Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Damian Green and Julie Hilling

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I am happy to assure the hon. Lady that, throughout the passage of the Bill and on many other matters, there has been regular, continuous contact at all levels. I see the Northern Ireland Minister of Justice regularly, and our officials are in contact on detailed matters. We work closely with the Northern Ireland Department of Justice.

[Julie Hilling]

The Minister says he hopes the charities and so on get behind the Bill. It is not too late for him to reconsider and listen to what they say on how to improve the Bill rather than asking them to support measures that they believe are second best.

[Damian Green]

I sense the hon. Lady is trying to lure me into a debate she has just had with my hon. Friend the Minister. I heard his speech, in which he replied fully to the points made by her and others. She says it is not too late, but, in practical terms, it is—we have just had a Division and have moved on to Third Reading. [Interruption.] There will indeed be debates in other places.

The examination and detention of David Miranda at Heathrow airport in August has put a renewed spotlight on the changes we are making in the Bill to the powers in schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000. Schedule 7 remains a key part of the UK’s border security arrangements and is vital to preserving the safety of the public. I welcome the renewed scrutiny of the provisions. It is right that, as part of his function of reporting on the operation of the Terrorism Acts, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC, has decided to investigate and report on the exercise of the powers in Mr Miranda’s case. The Government will carefully consider his report when it is received.

Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

Debate between Damian Green and Julie Hilling

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I will not detain the House long, particularly while we are discussing the lack of time to debate the Bill, but I wanted to add my concern about the Government’s decision to curtail debate tomorrow. I fail to see what could be more important than debating issues of life and death.

My constituent Royston Brett set off on Friday and has cycled almost 250 miles from Atherton to Westminster to add his voice to those demanding more action to prevent dog attacks. He was supported on his journey by Michael Anderson, the father of Jade Lomas Anderson, who was tragically killed by four out-of-control dogs in March. When Michael and Royston cycled into New Palace Yard at 1 o’clock today, they were extremely upset to learn that the Government were curtailing the debate. They do not understand how they can spend three days making such a heroic effort to raise the issue of dangerous dogs, cycling in atrocious weather and sleeping in the car, but MPs cannot be bothered to work through until the normal hour tomorrow.

The Government should rethink their strategy for the Bill and ensure that we have adequate time to discuss the 211 or so amendments. Jade and many thousands of other victims of dog attacks deserve nothing less.

[Damian Green]

rose—

Immigration Queues (UK Airports)

Debate between Damian Green and Julie Hilling

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Despite the length of time that the Minister has been answering questions, I have still not heard him explain why there were 107 breaches of waiting times in the first 15 days of April, what caused them and what part staff cuts played in those delays.

[Damian Green]

I am sorry if the hon. Lady does not feel that she has been given enough information in the past 50 minutes or so, because I have tried to explain, repeatedly, that a range of things need to be improved at our airports to reduce these queues. To say that one reason accounts for all the delays that individual passengers may face is overly simplistic. That is not the way the world works and it is not the way airports work. What the Home Office, the Department for Transport, the airline operators and the airport operators agree is that a team effort is needed to make this better, and it is very important that we get it right.

Identity Documents Bill

Debate between Damian Green and Julie Hilling

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The hon. Gentleman made that point, with characteristic eloquence, in his speech, and I will address it shortly. I am pleased to report to the House that, as those who sat through the Committee stage will be aware, the Labour party has come up with no new ideas to defend the ID cards scheme since then; we have heard all these arguments before.

This group of amendments, which groups together all the arguments that the Opposition can make against the Bill, is a series of impractical and expensive suggestions, made, I suspect, with varying degrees of seriousness. If I were to be kinder than I have been up to now, I might say that some of them may excite genuine feelings among Opposition Members, but others have been tabled for the sake of it.

First, I shall deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) and repeated by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) about refunds or passport-related refunds. We debated this extensively in Committee, and I recognise that £30 is a significant sum to many people, particularly those who are struggling economically in these difficult times, when the Government have had to absorb a terrible economic inheritance from their predecessor.

I do not have any data on the socio-economic status of the very small number of people who bought ID cards, nor, as far as I am aware, do any Labour Members. Before anyone stands up to ask me about this, I shall say that I do not propose to waste any public money by undertaking a survey of who they are. There are times when even those in this House need to step back and apply some common sense to the matters before them. I do not think that anyone in really difficult economic and financial circumstances would have thought, “What is the best thing to spend £30 on this week? I know, a very controversial ID card that will enable me to travel to Europe, but not anywhere else in the world. That’s the most important thing to spend my last £30 on.” I do not believe that one person in this country took that decision, and I have heard nothing from those on the Opposition Benches during our discussion of this Bill to convince me that that is any way a realistic proposition.

I further point out to the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who leads for the Labour party on this, that the charging system for ID cards introduced by her Government took no notice of the ability to pay. It set a flat fee, which took no account of whether someone was unemployed, an old-age pensioner or in full-time employment, like the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane). Sadly, he is no longer in his place, but he was asking us whether he should have claimed for his ID card on expenses. I would have thought that, at the time, that would have been a seriously terrible idea.

The only exception made on this flat fee of £30 that these allegedly struggling people were paying was for those who were in employment and working at one of the airports, where the then Government were anxious to foist the scheme on people in its early days. Anyone in that position would have been one of the 3,000 or so who were given a card free of charge. Those 3,000 lucky people—all, by definition in full-time employment—represent almost 20% of those to whom any card was ever issued. Of course, those cards were paid for by the taxpayer, so when one actually looks behind the indignation expressed by Labour Members, one does not find any substantial argument on this, which they have made the main point of their attack on this Bill.

The Government inherited an ID card scheme that has found very little favour with the public. That is a key issue. Many Opposition Members have talked about the costs, and the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) advanced the extraordinary proposition that even though he accepted that the coalition Government had the perfect right to get rid of the ID cards scheme, we should have carried on with it because the longer it went on the further the costs would be spread. That seemed to me an extraordinary attitude to parliamentary democracy. This is a key issue as the taxpayer has already paid £292 million with fewer than 15,000 cards having been issued—20% of them paid for by the taxpayer. So the calculation at the moment is that the cost to the taxpayer so far is about £20,000 per card. If we exclude the cards issued free of charge, it is £25,000 per card. That is by any standards a scandalous waste of public money that lies squarely at the door of Ministers in the previous Government.

The argument has come from the hon. Member for Easington that the scheme would have become self-financing over time. Based on public demand, there is no evidence to support that, particularly when the cost report in 2009, produced by the Labour party when it was in government, showed that a further £835 million was to be spent on ID cards by 2019, either by the taxpayer or by individual citizens having to sign up for those cards.

In the light of those facts and the already excessive spending of taxpayers’ money on an unpopular and deeply intrusive scheme, we have proposed this Bill. That is why we opposed ID cards in opposition and why we have introduced this Bill so quickly. We do not see why the taxpayer should have to pay yet again. During the debate, several of my hon. Friends asked how much the cancellation would cost, and the answer is about £400,000. As I have illustrated, enough has been spent on the scheme and the taxpayer should not face a further bill of the best part of half a million pounds. That is why we have been clear that refunds will not be offered.

[Julie Hilling]

How much would it cost the taxpayer, though, if people had a £30 credit when they applied for their passports? Why would it be costly?

[Damian Green]

As a practical point, the vast majority of people who have bought ID cards already have passports, so it would be entirely valueless to them.

There are practical difficulties with the amendment. It would require the keeping of identity card records for many years to come to ensure that only those who were entitled to a refund could apply for one. I shall come on to the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak about the destruction of data, but we have made it very clear that we will destroy all the data obtained under the ID cards scheme and that we do not wish to retain any data for this reason or for any other.

I observe in the group of amendments that we are discussing that the twin threats are unnecessary data retention and cost to the taxpayer. Those are the two things that Labour Members who proposed the amendments seem to be concerned about. I assume that new clause 4 is intended to be helpful in avoiding the need for an individual to provide further personal information in the event that they should subsequently apply for a passport. The hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) is, I am sure, aware that, as I have just said, the vast majority of ID cardholders are or were passport holders, so the information relevant to a passport application will already be held on passport records.

In any case, the proposed new clause misses the point of the Bill. The Identity Documents Bill is about scrapping the ID card scheme and destroying the national identity register. We are opposed to the register in principle on the grounds that it is a database holding huge amounts of personal and biometric data simply because a person has applied for an identity card. We do not believe that holding the data is either necessary or proportionate for the purpose for which they were obtained. Instead, it represents a significant intrusion by the state into the lives of our citizens. That is why we are looking to destroy all the information recorded on the NIR. Officials are currently finalising work with contractors on how that will be achieved and the Information Commissioner’s Office has been notified of the destruction process.