Birth of Prince George of Cambridge

David Winnick Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I have no wish to oppose the motion, and I am sure that we all send our congratulations to those involved as stated in the motion moved by the Prime Minister and supported by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. As we are discussing one child, however, I think that it would be relevant to point out that it should concern the House that at least 3.5 million children in this country are still living in households in which poverty exists after housing costs have been met. I should also mention that, according to the latest available figures, nearly 7 million children in the world die before reaching their fifth birthday, and that two thirds of those deaths could be prevented if modern medical facilities were available. I just hope that by the time the subject of this motion becomes 18—or better still, well before then—it will no longer be necessary for a Member of Parliament to stand up in this House and cite such figures.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Winnick Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Would not the Deputy Prime Minister speak with more credibility about political funding if his party returned the £2.5 million given to it by a convicted criminal, Michael Brown? That money was stolen. Why not return it?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I know that things must be difficult for the hon. Gentleman at this time and that he wants to spread mud around the place, but the fact is that the issue in British politics today is how on earth it is possible that the Labour party—a so-called progressive party—is funded to the tune of £11 million by Unite, which hand-picks its parliamentary questions and its parliamentary candidates. That is why I repeat my sincere offer to use forthcoming legislation to turn the promises being made by his leader into action.

Afghanistan and EU Council

David Winnick Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend, who has a long track record of support for the EU, makes a very sensible point, which is that when it comes to this Bill on Friday, and when it comes to the issue of a referendum, people can either be in favour of holding an in/out referendum or they can be against holding an in/out referendum, but surely they must have an opinion. My hon. Friends and I will be voting for that Bill; we will be voting in the Lobby on Friday. What is Labour going to do? Is it simply going to decide it does not want to talk about this issue? I think the whole country will find that completely feeble.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Is it not surprising that, in view of the considerable concern that has been expressed abroad over US intelligence operations against friendly European countries, including EU offices in Washington and New York, there was apparently no discussion of that at the European Council? Surely it is an item that should have been considered, and perhaps the Prime Minister can give us his views about what the US has been doing.

[The Prime Minister]

I say the same thing publicly and privately, and in the European Council and this House, which is that I do not comment on national security and intelligence matters as I think that would be wrong, but I think it is important to remember that our security services operate under the law. We do not use co-operation with foreign intelligence services to get around our own procedures here in the UK, and it is worth remembering that the intelligence and security gathering we do is of huge benefit to those partners, including many in the EU, with whom we share it. It helps to keep us safe and it helps to keep them safe, and we should praise what our intelligence and security services do on our behalf.

G8

David Winnick Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. Everyone wants a negotiated solution and a peace process. We must think about what things will make a peace process and peace settlement more likely. Obviously, international agreement at the G8 is one of them, but we must also ensure that Assad feels he is under some pressure and cannot achieve what he wants by military means alone. That is where there is such unity of purpose between President Obama, President Hollande, myself, Angela Merkel and Stephen Harper. This is an important point to make to those who have concerns. They cannot think of President Obama as someone sitting in the White House dreaming up ways to start a new engagement or war in the middle east. That is not what Barack Obama is about. He knows that we need a peace process, but he also knows we need to present a tough and united front to President Assad in the process.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

The Syrian Government have brought their troubles on themselves. There is no doubt that they are a corrupt and brutal regime. Although the Prime Minister was keen to lift the arms embargo, there was no enthusiasm in this House for doing so and very few Members have stood up and said that they are in favour of sending arms to the Syrian opposition. The sooner we have a debate on this subject, the better.

[The Prime Minister]

We are debating it right now and we should go on debating it. We have not made a decision about arming the rebels. However, the fact that we are working with the opposition to help and advise them, along with the French, the Americans and our Gulf allies, is helpful in making sure that Syria has a legitimate opposition who want democracy, freedom and a pluralistic Syria. At the same time, we should have no hesitation in condemning extremism. We must work with everyone to say that the extremists on all sides, including Hezbollah, which is working for the regime, should be expelled from the country.

EU Council and Woolwich

David Winnick Excerpts

Monday 3rd June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

One of the things that this Government have done is allow Parliament to hold votes on issues that Parliament wants to vote on. In the first 10 years during which I was an MP, that was completely impossible. It can now happen, so Parliament has that opportunity whenever it wants to.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Has the Prime Minister noticed during the last few minutes how little enthusiasm there is in the House for lifting the arms embargo? Does he recognise that while we all deplore the terrible bloodshed in Syria, if arms are sent by France and this country, it is obvious that Russia will simply increase the amount of arms being sent? This is not the way to resolve the issue. The killing fields in Syria are bad enough; sending arms would just increase the killing.

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman should look at the effects of the EU arms embargo. Did it stop Assad getting every weapon he wanted from Russia? No, it did not. Did it stop extremists in Syria getting weapons? No, it did not. But did it stop the countries such France, Britain and America that wanted to engage with the official opposition from working with them and from providing technical assistance, help and advice? Yes, it did. The point is that we have made not a decision to supply the Syrian opposition with arms—that would be a separate decision—but a decision to lift the arms embargo that affected the Syrian opposition in the way we have seen. That was the right thing to do.

Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

David Winnick Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I do not doubt for one moment that Lady Thatcher was kind and considerate in her dealings with those who worked for her. Indeed, I would be surprised if that were not the position. No doubt some of her Cabinet colleagues would have appreciated, at least in the later stages, the same consideration. However, it would be wrong and hypocritical if the views that we expressed at the time—strong views about the policies pursued by Mrs Thatcher’s Government from 1979 to when she left office—were not mentioned today.

It is right and understandable that those who support her have spoken and will, I am sure, continue to speak in this debate, but the House is a place where opinion should be expressed freely, even if it is controversial, and those of us who so strongly disagreed with the policies pursued by Lady Thatcher should make our views clear today. It is more political than personal. Of course I regret, like everyone else, the passing of Lady Thatcher. I recognise that by becoming the first female Prime Minister in Britain, she made history, and that cannot be disputed. However, we have to remember what was done during the 11 years—or, to be exact, as she always was, the 11 and a half years—of her premiership in No. 10 Downing street and the way in which those policies were carried out. It was my view, and that of those on the Opposition Benches at the time, that those policies were highly damaging and that they caused immense pain and suffering to ordinary people.

I therefore believe that it is right that, while tributes are being paid to the life of Lady Thatcher, we should not forget what happened at that time. Those of us who were here in the House of Commons used every opportunity to protest on behalf of our constituents who were the victims of those policies, and we were not wrong to do so. This is not so much about Lady Thatcher herself as about the way in which, once the election had been won in 1979, it was decided to pursue policies that almost immediately—certainly within a year or two—caused the outcomes that I have mentioned.

In April to June 1979, the rate of unemployment was just over 5%. In March to May 1984, it was just under 12% and well over 3 million. Those are the percentages, but what did they mean in human terms for the men and women who were made redundant? As we said at the time, many of those people had worked all their lives since leaving school. When they were made redundant in their 50s, they discovered how unlikely it was that they would ever work again. We have to understand the human cost of the policies that have been praised today.

In 1979, 14% of children lived in relative poverty—that was bad enough; the fact that any children were living in poverty was to be deplored—but by 1991, 31% lived in such poverty. Are we really saying that those policies that Conservative Members have been praising today were unrelated to those children living in such poverty and deprivation? The fact that they were living in those conditions should certainly be deplored by Opposition Members.

I have heard it argued many times, not least today, that the policies undertaken by the Thatcher Government were almost inevitable, and that whoever had formed the Government of the day would have had to pursue policies of deindustrialisation involving the closing of factories, foundries and coal mines. But even if we accept that some of that was inevitable, the unfortunate thing was what I can only describe as the indifference to and, at times, brutal contempt for, those who had lost their jobs.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Winnick]

In a moment.

It almost seemed that, instead of offering support and understanding what that meant to the many people involved, the Government of the day blamed those people who were made redundant. It was as though it was their fault, and it was suggested that if only they had got on their bikes, as Lord Tebbit said his dad had done, they would have found work. That is what I mean by indifference and brutal contempt for people who, through no fault of their own, found themselves in circumstances that none of us would want. Does the hon. Gentleman still wish to intervene on me?

[David Morris]

I note that the hon. Gentleman would not give way to me a moment ago. I was made redundant at the time he was describing. I set up my own business thanks to Thatcherism, I made a success of it and here I am now, preaching it forward.

[Mr Winnick]

Does that not prove the point? So many people were not in a position to do what the hon. Gentleman did. What he said very much expresses Thatcherism. He says, “I was made redundant. I found another job. Here I am today.” What about all the others who were not in a position to do that? What about all the others I have mentioned––those in their 50s, who were never able to work again because, as they grew older, employers said that they were too near retirement age? My point could not be better illustrated, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for doing it.

In the black country and the west midlands, we were devastated by the two major recessions that occurred during the 1980s. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) referred to the terrible hardship suffered by mining communities. Many of us believe that the miners were treated with utter contempt. However much it could be said that Arthur Scargill played into Lady Thatcher’s hands, the manner in which the miners were treated is not likely to be forgotten by the communities involved. It is right and proper that that is said today, when tributes are being paid to the former Prime Minister.

Let me also just say this: mention was made, by the Prime Minister and others, of the fact that Lady Thatcher had a commitment to parliamentary democracy. I do not doubt that for one moment. She was long a Member of this House—32 years—and then went to the House of Lords, where she played an active role. It could be said that a certain Mr Gorbachev had a role to play in what happened in eastern Europe by the manner in which he made it perfectly clear, particularly to the East Germans, that the Russians would no longer, in any circumstances, bolster regimes that were totally discredited.

I do not want to dispute in any way the extent to which Lady Thatcher made a contribution in relation to eastern Europe. However, it is unfortunate, is it not, that she was so totally unsympathetic to the fight against apartheid in South Africa. To describe the African National Congress as a terrorist organisation and Nelson Mandela as a terrorist cannot be justified under any circumstances. I remember when Nelson Mandela came to Westminster Hall as a very distinguished visitor––as President of South Africa. We paid tribute to him and listened keenly to what he said. I could not but notice that in the front row listening to him was Lady Thatcher. I hope that by then she had realised that she had taken the wrong line on apartheid. We should not be concerned about freedom just in Europe, but in South Africa and Latin America. I was never a fan of Pinochet, a professional mass murderer.

Lady Thatcher was a divisive figure, and she would not for one moment have argued otherwise. One thing on which we can agree in this House is that “consensus” was not her favourite word. The Prime Minister mentioned former Prime Ministers. Of the two Prime Ministers who have made the greatest impression since 1945, in my view, and in the view of those on the Opposition Benches, Clement Attlee’s tremendous changes—the national health service, national insurance and the like—made Britain a far more civilised country. The other figure, to whom we are paying tribute today, is Lady Thatcher. She believed that much of what occurred post-1945 was wrong and should be undermined. My view remains that what the Attlee Government set out to do was absolutely right, and that what Lady Thatcher set out to do—undermine many of the changes brought about immediately after the second world war—was wrong. I know which side I am on.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Winnick Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Of course, we all know that times are very difficult and that the British economy is taking time to heal. That is why it is a great tribute to the Chancellor and his team that in the Budget we have none the less found measures that will take 2 million people on low pay out of paying income tax altogether, that will give small employers and businesses around the country £2,000 off to allow them to employ more people, and that included £1 billion extra for the aerospace industry. It means that people will not face the higher petrol and fuel prices they would have faced under Labour, and it has got rid of the beer escalator and made sure that we ease the squeeze on household budgets.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Given that the Deputy Prime Minister has changed his mind on cash bonds for some visitors coming to the UK—a very different policy from the one he advocated in his Opposition days—could he put in the Library a list of the items he believed in and argued for before the election, but which he no longer believes in and, indeed, has totally changed his position on?

Royal Charter on Press Conduct

David Winnick Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Two important but relatively small legislative changes need to be made. Let me explain what they are. First, Lord Justice Leveson said—the Government agreed at the time—that, in order to create an incentive for newspapers to take part in the system, we should establish a system of exemplary costs and damages that would not apply to newspapers that take part. We have accepted that recommendation and will be legislating for it—it can be done only via legislation.

I will come on to the second change we are making, but we are not embedding the charter in legislation or legislating about it; we are simply repeating the words of the charter. The charter says clearly that it can be changed only if there is a vote of two thirds of this House and two thirds of the House of Lords. Why have we put that in the charter? We have put that in the charter because we want to make it difficult to change the charter. We will repeat exactly that point in legislation in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill. The legislation is to protect the royal charter; it is not legislation to recognise the royal charter.

I believe it would be wrong to run even the slightest risk of infringing free speech or a free press in that way. As Winston Churchill said:

“A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny”.

Today, by rejecting statutory regulation but being in favour of a royal charter, the House has defended that principle. I very much welcome the agreement that we have on the withdrawal of amendments from the amendment paper that would have created a new press law in our country—the amendments will either be withdrawn or, if they are pressed to a Division, we have agreed that we should all oppose them.

Let me set out for the House the cross-party agreement on the royal charter. As I have said, the new system of press regulation will deliver Lord Justice Leveson’s principles, including up-front apologies and £1 million fines. As I have just explained, we will use the Crime and Courts Bill to table the minimal legislative clauses needed to put in place those incentives, which Lord Justice Leveson regarded as important. They will give all newspapers a strong incentive to participate in the voluntary scheme of self-regulation.

Exemplary damages will be available against publishers who do not join a regulator if they utterly disregard the rights of ordinary people. We will also change the rules on costs in civil claims against publishers so that there is a strong incentive to come inside the regulator, with its independent arbitration system.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I am keen that there should be agreement between the three parties and welcome the agreement, but can the Prime Minister explain why the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has spent a great deal of time on the airwaves bad-mouthing the Labour party and giving the impression that the Opposition want to undermine press freedom? That is not true, and he knows it.

[The Prime Minister]

I commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the incredible work that she and others have put in. Her point was that it is important that we go down the royal charter route rather than the legislation route. That has been our position consistently, because we do not want a situation in which politicians can meddle with the system. That is why we have agreed the no-change clause in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, which will be debated tonight in another place. The measure will have the effect that the charter, now that it has been so carefully agreed, can be amended only if the process contained within it is followed. As I have said, that means that both Houses of Parliament must agree to a motion for change by a two-thirds majority.

Let me be clear. This is not by any stretch statutory regulation of the press, and nor is it statutory recognition of either the self-regulatory body or the recognition body.

Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

David Winnick Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) does no service to the causes in which she believes by the extraordinary exaggeration of her remarks, although she is not the only one. I noticed, for example, that Shami Chakrabarti—who really ought to know better—referred to:

“Government arguments for morphing British courts into shadowy Soviet-style commissions”,

and that Amnesty International said that the system could come

“straight from the pages of a Kafka novel”.

The hon. Lady must try to rely on facts and not on rhetoric. For example, we have the constant use of the phrase “secret courts” but there are to be no secret courts. We are talking about cases in which the vast majority of evidence will be heard in open session. If closed material procedures do apply, they will apply usually to a very modest part of the total evidence. Thousands of civil cases are brought each year and estimates for how many cases would be affected by CMPs are somewhere between seven and 15 a year. The idea that we are transforming our society into one in which civil liberties are not recognised does not bear credence.

I have been somewhat amused by the extraordinary affection that has grown over the past 15 years for public interest immunity certificates. As I mentioned earlier, I signed one of those and I remember hearing howls of execration from the Labour Benches at the time and from the whole civil liberties movement. We were told that public interest immunity certificates were going to send innocent people to jail and do all sorts of terrible things that were incompatible with a free society. Well, we have moved on. Those who denigrated PIIs now see them as a way of preserving our liberties against evil Governments, intelligence agencies and the like.

Let us consider the views of those who have had greatest involvement in such matters, and remind the House what has been said by two people when comparing PIIs with closed material procedures. Lord Carlile, formerly a Liberal Democrat Member of this House and independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said:

“CMP hearings, with special advocates representing the interests of the individual litigant concerned, are fairer and more searching than the significantly more secretive PII hearings process.”

Lord Justice Woolf, in addition to other remarks that have been cited, said he thought Lord Carlile was right and that

“in most situations that are covered by the Bill the result will be preferable to both sides”—

that is crucial; it will be preferable not just to the Government or the defendants, but to the plaintiff as well—

“if the closed hearing procedure is adopted rather than PII, because PII has the very unfortunate effect that you cannot rely on the material that is in issue, whereas both the claimant and the Government”—

not just the Government; the claimant as well—

“may want to rely on that material. That is a good reason for having the closed-hearing procedure.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 July 2012; Vol. 738, c. 1189.]

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman clarify whether that is the same Lord Carlile who argued endlessly in defence and justification of 90-days pre-charge detention?

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Goggins]

I shall try to be brief, as I know that other Members wish to speak. It is a pleasure to follow my colleague, the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind). I am sure that it was music to the Minister’s ears to hear a speech from his own Benches in support of the Bill. I know that he welcomes the fact that there have been a number of speeches from the Opposition Benches, of which this is another, that are broadly in support of the Bill.

There are two fundamental arguments in favour of the direction that the Government are taking. The first is the need to deal with the present inability of the security and intelligence agencies to defend themselves against civil claims. That point has been debated over the past few hours. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) did the House a great service by reminding us that we are talking not about bits of paper, but about human sources of intelligence. We are talking about human beings, and the agencies have a fundamental responsibility to protect the lives of those people. Even in the course of protecting their own interests, they can do nothing to undermine the safety and security of those people. Those are vital obligations to human beings, not to scraps of paper with information written on them. The idea that any serious judge would grant closed material proceedings in relation to intelligence that might prove embarrassing or slightly awkward for an agency is preposterous. This is all about highly sensitive intelligence, about sources and about methods.

The second element that makes the legislation imperative is the need to make the agencies themselves more accountable. I do not want to see a PII one-way street that allows an agency to hide material completely or to settle out of court. If intelligence exists that there has been wrongdoing in the agencies, I want that evidence to be considered by the judge and to be weighed in the balance when conclusions are reached.

Reflecting on the debates on these matters, I believe that it should be possible to close the gap between the Front Benches on the ability of the judge to choose the appropriate route to take. I think I heard the Minister say earlier that, even at this late stage, he was prepared to go away and give further consideration to that issue. If there are further opportunities to do so, I hope that he and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) will reach consensus on this point. The Minister has come some way towards that by tabling amendment 47, and that is helpful. The court must now be satisfied that the Secretary of State has considered whether to make an application for PII, and that goes some way in the right direction. I encourage him and my right hon. Friend to try to close what remains of the gap between them. As far as I am concerned, the last resort should be the PII. I cannot agree with the hierarchy set out by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I want less secrecy and there is less secrecy through closed material proceedings.

On the Wiley test and the substantive difference that clearly still exists between the two Front Benches, I urge further and fresh consideration, if that is possible. I am not a lawyer, as may be evident to anyone who has ever heard me speak on these matters, but if the decision is whether the material should be in or out, then a test of open justice is a fair test, and that is the test that applies in PII. However, if the decision is about closed material proceedings, then, frankly, that is a decision about whether the material is fully in or not fully in. If a judge can see it but others cannot, and if the merits of a particular piece of intelligence can be weighed by the judge, clearly that is a more difficult and complex judgment. It therefore does not surprise me, as a non-lawyer, to know that a different test from the Wiley test may need to be applied.

Amendment 30, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting, sets the bar too high, but I encourage further consideration wherever possible. There are various stages to the closed material procedure. There has to be consideration on whether to enter the process in the first place, and on whether the process should end. Therefore, there has to be an appropriate test and further thought on it, but I think that my right hon. Friend sets the bar too high.

[Mr Winnick]

My right hon. Friend talked about a consensus in this House. I hope there will be the maximum amount of opposition to the proposals. Does he dismiss out of hand the number of people—distinguished lawyers who cannot be lumped together as hopeless liberals and so on—who believe that the proposals, which will no doubt be carried, erode the rule of law? We should be very concerned about what is happening.

[Paul Goggins]

My hon. Friend knows me well enough to know that I do not dismiss critics of the Bill. I listen to them carefully; I just happen to disagree with them. The same applies to my hon. Friend: I listen carefully to what he says on this issue. Sometimes we agree and sometimes we disagree, and I sense that we will disagree on this. I am making a plea for further attempts to achieve consensus, but I am making it clear that if there is no consensus then I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting is setting the bar too high.

On inquests, I am sorry that the Minister did not take an intervention from me earlier. I would be delighted to take an intervention from him at any stage in the next couple of minutes. I am grateful to Members who supported my amendment 70, which would make closed material proceedings available for inquests as well as civil proceedings. We just need an explanation from the Minister on why the Bill proposes CMPs for civil cases, but does not propose them for inquests. That was in the original plan. He knows that senior members of the Government and senior judges think it is nonsense and inconsistent to have one and not the other.

Succession to the Crown Bill (Allocation of Time)

David Winnick Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

As I am already married—

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

He would if he could.

[Keith Vaz]

But I am a Catholic—