topic under consideration, and the police did a very good job.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alun Michael Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question, which underlines the pressures that dealing with the problems of the night-time economy put on the police. Indeed, a recent study found that about 46% of officers highlighted the night-time economy as one of the main causes of their overtime payments. It is for precisely that reason that we are seeking to introduce the late-night levy in the recent Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill. It will be for local authorities and local communities to decide how best to use that power, as well as other powers that are very much about giving control back to communities and promoting a responsible approach to alcohol, which, sadly, the previous Administration did not pursue.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

In an earlier reply, the Home Secretary was a bit vague about the ending of the detention of children in removal cases. Does the commitment to end the holding of children in prison in those cases by Christmas still stand?

[Mrs May]

I was not at all vague. The commitment does still stand. I said in my earlier answer that the coalition Government’s commitment to ending the detention of children for immigration purposes still stands, and we will be making an announcement to this House before the Christmas recess.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alun Michael Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister accept that there is deep unease within the IT industry about the possibility that the focus on numbers will reduce the flexibility of companies to bring people in and out of the country to meet the needs of what is an extremely flexible and internationally important industry?

[Damian Green]

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. It is an important international industry. I hope, however, that he will recognise two countervailing pressures here. There is the pressure from international business, which wants to move people around, but there is also a lot of perfectly reasonable pressure from trained British IT workers, who have done everything that society has asked of them—got the right sort of degree, gone into the right sort of business—but are finding it increasingly difficult to find jobs. We should listen to their voices as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alun Michael Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I know of the close interest that my hon. Friend takes in these matters, having been the author of a publication that proposed better arrangements to deal with serious crime. We will not pursue the Labour party’s policy of compulsory mergers of police forces. We believe that it is necessary for police forces to collaborate better to deal with organised crime, just as better collaboration has been achieved in counter-terrorism activity, and that is the policy that we shall pursue.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister accept that the internet is increasingly being used by those who get involved in serious and organised crime? Does he agree that a partnership approach, making use of the talents and expertise of people in business, is essential to reduce the extent of internet use for the purposes of crime?

[Nick Herbert]

I know that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), is already in correspondence with the right hon. Gentleman about this matter. E-crime is a serious and growing problem, and it must make sense to tackle it on a partnership basis, with law enforcement agencies and business working together, and that is what we will do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. No blame is imputed to the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew). It is simply that the grouping of his question with Question 19 was not something of which I had notice, and it is not a grouping to which I would ordinarily agree, for reasons of progress down the Order Paper.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

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

Later this afternoon, I will make a statement to the House on the Government’s plans to consult on the introduction of an annual limit on the number of non-EU economic migrants coming to the UK, and the introduction of an interim limit.

[Alun Michael]

Does the Home Secretary acknowledge the evidence given to the Select Committee on Justice by Victim Support suggesting that what victims want, other than not to have become a victim in the first place, is not to become a victim again in future. Does she accept that consequently a key purpose for the police and all other parts of the criminal justice system must be the reduction of offending and reoffending?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his reference to the need to reduce reoffending. I entirely agree that we need to do more to reduce reoffending, but I would point out to him that, over 13 years, his Government did very little to address that issue, which is why we have in the coalition agreement a clear commitment to look across the whole criminal justice system to examine what can be done to improve rehabilitation of offenders and hence to reduce reoffending.