EU Justice and Home Affairs Measures

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Secretary knows that an awful lot of the measures she has removed from the 35 are in fact measures that she plans to continue to co-operate with. There is a whole series of different aspects of guidance and pledges for co-operation across the policing and Eurojust world that she plans to continue to co-operate with. However, she has told her Back Benchers that she will not co-operate with them at all so that she can promise them a grand repatriation, when in fact it is the equivalent of repatriating the “Yellow Pages”.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend knows that this is really about co-operation across Europe to bring thousands of villains to account. How can we have faith in the Government if they cannot even co-operate with their colleagues in the House of Lords so that we can have the same debate, or give us enough time to consider the right thing to do, instead of this complete farce built on a hoax?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I heard somebody on the Government Front Bench muttering that there are different procedures in the House of Lords—different procedures that mean that they are allowed to vote on 35 measures, but we are allowed to vote on only 11? I have never heard anything so ludicrous.

The Home Secretary has been ducking and diving on this issue from the start. There are important measures in the 35 that we should be supporting and debating, and too many times the Home Secretary has tried to duck having a vote on them. The Schengen Information System II is vital and necessary. The recent Public Accounts Committee report that set out that there had been a 70% increase in delays in asylum claims also pointed out that the British Government have less information about criminals crossing our borders than other countries, and that is because we are not part of SIS II. The Home Secretary has not been able to join SIS II because she has been so busy renegotiating her opt-in, opt-out hokey-cokey for the sake of pandering to her Eurosceptic Back Benchers. We should be part of SIS II and we should be voting for it today.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has described the European arrest warrant as “an essential weapon”. Distinguished legal figures, including the former president of the Supreme Court, have argued that Britain also risks becoming a safe haven for fugitives from justice, a handful of them British citizens but the vast majority foreign nationals wanted for crimes elsewhere in Europe. They are right. For example, Zakaria Chadili from France was alleged to have travelled to Syria in late 2013 and undergone a month of training with a proscribed organisation. Instead of returning to France, he came to the UK and the French police wanted to arrest him. Between his first court appearance on 9 May and the orders for extradition on 13 June were just a few days, and he was surrendered on 25 June. In a similar case from 1995, before the European arrest warrant, Rachid Ramda, an Algerian national, was arrested in the UK in connection with a terrorist attack on the Paris transport system and it took 10 years to extradite him back to France.

The statistics are clear: the European arrest warrant helps us to deport foreign criminals and terrorists. More than 1,000 people were removed because of an arrest warrant last year. Of those people, 43 were UK nationals, eight of whom were connected to child sex offences. Since 2009, 500 people have been brought back to the UK to face British justice, including suspected child sex offenders and those suspected of murder, rape and drug trafficking, and more than 4,000 people have been removed, including more than 100 for murder, more than 300 for serious violence, more than 400 for drug trafficking and more than 500 for robbery. The arrest warrant helps us to bring to justice people who have committed heinous crimes in the UK and who should be facing British justice, and people who have committed crimes abroad, whom we want to deport from this country to face justice at home.

[Geraint Davies]

My right hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. Swansea has the most overcrowded prison in Britain. Does she agree that this measure is very important because, over the past five years, it has meant that 5,000 people have been removed from Britain to face justice abroad, with only 5% of the total moving in the other direction? Unless we continue using it, we will have an even greater crisis in our prisons because they will be full of foreign criminals.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. We do not want people to be stuck in British prisons when they should be facing trial and justice abroad. It would not be fair on victims of crime if we denied them justice because we did not have the procedures in place to ensure that people faced the courts. We do not want British families to be left without justice. We do not want the UK to be a safe haven for dangerous criminals.

It was right that the arrest warrant should have been reformed. We have supported the reforms that have been passed by this Government and have backed further reforms in Europe. The European Commission has concluded that

“it is essential that all Member States apply a proportionality test, including those jurisdictions where prosecution is mandatory.”

The Polish Parliament has taken through legislation that follows those principles.

Crime does not stop at the channel. That is why it is right that we should have the chance to show our support, right across the House, for the measures today.

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[Mrs May]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The Government made a conscious decision not to ask to opt into those minimum standard measures, precisely because of the impact that doing so would have had in relation to the justice system.

[Geraint Davies]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs May]

I have given way a number of times, but I will give way one further time to the hon. Gentleman.

[Geraint Davies]

The Home Secretary—who has not given way to me until now—has just said that she is in favour of opting back into the 35 measures. A moment earlier, she said “If you vote Conservative, we may end up with a renegotiation”, which implied that she would reconsider whether to support those 35 measures. Which is it?

[Mrs May]

I have made clear my view that our relationship with the European Court of Justice could well be one of the measures that should be part of the renegotiation and part of the process of looking again at our relationship with the European Union, which would happen after the election of a Conservative Government in May 2015, leading to an in-out referendum by the end of 2017. I hope that that is now clear to the hon. Gentleman.

I want to discuss some of the issues surrounding the European arrest warrant, given the degree of concern that it has raised among Members in the past. One such issue is that of lengthy pre-trial detention, which was highlighted by the case of Andrew Symeou—a case that has been championed relentlessly by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) in the interests of his constituent and his constituent’s family. Our reforms of the arrest warrant mean that, when the requesting country is not trial-ready, we will not extradite people. Had the measures that we have now passed been in place at the time, they would have allowed Mr Symeou to raise, in his extradition hearing, the question of whether a decision to charge him and a decision to try him had been made. It is very likely that they would have prevented his extradition at the stage at which he was due to be surrendered, and could have prevented it altogether.

We have reformed the arrest warrant to make it possible for cases to be heard in the requesting country before an extradition hearing, either by video conference or by temporary transfer, with the consent of the person concerned. That may lead to a withdrawal of the arrest warrant in some cases. We have also reformed it so that British citizens, and others, can no longer be extradited for minor offences. The reform came into effect in July, and has already resulted in the turning down of 21 arrest warrants. That has freed police and court time so that more serious matters can be dealt with, and, crucially, has protected individuals from the sledgehammer of extradition for minor offences.

The Government have reformed the rules on dual criminality to ensure that an arrest warrant must be refused if all or part of the conduct for which a person is wanted took place in the UK and is not a criminal offence in this country. The National Crime Agency is now refusing arrest warrants when it is obvious that the dual criminality test has not been met. It has done so 59 times since our reforms came into force in July.

Our reforms have been implemented, and they are already making a difference. I believe that the arrest warrant is operating more fairly, and it is British judges who have the final say on whether or not to extradite people. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot)—whose wife is an extradition judge—said last week,

“The suggestion that there is no judicial oversight of European arrest warrants in this country is nonsense.”—[Official Report, 10 November 2014; Vol. 587, c. 1228.]

That is absolutely right, and, thanks to our reforms, British judges are now better able to protect the interests of British citizens.

I am also pleased to have the opportunity to remind the House of a few of the problems involved in the alternative system of extradition that we would have to fall back on if we were not part of the arrest warrant, namely the 1957 Council of Europe convention on extradition. First, returning to that convention would require changes to domestic legislation in a number of member states. While we would be able to control our own legislative urgency, we would not be able to control what other member states did. For some, it would take months or even years to make the necessary legislative changes. The Netherlands, for example, has made it clear to us that it would take at least 18 months for it to change its domestic legislation, which would mean that UK criminals could travel to Holland with impunity and vice versa. That would have made the UK a virtual “safe haven” for some of Europe’s most dangerous criminals, and would have allowed UK criminals to hide from the law, which is certainly not an option that appeals to me.

Secondly, using the convention would mean a return to the days when extradition requests were sent to Ireland, perhaps more in hope than in expectation. Before the introduction of the arrest warrant, fewer than 10% of our requests to Ireland for individuals connected with terrorism resulted in their being returned to this country. Members should compare that with the present situation. We are not aware of a single request to Ireland for terrorism-related offences that has been refused. That is surely why—as I said earlier—the authorities in both Dublin and Belfast are such strong supporters of the arrest warrant and our continued participation in it.

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[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is of course a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), on whose Committee I serve but whose views I do not share. He is a great champion of sovereignty and a sceptic of Europe, but we need to balance the issue of where decisions are made against the protection of our citizens. Let us think about the numbers: under the European arrest warrant over the past five years, 5,000 criminals who would otherwise be cluttering up our own justice system and prisons have been removed from the UK to face justice. At worst, in a world of disconnection from Europe, we would not have the information we needed to know that our citizens were at risk from foreign criminals, who might be rapists, terrorists or murderers. In the balance, despite what he says about individual cases, it is clearly right for Britain to protect itself from such criminals and not to allow his obsession to endanger British citizens.

[Sir William Cash]

The hon. Gentleman may know that I was in a debate the other day on, I think, Radio 5 Live. One of the people representing the police on these matters said that the European arrest warrant would “save us the bother” of having to go through an extended extradition procedure. Those were the words he used—it would “save us the bother”. That is what worries me.

[Geraint Davies]

My understanding is that the statistics show that extradition now takes an average of 49 days, but it took a year before we were in the European arrest warrant system. The hon. Gentleman has to bear in mind the fact that each criminal would spend an extra 45 weeks in Britain without that system. There would be no transfer of information, so we would be a safe haven for criminals and have more and more foreign criminals. We are already at risk, and that in turn would put British people at greater risk. These enormous risks to life and limb should not be tolerated because of people’s particular political angst over Europe, and particularly those who—I do not include the hon. Gentleman in this—are driven by fear, prejudice and concern about UKIP breathing down their political necks. We should put the safety of people in Britain first.

My right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary has already gone through the farcical pantomime that we experienced last Monday when the Home Secretary—who has now endorsed today’s motion, which is similar to that in the Lords—would not allow a wider debate. I know that the hon. Member for Stone would ideally like to have gone through all 35 measures, but we should at least have had a debate in the round. Only the generosity of Mr Speaker, who pointed out that we were considering specifically 11 measures and not 35, although he would allow discussion of the European arrest warrant, would have enabled us to talk about it had the debate gone ahead.

It is extremely important to talk about the European arrest warrant and all the other measures. Somebody might own a house in the UK and be charged in Spain, and we might want their assets to be confiscated here; or we might want a list of convictions to be passed on so that sentences can be carried out properly in other countries in the light of previous convictions. We might want a supervision order so that UK citizens can be bailed in the UK rather than having to stay abroad, or a prisoner transfer so that people can serve custody at home. All those things are good for Britain. People from UKIP might not think that such measures are good for Britain, but they protect British people by enabling them to serve their custody in Britain, and ensuring that our jails are not clogged up with foreign criminals.

I am concerned about some of the politics of this, and that the fear and cowardice of the Home Secretary in not confronting the House of Commons with the 35 measures directly was born out of fear of UKIP. We basically have a party born of the austerity created by the Conservatives, which then blames immigration for the economic poverty inflicted on people by the Tories. The Government give UKIP credibility by saying that we will have a referendum, making out that Britain could survive outside Europe, and then they say, “Oh, we’ll reform it first”, which implies that Europe as it stands is not worth being part of. The Government are feeding the monster of UKIP and it will be the tiger that devours them.

[Mr Grieve]

I shall support the Government’s position on the European arrest warrant, which I believe to be desirable and necessary pragmatically. However, this debate would not have been necessary if we had not made what in my view was the grave error of merging the justice and home affairs third pillar into the main architecture of the European Union treaties. There is no doubt that doing that locks us into something that might cause us difficulties if in future we find it is not working properly. I have always had great sympathy with my hon. Friends on the Government Benches and elsewhere who have concerns about that. Logically they are right to do so, even though I will disagree with them tonight. Simply to gloss over that issue is not satisfactory.

[Geraint Davies]

That is a point well made. Everybody knows that the European Union is not perfect, that mistakes have been made and that we need reform. That is about co-operative engagement to do things that are sensible not just for the citizens of Britain but for those of Europe.

[Douglas Carswell]

We need to leave it.

[Geraint Davies]

To leave would be to expose us to criminals, terrorists, rapists and child abusers, and that appears to be a cost that those from UKIP and elsewhere think worth paying. I do not think we could look at the mothers and fathers of people who had been killed by villains if those crimes could have been prevented by co-operation—and all in the name of prejudice from UKIP and others.

Across Europe there are something like 3,600 organised groups involved in drugs, trafficking children or terror, and they need to be confronted. There is no point pretending that we exist in some sort of fish and chip shop Britain, floating away in splendid isolation where villains cannot jump on board. If we pull ourselves out of the European arrest warrant, we could be a safe haven for them. People have made much of individual cases. We know from individual cases—Hussein Osman, the 21/7 bomber who was brought to justice from Italy thanks to the European arrest warrant; Jeremy Forrestt, the teacher who abducted a schoolgirl and took her to France and was brought back; and Jason McKay who murdered his girlfriend and went to Poland—that there is an endless list of villains who have been brought to justice by the co-operation of our emerging civilisation in Europe.

This matter is enormously important to people across the UK. I think we all agree with subsidiarity and with taking decisions at the most local level possible. However, decisions should not be taken at the cost of deaths, molestation, abuse, trafficking or terror threats—that would be completely ridiculous. I have no hesitation in supporting the motion.

Wanless Review

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

If I may, I will write to my hon. Friend about the current procedures that are followed by Government Departments in relation to retention of records. The length of time for which a document is kept is determined by its status. There have been a number of models for this across the intervening years. I fully accept that maintaining material in digital fashion is the way forward. However, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames), the Government still—how can I put it?—like the paper form and are still, in many cases, keeping the material available to them in that form, but they are moving towards more digitisation.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Home Secretary will be aware of the sickening case of the Crown Prosecution Service supporting the charges against Eleanor de Freitas of false allegations of rape that resulted in her suicide. What assurances can the Home Secretary give to victims of public figures who abused them that the CPS will not pursue counter-claims against them that might lead to deterrence or, indeed, their suicide?

[Mrs May]

I will not comment on the individual case that the hon. Gentleman has raised. I am very clear, and it is very clear in the request that I will put to the Cabinet Secretary, that Government Departments and agencies—all aspects of Government—should be working to help the inquiry to get to the truth and to ensure, in doing so, that any evidence is available to it. The Crown Prosecution Service is an independent body in relation to decisions that it takes about prosecutions. Certainly, the message we will be sending from the Government is that in matters relating to the inquiry we want Government Departments to come forward with the information they have to ensure that we can get at the truth.

Criminal Law

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I will make some progress, because the time for the debate is now more limited and I know that many hon. Members wish to speak.

As the Prime Minister says, we have overseen the biggest return of powers since this country joined the EU, but we have always been clear that we wanted to remain part of a smaller number of measures that give our police and law enforcement agencies vital and practical help in the fight against crime. This Government and this party will never put politics before the protection of the British public and that is why we are seeking to remain part of a package of 35 measures that help us to tackle serious crimes and keep this country safe.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Home Secretary confirm that in the event the House votes down these 11 measures, she will still be free to opt in to the European arrest warrant and, what is more, she will still be free to move forward with those 11 measures through other parliamentary means? That is the case, is it not?

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

As I have made very clear, the police and the CPS should have withdrawn that arrest warrant much earlier; it was the wrong thing to do. I also think it important for the police to be able to work with other police forces right across European and right across the world, and to have these particular powers in place to work in Europe. The Home Secretary agrees, and we agree with her that this is the right thing to do, but the way in which we have had this debate in Parliament today has been utterly chaotic.

[Geraint Davies]

We have heard from the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) about the Kings, but what about Hussein Osman, one of the 21/7 bombers, or the murderer Jason McKay and many more appalling cases of appalling crimes that have been brought to justice by the European arrest warrant? Yes, there have been a few odd mistakes, but a massive number of criminals have been brought to justice who, if the hon. Gentleman had his way, would still be lounging around, posing a threat to the public.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. A huge number of people, including more than 1,000 foreign citizens, are deported from this country, having been suspected of committing crimes, to face justice. I think it is right that we have the ability to do so.

The Home Secretary has basically told us that we should be grateful for the debate that the Government have somehow conceded should take place. You gave your ruling, Mr Speaker, that we were not having a vote on the European arrest warrant. The Home Secretary then stood up and completely contradicted that. She went on to say that we were voting on a package of 35 measures and that it was not a “pick and mix”. Why, then, has she picked and mixed only 11 of the measures and put them on the Order Paper rather than the full package of 35? The Prime Minister said categorically that we would have a vote on the European arrest warrant, yet he has refused to allow it.

Again I urge the Home Secretary to rethink. It is not too late for her to rethink and to provide the House with a specific vote on the European arrest warrant. It is true that some of her Back Benchers would vote against it, but the rest of us would vote for it. On the Labour Benches, we want enthusiastically to endorse the Home Secretary’s measures; on the Conservative Benches, Members want rebelliously to oppose them—but we all want a parliamentary vote.

Is not the truth that the Government took the European arrest warrant out of the motion because the Home Secretary and the Chief Whip thought they were being clever? They took it out because they wanted to minimise the rebellion. They wanted to tell journalists that it was a vote on the European arrest warrant, but tell the Back Benchers not to worry because they were voting only on prisoner transfer agreements. They wanted to pretend to Parliament that this was a vote on a package of 35 measures, yet let their MPs fend off UKIP in their constituencies by claiming that they never voted for the most controversial plans.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Lady doth protest too much. If she wishes to have a debate and to vote on the regulations, that option is open to her tonight. However, she has chosen to play politics with the matter and tried to curtail the debate. As we have heard from the Speaker’s answer to the point of order raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), a significant number of Members have indicated that they wish to speak in the debate on the regulations. The Speaker has granted latitude regarding the subjects that Members may speak about, and we are able to debate the European arrest warrant and other matters that are not in the regulations.

It is open to the House to have that debate but, sadly, the right hon. Lady has chosen to take a step that could curtail the debate and ensure that the regulations are not put before the House, in which case it would not be possible for Members to have their say on these important matters. She and I agree on the importance of these matters. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and I might disagree on how some of them should be finalised and on whether we should be party to the measures, but I am clear that, at this point, the House of Commons has an opportunity to debate and vote on measures that relate to law and order in this country. These are important decisions for the House to make, and I have clarified for the House the exact form of the regulations.

[Geraint Davies]

Is the Home Secretary saying that, if the House votes to terminate this debate today, she will refuse to have a further debate on the European arrest warrant and the statutory instruments—[Interruption.] I know she is saying that we can debate the matters now, but is she saying that if we vote not to do so, she would refuse to have any further debate on them?

[Mrs May]

I have made it absolutely clear that we have had an opportunity to debate these matters today. Ample time has been set aside for the debate. The point of the business motion on which we voted earlier was to ensure that we could have a lengthier debate, rather than the hour and a half that would normally be set aside to debate such regulations. The Government have given time to Members to make their points and contribute to the debate before voting on the regulations. We have been clear about our position on the regulations, but the shadow Home Secretary is now suggesting that she wishes to curtail that debate. The opportunity was there for hon. Members.

This is an important matter, on which different views are held. I have made it clear why we have brought forward the regulations and why we should debate and vote on them now. We need to make these decisions in order to inform the European Commission and other member states and to enable the Council to take a decision, to ensure that there is no operational gap on 1 December.

Business of the House (Today)

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

I thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the business motion.

The Lisbon treaty, which was negotiated by the previous Labour Government and which included within it the opportunity for the United Kingdom to opt out of around 130 justice and home affairs measures and then to decide whether to opt back in to a number of measures, did not require any vote to be brought before this House of Commons to undertake those decisions. This Government believe that that was wrong, which is why we have brought a number of debates before this House on these matters. There is also no legislative requirement for us to bring before the House this package of 35 justice and home affairs measures.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mrs May]

No, I will not give way. Members have been calling for me to stand up and speak, and that is exactly what I am doing.

There is no legislative requirement for us to bring this package of 35 measures to this House for Members to consider and vote on. There is a legislative requirement for us to transpose certain measures into UK legislation. The normal way of doing that is upstairs in a Standing Committee, on a one-and-a-half hour debate on a negative statutory instrument, after 1 December and after the decision by this Government to opt in to a certain number of measures had been taken.

Extremism

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is right that what we saw, sadly, was that it was possible for funding to reach organisations that had extremists within them, that had some form of extremist intent or that had links to extremism. We have put in place a proper process within the funding arrangements that means that we look at organisations and require them to be clear about how they share British values in the way that they operate to ensure that Government are not funding extremism.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State accept that open warfare between her and the Education Secretary is completely undermining public confidence in this Government to engage with communities and to be tough on terrorism and the causes of terrorism? We need to get rid of the turf war shambles and replace this Government with a new Labour Government.

[Mrs May]

What undermines—[Interruption.]

Child Abuse Allegations (North Wales)

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for sharing her personal experience with the House, and I assure her that no stone will be left unturned. The entire House wants to see that justice is done.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Home Secretary look into whether there was a systemic problem in north Wales whereby those accused of child abuse without conclusive evidence to prove it were redeployed within the wider world of social services? Although they no longer had direct access to children, they were still part of that system. If that is the case, we will need a much wider inquiry.

[Mrs May]

One issue that has been raised both in the past and more recently is the question of whether the inquiries went sufficiently far outside the care system. As the police look at the historical allegations, they will also consider how far the investigations should go.

Women (Government Policies)

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend mentioned in passing the fact that 65% of public sector workers are women, so they will be hit disproportionately. In my constituency, some 40% of workers are in the public sector. Does she accept, given what she has just said, that further cuts will tend to generate more domestic violence because of the economic pressure put on family life? There is a disproportionate impact on women not just economically but through domestic violence and the lack of funding to support increasing demand for services at a time when there are also cuts to the police budget. That is terrible for communities such as the one I represent.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. There are increased pressures on services, as well as cuts to many resources. Women workers in public services are feeling the strain, too.

The Minister for Women and Equalities will doubtless tell us about the good work that she and the Minister for Equalities are doing to improve women’s lives, which we welcome, but we believe that we need to go further and do more. We want to support them in their work, but we need them to do much more than they are doing now. We need them to start standing up for women in the Government. We will back them if they do, and we will support them even if their colleagues do not. However, they must act. They cannot just stand on the sidelines. They have a duty to stand up for women in this country, and to get in there and fight. They need to undertake some proper, independent research on the impact of the cuts and their reforms on women. They should use the work that has been done by women’s organisations in Coventry with the university of Warwick, because if they do not, we will. We will work with local groups and institutions to monitor what is happening to women across the country.

The truth is that equality for women is not just about women, it is about everyone. A fairer society for women and an economy that uses women’s talents is better not just for families but for everybody. I have always believed that every generation of women would do better than the last, have more opportunities and choices, break through more glass ceilings and challenge more conventions. However, I fear for our daughters and granddaughters as a result of what the Government are doing. We owe it to them to further the march for women’s equality and not to be the generation of women who turn back the clock.

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[Mrs May]

In the last three months, the increase in employment for women was greater than the increase in employment for men. Opposition Members, including the hon. Lady and the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), have said today that what the Government are doing is wrong. We hear that in debate after debate. Opposition Members stand up and tell us that the cuts in virtually every area of public sector expenditure are wrong. If they were in government, they would be making cuts. In that case, the question for them is where they would make those cuts.

[Geraint Davies]

Does the right hon. Lady accept that the deficit was the price we paid to avoid depression? The choice for the Government is whether to make deep and savage cuts that will stop growth, and to increase VAT, which will stoke inflation, or to focus on growth and make more balanced savings over time, and, obviously, to make the bankers pay their fair share. In the case of the police, the Opposition would cut 12% rather than 20%. That is a more balanced approach that would not undermine growth or increase the deficit in the process.

[Mrs May]

The premise on which the hon. Gentleman began his intervention was incorrect, because he failed to recognise that we are dealing with a structural deficit. This is not about the world recession, but about the structural deficit that was built up by the previous Labour Government.

[Mrs May]

Mr Deputy Speaker, I shall move off the —[Interruption.]

[Geraint Davies]

rose—

[Mrs May]

If the hon. Gentleman wishes to intervene again to give me an idea of where the Labour party would make cuts if it were in government, he is free to do so.

[Geraint Davies]

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that something like a third of the deficit was excess investment—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order.

Policing and Crime

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

There are a number of roles in policing, and we have been absolutely clear about that, but we are absolutely clear also that some of those people working in police force back offices have to spend significant amounts of time filling in paperwork—imposed by the previous Labour Government—which is taking up valuable time and effort. I shall deal with that issue further in a few minutes.

In London, alongside the new recruitment of police officers in the Metropolitan police area, the Met is also getting more officers to patrol alone, rather than in pairs, and better matching resources to demand, thereby increasing officer availability to the public by 25%.

Given that the Opposition are getting their facts wrong, let us look at the real facts.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that, on reflection, increasing the cuts from Labour’s proposed 12% to 20% is a false economy? It will critically impact on the number of front-line officers, and the cost of increased crime will be much greater than the savings to police forces, so should not she go back to the drawing board?

[Mrs May]

No. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s argument at all, and in a few minutes I will address exactly that point about funding.

Let us look at the facts. Our police forces understood perfectly well that they would have had to make reductions in staff numbers no matter which party was in power. The Home Affairs Committee, chaired by the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), found that almost all police forces were predicting future staff losses by January 2010—months before the election. In fact, 21 police forces—almost half of all police forces—saw falling officer numbers in the five years up to March 2010, when we had a Labour Government.

Indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) said, when Labour’s last Home Secretary was asked during the election campaign whether he could guarantee that police numbers would not fall under Labour, he answered no. The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) understood that he could not guarantee police numbers, so why is the right hon. Lady not so straight with the public?

[Mrs May]

I suggest that, instead of trying to look across to Government Members, the hon. Gentleman asks his Front Benchers why they got this country into such a financial mess that we have had to be elected as a coalition Government to clear it up: two parties, working together to clear up the mess left by one.

The Opposition’s mistake on the first point in their motion is linked to their mistake on the second point. They are simply wrong to suggest that the cuts that the Government are having to make that go further—cuts, let me remind them again, as I just have, that we are having to make because of the disastrous economic position that they left us in—

[Geraint Davies]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs May]

If the hon. Gentleman waits, he will find that I am about to come on to the point that he made in his first intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The thin blue line on the Government Benches is pretty thin for fairly obvious reasons: they do not have a decent alibi for making these savage and unnecessary cuts. The alibi that the Home Secretary feebly provides is that it is all the deficit and all Labour’s fault, but we all know that at least two thirds of that deficit was created by the bankers.

The British taxpayer has been robbed by the bankers, and in reality the deficit was the price paid to avoid a depression. If the Labour party and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) had not intervened, we would have been on our knees, and that investment in the banks will be paid back many times over, because the share prices will go up. Admittedly, one third of the deficit was excess investment over income to grow our economy, but there are no apologies for that.

Given that there is a deficit that the international financial community created, what should be done about it? Should we go down the Home Secretary’s path and clear the deficit in just four years, or whether we should halve it in four years? The other question is, whether we should get rid of the deficit in four years just through cuts to public services and benefits, or use three mechanisms: first, economic growth, such as notably the Germans and the Americans are using; secondly, make the bankers pay their fair share; and thirdly, yes, make manageable savings over time.

In the case under discussion, that would mean 12% cuts instead of 20%, the difference between front-line cuts and no front-line cuts. As I said in an intervention, the Government’s policy is a false economy, because the extra 8 percentage points, which will go purely on man and womanpower, will increase crime and the public will bear the cost in property or in damage to people. There is a clear choice, and the Government’s policy is the wrong choice.

We have seen it all before. Under the Tories last time, crime doubled; under Labour, crime went down 40%. Not only are we seeing the means of tackling crime reduced by cuts in police, DNA services, CCTV and ASBOs, by making sentences easier and by giving the wrong signals to rapists; we are increasing demand by cutting education, cutting jobs and increasing drug-taking essentially—[Interruption.] The Home Secretary seems bemused, but in reality if there is less education and fewer police, more children will go on to take drugs. That is certainly the testimony that I have heard from the police. The basic economics of the situation are completely absurd.

On top of that, we have this structural change costing £200 million—the introduction of elected commissioners, whose incentive will be to go for votes in middle-class, low-crime, high-voting areas. They will go along and say, “Yes, we’ll have some more community policing down here in this middle-class area”, but they will not do that where there are no votes and higher crime. There will therefore be a direct contradiction between the motivation of the elected commissioner and the operational chief constable who is supposed to be independent. The whole thing is absolutely farcical. What we need, clearly, is a pause. We have seen a number of pauses from this Government, including on the NHS and the woodland fiasco, and it is time to push the pause button again and do a complete reversal. In a nutshell, these changes are unnecessary, unfair and counter-productive.

Finally, I want to put in a good word for the Swansea police, particularly Chief Superintendent Mark Mathias. They are doing an absolutely fantastic job. For example, they are meeting up with retail traders to talk about the relationship between antisocial behaviour and economic growth and linking up with communities. However, they are not helped by the fact that one hand is being tied behind their backs and they are not given the support that they require.

The view of the police, which is reflected among the public, was shown by the complete silence that met the Home Secretary when she spoke to them. If she does not have the confidence of the police, how can she hope to succeed? These polices do not make sense economically, socially or in terms of crime, and I urge her to think again.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

rose—

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mrs May]

I might be able to help the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Gentleman in a few minutes, as I am going to make a specific comment in relation to Wales. I suspect that they are going to ask me about Wales, so it might be in their interest to wait until then before they intervene.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That is a good example, and there are other examples of forces such as Gloucestershire, where the number of officers visible and available has been increased by the chief constable as a result of what he has been able to do in other ways to deal with his budget.

We have already given communities across England and Wales access to detailed street-level crime and antisocial behaviour data. Only two months after launching the country’s first ever nationwide street-level crime maps, the website has received over 400 million hits, so we are already giving power back to the public. The Bill takes that local accountability to the next stage. The Association of Chief Police Officers has been fully engaged in the process of refining our proposals. We have listened to its suggestions, and to those of hon. Members. We have responded and been able to accommodate some of those suggestions.

We have included provision for each chief officer to become a corporation sole, which will allow them to employ staff and will give them greater control over their own force. We have strengthened the proposed oversight arrangements by including provisions for candidates to be subject to confirmation hearings by police and crime panels, who will be able to veto an appointment with a three-quarters majority. We have amended the Bill so that anyone who has been convicted of an imprisonable offence at any time will be unable to stand as a PCC. Any PCC convicted of such an offence would automatically be disqualified from office.

We have made a commitment with ACPO, the Association of Police Authorities and the Association of Police Authority Chief Executives to develop a protocol setting out the distinct role and powers of chief officers, PCCs and other bodies in the new policing landscape. It will be my responsibility as Home Secretary to issue a strategic policing requirement for the response to national threats. These are all sensible and constructive changes that will give us a better Bill and ultimately an even better police service. I thank ACPO and hon. Members for their help with that.

I am delighted that in Committee, the Opposition conceded the principle of democratic reform in policing. Unfortunately, they are still suggesting the wrong type of reform. Only 7% of people have even heard of police authorities, and only 8% of local authority wards in England and Wales are represented on their police authority. Police authorities are not effective at doing what they are supposed to do. Fewer than one in three police authorities inspected last year were found to be performing well. They have neither the democratic mandate to set police priorities nor the capability to scrutinise police performance, so tinkering at the edges of police authorities, as the Opposition spokesmen seemed to suggest in Committee, will not do.

[Geraint Davies]

On democratic accountability, does the Home Secretary accept that voter turnout is likely to be much higher in low-crime, leafy suburbs than in high-crime, poorer areas, so the democratic mandate is likely to contradict directly the need to prioritise the focus on crime? What is more, people will lose access to the interface with MPs, Assembly Members, councillors and so on, so there will be less democracy, less crime prevention and more cost.

[Mrs May]

I completely reject what the hon. Gentleman says, particularly the idea that people who live in high-crime areas will somehow have less incentive to take an interest in the way in which their local area is policed or in going out to vote for PCCs. It is in precisely those areas that people are concerned about what is happening to local policing. We need a properly elected and accountable individual, with the mandate, the capabilities and the powers to set police priorities locally and to hold their chief constable to account for police performance.

Crime and Policing

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alan Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. During the general election, the Conservatives and Labour were united in saying, “Don’t let the Lib Dems anywhere near crime or national security—or immigration, for that matter.” We remember some of their policies in that area. I do not blame the Lib Dems at all for the Government’s policy on crime and policing. The Home Secretary has been careful to have only one Lib Dem in her team, and she is a very good Minister, but the Government have not allowed her anywhere near the important stuff in the Home Office. This policy cannot be described as a coalition approach. Certainly, the decision not to prioritise the police in the comprehensive spending review was made by the Conservatives.

I have mentioned the likely loss of police officers over the next four years. Let us have no doubt that cuts of this magnitude will also put national security at risk, as the most senior counter-terrorism officer in the UK has made clear. Insufficient resources will inevitably lead to the closure of regional counter-terrorism units, to fewer surveillance teams to monitor suspects, and to a reduction in the number of police officers who work full time on counter-terrorism.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Was my right hon. Friend concerned about yesterday’s announcement of the abolition of the Audit Commission? We are going to see massive cuts across the board, and the Audit Commission normally monitors, evaluates and supports the performance of the police. The cuts will have differential impacts, and in Swansea, 38% of the people are in public sector employment. They face massive cuts, and unemployment and education cuts are growing, which is fuelling more localised crime. Is he worried that we will not have the tools to assess what is happening, to enable the Government to channel resources to where they are most needed?

[Alan Johnson]

That is certainly an issue, particularly in the light of the HMIC-Audit Commission’s joint report. We must take a rigorous approach to its conclusion that, if the Government cut more than 12%, front-line policing will be affected. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the Audit Commission has been done away with; I hope that HMIC will not come next.

As police numbers reduce, so will their powers. I shall deal with DNA and CCTV in a moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alan Johnson]

Yes, I agree. As I mentioned, ASBOs are the most serious of the range of measures to combat antisocial behaviour, as an acceptable behaviour contract or a simple letter to the parents of a miscreant might be enough to stop it. What we introduced, as the coroner in the Fiona Pilkington case pointed out, was 15 measures that the police and local authorities could use, dependent on severity of the behaviour. ASBOs, as I say, apply at the more severe end, but all those measures need to be used together, depending on the problem.

[Geraint Davies]

Will my right hon. Friend give way again?

[Alan Johnson]

No, not again, if my hon. Friend does not mind; I have already given way once to him.

On DNA, the Home Secretary says with the smug piety that can have come only from working closely with the Liberal Democrats that our proposed way forward on the DNA database was disgraceful, because, she says with eyes blazing, it meant that the DNA of innocent people would be retained. That is what the right hon. Lady says and I see her nodding her head; it is a viewpoint that she uses against us. The fact is, however, that she proposes to do exactly the same. The difference is that we would keep the DNA profiles of those innocent of both serious and non-serious offences while she would keep the former but not the latter. Furthermore, we would both take the DNA from all those arrested and keep it for a sufficient period to check against previous crime scenes. The logic of the lofty argument that she has got from the Lib Dems—[Interruption.] I will come on to the issue of six years in a few moments. The logic of the argument that innocent people’s DNA is being kept is that we should not take DNA from anyone until they are convicted. Let me explain how nutty that proposition is; it is so nutty that it is not even a Lib Dem conference policy—always a good gauge of whether something is extraordinarily daft.

There is no evidence whatever that those arrested but not convicted of a non-serious offence have any lower propensity to be re-arrested than those arrested but not convicted of serious offences. I repeat—no evidence whatever. If there is, we will no doubt hear it put forward from the Government Dispatch Box. Mark Dixie, the man who brutally raped and murdered Sally Anne Bowman in her front garden, was on the DNA database because he had been arrested but not convicted of a pub-fight—a non-serious offence. If that DNA link had not been made, a guilty man would have remained free to rape and murder again and an innocent man, Sally Anne’s boyfriend, who had dropped her off outside her home after a blazing row witnessed by passers-by, would probably be serving a life sentence. Steve Wright, the murderer of five prostitutes in Ipswich, was on the DNA database because he had been arrested for suspected theft. He would not have been on the database under the Scottish model, which this Government want to adopt.

Furthermore, while the Scottish model retains the DNA of those arrested but not charged for three years—I come to the issue raised by a sedentary comment from the Minister for Immigration—rather than for six years as we propose, it also allows the police to extend the period of retention for unlimited further two-year periods. The next time Members hear the Home Secretary accuse Labour of wanting to retain the DNA of innocent people for six years, they should remind themselves that she wants to adopt the Scottish model. She wants to adopt a system that allows the DNA of innocent people to be retained indefinitely; a system that has no evidential support; a system that, according to the Association of Chief Police Officers, would cost an additional £158 million to administer because of all the bureaucracy involved in the two-year reviews; and—most important—a system that would have probably left 26 murderers and rapists unconvicted had it been in force last year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

I say to the shadow Home Secretary that the intervention that he has just made was not the answer given to the question that I put to him earlier about the cuts and on which I was just commenting. The Labour party went into the election promising 20% cuts. He claims that those would not have come from the Home Office budget. I asked him where they would have come from and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) has made clear from a sedentary position, the right hon. Gentleman made it clear that they would have come from health—that is what the shadow Home Secretary was saying.

If the shadow Home Secretary will not listen to me—he does not appear to wish to listen to me on the issue of cuts—perhaps he will listen to the following:

“When ... Alan Johnson”—

flails at—

“the coalition for protecting NHS spending against cuts being inflicted elsewhere in Whitehall, Labour looks as if it is indulging in opposition for opposition’s sake. Comfortable it may be. But it will not bring Labour back to power.”

Those are not my words, but those of the former Labour Cabinet Minister, Alan Milburn. So let us hear no more nonsense from those on the Labour Benches about police budgets and police numbers.

Labour’s denial is not just about police funding; it is also about its record on crime and policing. I had hoped that the shadow Home Secretary would use the freedom of being in opposition to get around the country and to be out there meeting people and finding out what they really think about what is happening. He might, thus, have learned about the booze-fuelled violence that takes place in too many of our town centres at night, and about the gang crime in our cities and the antisocial behaviour that makes so many people’s lives a misery. But judging by his speech today, and indeed by the motion, he has not bothered to find out what people actually think—

[Geraint Davies]

rose—

[Mrs May]

Wait a moment. That is a shame, because there are occasions when the shadow Home Secretary stops playing party politics and is a bit more candid about his record and about our policies. On licensing, for example, he has said:

“I regret not doing more to tackle the problems caused by binge drinking during my period in office. The Government”—

this coalition Government—

“is right to stop alcohol being sold below cost price. It’s something we should have done.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

I am disappointed in the line that the right hon. Lady has taken. She made an important and valid point earlier in her intervention on her right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary about antisocial behaviour and the important fact that all too often the perception of antisocial behaviour is worse in deprived communities and those communities that are among the poorest and most vulnerable in our country. My point is very simple: none of us can be complacent about levels of crime in this country. We need to find the ways in which we can reduce crime and in which we can help the police to do their job.

[Geraint Davies]

rose—

[Mrs May]

No, I will not give way at the moment.

That is why we want to restore that connection between the police and the people that we believe has been bogged down by bureaucracy and damaged over the years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes a very strong point about the panoply of ASBO powers that are available. The important point is that the bureaucracy involved in getting an ASBO means that, all too often, nothing is done, because it takes so long to get something enforced. That is why so many communities up and down the country find that the orders are not working and why they continue to suffer from antisocial behaviour.

[Geraint Davies]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs May]

Oh, the hon. Gentleman has been bobbing up and down all afternoon, so I will give way to him.

[Geraint Davies]

It is very generous of the right hon. Lady to see me. I could not sit any closer; I have been doing my best. Will she say how her Government expect to reduce the number of short-term prison sentences—now a clear and amplified ambition—at the same time as getting rid of ASBOs and the current means of reducing those short-term measures without a massive escalation of crime and antisocial behaviour in the community?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman should not try to second-guess what may or may not be in the sentencing review that will come from the Ministry of Justice. There is a commitment to reviewing sentencing and I suggest that he should wait until that comes out, when he will be able to make his comments.

One area that I want to speak briefly about, which has not been touched on much today, is the unmitigated disaster of Labour’s Licensing Act 2003. One in three people who turn up in accident and emergency have alcohol-related injuries, and alcohol-related crime and disorder costs the taxpayer up to £13 billion every year. When that legislation was introduced, we were promised a café-style culture, but five years on the police are still fighting an ongoing battle against booze-fuelled crime and disorder. So we will overhaul Labour’s Licensing Act to ensure that local people have greater control over pubs, clubs and other licensed premises. We will allow local authorities to charge more for late-night licences, which they will then be able to plough back into late-night policing in their areas. We will double the fine for under-age sales and we will allow authorities permanently to shut down any shop or bar that persistently sells alcohol to children. We will also ban the below-cost sale of alcohol to ensure that retailers can no longer sell it at irresponsible prices. As I have said, I welcome the support for that which we will have from the Opposition.

In today’s motion and in the shadow Home Secretary’s speech, he and the Opposition have fallen into the trap of thinking that they need to oppose everything the Government do just for the sake of it. They are denying the legacy of debt that they have left to this Government and they oppose the Budget cuts that they had planned to make. In denying their record, they oppose the police reforms that they once proposed, so let me try to shake the shadow Home Secretary out of his state of denial. Police officers are available on the streets for just 11% of their time and there are 900,000 violent crimes a year and 26,000 victims of crime every single day. That is the legacy of the Labour party and it will be up to the coalition Government to put things right.