G20 Summit

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I point out that Members who came into the Chamber after the Prime Minister started his statement should not expect to be called. That is the convention, and we are sticking to it.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Did the Prime Minister have an opportunity to discuss with President Obama and others the situation in Yemen? After the bomb was discovered at East Midlands airport, the Prime Minister rang President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and he knows that the situation is absolutely desperate there. What help can we give countries such as Yemen?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. I did discuss that with President Obama. What is happening in Yemen should be absolutely at the top of the list, because of the al-Qaeda threat that is coming out of that part of the Arabian peninsula. President Obama and I agreed that we have to take a mixture of steps. One of the problems is encouraging President Saleh to see that the al-Qaeda threat is a threat to his own country and needs to be top of the list of what he wants to address. Obviously Yemen also faces problems with rebels in the south and Houthi rebels in the north, but we have to convince it that the al-Qaeda threat is a threat to all of us and to the security of the world, and that is what we will do through aid, through the Friends of Yemen process and through every other means at our disposal.

Individual Electoral Registration

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I have received and replied to a number of written questions along the same lines recently. The Government are considering those issues, and if we have proposals to present we will, of course, announce them to the House first.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Resources will obviously be crucial to the success of the project. A significant proportion of British and Commonwealth citizens in my constituency do not have English as a first language. What additional resources will be given to local authorities such as Leicester to enable them to deal with that important issue, and will the Minister meet a delegation to discuss it?

[Mr Harper]

I should, of course, be pleased to meet a delegation from the right hon. Gentleman or, indeed, from any other Members who wish to discuss these issues. As for the right hon. Gentleman’s first question, he will know that local authorities receive funds from their revenue support grant and other resources enabling them to carry out electoral registration. He would not expect me to make specific announcements about the proposals for funding this project before the spending review, but I am confident that it will be properly resourced.

Treatment of Detainees

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that the previous ISC findings will be enormously helpful to the inquiry. However, let me try to clarify a bit further what Ministers would have to decide—although hon. Members can also read the guidance published today. It is not that Ministers would be consulted in cases of torture, because torture is ruled out completely. This difficult matter refers to cases of so-called mistreatment, of which there is no proper definition: it can range from things that we would probably consider to be torture, such as waterboarding, to factors such as an inappropriately sized cell. That is why there is some need, in the very difficult circumstances with which one of our agents could be faced, for that level of discretion. That is the sort of moment we have to try to consider and get right, and not be over-bureaucratic about.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I welcome the establishment of this inquiry and the appointment of the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind). The Prime Minister is right to praise the work of the security services, but will he also acknowledge the work done by the Metropolitan police counter-terrorism unit? Given that, as a distinguished former member of the Home Affairs Committee, he has accepted one of the Committee’s recommendations—the establishment of the National Security Council—will he consider the second recommendation in that area, which is for the Government to allow intercept evidence in court proceedings?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very keen on recommendations of the Home Affairs Committee. Another of its excellent recommendations was a border police force. On intercept, we all, I think, want to see that happen. We all want more of those accused of terrorism to go through the court process, and to be tried, convicted and imprisoned—and intercept evidence would be hugely helpful. However, it is extremely difficult to do. One of the greatest enthusiasts in the last Parliament—apart from myself—for intercept evidence being available in court was the former Member for Folkestone, Michael Howard. He was on that Committee, but did not find a way to make this happen, so let us not overestimate how easy it is to do; it is not easy at all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

I have absolutely no doubt that my hon. Friend, who is my parliamentary neighbour, will give his own encouragement to his local CPS. A lot has been done, although a great deal more can be done, and I am sure that, between us, we will keep Northamptonshire CPS up to the mark.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I welcome the Solicitor-General, who is my near neighbour, to his new post.

When Members of Parliament write to the CPS to make representations on behalf of constituents about cases that it is considering, are there any guidelines on how long it should take the chief Crown prosecutor to write back to them?

[The Solicitor-General]

All letters from Members of Parliament, whether to the headquarters of the Crown Prosecution Service, or to the chief Crown prosecutor for a particular area should be answered speedily. Occasionally, work has to be done to provide a full answer, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, whom I thank for his kind remarks, will understand that it is better to receive a thorough answer a few days late than a half answer on time.

Constitution and Home Affairs

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I beg to move an amendment, at the end of the Question to add:

“but, whilst welcoming the progress made by the previous administration to reform and improve the constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom, respectfully believe that such changes should be made wherever possible on the basis of a strong cross-party consensus; therefore call for active discussions by your Government on proposals for an elected House of Lords, a referendum on the alternative vote, recall of hon. Members, the period of any fixed-term Parliament, party funding, changes to the number of hon. Members, the drawing of electoral boundaries, and individual voter registration; consider as wholly unacceptable and undemocratic proposals to require any special majority to remove a Government and require an early general election, or to alter the number of hon. Members or the boundary rules in an arbitrary and partisan way; strongly endorse the measures which led to an overall reduction in crime of over a third, and of violent crime of 41 per cent., since 1997; oppose any measures to cut the number of police officers and police community support officers, to restrict the use of the DNA database in accordance with the Crime and Security Act 2010, to extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants, or to politicise constabularies through the introduction of elected commissioners; and urge your Government to reconsider the introduction of a pre-determined cap on skilled immigrants and to maintain the flexibility and effectiveness of the current points-based system.”

I begin by welcoming the Deputy Prime Minister to the Treasury Bench and to the Government Dispatch Box on what I believe is his speaking debut in that role in the House. He takes over from me wide responsibilities for the Government’s constitutional agenda. As my colleagues and I were, he and his ministerial colleagues will be responsible for what is put before the House and the country, but in making his decisions and recommendations he will be blessed, as I was, by having officials of the highest quality, diligence and—certainly with myself—patience. I should like to place on record my thanks to them and to all the officials with whom I worked, and to wish the right hon. Gentleman well in his endeavours.

“Constitutional agenda” is an abstract term that can have the effect of emptying a room quickly, and not just when I am the one making a speech. However abstract, though, it describes something of profound importance to the effective running of any society and its political system, namely the architecture of power—the rules that set down who can make decisions and who can hold in check those who exercise power. In most systems, those rules are enshrined in what the Germans call “black letter law” and are normally subject to special procedures of entrenchment to make it more difficult for those with the power of government to misuse it to change the fundamental rules of the constitution for narrow partisan ends.

We in the United Kingdom do not have a single text, a written constitution or any protective entrenched procedures. Although I believe that over time we should develop a single text, I do not propose or support entrenchment or special procedures for constitutional change. However, the absence of entrenchment places a special responsibility on those in government not to misuse their power, and wherever possible actively to seek and achieve consensus across the House, or to ensure that the final decision is made directly by the people in a referendum.

Of course, the Government must have the power of initiative. When we took office in 1997, there had been no successful proposals for constitutional change for decades. In contrast, the new Labour Administration had a very large agenda: devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; an elected Mayor and assembly for London; data protection; freedom of information; the Human Rights Bill; phased reform of the Lords; independence for national statistics; reform of party funding; and a new system for elections to the European Parliament. All but one of those measures, however controversial they may have been at the beginning of their legislative journeys, were in the end either approved by consensus across the House or endorsed by the people in a referendum, and they are all the better for that.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is right that a great deal of constitutional change has occurred over the past 13 years, but I am not clear why he does not want to go an extra step now and have a written constitution—a Bill of Rights. Surely that would be an important way of entrenching and making absolutely clear the rights of our citizens.

[Mr Straw]

As I said a moment ago, I believe that there is a case for bringing together our constitutional arrangements in a single text, and we were working on achieving exactly that. However, the process will take a long time. Entrenchment—in other words, the sovereignty of this House being modified by some super-legislative procedure and by a constitutional court overseeing that—is a bridge too far for me and I do not support it. However, I do not believe that the two have to go hand in hand, and the case for a single text is strong.

However controversial the proposals that we introduced may have been at the beginning—I think particularly of the Human Rights Bill and the Freedom of Information Bill—in the end, we were able to achieve consensus across the House. That may have been a subject of regret later for the Conservative Opposition, but consensus was achieved. There was one exception, which I regret and, in a sense, it makes the point that I am putting to the House—the closed list system for European elections.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

It is a great pleasure to close this debate, which, as the shadow Home Secretary has just said, was marked by a significant number of maiden speeches, 22 in all. The debate was opened by a rather uncharacteristically rambling speech from the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). He loitered somewhat over the reforms of 1832, but his history lesson was bettered only by the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) who gave everybody in the Chamber a rather more eloquent and distinguished historical lesson. I am sure we shall hear more from him, as was said earlier.

The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), who has just closed for the Opposition, gave an amusing speech. He ran through the contributions of every Member who made a maiden speech today. I do not intend to comment on every one of those speeches, but I want to tell all 22 new Members who spoke today that making a maiden speech is a daunting experience for anybody, yet they all rose to the challenge with a remarkable degree of eloquence. Many of the speeches were extremely amusing. I am not sure what the problem of blowing one’s nose is in West Suffolk, but I dare say we shall find out at some stage. We heard delightful, enticing descriptions of constituencies such as the one from my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), although of course it will now only be known as the site of Dobby’s demise.

I particularly want to mention the maiden speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Stourbridge (Margot James) and for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), and the hon. Members for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle), for Darlington (Mrs Chapman), for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), for East Lothian (Fiona O’Donnell), for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) and for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson). They all have one thing in common, which is that they are women. I welcome the new intake of women Members to the House of Commons, which I am particularly pleased to see.

I am especially pleased to welcome my hon. Friends the Members for Stourbridge and for Oxford West and Abingdon, whom I have worked with over the years. They represent very well the change that has taken place in the Conservative party and in the make-up of its Members of Parliament.

I want to mention two characteristics relating to the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis). The first was that his speech referred to the all-important topic of shoes, although I was disappointed that my hon. Friend talked about the shoes of my right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary. My hon. Friend also has the distinction of being the only person to present me with a bouquet of flowers after I made one of those tours to visit organisations in the constituency before the election. He has indeed started well in this place.

I shall try to cover as much ground as I can, but I will not be able to mention every point that has been made in this important debate. It is the first time I have wound up a debate opened by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg). A few weeks ago, I sat at the Cabinet table with him for the first time and then held my first meeting with him.

Coalition Government has brought many first-time experiences for us all, but nowhere is the coalition stronger than in the field of home affairs. After the years of encroachment on our freedoms, we will restore our civil liberties. After the years of trying to run the police from Whitehall, we will free the police and empower the communities they serve. After the years of allowing immigration to soar out of control, we will bring it back to the reasonable levels of the 1990s.

We have before us a unique opportunity to work together to make Britain a brighter, safer and fairer place for all. The spirit of the coalition can be found running through the legislation that we seek to pass—a spirit of freedom, fairness and responsibility. Those themes are particularly prevalent in the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office. The programme that we have announced will manage the delicate balance of protecting our citizens’ safety and liberty.

Before I comment on the legislative programme, let me make this commitment: the Government will never compromise the security of the British people, and we will protect our civil liberties. Where they have been lost, we will fight to restore them, and we will fiercely preserve those that already exist. That was interestingly summed up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who said that the new politics is ushering in ancient rights—it is indeed—and we will review legislation on a number of counter-terrorism measures, including on control orders, to which he specifically referred in his speech.

[Keith Vaz]

I welcome the Home Secretary to the Dispatch Box. One of her first decisions was to announce a review of the case of Gary McKinnon, a constituent of the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes). That decision is welcome. Does she have a timetable for when she thinks that she will conclude her review of that case?

[Mrs May]

I am not able to give the right hon. Gentleman a timetable at the moment. Indeed, I took a decision that we would agree to an adjournment of the judicial review that was due to take place towards the end of May. I was asked whether I would do that and received further representations from Mr McKinnon’s legal representatives. I am waiting for those further representations to be received.

Debate on the Address

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Redwood]

I entirely agree. I have in the past been actively involved in British industry, and 3% per annum efficiency gains is a normal target. It is not done by undermining the product, reducing its quality or providing the customer with a worse service: it is done while giving customers a better service and raising the quality of the product, through technology, training and energising and motivating the work force through reward and incentive. We need to do that in the public sector now, on a large scale, because we have had 10 wasted years in which the Government made no progress and put too much money in without asking for enough back—doing too little for too much. We now need to create a public sector that does more for less in the important areas such as health and education, and does less for less in areas such as ID cards and the authoritarian state that Labour introduced.

We are meeting at a time of grave crisis for our European neighbours in the euro area. As one who campaigned strenuously and volubly against the United Kingdom joining the euro, I take no great pleasure in saying that all the things that we thought could go wrong with the euro are now unfortunately doing so, even without this country. I am very proud of all those who joined us in that campaign and kept sterling out. It is the one thing that the Government most recently ejected from office got right—they managed to stay out of the euro. That was a very sensible judgment on which I always congratulated them and backed them at the time. Had Britain gone into the euro, the state of British public finances and the different nature of the British economy and its founder currency, sterling, would by now have shattered the euro. Our great contribution to euroland unity was keeping our currency out, and I think that I could now find many German and French people and experts who would agree that we have made their problem a lot easier by not being in the euro.

When we used to say, “Beware of Greece! That is why we need to control our deficit”, the previous Government were always keen to tell us, “Oh, but Greece is in a totally different position.” Well they were wrong in this sense: if we do the figures properly, we see that total borrowing in Greece, in relation to its economy, is no bigger than total borrowing by the UK Government in relation to our economy. Colleagues have set out endlessly that the true debt and liability of the state in Britain is £3 trillion, not just under £1 trillion, as the previous Government used to say. Furthermore, our deficit is every bit as big as Greece’s, as we know from the awful figures that we have seen. So in that sense, we are just like Greece, and if the markets have got to the point with Greece where they are saying, “We will not carry on lending you money, because we think that you have over-borrowed”, we could get to that point in the United Kingdom too. It is that argument that has brought several Liberal Democrats round to our way of thinking, which is that we need urgent action. During the election we saw the Greek crisis being enacted at the same time as we were talking to electors, making it clear how dangerous the situation was.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Of course, the right hon. Gentleman has held these views for as long as I have been in the House, but the Prime Minister made it clear, after he met Chancellor Merkel, that it is in this country’s interests that the euro succeeds. It might well be that we do not join in the next five years, but we want it to succeed. Does he agree?

[Mr Redwood]

Of course, and I said that it came as no pleasure to me to say that unfortunately what we saw as the failings of the euro are now coming true. I was going to deal with the right hon. Gentleman’s point: it is in Britain’s interest to try to tackle the problems with our eurozone friends in a way that does not penalise this country. They are, of course, an important trading bloc in the world and an important market for ourselves.

I would like to finish my earlier point, however. There is a very important difference between the United Kingdom and Greece: whereas when Greece needs to borrow a lot of money, it cannot print the money to do so, and whereas when Greece wants, or has, to repay the money, it cannot devalue the currency to do so, the United Kingdom can do, and has done, both on a heroic scale. The reason we have not yet got into the Greek situation is that the whole of last year’s massive borrowing requirement was simply printed. The money was printed and injected through the banks into the public sector, so that we avoided the market pressures that Greece experienced. Greece could not do that because she shares a currency managed by the European Central Bank. The previous Government presided over a devaluation of the currency of about a quarter, so, although we will obviously not renege on our debts, the previous Government reneged on them by the back door, saying to all the foreign holders of those debts, “You will only get back three quarters of your money or interest.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood). He was elected on the very same day I was elected to this place and I think that he is sitting in almost the same place from which he delivered his maiden speech; I am certainly sitting in the same place as when I first arrived here in 1987. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman has not delivered the same speech that he gave on the earlier occasion. He referred to johnredwood.com, and we are all going to go out there and log on. When we were first elected, computers were not even around, so this marks a big advance for us.

Mr Speaker, you reprimanded Members who congratulated you on the previous occasion you were elected Speaker, but I want to join others in congratulating you on your re-election. In the months you have been Speaker, you have not only shown your command in this House, but you have gained the enormous respect that we all have for you and your work—hence your re-election without anyone against you. Congratulations.

I would also like to congratulate the hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) on making his first speech as leader of the Democratic Unionist party. We were at the same university but not at the same time, so I do not know what his reputation was, but I know that he will lead his party with great distinction. In debates in which I have participated with him, he has certainly shown an independent state of mind—not always supporting the Government and not always supporting the Opposition. Sitting next to him, of course, is the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley). When I first sat in my place here 23 years ago, I was sitting near his father. One tends to wonder whether one has sat here for too long when the sons get elected to replace their fathers.

What has been impressive about this election is the way in which the House of Commons has changed. When I was first elected, there were four Members from the ethnic minority communities representing the Labour party. As I look across the Chamber, I see one that has become more representative of the country, which I think is a tribute to the work of all the parties and, indeed, of Parliament, in trying to ensure that we get more women and ethnic minority people elected to the British Parliament. I am sure that they will all make their contributions in their own way, representing all their constituents to the best of their ability. I want to congratulate all new Members on their election.

It would be churlish to speak in the debate on the Loyal Address without congratulating Ministers. I know that they have not all rushed in to hear my speech, but I am sure that those present on the Treasury Bench will pass on our good wishes about the election of those Ministers.

This is, of course, an important time in British politics. We have never had a coalition Government while I have been a Member of Parliament; indeed, as we were reminded by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), there has not been one for 70 years. However, I think that right hon. and hon. Members opposite should stop apologising for, or explaining, the coalition. The right hon. Member for Wokingham kept explaining why it was necessary, but the fact is that no party had an absolute majority in the House of Commons, and if we want stable government, we must have a coalition.

We will of course do our best to support coalition policies when they are in the best interests of the country, but when we feel that they are wrong, we will challenge them. As the Leader of the Opposition said today, that would be done by any good and effective Opposition. I think that we should put the explanations to one side, and that the coalition should get on with being the coalition, governing the country and putting before the House proposals that we will scrutinise.

I know that many other Members wish to take part in this debate so I shall raise just four issues, the first of which concerns home affairs. I had the privilege of chairing the Home Affairs Committee for three years during the last Parliament and I found it interesting that the Government adopted a number of the Committee’s recommendations at the very end of the Session, including the creation of a national security council. We proposed that the various strands advising Ministers on national security should be combined in a single body—not quite the “situation room” of “The West Wing”, but a body that the Prime Minister could consult in order to obtain effective and important advice about the security of the nation. I am pleased that the Government accepted those recommendations.

I am also pleased that the Home Secretary has decided to review the case of Gary McKinnon. I see that the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) is sitting in his place—or, rather, not in his place, which was formerly on this side of the House, but almost directly opposite it. I pay tribute to him for the amazing work that he did on behalf of his constituent. I believe that the fact that Gary McKinnon is still here is due to the hon. Gentleman’s work as a constituency Member, which should serve as a model for any Member who might take up an issue of this kind. He was able to bring the attention of the House and the country to Gary McKinnon’s plight.

As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Select Committee resolved unanimously that Gary McKinnon should not be extradited to the United States of America, but should be tried in this country. Although we heard some comments from members of the Government this morning about the progress of the review, I am happy to leave it to the Home Secretary to examine the evidence that we urged the former Home Secretary to examine, and to arrive at the right conclusion: that Gary McKinnon should be allowed to stay and face trial in this country. That is the right thing for him to do if the prosecuting authorities believe that he should do it.

The Government have accepted other proposals in our reports, including our very last report, which dealt with the detention of children in immigration cases. We felt that that was wrong, and I am glad that the Government have accepted our view.

Now for the bad news, however. I think that we have some problems with the Government’s policing proposals. Of course it is up to any Government taking office to decide their priorities, but I would recommend caution over policing budgets. I know that it was suggested in the statement made yesterday by the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that £376 million could be found from the home affairs budget specifically for policing matters, but I do not believe that many police authorities in the country are wasting money on front-line policing.

I think that this will be an issue for every single Member of the House. As the cuts proceed and the bills are sent to local police authorities, we will see the impact on local policing. It has always been true that we should protect front-line services. Of course the invention of police community support officers has been extremely important, because they provide back-up for front-line officers, and of course it is possible to make savings on administration and red tape. That was another of the Select Committee’s recommendations.

In our report “Policing in the 21st century”, we spoke of the need to use good practice and to share it around the country. For example, Staffordshire has reduced the number of forms to be filled in from 24 to one. As a result, more police time has been released. Another of our recommendations, which the previous Government had started to implement, was that every single police officer should have a hand-held computer, an effective way of dealing with crime at the scene of a crime. If that new technology is to be put at risk because of the proposals to cut police budgets, we ought to be concerned; not necessarily in a party-political way, but in a way that is above party politics. At the end of the day, what our constituents want and need more than anything else is the ability to pick up a phone when a crime has been committed and to ensure that a police officer comes as soon as possible so that they are able to report the crime.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that what constituents want—they certainly said this to me during the election—is more police officers on the beat and fewer in police stations drowning in bureaucracy?

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman has made this point before. As a small business man, he was concerned about policing in his constituency. It is also, of course, natural constituency work. People want visibility and if they do not see a police officer, they get worried. When we consider police budgets and re-organisation, we must make sure that we protect those front-line services.

We also ought to be very careful about electing commissioners and chief constables. I am all in favour of a review of the police committees. Most police committees are not absolutely accountable to local people, most of whom do not know who sits on their police committees. Similarly, very few people know who the executive directors of primary care trusts are, despite the fact that they dispense a huge amount of NHS money locally. I am all for more accountability and am happy to look at proposals that would allow certain numbers of people to be elected on to police committees, but we should not take away the operational responsibilities of police officers and the priorities of local policing from police officers and place them in the hands of people who do not necessarily have the experience to do their work.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

For a man of his experience and expertise, I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman morphed the election of police commissioners with the election of police chief constables. No one is suggesting the election of chief constables. We are talking about addressing the very point that the right hon. Gentleman rightly makes, which is that there is no accountability. When we knock on the doors of our constituents, we find that they are frustrated that the local police force has not been focused on local needs and wants but on what I call cricked-neck policing, looking always to the Home Office for leadership. The elected police commissioner, working with the unelected chief constable, will provide the accountability and clarity to local people who have suffered from frustration for too long.

[Keith Vaz]

I am very pleased to hear that reassurance from the hon. Gentleman, who knows his party’s policy better than I do. I am glad that there is no proposal to elect chief constables, but we must look at the democratic deficit to see how it can be filled effectively, leaving operational matters to local people. [Interruption.] A former Police Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), has just come in, no doubt to check on what I am saying about him. I have said nice things, I can assure him.

On identity cards, there has always been concern—my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), a member of the Committee in the last Parliament, was always very strong on this subject, as was the Committee as a whole for a number of years, certainly before I took over the Chair—that they would not deal with the issues that the previous Government had in mind. The Government believe that identity cards should be abolished but they have been introduced and apply to foreign nationals. We need to look at the practical implications of that. What do those people do? Do they have to give back their identity cards, or will we keep them specifically for those who are not resident in this country? We need to look at the detail.

The Select Committee also expressed concern that the DNA of innocent people was being kept on the DNA database. It is the largest DNA database in Europe, and there was great concern about people being able to get their DNA off it, including Members of this House whose DNA was taken from them, especially the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands). He conducted a three-year campaign to try to get his DNA off the database, only finally to be told it was never on it in the first place. If we had a more effective way of dealing with such situations, we would not have had the problems we ended up with. I will support the Government on the database scheme because that is precisely what the Select Committee said when we last conducted an inquiry into the subject.

I am worried that the proposed cuts to the health budget will remove some of the emphasis our Government placed on health, and especially preventive health care, over the past 13 years. I only discovered that I had diabetes five years ago, when by chance I went to my local GP at a time when a drugs company had been asked to conduct a pilot involving a new diabetes drug. I just went along to our local health centre to launch this scheme, as most of us would do. I was telephoned the next day to be told I was on the front page of the Leicester Mercury opening the pilot study, and then I was phoned by my GP to be told that the bad news was that I had type 2 diabetes.

The issue here is that the more money we spend on preventive work and testing people for diabetes, making sure their cholesterol is under control, the less we as a country will have to spend. At present, £1 million an hour is spent on diabetes-related care. At present, too, 500,000 people have diabetes without knowing that—including some Members of this House, to repeat a point I have made before—and if we direct that £1 million at testing the population for diabetes, that will save us a lot of money in the future, and lengthen people’s lives. If people have diabetes without knowing that, that can knock at least five years off their life.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I want to pick the right hon. Gentleman up on a different point, if I may. He talked about health spending cuts, but we on the Government Benches were elected on a platform of real-terms increases in health spending, so when he talk about cuts, that is not strictly accurate.

[Keith Vaz]

I am very pleased to hear that, and when the Health Secretary comes before the House, I hope the hon. Gentleman will join me in pressing him for more money, not the same amount, to be spent on preventive work—I have already lobbied the Secretary of State on that in the Tea Room. If we prevent illnesses, we spend much less in the long term and we save lives.

Let me make two final points. First, on banking reform, I think we all got the message during the election about the need to be pretty beastly to the bankers. My concern is the Government’s proposal to hand regulation back to the Bank of England. A number of Members were first elected to Parliament at about the same time as me. I know that the Conservative Chief Whip was elected the year before, and my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell) was here before anyone present in this Chamber now, although he does not look as if that is the case; he still looks as young and spry as when he was first elected to the House.

One of the campaigns I took up was to do with Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the sixth largest private bank in the world, which suddenly closed because the then Government were not prepared to accept the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi’s cheque for $6 billion to keep that bank open—even though, of course, we kept Northern Rock open recently and gave a lot of public money to a number of other banks. The liquidation of BCCI is still going on. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) will remember that when he was a Trade and Industry Minister, I had a very good meeting with him at which we discussed what we were going to do about the liquidation. It may surprise him to know that this liquidation, which started on 5 January 1991, is still going on after all these years, with millions and millions of pounds going on liquidators’ fees. What might the sums involved have been if we had kept the bank open? It was the Bank of England that allowed BCCI to continue to trade, which is why I think handing regulation back to the Bank of England will be a problem. We have the Financial Services Authority, which began because of BCCI and the recommendations of the Bingham inquiry, so we should make sure that we are careful about moving around the regulatory system.

I know that we are to have a debate on Europe next week, and I look forward to taking part if I catch your eye, Mr Speaker. It is important to clarify exactly where we stand on the European Union, especially as we have a Government who appear to be going in two different directions with their manifestos—although perhaps not with the coalition document. I have no problems with a referendum whenever there is a treaty that means that powers will be ceded from the UK. If we accept the Prime Minister at his word—we ought to, because he has been in office for only two and a half weeks—he will never agree to anything that means that powers will be taken from Westminster to Brussels, so we shall not have a referendum over the next five years. However, I am keen on the Liberal Democrat proposal, which I supported, that we should have a referendum on whether we should stay in the EU. I hope we can explore some of those issues in the debate on Europe next week.

My final point is about something in the Queen’s Speech that has not yet been explained. The sovereign—on the recommendation of the Prime Minister—talked about an enhanced relationship with India. I warmly welcome that. We should have the strongest possible relations with India. When I was Minister for Europe, the European Union began the EU-India summit meetings, but we have not given India sufficient attention. We should do so not just because of the 2.5 million people of Indian origin who live in the UK—some of them in my constituency—but because it makes good economic sense for us to do business with India and to have a strong and firm relationship.

The Attorney-General is on the Treasury Bench. He will know that the Indian diaspora has moved from places in south London such as Southall to Beaconsfield. If he looks at his diary, I think he will find that most of the parties he attended to celebrate his election were organised by the Indian community in Beaconsfield.

[The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)]

The right hon. Gentleman is undoubtedly correct. Evenings of bhangra dancing and hospitality are well worth enjoying. I think he already knows that the Gerrards Cross south ward in my constituency—the wealthiest ward in the UK—is about 20% Asian.

[Keith Vaz]

I do know that. I have all the statistics and I know how much people in Gerrards Cross love the hon. and learned Gentleman. I am sure that now he is the Attorney-General, they will use his services well.

We must keep our relationship with India going. When the Prime Minister visits India on 2 October, he should take the advice Members gave previous Prime Ministers and make sure that he involves the Indian diaspora. Let us have firm, strong relationships with that very important country.

On that note, I end my speech. I wish the Government well in getting their legislation through.