Exchange of Notes on Beneficial Ownership: Six-month Review
Ben Wallace Excerpts(6 years ago)
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The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)
I, along with the Minister for Europe and the Americas, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), wish to make a statement on the six-month review of the implementation of the exchange of notes on beneficial ownership between the United Kingdom, Crown dependencies and relevant overseas territories.
In 2016 a commitment was made between the UK, six of the overseas territories (OTs), and all of the Crown dependencies (CDs), to enhance the effectiveness of long-standing law enforcement co-operation with respect to the sharing of beneficial ownership information for corporate and legal entities incorporated in the respective jurisdictions. The arrangements for this are set out in the “exchange of notes” (EoNs) and technical protocol, which includes a commitment that:
“The Participants will review together the operation of these arrangements in consultation with law enforcement agencies six months after the coming into force of these arrangements, and thereafter annually”.
Officials from the Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and representatives from Guernsey and Alderney, Jersey and the Isle of Man; and the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Gibraltar, Anguilla and Turks and Caicos Islands have carried out this first review of the EoN arrangements.
During the course of this review, the CDs and OTs have reiterated to the UK authorities their commitment to the EoNs, as demonstrated by their positive and proactive approach to implementation and engagement in the review process.
The Government committed to complete this review by the end of March. Sir Alan Duncan (for the overseas territories) and I (for the Crown dependencies) are pleased to provide the following key findings of the review and recommendations for the future of these arrangements.
The findings and recommendations of this review are based on material supplied by, and discussions with, all of the jurisdictions involved in the review process. The position varies across these different jurisdictions, and not all of the findings and recommendations of this review apply to all jurisdictions. Of course, where a jurisdiction already complies with the points covered by a particular finding or recommendation, it should continue to do so.
Key findings
The EoN arrangements have, since their coming into effect in July 2017, provided law enforcement officers with enhanced access to company beneficial ownership information, as originally envisaged in 2016, and are supporting ongoing criminal investigations.
Under the terms of the arrangements, this information is available to UK law enforcement within 24 hours, one hour if the request for information is notified as “urgent”, or such other time period as may be agreed. Information is available on a 24/7 basis.
As of 9 February 2018, the EoN arrangements have been used over 70 times to provide enhanced law enforcement access to beneficial ownership data. This information has been used to enhance intelligence leads and investigations on illicit finance.
The CDs, Bermuda, Gibraltar and the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) all have central registers to hold the required information. Jersey’s is already fully populated (it has had a private register since 1989), as are the Guernsey and Alderney registers. The Isle of Man’s register is nearing completion (81%), in accordance with the agreed timeframe for full population by 30 June 2018.
Bermuda has had a central register for over 70 years, and its new database is nearly 100% populated. Gibraltar expects its register to be fully populated by 30 June 2018, following a transition period. TCI, which was severely affected by hurricanes Maria and Irma, brought its enabling legislation into force on 1 February 2018. It anticipates that its register will be fully populated by December 2018, following a transition period.
“Similarly effective arrangements” (as permitted by the EoNs) are in place in British Virgin Islands (BVI) and the Cayman Islands. BVI, which was also severely affected by the hurricanes, has now attained around 80% population of its system. The Cayman Islands expect their beneficial ownership system to be fully populated by 30 June 2018, following a transition period provided for by their legislation. The UK is finalising with Anguilla a memorandum of understanding on the terms for provision of UK support for the establishment of Anguilla’s beneficial ownership system. This was delayed due to the impact of Hurricane Irma. The UK has already provided drafting assistance for underpinning legislation, which will be introduced at the Anguilla House of Assembly in due course.
The majority of requests thus far have been made by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Other UK law enforcement authorities have also used the EoNs.
As could be expected of new arrangements and systems, teething issues arose initially. This review makes a number of recommendations, building upon efforts already made to address these issues, which will be taken forward where appropriate and reported on at the next review.
Recommendations
This review has made a number of recommendations that have been agreed by all parties concerned, including that:
All participants should continue to participate in these reviews, maintaining a focus on enhancing law enforcement co-operation.
Jurisdictions should continue to monitor their systems with a view to enhancing the accuracy of the data they hold.
All participants to the EoNs should update their contact details as soon as practically possible, including out of hours contact details when these change, so that these can be disseminated appropriately.
All jurisdictions should consider whether they may be able to adopt best practice on intelligence sharing e.g. request form templates.
The standardised request form should be amended to include a tick box to indicate 1 hour or 24 hour timeframes.
Participants should ensure that their registers are fully populated by the agreed timeframes, where this is not already the case.
Next Steps
Participants to the EoNs will take forward the recommendations of this six-month review, and will take responsibility for tracking progress. The Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office will produce a report on their implementation for the next review.
It should be noted that this review is in addition to ongoing monitoring of the practical application of the commitment by all participants, and a UK statutory review required by the Criminal Finances Act to take place before 1 July 2019 covering the period to the end of 2018.
This summary is also available on gov.uk.
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Home Department
Ben Wallace Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) for her urgent question, and I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for his statement. What are the Government doing through the Prevent strategy in schools and colleges? Obviously, Prevent is the thing that stops the conveyor belt to extremism.
Mr Wallace
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. If we are really to reduce the risk to our people, we need to invest in prevention. Although some people have issues with the Prevent scheme, we published the first lot of figures last week showing yet again that more than 200 people have been diverted away from following a path of violent extremism, and schools play one part of that role.
[Official Report, 28 March 2018, Vol. 638, c. 766.]
Letter of correction from Mr Wallace:
An error has been identified in the response I gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon).
The correct response should have been:
Mr Wallace
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. If we are really to reduce the risk to our people, we need to invest in prevention. Although some people have issues with the Prevent scheme, we published the second lot of figures yesterday showing yet again that more than 200 people have been diverted away from following a path of violent extremism, and schools play one part of that role.
Mr Ivan Lewis (Bury South) (Ind)
Will he agree to meet the people leading the review on radicalisation policy in Greater Manchester, the leaders of Oldham Council and of Bury Council, to learn lessons about whether the Prevent programme is in fact working? There are massive differences of opinion on that. Will the Government agree to learn from the review that Greater Manchester is undertaking on radicalisation policy?
Mr Wallace
I am very happy to meet the people undertaking that review, but I must point out that the figures published yesterday and those published earlier in the month show that Prevent is working in many areas.
[Official Report, 28 March 2018, Vol. 638, c. 770.]
Letter of correction from Mr Wallace:
An error has been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis).
Mr Wallace
I am very happy to meet the people undertaking that review, but I must point out that the figures published yesterday and last year show that Prevent is working in many areas.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ben Wallace Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)
We have made significant progress in the fight against serious and organised crime since the National Crime Agency was established in 2013. Capabilities have improved, partnership working is better and we intervene earlier to prevent criminal activity. The agency has been instrumental to that progress and has gone from strength to strength, with an impressive and sustained track record of disruption across the full range of serious and organised crime threats.
Andrew Bridgen
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, contrary to recent media speculation, politicians from within the European Union can be subject to unexplained wealth orders, and that this will continue to be the case after we leave the European Union?
Mr Wallace
I am sure my hon. Friend will be delighted to learn that no one is above the law when it comes to unexplained wealth orders—whether a Member of the European Parliament, a European politician or even, indeed, a Member of this House.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
Young people who have in effect been groomed into county lines are themselves victims of serious and organised crime, but so too are their families indirect victims. One thing that all the families affected by this issue in my constituency have in common is that they provide loving homes for their children, but they feel they have very little support from agencies in going through what must be a very traumatic process. What do Ministers plan to do not just to tackle the causes and symptoms of county lines and this kind of organised crime, but to provide adequate support to families who suffer enormous distress as a result?
Mr Wallace
I recommend that the hon. Gentleman looks at examples in other parts of the country of how county lines are dealt with using other agencies. I think his local authority is Ilford. Many local authorities and police forces work together on county lines in a pan-agency group, including social services and other local authorities. I saw one recently in Merseyside, which is doing exactly what he urges. If he thinks Ilford is not doing that, I would be very happy to meet him and the council to see what it can do to improve.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
A wave of organised crime burglaries is happening in the Wellingborough constituency. In one case, two 60-year-olds—a man and a woman—were taken into separate rooms and threatened with all sorts of things that would happen to their other half. This was in the early evening, and the burglars just smashed in the front door. Those people said to me, “What would happen if we’d defended ourselves? If we’d protected ourselves, would we have ended up in prison?” We need to look at that issue again.
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend makes an important point about self-defence and the rights of homeowners. He will obviously have seen the recent events—I cannot of course refer to that case because it is sub judice, or certainly an issue in hand—but there is clear guidance about this from the Ministry of Justice. It is important that people understand they have a right to self-defence, but they should sometimes be careful not to take the law into their own hands. If the organised criminals are well armed and dangerous, people should rely on the help of the blue light services.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for facilitating my further visit to the National Crime Agency this morning.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) referred to the increasing threat posed by county lines. Will the £3.6 million allocated to the new national co-ordinating centre come from elsewhere in the Home Office budget, and if the National Crime Agency needs additional resources, will they be provided?
Mr Wallace
In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s first question, that will be part of the overall funding package from the Home Office through either normal police transformation funding or existing National Crime Agency funding. However, county lines are developing more and more across the country, and that is why the Home Office—internally, with the National Crime Agency—has put together a strategy to look at what intelligence can be learned. If the lessons are that we require more resource or better inter-agency working, we will obviously reflect that in the serious and organised crime strategy that is due to come before the House soon.
Mr Speaker
We still have a lot to get through, and I am keen that we should do so.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)
This Government have been clear there should be no safe space online for terrorists and their supporters to radicalise or inspire people. We are working closely with industry, including through the Global Internet Forum, to counter terrorism and to encourage industry to develop innovative solutions to tackle online radicalisation.
Alex Burghart
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the world’s leading internet companies need to do much more to take down violent and terrorist material online, and that if they do not, we should make them?
Mr Wallace
I do agree with my hon. Friend. It was the Home Office that took the initiative to set up the counter-terrorism internet referral unit, which has seen 300,000 pieces of terrorist propaganda taken down—voluntarily, but taken down none the less. It was the Home Office that worked with ASI Data Science to develop an automatic model, which has a 99.9% accuracy rate. If we can do it, why can those companies not?
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I recently held a community meeting to contribute to Mayor Andy Burnham’s consultation on community integration and preventing radical hate speech. One issue that came up was the extent of online hate speech against Islam coming from around the world, and particularly from the United States. Will the Minister say what discussions he is having internationally to ensure that this kind of derogatory and offensive material is taken down as quickly as possible?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Lady makes a really valid point. One of the challenges is that, while broadcast is obviously covered by Ofcom and so on, some individuals move online and broadcast speeches that would be illegal if they were broadcast under Ofcom’s responsibility. I am due to visit the United States this week, and that is exactly one of the points that I shall be raising, so her question was very timely.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
If a relative suspects that a vulnerable family member is being radicalised online, what advice would the Minister give that relative about what would happen to that vulnerable person if they were reported?
Mr Wallace
First of all, the relative could make a report to the police, the local authority, local safeguarding officers or safeguarding officers at school. That report would then be looked at in conjunction with a Prevent panel. People’s names would not be logged; they would not be part of a deep surveillance operation. They would simply be looked at, and the case would be discussed at a multi-agency level. Over 30% of cases are referred to other safeguarding—it might be domestic abuse or sexual abuse—and about half see no further action taken. So it is all done delicately, with respect for the individual and respect for the community. At the end, we get a good outcome, whereby a significant number of people are given assistance and are no longer radicalised or a threat.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister knows that, with the invention of the internet, radicalisation is now global and crosses international boundaries, so how is he working with our international partners? He will be aware that last week a Labour delegation visited Etidal in Riyadh, which has extraordinary technology to counteract online radicalisation.
Mr Wallace
In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, and the question from the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), there is no doubt that the only way to curtail such radicalisation is by working with all our international partners, whether in the middle east, Europe or the United States. We have to act together, which is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary sits on the Global Internet Forum to ensure that we push those countries together. The United Kingdom’s lead has raised awareness and proved that solid solutions can be delivered.
Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)
I think that my hon. Friend might have got lost in the dark web just then.
Our dark web programme is investing in specialist capability to disrupt and bring to justice those who use online anonymity to trade in illegal goods and services, including personal data. Much of the risk to families and businesses can be defeated by simple best practice. The Cyber Aware campaign encourages small businesses and individuals to adopt simple, secure online behaviours to protect themselves and their data from cyber-criminals.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Online radicalisation and cyber-crime are no respecters of boundaries, yet policing in Scotland is devolved. Will the Minister assure me that there will be maximum co-operation and co-ordination between Police Scotland and the UK police forces to stamp out these terrible and terrifying crimes?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, and that is why at Gartcosh, just outside Glasgow, we have put together the National Crime Agency and Police Scotland to tackle, through cyber-crime units, that very problem. It is absolutely true that the best thing to do is to make sure we work in solid partnership, whether that involves the agency, local police or regional organised crime units.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend made any assessment of the ease with which users can remove unacceptable online content and how quickly that content is then taken down?
Mr Wallace
The biggest challenge in that space is often that when we make a referral to internet companies, the speed at which they take content down is not as rapid as it should be. We often identify it quickly. By working with a technology company, we have managed to produce a system that is 99.95% accurate. Let us see what the internet companies can do, but there is still more to be done.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Fear stalks many streets in Erdington with gang crime, gun crime, knife crime and attacks with machetes on the rise. The police are doing a magnificent job in very difficult circumstances, but does not the Policing Minister accept that cutting 2,000 police officers from West Midlands police, the hollowing out of neighbourhood policing and huge cuts to youth services are making it so much more difficult for them to keep the public safe?
Kerslake Arena Attack Review
Ben Wallace Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on the Government’s response to the Kerslake arena attack review.
The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)
The horrific events that took place at the Manchester Arena on 22 May last year were an attack on the people of Manchester and further afield. All terrorist attacks are cowardly, but this was an appalling attack that deliberately targeted innocent people, many of them young, in which 22 people were killed and many more were injured. As a north-west MP, I feel the pain personally, as do many of us in this House who represent that region and who will have had friends and constituents there on that night.
The Mayor of Greater Manchester commissioned this independent review following the attack, focusing on the response to the attack and the nine days that followed it. The report rightly highlights the acts of bravery and compassion on the night of 22 May and in the following days. As Lord Kerslake noted yesterday, the response was overwhelmingly positive. He said that the investment that had been made locally and nationally on collaborative partnership and on planning and testing, including an exercise in the preceding months at the Trafford Centre, was demonstrated to the full, enabling a fast response to the attacks. We are indebted to the emergency services. As Lord Kerslake said later, there is a lot to be proud of in the response, both from the city region of Greater Manchester and from its emergency services. The benefits of investing in collaborative partnership and emergency planning were demonstrated to the full. He said that we should reflect that at critical points in the evening, key emergency personnel exercised sound judgment in an extremely stressful, chaotic and dangerous environment.
The report also shows the need for improvement in some areas, however. It is right that all those involved acknowledge where the report has identified the need for improvement. The review is extensive and makes many recommendations, which the Home Office and all other agencies concerned will consider carefully. Lord Kerslake puts the experience of the bereaved families, the injured and the others who were directly affected at the centre of the review, where they should be. We will ensure that, across Government, those recommendations concerning victims are fully considered. We continue to stand with the people of Manchester as they recover and rebuild following the horrendous attack last year, and our thoughts remain with those who were injured and with the families and friends of those who lost their lives.
Lucy Powell
I thank the Minister for his response. We all remember the horrific events at the Manchester Arena last May and, as ever, our thoughts are with the victims and their families, and with the heroic emergency services who responded with courage and bravery. The Kerslake review, set up by Mayor Andy Burnham to ensure that lessons could be learned, was published yesterday. The desire to put the families at the centre of the review sets a new precedent, and we thank each one of them for contributing to the report.
The review makes hard reading in parts, but it is heart-warming in others. There are clear lessons for Greater Manchester, and particularly for the fire service, which have all been accepted and are being acted on. There are also questions for the Government. The report makes it clear that national protocols in relation to terrorist incidents fail to recognise the fact that every incident is different, and that flexibility and judgment are needed. Indeed, had those in charge on the night not broken with protocol, we would be facing more challenging questions today. In part, this explains the serious failings of the fire service. Will the Government take those recommendations on board?
The emergency family hotline run by Vodafone on a Home Office contract completely failed the families. How will the Home Office ensure that this will not happen again? The review was scathing about the media intrusion faced by families in the immediate aftermath, despite the great work of our local media. Anyone watching last night’s “Newsnight” will have been appalled by the story of Martyn Hett’s family. Will the Government look again at the role of the media in such events and ensure that there is proper redress? Finally, it is clear that there is insufficient national support for the victims of such atrocities. Had it not been for unprecedented charitable giving by the public, many of the victims would have been left with little. Will the Government look into establishing a fund for the victims of such attacks? I hope that they will recognise the wider lessons of this review and that they will act on them.
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) for raising this important topic and giving Members on both sides of the House this opportunity to examine Lord Kerslake’s findings. Operation Plato is effectively the definition of the type of incident that we saw on that terrible night, and I understand her concern about whether it was followed too rigidly. Operation Plato is predominantly a response to a marauding terrorist firearms attack, but it has never been solely and uniquely about that; it has also covered broader areas. It has always been about using pragmatism in responding, but unfortunately, on that night, one or two individuals were too rigid about the definition. We will of course look at that again. However, in the exercising and in the following events, such as London Bridge, which did not involve marauding terrorist firearms, Plato was still called. Furthermore, many Members will remember that Westminster Bridge was also a Plato call, even though no firearms were involved. So part of this is about the ability of leaders on the ground to take a pragmatic view and, as Lord Kerslake spotted in his report, many of the leaders on the night did the right things and made sure that they addressed the issues as they came about.
On the issue of Vodafone, following the publication of the report I have asked for a full understanding of Vodafone’s responses and services. Before and after the event, the Vodafone contract has provided what has been required, but it failed on that night. The Home Secretary and others have sought direct assurances from the chief executive of Vodafone that it will take responsibility, and it has apologised. I have asked that, in future, Vodafone’s service is always exercised alongside the other services when we plan for these events.
On the subject of media intrusion, the hon. Lady is absolutely right. I find it odd that some of the media that are today discussing the weaknesses in the response are the very organisations that were hounding my constituents and those of other Members, sometimes at the very moment of their bereavement. They should reflect strongly on that, and I support the recommendation in Lord Kerslake’s report about what can be done to prevent that from happening again. It is simply unacceptable.
The hon. Lady raised the question of a victims’ fund. We had a request for £1.1 million for the We Love Manchester appeal, and the Government have put in £1 million. I have visited the victims’ liaison officer in Manchester about four times since the attack. Across all the attacks that we have unfortunately had in the past year, the response by Manchester to the victims—and the decision to have a much broader classification of who was a victim—has been second to none and should absolutely be commended. They are dealing with hundreds of people who have self-identified as being a victim either mentally or physically, and the work that they have put into liaising with them has been absolutely brilliant. That has been part of why the Government have helped to respond to Manchester’s central request.
I hear the hon. Lady’s call about the generality of a policy to recognise victims, and I shall take that away and reflect on it. I can assure her, however, that I know from talking to the Mayor of Manchester, to the police liaison and to her colleagues that we are very much involved in ensuring that the victims are central to all of this. I have a great deal of respect for the Mayor of Manchester, whose experience in representing victims across the board in this House is second to none. I am keen to learn from him, and I talk to him as much as I can. We are here to help with the victims.
A key issue is that the victims of this attack were, regrettably, spread far and wide across the north of England, and indeed the highlands of Scotland. One of the challenges has been that engaging mental health help has involved people not only in Manchester but throughout Lancashire and in the highlands and islands of Scotland. That has now been done successfully but perhaps not as quickly as it could have been. That is one of the lessons to be learned. We have also needed to raise awareness in the schools of the teenagers who were targeted, by getting further into the detail and getting headteachers to understand that some of their teenagers had been there that night. The incredible importance of Manchester and Liverpool in my region of the north-west is part of our culture, and what happens in Manchester and in Merseyside is felt in Lancashire. That is why we are determined to learn the lessons from Lord Kerslake’s report, and I am always happy to meet the hon. Lady and her colleagues from Manchester if any more help is required.
James Brokenshire (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)
Lord Kerslake’s report makes several compelling and important recommendations after this appalling atrocity. My right hon. Friend will be aware of the joint emergency services interoperability programme, which is designed to bring together the work of our emergency services to deal with precisely these sorts of incidents. As part of his ongoing work, will he look at what lessons can be applied here and at how the JESIP principles can be extended, so that we can ensure that our blue-light emergency services are best able to work together and respond in a positive and effective way when dealing with such appalling events?
Mr Wallace
I pay respect to my right hon. Friend, a former Security Minister, who knows too well what goes on and the complexities for which we plan. One of the failings identified in the Kerslake report is that the national inter-agency liaison officer in this event was too much involved in command and control of the fire service, rather than providing advice to the fire service. When I look back over many other incidents, that officer has been there as an adviser, not a gold or silver commander at the time, and that is one of the lessons to be learned. It is important that we in the Home Office and those in fire authorities around the country consider how we are deploying that key individual to ensure that they are doing what they are supposed to, rather having lots of other responsibilities lumped on to them, meaning that we do not necessarily get the best results when they are tested in such environments.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) for requesting this urgent question and that it was granted. It was sobering for us all to read the names of the victims at the start of the Kerslake report. Today, we think of them and of all those affected by the terrible attack in Manchester on 22 May 2017.
The review makes it clear that there is a lot to be proud of in the responses of the city region of Greater Manchester and of its emergency services. At the same time, however, it is entirely right that we learn lessons for the future. I agree with the Mayor of Greater Manchester, who said clearly that bereaved families must be at the heart of the process. Does the Minister agree that communication and procedures are central to those lessons? There was no shared communication across the agencies of the declaration of Operation Plato, and Greater Manchester fire and rescue service was left, in the words of the review, “outside the loop” and could not play a meaningful role in the response for nearly two hours. The first meeting of the strategic co-ordinating group could, the review said, have been held “earlier than 04:15 hrs”. The set-up of the casualty bureau was severely hampered by what is described as a
“the complete failure of the National Mutual Aid Telephony system provided by Vodafone.”
Vodafone has a national contract with the Home Office, so will the Minister examine that contract and the guarantees that can be secured from Vodafone to ensure that such a situation does not happen again—
Nick Thomas-Symonds
Finally, will the Minister be reviewing the joint operating principles for responding to a terror attack in the light of the matters I mentioned?
Mr Wallace
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions. As for this last point, we always review such things. We have a new Contest process, which involves examining where we can learn lessons all the way through, and there are many lessons to be learned from all the tragic attacks we had last year. He is absolutely right about Vodafone, and I am determined to ensure that we find out what went wrong. On the plus side, it has not happened before or after, but that is not an excuse and we must ensure that we receive guarantees, and exercising can help with that.
I want to highlight one important point. I have read some of the media over the past few days, and one would not be blamed for thinking that no one was there on the scene, but that was not the case. Within one minute of the explosion, which was targeted at women and children, British Transport police, police community support officers and paramedics were there. Within 12 minutes, ambulances were on the scene. It is regretful that the fire service was not there, but that was not key to whether people were getting treatment. The other blue-light emergency services did a fantastic job. They set up a casualty station, and they improvised. I know that the Labour party fully understands that and supports that view, and it is something that we should reflect on when the media picks on the worst, not the best, of the event.
We will continue to keep things under review, and I have always said to the shadow Minister that if he would like to visit some of the response units to see how things are being worked through, I would be delighted to host him—or any other Member—to ensure that the complexity of the situation is understood.
The biggest point in relation to the report and all terrorist actions is that we often start by not knowing what the situation is. All Members will remember the day of the Westminster Bridge attack: we were locked in our offices and shut off from one another because we did not know whether it involved firearms or a bomb or whether another person was in the House or not. That is the biggest challenge that our blue-light services face—“Is it a single explosion?” If lots of protocols had been broken in Manchester and there had been a second device—there are lots of examples of where second devices or attacks have been employed—I would hate to have been standing here for another reason, saying that we exposed our emergency services to too much danger because we rushed in or did not do something. It is a difficult balance to make, but I think the right calls were made on the night. Yes, there were some failures, but my constituents and those of the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) can be confident that help was there and that the blue-light emergency services did a fantastic and brave job.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
This was a barbaric act of terrorism, and I welcome my right hon. Friend’s measured tone in response to the report. In an ideal world, we would always work to prevent such incidents from happening in the first place, so what more are the Government willing to do to put additional resources into counter-terrorism to ensure that we do not see these awful events on our streets?
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. We are always open to more requests, and the Home Office will take the case to the Chancellor. After last year’s attacks, the police and the security services requested more funding, so we went to the Treasury and got £71 million more than was marked to be spent, including £51 million of new money, and we will continue to invest.
In Manchester, we have met nearly all requests for funds, but there are some still to work through. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has asked my Department to speak to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about business rate relief for the businesses that may face bills, but not the council, which will not receive so much in business rates. There is always more to do, but we are in listening mode, and we do our best to get the money to help.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) on securing this urgent question and commend the Minister for his full responses so far. As others have said, the attack was a terrible atrocity, and our thoughts today must be with the dead, their families, the injured and all those who have suffered terribly. The authors of the report should be commended on a full report and a prompt response.
As has been said by others, the revelations about press intrusion into the grieving families of the dead are utterly shocking. Does the Minister agree that those findings underline that the attitude of some in the press that everyone should be investigated, held to account and regulated apart from them needs to be challenged? Does he agree that regulation of the press needs to be considered again and that Leveson 2 should be reopened, as was promised?
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to the hon. and learned Lady. I am not going to go down the path of Leveson 2, but I totally agree that no one is above the law. Whether a journalist, a police officer or an ordinary member of the public, no is one is above the law. That means that journalists should follow the correct procedures and the rules about respecting victims, and the media should, as they are sometimes requested to by the police and hospital staff, hold back. The need for sensationalism does not trump the rights of victims. The media should behave sensibly.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) for her urgent question, and I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for his statement. What are the Government doing through the Prevent strategy in schools and colleges? Obviously, Prevent is the thing that stops the conveyor belt to extremism.
Mr Wallace
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. If we are really to reduce the risk to our people, we need to invest in prevention. Although some people have issues with the Prevent scheme, we published the first lot of figures last week showing yet again that more than 200 people have been diverted away from following a path of violent extremism, and schools play one part of that role.[Official Report, 19 April 2018, Vol. 639, c. 3MC.]
This is about safeguarding, and it is key that people remember young people are being preyed upon right now—I am afraid that I see it in ongoing operations—by people who choose to groom them. Whether young people are being groomed sexually, being groomed for violent extremism or being groomed by the extreme right wing, the methods are exactly the same. We have to invest in Prevent, and we hope to see more investment in Prevent with the Contest review. If we do not deal with it effectively upstream, we will still be here having this debate in many years’ time.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I support the urgent question and powerful words of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), and I welcome both Front-Bench responses. I join the report in paying tribute to the hundreds, if not thousands, of acts of individual bravery and selflessness and to the work of the emergency services and their support for the victims.
Does the Minister agree that the seriousness of the failure of the Vodafone contract is compounded by the fact that the contract is drawn on only in such extreme circumstances? Also, in his reflections on the importance of such a report, will he look further at commissioning an independent report on the Parsons Green attack and on the implementation of the Prevent programme in that case, so that lessons can also be learned from that attack?
Mr Wallace
The right hon. Lady will know there is still some way to run in the coroner’s inquest and other inquiries, certainly on Manchester, when it comes to attribution and the avoidability of death, etc. We should not forget that a live police investigation of the event in Manchester is still ongoing, with an extradition request outstanding that we are working to help the Libyans to fulfil so we can see justice be done—that is another plank in this process.
On Prevent and the case of the Parsons Green bomber, there has been an internal review by the police with the local Prevent organisation. I am happy to brief the right hon. Lady on some of that on Privy Council terms, if she would like to come. There are definitely issues there that need to be sorted, but Prevent, as a policy, is not guaranteed. We have to try, as a society, to deradicalise and divert people. There are people who are determined to commit acts of murder and brutality, but we would be totally wrong if we did not try to deradicalise them because we cannot give a 100% guarantee. We will continue to try to make sure we are safe.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
As my right hon. Friend the Minister has already mentioned, this tragedy went beyond Manchester and into Lancashire. Indeed, the first two victims to be named—indeed, the youngest victim—were from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) who, as a mum of two young children, asked me to mention it today. Georgina Callander and Saffie Rose Roussos were two young people whose lives were tragically taken. As has been touched on, it is important that the review also looks at the counselling services that are available in schools and that are available to younger people not just in Manchester but beyond, because young people’s lives were touched in a way that should never have happened at such a young age.
Mr Wallace
My daughter was at the arena not that night but a few weeks before. The arena is a hub for many teenagers in that part of the world. Being a north-west MP, I attended the first Cobra meeting in the morning not down in the Cabinet Office but from Manchester. The point my hon. Friend makes is the very point I made, which is that these teenagers will go back to their schools and their communities, which are not necessarily in the city centre or near the seat of the explosion. Have we put in place the messaging to our education authorities and so on to pick up on that? I was assured that the answer is yes. I asked them to go back and redouble the messaging, and we hope that was done. If it was not, I would be happy to hear from colleagues on both sides of the House to ensure that we follow up on those assurances. One lesson to remember is that people come to big cities from all over the country, and they will disperse back and take their injuries, whether mental or physical, with them.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
In extreme adversity, this may well have been Manchester’s finest hour. Andy Burnham, Richard Leese and Eddy Newman were a model of civic leadership during that period. The people of Manchester behaved heroically, as did the first responders to this terrible event. The force duty officer, in ignoring protocol and using his judgment, gave support and possibly saved lives in the immediate aftermath of the bomb.
Having paid those tributes, I would like to ask the Minister whether, if such a tragic event happens again in Manchester or anywhere else in the country—we all hope it does not—the Vodafone system, as of today, is up and working. We cannot afford another catastrophic failure of the communications system.
Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. Not only have I sought and been given assurances about the Vodafone system, I have also asked that we explore a back-up system or contingency plan if something like this does not work in future. There is always the potential for something to go wrong with technology, which is why we need to exercise it, but we also need to consider alternatives should the technology fail on the night.
The one thing on which I can give the hon. Gentleman some assurance is that, before and after, the technology worked successfully at, for example, London Bridge and Westminster and elsewhere, but it is not good enough that the technology did not work on the night when it was needed in Manchester.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
I was in Manchester that day and the following morning. Although there are lessons to be learned, and the Kerslake review highlights those lessons, the strength of the Manchester people was striking—resilient, implacable and determined to continue their lives. We should pay tribute to them for their incredibly British response and to Ariana Grande and the other artists who took part in the later musical event, which I thought was just tremendous.
Mr Wallace
My right hon. and learned Friend makes an important point. I might say it was a northern response, but it was a solid British response. I have to pay tribute to the Members of Parliament for Greater Manchester. The hon. Member for Manchester Central has been constantly supportive of the city and of the Mayor in getting these things done, and I pay tribute to all those who have made sure that we are learning the lessons and that we have not forgotten. In this day and age, things move so quickly that the media sometimes have the memory of a goldfish and move on to the next story very quickly. Thanks to the likes of the hon. Lady, we have not forgotten.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
I pay tribute to Lisa Lees and Alison Howe, two Royton mums who went to collect their 15-year-old daughters who went to the Manchester arena but did not return home. The response from the community and from our emergency services was inspiring. Although faults have been found with the fire service, I place on record that the fire service is not outside our community; the fire service is our community. How we learn from this, and how we build and go forward from it, will be the test.
Although some of the national media were very intrusive, there was also some outstanding journalism, particularly by the Manchester Evening News, which was compassionate, told the human story and brought the community together at a very difficult time.
Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. People should understand that the response by the emergency services was not just about the city of Manchester. One of the proudest things for me is that, when I walked into Manchester police headquarters at about 8.30 am, the counter-terrorism commander on duty came from the Lancashire force. It was a collective effort, whether from the local fire service or ambulances sent from all over the north-west to help. It shows the strength of the Contest strategy that the response is about pulling together.
Only last week, I went to visit the Salisbury investigation, where I found officers from the midlands and the north of England responding in both the chemical and decontamination space and in the investigation. The fire service is absolutely important; I understand the frustration of many of those brave men and women who feel that they did not have access to helping people, although I want the public to understand that it was not that people were therefore left alone. We will work together to put this right, so that it does not happen in the future, but I must say that the judgments that were made were as much about the safety of officers and crew as they were about the victims.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
I welcome the opportunity to highlight the Kerslake report that this urgent question has given. In talking about the emergency services, will the Minister join me in ensuring that the high esteem in which our firefighters are held is not in any way tarnished by this report and in acknowledging the brave service they give, day in, day out, putting their lives on the line to protect ours?
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Nothing in this report is about a failure of the services that were deployed that night. There were failures relating to some individual decisions, including on interpretations. There was a failure of technology in respect of the Vodafone response. To some extent, as we have discussed earlier, there was a failure of interpretation—whether or not it was too rigid—but this was not about the failure of the fire service and the police to do their job, about their ability to do their job or about the people who make up both services.
Mr Ivan Lewis (Bury South) (Ind)
May I echo the congratulations given to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) on ensuring that we can have this discussion? As the Minister is aware, we remain immensely proud of the response of the people of Manchester, the political leadership of Greater Manchester and frontline emergency service workers, the vast majority of whom did an excellent job. We are also proud of the fact that we came together as a community and said that there would be zero tolerance of Islamophobia in the aftermath of this incident. Will he agree to meet the people leading the review on radicalisation policy in Greater Manchester, the leaders of Oldham Council and of Bury Council, to learn lessons about whether the Prevent programme is in fact working? There are massive differences of opinion on that. Will the Government agree to learn from the review that Greater Manchester is undertaking on radicalisation policy?
Mr Wallace
I am very happy to meet the people undertaking that review, but I must point out that the figures published yesterday and those published earlier in the month show that Prevent is working in many areas.[Official Report, 19 April 2018, Vol. 639, c. 4MC.] Prevent is not perfect. I listened carefully to the discussion on the BBC’s “Question Time” not long after the event, when Andy Burnham and the representative from the Crown Prosecution Service in the north-west gave their views on Prevent at the time. Prevent could be better applied sometimes; but ultimately, if we are saying that it is about safeguarding and delivering a space so that people are not radicalised, the people who are against Prevent have to come up with an alternative. Every alternative I have heard articulated is Prevent with a different name. I do not think that when dealing with really important issues about young people being groomed and exploited we should be too hung up on the semantics of the name—we should be looking at the results and the processes. Again, I say to Members that I am happy to take them to meet Prevent providers, to understand communities. I met a family whose children were diverted from going off to fight in Syria, and if we were to look that lady in the eye and say, “Sorry, Prevent is not working,” she will give us a rather robust answer about whether it is or not.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The whole country was shocked by the severity of this atrocity, particularly as it was aimed at young people who were going out for a night of fun with their friends. All our thoughts must be with the victims and their families, and our thanks must go to the emergency services. As we are learning the lessons from this terrible atrocity, will the Minister update the House on how many attacks have been disrupted in this country since this terrible atrocity and which groups are responsible for trying to perpetrate such attacks?
Mr Wallace
The best and latest figures I can give my hon. Friend are that since the first attack last year at Westminster Bridge 10 plots were disrupted and there were four extreme right-wing plots. The plots we face are broad, coming from people ranging from neo-Nazis— that is why we proscribed National Action earlier in the year—to followers of Daesh, followers of al-Qaeda and other extremists who do not follow anything other than seeking to cause harm and to murder on our streets. No one has a copyright on terrorism in this country; a number of groups of people are trying to prosecute it. Again, that is why Prevent is important. Prevent is not just about Islamist terrorism; it is also about extreme right-wing terrorism, and in some parts of the country referrals to Prevent are greater in the extreme right-wing space than they are in the Islamist space.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
Thank you again, Mr Speaker, for your solidarity with the people of Manchester in the aftermath of the attack. We owe a debt of gratitude to Lord Kerslake and Andy Burnham for an excellent piece of work; this is a very good report. Although it is right that we learn lessons, we should take pride in the actions of the first responders and the people of Manchester. I am also proud of the way our local paper, the Manchester Evening News, reported the incident and the aftermath, but sadly the same cannot be said of a lot of the media. What steps can the Government take to help the Independent Press Standards Organisation develop a new code of conduct to cover incidents such as the one at Manchester Arena, given that victims spoke of the “intrusive and overbearing” treatment from some of the media?
Mr Wallace
Both local papers, the Lancashire Evening Post and the Manchester Evening News, did the right thing: they got behind the community and understood what had happened in the middle of them. I go back to a point I made earlier: sometimes it is important that the media understand that sensationalism is not the trump card that means they can ignore all the other rules of accuracy and of being sensitive to people’s issues. The media have a strong role to play in communicating the facts in the immediate aftermath of events such as this, because when we do not have facts people get scared. This is why I have tried to work on this, as we all have. The reason people sometimes get frustrated with the police and the intelligence services not being as quick as they could to inform them of things is that if we get the facts wrong, people get scared. We have to make sure that the terrorists do not win by scaring us. We win by showing that we are controlled and by responding. The media have a really important and responsible role to play in that.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
Building on the previous question and the Minister’s answer, does he agree that the real-time reporting of incidents and of their aftermath needs to be more carefully thought about by some elements of the media? Would he welcome a constructive industry-led approach to looking at that?
Mr Wallace
I would welcome any initiative that does that. This is a real challenge in the 21st century: in real time, people are eyewitnesses and people tweet, having immediately got on their phone. That is not going to go away. What is important is that the producers, the people churning out the programmes and the editors are employed, partly, to be able to sift gossip from reality, and sensationalism from impacting stories. The message is that there is a strong role for the editors and producers in this day and age of live reporting. They must be able to say, “It might be sensational, but we are not going to report it because it is not true or factual, and I would not be responsible if I did.”
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I join colleagues in once again sending condolences to all the victims of this terrible attack in our city and in paying tribute to all in our emergency services and in the wider community who served to support and care for them. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, many people and faith groups right across the faith spectrum rushed to offer help and hospitality to those who were frightened and alone that night. Shamefully, in the aftermath of the attacks attempts were also made by the far right to drive a wedge between different faith communities. Will the Minister join me in utterly condemning such shameful conduct? Will he confirm the Government’s intent always to crack down on the promotion of division and hatred?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Lady makes a powerful and important point. Like her, I represent Muslim communities, doing so in Preston. Let me say in response to an earlier point that there is Islamophobia and we have to deal with that. We have to stand up to Islamophobia as strongly as we stand up to anti-Semitism and all the other issues that are about dividing our communities. The terrorists, be they neo-Nazis or from Daesh, want to divide our communities; they want us to hate each other and to weaken the society we belong to. I am absolutely determined, as I know all of us in this House are, to stand up against that and to give those people no quarter. We should double our efforts, both through other programmes such as Prevent and in our counter-extremism work on getting children, certainly in school, to understand what this is about. We must also be strong enough to have a debate about extremism without shutting down freedom of speech.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I welcome the report’s findings and congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) on bringing this issue to the House. Notwithstanding the fact that the Minister has already said he does not want to go down the Leveson route, in his comments and his replies to several Members, most notably the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), he expressed exactly the concerns that those of us who believe that Leveson 2 must go ahead feel very strongly. Will he please take those comments to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and point out to him the failure of a system that did not protect the innocent victims of that explosion from press intrusion?
Mr Wallace
I understand the point, which was strongly made by the hon. Lady, and will of course reflect that to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. There is a real challenge and it is easier said than done. I remember the cack-handed banning of the voice of Sinn Féin all those years ago and how badly that went down. No one is suggesting that that is how far people go, but we have to be careful in how we restrict the media in a space that is about freedom of speech, getting across messages and so on. I will absolutely work to make sure that the media are more responsible and face the consequences of bad or untrue reporting, but I must also recognise and uphold the principle of freedom of speech.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
It is difficult to read parts of the report, because it requires us to relive that evening and the days after it, but there is much to be proud of in terms of the response and the incredible sense of solidarity across Greater Manchester and throughout the whole country in the days afterwards. A report such as this should never be about scapegoating—it is about learning lessons—but I have been asked by constituents of mine who are firefighters to place on record their sense of frustration at not being able to help sooner. Having acknowledged that, let us learn the lesson from it. Let us all, from all parts of the House, reiterate our tremendous admiration for and pride in all our emergency services.
Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The reliving of that horrendous night is done by our police officers and ambulance crews every day of their lives. One of the most disturbing parts of my job was to see a lot of the footage that was captured before, during and after the attack. That will stay with me for the rest of my life, and I was not even on the scene. Our emergency services will relive it. I passionately feel the frustration of those firefighters who wanted to help on that day. They do not deserve to have to deal with that, which is why we have to put some of those things right through the recommendations in Lord Kerslake’s report. I will make sure that we do that, and the only thing I would say is, “Rest assured, others were there to treat the victims and help the bereaved.”
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
A school friend of mine, Roddy MacLeod, and his wife Marion lost their daughter Eilidh in the attack at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. Also from the Isle of Barra was 15-year-old Laura MacIntyre, who, incidentally, was a good friend of my middle daughter. She was terribly injured but is making a good recovery. She is walking and back at school, and she is as witty as ever. Roddy and Marion welcome the recommendations in the report and wholeheartedly agree on the individual acts of heroism on that night that were praised in the report. They have said quite heroically themselves that they hope that such reports will help to inform individuals and heads of service for the future.
I echo the points that have been made about the printed newspapers in particular. I was personally asked by a relative to rush to the house of a distraught grandmother, who felt further panicked by a journalist at the doorstep. Fortunately, the journalist had gone, and was probably only doing the bidding of the editor quite reluctantly. On the whole, the media were good that week—we have to acknowledge that—but can we please encourage the ending of the practice of door-stepping, particularly of the terribly bereaved? It is not pleasant and it is very distressing.
Mr Speaker
It is a very important question and I think a single-sentence reply will suffice.
Mr Wallace
All I can do is entirely support the hon. Gentleman’s observation. The death knock, as I think some journalists often call it, is not something that should carry on. It is awful and just unacceptable.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
The Fire Brigades Union has commented that Greater Manchester fire and rescue services is
“the only emergency service in Manchester without its own dedicated service control room.”
In the light of the communication problems identified in the report, will the Minister review this situation?
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, but think I need to check her assertion. I have been to the Merseyside joint control room, where they do incredible amounts of good work. The north-west fire control is a regional control room. The report does not point to that as the failure; the point was the failure in the inter-agency liaison officer not being able necessarily to take the right decisions, and their being involved in almost too many of the decisions; it was not about the location or organisation of the control room. Before we suddenly seek to change that in the north-west, we should look at the report’s findings, which were very much about the roles of a few individuals and the decisions that they took on the night.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
May I put on record the fact that after the attack, many people volunteered their services, whether they were cab drivers, or restaurant owners who opened their restaurants to the victims and everyone around?
My constituent Rebecca Ridgeway is a disabled person who uses a wheelchair. When she went into the arena, she had to be taken out of her wheelchair and placed on a seat. When the incident occurred, there was nobody there to look after her. In fact, somebody came in, put her in her wheelchair and she was taken out—not by the arena staff or the security staff, but by a member of the public. As a result of the incident, she has not been able to leave her house, so I visited her in her home. She told me that there has been no counselling, psychiatric services or psychologists available in sufficient numbers to deal with her and many other people who suffered trauma from the incident. Will the Minister provide proper funding for that?
Mr Wallace
I am sorry to hear about the hon. Lady’s constituent’s experience. First, I am absolutely happy to take the detail of that case to event organisers throughout the country, whom I meet regularly, to make sure that they think about disability. Secondly, with regard to her particular constituent, I have met the victims liaison team and many of the health trusts in the region, and they are delivering services, so if she is not getting that, will the hon. Lady please tell me the details? I will take that, either with her or on my own, to the relevant health trust to make sure that her constituent is given counselling and support. Many others are getting it and it is wrong that she is not.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The Minister has comported himself really well at the Dispatch Box today, and I think the House agrees on that.
May I follow on from the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) and praise you, Mr Speaker? You stood shoulder to shoulder with us on 23 May last year, when the Bishop of Manchester led us in prayers. We will never forget Tony Walsh doing the poem “This is the place”. In respect of what the right hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) and my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) said about civic leadership, we put on record our thanks to the Bishop of Manchester and all the faith leaders who have shown such solidarity together. We have had no subsequent trouble in our city because of that strong leadership.
Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We should put it on record that the civic leadership of Manchester—including Andy Burnham, the chief executive of the council and the leader of the council—has been exemplary. Because of that, the terrorists have not been successful in dividing our communities, and nor will they be. Manchester is a perfect example, and I used it recently when talking to Salisbury’s local civic leadership. I said, “If you want an example of how to do it, albeit on a different scale—making sure that your communities return to normal and being prepared to ask central Government for funding—look at the way they did it in Manchester.” We should all be proud of it.
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) for highlighting this extremely important matter, and I thank all colleagues for taking part and for taking part in the way in which they did in the exchanges that followed.
Police Funding
Ben Wallace Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley)—not least because I was born in his constituency, although I am a Magpies fan rather than a Stags fan.
It is worth the whole House reflecting on the bravery of our police officers. We saw that bravery a year ago when PC Keith Palmer gave his life protecting this Palace and the people who were around it. Also in our thoughts is Nick Bailey, an officer who went to the help of the Russian people who were poisoned. I am sure that other Members attend local police award ceremonies, and hear about the bravery of policemen and women on a daily basis. Those officers have our support, our thoughts and our thanks.
The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service talked about the need for a quality debate, and I think that that is important. For instance, I think it important for us to look at the crime figures in detail, which I tried to do in my intervention on the Minister. I welcomed his admission that there are serious crimes—which are better recorded in police recorded crime data and the crime survey—that are going up. In London, we are seeing gun crime go up, knife crime go up, violent crime go up. In my constituency, we are seeing burglaries go up, and in a pretty nasty way. One or two Asian families in Tolworth have been victims of aggravated burglary: people have gone into their homes with weapons and threatened them in order to take gold from them as they sat in their own front rooms. It is quite shocking. It is necessary to focus on crime of that sort, because it is the crime that is going up.
When we talk about the need to invest in the police, we should bear in mind that it is not just about reducing crime, vital though that is, but also about solving crime. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) was right to point out that there are 2.1 million unsolved crimes in Britain today, and the inspectorate says that we are short of 5,000 detectives. When there are so many unsolved crimes and so few detectives to solve them, that sends a very bad signal to the criminals. We can reduce crime if people realise that they will be caught. If the deterrent effect is reduced because criminals do not think they will be caught because of the lack of detectives and the number of unsolved crimes, that sows the seeds for rising crime in the future.
The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)
The right hon. Gentleman has made an important point about detective numbers. Just to help him and make sure he understands, let me explain that the shortage of detectives is based on an establishment. It is not that 5,000 have been taken out of the system. There is a problem recruiting people to choose to be detectives as opposed to being in uniform, which is their current preference.
Sir Edward Davey
I thank the Minister for that clarification, but my point remains the same, and I am speaking on behalf of the inspectorate rather than from a party perspective. I hope that he will take on board what I have said.
We also need to think about the part played by the police not just in reducing and solving crime, but in preventing it. The police, and community police, have so many other roles, such as building community relations and filling in the gaps for other services that are not there. It is those functions, which cannot actually be measured, that communities so value. They are now being taken away, and people feel that quite deeply in their communities. If we are to have the serious debate that the police Minister wanted, I hope he will reflect on the other issues that are not always reflected in the figures, but are vital to our recognition of the extent to which the public value the police in the many roles that they undertake.
The crime figures show that the victims of crime are disproportionately the less well off, and disproportionately the more vulnerable. The case for investing in the police is not just about tackling the criminals; it is about social justice. There are issues that go beyond reducing crime, such as looking after the most vulnerable and the least well off in society. I hope that the Minister will take that on board as well.
Let me now say something about resources. I was pleased to hear the police Minister confirm that the number of police officers had fallen significantly. Since May 2015, my constituency has lost more than 50 officers—10% of the local police force— and people have felt the impact of that. Since returning to the House from my unintended leave of absence, and returning to work in my constituency, I have been quite surprised by the inability of the police to respond as quickly as they used to.
We have seen that in the figures on 999 and 101 calls: in London and in many other areas around England, forces are just not able to respond quickly enough, including to very serious calls. That should trouble the Minister. We also see it in severe antisocial behaviour in communities that is just being ignored. As a local Member of Parliament, I have had to get involved with housing associations, the council and the police to make them take notice of serious behaviour that is completely undermining the quality of life of many of my constituents. These are critical issues.
I intervened on the Policing Minister at the beginning of the debate to ask whether he agreed that Sir David Norgrove, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, had said on the record that the Prime Minister was misleading the public in talking about the £450 million increase. I am afraid that the Minister claimed he would deal with the issue in his later remarks, but he did not. We are talking about an important clarification from an independent statistics body about claims made not only by the Prime Minister but in tweets from the Home Office. If we are to have the serious debate that the Minister said he wanted, I hope there will be no more such false claims.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to be called to speak in this important debate. West Yorkshire police is the fourth largest force in the country and, as I have outlined many times before, it is facing new types of crime as well as old types of crime. However, a 35% reduction in funding since 2010 has resulted in almost 2,000 fewer officers and members of staff, which represents a reduction of 20% of the force.
To give the House a sense of the pressures facing the force, on any one day in West Yorkshire there is one police officer on duty for every 2,097 members of the public. On average, the force will make 136 arrests every day, with a staggering 43 of those related to domestic violence. They will attend 38 house burglaries, 44 thefts from vehicles, 16 thefts of vehicles, four serious violent crimes, seven robberies, 57 assaults, 17 sexual offences and 159 incidents of antisocial behaviour, and deal with 141 incidents of domestic abuse in total. Non-recent child sexual exploitation and abuse investigations now account for 33% of all investigations within West Yorkshire police. A third of all the investigative capacity in the force is dealing with non-recent CSE. There were 184 offences relating to modern-day slavery in 2016, compared with just 19 three years ago.
Firearms will be the main focus of my speech today. There has been a particularly disturbing increase in the discharge of firearms in West Yorkshire over the past two years, with firearms predominantly being used by organised criminal gangs as a means of resolving disputes and of intimidating rivals and innocent members of the public alike. Members will not need me to remind them that it was a firearm that facilitated the murder of our friend and colleague Jo Cox by the right-wing extremist Thomas Mair. Sadly, we are no strangers to extremism in West Yorkshire, with several Prevent priority areas presenting a continuously evolving threat for the Police to assess and manage.
For all the great things about West Yorkshire, the prevalence of extreme ideology and violent and organised crime means that our firearms capabilities are incredibly important. As the shadow Minister said in her exceptional opening speech, the Government announcement in April 2016 that they were setting aside £143 million of funding in order to hire an extra 1,000 armed officers by spring 2018 was welcome and would have reversed the effects of the 1,000 armed officers lost between 2010 and 2016. However, only 650 of those officers have been recruited so far.
I want to ask the Minister specifically about the inter-operability of authorised firearms officers and about variations in the duration and the type of training they receive. With the exception of counter-terrorist specialist firearms officers, who train for much longer, I am aware that the length of training of firearms officers to meet armed response vehicle standards varies between 10 and 12 weeks in different forces, but it is accredited by the College of Policing. However, the requirements for other firearms officers, such as Ministry of Defence police or diplomatic protection officers, are different, and they may train for in the region of four weeks to meet different standards.
If the threat level increases to critical and we deploy Operation Temperer, and all AFOs—authorised firearms officers—with significant variations in training and experience are redeployed all over the country, how do we manage their interoperability? Of the around 6,250 authorised firearms officers in the UK, what proportion are trained to ARV standards and what proportion do not meet that standard? In the event of Operation Temperer being deployed, I fear that some firearms officers could find themselves in situations for which they have not trained. As the uplift is proving slower to deliver than expected, would it not make sense to ensure that all AFOs are trained to ARV standards to have confidence in that benchmark and in the interoperability of armed officers?
Mr Wallace
I would be pleased to answer those specific questions. As for the ARV part of the uplift, we are over and above the original plans, so we are above target and the process is now complete. For the CTSFOs, which is the higher standard—I have been to visit Wakefield, where they do some of their training—the importance of that role is that they have to be so specialised that there is a high failure rate. We must ensure that we maintain standards, but we are on track to fulfil that requirement at the same time.
Holly Lynch
I am grateful to the Minister. I am looking to uplift that basic standard, so that all our firearms officers meet a threshold and that we have faith in the basic training.
Finally, the Policing Minister will be well aware—other hon. Members may not be—that we are running into a number of challenges and differences of opinion in relation to the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill or “Protect the Protectors” Bill, which will be back for its Report and Third Reading on 27 April. From my experiences of shadowing the front line and of the brilliant police parliamentary scheme, which I would recommend to all colleagues, I have felt the increased vulnerability that comes when officers are regularly single-crewed; there are simply fewer of them and risks come with that. Over the course of the campaign and the Bill’s journey through Parliament, it has enjoyed cross-party support, as we all share a sense of outrage at seeing emergency service workers spat at, attacked or assaulted.
I have shared horror stories in this Chamber on several occasions about emergency service workers having been spat at and about the anxiety of having to wait for test results, take antiviral treatments as a precaution and, on occasion, adhere to restrictions about interacting with close family and friends based on advice given by medical professionals. The Bill’s purpose is to alleviate those fears for 999 and NHS workers, wherever and however we can, and both my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who has done sterling work leading on the Bill, and I are open to any and all means of getting there. I therefore ask the Policing Minister to continue to engage with us and other MPs to keep that dialogue going between now and 27 April, as we seek to do right by those dedicated emergency service workers, who have high expectations of this Bill, in order to protect them from the vile act of being spat at and the anxiety that follows.
The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)
In the short time left to me, I shall try to answer many of the valid, important and heartfelt points that colleagues from across the House have made about police funding. This is an important debate. We all value our police and we all wish we had more money to spend on policing and the rest of public services across the United Kingdom, but of course we have to live in an economic climate in which we are paying off the debt and trying to live within our means. [Interruption.] Opposition Members might not like it, but we spend £87,000 a minute servicing the interest on our national debt. That is three police officers’ salaries every minute of the day, but for which we get nothing back.
That is the legacy of the Labour party, and that is why I was as angry as the shadow Home Secretary, because the impact of that type of debt always falls on the poorest in society. The debt that a Government rack up is always paid for by the vulnerable and the poor, whatever the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) says. Like the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), I have been in this House long enough to see different Governments tackle the problem of crime. As a Member of this House for 30 years, under Labour and Conservative Governments, the right hon. Lady will have seen crime go up and down and the police under pressure, no matter how much budgets are sometimes forced to change.
Mr Wallace
I do not have time to give way.
We heard a number of contributions in the debate. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) gave the usual off-the-shelf SNP answer, which is that, despite all the powers that we have given the Scottish Parliament, including tax-raising powers, and the above-average spending, England should pay. Somehow that is the SNP’s solution to everything, rather than facing up to the issues.
My hon. Friends the Members for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) and for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) pointed out that part of this debate has to be about recognising whether PCCs are delivering on their freedoms to help to shape policing in their communities. Some are and some are not, irrespective of their parties. The best example that I can give of the power of good leadership is Durham constabulary, Chief Constable Mike Barton and a Labour PCC delivering a force graded as outstanding in England, despite pressure on their budgets and on policing. Their leadership—[Interruption.] “Government cuts”—I love it. It is the old mantra. Labour runs up the debt, we have to fix the economy—and unfortunately ordinary people pay.
The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) made an important point. I am sure he will be pleased to know that we have increased capital funding in south Wales to establish a joint counter-terrorism unit and the regional organised crime unit, as well as in Gwent, to make sure that we are attacking the threat collectively and strongly.
My hon. Friends the Members for Moray (Douglas Ross) and for Angus (Kirstene Hair) made a strong point about counter-terrorism policing, because Labour is incorrect, even at the heart of today’s motion, about the £54 million shortfall in funding for counter-terrorism. If the Opposition are going to put something like that at the heart of their motion, one might think they might get it right. All the money that the police asked for to respond to operational pressures from counter-terrorism was given. They did not ask for £54 million; they did not get. Before Labour Members put that in their motion, I would recommend they seek some accuracy.
Mr Wallace
No, I will not. I have a second to finish and the hon. Lady has had her say.
The hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) gave a valid and thoughtful speech. The challenges in West Yorkshire are almost unique—that is why it is a Prevent priority area—with serious organised crime and inter-community threats to each other and, indeed, the state. That is why we have increased counter-terrorism across a broad front, not just in local, specialist policing. We have used the full weight of Government, with Prevent, intelligence officers and GCHQ, as well as the regional organised crime units and the National Crime Agency, to ensure that we meet the threat. What was said by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton was inaccurate. There were no swingeing cuts. The bodies that we are using to tackle gun crime—the NCA, GCHQ and the ROCUs—have not been subject to draconian cuts as he claimed, and we are starting to produce some results.
Ultimately, this is a situation that we would not have wished for. However, we have to deal with what we inherited from a Labour Government who were unable to manage the economy, and in the end it is always the public who pay for economic mismanagement. The police are not alone, and my constituents are not alone. No one in the House will be fooled by the leader of the Labour party, who, when I was patrolling the streets with the police in the 1990s, was supporting, voting and fraternising with some of the worst terrorists in the United Kingdom. We will not forget the Leader of the Opposition, and we will not forget what they tried to do to our police and this country.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I beg to move that the question be now put.
Money Laundering
Ben Wallace Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the Government’s action to address dirty money being laundered in the UK.
The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)
I thank the shadow Chancellor for giving the Government the opportunity to come here today to say what they have been doing on dirty money and money laundering in the United Kingdom. It is a long list, Mr Speaker, so I ask you to have a bit of patience and I will try to be as quick as possible in reading it.
We have made it harder for crooks to launder money through property, jewellery and betting. We have reversed the burden of proof so that people we think have links to organised crime have to prove where their assets come from. If they cannot prove it, we will seize the asset and dispose of it, or keep it to distribute it to countries where it may have been stolen. We have, for the first time, through the Magnitsky amendment made it possible to confiscate assets from people guilty of gross human rights abuse. We will complete that with an amendment to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill currently going through Parliament. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), who actually led the campaign on the Magnitsky amendment, not Labour Front Benchers.
We have made it easier to seize criminals’ money from bank accounts. We have introduced new powers to be able to freeze terrorists’ assets, and we did so on the very day that the provision came into force. We have made it a criminal offence to fail to prevent tax evasion, both at home and overseas. We are currently exploring the potential of widening other areas where failure to prevent may apply in economic crime.
We have brought a number of prosecutions under the Bribery Act 2010 of those involved in bribery, and we have had the first conviction of a company for failing to prevent bribery. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There is quite a lot of noise. I know that the Minister is keen to rattle through, and we are deeply obliged to him for doing so, but I just say very gently to him that there is no prohibition on breathing during the delivery of an answer to an urgent question.
Mr Wallace
We introduced deferred prosecution agreements to ensure that we maximise incentives for companies to face up to fraud and corruption. We are setting up the National Economic Crime Centre within the National Crime Agency. We have brought together the many strands of economic crime under one Minister—namely myself. We have bolstered the Serious Fraud Office by ensuring access to blockbuster funding so as to ensure that big business and overseas oligarchs cannot use their wealth to obstruct justice. The previous Prime Minister, David Cameron, initiated an international anti-corruption summit. In response to the Panama papers, we established a joint financial analysis centre within the NCA. We have established one of the world’s first public registers of beneficial ownership of companies. We have helped to establish in all overseas territories and Crown dependencies a register of beneficial ownership, with mutual and, in some cases, live-time access to law enforcement. We have committed to establishing a public register of overseas owners of property in the United Kingdom.
This Government have taken real steps to tackle criminal finance in this country. Whoever the crooks are, wherever they are from, and no matter what their nationality, we will pursue them and their cash.
John McDonnell
I thank the Minister for his response.
Twelve months ago, I raised in an urgent question the issue of the Russian laundromat, as it was called, laundering £20 billion of criminal funds through the City of London. Despite all that the Minister has said, the National Crime Agency estimates that £90 billion from the rest of the world is still laundered through the City each year, while the United Nations estimates that $100 billion has been lost in the British overseas territories. Despite all the actions that he set out, there is still a major problem. At the weekend, the Government said that they would enter into “detailed discussions” on further reform proposals. I therefore have a number of questions to ask the Minister.
Let me be clear: we welcome the Government’s new willingness to incorporate Labour’s proposals for Magnitsky measures to be included in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill, but we would welcome, in the spirit of co-operation, full and thorough discussion of the final drafting of the new clauses and amendments. We all agree that there is a need for complete openness and transparency in our financial system if we are going to be effective in tackling money laundering. Back in 2015, the Government initially promised, following two consultations, a date for a register of owners of UK property based overseas. After repeated delays, why are we now told that a register will not be published until 2021? There is minimal checking of the UK’s own register of company ownership. Indeed, it was possible for a journalist to set up a company called Crooked Crook Crook Ltd. Have the Government undertaken an assessment of the number of fraudulently registered companies in the UK? If not, when will they do so?
In the recent Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill Committee, the Government justified their lack of action on foreign trust or company service providers by saying that they were lower risk than the UK’s own trust or company service providers. In the light of the most recent evidence of money laundering via overseas TCSPs, will the Government revisit that assessment?
Why have the Government not included trusts in the register of beneficial ownership, as Labour has so long asked for? Given the concerns about corrupt funds being laundered through properties in the UK, will they now consider including Labour’s proposal for an offshore company property levy in their reforms? Will they finally join Labour in accepting the need for public, transparent registers for overseas territories and Crown dependencies?
Finally, 634,000 suspicious activity reports have been filed since October 2015. What will the Government now do to ensure that the enforcement agencies are fully resourced to tackle this scourge on our society?
Mr Wallace
This is interesting, because we have done a lot of work on criminal finance. I have stood at this Dispatch Box on numerous occasions, and the Government have taken many pieces of legislation through the House. The Treasury has also stepped up to the plate. Indeed, it has its own levy: where a property is bought by an overseas company or a UK company, it attracts an extra high level of stamp duty of 15%, which of course matches the levy that the right hon. Gentleman is talking about.
We have committed to a public register of overseas ownership of property, and we will introduce the Bill in 2018. We have to make sure that this is right. [Interruption.] The Opposition shout, but the reality is that we are taking many steps to deal with criminal finance, and there are only so many months in the year. We should not forget that, as we saw over the weekend, this is really a distraction by the Labour party from its woeful response last week to our national security.
This is an attempt by the shadow Chancellor to say, “Nothing to see here. Look over there—it’s all about oligarchs.” Before coming to the Chamber, I looked up in Hansard when the shadow Chancellor last mentioned oligarchs. The last time he mentioned them was in 2016, in a debate on the schools White Paper, in which he talked about the tax rate for cleaners. He should raise that with Hansard if he would like to.
The reality is that this Government and the coalition Government have been absolutely determined to deal with the threat posed by dirty money going through the City of London and being harboured here in a number of properties. The best example of how we have done the work in this House and how this is all last-minute Labour is that one of the complaints they made over the weekend was that unexplained wealth orders were not used by this Government. An unexplained wealth order was used in under two weeks of coming into force on 31 January. It was served against an overseas oligarch, on £22 million of property. That was action within a fortnight, contrary to the Labour party’s idea that no unexplained wealth orders have been issued. The other measure introduced by that Bill was used before midnight on the first day. I suggest that Labour does its homework, tries to put right its disaster of last week and stops trying to distract from the reality about the Russian threat.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
How much have we secured since the implementation of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002?
Mr Wallace
My right hon. Friend asks a pertinent question. It is well over £1 billion—it is about £1.6 billion, I think, and it has increased in the last few years. We have been determined, through the use of confiscation orders and the provisions we used to improve the Act through the Criminal Finances Act 2017, to start increasing the seizure and freezing of assets, to make sure that criminals lose their ill-gotten money.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
I welcome what the Minister said about the Magnitsky amendment, but can he confirm that it will be genuinely tough and will allow the authorities to seize money very quickly? When does he intend to take action on Scottish limited partnerships, which are one of the main routes for filtering dirty money into the UK and laundering it? In addition, when will he finally fix the loopholes at Companies House, where to all intents and purposes absolutely no due diligence is done when a new company is registered?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman is doing exactly what Scottish National party Members did during the passage of the Criminal Finance Act, which was to work with us and make some sound suggestions about how to tackle criminal finance. We listened to them—for example, we lowered the thresholds of unexplained wealth orders to fit with some of the concerns in Scotland. I have taken up the issue of Scottish limited partnerships—the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is driving forward that work—because, like the hon. Gentleman, I realise that it has to be tackled.
When it comes to a Magnitsky Act, I give the hon. Gentleman the absolute assurance that we will deal with anyone convicted of gross human rights abuses, whether through sanctions, seizing their assets if they are obtained criminally or controlling their movements through visa bans and any other measures. The intention of this Government is to make life incredibly hard for people who have committed human rights abuses and to prevent them and their families from enjoying the benefits they currently enjoy should they come to Europe to spend the money.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
I congratulate the Government on moving towards supporting the Magnitsky amendment. There are three elements to such an amendment: first, asset seizures; secondly, visa bans; and thirdly and very importantly, a public list of named individuals. A public list makes it difficult for those named to access finance, and encourages others not to get on the list. Will the Minister set out his position on a public list?
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend makes a very sound suggestion about a public list. As hon. Members will know, the Government are consulting within the various Departments on how to make sure that the amendment we put forward actually makes a difference. That is why we opposed the Labour proposal in Committee: it was not because we disagreed with having a Magnitsky amendment, but because we wanted to make sure we had one that worked. [Interruption.] Labour Front Benchers are saying, “Point of principle”. Would they rather we accepted a flawed amendment that did not do the job, or would they like this Government to deliver action, as we have done with unexplained wealth orders, by getting the law right in the end?
Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
I acknowledge that the Government have taken some steps, but I put it to the Minister that they have not taken enough. Others have raised the issues of property and of our tax havens, and I want to raise another issue with the Minister, which is the tier 1 investor visas—the golden visas. Anybody who wants one of those visas needs to demonstrate that they have £2 million they wish to invest in the UK, and we know that Russia is one of the two top countries taking advantage of tier 1 investor visas. What steps will the Minister take to enable us to understand where the £2 million-plus comes from, so that we can be assured it is not dirty money and that these are not unsavoury individuals?
Mr Wallace
Not for the first time, the right hon. Lady makes a very good suggestion. When it comes to dealing with foreign oligarchs and serious organised criminals from overseas, we are clear that this is as much about the free movement they enjoy as about the actual assets they are moving around and harbouring. We already have the powers in our visa regime to take action, and as she quite rightly says, we will be looking at that tier to make sure we do better due diligence, if we need to, on where the money comes from.
In all of this we must be clear that the difference between us and, for example, Russia is that we believe in the rule of law. Under the Equality Act 2010, we cannot talk about Russians in a blanket fashion; we have to recognise that there are certainly legitimate Russians and other people from overseas who come here to invest in this country, and I am sure the shadow Chancellor would not like us to break the Equality Act. We have to make sure that we act on the basis of evidence. We will do so, and where we find wrongdoing, people will be refused a visa.
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that the UK was the first country in the G20 to introduce a register of company beneficial ownership, and that we rank as one of the most efficient countries in terms of tax collection in many international league tables?
Mr Wallace
Yes. The tax gap is the lowest it has ever been, and much lower than it was under Labour. We have recovered a record amount of tax that should have been gathered—£160 billion over the past few years—and that has been a major contribution to the coffers. On the register of beneficial ownership, this country has led the way. David Cameron set out his ambition for the Government, and it is still the ambition of this Government. We have led the way, and now Montserrat, one of the overseas territories, also has a public register of beneficial ownership. The key is that the territories all have a register, and it is our ambition for them to be public, but in the meantime our leadership is starting to make a difference around the world.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) asked an extremely important question, to which she did not get an answer from the Minister. I wonder if we can try again. What changes are the Government planning to make to the due diligence for the golden visa, which establishes that someone must have £2 million they are investing in the UK before they get access to free movement here? What changes are the Government going to make to check that that money is clean? He did not answer—answer now.
Mr Wallace
The hon. Lady will know that there are numerous registers for people’s money. CIFAS and a range of other organisations record people who have been involved in fraud and other criminal actions. There are also the Government registers, such as the police national computer. We will continue with diligence based on applications for visas. [Interruption.] Members need to come to the House and say, “This person was allowed in based on their £2 million and we have prima facie evidence that they should not have been.” We will base it on evidence. Where we find evidence that someone got the money through the wrong means, they will not be allowed a visa to come into this country.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend update the House on how the swift application of unexplained wealth orders under this Government is making a significant difference in tackling money laundering and terrorist finance, thereby demonstrating how seriously the Government take the issue?
Mr Wallace
When an unexplained wealth order is made, the National Crime Agency or the Serious Fraud Office, for example, goes to the court to apply for it. A judge can give a period of time for the person to respond to the charge that the law enforcement agencies have made. If they cannot, we move to seizure. Usually, at the same time as an unexplained wealth order is applied for, we also apply for a freezing order to make sure that the person does not move the money or the property when the order is made. We believe that it is a very important tool and there are many more in the pipeline. We used it within 14 days of it coming into law on 31 January.
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
Does the Minister share the concern voiced by some that online platforms are being used for the purposes of money laundering? Will he ensure that the regulatory bodies and agencies concerned in the UK have all the necessary resources and the agility to counter that problem?
Mr Wallace
The right hon. Gentleman makes some important points. The first is about the development of new technologies, such as platforms and cryptocurrencies, which all present a challenge for law enforcement agencies around the world. The Governor of the Bank of England recently commented on that, and it is something that we will all have to think through. There is no easy answer on some of them.
On the issue of regulation and supervision, we are obviously working closely with the Financial Conduct Authority and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs—the tax authorities—to make sure that we spot when people move money without paying tax. It is also important to gather evidence from that movement. Of course, this country is bound by a number of directives on money laundering that we follow. We are currently subject to the Financial Action Task Force inspections on how we deal with money laundering. That leads to an independent international report that judges and ranks us. All hon. Members are welcome to comment on that and we will be held to account.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
When the Home Affairs Committee looked at this issue in 2016, witnesses pointed to a lot of hot Russian money in the London property market, yet out of 1.2 million property transactions in that year, only 355 suspicious activity reports were raised. There were problems with the fragmented regulatory landscape. Will my right hon. Friend tell us what progress has been made by the NCA-led joint money laundering intelligence taskforce in coming up with a more joined-up approach to this issue?
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend asks a very good question. In fact, one of the first things I did when I became the Minister for Security and Economic Crime was to use the Home Affairs Committee report to hold the Department to account and ensure that we put right some of the things that clearly had not happened in the area of asset recovery. On SARs reform, it is worrying that SARs predominantly come from the banks—about 83% of them—and only the rest come from the facilitators. I have been determined, as has the director general of the NCA, to start focusing on the facilitators. It is the lawyers, accountants and people who sell things like boxes at football stadiums and Bentleys around the world who need to do more to report suspicious activity. When they do, we will stop it.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
May I take the Minister back to the question that the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) put to him? Have the Government compiled a list of politically exposed people from Russia, such as First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, who could be the subject of unexplained wealth orders? If they have such a list, will it be published and will the Minister give us a timetable for its implementation?
Mr Wallace
The right hon. Gentleman knows that I will not come to the House and publish the names of individuals who may or may not be the subject of an investigation or of operations against them because it could threaten our ability to have an effect on them. Needless to say, we are determined to ensure that we use intelligence-led policing to find money and deal with those individuals, whether they are from here or abroad.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
These crimes can be horrendously complex. Can we be confident that the SFO, the NCA and other bodies have the skills and resources to investigate them properly?
Mr Wallace
Yes. As I said at the beginning, one of the challenges of taking on people with deep pockets or large corporations is that they have no qualms about setting off to the Supreme Court or the High Court to challenge us. We are keen to ensure that we support the NCA with unexplained wealth orders, because some of the people to whom they serve them have a brass neck and are happy to challenge us. That is why we put in blockbuster funding for the SFO, which means that when there is a case of significant scale, it can access funding directly from the Treasury to ensure that money is not a barrier to taking on some of those very bad people.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
The Minister has just talked about blockbuster funding for the crime enforcement agencies, but how many criminal cases have been opened in the UK in response to the Magnitsky case?
Mr Wallace
That is a matter for the NCA—[Hon. Members: “Zero!”] No, no. The NCA has appeared before many parliamentary Committees and been asked those questions. They are a matter for operational partners. It is not for Ministers to come to the House to talk about potential ongoing operations, which could expose our police officers or our methods to the risk of people getting away with it.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the UK is one of the most transparent jurisdictions in the world for financial services, which are a key contributor to our economy, and that suggesting that money laundering is somehow rife in the UK risks talking Britain down?
Mr Wallace
It is interesting that no Opposition Member mentioned the fact that, only in the last few weeks, the UK went from 10th to eighth on Transparency International’s register of least corrupt places in the world. That speaks volumes.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
It is three years since I raised the case of Dmitry Firtash, a Putin associate, who was arrested in Vienna on corruption charges at the FBI’s instigation. The Ministry of Defence sold him Brompton Road tube station for an undisclosed price. I know that the Minister cannot comment, but notwithstanding the fact that Dmitry Firtash donated £200,000 to the Tory party, may I suggest that an unexplained wealth order be put out for him?
Mr Wallace
I said earlier that the difference between us and Russia is that Ministers here do not sit around directing who to pick on and who not to pick on. Our operational partners are independent of Government. That is the difference. We will ensure that any case is evidence led and that we follow the rule of law. That is how we make a difference and send a message internationally.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
What steps is the Minister taking to bolster international co-operation on tackling this?
Mr Wallace
The best example I can give is that, after the Panama papers were published, we set up the joint financial analysis centre with the NCA and HMRC to ensure that we went through them and worked internationally to deal with some of those involved, collect some tax and potentially prosecute people. That happened through joint working at home, bringing together our partners, and internationally.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Over the past eight years, the brave campaign of Bill Browder, who has done more than anyone to expose this criminality, presented the UK Government on five separate occasions with dossiers of evidence of Russian money laundering in London as a direct result of the crime that Sergei Magnitsky uncovered. Twelve other countries have begun criminal proceedings, based on the evidence that Mr Browder gave them. Not a single case has begun in the UK. Why does the Minister think that is?
Mr Wallace
I met Mr Browder and he presented me with his portfolio of evidence. I have raised it a number of times with the NCA, the Serious Fraud Office and the police. I would be delighted to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss this specific issue directly. It is up to the operational partners to make a decision. [Interruption.] He may say it is about evidence, but we have make sure that it is evidence up to a level that can produce prosecution in court. I am happy to explore that further with him. My door is open.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
Will the Minister update the House on what is being done to confiscate the assets of those guilty of gross human rights violations?
Mr Wallace
If there are criminal assets, we now have the powers to do that. We will bring forward any cases where we have collected the evidence and prepared a case. As I said, the Criminal Finances Act became law on 31 January, so we now have those powers. On sanctions, the sanctions Bill is currently transiting the House. We will bring forward our amendment in due course on Report. I hope we will work across the House to ensure the amendment is acceptable.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware of the allegations in the press that the First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia owns two flats in Whitehall through a company worth over £11 million. Does the Minister believe that he has the powers to know whether that is true? If he does not, when will those powers be in place?
Mr Wallace
I do not think I have to tell the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee about standing at the Dispatch Box and commenting on an individual case. She will know that, through our intelligence agencies, the police and a variety of partner organisations, we have the ability to find out information about people and gather evidence, if it is there, to make sure we make a case either to serve some of the new measures I have mentioned in the Criminal Finances Act or take action under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and other measures that have been around for some time. We will not hesitate to do that if we feel that it is the right thing to do. It does not matter who that person is—whether they are a politically exposed person, or whether they are linked to friendly countries or adversaries—we will take action to take that money. I do not want that reputation for London and I know the right hon. Lady does not.
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
On a recent trip to Washington with the Public Accounts Committee, it was notable that officials from both the International Monetary Fund and the US Treasury were very positive about Britain’s leadership in tackling money laundering. Will the Minister further explain the work the Government are doing on a multilateral and international basis to ensure that this issue is dealt with not just in Britain but across the world?
Mr Wallace
Through the NCA, the Government have invested in a network of overseas officers working around the world to make sure they have the best liaison and best access to other investigators, such as the FBI. I recently visited officers in Singapore whose job on a day-to-day basis is to put together international cases, either for this country or for their host country, to make sure we go after these people no matter where they are all around the world.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Can the Minister rule out any dirty Russian money having made its way to any politically exposed person in the UK, political party or think-tank? Will he say whether the database of PEPs is being run routinely against known sources of dirty Russian money?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman will know that the Electoral Commission is the arbiter of policing political funding. I know what he is trying to get at. We are confident that all our donations are in accordance with the law, as set out for UK citizens. I would rather be taking money under that premise than from Max Mosley.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I welcome the overall tone of the Minister’s responses. Will he reassure me that the Government will continue to focus on the evidence base to deal with those who have committed human rights breaches and what may be corruption, rather than just apply a broad brush that might actually target those whose only offence is holding a passport of a nation whose leader wants to become a dictator?
Mr Wallace
It is very important that we tackle transnational criminals using a much more co-ordinated Government response. The Prime Minister has brought together many strands of economic crime and put them under one Department and one Minister, so that we can co-ordinate them better. It is incredibly important that we recognise that we have to use the rule of law. It has to be evidence-based, so that we can take action and remind those countries that this is about an international world order and the international rule of law and so that we can show that this country is a beacon around the world, not some client state that targets people willy-nilly.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Further to the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), proceeds of the crime that Sergei Magnitsky exposed and was killed over were laundered into a number of countries, in particular, by accounts from Dmitry Klyuev. No fewer than 12 other countries have, at the very least, initiated investigations into money laundered from this crime, because they believe that the necessary level of evidence has been met. Why has not one of the five UK authorities presented with this complaint over the past eight years, at the very least, done the same?
Mr Wallace
If the hon. Lady has an issue about whether or not the National Crime Agency or the police have taken action, it is a matter for her to raise with the National Crime Agency. I have raised the same issues with the National Crime Agency—I have asked it, but it is operationally independent. What I can say is that by using the Proceeds of Crime Act, since 2010, we have recovered £1.4 billion of assets from crime. That is making a difference; it is taking the money out of the pockets of criminals, both internationally and domestically.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that although the Labour party talks about money laundering and tax evasion, the record clearly shows that it is this Government who are leading the world in dealing with these issues?
Mr Wallace
If we look at the tax gap, that absolutely shows that this Government have the lowest tax gap. It is far, far better than it was under the Labour party.
Several hon. Members rose—
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
Further to the questions that have been asked, the Minister might hide behind operational independence, but what does it say about this country when we are the only one that does not believe the threshold of evidence has been met? What leadership is the Minister providing, so that the UK takes this seriously, as all these other countries are doing?
Mr Wallace
Unless the hon. Gentleman can come up with an alternative to operational independence and the rule of law, he has to understand that that is how we operate. The National Crime Agency has been asked on a number of occasions, before a number of Select Committees in this House, about exactly that case. I refer him to the answers that the National Crime Agency gave to those Committees.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
What proportion of Scottish limited partnerships have not provided ownership information, and how many have been fined for not doing so?
Mr Wallace
I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the answer from this Dispatch Box, but like the Scottish National party, I have been concerned that Scottish limited partnerships are remarkably popular with countries such as Russia and Ukraine. Far greater numbers are being used by those countries than they currently are by Scotland. I shall write to him with a detailed answer to his question.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
Given the importance of wider economic sanctions to protect those in the most vulnerable countries in the world who are currently having their human rights routinely abused, what review has the Minister undertaken of the effectiveness of economic sanctions against businesses?
Mr Wallace
I will ask the Treasury, which leads on economic sanctions, to write to the hon. Lady with exact details of what assessment it has made of their impact. Sanctions, of course, do work in a number of scenarios. That is why we are keen to get the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill through the House of Commons, working together to make sure that we get the Magnitsky amendment correct. It is certainly why this piece of legislation is very important.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and many other countries have opened criminal investigations into the people who are directly responsible for the brutal murder of Sergei Magnitsky. Why is the United Kingdom the only country not to have done so?
Mr Wallace
Is the hon. Gentleman asking about opening an investigation or prosecuting? As I said earlier, we are not commenting on what investigations we have live and open. That has been very clear: we cannot comment on whether or not an investigation is open into anyone. Whether it is a Russian oligarch, people who are alleged concerning Magnitsky, or someone under investigation in the hon. Gentleman’s local constituency, that is not how it operates in this country, because we protect the operational independence of the police.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
The best way to target Putin is to go after the people around him who enrich themselves to the tune of billions. It is estimated that people closely linked to Putin own property here in London worth more than £1 billion. The Minister could start by looking at the activities of Igor Shuvalov, who, as we have heard today, is reputed to own—just a few hundred yards from where we are standing now—flats worth £11.4 million, yet he earns just £112,000. That is clearly the result of corruption; what is the Minister going to do about it?
Mr Wallace
As the hon. Gentleman will have heard me say numerous times this afternoon, there are plenty of individuals who get pointed out to us and into whom we open investigations. What we cannot do is provide a running commentary on who is under investigation. As I have stated and as we have demonstrated in our legislation over the past few years, we on the Conservative Benches are determined to investigate and deal with overseas corruption and oligarchs putting money here. The best example I can give is the unexplained wealth order issued only a few weeks ago: it related to an overseas oligarch who was also a PEP and to £22 million of property in the south-east. We will continue to target such people because we think it is the right thing to do.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Foreign nationals still come to the London financial markets to raise funds and then repatriate them to organisations that may be the subject of western sanctions. What action are the Government taking to prevent that?
Mr Wallace
The Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill, which is coming through the House, will give us new and more tools to deal with such behaviour. When the Criminal Finance Act 2017 transited the House and people made the point about the Magnitsky amendment, I pointed out that it was against criminal assets, and when the sanctions Bill comes forward, we will take steps to address the issue. So we raised this problem long before it was an issue in the sanctions Bill—last year, during the passage of the 2017 Act. Overall, we are determined to tackle this and to send the right message. The hon. Lady will have heard the long list with which I tested your patience at the beginning, Mr Speaker, and I find it ironic that the Labour party, which came up with precisely almost nothing in government, is criticising this Government, who are actually capturing proceeds of crime and taking them away from bad people.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
The laundromat scheme was first exposed in The Independent in 2014, and since then The Herald newspaper in Scotland has done excellent work highlighting the use of Scottish limited partnerships in that process. Given that the Government are now listening to my colleagues’ calls for action, can the Minister confirm a timeframe for legislation to address SLPs?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are determined to try to deliver on that. The work is being led by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and the Home Secretary and I are pressing the case to give hon. Members more solid answers about exactly when we will deal with it. I pay tribute to The Herald. Throughout all this, it has often been journalists who have made the difference in exposing all sorts of corruption around the world—and some have paid for it with their lives—which is one reason the Conservative party think that press freedom is so important.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
In the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill Committee, Ministers stated that the British property register would not be ready for three years and rejected amendments on tax havens in the overseas territories and Crown dependencies. The events of the past week or so have made this approach look pedestrian and too modest. Will Ministers now support similar amendments?
Mr Wallace
We are often up against some of the best-resourced and sophisticated crooks in the world, so we want to get it right and make sure it works. This will be the first measure of its kind in the world if we do it. Let us make sure it is correct and accurate, so that we can then act on it, gather evidence, seize assets and make the difference. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not want us to rush through a half-hearted register that does not work.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
An unacceptably large number of the Minister’s answers have involved being redirected to other agencies—people might wonder why the Government are so unaccountable on these issues—but perhaps he can answer a question about tier one investment visas. Many such visas were issued to Russians during a period when almost no background checks were carried out. What are the Government doing to look retrospectively at those cases to make sure that individuals with wealth obtained through dubious means cannot operate freely in our city and country?
Mr Wallace
The relevant part of the Home Office keeps a continual check on existing visas and new visa applications, and we will of course make sure that when something is wrong we take action either to remove a visa or prevent one from being issued.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
A recent review of legal practices showed that only one third of them had taken the mandatory risk assessment approach to money laundering. What can be done to further push legal and accounting firms to do the right thing in the City of London?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Lady makes a very important point. I am leading the SARs reform programme, which we think will address the problem of “quantity not quality”. We want to ensure that those who submit suspicious activity reports do some of the work and to ensure that they produce reports of good quality, so that we can act on them. They have been used too defensively: banks have just loaded them up and left it to the operational partners to sift through them. We are also working with the regulators to ensure that we send strong messages to all the other facilitators who for too long have been let off taking a strong role in stopping money laundering.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister was not able to respond immediately to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) about Scottish limited partnerships and their ownership structure, perhaps because 71% of SLPs are registered in anonymous overseas companies and tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands. When will he legislate to bring SLPs within the scope of the persons of significant interest register to ensure that there is real transparency and to stop the siphoning of money?
Mr Wallace
I think that I did answer that question and the one asked by the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie). I made the point, as the hon. Gentleman has, that the vast majority of such arrangements are being used not by Scottish companies but by overseas companies. We are working with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to ensure that we get this right, but I am keen for measures to be introduced to stop their use by organised criminals around the world.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
There does not seem to have been very hasty action by the Government in relation to the Magnitsky Act. Members on both sides of the House have been calling for that for a long time, and, indeed, the House signed up unanimously to an agreement many years ago.
Has the Minister ever tried to do a little piece of elementary research on a trust fund? Has he tried to find out who is the beneficial owner, or, for that matter, the controlling interest? Who actually benefits from any of these trust funds? Having had to do quite a lot of research myself recently, I know that it is impossible to find out anything. It is all tied up. No one can even find out who has appointed the trustees. It is a complete mystery. Let me say to the Minister that until he deals with that issue of trust funds in this country, we will never manage to deal fully with the money laundering or the corruption in the City.
Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point. The hiding of identity is a big challenge for law enforcement agencies, and we must do more to tackle it. We expect 150,000 trusts to be on the register by this March, starting with the public register of beneficial ownership.
As I have said, there is more to be done about Scottish limited partnerships. On most occasions, we manage to find out who is behind them, but, as the hon. Gentleman has said, it takes a lot of effort, which I believe could be reduced. Once we know who is behind these shadowy organisations, we can sometimes take even more action against them.
Mr Speaker
The right hon. Gentleman has put the position very clearly on the record. The Minister is welcome to reply if he wishes. He is not obliged to do so, but if he does, it will stand in the Official Report.
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for referring to his stance back then. Before coming to the Chamber, I carried out a Hansard search for the word “oligarchs”, to which he has not referred. The only time it came up was in a 2016 report, when the right hon. Gentleman spoke about the schools White Paper. If Hansard was incorrect or I did not see that, I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman, but the clear point that I was trying to make was that Labour was almost entirely silent on all the measures that the Government introduced in the Criminal Finances Act 2017. This is all about something other than money.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the Minister. I simply say to him that Hansard is not incorrect, and it is very important that we acknowledge the magnificent work of those who prepare the Official Report. I am not going to call the right hon. Gentleman the Minister, whom I have known for a long time, a semantic pedant, because that would be unkind, but his point seemed to focus on the use of the word “oligarch”. He has made his own point in his own way, but the shadow Chancellor’s factual recollection is also very clearly on the record.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ben Wallace Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)
Serious and organised crime does not respect force boundaries, which is why we organise our response at regional level, giving us the ability to tackle organised crime groups head-on. The Government have invested £140 million in ROCUs since 2013, and last year we announced £40 million of additional funding to enhance ROCU capabilities further in areas such as cyber-crime and undercover work.
Mrs Trevelyan
Does my right hon. Friend agree that when using informants to tackle serious and organised crime such as paedophile rings, it should be unacceptable to use paedophiles as informants in such investigations?
Mr Wallace
I understand my hon. Friend’s concern, but I can assure her that the use of informants is strongly controlled by robust safeguards and independent oversight. We must not shy away from using informants, as their use in certain circumstances is vital in stopping some of the worst in society carrying out their crimes.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Has the Minister heard, as I have, from police up and down the country about the influence of Russia in our serious and organised crime? I hear time and again about Russian money and influence, and about Russians coming in via Malta and Cyprus.
Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that a number of active Russians and indeed other nationals are involved in organised crime in this country. That is why the Government are reviewing the organised crime strategy that was first published in 2013 and why we introduced the Criminal Finance Act 2017 to give us the powers to deal not only with the people inflicting these crimes but with their money, should they choose to push it through this country.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
The Security and Economic Crime Minister will be aware of the great number of loyalist and republican crime gangs that operate with organisations in England, Scotland and Wales, and also internationally. He knows that they are subject to the paramilitary taskforce, but will he meet me to discuss how we can ensure that that succeeds?
Mr Wallace
I would be very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss that matter. We realise that the best way to tackle organised crime is similar to the way in which we have often tackled terrorism in the past—that is, alongside the criminal justice outcome, to use the broad shoulders of the whole state, local authorities, financial regulation, the police and neighbourhoods to tackle these people.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be aware of the article in The New York Times—because I sent it to him—about the British television series “McMafia”. Indeed, he was mentioned in that article. Does he agree, though, that while it is important to recognise that many Russians are involved in organised crime, it would be utterly wrong and simplistic to demonise a whole nation and its immigrants in the United Kingdom?
Mr Wallace
There is absolutely no intention of demonising a nation, an ethnicity or a culture. However, it is important to note that illicit money flows into the United Kingdom come predominantly from China and Russia, and that we have to tackle that. The powers in the Criminal Finance Act 2017 will allow us to go upstream and to take real action. If we take their money away, those people will know that they and their dirty money are not welcome in this country, and that they can either go to prison here or go home.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to visit the National Crime Agency this morning to see the great work that its staff are doing to tackle crime. However, there is little doubt that the tech giants could be doing a great deal more. I know that the Prime Minister has recently asked them to do so, but she was also asking them to do more in her early months as Home Secretary nearly eight years ago. When can we have more emphasis on action rather than words?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the empowerment that the internet gives to criminals, terrorists and radicalisers is extraordinary. That is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has helped to lead the charge in the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, and recently visited silicon valley to ensure that companies there start to deliver. We have seen significant changes involving the taking down of radicalising material and enabling us to catch the bad people who are doing the crimes. It is, however, important to note that one of the ways in which the National Crime Agency, the police and our intelligence services get to the bottom of these crimes is through the use of the powers given to them under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, whose effectiveness some Members in this House still try to block.
Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
Is the Home Office confident that it and its agencies can compete with the private sector, and recruit and retain people with the key digital and cyber skills that we need?
The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)
For security reasons, I am unable to comment on specific recruitment levels and on the geographical distribution of police and intelligence agencies in specialist areas, but I assure my hon. Friend that we are seeing strong levels of recruitment. GCHQ and the National Crime Agency are doing great work in encouraging the next generation of cyber-sleuths through their Cyber First programme.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I am sure the Policing Minister will be as concerned as I am about the 309 assaults on police officers in Humberside in the past year. What more will the Government do to keep our brave police officers safe on the streets?
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
In using the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to penalise rogue landlords and breaches in planning law, local authorities can act as a deterrent and also compensate council tax payers who end up footing the bill. Given that Sussex local authorities have used only one such power, what more can my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security and Economic Crime do to encourage them to use more of them?
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend is right to point out his worries. We hope that the Criminal Finances Act 2017 will give a new boost to training local authority officers to deliver on it and increase the amount we take from rogue landlords and property owners.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
A number of migrant workers are starting to lose their jobs because of delays in the renewal and extension of visas. What can the Home Secretary do to speed up the process, so that they do not face that problem in the future?
Proscription of Hezbollah
Ben Wallace Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)
I congratulate hon. and right hon. Members, including the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan), on securing this debate and raising this important issue.
The Government are proud to be a friend of Israel, and we are proud to support working with Israel. No Conservative Member, and no one in this House, supports the use of terrorism or violence. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) and I have often been on the wrong side of terrorist attacks. I have first-hand experience of violence, intimidation and terrorism, and no one more than me wants to see people who use violence to progress their beliefs being stopped, prosecuted and put away, or driven out of this country at the bare minimum.
Perhaps I should start by reassuring hon. Members that the Government are determined to do all we can to minimise the terrorist threat to the United Kingdom and to our interests and friends abroad, and to disrupt those who engage in terrorism. Proscription is an important, but not the only, part of the Government’s strategy to disrupt the activities of terrorist groups and those who provide support to them.
As many Members have said today, Hezbollah was established during the Lebanese civil war and in the aftermath of the Israeli incursion into Lebanon in 1982. From the outset, resistance to Israel has been an important part of Hezbollah’s agenda. However, Hezbollah also represents Lebanon’s Shi’a community and, over time, has gained significant support from that community. Hezbollah provides social and political functions in Lebanon. As a major political group and the largest non-state military force in the country, Hezbollah clearly plays an important role in Lebanon.
The UK Government have long held the view that elements of Hezbollah have been involved in conducting and supporting terrorism and, as a result, proscribed Hezbollah’s External Security Organisation in 2001. Not only did I listen but I heeded many of the comments made today about Hezbollah’s statements and beliefs, which are outrageous, disgusting and should be condemned at every opportunity. Hezbollah is anti-Semitic and wishes the destruction of our ally and friend, the state of Israel. We support none of that.
In 2008, in recognition of more such activity, proscription was extended to include the whole of Hezbollah’s military apparatus, namely the Jihad Council and all the units reporting to it. Hezbollah’s military wing is also designated in the UK under the Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc. Act 2010. Funds or economic resources owned, held or controlled by Hezbollah’s military wing in the UK therefore can be, and will be, frozen. In July 2012, the EU designated Hezbollah’s military wing a terrorist organisation under the EU asset freezing regime.
Although the proscription of Hezbollah in its entirety is kept under review, our current position maintains a balance. I have heard from many Members today that Hezbollah’s military and political wings are indivisible, joined at the hip and centrally led. That is not, as the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) pointed out, the view of every country. Australia, New Zealand and the EU take a different view. I pledge to the House that we constantly monitor these groups and individuals involved in them. We constantly review the use of proscription as a means to take action where we see fit.
I wish to reassure hon. Members. It has sort of been implied that Ministers pick who to proscribe off the top of their head and that we ignore our security services, the police and the military. Colonel Richard Kemp is often quoted. Ministers do not make up proscription decisions over a cup of coffee. We make them on the recommendations submitted to us by our law enforcement agencies, security services here and intelligence services overseas, and we make a judgment.
Mr David Jones
My right hon. Friend says that it is not the view of every country and every security service that Hezbollah is indivisible. Is not his difficulty that it is Hezbollah’s own view that it is indivisible, and considers itself a single organisation?
Mr Wallace
My right hon. Friend makes a valid point, but he must recognise that it is difficult to separate Hezbollah from the state of Lebanon. Hezbollah is in the Parliament and the Government, and that represents a different challenge from that which we find with many other terrorist groups.
Ian Austin
The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), dealt eloquently with the point about Hezbollah being a single organisation. As the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) has said, Hezbollah’s political affairs official, Ammar Moussawi, stated:
“Everyone is aware of the fact that Hezbollah is one body and one entity. Its military and political wings are unified.”
That is what they are saying; it is not what we are saying. That is the point that the Government should consider.
Mr Wallace
With all due respect, I disagree with my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee. I visited Lebanon in June last year to meet the Government, the Lebanese armed forces and other agencies, including the United Nations, to discuss the future of Lebanon and the United Kingdom assistance to it. I disagree with that view about engaging with the Lebanese Government and what barriers could or could not be removed to that.
Zac Goldsmith
I have a simple question: does the Minister believe that the United States has any difficulty engaging in dialogue with Lebanon, given that it has taken the view, as the House has clearly done today, that both parts of Hezbollah are one and the same—that there is no division?
Mr Wallace
The United States finds it harder to engage with Lebanon than does the United Kingdom. I visited the United States embassy when I was in Beirut and spent time at the memorial to the US Marines killed there. The United States does not take these things lightly. It does what it can in Lebanon to secure it as a strong state. It has proscribed Hezbollah in its entirety for some time. As we heard from Opposition Members, that has not prevented Hezbollah from growing exponentially—it has not been a silver bullet and it has not stopped Hezbollah behaving as it has. That is why I made the point earlier that proscription is only one tool in dealing with terrorism, hatred and incitement.
Mr Wallace
No. I should press on before giving way.
The Government do not condone any terrorist activity and we continue to press Hezbollah to end its status as an armed group and to participate in the Lebanese democratic process on the same terms as other political parties. As hon. Members will be aware, groups that are not included on lists of proscribed organisations are not free to spread hate, fund terrorist activity or incite violence as they please. Not being proscribed does not mean that groups can do lots of things that we would view as illegal.
Mr Wallace
I am not going to speak on behalf of protestors walking down Oxford Street whom I have never met. I listened to the points my hon. Friend made earlier about frustrations with the police taking action, and what I will say is that the police already have comprehensive powers to take action against individuals under criminal law, regardless of whether an organisation is proscribed. The hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) also made that point from the Opposition Front Bench.
Whether it is part 3A of the Public Order Act 1986, or part 3 itself, which is about racial hatred, that Act gives police the powers to prosecute people. It is perfectly possible for someone to stand up with a national flag and incite hatred or religious hatred, and to then find themselves prosecuted for and convicted of a criminal offence. Not proscribing Hezbollah in no way prevents the police or the Crown Prosecution Service from taking action against that type of incitement. I certainly hope that the CPS and the police listen to the concerns expressed by Members today—I shall certainly raise those concerns when I next see them.
I heard the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) that not proscribing Hezbollah somehow hinders our police; it absolutely does not. Those people might be involved in drug dealing or money laundering. I was previously Minister for Security; I am now Minister for Security and Economic Crime. There is a plethora of offences on the statute book and powers that we can use to weaken Hezbollah and prevent it from doing things that are illegal either in the criminal space or in ways that go against our national security. This does not hinder the police in the way being alluded to, which is that without the proscription of the other half, this country will somehow be unable to protect its citizens and its interests from Hezbollah’s actions.
Jim Shannon
I am reminded of the analogy of the Siamese twins. The two twins are the Hezbollah of politics and the Hezbollah of armed insurrection and guerrilla warfare. The blood that flows through one flows through the other. We are suggesting to the Minister, very gently—perhaps very forcefully—that we need Hezbollah to be proscribed because by doing so we will take away their money and resources and their moral and political livelihood. If we do that, we can stop the killing. That has to be the way forward.
Mr Wallace
With due respect to the hon. Gentleman, we take action against Hezbollah and non-Hezbollah actors where they are involved in criminality and when the intelligence or evidence is provided for us to be able to take action, and we do so across a whole range of issues. It is not the case that because the political wing is not proscribed, we sit back and do nothing about it. We do everything we can when evidence is presented. The worrying thing about the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) is that people have presented evidence to the police, or sat down with them and told them about some of those statements about Grenfell Tower, but no action has been taken. I think that everyone in the House would urge the CPS and the police to use the range of powers at their disposal to take action and not tolerate such horrendous statements and incitements.
Mrs Ellman
I gave examples of hate speech on our streets, but it appears that the police are reluctant or unable to take any action against it. Does the Minister not agree that that is appalling? Also, does he not agree that had Hezbollah been proscribed, the people on that march waving flags would simply not have been allowed to go ahead with their hate speech and incitement?
Mr Wallace
On the hon. Lady’s first point, it is not acceptable if the police or CPS do not take action when there are offences that would allow them to do so. It is not always that they are not able; it may be a choice that they have made, either because of resources—we can debate that—or perhaps because they have found that, for the public good, they could do something about it later. I stood on the Falls Road for many months of my life watching paramilitary flags go past. When I was a soldier on those streets, we had the power to do something, but, perhaps for the good of the public order, the view was that we should not do anything about it. I do not know about the individual motives of the people on the march the hon. Lady mentions or of the police on that day, but it is not the case that they do not have the power to do something. This House has given them the powers, year on year, over many decades, to take action.
I think that we all feel, especially in this social media age, in which we are often inundated by hate and intimidation, whether on Twitter or in emails, that there is a broader debate about how we can deal with and prosecute hate and extremism in this country. Unfortunately, from my point of view it seems to be on an upward rather than downward curve among some groups of people in society.
Political parties of all colours need to send very strong messages to supporters, allies or over-excited individuals who seek to take our parties’ names and use them alongside hatred, anti-Semitism, racism and Islamophobic comment. All that is unacceptable. We should not forget though that we need to encourage our police and CPS to take action and to set an example with regard to some of these plans. As I have said, the Government continue to exercise proscription power in a proportionate manner in accordance with the law, and we will continue to monitor groups and people of concern.
Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000 provides a power to the Home Secretary to proscribe the organisation if she believes that it is concerned in terrorism. The Act specifies that
“an organisation is concerned in terrorism if it commits or participates in an act of terrorism, prepares for terrorism, promotes or encourages terrorism, or is otherwise concerned in terrorism.”
If the test is met, the Secretary of State must then exercise her discretion to proscribe the organisation. In considering whether to exercise this discretion, she is also guided by the nature and scale of the organisation’s activities, the specific threat that it poses to the United Kingdom, the specific threat that it poses to British nationals overseas, the organisation’s presence in the United Kingdom and the need to support other members of the international community in tackling terrorism.
Given the wide-ranging impact of proscription, the Home Secretary exercises her powers to proscribe only after a thorough review of the available relevant information and evidence on the organisation. For an individual to be proscribed, the police and Crown Prosecution Service must have evidence to the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt that the context and manner for which the flag is displayed, for example, aroused reasonable suspicion that the individual is specifically a member, or a supporter, of that proscribed group and elements of a wider group.
Peaceful protest is a vital part of our democratic society. It is a long-standing tradition in this country that people are free to gather together and to demonstrate their views, however uncomfortable or repugnant those can be to the majority of us, but they must do so within the law. There is of course a balance to be struck. Protesters’ rights need to be balanced with the rights of others to go about their business without fear of intimidation or serious disruption to the community. Rights to peaceful protest do not extend to violent or threatening behaviour, and the police have powers to deal with as many such acts, as I have said.
The management of protest is of course a matter left to the police. As I said earlier, the investigation and prosecution of all criminal offences is a matter for the CPS and the police. I will happily push to the organisations —the police and the CPS—the messages that I have heard from the House today to make sure that they step up their efforts in this area.
Zac Goldsmith
I thank the Minister for giving way again. The Government have their reasons—I cannot understand them, but they have their reasons—for not wanting to proscribe Hezbollah in its entirety. Will he not accept that maintaining this pretence that there is a division between the two branches of Hezbollah reflects very badly on this place and very badly on the Government? It looks like weakness and it is embarrassing.
Mr Wallace
I hear what my hon. Friend is saying. There are lots of reasons, but perhaps I can offer the House one reason. Members may not agree with it, but it is one that I felt at first hand when I was in Lebanon on behalf of the Government. We believe that the best way to weaken Hezbollah in the region and further afield is to have a strong state of Lebanon. The stronger the state of Lebanon, which represents multi-faith groups, has a democracy and Speakers of Parliament and recognises the individual religious minorities in the country, the weaker Hezbollah will be. It is not in our interests to have a weak, fractured Lebanon.
We should not forget that Hezbollah’s birth and strengths started in the civil war of Lebanon, when Lebanese were killing Lebanese, Druze were killing Muslims, and Muslims were killing Christians. We think that the way to ensure that Hezbollah is contained and persuaded to follow the course of peace—I listened to the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) who may or may not believe this and many of us may agree with him—is to have a strong state of Lebanon. That is in our interests.
The British Government assist with aid, help to train the Lebanese army, so that it can defend the state, and encourage Ministers of all faiths in that Government who believe in Lebanon, rather than in a non-military actor or an overburdened group of one minority or another. That is one logical reason why I believe we have to take some of these difficult decisions and find a balance.
When one visits Lebanon and meets the Ministers struggling to survive in a rough neighbourhood, trying to build a nation state and living with a shadow over their shoulder, as we have discussed, one realises that their best defence is a strong and capable state of Lebanon, with all its safeguards and its constitution. They would be worse off, the region would be worse off and we would be worse off if that state was weakened by a fractious civil war.
Dr Offord
That is all very well about Lebanon, but my concern is the constituents of Hendon, when they cannot go into central London and the police are overstretched, when they are spat at and called Nazis and when people are vile and anti-Semitic towards them. My concern is the people of Hendon—the people of this country.
Mr Wallace
I have listened to my hon. Friend. First, the people of this country will not be better off with an even more fractious, divided and murderous middle east. Secondly, he will know that many of the things he has just mentioned are already criminal offences and can be prosecuted.
Mr Wallace
Well, as I said earlier, that is a matter for the police, if people are spitting and inciting hatred. In this country, we have operational independence between Ministers and the police. We can talk about whether we are giving them the right resources—we regularly do across the Dispatch Boxes—but fundamentally what will protect my hon. Friend’s constituents, whether they are Christian, Jewish or Muslim, is for Parliament to give our law enforcement and security organisations powers and to fund them, so that they can use those powers to keep us safe by dealing with the threat based on intelligence, as we receive it, and ensuring that we deradicalise people who might be attracted to hate.
If my hon. Friend’s constituents are being abused, that is not a failure of the Government; it is a question to ask the police. We will help him ensure that the police deal with that, but I have to say that it is not because of the partial proscription or de-proscription of Hezbollah. He must understand—I am sure that he does—that a stable middle east is the best way to provide long-term peace for Europe and the United Kingdom. We do not want an unstable middle east at all.
I have listened to the debate and heed the very valid points that have been made by Members on both sides of the House. My commitment as Security Minister is to continue to keep groups such as Hezbollah under review. We will continue to talk to our friends and allies in the region and around the world, but we will fundamentally focus on what we need to do to keep the United Kingdom safe, for the short and long term. I will certainly do my best to encourage the police, other political parties and all our supporters and friends to ensure that hate is not tolerated, no matter who it is aimed at.
Draft Investigatory Powers (Interception by Businesses etc. for Monitoring and Record-keeping Purposes) Regulations 2018
Draft Investigatory Powers (Technical Capability) Regulations 2018
Draft Investigatory Powers (Review of Notices and Technical Advisory Board) Regulations 2018
Draft Investigatory Powers (Codes of Practice) Regulations 2018
Ben Wallace Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Investigatory Powers (Interception by Businesses etc. for Monitoring and Record-keeping Purposes) Regulations 2018.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Investigatory Powers (Technical Capability) Regulations 2018, the draft Investigatory Powers (Review of Notices and Technical Advisory Board) Regulations 2018 and the draft Investigatory Powers (Codes of Practice) Regulations 2018.
Mr Wallace
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I am pleased to be given the opportunity to debate these important regulations, which are being made under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. The Act passed with strong support from Members on both sides of the House of Commons and received Royal Assent in November 2016, following unprecedented parliamentary scrutiny.
That legislation brings together the powers available to our law enforcement and security and intelligence agencies to obtain communications and data about communications. It ensures that those powers and the safeguards that apply to them are clear and understandable, and it radically overhauls how the powers are authorised and overseen. It introduces a double lock for the most intrusive powers so that they cannot be used until the decision to do so has been approved by a judge. It has also created a powerful new Investigatory Powers Commissioner—a post held by Lord Justice Fulford—to oversee how the powers are used.
Let me be clear: the powers in the Act are absolutely crucial to our national security and the safety of our citizens. They make sure that our law enforcement and security and intelligence agencies are equipped to carry out their critical work of protecting the public and ensuring that terrorists, paedophiles and other perpetrators of serious crimes can be brought to justice. In the light of the horrifying attacks in this country in the past year, making sure that our agencies maintain the powers that they need is more important than ever.
The regulations are all intrinsically linked to the implementation of the Act. They do not create any new powers; rather, they enable a number of the Act’s provisions to be exercised and set out further details of how certain powers will be used. Collectively, they also create additional safeguards about the use of the powers, building on those set out in the primary legislation.
We will debate four sets of regulations. First, the draft Investigatory Powers (Codes of Practice) Regulations 2018 bring into force five codes of practice covering a number of vital provisions under the Act. The codes relate to the interception of communications, equipment interference, the bulk acquisition of communications data, national security notices and the intelligence services’ retention and use of bulk personal datasets. Each of the five codes sets out processes and safeguards governing the use of the investigatory powers to which they relate. They give detail on how the relevant powers should be used, including examples of best practice. They provide additional clarity and ensure that the highest standards of professionalism and compliance with this vital legislation are adhered to.
The codes are primarily intended to guide the public authorities that can exercise powers under the Act, as well as communications service providers that might be required to provide assistance in giving effect to its provisions. The codes provide information on the process associated with applying to use each of the powers, as well as the safeguards and oversight arrangements that will ensure that the powers are used in the intended manner. The codes are detailed and comprehensive, together with more than 400 pages of guidance and best practice, ensuring that the use of these important powers is subject to the most stringent safeguards.
Secondly, the draft Investigatory Powers (Technical Capability) Regulations 2018 set out the obligation that may be imposed on a telecommunications or postal operator in a technical capability notice. The purpose of such a notice is to ensure that when a warrant or authorisation is served on or given to an operator, that company has the capability to provide assistance, giving effect to it securely and quickly.
As part of maintaining a technical capability, the Act specifies that a telecommunications operator may be required to maintain the capability to remove encryption from communications that it has applied or that has been applied on its behalf. The regulations do not change that position and simply make it clear that such an obligation could be included in a technical capability notice when necessary and proportionate.
The Act sets out robust safeguards on the use of technical capability notices. Such a notice may be given by the Secretary of State only where necessary and proportionate, having taken into account a number of factors such as technical feasibility and cost, and having consulted with the operator to which a notice is to be given. The decision of the Secretary of State to give a notice must be approved by a judicial commissioner.
Thirdly, the draft Investigatory Powers (Review of Notices and Technical Advisory Board) Regulations 2018 are fundamentally linked to the technical capability regulations. The Act provides for the important safeguard that a telecommunications operator in receipt of a technical capability notice, a national security notice or a data retention notice may seek a review of that notice by the Secretary of State. In conducting such a review, the Secretary of State must consult the Technical Advisory Board—a non-departmental public body—as to the technical feasibility and cost of the notice. These regulations set out the circumstances in which a review may take place and how the board must be constituted.
The final set of regulations is the draft Investigatory Powers (Interception by Businesses etc. for Monitoring and Record-keeping Purposes) Regulations 2018. The Act provides that it is a criminal offence to intercept communications in the absence of lawful authority. It also makes clear that lawful authority includes interception by businesses or other bodies where it is legitimate practice. The regulations set out what conduct that includes, and simply ensure that companies can undertake routine activities without falling foul of the offence of unlawful interception. Such activities might include, for example, call centres recording telephone calls for training purposes or companies scanning their computer networks to detect cyber-attacks.
In summary, the regulations give effect to provisions already set out in primary legislation that is fundamental to our national security. The regulations make clear how a number of provisions in that Act will operate, and establish additional safeguards to the already rigorous controls set out in the primary legislation.
Mr Wallace
May I first thank the official Opposition for their position and considered view on the regulations? The passing of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 through the House was a significant process, with many Government concessions and lots of working across party lines to ensure that we struck the balance between freedoms and security, while trying to allow our law enforcement agencies and intelligence services to stay one step ahead of paedophiles and terrorists who often exploit technology to outwit or to remain undetected.
It is not easy in my job to listen to the intercepted communication of paedophiles plotting to kidnap a child. Sometimes that is behind encrypted communication. They do that knowing that they are hard to detect because some of the data they use is hard for us to analyse or capture. That is why the 2016 Act was so important. I do not think any Government like to change a piece of legislation at any stage, but it has allowed us to detect, prosecute and convict some of the people in society who pose a real danger to us.
The codes of practice are user-friendly, believe it or not. Often the statutory instruments we debate are slightly gobbledegook and we have to refer to the explanatory notes and go back to the original debate to understand what they are about. The codes of practice are designed for the superintendent or the official sitting at their desk doing an investigation to ensure that they comply with the law. The codes are user-friendly and accessible.
In the drafting of the codes of practice, I was determined to ensure that the protections we promised to the House in primary legislation are reflected strongly. In terms of the protected professions, I ensured that journalism, about which people expressed concern during the passage of the Bill, was given the due prominence required in the codes so that when people are considering using the powers, they understand that we have to give extra consideration to a number of protected provisions. For that reason, I am content with the regulations.
I am grateful for the official Opposition’s support. The regulations contain all sorts of ways to ensure that the agencies are held to account. Lord Justice Fulford is a formidable individual and a highly respected judge. The independence of the interception commissioners will be without question. One or two are from Scotland and some are from jurisdictions across the United Kingdom to ensure that it is not just the usual suspects, but a broad base of judiciary, and our decisions and the technical notices will be subject to that scrutiny. Judges will not do it with favour; they will do it in compliance with the law. When I look across the oversight that we now have, both independent and in this House, of our intelligence agencies, I see that we have the Intelligence and Security Committee, the varying roles of the tribunals, including the Investigatory Powers Tribunal—some of those roles will be folded into the commissioners’ jobs—and Parliament and the review of terrorism. We have many more layers of oversight than some of our contemporary countries across Europe and the United States, and we should be proud of that.
When I visit our intelligence services, I am always struck by how determined they are to abide by the law. Sometimes I am tempted to say, “Why are we not doing more of this?” and more and more they reflect back to me, “Minister, we have to do what is proportionate, necessary and no more.” Those professionals in those organisations take that duty incredibly seriously. The secondary legislation will ensure that they have that capability. I genuinely believe that by having it, they will help us and our children stay safe from predatory paedophiles, terrorists and organised crime. The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East will know that only recently one of the major serious organised crime kingpins was arrested. He had military-scale weapons on him, including military-grade communication encryption. That is the enemy we can be up against, and that is why we need the powers. I urge him to reconsider his opposition.
The legislation has had lots of airing, and I am incredibly grateful to all parties that have supported it. The people who use it do so in a measured, proportionate and necessary manner.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Investigatory Powers (Technical Capability) Regulations 2018
Motion made, and Question put,
That the Committee has considered the draft Investigatory Powers (Technical Capability) Regulations 2018.—(Mr Ben Wallace.)
Criminal Finances: EU Directive on Fraud and Counterfeiting
Ben Wallace Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)
The Government have decided that the UK will not opt in to the directive on combating fraud and counterfeiting of non-cash means of payment.
The UK’s domestic legislation is already compliant with the majority of the directive’s measures, and in relation to the offences and sentences set out in the directive, the UK goes further than the standards set within the directive for:
The effective co-operation for the fraudulent use of payment instruments, and;
The preparatory offences, the use of information systems and other tools to support fraudulent use.
Following careful consideration we have concluded that there would be no benefit to the UK opting in to this measure.
The UK strongly supports international efforts to tackle fraud. The UK works closely with other EU member states and will continue to do so despite the decision not to opt in. The UK has consistently advocated that international co-operation is required to tackle fraud, and we are committed to supporting member states, and other countries, in this regard.
[HCWS410]