Family Planning Clinics: Public Order Legislation

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) for how she has spoken on this very difficult and sometimes emotional issue, but I believe that it is my duty to offer another point of view, so that Parliament hears both sides of this difficult issue. I would hope that the hon. Lady would listen to women who have benefitted from help from groups outside abortion clinics, who would be denied that help if buffer zones were imposed around those abortion facilities. I want to ask the hon. Lady whether she has talked to those women who say that they have benefitted from the offers of help by those groups outside the Marie Stopes abortion facility. If not, surely both sides of this story deserve to be listened to. It is very important that we listen to both sides. How does the hon. Lady account for the fact that if harassment were really occurring outside these facilities, it would be perfectly possible for Marie Stopes to call the police, yet we see no ongoing prosecutions for harassment or instances where police powers to disperse crowds have been used? I would have thought that it would surely be easy and common for the police to intervene if harassment were indeed occurring.

[Paula Sherriff]

The hon. Gentleman is very generous in giving way. Has he considered that the women going into those clinics will have spent many weeks, and potentially months, making their minds up? I am not aware of any specific help that they are given outside those clinics by people holding things such as rosary beads or giving them pictures of dismembered foetuses and things like that. I would be surprised if that would aid them in coming to a different decision.

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[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is a perfectly fair point. I know that it is an agonising decision for women. I remember talking to one of the women who stands outside those clinics. She was an elderly lady, the kindest, most gentle person that one could possibly consider. So many children call her granny, because they feel that this lady, who is the kindest and gentlest person—admittedly, a religious person; there is nothing wrong with that—would never hurt a soul. She is simply trying to express a point of view.

I agree that harassment is quite wrong. Given that the current law allows for individuals who harass others to be reported to the police, yet does not affect others who protest peacefully, does the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton not think that it is unwisely illiberal to introduce a measure that would simply exclude all vigils of this sort, regardless of individual behaviour? Surely, that is a sledgehammer.

In the case of Annen v. Germany—I know that the hon. Lady dealt with this point, but I am not sure she did so adequately—a pro-life advocate, Klaus Annen, engaged in peaceful protest outside an abortion clinic and was found by the European Court of Human Rights to have a right to engage in such activity under article 10, the right to freedom of expression. If so, and given the precedent, how does she expect the European Court of Human Rights, which we are fully signed up to and continue to support, to treat a legal challenge to buffer zones?

I want to end by reading out the testimony that was given to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who cannot be here, from Kate—she does not want to give her full name, which is fair enough, for fear of retaliation. This is her testimony:

“I never wanted to go through with an abortion but I felt a lot of pressure from people around me who offered it as a no brainer solution.

On the way into the clinic at the Marie Stopes clinic at Ealing I was offered a leaflet by a woman who I spoke to briefly. She just told me she was there if I needed her. I then went into the clinic, still not happy about being there for an abortion, but under immense pressure from a group of people that were with me to go through with it.

Once in the clinic, while the group were distracted I leapt out of the ground floor window and cleared 3 fences to escape. I talked to the woman on the gate again, who offered any support I needed to keep my baby and this gave me the confidence to leave where I was supported by the group that this women worked with.

I didn’t find any aggression from the people offering support outside the Ealing clinic at all. They did have leaflets documenting the development of a baby, a fetus, in the early stages.

The potential introduction of buffer zones is a really bad idea because women like me, what would they do then? You know, not every woman that walks into those clinics actually wants to go through with the termination. There’s immense pressure, maybe they don’t have financial means to support themselves or their baby, or they feel like there’s no alternatives. These people offer alternatives.

I had my baby who is now three and a half years old. She’s an amazing, perfect little girl and the love of my life. I want MPs here today calling to introduce buffer zones to realise, that she would not be alive today, if they had their way.”

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[Mr Hurd]

Let me push back on that gently. As the right hon Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, who speaks for the Opposition, said, we have a settlement in this place that we have come to. We have found a balance and a compromise, and I think any shift in that will be subject to personal votes in the future. To the point about the funding for the charity Life, that falls outside my Department, so the hon. Lady will forgive me if I read from the brief. It is basically set out in the grant agreement that Life will not be able to use the tampon tax grant of £250,000 to fund its counselling service or its Life Matters education service, and it is prohibited from spending the money on any publicity or promotion. The grant—as I think the hon. Lady mentioned—is for a specific project in west London to support vulnerable, homeless or at-risk pregnant women who ask for its help. All payments will be made in arrears and on receipt of a detailed monitoring report, but I will make sure that the hon. Lady’s concerns are expressed directly to the Minister responsible.

I will say something about public spaces protection orders because, as the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton says, the local authority in Ealing has decided to consult on issuing such an order outside the Marie Stopes UK healthcare clinic in the borough. Public spaces protection orders, under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, can be used by councils to stop people committing antisocial behaviour in a public place, applying restrictions on how that public space can be used. I apologise for the dryness of the prose, but there are clear legal tests that must be met. In particular, the behaviour that the order is seeking to stop must: have had or be likely to have a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality; be likely to be persistent or continuing in nature; be or be likely to be unreasonable; and justify the restrictions imposed.

It is for the London Borough of Ealing to determine, in consultation with the local police and any other community representatives, whether a public spaces protection order is justified. The Home Secretary and I will watch developments, and the response to them in the consultation, with interest.

I would like to give the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton a chance to respond and close the debate, so I will conclude. It has been a good debate on a highly sensitive issue. As I have made absolutely clear, the right to peaceful protest should not extend to harassment or intimidating behaviour.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We all absolutely oppose harassment, but the Minister is defending the right to peaceful protest.

[Mr Hurd]

I think I have made that clear. The right to peaceful protest is incredibly important and is fundamental to our democratic process, but it cannot extend to harassment. The hon. Gentleman said so in his remarks, and there is agreement in this place. It is unacceptable that women seeking their legal right to healthcare, advice and support encounter such situations, and I expect any such cases to be robustly investigated and dealt with by the police.

The bottom line is that we are talking about vulnerable women at a point of very high vulnerability. The last thing we should want or accept is for them to feel any more vulnerable at that point in time, and when protest creeps into harassment, that is completely unacceptable. As I said before, it is essential for any democracy that individuals have the right to peaceful protest and freedom of speech, but with those rights comes a responsibility to ensure that individual views and protestor actions do not cross the boundary into criminal acts.

Finally, I assure hon. Members who have taken part in the debate that both the Home Secretary and I will carefully consider the important points made. We will monitor developments in Ealing to see the outcome of the decision to grant a public spaces protection order. I will ensure that the national policing leads responsible for the issue are made aware of the concerns expressed, and ask that they and local authorities make full use of their existing powers to prevent that kind of behaviour. I will also explore with my officials and the police whether any further action needs to be taken to ensure that clinic staff and patients can go about their lawful business free from harassment, offence or alarm.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Ah, another knight popping up—or perhaps I should say “languidly rising.” I call Sir Edward Leigh.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

There has been a lot of reportage and worry in this country about the number of EU nationals coming here perfectly legally. I am much more worried about what the Home Affairs Committee was told last week by David Wood, former head of immigration: there are 1 million illegals here, which the Home Office knows nothing about. Will the Minister’s Department focus on fast-tracking our friends and relations who are here legally from the EU so it can concentrate on the illegals?

[Brandon Lewis]

We are very much focused on dealing with people who are here illegally; that is what the compliant environment work is all about. Obviously our friends and partners and citizens from the EU are, under free movement, here entirely legally. I encourage them to remain, as we value what they do for our society and economy, and we will remain focused on dealing with the illegal immigrants, who should be in their home countries.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I urge the hon. Gentleman to reassure his constituents, if that is what they are, about how valued they are for the contribution they make to the UK economy. I also point out that the recent immigration statistics show that we remain just as popular a destination as ever for EU nationals.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

We cannot even deport convicted criminals. The reality is that even if we wanted to, which we do not, we are not going to deport a single EU national. It seems to me that we might as well acknowledge this fact now, while reserving the right, in the extremely unlikely possibility of our EU partners deporting any UK citizens—which they will not, for the same practical reasons—to change our mind. But let us at least reassure these people now.

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend makes a very fair observation about the reality of the situation. I point out, however, that as he seeks the assurance and certainty that the EU citizens who are here want, I seek it, too, for the UK citizens who are in other parts of the EU. It is a priority; the Prime Minister has said that she will move on to that as soon as negotiations begin.

Calais Children and Immigration Act

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

It was absolutely right that, during the final days of the camp clearance, there was a pause. As the right hon. Gentleman said, there were some chaotic scenes, but they were not as chaotic as some of the scenarios that we had planned for, including violence, possible injury and even death, during that clearance. Now that the children have been transported to the reception centres—or welcome centres as the French call them—around the country, we can now assess them under the criteria of the Dubs amendment. More than 300 children have already been transferred to the UK, and we expect several hundred more to be transferred under both the Dubs amendment and the Dublin regulations.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the numbers. Under the Dublin regulations, there is no limit on numbers—if the children meet the criterion of having family here, they will be brought across. That applies not just to France, but to Italy, where we have Home Office people working, and to Greece, where things are slightly more difficult, but where we hope to make progress.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the Syrians and the Sudanese. It is absolutely important that the children we bring across are those who are more likely to qualify for asylum. He mentioned the Eritreans. I know that there are particular issues with Eritrea—I have been taking an interest in that country, particularly in the open-ended nature of the national service there—but we did update our country guidance in October to reflect the court judgment. The threshold that we have put in place is based on overall grant rates for the year ending June 2016, and the nationalities that have a grant rate of 75% or higher are the Sudanese and the Syrians. Yes, he is absolutely right that when children arrive in the UK they should claim asylum, and they will be processed in the usual way.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

What is the average age of the children?

[Mr Goodwill]

The demographics of the children in the camp are that 90% were male and 60% of them were in the age group of 16 and above. We are determined to assess the most vulnerable children, as they are the ones whom the Dubs amendment suggests that we assess. That includes those who are 12 and under; those who are 15 and below whose nationalities are likely to qualify them for refugee status; and those at high risk of sexual exploitation, including particularly the girls who could be trafficked.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

No. The right hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong. He chooses to politicise the issue when there are no politics here. As he knows, I had a meeting with the campaign group, and we had a frank exchange of information. The fact that he disagrees with the decision I have made does not mean that it is the wrong decision. I have made it honestly, and it is based on the evidence.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

If the Government have decided against a public inquiry, I wonder whether the House will have the courage to establish a Select Committee inquiry. I understand why the Government are dubious about setting up another public inquiry, involving wall-to-wall lawyers, costing tens of millions of pounds, and taking years. However, if the Government could free up an ad hoc Select Committee, as can be done under the Osmotherly rules when there is a head of steam behind an issue—a proper Select Committee, led by a senior Member of Parliament and able to interview all witnesses about matters including advice to Ministers—we could deal with issues of this kind much more cheaply than a public inquiry.

[Amber Rudd]

That is a very interesting suggestion. I believe that such a set-up would be a matter for the House, but I am sure that other Select Committees have heard my hon. Friend’s suggestion, and they may indeed take up the opportunity themselves.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

To be frank, it is difficult to comment on individual situations like that, but if the hon. Lady would like my Department to have a look, I ask her to please write to us about it and we will do so. I also ask her and other hon. Members to reassure their constituents that at the moment nothing has changed.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

There is no point in blaming the French for the mess in Calais if we continue to be a magnet for illegal migrants. The fact is that we grant asylum to more illegal migrants than France does, and we deport fewer of them. Of the 44,000 applications received up to June, more than half were granted and only half those who were refused were deported. Will the new Home Secretary take action to deal with illegal migration?

[Amber Rudd]

I am always keen to take action to follow the law where it is appropriate. There are many reasons why we are more popular with asylum seekers than some other countries. It is often to do with language, with families or with the diaspora in our communities; it is not simply about the process around asylum seeking. My hon. Friend should rest assured that we take getting the numbers down very seriously.

Terrorist Attack: Nice

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) for his comments, and for his confirmation at an early stage that we work across the House to address and to fight this dangerous terrorism, and will be able to continue to do so.

The right hon. Gentleman asked particularly about the reviewing of public events. Let me reassure him, and the whole House, that we are constantly ensuring that we make expert advice available to the people who run such events. We have 170 counter-terrorism security advisers who are in touch with all of them—including, when necessary, those in large cities—so that they can be given the right advice. That advice is being taken, so that we can ensure that people are as safe as possible.

The right hon. Gentleman made some comments about Prevent. Let me correct him on one point. There is nothing complacent about what the Government do to address terrorism and dangerous ideology. I accept that there is always more to do, but the right hon. Gentleman should not underestimate what the Prevent strategy has achieved so far. Many people have been deterred from going to Syria. Many children have been introduced to the strategy at school, and people in the public sector have benefited from it and been prevented from going to Syria. There is always more to do, but a lot is being accomplished by this strategy.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman made some comments about the reporting in the press about the role and the word of Islam, and I simply say to him that I think it is for all faiths and all people to unite against the barbarity of this attack, and that is the clear message that this House should convey.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

As chair of our groupe d’amitié between the two Parliaments, may I just encourage my good friend the Secretary of State—we have served on the Council of Europe together on many of these issues—donne-à nos amis Français notre solidarité, nos pensées et notre encouragement? Nous sommes avec vous maintenant et pour toujours.

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend is entirely right: nous sommes avec vous—and now I will return to English. I was able to speak to my French counterpart this morning, Bernard Cazeneuve, and I also say, in part response to my hon. Friend, that of course we will continue our very strong friendship and mutual support for the French whatever the outcome.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Yes. It is because we have looked at ways in which people can operate within communities to try to create an attitude, particularly towards women in those communities, that effectively treats women as second-class citizens, which is counter to the British values that we have in our society as a whole. We take issues associated with forced marriage, so-called honour-based violence and female genital mutilation extremely seriously, and we have taken action against these issues. We want to see more action being taken in order to bring more prosecutions in these areas, but it is important that we recognise that there are some attitudes that help to create divisions in society. We do not want those divisions; we want to ensure that there is proper respect, regardless of gender, faith, background, class or ethnicity.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

One of the best ways to stop extremism and radicalisation is to keep radicals and extremists out of the country in the first place. Often these people have a criminal record, although they may not necessarily show up on lists of terrorists. Can the Home Secretary confirm that when an EU citizen arrives at one of our borders, their passport is checked against the criminal record check bureau of their own country? Is that happening?

[Mrs May]

I have made it plain to my hon. Friend on a number of occasions that the information we have at our borders through our membership of Schengen Information System II in the European Union is an important strand of information which enables our border officials and others to make decisions about individuals who are coming across the border. I am sure that, as my hon. Friend says, he does not want people who are preaching extremism to come into the United Kingdom, so I hope that he will congratulate the Government on the fact that as Home Secretary I have excluded more hate preachers from this country than any previous Home Secretary.

Removal of Foreign National Offenders and EU Prisoners

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Can the Home Secretary confirm—I fear she cannot, but if she can, I for one will be delighted—that everybody entering this country from an EU destination has their passport checked not only against possible terrorist links but against whether they have a criminal record? I fear that these passports are not checked, so even if we can deport these people, they can, in reality, come straight back.

[Mrs May]

I am not sure when my hon. Friend last came into Heathrow or Gatwick, or into St Pancras through the juxtaposed controls in Brussels or France, but he will have noticed that his passport was indeed checked as he came through, as are the passports of those who are not British citizens. As I have indicated in response to a number of queries, we now have more information available at the border through being a member of SIS II. That is one of the EU arrangements on justice and home affairs matters that the Government chose to rejoin and that this Parliament unanimously agreed to rejoin.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 6th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

My right hon. Friend speaks with passion and sincere conviction on such matters. He will be glad to know that, unlike in RIPA 2000, legal professional privilege is on the face of the Bill, which is a significant improvement over previous legislation. I reassure him that the provisions in the Bill that already embrace the importance of legal professional privilege have in large measure been warmly welcomed. The question is one of getting the detail right with particular regard to those occurrences, albeit rare, when the iniquity exemption—when people are pursuing a crime, which is not covered by legal professional privilege—applies and which might come under the purview of any warrantry that is sought under the Bill’s provisions.

However, I am certainly not leaving the proposals to other agencies. I am working as hard as I can with expert bodies that have great interest and knowledge and, like my right hon. Friend, recognise the overwhelming public importance of the preservation of legal professional privilege. I am glad to say that that dialogue will continue and will allow for meaningful scrutiny and debate in the other place.

Turning to the Wilson doctrine, clause 24 of the Bill currently requires the Prime Minister to be consulted before a targeted interception or targeted examination warrant can be issued in respect of such communications. Amendments 53 and 90 will strengthen that by making it clear that the Prime Minister must agree to the interception of the parliamentarian’s communications, rather than simply be consulted.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Has my hon. and learned Friend noticed my amendment 1, in which I introduce the extra safeguard that the Speaker should be consulted?

[The Solicitor General]

My hon. Friend has tabled that amendment in the spirit of his speech on Second Reading, which referred to the role of the Speaker. I look forward to hearing any argument that he pursues on this matter. While I can see the merit in seeking to protect the privileges of parliamentarians through the office of the Speaker, my concern is that involving the Speaker in approving a particular warrantry process or not puts us at risk of confusing Executive action with the roles of this place and of the Speaker in terms of the legislature.

The Prime Minister will be accountable to hon. Members for any decision that he or she may take on warrantry through the normal process of questions, statements or being summoned to this House following an urgent question. The procedure in relation to any decision that the Speaker might make is more difficult—the mechanism might be a point of order. However, I am unsure whether that sort of challenge to the Chair would sit well with the role of the Speaker and the position of parliamentarians. There are difficulties in involving the Speaker.

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[Sir Edward Leigh]

I rise to speak to my amendment 1, which is, in clause 24, page 19, line 8, at the end to insert that where the subject of the snooping, frankly, is a Member of the House of Commons, that snooping must also involve a consultation with the Speaker of the House of Commons. The Member’s explanatory statement helpfully says:

“This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult the Speaker before deciding to issue a warrant that applied to an MP’s communications.”

This is a small, but I believe important amendment. It is of course perfectly proper and pertinent that, as we all agree, the Secretary of State consults the Prime Minister before deciding to issue a targeted interception or examination warrant regarding an MP’s communication with a constituent or somebody else. We all understand that, and it is not controversial. However, the Prime Minister is the Queen’s chief Minister of Government and is, by its very nature, a political office holder. It goes without saying that we have complete confidence in the present Prime Minister that no such thing would happen, but we must not make permanent laws based on impermanent situations. Our conscientious Prime Minister, who I am sure is both aware of and respectful of parliamentary privilege, may be succeeded, somewhere down the line, by a man or woman who does not esteem the dearly won privileges of this House. They are not our privileges: they are not for us; they are for the protection of our democracy and of our constituents.

It may be that a future Prime Minister would be under intolerable pressure during a time of national crisis. It is not difficult to imagine that circumstances may come into play in which a future Prime Minister authorises a politically sensitive or even a politically motivated interception against an Opposition Member, or indeed against a Government Member if that Member of Parliament is opposed to the Prime Minister’s policies. We need only think of the intense debates that took place during the Vietnam war and the Iraq war. We remember that the present Leader of the Opposition had strong views about the importance of communicating with Sinn Féin at a time when that was considered intensely controversial—indeed, some at the time would have argued that it was a threat to national security. I am not defending the actions of the present Leader of the Opposition, or making any comment on them one way or another, but one can surely imagine that there may be future situations when there is intense debate on a matter of national security and a Prime Minister may be politically motivated to intercept communications between a constituent and a Member of Parliament.

I believe that it is important to uphold the exclusive cognisance of this House to regulate its own internal affairs, apart from the Government. This House is not the Government but the scrutineer of Government. To reply directly to the point the Solicitor General made, the amendment does not put MPs above the law—far from it. Our conduct is completely within the jurisdiction of normal criminal courts, and the criminal law applies to us as to anyone else. But it is vital that communications relating to our role—only to our role and to no other part of our life—as democratically elected representatives of the people, in a free country, under the Crown, be protected from Government observation and interference, just as it is vital to remove any temptation to politicise the work of the police.

Amendment 1 would solve that problem, by invoking the importance of the Speaker, an impartial office holder not beholden to any political party or indeed to the Government. You will be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the office of Speaker is among the most important in the land. It ranks above all non-royal people in this realm, excepting the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor and the Lord President of the Council. The Speaker is endowed with his or her office by the trust placed in him by fellow Members of Parliament, and his impartiality is central to the proper functioning of Parliament. Once he has held the office of Speaker, never again can he re-enter politics—that is a clear convention of this House. He is utterly and completely impartial.

[Dr Murrison]

I have a great deal of sympathy for what my hon. Friend has to say, but does he share my concern that the Speaker might be seen as a rather in-house arbiter in these matters? In recent times we have seen where that leads us. Does my hon. Friend not have more confidence in the double-lock arrangement that the Front-Bench team has rightly instituted?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am perfectly happy—I think everyone in this House is—with the proposal that if the Secretary of State for the Home Department wishes to investigate communications with a Member of Parliament, the Prime Minister should always also be consulted. No one objects to that. But who appoints the Home Secretary? The Prime Minister does. They are both politicians—by their very nature, they are political animals—and members of the Executive. I have to ask my hon. Friends to look beyond the present situation; they may indeed have the utmost confidence in the present Secretary of State for the Home Department and the present Prime Minister, but they should always separate their view of those currently on the Front Bench from what might happen in the future.

All I am asking is that if the Government are taking the extreme step of intercepting communications between constituents and Members of Parliament, someone entirely non-political, namely the Speaker, should also be consulted. This is the point: he is no mere presiding officer. We do not call him “the presiding officer”, as is the case in other Assemblies and Parliaments. He is the upholder of order and the defender of the House’s privileges and immunities. I am absolutely not suggesting that he should be dragged into politics. But there is already a precedent. Have we not involved the Speaker very recently in consideration of whether amendments should be separately considered under English votes for English laws? Nobody—certainly not the Government—has suggested that that is dragging the Speaker into politics.

I am a member of the Procedure Committee, and we examined this issue in great detail. The system—I am not defending EVEL as that is not the subject of today’s debate—seems to be working fairly well. Nobody is calling the Speaker to order or complaining about his decision, but there is in a sense a double lock that seems to work quite well.

[The Solicitor General]

My hon. Friend makes a proper point about the Speaker’s role in English votes for English laws, and there are other certification procedures that he, I, and others know about. There is a difference, however, because that relates to the legislative process in this House, and it deals precisely with the point about exclusive cognisance and the privileges of this House in dealing with its own rules and regulations. There is therefore a difference between the points that my hon. Friend raises and involvement in an Executive decision.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

There may be a difference, but I do not think it is a substantive one. [Interruption.] I am delighted that you are now sitting in the Chair, Mr Speaker, because I am talking about you, which I know you always enjoy me doing.

[Mr David Davis]

Surely one key point is that there would be an inhibition on a Secretary of State or a Prime Minister in the process of approaching the Speaker. They may not be inhibited about talking to each other about an uncomfortable Opposition Member, or indeed an uncomfortable Government Member, but they would be inhibited about approaching the Speaker. That is not separate to what goes on in the House. The one case that we have had was that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), when there was an approach to the Speaker of the day, which I am afraid ended in tears.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Exactly. It is an inhibition, and I presume that the Home Secretary and Prime Minister would take that extreme step only because they were convinced that this was a matter of national security. Before they took such a step, which we all agree is serious, would it do any harm to consult somebody who is obviously completely separated from politics?

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Is there not an issue of accountability here? If the judgment is wrong, would it not be extremely regrettable for the Speaker to be dragged into the court of public opinion as someone who got that judgment wrong, as opposed to the Executive or the Prime Minister who could properly be hauled over the coals?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I understand that example, but it can be taken to extremes. Every day of the week the Speaker makes decisions. He decides how we conduct our business and who should be called, and we could always argue that we should not give the Speaker more powers because he might make a mistake or be called to account. We are not talking about the Speaker being involved in whether we should pass a particular Bill or controversy; we are talking about a very narrow circumstance in which the Government of the day have decided to intercept the communications of a Member of Parliament. All I am suggesting is that before they take that step, they consult the Speaker.

[Mr John Hayes]

There are few Members of this House whom I hold in higher regard than I do my hon. Friend, but like it or not, his proposal would draw the Speaker into issues of national security. He is describing highly sensitive matters of a kind that Speakers have not historically been involved in. It would be a radical change.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The Minister makes that point, but as Members of Parliament we should try to think outside the political box and our natural loyalties, and just for a moment think about what might happen in future in a time of crisis. Do we really want to codify the Wilson doctrine in legislation, and say that in future any Government—it does not matter that the Prime Minister ticks a box, because he is also a member of the Government—without any independent second guessing, can intercept those communications and act on them? I understand the Minister’s arguments and assure him that I am not trying to drag the Speaker into politics. I am trying only to protect the traditional privileges of the House. “Privileges” is the wrong word, because it conveys the impression that we are concerned about ourselves. We are not important in all this. What is important is people’s confidence in communicating with their Member of Parliament.

[Mr George Howarth]

The difficulty with the hon. Gentleman’s argument is that he assumes that the Prime Minister of the day, regardless of which party he is in, would take such a decision in a vacuum, but it simply could not happen that way. He would have to be satisfied first with proper legal advice that it is in the interests of national security. Secondly, he would have to be satisfied that it is both necessary and proportionate. Passing all those tests requires a lot of advice, and I doubt that any Prime Minister would take the decision lightly. Bringing any Speaker into that decision-making process means that they must be linked to that legal and security advice to satisfy themselves in the same way as the Prime Minister would have to do. I therefore cannot see the difference.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I can see what the difference would be in a time of national crisis. The information will be clearly set out by the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister. I do not believe that it would be beyond the abilities of any Speaker now or in future to take an informed decision and to be convinced by the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary that the interception was not a political interference but a matter of national security.

All hon. Members agree on that—that the communications can be intercepted if it is a matter of national security—and we all agree that they should not be intercepted because it is politically expedient to do so. All I am asking is that the Speaker, who by the nature of his office does not consider political expediency, can say, “Yes. This is a matter of national security.” I do not believe that that is beyond his abilities. After all, he is ably assisted—is he not?—by the Clerk of the House and a band of parliamentary Clerks, most of whom have spent years accumulating knowledge, wisdom and experience of the ways of the House. They are not radicals or people who will take decisions lightly or wantonly. Together, they form a deposit of institutional memory, which the Prime Minister and No. 10, by the nature of their daily tasks of government and political management, can never be. They must always, necessarily, take a short-term view. That is not a criticism but the nature of the office.

Each of the privileges of this House, in addition to being daily fought for and won over the centuries, exists for a reason. Like many traditions and customs, we interfere with them at our peril. I appeal to the Minister of State, who is deeply aware of the importance of traditions and customs. We may wonder today why this or that one exists, but if we disregard them, we will soon find that the dangers they protect us from are very real.

We also may doubt the day will ever come when a Prime Minister would dare to authorise the monitoring of Members’ communications for politicised reasons, but it is therefore better to remove even the possibility of that temptation existing by simply requiring the Secretary of State to consult the Speaker. It has been said before but it is worth saying again. Nearly 375 years ago, William Lenthall reminded the sovereign that the Speaker had

“neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here.”

All I am asking in amendment 1 is that that tradition be maintained. We would do well to continue to put our trust in that defender of our law and our liberties.

[Joanna Cherry]

The Scottish National party has tabled a significant number of amendments to parts 2 and 5, and chapter 1 of part 9, which are under discussion, but given the constraints of time I will focus my fire on only a few of them, and mainly on part 2 and the system of judicial warrantry.

The Government have put their new double-lock system of warrantry at the heart of their arguments that there are sufficient safeguards in the Bill. In the SNP, we believe that the system of warrantry is too limited in scope and seriously deficient. We have tabled extensive amendments to extend the system of judicial warrantry beyond part 2, so that it would cover warrants to obtain, retain and examine communications data and police hacking warrants. We think the nature and scope of those warrants, and the grounds on which they are granted, are very important.

Amendments 267, 268, 272 and 306 to clause 15 deal with the scope of warrants. The problem with clause 15 as currently drafted is that it permits warrants to be issued in respect of people whose names are not known or knowable when the warrant is sought. This is confirmed by clause 27, which provides that a thematic warrant must describe the relevant purpose or activity and that it must

“name or describe as many of those persons as is reasonably practicable”.

Our amendments would retain the capacity of a single warrant to permit the interception of multiple individuals, but require an identifiable subject matter or premises to be provided. We have tabled associated amendments to clause 27. Taken together, they would narrow the current provisions, which effectively permit a limitless number of unidentified individuals to have their communications intercepted.

It is not just the SNP who are concerned about the scope of the thematic warrants. We heard evidence in Committee from Sir Stanley Burnton, the Interception of Communications Commissioner, and from Lord Judge, the chief surveillance commissioner. Both expressed detailed concerns about the breadth of clause 15 as currently drafted. They said it was too wide and needed to be more focused. David Anderson QC, although in favour of thematic warrants, said that clause 15 as currently drafted is “considerably more permissive” than he had envisaged. There we have three very distinguished experts working in this field underlining the necessity of the amendments.

That is a real concern, because it takes us back to our old friend, or in our case our old enemy, bulk powers. If we create thematic warrants, communications intercepted under bulk powers can be trawled through thematically to look for groups of people sharing a common purpose or carrying out a particular activity. One difficulty with that is that it provides for an open-ended warrant that could encompass many hundreds or thousands of people. That is just not right. It is suspicionless interference. It is not targeted and it is not focused. I urge hon. Members on both sides of the House, if they are concerned about supporting an SNP amendment, to comfort themselves with the fact that it is an amendment the necessity of which has been underlined by persons as distinguished as the Interception of Communications Commissioner, the Chief Surveillance Commissioner and the independent reviewer of terrorism.

I now turn to the grounds, set out in clause 18, on which warrants may be granted, and to SNP amendments 212 and 213. The purpose of the amendments is to remove the economic wellbeing of the UK as a separate purpose for granting a warrant and to require that grounds for interception are tied to a threshold of reasonable suspicion of criminal behaviour. We have tabled similar amendments to the grounds for seeking warrants in relation to communications data under parts 3 and 4, and hacking under part 5. If these amendments are not allowed, people simply will not be able to predict when surveillance powers may be used against them, because the discretion granted to the Secretary of State is so broad as to be arbitrary.

The Joint Committee on the draft Bill recommended that the Bill include a definition of national security, which, of course, is the first ground. I call on the Government, not for the first time, to produce an amendment that defines national security. The Bill is sprinkled liberally with the phrase “national security”. The Government need to tell us what they mean by that phrase, so I call on them to define it. This is not just theoretical or, as the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) called it, merely a law faculty debate; it is a serious issue about language being precise so that there can be some predictability. In the past, the courts have responded with considerable deference to Government claims of national security; they view them not so much as matters of law but as Executive-led policy judgments. As a legal test, therefore, “national security”, on its own, is meaningless unless the Government attempt to tell us what they mean by it.