Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry

Debate between Jack Dromey and Damian Green

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. A range of lessons need to be learnt from this terrible tragedy. As he knows, an expert panel with a range of skills and expertise across a number of areas will be helping the inquiry. Again, he raises an important issue that not only the Government but the inquiry itself will want to consider.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The First Secretary is right that no stone should be left unturned in uncovering the truth behind the horror that was the Grenfell Tower fire. On wider lessons and action in the meantime, Birmingham has 231 tower blocks and the city council has rightly decided that it will retrofit sprinklers in all of them, costing £31 million to a council that has suffered £700 million of cuts to its budget. Will the Government unequivocally commit to funding all the necessary safety measures, pending the outcome of the inquiry?

[Damian Green]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said that the necessary safety measures recommended by the fire service will be met by the Government. The inquiry is designed to ascertain the causes of the tragedy.

[Jack Dromey]

For clarity, the First Secretary has just made an important statement. Is he saying that the necessary safety measures to protect 10,000 households in 231 blocks will be funded by the Government?

[Damian Green]

For clarity, I will go all the way through this. If the fire service recommends that something needs to be done for safety reasons, the local authority will be the first port of call to pay for it—I am sure all local authorities will want to follow the fire service’s recommendations on this. If a local authority can show that it cannot afford it, central Government will obviously then step in. That is a matter for local authorities and the fire service in the first instance. Clearly, that is the sensible way to proceed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Dromey and Damian Green

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The decision to close the custody suite at Selby was first taken in 2000, under the previous Government, and it has been a source of some controversy ever since. The custody suite was reopened, but, as my hon. Friend says, the chief constable has now decided to close it again. I would be very happy to look at the case, and to discuss it with the police and crime commissioner.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary introduced police and crime commissioners. Tragically, Bob Jones, the PCC for the west midlands, died last week. He was an outstanding champion of all that is best in British policing, and a man of great personal integrity. He has yet to be buried, but the Home Secretary’s legislation obliges a by-election to be held on 21 August. How much will a by-election for an electorate of 2 million cost, and does the Minister anticipate a turnout higher or lower than the 13% who elected Bob Jones?

[Damian Green]

I absolutely echo the hon. Gentleman’s tribute to Bob Jones, who gave his life to public service over many decades. He held his beliefs very strongly, and he expressed them very strongly. My condolences and those of the home affairs team go to his wife, and his friends and family.

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that a by-election is triggered by two people calling it. He will also be aware that, frankly, it was not done at the behest of either his party or mine. I take the point that the by-election will take place in the middle of August. It is therefore the responsibility of all politicians—particularly, I should say, of Members of Parliament in the west midlands—to ensure that people get out and vote. As people now realise, the police and crime commissioner is an important post, and it is important that the people of the west midlands have a say in who the next police and crime commissioner is.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Dromey and Damian Green

Monday 10th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is right. Indeed, the inspectorate of constabulary has found that a higher proportion of police officers are visible on the front line, where people want to see them. That is why our streets are safer now than they have been for decades.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Police community support officers, local men and women on the beat, are much loved and much respected in communities throughout the country and the bedrock of neighbourhood policing. With councils now hit hard by the biggest cuts in local government history, 3,366 PCSOs have gone since the general election. Does the Minister recognise local communities’ mounting concern about the loss of their PCSOs? Will he join me in welcoming the commitment to put 500 PCSOs back on the beat, which is now being honoured by Labour Wales?

[Damian Green]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman to the extent that I absolutely value the work of PCSOs, but he is deluding himself if he thinks that the streets are becoming less safe and that neighbourhood policing is in retreat. Neighbourhood policing is at the heart of the policing model operated by this country’s forces. Over the past few years, they have collaborated better with local government and the NHS so that every pound they spend is more visible on the streets and is being shown in the consistent reduction in crime.

Police

Debate between Jack Dromey and Damian Green

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I rather agree with the right hon. Lady’s underlying point. Indeed, I will speak later about precisely such ideas for collaboration not only between police forces—I will shortly come on to the many good examples of that—but between the police and other blue light services and between the police and local government.

I assure the right hon. Lady, who used to stand at this Dispatch Box doing my very job, that one of the more enjoyable parts of the role is visiting. For example, I recently went to Thrapston in Northamptonshire to visit a joint police and fire station: one building provides two emergency blue light services, which means not only that a better service is provided to the people in and around Thrapston, but that the two emergency services, as they have told me, work better together than they did before. She is absolutely right to say that this is a time for creative thinking, and I hope to reveal during my speech some of the creative activity that is happening in police forces in this country.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The Minister has just said that the police service has been protected by this settlement. It is certainly true that the service has been protected from the additional budget reductions scheduled for 2014-15. Is it not also true, however, that the Home Office has indicated that money will be taken from forces to fund a range of new initiatives—we strongly support some of them, such as the College of Policing—with the consequence that forces will face a 4.8% cut, rather than the 3.3% grant reduction originally anticipated? Those top-slices will therefore reduce the amount of grant funds available to individual forces to use at their discretion.

[Damian Green]

One of the top-slices was, for example, for the police innovation fund, which is available to all forces. I am happy to say that all forces applied in the first round—off the top of my head, I think that there were 115 applications altogether—and every force will get some benefit from that.

Furthermore, the point of the innovation fund is precisely to encourage the kind of collaboration mentioned by the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). That is precisely the sort of creative use of the inevitably constrained pot of taxpayers’ money for spending on the police—let us not forget that it is still £8.5 billion—in the most effective way possible, aiding collaboration and enabling the police to carry on with the successful policies they have pursued during the past few years, which have continued to cut crime.

Central Government funding for the police will be reduced by 3.3% in cash terms in 2014-15, while overall funding will be reduced by even less, when the future police precept is factored in. We have also protected funding for counter-terrorism policing, due to the continuing threat posed to the UK by terrorism. To give the House a comparison, the remaining Home Office budget will be cut by 7% in cash terms in 2014-15.

This funding settlement is therefore challenging, but it is manageable. HMIC, the inspectorate, has made it clear that the proportion of officers working on the front line is increasing, and we are supporting the police through a range of activities to help them respond to the challenge and ultimately to emerge stronger. As I said at the outset, we are also changing the policing landscape in a way that represents the biggest set of reforms for a generation.

[Jack Dromey]

The Minister has just referred to front-line police officers. Will he confirm that in excess of 10,000 police officers have gone from the front line since 2010?

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[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend gives an example from another part of the country, which is similar to the examples I have seen in the past few months. He illustrates my point that collaboration is necessary at a time when public finances are under stringent control and that it can lead to better services than we had when the public spending tap was turned on more fully. That led to inefficiencies and a lack of collaboration.

[Jack Dromey]

rose—

[Damian Green]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman just one more time, because he will have his own turn to speak in a minute.

[Jack Dromey]

To speak in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), I sat in on a meeting of the Tameside community safety partnership before Christmas. On the one hand, I saw inspiring innovation and effective collaboration. On the other hand, I heard an unmistakable message from the police service, the local authority and the other agencies that such was the scale of the cuts hitting Greater Manchester councils that not only was the thin blue line being stretched ever thinner, but the fabric of partnership working was being stretched ever further, putting at risk their ability to fight crime effectively in the area.

[Damian Green]

I can only repeat what I said earlier to the shadow policing Minister. Given that the shadow Chancellor has said,

“The next Labour government will have to plan on the basis of falling departmental spending”,

the shadow Minister is facing the very problem that he seeks to point out. I therefore hope that he will not give false messages to the people of Tameside and elsewhere that, in the unlikely event that the British people hand the car keys back to those who crashed the car in the first place, he will have a new pot of taxpayers’ money. According to the shadow Chancellor, he will not.

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[Jack Dromey]

Of course that is right. I made reference in passing to an example in my constituency. An armed robber on the run hijacked a car, pushing aside a terrified mother of two young children, who were still in the backseat, and drove off. The speed with which the armed response unit responded and apprehended that thug was outstanding. The thug is now where he richly deserves to be: behind bars serving a very long sentence. Hon. Members will excuse me if I try to move on from the paragraph of my speech that I have been on for the past five to 10 minutes, but I will be glad to take further interventions as appropriate.

Our central concern is that, as the thin blue line gets ever thinner, the Government’s 11th hour police grant report does nothing to stop the remorseless hollowing out of our police service, with more than 10,000 police officers already gone from the front line. The delay and infighting within the Government over the threshold by which a referendum would be required for an increase to the police element of council tax bills, has put police and crime commissioners and local authorities in an impossible position with only a month left to set their budget.

[Damian Green]

Before the hon. Gentleman skates over what is the heart of his argument and when he talks about the thinning out of the thin blue line and so on, is he committing a future Labour Government to spending more on the police?

[Jack Dromey]

Let me answer that straight up front. The Minister referred earlier to “Labour’s legacy”. If we look at what we achieved between 1997 and 2007, we reduced the debt to GDP ratio from 40.9%, which we inherited from the previous Government, to 36.4% and, in addition to all the other achievements that I see in my constituency—the health centres, the schools and the children centres—we put 17,000 police officers on the beat and 16,000 PCSOs with them. Then, after the 2007 crash, we faced up to the difficult circumstances confronting the country, and that is why the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), when he was Police Minister, said that economies were necessary. He embraced the proposal that a 12% cut could be achieved without affecting the frontline. Instead, the Government went too far, too fast, driving through a 20% cut with all the consequences that have flowed for the front line.

It is precisely because of the concern that has been widely expressed about the consequences for the police service generally, and for neighbourhood policing in particular, that we commissioned the Stevens report, which has proposed a progressive agenda and the rebuilding of neighbourhood policing. In the next Parliament, that will be one of our priorities.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Jack Dromey and Damian Green

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

No; my difference with the Lords amendment is that it would leave applicants less clear about what to do. This would result in a large number of cases backing up in the courts waiting for judges to interpret what Parliament meant by the legislation, just as there are at the moment. The purpose of my proposal today is twofold: first, to meet the reasonable objections that have been raised about the original Government proposal; secondly, to provide greater clarity so that the House can speak with as clear a voice as possible in these difficult areas and not leave the field open to judicial interpretation, which can take a long time and which provides uncertainty for applicants.

I am aware that, in both Houses, there has been a misconception that applicants would somehow be required to prove that they did not commit the offence before compensation could be considered. I can categorically say that that is not the case. Applicants do not have to prove anything under the existing criteria, and nor would they have to do so in future under this proposal. Applicants need only rely on information that is already available to them as a result of their appeal process.

The test provided for in the Bill on its introduction was one that Labour was perfectly content to operate while it was in office. I hope that the new definition, which attempts to address the concerns that have been raised, will therefore have the support of the Opposition. I hope that they will now reconsider their position so that the Bill, and the many important measures it contains, can swiftly secure Royal Assent.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Justice demands that those who are guilty of serious offences should be held to account and brought before the courts, especially in the case of heinous offences such as the murder of a child or a terrorist outrage of the kind that the city I am proud to represent suffered in 1974, with the appalling Birmingham pub bombings by the Provisional IRA, in which 21 innocent civilians were murdered. The victims of such crimes deserve no less than having the perpetrators brought to justice. Justice also demands that the innocent should not be found guilty, however. When serious miscarriages of justice occur, it is right that the innocent have access to justice and are able to be compensated for them.

I am proud of the system of jury trial in this country. I fought for many years to defend it, as a member of the executive council of the then National Council for Civil Liberties, now known as Liberty. Trial by jury is one of our great British institutions. In the words of the jurist Lord Devlin, each jury is a “mini Parliament”, and trial by jury is

“the lamp that shows that freedom lives”.

Juries can get it wrong in certain circumstances, however: when evidence is withheld from or not disclosed to the defence, as in the case of Sally Clark; when new forensic evidence shows that the person charged and convicted was in fact innocent, as in the case of Mary Druhan; or when evidence is extorted as a consequence of outrageous and unacceptable pressure in a police station, or when it is manufactured, as in the cases of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four. When we debate the importance of compensation for the victims of miscarriages of justice, it is worth reflecting on each of those sets of circumstances.

Sally Clark was a practising solicitor. She was traumatised by the sudden death of her child. She was wrongly accused of murdering her child, and went to prison. When she came out, she was a crushed woman, and she died not long afterwards. Mary Druhan was convicted of arson. In a powerful speech in the other place, Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws described how Mary Druhan had served 11 years in prison, and how she had become so institutionalised that when she came out, she was unable to negotiate public transport. She was also traumatised by the tragic suicide of her daughter while she was in prison.

At a time in our history when the country was reeling from the horror of terrorist violence, what happened to the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four was absolutely wrong. The Birmingham Six were beaten, brutalised and wrongly convicted. They served 16 years in prison. In the case of the Guildford Four, I will never forget when they walked to freedom and Gerry Conlon stood on the steps of the Old Bailey and said that his dad had died in prison. Such serious miscarriages of justice are mercifully rare—there are typically only a couple a year—but it is absolutely right that compensation should be available for the innocent victims who have suffered as a result of them.

At the very heart of our legal system lies the principle that a person is innocent until proved guilty, and rightly so. It is for that reason that Labour tabled an amendment on Report to ensure that that age-old principle was upheld. I said then, as I do now, that I agreed that the Government were right in principle to include in the Bill a statutory definition of the cases in which compensation should be paid for a miscarriage of justice, in order to secure greater certainty in this area of the law. However, the Government’s proposed changes today seek to redefine the compensation test, limiting it to circumstances in which a

“new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that the person was innocent of the offence”

of which he or she was convicted. That seems to fly in the face of the age-old principle. Worse still, the Government’s proposal will lead to the Secretary of State passing judgment on whether or not a person is innocent. Requiring the Secretary of State to perform that role when no court has done so would be to impose a complex and contentious role on Ministers, in cases that are among the most sensitive.

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[Damian Green]

With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will respond briefly to some of the important points that have been made during this debate.

Taking this back to first principles, the domestic courts have always made it clear that compensation should be paid when the new facts that form the basis on which a person’s conviction was quashed clearly show that the applicant did not commit the offence. However, the courts have never been able to define without ambiguity a stable and robust test. Given the courts’ difficulty in this area, we decided to create a clear and definitive statutory test, the requirement for which is supported by Parliament and others, including the Joint Committee on Human Right, although I appreciate not by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and conceivably the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), although he did not address the point.

With regard to the test, we have sought to provide an amendment that recognises that compensation should be paid only to those who genuinely warrant it. What we require to achieve that is for the new fact to demonstrate that the applicant did not commit the crime—I addressed the various situations in which that could be shown—and that this should be evident from the reasons outlined in the Court of Appeal’s judgment that led to the quashing of an applicant’s conviction. The applicant does not have to prove their innocence—in other words, the reversal of the burden of proof, which Members have mentioned. That is simply not the case. The reasons why the applicant could not have committed the crime will be evident from what is outlined in a successful appeal.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) talked about the Sally Clark case. Obviously it is difficult to say how we would consider any applications where compensation would be payable under the new test in the abstract. We have heard much mention of their lordships’ discussion of this. On Report in the Lords, there was disagreement between two eminent lawyers as to the facts of the case that would be fundamental in consideration of an application for compensation. Great lawyers can disagree about that, but what we do know, and what therefore cannot be in dispute, is that the Secretary of State did grant compensation in that case.

[Jack Dromey]

Just for the record, Lord Saville of Newdigate, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Scott of Foscote, who are members of the Supreme Court, all supported amendment 112. Why is the Minister pitching this at the level of beyond reasonable doubt?

[Damian Green]

I should point out that Lord Brown disagreed and that the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Adams case was five to four. It genuinely is the case that our most distinguished lawyers were very close to disagreeing.

On the question of beyond reasonable doubt, the ambiguity we seek to resolve with our amendment (a) is illustrated not just by the 13 cases currently awaiting consideration by the administrative court, but by the disagreement between the lawyers in the House of Lords about whether Sally Clark would not have qualified for compensation under that test. The fact that the hon. Gentleman could not tell my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) whether the test he supports—the conclusive test—is one of beyond reasonable doubt or of the balance of probabilities reflects that test’s inherent ambiguity.

There is nothing new in the “beyond reasonable doubt” test. The existing provision in section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 already requires a miscarriage of justice to be shown to have occurred beyond reasonable doubt. The Government, therefore, are not introducing a new test. The aspect on which the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Foyle have laid such great weight is already in the 1988 Act, which we are seeking to improve.

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington made a reasonable point. He does not think that Parliament should get involved at all and that we should just leave it to the lawyers. I disagree with that argument and so do most people who have addressed the issue. I think we should try to set out a clear, unambiguous basis for the payment of compensation.

I return to the basic point that where the new fact which underpins the quashing of the conviction clearly shows that the offence did not happen, that the applicant could not have carried out the offence or that someone else carried out the offence, that would qualify as a miscarriage of justice. That seems to me to be clearer and less ambiguous than what we have at the moment. It will not deny anyone who genuinely deserves compensation from getting it.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 112.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Dromey and Damian Green

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

16. What the change has been in the number of front-line police officers since May 2010.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

Between March 2010 and March 2012 the total number of front-line officers fell by 6,778. West Midlands police saw the greatest reduction in the number of front-line officers. Over the past year crime there has fallen by 10%, much more than the national average, proving that what matters is not the number of officers, but how they are deployed and how effective they are at fighting crime.

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[Damian Green]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman thinks that I am out of touch, because crime in west Yorkshire is down by 3%. I am afraid that he seems to be out of touch with crime levels in his own constituency.

[Jack Dromey]

The police service for Birmingham and the west midlands is among the finest in England, but 814 of its front-line police officers are being cut. Does the Home Secretary understand the dismay being expressed by the people of Birmingham over the damage being done to their police service, and does she also understand that they cannot begin to understand why 814 officers are going in Birmingham and the west midlands but 257 are going in Surrey?

[Damian Green]

The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well the financial state his Government left this country in, which is why there need to be cuts. I completely agree with his tribute to West Midlands police, because, as I have said, in these difficult times they have reduced crime by 10% in the west midlands, a significant improvement, making the streets of Birmingham and the rest of the west midlands safer than they were.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Dromey and Damian Green

Monday 21st May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

We have taken action against employers, in particular, as the main reason for people over-staying is in order to work illegally. Last summer we had a big effort against over-staying illegal workers. I am happy to report to my hon. Friend that that is working. The last quarter of 2011 showed an increase in enforced removals and voluntary departures of those who should not be here, on both the previous quarter and the last quarter of 2010, so the effective and tough measures we are taking are now visibly working.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

T7. A 20% cut will see 1,200 police officers go in the west midlands. A further 20% cut in the next comprehensive spending review would mean, in the view of the police service, the end of community policing. Has the Home Secretary told the Chancellor of the Exchequer that, and can she rule it out?