Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I hope he will allow me this opportunity to express my sympathy to the friends and family of Claire Tiltman, who lived in his constituency and, in 1993, was tragically murdered. I was glad to see her murderer brought to justice after so many years. Colin Ash-Smith, like Lucy Letby, was cowardly for not attending the sentencing hearing to face up to his appalling crime. Each case is different, so it is important that the court and the judge have discretion in how to make an attendance order, and in reaching that decision—although we are working through the details—we would expect the courts to consider the full circumstances of each individual case, including any representations made by the prosecution or the defence in that context.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

If we want offenders to attend their sentencing, it does rather help if the court is open. Harrow Crown court was closed two and a half weeks ago because of the discovery of crumbling concrete—RAAC—with no indication as yet of any timescale for it to be reopened. Its closure will inevitably exacerbate the backlog of criminal cases in the London area and prevent victims of crime from seeing justice. Could the Minister provide quickly an update on the progress at getting Harrow Crown court modernised, fully repaired and open again?

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, particularly for the dexterity with which he got Harrow Crown court in. He is right to highlight that case. I understand that remedial work is under way and that cases listed there have been transferred to other London courts to ensure they still continue to be heard. I understand from the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), that the indicative timescale to complete the works is six to nine months.

Cammell Laird Workers Imprisoned in 1984

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential merits of a public inquiry into Cammell Laird workers imprisoned in 1984.

I declare at the outset that I am a member of the GMB trade union. I note the unfortunate absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley), who has campaigned on this topic consistently since his election to the House, and whose brother was one of the 37. He had hoped to take part in this debate, but unfortunately he has tested positive for covid and therefore cannot be here.

In October 1984, 37 trade unionists who had fought to stop the closure of the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead ended their occupation of a gas rig in the shipyard and were promptly arrested and locked up in Walton jail, Merseyside’s maximum security prison. Their supposed crime was to have been found in breach of a contempt of court hearing following an earlier judicial hearing; as they had been sacked, they were guilty of trespassing.

No other industrial action resulted in so many men being sent to prison. The prison sentence of 30 days was grossly unfair. By the time they were released, the 37 had been sacked. They lost redundancy pay, and those entitled to pension payments lost those too. Officials from GMB believe that one of the men may have lost out on £120,000 or more.

The men were locked up alongside murderers and criminals. They were blacklisted and struggled to find work afterwards. In a democracy, belonging to a trade union and taking industrial action should not lead to the risk of imprisonment. Trade unionists in 1984—and indeed those of us who are trade unionists now—are not above the law, but the Cammell Laird 37 were part of an official national dispute, and they enabled essential maintenance to take place on the destroyer being built at the time. They had impressive records of employment service and were clearly patriotic. The decision to imprison them was completely disproportionate.

There have been many attempts to highlight the injustice of what happened to the 37. They and their families, supported by their trade union, GMB, have campaigned for almost 40 years for this injustice to be made right.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, and I apologise for not being able to stay for all of it. As he said, my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) has campaigned tirelessly on this issue. He tabled an early-day motion in 2021, in which he highlighted, among other things, the immense suffering and economic hardship that the imprisoned workers endured as a result of their month-long detention, and the blacklisting and loss of redundancy and pension rights that followed that imprisonment. Does my hon. Friend agree that any public inquiry should fully take into account such practices?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Thomas]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She and my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead are two of the many MPs who have already raised the case of the 37.

Strikingly, in response to one of the questions tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead in 2021, the then Justice Minister, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), argued that if there were concerns about the imprisonment of the 37, the case should be referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The problem with that answer is that the men were sent to prison for contempt of court—a civil matter. As I understand it, under sections 9 to 12B of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, which lists the type of cases the Criminal Cases Review Commission has the power to review, there is no mention of decisions of the High Court to commit someone to prison for contempt of court.

Either a public inquiry is needed to review the treatment of the 37—that is the purpose of this debate—or the case should be reviewed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, with all the investigative powers it has at its disposal. If so, the law will need to be changed to bring contempt cases resulting in prison within scope, because the Cammell Laird 37 will have little chance of justice until one or other of those options happens.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate and, with the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley), who is absent, for his fight for justice. Does he agree that these miscarriages of justice, which we can simply look at historically, are for those men and their families life-changing and altering? For them to understand that the lessons learned from their story can result in legislative changes can provide closure for families that went through it and provide protection for other families in future.

[Gareth Thomas]

I very much agree with that point; I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support for the case that others and I will make.

In the latter part of 1984, across Britain’s industrial heartlands at the time, huge numbers of jobs in nationalised industries, including steel and coal, were axed by Margaret Thatcher’s Government, with a casual disregard for what would come next for those made redundant and their devastated communities. In shipbuilding alone, a hugely important source of jobs across the UK at the time, British Shipbuilders went from employing 62,000 workers in 1982 to just 5,000 five years later.

It is clear, from papers released by the National Archives and from Margaret Thatcher’s private papers, that Ministers were determined to privatise the building of warships, reduce the number of shipbuilding yards and sell off the remainder of the yards. Those records confirm a central belief of the 37 when they went on strike, that Ministers wanted to close Cammell Laird. They confirm that Norman Tebbit, then Secretary of State, and Norman Lamont, then Minister of State in the Department for Trade and Industry, wanted to close Cammell Laird, potentially as early as the end of the year, when the two ships then being built were expected to be completed.

We know that, because what emerges from these relatively recently declassified records of the time, is how Cammell Laird’s future became the centrepiece of a fierce Whitehall battle between the majority of Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet, hellbent on privatisation at any cost, and a far smaller group worried about the future of Merseyside if Cammell Laird closed. At the time, Cammell Laird was one of Britain’s most important shipyards. In existence for more than 150 years, it was a byword for engineering and shipbuilding skill of the highest order.

Warships built at Cammell Laird, such as Ark Royal, helped to protect our shores during two world wars, while other ships built there delivered huge wealth from across the globe to Britain’s shores. The 37 had helped build ships crucial to our efforts to win back the Falklands and later to take on Saddam Hussein. Short of active military service, there surely are not many more patriotic things one can do for one’s country than help build the means to defend it.

Word began to leak out in the spring and early summer of 1984 that Cammell Laird might be at risk of closure. Ministers at the time in the House of Commons denied that any major shipyard closures were being contemplated.

“I know of no such proposal.”—[Official Report, 27 June 1984; Vol. 62, c. 1095.]

So said Norman Lamont, then Minister of State at the Department for Trade and Industry. That was not quite the full picture. The Ministry of Defence had tendered for contracts to build two Type 42 destroyers in late 1983. Cammell Laird’s bid had met the quality threshold and apparently offered the best price. Over the course of nine months, from April 1984 to January 1985, Norman Tebbit successfully persuaded Margaret Thatcher and the rest of her Cabinet to delay Cammell Laird being awarded a contract to build at least one of the planned new Royal Navy destroyers.

The then Secretary of State for Defence, Michael Heseltine, recognising the profound economic and social consequences for Merseyside if Cammell Laird were to close, wanted to place orders for one, possibly two, Royal Navy Type 22 frigates with Cammell Laird, which would have secured the yard’s immediate future, and prevented even more job losses. The records released by the National Archives and the Margaret Thatcher Foundation detail how Norman Tebbit and the Department for Trade and Industry strongly objected, arguing, according to papers at the time now in the National Archives:

“If Cammell Laird did remain open, overcapacity would remain in shipbuilding with gratuitous risk to the successful privatisation.”

Commitments had been made that Cammell Laird would be able to bid and would have “a strong case” for building Type 22 frigates, as far as back as December 1982, by the then Secretary of State for Defence, John Nott, in this House. In April 1984, Michael Heseltine, then Secretary of State for Defence, underlined the significance of that commitment, and the impact on Merseyside if that commitment were not honoured and Cammell Laird closed. He particularly underlined the fact that Cammell Laird had won the MOD’s tendering process.

When British Shipbuilders published accounts in July 1984 for the previous year, it noted that Cammell Laird’s warship-building operations were still profitable, making some £3.22 million in surplus. None the less, Norman Tebbit, Margaret Thatcher and a series of Cabinet allies eventually forced the re-tender of the contracts to build these warships, delaying for almost a year the award of a warship-building contract to Cammell Laird. The papers also reveal how Norman Tebbit wanted to spin the decision, to put the blame and responsibility for the closure of Cammell Laird first on the British Shipbuilders Board and crucially, too, on the workforce, whose growing concern about their future they comment on—although they describe that as union militancy and worsening industrial relations.

[Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend and congratulate him on securing this important debate. He is making an important contribution around the thrust of Government direction in policy terms in relation to shipyards at this point of time. Does he agree with me that the systematic reduction of the workforce at Cammell Laird from 5,500 in 1977 down to 3,300 in October 1983 and a reduction of another 1,000 in the 12 months thereafter—taking into account the period following the dispute—points to that attempt to undermine British shipbuilding? Is that not why we need this inquiry? Given the fact that, sadly, several of those who were arrested have passed away in the years in between, does that not add to the urgency of the inquiry at this stage?

[Gareth Thomas]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that there is an urgency to this case. I welcome his support for the points that I am trying to make.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is explaining powerfully that justice delayed is justice denied. We have members of the Cammell Laird 37 with us today in the Public Gallery. Is it not important for anyone watching or listening today that we have justice? It is about time. All the documents should be made public as soon as possible.

[Gareth Thomas]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for her support for this debate. I absolutely agree with her concluding point, which I want to come on to in a little bit.

On balance, it is difficult not to conclude from the papers I have read that a significant group of Ministers in 1984 were so determined to drive through the complete privatisation of British shipbuilders, regardless of the wider economic and social consequences, that they decided that to achieve this, Cammell Laird had to close, and that any employee or union resistance had to be resolutely confronted.

[Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

When I was an engineering apprentice in the late 1960s in Liverpool, it was abundantly clear to anyone working in engineering that Cammell Laird was important not only for the reasons stated by my hon. Friend, but also for training engineers, who then went off into other areas of the industry. The case that he is making and the evidence he has referred to are important. He has highlighted two options on how to proceed, but if those are not feasible, would something similar to the Hillsborough inquiry carried out by Bishop James Jones, where all the evidence could be properly reviewed and perhaps point in a different direction, be a potential third option? Perhaps the Minister might consider that in his response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Thomas]

I am grateful for that intervention by my right hon. Friend, who knows the yard, its environs and its significance much better than I do. His point about a potential third option is very important. Crucially, and as I will come on to, it requires such a third option for full access to the various papers that are still available that relate to the closure.

I turn to the court action in 1984. Not knowing any of the Whitehall battle that was going on, the workforce at Cammell Laird had seen their numbers reducing steadily—the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) made—through various waves of redundancies, so not surprisingly they took the decision to go on strike from the end of June 1984. Fearing that British Shipbuilders might move the two ships that the yard was working on, so that they could be completed at other yards, several men occupied the gas rig from June 1984.

The only court record that I could find shows that those occupying the rig and picketing the destroyer that was being built were sacked on 23 August 1984. Just days later, in early September 1984, British Shipbuilders was able to begin court action to accuse the men of trespassing and to require them to leave the rig and stop their peaceful picket.

I gently suggest that it is challenging to believe that the sackings and the court action were not directly related. The men, believing—rightly, we now know—that stopping their occupation would make it easier for the yard to close, refused to leave the gas rig, as required by the injunction. British Shipbuilders then went back to court and it appears that the company successfully asked Mr Justice Glidewell on 13 September 1984 to order that the men be arrested and sent to prison for contempt of court, because they had ignored his earlier court order.

The 37 men only got any sort of legal representation, and only then from the Official Solicitor, when the case was appealed at the High Court on 10 October 1984, but the prison instruction was confirmed. The key judges seem to have made little effort to understand the position of the 37. Justice Glidewell, in insisting on prison if the occupation did not end, made a point of suggesting that national security was somehow at risk. There was no one present to challenge that narrative: the men could not turn up without ending their action; and they certainly did not have the expensive lawyers that British Shipbuilders would have been able to call on to put their case.

Lord Lawton, who was the senior judge when the case went to the High Court, had been a member of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, had visited Hitler in the 1930s and had been selected to run for Parliament. He does not seem to have considered whether a 30-day prison sentence was proportionate. Given that the occupation of the yard had ended when water supplies ran out and that the men had already been in prison for 10 days by the time that he considered their case, it is even more extraordinary that they were required to complete their full sentence.

There were other contempt cases at the time in other industries, but none of them resulted in prison for those involved who were found in contempt, even where, as with the Cammell Laird 37, they did not co-operate with the judicial authorities. Most striking of all is the case of Arthur Scargill and the executive of the National Union of Mineworkers in the 1984-85 miners’ strike. They, too, were found in contempt of court, yet never went to prison.

There are many instances of unions being fined during this period. However, despite considerable work by the House of Commons Library, to whose researchers I am very grateful, I can find no record of any other group of striking workers being sent to prison for contempt, or indeed any other large group of workers who were sent to prison at all because of a national dispute, except the Shrewsbury 24, whose convictions were rightly overturned recently by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

So why were the Cammell Laird 37 imprisoned and treated so badly? They had no legal representation of their own; they could not afford the barristers and solicitors who were necessary for them to have a chance of avoiding jail; the Official Solicitor took up their case at appeal, but by then it was too late; and a further appeal to the House of Lords could have happened, but did not.

So who were the 37? Billy Albertina, Eddie Albertina, Francis Albertina, Jimmy Albertina, John Albertina, Jimmy Barton, Christopher Bilsborough, John Brady, Michael Byrne, Thomas Cassidy, Thomas Culshaw, John Dooley, Lol Duffy, Colin Early, Nicholas Fenian, Joe Flynn, Andrew Frazer, Barry Golding, Paul Hennessey, Edward Kenny, Paul Little, Eddie Marnell, Jimmy McCarthy, Anthony McGarry, Philip McKeown, Michael Mooney, Aiden Morley, Sam Morley, Alan Prior, Francis Roach, Stephen Smith, Christopher Thompson, Tommy Webb, Tommy Wilson, Chris Whitley, George Whittaker, and John Wright.

They were, of course, painted as militants, a line that the right does rather like to use a lot. The politics and tactics of the 37 may not have been to everyone’s taste, but their pride in the job they did and their respect for the role that the ships they were building were set to play were never mentioned in court, or in much of the media coverage at the time. Even while they were picketing the destroyer, they were allowing other workers on to carry out essential maintenance, with the leaders of the Cammell Laird 37 intervening to stop others from occupying or going on to the destroyer.

These were working-class men—hard-working, some very skilled. They were not schooled in the law or in high politics, but there is surely something very honest in wanting to defend your community, and, as I understand it, the Cammell Laird yard was certainly fundamental to the economic and social fabric of the Wirral and wider Merseyside community. The men did not stop the eventual closure of the yard, but their actions in helping to publicise what the loss of the yard would mean certainly delayed its closure. Eventually, one of the contracts to build the Type 42 destroyer was finally given to Cammell Laird, saving many jobs for a while longer.

Very few people want to go on strike—a truth that very few Conservatives have been willing to acknowledge down the years—but it is a fundamental right that should be protected. Of course, what links the case of the Cammell Laird 37 to today is that the Conservative party is still trying to criminalise those who want to push for better jobs, a decent living and dignity in their employment. The desperate Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill that Ministers are pushing in an attempt to divert attention from a miserable record of economic mismanagement mirrors the efforts of Ministers back in 1984 to try to avoid public responsibility for the consequences of axing huge numbers of jobs across our industrial heartlands.

The Cammell Laird 37 were brave men. They faced the full wrath of the judicial, media and political opinion of the time; they had the chance to say sorry in court for occupying the yard—in legal language, to purge their contempt—but that would have been apologising for fighting to stop the yard’s closure and save their community. Not one of the 37 did so, even when the mother of some of the men died. Others in the group encouraged those men to say sorry, so that they could leave prison to grieve and say longer goodbyes, but they would not: they were determined to stay, side by side with the others. They made a point of going back to prison after the funeral to show their support and solidarity. They went in together, and they came out together.

The 37 have campaigned with, and through, the GMB to try to find out the full picture as to why they were sent to prison, with a film, a book, and rallies and meetings across the country down the years. They have searched for all sorts of records and made numerous freedom of information requests. Police records from the time, Walton jail records, and full records of the involvement of the official solicitor or Attorney General do not appear to be publicly available; what we can, I think, definitively say is that throughout 1984, decisions about the future of Cammell Laird were being taken at the very highest level of Government. The possible role of government —in its widest sense—in the decisions that led to those men being imprisoned and losing so much should be explored by those whose powers allow full and complete access to any remaining records. The proportionality of sending the men to prison at all, and of keeping them there once the occupation had ended, also merits review.

In the end, this is about 37 men who were sent to prison when no other comparable national dispute, at the time or since, saw a similar outcome. As such, I hope the House will be sympathetic to the case for a public inquiry, a Hillsborough-style inquiry or, indeed, a review by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

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[Gareth Thomas]

I am grateful, Sir Christopher, for the opportunity to make a short winding-up speech. I am very grateful to hon. Members who have attended the debate, including my hon. Friends the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) and for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Sir George Howarth), my hon. Friends the Members for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western), for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) and for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood), the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). I am grateful for their support and knowledge.

I am also grateful for the Front-Bench speeches. The hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) was clear in his support for the release of documents. I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) for reiterating our party’s commitment to review this issue in Government and ensure the release of all documents.

I am grateful to the Minister for offering to look at two possible legal remedies. I will certainly write to him. I welcome his acknowledgement of the impact that imprisonment had on the 37.

I take the opportunity again to praise the GMB union for its tenacity in supporting the 37—in particular, Eddie Marnell and the others who have continued to campaign consistently on this. This is the only remaining case of trade unionists being sent to prison. It was wrong then, it is wrong now and we need some sort of inquiry to put it right.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the potential merits of a public inquiry into Cammell Laird workers imprisoned in 1984.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)]

My hon. Friend is dead right: literacy is fundamental, including, of course, to access those other parts of education. I welcome the work of organisations such as the Shannon Trust and I welcome the recent Ofsted report. We are sharpening our focus, creating a literacy innovation fund.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

T4. Two weeks ago, an inquest into the death of my constituent’s brother, Liridon Saliuka, found that significant and multiple failings at Belmarsh had contributed to his death while on remand there. I recognise that Ministers will not immediately know the details of what happened, but I believe my constituent is entitled to understand how her brother could have been so comprehensively let down. Will the Secretary of State find out what went wrong and, in the first instance, write to me?

[Dominic Raab]

These kinds of cases are harrowing for the family. If the hon. Gentleman writes to me with further details, I will be very happy to look at them and report back to him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

On the hon. Member’s first point, I have provided a written answer, which I will happily forward to him—I cannot remember if the question was from him—in which the existing position on funding was clarified. I am confident that we have put in a huge funding package across the justice system, with £477 million to support court recovery in the spending review. That is a significant investment, but I am more than happy to look at what has happened to funding for specific charities.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

As the Minister considers how to modernise the courts system further, he might want to reflect on the lessons learned—or not—from a court case in 1984, when 37 workers from the Cammell Laird shipyards were unjustly imprisoned at a maximum security prison, and as a result were sacked, blacklisted, and lost redundancy and pension rights. Will he commit today to examine what papers his Department and the rest of Government hold on this case so that such an injustice can never happen again?

[James Cartlidge]

If the hon. Member writes to me, I will be more than happy to get my officials to look into that historical case.

IOPC Report on Metropolitan Police Officers' Conduct: Charing Cross Police Station

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

As I explained earlier, we are engaging at all levels with the various actions plans that are in place to try to bring change in policing. And, of course, we are injecting a much more diverse shot of energy and personnel into policing through the uplift programme. However, it is—I am not making a political point—primarily the job of the Mayor of London to hold the commissioner to account on these issues. We are sending in the inspectors not just to London but to every force to look at their vetting and anti-corruption processes to make sure they are functioning well, but with a particular emphasis on the ability internally to call out exactly this kind of behaviour. It appears that this incident came to light after phones were brought in to be checked after a previous incident—this was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord)—and they were discovered almost accidentally. We have to ask why. Why were there not police officers calling out that behaviour? That is what we are sending in the inspectors to have a look at.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will understand that this case, among other things, will reinforce the profound concern about the level of violence towards women and the lack of accountability for men who are responsible for that violence. As my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) alluded to in her remarks, the Government have so far refused to make violence against women and girls a strategic policing priority. Given the seriousness of this latest report, the fact that it is not an isolated case and the clear need for cultural change across the Metropolitan police, will the Minister stop procrastinating and bring that in?

[Kit Malthouse]

We have not refused at all. We have said we will consider it, along with all the other horrendous crimes that, sadly, teem around this country and which we have to deal with. As I say, we will publish our findings on the strategic policing requirement shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What assessment he has made of the effect of the backlog of cases in HM Courts and Tribunals Service on access to justice.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

What assessment he has made of the effect of the backlog of cases in HM Courts and Tribunals Service on access to justice.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

I am delighted to report to the House that the recovery of our court system following the coronavirus pandemic is very well under way. The magistrates court is recovering strongly. Disposals last week exceeded 21,000, which is more than the number of receipts, and therefore the outstanding caseload went down, as it has gone down for each of the past five weeks. In relation to the Crown court, the recovery of jury trials continues strongly, and last week over 100 were held.

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[Chris Philp]

The hon. Lady is quite right to draw attention to custody time limits. Of course we want to get cases heard as quickly as possible because people on remand may well be found not guilty subsequently. I do agree with her sentiments about children. I know that when judges look at listing cases, they are very mindful of that. By the end of October, we will have 250 Crown court jury trial rooms operating, which will enable us to really get through these cases as quickly as we possibly can.

[Gareth Thomas]

Shopworkers have faced rising violence in recent years, and yet too often the perpetrators are not being brought to justice, partly, at the moment, because of lengthy backlogs in court hearings. Industry experts, business and trade unions are all calling for greater legal protection for shopworkers and for more investment in the court system. When are Ministers going to listen?

[Chris Philp]

Ministers have listened. I have already explained that we have just announced an extra £80 million to support court recovery, on top of the £153 million to improve the court estate just a short time ago. As regards sentencing, the hon. Member will, I am sure, welcome the sentencing White Paper published last week, which imposes tougher penalties on serious offenders and keeps them in prison for longer. He mentions outstanding caseloads. I would remind him that the outstanding caseload in the Crown court, even with coronavirus, is lower today than it was in 2010, so we have managed to run the court system more effectively with coronavirus than the last Labour Government did without it.

Legislation against Female Genital Mutilation

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments and for being in the Chamber for the private Member’s Bill on Friday. His comments have been heard.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I share the deep concern of the Labour Front Bench and other Opposition colleagues about the actions of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope).

How many young girls does the Minister think Britain would be leaving more at risk of female genital mutilation if the proposal by some Conservative Members for a multibillion-pound cut to the work of the Department for International Development were implemented?

[Lucy Frazer]

What we do know is that there are victims of female genital mutilation in the UK, where FGM is being carried out. In November 2018, the Department for International Development announced £50 million to target and prevent female genital mutilation in African countries, and that is part of a wider investment by DFID. So far, through its support, DFID has protected 3 million girls worldwide from FGM.

Draft Mutual Recognition of Protection Measures in Civil Matters (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2019 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Lucy Frazer)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Mutual Recognition of Protection Measures in Civil Matters (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. The draft instrument forms part of the Government’s preparations should the UK leave the EU without a deal. It relates solely to our no-deal preparations. If Parliament approves the withdrawal agreement, which includes an implementation period, and passes the necessary legislation to implement that agreement, the Government would defer the coming into force of the instrument until the end of that implementation period.

The statutory instrument relates to civil protection measures. A civil protection measure is the decision to place restrictions on one individual to protect another individual who may be at risk. Someone may be prevented from going to a place where the person at risk lives or works, for example. They could also be prevented from contacting the person at risk by phone or by email. Examples of civil protection measures in the law of England and Wales include non-molestation orders, under part IV of the Family Law Act 1996, or injunctions, under section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. There are similar measures in Northern Ireland. The SI relates in particular to the recognition and enforcement of those measures. The approach that we are taking is to unilaterally recognise and enforce incoming civil protection measures from EU countries, except Denmark, to ensure that vulnerable individuals will continue to be protected.

What is the current position of English and Welsh law under EU law? The EU regulation on mutual recognition of protection measures in civil matters, which I will refer to as the civil protection measures regulation, provides for mutual recognition of such protection measures in civil matters across the EU, except Denmark, which does not participate in the European Union area of freedom, security and justice. That regulation’s effect is that if a civil protection measure is granted in one member state, it must be recognised in another, without any special measure to achieve that end. It must be enforced in another member state without any need for a declaration of enforceability and is treated, practically speaking, as if it had been ordered in the other member state.

What will change if we leave the EU without a deal? The instrument provides that an incoming civil protection measure from an EU member state—except Denmark—shall, under the terms of the civil protection measures regulation, be recognised without any special procedure being required, and enforceable without the requirement for a declaration of enforceability.

The instrument also revokes the provision about issuing a certificate in the courts of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, which is required for recognition and enforcement in an EU member state, under the civil protection measures regulation. We are doing that because we cannot legislate unilaterally to restore the reciprocity of approach. That means we cannot require an EU member state to comply with civil protection measures issued by UK courts, because the UK will no longer be an EU member state and EU member states will no longer be bound to recognise or enforce civil protection measures issued in the UK under the regime.

Providing for courts in England and Wales to issue such certificates when there is no certainty that the measure could be invoked in the EU under the civil protection measures regulation would, in our view, be of no benefit to our citizens. Indeed, it could open up the possibility of giving the person at risk a false expectation of continued protection in an EU member state.

The Government accept that that loss of reciprocity means that those with civil protection measures issued in our courts who wish to travel to the EU will be disadvantaged compared with those who have protection measures issued in the EU who wish to come to the UK. We strongly believe, however, that we must do what we can to provide as much reassurance as possible to people, often in vulnerable situations, who have a protection measure issued in the EU. That is because it benefits all citizens, including vulnerable people living in the EU, be they EU, UK or other nationals.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I, like all Members of the Committee, I am sure, look forward to being selected to serve on Delegated Legislation Committees. Will the Minister give a practical example that a simple soul, such as a Back Bencher like me, could understand, to show how these regulations will make a practical difference on the ground?

[Lucy Frazer]

Like the hon. Gentleman, I am eager to serve and do my duty, to ensure that our laws are worthy of the citizens we serve. I am grateful to him for serving on this very important Committee. An example would be a molestation order. If a victim of domestic violence has an injunction in France preventing the perpetrator emailing them, visiting their home or workplace, or contacting them in any way, and they come on holiday to England, we will respect that injunction, which will remain valid and enforceable.

Civil Liability Bill [Lords]

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

Yes, I do share my right hon. Friend’s concerns. For many people, a car is not a luxury but is essential. The cost of insurance, particularly for young people, can be considerable. Indeed, as I will set out, that cost is likely to increase very significantly if we do not take action, which is one reason we have taken the measures that we have.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Secretary of State tell the House why there is nothing in the Bill that will allow insurance companies to be held to account for whether or not they pass on the savings that the Bill purports to deliver for consumers?

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[Mr Gauke]

They will be face-to-face medical examinations, which I believe will provide the degree of robustness in the system that we need.

The Bill will also provide for a new fixed tariff of compensation for pain, suffering and loss of amenity for whiplash claims. The high number of whiplash claims and compensation levels that we are seeing justifies that tariff being set by the Lord Chancellor. We want fair and proportionate compensation. Its cost should not be unfair to the motorists. We will provide some important flexibilities on how the tariff operates to make sure that it remains fair and adaptable where necessary to exceptional circumstances, inflation and changes in the claims market.

[Gareth Thomas]

Does not the Minister accept that one of the further flaws in the Bill is that the genuine victim of a road traffic accident faces receiving less compensation than someone who has a similar accident but not in a road traffic scenario, who receives compensation set not by the Lord Chancellor, but under the judicial guidelines that exist at the moment?

[Mr Gauke]

This must be put in the context of a package of measures we are taking that seek to address the significant problem that exists, which I have sought to sketch out and which other hon. Members have highlighted: the very considerable cost that motorists face in insurance premiums as a consequence of whiplash claims, a number of which are clearly not genuine. Given that the number of road traffic accidents is falling yet the number of claims is going up, it is right that we take action.

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[Richard Burgon]

I have to make some progress, I am afraid.

The Government have said that they will drop vulnerable road users from their reforms. They should indeed do so, but they should also concede that the inclusion of people injured at work is equally unjustified.

It is not only we who oppose these measures. The Justice Committee concluded that

“increasing the small claims limit for personal injury creates significant access to justice concerns.”

[Gareth Thomas]

Is not one real problem with the increase in the small claims limit the fact that a vast imbalance of resources is imposed between the insurance company on the one hand and the individual making a claim on the other? The individual making a claim will not have their legal costs paid for and will not be able to have an expert lawyer on their side as a result in most cases, while the insurance industry will be able to have expert, skilled lawyers on their side, fighting their corner.

[Richard Burgon]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. This goes completely against the principle of equality of arms.

We agree with the Justice Committee and the recommendation of the Jackson review that there should be an increase in the small claims limit only in line with inflation. That would mean a rise to £1,500, not the £2,000 currently proposed. If the Government were to propose a £1,500 limit today or to accept Labour’s amendment that we will propose in Committee, that would help to build a much broader consensus around this currently divisive legislation.

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[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

At the outset, I refer Members to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a practising solicitor in England and I am still on the roll of Scots solicitors.

I do not practise in the field of personal injury, but I have in the past—in both Scotland and England. I represented “pursuers”, as claimants are known in Scotland, and claimants in England. I also represented defendants in England—Her Majesty’s Government, most notably.

This debate has excited a lot of passions. We heard the shadow Front Bencher make some deeply unwelcome comments about alleged friendships between Government Members and members of the insurance industry. We also hear outside the Simpsons-esque portrayal of ambulance-chasing lawyers—a poor reflection of the vast bulk of solicitors, barristers and other persons, regulated and authorised under the Legal Services Act 2007, who act in this area. We heard the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) outline her own valuable experience in this field.

What is this debate all about? I will concentrate on soft tissue injury—known as whiplash. Whiplash elicits much passion among people and is often undervalued as an injury, and I do not just mean that in the financial sense, in terms of quantum; I mean that it is joked about by members of the public—until, of course, it happens to them and they suffer an accident through no fault of their own, but through the delict, the tort, the negligence of another individual who has breached a duty of care towards them. It is right, moreover, in our mature and well-developed society that when one breaches a duty of care towards another, either through wilful intent or negligence, our system recognises it primarily by way of financial benefit, and that is the primary purpose of a mature and competitive insurance industry.

Back in February 2017, when I was a member of the Justice Select Committee, I questioned both the then president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers and the director of insurance policy for the Association of British Insurers. I put various questions to both, but in particular to the latter. I asked him whether he linked the number of whiplash claims with the high cost of insurance premiums, and he confirmed that that was the case, but I also asked him to confirm whether the use of the word “epidemic” was right, given that year on year we had seen a decrease in the number of whiplash claims. His response was that the insurance industry did use that word but that so too did others—namely, colleagues in the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers.

I then asked the director of insurance policy, given that he had accepted a link between the number of whiplash claims and the high level of car insurance premiums, and given the decline in the number of such claims, by what percentage car insurance premiums had declined—what concomitant decline in premiums had been witnessed—and there he stumbled. It was then that he revealed that he did not have an answer for the Committee but that he would write to it subsequently, which he did. When he did, he confirmed that the number of soft tissue injury claims had decreased by 5.8% in 2015-16, but there had been no corresponding decrease in car insurance premiums—in fact, there had been an increase in that year and the following year. The excuse he gave to the Committee was that, as the market cycle started to harden and insurers started to experience inflationary cost pressures from a number of sources, so premiums started to rise again.

I fully sympathise with Conservative colleagues who want us to do the honourable thing in society by allowing vulnerable people and in particular young people to be able to afford car insurance premiums, and it is right that the Government take every reasonable measure that could lead to a reduction in car insurance premiums, but we need to hold the insurance industry to the assurances it has been giving to the Government.

[Gareth Thomas]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alberto Costa]

I am afraid that because of time constraints I will not.

I welcome comments the Secretary of State made in answer to Opposition Members. He said several times that the insurance industry would be properly held to account. The Government will bring forward amendments to hold the industry to account for its assurances. On that basis, I feel able to support the Government on Second Reading—on the basis that, as the Bill progresses, those assurances by the insurance industry will be translated into words that we can approve in this place.

The Secretary of State rightly used the word “fraud” at the outset. This is where I differ slightly from the hon. Member for Cardiff Central when she talked about the ABI’s own figure that 0.3%, I think, of claims were fraudulent. It is my view that the insurance industry, as well as the enforcement agencies, including the police, has been reluctant to tackle fraud because of the cost and that therefore we are not seeing the real numbers for fraud.

There is unquestionably fraud, and wherever possible I have encouraged the insurance industry to tackle it more effectively, but we also need to acknowledge that there is a problem with claims management companies. I am talking not about regulated persons, like the hon. Lady, me and other hon. Members, but about cowboys—people who are not authorised persons under the Legal Services Act 2007 and who often act outside this jurisdiction. I have received numerous calls from individuals whom I suspect are based outside any of the UK’s legal jurisdictions—they use sophisticated telephony systems. I wrote to Ofcom, British Telecom, my own mobile service provider and the Information Commissioner’s Office to find out where the numbers originated, and I was told that they were spoof numbers. The problem is there is an industry of unregulated and unauthorised non-lawyers preying on vulnerable people and abusing the system. We have to recognise and tackle that.

Mindful of the time, I will make one final comment that I invite the Minister to consider. The changes that the Government propose that will benefit the British insurance sector will affect the Scottish and English legal systems differently. Let us consider someone with a car insurance policy. The Minister could be travelling from his wonderful constituency of Penrith to his family home in Perthshire, and the oddity is that if he has an accident in the middle lands, as he termed them once, he might get a certain amount of money for a soft tissue injury from a particular insurer, and yet just a couple of kilometres along the road, under the Scottish legal system, the same insurance company might have to pay out considerably more. I ask him to bear in mind the imbalance that that might create in the insurance industry.

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[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

If the speech by the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) was a bid to get on to the Bill Committee, it was an excellent one, but I fear that I cannot agree with any of the substantive points that he made. As I see it, the Bill will simply increase the profits of insurance companies while reducing the compensation available for those injured in road traffic accidents. Hidden behind the Bill is an attack on all injured people through an increase in the small claims limit. I fear that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr Hepburn) implied, it is a classic Conservative Bill that uses the pretence that a serious problem exists even though there is little independent evidence that it does. In practice, it will achieve a reduction in the rights of ordinary working people.

In this case, the alleged serious problem is with whiplash claims, yet the evidence that a substantive problem actually exists is, to be generous, questionable. It is true that there has been a storm of stories suggesting that we have a whiplash injury crisis, but the number of whiplash claims registered with the Government’s own compensation recovery unit has fallen consistently in the past six years. Indeed, it has fallen by 41% since 2010-11. Even when whiplash statistics are combined with the number of injuries registered by insurers with the compensation recovery unit as neck and back injuries, there has been a significant fall of 11% since 2011-12. The claim of an epidemic of fraudulent claims is a popular canard that has been repeated many times by Conservative Members today, yet the Government’s own report from Lord Young after 13 years of a Labour Government concluded that a compensation culture was a perception, not a reality. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) noted, the Association of British Insurers’ own data in 2016 showed that a tiny fraction— just 0.17%—of all motor claims were proven to be fraudulent.

Like every car owner and insurance buyer, I would welcome genuine measures to prevent fraud. Greater punishments for convicted personal injury fraudsters and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) said, an outright ban on cold calling from dubious claims management companies would do more to prevent fraud than the measures in this Bill. Indeed, the Bill and the package of which it is a part appear to start from the position that every claimant is a fraudster or a charlatan trying to make a quick buck from a car accident. It will mean a substantial reduction in compensation for all claimants, including those with genuine injuries who make up the vast majority of claimants.

As for the claim that these measures are going to lead to a substantial reduction in the cost of motor insurance, I think we are entitled to be sceptical. Reforms in 2013 have provided insurance companies with a windfall of £8 billion over the past five years, yet we have all seen premiums rise and rise again. According to the Association of British Insurers’ own figures, average premiums have increased by almost 17% each year between 2013 and 2017. I appreciate that Ministers have been written a letter by some insurers promising that if the Bill passes they will cut their premiums. The Secretary of State has claimed that there will be an amendment that will hold insurers’ feet to the fire. Well, that amendment could and should have been published ahead of this debate. I struggle to think of a single measure that Ministers could add to the Bill that would guarantee that premiums were cut. Perhaps that is why such an amendment has not been published today. Perhaps the only measure that might work would be a legal cap on motor insurance premiums. There would of course have to be a bit of consultation first, and I appreciate that those of us who sat through debates about an energy price cap may be sceptical given that that has not stopped energy bills rising either. At the moment, however, this Bill looks like it will amount to a £1 billion boon to some very big companies.

The Bill proposes a new tariff-based system which, conveniently for insurance companies, reduces the average compensation paid out to injured victims of road traffic accidents. In 2015, the average compensation for a whiplash claim with an injury duration of around six months was £1,850. Under this Bill, compensation for the same injury will be reduced to £450—a reduction of almost 80%. To remedy that supposed overcompensation for the genuinely injured, the Government want to make it even harder to bring a claim by forcing increased use of the small claims track, where a claimant’s legal costs are not recoverable. That would see injuries such as facial scarring, fractured ribs and whiplash classed as small claims. As the trade unions and the Law Society have all set out, it amounts to a huge inequality of arms in the courts system for those who have experienced road traffic accidents. Individuals deprived of legal advice will have no choice but to act for themselves, while the insurance companies defending claims will still have huge resources to pay for lawyers to take on the unrepresented.

Until now, it has been left to independent judges to decide on levels of compensation. This Bill stifles that very independence and replaces the flexibility of our judges to appraise each individual case of injury on the roads independently and on merit with a tariff that reduces value for all of us who pay motor insurance premiums. If the tariff system as proposed in the Bill is introduced, it may well open the door to the introduction of similar tariff-based systems in any area that provides a lucrative saving to the insurance industry. Notably, Lord Woolf noted the dangers of the tariff model being applied to holiday claims, industrial deafness claims and so on. The Bill benefits the insurance industry and will not lead to lower motor insurance premiums. I hope that it will be substantially amended or defeated.

Police Funding Formula

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Lady is right. That is the point the Committee makes in our report. Different areas have different demands. Policing has changed. It is not as it was 20 years ago or even 10 years ago. Therefore, the police must say what they are doing now, and the Government must say what they want to fund. Of course, the situation in Wales requires special attention.

The indicators proposed by the Home Office in determining funding—there are only four—fail to take into account many of the points raised in the report, and thus miss 70% to 80% of police demand that is not linked to volume crime. The Home Office needs to make absolutely clear what tasks 21st-century policing is expected to take on, and then decide how much it is prepared to fund.

It is of course important that police forces work in a collaborative way. Indeed, the Government are working in a collaborative way. When the Minister came before the House in November to tell us that the police funding formula review was being suspended, he was not then the Minister with responsibility for the fire services. The Government have decided to look across the Government and ensure that they collaborate properly. If they can do so, so can local police forces. If that happens, it must be part of the funding review formula.

One key Committee recommendation was the appointment of an independent panel to assist the Home Office in formulating the revised proposals. That is not because we do not trust Home Office officials to add up. We need a robust and defensible way of looking at the formula and it needs to be independent. Therefore, the Committee went to the trouble of suggesting the kinds of organisations that should sit on the panel: the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, the College of Policing, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Royal Statistical Society. You will notice, Madam Deputy Speaker, an emphasis on those who can add and therefore crunch statistics. There is an ongoing project between the London School of Economics and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary to provide a sound academic basis for identifying the underlying demands on police time. Let us use the expertise of our academic institutions. Such work, when led by the independent panel, could make the Minister’s job even easier.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Keith Vaz]

This is the last time I will give way because I know that other Members want to speak.

[Mr Thomas]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. When he and his fellow Committee members were looking at the potential balance of an independent panel, did they consider experts on serious and organised crime? It will be important to understand the impact on London’s police force of the pressures the Met is under to help to continue the battle against serious and organised crime.

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[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax). I have always enjoyed campaigning for the Labour party in his constituency. I strongly support the idea that the next police funding formula should be based partly on the number of bars and clubs in an area, because I think that, on that basis, London would see a substantial increase in its funding.

Perhaps, as I have started off in a consensual spirit, I might invite the hon. Gentleman to agree that the number of major events taking place in a police force’s area should be taken into account as well. Wembley stadium is very close to my constituency, and requires a substantial police presence to ensure that it is policed properly and effectively.

I very much enjoyed hearing from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Select Committee, about the work that the Committee had done. If he will forgive me for saying so, I thought the most worrying part of his speech was his suggestion that, according to some reports, police forces will have no detailed or clear information about the funding formula until 2019. I hope that the Minister will be able to set the Select Committee’s concerns at rest. At the moment, the Metropolitan police has no sense of clarity about its funding for the rest of this Parliament from 2017 onwards. As I said in my intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East, there is huge concern about this in London, given the role of the Metropolitan police in tackling serious and organised crime, and its importance in the fight against cybercrime, the increasing importance of which the whole House acknowledges. There is a sense that rising crime in London is putting substantial pressure on the available police resources.

Two weeks ago, Europol published a major report on the scale of the illegal activity of people trafficking by organised criminal gangs across Europe and beyond. London was identified as one of the centres for trafficking people into this country and in which the criminal gangs manage their operations. This re-emphasises the point that London, through the Metropolitan police, needs as much resource as possible to tackle and bear down on serious and organised crime, particularly if we want to tackle illegal immigration and other forms of organised crime. Hon. Members will be only too aware of the terrorism threat that we face, and I gently suggest that London faces a particular challenge to be tackled through counter-terrorism measures. I hope the Minister will ensure that the funding formula takes account of the particular threat that London faces.

[Richard Drax]

Speaking as an ex-serviceman, I watched the atrocities in Paris and noted that the police there, who were already armed, were expected to enter the buildings immediately to rescue people. There was no time to hang around. My concern is whether we have sufficient funding and training facilities to ensure that those who find themselves in such a situation here, God forbid, are equipped to enter such buildings immediately. It costs a lot more money to equip and train people to that level of expertise.

[Mr Thomas]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We need to ensure that police forces work collaboratively so that there are enough trained individuals. I gently suggest to him that the Metropolitan police has particular expertise to share in this regard, and that its training facility at Hendon continues to turn out extremely highly trained and effective police officers to work in the Met and elsewhere. He is absolutely right to suggest that the attacks in Paris last year brought into sharp relief the terrorist threat that we all face here in the UK and, I gently suggest, in London in particular.

An ongoing challenge for the Metropolitan police is the fact that crime is rising again. Recorded crime is up 5% in the last 12 months. Violent crime in London is up 22%. The Metropolitan police is operating in the context of 1,600 police officer posts having gone since 2010 and almost 3,000 police and community support officer posts having been axed in the last five years. In my constituency during that period, 137 police officers, sergeants and PCSO positions have been axed. We were used to neighbourhood policing involving a sergeant, three or four police constables and three or four PCSOs. We are now reduced to just one PC if we are lucky, and one PCSO if we are very lucky indeed.

More recently, we have also seen revealed the substantial pressures on the Met, which have led to more and more police officers from the suburbs, particularly Harrow, having to be moved from the borough where they normally do their policing work to police major events or to respond to rising crime in inner London. In the past 12 months, on occasion, 22% of police officer time in Harrow has been abstracted to other boroughs—in other words, 22% of the time Harrow police officers have worked has been spent not policing the streets of Harrow, as it should have been, but policing other streets in London. The Minister may argue that that is an operational issue for the Metropolitan police chief, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, and I would accept that it is, but it is an operational issue being driven by the shortage of resources at his disposal.

Harrow is one of the safest boroughs in London, but we still face significant crime problems, there is still a significant fear of crime, and significant problems with antisocial behaviour remain. My constituents and other constituents in Harrow want to know that our police officers are out policing our streets, instead of policing streets elsewhere in London. What is particularly concerning my constituents, such that I felt it necessary to intervene in this debate, is a proposal to merge Harrow’s police force with those in Barnet and in Brent to create a tri-borough command. The proposal would axe two of the three borough commanders in this area and create just one borough commander for the three areas. Brent has a bigger crime problem than Harrow and its force has the particular challenge of managing events at Wembley stadium. Barnet also faces a very different set of challenges and, again, is an area with slightly higher crime than Harrow. My constituents fear, rightly, that if there is a tri-borough commander, Harrow police will be more easily deployed into Brent or Barnet and away from Harrow.

Given the lack of investment in Harrow police station compared with that in the Wembley and Colindale police stations, my constituents fear that if the tri-borough proposal goes ahead, there will be a question mark over the future of Harrow police station. If the Minister does not feel that he can intervene to reassure my constituents in today’s debate, and I recognise his reluctance to do that, I ask him to have a quiet word with Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe to encourage him to drop this plan for a tri-borough command and reassure my constituents that there will still be one borough commander accountable to us in Harrow for the quality and effectiveness of policing in our borough, instead of our having to share this with those other boroughs. On that point, I welcome the Select Committee’s report and look forward to the Minister’s response.

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[Mr Gareth Thomas]

May I encourage the hon. Gentleman to oppose the merger of borough command units as well? If they succeed with Harrow, Brent and Barnet, I would have thought that a Kingston-Sutton merger might be next. Does he agree with me that that is a step too far and that the Policing Minister might usefully intervene with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to that effect?

[James Berry]

I know that locally there will be mixed feelings if that is proposed in south-west London, but I do know that the reforms brought in by this Government and the previous Government mean that these matters are entirely in the hands of the local police body, which in the case of London is MOPAC, or the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, rather than the Policing Minister. They are an operational matter for MOPAC and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. I have not seen the proposals yet, but I would certainly want to be reassured that there was no less democratic accountability and no less focus on local policing if that was going to happen in Kingston. I will wait to see the proposals and I am sure that all London MPs will have something to say if and when they are published by the Met police.

The Committee’s report records a rather unhappy period for the Home Office in which the Minister came to this House and apologised unreservedly, which was recognised in the report. I am sure that the Minister is absolutely committed to putting the situation right. The Government are to be commended for attempting to create a fair funding formula, which is recognised in the report, and that is something that previous Governments have not tried to do.

The terms of the funding formula are yet to be decided. It is no easy task; I certainly do not envy the Minister. Indeed, it is such a tricky task that both the shadow Home Secretary and the shadow Policing Minister cannot be in the Chamber for this important debate. No doubt they are scratching their heads and working out what their alternative funding formula would be. I welcome the Home Affairs Committee’s report and am pleased to have participated in its production. I am sure that the Minister will give it his full consideration in deciding the eventual outcome and I am sure that although there will be some winners and some losers, the public will be able to see that the funding formula at which the Minister arrives is fair to all forces. I hope that it will protect London, along with the special and vital functions performed by the Metropolitan and City of London police to keep us safe.

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[Mike Penning]

I am trying to be honest, as I always am when at the Dispatch Box or giving evidence to a Select Committee. Is this in my destiny today? Could I start a new consultation tomorrow? Yes I could, but I would not have the information within my grasp to do that. I have not got a date from Sara Thornton for that report. It is enormously difficult getting 43 police chiefs to agree where they will place their capabilities. For instance, East Midlands police covers homicide in the whole area, but most of the other ROCUs do not. Things such as cybercrime and encryption need to come with us because it should not be for the House or a Minister to tell chief constables “That’s what you should be doing”. The constables should be telling us where the capabilities will be, so that we can help with the funding formula.

[Mr Gareth Thomas]

The Minister will remember from the opening remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) that there has been speculation that the review will be put off until 2019. I appreciate that the Minister cannot give a timetable, but can he categorically rule out it starting as late as that?

[Mike Penning]

No Minister would stand and give such categorical responses—I cannot, because that would be wrong. We are determined to ensure—the Met is crucial to this—that we have an understanding from the chiefs and the PCCs about where they are asking the capabilities to be delivered from, whether ROCUs, local collaboration or the NCA. Then we can come forward and get it right.

I have a great deal of time for the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and her response was very measured, but when in government the Labour party said that it would implement this measure but it did not, and that is part of the discussion that we are having. Crime has massively changed since then.