Public Disorder
Diane Abbott Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
I was on the streets of Hackney at the height of the rioting on Monday night, and I know how frightened people were and remain. The most important thing is to regain control of our streets, but, on the Army, I am well aware how attractive the further militarisation of this situation is to some Members of this House and even to some of my constituents, but the Prime Minister will be aware that Sir Hugh Orde, who has ordered the firing of baton rounds and the use of water cannon in Northern Ireland, is against the use of such things in the current situation. I say to this House, whether it is a popular thing to say or not, that the further militarisation of the situation we face will not help and might bring things to an even worse level.
The Prime Minister
First, let me agree with what the hon. Lady said, I think very powerfully, about the fact that this was criminality on the streets, and about how frightened people were. I agree with Hugh Orde and others who say that now is not the time to take such steps. Government have a responsibility to ask about contingencies: to work out what will happen next, and what would happen if things got worse. Those are responsibilities that we take very seriously. Let us, however, take this opportunity to pay tribute to what the armed services often do in our own country when it comes to floods and other emergencies. They play an incredible role, and we should thank them for it.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973
Diane Abbott Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) on her brave speech.
I will support the Government in the Lobby tonight, partly because I genuinely believe that only swift action at the weekend avoided a bloodbath in Benghazi, and partly because I am convinced that we have a solid legal basis for the military action. That has not always been the case.
However, the Government would be wrong to take this evening’s vote as some sort of blank cheque. I point to the unsettling lack of real Arab involvement in the deployment so far. We know that the Arab League countries have plenty of military kit because we sold them most of it. Why is it not being deployed? Why are not senior Arab military people involved in the deployment?
Western-led bombardment of a Muslim country plays to the Gaddafi narrative of crusader invasion. We can knock Gaddafi, but that has a genuine visceral impact on the countries involved. There will be civilian casualties—there always are in such deployments—and it will not take many for public opinion in Arab countries to turn against the deployment. We should bear that in mind.
Let me remind the House of Colin Powell, the American Secretary of State who tried to argue against Iraq with his colleagues Bush and Cheney. He reminded them of the Pottery Barn rule. Pottery Barn is a chain in America that sells china. The rule is “You break it, you own it”. If we intervene with a massive military deployment in north Africa, we will inevitably own the development of the story from here.
I am not at all sure that civilians can be protected with Gaddafi in power. I do not know how Gaddafi can be removed through air bombardment alone. The British people are very humane and I think that they understand that we intervened swiftly to save lives in Benghazi. However, I do not believe that there is a will or a willingness among them for us to get dragged into a long-running civil war in north Africa because we follow the logic of our rhetoric.
I will vote for the letter of the resolution. It is not a blank cheque. It is not the will of my constituents or British people generally to give the Government a blank cheque. We have done the right thing so far, but, as other hon. Members have said, we want Front Benchers to return to the House for a full debate before we take any further steps, which could get us involved in a third war in a Muslim country in a decade.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Diane Abbott Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Harper
I did not say that we would do nothing about the problem. I specifically said the opposite—that the Government are looking carefully at the Electoral Commission’s report and its outline of the problem, and that we are considering possible solutions. We are not yet persuaded that a legislative solution is the right one, however. When we have decided what we think the appropriate solution is, if that requires legislation we will introduce it at the appropriate time. Also, if we were to make this change, we would need to make it for elections in the round, not just for this particular referendum.
Mr Harper
I was not in any way underplaying the seriousness of the issue in those cases where these events happened. I was simply outlining the fact that it was not as widespread as people might have thought from the television coverage; I wanted to put it in context. However, as I said, I absolutely acknowledge that for those people who were affected, the problem was clearly very serious, and we want it to be solved, but we do not necessarily think that the proposal under discussion is the right way to solve it. There is a danger of creating as many, if not more, problems than those we are trying to solve in the first place. The law of unintended consequences might apply.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman raises two separate issues. The latter problem is clearly one that I hope does not arise, although he says it may well. If so, it must be managed on a case-by-case basis. We cannot make provision in legislation for that, but we want to make sure we solve the problem.
The hon. Gentleman’s first point about the combination of polls next year highlights exactly why we have worked closely with the Electoral Commission and officials who administer elections across the UK to put in place sensible combination provisions to ensure that the elections run smoothly. It will be for those responsible for delivering both the elections and a referendum to look at what the likely turnouts will be and what complexities might arise from the elections, particularly in places such as Northern Ireland where there may be a number of polls with different electoral systems, and to put plans in place. One of the things that the Electoral Commission will be examining, certainly as far as the referendum is concerned, is whether people on the ground have made those arrangements. I know that the chief counting officer will be ensuring that the counting officers and regional counting officers have exactly thought through some of these issues to ensure that they do not arise again, and of course they have the power to direct some of these things to be sorted out appropriately, a power that they did not have for the election.
To be fair, it is worth making the point that although the Electoral Commission was criticised to some extent this year, it was not responsible for delivering the elections in those individual cases. It delivers the guidance and it encourages returning officers to think about some of these issues, but in the areas where there was a problem it was largely the responsibility of the individual returning officer for not having planned properly or having had proper contingency arrangements in place. That is where the responsibility lies, and we need to ensure that that does not happen again.
Ms Abbott
The hour is late, but I wish to put on the record how concerned people in Hackney were by the debacle that we had at the polls earlier this year. The number of people who were turned away is an underestimate, because in my constituency hundreds of people came out after work to vote, saw the queues, went away, came back again, saw the queues and went away again, so we will never know how many people were put off voting. The cause of the queues was partly that people in Hackney were voting in three different ballots—that was one of the problems. Another cause was that the returning officer put a great deal of effort into encouraging people to cast their votes—my area had its highest ever turnout, particularly among young people who had never voted before. Another cause was the enthusiasm of people in Hackney to vote Labour.
I wish to stress that in a democracy the state has a very basic responsibility to allow people to cast their vote. These people did not come along at 9.50 pm; they had been queuing since 9 o’clock, but when 10 o’clock struck they were told that they could not cast their vote because they did not have a ballot paper in their hand. All I am saying is that this matter caused great concern in Hackney and it was very demoralising, particularly for people casting their vote for the first time. Voting is a fundamental right, and it is a fundamental duty of Government to allow people who want to vote, and who have come out in good time, to vote. We all saw last year’s American elections, where very long queues of young people wanted to vote for Barack Obama. A system was put in place that allowed people who were in a queue to vote; once the point where the queue was stopping had been marked, everybody in that queue was able to vote, even if that took hours. I do not see why we cannot have a similar system here in the United Kingdom.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) has exposed the problem: we do not really know the extent of the difficulties that voters had in this year’s general election. We are all deeply moved to see people voting in South Africa; they queued not just for a couple of hours, but for days when they first had the opportunity to vote. We felt moved when we saw people in the United States of America queuing to vote and we are moved when we see people in Poland, or people in other parts of the world who have not always enjoyed democratic rights, queuing to vote. So it is a bit depressing when the view that other countries had of our election night was of people queuing and not being allowed to vote. That is the simple point that Labour Members are trying to rectify by way of this amendment.
I had presumed, because the Liberal Democrat leader, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that this was something that should never happen again in our democracy, that he was going to deal with the matter rather more swiftly. The referendum will coincide with other ballots, as my hon. Friends the Members for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and for Hackney North and Stoke Newington have said. The Minister wants these combined polls next May—I would prefer not to have them—and it is therefore all the more important that we have a specific provision to deal with this matter.
If the amendment does not contain the right wording, I would be quite happy for the Minister to come back on Report and provide us with an amendment to our amendment. That is the advantage of this process, in which we debate constitutional Bills on the Floor of the House like this. That might also speed up his officials. I offer him this possibility in comradely spirit. If he were to support the amendment so that it were carried, that would spur on his officials to provide an answer to the problem before we reach the Report stage. I will, therefore, press the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.