Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Debate between Julian Lewis and Andy Burnham

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

The way to address the hon. Gentleman’s point is not to tar everybody with the same brush and throw suspicion on the whole community. That is the language we have heard from Conservative Members. We have heard the Prime Minister say that parts of the Muslim community are “quietly condoning” extremism. That does not win hearts and minds in the community, and we need 99.9% of people to work with the Government to find the very small number of people who may be at risk of radicalisation.

Rather than compounding the damage by legislating in haste, I urge Ministers to take a step back and to set up a cross-party review of how the statutory duty is working in practice. That would be much more beneficial than pushing on with further legislation.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would accept that when we dealt with the totalitarian theories of communism and fascism in the past, we never made illegal the holding of such views; we made illegal the carrying out of such views with any form of violent action. However, does he also accept that where children and indoctrination in secret are concerned, we must intervene if we are not to see the radicalisation of a new generation?

[Andy Burnham]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. That is why it is important to step with great care into the space that the Bill proposes to tread into. Talk of gagging orders and closure orders will be perceived as an attack on the whole community. That is how people in this country feel right now. There is no difference between those of us on either side of the House: we want to tackle extremism and radicalisation in the most effective way. I simply put it to the Government that they are not achieving that at the moment.

Britain must remain a place where everybody is free to express and develop their beliefs without the fear of being spied on. That freedom is what makes this country a wonderful place to live and worship in, and we must never lose it. At the same time, we must be steadfast in fighting all forms of extremism—including Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and far-right extremism—to prevent any suggestion that extremism is the preserve of just one community.

Let me touch briefly on prisons. We welcome the Government’s efforts to reform and modernise our prison system, with a greater focus on rehabilitation and prisoner education. It was a pleasure to hear the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) speak on that topic. However, there is a real issue with our prisons. The former chief inspector of prisons, Nick Hardwick, has talked of prisons being in their worst state for 10 years and as

“places of violence, squalor and idleness.”

My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer) spoke very powerfully about prison safety and the need to improve staffing numbers. I hope the Government listen to her before they proceed with the prisons Bill.

I will end on a more constructive note. There are two carry-over Bills in the Gracious Speech on which it might be possible to build more consensus. As the Home Secretary knows, we share her goal of putting an updated law on the statute book governing the use of investigatory powers and giving the police and the security services the tools to do their job in the digital age. But we continue to have serious concerns about the Bill as currently drafted, as it does not yet contain sufficiently strong safeguards and human rights protections.

A few weeks ago, I wrote to the Home Secretary setting out seven issues on which we want significant improvement. Yesterday, she wrote to me on two of the issues I highlighted. I have to say that I found her letter extremely encouraging. She gave a commitment in the letter to an independent review of the operational case for the bulk powers. That review was called for in Committee by the shadow Immigration Minister, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). It is not only the right thing to do, but could build trust in the whole process. I am pleased that she has agreed in the letter to look at having a review and has approached David Anderson QC to lead it. The Opposition strongly welcome that development, which we believe will build trust and support behind the Bill.

The second issue that the Home Secretary has written to me about is our concern about the targeting of trade unions. The Opposition have not just concerns but proof that in the past the security services have targeted trade unions, in particular, in the case of the Shrewsbury 24. The Home Secretary’s letter contains a suggestion that she will change the Bill to ensure that investigatory powers cannot be used to monitor legitimate trade union activity. That is a major concession—historic, even—and I am certain that it will go a long way to reassuring Opposition Members. There is still a considerable way to go before the Investigatory Powers Bill becomes acceptable, but this letter shows that the Home Secretary is listening, which bodes well for the rest of the Bill’s passage.

I will touch briefly on the Policing and Crime Bill. Colleagues on all sides of the House will know that I have written to them seeking support for a number of changes in response to the Hillsborough verdict. Those include making sure that bereaved families have parity of legal funding at inquests where the police are represented and removing any time limit on misconduct proceedings to prevent retirement from being used as a route to avoid them. I am grateful for the support I have had from colleagues from Plaid Cymru and the Green party, and I urge other parties to offer the same support. The best message we could possibly send to the Hillsborough families—this point was made very well by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald)—is to come together across the Floor of this House to make Hillsborough a moment of real change.

My experience of working with the Home Secretary on Hillsborough is a reminder of the incredible power we in this place have in our hands to change lives for the better when we put differences aside and work as one. But we do not always choose to use that power. I believe that the issues we have discussed today—the promotion of human rights and the eradication of extremism—are bigger than party politics. They are issues on which our most vulnerable communities will look to us to achieve the maximum amount of political consensus, because that in turn will give strength back to those communities. I urge the Government to keep that point in mind as they bring their new Bills forward.