Counter-Terrorism: Conflict Zones

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Ind)]

No one is suggesting that there is any range of measures that would completely eliminate the risk of people travelling to Syria and Iraq. My right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary has certainly not done so. But since the Home Secretary has now reintroduced the power of relocation, does she not accept that removing that power in 2011 was a mistake?

[Mrs May]

We took the decision that we did in 2011 based on the situation at the time. We have now reviewed the measures that are available and put other measures in place. I repeat what I said earlier, which is that some of the cases that have been quoted in the press go back to a date when control orders with relocation were in place.

Terrorist Attacks (Paris)

Jack Straw Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely correct in his description of what the director general of MI5 said in the speech. It is unfortunate that people very often mix up some of the aspects of communications data and intercepts, and sometimes believe that the Government were trying, in the draft Communications Data Bill, to expand the powers of the agencies, which was not the case. Indeed, the director general of MI5 said:

“The ability to access communications data is likewise vital to our ability to protect our national security”,

and that

“unless we maintain this capability, our ability to protect the country will be eroded.”

The Bill was about maintaining that capability, and we and others, as evidenced by the quote, see that as so important.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

As there has been a revolution in communications in the 16 years since I introduced the proposals that became the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, it seems to me to be beyond argument that the legislation, including in respect of communications data, has to be revised. Does the Home Secretary agree that a serious debate about the extent of the powers is not remotely helped by the parody that states that the powers sought are “some kind of snoopers charter”? Since I believe that the distance between the two main parties in the House on this issue is actually very narrow, may we have the kind of close collaboration that my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary spoke in favour of so that we can resolve this issue as soon as possible, and ensure that the intelligence and security agencies and the police have the capabilities today and tomorrow that they had in the past under legislation freely agreed by this House?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that it is important, in the debate on this issue, that the facts and arguments are presented properly. Sadly, the terminology that has been used about the communications data Bill, such as its being a snoopers charter, has set all sorts of hares running that are not accurate and that do not reflect what was proposed. He is right that it is important for all of us in this House to look at this matter calmly and carefully, and to consider the powers that our agencies need if they are to maintain their capabilities. Otherwise, as those capabilities degrade, it makes it harder for our agencies to keep us safe.

Child Abuse Inquiry

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I hesitate to question my hon. Friend’s comments on such matters, but my advice is that it would be possible to turn the inquiry into a statutory one—namely, an inquiry with the powers of a statutory inquiry to compel witnesses—but for that to happen it would be necessary to have a request from the chairman. At the moment, it is not possible because we do not have a chairman. Once the chairman is in place, they will be able to make that judgment and come forward if they wish to turn this into a statutory inquiry.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Will the Home Secretary follow up the—in my view—very sensible suggestion from her right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), the former Attorney-General, that the net should be cast more widely on this occasion, and that the search for a chair should extend to jurisdictions abroad that are similar to ours?

[Mrs May]

Our initial consideration of potential candidates did involve looking more widely than the United Kingdom, and I should be happy to repeat that process. It should be borne in mind that it is not only the United Kingdom that has seen examples of child abuse of this sort. If we do look more widely, we must be careful to ensure that individuals will again be able to have the confidence of survivors.

Foreign National Offenders (Removal)

Jack Straw Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes a point that he has made on a number of occasions on the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights. I am afraid that he will not get a different response now from that which he has had either from me or other Ministers in the past. The Government believe that amending it will not change the position. He refers to the Human Rights Act and as shadow Attorney-General he did work on this matter. Repealing the charter was a Conservative party manifesto commitment before the last election, and that will be repeated as we move forward to the next election.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

May I remind the Home Secretary that, although it is true for certain that we did introduce the Human Rights Act, the Conservative Opposition—she was in the House at the time I think—supported that Act on Third Reading and wished it well. The Conservatives may have had second thoughts since then. Secondly, notwithstanding the Human Rights Act, the numbers of people now being deported, as the National Audit Office report makes clear, have gone down, not up on her watch. How does she explain that, notwithstanding the fact that there has been a ninefold increase, from 100 to 900, in staff working on this issue?

[Mrs May]

I have acknowledged that we need to do more in this area, but one cannot look at what has happened over the past few years without considering the increasing number of appeals. A 28% increase in appeals means a significant delay in the ability of the authorities to deal with many of these cases and deport the individuals. Under this Government, we are changing that and, as I said earlier, this week the measure in the Immigration Act that reduces the grounds for appeals from 17 to four has kicked in. I am sure that will have a real impact on our ability to deport people and to deport them more quickly.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Jack Straw Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot comment on surveillance techniques. However, I restate clearly that the Bill and, in particular, clause 4 do nothing more than is already the case in respect of the requirement to serve notices and the ability to issue warrants to overseas providers.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

May I confirm, for the benefit of the Committee, that what the Minister has just said about the intention being that RIPA should extend extraterritorially in these respects is entirely accurate? If hon. Members look at RIPA itself, they will see that section 2(1), which provides definitions, states that

“‘telecommunication system’ means any system (including the apparatus comprised in it) which exists (whether wholly or partly in the United Kingdom or elsewhere)”.

That is but one example—there are many to which I could point—that shows that the clear intention of this House and the other place was to make this part of the Act extraterritorial. Indeed, we thought that that would be the effect of the Act.

[James Brokenshire]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for providing that clarification and for highlighting that provision in section 2 of RIPA, which gives a sense of the extent and nature of the provisions that were contemplated when it was introduced. It was thought that it would have extraterritorial effect. Given legal challenges, other court cases and the language used in the legislation, we think it right to put that beyond doubt. That has always been the intent and practice for this measure; I repeat that the Bill does not extend the position but restates and asserts what has always been the case in the legislation. Those who may be subject to notices or warrants should understand clearly that it will apply to them if they are outside the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huppert]

That delves into subjects that I am unable to get too involved in. It is a shame that the matter is being dealt with so late. I raised this issue with the Home Secretary on the day that European Court of Justice ruling came out. I questioned her and challenged her on the time scale then. All of us were surprised by the announcement and I wish that we had been able to start sooner. I worry that those within the Conservative and Labour parties who have made it clear that they continue to want to have the measures in the draft Communications Data Bill will bring that back instead of introducing something that some of us would prefer. I wish I could believe that there was a liberal majority in this House—both with a capital L and a small l—but I am not sure that that is the case.

On the other amendments, I am glad that we seem to have reached an agreement on wording. I hope that the Government clause to write the details of the review into legislation will be supported by Members on both sides of the House. I very much want that to happen and for us to reach a place where we can improve. I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that at least one version of the oversight clause will be adopted, because it would be a useful addition. I think that having it on the face of the Bill was always intended, which can only be a good thing.

Some of us have been trying to get a proper review of RIPA and all the associated legislation, such as the Telecommunications Act 1984, for many years. We have that chance now. I want a proper review, proper pre-legislative scrutiny and a Bill that will be properly debated in the House. The question is how best to get there.

[Mr Straw]

I will deal first with the point made by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and others about the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. I was the Minister responsible for RIPA. It was a carefully constructed Act that was preceded in 1999 by a lengthy consultation process. Everybody recognised at the time that it was a major improvement on the legislative regime for intercepting communications, data retention and other matters. As I said earlier—and I introduced the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill on this basis—its purpose was to make the intrusive powers of the state compatible with the Human Rights Act 1998, which came into force more than two year later on 2 October 2000. I am proud of the 1998 Act and—to reassure and provide therapy to the hon. Member for Cambridge—of the fact that it was indeed a liberal measure, but I of course accept that the world of telecommunications has changed radically in the 14 years since. Interestingly, it has not changed as much as it had changed in the preceding 15 years, which followed the Interception of Communications Act 1985, but it has still changed a great deal and for sure it would be worth while for RIPA to be reviewed. However, that is not a case for not proceeding with this measure tonight.

I also accept, as my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary said eloquently in her speech, that even if we accept the need for emergency legislation, as we do, it would have been far better for our consideration to have been extended over two or three days in the Commons rather than just one. Indeed, if we had not been up against the buffers of the summer recess that might easily have been possible and we would have avoided the process of manuscript amendments.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson)—who, parenthetically, is not that much younger than my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), as he is in his fifth decade and my right hon. Friend is in his sixth—asked rhetorically whether we were surprised that relatively few Members had taken part in the debates today. He then tried to provide an answer, but I must say that it was not that convincing. He said that the reason was the pressure of time. I have been present in the Chamber when debates on Bills or other subjects have been subject to time pressures. When they have been very controversial this place has been packed and Ministers have had a hard time. I would suggest that the more convincing explanation for the fact that not many Members have been present for all or any part of the debates today is that most are convinced by the arguments that are being made by the Government, with the support of the Opposition; that the measure clarifies the law in the light of the ECJ judgment; and, in so far as it changes RIPA, that it does so in one respect only—through clause 3, which has the effect, which I hope would be supported by every Member, of restricting the basis on which warrants can be made in relation to economic well-being and qualifies that with reference to national security.

Let me turn to the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East, which would repeal the Bill by the end of this year rather than by the end of 2016, as the final clause of the Bill proposes. My hon. Friend said by way of justification for his amendment, in a very delphic comment, that we had not seen what the Government had seen. By definition, we have not seen that which the Government have not shown us and that might be secret or classified, but in justifying this measure the Government have not come along and told us that there are plenty of reasons for it but that they cannot let us in on them.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) made a very witty speech earlier in which he spoke of the Disqualifications Act 2000. That measure changed the basis for the disqualification of Members to allow members of Sinn Fein to sit in the Dáil, the Northern Ireland Assembly and this place. My right hon. Friend was not allowed to explain that, so that really was a situation in which Members of the House had not seen what the Government had seen. That is not the case here. We have seen what the Government have seen. The hon. Member for Cambridge referred to it—it is the ECJ judgment and everybody can read it and understand its consequences. That is the basis for this Bill. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East that I do not accept what the hon. Member for Cambridge is suggesting, which is that we can only have legislation either in a day or in six months. If this House wanted to, it could consider legislation over a two-week period and that would be preferable in this case.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The right hon. Gentleman says that we have all seen what the Government have seen of what is behind the Bill. One thing continually cited about the extraterritorial extensions is that companies have said that they want such provision so that they are in a clearer position, but there have been questions about that. Does the right hon. Gentleman know who these companies are? Which companies have said that they need or want such things to be covered? Which companies would, as the Government are telling us, act outside this provision and act in defiance? We have been told about that several times today, but we have not been given any details.

[Mr Straw]

I do not know in precise detail. I used to know when I was responsible for these matters as Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary. Even when I was Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary, when there were fewer telecommunications providers, the ones that were wholly UK-based inevitably had a different and closer relationship than those based overseas but which were providing telecommunications services in this country. The latter were, for reasons one understood, much less willing to enter into voluntary arrangements than those based in the UK.

I do not know whether the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) was in the Chamber when I drew attention to the fact that this provision is genuinely a clarification of the extraterritorial application of the RIPA Act and not an extension of it. I refer him, for example, to a definition of a telecommunications system in section 2:

“any system … which exists (whether wholly or partly in the United Kingdom or elsewhere)”.

The clear intention of that Act was that it extended extraterritorially. The legal advice is that the wording has not worked quite as intended and that overseas telecommunications providers particularly want more clarification.

[Mark Durkan]

If we are to believe that that is the only effect of clause 6, and that companies have said that they want such provision, should we not be told which companies have said that?

[Mr Straw]

That is a matter for the Minister. Sometimes, companies do not wish to be named; sometimes they do. If they did wish to be named—they are not slow in coming forward in other respects to let us know their views—they would have named themselves.

[Jim Sheridan]

My right hon. Friend seems to be making the case that the lack of attendees in the Chamber suggests that the vast majority of colleagues on both sides of the House support the legislation. If that is the case, why not have a free vote? Then people could vote whatever way they wanted.

[Mr Straw]

If I started discussing the importance of the party system, I think Mr Hood would pull me up short. My hon. Friend knows that the party system is fundamental to the way our democracy operates. I was elected not as J. Straw, an individual of obvious talent, or not, but because I was a member of the Labour party. In doing that, I accepted and signed up for, among other things, the standing orders of the parliamentary Labour party and the whipping system, and the authority system that we have. Of course, there is loads of scope for going against that. I am sitting next to my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who has voted against his party probably more often than he has voted with it—and a very fine constituency member he is, too, if I may say so. I have voted against my party once—

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)]

Order. I obviously agree with the right hon. Member’s opinion about his hon. Friend, but it would be nice if he spoke to the amendment.

[Mr Straw]

Apologies; as a relatively new Member, I was led astray by my hon. Friend.

I come back to the point of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East. I wish that we had had more extended debates on the Bill, stretching over a number of days, but that has not been available. There is some strength in the point made by the hon. Member for Cambridge. Let us say that the legislation was repealed in December. What additional information would we have on its operation after it had been in force for only a matter of months? What prospect would there have been of gaining additional information about how the Act was operating? I suspect that, whether we spent a day, a week or a month on the replacement for the Bill—that would have to start in the middle of October—to allow proper legislative time, we would simply be repeating the contents of this Bill. It is far better to have the extended period with a clear sunset in 2016, plus the reviews, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn has referred, as a way of carefully considering the future of this kind of legislation and then making sober decisions at some length after the election.

[Steve McCabe]

I started out today very much in the same place as my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson), but I am beginning to wonder whether this is not a matter of a short period of review that leads us straight back into an argument for another similar piece of emergency legislation, versus a longer period of review where we could get the matter right for once.

[Mr Straw]

My hon. Friend puts it much better than I did. That is the truth. We have a compressed programme and there will be complaints again about that, but the House usually rises in the middle of December, and if the Bill were to be repealed at the end of December and the House wanted proper time to consider this legislation, we would need to start on it in early November at least, which is only a few months away. I cannot see that we would be in any better position at that stage than we are now.

[Caroline Lucas]

Apart from the fact that the right hon. Gentleman cannot count his months, I make the serious point that it would make a difference in the sense that during the summer we could be having the public debate. The public care about the Bill. They could be speaking to their MPs about it. They have been left out of the process. If we started in October, we would still have three months—two and a half months—in this place to have a proper debate.

[Mr Straw]

Of course I accept that the public are concerned, but from my long experience they have a clear view of how to balance the interests of liberty and their own personal security—that is what this is about, not the security of the state—and they implicitly acknowledge that, although the systems that we have built up during the past 30 years may not be perfect, they do provide that balance. They provide a level of control over Ministers and the intelligence, security and police services, which is pretty unparalleled in most other countries.

Let us consider the abuses that take place in Europe. I think of what has happened in France in recent years, where one Minister intercepted the telephone calls of another Minister—all kinds of abuses by Ministers and the judiciary. That has never happened here and it could never happen here under our system—[Interruption.] Yes, it used to happen. It is right that trade unions were wire-tapped. Many others, thousands of people, were subject to intrusive surveillance. I know that to be the case because an officer of the Security Service told me that and showed me my file. I know that to be the case in respect of my family as well. But that was under a system where there was no statutory regulation whatsoever of telephone intercept, or data retention, which was available then, and when the very existence of the security and intelligence agencies was itself denied. That has rightly changed to take account of our duties and public concerns. It is not perfect, but we are much closer to a system that properly balances those things.

I hope that the Committee will not accept, for the reasons I have suggested, what my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East suggests, which will lead to a truncated, abbreviated review that will not work, and that instead we will have the longer review, proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn, and sober consideration of a new Act to replace this one and RIPA before the end of 2016.

[Mr Charles Walker]

I rise to support amendment 2, tabled by the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson). This really is a ridiculous way to transact legislation in this place—to sit here and listen to a lot of nonsense from some quite respectable people. The idea that we should put something so important and worth while through in a day just takes the biscuit.

I am sure that there is a huge amount of worthy content in the Bill, and I am sure that it is extraordinarily important that business is transacted as quickly as possible, but we have a duty of scrutiny and reflection in this Chamber. We represent 65 million people. This is not simply a rubber-stamping process. The idea that doing this in a day is somehow no worse than revisiting it in December just does not hold water. That argument will have no resonance out there with our electorate.

There is a slight undertone in the debate that those in the Chamber who express concern about the way business is being done today are somehow complicit in putting the nation’s safety at risk. That really is the last hiding place of scoundrels. I do not mean that anyone in this place starts from that basis, but we have a moral duty here to scrutinise legislation. I totally and honestly agree with the hon. Member for West Bromwich East that we need to revisit this sooner, rather than later.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Jack Straw Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

It is a particular pleasure to follow my old sparring partner from east Yorkshire on this as much as on any other issue.

As I have only a short time, I shall focus on one issue alone out of the four that affect the Bill. When this Government brought a different but related Bill before the House, the so-called snooper’s charter, it was, frankly, an embarrassment. It was pilloried by the Joint Committee on the draft Communications Data Bill and heavily criticised by both MPs and Lords. One clear fact that arose from that review was that many thought that RIPA, the Bill upon which this legislation is based, was simply not fit for purpose, that it was too loose, and that if the snooper’s charter came before the House at some later stage, many would use it to rewrite RIPA. Certainly many Liberals thought that, and a number of Conservatives too, and some Members of other parties. That may be one reason why the Government are uncomfortable about giving this Bill a full procedure over several weeks, with a proper Committee and Report stage, and so on; because they may find that they get a tighter definition of RIPA than they previously had.

The House knows that I am not a great fan of the British Government being told what to do by the European Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights. I much prefer that British liberties—our freedom, our privacy—are protected by Parliament. But the harsh truth is that Parliament has been a weak defender of our freedoms this past 20 years, and the process we face today, crashing the Bill through the Commons in a single day—even more poignantly on reshuffle day; I see the empty Benches around me—is an awful demonstration of that. One consequence of that slack attitude is that we have bumped more and more frequently into treaty obligations and international court judgments against us, where Britain should be the shining example, not the villain of the piece. The Bill does nothing to correct that.

The Court, as a number of speakers have mentioned, branded the untargeted mass collection of our data—European rather than just ours—as a

“wide-ranging and particularly serious interference with”

our

“fundamental rights.”

It is arguably the case that, in some ways, Britain is the most extreme example of that across western Europe. Because the Bill does nothing to correct that particular aspect, it is likely to face legal challenge, and may well fail as a result. It will not be beneficial to security in this country if that happens.

Much of this failure hinges on the fact that access to communication data in this country is not subject to judicial approval. It is one of the differences between ourselves and America and some other European countries. It is approved by officers of the same organisation that request it. The result of that—the point that I think the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) was referring to—is that too many people have too much access, too easily, to too much data. That is the core point. Therefore, we use this power in that respect more often than many of our international colleagues.

There were 514,000 authorisations and notices reported in the RIPA 2013 report. It is difficult to compare countries, but to give a partial comparison—

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I thought I heard the right hon. Gentleman say that those who authorised communication data requests were the same people as those who checked it. I think that the right hon. Gentleman will find that that is not correct. There is a system of surveillance commissioners who are there to do the authorisation, and the checking is done separately.

[Mr Davis]

That is not correct, I am afraid. The authorisation process does not go to the commissioners. It comes back afterwards to the commissioners.

The point about this is the numbers. The Americans, with whom we can partially compare, use only 39,000 to 57,000 references in a given year. In Europe, the country that least admires the privacy of its nationals is France. Its total metadata approvals is 35,958—36,000. If we add in all the other approval processes, it still comes to less than half of ours. So access to our data has insufficient safeguards. There is no prior review to access by a court or independent body, and after-the-event oversight—the commission oversight—is incredibly under-resourced. The intention was that data be used only for the purposes of prevention, detection or criminal prosecution of offences that may be considered sufficiently serious to justify such an interference. There are 100,000 prosecutions for indictable offences that face custodial sentences in the UK each year. About 80,000 end up in prison. We are talking about 500,000-odd approvals to deal with fewer than 100,000 prosecutions.

The Government seek to diminish the importance and sensitivity of communications data by distinguishing it from the content of the communications. At one time this firm distinction stood up and was credible, but now, because of technology, rather than going the other way and making things more difficult for the agencies, the scale of the internet and mobile phone technology has provided an intimate picture of people’s personal lives. In the ECJ’s words:

“This data, taken as a whole, may provide very precise information on the private lives of the persons whose data are retained, such as the habits of everyday life, permanent or temporary places of residence, daily or other movements, activities carried out, social relationships and the social environments frequented.”

In other words, it is an incredibly intrusive piece of information.

As I said, I do not like taking lessons from the ECJ, but on this they are absolutely correct. These measures are just not proportionate. They were badly designed in 2000—I am sorry to say to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw)—and they have got worse with the passage of time and technology. The Government have not listened, and accordingly have left themselves open to legal challenge. While the Bill may be law by the end of the week, it may be junk by the end of the year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Simon Reevell), because although none of us remotely underestimates the difficulty of finding a proper balance between liberty and security—some might come down in different places on that—I say with respect to those who are criticising the data retention practice in the United Kingdom, rather than the policy of the EU, which is greater, that there is a fundamental logical fallacy in what they are arguing, as the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) exposed powerfully. It is this: where there is a suspect for a crime, it is for a crime that has been committed in the past. The police will not know who that suspect is until they come to the police’s attention, at which point they have to get historical evidence. These days, part of that historical evidence will be in data records. They have to be able to access everybody’s data records in order to find those of one particular person, because the police, no more than the rest of us, are not given powers of clairvoyance with which to anticipate who is and who is not to be a suspect. Unless or until I hear from opponents of this Bill and of data retention how the police can be expected to identify in advance those who are going to be suspected of crime, I have to say that the whole logical basis of their argument completely falls away.

I always listen with interest to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). Indeed, there are areas where I have been in concert, if not conspiracy, with him. I think I am correct in saying that he said that Parliament has been a weak defender of our liberties in this field over the past 20 years. With respect, I beg to differ. Forty years ago, almost to this month, after six hours of questioning by former police officers as part of my security vetting procedure, I was interviewed by a senior officer of the Security Service. He explained to me that a file had been kept on my family since at least since 1961, when I was 15 and my sister, who was the subject of one of the original reports, was 17. In order to identify a discrepancy that had arisen between what I had said and what they thought they knew, he had to show me my file—a big, thick manila file was produced. He went on to question me as to what contact I had had as president of the National Union of Students at the end of the 1960s and the early ’70s with the student national organiser of the Communist party. I said that I had met this man from time to time at a pub in Covent Garden. “Oh yes,” he said, “You met that man at the Sussex Arms in Covent Garden on these dates, and this is what you discussed.” I mentioned that in my book and it is a great tribute to the modern Security Service that it and the Cabinet Office approved of my relaying of the story.

At that stage, however, we were in the area of the secret state. There was no parliamentary oversight whatsoever of the intelligence or security agencies. The telephone tapping that happened to me and my family was the subject of no statutory warrant whatsoever. The past 30 years have seen this House progressively doing its duty by the citizen—from the Telecommunications Act 1984 and the Intelligence Services Act 1994 through to, I am proud to say, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000—to ensure that the necessary powers of the state to detect and prevent crime and to secure national safety are the subject of proper controls.

Of course, as technology changes, the law should take account of it—both sides of the House are agreed on that—but RIPA was a huge advance in terms of human rights, and that was how I introduced it to the House back in 2000. It is simply a matter of record that that Act applied overseas and there has been dispute subsequently about its exact wording. That is all that is being corrected by this Bill and I defy anybody to challenge that.

There is one area in which this Bill will, indeed, change the law. Clause 3 will change the basis for obtaining a warrant for intercept on grounds of economic well-being. At the moment, in RIPA, economic well-being is the sole criterion without condition. In future, it will be subject to the interests of national security.

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

The right hon. Gentleman may be unaware that there has been a European directive since the late 1990s that links economic well-being to national security issues. It has been implemented in the United Kingdom through a code of practice, which is unsatisfactory, and it is that code of practice that will now appear as primary legislation.

[Mr Straw]

I am aware of that, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be the first to accept that there is a world of difference between something in a code and something in a Bill. I note that not one critic can find the words to commend the fact that this Government, with support from the Opposition, are going to strengthen provisions, rather than diminish them.

As the right hon. and learned Gentleman has generously given me an extra few seconds, I will also address data records. Before the Telecommunications Act 1984 and the Intelligence Services Act 1994, data communications of all sorts were collected without any statutory control. That, too, has been the subject of repeated strengthening of the law, to protect the citizen. I hope this House will pass this sensible, necessary and very modest measure.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill (Business of the House)

Jack Straw Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I support the timetable motion and will briefly set out why. I have been in the position of having to bring forward emergency legislation. It is never easy, and I am ready to give the benefit of the doubt to the Home Secretary, because she would not have done this without good justification, and neither would my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary remotely have agreed to it without the closest scrutiny of what is being proposed.

I say to my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson), with the usual respect, that I have often thought that there is an inverse relationship between the extravagance of language used, and the strength—or otherwise—of the argument he has made. He was very pretty in his soundbites, but no case has been made as to why this legislation should not be dealt with today; nor have there been arguments in the briefings that suggest substantively for a second why and how the legislation goes beyond what everybody assumed to be the state of the law before the European Court of Justice judgment.

The ECJ judgment took place on 8 April, and those who have had the benefit of burning their brain out by reading it, as I have, will know that it is an incredibly dense text full of confused arguments, and it is not clear on the face of the text exactly what it meant—indeed, lawyers have now had to add glosses to it. Neither was it immediately clear whether or not it would require further amending legislation. That is the reality.

I was the Minister who brought forward the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which was supported across the House. Why? I did so because it strengthened parliamentary and legal scrutiny over the extensive surveillance powers of the state, not the reverse. Secondly, without this emergency legislation, those of us who are concerned to deal with sexual predators and other serious criminals and terrorists—as I know my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East is, along with many others—will see a degradation in the ability of the police and other security agencies to deal with those threats. That is what is at issue. I do not like emergency legislation any more than anybody else, but I prefer it to allowing serious criminals and terrorists to go undetected.

Child Abuse

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I commend my right hon. Friend for her comments. Obviously she has seen a very specific case and knows how long it has taken her constituent to find justice for the treatment that he received. I will indeed raise the specific issue with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education, but it is exactly those sorts of issues that I expect the inquiry panel to look at: namely, are there any gaps in what we currently do that mean we are not properly protecting children and, if there are, what appropriate mechanisms could be put in place to ensure that those gaps are filled?

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

While welcoming today’s announcements by the Home Secretary and the observations by her shadow, may I press her on the issue of record keeping? When I became Home Secretary, it became very clear to me—I was asking for information in a quite unrelated area—that there had been a downgrading of the archiving and record-keeping functions of the Home Office. I say that in a non-partisan way, because this issue has continued and is made more complicated in the so-called digital age. Will the Home Secretary ensure that both panels look very carefully—taking advice, if necessary, from the head of the National Archives—at the adequacy or, I am sure, inadequacy of existing mechanisms and resources for ensuring that proper records are kept, particularly in areas such as this?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Of course the keeping of proper records is very important. Over the years that we are dealing with, there have been a number of approaches to record keeping within the Home Office and, indeed, within other Government Departments. In the 1980s, the system was changed to the so-called Grigg system. Subsequently, the National Archives has issued guidance to Government Departments on the approach that they should take to the keeping of records. Of course, that is exactly the sort of issue that I expect could be part of the inquiry’s work.

Ellison Review

Jack Straw Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my right hon. Friend. In fact, “wholly inappropriate” is precisely the wording that Mark Ellison uses in relation to the use of an undercover officer during the Macpherson inquiry. I think that many people will be absolutely shocked by the fact that there was an individual who was, in Mark Ellison’s words—I used the quote as did the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)—

“an MPS spy in the Lawrence family camp”

at a time when the family were in opposition to the MPS in judicial proceedings. I am sure that everybody recognises that that was wholly inappropriate and that this is not the behaviour that we expect from the police.

On the question on whistleblowing, my right hon. Friend makes a very valid and important point. It is crucial. The issue of whistleblowing in various aspects of the public sector has been raised in recent times. It is very important that police officers feel that they are able to raise matters of concern and that those matters of concern will be properly considered and properly dealt with. I have not quite finalised my proposals in this area, so I ask my right hon. Friend to have some patience. I will inform the House in due course of how we intend to improve the ability of police officers to be whistleblowers and to feel that they are able to do that and what they feel is absolutely right and of benefit to the vast majority of offers, who operate with integrity.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

May I first welcome the resolute determination the Home Secretary has shown in pursuing this issue and thank her for establishing the Ellison inquiry and for making this statement, which I have to say is one of the most shocking and serious statements I have heard by any Minister from any party over the whole of the 35 years I have been in this House?

As the Home Secretary and the police authority for London who established the Macpherson inquiry, I was struck, in the three months it took me to establish that inquiry and agree its terms of reference, by the reluctance of the Metropolitan Police Service to have any inquiry that focused forensically on the facts, as it had successfully resisted such calls for four years. I attributed that defensiveness to a bureaucratic unwillingness to accept scrutiny, but it is now clear that there was venality, probably at the highest level of the Metropolitan police, by which, against all rules, they refused to offer evidence, as they were required to do, to the full judicial inquiry of Sir William Macpherson. I have to say, given what the Home Secretary has now said, that had that evidence been offered, I think it is at least possible that Sir William Macpherson and his colleagues would have concluded not only, as they did, that there had been institutional racism, but that there had been institutional corruption as well.

I had a personal interest in the issue of the SDS and that organisation’s activities to go after subversives, because in 1974 the Security Service informed me of, and showed me, records that had been kept on my family and me from 1960 until 1971, when I finished as a student activist. When I went to the Home Office, I said that I did not want to see my file, but that I did want to know whether they were carrying on wasting money looking at subversives like myself, my family and successors. I was assured that that kind of activity was not going on, so I hope very much that this inquiry will get to the bottom of it.

May I also say—this is my last point—that I am very pleased that the permanent secretary is going to scrutinise what happened under the previous Government? I will give every possible co-operation to that inquiry, because, to my certain knowledge, I knew nothing whatever of these continuing activities, and had I done so, I would have stopped them immediately.

[Mrs May]

On the right hon. Gentleman’s last point, one of the things that comes through clearly in the Ellison review is that part of the ethos of the SDS was precisely that of secrecy, to the extent that very few people—this is one of the difficulties in establishing exactly who knew—within the Metropolitan police, let alone outside it, knew. This was kept very tight and close in terms of those who were even aware that the SDS was in existence, let alone of what it was doing.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the specific issue of corruption. Everybody will be appalled that there was an allegation of corruption by an individual police officer that was brought to the attention of superior officers in the Metropolitan police, yet it was not referred to the Macpherson inquiry.

One has to ask what the thinking was of somebody who thought that it was right not to refer the allegation to the Macpherson inquiry. I find it absolutely incredible that that further reference did not take place. As Mark Ellison says, it was a significant failure by the Metropolitan police.

I just want to comment on the issue of culture, which is part of this matter, and also goes back to the question about whistleblowing asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). The culture of looking inward and protecting each other was rife at the time. One of the issues that can be looked at in the public inquiry is the whole question of Peter Francis’s allegations against that background and against what was actually going on in the SDS at the time.

Immigration Bill

Jack Straw Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

Examples of the added-value services include three to five-day priority visa services available in more than 60 countries, including Russia, China, India and some Gulf states. We are expanding this to more than 90 by spring this year. They also include prime-time appointment services, available in 10 locations, offering extended opening hours for those who need the convenience of an appointment outside usual business hours. In India, we have introduced the “super priority” visa service, which allows regular visitors, business visitors and tier 2 applicants to get their visa processed in just 24 hours.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

May I ask the Home Secretary about the current arrangements for issuing visas to travellers from Iran? I draw the attention of the House to the fact that I am co-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Iran. As a result of the invasion of the embassy at the end of 2011, we do not have an operational visa section—or any other section—in Tehran, and anyone applying for a visa has to go to Istanbul or Dubai. Many of those people then have to wait for days for their visa to be issued. Those people often have connections here. Will the right hon. Lady discuss this matter with the Foreign Secretary to see whether those arrangements could be speeded up?

[Mrs May]

I of course understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point. As he said, there are good reasons why we do not have the physical capacity for people to make their visa applications in Tehran. I will be happy to look into the processing that takes place in Dubai and Istanbul, and to see whether there is any way to ensure that the service can be of a higher standard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Raab]

From the sound of it, I have reassured the hon. Lady on the first point, which is good news. On the second point, a deportation order has never been trumped on those other grounds. The only grounds on which that has happened are article 2 on the right to life, article 3 on the right not to be tortured and article 8, which now makes up the lion’s share. I therefore do not think that that problem would arise. She talked about persecution. Let us be clear that any persecution that threatens life or limb is already caught by the exceptions under articles 2 and 3. I have deliberately preserved those because the hon. Members from across the House who support the new clause and I support the absolute prohibition on torture and inhumane or degrading treatment. If she is really concerned about this focused issue, those exceptions will deal with all those cases.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Is there not a prior point that if someone has a genuine, well-founded fear of persecution by the state to which they might return, they have a near absolute right to claim refugee status in this country under the 1951 convention?

[Mr Raab]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We probably would not even get on to article 2 or 3 in such cases. That situation is preserved under my new clause. I thank him for that important intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Raab]

I will not give way because I want to give other hon. Members a chance to speak. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is one of those who will be queuing up.

New clause 15 and amendment 62 are practical, common-sense proposals that would protect the public, restore some common sense to our justice system and restore some trust outside this place. I commend them to the House.

[Mr Straw]

On 24 November 2003, a young girl aged 9, Amy Houston, was killed on the west side of my constituency of Blackburn by a man driving a motor car, Aso Mohammed Ibrahim. He was an unfounded asylum seeker with no basis for remaining in the United Kingdom, and at the time of the motor accident had a number of convictions for driving while disqualified and driving without insurance. He received a relatively short prison sentence for causing death by careless driving. Thereafter, he developed a relationship with a woman in my constituency who already had two children by other men. He then went on to commit further offences.

When the Home Office made efforts to deport Aso Mohammed Ibrahim, he resisted them on article 8 grounds. The matter went before a tribunal, which found in his favour. I was Justice Secretary by that time, and I spoke to the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), who ensured that a vigorous appeal was mounted in respect of that tribunal judgment. A new appeal was established, but that too was lost. Principally, it was lost on the ground not of Strasbourg law but of the way in which the British courts had widened the basis of article 8 beyond that of Strasbourg in order to protect individuals in this situation.

Knowing far more about the background of the case than ever went before the tribunals, my opinion was—and remains—that that man had abused his position in this country and set out to develop a relationship with a woman and have children with her solely in order to evade deportation and immigration controls. It is a matter of regret to me and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle that the courts appeared to endorse his wilful decision to evade those controls.

It is for those reasons that I, and those on my Front Bench, strongly support the amendments to the law that appear in clause 14 of the Bill. I have great regard for the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), and I have talked to him at considerable length about the merits of his new clause. I am also listening carefully, as I said I would, to the debate today. I have no difficulty with seeking to direct the British courts towards a different conclusion from that towards which they are currently directed by the higher domestic courts in this country. That is also the purpose of clause 14.

I do have a problem, however, with the House knowingly deciding to legislate in a way that the best advice suggests would be incompatible with convention rights. That is because I am a strong supporter of the European convention on human rights. If the House wishes to decide to leave the convention, or to abrogate individual parts of it, it should seek to do so explicitly, rather than through an amendment of this kind. I accept that the hon. Gentleman has thought carefully about this matter, but it is with regret that I shall be unable to support his proposal today.

I also want to say a few words to those who think that this is all about the Human Rights Act. I was the Minister responsible for the Act, and I am proud of it. I hope that I will not cause the Attorney-General, the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), too many blushes if I say that I remember his courageous maiden speech in the House, in which he spoke out in favour of the Human Rights Bill, as it then was. Those on his Front Bench voted against the Bill on Second Reading, but by the time we reached Third Reading they had come round and wished the Bill well.

[Mr Hanson]

Given that the Attorney-General is in his seat, does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be appropriate for him to help us by telling the House what advice the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) and the Home Secretary have had on this measure? In that way, he could provide clarity to enable us to discuss the matter formally.

[Mr Straw]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. If the Attorney-General wishes to speak, he will find the right time to do so. It is not up to the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) to decide when that should be, and it should certainly not be in the middle of a speech by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw).

[Mr Straw]

I am sure that the Attorney-General and the hon. Member for Esher and Walton have had discussions about this, but for the avoidance of doubt, it does not lie in my mouth to suggest that the Attorney-General’s advice to Ministers should be made public. [Interruption.] And I would say to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that I do not think there are good reasons to make that advice public. We are all entitled to legal professional privilege, including Ministers.

[Keith Vaz]

And former Ministers.

[Mr Straw]

Yes; that is even more important.

I want briefly to comment on a point made by the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) on the way in which the higher courts have interpreted the Human Rights Act. I am proud of the Act, and although we can always amend legislation in the light of experience, I do not believe that it needs to be amended. It is a well crafted Act that brings into British law the convention rights to which we are subject anyway. The idea was that those rights should be accessible here, rather than in Strasbourg. Abolishing the Act would not remove our obligations under the European convention; the British Government would still be subject to them, but those rights would be more difficult to access.

The problem with the Human Rights Act is the way in which our higher courts have interpreted sections 2 and 3. They place on the courts an obligation to “take into account” Strasbourg jurisprudence, but our courts have interpreted that as meaning that our courts should follow Strasbourg jurisprudence. If the House had meant to use the word “follow”, we would have put it into the legislation. We did not do so; we used the words “take into account”. The Law Lords, in their wisdom, decided that in practice that meant “follow”.

[Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

But does the Supreme Court have any option but to follow Strasbourg, where there is a clear authority in Strasbourg? It knows that the case will then go to the Strasbourg Court, that its decision will be disapproved and that a contrary decision will come from Strasbourg. So, where there is a clear line, the Supreme Court has to follow Strasbourg in that way.

[Mr Straw]

With great respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman, the occasions on which the judgments of the Strasbourg Court are absolutely clear and on the point are extremely infrequent. It would also be unusual for a case to get that far if a case in Strasbourg was four-square with an incident case in the British courts. What would be the point of taking such a case that far?

[Mr Cox]

Prisoners’ rights?

[Mr Straw]

We do not want to get drawn down that particular rabbit hole, but the case of Hirst makes my point. For the avoidance of doubt, if the hon. and learned Gentleman reads the original judgment in that case, he will see that it involved such uncharted territory that at least five of the senior judges in the Strasbourg Court found in favour of the United Kingdom Government and not in favour of the criminal, Hirst. I also say to the hon. and learned Gentleman that if he follows a whole series of lectures given by very distinguished jurists in this country from Lord Hoffmann through to Lord Judge, he will see that there has been a strong current of opinion among our high judiciary against the views that are being taken by the Law Lords and the Supreme Court. Happily, I have summarised those in the second lecture I gave in the Hamlyn series in 2012, and I will send my notes to the hon. and learned Gentleman.

There is a serious issue that we need to put right to ensure that, in future, greater flexibility is given to the British courts. Yes, of course the courts have to apply the convention, which was the point made in the articles; that is made absolutely clear under section 2 of the Human Rights Act. As for the degree to which the courts apply the Strasbourg jurisprudence based on those convention articles, they need to take account of it, but not follow it. It is very important that our courts get back to the intention of this Parliament in 1998 when it passed the Human Rights Act. Had they done so, Aso Mohammed Ibrahim would not still be in this country. The problems we ran into there were not in respect of the convention of the Strasbourg Court or of the Human Rights Act, but in respect of the way in which article 8 had been interpreted by our own courts. It is my earnest hope that clause 14 will lead to some change in that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Raab]

On this point of the legality, it is clear from how the Human Rights Act has been drafted that, where there is an incompatibility, ultimate sovereignty remains with Parliament and the Government. Therefore, the issue of illegality is separate from incompatibility. Given all the points that the right hon. Gentleman has made about the opacity, the shifting goal posts and the difficulty of nailing down the case law in Strasbourg—it does not have a doctrine of precedent—does he also agree that, for all the talk of Government legal advice, it is almost next to impossible, unless one is giving defensive and cautious advice, to give clear and focused advice on where Strasbourg will go, let alone where it is currently at?

[Mr Straw]

There are some instances where it is obvious, and some where it is less obvious. The hon. Gentleman is correct to say that even if a judgment is made by the Attorney-General, and indeed if the declaration is made by the British courts of incompatibility with the convention rights, section 4 of the Act makes it absolutely crystal clear that those provisions remain in force. That was part of the elegant architecture of the Human Rights Act. The role of the Parliamentary Counsel was to ensure that parliamentary sovereignty over individual legislation was maintained. The problem of the hon. Gentleman—as he knows I really wanted to support his position—is that the Home Secretary has a duty under section 19 of the Act to say whether or not the provisions in the Bill as it goes forward are or are not compatible with the convention.

I once signed a certificate saying that a particular Bill was not compatible with the convention, and Parliament still passed it. None the less, it does create difficulties. We cannot suddenly, on a wing and a prayer, say, “Well, in five years’ time, this will end up before the Strasbourg Court.” It is something that will come before Parliament at the next stage of this legislation.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I am slightly troubled by the right hon. Gentleman’s argument. When the original Act was brought forward, the Home Office publication was clear. It said that the Bill provides for legislation

“to be interpreted so far as possible so as to be compatible with the Convention. This goes far beyond the present rule which enables the courts to take the Convention into account in resolving any ambiguity in a legislative provision.”

At the time the Human Rights Act was put before the House, the Home Office knew exactly how far-reaching the change would be.

[Mr Straw]

I do not follow the hon. Gentleman’s point. None the less, it is still the case that the Home Secretary signs a certificate under section 19 saying that the Bill is compatible with the convention. Section 3 of the Act requires primary legislation to be read and given effect in a way that is compatible with convention rights, and that is what we are talking about. Parliament can pass any Act it wants. It may be incompatible, but it can still be in force. We are all concerned to ensure that as many people as possible are deported, where it is justifiable, as quickly as possible.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The right hon. Gentleman was saying that the courts had gone too far in the interpretation of section 3. My point was that the Home Office at the time was clear that that was the purpose it wanted to achieve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

With respect, the hon. Gentleman is confusing section 3 with section 2. Section 3 says that the courts must read legislation

“in a way which is compatible with the Convention rights.”

That is the black letter text of the convention articles. Section 2 says that a court or tribunal that is determining a question which has arisen in connection with a Convention right “must take into account” the judgments and jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court. It is in respect of section 2 and the jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court that our courts have extended the words “take account” to mean “follow”. That has been the basis of some of our problems, including the over-extension and elaboration—unnecessary in my judgment—of article 8 rights.

I am aware that there are others who wish to speak, so I will finish there.

[Sarah Teather]

I have a number of amendments in this string. I wish to speak to amendments 56 and 57, which relate to immigration detention. Amendments 2 to 5 and 58 are around the best interests of children. Amendment 61 is a sunset clause, which relates to legal aid. Amendment 60 relates to the use of force. I want to make a couple of remarks relating to Opposition amendment 1 and to speak against new clause 15 and Government new clause 18. I can hear Members groaning that I will be speaking for absolutely ages. They will be amazed because I can be remarkably quick.

Amendments 56 and 57 seek to impose some kind of challenge and limit on detention. The UK detains more people under immigration powers than almost any other country in Europe. Only Greece detains more, but it tends to detain people only for very short periods of time as they come to the border. In fact, we are unique in detaining people indefinitely. That experience of indefinite detention causes profound stress to the individuals concerned, many of whom suffer from mental health difficulties as a result of the journey that they made to get here, and many exhibit profound mental health difficulties during their period in detention.

Furthermore, in many cases, we have no chance of removing the people whom we have in detention to a third country. Often, people are left languishing in detention for extended periods because we are unable to move them to the country of their origin either because it is not safe to do so or because we cannot obtain travel papers. We have been repeatedly criticised for the number of people we detain and for the length of the period for which we detain them. Indeed, the detained fast track system seems to be largely used for administrative purposes. [Interruption.]