Serious and Organised Crime: Prüm Convention

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

Way back in what seem like the mists of time—in May 2005, to be precise—I was appointed to the Home Office and given ministerial responsibility for the development of the European arrest warrant, and today I think back to the discussions that I used to have with the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) on that very issue. I remember that it was something of a hot potato, and I also remember that the nature of that debate changed very quickly in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings and, subsequently, the failed bombing at Shepherd’s Bush on 21 July. It was found that one of the bombers, Hussain Osman, had taken the Eurostar to Paris in the immediate aftermath of that failed bombing, and had then travelled on to Rome, where he was finally arrested on 29 July. A European arrest warrant was issued by the British police, and was agreed by the Italian courts on 17 August. Following the rejection of an appeal, Osman was flown back to the United Kingdom on 22 September, just two months after the failed bombing.

That case proved the value of the European arrest warrant, took the heat out of the political debate about it, and illustrated how the security of people here in the UK is, in fact, better served by ever closer co-operation between European law enforcement agencies.

[Sir William Cash]

As the right hon. Gentleman referred to me a moment ago, may I point out that in Staffordshire there was a case under the European arrest warrant in which a person was actually convicted of murder and was subject to penalties, although it was clear from subsequent evidence that he had not even been in Italy at the time, but had actually been in Staffordshire? There are many similar examples.

[Andy Burnham]

In any judicial process, there is the potential for mistakes and a miscarriage of justice. Is the hon. Gentleman honestly saying that he was right about the European arrest warrant all that time ago, and that it has been a bad thing and should be scrapped? If so, I think that he is in a small minority in the House, because people have seen the benefits that have come to UK law enforcement following its introduction.

I mentioned that case at the beginning of my speech because I see a parallel between the debate that took place then and the debate that we are having today. Ten years on, as the Home Secretary said, we find ourselves in the aftermath of an horrific attack in one member state that was conceived and planned in another—and I note the letter that the Home Secretary received from Minister Cazeneuve encouraging our full participation in Prüm.

In these difficult times, we—all of us in the House—have an obligation to consider every possible measure to protect the public. It seems to me that the case for greater data sharing and access to data that are held across Europe is now unanswerable, and that we have an obligation to support that case. It is no exaggeration to say that our national security depends on it. That is why, as the Home Secretary said, the last Labour Government made the original decision to sign up to the Prüm decisions in 2007, recognising their potential for our law enforcement agencies. It is also why, back in July 2013, we explicitly warned the Government against opting out of a whole range of EU justice and home affairs measures including Prüm. As I understand it, the Government received warnings from other senior figures in UK law enforcement, and they should have listened to them because, as was pointed out back then, that decision seemed to be driven less by an objective assessment of the impact on crime prevention and detection, and more by a political desire to appease the never-satisfied forces of Euroscepticism on the Conservative Benches. Tempting as it is to say, “We told you so” to the Home Secretary today, we will try and resist that and instead congratulate her on eventually arriving at the right decision and encourage her to resist the blandishments of the forces of darkness who are again rearing their head today.

[Keith Vaz]

In fact, the Home Secretary’s speech today was a tour de force as to why we should have been in Prüm last year. Think of the number of criminals we could have caught, or potential terrorists we could have found, if only we had joined a year ago.

[Andy Burnham]

The case the Home Secretary has just set out from the Dispatch Box was compelling and powerful, revealing, as it did, the zeal of the convert to the cause. She was right to make her case with such force, and I am sure my right hon. Friend would agree that the problem with the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Stone and others this evening is that it invites the House to prioritise the civil liberties of British citizens and risks to UK sovereignty over and above risks to national security. That is what the amendment to the motion invites us to do.

Of course our liberties and our sovereignty are important considerations, but the safety of the public must come first. That is the primary duty of any Government, and it is why the Government are right not to listen to the hon. Member for Stone. The truth is they got themselves into difficulty two years ago by listening to those siren voices, and I hope Members on the Treasury Bench will not make the same mistake today. Indeed, I hope they would have learned an important lesson from this whole episode. It was the European Council that required the Government, after notification of the opt-out, to conduct and publish a business and implementation case assessing the costs and benefits of Prüm. In other words, the EU forced the UK Government to face up to the benefits of European co-operation and in bringing this motion to the House tonight they are effectively conceding the EU was right all along.

That assessment was informed by a pilot undertaken by the Government which the Home Secretary referred to. It found an overwhelming case to opt back in. It involved DNA samples from 2,513 unsolved British murders, rapes and burglaries which were automatically checked against European police databases in France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. Searching the profiles against the databases of those four member states revealed 71 scene-to-person matches and 47 scene-to-scene matches, five relating to rape, two to sexual assault and 23 to burglary.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

On an earlier point, is not the greatest defence of the nation’s security the civil liberties of the people?

[Andy Burnham]

I would put it to the hon. Gentleman that security comes first and that is the primary duty of any Government—to keep the public safe. Once we have secured people’s safety, then liberty comes from that security. That is why I believe the amendment before the House tonight has got things the wrong way round. I conceded they are incredibly important considerations, but they are not more important than national security and any measures that enhance the security of the public here in the end contribute to enhancing their liberty. That is why security must come first.

As well as finding those matches, the pilot also found that information was provided in a much more timely manner than it had been under the old arrangements, as the Home Secretary said. It found that information was being provided in a matter of seconds, minutes or hours, drastically improving the speed and quality of investigations. At present, requests by the British police for DNA checks from other European forces involve a request to the National Crime Agency, which is then passed to Interpol before being passed on to the relevant national police force. On average, it takes 143 days for the results to come back. The benefits to UK law enforcement of opting into the Prüm decisions on data access are therefore abundantly clear, in terms of speed of investigation and of resources. DNA checks will be available within 15 seconds, automated number plate checks within 10 seconds and fingerprint matches within 24 hours.

[Mr Chope]

The right hon. Gentleman is emphasising the importance of DNA checks. Will he explain why the Eurodac regulations specifically exclude the possibility of taking DNA samples from asylum seekers who are entering the European Union?

[Andy Burnham]

I think the hon. Gentleman is conflating two issues. We are not discussing that issue today. Let us be clear, to avoid any misconceptions, that we are talking about the DNA of people who have been convicted of a recordable crime. It seems to me that that provides sufficient safeguards against the abuse of such data. If the hon. Gentleman is making an argument for the wider collection of DNA, as opposed to fingerprints—the fingerprints of people entering the country are collected—that would raise other civil liberties concerns that he would have to discuss with his colleagues. He seems to be envisaging going even further than the Prüm decisions, but I do not believe that we are at that point right now. Perhaps he will return to that issue with his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

In these times in which we live, the speed of investigation is essential. I invite every Member of the House to cast their mind back to the hours after we heard about the Paris bombings, or indeed to the hours after the shocking attacks in London a decade or so ago. People were hanging on to the news, waiting to hear of leads against those who might have committed those atrocities. That is what people want. They want the police and the security services to have, in those moments, the clearest possible line of sight across Europe, so that they can pursue immediate leads and track the suspects down. That is what we need to remember when we consider these issues. We need to ask ourselves whether we are prepared to give the police and the security services, not just here but across Europe, that ability to get on the trail of people who are committing atrocities against us and to track them down. In my view, the case is unanswerable: we should give them that power.

We should also ensure that the British police and security services have access to a much larger collection of biometric and biographical data, which will lead to more crimes here being solved and to more victims here getting the justice that they are being denied today. The earlier detection of crime and the conviction of the individuals responsible must be in the forefront of our minds.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Would the right hon. Gentleman like other countries, such as Iceland, to join Prüm?

[Andy Burnham]

I personally see no objection to that, but let us start within Europe. Let us get a clear set of standards and arrangements within Europe first. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that one of the benefits of the European Union is that it sets a standard that the rest of the world then begins to follow. We are seeing that now with Norway and Iceland. In effect, they have to follow all the norms of the European Union if they want to be a full trading partner. So I would not see a problem with the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion. The Home Secretary has said that there will be many safeguards. I put it back to the hon. Gentleman: would he be happy with somebody who has committed a crime going back to Iceland and thus avoiding justice? I would not be happy with that and I would want measures in place to ensure that they could be brought to justice. Opting in will also lead to a much better use of police time and resources, as the Home Secretary has said, and will improve the intelligence picture that the crime and terrorism authorities have, so that they can better understand the patterns emerging across Europe.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that I have huge respect for him, but I want to tease something out a tiny bit further. He said that security trumps civil liberties. Does he believe that security trumps the protection of our common law system?

[Andy Burnham]

I reiterate that security comes first. The first responsibility of any Government is to secure the people who live here by taking reasonable measures to reduce the risks to them, because from that foundation of security come all our traditions, our laws and our liberties. That is why co-operation in this field is a good thing, given that the nature of crime now is international. If we fail to understand that, our own legal system will never be able to respond to the changing nature of crime that we face.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I agree with the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making, which is that it is sensible to co-operate, but does this co-operation need the institutions of the European Union?

[Andy Burnham]

Why should it not, if the co-operation is improved by those institutions? The hon. Gentleman is putting an in-built dislike and distrust of them ahead of the actual issue before us. That is what some Conservative Members are doing, but they should judge this on its merits. Surely the better we can facilitate that co-operation, the more benefits it will bring back to the police and security services. I would imagine that co-operation will be enhanced by working with established institutions, as opposed to making ad hoc arrangements, Government to Government. That is the benefit of the European Union, although I know he probably does not accept that.

The Government have come to the right decision, albeit in a roundabout way, but I wish to press the Home Secretary on a few points of detail, the first of which is on the cost. She said that in the original assessment the cost of opting into Prüm was put at £31 million, but she now says it is £13 million. We are prepared to accept that at face value, but can she say what is responsible for such a significant reduction in the cost? The business and implementation case says that the estimate is based on “high level requirements”, which implies that it is based not on a fully fledged implementation of Prüm but just on the “high level requirements”. Will she say more about that? What are the “downstream operational running costs” to which the business case refers? How much will it cost every year to run the system, set against the benefits that she said it would bring? My next point may be of interest to those who have signed the amendment. Will the Home Secretary say what the UK will be liable to pay back to the EU if the House does not back this decision this evening? I understand that it is a significant sum, and perhaps it would help the House to know what it is.

I now wish to deal with the safeguards. We welcome the appointment of the oversight board, although there is concern that extradition should not be possible under a European arrest warrant purely on the basis of a DNA or fingerprint match. I think this was the point that the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) was raising earlier. The point was that other corroborating evidence should always be required before extradition can be granted. I think the Home Secretary was confirming that was the case, but it would help the House if she or one of her Ministers could say a little more on that at some point.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful for the opportunity to do that, and I apologise to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) if I slightly misunderstood his question. It would be my expectation that an EAW would require more evidence. We have put a number of safeguards into the way in which EAWs are operated, to ensure that we do not see people erroneously being extradited from the UK, and I would expect there would be more evidence as the basis for issuing an EAW. And those normal EAW processes will apply even when there has been a Prüm hit.

[Andy Burnham]

I think the whole House will find that explanation helpful. I would share the concerns of the hon. Member for Stone and others if the match could then trigger a European arrest warrant immediately without any other evidence. I think everybody would find that worrying, but the right hon. Lady has reassured the House on that point.

It is also reassuring that only people convicted of recordable crime can be searched by another police force. That still does not take away the higher level of concern that there would be over the sharing of DNA profiles from named individuals. Does the Home Secretary feel that there should be a higher proportionality test in this area, linked to more serious crime and terrorism, and does she favour a stricter test before DNA information can be shared with another police force? That is an area in which a higher safeguard could be introduced. It might be effective in limiting blanket person-to-person searches, which bring potential for abuse.

Who will take the decision to share personal information if a match is made? Will it be a designated individual in a police force or will all decisions be taken at a national level by NCA officials? It is important to be clear about who will be making these decisions. Will it be an individual who makes only one or two such decisions in the course of a year, or an official who deals with many of them? I think people will have more confidence in someone who deals with a good number, because they will be able to weed out the more frivolous requests.

Will all participating nations collect DNA profiles and fingerprints from crime scenes using a shared quality assurance standard? There is concern about the lack of uniformity across Europe, and people will want some reassurance on that matter. Finally, will the Home Secretary expand on the role of the European Court of Justice when it comes to the Prüm decision, if we choose to opt into it? As I understand it, it is quite a minor extension of its jurisdiction and there is not the fear that has been expressed by some in the motion.

With those caveats—I insist that they are just caveats—I conclude by saying that we on the Labour Benches believe that the Government have reached the right decision, albeit they have done so in a roundabout way, and that they deserve our support this evening. I hope they agree that this whole issue and the way in which we have arrived at this point illustrate how our continued membership of the European Union enhances the security of our country in these difficult times. The Home Secretary has made a convincing and powerful case tonight to rejoin the Prüm decision, and she will have our support in taking an important step to catch more criminals and keep our country safe.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

In these troubling times, this debate raises troubling questions about vital matters of policy and principle, not only for the United Kingdom as a whole and our Parliament but for our civil liberties and our common law.

First, before reaching a decision on our participation in Prüm, we should consider very carefully the implications for our parliamentary sovereignty, from which all law should ultimately derive. If we opt into Prüm, in which areas would the UK be accepting exclusive EU competence? The Government must be clear on that, because only the EU could act in those areas, which would mean taking the decision away from Parliament.

I have to ask the Home Secretary this: how assiduously have the Government considered alternative means of securing the benefits that Prüm offers in a way that would be less damaging to our parliamentary sovereignty? Furthermore, what is so special about the European Union when it comes to security, terrorism, organised crime and all those things that we deplore and want to control as compared with matters that arise in other parts of the world? What is the real distinction to be drawn as we seek to protect our citizens in the EU or any other country in the world?

Secondly, by participating in Prüm, the United Kingdom would be compelled to accept the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice. The extension of that Court’s jurisdiction under the Lisbon treaty to sensitive areas of policing and criminal law was the key factor in the previous Government’s decision to opt out.

[Andy Burnham]

I have listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said. He asked what was so special about national security that it required a European dimension, if I heard him correctly. Does he agree that the fact that the Paris attacks were exclusively planned in another member state answers his question?

[Sir William Cash]

It does not. The reasons why that terrible carnage took place have a great deal to do with insecurity and instability as a result of the failures of border controls and the manner in which people made their way to Paris. We do not have time to go into all those matters, and they are not the subject of this debate, but I question whether national security for United Kingdom citizens, which is our prime concern, will be advanced by surrendering these powers to the European Court of Justice.

The Government concede that accepting the Court’s jurisdiction is not risk-free. They should have explained what practical impact they expected the extension of the Court’s jurisdiction in relation to the UK to have, and they have not done so.

Thirdly, the Government say that they intend to put into place extra safeguards to ensure that Prüm would operate in a way that

“respects fully the civil liberties of British citizens.”

Liberty gave evidence to the House of Lords on a number of matters in this respect.

In the report of the European Scrutiny Committee that was published the other day, we make it clear that there is an important balance to strike between law enforcement co-operation, especially when it involves the exchange of personal data, and the need to protect individuals against the risk of false incrimination and unwarranted interference with their right to privacy. The Government’s business and implementation case can provide only anecdotal evidence of cases in which Prüm has been instrumental in advancing an investigation or securing a conviction. The paucity of evidence that we have been given on the value and impact of Prüm in respect of law enforcement makes it difficult to measure its added value and to ensure that an appropriate balance is being struck. We find that lack of transparency and accountability troubling.

Immigration Bill

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

As the Home Secretary said, we have had a lively and thorough debate, if not a genuine dialogue, as the movement from the Government has been minimal. We have not won many amendments but we have certainly won the argument. For that, I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) for the assured and expert way he led for the Opposition on the Bill. He was, of course, our star summer signing and, like one of Mr Wenger’s best from the old days, he has managed to outshine his considerable reputation already, with more to come.

I would also like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who brought an invaluable insight from her outstanding work on tackling the exploitation of children, and my hon. Friends the Members for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), for Workington (Sue Hayman), for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and for Blackburn (Kate Hollern) who served on the Committee. Our thanks go too to the co-Chairs of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) and the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), and to the third-party organisations that the Home Secretary referred to, which made a very important contribution.

Figures were published last week that I believe set the context for this Third Reading debate. The ONS reports that net migration has reached a record high of 336,000—up 82,000 from last year and 101,000 higher than the level it was when the Prime Minister came to office. I heard the Home Secretary’s comments about the record of the previous Government. She needs to have a look at her own record before she comes to this House and points the finger in this direction. That is the record of her Government. Let us set it against what they promised.

The Conservatives’ 2010 manifesto made a solemn pledge to reduce net migration to “tens of thousands”. “If we don’t meet it, boot us out,” said the Prime Minister. The 2015 manifesto made the same pledge—and we now know that, rather than reducing net migration, the Government are increasing it by tens of thousands. That is the Home Secretary’s record, and it is lamentable even by the standards of the Government. The Home Secretary likes to go to the Conservative party conference and talk a tough game, but the truth is that she cannot escape her own record. The very scale of the gap between her rhetoric and the reality continues to erode public trust on this most important and sensitive of issues.

As I made clear on Second Reading, I will always support practical measures to deal with the public’s legitimate concerns about immigration, and there are some measures in the Bill that we support—particularly the emphasis on labour market enforcement and English language requirements in public services. What I will not do, however, is lend our name to desperate attempts to legislate in haste and to half-baked measures that owe more to a PR exercise to camouflage a record of failure than a considered attempt to create the firm but fair immigration system of which the Home Secretary spoke.

We will refuse to give the Bill a Third Reading tonight because the Government have failed to listen in Committee and failed to produce any meaningful evidence that the measures in the Bill will have any more success than the steps that they took in the last Parliament. Worse, by legislating in this ill-conceived way, they have produced a Bill that could have a number of unintended and pernicious consequences, as my hon. and learned Friend the shadow Immigration Minister so skilfully exposed in Committee.

First, the Bill could undermine all the progress made on tackling modern slavery and human trafficking—for which, actually, the Government deserve some credit. Secondly, the Bill could leave desperate children utterly destitute. Thirdly, it could lead to discrimination in the workplace and the housing market and erode important civil liberties and human rights. I shall take each issue quickly in turn.

I have real concerns that the creation of a new offence of illegal working could deter vulnerable people, such as trafficked women and children, from having the courage to come forward to report rogue employers and criminal gangs. Those unscrupulous individuals already hold the whip hand; the tragedy is that the Bill will strengthen their grip over these most vulnerable of people. The House should reject the Bill. Working to put food in your kids’ mouths should never be a criminal offence. More broadly, if employees fear losing wages or even imprisonment by coming forward to report employers, might not the effect of the Bill be the reverse of what the Home Secretary wants? Might it not actually increase the size of the black market?

Those are genuine concerns and I have not seen any convincing evidence from the Government to suggest that they are misplaced. Although the Government have remained unmoved during the Bill’s passage through this House, I feel sure that their lordships will wish to push them hard on this issue in another place.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government are focusing on the wrong party in the Bill? They should be concentrating—[Interruption.] They should be concentrating, as the Home Secretary should while I am speaking, on clamping down on unscrupulous employers who prey on the misery of people forced into terrible conditions, such as those exploited on Britain’s building sites. I have actually seen that with my own eyes.

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend has more experience than anybody in the House of the workplaces that might be most affected by the Bill. He is absolutely right to say that unscrupulous employers—sadly, they do exist in the construction industry—will feel emboldened by the Bill. They will know that exploited people on building sites will no longer have the courage to report them to the authorities. [Interruption.] The Home Secretary says that is “desperate”, but those people are desperate and she is putting them in a worse position. She needs to think about that before she puts the Bill into law.

Another concern is about clause 34, which removes support from families—a power that the Home Office has long sought; the proposal was put to me as a Minister and piloted under the last Labour Government. The official evaluation of that pilot found no evidence of increased removals but plenty of families going underground and losing touch with the authorities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central said in the debate, there is also the shunting of costs from the Home Office to local authorities.

In the end, however, the question we need to ask ourselves is much more fundamental: should any child—whoever they are, wherever they come from—be denied food and clothes while they are on British soil? I do not think so and I would venture to say that most Members on both sides would, in their heart of hearts, think the same. The great irony is that it was the then Conservative Opposition—specifically, the shadow Home Office team—in the last but one Parliament who led the charge against what was then known as clause 9. They were right to force the then Government to pilot this change, and we were right to drop the whole idea once the results of the pilot were clear. If what they said was right then, why is it not right now?

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) on raising widely held concerns about the need for immigration rules that allow for the reunification of refugee families. She spoke powerfully about that. I hope that the Government will continue to look at this, particularly at new clause 11, which calls for a review of the rules.

Finally, I turn to the concern about the potential of the Bill to increase discrimination and erode basic rights and liberties. We live in the most challenging of times when there is no shortage of people with extreme views who seek to set race against race and religion against religion. We are legislating in a febrile climate in which discrimination can easily flourish, and this House must take great care that nothing we do adds to that. The right response to these challenges is not to erode important rights and liberties but to do the exact opposite—to protect and champion them. Given the huge backlog in the Home Office and its consistently poor record on initial decisions, the deport first, appeal later approach could undermine Britain’s position in the world as a bastion of fair play and higher ideals. Despite the evidence published by the Government, I remain concerned that the threat of imprisonment to landlords who rent flats or houses to people without immigration status could lead to discrimination in the housing market, and a greater sense among black and Asian young people that they are being victimised.

Let me end on a more positive note that gives us a glimmer of hope for the Bill’s onward passage to another place. I am pleased that the Minister, whom Labour Members have time for, has conceded significant ground on immigration detention. That has had strong support from Members on both sides, including the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), who has Yarl’s Wood detention centre in his constituency and has long called for a more humane system.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

Last Thursday, I attended Yarl’s Wood having spoken to a number of charities that are assisting people there. I met a young lady of about 25—she does not know exactly how old she is because she is an orphan—who was trafficked from her home country of India. She has now been taken into detention at Yarl’s Wood and does not know when she will get out. She is 25 weeks pregnant and absolutely terrified. She spoke to me about many basic healthcare services being denied to her. [Interruption.] I appreciate that the Minister has said that this will be looked into, but does my right hon. Friend agree that it is a matter of extreme urgency?

[Andy Burnham]

I do agree with my hon. Friend, who puts her point very well. There are obviously concerns about the case she mentions given the question of the inappropriateness of detention for children, pregnant women, and victims of rape and torture. The Minister acknowledged the issue of minimising the time spent on administrative detention, and the effectiveness of administrative detention, and we are grateful for his recognition of that.

It is reassuring that on this issue, at least, the Government have shown a willingness to listen, but that is only the start of what they need to do. They will need to do a lot more listening, particularly to their lordships, before this Bill is in a fit state to reach the statute book.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Yes, I am happy to give my right hon. Friend the reassurance that he requires in relation to including within the Bill offences that would apply were abuse to take place in the use of the powers. He is absolutely right in saying that of course the security and intelligence agencies do not have the time, the effort or indeed the intention or desire to look into the communications of everybody in this country; they are focusing very clearly on those who are suspected of wanting to do us harm.

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

As we have heard, the whole House is united in sending its sympathy and solidarity to the people of France following the terrible events on Friday. These callous attacks confirm the ability of ISIL to hit at the heart of Europe and place an obligation on us all to redouble our efforts to protect the safety of our country and that of our neighbours. We welcome the Government’s response to the weekend’s events and reaffirm today our commitment to work constructively with them, including on modernising legislation with regard to the powers of the police and security services. But of course, alongside the powers, we need the people to put them into practice. Will the Home Secretary say more about the funding announced today by the Prime Minister to recruit 1,900 extra officers for the security services and whether that funding is additional to the counter-terrorism budget?

[Mrs May]

First, I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks about the attacks that took place in Paris. It has been clear from statements made by a number of Members of this House that there is a very clear message from this House of our utter condemnation of the brutality of those attacks.

In relation to the announcement, I was going to refer to that in the statement that I will be making later on. It is right that earlier this year the Chancellor made it absolutely clear that he was looking at the whole question of the funding that was available for security, particularly that for counter-terrorism. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the funding for the security and intelligence agencies is a matter that is dealt with separately from other Departments’ funding, and it has been, and will be, possible to provide the funding for these extra 1,900 officers.

[Andy Burnham]

I thank the Home Secretary for what she has said and appreciate that she will say more shortly. Let me also say that the united message coming from this House today is that ISIL will not prevail in this attack on our values. We welcome the action that the Government are taking in respect of the security services, but I am sure she will agree that the threat we face cannot be tackled by counter-terrorism operations alone—it also depends on the capability of the police to respond to an emergency and, as Sir Ian Blair said this morning, on effective neighbourhood policing to provide early intelligence. She will be aware of concerns within the police about the forthcoming spending review. In the light of the events in Paris, are the Government looking again at the requirements of the police and revisiting their assumptions on the police budget going forward?

[Mrs May]

As the right hon. Gentleman would expect, and as I have made clear over the past couple of days, following the events that took place in Mumbai in 2008 we enhanced and broadened the capabilities of the police to deal with the sort of marauding firearms attack that we saw there. We are looking at the attacks that took place in Paris on Friday to see whether there are any further lessons that need to be learned. It is absolutely right that we review the preparations that we have in place to see whether any changes are needed in relation to the capabilities of the police, or indeed the training of the police. The right hon. Gentleman and some of his colleagues tend to think simply in terms of questions of money and numbers, but very often it is about training and preparation for the sorts of attacks that might take place.

Paris Terrorist Attacks

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. May I strongly welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and many of the steps she has just announced? As we have come to expect, she has acted quickly and with clarity, and she will have our support in taking the action needed to protect the public here and across Europe.

Our thoughts today are primarily with the friends, the families and the loved ones of those killed or injured in Paris. These horrific attacks on innocent people—as the Home Secretary said, many were young people, enjoying a night out—were an attack not just on France but on the way of life we all share, on our freedoms, our multicultural societies and our shared values. Those responsible want to intimidate us; we will not let them succeed. We stand in solidarity with the people of Paris and all the citizens of France.

The Home Secretary was right to praise the British intelligence and security services who work so tirelessly to keep us safe. Much of what they do goes unseen and unreported, but, as we know, they have foiled many attacks here in recent times. They deserve our support and our gratitude.

Two things are apparent from recent events. First, ISIL has now demonstrated that it has the capacity to hit mainland Europe and cause widespread casualties. Secondly, this is evidence of an escalation of intent, as alongside the Paris attacks we have seen the downing of the Russian airliner and the bombings in Beirut, and victims of both of those atrocities should be in our thoughts at this time. This requires the international community to formulate an urgent and effective response.

Let me start with the circumstances of the attack. What this atrocity reveals is how an attack on one member state can be planned and co-ordinated in another, and by individuals who may not be known to the domestic security services of the state where the attack took place. What arrangements are already in place for co-operation between security services across Europe? Can those arrangements be strengthened in the light of what has happened, and is there greater assistance that can be provided across Europe between security services?

Let me turn to border security. The Schengen agreement is of course primarily a matter for the countries who are participants in it, but it does impact on our own border security. While any changes remain a matter for the participants, do the Government have a view on the way Schengen is operating, and are they making representations to those member states? Can the Home Secretary say more about what she thinks the impact of the Schengen agreement is on UK borders?

Concerns have been raised in recent days about people travelling across Europe in cars in the light of these attacks, and that becomes particularly relevant in respect of the measures at the Channel tunnel. The Home Secretary said security there will be strengthened. Can she assure the House that lorries and cars coming through the Channel tunnel will be subject to the same security checks as passengers travelling through airports and using Eurostar? Is she confident that proper arrangements are in place at all regional airports? We welcome what she said about improving airport security, but are regional airports in a strong enough position to deal with the challenges they face?

Let me turn to refugee policy. It is of course essential to remember that many of the people fleeing are fleeing the horrors of ISIL themselves. It is possible of course that one of the attackers in Paris came through the refugee route, and the idea cannot be dismissed that this might have been an attempt to undermine public confidence in Europe in welcoming genuine refugees to our country. The fact that Europe is prepared to welcome people is a wonderful validation of our values, and we must not be deflected from that, but the policy raises certain issues. First, will the Home Secretary tell us what can be done to strengthen the processing and documentation of refugees as they arrive in Europe, so that an up-to-date database can be maintained? Secondly, would it be helpful if that information were to be shared quickly across the security services of Europe, so that individuals who might pose a risk can be identified?

In regard to the high-profile events that are coming up, particularly the football match between England and France this week, can the right hon. Lady reassure the public that the necessary security measures will be in place to ensure that those events can take place safely? She mentioned the Muslim community, and she was absolutely right to say that ISIL’s evil ideology is not a true reflection of Islam; indeed, it is a perversion of it. However, the Muslim community in this country will be feeling an extra sense of nervousness right now. What more can she say to reassure law-abiding members of the Muslim community that they will have our full support in dealing with this threat?

Finally, let me turn to the powers and the funding of the intelligence and security services and the police. Given the Prime Minister’s comments earlier today, does the Home Secretary anticipate a need for the Investigatory Powers Bill to be expedited? We welcome her announcement of money for counter-terrorism, but I urge her not to view counter-terrorism in isolation from the general policing budget. She will know that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, said last week that cuts above 10% to the police budget would hamper his ability to fight terrorism on the streets of London. Today, Ian Blair has said that the loss of police community support officers from our streets would be a “disaster”.

Responding to questions earlier, the Home Secretary said that it was not about the numbers of police but about the quality of the policing. Of course it is about the quality, but it is also about coverage on the ground. The Government have been talking about a 25% cut to the police budget. Can the right hon. Lady assure the House today that she and the Chancellor will revisit those assumptions about the police budget in the light of what has happened, to ensure that the police have the funding they need to do the job?

This is the single biggest challenge of our generation. We need to avoid a knee-jerk reaction, but we must not shy away from taking decisive action. We must act with resolve, with strength and with judgment, and we must build consensus, because the stronger we are together, the sooner we will defeat this threat. ISIL’s aim is to divide our communities, to divide us politically and to divide us from our European partners, with whom we share common values. The message must go out today that we will not let ISIL prevail. Let us say clearly that it will not succeed and that we will stand as one in our communities and as a country, united with our European partners.

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support for the steps that the Government have taken so far, and for the clear message, which goes out from the whole House, that we condemn the attacks that took place in Paris and that the terrorists will not win. We will defeat them. I also thank him for his support for the security and intelligence agencies. As I said earlier, they are unseen and unrecognised, but they do an important job for us day after day.

The right hon. Gentleman was right to say that although we are currently focusing on the attacks in Paris, a number of terrorist attacks have been conducted in the name of ISIL around the world, and our thoughts are with all the victims. He mentioned the Muslim community in the UK, and we should never forget that the largest number of people killed by terrorists around the world are themselves Muslims. Islam is a peaceful religion that is practised peacefully by millions of people around the world, and many of them have already risen up in communities here in the UK, in France and elsewhere to say that these attacks were not perpetrated in their name. We look forward to working further with people in the Muslim communities around the United Kingdom to help those mainstream voices to be heard.

As the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), said in Home Office questions, we have asked the police to identify anti-Muslim hate crime separately so that we can see the nature and extent of it. It has been increasing in recent years, as has the number of anti-Semitic incidents.

There is already a considerable amount of co-operation between intelligence services and police across the European Union. We will be looking at what further can be done. I have offered extra assistance, in the wake of the attacks, to both my French and Belgian counterparts, but I expect that we will consider the question of co-operation and sharing of intelligence at the Justice and Home Affairs Council.

Of course what happens in Schengen is predominantly a matter for those countries that are in Schengen; we are not in Schengen, nor will we be. None the less, we have been working with countries that are in Schengen to strengthen our external borders, and to look at ensuring that the necessary processing and documenting of people coming in as migrants take place at those external borders. That is important, because, as we know, many coming through are not refugees, but illegal economic migrants, and it is doubly important to ensure that people can be returned when they have no right to be in Europe.

We are working on the hotspots at the external borders, and have also provided some capability from the UK to help debrief migrants coming through on those routes so that we can get a better understanding of the criminal gangs that are operating and what is happening at the borders.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the England-France football match. It is important that the match goes ahead; it is a sign and a symbol of the two countries coming together in a friendly activity. I have spoken to the police and they will ensure that appropriate security measures are in place for that match. Those are operational decisions for the police to take.

On the question of the draft Investigatory Powers Bill, it is right that, at all times, we review the timing of our legislation. That is a significant Bill and it is right that it should be given proper scrutiny in Parliament. On the issue of national security and policing, let me say this: very often people think of national security in terms of just the security and intelligence agencies, but there is also counter-terrorism policing, and policing more generally. Other areas of work include border security, which also comes under the Home Office and which is an important part of our national security. We will look at all of those issues in the round.

Policing

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes with concern the loss of 17,000 police officers in the last five years; further notes the most recent Police Recorded Crime statistics, which show sharp rises in some of the more serious crimes including knife crime and sexual assault and that, alongside evidence that some crime is rising, there is evidence that crime is changing and moving away from traditional forms such as burglary and car theft and is being increasingly replaced by cybercrime; is concerned by reports that the police budget could face between 25 and 40 per cent spending reductions in the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review; notes warnings from senior police figures that this could result in over 20,000 further reductions in frontline staff, the effective end of neighbourhood policing and much of the public being exposed to much greater risk; accepts that further efficiencies can be made in the police budget for England and Wales but believes that budget reductions over 10 per cent would be dangerous; further notes the ongoing concern surrounding the Scottish Government’s oversight of Police Scotland and the findings of the recent staff survey which found only 30 per cent of staff thought they had the resources necessary to do their job properly; and calls on the Government to secure a funding settlement for the police that maintains frontline services and does not compromise public safety.

I rise to speak to the motion in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. At the start, I should thank the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), who is about to leave the Chamber. Old alliances forged over the cause of water fluoridation do, in the end, stand one in good stead. I am grateful to him.

We have just been discussing the powers that the police and security services need to keep us safe in the 21st century. I would be the first to argue that the House has a duty to provide those powers, alongside strong safeguards, but that is of course only half the story. Alongside the powers, we need the people to put them into practice. That bit was missing from the Home Secretary’s statement. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Britain led the world in policing, because our policing by consent model was based on investment in good people with a strong sense of public vocation. In the 21st century, crime is changing—it is moving online and becoming more complex—but what will never change is the simple principle that the foundation stone of good policing is that presence in every community and the building of those strong relationships at local level.

It therefore feels right to pay tribute at the start of this debate to police officers and police civilian staff. What unites this House is a deep sense of gratitude to the men and women who work every day to keep our constituents safe and put themselves in harm’s way to do it.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that among the police whom the public are most supportive of are our safer neighbourhood teams They have been so severely undermined by spending cuts in the past few years. In Westminster, we saw a 30% fall in police between 2011 and this spring, and many constituents are saying to me that they no longer see any evidence of safer neighbourhood teams on the beat. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is a cause of great sadness?

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend anticipates me, because that is going to be at the heart of what I say today. I am sure that she, like me, feels great pride in what the last Labour Government did to invest in neighbourhood and community policing. Those changes have been noticed by the public and have built confidence locally in policing, and that is now at risk.

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

Let me make a point that I made during last week’s business questions. In Enfield, 152 uniformed officers have been lost from our streets since 2010, yet there has been a 22% increase in violent crime in the past year alone. There has been an increase in all categories of violent crime, and I think there is a connection between those two things. I wonder what my right hon. Friend thinks, because the reply I received from the Leader of the House was less than satisfactory.

[Andy Burnham]

My right hon. Friend rightly says that there is evidence that violent crime—knife crime and sexual assault–is on the increase and that the Metropolitan police have seen some reductions in numbers, particularly in her community. The big worry is that if the Government proceed with the spending plans they set out at the Budget, thousands of police officers could be taken off the streets of this country, particularly in London, where the change would be most keenly felt. That should concern Members on both sides of the House.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

I will make a little more progress and give way later on.

Last week, the shadow Policing Minister and I joined the Home Secretary and the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice at the police bravery awards. As I am sure we would all agree, it was a humbling evening. It was particularly poignant this year, with PC David Phillips in the minds of many. We think of David’s family today, and we hope that they take some comfort from the huge public response and outpouring of feeling that we have seen.

As I said when I started this job, when the Home Secretary gets it right, she will have my support—I have just offered that to her on the investigatory powers Bill—but where she and the Government get it wrong, I am not going to hold back from saying so, particularly where public and community safety is at risk. That brings me to my central point: this Government are about to cause serious damage to our police service and if they do not change course, they are about to put public safety at risk.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that all one needs to know about the Government’s policy is that four Conservative police and crime commissioners and the Mayor of London are preparing a judicial review, in the Met’s case because, in addition to a 43% cut in its budget—achieved and proposed—the Government are proposing another £184 million-worth of cuts as a result of the resourcing budget changes?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend tempts me on to important ground: we are considering today not only the overall size of the cake for the police—how much money the police budget gets from the spending review—but how that cake is then divvied up. This week, PCCs of all political colours, have come together to say that the rushed changes to the police funding formula could seriously destabilise our police services. I would be interested to know what response the Government will make to the letter they have received.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I spoke to my local PCC yesterday and he confirmed to me that

“we are in a strong position to face future financial challenges”

while maintaining front-line services. Does the right hon. Gentleman therefore agree that many factors influence performance, of which finance is just one?

[Andy Burnham]

That may well be the case—I do not know, as I have not seen the details. May I gently point out to the hon. and learned Lady, however, that that is not the position everywhere? I refer her to the comments that the chief constable of Lancashire made yesterday before the Home Affairs Committee. He said that if these cuts go through,

“people in Lancashire will not be as safe as they are now”.

The chief constable of Cumbria has said that that force may not be viable, and we face the closure of police stations across the country. Complacency will not serve Conservative Members well in this debate.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

South Wales police force has had a reduction of 600 police officers in the past three years. I have had the privilege of working closely with community teams in my constituency in crucial areas such as counter-terrorism and dealing with extremism. Mark Rowley has made it very clear that uniformed officers on the beat also play a crucial role in that work. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such work is put at risk when cuts are made in police forces across the country?

[Andy Burnham]

That is the point: we are already hearing that police services in England and Wales are overstretched and struggling to cover all their functions. That is because in the past five years 12,000 full-time officers have been lost—the total was about 17,000 police staff overall. Three weeks from now, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be standing at that Dispatch Box announcing his spending review. If he follows through on what he said at the Budget, the country will soon have a very different police force, providing a much-reduced service than the one that has just been described. As it stands, the Home Office, like other unprotected Departments, is in line for a cut over the next five years of between 25% and 40%. If we assume that the Government are working to keep it to the lower end of that spectrum, it still represents a massive hit on resources. It will mean 22,000 fewer police officers than we have today. That is a massive number and the Government need to provide justification for cuts on that scale.

[Dr Murrison]

If things are as dire as the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting, why is it that crime across the country is falling? In addition, why is a 10% cut in police funding, which he said was doable at his party conference, apparently now “dangerous”, as his motion puts it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

I will come on to deal with that, explaining clearly what we think could be done and what takes us into the realms of dangerous cuts. The hon. Gentleman glibly says that crime is coming down, but he just heard what my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) had to say a moment ago. We know that crime has moved online and that the crime figures have not yet been updated to include those cybercrime figures—5 million crimes. I do not believe it will serve the Government well if they continue to exhibit complacency on these matters. There is good evidence to show that crime is not falling, but is in fact rising.

[Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

As a member of the Home Affairs Committee, I had the opportunity to question the chief constables that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. Is it not true that efficiency has to be part of the settlement and that some forces spend over £75 more per capita than others? That surely is where savings can be made.

[Andy Burnham]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very valid point, and I will come back to it later. I am not standing here today saying, “No cuts. Things have to stay exactly as they are. There is no room for efficiency in the police service.” Of course there is room for efficiency. My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) commissioned a report from the former Met commissioner Sir John Stevens in the last Parliament. He identified scope for savings of the kind that the hon. Gentleman just described. I am not saying that there is no room for cuts. The core of my argument is this: yes, make those efficiencies, but there comes a point beyond which the Government will be beginning to unpick the fabric of our police service and to put local communities at risk, and I am not prepared to see that.

[Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Lancashire has one of the best performing police authorities in the country, but owing to a flawed formula, about which a cross-party representation was made to the Minister, Lancashire is set to lose £25 million. People talk about crime reduction, but does anyone recognise that early intervention by the police in Lancashire working with communities and residents—

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I have a word of advice for the hon. Lady. Interventions must be short, because there are a great many people wishing to speak this afternoon. For future reference, during an intervention it is not acceptable to take another intervention from someone from a sedentary position however amusing it might be to the House. I am sure that the hon. Lady will now conclude her intervention and hand back to the shadow Secretary of State.

[Andy Burnham]

I am glad that my hon. Friend made that intervention, because it was a really important one and those on the Government Front Bench needed to hear it. They all shook their heads when she gave that figure of £25 million. Lancashire is not making that up. People are not speaking out for the sake of it. Doubtless the Government will want to accuse them of scaremongering, but this is nothing of the sort. Senior police are speaking out about what is happening. They can see that the proposed budget cuts, combined with the new funding formula, could seriously destabilise community and neighbourhood policing.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Andy Burnham]

I will give way in a moment.

That brings me to my first question for the Home Secretary today. I have just described how we saw cuts to frontline services in the previous Parliament. I have also said that we are looking at cuts of possibly up to 25%. What evidence can she point the House to today that says that the Government can safely shrink the police by a quarter from its current overstretched position and not put public safety at risk? In fact, what evidence is there that she can safely cut the police by 20%, 15% or even 10%? We would love to see it, but I do not think that we will. I do not think that that evidence even exists. This is what is happening: we are being asked to accept major changes to the police without the evidence to justify it.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I commend my right hon. Friend on his excellent speech. He will be aware that the commissioner of the Metropolitan police has warned that he is concerned about the safety of London if the scale of planned cuts and changes to the police funding formula go ahead. In an interview, he said:

“We think we can expect to lose somewhere between 5,000 to 8,000 police officers.”

He said that responding to a “marauding terrorist attack” or 2011 riot scenario would be harder. How much weight does he think that the Home Secretary and Chancellor should pay to the most senior police officer in the country?

[Andy Burnham]

The Home Secretary should give those comments her full attention. The figure that my right hon. Friend has just quoted is backed up by independent research that I have commissioned. It suggests that if the cuts go ahead—cuts of around 25%—London could see 5,000 or 6,000 police officers lost from the frontline. I know that he will do what he can to oppose those cuts and the funding formula in the coming months. I look forward to seeing others on the Government Benches doing the same, and standing up for the people of London as I know that he will.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

May I take my right hon. Friend from London and bring him closer to home? He might be from Leigh, but he knows Merseyside like the back of his hand. Does he agree that the level of cuts that are about to be imposed on Merseyside do more than just take away a service? They risk undermining the foundation of trust between us and our police.

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend puts it very well. Let us look at what Merseyside has said about what the proposed cuts would do. It has said that they would mean scaling down teams dealing with sexual assault and hate crime. Those are very serious implications. Where is the evidence to justify cutting the police on that scale? I have not seen it. I hope we hear it today, because this House cannot give permission to the Government to proceed with these cuts until they have made the case for what they are trying to do.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend as surprised as me to hear that there are Members who do not understand that, in certain parts of the country, crime is rising, not falling. Crime in Greater Manchester rose by 14% in the 12 months up to June 2015 compared with the previous 12 months. Recorded violent crime rose by 39% over the same period. Members must take account of the fact that some parts of the country are different. We have guns and gang violence in Salford, and it is a very serious issue.

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend puts her case very well. Crime may indeed be changing, and moving away from volume crime, such as car crime and burglary, but that is not to say that crime is falling. As I have said before, online crime is not adequately reflected in the crime figures. She rightly says that there are worrying increases in the most serious crimes in a number of areas, including in our part of the world, in Greater Manchester.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

I will make a little progress if I may, and take some further interventions later.

I was just saying that I do not see the evidence to shrink our police force back to the levels of the 1970s, leaving us with fewer police officers per head of population than other comparable countries. That brings me to my second question, which is not for the Home Secretary, but for the whole House. If there is no authoritative evidence that cuts on this scale will not put our constituents at risk, how on earth can we allow them through? We have called this debate today for the following reasons: to challenge the Government on what we feel is a reckless gamble with public safety; to give voice to the deep disquiet felt by thousands of police officers across all 43 forces in England and Wales about the future of policing and community safety; to initiate a proper debate about the future of policing and the needs of our communities, in advance of the spending review; and to alert the public to the enormity of what is at stake by launching a national campaign today to protect our police. Just as with tax credits, I cannot remember the public being told about these plans to decimate neighbourhood policing before they went to vote.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

What a lot of people outside this place will try to square is the right hon. Gentleman’s speech to the Labour party conference in which he said that he would cut these budgets by 5% to 10%. Rather than a thoughtful critique of what the Government are actually doing, what we have today is a cut out and paste standard attack on the Conservative Government for acting in a fiscally responsible way, which he suggested that they should do just a few weeks ago.

[Andy Burnham]

If the hon. Gentleman is going to intervene in the debate, he should at least listen to it. A moment ago, I said that we put forward plans for efficiencies before the election, so it would not be a sustainable position for me to say, “No cuts at all”, and I am not saying that today. What our motion says is that cutting the police by more than 10% would put public safety at risk. If he thinks that it is fiscally prudent to do that and damage public safety, then I beg to differ with him. I would love to see how he can justify cuts of more than 10% in his community.

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that there has been a 23% reduction in the force establishment in Merseyside since 2010? By 2019, that will have gone up to 41% of the workforce. Does he think that those on the Government Benches have any idea about the impact that that will have on the community, safe policing and the safety of police officers?

[Andy Burnham]

I do not think that they do. Cuts on the scale proposed would mean the effective end of neighbourhood policing as we have seen it in recent years, particularly in rural areas and areas of lower risk. We would see thousands of bobbies taken off the beat. It would take us back to the bad old days of reactive and remote policing, with officers retreating to cars and to the station. They will not be out on the streets or visible in their communities.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

The safer neighbourhood teams were started in Stonebridge in my constituency of Brent. They helped to build trust in the police and to lower crimes. We have had a 62% cut in our neighbourhood teams. Again, that is a false economy by the Government. There will be more crimes and fewer police to deal with them.

[Andy Burnham]

False economy is absolutely the point, is it not? The Government do not seem to equate the reduction in crime we had in the last decade, which began under our Government, with the investment in those community safety teams. That brings me to the role of police community support officers, one of the innovations of the Labour Government of which I, for one, am very proud indeed. Under the Government’s plans, they will become an endangered species. We know that they do not enjoy the same employment protection as warranted officers, so no doubt they are worried that they will be the first to go.

One of the gains brought about by PCSOs was that they substituted for warranted officers on lower level duties, such as managing the Remembrance Sunday parades we will see in our constituencies this weekend. Around the country, some of those parades are beginning to be scaled back and even cancelled because there is not sufficient police cover. Is it not a sure sign to the Conservatives that if the police can no longer cover events of such importance to our local communities their cuts have already gone too far?

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Aintree ratepayers association and neighbourhood watch is a non-party political organisation and wrote to me to say:

“It is, in our view, ‘criminal’ that such significant deep-rooted budget reductions are being considered, it demonstrates what value the Government places upon community safety and cohesion and totally sends out the ‘wrong message’ to those who do not want to abide by the mores of civilised society.”

I could not have put it better myself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

Civilised society; that is what matters here. If people want a glimpse of what the future might look like, they should have a look at Tiptree in Essex, where residents already have to club together to fund their own private security guards. Is that the kind of society we want, with private security guards roaming the streets in areas where the police have withdrawn? The Government deny it, but that is what is happening on the ground.

This is not just about the loss of capability in community and neighbourhood policing. Forces are talking about disbanding mounted sections and dog sections. The cuts could have serious implications for the police estate, with police station closures all over the country and the police becoming a blue light only service, responding to emergencies and not dealing with crime at a local level.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

Today’s motion refers to Scotland, where we have 1,027 more serving police officers on the street than we had in 2007. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree, however, that it is iniquitous and unfair that Police Scotland should be the only force in the United Kingdom to be required to pay VAT on its operations, taking £23 million out of operational expenditure?

[Andy Burnham]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that should be considered, but I am afraid that I am not going to let him or the Scottish National party off the hook. The survey referred to in our motion says that only 30% of officers in Scotland feel that they have sufficient resources to do the job. I accept that that might partly be the responsibility of the Westminster Government, but I am not sure that the changes to the police in Scotland and the move to Police Scotland have resulted in the improvements that we were told would happen.

As I said only a moment ago, the police have spoken about becoming a blue light only service in places. In their briefing for this debate, Lancashire police state:

“We will attend fewer crimes.”

That prompts the question of which crimes. Where is the national public guidance on the crimes that can now safely be de-prioritised? Again, there is none, because the Government would rather pass the cuts and pass the buck down to a local level, leaving the public facing a confusing postcode lottery in policing.

If anyone believes that referring to a postcode lottery is an exaggeration, may I refer the House to the pilot scheme in Leicestershire, where the police attended burglaries only at houses with even numbers, a scheme that the Government claimed worked and that could now be expanded? At what point have we as a society or this Parliament accepted the principle that the police will no longer attend someone’s home if they have been burgled? At what point have we accepted the principle that some victims of crime can be abandoned in this random fashion? We have not, and I do not believe that this House should concede that principle. Policing practice should not be changed in such a way until the Government have provided sound justification for the change.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that cuts to the neighbourhood policing budget will undermine the follow-up work after serious crime, such as the gun crime that happened recently in Wood Green, in all our inner-city areas? Does he agree that for criminals this proposal is Christmas day 365 days a year?

[Andy Burnham]

I can do no better than refer my hon. Friend to the words of Peter Clarke, former deputy assistant commissioner of the Met’s specialist operations directorate, whom the House will know. Talking about what is in the offing, he said:

“We risk breaking the ‘golden thread’ that runs through the police effort all the way from local communities to the farthest part of the world where, in an era of global terrorism, defence of the UK begins”.

That is the point: that pyramid of policing that begins at a very local level and feeds intelligence into the system is not an either/or idea. We cannot just say that we will have officers dealing with online crime and withdraw people from the streets. We have to maintain a police presence in every community, which is a point that the Government seem not to understand.

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

However, I believe that the former Policing Minister does understand that.

[Nick Herbert]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and he has been very generous. As I understand it, he is saying that cuts of up to 10% could safely be made now because, as he accepts in the motion, further efficiencies could be made in the police budget. Therefore, by definition, he has accepted that the efficiencies that have been made so far have not damaged policing. He shakes his head, but it is fairly obvious that if further cuts of up to 10% could be made safely he accepts that the reductions that have been made to date have not damaged policing. Is it therefore not extraordinary that Labour Members opposed those reductions in spending and said that policing would be damaged? Why should we believe them now?

[Andy Burnham]

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman intervened, because I am not saying anything of the kind. I am not saying that the cuts that the Government have managed to date have been without consequence. I have just described how functions as important as managing Remembrance Sunday parades have been cancelled. I have also pointed out that crime is rising and I, for one, do not say that there is no link between police numbers and rising crime. We looked at a plan to protect the frontline by merging police forces. I note that the Government have turned their face against that. It is all about how they do it. The frontline can be protected if the Government are prepared to manage the cuts in a way that takes resource out of the back office. They are not prepared to do that, either, so consequently we are seeing unacceptable cuts in police forces up and down the country.

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

I am very interested in the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making about the frontline. Perhaps he would like to add in to his speech the fact that the proportion of officers on the frontline has increased over the past five years.

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[Andy Burnham]

“Proportion”—people will hear how the Home Secretary is trying to spin it. Let us deal in people, shall we, rather than proportions. Between 12,000 and 13,000 officers lost, police community support officers lost, and all at a time when crime is beginning to go up. She wants to take away 22,000 more. I say in all sincerity to the Home Secretary that with crime on the rise this is no time to cut the police.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

May I bring to the attention of my right hon. Friend another example of Tory promises? Croydon was hit very hard by the riots in 2011 and the Prime Minister came down days afterwards and promised to keep the area safe. Since then, the Government have allowed every single police station in Croydon North to close down and as of today we still have fewer police on the streets than in 2010, when these people came into government. Is that not yet more Tory broken promises?

[Andy Burnham]

Everybody will remember very well the terrible fire and the consequences of the riots on the streets of Croydon. People would expect promises like that to be kept, would they not? But with this Prime Minister and this Government, they are rapidly learning that such things are said in the moment to look good but are not followed through. Sadly, that is the hallmark of this Government.

The Government are sending the police on a dangerous journey without a route map. Where is the White Paper that sets out the case for these drastic changes to the police and the vision for the police service of the future? Where is the expert analysis of the changing nature of crime and society and therefore of the resource needs of the police? In the absence of all that, the only justification put forward by the Government, as we have heard today, is that despite reductions crime has continued to fall. I have dealt with that, Madam Deputy Speaker. I believe that in the last decade the reduction we saw was linked to the investment in neighbourhood policing and we are now beginning to see signs that crime is on the rise again.

The truth is that this whole process is not being driven by our future needs as a society, or by the changing nature of crime; it is a crude, Treasury-driven process that owes more to an ideological drive to shrink the state than to the good governance of the police and our public services. What we will soon be left with is the police service of the Treasury’s dreams but the public’s worst nightmares.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

Does the shadow Home Secretary recognise the concern expressed by Sara Thornton, head of the National Police Chiefs Council, when she recently appeared before the Home Affairs Committee? She adopted the words of the chief constable of Merseyside police, who said that there is a political obsession with police visibility, irrespective of actual neighbourhood demand. Is not the shadow Home Secretary guilty, along with the shadow Ministers quoted in The Times today, of that political obsession, and of seeking to weaponise police numbers?

[Andy Burnham]

I think that the hon. Gentleman will regret those remarks. Listen to what senior police officers are saying. Is he accusing them of scaremongering? Is he saying that Peter Clarke, whom I quoted a moment ago, is wrong? Has he talked to his own constituents recently and heard their views about visible neighbourhood policing? I suggest that he speaks to them, because this is not about what politicians want. His constituents want to see a strong uniformed presence on their streets, keeping them safe.

As I have said, it is not just about the overall size of the cuts, because the Home Office, in characteristic fashion, is taking a bad situation and making it worse. The changes to the police funding formula—[Interruption.] The Policing Minister should not dismiss this, because the letter he received this week was a pretty difficult and sobering one for him. It talked about a process that is

“unfair, unjustified and deeply flawed”.

That is how his own Conservative colleagues describe it. It is highly critical of Ministers’ handling of the whole process, which they say was

“entirely avoidable and wholly unacceptable”.

They are now looking at a judicial review. Those are strong words, and is not the fact that it is Conservative voices saying them a clear indication that the Government are no longer carrying their own side, and that they are losing the confidence of the police as a whole?

Where do we go from here? A good start would be to put implementation of the formula on hold. Let me get to the heart of what we are calling for today. As our motion makes clear, we have not turned our face away from the idea of savings in the police budget, because there are changes to back-office structures and procurement that could protect the frontline. If one speaks to senior police officers, one realises that most accept that further savings of up to 5% are difficult but doable. Cutting between 5% and 10% gets more dangerous, and the cuts would be harder to make, but neighbourhood policing would have a chance in that scenario. My message to the Government is that if they cut the police by 10% or more, they will put the public at risk.

I hope that I can take it as read that the Home Secretary is fighting for the best deal she can get from the Treasury. Will she share with the House this afternoon what figures she thinks are acceptable without compromising public safety? If she can set out those figures, can she tell us where she thinks those savings can be made from within the police without compromising public safety? That is important, because her vision for the police needs to fit with the Government’s other plans for public services; they cannot be seen in isolation from the rest of the spending review.

Policing is the last safety net, and it will be forced to deal with the consequences of failure in other services. For instance, if the Government fail to tackle the crisis in mental health services in the spending review, that will only add to the pressure on the police and on police cells. If they force councils to close youth clubs, leisure centres and playing fields, the chances are that antisocial behaviour will be on the rise again. If they fail to invest in social care, they will leave our hospitals in crisis, ambulances trapped in queues outside and police cars having to fill the gaps. If they fail to sort out the mess in probation, caused by underfunding and part-privatisation, there will be a direct impact on re-offending and, ultimately, public safety.

Ultimately, that is the problem. What we are facing in this spending review is a drive to shrink back the state and then privatise it. In the response to this debate, we expect to hear plenty of talk about the deficit. Yes, the deficit is important, but there is not just one way to close it, and it is not more important than the safety of the public and of the country.

This is a milestone moment for the police service in Britain. The decisions that the Government make on funding over the next few months will determine the mission and the manner of policing and community safety in this country for a generation. That was the warning given by the Conservative police and crime commissioners in their letter to the Government this week. This is an issue that they now have to explain and answer. It is simply not safe to cut the police in the drastic way they plan, and they have failed to set out a case that it is.

Our motion makes a reasonable demand: put simply, it is to secure a funding settlement for the police that maintains front-line services and does not compromise public safety. Is there any Conservative Member who cannot vote for such a demand, or are they saying that they are ready to sacrifice public safety in the name of deficit reduction? It is not acceptable, and it will not be acceptable to their constituents, as it is not to ours.

Opposition Members understand the value of public service and public services. We have shown in the past that we can fight for our NHS, so we give notice to the Government today that we are ready to do the same for our police and for the safety of our communities. I call on Members on both sides of the House to think about what cuts on this scale will mean for their constituencies, put public safety before party politics and support the motion before the House tonight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

Earlier the right hon. Lady intervened on her right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and referred to the issues around knife crime. May I take this opportunity to commend her predecessor in her constituency, Nick de Bois, who did a great deal in relation to knife crime and ensured that further legislation was passed in this House in that regard? On the issue of police community support officers, of course we value them, but the decision is an operational one for chief constables as to how they balance their budgets and ensure the differentiation. The sort of comments that we are hearing now about PCSOs have been heard before. For example, in 2010 the chief constable of Lancashire, Chief Constable Finnigan, said that with huge regret he had told all 427 PCSOs in the force that they might lose their jobs as a result of budget cuts. Did they? No, they did not.

Police reform is working, and crime is falling. This Government have achieved something that no other Government have achieved: we have proved that it is possible to improve services, and maintain public trust and confidence, while saving money for the taxpayer. We must not forget why those savings are necessary. The right hon. Member for Leigh mentioned the deficit and yes, we did inherit a structural deficit, high taxes, record debt and unreformed public services. I hope I do not have to remind the right hon. Gentleman, who was Chief Secretary to the Treasury when the 2007 spending review was decided—a document that continued this country’s course down that fateful path of profligacy.

[Andy Burnham]

If I may correct the Home Secretary, I conducted the 2007 spending review as Chief Secretary and a decision was taken to grow public spending at a lower rate than overall growth in the economy—a decision that the current Prime Minister and the current Chancellor described at the time as tough. The right hon. Lady needs to correct the record.

I want to ask the Home Secretary a direct question, and she cannot leave the debate today before she answers it. If she is saying that everything is fine, she now needs to tell the House at what level she thinks it is safe to cut the police before public safety is compromised. What is the percentage cut that she is prepared to make without compromising the safety of our constituents?

[Mrs May]

It sounded as though the right hon. Gentleman was about to get his handcuffs out and stop me. [Interruption.] Perhaps I won’t go there.

The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that the discussions around the spending review are currently taking place. The spending review will be reported to this House by the Chancellor on 25 November. We are still consulting on the police funding formula, and in due course, after the spending review has been announced, the funding formula will be announced.

Since 2010, we have cut the budget deficit by more than half, we have lowered the tax burden for people up and down the country, and we have set about reforming public services to better serve citizens and communities. It is therefore with some dismay that I see the Opposition making exactly the same mistakes they made in 2010—misusing statistics, worrying decent members of the public, and wilfully ignoring the experience of the past five years. The similarities are uncanny.

The weekend before last, the right hon. Member for Leigh told the Sunday Express that

“the Home Secretary is gambling with public safety”,

just as five years ago his predecessor told The Daily Telegraph that police savings were “an irresponsible gamble with crime and public safety”. Indeed, in 2011 the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) even called an Opposition day debate on police funding, with a motion that bore more than a striking resemblance to the one we are discussing today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

Top-down restructures of police forces do not deliver the benefits they supposedly promise. We as a party here have said that if forces wish to come to us and say that they have a business case and local support for a merger, we will look at it. On top-down restructuring, however, the economies of scale invariably do not appear. The complexity of bringing together distinct organisations can distract from the day-to-day business of fighting crime, and the most precious element of policing by consent—local accountability—can be lost. We must go further to drive deeper collaboration, better sharing of back-office services and a more intelligent approach to where police capabilities sit, to generate savings without the loss of local accountability and identity.

[Andy Burnham]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way one last time. We agree that savings can be made, but what we disagree on is the extent to which they can be made safely. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) said that the Home Secretary is painting a rosy picture, and I think that police officers watching this debate will conclude that she is not living in the same world as them. This is not about what we on the Labour Benches are saying; chief constables from London to Lancashire are saying that the safety of their public will be compromised if the cuts go ahead. Does the Home Secretary think that those chief constables are scaremongering?

[Mrs May]

I will repeat the point that I have already made: if the right hon. Gentleman would care to look back to 2010, he will see that chief constables were making very similar points then and they have dealt with the savings. As he himself accepts in the motion, policing has not been damaged by the budget savings made over the past five years. Otherwise, he would not be able to stand up and say that further savings could be made.

Over the past five years, officers and staff have worked day in and day out to cut crime. Chief constables and police and crime commissioners have demonstrated true innovation and creativity in meeting the challenge of lower budgets, and in doing so they have shown that that greater efficiency, improved effectiveness and strengthened legitimacy are possible, all at the same time.

For the Government, the job is not yet done. We are currently consulting on a new funding formula so that the police grant is allocated fairly and in a transparent way between police forces. We have made proposals to allow much deeper collaboration with fire and rescue services and ambulance services—to save money and improve the operational response—and later in this Session, the Police and Criminal Justice Bill will give police officers much greater professional discretion to allow them to make savings, cut crime and improve services for the public.

Police reform has worked. That is the lesson that the Labour party has not yet learned, but in this Parliament—under this Government—police reform will continue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

I am interested to hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say. We can all make eloquent pitches about how any formula is unfair to our own areas. I would happily talk to him about education funding in Kent, but perhaps not in this debate. As I say, all debates of this kind come down to losers always caring more than winners.

Whatever the final results of both the spending review and the funding formula distribution, there are serious underlying issues for police leaders and Ministers to address about the long-term viability of the way we do policing in this country. Assuming we do not return to irresponsible levels of public spending, settlements will continue to be tight, so if we want a serious debate, we need to address those underlying issues.

Let me make a few suggestions. First, we have only scratched the surface of the benefits of new technology—for making policing more effective and for making it more cost-effective. I have mentioned body-worn cameras and the information available on smartphones. Both can save time and therefore money. There are huge savings in police time to be made from the better use of technology throughout the criminal justice system, especially with regard to police attendance at court.

The days when a police officer wasted a day at a court waiting to give routine evidence for five minutes should already be over. Evidence can be given by video link, or recorded on video at the time of arrest and charge. Faxes and photocopying should be things of the past in a digital age. The piece of paper in a bundle of evidence that goes missing or has not been sent to the defence, causing trials to be postponed and further days wasted, should be playing no part in a modern criminal justice system.

[Andy Burnham]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Damian Green]

It will come off my time now, so I am afraid I cannot. I can count as well.

The next main point is that we have reaped nothing like the full benefits of collaboration between forces, about which we have heard some examples. Economic necessity has forced some useful collaboration between neighbouring forces, providing more effective policing at less cost. Specialist units such as firearms, mounted police or dog handlers can well be shared. We need more of that, but we also need a radical change in procurement policies—perhaps with national contracts for repairing police cars, and indeed buying them. Clearly, too, computer systems should be able to talk to each other in a way that they cannot now. There is great scope for better and more collaboration between the different “blue light” services. This will be a huge area of useful co-operation in the future.

My final suggestion is that some force mergers are inevitable, and should be made easier. I completely agree with the Home Secretary that a top-down blueprint of the type that previous Home Secretaries have proposed, which failed, is not the way to go. Many sensible people will argue, however, that in the case of some individual forces, there is a logic that says they should merge with their neighbours. I have heard that argument advanced by police and crime commissioners.

Policing is always difficult, and so is making policy for the police. I think the Home Secretary has a record that she can be proud of in this area, and I hope that she will build on this with further radical reform in the future, because the police need it.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

The wisdom and strength of the Opposition resolution was proved by a novel decision by Leicestershire police, which recently decided to experiment by investigating only those burglaries that took place in houses with odd numbers. If the house had an even number, the burglary was not investigated. The news was welcomed with gratitude by the Leicestershire branch of the burglars and footpads trade union, but it was less popular with residents of Leicester who live in houses with even numbers.

I pay tribute to the late Michael Winner—it is rare that one has the opportunity to do that—and the matter of recalling and commemorating the deaths of policemen. Mr Winner, who was not admirable in every way, set up a charity to establish memorials on the sites where policemen had died in the cause of duty. We do not use such anniversaries to achieve political benefit for ourselves; we wear poppies because we want—genuinely—to mourn the deaths of those who have given their lives in warfare, and learn lessons accordingly. It is disappointing when a Prime Minister accuses us of using the Armistice ceremony for political purposes, when he started Prime Minister’s questions today by using the Armistice service to score a futile point against the leader of the Labour party.

My point is about Mr Daniel Morgan, and it is an issue of enormous importance that is endemic to the police force. Daniel Morgan lived in Llanfrechfa on the edge of my constituency. He was a 37-year-old private investigator who was working in London on a job to investigate police corruption. He was found dead 27 years ago in a pub car park in south London. His brother Alastair, who I spoke to yesterday, has carried out a campaign over all those years to expose what happened and discover the reason for the murder. He is still unhappy, and rightly so.

I am one of the few Back Benchers who have had the opportunity to read an amazing document called “Operation Tiberius”—I recommend that anyone who has the opportunity to read it should do so. Two members of the Home Affairs Committee were allowed to read it under strict conditions, with a policeman standing next to us making sure that we did not take notes. Our cameras and mobile phones were also taken away so that we could not copy it. People are not allowed to know what is in “Operation Tiberius”, and I am bound by the secrecy vow that I made at the time not to reveal what I read. I can, however, reveal what the Independent newspaper has said about “Operation Tiberius”, and it is terrifying. The document reveals that corruption in the Metropolitan police force is endemic and has been for many years. The scale is staggering.

[Andy Burnham]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend, because I recently had the privilege of meeting Daniel Morgan’s brother, who has campaigned with unbelievable courage over the years. My hon. Friend should be in no doubt that although I am calling today to protect our police and for more resources, that does not mean that we should not learn the lessons of what happened at Hillsborough, Orgreave, Shrewsbury and in the case of Daniel Morgan. We must hold that mirror up to the past if we are to build a police service that is ready for the 21st century.

[Paul Flynn]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I am far from being anti-police. I have known every police chief constable in my area since 1972—43 years—and they were all men and women of integrity who achieved great things in that police force. It is a fine force, and has been all that time. I was brought up to believe that all policemen were like “Dixon of Dock Green”, and that is why the contents of “Operation Tiberius” are so deeply shocking. It tells the story of crimes planned by little units of serving police officers of various ranks, and criminals. They met not in clubs or pubs where they would be observed, but in the branches of a secret fraternity. Jack Straw tried to persuade all police forces in the country to require a declaration of membership of that fraternity, but he was frustrated in that effort, because several of them refused to co-operate.

I believe that we must look at the “Operation Tiberius” report. I see no reason why it cannot be published with the names redacted. The names are all there—names of serving policemen and names of criminals—and the crimes are horrendous: they were plotting crimes, organising crimes, carrying out crimes, covering up crimes, and using people who were corrupted in all branches of Government. The report exists, and it is deeply serious.

I have already talked about Alastair Morgan. Another worrying example relates to the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and the way in which the police—certainly—tried to protect the perpetrators of that dreadful murder. We should recognise that a great problem existed then, and we should ask whether it still exists. When I raised it with Bernard Hogan-Howe in the Home Affairs Committee, he generously admitted that the issue was one of great seriousness, and that many people believed that the problem still existed.

The report, which was leaked to The Independent all those years ago, is also significant because, although it covers many parts of London, it does not cover south London, where Daniel Morgan was murdered. The suggestion is that there was some corruption in that leaking. I ask the Home Secretary and Ministers to examine the report and find out whether it is true that the contemporary situation in the Met is one in which endemic corruption still flourishes.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Morris]

My view is that the police and crime commissioner is making some short-term decisions on the basis—[Interruption.]

[Andy Burnham]

rose—

[James Morris]

I will not give way, because I have done so twice already, and I have not even finished responding to the last intervention.

The West Midlands police and crime commissioner is making some short-term decisions in order to generate lurid, populist headlines about Government cuts, rather than taking the right decisions for the people of the west midlands and the broader black country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)]

I am delighted to be able to speak on this subject of such great importance, and to declare an interest in it. I had 32 very happy years in the Metropolitan police service as a detective serving in the counter-terrorist command and the national crime squad.

Not surprisingly, this motion has some fundamental flaws in the way that Labour frames its arguments about policing. It is far too simplistic to make a point about policing numbers when we are having a really serious debate about what sort of police service this country needs and wants. This is not, and should not be reduced to, simply a numbers game. If the Opposition were serious about discussing it, they would be asking questions about how they want the police services of this country to look, what their priorities are, and how they face the challenges of policing in the 21st century.

The system of policing in this country has had to evolve. We cannot think or accept that a system that was created and honed in the 1820s for a different time will be completely fit for purpose today. While many aspects of police work are excellent, we need to adapt, and the Government are doing just that. Technology has advanced at an incredible pace, and that has left previous models of policing in need of reform to meet today’s challenges. The Government continue to promote innovation and improved efficiency by allocating £70 million to the police innovation fund this year. That is key to my point about police numbers.

This is about efficiency, and about management effectively deploying the resources at their disposal. I have had numerous discussions with my former colleagues in the police about this issue, and I have found their views illuminating. It has made senior police officers think about how they manage and deploy their resources. It has required higher quality management, and, through that, the police service has reformed itself by having to prioritise what is important and re-evaluate how a modern police force needs to operate. That has rarely been done before, as Governments have never challenged how the police service works on a deep enough level. Under the previous Labour Government, there was too much bureaucracy and obsession with target-driven performance, as I well remember. While targets are vitally important, the Government have challenged the long-standing model of policing. Through that, police services have managed their priorities and resources more effectively, and policing has thereby become much more capable of meeting the challenges that it currently faces.

I commend the work of the Home Secretary and the Policing Minister in doing this. During such major reforms of such a vitally important part of British public life, I also commend the Government for providing the stability needed in the Home Office. We have had the same Home Secretary for over five years, and three Policing Ministers, including the current one. They have done an excellent job in providing the continuity and strong leadership required during this period. That is in stark contrast to the Labour Government, who, if I am correct, had six Home Secretaries and seven Policing Ministers. I well remember the days at Scotland Yard when most senior officers did not know who would be Home Secretary on any given day. The constant change of direction and personality in such a crucial role is not conducive to providing the confidence that the police need if they have to undertake major reforms.

The current situation has required courage and innovative thinking on the part of police forces. Given the many trials faced by policing, I am glad that the Government continue to invest heavily in the College of Policing, to ensure that the most talented individuals will lead our police forces in the future.

The Labour motion also mentions sharp rises in knife crime. Policing is complex and nuanced. It requires preventative and outreach work in communities, to try to change deep-rooted cultures that have built up over time. We must concentrate on how police tackle any rises in knife crime. I have read that some say that it is the fault of cuts in funding to police budgets, but that is a deeply misleading and dangerous statement to make about policing. The causes of knife crime are countless and diverse. Many are down to multifaceted and nuanced social reasons that have grown and transformed over decades. Crucial reasons for the recent rise in knife crime include the dark web being used to purchase weapons, a cultural change among young people, and improved recording of knife crime statistics.

[Andy Burnham]

I think the hon. Gentleman is saying—the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) and other hon. Members have also said this—that there is no connection at all between police numbers and levels of crime. Is that seriously the argument that Conservative Members are putting to the House?

[Byron Davies]

It is about how people are managed and deployed, and managers have to be trained to do that properly. That is the argument. The police are making serious efforts to tackle knife crime and they are making some important changes. The police are there to investigate, prosecute and tackle knife crime.

That brings me on to something that is missing from the Labour motion. It states that traditional forms of crime are being replaced by cybercrime. That is no doubt true, but my point about the dark web being used to purchase weapons is important. We must examine and tackle the link between cyber and more traditional crime.

Finally, I simply do not agree with the notion that this is the end of bobbies on the beat. I am sure that the Government would never compromise public safety. In fact, the proportion of front-line police officers has risen in the past five years. I implore the Police Federation to debate, discuss and engage in positive dialogue with the Government on reform, rather than continue to adopt its militant stance.

We must be serious about how we progress with policing. This is no time for political grandstanding. We must move on from the political obsession with police numbers. The public deserve a far more serious and forensic approach to policing services, and I am glad that the Home Secretary, the Policing Minister and the Government are undertaking the serious work required to do that, rather than engaging in political point scoring.

As a former police officer, I offer my full support to the Home Secretary on her and her team’s excellent work on falling crime figures and on ensuring that policing is able to meet the serious and perpetually changing challenges of the 21st century.

--- Later in debate ---

[Seema Kennedy]

The word is “proposed”, but the problem is that a lot of what the police and crime commissioner says is based on figures that we know nothing about. There is a lot of speculation about what will come out in the autumn statement in three weeks’ time.

[Andy Burnham]

Osborne says 25%.

[Seema Kennedy]

I do not know whether I am allowed to respond when somebody speaks to me from a sedentary position and names a Member.

The Lancashire constabulary has made changes and will carry on making changes. Some of the talk about the changes has been speculative and unhelpful.

[Andy Burnham]

The hon. Lady claims that the talk is speculative, but did she not read the Budget documents published after the election? The Home Office is unprotected, and unprotected Departments are looking at cuts of 25%. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and her chief constable say that her constituents will be less safe if that goes ahead. Is she happy to nod that through?

[Seema Kennedy]

First, I am not nodding it through. That is why I am speaking. The right hon. Gentleman mentions the figure of 25%, but the police and crime commissioner has spoken of a figure of 40%. They are both speculation about something else.

I would like to speak about the funding formula. We are talking about cuts and safety, but we can have a safe country only if we provide a strong economy so that, in future, our children are safe. It is all very well saying, “Safer now,” but if we destroy the economy in the longer term, it will not be safer now or later.

Draft Investigatory Powers Bill

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s comprehensive and detailed statement, and the advance notice that she provided.

Huge changes in technology have clearly left our laws outdated and made the job of the police and security services harder. In a world where the threats we face, internationally and domestically, are growing, Parliament cannot sit on its hands and leave blind spots where the authorities cannot see. This debate will be seen through the prism of extremism and terrorism, but, as the Home Secretary said, it is about much more. It is about child sexual exploitation, serious online fraud and other important functions, such as the location of missing people.

We support the Government in their attempt to update the law in this important and sensitive area. We share the Government’s goal of creating a world-class framework. The Opposition’s position is clear: strong powers must be balanced by strong safeguards for the public to protect privacy and long-held liberties. From what the Home Secretary has said today, it is clear to me that she and the Government have listened carefully to the concerns that were expressed about the draft Bill that was presented in the last Parliament. She has brought forward much stronger safeguards, particularly in the crucial area of judicial authorisation. It would help the future conduct of this important public debate if the House sent out the unified message today that this is neither a snooper’s charter, nor a plan for mass surveillance. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

On behalf of the Opposition, I echo the Home Secretary’s thanks to the Intelligence and Security Committee, RUSI and, in particular, David Anderson, QC, who has done the House and the country a huge service by setting out the basis for a new consensus on these important matters. Will the Home Secretary tell us whether David Anderson has expressed a view on her draft Bill, whether he supports the measures within it and whether he is satisfied with the checks and balances on powers and safeguards?

The House will want reassurance that the Bill carries forward the safeguards from previous legislation, particularly the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, such as the threshold for the use of the most intrusive powers. Will the Home Secretary assure the House that the far-reaching powers of content interception will be used for only the most serious crimes, as was the case under the original legislation?

We welcome what the Home Secretary said about internet connection records and local authorities, but the House will have been listening carefully to what she said about data retention and bulk storage. Will she say more about what kind of data will be stored by the authorities, for how long it will be stored and whether the information will be held in anonymised form? That is important because public concern will have risen following the attack on data held by TalkTalk. People will have heard her say at the beginning of her statement that 90% of commercial organisations have experienced a data breach. What lessons has she drawn from the TalkTalk attack? Does she believe that there is a need to enhance the security of bulk storage arrangements in both public and private bodies?

On encryption, the Prime Minister spoke some months ago about the possibility of introducing a ban. Clearly, that is not the policy that the Home Secretary has just outlined. Will she explain the reason for the change in approach? Alongside the proposals on encryption, it is clear that the Bill will place a range of new legal duties on communications providers. Will she tell the House whether all the major providers support her proposals, including those who are based overseas? I listened carefully to what she said on that point. She implied that the measures in the Bill would not apply to organisations that are based overseas. That suggests that there is a large hole that the legislation will not cover. Will she say more about that and reassure us on whether there will be voluntary arrangements in that area?

Will the Home Secretary say whether the measures will apply to individuals? There is rapid change in the development of online applications, so we need to know whether individuals might be liable.

The whole House will welcome what the Home Secretary had to say about the Wilson doctrine, but she did not mention journalistic sources. Will she say whether the legislation will provide protection in such cases?

My predecessor made a key demand in the crucial area of authorisation, which I have reiterated. We are pleased that the Home Secretary has listened. The two-stage process that she advocates seems to have the merits of both arguments: it will provide public and political accountability, and the independence that is needed to build trust in the system. There may be a worry that it will build in delays. Will she say more about how the two-stage process will work in practice and how delays will be avoided? Will judges sign off warrants in all cases? If the Secretary of State and the judge come to different conclusions, who will have the final say?

Finally, as well as looking at the specific proposals in the Bill, it is important to look at the wider context in which they are being introduced. The Home Secretary will know that there are fears in some communities, particularly the Muslim community, that the powers will be used against them disproportionately. We have seen in the past how police powers have been wrongly used against trade unionists.

David Anderson rightly laid great emphasis on the need to build trust in the new framework. It does not help to create the right context when the Prime Minister suggests that the entire Muslim community quietly condones extremism, nor does it build confidence in the new Bill when, at the same time, the Government are legislating in the Trade Union Bill to impose new requirements on trade unionists in respect of the use of social media and on the monitoring of it by the police. As the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said, “This isn’t Franco’s Britain”. Can the Home Secretary see that to continue to build on the trust she has created and the good start that she has made today, the Government should drop some of its more divisive rhetoric and measures, starting with the measures in the Trade Union Bill?

In conclusion, the issues the proposed legislation seeks to tackle go way beyond party politics. Any Government will face a difficult task in balancing the security of the nation with the privacy and liberties of individual citizens. As someone who was in the Home Office on 7/7, I know that that challenge has got harder in recent years. We will examine carefully the detail of the draft Bill and seek to improve the safeguards to build trust. Having listened carefully to what the Home Secretary has said today, I believe that she has responded to legitimate concerns and broadly got that difficult balance right.

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the tone that he adopted for most of his response to my statement. I thank him for his willingness to understand and accept the importance of this legislation and for his clear comment that this is not mass surveillance. As he says, the message should go out very clearly from this House today that these are important powers that are necessary to keep us safe and secure, but that we must have the right safeguards.

The right hon. Gentleman asked a lot of questions. I will attempt to answer as many of them as possible, but if I miss any particular points I will respond to them in writing.

Before I come to the specific questions, I want to address the reference that he made to the Prime Minister at the end of his speech. I have to say to him that it was not justified by the tone that he adopted for the rest of his speech. What the Prime Minister has said, and what we are saying in our counter-extremism strategy—the strategy deals with extremism of all sorts, including Islamist extremism and neo-Nazi extremism—is that we want to work with people in communities and encourage mainstream voices. We want to work to ensure that, when people are in isolated communities, we identify the barriers that cause that isolation. That is why Louise Casey is doing the very important work she is doing. The characterisation of the Prime Minister that the right hon. Gentleman puts to the House is not one that I recognise.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about David Anderson’s view. I have had a private meeting with him on the matter and discussed it with him. We have taken virtually everything that he requested on board, but I do not think it is appropriate for me to say what his view is. That is for him to say separately. It was a private meeting and I just do not think it is appropriate for me to use it in that way.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to serious crimes. Yes, the measure will cover only the most serious crimes, as currently defined in RIPA. That definition will be brought into the legislation.

On the retention of communications data, it will be possible to require the intercept communications records to be retained for up to 12 months. That refers only to the front page of the website. As I have said, it is not exactly which pages within a website that people have been looking at, but just the fact of access to a website or communications device.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about recent cyber-attacks. The message we take from those is very simple: as criminals are moving into more online crime, we need to ensure that our law enforcement agencies have the power to deal with that cybercrime and work in that online space, which is precisely what today is about.

On encryption, the current requirement, which is in secondary legislation, that those companies issued with a warrant should take reasonable steps to respond to it in unencrypted form, is being put on the face of the legislation, but we are not banning encryption. We recognise that encryption plays an important part in keeping people’s details secure.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about providers. There may be a slight misunderstanding about requirements on overseas providers. There are some elements that we are not now requiring of overseas providers, but we retain the extra-territorial jurisdiction of our warrantry. It is still our view that we should be able to exercise against an overseas provider a warrant issued here in the UK. The work of Nigel Sheinwald, of which hon. Members will be aware, suggested that there was scope for a greater form of international agreement in this area. The Government will continue to look at that.

On journalistic sources, I did not mention it, but we will include in the legislation what we included in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 code earlier this year: access to communications data to identify a journalist’s source will require judicial authorisation.

The point of the double lock is that both parties have to authorise the warrant for it to go ahead. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the time delays. There will be an urgent process, so it will be possible for a Secretary of State to sign an urgent warrant that will come immediately into effect. There will then be a period of time within which the judge will have to review it and make a decision on whether it should continue. We will look to ensure that, in that urgent process, the time delay is as little as possible between those two parts of the process. As I have said, the purpose of a double lock is that, in most circumstances, we will have that double authorisation.

Immigration Bill

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

If we are to continue building an immigration system that is fair to British citizens and people who come here legitimately to play by the rules and contribute to our society, we must ensure that it is balanced and sustainable, and that net migration can be managed. When properly managed, immigration enriches this country, as we benefit from the skills, talent and entrepreneurial flair that people bring to our society. But, as I said in my recent speech, when net migration is too high, and the pace of change is too fast, it puts pressure on schools, hospitals, accommodation, transport and social services, and it can drive down wages for people on low incomes. So we must achieve the right balance, rejecting both extremes of the debate, from those who oppose immigration altogether to those who want entirely open borders. That is why, since 2010, we have worked to build an immigration system that works in the national interest, one that is fair to British taxpayers and legitimate migrants, and tough on those who flout the rules or abuse our hospitality as a nation.

Over the past five years we have taken firm action to reform the chaotic and uncontrolled immigration system we inherited, and to ensure that people are coming here for the right reasons. We reformed the immigration rules for migrant workers and students, while continuing to welcome the brightest and the best. We have struck off nearly 900 bogus colleges since 2010, and at the same time we have seen a rise of 17% in the number of sponsored student visa applications for universities and a rise of 33% for Russell Group universities. We transformed the immigration routes for migrant workers and introduced a cap of 20,700 for non-European economic area migrant workers, and we have seen an increase in sponsored visa applications for highly skilled workers. We reformed family visas, to prevent misuse of that route, and we have made sure that people can financially support family members coming to the UK. We have also protected our public services from abuse by making important changes to the way people access benefits and the NHS.

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

It will not have escaped the House’s attention that the Home Secretary has struck a markedly different tone in her opening remarks this afternoon from the one she struck at her party conference in Manchester last week. The change in tone is very welcome, but she said at her conference, in contrast to what she said just a moment ago, that the overall economic benefit of migration is “close to zero”. Can she today give the House some evidence to back up that claim?

[Mrs May]

Nice try, but perhaps the right hon. Gentleman should read the speech I gave last week, as he would see that I am saying exactly what I said then. In that speech, I also quoted the many reports, from the OECD and others such as the Migration Advisory Committee, that have made that judgment in relation to the economic benefit of migration.

The Immigration Act 2014 put the law firmly on the side of those who respect it, not of those who break it. We made it easier and faster to remove those with no right to be here, streamlined the appeals process in order to curb abuse, and restricted access to bank accounts and rental properties for people here illegally. Thanks to our reforms, more than 11,000 people who were in the UK illegally have now had their UK driving licence revoked.

New powers have already enabled us to deport more than 1,000 foreign criminals, requiring them to make any appeal from outside the UK after they have left. More than 8,000 proposed marriages have been referred to the Home Office, with 120 of them being identified as shams. More than £100 million has been injected into the national health service as a result of the new immigration health surcharge. Those achievements are helping us to build an immigration system that is fairer, stronger and more effective.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House, whilst affirming its belief that there should be firm and fair controls on illegal immigration including new immigration enforcement powers and immigration status checks on current account holders, and particularly welcoming proposals for a Director of Labour Market Enforcement and to strengthen sanctions to be applied to employers of illegal workers, declines to give a Second Reading to the Immigration Bill because the measures overall in the Bill will not decrease illegal immigration, will reduce social cohesion and will punish the children of illegal immigrants for their parents’ illegal immigration, because the Government has failed to publish the report on the pilot Right to Rent scheme in the West Midlands which could cause widespread indirect discrimination and because the Bill enables the Home Secretary to remove from the UK migrants who are appealing against a refused asylum claim before the appeal has been determined, notwithstanding the slow appeal process and the high error rate in Home Office decisions.

Let me start by setting this debate in an essential and important piece of context and with a point that the Home Secretary skated over at the start of her speech: the most recent evidence is clear—immigration provides a net benefit to our economy. It is not, as was claimed last week, “close to zero” but, according to authoritative and independent research, can be quantified at around £25 billion. That migrants contribute more to the public purse than they take out is a simple fact that cannot be repeated often enough in debates such as this. Similarly, in the NHS, we are far more likely to be treated by a migrant than to stand behind one in a queue. The culture and identity of our country—for centuries an open, outward-looking, seafaring nation—has itself been shaped by centuries of inward immigration, and it is all the richer for it.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

When I was on the Home Affairs Committee a few years, I put that very point to experts and I was told that nobody had ever worked out the costs of migration—the costs of providing health care, education and all the other public services that people take for granted—and done a proper cost-benefit analysis. Therefore I should like to know where the report that the right hon. Gentleman refers to comes from.

[Andy Burnham]

I can refer the hon. Gentleman to it. It is research carried out over a number of years by Imperial College, and I will be happy to send it to him. I suggest that he should perhaps spend more time looking at the evidence about immigration, rather than resorting to rhetoric, as I know he is wont to do.

All of that having been said at the beginning, the nature and scale of immigration to the UK has changed in the past decade, particularly since the expansion of the European Union into eastern Europe. Anyone who spent any length of time on doorsteps in the first half of this year cannot dispute the fact that immigration remains one of the highest concerns of the public, and the truth is that public and political debate has failed to keep pace with public concern, resulting in a feeling that the political class is out of touch.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

That would be a good point at which to bring in the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Jackson]

May I take the shadow Home Secretary back to academic evidence about the impact of immigration? Given that the labour force survey by the ONS in July found that 75% of eastern European migrants were in poorly paid work and that they were more likely to access benefits, can he point to any specific empirical data which support the concept that east European migrants do not have an impact on low wages, depressing them or pushing them down?

[Andy Burnham]

I shall come on to that. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] It is a fair point and I shall come on to it. May I again refer the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues to the research? The UCL Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration talks about the positive economic benefit of migration overall. He needs to concern himself with the evidence before he intervenes in the House.

As I said a moment ago, the House has not kept pace with public concern, and as I said in my speech to the Labour conference, I want to change that. People listening to debates in the Chamber or in the media will often hear politicians and business leaders make the point that I made at the beginning—that immigration provides an overall net benefit. Although this is true, and to take the hon. Gentleman’s point on board, what such broad statements fail adequately to acknowledge is that the effect of immigration is not uniform across the country, but that it has a differential impact in different areas.

Some of the most rapid changes have been felt in the poorest areas and former industrial areas away from the big urban centres. In my constituency, immigration has had an impact on job security, wages, access to housing and public services, but Parliament has been far too slow to acknowledge and act on those concerns. The danger is that that creates a vacuum and allows myths to flourish.

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman says that Parliament has been slow to accept that immigration can have an impact, particularly on people at the lower end of the income scale, driving wages down, and it can have an impact on public services. For the past five years, I and the parties in government have been saying precisely this, and the Labour party has been objecting and opposing that.

[Andy Burnham]

I am afraid I have to point out to the Home Secretary that she was not entirely factual at the Dispatch Box this afternoon. She said that the previous Government did nothing to restrict access to the NHS by illegal migrants. As Health Secretary I brought through measures to restrict access to the national health service. What I am setting out in my remarks today is a balanced approach, which she failed to do in hers. I recognised at the beginning the overall benefits of immigration to this country, but I am acknowledging that there are specific and legitimate concerns that need to be dealt with, because a failure to do that creates a vacuum and allows myths to flourish.

Given that, the right response is certainly not to respond in kind with rhetoric, but instead with practical and proportionate measures to restore public confidence that our system and our rules are both firm and fair.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend expand on how many prosecutions there have been in relation to minimum wage regulations and so on in areas of migration where there is clearly an issue in relation to the depressing of wages? How proactive have the Government been when employers have not adopted best practice?

[Andy Burnham]

There have been barely any prosecutions because the Government have cut the resources devoted to enforcement. I welcome the Home Secretary’s proposal to create a director of labour market enforcement, but will she ensure that that director, whoever he or she is, gets to grips with the problem that my hon. Friend has just raised?

[Ian Austin]

The shadow Home Secretary is completely right to say that the costs and benefits of immigration are not shared across the country. Communities such as ours do not attract many millionaire American bankers, French City traders or German hedge fund managers; we have a completely different sort of immigration that puts pressure on public services. Does he agree that the benefits must be shared equally across the country to enable such communities to provide the housing, employ the teachers and all the rest of it so that we can cope with those pressures?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The challenge is to capture the benefits and then have rules that make immigration work for everybody. Let me give him two practical suggestions that I have put forward. First, I believe that we need changes to the EU free movement rules, as part of the renegotiation talks, to stop the undercutting of wages and protect the going rate for skilled workers. Secondly, I believe that unspent EU structural funds, which this Government are not drawing down, should be made available through a rapid migration fund to areas, such as his and mine, that face the biggest pressures on public services, for example to employ extra primary school teachers and GPs. At the moment those areas get no help in dealing with those pressures, so no wonder they feel neglected.

[Mr MacNeil]

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman saw yesterday’s edition of the Financial Times, which mentioned refugees—we know how some people react to refugees. It stated:

“By streaming into Germany, but not into other eurozone countries, the refugees”

will contribute to

“an improvement in Germany’s relative competitive position”

over the next 10 to 20 years. Refugees and migrants benefit the economy, the country and all of us.

[Andy Burnham]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Overall, refugees tend to be younger and not to have dependants. Consequently, the figures I gave at the beginning, which show that they net contribute, rather than take out of the public purse, must be borne in mind when we engage in a debate of this kind.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Andy Burnham]

I will make some progress before giving way again.

As our reasoned amendment makes clear, we are prepared to support practical, proportionate and evidence-based measures that will achieve the stated aims of tackling illegal immigration and illegal working.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his generosity in giving way to me a second time. He refers again to the fact that he quoted the net benefit of migration in his speech. In 2014 the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration, when looking at the fiscal effects of immigration to the UK, estimated that migrants contributed around £25 billion to the economy between 2001 and 2011. However, looking at all the migrants who had arrived since 1995, the estimates produced by that organisation suggested a net fiscal cost of around £114 billion. There is some evidence for the right hon. Gentleman.

[Andy Burnham]

I am afraid that the right hon. Lady has not learnt the lessons of her experience in Manchester last week, when she made a number of assertions without having the evidence to support them. She has got the evidence that overall there is a net contribution—she just quoted it. She, more than anyone else in this House, should stick to the evidence at all times and not resort to rhetoric.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

I will give way in a moment, after I have made some progress.

I have said that we will support measures to create a director of labour market enforcement, building on legislation passed by the previous Labour Government, particularly the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004. We also support many of the measures set out in part 3 of the Bill to improve enforcement and equip immigration officers with all the necessary powers to do their difficult job in a more complex and changing world. I am pleased to see the Government acting to address the weak points in the UK border, particularly at smaller regional airports and seaports. We support the measures set out in part 6 to tackle problems before people arrive in the UK by extending the reach of the Border Force into UK territorial waters.

[John Redwood]

The right hon. Gentleman made a very interesting point when he accepted that EU migration was causing problems in the labour market and difficulties with wages. He said that we should limit or change free movement. Can he just flesh out how he thinks we should limit free movement, because I think I would be with him?

[Andy Burnham]

When I mentioned that, in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), I said that we wanted measures to protect the going rate, and then I heard noises from the Government Benches. Where were they when we were trying to get through the agency workers proposals and the posted workers proposals? If Government Members now support putting a floor beneath all British workers, that is a major conversion, but one that I welcome. Let us have a renegotiation that strengthens the workers’ rights provided by Europe, rather than stripping them away. These are the changes that I want to see. Let us protect the wages of electricians and plumbers. Let us not allow them to be undercut by agency workers who come in and are employed on the minimum wage, beneath the wages of the skilled workforce. If we can agree on that ahead of the EU referendum, that would be a major positive consensus that we could take to the British public.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Andy Burnham]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh), who has been very persistent.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I agree with much of the sentiment behind his remarks this afternoon. However, I recall during the general election campaign catching sight of the Labour party website, which appeared to be selling mugs stating, “Controls on immigration”. Is this another example of a Labour U-turn, or is he in a full 360-degree spin on this issue as well?

[Andy Burnham]

I am not responsible for all Labour party merchandise. I did not purchase one of those mugs and I am not particularly proud of them. However, if the hon. Lady is saying that there should be no controls on immigration, I am afraid that we will have to part company on that, because there do need to be firm and fair rules to ensure that our immigration system works in the public interest.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Andy Burnham]

I will give way once more before making some progress.

[Barry Gardiner]

Does my right hon. Friend share my astonishment at the figures the Home Secretary quoted, because included in the figures that she quoted as costs were what most of us would regard as the investment in the education of children in this country who will in due course be productive in the labour force? To count that as a cost, rather than an investment, rather biases the figures in her favour.

[Andy Burnham]

I was surprised. A fact-check was issued on that very point, and it is quite clear that the central estimates in the paper by UCL’s Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration suggests that European immigrants have made a net contribution of around £20 billion, and immigrants outside Europe make a small net contribution of around £5 billion—[Interruption.] The Home Secretary seems to dispute this, but she got into trouble last week because she did not have balance in her speech. If she is not careful she is going to develop a reputation for lacking balance on this issue.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Will the shadow Home Secretary give way?

[Andy Burnham]

No, I am going to make some progress.

The other measure that we support in the Bill is the requirement for all front-line public service staff to speak fluent English, which of course is a sensible proposal. However, I believe that, in legislating on these matters, we all have a responsibility to bear in mind at all times that this is the most difficult and sensitive of policy areas. Unlike other issues that we debate in this House, this one has the potential to cause real harm and strife in our communities.

We will support the Government when they get the balance right, but I want to be clear about what we will not do. We will not support legislation that is introduced in haste or that is not backed up by clear evidence. That is the problem with the Bill. Parts of it appear to have been drafted on the same beer mat and in the same pub as the Home Secretary’s speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester. It is legislation driven by a desire to be seen to be doing something and to get headlines.

[Caroline Lucas]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that international student numbers should be removed entirely from net migration figures, because otherwise we risk losing key international talent as well as undermining many local economies, such as Brighton’s, that depend on them to a great deal?

[Andy Burnham]

I think that is where the Home Secretary is beginning to cut an isolated figure, as she did last week at her party’s conference. I understand that her own Cabinet colleagues are making the same argument to her—the Chancellor of the Exchequer got dangerously close to making the same argument on his recent trip to China. The hon. Lady is right. If we are looking for an area where there is economic benefit to the country in the long term, it is absolutely that of welcoming to this country students who will then commit themselves to the country for the rest of their working lives.

The critical response to the Home Secretary’s speech last week did not come just from the usual suspects on the Labour Benches. The Daily Telegraph called it

“awful, ugly, misleading, cynical and irresponsible”,

while the Institute of Directors, no less, dismissed it as

“irresponsible rhetoric and pandering to anti-immigration sentiment”—

serious words. They were not alone. The public can spot any attempt to play politics with this issue from a million miles away, and that is why the Home Secretary got the reaction she did. She claimed in Manchester that immigration was undermining social cohesion. I put it to her that legislating in haste without clear evidence and bringing forward half-baked, divisive measures is far more likely to do precisely that.

[Mr Charles Walker]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman is concerned about immigration, but the Leader of the Opposition, his boss, has said that there should be no borders in this country anywhere—forget the European Union. He said during the Labour leadership contest that we should have open borders. Does the right hon. Gentleman share that view?

[Andy Burnham]

I stood alongside him and he said no such thing, so I will move on from that pointless intervention.

A number of organisations—Amnesty International, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Justice, the TUC and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants—have expressed serious reservations about the Bill. They believe it could damage social cohesion, force children into destitution, undermine efforts to tackle human trafficking and modern slavery, erode human rights and civil liberties, and lead to widespread discrimination.

Let me take those issues in turn, starting with the potential for discrimination. Clause 12 in part 2 amends the Immigration Act 2014 to make it a criminal offence for a landlord to rent premises to an individual with no immigration status, punishable by five years in prison. The measure is intended to underpin the national roll-out of the Government’s right to rent scheme, as the Home Secretary said. I am not against asking landlords to carry out reasonable checks of identity documents, as they already do, but there are a couple of points to make. First, landlords are not border or immigration experts, they are not trained in reading official paperwork from around the world, and they are not experts in spotting forged documents, so on what basis are we planning to outsource immigration control to them? Will not the regulatory burden that this will impose on landlords be way beyond the capacity that many can manage? Secondly, given all that, is it really proportionate to threaten them with jail, and will not that have a major impact on the housing market and the way it works?

The House will recall that in the previous Parliament the Government tried to bring forward the same proposals, but given the huge implications, not least for private landlords, they were forced to back down and pilot them. A commitment was given to this House that the findings of the pilot would be presented to us before the Government proceeded any further. That was the commitment given by those on the Front Bench. We learned yesterday that that commitment will not be honoured. Although the Home Office has conducted its study, it will not present its findings until the Committee stage. That is not good enough. This House should not be in a position where it is being asked by the Home Secretary to vote tonight on measures that could have a huge impact in every constituency represented here today without evidence for what those measures might do. It is not just a discourtesy; it is downright dangerous. She is asking us to be complicit in legislating in haste, and this House should have none of it.

Let me explain why. We know that right to rent could cause widespread discrimination, not just against migrants but against British citizens. In the absence of the Government’s study, an independent survey was carried out by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. It found that in the west midlands, the pilot area, 42% of landlords said that right to rent had made them less likely to consider someone who does not have a British passport, while 27% were now more reluctant—as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) has said—to engage with those with foreign accents or names. Those are very serious findings. Why on earth is the Home Office not presenting its own information to the House so that we can establish whether it is correct?

[Barry Gardiner]

The shadow Home Secretary will know that my constituency was the first in the UK to have more people voting at the last election who were born outside the UK but now had the right to live and vote here. The panic that these measures is causing among landlords in my constituency, and the fears that they have because of the uncertainties of this Bill, will mean widespread discrimination for incoming students and other people who landlords fear may get them into trouble. They simply will not rent these properties. That is a major problem for this Bill and for good community relations in this country.

[Andy Burnham]

The JCWI believes that the figures I quoted are likely to underestimate the scale of the problem because of the nature and timing of the survey, but also because the problems are likely to be magnified much further in London, where there is a much bigger private rented sector and many more migrants. It says that

“these proposals will only…deepen the discrimination”

that already exists against people like those in my hon. Friend’s constituency who are seeking a tenancy.

When is the Home Secretary going to publish these conclusions, and why are we in this position today? In failing to produce the evidence, she has simply not made the case for the measures that she wants the House to vote on tonight. This is a major change in the law and she has not made the case for it.

Thankfully, the days when landlords displayed unwelcoming notices in the windows of their lodgings are gone, hopefully for good, but these document checks could legitimise a new wave of discrimination which, by being hidden, could be far harder to challenge. Only last week at the Conservative party conference, the Prime Minister highlighted how young people from black and Asian backgrounds face discrimination when they send out their CV, purely on the basis of their name. He was right to do so, and it was refreshing to hear it from a Conservative Prime Minister. But if he was really genuine, this question follows: why is he legislating to create exactly the same situation—the same everyday discrimination—in the housing market against people with foreign-sounding names? If he really believed what he said, he should ask his Home Secretary to think again.

Let me turn to employment—another area where there could be major unintended consequences if the Bill passes in its current form. I said earlier that we support measures to tackle illegal working that build on the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, which I helped to take through as a junior Home Office Minister, but we have major reservations about the new offence of illegal working in clause 8. In the words of Justice, “it is unnecessary and risks undermining important efforts made over recent years to address issues such as trafficking and modern-day slavery.”

Justice does not believe the assurances that were given to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) by the Home Secretary. The sanctions that could be applied to an individual range from confiscation of wages right up to imprisonment. Justice says:

“Fear of prosecution and imprisonment is likely to deter the vulnerable, such as trafficked women and children, who are working illegally from seeking protection and reporting rogue employers and criminal gangs.”

What evidence can the Home Secretary give the House to show that that would not be the case? More broadly, this new offence will merely strengthen the arm of unscrupulous employers and reduce the likelihood of any employee coming forward to report them. For that reason, rather than tackling illegal working, is not the Bill likely to have the opposite effect and potentially increase the size of the black economy?

[Lady Hermon]

May I push the right hon. Gentleman’s party colleagues a little further? When campaigning to change the worst bits of this Bill—and there are some really dreadful bits—will they include the provision of guarantees whereby those who are trafficked as slaves through human trafficking and end up in the United Kingdom are given the same defences as those who are protected under the Modern Slavery Act 2015? Those defences must be replicated in this Bill. Will he confirm that his party will support those changes?

[Andy Burnham]

Justice does not accept the assurances that were given by the Home Secretary. I can therefore tell the hon. Lady that we will co-operate with her in Committee, if she takes part in it, to get those assurances into the Bill, because she is right to call for them.

Let me turn to human rights and civil liberties. The Bill extends the power of the Executive in a number of troubling ways. Part 4, as the Home Secretary said, proposes a major extension of the “deport first, appeal later” approach from foreign national offenders to all human rights claims. What case has the Home Office made to persuade Members that it can safely be given such sweeping powers? It has hardly covered itself in glory over the years with the speed or quality of its decision making. Let us remember that this is a Department that today has a backlog of over 300,000 immigration cases—a Department where up to 50% of the initial decisions that it makes are found to be wrong on appeal. With these figures in mind, are we really ready to give the Home Secretary much greater powers to remove migrants before their appeals have been determined? Again, the Government are asking us to legislate before the impact of the last extension has been fully evaluated. The Equality and Human Rights Commission says that, by denying people the ability to be present at their own appeal, the Bill is potentially in breach of articles 6, 8 and 13 of the European convention on human rights.

I ask all colleagues on both sides of the House to think, before they vote tonight, of the genuine cases they have dealt with and the people they have got to know at their surgeries whom they have rightly helped to stay here in challenging a Home Office decision. They should think of them before they legislate to allow people in a similar position to be removed without being able to attend their own appeal.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I can give my right hon. Friend exactly such an example. One of the many cases my office is dealing with at the moment is that of a Sri Lankan Tamil whose application has been refused and who bears the mental and physical scars of torture. His application is now on appeal. If the Home Secretary’s proposals had been in place, he would already have been returned to Sri Lanka, where, given the human rights situation there, his life would potentially be at risk. I cannot support those measures and I do not understand how the Home Secretary can propose them.

[Andy Burnham]

I think that in their heart of hearts a lot of Government Members are not able to support the measures, because they have seen in their surgeries cases similar to that mentioned by my hon. Friend. They will know people who would have been deported if this Bill had been in place and who would not have been able to exercise their legitimate right to be present in person at their own appeal. That is why my hon. Friend is right to say that this is wrong.

The Bill also extends the power of the Executive to override the independent decisions of the first-tier tribunal with regard to immigration bail. It also allows the Home Secretary to impose bail conditions, including Executive electronic tagging. That raises important issues about the rights of people in our judicial system, and it could undermine the independence of our courts. Again, what confidence has the Home Office given us that it can be trusted with those powers? There is evidence that, under the coalition Government between 2011 and 2014, £15 million was paid out in damages for unlawful detention and abuse of the powers the Home Office already has.

[Richard Fuller]

Does the Labour party intend to table amendments to set a time limit for keeping people in immigration detention and to protect pregnant women and victims of torture, rape and international conflict from detention in this country?

[Andy Burnham]

Personally speaking, in my view those people and children should not be in detention. We need to take a look at how this country has approached these issues over a number of years. I would be happy to work with the hon. Gentleman on a cross-party basis, to address those issues. That is what we should do.

My final concern with the Bill relates to vulnerable children. [Interruption.] These are important issues and the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) would do well to listen to them before rushing into the Lobby to vote for the proposals without any evidence to support them.

Clause 34 proposes to remove support from families with children. Let me be honest—that was piloted by our Government, but it was rightly abandoned because of the effects it had. In a parliamentary debate in 1999, when those provisions were suggested, it was said that

“all children on British soil should be given the same protection…no child should go without protection…We are concerned about the welfare of children, who should not suffer under any circumstances, whoever their parents are and whatever their basis for being in the country.”—[Official Report, 16 June 1999; Vol. 333, c. 418-421.]

Those are fine sentiments, and they came from the then Conservative Opposition. I say to Government Members that what was right then is right now. No child should face destitution in our country, whoever they are, wherever they come from.

One of the most powerful moments in the Prime Minister’s conference was when he talked about his response to the photograph of Alan Kurdi. It was powerful because it spoke to our common humanity and our instinct to protect children, whatever their circumstances. That is why the Bill is not supportable until those measures have been dropped.

In conclusion, the House will notice that we have not gone down the route of outright opposition in framing our response. As I said at the beginning, there are measures we support and we have set them out in our reasoned amendment. However, when balanced against the other concerns that I have highlighted in my speech, the scales tip towards preventing the progress of the Bill.

If the Government are prepared to change the Bill to address the fundamental problems I have outlined, I would be prepared to reconsider our position. As long as they stay in, however, we will take a stand against them for what is right and for what we should represent as a country.

The truth is that the Bill is driven by the wrong motive—a desire to be seen to be doing something, to generate headlines. That is the problem that lies behind it. Such is the scale of the Government’s failure on immigration, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North said, and such is the size of the gap between the rhetoric and the reality, that they are now resorting to ever more drastic, desperate measures to give the impression of action.

The Government promised to cut net migration to tens of thousands. It currently stands at a record 330,000 and there is no evidence to suggest that anything in the Bill will bring that down. There is evidence, however, to suggest that it could cause real harm in every constituency represented in this House.

Government Members might be happy to legislate without evidence, but we will not follow them. We will give no support to a Government pandering to prejudice and legislating in haste to make Britain a more hostile and unwelcoming country. That is why I move the reasoned amendment standing in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. If it falls, I will ask the House to oppose this unpleasant and insidious Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart C. McDonald]

That is precisely the sort of work that the Government should support, rather than going through the motions of pursuing their impossible net migration target.

[Andy Burnham]

I am grateful for the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman has introduced his remarks and for what he has said. He talked about right to rent. Does he agree that, in the absence of any evidence from the Government on the pilot, we have to accept what has been produced by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants? As I said in my speech, its findings are extremely troubling. If we accept those findings, it is impossible to support the Bill tonight because of its potential to cause widespread discrimination against British citizens too.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I, too, have read the JCWI report and will refer to its findings shortly.

In summary, the Bill pursues the wrong goals by the wrong methods and at tremendous cost, so we should decline to give it a Second Reading.

I shall outline briefly our views on the key clauses and my hon. Friends will expand on those views in the course of the debate. Not wishing to be relentlessly negative, let me turn first to one part of the Bill that is positive. We welcome the provisions at the start of the Bill that will establish a director of labour market enforcement. We have questions about resourcing, powers and whether all the necessary agencies will be involved, but the principle has our support. We agree that the focus of our attention should be on employers who exploit undocumented labour to the detriment not just of undocumented workers, but resident workers who are competing for jobs and businesses that comply with the rules.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary made her notorious speech in Manchester just a few minutes from my constituency. Had she come down the road, she would have seen tens of thousands of people who came under the contemptuous label she uttered this afternoon: “these people”. “These people”, of whom there are tens of thousands in my constituency, originate from south Asia, east and west Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere. We are a city of diversity and integration, and the two go together.

The hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) referred to Romanians. Recently in my constituency, an organisation has been set up by people of Romanian origin to integrate further into this country. Next Saturday in my constituency, we will be celebrating Nigerian independence day. This is a country of diversity that ever since the Romans has had people of overseas origin becoming part of its functioning. The Bill attacks them. It is an attack on anybody who is not what might be referred to as a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

I got a letter from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs about a constituent who had been asked to clarify his Christian name. To anyone of any intelligence, the man was a Muslim. That kind of approach happens under this Government: it has never happened before, even under previous Conservative Governments. The Bill creates a new subterranean, pseudo police force to carry out Government policy without being members of the Government’s staff.

Landlords have been recruited, whether they want to be or not—the National Landlords Association has issued a document expressing considerable resentment—to impose a law that they had no say in creating. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees says that landlords are less likely to rent to those with foreign accents or names, or those who do not possess a British passport. That is my parents. They never learned to speak English fluently; they never got British passports —yet they were part of this country and part of a community. Landlords and bank staff are being turned into Government agents. Under this Bill, we have a new bail system that has nothing to do with judges or magistrates and nothing to do with the law—except the law created by this Government.

The national health service wants to bring people from India to be nurses in Manchester, but they cannot get the certificates because the process is so opaque. People coming here as refugees are scared stiff for their lives—something that, thank God, we in this country are not—and are subjected to all kinds of interrogation.

[Andy Burnham]

As well as providing him with a little more time, I would like my right hon. Friend to consider the effect on his constituency and mine of the changes to the immigration rules that the Government want to introduce with respect to earnings. This could force a lot of nurses currently working in the NHS to leave the country. Nurse training has been cut and the NHS is over-reliant on agency staff; now the Government are about to force thousands of nurses to go back. Does he agree with me that we need a rethink and a change of heart on this issue?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

When I go, as I no doubt shortly shall, for my flu jab, the person who gives it to me would not be regarded by many people who support this Bill as British, but services are being provided for people in this country. The work situation is going to be made more difficult, with potential employees afraid that they will be prosecuted for recruiting people illegally.

I do not know whether the Home Secretary went to any of the many wonderful Asian restaurants when she was in Manchester. My constituency has a “curry mile”, which is one of the best places to go to in the whole of the world for an overseas diet. I wonder how many of them will be under suspicion by the Home Office trying to decide, minutiae by minutiae, whether people are the “right kind” of British, who seem to be the only kind of British that they want to welcome into this country.

As the TUC says, huge poverty will be created by this Government. The children of asylum seekers will live in houses for which the amount of money being made available is £30 and a little bit more. I am proud of this country; I love this country. I do not know, however, whether the Government who are introducing this Bill love the country that Britain really is rather than the country into which they would like to transform it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. If you will indulge me, Mr Speaker, I suspect that this might be the first time I have stood at this Dispatch Box and said something that brings happiness to the right hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), so the moment is historic and not just something to be recorded.

The Prime Minister has taken a particular interest in FGM and last year he co-chaired with UNICEF the girl summit, the first of its kind. At the time, we announced a number of steps that we would take on FGM. The Home Office has set up an FGM unit, focusing Government efforts in this area, and we have, for example, introduced the new protection orders, which we fast-tracked so that they were available in July and could be used to protect girls who might have been taken abroad during summer school holidays for the practice of FGM.

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

On behalf of everybody on the Opposition Benches, may I echo the Home Secretary’s tribute to Police Constable David Phillips, who died working to keep the people of Merseyside safe? I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in sending a message of condolence to his family and of gratitude for his service to the public.

Today, the former head of the Supreme Court, three Law Lords, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, five retired Court of Appeal judges, a president of the European Court of Human Rights and 100 QCs who represent the Government have described the Home Secretary’s response to the refugee crisis as “deeply inadequate”. Why does the Home Secretary think that she is right and all of them are wrong?

[Mrs May]

I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that asking as his first question one that has already been asked by the Scottish National party spokesman might not be a route he wishes to go down in future. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Refugees has answered the question, but I will respond to the right hon. Gentleman.

This country and this Government can be proud of the efforts we are making to support refugees from the Syrian crisis. We have put £1.1 billion in for those in the refugee camps and in communities in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. We are the second biggest bilateral donor to the region and to those refugees after the United States of America. In addition, we have been operating our Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, which we are expanding so that the 20,000 Syrian refugees who are most vulnerable will be brought to the United Kingdom over the course of this Parliament.

[Andy Burnham]

Let me tell the Home Secretary why I repeated the question. Could not the public have legitimately expected the Home Secretary to answer a question about the biggest humanitarian crisis since the second world war? Her response reveals her fixed mind on this issue, which is simply not good enough because she is not responding to the unfolding nature of the crisis. Her position is flawed for one reason: she is trying, out of convenience, to draw a false distinction between refugees still in the region and those who have arrived in Europe, whom she describes as the wealthiest, fittest and strongest. I say to her: look at the TV pictures today; these people are not wealthy, fit or strong. They are desperate and they need our help. Is it not time to stop digging in, show some humanity and reach out a helping hand?

[Mrs May]

The question was rightly answered by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Refugees—an appointment, I remind the House, that the Prime Minister made recently to ensure that there is a very clear focus on the job of making sure that the 20,000 Syrian refugees whom we bring to the United Kingdom are given accommodation and other types of support when they arrive here. As I said, the UK can be justifiably proud of the work that it is doing, and of the people whose lives it is keeping going through the provision of medical supplies, food and water in the refugee camps. Through our scheme we are taking the most vulnerable—not those who have been able to reach the shores of Europe, but those who are not making that journey. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will send a very clear message that it is better for people not to try to make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean and through other routes into Europe because sadly people are still dying doing so.

Migration

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for updating the House on the refugee crisis and welcome the further measures she has announced today. We have worked together well in the past and although I will of course provide real challenge in this role, I shall do so constructively at all times.

May I also take this opportunity to praise my predecessor and friend, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)? She showed great leadership in forcing the Government to face up to the scale of the crisis and I am sure that the whole House wish her well in her continuing role on these matters.

Unfolding across Europe and the north of Africa is a humanitarian crisis on a scale not seen since the second world war. More than half a million migrants have arrived at the EU’s borders this year, about double the number that came in 2014. Terrible images of families and children in great distress continue to fill our television screens. Earlier this week, four babies, six boys and five girls were among 34 victims who lost their lives after their boat capsized between Turkey and a small Greek island. With winter approaching and temperatures in many of the countries affected about to drop, an urgent solution is needed, so may I begin with the Government response to date?

The measures announced last week—in response, it has to be said, to huge public pressure—were, of course, welcome as far as they go. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are right to say that the UK has set the lead on aid spending and we must urge other European countries to match it. Although the appointment earlier this week of a Minister with specific responsibilities is a welcome and sensible development, we now need clarity on the headline figures.

The Government have committed to 4,000 refugees a year, although the Prime Minister has suggested it could be more this year. What is their latest assessment of how many will arrive this year and how many does the Home Secretary expect to arrive before Christmas? What discussions has she had with councils about the practical arrangements? More than 50 have offered to help. Are they actively turning those offers into practical proposals and, given the concerns that councils have expressed about funding, is she working to get a better funding arrangement for them?

Will the Home Secretary say more about the situation in Calais? How many of the people in camps there have had their status assessed and what discussions is she having with her French counterpart to progress that situation? The big question, of course, on the Government’s response to date is whether it is in any way commensurate with the scale of the crisis. David Miliband, chief executive of the International Rescue Committee, said earlier this week that the UK Government’s commitment on an annual basis matches only the numbers arriving in Greece on the beaches of Lesbos every single day. With that in mind, is the Home Secretary really standing by the description of the Government’s response to date as adequate? Does she accept that it must be kept under constant review and, if necessary, increased?

Let me turn to the European response and the Justice and Human Affairs Council meeting on Monday. Such is the sheer scale of the challenge, the Home Secretary is right to say that it can be met only through a co-ordinated European response. Although she was right to call for the meeting, it is disappointing, to say the least, that the UK Government failed to table any practical or positive proposals to help our European neighbours. Can we really leave Greece, with all the other economic problems it faces, to cope with the situation alone? The expert help is good, but it goes no way to meeting the scale of the emergency Greece faces.

Although we understand that the Government do not want to give an incentive for people to travel across the Mediterranean, they cannot deny the reality on the ground in Europe right now. The Home Secretary describes the arrivals as the fittest and the wealthiest. Is not that a dangerous generalisation? Does it adequately describe the people—the desperate parents carrying children at the Hungarian border and the children sleeping on the streets in Greece? Is the Government’s decision not to take any refugees from Europe sustainable from a moral and practical point of view? Although I understand the Government’s reluctance to take part in the proposed quota system, surely an offer of some help would live up to the historic tradition our country has always had. If the Government were to provide that help, would not that only build good will and help the renegotiation discussions in advance of the forthcoming European referendum?

The Home Secretary will know that Chancellor Merkel has called for a summit of European leaders to broker a solution. Will the Home Secretary today commit the Government to a positive response to that call? One of the problems the summit will have to address is the management of borders within Europe. Does the Home Secretary agree that the ability to move without checks can leave people in the grip of people traffickers? What is her view on Germany’s decision to reintroduce border controls, and what implications does she think that will have for the Schengen agreement?

Will the Home Secretary say more about the proposal for removal centres in transit countries in Africa? She says they must become operational immediately; when does she expect that to happen? Is the approach of moving people back to transit centres consistent with the principle set out in the Dublin convention, whereby people have the right to claim asylum in the country of arrival?

Is the EU in discussion with other countries across the middle east to increase what they are doing? Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan are doing what they can, but surely they need more help from other, wealthier countries in the region.

Finally, we have heard today about the deployment of HMS Richmond to the Mediterranean, with a specific role to board ships and intercept people traffickers. Although we welcome that development, will the Home Secretary say more about how it will work in practice and whether it will work as part of an international effort to disrupt those gangs?

In conclusion, this is possibly the biggest crisis of its kind in our lifetime, and the way in which we respond to it will define us as a generation. We need to be ready to do more, if the necessity demands, and reach out to our European neighbours whose challenges are greatest, and we must honour our country’s long tradition of providing refuge to those who need it.

[Mrs May]

May I start by welcoming the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) to his place? I would also like to pay tribute to his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). She was appointed as shadow Home Secretary in 2011, before the Syrian conflict started, but since the beginning of that conflict she has shown great passion for the concerns of those displaced by it. She has continued that approach in recent weeks and continues to work on that particular area. I wish her the very best for her time on the Back Benches.

The right hon. Member for Leigh is, of course, a former Home Office Minister, so he will be aware of some of the issues that are likely to be the subject of our debates. I welcome the fact that he has said he will approach his role constructively and that he will wish to work with the Government on some areas. Obviously, I think we are all agreed on the need to take action on the issue under discussion, but it is clear that it is in the British national interest for this House to be able to work constructively on other issues, not least national security.

The right hon. Gentleman asked a number of questions. To be absolutely clear on the numbers, the Prime Minister set the figure at 20,000 by the end of the Parliament and that is the figure we are looking at. We have not set a year-by-year quota or a target for the numbers before Christmas. As I explained in last week’s debate, we are working with the UNHCR and have expanded the criteria of vulnerability that will be used to identify refugees to come to the United Kingdom. We want to work with the UNHCR to ensure not only that we are taking those whom it is right to take according to those criteria of vulnerability, but that we have the right support for them when they are in the United Kingdom. I am sure that everybody will agree that we need to ensure that it is not a question of just taking people from Syria and putting them somewhere in the UK; it is about making sure that their needs have been identified and that they are given the right support when they arrive.

That ties in with the right hon. Gentleman’s question about local authorities. As I have said, Local Government Association representatives were present at the meeting I chaired on Friday. They have already been working with local authorities across the country and looking at the offers and the capacity of various councils to receive refugees. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government met the LGA leadership again this morning to talk through the issue. As I indicated in my statement, this is one of the practical issues that my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for Syrian refugees will address at a granular level in his discussions, making sure that those offers are being made and that they give the correct support.

The right hon. Member for Leigh talked about European support and Monday’s meeting. We have, over time, been giving practical support to other EU member states. As I indicated in my statement, we have been supporting asylum systems in Greece, initially as part of the Greek action plan but also subsequent to that. We have also been looking to work with the Italians and others to break the criminal gangs. Crucially, I encouraged other member states to support us in that work. We have worked bilaterally, particularly with the French, and broken a number of criminal gangs dealing in people smuggling, but more effort needs to be made.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the UK’s historic tradition of helping. That is why it is absolutely right that the United Kingdom is at the forefront of the humanitarian support for people who have been displaced from Syria. That is why it is right that we are the second biggest bilateral aid donor to those in refugee camps and communities in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. The Foreign Office is working with others in the region to encourage increasing support for those in the camps. The UK can be rightly proud of the effort we have put into that humanitarian support. There are people today who are fed, watered and sheltered because of the generosity of the British taxpayer. We should recognise that.

There was some confusion in relation to one or two references the right hon. Gentleman made about the return of individuals and the immediate establishment of hotspots. I think I heard him suggest that the hotspots were in the transit countries in Africa, but actually they are in countries such as Italy and Greece. They are part of the EU’s collective support for those countries and provide a system whereby people who cross the border can be properly identified and registered. Those who are claiming asylum appropriately are identified, but it is those who are illegal economic migrants that we are talking about returning to their countries of origin. That is, of course, all within arrangements relating to the Department for International Development.

On the question of aid from other countries in Europe, my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for International Development and I have consistently made that point to other EU countries. Indeed, only this morning my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development was in touch with the European Commissioner concerned to discuss the issue.

Hillsborough

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

There is indeed a level of co-operation from retired police officers. Not everybody whom the IPCC has wished to interview has been willing to come forward for interview, but we are talking about people who are being interviewed as witnesses. The fact that an officer is retired would have no relevance if somebody were to be found to be suspected of criminal activity. The investigation would of course proceed as appropriate.

As for the families and their access to information, there are two ways in which families can ask questions. First, they can go to Warrington and meet members of the investigation teams and talk to them. When I was in Warrington, I was taken through the sort of information that the investigators could provide to the family of a particular individual. Families rightly have questions. One benefit for those involved in the investigations when families go in to talk to them is that they can identify any questions that the families might ask that might not be the first to come to mind for the investigators. The forums are also important, as they provide families with the opportunity to raise questions face to face. As I have said, they are ably chaired and managed by Bishop James Jones.

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and express my continued admiration for how she is leading this process. People might think of the families’ battle as being won, but in truth only now are they entering the most difficult period of all. Parents such as my constituent, Delia Brown, are only now finding out basic details about what happened to their sons and daughters between 3.15 and 4 o’clock. With that in mind, does the Home Secretary share my disgust and disbelief that South Yorkshire police have today, using public money, rerun slurs about alcohol that were dismissed by Lord Justice Taylor in 1989 and by the Hillsborough Independent Panel in 2012?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman’s comments about the families are well made. This is a very difficult time and, as he says, it is only now that some families are in any sense able to fill in the picture of what happened to their loved ones. I am concerned by his reference to South Yorkshire police and would be grateful if he and I could have a further discussion about that matter. I am certainly prepared to look into it.