Serious and Organised Crime: Prüm Convention

Debate between Damian Green and David Davis

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I can only say to my hon. Friend that it would be absurd to let the best be the enemy of the good. It would be wonderful if 185 states all had the technical capacity and ability to exchange information in this way, but they do not. In fact, I think only 21 of the current member states of the European Union can actually do this. I know that this is not true of my hon. Friend, but I sense that other hon. Friends want to use that as a reason not to sign up to the proposal, but that is nonsense, because it would continue to leave our streets not as well protected as we would all wish them to be.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

For me, the problem of cross-national justice is that countries are sometimes very keen to convict foreigners, and there is therefore a propensity to miscarriages of justice. We saw that with the plane spotters in Greece, as my right hon. Friend may remember. He has of course been in the position of suffering a politically driven miscarriage of justice. What is interesting for me is that the Home Office has done a very good job in preventing the false positives and miscarriages of justices. Does he agree?

[Damian Green]

As so often, I do agree with my right hon. Friend. He is right that, for obvious reasons, I am not an uncritical admirer of everything that the police do. I regard myself as a candid friend of the police. It is extremely important that the technical measures that can be taken to minimise false positives and possible miscarriages of justice are taken at all times. I agree with him that the reassurances the Home Secretary has been able to give on that matter are extremely important.

Before I move on to the potential risks, I want to mention one advantage: access to Eurodac, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) referred. Eurodac is the EU-wide database of the finger- prints of asylum seekers and illegal migrants. This change will allow it to be used in criminal investigation searches. It will be precisely aimed at potential criminals, not at innocent people who may have been caught up in something. That underpinning safeguard is absolutely key.

The overwhelming advantage is the straightforward one of speed. Anyone who looks at practical law enforcement will know that speed of response is hugely important in making police operations more effective, particularly internationally. Regrettably, it is topical to say that this is particularly true when the police are attempting to deal with a terrorist outrage. The fact that it may take minutes or 24 hours, rather than months, to get evidence is absolutely vital. The advantages are therefore clear cut and widespread.

People have expressed two areas of risk associated with this system. One is genuine and the other is the result of applying some wrong-headed ideology. Let me deal with the genuine one first: the fear that the measure will intrude on our privacy or damage our data protection and therefore adversely affect our civil liberties. I take that very seriously. It is extremely important to deal with security alongside other civil liberties. I agreed with a lot of what the shadow Home Secretary said, but I do not agree—I may have slightly misunderstood him—when he said that we must have security, and once we have security we can worry about civil liberties. I think that security is one of the important civil liberties that Governments should guarantee, but other civil liberties are extremely important. We must try to defend them all in parallel and, if necessary, strike the right balance. I think that the measure does that.

There will be stringent safeguards. I return to the point that the key safeguard is to ensure that the measure is used to target convicted criminals. It seems to me that if we use large-scale databases, particularly on an international basis, we want to target people convicted of a crime, not just to trawl the records of innocent people. That is absolutely essential at a national level, and it is even more essential at a European level. The proposals before the House pass that test. I imagine that that is why the National DNA Database Ethics Group has given this a “wholehearted welcome”, which is quite a good badge of respectability for the Home Office.

Like other hon. Members, I have read carefully what Big Brother Watch has said about the measure. It is an organisation that does a lot of good and helps to hold Governments to account. I confess that I was slightly surprised at the tone of the response from Big Brother Watch, which welcomed the safeguards that the Home Secretary has introduced. It did say that there were areas of concern, but against the normal standards of comments by civil liberties groups on Home Office proposals, that is warm approval. That should be taken seriously.

I echo the words of the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and hope that the Minister deals with the vehicle registration database and the specific worries that Big Brother Watch has raised. It asks:

“Will searches only be for serious crimes or will they include offences such as speeding or driving in a bus lane?”

It also asks:

“Will foreign police forces have access to ANPR cameras or historical ANPR data?”

The House ought to be reassured on those points.

All those civil liberties issues pose a genuine risk, but I think that they have been dealt with. The other line of criticism, which appears in the amendment, says that we should not use these procedures because they are procedures of the European Union. That is a damaging ideology. These measures help the police to catch criminals, prevent terrorist attacks, save lives and keep our streets safer. In those circumstances, it is irresponsible to say that we should not sign up because of an anti-European ideology and a fear of the European Court of Justice. The British people know that we live in a dangerous world and, frankly, will not forgive politicians who make it more dangerous by indulging in anti-European gesture politics in this field.

It has been argued that there are other ways to achieve the same effect, but it has been amply demonstrated in the course of the debate that nothing that is available is as efficient as this measure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

Iceland is not a member of the European Union. If Iceland wished to sign some kind of deal with the European Union, I assume that it would be open to Iceland to do so, but I have seen no sign that it does. It is not within the purview of this House to dictate to the Icelandic Government and people what they should do. I imagine that they want to keep their streets safe as well.

[Mr David Davis]

I take my right hon. Friend’s point about the European Court of Justice, but the fear in respect of some of the protections he has talked about, such as the extreme case of whether the database is used for speeding offences, is that the Court could change the guidelines in a way that is outside our control. I do not think that it is true that that could happen in this case, but I think that he should address the point, rather than just dismiss it.

[Damian Green]

I do not dismiss it, although my right hon. Friend is right that it is not true in this case. The Prüm measures specifically say where the European Court of Justice has jurisdiction, and it is quite limited. One thing that the Court seeks to do is to defend individual citizens against over-mighty states.

[Mr Davis]

I know.

[Damian Green]

My right hon. Friend knows that. The idea that everything that the European Court of Justice does is bad or somehow goes against civil liberties and freedoms is simply wrong, as I am sure he would acknowledge.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Damian Green and David Davis

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I am keen on this new version and consider it to be an improvement on the original version precisely because it does not require anyone to prove they are innocent, and it provides as unambiguous a wording as we can find to ensure we do not have years of judicial interpretation to come.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I assure the Minister I have not risen to intervene to ensure he takes an intervention from every other Member in the Chamber. Can he give me an example of a case that would not pass one filter but would pass the other filter, because I cannot think of one?

[Damian Green]

It would not be helpful to go into individual cases. I have given some examples of what requirements need to be shown for an applicant to receive compensation. What is required is that there must be a new fact that demonstrates that the applicant did not commit the crime. A Court of Appeal judgment that led to the quashing of an applicant’s conviction would have to show what the reasons were. Although I cannot give individual examples, I can tell my right hon. Friend that the reason could be new DNA evidence or compelling new medical evidence, or compelling new alibi evidence that shows the applicant was somewhere else at the time.

To address what lies behind a lot of the unease, let me say that it is fundamentally important to remember that we are legislating here for a compensation scheme that is based on specific eligibility requirements. These are designed to meet our international obligations which only require payment in exceptional cases. The Government believe this clause achieves that.

Everyone has been asking, “What’s the difference between the original clause and this clause?” Of course the substance is not different. However, we recognise that in this area language is very important, and precisely because of the emotion that surrounds the word “innocent”, there is a case for reviewing the reference to that word which has been so controversial, and that is what we have done. We have removed that word, which I hope adds to the clarity and lack of ambiguity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Green and David Davis

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

In no area of the public sector do we introduce quotas of the type the hon. Gentleman suggests—he will recognise as well as anyone that they could cause at least as many problems as they solve—but I agree that we need to do more, which is precisely why the College of Policing is taking practical steps to look at the best way we can achieve this.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

May I press the Home Secretary on her answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) about the Police Federation? On the one hand, Normington made proposals that required legislation, but on the other hand, there are examples of the federation promoting injustice that Normington gave no answer to. Is there not a clear requirement for the Government to act on this matter?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Green and David Davis

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

This is an investigation done partly by the Metropolitan police, who are operationally independent, and by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, so it is not for Ministers to set timetables. Indeed, I urge the House to recognise that to ask Ministers to intervene closely and in detail in the work of operationally independent police forces or the IPCC would be the wrong way to go.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

In view of the revelations of the past week, will the policing Minister put in place a strict disciplinary code that requires all police officers of all ranks to keep a comprehensive and accurate record of all contacts they have with the press?

UK Extradition Arrangements

Debate between Damian Green and David Davis

Monday 5th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The record will tell us which of us recollects correctly.

Moving rapidly to the 21st century—

[Mr David Davis]

rose—

[Damian Green]

Oh dear, I should not have done this.

[Mr Davis]

For the first time in my life, I am ashamed of my hon. Friend the Minister—actually the record goes back to the Kings of Kent in the eighth century.

[Damian Green]

I can feel a fascinating and wholly irrelevant debate coming upon us, Mr Speaker.