Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Achieving a balance between the liberty and freedom of citizens on the one hand, and the safety and security of the same citizens on the other hand, is a fundamental duty of this House and a fundamental responsibility of any Home Secretary. Since it is not possible to exercise more abstract freedoms and liberties without the freedom to live one’s life in peace and security, identifying where that balance lies will always be difficult and must take account of the particular circumstances of the age in which we live.

The Home Secretary opened her remarks—we should all be grateful for her generosity in giving way—by referring to the fact that all these orders were in the shadow of the attacks of 11 September 2001. Given that the scale of the terrorism and its threat had not before been experienced here, or anywhere else around the world, changes were made that then had to be altered in the light of experience.

I am not suggesting for one second that every change the Labour Government initiated or proposed was exactly right, because it was not. We had to learn from experience. I do not think that anyone who has held the office of Home Secretary—I am glad to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) in his place—would suggest that they got everything right.

However, I believe that by the end of our period in government, including the reforms introduced in 2007, the regime of control orders was broadly operating better than any alternative for dealing with the very small minority of dangerous people who, for reasons with which the House is fully familiar, could not in practice be prosecuted for the offences which it was understood in other circumstances they had committed or were likely to commit. Some would say, “We should just leave these matters to the courts.” At least the main parties are agreed that some people are so dangerous—as confirmed by information sufficiently reliable for the courts, albeit in closed proceedings—that they cannot just be left at large. No Government and no Home Secretary would survive if we washed our hands of the risks before us and then an aeroplane was blown up with hundreds of UK citizens on it, or bombs were let off. Control orders, imperfect though they are, and although they should be used only in extreme circumstances, were introduced to deal with those threats.

I never understood, and we have had no reliable explanation today, why on earth the Home Secretary decided, with no explanation whatsoever, to change control orders, which were working, to a weaker system of which there are two fundamentally different features: first, an arbitrary time limit, which she did not need to impose; and secondly, the removal of the relocation provisions, which was not required by the courts. She referred to four cases, I think, where she said that the courts said that they were not appropriate, as opposed to being struck down, because that phrase is about striking down legislation. The courts had decided, quite rightly, in the instant case, that they were not going to approve that part of the control order. That is what the courts are there for. They were not striking down relocations; they were merely saying “Parliament asked us to substitute our judgment for that of the Home Secretary. That is precisely what we have done. We do not think this is justified in these circumstances.” By the end of this process, no individual for whom a relocation order had been confirmed then absconded, whereas the Home Secretary has been faced with the reality that the system she introduced is very much weaker.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw on his experience as Home Secretary and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). Perhaps the current Home Secretary should have drawn on the experience of Lord Howard, who was Home Secretary in the previous Tory Administration and who said:

“If you ask me my personal view…I would have preferred the relocation provisions to have remained.”––[Official Report, Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Public Bill Committee, 21 June 2011; c. 17, Q53.]

[Mr Straw]

I am sorry that the Home Secretary did not say, as I think anybody who has held that office would say, “Okay, we’ve made these changes but we’re willing for them to be reviewed on a cross-party basis”, which is the gravamen of what is proposed in our motion.

The Home Secretary was asked, I do not know how many times, whether she regarded those whose TPIMs are about to end as still posing a significant risk to the public. In other words, we seek her judgment as to whether, if there were no time limit, she would be seeking to maintain those TPIMs. However, answer came there none. What she did say, which I greatly regret—I do not think it fits the office—was, “The police and the intelligence agencies have judged that they posed no substantially increased risk.” That is damning the current regime with faint praise. Of course she has to take advice from the police and the security agencies, but she knows very well that she cannot subcontract the responsibilities of this House and the statutory responsibility of the Home Secretary to unnamed police and intelligence agents; she has to make the judgment herself. The legislation does not say that the decision about whether to apply for a TPIM—as, before, with the decision about whether to apply for a control order—should be delegated to a panel of the police or the intelligence services. It is a judgment for her.

We needed to know, not least so that we could understand the Home Secretary’s own confidence in the measures that she has recommended to the House, whether she thought that the individuals in question continued to pose a risk. She did not answer that question. That is one of a great many reasons why I believe that she herself has little confidence in the process that she has brought into legislation and why we should strongly support the motion in the name of my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Norman Baker]

I congratulate the National Crime Agency and Border Force on that seizure, which is believed to be the largest cocaine seizure in Britain for more than two years. It is a good example of the benefits that intelligence sharing and partnerships between law enforcement agencies can bring about in disrupting drug traffickers and other criminals. That is a key element in our efforts to tackle organised and serious crime.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

If tackling illegal drugs is a priority for his Government, can the Minister explain to the House why police seizures of drugs fell by 9% in the past year to the lowest level since 2005?

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport was asked—

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

1. What assessment she has made of the effect of the 2010 spending review on national museums outside London.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

The 2010 spending review protected free admission to the permanent collections of our national museums by limiting cuts in resource funding to 15% in real terms. Resource grant funding for national museums will reduce by only 5% in 2015-16, and they will be given flexibility to manage their budgets independently.

[Andrew Gwynne]

With the Science Museum Group’s projected deficit to increase from the current £2 million to £4 million or even £6 million, depending on the outcome of the spending review, what confidence does the Minister have in the future viability of that group, and in it maintaining the historically important collections at Manchester’s Liverpool Road station site, home of the Museum of Science and Industry?

[Mr Vaizey]

Since the Science Museum Group took over the running of the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, visitor numbers have risen by 30%, so the answer is there; the group is running MOSI incredibly effectively, and will continue to run its three or four outposts outside London effectively.

EU Police, Justice and Home Affairs

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. The issue is immensely important and there must be a question about where the Home Secretary is in these discussions. Where is the voice for British policing? Where is the voice for law enforcement? Where is the voice for British victims? If she is not being heard on behalf of the police and of victims, she is letting them down.

Let me consider some of the key measures that the Government are threatening to opt out of. The police have said that the most important to them is the European arrest warrant, which gives them the power to arrest people here who are wanted for crimes back home, gives the courts the power to send them swiftly home to face justice, means that police forces abroad will act to arrest suspected criminals who have fled from justice here and means that courts across Europe can send those suspects swiftly back.

The teacher who ran off to France with a pupil was arrested under the warrant and returned within weeks. The man who tried to blow up the tube at Shepherd’s Bush was quickly returned from Italy. However, as I told the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), it took 10 years of legal wrangling to send a suspected terrorist back to France before the European arrest warrant was introduced.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend resist the urges of the Government parties to play the game of trying to broker how many measures they can opt in or out of? She is absolutely right to raise the issue of counter-terrorism. Is she aware that about 10% of the work of Europol is related to counter-terrorism? Is that not the compelling reason why we must keep these arrangements in place?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right, because terrorists do not respect international borders; they work across them. We know that many of the growing threats to this country involve cross-border crime or terrorism and that is why the police and those who seek to protect us must have the powers and tools to work across borders.

Let me give another example of the use of the European arrest warrant. The Salford armed robber, Andrew Moran, was found hiding in a villa in Alicante just four weeks ago. He had escaped from court after being convicted some years ago, but when the Spanish police found him they were able to arrest him straight away under a European arrest warrant. Let us turn back the clock to Ronnie Knight, the east end armed robber who fled to Spain before the days of the European arrest warrant. He did not have to change his appearance or his identity or hide behind the walls of a villa; he could wander around and do as he liked, because we had no means of getting the Spanish police to arrest him or the Spanish courts to send him home. He was able to open an Indian restaurant and a nightclub, ignoring British justice and the victims of crime.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

As my hon. Friend might know, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has just responded to a freedom of information request on this matter. I can only repeat that the course of justice is not served by my giving the House a running commentary on an ongoing criminal investigation.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary’s earlier response to my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) showed that she was completely oblivious to the steep increase in the use of community resolutions for ever more serious crimes, including domestic violence and knife crime. Does she not understand that the overuse of this simplistic measure gives rise to an issue of justice for the victims?

[Mrs May]

What I said to the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), and what I say to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), is that we are looking at the use of community resolutions of various sorts to ensure that their use is proportionate and that there is consistency across the country. We are discussing the use of cautions with the police, and the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, in his capacity as a Minister in the Ministry of Justice, has launched a review of their use.

Violence against Women and Girls

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Let us be honest: the police response to this issue has improved over the past decade. It is better than it used to be, but it is not good enough. My hon. Friend is right that the police usually detect only about 2% or 3% of crimes and that there are even fewer prosecutions. The situation, therefore, is not completely unusual. The best response to crime is to prevent it in the first place. My argument is that taking on the challenge of teaching against violence is one way of preventing it.

I am an MP now, but I used to be an educator. I used to teach children in the last years of primary school and then I taught adults to be teachers. I know that good-quality education can transform lives, but I also know that, too often, this subject is an afterthought in too many schools. Let us look at the issue from first principles: is it necessary to act; will the motion’s proposed action make a difference; and what will happen if it does not?

The British crime survey shows that one in 14 women and one in 20 men interviewed in 2011-12 had experienced domestic abuse by a partner or family member in the past year. According to the same interviews, nearly one in three women and almost one in five men said that they had experienced such abuse since the age of 16. A freedom of information request made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) suggested that a third of 999 calls about domestic violence are from people who have been previous victims. Every week, two women are murdered in domestic violence murders. Around the world, women aged 15 to 44 are more likely to die or be disabled because of violence than as a result of cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined.

This is an issue in schools. A YouGov poll found that nearly one in three 16 to 18-year-old girls has experienced groping or unwanted sexual touching. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children found that a third of girls aged 13 to 17 in relationships had experienced physical or sexual violence, with 12% of them reporting rape. We know how often girls who are victims of rape do not report it, because they are not taught in schools about relationships and the importance of consent. The interim findings of the exploitation inquiry undertaken by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and the university of Bedfordshire uncovered worrying trends of increased sexual exploitation of young people by their peers. Violence and sexual aggression in relationships has become too common for British young people. To overcome that, they need to be able to make positive choices for their own future.

The work on young people’s understanding is really important. This crime is almost unlike any other, because the victim tends to feel responsible or, indeed, is sometimes deemed responsible by society as a result of their actions. We do not tell burglary victims, “It’s your fault, because you haven’t got a burglar alarm,” yet society too often tells victims of rape and sexual violence, “It’s your fault. You were drunk and wearing sexually provocative clothing.” Those attitudes are absorbed by young women so that they think it is their fault.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling case for statutory education. On teaching girls about consent, is it not just as important that boys also learn that no always means no?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

My hon. Friend is right. In preparing for this debate, I have been looking at research about whether sex and relationships education actually works. One of the things that that has shown is that there is further to go with boys than girls. We should take that very seriously, because we need to address the level of tolerance that young boys seem to have towards violence, seeing it as relatively normal. We do not know why that is.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the assiduous work he does for his constituents. The average speed in Wales has gone up from some 7.5 megabits to 12 megabits. We are investing almost £57 million in rolling out broadband. I note what he says about speed. It is important that customers understand the speeds they will be getting.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

12. Several organisations, including those involved in the delivery of the project, have said that the Government will not meet the target of 90% of households having access to superfast broadband by 2015. What does the Minister have to say to the 2.6 million households that will have to wait between three and five years extra to access basic broadband?

Police

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Browne]

No, crime has not risen in the hon. Gentleman’s area. It is down.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Browne]

No, it has not risen in the hon. Gentleman’s area. It has not risen in either of those areas. While there has been much debate about the number of police officers—a point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey)—surely the most salient fact is this: crime is falling. While total officer numbers fell by 2.9% between September 2011 and 2012, most recent statistics show a 7% reduction in police recorded crime in the same period and an even bigger reduction in the independent crime survey figures for crime in England and Wales.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Browne]

If the right hon. Lady is accusing me of being too party political, it is worth saying that crime started to fall when John Major was Prime Minister. What is notable is that Labour MPs, when they were in government, used to say that crime was falling because they were spending more money on the police. Now, however, because of their complete fiscal incontinence, we are having to spend marginally less money on the police. We have lower crime than when Labour was in office, and the lowest level of independently recorded crime in the survey since it began more than 30 years ago. Surely that is good news. Let us try to establish that point, and let us see whether the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) agrees.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I am also grateful for the fact that I think he acknowledges the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock), which is that the crime rate has fallen consistently every year since 1995, including in every year under the previous Labour Government. That fall was not necessarily about police numbers. Does he not recognise that we started to see the biggest fundamental drop in crime under the previous Government when we shifted police resources into neighbourhood policing teams?

[Mr Browne]

I am delighted that we have made some progress. The hon. Gentleman says that reducing crime is not necessarily to do with police numbers. We agree with that. However, we have to spend the money that is allocated to the police as well as we possibly can. Let me introduce another brand new concept to Labour Members: value for money in the public sector and spending taxpayers’ money as if it were one’s own—try that. I know that that is an amazing, novel concept, but that is what we are trying to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hanson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and the Committee explored in some detail the differences between the budgets for the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the National Policing Improvement Agency and the new National Crime Agency. We shed light on the fact that there is a major gap in the funding, but we could not get answers on where that funding has disappeared. I am sure that my right hon. Friend, who so ably leads the Home Affairs Committee, will explore that in some detail over the next few weeks.

The Minister and I will not have a meeting of minds on this matter, but perhaps he will listen to a few voices from out in the community. For example, an individual who shall remain nameless for the moment said:

“I just want the public to understand how tight things really are because I think there’s a feeling out there that it’s OK.”

That was the Conservative police and crime commissioner, John Dwyer in Cheshire, complaining about the fact that he has to bring forward a budget axing 38 police officers and 25 back-office staff.

In a statement this week, Nick Alston, the Conservative police and crime commissioner for Essex, said that the force’s financial position is

“even more challenging than I suspected when taking office just over two months ago.”

The police and crime commissioner for Cornwall, Tony Hogg, again a Conservative party member, said that the Government’s offer of freezing council tax in exchange for a 1% increase in grant would leave the force facing a “fiscal cliff” in two year’s time and an annual shortfall of £1.8 million. He added:

“There would be a critical reduction in pro-active crime reduction, there would be a critical reduction in partnership, community and early intervention…and a critical reduction in police visibility and hence reassurance to the public.”

I look forward to the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), among others, voting for the budget today. The local police and crime commissioner thinks it will cause great difficulties in Cornwall.

In Gloucestershire, the police and crime commissioner—not Labour—said that

“we won’t be able to absorb the cuts the Government expects us to make next year and in subsequent years which could affect frontline services and our ability to reduce crime. If we use our reserves, which has also been suggested…we would have no money to replace…equipment or improve our infrastructure.”

The police and crime commissioner in Cumbria—again, not a Labour member—said:

“It is without question a challenging position with the financial forecasts indicating that £10.2 million of savings will have to be delivered between 2013/14 and 2016/17…in addition to the £12.1 million of savings already achieved.”

Those are police and crime commissioners, not Labour members, and they are all expressing concerns and having to raise money.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Is it not the case that we cannot take this debate in isolation from the next debate on the local government settlement and that a great deal of good work and progress was made by the various crime and disorder reduction partnerships, with local government, housing associations and police forces working in partnership? Is the real danger that all that will be unpicked?

[Mr Hanson]

That is absolutely right. The Minister asked how we would reduce crime, and I remind him that crime fell in every year of the Labour Government, as it did in the last two years of the Major Government, and as it has fallen now. Let me put on the record that I welcome that fall in crime and think it is a good thing. I do not want people in our constituencies to face criminal actions—a victim is 100% a victim. The key issue for the Minister to reflect on is that there are crimes that are starting to rise, including acquisitive crime, street crime, burglary, robbery and car theft. Areas of violent crime are starting to rise, and the Minister must recognise that policing is not just about discovering crime but about community reassurance, being visible and accessible, and carrying out many tasks such as football ground management that involve not solving crime but providing a presence and a community resource.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. If anyone takes on people who do not have the right to work in the country, we fine them up to £10,000. I will take away the point that he has made. One thing we are looking at is the regulation of the labour market in general. A number of bodies are involved—HMRC for the minimum wage, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and the UK Border Agency. It is sensible to consider whether those organisations are all working as closely together as they should be. That is something that the group I am chairing will indeed be looking at. I hope that is helpful to him.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

But poor housing from rogue landlords, where they sometimes cram 20 to 30 people into some pretty shabby conditions, is also a major problem and a driver of immigration, particularly from places such as Romania, Bulgaria and other eastern European EU states, so will the Government commit to introducing a statutory national register of private landlords so that we can drive up housing standards in the private sector and drive out some of those crummy conditions?

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. Last Thursday morning, at an unearthly hour, the Minister for Housing and I accompanied UK Border Agency officers and housing officials from the London borough of Ealing on a raid to deal with exactly such landlords with houses in multiple occupation. It was a successful operation and we detained a number of people who had no right to be in the country. Such partnership working between the London borough of Ealing and central Government is working well, and it is the kind of activity that we will continue.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend that the last set of immigration statistics saw a fall of a quarter in net migration, and we are on track to reduce it from the unsustainable hundreds of thousands that it was under Labour to a much more sustainable tens of thousands, which is what the vast majority of the British public want.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

T5. The reality of the Government cuts is that local councils are switching off CCTV cameras and losing local antisocial behaviour officers; that local housing companies cannot get rid of problem tenants; that police stations are closing; and that neighbourhood policing is becoming more remote. Is the Home Secretary as concerned as I am about the retrenchment into a silo budget mentality, and if so, what will she do about it?

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

The hon. Gentleman makes a point about CCTV that, as I have already established, simply is not the case. I am surprised he does not seek to welcome the cuts in crime in his own constituency and the fact that the Government are taking the tough decisions, at a difficult time financially, to ensure that we get the right reform to establish police and crime commissioners and make those decisions locally, as well as cutting crime and making communities safer. I would have thought he welcomed that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeremy Browne]

Yes, I can give that undertaking. A small amount of the money is made available to community groups. My hon. Friend makes a valid point about whether that percentage could be higher and we will look at how that might be achieved.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

It is no good Ministers lecturing police and crime commissioners on the merits of forces sharing costs in procurement when they could have saved the public purse £25 million by combining the PCC elections with other local elections. Why did Ministers ignore the calls from Opposition Members to combine the elections with next year’s county council elections?

[Damian Green]

Opposition Members must get their story straight. Half of them say that we should not have spent as much money on these elections as we did; the other half say that we should have spent more money. If they come up with a coherent argument, we will give an answer.