Police (Detention and Bail) Bill
Julian Huppert Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Mrs May
The right hon. Lady is asking me to talk about a Bill that is entirely separate from the one we are addressing today. As I think she knows, in replacing control orders with the terrorism prevention and investigation measures—TPIMs—we have put together a package that includes both the measure itself and increased funds available to the Security Service and the police for surveillance. That is the basis on which we are going forward with that measure and that Bill.
The Bill before us today provides that the amendments to PACE should have retrospective effect. That means that they are deemed always to have had effect, despite the High Court’s judgment in the Hookway case.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I support the Bill, but the purist in me is slightly anxious about the concept of retrospective legislation. Will the Home Secretary say a little more about how normal that is and whether this step might be opening a door for rather more concerning retrospective legislation?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend sneaked in with his intervention as I was nearing the conclusion of my speech. Perhaps I use the term “retrospective” a little loosely. This is not retrospective legislation in that it merely corrects the decision that has recently been made and puts the situation back to what it had been understood to be. That is supported by Liberty, which has said:
“We do not believe that the proposals are retrospective in their nature as they do not seek retrospectively to create a criminal offence, sanction or other burden. They would, in our view, not fall foul of Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights or the common law rule against retrospective penalties.”
Yvette Cooper
My right hon. Friend makes an extremely important point, as we are rightly discussing this measure because of the seriousness of the situation and the need to protect people. In police bail cases, that need often applies in respect of particular individuals—victims and witnesses. In the kinds of terrorism cases that she is talking about, the risk may be much wider and may involve a much wider group of people, so we would expect that additional and even greater protection might be needed. It raises concerns if the security services and police do not have the ability and the powers to provide that protection. She is right in what she says and I know that she is continuing to raise that issue as part of the debate on the other legislation.
Dr Huppert
Does the right hon. Lady agree that the logical consequence of what the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) was just saying is that we should be trying to use police bail conditions to deal with terrorist cases, as far as is possible and given sufficient safeguards?
Yvette Cooper
There are cases where police bail can, of course, be used and there ought to be cases where we should explore that. Our view remains that there are also cases where that is not possible, which is why we need control orders, the son of control orders or whatever we are calling these things now—we need some other kind of safeguard. Clearly, where more traditional aspects of the criminal justice system can be used instead, they should of course be used. Control orders are always a last resort and should be used only in those circumstances.
We have seen some worrying cases across the country, and this goes to the heart of why emergency legislation is needed now. Hon. Members are right to say that we should bring in emergency legislation only on the basis of very serious consideration; we should never do this lightly and there are always risks involved. However, Parliament also needs to balance the risks, and there are risks to the public and to the course of justice if we do not legislate now.
The National Association of Probation Officers has warned of a case where a suspect who is already on a 12-month suspended sentence for assault and who has five previous convictions for offences against the same partner was arrested again for assault. He was bailed while drugs found upon his person were sent off for analysis, but that may take a week and the 96 hours have expired. His victims are deemed at physical risk and it is hugely important, in those circumstances, that bail conditions should be able to apply. Another case involves the harassment of a former girlfriend by a suspect who has been arrested and released on bail. His phone and computer were taken for analysis, which takes time—far more time than 96 hours. He is not due back on bail until later this month, but his conditions are not enforceable if the current legal state of affairs persists. I have been told of other cases by police officers, including that of someone arrested as he was accused of sexual assault on women he was supposed to help in the course of his work. Further investigations are under way, but his bail conditions included a requirement that he should have no unsupervised contact with women in his professional capacity and, again, those conditions cannot now be enforced.
In many cases, bail conditions were used to give people a time and date for returning to the police station for further interview once further evidence was expected to be in place. Now, even though that further evidence might subsequently have been gathered, the police will still have to go out to look for the suspect and take that extra time to bring them in. So, in addition to the risks to justice and to the victims, this situation is placing considerable extra burdens on police time and resources, causing additional pressures for them, too.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I shall try to be brief, so that we can conclude the debate. I support the Bill, for the reasons that have been set out admirably by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House. I am concerned about any form of exceptional legislation—it is something that we should always be extremely guarded about, whatever the reason for it is—but this is exceptional legislation, and I understand absolutely why we need it. There is no issue with that, but I have a number of concerns about police bail in its wider sense, as has been discussed. I shall therefore not focus on the legal niceties of the Hookway case—that has been discussed already—but I want to say a few things about police bail in the wider sense.
First, the Bill is clearly a necessary clarification of the law—there is no doubt about that. Looking at previous legislation, it is clear that the Hookway case is a matter of interpretation. The best thing to do is to make its interpretation easier for judges and lawyers in future. I am tempted to talk about how legislation is drafted in this country—we do not always seek to avoid such problems—but I will restrain myself from doing so in any great detail.
My one concern is the retrospective nature of the Bill and saying that the amendments are
“deemed always to have had effect”.
I should like to place on record my gratitude to the Home Secretary for clarifying that in her earlier remarks, but I want to flag up now that we should be very cautious and careful in examining anything that purports to be retrospective. We should not allow it to sail past, but carefully ask questions about the rationale for such measures.
One question that I did not put to the Home Secretary, but to which the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice will perhaps respond, is on a topic in which I am not normally interested: the royal diary. Are we clear exactly when we will get Royal Assent to the Bill?
There is urgent need for wider reform in this area, and I hope the Government return to it, and that they do not end with this Bill.
My second point is that it was absolutely right for a number of leading lawyers, including a former Solicitor-General, to today raise concerns about some of the abuses of police bail. I do not agree with their comments on the Bill—they called for it not to go through, but I believe that it is absolutely necessary—but the Home Secretary needs to introduce greater safeguards to prevent abuse of such wider powers.
The Bill returns us to a position in which there is no statutory time limit, as we have already discussed, and the police can impose a number of conditions. That means that police bail can be very oppressive. I am particularly concerned about that in the context of peaceful protest. In the past couple of years, we have seen a number of cases of the use of pre-emptive arrest before planned, legal and peaceful protests. In 2009, 114 environmental protesters were arrested at the Iona independent school in Sneinton, Nottingham. They were arrested shortly before a planned protest at an E.ON power station. They were then released without charge on police bail, which prevented them from getting involved with the protest. Potentially, restrictive police bail conditions give police the cumulative power to extinguish the right of peaceful protest—especially for time-sensitive demonstrations—which we should all wish to see supported. There was a similar case of police bail during the occupation of Fortnum & Mason on 26 March this year, which I have discussed in the Home Affairs Committee.
I agree with Liberty and other hon. Members who say that we should consider a time limit. That time limit should be proportionate both to the complexity and the severity of the case. This is not the Bill to do that, as obviously we could not use it to do the issue justice, but I hope that we could consider it in the plethora of other Home Office Bills before Parliament. It would be simple to do it via the Protection of Freedoms Bill or the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill. One could also look at the issue of bail for immigration in that context, because there are some questions about that that need to be looked at.
There is a slightly bizarre lacuna, introduced by the last Government, in the police bail powers, which is that pre-charge police bail is not allowed in terrorism-related cases. It is important to mention that today, the sixth anniversary of the London bombings, because we have made a mess of how we deal with terrorism cases. We have warehoused people under a system outside the normal legal framework. I have argued that we should use the police bail system, which offers similar restrictions and controls to what is proposed in control orders and the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill. It differs in detail, of course, but it does fit within the normal legal framework. I was delighted by the comments of the shadow Home Secretary—in stark contrast to the shadow Minister on the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill—when she agreed that police bail should be explored where it can be used for terrorism offences. That is a great step forward. It may not be appropriate in every single case, but we should have a system—with appropriate safeguards, via the Home Secretary’s applications, as I outlined in the Bill Committee—so that police bail could be used when possible for terrorism cases. That would help to move us towards a normal legal process.
I well understand the urgency behind the Bill and I do not wish to detain the House any longer. I urge the Home Secretary to consider all the issues that have been raised and the importance of getting police bail right, when the rush is over. We need to ensure that we safeguard peaceful protest, improve our national security and restore our liberty. It would be great to do all that at once. If we controlled police bail better, we could use it in terrorist cases to give us due legal process, security and liberty, as well as more of the normal rule of law.
Oral Answers to Questions
Julian Huppert Excerpts(13 years ago)
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James Brokenshire
The right hon. Lady needs to look at the statistics, as I have already highlighted. If she looks at the data from 2001-02, when there were 39,000 detections against a database of fewer than 1.4 million, all from convicted people, and compares that with the data from the last year, when over 5 million individuals, including hundreds of thousands of innocent people, were on the database, she will see that the number of detections had fallen to 32,500. Labour Members appear to be very casual with people’s liberties, although they claim they are not. They seem to assume that simply because someone is arrested for a crime, they are guilty. We take a different view. Labour Members are not prepared to look at the facts and the evidence.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
14. What estimate she has made of the potential cost to the economy of her planned changes to tier 4 visa requirements.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
The impact assessment estimated the net cost to the economy of the student and post-study work proposals to be £2.4 billion. There will be additional compensating benefits from reducing abuse, ensuring cohesion, and increasing public confidence in the immigration system, but it is not possible to quantify the impact of these changes.
Dr Huppert
I thank the Minister for his clear response. He refers to a cost of £2.4 billion. The best case scenario is a cost of £1 billion, and the worst case £3.5 billion, for a problem that the Home Affairs Committee struggled to find anybody, other than the Minister, to say was a really serious problem; even Migrationwatch UK was not that bothered. Given that we do not want to lose £2.5 billion from the economy, will he rethink these proposals?
Damian Green
It would be absurd to say that there are no problems with the student visa system. It represents two thirds of the amount of immigration into the system, and it has become the biggest single loophole in our immigration system. On the slightly arcane theology of impact assessments, my hon. Friend will know that some strange assumptions have to be made by Government economists. For instance, this has to be costed on the assumption that if migrant students are no longer able to work here as before, not a single one of the jobs that they vacate will be taken up by a UK citizen, particularly one who may be currently unemployed. If there is replacement, which is intuitively very obvious, then the cost to the economy will be significantly lower. That is why we have asked the Migration Advisory Committee to investigate this assumption, and we expect it to report in November.
National Crime Agency
Julian Huppert Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Mrs May
CEOP will continue to do the work that it has been doing, but it will be able to be even more effective because it will be part of that wider agency. The CEOP brand will continue to exist, and we have made it absolutely clear—we have talked to CEOP and to Peter Davies about this—that CEOP will continue to operate as it does at the moment, because an important part of its work is its links with the private sector. It will be able to continue to do that work within the National Crime Agency, but on top of that it will have the advantage of access to intelligence capability, of access to that prioritisation of work and of working with those other commands.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I congratulate the Home Secretary on her statement. I am comfortable that the National Crime Agency will be able to deal well with serious and organised crime, but what about serious but not organised crime? What about serial killings, rapes and issues like that, which the NPIA currently deals with? It still seems unclear where its injuries database and all its other services in relation to serious but not organised crime will sit. What will happen to all that?
Mrs May
Of course, one of the difficulties in all such issues relates to the definitions that one uses for those types of crime, but serious crime that is not undertaken by organised crime groups is predominantly dealt with by individual police forces. As a result of the National Crime Agency being set up, however, I believe that it will be possible to share intelligence on serious crimes of that sort. It will encourage greater regional co-operation among police forces, so it will be possible to deal better and more effectively with serious crime that is not related to organised crime groups.
Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill
Julian Huppert Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The Home Secretary barely had time to draw breath between statement and debate, but that transition exposes again the gap between the Government’s rhetoric and reality in regard to counter-terrorism. On a day on which the Home Secretary has launched her review of the strategy to prevent terrorism, with tough talk about clamping down, she is simultaneously watering down measures proven to prevent terrorist activity.
The fact is that, for the most part, the Bill is a confusion and a con. It does not do what it says on the tin, and it does not fulfil the grand promises made by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. In 27 clauses, it takes us in a circle and—almost—back to where we started. However, in a few areas it does make changes, and some of them are worrying.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Will the right hon. Lady confirm that Labour party policy favours a more authoritarian version of this Bill?
Yvette Cooper
If the hon. Gentleman persists with such simplistic soundbites, he will misunderstand the nature of the terrorist threat to Britain, and also the nature of the Bill that he is supporting, because this Bill represents a complete reversal of the promises he and his party made during the election, and does not abolish the control orders regime but simply renames it with a few minor amendments.
We on the Opposition Benches do not have access to the latest security assessments from the experts. We believe it is important to support the Government on counter-terrorism issues where we can, but in order to do so we will need more reassurances from the Home Secretary, and also some changes. The first duty of any Government is the protection of the people and the safeguarding of national security, yet the Home Secretary’s changes currently make it harder for the police and security services to limit the actions of a small number of dangerous people. We therefore need more reassurances on that.
Ideally, we would not have control orders because, ideally, we would not need them, but the Labour Government introduced them because we recognised that we needed to deal with a very small number of difficult cases, where prosecution was not possible for a range of reasons and where the public still needed to be protected from terrorist activity. In opposition, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives condemned control orders, but now they are in government they have changed their minds. Indeed, the Home Secretary has introduced six new control orders since she came to office, and renewed eight more, but rather than admit that, she is desperate to maintain the fiction that control orders need to be replaced by something fundamentally different and that this Bill does the trick.
Most of the Bill is a fudge, drawn up to meet promises made to the Deputy Prime Minister that control orders would be abolished. Clause 1 does exactly that, but clauses 2 to 27 just reinstate most of the elements of control orders. The Bill does not therefore meet the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto promise to scrap orders that use evidence in closed sessions of court, nor does it meet the Conservative pledge of
“eliminating the control order regime.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 March 2010; Vol. 717, c. 1530.]
It certainly does not meet the grand claims of the Deputy Prime Minister in January, when The Sunday Times was briefed that he had
“won his Cabinet fight to scrap control orders”,
that suspects will no longer have to wear electronic tags or have a home curfew, and that they
“will also be allowed to travel wherever they want in Britain”.
As all Members now know, the Bill allows for tags, home curfews and restrictions on travel around Britain. Where control orders use closed proceedings and special advocates, so too do TPIMs. Where control orders are instigated by the Home Secretary with the permission of the High Court, so too are TPIMs. Where control orders are used when prosecution is not possible, so too are TPIMs. Where control orders can restrict people’s movements, communication, association, travel and bank accounts, so too can TPIMs.
Let me read out some extracts from the Government’s own explanatory notes to the Bill. Clause 1 abolishes control orders, and clauses 2 to 4 introduce TPIMs. On clauses 6 to 9 and schedule 2, the notes say:
“This replicates the position in relation to control orders”.
On clause 10, they say:
“The clause maintains all the existing requirements contained in the 2005 Act.”
On clauses 12 to 15 and schedule 3, they say:
“The clauses make provision—equivalent to that in the 2005 Act in relation to control orders”.
On clauses 16 to 18 and schedule 4, they say:
“This provides similar rights of appeal to those that exist in relation to control orders.”
They say that clauses 19 to 20
“place requirements—equivalent to those contained in the 2005 Act in relation to control orders”.
On clause 21, they say that
“this effectively recreates the main offence of the 2005 Act of contravening an obligation imposed under a control order”—
and they then add, in brackets—
“(including the same maximum penalty)”.
This Bill is one big set of square brackets which reads: insert control orders here.
Paul Goggins
My hon. Friend is always very persuasive—one way or the other.
One area of policy on which I remain absolutely clear is the need to be able to control the activities of that small group of people who pose a serious threat and who cannot be deported or imprisoned, and I am pleased that the Government appear to have come to the same conclusion. We should seek consensus. There is much in the Bill that I can readily support. Conditions A to E, which are set out in clause 3, are welcome. They confirm the need for these TPIM notices to be focused on protection and prevention and they provide that the terrorism-related activity must be new activity. However, it is important that when a first application for a notice is made, that new activity can well predate the application.
A general time limit of two years is not unreasonable given the provisos that further notices can be made if there is new activity and that where a further notice is made, the older activity can be taken into account in addition to the new activity of which the Home Secretary has become aware. However, I caution her and her ministerial colleague against making that a general rule which can never be excepted. As I said about the maximum pre-charge detention period of 14 days, there might be exceptional circumstances. I hope that the Minister will be prepared, in Committee, to see whether some amendments can be framed to allow extensions beyond two years in specific and exceptional circumstances.
On making the powers permanent, I heard what my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said about that reducing parliamentary oversight, but we could also see it as a positive development if Parliament can reach a consensus and settled view. Given the constant arguing and bickering on this issue year after year when we should be seeking consensus in the face of the terrible threats that terrorists bring, there is some merit in Parliament’s reaching a settled view. There is a balance to be struck.
I agree strongly with condition A, that the Secretary of State must have a reasonable belief
“that the individual is…involved in terrorism-related activity”.
That is a higher threshold than the reasonable suspicion threshold that has previously operated for control orders, but in reaching my conclusion I have referred to the opinion of Lord Carlile in his most recent report that the higher threshold of reasonable belief was, in practice, always achieved anyway for each control order that was taken out under the existing system. It is a standard that was already being met, and I see no problem in including that formally in legislation.
It is right, given that we have six years’ experience of operating control orders, to set out in more precise form the measures that can be imposed as part of the new TPIM notices. Schedule 1 includes a list of measures, including accommodation, travel, communications, association and so on. I urge the Minister to see whether there ought not to be a catch-all power, because there may be a condition that is not caught by schedule 1. It might be sensible to leave an opening so that the Home Secretary can impose such a condition if circumstances allow. It is not a power that I would expect to be used frequently, but if we do not have that power, and unusual circumstances occur, there is nothing we can do about it. Perhaps that is something that could be considered.
I have four serious difficulties with the Bill and in relation to other pertinent issues. The first was mentioned by my right hon. Friend—the overnight residence measure. She was right to point out that in schedule 1, which says that the Secretary of State may impose a requirement
“applicable overnight…for the individual to remain at a specified residence”,
there is no definition of “overnight”. It may be possible to go into that in Committee to see whether it is possible to include something a little clearer.
The really important issue is the specified residence itself. My right hon. Friend made a powerful argument in relation to that. Paragraph 1(3) says that the specified residence must be
“premises that are the individual’s own residence, or…other premises…that are situated in an appropriate locality or an agreed locality.”
An appropriate locality is one in which the individual has a pre-existing connection. In the case of CD, which my right hon. Friend mentioned, it would not be possible under the new legislation for the Home Secretary to impose the conditions that she rightly imposed on the control order governing that individual. If it is possible, I would welcome an explanation on that from the Minister in his winding-up speech.
Let us reflect on who CD is: a leading figure in a close group of Islamist extremists based in north London. That conspiracy of individuals was planning attacks and seeking to acquire weapons. He was a real threat, and the Home Secretary was quite right to take action, and to insist that he live in the west midlands. It is not just me who says so, as Mr Justice Simon supports her view. My right hon. Friend made it perfectly clear when reading from paragraph 53 of Mr Justice Simon’s judgment that the relocation obligation is a necessary and proportionate measure to protect the public from an immediate and real risk of a terrorism-related attack. The Bill as drafted would not allow the Home Secretary to force that individual to live outside London in the west midlands, and the people of London and elsewhere would be at much greater risk if she could not do so.
My second concern relates to electronic communication, which is dealt with in paragraph 7. Sub-paragraph (1) sounds quite tough, as the Secretary of State may impose
“restrictions on the individual’s possession or use of electronic communication devices”.
However, under sub-paragraph (3), each suspect may have
“a telephone operated by connection to a fixed line…a computer that provides access to the internet…a mobile telephone that does not provide access to the internet.”
To be honest, I am concerned that that demonstrates naivety about the sophisticated operations of international terrorists. They use multiple mobile phones, and will run rings round the measure, unless paragraph 7 is toughened up and made much more specific and much less confusing. There is a real job of work to be done by the Committee.
Dr Huppert
Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that one purpose of the measure is to enable more evidence to be gathered for prosecution? The point of allowing people to have that communication is partly for the sake of civil liberties but partly because it can be monitored. What we want to see is prosecution, not indefinite or even two-year detentions.
Paul Goggins
If the hon. Gentleman thinks that an international terrorist is sitting there thinking, “Thank goodness they have given me the internet so I can reveal all my contacts and conspiracies,” he is quite naive. We are talking about highly sophisticated people, and I am concerned that the provisions in paragraph 7(3) are not as sophisticated as they need to be to deal with the threat.
Paul Goggins
My hon. Friend again makes his point with great care. Of course, these are exceptional powers that should be used sparingly. We have all this apparatus in relation to control orders to ensure that the suspect’s interests can be protected. That is why we have special advocates who can consider the information and argue on behalf of the suspect. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Cambridge wish to intervene?
Dr Huppert
I should be delighted to do so, and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. The problem is that the special advocate is not allowed to communicate the nature of that evidence to the person involved. That fundamentally means that they cannot advocate fairly on behalf of their client.
Paul Goggins
It is true that special advocates cannot share the intelligence directly, but they are there to represent the interests of the individual. To the hon. Gentleman, that might not be a perfect solution, but it is better that the individual has somebody to speak for them than nobody to speak for them. That is why that system was introduced.
I say again to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who put his point very fairly, that these are exceptional mechanisms to assist in making sure that the rights and interests of the individual are protected, but in the end, the entire Bill is designed to ensure that the rest of us are protected against the threats that those individuals pose. We must not forget that. As we have these debates about the liberty of the individual, we must balance that against the need for the protection of the wider public. That is the dilemma that goes right through the debate. We should never lose sight of one or the other side of that argument.
My final point is whether the whole new TPIM system represents the same level of risk as we had with control orders or a greater level of risk. I can only assume that the Home Secretary believes there is an increased risk from the new TPIM system, otherwise why would she be committing a serious level of resource—whatever that level is—to the police and the Security Service to help them deal with the additional work and the additional pressures that will result from the new system?
I was somewhat concerned to hear the Home Secretary quote Jonathan Evans as saying that the additional money would—I think she said—mitigate against the additional risk. That is an interesting phrase worthy of further exploration. I am extremely concerned that new gaps will open up. The question is whether there will be sufficient resource to fill those gaps and whether those gaps will pose an additional risk. No one in the House should be complacent about the possibility of an increased risk. I know that the Intelligence and Security Committee on which my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and I sit will take a very close interest in that.
I am sure that the last thing this Home Secretary would want to do is increase the risk to public safety. I mean that genuinely and sincerely, but Parliament must help her. One immediate way in which it can help is by tightening up the Bill in the way that I have suggested and as others will, I am sure, suggest, and then by monitoring closely what happens when the Bill and any amendments that are added to it are put into practice.
Hazel Blears
Steady on, absolutely.
I also know how important it is to have a practical and workable system in place. We must ensure that those who pose a significant threat to ordinary people’s safety can be tracked and prevented from pursuing their plans to cause death and serious harm in pursuit of their warped political ideology.
We all want to achieve consensus where we can, but I have some serious concerns about some of the Bill’s proposals, with regard to their effectiveness, their ability to disrupt those who will be subject to TPIMs, as they are so elegantly called, and whether they will provide us with a proper level of security. Lord Carlile is always called in aid in these debates, and I want to place on the record my thanks to him for the fabulous job he has done over the years as the Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. He said just last year:
“In stark terms, the potential cost of losing control orders is that the UK would be more vulnerable to a successful terrorist attack.”
He does not say such things lightly. He has huge experience in trying to weigh the balance and get the judgment right. He also said:
“Unless control orders were replaced by some equally disruptive and practicable system… the repeal of control orders would create a worryingly higher level of public risk.”
We ought to have serious and close regard to what Lord Carlile has said and test the Bill against the concerns he has expressed.
In a powerful contribution, my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary expressed her concerns about some of those issues, so I will not speak about them at length. The relocation issue is a genuine concern. It may be characterised as internal exile or a soviet-style imposition, but if it is necessary for someone to be located away from the networks that they have established in order to improve the safety of ordinary citizens, I do not think it should simply be ruled out on principle.
We have discussed whether access to mobile phones and computers might enable us to obtain further evidence for prosecution, but I am very doubtful that it will. I am concerned that people will have access not simply to one mobile phone: once they have one, it will be very easy indeed for experienced people not to dupe the security services, as I hope they are not capable of being duped, but to create the sense that it is normal to have access to a computer and a mobile phone. The prospect of a security risk is therefore higher than I would feel comfortable with, so I seek reassurance from the Minister on access to electronic equipment. We know how much terrorist business is done online and with technology. It is a massive issue for us, and this measure could present us with an increased risk.
Dr Huppert
Has the right hon. Lady spoken to the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins)? He was concerned that those people simply would not use such equipment so we would not get any information. One cannot have it both ways. If those people are going to use such equipment and are capable of duping the security services, or whatever term the right hon. Lady wishes to use, they might be doing it now, just like those who abscond. Surely this is a more liberal measure that will also help with prosecutions.
Hazel Blears
But that is no reason to relax the powers. If there are fears that such activities could be happening now, I should be very concerned indeed and certainly would not want to go down the path of having less control over access to electronic equipment. I require further reassurance, as do the citizens of this country, that we are not going to give people access to mobile phones and computers so that they can maintain those relationships and networks that are the very reason they are subject to a control order or, indeed, will be subject to a TPIM. We require further reassurance on that issue.
I am very concerned about the inability to renew the TPIM after two years. In the case of AM in 2007, the control order lasted for more than two and a half years. When it came up for renewal Mr Justice Wilkie, confirming its renewal after two and a half years, said that AM was
“highly intelligent, calm, cautious beyond his years. He has replied and maintains this degree of calmness and self-confidence, which in my judgment is consistent with the view of the Security Service that he is a disciplined, trained and committed person whose commitment remains unimpaired, despite the length of the control order. He was and remains prepared to be a martyr in an attack designed to take many lives. He remains highly trained, security conscious and committed.”
I am therefore concerned that if there is a blanket prohibition, in any circumstances and without the addition of new evidence of involvement in terrorism such orders will come to an end. I require further assurance. If the reason for making the TPIM in the first place were of sufficient seriousness, I would be extremely concerned about our deciding simply to say that there is an arbitrary cut-off point, as the legislation does, irrespective of the threat that the person poses.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
It is a great pleasure to follow a number of today’s speeches, particularly the last two. I agree very much with what the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) said, and it is a particular pleasure to follow him because I spent some of the recess cycling through his constituency. It is great to find his countryside, as well as most of his opinions, agreeable. The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) also made a fantastic speech.
I am in sympathy with both hon. Members, because this is a disappointing Bill. It does not live up to the aspirations that many of us had that this Government would come in and clear away much more of the vestiges of what Labour had set up. There is of course a balance to be struck, and nobody would dispute the fact that there is a real terrorist threat. The question is how best to deal with it. If we go the way Labour did, we will make it much worse as well as sacrificing civil liberties. That is why the balance needs to be struck. The Bill is a step in the right direction, but it does not go as far as it should.
My interpretation is that Home Office Ministers did not manage to stand up to officials who continued the groupthink that we saw for many long years under Labour and that we have heard in a number of speeches. There are, of course, some honourable exceptions—the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) has been very clear on the subject—but most of the speeches that we have heard from Labour Members make it clear that they would like a more authoritarian approach. That is one of the problems that the new Home Office Ministers have had to deal with.
It is a shame that the shadow Home Secretary is not in her place, because I wanted to thank her for giving an excellent example of somebody trying to have their cake and eat it. She said at one point that there was a substantial difference between control orders and TPIMs, but then said they were essentially exactly the same. However, it was finally clear, although she would not admit it when I asked her, that it seems to be Labour party policy to keep control orders, with all the bad things about them. We have heard the arguments for relocation, secret evidence and further infringements of civil liberties.
I would like to go further in a liberal direction. As I have said, the Bill is disappointing, but it is not a disaster and can perhaps be saved. I hope that the Committee will do that. There is a new Minister responsible for security, who sadly is not in his place, and I am sure that he will be able to be very much more reasonable about issues such as this; he has been very reasonable about drugs policy in previous discussions.
Some of the Bill is great. I like clause 1, which is a really fantastic clause and one that I fought an election to try to achieve. However, the Bill goes downhill a bit after that. It keeps extra-judicial processes, which we should not wish to see. We have the rule of law for a reason. The Bill also keeps secrecy, as has been mentioned, with special advocates and secret evidence so that people do not know what they are accused of and cannot adequately brief a barrister to represent them.
Ultimately, the problem is that the Bill relies entirely on the good judgment of the Home Secretary. It contains a broad power allowing for anything that the Home Secretary reasonably believes to be necessary, which could be any of a long list. I have no doubt that the current Home Secretary is more liberal than some of the previous ones, but do we all have faith in all future Home Secretaries of whatever party making the right decisions? I am very concerned about that.
We expected some good bits in the Bill, and in her statement the Home Secretary talked about better focus and more targeted restrictions, which is a good step. She also talked about powers similar to those used in the civil justice system to prevent sexual offences and domestic violence, for example, and I would have liked to see those powers in the Bill. The Bill could have been much more like other parts of the law, but that opportunity was missed.
Another good part of the Bill that we expected to see is the idea that police will have a greater duty to look after prosecutions. One has to look carefully to find it: it is in clause 10(5)(a). However, the change is very little. We have heard that the police process has been very ineffective. Because the security services have looked after the case management of the people in question, the efforts to prosecute have been extremely weak. I have no faith that what is in the Bill at the moment will make a difference to that, so it absolutely must be strengthened.
It is very good to know that there will not be relocation. I am pleased to see that in the Bill. The change from curfews to an overnight residence requirement is a small step in the right direction, but it does not go far enough. I should like a residency requirement that reflects the situation of most people. Most people—I realise that MPs are not typical in this regard—have a home where they normally reside overnight. That does not mean that they are there every night, or that they are there for the same hours every night, but it provides a reasonable way to find somebody. That should be the standard approach if we must have restrictions of any kind.
There is another improvement in the Bill, which is the move from “reasonable suspicion” to “reasonable belief”. We have heard that it will probably have a minimal effect, but it is a bit better. However, I say again what I said in a debate earlier in the year about terrorist asset-freezing: it still means that there is a threshold below the balance of probabilities. We are not asking for evidence to be demonstrated to a level at which we can have even a 50:50 belief that somebody is involved in terrorist activity. Many of us would like a criminal standard and a criminal conviction, but under the Bill the evidence threshold is below the civil standard, which very much concerns me.
I am also concerned that we are losing the annual review. I agree with the comments that have been made about that. Control orders were introduced as emergency, temporary legislation, and I believe we are now past that emergency, temporary period. I would like us not to have an annual review, but only because we have got rid of control orders completely and their replacement does not arouse our concerns. However, I am worried about parliamentary scrutiny of the process.
I am also concerned about schedule 1. I am grateful to the Home Office for allowing me to have discussions about what might be in it, but it is much broader than I had ever anticipated. It mentions exclusions from particular areas, and the explanatory notes highlight that that could include a mosque. I hope the Minister will be able to tell me whether it could include an exclusion from all mosques, or from any other religious building for people from other backgrounds. It mentions association bans, on which there are very few constraints. Could they involve banning somebody from associating with their family? What safety is there in that measure? A long list of measures—I shall follow the direction of the hon. Member for Newark and not go through every single one of them—must be pulled out and dealt with in Committee.
The Bill is simply not good enough. The details need to change, but so do the principles. We can spend a lot of time haggling over phraseology, but the approach is wrong. Any alternative should be part of the normal legal process, and we must find a way to make that normal process work.
Effectively, there is a power for judicial review, but that is not the same as judicial oversight. That power relies on judges deciding that the Home Secretary has made obviously flawed decisions. That is quite a tough standard, and I would like the measures to be much more in the control of the courts. They should make decisions rather than have a weak power if the Home Secretary behaves excessively.
In 2010, the Select Committee on Home Affairs stated:
“It is our considered view that it is fundamentally wrong to deprive individuals of their liberty without revealing why.”
I hope all hon. Members agree with that. There should be more of a focus on prosecution. There are some measures on communications and extra money will be available for surveillance, but they are legislatively weak. We know that control orders acted against the interests of prosecutions. The Home Office counter-terror report stated that control orders can mean
“that prosecution and conviction…becomes less not more likely”.
Control orders make it harder to achieve what we want. If people have been involved in terrorist activities, we would like them to be convicted and put behind bars. The scheme is also expensive to run, because it interferes so badly with human rights and basic principles. Continuous wrangling over that leads to very large legal costs—about £13 million over a few years.
There are alternatives to control orders. Police bail, which has been discussed, is not a perfect system, but it fits much more with other measures that we use, which makes it a more normal and sensible way of running the system. We need to use much more evidence. If we have covert or intercept evidence, we should use it. We had an interesting discussion about people whom we know are terrorists but whom we cannot convict, even if we have evidence. Instead, we put them in limbo for a long period. The correct solution must be to change the system so that we can convict them.
In his evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I used to serve, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, who has spent a long time analysing and reviewing such matters, was absolutely clear that intercepts should be used. He pointed out that one frequently uses informers, bugs and probes in respect of criminal offences, and that there are ways of managing and using such evidence. He said that he had
“never accepted the argument that its effect would be marginal.”
He continued:
“You simply have to raise that argument in Washington and see the reaction on people’s faces when you suggest that intercept would not be useful, or ask people in Canberra or Ottawa, or anywhere else. They simply cannot believe that people are making this argument.”
I, too, cannot believe it. We should ensure that we use intercept evidence.
We should also look again at other options that Lord Macdonald has proposed, such as giving the Director of Public Prosecutions the power to say, “We can prosecute, but not yet. We must hold this person for a while first.” That would give more control to the DPP. We should also give more control to the High Court. We could make the Bill better in a number of different ways to make it more a part of the legal system.
It has been said that the Government wish to have emergency legislation in case TPIMs are not enough. That worries me, because I think that TPIMs are too much anyway. What is that emergency legislation, when will we see it, and will it have pre-legislative scrutiny? I see no reason why the Opposition, whom we know are keen on stronger measures, should be the only parliamentarians to see it. All Members of Parliament should see it, so that it can be discussed. If there is ever a need to use something stronger than a TPIM, we should think about it carefully in advance, not at 4 o’clock in the morning in a panic. We should look at such a measure very carefully.
I can tolerate the Bill on Second Reading—I like clause 1 and am happy to live with it—and there is still time to improve the Bill in Committee. We should not wait for the other place to go through the Bill properly: this House should make it work. We should improve the Bill in Committee and on Report, but I would be uncomfortable supporting the Bill on Third Reading unless there are changes and reassurances.
I shall end with some final words from Lord Macdonald. On control orders, he said:
“The reality is that controlees become warehoused far beyond the harsh scrutiny of due process and, in consequence, some terrorist activity undoubtedly remains unpunished by the criminal law. This is a serious and continuing failure of public policy.”
He is absolutely right, and we should not let that situation continue.
Policing and Crime
Julian Huppert Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I have been a Member of the House since 1997, and I still naively expect this Chamber to be a place of rational debate. However, there has certainly been no evidence of that from the Labour Front-Bench contributions today, either during the previous debate on sentencing or during this one on policing. There is no recognition of their share of the responsibility for the significant cuts that the coalition is having to make. They are tougher than we had expected because the finances we inherited were deteriorating faster and the international climate was tougher for countries that were not tackling their deficits.
There is no willingness from Labour to demonstrate how the £7 of savings it was going to make, as opposed to the £8 that the coalition is having to make, would safeguard police numbers. Indeed, Labour Members are not even listening to their own party leader, who said in his speech to the Progress conference on 21 May:
“There will be those who say it is enough for Labour to hunker down… I hear it quite a lot: let’s be a louder… Opposition”,
but he then went on to say:
“But to think that it is enough is to fail to understand the depth of the loss of trust in us and the scale of change required to win it back. We must recognise where we didn’t get things right”.
Their leader is asking Labour Members to adopt a more honest and considered approach, but they do not listen to their leader, as we found out during the AV campaign when he said, “I’m right behind it” and half of them walked off in the opposite direction.
It was the Opposition’s choice not to have a debate about what is achievable from an efficiency savings point of view and what is achievable in police numbers. We heard in an intervention that police numbers in Staffordshire had been maintained.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I met the chief constable of Cambridgeshire constabulary this morning and he told me that the budget can be managed so that there will be no reduction in police constables at all, and perhaps even a small increase. It is being done by greater efficiency and by greater collaboration with other forces. Will my hon. Friend suggest that other police authorities follow that excellent lead?
Tom Brake
Indeed, and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Clearly, a number of forces around the country are adopting approaches or policies to ensure that police numbers are maintained. Another good example is Cleveland, where by working with Steria the force has been successful in achieving savings of £50 million over a 10-year period; it has been able to achieve 20% reductions in the areas on which they are working by focusing on cutting bureaucracy, increasing mobile access to make the police more effective when they are out in the field, and improving case file preparation, which no doubt leads to more successful prosecutions. When the will is there, much is achievable in making greater efficiency savings and focusing on police numbers. The Government are right to tackle the issue of police terms and conditions. It has been on the agenda for many years, but has never been tackled. It was time for the Government to grasp that particular nettle and progress is now being made.
It was also the Opposition’s choice not to debate one of the most effective ways of tackling crime, which is by cutting reoffending. Community sentences were mentioned in the earlier debate. With community sentences, 51% of people reoffend as opposed to the 59% who reoffend after being given a prison sentence. These are comparable groups of offenders: in one case, with a community sentence properly enforced, there is only a 51% reoffending rate; when a similar group of prisoners are sent to prison for one year or less, 59% reoffend.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
This has been an interesting debate with many contributions. I am particularly pleased that my hon. Friends, to a man and woman, have put forward the message that what we are seeing is very damaging to each and every one of our communities. My right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) and my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) pointed to the real damage that the budget cuts are doing to policing in their areas, highlighting the impact of the fight against crime on other important community services.
Interestingly, the unity among Labour Members was not matched by Government Members, many of whose interventions and speeches pointed to the fact that the Government are in some difficulty on this whole agenda. The hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), who also spoke about himself, eloquently explained at some length the damage being done to the Government’s law and order credentials on sentencing and issues relating to policing. The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), who is not in his place, asked his own Home Secretary to look at the disproportionate impact of the cuts on policing. The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) pointed to the potential harm done by the bureaucracy surrounding CCTV, ANPR and DNA. However much the Home Secretary tries to pretend that all is well and everything is going just swimmingly, it is clear that there are tensions and problems.
With regard to all this, it sometimes seems to me that I live in a parallel universe. I am struck by what the Home Secretary said at the Police Federation conference and by what she has said to the House. There was not a sliver of doubt in what she said—not one jot or iota of movement to suggest that maybe, just maybe, there might be other people who have a point, or that if she is not totally wrong, perhaps she needs to trim a little bit. Everybody who has opposed the Home Secretary, and indeed the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, is regarded as wrong, and their views are rejected. The view from Government Front Benchers is this: “We will plough on. It doesn’t matter what anybody else says—we are going to carry on.”
I say to the Home Secretary that the Government are out of touch on crime. They are taking big risks with the cuts to police numbers. The Prime Minister, who prides himself on being in touch, has not made one major crime speech since becoming Prime Minister. There is no cross-Government strategy to cut crime. Crime went up under the Tories before. If the Home Secretary, the Policing Minister and other Ministers carry on like this, they are at risk of that happening again, and it is communities across the country that will pay the price.
The Home Secretary tells the House that there is no choice but to slash the budget by 20% and to lose 12,000 police officers and 16,000 staff. I say to her that that is a choice the Government have made. There is an alternative, but the Government do not want to pursue it. I will not use the example of aid that was given by the hon. Member for Monmouth, because we support that money. The Government have protected certain budgets. The schools budget is protected. The health budget is quite rightly protected. The Defence Secretary fought for the defence budget and secured changes to it. Where was the Home Secretary when it came to the police budget? Where was she when she should have gone to the Prime Minister and demanded that he give the police the budget they deserve? She was nowhere. Why was that not a priority? The police suffered a disproportionate cut to their budget, which is forcing chief constables up and down the country to make cuts.
I do not blame the chief constables, as the Home Secretary has done, for cutting police numbers. The blame for that lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of this Government, who have made the decisions about the budgets. It is not the chief constables who should be blamed, but the Home Secretary and her Ministers.
As well as police numbers being cut—some of the most experienced officers have already gone—the front line will be affected. I guarantee to all Government Members that if they speak to police officers in their constituencies, they will say that it is impossible for what is happening in their area not to impact on the front line. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) says that she does not think that that is right. I tell her to put that on her website. I will check it in the next couple of days to see whether it is on there.
Vernon Coaker
I will give way in a moment, because I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will put out a press release on what he says. It will come out how the loss of officers and staff in Cambridgeshire is impacting on the front line there. I was in Cambridgeshire yesterday, and I spoke to front-line officers who told me that that was the case.
Dr Huppert
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. It is a shame he did not have the courtesy to say that he was visiting Cambridgeshire. I spoke to the chief constable this morning—the hon. Gentleman would know this if he had been here earlier—and there will be no loss of police constables in Cambridgeshire. The hon. Gentleman is simply wrong.
Vernon Coaker
Before the hon. Gentleman gets on his high horse, I should say that I have not heard of the new rule that one has to let an MP know every time one visits friends. I went to see friends of mine in Cambridgeshire who happen to be police officers, and they told me what the impact on front-line officers will be. If I had to choose between the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and front-line police officers in Cambridgeshire to tell me about the impact on the front line, I know who I would trust.
The hon. Member for Shipley spoke about the impact of DNA and CCTV. People and communities up and down this country are not saying to me as shadow Policing Minister, to my hon. Friends or to Government Members, “We’ve got far too many CCTV cameras in our area.” I do not have people queuing up in my constituency to tell me that. They are not saying, “Actually, our civil liberties are being undermined tremendously”. They say that they want more CCTV, because they understand that it supports the police and helps them fight crime. It reassures people and enables crime to be tackled effectively.
Oral Answers to Questions
Julian Huppert Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mrs May
I thank the hon. Lady for raising this issue. I cannot give her an exact date, but fairly shortly we will be launching a consultation exercise in response to issues that have arisen concerning the sex offenders register. The question of online identities was raised in this House when I made the statement on the response to the F and Thomson case, and we are taking it on board, so I ask her to wait for that consultation.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
12. What her policy is on measures to ensure that children born overseas to unmarried male British citizens before 2006 are treated in a manner equivalent to those born after 2006.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding the House of this odd hangover from previous legislation. Children born overseas to unmarried British fathers before July 2006 were unable to acquire citizenship by descent from their father. However, the UK Border Agency will register such people as British citizens if an application is made before their 18th birthday.
Dr Huppert
I thank the Minister for those comments. He was also sympathetic when my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) raised this matter two years ago. Will he seek a legislative opportunity to correct this situation by statute rather than rely on discretion, which may or may not be applied to children who may or may not be inside the country?
Damian Green
As I said, my hon. Friend makes a valid point. There is, however, an established registration route for children born to British unmarried fathers under section 3 of the British Nationality Act 1981, which allows the Home Secretary to register any child under the age of 18 as a British citizen, and this discretion has been used for many years. Of course those who are not able to register because they are over the age of 18 can instead naturalise as British citizens if they are resident in the UK and meet the requirements for naturalisation. As he says, any change to the nationality law would have to be made through primary legislation and there is no appropriate vehicle before the House at the moment.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Julian Huppert Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
It is a great pleasure to continue this reunion event of the Public Bill Committee into a second day, and to follow the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), particularly as I had the great pleasure of being able to read some of her words in the briefings that I, too, received. That helped me to follow some of the details. I do not wish to detain the House for long in speaking to the new clause.
First, I should put it on record that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association, and in that capacity I am delighted to be able to welcome this change, for which the LGA has pressed for a very long time. Not for the first time, I extend my thanks to the Minister for taking this and many other issues seriously, and for the time that he has taken to have meetings outside the Bill Committee structure on a range of issues.
It is right that the system should not impose a cost on councils. The fundamental problem with the current system is that it has been a huge drain on council resources at a time when councils have many other things to do and many other calls on the public purse. Rather unusually, I am not going to blame the previous Government and say that they got it wrong on purpose. I believe that the fees were simply wrongly set, and that the required updates have not been made. I do not think the intention was to make councils pay, but that was how it evolved.
It is important that we move from the previous Government’s approach of having things set centrally to a more localist agenda. Councils should be free and have more power. For example, it should be open to a council to set fees below the cost-recovery level if, for some reason, it felt that an important thing to do. I am not entirely sure why taxpayers might feel that that was the right thing to do, but then councils should be allowed to do things for which I do not understand the reasoning. Indeed, on many occasions they do so.
I will not go through all the details of the new clause, as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North mentioned them. However, I have one concern to put to the Minister. He talked about the Secretary of State’s powers and used the word “cap”. He will be aware that we had discussions yesterday on concerns about the Secretary of State’s capping powers over the police precept. I understand where the Minister is heading and why he wants such a power in this case, but can he assure me that he wants the Secretary of State’s capping power to be used rarely, and that, ideally, it should not be the driving force as it has been in other cases in local government, such as police precepts?
I am delighted to see the new clause, and I thank the Minister again on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, and on behalf of the LGA as one of its vice-presidents.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
Although I was not a member of the Committee, I declare an interest as the vice-chair of the all-party leisure group and a former nightclub manager. I spent a number of years in the late-night economy, and I stress that 99.9% of people who go out and enjoy their time in the evenings are good, responsible people out for an office party, leaving do or birthday party. The problems are all about dealing with the small minority.
One reason why I wished to speak was to make a point about transparency. It is in the interests of venues to have a safe environment, and the licensing authority can ensure that. I wish to make a few points about the late-night levy. I have met a number of representatives of venues, and of course nobody likes paying extra money, but it is very much in their interests that the money from the levy is used to create a safe environment. I should like the venues to have a greater opportunity to help to shape how the money is spent. My understanding is that local authorities will receive 30% of it and 70% will go to the police. The venues, which pay that money, should help to shape that decision. Ultimately, the final decision should be for the police or the local authority, because they are the ones who are accountable, but the venue owners see the situation at first hand.
In the areas where I worked, I saw that when people were enjoying themselves, they were generally well behaved, but when they wanted to go home, they found themselves unable to do so. I would therefore have suggested that the money from the levy be spent on a taxi rank co-ordinator in my area, so that people could get home swiftly and efficiently. In other areas, the venues might suggest that there should be better lighting, because generally, where there is good visible access there is a lot less trouble than in areas with only a handful of people around, which are not so well policed. My plea is that the Government ensure that there is transparency, and that venues that contribute to the late-night levy have a say.
Diana Johnson
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Indeed, when it comes to licensing, one disappointing aspect of the Bill is the failure to deal with pre-loading and the low cost of alcohol in supermarkets. This Bill would have been an opportunity for the Government to legislate to deal with those issues, and there is concern that they seem to have missed it.
I am concerned that businesses that already contribute to voluntary arrangements—they include Pubwatch and Best Bar None, to which hon. Members have referred—may feel penalised if they are then asked to make contributions to the late-night levy as well. There is also concern that because the provision will affect only licensed premises that sell alcohol, it will not deal with, say, problems with late-night takeaways. If the Minister is minded to do so, it would be worth considering whether the late-night licence should include all parts of the late-night economy. That would seem to be the fairest way of dealing with the issue.
Dr Huppert
I am delighted to support new clause 2. It would remove sections 15 to 20 of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006, which were totally ineffective and did not work. I suggest that those provisions were also slightly tokenistic. Indeed, the previous Government fell into the trap of doing a lot of things that were token demonstrations. It is an easy trap to fall into, and I do not think that doing things for tokenistic reasons was unique to the last Government. I hope that this Government will learn the lesson of not doing things because they look good, but will continue to make great efforts to ensure that whoever forms the next Government will not have the same things to say about us.
One of the lessons learned about why those provisions were ineffective is set out in clause 125(4), which deals with the late-night levy requirement. That lesson, which has just been discussed, is how we draw the boundaries of an area. We cannot take the model of the past, which involved drawing boundaries very roughly. Therefore, the Minister decided that an area must be an entire council area, as has been said, although that causes problems in Cornwall, which is a large council area. Perhaps we should learn a slightly different lesson, which is that although we should not have complete flexibility of boundaries, we could have some flexibility. Perhaps the rule should be that we can combine entire ward areas, which would avoid the problems of the provisions that we are getting rid of, but make their replacement work a little better.
Dr Huppert
That is obviously the case, but unless the hon. Gentleman has a fantastic suggestion for solving that problem—a problem that applies to waste collection and everything else, and in every other country—I do not see how we can address it. The same problem would apply with council boundaries, which are not always in the perfect location for all purposes.
Penny Mordaunt
My hon. Friend mentions large council boundaries. Portsmouth, which I think is the most densely populated city in Europe apart from London, has a small council boundary, yet we have the same problem. There are areas with no problems where, if a fee was applied, it would be problematic for businesses to keep running.
Dr Huppert
I agree, and I think that my hon. Friend and I share the same objective. We do not want to return to the alcohol disorder zone approach, which clearly did not work and involved having to draw a complex wiggly line that would have exacerbated the problems. That is why I am suggesting ward-sized boundaries, which, while never being perfect, would take us a lot further and allow the various areas of Portsmouth to be separated—I do not know the city as well as she does, and I am sure that she could say which wards were more of an issue than others.
Steve McCabe
If we accept that alcohol disorder zones were not a success—perhaps it is right to repeal them at this stage—is it not also fair to say that what we are hearing today are legitimate concerns about the unintended consequences of the new approach? Given the hon. Gentleman’s desire not to have ineffective legislation, does he feel that it would be in the Government’s interests for the Minister to promise an early review of the proposal?
Dr Huppert
It is hard to argue that alcohol disorder zones were effective, given that nobody used them, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman was not trying to make that case. I am not calling for an early review, because we have to give things a certain amount of time. I would not necessarily have said, for example, that getting rid of alcohol disorder zones at the beginning of 2007 would have been the right thing to do either. It takes time to realise that something simply has not worked. I am not calling for an early review, but I am sure that the Minister will comment on my suggestion of using ward boundaries. We did not discuss it in detail in Committee, either here or in the other place, but it might provide a way of making the scheme a bit easier for councils to use, because we want to ensure that what the Minister intends is, in fact, what we see in the end.
Andrew Percy
I had not intended to speak in this debate, but it is about an issue in which I am quite interested, given my former role as chairman of the licensing authority in Hull, one of the two councils in East Yorkshire. My coalition colleague, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), stole some of my thunder, proving that on this issue we are a happy coalition.
I chaired the licensing authority in Hull for a number of years, at the time when powers were transferred to us from the justices, so I was involved in writing the city’s licensing policy. It was clear from the beginning that the powers that we had been given were insufficient. In some ways, I understood why the Government had come up with a solution, given the national outcry at the time and the problems that we had all read about. However, when I sat down with our council officers and said, “Alcohol disorder zones—what’s your advice?”, they said, “We’re not going to go anywhere near them, and we doubt anyone else will.” It would have taken some time for alcohol disorder zones to become effective, but it was clear from the beginning that they were incredibly bureaucratic and would not be introduced in any part of England. Indeed, we have had similar problems with cumulative impact zones, which the local authority in Hull has twice rejected, and on very much the same grounds—the unfairness that could be meted out to premises with no problems at all, but which could none the less be drawn into such zones.
I take the point made by the shadow Minister—my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson)—about the late-night levy. In many ways, I understand the Government’s intentions. Indeed, when I was a licensing chairman, all we wanted was a little more power—as all councillors and politicians always do—to do something about the premises with which we knew we had repeated problems. At the time, we could not always rely on the police to make review applications, and we could do little with the review applications that we received from residents, because the weight of evidence that they put was insufficient, so we do need something.
I have concerns, however, particularly—as the shadow Minister said—in areas such as the East Riding of Yorkshire, or in the other part of my constituency, in north Lincolnshire. A late-night levy could draw in the Percy Arms—the pub four doors from my house, in a small, quiet, East Riding village—at the same time as nightclubs in Bridlington and Withernsea, which seems a little unfair.
Indeed, that would be unfair in a city as well. In Hull, as well as in Scunthorpe and other towns in our area, the problems are generally in the town or city centre, yet pubs in the suburbs or outside the city could also be drawn into the levy. I therefore support the suggestion made by Members in all parts of the House, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, that we should think carefully about how to apply the levy. I understand the Government’s intention, and I agree with the early-hours orders, which could be particularly effective. However, we need to ensure flexibility in the system. In my time as a licensing chairman, we wanted a bit more power to do something against certain premises. However, as with all legislation, we need to ensure that we do not draw in premises that are innocent of any trouble. Like the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), I would urge the Government to give an assurance that the provisions will be reviewed at some time in the future.
Diana Johnson
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Licensing Act 2003 sets out the four licensing objectives that must currently be taken into account when a local authority carries out its licensing functions: the prevention of crime and disorder, public safety, the prevention of public nuisance, and the protection of children from harm. The new clause would introduce a fifth objective: to protect and improve public health. We tabled it to deal with three key issues. First, there is the fact that public health is far more prominent and talked about than ever before. Secondly, there is the role of primary care trusts and, in future, local authorities, which is relevant to clause 104. Thirdly, there is the current position in Scotland.
Let me explain first why we think the issue of public health is so important. As an Opposition spokesman, the Secretary of State for Health made clear his strong commitment to it. So committed was he that he planned to rename the Department of Health “the Department of Public Health” if the Conservatives came to power. Obviously that has not happened, but the Secretary of State is very busy with his Health and Social Care Bill, and we know that he is trying to rename the NHS “the HS”—to get rid of the “national”.
The widespread view is that there is a proper role for Government in the promotion of good public health. We know from the provisions of the Health and Social Care Bill that one of the few budgets that will be ring-fenced in future is the public health money that will pass from the PCTs to local authorities in 2013. However, the Government have experienced big problems in their approach to public health. This month we have seen the fall-out from their stance on self-regulation by the drinks industry through the responsibility deal. A number of health groups have walked away from the discussions and the agreement, including the British Heart Foundation.
Don Shenker, the chief executive of Alcohol Concern, made clear his view that the Government’s approach to public health will not work. He said that the responsibility deal was
“the worst possible deal for everyone who wants to see alcohol harm reduced”,
and that it had no sanctions to impose if the industry failed to fulfil its pledges. He described those pledges as “half-hearted”,
and that the
“government has clearly shown that when it comes to public health its first priority is to side with big business and protect private profit.”
Let us consider what has already been said about this issue, and the action that the Government have taken so far. Yesterday the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) presented a ten-minute rule Bill to restrict the marketing of alcohol to children and young people. She made a telling point in expressing concern about the fact that the Government were putting the fox in charge of the chickens. They have, for instance, set their face against the idea of making personal, social and health education compulsory. That would have provided an excellent opportunity for young people to be taught about the effects of alcohol and the long-term health consequences of drinking too much.
In January, the Minister set out the coalition Government’s plans in relation to minimum pricing. He said that they wanted alcohol to be sold at the level of duty plus VAT. Many people, including representatives of many health organisations, have pointed out that that will have little effect on the price of alcohol in supermarkets, many of which will continue to sell alcohol that is cheaper than bottled water. It also contradicts the view of Liam Donaldson, the former chief medical officer, that there should be a minimum price of 50p per unit.
Dr Huppert
I wonder whether the hon. Lady can help me, given that I am a new Member, by reminding me what the minimum price was under the last Government.
Diana Johnson
As I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, because he pays close attention to these issues, there has been a continuing debate for some time about the need to reach a conclusion that everyone considers appropriate. The problem with the announcement from the coalition Government is that it is causing most people to think that it will have no effect at all.
I know that the hon. Gentleman sets great store by academic research and evidence. According to research carried out by Sheffield university, pricing measures will only be significantly effective from around the 40p per unit mark. It is feared that the coalition Government’s preferred level will be not 40p but much lower, and that they have missed the opportunity to make significant strides in dealing with the problem of alcohol abuse.
As I pointed out during a previous debate, the Bill contains no provisions dealing with minimum pricing, and I think most people would consider that a great shame. We were looking forward to legislation shortly after the announcement in January. The Government are clearly in some disarray when it comes to public health and alcohol, but the new clause offers them a real opportunity to reassert their commitment to improving public health and dealing with some of the public health problems associated with alcohol. We believe that we are helping them to achieve what I am sure all Members agree is the very proper aim of ensuring that alcohol-related problems are dealt with properly by the House. Therefore, if the Government were to add in health and this further objective in respect of licensing, it would show that they are serious about the problem of public health, and it would also deal with the problems they have faced since taking office last May.
Jeremy Corbyn
That is a fair point. It does no harm for Members who come into and go out of the building every day to be reminded that we are involved in wars. I do not think that we should be, but others disagree. In any event, we need to be reminded of the decisions we have taken and of why we have taken them, and there is a constant reminder out there.
British television shows what some people consider to be shocking scenes in Westminster on the occasion of the state opening of Parliament, but other people around the world say to me, “Thank God that you live in a democracy where protest is allowed even on a day like that.” The Queen goes past in the gilded coach, and we see Brian Haw behind her. I think he once gave her a wave, actually. That is an example of protest in a democracy.
Other countries have experienced significant protests, such as Mexico. After the 2006 election, the result of which was hotly disputed, 1 million people occupied the centre of Mexico City for weeks on end in encampments. The mayor of Mexico city decided that it was impossible to move them, and that it would be wrong to do so because they were mounting a legitimate protest. Had he tried to move them, the consequences would probably have been pretty serious and severe.
Democracy is never simple or straightforward, and our image is never straightforward. We do not live on a chocolate box cover or in a postcard environment. We live in a working parliamentary building, and that working parliamentary building ought to be the centre of our democracy. The centre of our democracy is the right to support, the right to protest, the right to dissent, the right to campaign. It is a very powerful tradition.
This House is full of powerful traditions. I think of Charles Bradlaugh and the way he stood up for what he believed, and Tony Benn standing up on the issue of hereditary peerages, and so many others. They are part of our life and our history. We will make ourselves look very silly if we simply stop people taking part in such protests, because if we deny them the right to protest here, they will protest somewhere else; we will move the law somewhere else and make ourselves look even more ridiculous. We should be a bit grown up about this and accept that diversity and differences of view are good things. That is what makes a democracy vibrant and real.
Dr Huppert
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Members who have spoken on this topic so far. I absolutely respect the stance of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), the passion with which he has spoken on these issues over so many years, and the spirit in which he moved his amendments. I had some sympathy for him, especially after the past 13 years, when he appealed to the Liberal vision of freedom and said that he could not appeal to his own party’s tradition on that.
It is also a pleasure to speak after the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field), who clearly knows about these topics, and who perhaps represents in his constituency more historic buildings than I do in Cambridge, which I envy slightly. [Interruption.] It is close, however, as he says.
It was great that the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) paid tribute to one of my predecessors as Member for Cambridge, Oliver Cromwell, who was probably one of the greatest political reformers the House has ever had. I am not saying I agree with everything he did, but as he is one of my predecessors, I feel I should speak up for him.
Peaceful protest plays a critical role in our country, and I hope that everybody agrees that we should encourage and respect it—I hope we all share that spirit. It is good that the Government are undoing some of the worst things the previous Government did in this area. I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern about the speed of the changes and his wish that they would move faster. I am grateful for the progress that has been made however, and I will continue to try to unwind even faster all the problems that have arisen.
I am not as persuaded as some of the Members who served on the Public Bill Committee—both Government and Opposition—that the encampment in Parliament square is a problem. I do not share the concerns about it being an eyesore; although it is not something I particularly like to see, it does not bother me. We also had a discussion about the effect on tourism, and I do not share that concern to the same extent as some other Members.
I am delighted that the Government are repealing sections 132 to 138 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. We said we would do that when we came into government—both coalition parties were clear on that. The key question is: should there be any lesser replacement for those provisions? The Metropolitan police have made their attitude to peaceful protest very clear. I have been pressing them on this in the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I have the pleasure of serving. They are very clear that their role is not to prevent peaceful protest, and it is not even to allow peaceful protest; Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens was very clear that their role is to facilitate peaceful protest. That is absolutely right. The job of the police is to make it easier for such protests to take place. That does not mean I agree with all the protests—I happen to disagree absolutely with a number of them—but the role of the police must be to try to make it easier for them to happen.
The key question was put very clearly by the director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti—she is always very clear—when she asked: what is the harm? I should declare an interest: I used to be on the national council of Liberty, so I am perhaps biased in my opinion of her, but I am sure that other hon. Members would join me in paying tribute to her efforts over so many years in that cause. We need to address the question: what is the harm? We should be having only those controls appropriate to that harm. I do not agree with the level of assessment of harm put forward by some people so I understand the separate blocks of amendments suggested by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, although I hope he is not going to put them all to the vote, because that would take a long time and some of us were hoping to get home to do some constituency work tonight.
The idea of having no constraints is unlikely to attract support—that is a shame, but I have accepted that that is the case—so the debate has been about the practicality of how to work out something that interferes as little as possible with the right to peaceful protest, which I take extremely seriously. We discussed a number of aspects of that in Committee.
John McDonnell
It is important to put on record the fact that this debate is not about having no constraints, because the public order legislation is in place. It contains those constraints, which prevent violent disorder and public disturbance.
Dr Huppert
That is a very good point. A range of legislation applies, and in Committee we discussed some aspects that could or could not be used. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to make that point, but the question is whether the provisions before us are required.
I do not propose to detain the House by going through all the discussions we had in Committee, because I am sure that Members can read Hansard, if they have not already done so—I am sure that many Members have. Questions arise on the scale of activity. There is a spectrum and we need to consider: who should be allowed to do what; how often; and for how long? The worst of the Bill’s original proposals was the one to give council officials, or even non-council officials given authority by a council, the power to use reasonable force to try to deprive a protestor of an item of property. I was extremely alarmed by that. I am not comfortable with the idea that those people, who are not trained, should be allowed to use that power, and I was not alone. I thank the Minister for listening to me when I voiced my concerns early on and for having to endure our talking about it extensively in Committee.
In one of the Committee’s evidence sessions, I asked what our witnesses thought about that proposal. Shami Chakrabarti, from Liberty, made her position very clear:
“I am also very nervous about non-police personnel exercising those powers.”
None of us would be surprised about that. Metropolitan police Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens made the point that police officers receive a lot of training and operate within a legislative framework and a misconduct procedure, but she said:
“The provision on the use of force would make us nervous.”––[Official Report, Police Reform and Social Responsibility Public Bill Committee, 20 January 2011; c. 113, Q32.]
Mr Mark Field
As the hon. Gentleman will have gathered from my contribution, I have considerable sympathy with what he is saying. However, how would he view the counter-argument, which is that there is a risk of upping the ante by having people in uniform—police officers—doing this work, rather than making this a local authority-related civil offence? Does he think there is a risk that bringing uniformed officers into the piece could turn a peaceable situation nasty?
Dr Huppert
There would be no requirement to bring the police in if one did not want to use “reasonable force” powers. I am very alarmed at the idea of a council official, who might not be particularly well trained, who might not be in uniform and who might not have any obvious form of authority, having the power to use reasonable force in such an instance. If I was involved in a situation like that, I would not expect that person to have such powers. If one did not wish to escalate the situation, one could simply not use reasonable force—one could use no force at all.
Dr Huppert
I think that that was indeed the intention, but “reasonable force” is not a beautifully defined phrase and it is tough to define it. It is particularly tough for people who are not experienced to work out what is and what is not “reasonable force”, particularly in a situation that may well be inflamed. I would not want to see council officials having to make those tough judgment calls.
Dr Huppert
It is interesting to see the coalitions developing across the Chamber on shared interests.
The hon. Gentleman will presumably be pleased to see that clause 142(3)(a) states that for police purposes it is not an offence to proceed with such activity, which I think will allay his concerns. On a slightly broader point, has he seen the transcript of the discussions that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has had with the TUC and the Metropolitan police about the planning for the demonstration on 26 March, which looked at the use of loud hailers, other facilities and social media? Would he welcome that level of preparation for events so that problems can be planned for?
Simon Hart
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The short answer to his question is yes, notwithstanding my earlier comments about the need for spontaneity in—perhaps smaller—events. Steps are being taken in the right direction. However, having been personally responsible for a number of events between 2000 and 2004, I know that we were always led to believe that lessons had been learned from previous protests, but it became quite clear that they had not.
In more recent events in and around Parliament square, and indeed at the G20 demonstrations, it was quite obvious that some of the findings of the IPPC report, which were produced several years ago, had not been implemented, which was unfortunate. Perhaps there is some value, despite the views of one or two Opposition Members, to having this discussion and debate yet again, because it would perhaps lead us a little closer to a situation that is in the interests of protesters first and foremost and parliamentarians last and least.
The third point made in the IPCC’s findings was loosely described as relating to lines. I recall only too vividly being told at my meeting with the responsible commander on the morning of the demonstration in September 2004 that there was an invisible line—a line on his order paper—across which protestors could not pass under any circumstances. It was a ludicrous situation, as he admitted. We explained that it was ludicrous because there was no way to guarantee safely with 20,000 people that none of them would at any stage drift across that line for one reason or another. Flexibility was needed, but there was none. The result was that when protestors did drift across the line, officers fulfilled their orders, which was absolutely right, and started to make arrests, which led to a sudden and irreversible rise in the temperature. That contributed to the transition from an angry but peaceful protest to one that fell apart and resulted in serious injuries for a number of protestors and career-threatening implications for the officers concerned.
Mr MacShane
I much appreciate the speech from the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart)—his apologia pro vita sua.
I am trying to find out who was responsible for the dramatic changes to Parliament in my short time here, including, for example, the security screen that we now have between us and the Public Gallery. That came about because somebody who felt passionately about the cause of Fathers 4 Justice also felt that he had the right to come in here and throw a pink powder over the Bench—actually, where the hon. Gentleman is sitting; it did not quite arrive on the Front Bench. As a result, we changed the security laws dramatically.
Then, people felt so passionately about fox hunting that an hon. Member allowed a protestor to infiltrate this very Chamber, and as a result we have much tougher security. In the name of protest, we thus have a denial of the right of British citizens to come freely and easily into this House of Commons. When I was first elected, not so long ago, I took an American intern to Central Lobby, where he watched people coming in. I told him, “Any citizen can come here and ask to see his Member of Parliament,” and he replied, “My God. You let your voters get that close?”
On Monday night, I hosted the Belarus Free Theatre with Mr Jude Law and Kevin Spacey, the two actors. It was a marvellous moment, except that our police—acting under orders; I do not blame them—kept out the men who had been booted out of Belarus by dictatorial policemen. They were not even allowed into our House of Commons in time, so we need to set in some context the importance of access to this Parliament for MPs and for citizens who want to exercise their parliamentary, political and constitutional right to talk to their MPs.
Dr Huppert
I am concerned about what the right hon. Gentleman has just said. Will he clarify whether the problem was that the police would not allow those people into Parliament, or that they did not get in in time because of inefficiencies in the queuing process?
Mr MacShane
My point is that we have now instituted such draconian security systems as a result of the invasion of this House—I do not think the hon. Gentleman was here at the time—and the attack from the Gallery that things have become all but impossible, and the police famously do not have the flexibility to allow certain people to come through ahead of ordinary—
Mr MacShane
Let me just finish my sentence, and then of course I will give way.
This is a very important principle going back to earlier times when there were huge pressures on parliamentarians. For example, fascists in France tried to stop the French National Assembly meeting in the 1930s. That is why the same rules apply here. I am not saying that any one individual is going to stop any of us, but it is reasonable to say that around Parliament we do not have people permanently demonstrating, and when Parliament is sitting we do not have people permanently trying to break into it.
Mr MacShane
Yes; if one goes to the Chinese embassy in Portland place, the Falun Gong are always there. I am not talking about the other streets of London, and I am not talking about Downing street; I am talking exclusively about the law-making building of our nation, which requires slightly different consideration. I do not see that as the political class dividing itself from the population. I want more protest. However, that is different from saying that one particular issue can stay there for ever. One could be flippant and say that we could have a rota of issues. There could be a right-wing protest, when the fascists, the British National party and the UK Independence party can all come and make their little points.
I think that we are conspiring—perhaps that is an exaggerated word—to devalue the centrality of democratically elected legislatures when we allow protest and noise. Of course it is not preventing anybody from getting in, although hon. Members were prevented from coming in by the foxhunting protest.
Dr Huppert
I am having trouble following the logic of the right hon. Gentleman’s argument. He is right to say that this is a place of deliberation, and I think we all share the belief that there should not be protests inside this Chamber, other than those made by Members of Parliament. However, we are not talking about that, we are not talking about protests in the Members’ Lobby or Central Lobby, and we are not even talking about allowing protests within the precincts of the Palace. We are talking only about protests outside the Palace of Westminster. That is outside of where the deliberation is happening. I would love him to explain why he thinks it is all right to protest outside Downing street, but not outside the Palace.
Dr Huppert
I will try to be very brief. I thank Ministers for the helpful discussions that they have had with us and for the fact that we have managed to improve the Bill. I thank them for agreeing to our suggestions on removing the power for council officials to use reasonable force in protests and on ensuring that the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs plays a role in assisting on temporary banning orders. I thank them very much for agreeing to those requests, because that has improved the Bill.
There are still some issues to discuss as the Bill continues through the Lords, but it is very good. Liberal Democrats stood on a manifesto commitment to bring democracy into such matters. Unlike the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), I think the public should have their say. Democracy is very important.
I am particularly pleased that the Government propose to use a preferential voting system to elect the commissioner. That is a much fairer way of electing people who have such a critical role.
I am also pleased that we are unwinding some of the disgraceful measures introduced by the previous Government to stop protests in Parliament square. Unlike the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), I do not believe that Parliament should be protected from the public. Parliament and the police should be accountable to them, which is what will now happen.
Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Student Visas
Julian Huppert Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs May
They are not included in the migration figures, and they are therefore not covered by my statement. However, as the hon. Gentleman will probably know from discussions in which he has engaged in the past with, among others, the Minister for Immigration the requirements of the English language colleges were of particular concern to us, and we have dealt with that by piloting the extension of the visitor visas.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I declare an interest as a member of the university of Cambridge, one of the three excellent universities in my constituency.
I welcome the changes that the Home Secretary has announced, because the original proposals in the consultation would have caused a great deal of harm to much of our education industry. I was interested to hear what she said about student entrepreneurs. How will that system operate? Will it form part of the post-study work system, and will it apply only to new applicants? Will we be telling students who came here expecting a particular set of post-study work rules that they will be changed while they are in the middle of their studies?
Mrs May
We will make absolutely clear when the new post-study work route proposals will be implemented. Students will have reached various stages in their courses, but there will be a specific point at which the post-study work route requirement is introduced. Those who are already studying in the UK and may have expected to stay will still be able to stay, provided that they obtain graduate-level jobs. It is the qualification level for the jobs that will change.
As for the arrangements for student entrepreneurs, we are considering how best to position them in the immigration system. I hinted earlier that they might form part of the post-study work route, but we might consider other routes. The intention is to enable a student who is graduating from university and who has a first-class idea to set up a business and put that idea into practice, and I think it right for us to do so.
Oral Answers to Questions
Julian Huppert Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Damian Green
SIAC deals primarily with cases where an individual poses a threat to national security, so we must take all the issues surrounding those individual cases extremely seriously. As such, SIAC sets bail conditions that it considers necessary to control any risk of absconding and the threat posed to national security, whether or not the individual absconds. I am sure that my hon. Friend will recognise that SIAC has enormous responsibilities and takes them very seriously in each individual case.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I agree with the question from the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller). Will the Minister go one step further than is being suggested and make both immigration bail conditions and the conditions for control orders more like regular bail conditions?
Damian Green
My hon. Friend will recognise what I have just said about SIAC, which you will be pleased to hear that I will not repeat, Mr Speaker. The conditions for immigration bail and for control orders, and for the regime that will replace control orders, have rather different surrounding contexts than the setting of normal bail conditions, so it is entirely reasonable for SIAC to come to different conclusions and have different powers.
Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism
Julian Huppert Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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James Brokenshire
The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it is not appropriate for me to comment on such sensitive security issues. I can tell him that the review we undertook underlined that the Government’s absolute priority must be to prosecute suspected terrorists in open court. Measures that impose restrictions on suspected terrorists who have not been convicted in open court should be our last resort. As far as possible, given the need to protect the public, any restrictions should support the primary objective of prosecution.
The review concluded that for the foreseeable future, there is likely to continue to be a small number of people who pose a real threat to our security, but who, despite our best efforts, cannot be prosecuted or, in the case of foreign nationals, deported. As at 10 December 2010, eight individuals were subject to control orders. Our reluctant assessment is that there will continue to be a need for a mechanism to protect the public from the threat that such individuals pose. Lord Carlile reached the same conclusion in his most recent and last independent report on control orders. Consequently, he and the other statutory consultees support the proposal to renew the control order powers. I am sure that hon. Members from all parts of the House will join me in thanking Lord Carlile for his work over the past 10 years.
The review also concluded that it is possible to move to a system that will protect the public but be less intrusive and have more clearly and tightly defined restrictions. In particular, the two-year maximum time limit clearly demonstrates that these are targeted, temporary measures. It will be possible to impose a further measure only if there is evidence of new terrorism-related activity after the original measure was imposed. Measures will have to meet the evidential test of reasonable belief that a person is or has been involved in terrorism-related activity. That is higher than the test of reasonable suspicion of such involvement in the control orders regime. The police will be under a strengthened legal duty to inform the Home Secretary about an ongoing review of a person’s conduct with a view to bringing a prosecution. A more flexible overnight residence requirement will replace the current curfew arrangements.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I thank the Minister for giving way; he is being very generous so far and we will see how this goes. Will he clarify how the new residence requirement is different from the existing arrangements? In her comments to the Home Affairs Committee, the Minister for Security, Baroness Neville-Jones, was less than clear on that point.
James Brokenshire
I know that this issue was of interest to the Home Affairs Committee. As the Minister for Security made clear in her evidence, the normal overnight residence requirement will be for between eight and 10 hours. She has written to the Committee to set out that as at 10 December 2010, the longest curfew under a control order was for 14 hours, which was in place in two cases. Of the remaining curfews, one was for 13 hours, three were for 12 hours, one for 10 hours and one for eight hours. Therefore, at least six of the eight individuals will be confined to their residence for a shorter period than they are currently. The Minister for Security has made that point clear.
It is worth stressing some of the other relevant issues. Forcible relocation to other parts of the country will be ended. Geographical boundaries will be replaced with a power to impose much more tightly defined exclusions from particular places. There will be no power to exclude someone from, for example, an entire London borough. Individuals will have greater freedom of communication, including access to a mobile phone and a home computer with internet access, subject to certain conditions such as providing passwords. They will have greater freedom to associate—for example, there will be no blanket restrictions on visitors or meetings. Individuals will only be prohibited from associating with people who may facilitate terrorism-related activity. They will be free to work and study, subject again to the restrictions necessary to protect the public. These changes will allow the individual to continue to lead a normal life so far as is possible, subject only to the restrictions necessary to prevent or disrupt involvement in terrorism-related activity.
The more limited restrictions that may be imposed may facilitate further investigation, as well as preventing terrorism-related activities. The new regime will also be accompanied by an increase in funding for the police and the Security Service, to enhance their investigative capabilities. The Government intend to bring forward legislation to that effect shortly. The legislation must be properly prepared and properly scrutinised by the House. In the meantime, we are clear that it would be irresponsible to allow the current regime to lapse in the absence of alternative measures and while the investigative capabilities of the law enforcement and security agencies are being developed.
It is important to underline that control orders remain legally viable and although they are, in our judgment, imperfect, they have had some success in protecting the public. We are satisfied that the current control order powers and the order before us today are proportionate and fully compliant with the European convention on human rights, and that, pending the introduction of their replacement, it is essential that these powers continue to be available in order to protect the public.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for calling me in this important debate. As we consider control orders and counter-terrorism, it is important to think of the context in which we make these decisions. It is a time of unprecedented flux in the middle east and in north Africa, and what we are seeing there is nothing less than the wholehearted pursuit of liberty. None of us can imagine what it must have been like to be part of the Egyptian revolution in Tahrir square, and none of us has experienced the oppression that Libyan protestors are currently suffering.
All of us are privileged to live in a country where, by and large, freedom has been established and protected for many generations, but it has been clear to many of us for a while that those cherished rights and freedoms have been under attack. The previous Government used the uncertainty created by terrorist atrocities to carry out a widespread squeeze on civil liberties, and they shamefully used fear as a political and electoral weapon. Even their party’s leader, who is not particularly given to making statements about the dubious legacy left to this Government by new Labour, admits that they “seemed too casual” about civil liberties. He has not yet overcome his vagueness and set out a new and generally liberal path, although I hope that he will, and he certainly has not told either shadow Home Secretary whom he has so far appointed.
The coalition Government, however, are making progress—slow but steady progress—in their attempt to regain a better balance between security and liberty, and the counter-terrorism review was an important part of that programme. I am privileged to be a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and I was involved in writing its report on control orders, which I hope Members have read. Along with the Committee, I welcome the review’s conclusion that the current control order regime, which Labour put in place, is too intrusive and fails to demonstrate a commitment to the priority of criminal investigation.
Terrorism prevention and investigation measures are a step forward, and the system is different and better, although it is certainly not perfect, because, as many Members have already said, extra-judicial processes are simply not the right way to proceed. It is a shame that we do not yet have the replacement, and it is a shame of timing that we are not in a position to ditch control orders completely and pass the legislation on TPIMs. That is what I would like, and I have made that point in a number of places in the House. In fact, we should go further. We already have the concept of bail for people who have not yet been convicted of a crime, and that is the model we should use, not the control order regime. I hope that we continue with that thread.
I am concerned about what will happen in the next nine months if we agree to the order tonight. It seems illogical for the Government to ignore their own assessment of the weaknesses of the control order regime, but that is what is happening. A number of points have been made about Lord Macdonald’s suggestion that the Director of Public Prosecutions should have a role in criminal investigation. I hope that the Minister will respond to that point, which others have made, and that he will be asked to look at each current controlee’s case to see what is the right thing to do.
I am also concerned—in timing and in practice—about the Government’s plan to make emergency legislation available for a stricter version of control orders, which would be introduced in an unforeseen emergency. Lord Macdonald described to the Joint Committee how huge such a disaster would have to be, and the Government say that they will share a draft of the legislation only with those on the Opposition Front Bench. That is wrong. The number of Members who are neither in the Government nor part of the Opposition Front Bench, but who would be interested in seeing such legislation, is very high. We would like to see it, and it should be scrutinised.
I find it hard to imagine what the need would be, but, if there ever were a need, I would like to know that Parliament had thought in the fullness of time about how the legislation would work, and had not made a rushed decision after a huge number of bombs had already gone off. I hope the Government will agree to let all Members see the legislation and go through the same process that they are going through for their emergency legislation on 28 days’ detention.
There are a number of concerns about TPIMs in detail, and I have had the privilege of talking to people in the Home Office and raised the matter with the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. On the measured transition that the Minister described, we know that the review described relocation as too intrusive and inimical to the possibility of prosecution. Will the Minister commit to leaving unused the power for relocation in control orders between now and the new TPIMs regime?
Similarly, can we shorten the curfew periods in control orders as we head towards the new TPIMs regime? I hope that we do not introduce just a shorter curfew. To me, an overnight residence requirement involves a requirement to live somewhere normally, and if I live somewhere normally that means I am typically there between 1 am and 3 am, that I am often there earlier or later, and that sometimes I will get up early and sometimes arrive home late. That, not a shortened curfew, is an ordinary residence requirement.
I hope that the Home Secretary will thoroughly review the current controlees to see how we can bring the regime into line with what we aim for in TPIMs, and as a first step towards getting rid of the whole system. I look forward to the Minister’s comments and hope he will be able to reassure the many of us who wish to see even greater steps away from the abhorrent nature of control orders.
