Cyber-bullying and Digital Anonymity

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. That is one barrier; the other one, of course, is that people can just set up new accounts at will. They can do that through the dark net, and they can hide their IP addresses to make it harder to locate who they are. That is why I am coming to the point of saying that perhaps we should think about making people identify themselves if they want to set up an account, just as we have to do in so many other walks of life.

I recognise that the international nature of the internet makes it hard to tackle the criminality in this country, but I suggest that the police should make much more use of the Harassment Act 1997 rather than view this as a separate online problem. The behaviour is what they should go after. If behaviour is criminal, we cannot allow more latitude for it on the internet. There is not. Such behaviour should be subject to the same tests as if someone is confronted on the street with nasty face-to-face remarks.

I welcome the fact that the Justice Secretary has set out plans for serious cases of cyber-bullying to go to the Crown court and be subject to a sentence of up to two years. That is a welcome and encouraging start—a step in the right direction, saying that cyber-bullying is unacceptable. Nevertheless, let me set out three areas where we could go further.

First and most fundamentally, people need to take responsibility for their actions and not have the option of anonymity. We have cracked down on poison pen letters. Some of us may remember the problem of deep breathers—those who would pick up the phone and start calling random numbers and deep breathing at people to terrorise them down the line. Call logging put a stop to all that stuff, but now we need to deal with trouble caused when characters use anonymity to spout vitriol online. Anonymity, then, is the first issue.

Evidence suggests that people’s behaviour becomes worse when they are given anonymity, which is why it needs to end. Social media providers should ensure that they know people’s identity to discourage hate-filled attacks. If it is known who they are, people will not go around doing this sort of thing and neither will they be able to create multiple social media accounts to further their hate campaigns.

Some say, “We cannot do this; it undermines the principle of free speech. I should be able to say what I like.” I believe they are wrong to say that because the principle of free speech was dearly bought. People can state their own views in their own name. Mrs Mopp of Acacia avenue can say, “The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are completely hopeless and not up to their job”, but the secret police will not come for them in the middle of the night. That is what free speech is about. It is not a right to go around anonymously terrorising and harassing people. That is an abuse of free speech. It is not free speech; it is pure cowardice, and it should not be tolerated. Neither should we confuse the issue of privacy to surf the internet, which we all believe in, with the idea of privacy in aid of anonymity as a means of launching attacks on people. There should be no hiding place for trolls.

Secondly, there is the issue of educating children on digital responsibilities. We cannot protect children simply by blocking access to the internet and social media. That will not work. Young people are at the forefront of technological change, so we need to educate them to understand that their online behaviour will be judged just as much as their behaviour in real life. Just as we teach citizenship and British values in our schools, so we should educate our young people about their online responsibilities and the importance of respect there, as well.

Thirdly, international action is important. The internet is international: it knows no borders and it is changing all the time. Social media has existed for barely a decade, and the law needs to keep up with this rapid change. That is why we need international co-ordinated action. An organisation such as the OECD could play a serious role in co-ordinating what we all do collectively in the global village in which we live. Rogue nations that harbour trolls and online criminals can be tackled more effectively with international co-ordination.

To conclude, it is becoming increasingly clear that it is time to strip people of their anonymity on social media.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Before my hon. Friend concludes, I want to say that I think he will have an uphill struggle in managing to persuade people on an international basis that identity should be disclosed when people abuse the internet. He might find it rather easier, however, if firms were required at least to take down and block persistent abusers; and he might find it easier to get search engines to block firms that fail to do that. Perhaps he should include some of these more modest aims in his programme.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I agree that enforcement is a massive problem because of the international nature of the internet. The starting place should be to raise the issue and say that anonymity is the problem. It is the nature of the curtain that one could be stabbed from behind that we must look at and, having done so, we must ask how we pull back that curtain. First, we must get big social media organisations such as Facebook and Twitter voluntarily to make sure that they identify their users and take the actions suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). Secondly, we must have international action to make sure that international laws and regulations are co-ordinated so that we can work in lockstep. I realise that this is a new area that will develop over the next five years. I suspect that the issue will increase in importance rather than decline.

I want to put ideas out there for us to consider. We need to look at anonymity. We need to educate our children about digital responsibility and hammer home the message that hate tweeting is wrong and that if anyone abuses others anonymously from their keyboard, they will be found out. That would stop in their tracks the people who con, who threaten and who terrorise. We must take back the internet from the weirdos, from the trolls and from the cowardly.

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Mike Penning)]

It is an honour and a privilege to respond on behalf of the Government this evening to this very important Adjournment debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) not only on securing the debate but on getting colleagues to come in on a Thursday evening and support him.

I apologise because I am probably not the lead Minister who would normally deal with this debate, but it is important that my Department—I sit in two Departments—which has responsibility for part of the work that needs to be done to address this important issue is represented at the Dispatch Box. The cross-governmental responsibilities here include the Department for Education, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Home Office and the Cabinet Office to name a few. There are probably other Departments that feel they have responsibilities, not least given the Prime Minister’s interest in recent years.

An Adjournment debate this evening will not allow the issue to have the time it deserves. Far be it from me to suggest what the Backbench Business Committee should and should not do, but this is a very important debate that needs more air time than an Adjournment debate in the House can give.

It is also my belief, and that of the Government, that there is no difference in law between what one does online and what one does in public: what one does face to face is identical within law to what is done online. My hon. Friend quoted at least three Acts. My officials think that five Acts may be in place to help with the issue: the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, the Malicious Communications Act 1998, the Communications Act 2003 and the Defamation Act 2013. They all apply to online trolls.

Perhaps I can address early on some of the specific points that my hon. Friend raised, particularly education. Education is very important. Since September 2014, not so long ago, e-safety has to be taught at all four key stages within the curriculum at our schools. It is massively important that young people have the education and knowledge that they need reinforced at every key stage going forward so that while they use the wonderful new media as much as possible, they understand the problems and dangers of internet bullying.

As my hon. Friend suggested, there are no boundaries or borders in this type of abhorrent behaviour. The internet is a wonderful thing, but I know as Minister responsible for child protection how dangerous the internet is in particular to young, vulnerable people.

I was in Washington at the beginning of the week before last, where I attended the global alliance conference on child online protection, and it was very obvious where the problems occur. It is an international problem; that is the case not only with trolling, but also with some of the other abhorrent things we see on the internet these days. People are earning huge amounts of money out of other people’s grief and poverty, and just getting a kick, frankly, out of abusing people online.

May I therefore reiterate again that in law there is no difference between standing in front of someone and abusing them and doing it online? That is very important, and we have seen some significant cases coming before the courts recently to make sure everybody understands that.

Let me touch briefly on three points, and in particular the anonymous nature of trolls. It is an obvious thing to say that someone should have their anonymity removed—or should they not have it in the first place? In the international spectrum, however, I do not want people living in Syria to have their anonymity taken away. I want people around the world who are living under repression to have the ability to tell the rest of the world what is going on in their countries—what is happening to them, to their families, to their political parties—without fear that their identity will be known.

In saying that, the police do have a way of finding out very quickly where such a communication came from. I know that myself as, sadly, my bank account was hacked fairly recently, but the IP addresses were made available enormously quickly by my internet bank to the police and subsequently arrests have been made. They cannot hide, therefore: “If you abuse someone using the internet, no matter what technology you use, invariably you will be discovered, and if you break the law, you will be prosecuted.” What we must do, however, is ensure people have the confidence to come forward, not necessarily directly to the police every time because it can be very difficult for young people to do that, but to someone they trust within their school or family or community, to tell them what is going on so we can prosecute.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Is not the problem that this would be regarded by the police as a pretty low priority unless it had reached a level of great seriousness, and therefore is not the solution, as I suggested before, that the main companies must have easy ways of reporting abuse before it gets to that level and that they should be likely to block it irrespective of whether or not the person’s identity is known?

[Mike Penning]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and he has touched on a point I was coming to in the next few minutes. On his first point, this sort of offence can now be heard in the High Court and it does carry a penalty of up to two years. That is relatively new, but that actually happens. Standing here not as a Justice Minister but as the police Minister from the Home Office, I can say that the police should, and will, deal with this in the same way as they would deal with an offence offline. That is vitally important, and perhaps a message from the Dispatch Box from the police Minister to the police on that point this evening will not go amiss.

This country leads the way in working with these big companies. While I was in Washington the American Administration said to me that we have a rapport and a relationship and get things done with the big companies in a way that they do not. We need to use that relationship, and of course in early December there will be a global conference here in London, headed by the Prime Minister, on online protection of children and these sorts of issues will be discussed.

Trolls need to know that they will be prosecuted and that the action that will be taken is international. I can assure my hon. Friend that I will have international meetings in this difficult area. I will also let the Ministers in all the different Government Departments know what I have said at the Dispatch Box today, and tell them that we are coming together as a Government to ensure that we do this in a departmental way and that the lead Department leads the process. I can assure my hon. Friend that we are doing something about this.

Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that if he were right, this move would not have been as widely welcomed as it has been by the voluntary sector, for precisely the reasons I gave. It has been widely welcomed by that sector, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole would be happy to share his experiences with another Yorkshire Member of Parliament.

Clause 4 therefore addresses these concerns by giving reassurance that heroic behaviour in emergencies will be taken into account by the courts in the event of a negligence claim being brought. The Bill will therefore apply in a wide range of situations in which employers or others have demonstrated a generally responsible approach towards the safety of others during an activity or in which people have been acting for the benefit of society or have selflessly intervened to help others in an emergency.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I realise that the point I am about to make slightly stretches the parameters of the Bill, but given that the Secretary of State has been praising people who heroically intervene is he not as surprised as I am that the people who heroically intervened to help Lee Rigby and confronted the people who had killed them have not seen their bravery recognised? Most of us expected them to get the George medal once the trial was over, so is it not a shame that their bravery has not been recognised?

[Chris Grayling]

I think that every one of us in this House would pay tribute to those people. I am sure that my hon. Friend’s comments have been noted and he is right to highlight the degree of bravery shown on that tragic afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

If the Bill was really about social action, responsibility and heroism, those sorts of measures would be in it, but clearly it is not.

Let me remind the House of the conclusions of the Government’s own inquiry, which the Justice Secretary referred to, but not fully. Lord Young of Graffham, in his 2010 report, concluded:

“The problem of the compensation culture prevalent in society today is, however, one of perception rather than reality.”

There we have it, from the Government’s mouth: it is a perception, not a reality. The report goes on to highlight:

“One of the great misconceptions, often perpetuated by the media, is that we can be liable for the consequences of any voluntary acts”.

The report then refers to advice given to people in the winter of 2009 about not clearing snow from the front of their houses in case someone slipped and sued them. The Lord Chief Justice said that he had never come across someone being sued in those circumstances, yet the Justice Secretary has wilfully reported that old chestnut in articles he has written before today. I am happy to give way if he would like to intervene and list the occasions since 2010 when such incidents have occurred. No? Well, there we have it. His silence is telling, as he knows there are no such cases.

If the Justice Secretary’s point was that the threat of litigation is putting people off clearing snow, the Bill will do nothing to address that. In fact, the MOJ’s own statistics show that the total number of money claims in civil courts has been following a downward trend in recent years, rather than going up. In any case, the Bill deals with cases that have already reached the courts, so nothing in it will reduce the prospect of being sued. It will not reduce, as he describes it, the “stress and strain” if someone is sued.

Instead of preparing this Bill—the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner asked this question—the Secretary of State’s energies, and those of his officials, would have been better spent rebutting some of the myths about negligence and health and safety. That would have been a better way of tackling the fear of litigation, given that the likelihood of a negligence claim is pretty small. In fact, that was the advice of Lord Dyson, the Master of the Rolls. In a speech entitled “Compensation culture: Fact or fantasy?”, he argued that the perception of a compensation culture

“is not however as grounded in reality as had been suggested.”

He also suggested:

“All of this may also require a substantive educative effort on the part of government, the courts and the legal profession to counter-act the media-created perception that we are in the grips of a compensation culture. It may also require greater public legal education.”

Perhaps that education should have begun with the Justice Secretary.

I have already welcomed the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims to his new post and congratulated him on his promotion. I am sorry that he is not here to share the joys of the Bill with his line manager, because in his previous job at the Department for Work and Pensions he understood exactly the importance of exploding myths about health and safety. In January, in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) on health and safety, he said that

‘it is very important that health and safety is taken seriously in the workplace and in public areas. Right across the Christmas period, I went public about the need to ensure that Christmas was not spoiled by stupid comments, and stupid local authorities saying, ‘We shouldn’t do this or that’—throw snowballs, or have Christmas trees in certain areas—‘because of health and safety.’ That is wrong, and it has nothing to do with health and safety; it is an insurance risk.’—[Official Report, 13 January 2014; Vol. 573, c. 579.]

I hope that although the Minister is absent today he will be able to import some of his common sense into the current MOJ team. After all, as drafted, this Bill will not help. The Government are seeking to legislate to deal with how we perceive risk, real or otherwise. If he were serious, the Justice Secretary would tackle the misconceptions about the risk of being sued, but that is a trickier task that he has chosen to duck.

In introducing this Bill, the Justice Secretary said a lot about how it will protect the responsible employer. That prompts this question: where are the dozens of examples of courts having had a case before them where an employer has done the right thing and an employee has not, and yet they have found for the employee? There are no examples of such cases. He talked about members of the emergency services not going to someone’s rescue in case they breach health and safety rules. Will he tell the House what representations he has received from the fire, ambulance, police and coastguard services in support of that contention? Silence again.

I would like to pick up an important legal point. The Bill seems to conflate health and safety and negligence cases. The former are usually strict liability and the latter are not. That confuses civil liability with criminal liability.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I think I know how the right hon. Gentleman will respond to this point, but, for clarity, I am going to put it anyway. There have undoubtedly been cases, have there not, where policemen have said, for example, that they were not prepared to pull an apparently drowned victim out of a pool for fear of not being suitably qualified to do so? Is he saying that some measure other than this Bill will try to prevent that in future? Such cases clearly do exist, as they are widely reported to a horrified public.

[Sadiq Khan]

I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, but he was not in the Chamber when I referred to the Master of the Rolls. We need to make sure that employees who do not know the position are educated and told the position, and that those who are not properly trained are properly trained. Debating a three-clause Bill today, and even passing it in the next few months, will not make a jot of difference. We need to make sure that the public and those who work in the emergency services are better educated and know what obligations and duties are placed on them, without the risk and fear of litigation.

Let us be clear: this Bill is targeted at negligence and not at health and safety at all. When the Justice Secretary claims, as he does, that his Bill will

“finally slay much of the ‘elf and safety’…culture”,

he must be honest about the fact that he is being disingenuous, to say the least. If this Bill were really about health and safety, he would be telling the House about the conversations he has had with the Health and Safety Executive and its views on the necessity for such legislation. Again—I think for the seventh time—I will happily allow him to intervene on me to update the House on those conversations with the Health and Safety Executive. Silence again.

We will use the Committee stage of the Bill to scrutinise in more detail its ramifications, both intended and unintended, because it might end up having the opposite effect to that which the Justice Secretary wants. A single act or omission is all that is needed to be negligent. That act or omission might be so serious, causing injury, pain or even death, as to outweigh any amount of good behaviour. He likes talking about hypothetical situations, so what about this one? You are the parent of a child. Would you want them to go on a trip knowing that if they are injured owing to a fault on the part of the school, youth club or scouts, they will not get compensated? The Bill creates the impression that this is the Government’s intention. Or this one: the chairman of a local football team cuts corners when vetting volunteer coaches working with children in the belief that he is protected by the law because in providing coaching for children, he is, to quote clause 2,

“acting for the benefit of society”.

The ramifications of this Bill are that children risk being more exposed to risk. Is that the Government’s intention in introducing it?

If that is not the Government’s intention, this three-clause Bill will not make any difference to the current state of play, as the former Solicitor-General made clear in his intervention. When assessing negligence claims, courts already take into account whether somebody is doing something for the benefit of society, as is recognised by the impact assessment of the Ministry of Justice. That is why organisations have insurance. Although they may be defendants in a claim, they would not be financially liable and their insurer would pay out.

That leads me on to another point. It is interesting that the impact assessment states:

“Insurers and other defendants may gain from slightly reduced aggregate compensation paid and this may feed through to lower insurance premiums.”

However, there is no attempt whatsoever to quantify that, and nor is there any undertaking from insurance companies that it will be passed on to customers—all of which leaves us questioning whether any of that will actually happen in practice, or will insurance companies just end up with higher profits? We all know, by the way, that those companies have donated millions of pounds to the Conservative party’s coffers over recent years.

The House must also steel itself for the inevitable last-minute tabling of a slew of Government new clauses and amendments. The Justice Secretary has a very bad habit of doing that. Such proposals get a cursory amount of scrutiny at best, but they are designed to get the good media hit he so craves and to raise a cheer from his beleaguered Back Benchers. We are very alert to the possibility of new things being added to the Bill at later stages.

Short though today’s Second Reading debate will be, given the paucity of Government speakers, it would be helpful if the Justice Secretary could provide a number of reassurances. Will he reassure us that the Government have no intention of watering down the duty on businesses, particularly small firms, to take out employers’ liability insurance, and that there are no plans to make individual employees take out their own insurance as an alternative to employers’ liability insurance?

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Gentleman will not be shocked to learn that I do not have that figure in front of me. As I said to his hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), the Opposition need to think carefully about what they are really worried about. If they are worried about prisoners having access to books, I have reassured them that they do not need to worry about that. If, however, they are worried, as the shadow Secretary of State told us he was, about the influx of drugs and other contraband substances into prisons, they might want to reflect on the sense of restricting packages as they come into prisons. That is what we are proposing to do. What are they going to do?

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

What progress have the Government made towards their aim of greater honesty in sentencing so that the public at large and victims of crime in particular know that when a sentence is handed out, the time served will correspond to a greater degree to the sentence handed out?

[Chris Grayling]

As you know, Mr Speaker, I believe that in an ideal world 10 years would mean 10 years. I do not have the resource to deliver that immediately because of the financial constraints upon us, but I have started by ending automatic early release for the most violent and unpleasant offenders in our society so that they can no longer expect to be released automatically halfway through their sentence, and have a possibility of release ahead of time only if they are demonstrably no longer a threat to the public as assessed by the Parole Board.

EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Our view is that there is not a legal need to legislate. We will test the point in a forthcoming case. If the point proves that the legal position is different from what we understand it to be, we will of course have to return to this House.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I noticed that my right hon. Friend said that a future majority Conservative Government would want to take steps to reassert this House’s sovereignty over EU legislation. Does that mean that we would not be able to take such steps if the Liberal Democrats were part of any future Government?

[Chris Grayling]

It is clear that there are many things that have united us politically in the past three years where we have done good work for this country but that there are areas—European issues and issues of human rights—where we take a different view. The mature approach in a coalition is to accept that those differences of views exist, to work collaboratively together when we agree and to be honest when we do not. That is what we will continue to do. I will certainly be on the doorsteps at the next general election arguing very strongly indeed for a Conservative approach that deals with many of these issues.

Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

With the leave of the House, I will, Mr Speaker.

I detect just the faintest whiff of synthetic indignation in the air. I remind the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) that the Opposition did not vote against Second Reading, or against the original programme motion, which provided for just one day on Report. They are objecting to having two days allowed for the Bill, but they did not object to having one day. Proceedings in Committee finished ahead of schedule, and on Report the Opposition Front Benchers have tabled just one amendment to the Bill’s 142 clauses, as well as five new clauses.

In opposing this second programme motion, the official Opposition are opposing the extra time on Report that the Government have volunteered. The Opposition did not request extra time, but they now argue there is not enough. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) rightly pointed out, if the Opposition succeed, the time devoted to discussing these important issues will be reduced rather than increased. [Interruption.] The Opposition Whip can continue chuntering from a sedentary position as much as he likes, but he has left himself in the ridiculous position of voting for the Bill to have less time devoted to it, rather than more. That is not effective opposition or Opposition whipping.

Perhaps I may correct one factual point. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington said that the Government waited until after the tabling deadline to announce that they would not be tabling amendments on the maximum sentence in section 3 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. That is not the case. The Minister of State, Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) on that issue last Thursday, and the tabling deadline for amendments to be debated tomorrow was last Friday. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford has tabled amendments on that issue, so we can debate it tomorrow.

I take the point raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) and for Enfield North (Nick de Bois). Progress through the amendments tomorrow will be a matter for the House, but I see no reason why there should not be an opportunity to debate the important reforms to our extradition arrangements. The protestations from the Opposition simply do not add up.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

We have often been in this situation and found that we have not had enough time to debate important amendments. Would the Minister have any objection to some of the important amendments being put to the vote if the guillotine falls before we have had time to debate them?

[Damian Green]

As my hon. Friend knows, it is not for Ministers to decide whether things are put to the vote; that is up to the Chair.

The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) prayed in aid what happened in previous Parliaments. As I have said, this programme motion provides for additional time on Report. Indeed, this is the sixth Bill this Session that has received multiple days for its remaining stages. That is in stark contrast to the previous Government whom the hon. Gentleman supported and who routinely provided for only one day on Report and Third Reading. There is much more scrutiny of Bills under this Government than there was under the previous Government, and if the Opposition succeed there will be less parliamentary discussion—as is characteristic of the Labour party—rather than more, which is what the coalition Government have introduced.

On reflection, I hope the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington will reconsider his position and allow the programme motion to pass without further ado so that we can get on with the substantive issues before the House.

Question put.

Transforming Legal Aid

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Do the changes have any implications for the military justice system, given the continuing concern both in this House and the country at the huge costs bill faced by the courageous SAS Sergeant Danny Nightingale as a result of trying to defend himself against an inappropriate prison term?

[Chris Grayling]

I obviously cannot comment about that specific case, but I am not aware of anything in these proposals that would have a detrimental effect on the very important processes we have in place to deal with military matters. It will be very much on my mind in the coming months to take a closer look at the whole issue of veterans and armed forces personnel and the legal profession, because I am not entirely convinced we do enough to make sure we recognise the needs of those leaving our armed forces who end up in the criminal justice system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I last met the Northern Ireland Justice Minister about 10 days ago and am meeting him again tomorrow. No doubt probation services will be one thing we discuss.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Given the renewed threat that convicted terrorists will pose to society on release and the amount of security and intelligence resources that will have to be devoted to monitoring them, will the Minister confirm that the use of automatic early release would be entirely inappropriate for them?

[Jeremy Wright]

Our expectation would be that people receive an extended determinate sentence for an offence of terrorism, under which release would not be automatic. I hope that reassures my hon. Friend.

Leveson Inquiry

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

Over the past five years, the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, which I chair, has examined the issue of the standards and ethics of the press three times. Each time, what we have uncovered has caused us serious concern about the way in which the press operates in this country; we have revealed information that we all found truly shocking.

It is important that we remember the people who have suffered at the hands of the press, including the McCann family, the Dowler family and Christopher Jefferies. However, it is also important to note that all in those cases suffered as a result of breaches of the law. Breaches of the Data Protection Act, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the contempt of court laws and the libel laws were all involved in the suffering of those people.

That is one of the reasons why I agree strongly with the earlier remarks of the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). There are still big questions to be answered about how serial breaches of the law could take place in newsrooms and how the police appeared to do absolutely nothing about it, despite having the necessary evidence for a number of years. I very much hope that we will see the establishment of part 2 of the Leveson inquiry—whether it takes place under Lord Leveson or not is not the most important point—because we need answers to those questions once the criminal prosecutions have been exhausted.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

So far as the breaches of the criminal law are concerned, will my hon. Friend confirm that, if a statutorily based supervisory body were to discover that the criminal law had been broken—through phone hacking, for example—that would become a matter for the police anyway as soon as it was discovered and that, terrible though the suffering of the Dowlers was, their case is, in a sense, really rather irrelevant to the supervisory body that we ought to have?

[Mr Whittingdale]

I am not sure that I would say their case is irrelevant, because it plainly provided evidence of the way in which the press seemed to feel that they were above the law, and that is a matter for a body overseeing ethics and standards. My hon. Friend is right, however, to say that that matter should have been dealt with by the police, and we still need answers as to why it was not.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am happy to consider that matter further and write to the hon. Gentleman.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

In view of what the Secretary of State has rightly said about the case of Abu Qatada, a prominent supporter of al-Qaeda, will he say a word or two about an opponent of al-Qaeda, namely the special forces sergeant who has been sentenced to an 18-month term of military detention for having kept a pistol that was presented to him in gratitude for his services by the Iraqi special forces? I realise that court martial procedures might be outside my right hon. Friend’s immediate area of responsibility, but will he reflect public concern over that very serious matter?

[Chris Grayling]

I am aware of the public concern. My hon. Friend will understand that I cannot comment about an individual case, and of course courts-martial fall under the remit of the Ministry of Defence. However, I would always hope that common sense will lie at the heart of every judicial decision in this country.

Prisons (Property) Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Friday 14th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend, as ever, makes a wise contribution. That suggestion is also of great merit. It would be good that those items could be used in that way, and we will certainly consider his suggestion as the Bill continues through the House.

The situation is not only ludicrous from a legal point of view; it sends out entirely the wrong message. Unauthorised items can prejudice safety and security in prisons, and there have been instances of their being linked to serious crimes. Mobile phones, for example, have been used to organise crimes including murder, drug dealing and witness intimidation, and to access social networking sites.

When I was researching these matters, I was astonished to see the amount of mobile phone communication that had taken place from prisons. I have some examples here. Murders have been carried out from prison. In April 2006, Andrew Wanogho was shot dead in a London street in the early hours. The culprit had a cast-iron alibi; he was in jail at the time. The fact that he was on remand in Belmarsh prison had not prevented him from co-ordinating the murder using a smuggled mobile phone, however. Even more shocking is the fact that he rang the victim’s mobile phone after the shooting to check that his rival was dead. It is astonishing that such activities are going on in our prison system. In September 2007, Ryan Lloyd was jailed for life for the murder of Liam Smith, who was shot dead outside a prison in Liverpool in 2006. Lloyd had used a contraband mobile to call an accomplice. In 2009, another gang leader was jailed for organising the murder of a 17-year-old man from his cell in a prison in Humberside.

Drugs have been sold from prison. One drug dealer was behind bars in a prison in Lewes when he realised that he had a captive market, using the fact that there are drug addicts in the prison system. Before his imprisonment, he had been part of a small heroin and cocaine distribution ring based around Worthing. Once inside, he not only continued to run the business, issuing instructions to his team by mobile phone, but expanded his operation to include the prison itself. Packages of drugs were hidden in socks and thrown over the prison walls, to be collected by inmates at pre-arranged times. That was all made possible by the fact that he had access to a mobile phone.

We then come to intimidation from prison. I have a constituent whose 16-year-old son was murdered by a gang of 30 youths. Four of them were prosecuted, but one escaped to Pakistan. He has taunted my constituent from there on Facebook, telling her how much he was enjoying his freedom. That has been terribly difficult for her, because it means that she can never really let go of that horrible day. Let us imagine, therefore, what it must be like to get that kind of intimidation from someone in prison. I think that it would add insult to injury. That happened two years ago, when it emerged that one of Britain’s most dangerous gangsters was using Facebook to threaten his enemies from his high-security prison. The gang boss, who had been locked up for 35 years, was able to correspond with up to 565 “friends” on Facebook for more than two months, until the page was shut down. Some of the things he wrote were, frankly, astonishing. He wrote:

“I will be home one day and can’t wait to look into certain people’s eyes and see the fear of me being there. It’s good to have an outlet to let you know how I am, some of you will be in for a good slagging and some have let me down badly and will be named and shamed”.

The fact that this has come from within the person’s cell is horrendous.

The taunting of victims’ families from prisons is another problem. One of the killers of 16-year-old Ben Kinsella used his Facebook page to taunt his victims’ families from behind bars. He boasted that he was “down but not out”, and for his profile picture he mocked up a T-shirt emblazoned with his face and the slogan “Free Jade Braithwaite”. From his cell, he wrote how he wanted “remote control” so that he could

“mute or delete people when I need to”.

Ben’s sister Brooke, who is 28, said at the time:

“My family and I are appalled that Jade Braithwaite is able to operate a Facebook page from inside prison—and to use the site to protest his innocence is really upsetting. We are disgusted by the comments on the site and feel it is a real insult to Ben’s memory.”

We are letting down these families if we do not deal with this problem. I have more quotes, which I may come back to later, but that gives a flavour of the real problem and its effect on the families of victims and on the victims themselves.

Phones today are not just instruments of communication; they often have cameras and recording devices. Pictures can be taken from inside prison and communicated outside, which could facilitate the opportunity to escape or help with smuggling drugs and other contraband into prison. What message does that send to victims, particularly when we have to store these items if they are found?

There is a real effect on prison discipline. Some items of property may not be illicit in themselves but have not been authorised for possession by a prisoner, including items that might have been smuggled in by visitors or obtained from another prisoner. Currently, too many prisoners use the lack of legislation to their own advantage. Prison officers discover items, but prisoners know that no legislation is in place to allow their destruction and demand that the items are put in storage. That is bad not only for good order, but for the morale of staff who work in the prison.

Glyn Travis of the Prison Officers Association states:

“The POA welcome this Bill and believe it is long overdue. Staff do get frustrated when they work hard to confiscate contraband and are then taunted by prisoners who use the loophole and force staff to store the property for them when they are released. This has a knock on effect and cost to the tax payer as property has to be transferred if the offender is. If property is classed as illegal/contraband, it should be destroyed and not stored. If the loophole is not closed compensation claims may arise if property is lost.”

If we do not pass the Bill today, we will let down the people who work so hard for us in those prisons.

The impact on resources within the prison system is another issue. When I was doing research for this Bill, I visited HMP Leeds—I hope it will prove to be the only time I go there—which is an extremely large and imposing Victorian building in which space is at a premium. I am extremely grateful to all the prison staff who gave up a considerable amount of their time to talk me through the process of prisoners entering the prison and to explain the many issues they face daily. They also told me what the problems were in the prison system.

As many Members will know, when prisoners arrive from court they must declare the items they have on them, and those that are permitted in the prison are listed on a card for the records. Prisoners are allowed to keep some of the items on them, and some will be stored. That is legitimate, and the Bill does not deal with those items. Others, such as mobile phones, are not allowed, but as long as prisoners have declared them in the court, they will be listed on a second card and stored until the prisoners are released. Storing the legitimate items is demanding enough given the number of people who are involved in the prison system, but the pressure is increased by the fact that prison staff are forced to store all the unauthorised items as well. It is estimated that storing the tens of thousands of mobile phones alone costs about £20,000 a year.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Are steps taken, or sanctions imposed, when people are found smuggling items into prison, and do prisoners who are found to have been receiving items inappropriately lose any privileges?

[Stuart Andrew]

In some cases restrictions are imposed, but one wonders how many people are smuggling things into prisons and hiding them without being detected. Why would they fear being caught if they know that the items that they have smuggled in may be stored? We want to send the clear message that it is not even worth trying, and I hope that that is what the Bill will do.