EU Council, Security and Middle East

Debate between Frank Dobson and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, we are not members of Schengen, so we are able to police our borders independently, which we do. Indeed, it is at our borders that we can restrict people coming in, and after the legislation, as well as the royal prerogative of taking away people’s passports, we will be able to take them away at the border too.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I hope the Prime Minister accepts that no one in the House is more opposed to terrorism than I am—my constituency was subject to the Tavistock Square and Russell Square bombings. Does he agree that to be a British citizen is very precious, and that we need to be very careful about interfering with the rights of British citizens? If the security services know enough to finger people and say that they cannot come into the country, why can we not arrest and prosecute them and subject them to our general laws? If we do not subject all British citizens to our general laws, is there not a possibility that other countries may not attach enough significance to British citizenship?

[The Prime Minister]

I very much respect the right hon. Gentleman’s views. Of course I agree with him that the best outcome when we are faced with a terrorist threat is to ensure that we can gather evidence, prosecute and convict those who threaten our country. That is the first option, but successive Governments have found that, when we are facing an existential terrorist threat, that is not enough. That is why, in the past, we had control orders, and why we now have terrorism prevention and investigation measures. It is why, sometimes, we have to take extraordinary measures, such as using the royal prerogative to take passports away. I would argue that stripping someone of their nationality is not sacrosanct—that is what we do in the case of dual nationals today. That is why we must address any potential gap in our armoury so that we can keep our country safe.

Ukraine (Flight MH17) and Gaza

Debate between Frank Dobson and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. Having watched some of this absolutely harrowing coverage, there are moments when it is clear that people are leafing through personal belongings and suitcases in a way that is completely inappropriate. It has mostly been the separatists who have been doing that, but there have been occasions, I think, when mistakes have been made by members of the press. People have to understand that this is effectively a murder scene, but also a scene where there are people’s loved ones, whom they are desperately worried about and want to know whether they will be able to be brought home, and people should behave in an appropriate way.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

While Israel is rightly claiming its right of self-defence under international law, we cannot have international law for the Israelis and another international law for the Palestinians. When is Britain, and more importantly the United States, going to bring pressure to bear to get the Israelis to comply with international law, to end the blockade of Gaza and the settlements on the west bank?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that international law should apply to everybody, and in what we say to the Israelis we stress the fact that, although they have a right to self-defence, in order to be legal self-defence has to be carried out in a way that is proportionate, and that is why we have been urging restraint. So we are very clear: international law applies to all sides.

European Council and Nuclear Security Summit

Debate between Frank Dobson and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he says. There are two things we need to stress here. One is that NATO is a defensive alliance and we should now be working hard to reassure NATO members about our commitment to their collective security and all the things that means. That is very important, and President Obama was very clear about it at the G7 meeting. The second thing we need to do—here I part company a little bit with my hon. Friend—is to make clear what steps we would take if Russia were to go further in eastern Ukraine. Those would be economic steps, but do not let us doubt how strong and powerful they could be. My argument in the European Council has been, given we know that if Russia were to go into eastern Ukraine we would have to put in place pretty robust sanctions, that it is worth trying to set out some of the arguments in advance so that Russia can see the very serious consequence of these actions.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

Alexander Litvinenko died in University College hospital having been murdered by the agencies of the Russian Government. The British Government’s response to that so far has been to prevent the establishment of a proper inquest. Will the Prime Minister now demonstrate that he believes in the rule of law here and that that inquest should be started, and carried out thoroughly and completely?

[The Prime Minister]

The murder of Alexander Litvinenko was a dreadful act, it took place on British soil, and we should take the strongest possible exception to that. That is why the Litvinenko measures were put in place and remain in place. Yes, of course there needs to be a proper process of finding out what happened. My view has been that an inquest, properly constituted, should be able to deal with these issues, including dealing with sensitive information that will need to be taken into account, but I have always made it clear that if that is not possible and we need a different form of inquiry, that will have to take place instead.

Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (Inquiry)

Debate between Frank Dobson and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to speak up for the victims from Cannock and their families, whom he represents properly in the House. He is right to say that we must listen to the voices of victims and patients, and he is also right to talk about the reform of regulatory bodies, although, as I said earlier, we should be careful about thinking that just reforming regulatory bodies will be enough.

My hon. Friend specifically mentioned the importance of whistleblowers. It should not be necessary to rely on whistleblowing to deal with problems of quality, but sometimes it will be. We have taken measures to fund a helpline to support them, to embed rights in their employment contracts, and to issue new guidance in partnership with trade unions and employers. So we are taking the issue of whistleblowers seriously.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

As Health Secretary, I changed the law to provide protection for whistleblowing and to make hospital boards responsible for the quality of care. I am sure the Prime Minister accepts my disappointment that those changes were clearly not sufficient to avoid the things that happened in Mid Staffordshire.

May I issue a warning? I greatly welcome the proposal to make openness, transparency and candour a legal requirement, but if we are to do that in a litigation-obsessed society, it will need to be matched by the introduction of a system of no-fault compensation. Otherwise, it is possible that in some hospitals the doctors will be outnumbered by ambulance-chasing lawyers.

Algeria

Debate between Frank Dobson and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Friday 18th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We hope that our ambassador and others in the diplomatic team will be able to travel further south today; the ambassador has a plane on stand-by to do exactly that. I think that that will help us to get more information about what has happened, but we are clearly still dealing with a very fluid and dangerous situation. Part of the terrorist threat has been eliminated in one part of the site, but the threat remains in another part. Until that is completely sorted out, we will not get the perfect information that we require about the exact number of hostages and the difficult facts about who is safe and who is not. I hope that we will be able to say more later today, but we simply cannot do so at the moment. We will have to wait for the outcome before we can do that.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

May I join others in thanking the Prime Minister for his statement and for his clear understanding of the dilemmas faced by the Algerian Government? Will he tell us whether, in the light of the recent rise in tension in the area, any oil companies operating in Algeria have sought extra security measures either from the Algerian Government or from their home Governments?

[The Prime Minister]

I cannot give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance today. The Government make an ongoing assessment of risk based on the intelligence that comes through and is properly analysed by the joint terrorism analysis centre, and companies as large as BP also spend a serious amount of time thinking about security and risk. The right hon. Gentleman asks a good question, and I will certainly look into that for him.

Leveson Inquiry

Debate between Frank Dobson and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Thursday 29th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right—paragraphs 70, 71 and 72 are the absolutely key paragraphs of the report. But let me explain why I have misgivings about leaping straight to that conclusion. Once we start writing a piece of legislation that backs up an independent regulator, we have to write into that legislation what is its composition, what are its powers, what is its make-up, and we find pretty soon—I would worry—that we have a piece of law that really is a piece of press regulatory law. Now, that is an enormous step for us in this House of Commons to take, and we have to think about it very carefully before we leap into this new approach.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

Does the Prime Minister not accept that, if he wants people to accept the report’s recommendations and conclusions generally, particularly the ones he likes, he cannot pick and choose, but should accept all the recommendations?

[The Prime Minister]

This is where I part company with the right hon. Gentleman: it is the job of the House of Commons to consider a report and what is right for this country to introduce. I highlighted the changes to the Data Protection Act because I was advised that they could have a serious effect on investigative journalism. It would be quite wrong, if we received a report of this magnitude and said in five minutes flat, “We’re going to implement every last piece of it”, without considering the consequences. A responsible Government will think about the consequences. I am absolutely clear, however, that the clear principles of Leveson-style regulation—on what the independent press regulator needs—are right.

Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Debate between Frank Dobson and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As ever, Mrs Bone is spot on, and I am sure that there are many like her, round the country, saying to us, “This is important—don’t belittle the issue—but there are many more important issues about jobs, living standards, and dealing with the debt that you should be getting on with.”

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

Does the Prime Minister not accept that all his problems spring from his original misjudgment? Having taken responsibility for the News Corp bid for BSkyB away from the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills because he had expressed antipathy towards News Corporation, it was stupid of the Prime Minister to hand that responsibility over to the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, who was already on record as being in favour of the bid.

[The Prime Minister]

I am afraid that I do not accept that at all. To be fair to my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable), it was not just antipathy; he was recorded saying that he wanted to destroy the business. He could not carry on running that part of his Department. I sought advice from the Cabinet Secretary, and the Cabinet Secretary sought legal advice from the Cabinet Office. The view came back that it was appropriate to ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport to fulfil that role.

EU Council

Debate between Frank Dobson and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. The point I made in my statement about Europe being a network, not a bloc, is completely consistent with that. We should not be shy about its developing as a network, with some networks we want to be in and others we do not.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

Will the Prime Minister confirm that British banks and finance houses hold about £75 billion of bonds issued by eurozone Governments and that in the event of a default, with nobody representing Britain, he will still be expected to get the British taxpayer to bail some of them out?

[The Prime Minister]

The exposure of the British banks to European countries is published by the Bank of England—quite right, too—and obviously we want to avoid a collapse of the eurozone and to ensure that it takes the necessary steps to prevent that from happening. This Government will obviously always do whatever is necessary to safeguard our financial system and the economy.

Public Disorder

Debate between Frank Dobson and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly pay tribute to the Kent police force, which does such a good job. My hon. Friend referred to a speech I made about the importance of addressing the problems of family breakdown and irresponsibility. These are not easy things for politicians to talk about, because our families can also break down and we fail on many occasions, but it is too important a subject to ignore.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

We all welcome the Prime Minister’s praise for the individual police officers, firefighters and ambulance and emergency staff. Will he now follow up his warm words with warm action and abandon his proposals to undermine the pension arrangements of those self same firefighters, ambulance staff and policemen?

Libya and the Middle East

Debate between Frank Dobson and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are trying to establish better contact with the opposition in Libya and to learn more about them and their intentions. What we want—I would argue it is in our interest and in that of the whole world, including the Libyan people—is the swift removal of Colonel Gaddafi from his position. If helping the opposition in Libya would help to bring that about, it is certainly something we should consider.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

Will the Prime Minister confirm that there is nothing new or peculiarly Labour about dodgy relations between the British Government and the murderous Libyan regime? Will he confirm that when Metropolitan Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher was shot dead from the Libyan embassy in April 1984, the Thatcher Government humiliated the Commissioner of the Metropolitan police by requiring him to provide policemen to escort the murderer to the airport so that he could get back safely to Libya?

[The Prime Minister]

That is a somewhat tortured way of making a political point, and I would make one in return. [Interruption.] We have to comply with international rules, but let me make one simple point. During the last Parliament there was a choice about whether to support the release of al-Megrahi: one party decided that it was the right thing to do, and I am proud to say that my party did not.