Hillsborough Families Report: National Police Response

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and agree with his point about the policing failures at the time. It is right that the police comprehensively apologised yesterday for the police’s behaviour, both at the time and in the years subsequently. As I say, the consultation on the independent public advocate did happen, and it is under active consideration at the moment. I do not want to pre-empt the Ministry of Justice’s work on that, because it is for the Ministry of Justice to publicly respond, but I can tell my hon. Friend and others that they are actively working on it at the moment.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

It is an absolute disgrace that the Home Secretary was sat on the Government Benches just before this debate started, but has left—a debate about a disaster that has no parallel, in terms of what happened and the injustice that took place. I am quite sure that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) would never have left the Front Bench in these circumstances.

Mr Deputy Speaker, as you may be aware, I have a number of constituents who lost loved ones at Hillsborough, and I myself was present that day at the disaster. As I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) will agree, my hon. Friend and I are so proud to have been privy to the work of the Hillsborough families over the years in fighting for justice. Part of the injustice that has existed over the years—apart from the general injustice—was the continued delays, the time it took to try to get to justice and get to the bottom of what went wrong, even though we all knew, and to get the report out. It took a long, long time, and this is adding to the torture of the families and those people who were affected by Hillsborough, so the Minister saying that he hopes to have a response by the spring is just not good enough. I ask him to come back to the House before the recess in February with an actual date for when that response will be given to the House.

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Member for his question, particularly given that he has such direct personal experience of the tragedy that unfolded—that he was there himself, all those years ago. I agree that speed of resolution is now important after all this time: too much time has passed, and I can give the hon. Member my assurance that I want this done as soon as possible. It is something I have personally pressed for since arriving, and I will be doing everything I can to expedite this process and get the comprehensive response published as quickly as possible.

National Security

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

My hon. Friend is quite right to talk about international co-operation, because this is not something that we can do alone. Our partners around the world are absolutely integral to our defence. Through agencies such as GCHQ and wider work through the National Cyber Security Centre, the United Kingdom has regularly been leading different forms of engagement and different ways of co-operation. My hon. Friend has my absolute commitment that that will continue and grow, because the way we extend the UK’s influence and defend ourselves is by making sure that our friends and allies are safe, too.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to his post and welcome the taskforce. While I have no reason to doubt his integrity or commitment to security, I am a little disappointed that although the shadow Home Secretary and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) both raised the issue of the Government’s integrity with respect to security, he has not addressed it. I thought he might have taken that opportunity, given the situation with Ministers’ email use and the security issues surrounding it. We know that mobile phones and other phones are being used, we have seen the former Prime Minister going off to meet an ex-KGB agent, and there is an issue about Russian money in the Conservative party. I thought that the Minister would address the question of how we can have confidence that he and the Government will put things right to ensure that they take security within the Government seriously.

The question that I want to ask the Minister is very simple. Given that the focus has rightly been on Russia and China, on what is happening in Ukraine—obviously—and on energy security, may I suggest that it is important for us not to lose sight of the fact that we need to keep on top of the issue of how we combat terrorism? It seems to have been left on the back burner recently, but we need to know and feel more comfortable about what the Government intend to do to protect the country from terrorism.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. He is absolutely right. There is, sadly, no let-up in the concern about terrorism, and we know that the fact that we do not hear of incidents does not mean they were not prevented by our fantastic agencies in various different ways. The experience that I think must be the most sobering I have had for a long time was walking into my present role and hearing an update on the threats that we face every day, and the different ways in which our fantastic agencies and the officers who serve them have been conducting themselves in order to protect us. They are absolutely the best of us, and we are blessed and honoured to have them working for us and serving our state.

As for the hon. Gentleman’s other points, he will forgive me if I do not go into details. He knows why that is. As the shadow Home Secretary correctly said, it would be inappropriate to discuss operational matters for party advantage.

Salisbury Incident 2018: Update

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. Today’s judgment and ruling from the ECHR is important and significant, particularly in the context of what we are speaking about. He is also right to touch on some of the other issues he has mentioned, which obviously link to our work in the Home Office in dealing with illegal migration. There is always more we can do and we would welcome greater support, through some of the courts, to help us in how we tackle some of these very challenging issues.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. We now know that not one, not two, but three Russian agents were able to get into this country by basically just walking into the airport. In the statement, the Home Secretary talked about

“new powers to enable the police to stop, question, search, and detain individuals…to determine whether they are spies or otherwise”.

Does she believe that those new powers would have prevented the three individuals from getting into this country?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point with his question. The fact of the matter is that those powers were introduced as a direct response to the Salisbury attack, as part of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, to enable the police to effectively stop, question, search and detain individuals. Those powers came in after the attack and there is no doubt that they would have made a difference at that particular time. The fact of the matter is that those powers are now being used in the way we have spoken about and to which I referred in my statement. On a day-to-day basis people are being stopped, detained and asked significant questions. As I said in my statement, we will look at everything—all measures—in terms of how we not only protect our border but prevent individuals with malign intent from coming to our country.

Serious Violence Strategy

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and shall return to those issues later in my speech.

We welcome the broad themes in the serious violence strategy—tackling county lines; early intervention and prevention; supporting communities and local partnership; and law enforcement and the criminal justice response—but I hope the Minister will agree that it is reasonable to talk about resources when we discuss those themes. For some time, Ministers claimed that they were protecting the police budget and that crime was going down. I am glad to hear them now admit that there is a major problem with serious violence, the crime about which people are most frightened and concerned.

In the latest 12 months, police recorded gun crime is up 11% and knife crime is up 22%. There are widespread reports of serious violent crime, including knife crime, throughout the country. Reported deaths have risen sharply from the beginning of this year. Ministers have said that the Home Office serious violence strategy is designed to address all that. In her foreword to the report, the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), said that £40 million of public funds have been committed to the strategy and that it is a

“significant programme of work involving a range of Government Departments and partners, in the public, voluntary and private sectors.”

Are Ministers really telling us that the resources that they are promising are adequate? To be clear, in the past 12 months the police recorded almost 40,000 knife crime offences and well over 6,000 firearms offences; the funding allocated to discourage, prevent, divert and detect serious weapons-related violent crimes is therefore just a few hundred pounds for each offence.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an important point about resources, and it is clear that there are not enough. As she rightly says, it is about not just big cities but towns, too, and it is also about having the resources to detect and prevent crime and to get the intelligence. That is one of the biggest problems. It is about not only having police officers on the streets but being able to prevent crime in the first place.

[Ms Abbott]

My hon. Friend is right. We talk about the lack of resources because the role of the police is not just to detect crime and prosecute; the role of the police is to be in communities and to know what is going on, and to be trusted stakeholders with whom community groups, parents, schools and others can work. If we do not have the police officers on the ground, that affects our ability to respond to serious violence, in more than one way. It is unclear from the Government’s published strategy whether there is any new money at all or if it has just been stripped from the existing police budget, which has already been cut in real terms since 2010.

When we look at stakeholders’ response to the strategy, we see their scepticism about the level of resources. The chair of the Local Government Association’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board said:

“Only with the right funding and powers can councils continue to make a difference to people’s lives by supporting families and young people and help tackle serious violent crime”.

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services said:

“The strategy emphasises the importance of local communities and partnerships yet provides little for local authorities to develop local responses”.

If Ministers are to be taken seriously on this issue, they have to listen to what stakeholders say about resources.

Health, Social Care and Security

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I congratulate you on your election today, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The Queen’s Speech set out no strategy and no answers to solve the crisis of both staffing and funding in the health service. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, when the Conservatives were in power for so long, we saw a massive crisis, and that has been repeated under the Conservative Governments of the last seven years. There is not enough funding and not enough staff. The Government have done nothing to solve the crisis, but it needs funding.

Take trolley waits, for example. A recent Library paper says that in 2012-13 there were 152,754 trolley waits, and in 2016-17 there were 563,901. That is a disgrace, and it shows that the NHS needs to be funded properly. We have talked about the GP crisis, and the Library paper says that the estimate for this year is that the number of GPs will fall—although the number is now calculated differently. In my constituency and others, people cannot get to see a GP when they want to, and there is a real crisis in GP practices.

NHS deficits are still a problem and are estimated to be at least £7 billion. Some commentators claim that not even that figure is high enough to be correct. More than 100 NHS trusts have a deficit—when I last spoke to the chief executive of Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the deficit was about £5 million. We know the stress and worry the staff face because they do not have the resources they need.

Clinical commissioning groups have not been mentioned much, but the Government fragmented the health service through the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and it is not clear where to go for a decision or to get something done. I have regular meetings with my clinical commissioning group, and it has a serious funding problem, as do many CCGs. What will the Government do about that? I also ask the Secretary of State, who is in his place, why Halton CCG is mainly working in collaboration with Warrington CCG and not with the other CCGs in the local health economy, as it should. I have already raised that problem with the CCG, but it has not done anything about it. I hope that the Secretary of State will look into that.

The Care Quality Commission said clearly last year that social care was at a tipping point. The delays have been discussed many times in the House, and the Secretary of State knows that I have raised them. The Library paper states that delayed transfers were 24.5% higher in 2016-17 than in 2015-16, and 64% higher than in 2011-12. This is a real problem. The Government, despite talking about a Green Paper, have still not come forward with a strategy. There needs to be proper funding for local councils—my council has had £57 million cut from its budget—and proper funding for the NHS and the health economies of each area.

Education is the other big issue that is raised with me. Again, the Government have not set out a strategy, and the Queen’s Speech does not address it in the way it should be addressed. There are cuts taking place. I have been talking to headteachers in my constituency and they are making cuts as we speak, particularly in teaching assistants, but some are talking about cutting teachers as well. This mess is best summed up by reading an extract of a letter from a headteacher in my constituency:

“At my school, we manage the budget prudently and we have rising numbers so have received similar funding for 17/18 as for 16/17. In fact there has been a small increase of just over £1,000. Despite this, without any planned increase in spending on teachers or resources, I am unable to balance the budget. The increased costs for areas such as Employers NI, pension contributions, apprenticeship levy, salaries and utilities has meant that I don’t have the capacity”—

I stress this—

“to set a balanced budget without making reductions and using our carry forward. For 2018/19 the school will almost certainly need to undertake a re-structuring programme to reduce staffing costs. This will inevitably impact on the teaching and learning, at a time when we have increasing pupil numbers.”

I talk to teachers and headteachers on a regular basis and I know the stress they are under. It is not just an issue of better pay—although, of course, they would like more pay—but one of workload, which is a key factor in the problems and stress they face. I want to put on the record my praise for teachers and their work. The Government’s proposed new funding formula will see huge cuts in all but one secondary school in my constituency. That will not address the problem; it will make it worse. The new funding formula is not up to scratch.

Finally on education, further education colleges have been cut and cut over the years. We talk about apprenticeships and the need to ensure that we have the skills to improve productivity. We need to ensure that our further education colleges, which can deliver them, have the funding they need to do so. We cannot achieve an improvement in productivity and skills without that.

In the few seconds I have remaining, I want to talk about defence and security. We have heard about police numbers. My constituents tell me that they want more police in their community and on the streets. We have specialist security, police and intelligence teams, but my constituents want more police officers on the street.

The Government have cut and cut the armed forces. We now have our smallest Army since the Napoleonic wars. At a time when there is so much stress in the world and so many challenges, that is appalling. The Government should increase the amount of money available for our security and armed forces.

Orlando Attack: UK Security Measures

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman is right, and I think we should take that message of love and tolerance, and we should be very clear that we condemn these sorts of prejudices that, as he says, can be taught and encouraged and sadly in some places are being taught and encouraged. They are not part of the society that we wish to live in, the values we share and the tolerance and respect for others that we want to see across the whole of the United Kingdom.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I want to place on record my condemnation of the terrible attacks in Orlando. It seems that ISIS is being pushed back in certain parts of the middle east and we are seeing fighters fleeing from its strongholds, a number of whom are coming across to Europe, and some may come back to the UK, Given that, is the Secretary of State satisfied that extra measures are in place to deal with this possible influx of additional ISIS fighters coming back to Europe and that co-operation is of a sufficient level with other European countries?

[Mrs May]

Yes, of course we look at people who are returning on a case-by-case basis to see what action is necessary. We increased the powers of the police in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, not least with the temporary exclusion orders that enable the police to work with other countries, in Europe particularly, and with places in the UK where someone might be returning to from Syria. They help to manage the return of any such individuals, and we do co-operate very closely with EU colleagues on these matters.

Hillsborough

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Of course, as a Member of this House he has taken forward causes that others have stood against and tried to resist, and he has been successful in that work. He is absolutely right. What came out of the independent panel report was astonishing. People were truly shocked by the fact that they had heard that statements had been altered in order to show a different picture from what had actually happened. That is appalling and it should never happen again.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

May I put on the record my thanks to the Home Secretary for her statement, and praise the magnificent courage and steadfastness of the families of the 96 in their campaign?

After the publication of the 2012 independent panel report, I reread my match-day programme from 15 April 1989 and was struck by this comment by the chairman of Sheffield Wednesday football club:

“As you look around Hillsborough you will appreciate why it has been regarded for so long as the perfect venue for all kinds of important matches.”

Such statements underline the complacency and total disregard for the safety of football supporters.

I have two brief questions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) mentioned the current chief constable of South Yorkshire police. Is the Home Secretary aware that the statement he made in 2012 apologising to fans is still on the website? He said:

“I am profoundly sorry for the way the force failed…and I am doubly sorry for the injustice that followed”,

and yet the fools representing the police at the inquest went over the same argument again, putting the families through torture.

Finally, of course we should focus on South Yorkshire police, but what about West Midlands police? It was responsible for the investigation and, as we have seen from yesterday’s result, it was a sham, complacent and a complete waste of time. What is the Home Secretary doing to make sure that it is held accountable for what it did?

[Mrs May]

As the hon. Gentleman says, the comment from the match-day programme shows the extraordinary complacency. As I indicated in my statement, there were several questions that related not just to Sheffield Wednesday football club, but to the engineers who designed the stadium. The jury was very clear that there were problems with the design of the stadium and with the certification process. There are some very real questions for those in authority of various sorts who allowed a game to take place in a ground with those particular problems.

Obviously, the IPCC is looking at the aftermath of the event. Operation Resolve is looking at the lead-up to the deaths of the 96 men, women and children. In doing so, it will, of course, look across the board at the work of police officers. I assure the hon. Gentleman that my understanding is that the evidence taken will cover things done by West Midlands police as well as South Yorkshire police.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I underline the important work in confronting crimes linked to those working illegally. In 2015, more than 38,000 people were removed or deported from the UK, including a 28% increase in voluntary returns. That highlights the fact that people realise that it is so much tougher to get work here.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

What recent discussions have Ministers had with chief constables about the growing menace of scrambler bikes being ridden recklessly on our roads, with the potential to cause great accidents, usually by young men wearing masks and without number plates?

[Mike Penning]

I had those sorts of discussions when I was at the Department for Transport, and we continue to have them. Unlicensed, unauthorised and unsafe vehicles on the roads are a menace, and the police should use all the powers they have.

Brussels Terrorist Attacks

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

We have regular meetings, both at official and ministerial level, with a variety of internet and communication service providers to discuss their interaction with the Investigatory Powers Bill and the powers our law enforcement and security agency services in accessing this information. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this is important. As more and more people are communicating across the internet, we need to ensure that powers in this area are available to our agencies and the police. That is exactly what we are doing in the Investigatory Powers Bill.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. It became clear following the Paris attacks that there were deficiencies in intelligence and policing linked to what was happening in Belgium. Is she happy that we have learned the lessons of those failures and that they have been carried forward to the intelligence services in this country?

[Mrs May]

The intelligence services in this country obviously look at any attack that takes place elsewhere in the world and at the information available to see what lessons we need to learn. The key has been the increase in co-operation and intelligence sharing off the back of these attacks. It is important we learn lessons when things happen. Of course, because of the attacks we have sadly suffered in the past, the UK has developed, particularly post 7/7, ways of dealing with these issues, and we are working and sharing our experience with others.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I would say two things to the right hon. Gentleman. First, as I have just been outlining, we face today a different threat background from that we faced in recent years. Also, if he looks carefully at the Bill, he will see that we are not simply reintroducing a power of relocation into the TPIMs. We have taken on board the recommendations of the independent reviewer of counter-terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC, who did propose the reintroduction of relocation, but who also proposed a number of other changes to TPIMs, which we are introducing, including the raising of the threshold for the introduction of TPIMs from “reasonable suspicion” to “the balance of probabilities”.

We have worked hard to make it easier to get rid of undesirable foreign nationals, including terrorists and terror suspects. We have changed the law to make it clear to the courts that article 8 of the European convention on human rights, the right to respect for a family life, is qualified and not an absolute right. We have significantly reformed the Prevent pillar of the counter-terrorism strategy so that it is tackles the ideology behind the threat, and we are working with the internet industry to remove terrorist material hosted in the UK or overseas. Since December last year, the counter-terrorism internet referral unit has secured the removal of over 46,000 items that encouraged or glorified acts of terrorism.

The emergency legislation that Parliament approved in the summer ensured that two important capabilities, communications data and interception, were not eroded further. Both of these capabilities are absolutely crucial to the investigation of those involved in terrorist activity.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Is the right hon. Lady satisfied that we now have enough interception powers, or not?

[Mrs May]

If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the power to issue warrants on companies who offer services in the UK but who are based overseas or the holding of whose data is based overseas, we addressed precisely that issue in the legislation introduced in the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 that this House put through under emergency powers in the summer.

So we are taking action at home, but we must also have a comprehensive strategy to defeat these extremists abroad. This involves using all the resources at our disposal: humanitarian efforts to help those displaced by ISIL’s onslaught—efforts that Britain is already leading—and diplomatic efforts to engage the widest possible coalition of countries in the region as part of this international effort.