Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Edward Leigh and Lord Hanson of Flint

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

Let me gently stroke the right hon. and learned Gentleman and try to keep him in the tent. I think that he will find the tent to be most comfortable. The question today is: do we have judicial oversight of the temporary exclusion orders? A number of Government Members have indicated that they feel that judicial oversight should be present. To be fair to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, we heard on Second Reading—and today this has appeared as being the position of the Deputy Prime Minister—that we should consider putting that in place. All I am saying is that there is a mechanism today for the Government to listen to that. They could even agree with our proposals without us forcing a Division, which would potentially put Members on the spot, forcing them to decide between loyalty to their party or to their principles. The Government could take this matter away and say that they agree with us.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about carnage and defeat. I have been around this place during many rebellions, and I do not get the atmosphere in this Chamber of carnage and defeat. I do not feel a tremendous wave of anger against the Government. Could it be that most Members of Parliament think that if it is a choice between judicial oversight or their sons and daughters being blown up on a London tube, they would rather let the Secretary of State take action, and take action quickly?

[Mr Hanson]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber at the start of my comments when I said that this is a proportionate power. There are real issues of potential threat where this action should and could be taken. The question is whether we should have judicial oversight, as we have in other legislation. He says that there does not seem to be an atmosphere of massive rebellion in the Chamber. Let me reflect on that for a moment. We have a number of right hon. and hon. Members from the Conservative Benches who have expressed their disquiet publicly. They did so on Second Reading, in Committee and when the Prime Minister announced the proposal in the first place. They have also gone to the trouble of commenting on their concerns in the press at the weekend. The right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife has genuine concerns, expressed on Second Reading. Now the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the Deputy Prime Minister, representing the 50-plus Members of Parliament whom he leads in this Chamber, is apparently saying that he will seek these changes in the other place when the Bill goes down the corridor. There is disquiet from the official Opposition and our 250-odd Members, as well as from Members of other parties. It strikes me that even now there is potentially a majority in this Chamber to put judicial oversight in place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I hesitate to speak in the company of such distinguished lawyers, as I am just a former common or garden practitioner in the criminal courts, but I would like to give the view, as I understand it, of most members of the public. I very much hope in respect of what the public want that the Government will be firm today and will resist amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick). I accept that he is entirely sincere and consistent in his views, and would indeed resist the amendments tabled by the Labour party. I commend the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), which I signed. I fully understand that the Government might not be able to accept them today, but I hope they will take them away and look further at these entirely sensible amendments.

I wanted to speak today because I believe we need a sense of balance in this debate. We have heard reference made to “carnage”, “atmosphere”, “revolts” and the House of Commons being “up in arms” about this. Judging from how the debate has developed and from the number of Members attending it, I am not sure that that is necessarily the case. As I said in an intervention, I suspect that most Members of Parliament—and, more importantly, most members of the public—support what the Government are trying to do, and we will see what happens in the vote later.

We have these debates, and I quite understand where my legal friends are coming from, and liberty is entirely important. We are using language relating to Magna Carta, habeas corpus, and the God-given rights of free-born Englishmen; that is all very well, but I think the public view the issue in a different way. They are absolutely outraged that people who come here and are given British passports, which should be a tremendous honour and privilege—or indeed people who are raised here and have British passports—feel that this gives them the right to go abroad and fight for an extremist cause. These people not only hold views, but practise views that are wholly alien to everything this country has stood for for hundreds of years. These people are not even like Sinn Fein. At least Sinn Fein in their worst years, even if they were blowing up Members of Parliament, soldiers or innocent members of the public, presumably saw some sort of logic in their own eyes in what they were doing. We are talking about people who are religious fanatics whose idea of fun and aggro is to cut off the head of an aid worker.

The Government are not going to act in a vacuum. The Home Secretary is not going to act unreasonably. We need look only at what the Bill, which I support, says. It refers again and again to the Secretary of State needing to

“reasonably suspect that an individual is, or has been involved in terrorism-related activity”,

and to her “reasonably considering” that action is

“necessary for a purpose connected with protecting members of the public”.

The Secretary of State, furthermore, must

“reasonably consider that the individual is outside the UK”.

She has to act “reasonably”. Surely we must trust our Government and our Secretary of State to protect our people. If the Secretary of State acts unreasonably, we can surely trust the courts in a judicial review system to provide oversight and, if necessary, overturn it. I do not think for a moment that the Secretary of State would act unreasonably.

For the sake of argument, I refer to the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Walsall North. As I understand it, he wants to replace the system whereby the Secretary of State has to act reasonably, presumably on the basis of intelligence, which may be nuanced, with a full court procedure. His amendment 18 states:

“The court may impose a temporary exclusion order on an individual following an application from the Secretary of State if the court is satisfied that conditions A to D are met.”

I have tried to understand how the amendments from the Labour Front-Bench team are more nuanced, but let me develop the argument. Those who oppose what the Government are trying to do are saying that there should be a court hearing in which all these factors can be discussed and through which we can assess whether a person—he may have gone to Syria, been a jihadist and all the rest of it—is a real threat to the United Kingdom.

I do not know a lot about intelligence, but I suspect that much of what will motivate the Secretary of State in her actions to exclude an individual will be based on intelligence. We are not talking about depriving somebody of their liberty. We are not talking about a free-born Englishman who goes abroad, gets in a spot of trouble, comes over here and is locked up. We are not talking about anything like that. We are talking about excluding somebody—temporarily, as I understand it—who the Secretary of State is reasonably satisfied has gone to fight jihad and engage in terrorist activity, and there is a real danger of them coming back here to blow up our children.

I suspect that a member of the public is not overly motivated by complex, legalistic arguments about judicial oversight, judicial review, delay and the rights of people to claim unfettered return. I suspect that a member of the public will be primarily, fundamentally and, indeed, probably wholly concerned about the safety of themselves and their family, and they will have trust. I trusted the last Labour Government. I know that the Governments of Tony Blair and the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) received a lot of stick over this, but I think they were right in wanting to protect the public. I realise that it went against many of their instincts, but they rightly took the view that such was the nature of the threat that we were fighting a war. It is a situation rather like the one we faced in the second world war, in which some sort of deprivation of traditional liberties has to take place, although we are not actually depriving anybody of their liberty here. We are not putting people in prison. We are simply saying, “You have gone abroad to fight an extremist cause, and if you want to come back here, we think the Secretary of State has the right to exclude you.”

[Mr Hanson]

Given the logic of the hon. Gentleman’s argument, does he believe that we should remove judicial oversight for the current TPIM regime?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I think we are talking about something slightly different. As I understand it, TPIMs deal with someone who is here and whose freedom of movement and operation in this country is being controlled. That is rather different from facing someone who has gone abroad to fight jihad. Presumably, intelligence suddenly arrives that these people are on their way back, so the Secretary of State has to act extremely quickly. I agree that the decision may be based on intelligence and that the sources of intelligence may not stack up in a court of law, but we are not trying to prove beyond reasonable doubt that these people are guilty of jihadism. We are simply saying that there is evidence, based on the available intelligence, to suggest to the Secretary of State that there is a real possibility that these people have fought jihad, have been brainwashed, are extremists, and, ipso facto, are a threat to our people. I think that is a bit different from TPIMs or indeed any other part of the judicial review system.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Edward Leigh and Lord Hanson of Flint

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I welcome you to the Chair of this important Committee, Sir Roger. I shall not detain the Committee for long because, given that we broadly agree with the Government’s approach on this key issue, the Opposition have not tabled any amendments to clause 1.

As the Minister said, the stated context for the Bill is the continued threat from serious organised crime and potential terrorist activity. Given that the European Court of Justice struck down the regulations because they were neither proportionate nor objective, we have taken the view that we need to look at how to frame legislation that will be proportionate and objective in respect of the retention of data.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I would be interested to know the Opposition’s view on the issue of our laws being trumped by section 3 of the European Communities Act 1972, as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) in the report of the European Scrutiny Committee. Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that, in the event of a Labour Government, there might be a case for passing legislation to proclaim the supremacy of Parliament so that we can protect ourselves from European legislation?

[Mr Hanson]

I take the view that we are part of the European Union, so we have to respect our obligations within it. I come to this particular piece of legislation, however, on the basis of what will best prevent activities by terrorists, child pornographers, paedophiles or serious organised criminals. Given the actions of the European Court of Justice, we have to examine our obligations as the United Kingdom Parliament and to frame legislation that we believe will have the support of the Government—and, in this particular case, of the Opposition—to ensure that we meet our European obligations but in a way that also meets our obligation to tackle the serious and organised criminals and others who would damage the fabric of our society. I will probably have disappointed the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) with that answer, but I believe it is consistent with our positive approach to Europe and our involvement in the European Community.

I believe that clause 1, which is the main focus of our debate, meets those obligations. It gives the Secretary of State powers to issue a retention notice requiring organisations that have data to hold those data, with which they will have to comply. Strict criteria are set out in subsection (2), which specifies who the operator could be, what the data being retained should be, for what periods the data should be retained, and whether there is different proportionality within different types of data.

Policing (North Wales)

Debate between Edward Leigh and Lord Hanson of Flint

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. Before he replies, I will ask Mr Hanson to conclude his remarks by 12.20 pm in order to give the Minister a chance to reply.

[Mr Hanson]

I can assure you of that, Mr Leigh. Thirty police officers in north Wales have been forced to leave under regulation A19 because of reductions in policing in the Budget. That is worrying, but I am most concerned that between March 2010 and September 2011 we have lost 85 police officers in north Wales. I am also worried because Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary—these are not my figures—suggests that we will lose 207 officers during the course of this Parliament. The grant settlement for 2011-12 is £49.6 million but, if approved next week, that will drop to £46.2 million by 2012-13. Projections for North Wales police authority mean that by 2015 the grant will be £43.7 million a year—a cut of almost £6 million.

I challenge anybody to explain how we can cut £6 million from policing budgets in north Wales and make that up solely from back-office savings and other efficiencies. When in government I supported efficiency measures in procurement, overtime, improving back-office support, adopting single uniforms, IT systems and a range of other issues. However, the level of cuts that we now face, and which we will vote on next week in the House, is dramatic. The cuts will impact on police morale and, more importantly, on the ability of the police to fight crime in north Wales.

Police spending per capita over the past year in north Wales has reduced from £148 to £137. The changes now being implemented have led to consultations on police station closures—including at Mostyn, Flint, Holywell, and Mold in my constituency—due to officer numbers. Now, for the first time, crime is rising. The figures presided over by the Minister last week showed an 11% overall rise in levels of personal crime. In 2011, north Wales saw worrying increases in crime: a 60% rise in cases of robbery, a 12% rise in instances of burglary, and an 11% rise in sexual offences.

As well as cuts to the budget, there is the uncertainty caused by the elections of police commissioners on 15 November this year. We will participate in that experiment as it is the law of the land, and we will fight that election, but I still worry about the future of policing.

I believe, however, that there is another way. The Labour party agrees with HMRC’s projection that a 12% cut is realistic when looking at overtime, procurement, modernisation, collaboration and back-office procedures and, as the Minister knows, we would have done that were we in government. The figures he produces for north Wales, however, show a cut in funding of £5.9 million over the next two years. That will lead to further pressures on the chief constable, further difficulties in fighting crime and, in my view, a poorer service for my constituents and people in north Wales.

The Minister needs to think again. He has an opportunity. This very day, he has announced an extra £90 million for the police force in London—coincidentally, just before a London election this year. If he can do it for London, he can review the position of north Wales for next week, and I will urge my hon. Friends next week to scrutinise seriously the Minister’s proposals.