(7 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent 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
First, I do not think that anyone has heard from this Dispatch Box an attack on the Daily Mail, although I know the right hon. Gentleman would like to put up a straw man to make some allegations. As I said previously, we made a legally binding confidentiality agreement in November 2010. The key words there are “legally binding”, not “confidentiality”. As I am sure he will understand, that puts an obligation on this Government and not, by the sound of things, on former Home Secretaries or reviewers of terrorism. Even a Scottish National party Government would be legally obliged to stick to the confidentiality agreement, and he knows it.
Does my hon. Friend agree that, as there were 16 applications for closed material procedures in the first two years after the Justice and Security Act 2013 was passed, millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money may have been saved simply because the security services are now free to present the evidence they have?
Hopefully the closed material procedures are doing exactly what we wanted: seeing off vexatious claims, testing the evidence and ensuring that, where the allegations are unfounded, the UK Government are not vulnerable to paying out money or compensation.
(7 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberI thank the hon. Lady for her question, but she is, of course, wrong. The Prevent programme set up by her Government in 2003 has had considerable successes throughout the communities. We should reflect on the fact that Prevent is about safeguarding vulnerable people from being exploited and saving many people’s lives, across the country and abroad. Repeating the echo chamber of people saying that this is about targeting one group or the other is a fallacy.
(7 years, 12 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe obvious answer is that we need to continue to educate both parents and children, either in the school setting or at home, to make sure that they operate safely when they surf the net. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Home Office and the National Crime Agency have engaged in making sure that there are guides online for everyone of every age to follow. That is the first step. Certainly, the National Cyber Crime Unit, which I went to visit at the NCA, is responsible for making sure that we catch people whether at home or abroad, through its network of overseas postings, to make sure that we bring people to justice whatever side of the channel they are on.
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe Government are clear that, should the United Kingdom leave the European Union, the border between the EU and UK will be the land border in Northern Ireland. That will place us outside the customs union, which will mean delay, checks and other reforms that will hamper our ability to export to and import from the Republic of Ireland.
Does the Minister not agree that the reality is that trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will continue very much as it has for centuries—regardless of whether we are in or out of the European Union?