Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

So, at this late hour, we finally reach the Third Reading of the Crime and Courts Bill and gather to bid it farewell and send it on its way back to the other place. I have to say that it is lovely to see the Home Secretary in her place. We missed her last week—at least on this side of the House—and now that she is here, perhaps she would care to intervene and tell us what her alcohol pricing policy is. We would love to hear it, because unfortunately, her crime prevention Minister, the Minister of State, Home Department, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), struggled to tell us what it was. He took the flak for her, and given the news about his new arrival, she really does owe him one. She needs to ensure that she pays that debt.

Opposition Members owe thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), for Darlington (Jenny Chapman), and for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), my hon. Friends the Members for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) and for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson), all of whom have led our efforts on the Bill.

We support the Bill overall, and we support many of its key measures and objectives. We clearly support the Leveson measures that we have discussed extensively this afternoon, and the aims to strengthen the fight against organised crime. We also support the efforts to increase judicial diversity, although we wish that the Government could have done more in that regard, and we support the action on drug-driving.

The Home Secretary has done an admirable job of attempting to create a theme in what many Members have repeatedly described as a Christmas tree of a Bill that has had an increasing number of different things attached to it during its passage through the House. That leaves the right hon. Lady and me to take it in turns to play the fairy on the top in the debate this evening.

Although we support the principles behind many of the key measures, the detailed debates have revealed considerable weaknesses in the Government’s implementation plans and a chaotic approach to some serious aspects of the fight against crime and terrorism. The Home Secretary made great play of the issues regarding the National Crime Agency, which, as she knows, will simply pick up much of the valuable work now being done by the Serious Organised Crime Agency. However, the Bill will leave this House with the Government still having failed to reach agreement on how serious organised crime will be dealt with in Northern Ireland. The Bill will abolish SOCA, which has done a considerable amount of work on human trafficking, drug smuggling and other organised crime in Northern Ireland, yet the National Crime Agency will be unable to operate there or to continue any of that work because the Government have failed to reach agreement on that matter. We have no idea how long it will take to sort that out, or how that work will be done in the meantime.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a matter of concern that we read in the papers back home today that someone who is involved in crime in south Armagh has been able to launder some £85 million through various banks. That is an example of an issue that cannot be addressed, and it is down to the intransigence of Sinn Fein at this time.

[Yvette Cooper]

There are some very serious gaps as a result of the Bill. The Government chose the timing of its passing. I think it was nearly two years ago that the Home Secretary announced that she wanted to replace SOCA with the NCA, yet they have failed to reach agreement on the way in which the NCA should operate in Northern Ireland. That is a matter of concern. As a result of the joint work between SOCA and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, more than £13 million of drugs were seized, 33 potential victims of human trafficking were rescued, and more than £4 million of criminal assets and 23 million counterfeit and smuggled cigarettes were seized. There were also 23 criminal convictions for serious environmental offences.

That was all as a result of the important joint work being done by the PSNI and SOCA. As of tonight, however, we do not know whether any of that work will continue, or how and when a solution will be reached. And if that was not bad enough, there is no agreement on handling the overseas proceeds of crime with Northern Ireland either. Again, the Home Secretary made great play of the importance of overseas and global reach. Criminals in England, Scotland and Wales, however, who have assets abroad will rightly find under this Bill that they can be seized by the courts, but because of the Government’s failure to reach agreement, criminals in Northern Ireland will be able to keep those assets abroad untouched. Again, we have no idea when that will be sorted out. The Home Secretary chose the timetable, yet she failed to get agreement and has created this gap.

On terrorism, too, the Home Secretary’s approach is chaotic. After the Government were defeated in the other place on their plans on counter-terror and the National Crime Agency, she told the House on Second Reading that she would “listen and reflect” on the concerns of the experts, including the former Metropolitan Police Commissioners in the other place, but she has done nothing of the sort. Instead, at the last minute, she has simply reinstated an order-making power to deal with a major change to counter-terror action in Britain, yet with no reason given in her Third Reading speech when she had the opportunity to do so. She has told us repeatedly that she has not made a decision whether or not to transfer the powers from the Met to the NCA. In that case, why put an order-making power in the Bill? We can guarantee that there will be another Christmas tree Bill coming from the Home Office, if not many more, which will give her the opportunity to do so and to have a proper debate after she has taken a decision, when she can set out for Parliament the grounds for her decision rather than trying to pre-empt serious debate—either in this place, or in the other place—despite the serious concerns raised with her. I am sure that the other place will want to look at this again.

We have had other concerns, such as the watering down of protection against abuse by bailiffs; ignoring the concerns of the Lords; removing the obligation inserted by the other place to address problems for women offenders; the lack of implementation plans for drug-driving; removing immigration visitor appeals even though a high proportion of decisions are wrong in the first place; and the Government’s failure to bring in the stronger immigration enforcement powers we called for. We are concerned that the Government were late in bringing forward the proposals on a forum bar without consultation. I hope that the Home Secretary has got the details of this right. Clearly, it is extremely complex, but given the importance of extradition issues, it is unfortunate that she still proposes to pull out of the European arrest warrant.

There are some very important issues in the Bill, and we will support it. The Government have, however, wrongly ditched some of the improvements that the noble Lords made, and I hope they will be made to think again. We will support the Bill tonight; we hope the Lords will improve it; and we very much hope that the Government will sort out the serious gaps and failings in the detail and implementation that these debates have exposed.