Contaminated Blood

Debate between Diana Johnson and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson]

I absolutely agree—

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson]

And I will give way to the hon. Lady.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, particularly as she has made such great inroads on this subject; I commend her for that. Does she agree that it is completely unacceptable, particularly in the context she has set out, that any reform the Government introduce should make sick people even worse off? That seems to be the height of injustice. One of my constituents will lose £500 a month, and another, Graham Manning, is in the Gallery today. They need to see that justice is being done. That has to be a bottom line.

[Diana Johnson]

I agree entirely. Let me return to the point I was making about liability and the need now to put in place a proper support package, recognising the wrong that has been done. For far too long, the Department of Health has not done that. It appears to me that it has been far more interested in protecting the institutional reputation of the Department and of the NHS than in looking to right a wrong.

In the last Parliament, a concerted effort, from all parties, was made to seek a lasting settlement for all our constituents. The all-party group on haemophilia and contaminated blood led the way in producing a report showing that the current financial arrangements were not fit for purpose, were ad hoc and were overly bureaucratic. The right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) worked alongside the all-party group, with the Prime Minister’s office, to finally get an apology made in Parliament and an agreement that the Government would consult on a proper support package for all those affected. The Prime Minister’s apology a year ago and the announcement that £25 million would be made available for transitional support was very welcome. So, too, was the promise that there would be a full consultation on a comprehensive support package. I must say to the Minister that not one penny of that badly needed £25 million has yet been spent, and that the consultation on the new support scheme was announced only on 21 January this year—some nine months after the Prime Minister’s statement.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Diana Johnson and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 9th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson]

Part 2 of the Bill relates to terrorism prevention and investigation measures. This grouping includes clauses 12 to 16 as well as Labour’s amendments, so I intend to use my contribution to address all the issues concerning TPIMs in part 2. The amendments are all probing, as we are broadly supportive of the changes the clauses introduce, especially the U-turn on relocation powers, which clause 12 reintroduces.

The Home Secretary introduced TPIMs in the first Session of this Parliament to replace Labour’s control orders. She claimed at the time that that was a fundamental rebalancing of security and liberty. In fact, there were only two major differences between control orders and TPIMs, or control orders-lite, as they have been called: the relocation power and the two-year limit. She also said that she had been forced to introduce TPIMs because too many control orders were being challenged in the courts. Although judicial oversight was of course a key element of the control orders regime, the courts had continued to find that control orders, including the power to relocate, were both necessary and proportionate in a number of cases, including all those that were later transferred to TPIMs.

I think that every Member of this House would agree that it is always better to prosecute individuals, wherever possible, for terrorist offences. No one wants TPIMs or control orders; we would all much rather see prosecutions for those involved in terrorism activity. However, in a very small number of cases evidence is inadmissible, for example because it would compromise security, and therefore prosecutions cannot be brought. That means we need an alternative measure to deal with the threat those individuals pose.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that TPIMs have never led to a terrorism-related prosecution and that they are therefore not only against human rights, but counter-productive and ineffective?

[Diana Johnson]

If the hon. Lady will bear with me, I will move on to that point shortly, because one of the claims that the Government made was that the new regime would lead to more prosecutions.

It is worth remembering that we are talking about a very small number of individuals, but they pose a serious danger to the public and we need some powers to manage that risk. David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has made it clear that those who are subject to TPIM notices are accused of terrorist activities

“at the highest end of seriousness, even by the standards of international terrorism.”

TPIMs are a set of restrictions imposed on an individual who is suspected of, but has not been convicted for, involvement in terrorism. A TPIM order, like a control order, is imposed at the behest of the Home Secretary, with judicial oversight, but can be appealed to the High Court, which must find that the TPIM and all the measures it includes are both necessary and proportionate.

When the Government scrapped the control order regime, they argued that their new regime would allow more suspects to be prosecuted—this relates to the point just made by the hon. Lady. The Security Minister has repeatedly said that the aim of the regime was to secure more prosecutions and that extra resources were being provided to achieve that. I wonder whether he could confirm today exactly how many successful prosecutions for terrorist-related activity there have been for individuals on TPIMs. Like the hon. Lady, I understand that there has not been one successful such prosecution. David Anderson has commented that the TPIMs regime has not aided the prosecution of individuals, and the Joint Committee on Human Rights has stated that it

“failed to find any evidence that TPIMs have led in practice to any more criminal prosecutions of terrorism suspects.”

All three of the prosecutions attempted in 2012 for breaching the conditions of TPIM orders collapsed. When Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed absconded, he had just answered bail on 20 charges relating to breaches of his TPIM. Some of those breaches lay on the file for 18 months. Given that prosecutions were meant to be a priority, as the Government had said on numerous occasions, perhaps the Minister can explain why he thinks there was such a delay in taking that case to court and whether the Government actually opposed Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed being granted bail. Will he also confirm how he believes the changes proposed in part 2 will deliver what he had attempted to do when the TPIMs regime first came in—secure more prosecutions?

The number of people on TPIMs, as with control orders, has remained very small, but they are believed to pose a serious threat. There were nine people on the control orders regime when it ended in January 2012, all of whom were British citizens, and the Crown Prosecution Service has consistently said that none of them could be prosecuted. All those individuals were transferred to TPIM orders, and another individual was subsequently put on a TPIM order. We believe that there is currently just one person on a TPIM order. It would be helpful if the Minister could confirm that when he speaks.

There are other concerns about the TPIMs regime. In January 2014, the Joint Committee on Human Rights stated:

“We are left with the impression that in practice TPIMs may be withering on the vine as a counter-terrorism tool of practical utility”.

I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to those comments and how he feels that part 2 will deal with some of the criticisms raised.

I now turn to clause 12 and the issue of relocation, and amendment 4. As I said, the key difference between control orders and the TPIMs regime was the power of relocation, which was removed. It is helpful to give specific examples of how the relocation power was used under the control orders regime and the effects of the changes introduced by the coalition through the TPIMs legislation.

UK Drugs Policy

Debate between Diana Johnson and Caroline Lucas

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Like every other Member here today, I welcome the opportunity to debate this matter. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing the debate. It has been a high-quality and wide-ranging debate. We have heard from two Select Committee Chairs. We have talked about prescription drugs, prisons and the international issues that we need to address.

I welcome the international comparators report which was published today. It received a lot of media hype overnight. I found it quite difficult to get a copy of the report until the Home Office provided a link to the Table Office at about 11 am, so I have not had a chance to digest the contents of the report fully. It has been a long time coming and it is a shame that we could not have had it a few days earlier so that we could have reflected on it in full.

I was rather bemused this morning to hear the Minister on Radio 4. I was not quite sure whether he was speaking as the Minister or as a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, as the Home Office later put out a contradictory statement. Perhaps he can clarify whether he is speaking on behalf of the Government today. I know that he has had difficulty in the past in speaking on behalf of the Government, and that he had to absent himself from the khat debate because he did not agree with the Government’s policy on khat.

The report on legal highs has also been published today alongside the international comparators report. Again, we welcome this, but it has been a long time coming. We on the Labour Benches called for the issue to be tackled much earlier; the growing market in legal highs has been allowed to flourish over the past few years. We are pleased to see the report. I pay tribute to Maryon Stewart and the Angelus Foundation, who have pushed the issue of legal highs and the need for legislation to deal with the problems that have developed.

Three key issues on legal highs emerge from the report, on which I hope the Minister will be able to reassure me. First, I hope there will be a comprehensive prevention and awareness campaign on legal highs. Secondly, we need a clear legislative framework to try to disrupt the supply of new psychoactive substances and stop headshops proliferating on our high streets. Thirdly—perhaps this should have been the starting point—we need a proper framework for assessing the scale and the danger of legal highs. We need to know when legal highs enter the UK and what dangers they pose. I hope the Minister may be able to assist with that today.

Of course, we all want to look at the evidence. In the Home Affairs Committee report, one of the first bullet points in the key facts section states:

“England and Wales has almost the lowest recorded level of drug use in the adult population since measurement began in 1996. Individuals reporting use of any drug in the last year fell significantly from 11.1% in 1996 to 8.9% in 2011-12. There was also a substantial fall in the use of cannabis from 9.5% in 1996 to 6.9% in 2011-12.”

Let us consider all the evidence and see what is happening.

I want to focus on treatment and all the comments that have been made today about the situation in Portugal, which is a key part of the international comparators report. Little has been made of the fact that the trends in Britain are very similar to what has happened in Portugal. It is important to remember that the changes in drug laws in Portugal were accompanied by significant investment in drug treatment, as we have had in the United Kingdom. When we examine drug harms and what has had an impact, it is not clear that a change in legislation is the driving force.

[Caroline Lucas]

I want to make sure that there is no risk of complacency creeping into the hon. Lady’s remarks. It is important to know that there were 2,000 drug-related deaths in England and Wales in 2013 and a 32% increase in heroin and morphine-related deaths. The number of deaths involving both legal and illegal drugs last year was at its highest level since 2001. There are different ways in which we can look at the figures, but the bottom line is that we need a review of the evidence. Will she support that?

[Diana Johnson]

I do not want to be considered complacent, but we need to get all the evidence on the table so that we can assess it. There is some merit in looking at what has happened regarding treatment in this country over the past 10 to 12 years. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction says that this country is well ahead of comparators. In 2010 60% of opioid users were in treatment. That compares with 12% in the Netherlands and 25% in Sweden, so I am not sure that I agree with the motion that the status quo is failing. Drug-related deaths among the under-30s have halved in a decade, and it has been calculated that getting people into drug treatment has prevented 4.9 million crimes being committed, saving the economy £960 million. This is evidence that we should all consider.

Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Debate between Diana Johnson and Caroline Lucas

Thursday 7th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson]

It is helpful to know that. However, time is pressing, so I shall move on to amendment 76. The Minister spent a fair amount of time discussing the amendment and the issues that he considered arose from it. It would exempt all proceedings of the ISC from civil, criminal or disciplinary proceedings¸ which would protect members of the Committee, staff of the Committee, and evidence held by the Committee. In that respect, it extends the protections that the Government inserted in the Bill in Committee, which have now been refined in their amendments 61 and 62.

Before I go into the details of the difference between amendment 76 and the Government amendments, I should establish why these protections are important. They are important because we want witnesses to be able to give full and frank evidence to the Committee, and we want the Committee to be able to receive evidence in confidence. It may be helpful to compare the provisions governing the ISC to the provisions governing Select Committees. Evidence given to Select Committees, whether written or oral, is subject to parliamentary privilege, which means that the evidence cannot be used in any court proceedings against the witness or anyone else.

This is a central tenet of our democracy and allows witnesses to give the frankest possible answers without fear of reprisals. Witnesses giving evidence to the ISC are likely to be particularly mindful of the legal obligations on them. Evidence is likely to be covered by the Official Secrets Act and, technically, an offence would be committed every time a witness exceeded the explicit permission they had been given, which could be frequent.

This may not be the only restriction on a witness’s ability to give evidence. Restrictions are likely to be contained within the witness’s employment contract and the civil service code. Such restrictions have the potential to pose two problems to the ISC. First, they could slow down or prohibit witnesses where there is no genuine need for them not to be able to divulge evidence but it is not clear they have the legal authority. Secondly, they could prevent the Committee from taking evidence from whistleblowers. In recognition of these difficulties, in Committee the Government tabled amendments introducing statutory protection for witnesses, exempting evidence they provided to the Committee from civil, disciplinary or criminal proceedings. Amendments 61 and 62 refine that. They maintain the complete exemption from civil or disciplinary proceedings, but limit the exemption in criminal proceedings to action taken against the witness.

The Opposition welcomed the introduction of these protections and accept the refinements made today, but it is important that the House realises that these protections fall far short of those enjoyed by Select Committees and leave many unanswered questions. It is also important to realise that because these are statutory protections and not privilege, it would be possible for the Government or an agency to obtain an injunction preventing a witness from appearing before the Committee.

As I have stated, parliamentary privilege covers all the proceedings of a Select Committee, and it is important to realise what that means in practice. It means the evidence presented to a Select Committee is covered by privilege. That is not any document submitted to the Committee, but documents accepted by the Committee as evidence. Privilege also covers all proceedings of the Committee, including advice given by the Clerks to members of the Committee and actions of members while serving on the Committee.

I highlight these areas because it is not at all clear to me what alternative protections are given to the ISC in such situations. I would like to ask the Minister about a hypothetical situation where the ISC receives classified information relating to serious wrongdoing on the part of an element of the security agencies. Let us say, for example, the ISC were anonymously to receive Secret Intelligence Service transcripts indicating an agent had committed torture. I am not saying this has ever happened; I just want the Minister to say what would happen if it were the case.

It is questionable whether the ISC would be able to act on the evidence it received. That would depend on the provisions in clause 2. These documents may be directly related to an investigation the ISC was already undertaking, but that is not the question I want to focus on here: I am asking whether the ISC is even in a position to accept these documents.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Would the effect of amendment 76 be that if, for example, the ISC uncovered evidence of collusion in torture, that evidence could not be used in a court case?

[Diana Johnson]

I have tabled this amendment because I am not satisfied that the provisions the Government have proposed so far offer the type of protection that this Committee needs. I heard what the Minister said, and his response seemed to be that the amendment was drafted too broadly. I do not have the back-up of learned counsel in drafting amendments, and I want the Minister to explain what kind of protections are available and what their effect would be in the circumstances I have described.

It is questionable whether the ISC would be able to act on evidence it received. I hope the Minister will address that point and explain the impact of the clause 2 provisions. The documents might relate to an ISC investigation, which might be relevant to whether it would be possible to put the documents forward and examine them.

ISC staff members will be signatories to the Official Secrets Act. It is my understanding that parliamentary Clerks would be protected as soon as the document was taken into evidence, but no such protection is available to the ISC Clerk. Is that correct? If a staff member who received documents decided to pass them on to the Chair of the ISC, will the Minister confirm that they would be doing that without lawful authority and would therefore be in breach of the Official Secrets Act?

Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Diana Johnson and Caroline Lucas

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his wise observation. He is exactly right. If children are put into particular training perspectives very early on, the wider set of possibilities and potential that could have been available to them will no longer exist if they have only the particularly narrow kind of education that the sponsors of academies often seem to pursue. I thank all hon. Members who have intervened and I stand by my amendment.

[Diana R. Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I wish to speak to amendments 25, 30 and 26 in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends, but first I turn to amendment 1, the lead amendment, in the name of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who has just passionately explained why she put it forward.

The Opposition do not support amendment 1, which is designed to make academies adopt the whole national curriculum. The previous Labour Government’s view was clear on the curriculum that an academy should follow. We said that the core national curriculum subjects of science, mathematics, information technology and English should be taught in academies, but that left room for flexibility so that academies could design their own, local curriculum to meet the needs of their local population.

The Opposition still take the view that that is the most appropriate approach to the curriculum in academies, in marked contrast to clause 1(6)(a), which refers only to the requirement for a broad and balanced curriculum. Amendment 25, which sets out the core subjects that all pupils should be required to study, would provide the best approach to ensuring that those important subjects were taught in academy schools, while retaining some flexibility for academies. I hope that the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), who spoke from the Liberal Democrat Benches, feels able to support that approach.

Amendment 30 sets out the Opposition’s view that section 40 of the Childcare Act 2006 should apply to academies.