UK Telecoms: Huawei

Debate between Anne Main and Jeremy Wright

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has said about the importance of this decision and the considerations that legitimately play a part. This decision will be taken by the Government as a whole, but the recommendations of this review have been produced by my Department in collaboration with the intelligence agencies, particularly the National Cyber Security Centre, as I have said. We have done that with the country’s security considerations pre-eminent among the issues that are discussed and will be put forward at that review. That will remain the case for as long as I lead this Department and have anything to say about it.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

We are only here today because there has been a leak. That is incredibly regrettable for the whole of the House—I have heard that opinion from both sides of the House—and national security could not be a more important topic for all of us to be discussing. I am a little concerned that the leak may be trivialised by saying that it is as a result of someone’s leadership campaign. I am more concerned that it may be as a result of whistleblowing, because the process is so concerning to someone that they have felt the need to break the bond of trust that has existed for so long.

I accept that the review is going on at the moment in great secrecy, but since this has now been brought out into the open, can my right hon. and learned Friend assure the House that absolutely every consideration will be given to all the concerns that have been raised by hon. Members here today about both our relationship with countries such as Australia and our cyber-security and national security? Importantly, will he make sure that some concept of future deals with China is not colouring what we must now have absolutely at the forefront of our mind—the safety of the British public?

[Jeremy Wright]

Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. That will indeed be the focus of this review, as she has just heard me say. I do not think that the motivation for this leak matters in the slightest. This was unacceptable, and it is corrosive of the ability to deliver good government, which is something for which we must all take responsibility. In discussions of this kind, people are entitled to express whatever views they wish—and they do—but once the discussion has been held, collective responsibility requires that people do not repeat their views publicly, and they certainly should not discuss matters that have a security implication of this kind. I think that is clear, and the majority of Members of the House will agree. We will return to the substance of this issue when I have the opportunity to speak rather more freely than I can at the moment, and I will of course give the House as much detail as I can.

European Convention on Human Rights: UK Membership

Debate between Anne Main and Jeremy Wright

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that no court system is perfect. All systems are capable of making mistakes, and we should be grateful for the fact that our judicial system permits those mistakes to be corrected, as they were in the cases that he mentioned. I do not think that that is comparable to the exercise that has been conducted by Strasbourg jurisprudence on the European convention on human rights, which has moved that document fundamentally away from its founders’ intentions. That is a different thing. The Labour party is content to allow it to proceed, but we are not content to let it go.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

A rule of thumb in life, I have found, is that when you throw a grenade, you usually retreat for cover. I wish that the Home Secretary were here to answer this urgent question, because I feel as though this has come up under the pressure of concerns about criminals, borders and so on. Conflating the two issues is fundamentally wrong. I would like to know whether the Home Secretary discussed her views before she made them known, because bringing them up now has made it look as though our Government are in disarray over the matter, and that is not acceptable. The Home Secretary should make it very clear whether she supports being in the ECHR. I respect my right hon. Friend’s views on the matter, but we cannot get away from the fact that she made a very clear statement yesterday, which was not helpful in the debate that many of us are having about control of our borders and criminals coming and going.

[The Attorney General]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concerns. If she reads the speech that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made yesterday, however, she will see that there was no conflation of the European convention on human rights and our membership of the European Union; indeed, my right hon. Friend made it very clear that they are two different things, to be approached in different ways. I do not think that there is a conflation, and we must all be cautious about making sure that we understand clearly what our colleagues are saying before we comment on it.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]

Debate between Anne Main and Jeremy Wright

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The pilots that we cancelled were not sufficiently close to the proposals that we are making for us to learn as much as Opposition Members would like us to have learned from their conclusion. That does not mean that we learned nothing from their period of operation. The point has been made from the Opposition Benches that it is possible to learn from pilots even if they are not allowed to run to full term. We certainly have learned from those pilots and from other experiences of payment by results. I will return to that point in a moment.

The Government essentially had two options. We had to decide how to approach the task of tackling reoffending rates within our means. The hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) is right that reoffending rates are too high. We could not allow that situation to continue without a response. We could simply have imposed further significant cuts on the 35 probation trusts without targeting our efforts on those with the highest reoffending rates, or we could have brought in innovative approaches to supporting offenders that would also be more efficient and that would allow us to reinvest some of the savings to target support through the gate on the under 12-month group. We chose the latter option. At the heart of our proposals is the aim of opening up the supervision of low and medium-risk offenders to a diverse range of new rehabilitation providers to bring in the best of all sectors to tackle reoffending.

The right hon. Member for Delyn discussed the Offender Management Act 2007. He was here at the time and witnessed the passage of the Act at first hand. He knows that what I have described was the policy of the Government at that time. The Opposition want to forget it now, but they have to be reminded that the powers for which they legislated and to which Parliament agreed in 2007 entirely underpin the reforms that this Government are making. I have explained what Lord Reid said when he was Home Secretary. He made the matter perfectly clear when he said:

“The Secretary of State…will be responsible for ensuring service provision by entering into contracts with the public, private or voluntary sectors. With that burden lifted, the public sector can play to its strengths while others play to theirs.”—[Official Report, 11 December 2006; Vol. 454, c. 593.]

[Mrs Main]

The Minister is making a powerful case for why there needs to be reorganisation. However, will he help the staff who will be involved in the transition process by saying what the new organisations will look like? My constituents have told me that there is uncertainty about the new bodies that they will be obliged to work with and concern about what they will look like. Perhaps that would help to make the transition a little easier.

[Jeremy Wright]

I agree with my hon. Friend that it is important to keep existing staff informed about what is going on. We are trying very hard to do that. If there are specific issues in her area, I am happy to look at them. We are keen to ensure that staff are informed. If she will forgive me, I will come back a little later to the pace of the changes that we are making, which has been a substantial issue this afternoon.

Before I do that, I want to make a couple more points about the background to this point, and the issue of further parliamentary approval for what we are suggesting. I have already made the point that section 3(2) of the Offender Management Act 2007 states:

“The Secretary of State may make contractual or other arrangements with any other person for the making of the probation provision.”

In Committee, the Opposition were unable to dispute that the power that they legislated for is clear and unambiguous. The phrase

“contractual or other arrangements with any other person”

does not mean solely with probation trusts or trusts commissioning other providers, or solely with the public sector.