Stop-and-Search

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. That is precisely one of the problems. When stop-and-search is misused, it leads to a lack of confidence between the police and the public. If the police are willing to work with local communities to target the use of stop-and-search much more clearly and to inform them about why they are using it and what is happening as a result of having used it, we will see precisely the confidence my hon. Friend talks about.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and endorse her plan of action, which is in keeping with a number of the recommendations of the Home Affairs Committee. She is right to single out the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who has made a huge difference to the way in which this has been accepted and adopted.

Two things, however, trouble me. First, did the police give a reason in the responses to the consultation as to why this disproportionality existed in the stopping and searching of black and Asian individuals? We have known about it the whole time we have been in Parliament—the Home Secretary is not saying anything new—but did the police advance a reason as to why it was happening? Secondly, I endorse what the Home Secretary said about getting a voluntary arrangement, but if it does not work, what is the timetable for legislation?

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his tone and the approach he has taken to this matter. Once again, he has taken a very responsible approach, in contrast to that taken by those on his party’s Front Bench. The consultation responses have been placed in the Library. I think I am right in saying that it did not specifically ask the police that particular question, so it does not appear in the responses. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware of some of the issues that the police have raised previously, including in relation to when the EHRC cases were raised.

I am not able to give the right hon. Gentleman a timetable at the moment. He will appreciate that as we approach the last Session of this Parliament, it is harder to give timetables on such matters, but I am clear that if the voluntary code does not work we will introduce primary legislation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point about the procurement process. We have done two things in the Home Office: first, we have looked to make absolutely sure that we have identified the right technology that is necessary; and secondly, we have changed the approach we take to procurement to move away from the mega-monolithic contracts that tended to be entered into by the previous Government so as to be able to parcel the contracts up into smaller packages that mean we are more flexible and that a greater range of companies is able to bid for those contracts.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is right: the process has been slow. The e-borders programme has been a disaster costing the taxpayer millions of pounds, with four years of unresolved negotiations with the original providers. In his evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, Sir Charles Montgomery said that 5 million people leave this country without providing advance passenger information. How many of the 14 core services that were due to be provided by e-borders will be provided by the end of this Parliament?

Justice and Home Affairs Opt-out

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is very unusual for three Committees of the House to agree on every single word of a joint report, which is what we did. The point that the three Committees made—the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee is here and he can make his own points on this—was that it was important for Parliament to deliberate on this matter before the package was put in place, rather than afterwards, which would give Parliament very little time for proper discussion. That is why we felt that it was important to deal with this matter at the earliest opportunity. We are grateful to the Home Secretary for giving us this time.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee for setting out the reason behind the joint report from the three Committees. I will go on to explain exactly where we are in the process. He talks about the package coming before the House before it is adopted. We have made it very clear that there will be another opportunity for Parliament to debate the matter and vote on it.

I should remind the House of the background and the stage in proceedings we have reached. Under the terms of the Lisbon treaty, which the Labour Government signed in 2007, the UK had a specific and limited period of time to opt out of roughly 130 justice and home affairs measures covered by the treaty. That opt-out—Labour negotiated it, but never made it clear whether it would use it—had to be exercised en bloc, and before 31 May this year. Last July, the Government informed the House that we intended to exercise the UK’s opt-out. After debates in both Houses, Parliament voted for us to do so.

Accordingly, on 24 July 2013, the Prime Minister wrote to the then President of the Council of Ministers, informing her that the UK had exercised its right to opt-out from all pre-Lisbon police and criminal justice measures. That decision is irreversible, and will come into effect on 1 December 2014.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

The Government will not bring forward legislation to the House on this matter, because that is not necessary. We will put before the House a package of measures that, following discussions with the European Commission, we believe we should be rejoining.

We responded to the Select Committees when they submitted their reports. I am sure that their work will inform the speeches we will hear in today’s debate.

I said that I would indicate what progress we had made in the negotiations. Everybody will of course understand that the nature of a negotiation is such that it is a poor negotiating strategy to reveal one’s hand in public while a deal is still being done. Detailed and constructive discussions are taking place with the European Commission and other member states. There are a great many processes and technical matters to discuss, but we are all keen to avoid the operational gap for our law enforcement agencies that will ensue if we have not settled the matter before 1 December, when, as I indicated earlier, the UK’s opt-out takes full effect. Our aim is therefore to reach an “in principle” deal well ahead of that date, and, as I have already indicated, to return to Parliament for a further vote before formally seeking to rejoin measures in the national interest.

[Keith Vaz]

I am most grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way a second time. Has she seen reference made to a note by the Greek presidency that was published by Statewatch—it was leaked; it was not published by the presidency—that the United Kingdom needs to have its re-opting list agreed by June 2014; in other words, before the parliamentary recess? Has she seen that note and is that the case? Do we have to get all our priorities ready by then?

[Mrs May]

I am aware of a number of reports in the press in relation to documents that, it is claimed, have been leaked as part of the discussions that have been taking place. The timetable I have set out is very clear. On 1 December, having exercised the opt-out, we will no longer be part of any of the roughly 130 measures covered by the opt-out protocol. If, before that date, we have not negotiated the package, had the parliamentary debate and vote, and been able to agree the formal terms for returning to those measures that we choose to opt back into, then we will be out of those measures. It is that date that sets an end-point for us on when we want to be able to ensure we can opt back in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

Unfortunately, the right hon. Gentleman wants us to sign huge numbers of different extradition treaties when the extradition treaties and arrangements we had before the European arrest warrant took years. I do not think that that is fair on the victims of crime who want to see justice done.

[Keith Vaz]

On the European arrest warrant, is there not also an obligation on member states to consider their own legislation and ensure that they are not issuing such warrants for trivial matters? Poland, for example, issued 3,809 European arrest warrants, clogging up our courts. That is where we should be negotiating to ensure that member states also understand their responsibilities.

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. We have said that we should argue within Europe for reforms to the way in which the European arrest warrant system works to make sure that it is properly proportionate. We must recognise that this is partly about the people we want to return to this country so that they can stand trial here. It is also about our not harbouring criminals from abroad who have come here and who should go back to their home country to stand trial. He is right that the system needs to work effectively, which means having that debate in Europe with other European countries about the reforms that we hope they will make. There has been considerable interest from many other countries in making such reforms. We need assurances from Ministers that we will have guarantees that we can immediately opt back into the European arrest warrant and important measures on 1 December, when the opt-out is given legal effect, and we want to know whether other member states have agreed to the plan.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash). I thank the Government for allowing us the opportunity to have this debate today, and I thank the Home Secretary for the way in which she began the process of constructing a dialogue with Parliament. The Chairs of the three Select Committees—myself, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee—met the Home Secretary when the process began, and we agreed what I thought was a timetable to enable Parliament to express its views on these important matters.

Both Parliament and the Government stuck to that timetable. The Home Secretary wanted parliamentary scrutiny through the Select Committees by the end of October. We did our best to ensure that our reports were agreed by then, and we presented our reports to the Government with the expectation—although I accept that there was no promise—that Parliament would be able to vote on the measures before the Government began their negotiations. The Home Secretary has strongly expressed her feeling that Parliament needs to vote on something. In other words, let her get on with the negotiations, let us see where we go, let us look at the direction of travel and, once the package is ready, Members may determine whether they support it.

The personalities of the three Select Committees, not just their members but their Chairs, are quite different. They are not people we can get together and expect agreement from on every word of every report, but all three Committees, and all three Chairs, agreed unanimously that Parliament should not only debate the matter but vote on it.

Only the usual suspects are here today, with the exception of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), who has taken time off from preparing for the London marathon next week to attend this marathon session. I suspect that if there was a vote at the end of these proceedings, we would have had a much better attendance and Members on both sides of the House would have come forward to express their views.

The Government have said that the three Select Committees have deliberated and produced reports. The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) tabled 125 questions, so he ranks alongside the Select Committees as far as scrutiny is concerned. That is probably enough to enable the Government to know the direction of travel and to complete the negotiations, but I do not think it is enough, and neither does the Home Affairs Committee. We feel that a vote today would have been the best way to give the Home Secretary the mandate that she needs to go to the Council of Ministers and to other European Justice and Home Affairs meetings to discuss the measures that she does or does not want to opt into. I am sure she is a very strong negotiator. She is before the Home Affairs Committee tomorrow, and I am sure she will put up a robust performance, as she always does, but she would have given an even better performance before the Council of Ministers and her various European colleagues if she had had the backing of the whole House.

I was concerned to read the note that was recently issued by the current presidency of the Council of Ministers, to which I referred in my intervention on the Home Secretary. Statewatch has published what it says is a note from Greece, which currently holds the presidency:

“Due to national procedures with the UK Parliament, the Presidency is of the understanding that the UK Government would need to finalise its position on the re-opting list by June 2014, so that these national internal procedures can take place before the UK parliament’s summer recess. Therefore, it would be appropriate that the list of acts which will be subject to re-opting in be ‘politically’ agreed by June.”

Of course, that is not a note from the Cabinet or a leak from the Home Office. It comes, apparently, from the presidency. Perhaps there is a misunderstanding about the way in which we work. The Home Secretary has said today that she will get her list ready by December and that Parliament will then have an opportunity to vote. Given that Parliament is not usually given a great deal of time to deliberate such matters, I imagine that once the measures have been agreed, there will not be a huge amount of notice before Members come to the House and vote on these issues.

The Minister for Europe, in a written ministerial statement on 20 January, said:

“I hope that today I have conveyed to the House not only the Government’s full commitment to holding a vote on the 2014 decision in this House and the other place,”—

that has been re-emphasised by the Home Secretary today—

“but the importance that we will accord to Parliament in the process leading up to that vote.”

If there was a need to know the view of Parliament, it is contained in the joint report. The three Committees decided that the best course of action would be to have a good debate on the Floor and for individual Members to decide, in their own way, what they wished to vote on. I am quite certain that when this matter comes before the House, I will vote in a different way from some members of the Home Affairs Committee, because we have not taken a view on every single measure. One point that we have put before the House is that we think it vital, even if the Government decide to put the whole package before the House, that we have a vote on the European arrest warrant.

I do not believe that we have got it right with the changes to the European arrest warrant that the Home Secretary has announced. I support the European arrest warrant. I think, for the reasons given by both Front Benchers, that it is a vital tool when dealing with people who have committed terrible crimes. The Home Secretary mentioned one case in which somebody had stabbed someone 86 times. Of course it is right that we have a quick power that enables us to ask a colleague in the European Union to hand over someone who is suspected of committing a crime of that seriousness, and that that person should arrive as soon as possible. The shadow Home Secretary is absolutely right to support the European arrest warrant.

However, time and again Members of this House have raised worries, including in evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, that the European arrest warrant has not been used very well in a number of cases. The hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) has spoken about the Andrew Symeou case. The Select Committee heard evidence from the constituent of the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), Michael Turner, who was extradited to Hungary and incarcerated for month after month, but never faced any charges. We were therefore very concerned about the practicalities of what was proposed.

The Home Secretary said in her evidence to the Home Affairs Committee that she felt that she had made the changes that were necessary to deal with the concerns of Members of this House through the proportionality test. However, the evidence given by a number of individuals, some of whom were from Germany, indicated that that was not enough to protect a citizen who was the subject of a European arrest warrant that was issued for frivolous reasons.

[Mr Redwood]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the work that he is doing. Like him, I think that it is fundamental that the House has a vote on the European arrest warrant. It is a very flawed device. My big worry is that it is this House that must be the fount of our liberties and our criminal justice, not a foreign court.

[Keith Vaz]

That is a very important point. We need to be able to debate these issues and vote on them. The European arrest warrant is one such example.

The Government estimate that the unit cost of executing an incoming European arrest warrant in the United Kingdom is approximately £20,000. If we round up the 999 requests that were received in 2011, the estimated cost was £20 million. Some of the figures are extraordinary. Poland issued 3,809 arrest warrants. I had promised not to mention the arrest warrant issued for the man accused of stealing a wheelbarrow but cannot resist. Another example was a warrant for a man who absconded from a Polish prison while on day release. There was another warrant for someone alleged to have been involved in a minor drug offence. Another man subject to a warrant had given false details on an application for a £200 bank loan that, in fact, had already been paid off. They were all the subject of a European arrest warrant—there were 3,809 arrest warrants from Poland alone.

The number of surrenders from all countries to those 3,809 arrest warrants was 930. The UK issued 205 arrest warrants—we have a better surrenders record at 99. Germany issued 2,138 arrest warrants and had 855 surrenders. The total number of European arrest warrants received by member states is higher. Germany received 14,034 requests under the European arrest warrant scheme, the UK received 6,760, and Poland received only 296.

I travelled to Poland and met officials. I asked prosecutors why Poland kept issuing European arrest warrants for crimes that would not be regarded as very serious in our country—we would certainly not issue the EAW for such crimes. The prosecutors were very open, saying that issuing warrants was required by the law. If a judge issues a European arrest warrant in Poland, the Polish police are obliged to execute it, telephone the authorities in the UK, Germany or another country, and ensure that the warrants are executed. They were looking at ways in which they could limit the issuing of warrants. A much better use of the Home Secretary’s time would be to negotiate with some of those countries and tell them that they would make their cause much easier for us to follow, and make the European arrest warrant easier for us to defend, if they did something about their domestic law, as we have done. I am saying not that we are a model, but that we are doing extremely well in using the arrest warrants only for the most serious cases—those that the Home Secretary and shadow Home Secretary have described.

I would have liked the opportunity to vote on the Europol regulations. As the House knows, 3,600 internationally active organised crime gangs operate in Europe. We need Europol. We have a British head of Europol— Rob Wainwright. He was re-appointed by the Home Secretary and appointed by the previous Government. Mr Wainwright does an excellent job. We need to be in Europol and need to opt back in to that arrangement. That would enable us to be part of trying to deal with those very serious issues occurring all over Europe.

There are other examples, such as the measures dealing with the criminal records information system. We need to share such information but cannot at the moment because of the issues we are discussing. Members of the House would have liked the opportunity to discuss those matters and vote on them.

Although we will not be allowed a vote in the House tonight, I hope the Home Secretary will look again at the reports of the three Select Committees and allow hon. Members a vote as soon as possible. I hope that, when she winds up the debate, she will tell us whether the timetable set by the presidency is the right one—should we make our decisions politically by June, before the recess, and vote on them in December?—because that will give the House a clearer view as to how to proceed.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

I beg to move,

That the Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 31 March, be approved.

The Government are determined to do all they can to minimise the threat from terrorism to the UK and our interests abroad. In addition, it is important that we demonstrate our support for other members of the international community in their efforts to tackle terrorism wherever it occurs. Proscription is an important part of the Government’s strategy to tackle terrorist activities. We propose to add Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which is also known as Ansar Jerusalem, Al Murabitun and Ansar al Sharia-Tunisia to the list of international terrorist organisations, amending schedule 2 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This is the 14th proscription order under that Act.

Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000 provides a power for the Home Secretary to proscribe an organisation if she believes it is currently concerned in terrorism. The Act specifies that an organisation is concerned in terrorism if it commits or participates in acts of terrorism, prepares for terrorism, promotes or encourages terrorism, including the glorification of terrorism, or is otherwise concerned in terrorism. If the test is met, the Home Secretary may then exercise her discretion to proscribe the organisation.

In considering whether to exercise this discretion, the Home Secretary takes into account a number of factors. These are the nature and scale of an organisation’s activities; the specific threat that it poses to the United Kingdom; the specific threat that it poses to British nationals overseas; the organisation’s presence in the UK; and the need to support other members of the international community in tackling terrorism. Proscription is a tough but necessary power. Its effect is that a listed organisation is outlawed and is unable to operate in the UK. It is a criminal offence for a person to belong to a proscribed organisation, invite support for a proscribed organisation, arrange a meeting in support of a proscribed organisation, or wear clothing or carry articles in public which arouse reasonable suspicion that an individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation. Given the wide-ranging impact of proscription, the Home Secretary exercises her power to proscribe only after a thorough review of the available relevant information and evidence on the organisation.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

When we proscribe an organisation that has links to other countries—the first two the Minister mentioned have links to Egypt; the second two have links to Tunisia—do we consult those countries before placing an order before the House? I support what the Minister is doing today, but I just want to be clear about the process. Did we tell those countries that the orders were on their way?

[James Brokenshire]

The orders are made after careful consideration, part of which involves input and consideration from the Foreign Office. That might or might not include co-operation or contact with individual Governments or authorities. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that such broad consideration is always given to these orders, in the light of the factors that I have identified, including the impact that they could have here in the UK and on British citizens overseas. There is a need to send out a clear message in relation to a number of these terrorist organisations.

I shall expand a little on the steps that are being undertaken. They include research into and investigation of open-source material, intelligence material and advice that reflects consultation across the government, including with the intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The Home Secretary is supported in her decision-making process by the cross-Whitehall proscription review group. The decision to proscribe is taken with great care by the Home Secretary, and it is right that the case for proscribing new organisations must be approved by both Houses. Having carefully considered all the evidence, the Home Secretary believes that ABM, Al Murabitun and Ansar al Sharia-Tunisia are currently concerned in terrorism. Hon. Members will appreciate that I am unable to comment on specific intelligence, but it might help the House if I provide a brief summary of their activities.

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis—ABM—is an al-Qaeda-inspired militant Islamist group based in the northern Sinai region of Egypt. The group is said to recruit within Egypt and abroad, and it aims to create an Egyptian state ruled by sharia law. ABM is assessed to have been responsible for a number of attacks on security forces in Egypt since 2011. The attacks appear to have increased since the overthrow of the Morsi Government in July 2013. The group’s reach goes beyond the Sinai region, in that it claims responsibility for a number of attacks in Cairo as well as cross-border attacks against Israel.

ABM has undertaken attacks using vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices and surface-to-air missiles. I shall give the House some examples of attacks for which the group has claimed responsibility. They include an attack on the Egyptian Interior Minister in September 2013 in which a UK national was seriously injured; an attack on a police compound in Mansoura on 24 December 2013 that killed at least 16 people, including 14 police officers; an attack on an Egyptian police helicopter in the northern Sinai on 25 January 2014; the assassination of General Mohammed Saeed, an official in the interior ministry, on 28 January 2014; and an attack on a tourist bus in which three South Koreans and their Egyptian driver died on 16 January 2014.

The second group, Al Murabitun, resulted from a merger of two al-Qaeda in the Maghreb splinter groups that are active in Mali and Algeria: the Movement for the Unity and Jihad in West Africa, and Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s group, the Al Mulathamine Battalion, which included the commando element known as “Those Who Sign in Blood”. The merger was announced in a public statement in August 2013. The group aspires to unite Muslims from the Nile to the Atlantic, and has affirmed its loyalty to the al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the emir of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Omar. Al Murabitun’s first statement threatened France and its allies in the region, and called on Muslims to target French interests everywhere.

Belmokhtar has announced that he will not continue to lead the group to allow a new generation of jihadist leaders to come to the fore. Reports indicate that the new commander has fought against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and against the international intervention in Afghanistan in the 2000s. Although the group has not claimed responsibility for any terrorist attacks since the merger, both precursor groups participated in a number of terrorist attacks and kidnapping for ransom in the past 13 months. Belmokhtar’s group was responsible for the attack against the In Amenas gas facility in January 2013 that resulted in the death of more than 30 people, including Britons. In May 2013, the two groups targeted a military barracks in Agadez in Niger and a uranium mine in Arlit which supplies French nuclear reactors. The suicide attack in Agadez resulted in the deaths of at least 20 people. Shortly after the attacks, Belmokhtar indicated that they had been carried out as a form of revenge for the death of Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, an al-Qaeda in the Maghreb commander who was killed by French forces in northern Mali earlier in 2013. Despite previously separating themselves from al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, citing leadership issues and the desire to expand their control, both precursor groups continued to co-operate and fight alongside AQM fighters in Mali and other regions of west Africa—that activity has continued since the merger.

The Sahel region continues to see high threats of kidnap and terrorist attacks, which were further heightened following the French military intervention in Mali. Hostages are currently held in the Sahel and surrounding regions, which includes Algeria, Cameroon, Libya and Nigeria. The Canadians designated Belmokhtar’s group in November 2013 and the US designated it in December 2013, specifying Al Murabitun as an alias.

The third group, Ansar al Sharia-Tunisia—AAS-T—is a radical Islamist group founded in April 2011. The group aims to establish sharia law in Tunisia and eliminate western influence. Between 5,000 and 10,000 individuals may be attracted to rallies organised by the movement. The group is ideologically aligned to al-Qaeda and has links to al-Qaeda-affiliated groups. It is reported that the group announced its loyalty to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in September 2013.

AAS-T’s leader, Seif Allah Ibn Hussein, also known as Abu Ayadh al-Tunis, is a former al-Qaeda veteran combatant in Afghanistan. He has been hiding following the issue of a warrant for his arrest in relation to the allegation that he incited the attack on the US embassy in Tunis that killed four people in September 2012. Salafists believed to have links with AAS-T are assessed to be responsible for the attacks in October 2011 on a television station and the attack in June 2012 on an art exhibit. AAS-T is assessed to be responsible for the attacks on the US embassy and American school in Tunis in September 2012. The Tunisian Government believe AAS-T was responsible for the assassinations of two national coalition Assembly Members, those of Chokri Belaid in February 2013 and Mohamed Brahmi in July 2013. Additionally, elements of the group are believed to have been involved in the attempted suicide attack, in October 2013, at a hotel in a tourist resort in Sousse, where a significant number of British tourists were staying. More than 400,000 British tourists visited Tunisia last year. The Tunisian Government listed AAS-T as a terrorist group in 2013 and the US did so in January 2014.

Subject to the agreement of this House and the other place, the order will come into force on Friday 4 April. It is, of course, not appropriate for us to discuss specific intelligence that leads to any decision to proscribe.

[James Brokenshire]

Under the current regime, the organisation or person affected by a proscription can submit a written application to the Home Secretary requesting that she considers whether they or a specified organisation can be removed from the list of proscribed organisations. There is a process for this. The application should also state the grounds on which it is made, and the Home Secretary is required to determine the application within 90 days.

If the Secretary of State agrees to de-proscribe that organisation, she has to lay an order before Parliament removing it from the list of proscribed organisations. In practice, all the evidence and intelligence have to be considered across Whitehall. The order is then subject to the affirmative resolution process. In other words, it is a similar process to a proscription application. I have to say to the House that no de-proscription applications have been received since June 2009.[Official Report, 8 May 2014, Vol. 580, c. 3MC.]

[Keith Vaz]

On the process of de-proscription, I have raised it whenever these orders have gone through the House. The process is not as robust as it should be. David Anderson, the independent terrorism tsar—if we can call him that—has made specific suggestions to try to improve it. When I last raised this matter with the Minister, he said that he would come back to the House shortly—to use that classic phrase—and explain his views. Does he have views now on the process?

[James Brokenshire]

I did come back to the House on the last proscription order. I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman was not able to participate in that particular debate, but I did underline that it is the Government’s intention that de-proscription should be considered on receipt of an application setting out the grounds on which it is made. De-proscription will then be considered by the Home Secretary in accordance with the Terrorism Act 2000. In other words, it is on an application process, and that is the view to which we have come. Just to finish the point on this process, if the application is refused, there is an appeals process that operates through the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission. The commission will allow an appeal if, after applying judicial review principles, it considers that the decision to refuse the proscription was flawed. I hope that that explains to the right hon. Gentleman the process that we adopt in these circumstances.

In conclusion, it is right that we add Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Al Murabitun and Ansar al Sharia-Tunisia to the list of proscribed organisations in schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000, and I hope that the House will support the Government in that move.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his statement and for the letter from the Home Secretary to the shadow Home Secretary, laying out the rationale for the proscription of the three groups.

There is a long tradition of cross-party co-operation on issues of national security, and the Opposition will support the Government in their motion today. As the Minister has laid out, section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000 sets out the grounds on which a group can be proscribed.

Proscription is a vital tool against terrorism, and it enables us to tackle and disrupt terror groups co-operating around the world. Of course that makes proscription a serious matter. It makes it illegal to belong to, or support in any way, a listed organisation. This is a draconian measure, so we should use the power only when we know that it is appropriate.

In this case, the Opposition are happy to accept the Minister, and the Home Secretary’s assurances on the basis that all three groups seem to have been involved in terrorism at the highest end of seriousness, including some directed at our citizens and allies.

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis came to prominence during the Arab spring. It aims to establish sharia law in Egypt. The group, which appears to be al-Qaeda-inspired if not linked, has been responsible for a string of terror attacks, which the Minister outlined. In 2010, the group was linked with an attack on a Jordanian and Israeli pipeline. In 2013, it was thought to be responsible for rocket attacks into southern Israel as well as the murder of three South Koreans and an Egyptian. In January this year, as the Minister set out, the group was linked with a suicide attack that killed 16 people, including 14 police officers.

Al Murabitun has an even closer al-Qaeda link, having emerged out of al-Qaeda in the Land of Islamic Maghreb and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa. The group has been linked to jihadists across north Africa and to terror attacks in Algeria and Niger, both killing scores of people. In particular, I should mention the January 2013 attack on the In Amenas gas facility, which killed 30 people including Britons and Americans.

Finally we have Ansar al Sharia-Tunisia, whose founder is known to have ties to al-Qaeda. The State Department says that that organisation

“is ideologically aligned with al-Qaeda and tied to its affiliates, including AQIM”.

The group has been involved in a number of attacks on western targets in Libya and Tunisia.

The Opposition are always limited in what we can say in these cases, because we do not have access to the same intelligence as the Minister and the Home Secretary. It would be helpful if the Minister could comment in general terms on why the United Kingdom has decided to act now, as many of the groups have committed attacks on our allies or have resulted in the deaths of Britons over the past two years.

Last time a proscription order was discussed in the House, I raised the effect of proscription on content relating to terror groups appearing on social media. That content is hosted outside the United Kingdom but is readily accessible in the United Kingdom. The Minister helpfully laid out the work of the counter terrorism internet referral unit. Will he confirm what progress the group has made on removing material in the past year and how many pages it has managed to take down? Last year, the Minister told the House how the counter terrorism internet referral unit took referrals and passed them on to ISPs. What measures are in place proactively to seek out such sites and to get the hosting companies, whether they are Google, Facebook or other companies, to seek out and remove such content?

I was pleased this morning that the Minister’s colleague, the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims, announced additional industry support for the Internet Watch Foundation to tackle online child abuse. What similar measures have been discussed in relation to counter-terrorism?

As I said earlier, the Opposition are always limited in what we can say about proscription, because it is up to the Home Secretary to analyse the evidence and make a decision. However, that did not stop the Government using proscription to score political points when they were in opposition. The present Prime Minister, then Leader of the Opposition, said in this House that he would ban the group Hizb ut-Tahrir. I hope the Minister will comment on why the Prime Minister made that rash promise. If the Prime Minister was right to make that promise, why has not the Home Secretary acted on it?

[Keith Vaz]

I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised the question of Hizb ut-Tahrir. I was in the House when the Prime Minister made that pledge and I think he meant it genuinely and thinks that the group ought to be banned because of its violent activity. Is she therefore as surprised as I am that even though the Prime Minister feels that a group is a terrorist organisation, it carries on with its activities and the Government appear to be unable to do anything about it?

[Diana Johnson]

The Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee makes an important point. I hope that the Minister will respond to our concerns and will be able to reassure the House that he is continuing to watch and consider the activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Last year, I raised in the House my concerns about the activity of Hizb ut-Tahrir on university campuses. Hizb ut-Tahrir was singled out by the Prevent strategy review as a group that was active on university campuses radicalising students. It would be helpful if the Minister could update the House on what has happened to deal with that issue.

Finally, I want to raise the issue mentioned by the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). It concerns de-proscription and time limits. The Minister is well aware from the comments and interventions that have been made as the House has considered several such motions that the Home Affairs Committee and the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation have long been asking the Government how a group can be de-proscribed. The only group ever to be de-proscribed obtained that through judicial review. The Select Committee has been pushing the Government for some time to get a proper structure in place to make these decisions.

According to the independent reviewer of terrorism, the Home Office was at one point considering an annual review of the proscribed list to see which groups still met the criteria. Of course, we should encourage any group to renounce terrorism. The Home Office clearly needs to justify the continued proscription of terror groups, on some of which we know that the independent reviewer of terrorism suggests there is no current evidence of terrorist involvement even in this century. According to the independent reviewer’s website last summer, the Home Office had compiled a list of up to 14 groups that no longer met the criteria for proscription. Will the Minister confirm that that is correct?

The independent reviewer had been calling for that annual review of proscribed groups, but the Home Office seems now to have ignored that suggestion and instead instigated this procedure, which the Minister set out in response to interventions, whereby an individual who is directly affected by a proscription order can apply for the order to be lifted. Owing to the level of concern, does the Minister consider it appropriate to set out in detail how that procedure takes place, so that hon. Members can fully understand how an individual, who might put themselves in difficulty by coming forward, might access it and take it forward? It would be helpful if the Minister were to put a letter or note in the Library setting that out in detail.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson). It is always good to participate in a debate on a measure that has all-party support. I am convinced that the order will pass through the House, because the House understands the importance of these orders and the significance of counter-terrorism issues.

I am delighted to see two members of the Home Affairs Committee here today, both of whom play an important part in the Committee’s deliberations: the hon. Members for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and for Northampton North (Michael Ellis). The Committee is undertaking an inquiry into counter-terrorism, and it is our intention to publish our report at the beginning of May. The inquiry is slightly longer than those the Committee usually undertakes; it has now lasted about six months. The issue of proscription is one that we have raised in our Committee sessions. Committee members currently spend more time with the Minister for Security and Immigration than they do with members of their own families. He was with us for an hour and a half yesterday at the Home Affairs Committee and here he is again in his other job. I am not sure about British jobs for British workers, but at least two jobs for each Minister may be the solution to the unemployment problems in this country. So far he has done them extremely well. Only time will tell, given his huge work load. I am one of his fans, so I am sure he will cope.

Back Benchers and members of the Select Committee usually take it as read and accept at face value a Minister—be it a member of this Government or the previous Government—coming to the Dispatch Box to say that they have intelligence and believe strongly that certain organisations should be banned. We appreciate that there are issues that Ministers, especially the Minister for Security and Immigration, know about that they cannot disclose to the House. Therefore, we support what he says. I certainly support it, and I am sure the House will support it. It is awful to sit here and hear about the activities of various groups—Ansar Jerusalem and Al Murabitun, operating in Egypt, and Ansar al Sharia, operating in Tunisia. Some have been operating for a good deal of time, and in respect of the atrocities that in some cases have been committed by these groups, they go way back to 2011. My concern, which I raised in my earlier intervention, is that those organisations are not household names for the British public. Therefore, when Ministers tell us about them, we listen carefully and accept what they say. That is why I think that when an order of this kind comes before the House, the Government ought to ensure that the Governments concerned—I would not like to call them the parent Governments, but the Governments those groups seek to overthrow—are informed.

Before coming to the House today I spoke with the Tunisian ambassador, His Excellency Nabil Ammar, an excellent representative of Tunisia, who informed me that the Tunisian Government were not aware that this order was coming before the House. That could be the result of a breakdown in communications between the Foreign Office and the Home Office, or perhaps our Government do not tell foreign Governments when this is about to happen, but I think that it would be wise for them to do so in future.

The order is to come into force on Friday. I think that all these organisations are banned in their own countries. They certainly are Tunisia, although I could not get through to the Egyptian ambassador to speak to him about these matters. The Tunisian ambassador tells me that Ansar al Sharia was banned three months ago, partly because of the changes following the Tunisian revolution, the election of a Government and then their fall and replacement by the present President, Moncef Marzouki.

My plea is that in future it should be incumbent on the Home Office to tell the Foreign Office and for the Foreign Office at least to tell the foreign Governments concerned. That might have been done in Cairo and Tunis, but it certainly has not been done in London. We are concerned with what those groups are getting up to not in Cairo, Sharm el-Sheikh, Alexandria, Tunis, Hammamet or Sousse, but here in our country. It is therefore important that we get that information across.

It would also be helpful if the Minister could tell us—I am not sure whether he intends to wind up the debate—whether he knows how many people are operating in those organisations in our country. I know that it is not the 5,000 he mentioned with regard to Ansar Jerusalem, which regularly attracts hundreds of thousands of people, or Ansar al Sharia, which I am told has around 100,000 people involved in Tunisia, even though only 5,000 might turn up to its demonstrations. I think that it is important to know broadly how many people are involved in those activities here.

I want to make two other points, one of which concerns the way that certain organisations can change their name, telephone number and website but carry on being involved in the same activities. On a previous occasion I used the example of Anjem Choudary, whose organisation had a number of different names, including Islam4UK, Al-Muhajiroun, Call to Submission, Islamic Path, the London School of Sharia and the Saved Sect. The latest name is Islamic Emergency Defence—IED. I know that the Minister is on top of his brief, but perhaps he could reassure the House that we are monitoring changes in names, websites and addresses so that we know whether organisations are still there but called by other names.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North, I am concerned about what is happening with Hizb ut-Tahrir. I think that the Prime Minister genuinely wants to ban that group. He has probably gone to the Home Secretary and said, “Ban this group. I don’t like them. They’re up to mischief,” and the Home Secretary, who I know is tough, would ban something if she could, as we know from Monday’s delegated legislation Committee. Why is Hizb ut-Tahrir still carrying on its activities when the Prime Minister, who I know feels very strongly about these matters, feels that it ought to be banned? I was in the House on the occasion in May 2011, which I am sure you will recall, Mr Speaker, when he made a passionate plea for the organisation to be banned, so I hope that we can satisfy his desires on this subject.

My final point is about de-proscription. David Anderson, the terrorism tsar, if I may call him that, felt that there ought to be time-limited proscription. I have raised before and raise again the situation of the Tamil community and the LTTE—the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The head of the LTTE, Mr Prabhakaran, has been killed, and the organisation has ceased to exist, but it is still banned. I have 7,000 members of the Tamil community in my constituency. Before you took the Chair, Mr Speaker—I think it was your last delegation before you took office—you went to visit Sri Lanka and saw for yourself the misery that had been inflicted on the Tamil community. Sometimes I get calls from members of my community who feel that the LTTE ought to be de-proscribed. Obviously, the Minister will say, “Well, let them apply for it”, but who could do that? People do not want to be associated with this organisation. If they start to fill in the application forms, somebody might think that they were involved with the LTTE, but that is not the case—they are good law-abiding Tamils. There should be a mechanism—perhaps an automatic trigger—that enables the Government and Ministers to review these matters before the order becomes a continuing one that goes on for ever.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in this short debate this afternoon. I am pleased to note that their contributions have supported the assessment of the Home Secretary and myself that Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Al Murabitun and Ansar al Sharia-Tunisia should all be added to the list of proscribed organisations in schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000.

Proscription sends a strong message that terrorist organisations are not tolerated in the UK and deters them from operating here. I know that a number of questions have been asked about the nature of any activity that those groups may undertake in the UK. Unfortunately I am unable to comment on intelligence matters but it is important to underline the point that the proscription regime is intended to deter activity in this country.

Fifty two international and 14 Northern Ireland-related terrorist organisations are already proscribed. To give a sense of the enforcement regime that has sat alongside that, I point out that, between 2001 and the end of March 2013, 32 people have been charged with proscription-related offences as a primary offence in Great Britain, and 16 have been convicted.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) asked about Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis. As I indicated, that group has claimed responsibility for a number of cross-border attacks against Israel. That gives him some sense of its activity.

Another question asked was why now, rather than at a different time. Decisions on whether and when to proscribe an organisation are taken after extensive consideration and in the light of a full assessment of all available information. It is important that decisions have a robust evidence base, do not have an adverse impact on any ongoing investigations and support other members of the international community in the global fight against terrorism. Those factors often sit within our thinking. There is a statutory test that needs to be met in connection with a decision to proscribe.

The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) asked about speaking to parent countries when an order is laid. There may be discussions in advance of laying an order, and some groups are nominated for proscription by the parent country, to use that terminology. Ultimately, however, decisions have to be taken according to the national security interests of this country and those of our citizens overseas. Although I acknowledge the right hon. Gentleman’s point, that is what must always drive our consideration. Therefore, I would not want to be bound in all circumstances. Even so, careful consideration is given to the matters.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), asked about social media. I can update the House that since 2010 the counter terrorism internet referral unit has taken down more than 29,000 pieces of illegal terrorist material from the internet. I underline the fact that any online activity by the three groups under consideration, including Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, has been referred to CTIRU. If it is assessed as illegal—there is a legal test that has to be met—CTIRU will flag it directly to Facebook and Twitter for removal.

I reassure the hon. Lady that we continue to have discussions with the industry and I take the issue extremely seriously. As the right hon. Member for Leicester East will attest, I also told the Home Affairs Committee, when we touched on social media, that we are considering whether a code of conduct and other, similar measures would be appropriate in order to ensure an effective response.

As I said during the previous proscription debate, the Government do not intend to set a time limit on proscription. We consider the existing de-proscription mechanism provided by the Terrorism Act 2000 to be sufficient. The legislation allows de-proscription to be considered on receipt of an application setting out the grounds on which it is being made. Any application will be considered by the Home Secretary, in accordance with the Act. In my opening speech, I set out some of the detail on the time limits, the processes and procedures and the consideration given in that regard. I hope that when the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North examines Hansard tomorrow, she will see that I have set out the process and how it is intended to operate. Any information provided as part of a de-proscription application is given a number of statutory protections so that people should be able to come forward if appropriate.

Hizb ut-Tahrir has been mentioned in this and a number of previous debates. It is not currently proscribed in the UK. Proscription can be considered only when the Home Secretary believes that terrorism, as defined by the Terrorism Act 2000, is a concern. That statutory test needs to be satisfied in order to bring a proscription motion—an application order—before this House. The Government continue to have significant concerns about Hizb ut-Tahrir, and we will continue to monitor its activities very closely. Indeed, individual members of Hizb ut-Tahrir are, of course, subject to the general criminal law. We will seek to ensure that Hizb ut-Tahrir and similar groups cannot operate without challenge in public places in this country.

The hon. Lady highlighted the issue of university campuses. Very good work has been undertaken with universities, the National Union of Students and others. Those of our regional Prevent co-ordinators who are focused on the university sector are providing good advice, information and knowledge to establishments and institutions in order better to support their work in understanding who may be coming to speak on a university campus and use their accommodation and facilities. We have also been supporting the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in important work to ensure that universities focus on any relevant activities.

[Keith Vaz]

It is really important that the issue of the internet has been raised by both Front Benchers. The Home Affairs Committee recently visited the headquarters of Google—I do not know whether the Minister has been there—to look at the work it is undertaking and the co-operation between the Home Office and the internet service providers that enables us to monitor very carefully those who wish to use the internet in order to prosecute inappropriate activity.

[James Brokenshire]

The right hon. Gentleman was not in his place when I touched on that issue a few moments ago. He will know that I mentioned it in my evidence to his Select Committee, which has recently had a session with Google. I recognise the Select Committee’s work to support community groups to harness social media and other technologies more effectively to ensure that there is a full and informed debate on the internet, not one simple narrative.

I have highlighted the work of the counter terrorism internet referral unit, as well as our more general work and ongoing dialogue with the industry about what further steps can be taken. The CTIRU has reach in this country, but much of the material is hosted overseas. Some of the steps taken in and consideration given to combating child sexual exploitation imagery—ensuring that it is more effectively filtered and blocked—is learning that can be taken forward and applied in this area. That theme very much underpinned the recommendations of the extremism taskforce. We are continuing to do that work.

[James Brokenshire]

The Prime Minister was very clear in underlining the concern about that group. As I have said, we continue to be concerned about that organisation, which is why we continue to monitor its activities. I have already told the House that the Government obviously have to be cognisant of the statutory tests in looking at all the evidence and deciding whether tests are satisfied. We do not comment on which organisations continue to be under review for proscription, so I will not be led down that path, but we have to be satisfied on the clear statutory tests in introducing an order in this House.

Another issue relates to groups changing their name. Section 3(6) of the 2000 Act allows the Home Secretary, by an order subject to the negative resolution procedure, to specify an alternative name for a proscribed organisation. We keep under close review whether organisations are seeking to use an alias. We have used that mechanism to introduce orders to add other names of proscribed organisations. I underline that the use of an alternative name that is not listed does not prevent the police and the Crown Prosecution Service from taking action against an individual for proscription offences. Such action is based on an assessment made by the police and the CPS.

I have commented on de-proscription. The right hon. Member for Leicester East has highlighted the LTTE—the Tamil Tigers—in the past. He congratulated me on my current role and the work in which I am engaged, and now that he is back in his place I want to recognise the many jobs that he does as an MP and Chair of the Select Committee—it does a broad spread of work in my areas of responsibility and other areas—and he is involved in other activities. I certainly congratulate him on the many jobs that he holds. He has raised the issue of de-proscription as Chair of the Select Committee, as well as in his capacity as a Member of Parliament. We judge that the responsibility for it is as I explained in relation to the de-proscription process.

[Keith Vaz]

The Minister is so kind and I do not want this to turn into a love-in—after all, we are talking about terrorism—but may I point out that all those jobs are unpaid, apart from that of being an MP?

[James Brokenshire]

I would never imply otherwise. I merely highlight the enormous breadth of the right hon. Gentleman’s work and the importance of the Select Committee’s work. On that positive note—

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am very grateful for your ruling and for the speed with which it was delivered, given the urgency of the matter. Thank you.

Yarl’s Wood Immigration Centre (Detainee Death)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I know that my hon. Friend has raised concerns about this case and I commend him for his customary focus on supporting his constituents, which he has underlined again in respect of this individual case.

We consider every claim for asylum on its individual merits and this particular applicant was not considered to be in need of protection. The case has been considered carefully not simply by the Home Office but by the courts and tribunals, and has gone through the proper legal process. The decision has been upheld and supported by the courts. Given those circumstances and the extent and level of judicial and other scrutiny, the Home Secretary has indicated that she does not feel that it is appropriate to intervene. That remains our position.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I associate myself with the comments made by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes). The Minister is right to have started an investigation and to await its outcome, but the deaths of Jimmy Mubenga and Alois Dvorzac remind us of how careful we need to be in these matters. Last year the chief executive of Serco wrote to me to say that seven of his employees had been dismissed for inappropriate conduct at Yarl’s Wood over the past few years. Does the Minister agree that even before the inquiry concludes, he needs to contact the private sector companies to remind them that they have a huge responsibility when dealing with people’s lives, that they ought to treat those lives with great care and that they must have staff who are properly trained?

[James Brokenshire]

The right hon. Gentleman has highlighted some significant issues. There have been some shocking and disturbing cases in the past few years and he has referred to them. He will know that there are ongoing police investigations and criminal proceedings in those cases, which makes it difficult for me to comment on any specifics. I underline to him that the Home Office has conducted a review of the methods of restraint and the use of force in the difficult circumstances of removal. The development of new bespoke training packages for escorts during the removal process has been undertaken by the National Offender Management Service. An independent advisory panel for non-compliance management, chaired by Stephen Shaw, a former prisons and probation ombudsman, was appointed to assess the restraint techniques and the safety of the proposed systems. That panel’s work is literally due to conclude in the next day or so and I look forward to its recommendations, because it is important that staff are fully cognisant and trained. Certainly, I underline the key message of holding responsibility for managing those in detention.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Obviously it is important to consider all migration figures, and uncontrolled gross immigration does put pressure on our public services and infrastructure. As the immigration Minister pointed out, the people who suffer most from the impact of uncontrolled immigration are those at the lower end of the income scale. Indeed, the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) said that the previous Labour Government used migration

“to introduce a covert 21st-century incomes policy.”

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Last Thursday the immigration Minister scolded the metropolitan elite, which included members of the Cabinet, for employing people who were born outside this country. Some 4.4 million people who were born outside this country are contributing to our economy, and what the immigration Minister said came dangerously close to endorsing the discredited slogan of “British jobs for British workers.” When the Minister speaks in Harrow next Wednesday, will the Home Secretary ask him to return to his normal sensible demeanour, and let us have a constructive debate on immigration, rather than relying on stereotypes and clichés?

[Mrs May]

A constructive debate on immigration was exactly what my hon. Friend was contributing to, and I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman’s description of his speech. As I said in answer to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), the immigration Minister was pointing out that uncontrolled immigration has greatest impact on those at the lower end of the income scale. I would have thought that as a Labour Member of Parliament, the right hon. Gentleman should care about that.

Female Genital Mutilation

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the e-petition relating to stopping female genital mutilation in the UK.

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Robertson. Shortly, I think we shall be joined by the Minister for Crime Prevention, the Minister responsible for this area—[Interruption.] Indeed, he is rushing into Westminster Hall as I speak. Well done to the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) for sitting in for him; I think he was trying out the chair. I am also pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones).

This is a critical debate. It takes place on the eve of the start of the first parliamentary inquiry into female genital mutilation—an inquiry that begins tomorrow, with the hearings initiated by the Home Affairs Committee. This is the right time for Parliament to discuss this issue.

I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, for granting this debate and I also thank the other members of her Committee. I appeared before it for the first time to ask for the debate and I was delighted that its members were able to say yes. I particularly thank the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), who I think is planning to attend this debate. She certainly supports it; she supported the application for it and we would not have secured it without her, so I am extremely grateful to her.

I also thank the members of the Home Affairs Committee, who all co-signed the application for the debate: my hon. Friends the Members for Dudley North (Ian Austin), for Newport West (Paul Flynn), for South Ribble (Lorraine Fullbrook), for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), and the hon. Members for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison), for Northampton North (Michael Ellis), for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless).

This is the first debate in this House on this subject since the relevant legislation was updated in 2003. I cannot think of a crime as horrible as FGM that has not been the subject of a prosecution since it became illegal. On numerous occasions, Members take part in debates on Home Office and other Bills, passing legislation and bringing in new offences, but this is the only crime that has not been prosecuted.

We need to look carefully at the reasons for the lack of prosecutions; we need to hear, as we will during the Select Committee hearings, the testimony of individual survivors and others. We also need to hear from Members who have raised the issue on so many occasions during questions—including today’s questions to the Home Secretary, when it was raised four times. Although some people may feel that the crime is hidden, it is very much on Parliament’s agenda.

The World Health Organisation estimates that 140 million girls and women alive today have been forced to undergo FGM. It further estimates that 66,000 women resident in England and Wales in 2001 had undergone FGM. There is another estimate that more than 24,000 girls in the United Kingdom are at risk from FGM.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I do not know whether my right hon. Friend is aware that some time ago I tabled a number of parliamentary questions to try to find out whether the lack of prosecutions was because the Crown Prosecution Service was not willing to prosecute or because the police were not passing such offences to it; it looked as if very few cases were being referred to the CPS for consideration.

What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the action plan from the Director of Public Prosecutions? When it was launched—quite a while ago now—I thought it was a really positive step forward in encouraging the police to report more cases of FGM to the CPS, but nothing seems to have happened as a result of it.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is right. We are concerned that despite the action plan—welcome though it was; it provided a framework for prosecutions—there have still been no prosecutions. One of the witnesses for our inquiry will be the new DPP, Alison Saunders. Unless we find out the reasons why there have not been prosecutions for FGM here when there have been prosecutions for it in other countries, we will not be able to find those who are responsible for it here and bring them to justice.

The three figures that I gave the House—140 million girls worldwide now, 66,000 women resident in England and Wales in 2001 and 24,000 girls at risk in the UK today—are only estimates, and we must show caution when we cite them. Indeed, high-profile figures from the communities affected by FGM have cast doubt on some of them. Today in The Guardian, Nadifa Mohamed, the famous Somali novelist, suggested that the estimates are “crude” and

“based on unreliable data…several years out of date”.

We rely on the estimates because they are the only ones we have, but we need to ensure that we are cautious about how we use them. What we are trying to do in Westminster Hall today, and what I hope the Select Committee will attempt to do in its hearings, is to get to the facts, so that we have some accurate way of knowing who and how many people are at risk. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said, every Member in Westminster Hall today knows that there have been no prosecutions for FGM, and I am sure that they will repeat that fact in their contributions. We need to find out why.

I also commend the work of Leyla Hussein. Her documentary “The Cruel Cut” went a long way towards raising awareness of this issue. The Home Affairs Committee is due to view it shortly as part of its inquiry and Leyla Hussein will be giving evidence to us tomorrow. The issue of awareness, exemplified by the number of people who signed the petition, is extremely important. If people are not aware, they cannot be concerned; if they are not concerned, we cannot catch those responsible.

I am pleased that the Minister for Crime Prevention is in Westminster Hall today, because he has been very clear about this issue. He is a special Minister because he says what he thinks, does not read from a script and is not one of those robotic Ministers who will accept everything that the civil servants say. He makes up his own mind—he is going red, but I think that is true—and is pretty blunt. He was very blunt when he said that he is not prepared to worry about cultural sensitivities and that if a crime is being committed, it needs to be investigated.

This will be one of those rare debates in which every single speaker agrees that something needs to be done, although, of course, we need to await the outcome of the Home Affairs Committee inquiry and the other reviews before we find out precisely what needs to be done.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend’s Select Committee is to be congratulated on its important inquiry. However, is not one of the challenges in securing prosecutions the natural unwillingness of young girls to inform on their families?

[Keith Vaz]

Yes. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She is a distinguished Member—a former shadow Public Health Minister and a campaigner. She is viewed with huge respect in the community, and she is right to raise this issue. It is not just about one community; it is generally about families, and there is the reluctance that she mentioned. Somehow we need to approach the families, and I think we will develop that idea further in our contributions today.

Children should not need to give evidence against their parents. That is the sensitivity; it is not a cultural sensitivity. The issue is to do with how the prosecuting authorities need to approach the subject, but that should not be used as an excuse—I am sure my hon. Friend would not want it to be—for why there have been no prosecutions.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this vital debate.

I started practising as a prosecution barrister in 1990. Prosecuting FGM cases involves the great difficulty of obtaining the evidence and securing convictions, and at that time there was the same difficulty with sexual abuse and child abuse cases. People were only beginning to come forward then, but the situation has changed during the past 20 years. When the right hon. Gentleman and his Committee consider this matter, they should learn the lessons of the ’80s and ’90s about how evidence can be given, including the use of televisual transmission, so that victims are able to give evidence about events that in many cases took place many years before.

[Keith Vaz]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. He is not just a distinguished former barrister, but a distinguished author. He is right—things have changed. We should not stand by and allow crimes to be committed, especially given that how evidence can be given has been transformed since he started as a lowly paid legal aid barrister in the north of England. Things have changed, and the hon. Gentleman is right. New technology provides us with the ability to look carefully at these offences.

So far, the Select Committee’s inquiry has received 53 pieces of written evidence. That is higher than average— by the time we complete our hearings, I expect we will have even more. We are to report in July. We want to give the Government plenty of time to consider our conclusions, so that we can see whether they are serious about adopting the recommendations that we have made.

Of course, we will want to look at the legislation. Does the current legislation need to be toughened up? There are two relevant Acts: the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 and the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985. We need to look at them together and see what further changes we need to make. I do not believe that there is a reason to toughen up the legislation; the issue is not about changing the law, but about how we implement the law. If I am wrong, I am sure that witnesses will tell us so as the inquiry progresses.

Hundreds of prosecutions have been successfully secured in France. Protection Maternelle et Infantile, a state-funded medical body, conducts check-ups on pregnant women and on children in the first six years of their lives. I am not sure that any equivalent body is doing that in our country. The process results in the highest rates of FGM detection and it is one of the most significant factors behind the high number of successful prosecutions.

However, we need to be clear that what is being done in France is controversial; it has not been met with universal support from individuals and community groups. We need to look at and build on the success of what has happened in countries such as France. I do not know whether the Minister has gone to France to meet his opposite number, but the Committee will want to do that as part of its inquiry.

I have just returned from Nairobi, where we have been looking at counter-terrorism as part of the Committee’s brief. We met a number of Kenyan officials who were pleased at the change in law in Kenya and other countries and wanted to share their experience with us. I was told on my way to this Chamber, by a number of people coming to watch these deliberations, that we should also concentrate on countries such as Sierra Leone, because there is a real problem there. As well as looking at our own country, we need to look abroad to see what is happening—in Africa and other parts of the world and in those European countries where there have been prosecutions.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. It seems to me that evidence could come from doctors and hospitals; such medical evidence should be sufficient to start a serious investigation to deal with the problem. That could happen now, although I am not sure whether it does. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will enlighten me.

[Keith Vaz]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. He is right. Common sense dictates that the first thing one would do is go to the doctors, because they would know better than anyone else. We can make suppositions, but at the end of the day, when people are being treated in hospital or undergoing other forms of assessment, the doctors are in the relevant position.

I would not want to say that the hon. Gentleman has identified one of the Committee’s recommendations, bearing in mind that we are only starting the inquiry tomorrow, but common sense dictates that the medical profession has a huge role to play in trying to help us solve the problem. However, we will not know how until we have the chance to hear from them.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I met a group of women health workers in Bristol on Friday. My right hon. Friend knows that Bristol has been at the forefront of the campaign against FGM. Some brilliant work has been done by the young women there. The health workers obviously come into contact a lot with women who have undergone FGM, but usually at the stage when they are giving birth and going through maternity services. That is far too late to identify who carried out the operation on them, given that that usually happens before the age of nine.

The health workers were convinced that the best solution would be to have examinations of girls in schools. I agree with my right hon. Friend that this is an incredibly sensitive matter, but I just wanted to place on the record that the health workers I spoke to thought that the solution would be for us to have some system of inspecting girls at risk.

[Keith Vaz]

That is extremely helpful. If my hon. Friend would like to put the group that she contacted in her constituency in touch with the Select Committee, we would very much like to hear from them. One feature of this inquiry is not just to hear from the men in suits, who always want to give evidence to Select Committee inquiries—although I hope that the Minister will come suitably suited and booted when he appears. We also want to hear from others, including all the stakeholders. Local groups know more about this subject than those of us who sit in Westminster. Please put us in touch with the groups, so that we can hear from a wide range of individuals and organisations about this subject.

[Bob Stewart]

I apologise for intervening again, but I recall, colleagues, that when primary schools take children in, there is a medical for boys and girls. If that was to be somehow tightened up, we might get better evidence about what is happening. Again, I may be wrong, but that is what I think. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman, who is a friend, will enlighten us again.

[Keith Vaz]

I do not know. It is about 52 years since I was in primary school.

[Bob Stewart]

Me too!

[Keith Vaz]

I was going to say that the hon. Gentleman looks younger than me. I cannot remember what happened at primary school, even though I am sure some newspaper will find out what I did there 52 years ago.

We will find out; this is precisely why we are having this debate. We will study every contribution from every Member, because these are the kinds of things that we need to find out.

[Guy Opperman]

I welcome the fact that the right hon. Gentleman is looking to take evidence from the French example, because surely that is the country we can best learn from; it has dealt best with this problem. Does he agree that we will need to be robust with the communities where the problem is taking place? As the French former Justice Minister, Rachida Darti, said,

“This mutilation has no foundation in any religion, philosophy, culture or sociology…It cannot be justified in any way”,

because, quite simply, it is a crime.

[Keith Vaz]

That is helpful. I am glad the hon. Gentleman quoted Ms Darti. I do not need to use that quote since he has cited it so eloquently.

Yes, we need to find out what is happening and we need to be robust, but we should also understand that this is an area of the criminal justice system; the hon. Gentleman described how it has improved. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) warned us about getting children to give evidence against their parents. These are important issues. They are not cultural issues, but about how we approach our system of justice.

As well as hearing from the Minister and others, we hope to hear from health care professionals, the police—we need an explanation about why there have been so many years without a prosecution—and the CPS, because these matters go to the CPS. We have had an enlightened DPP in the past few years in Keir Starmer, who made some useful statements about the issue, but unfortunately no one was prosecuted while he was DPP. The inquiry will hear from Alison Saunders, the new DPP.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which gave written evidence to the Committee, set up a helpline last year to see how many calls were received and from whom.

To date there have been 152 calls, e-mails and other communications to the helpline: 31 were from professionals seeking general advice on female genital mutilation; 56 were inquiries about more detailed information or training, and 65 were referrals by professionals concerned about specific young people. That gives us a good breakdown of the number of people involved in the study. I thank the NSPCC not only for submitting written evidence but for sharing that important information with us. The statistics prove that we need not only prosecutions, but education and awareness, without which we will not be able to get to the bottom of this terrible crime, and we will miss opportunities to prevent such crimes and to take appropriate action.

I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) has joined us. In the House this afternoon he probed the Home Secretary on female genital mutilation and rightly praised the Government for their work so far, but he also urged more action. He has been one of the great campaigners on this issue, and I pay tribute to him.

[Guy Opperman]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way one last time. Does he accept that, although prevention is obviously the most important part of any campaign, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police must have a strong emphasis on prosecuting events that may have taken place 10, 20 or 30 years previously where there is evidence that allows such cases to be brought, provided that the victim is willing to come forward?

[Keith Vaz]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I caution against taking a historical approach too far. I understand what he says. If someone has committed a crime, no matter how long ago, we have to follow the evidence and search for the truth, but the evidence is in front of us now. Female genital mutilation is happening now, so we have to prevent it from happening at this very moment. He is right that we need to go back to find those responsible. Debates, inquiries and discussions such as this, and the consequent media attention, will mean that many people come forward to talk about things that happened many years ago, and perhaps they will now feel stronger about giving evidence than they would have done when it happened to them.

The urgency is that, as we speak in Westminster Hall today, the statistics show that in some part of the country a young girl or woman is being subjected to FGM. It is happening as we speak. I do not want to say to how many people it will happen during this three-hour debate because I have already cautioned against being over-reliant on estimates, but it is happening. We need to act now.

I conclude by congratulating those who initiated the e-petition, without which we would simply not be holding this debate. It is true that we could have taken our place in line to apply to the Backbench Business Committee for a debate, but the e-petition has enabled us to come to Parliament with a body of opinion behind us in the country so that we could put that information before the Backbench Business Committee. I thank those who led and signed the petition to the Government, which amassed 106,281 signatures: Leyla Hussein, whom I have mentioned; the Daughters of Eve; and Efua Dorkenoo OBE from Equality Now. I also thank those who signed and organised the Change.org petition, particularly Fahma Mohamed—that petition obtained 229,925 signatures. Taken together, a third of a million people have signed petitions to ensure that female genital mutilation was brought before the House today.

Some things happened almost immediately, before this debate and before the Select Committee’s hearings, which begin tomorrow. I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State for Education, after meeting Fahma Mohamed and others, has agreed to write to all primary and secondary head teachers to remind them of their responsibilities. That is very important, but when the Select Committee produced a report on forced marriages because we were concerned about the number of young girls who were disappearing in the summer term to be married abroad and we asked the Secretary of State to write to remind head teachers to look out for sudden falls in the attendance rolls, he and his Ministers decided not to do so. The FGM reminder is an excellent opportunity to address that responsibility in relation to forced marriages.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I am obliged to my right hon. Friend for giving way. I apologise for arriving late, and I congratulate those who secured the debate. The Secretary of State for Education is writing to schools, but should we not now seriously consider a mandatory obligation to report any suspicion, whether it is in schools, hospitals or any other field? People should be forced by law to report such suspicions because FGM is a serious criminal offence.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend speaks with great passion on this subject, and he is right that that is something we need to consider. I will not pre-empt the Committee’s conclusions—the inquiry has not even started—but that is something we will need to consider. If people are required to report their suspicions, we are more likely to discover crimes that have been committed.

I am nearing the end of my contribution, so I just say to hon. Members that I will not give way again because I know that others want to participate, but I thank everyone for what they have said.

I finish by acknowledging what the newspapers have done. Alexandra Topping of The Guardian has written many impressive pieces on what has been happening, and Martin Bentham and Anna Davis of the London Standard won Women on the Move awards for raising awareness. I am pleased that the Government have pledged £35 million of dedicated foreign aid to address FGM abroad, and I welcome the work of the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire as chair of the United Nations women all-party group and the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). I also welcome the extremely helpful work of the Select Committee on International Development and the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce).

There is still a huge amount to be done and a long way for us to go to stop this brutal crime. Although the wheels have started to turn in recent months, the best way to ensure that the Government act is for Parliament and the people to come together to ensure that the Government do not lose the momentum that has begun over the past few weeks and months. It is deeply worrying that when, for example, Leyla Hussein stopped shoppers in Northampton to ask them to sign a petition helping her to protect her culture, tradition and rights, many people did not sign. She asked people to sign the petition in good faith, but 19 people declined in a 30-minute period. It is important that we acknowledge that, although we know about the problem, there are many more who do not know about it. We must continue to raise awareness.

Since the debate began, two members of the Home Affairs Committee have joined us: my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North and the hon. Member for Cambridge. They have both been at the forefront of securing the Committee’s inquiry. I know that they will want to ensure that the Committee looks for all the reasons why there have been no prosecutions, so that we can get those prosecutions and so that women and young girls in our country and abroad can at last feel that justice is being done.

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[Lyn Brown]

The unit is in its infancy and is currently developing how it will work within the community. I will go on to discuss what the unit expects to do in the next bit of my speech.

When a maternity professional becomes aware of a mother who has been the victim of genital mutilation, they are required to make a referral to safeguarding officials for child protection reasons and to invite the woman to access the genital mutilation prevention service. The service is geared up to support the victims of female genital mutilation to empower them to understand the negative consequences of mutilation and to enable them to become an advocate against the female genital mutilation of their own daughters. The service will provide advocacy for victims, involving extended family and spouses where appropriate, and thereby support women in their own environment to take a stand against the practice.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, Newham council is training community-based female genital mutilation champions and is supporting victims to report domestic sexual violence to the police. So it is working with women in the community to work with women in the community in order to raise awareness of the act’s illegality.

[Keith Vaz]

I thank my hon. Friend for her eloquent speech. I am pleased to hear about what Newham council is doing, which is no doubt a result of her prompting and campaigning. Will the people involved in the unit also be members of the community? Units that are set up sometimes do not reflect the clients and diasporas involved. Is she confident that the unit will reach the roots of the community?

[Lyn Brown]

I am supportive of the action that Newham is taking to try to address the issues that may exist in the community, but I will not take the credit. Councillor Robinson and Councillor Paul have been active in action tackling violence against women and girls in our community, and it is their work that effectively led to the unit’s creation.

I am told that the unit will be highly sensitive. It is being commissioned in the grass roots of the communities themselves and will not be a council office. The service will seek to educate local health visitors, GPs, educational professionals, children’s services and police professionals and to support them in making relevant referrals. The council is also intent on gathering evidence on trends and issues concerning female genital mutilation in the borough, and I hope that that will help to inform the work not only of Newham council but other councils and communities that are affected. I am encouraged that the CPS thinks a prosecution for female genital mutilation is closer, because that would raise the issue higher in the mind of the community. Unless we start to prosecute those responsible, to raise awareness and reduce stigma, I am not sure we will ever begin to eliminate the awful practice in question. That is why the debate is so important, and why I am delighted to speak in it.

I urge all Members of the House, and indeed communities across the country, to continue to highlight the issue and campaign for appropriate resources to tackle a brutal practice.

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[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend is right. Many young people take the issue seriously. Peer-provided information is often much better for young people than some old sod like me going in to lecture to them—[Interruption.]

[Keith Vaz]

I agree with everything my hon. Friend has said so far. She has heard about the initiative by the London borough of Newham, which my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) explained. If it is successful, and obviously we will wait to the see the outcome of the project, does my hon. Friend think that it perhaps should be rolled out in other parts of the country where FGM is a real problem?

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Ms Jones, perhaps we should record your remark as “old soul”.

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[Norman Baker]

I will touch on what other Departments are doing as part of my response to the debate today. In answer to the hon. Lady’s question, I am not sure what the protocol is either. However, if the Chairman and members of the Select Committee wanted to invite other Ministers, I would have no problem with that; if those Ministers wished to give evidence, they would. I am, for example, giving evidence to a Select Committee about crime figures, which is largely a Ministry of Justice issue.

[Keith Vaz]

To answer my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) through the Minister, yes, we will call Ministers from other Departments: Health, Education and the Attorney-General’s Department. We try to share Ministers around as much as we can, as that is best for our recommendations.

[Norman Baker]

There we are; there is an answer to that question. Although the Home Office is the lead Department on this issue—I am very pleased to be leading on it—because of its importance, other Departments have an input into it. The reality is that if Departments do not work more closely together, across departmental boundaries, we will not get the full result that we want. It is also the case, of course, that if the Government does not work properly with councils, the voluntary sector and communities in our own country and abroad, we will not get the result that we want. An important aspect is the need for a joined-up approach, both in Government and outside.

Of course, it is also important to work with the campaigners, who have done so much. I have mentioned Leyla Hussein. It is also thanks to Nimko Ali, Lisa Zimmermann, Efua Dorkenoo, Janet Fyle, Naana Otoo-Oyortey and others that FGM now has the prominence that it does.

I join colleagues in thanking the media, because they have been responsible and helpful on this issue. I am thinking particularly of the Evening Standard, which has been very resolute in how it has approached this matter; and latterly there has been The Guardian as well. They are running excellent campaigns and show the value of the free press in this country. It is partly as a consequence of that and, I hope, what the Government has been doing, that data released last week revealed that the number of tip-offs to the Metropolitan police about FGM has more than doubled in the past year. That is partly down to increased publicity, but is also due to the greater understanding that there now is of what this barbaric practice involves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Norman Baker]

We have to be clear about whether the law is faulty, whether there is a reluctance to use it or whether other obstacles are preventing it from being used successfully. I am not ruling out looking at the law; I am merely saying that we have to look at all possible avenues to find out exactly what the problem is. The DPP is doing that through her work with the police, and I am sure that the Home Affairs Committee will do the same in its investigations.

[Keith Vaz]

The points raised by Members are important in answering the question why; however, we must look forensically at why there has not been a prosecution. A change to the law, or how we implement it, might be required, but we must not rush to judgment. Although we need to act quickly, we must get it right for the future.

[Norman Baker]

The Home Office is looking at what has happened to date. We are looking at whether there are sufficient referrals, or whether there is a hold-up elsewhere, and we welcome comments from anywhere in the House about how matters might be improved. We are open-minded.

The Ministry of Justice is considering whether a civil law remedy might provide an additional tool with which to tackle FGM. The idea is that those afraid of being subjected to FGM, or friends or family of those at risk, could apply for an order so as to put the potential victim under the protection of the courts. That would be a proactive rather than reactive step. The MOJ is also seeking views from key stakeholders about the merits of a civil law measure and how that might work alongside criminal legislation. That aspect is already being considered in Government.

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[Keith Vaz]

It is a pleasure to serve under you for the first time, Mr Havard. Thank you for coming to chair this debate. I will put the fact that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), is here on the record. I want to pay tribute to her as a Back-Bench MP. No other Member in the House has been as assiduous as she has been. I know that a lot of Members, some of whom are here today, have worked very hard with her. I am pleased that she is now in the Department of Health, because she will be one of the Ministers who will be called before the Select Committee to explain what she is doing in Government, having done such excellent work already.

I thank all the right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in this debate. The hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) rightly told us that in order to deal with the issue effectively, there had to be clear leadership, education and awareness. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) said that we need to be open and honest about names and exactly what the processes were. I have never known her to be someone, especially having served in the Whips Office, not prepared to put even controversial words on the record, and she did so today. I was pleased to hear about what is happening in Newham, which the Committee will visit. I also commend the work of Councillors Robinson and Terry Paul for what they have done on this issue.

The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) has put out a six-point plan with benchmarks and recommendations to the Select Committee. We will follow what he has to say, not only because he is my next-door neighbour in Norman Shaw North, but because I know that he, as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Home Office, will want to make sure that that plan is adhered to. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) was, as usual, passionate and eloquent, and rightly raised issues concerned with the community. She also specifically reminded us of the international dimension. FGM happens not only to British girls; it also happens abroad.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) also intervened on a number of occasions, and it was good to hear from her. I was heartened by what both the shadow Minister and the Minister said. They both seemed committed to making the changes that are necessary. Tomorrow we begin the first set of evidence in the Select Committee. I can promise the House that we will be thorough and we will hold people to account for the lack of prosecutions. We will ask the Government what they are proposing to do, and will put forward a series of recommendations that I hope the Prime Minister can take forward when he hosts the conference in July.

Sometimes at prime ministerial conferences, Parliament is left out of the discussion. I hope that the Prime Minister will invite Members of this House to take part. I have today heard some of the most eloquent speeches in my 27 years in this House. There is a lot of expertise in Westminster and we should work together. We all want the same thing. There is a unity in Westminster Hall today that I see too rarely, unfortunately. I know I may sound like a Liberal Democrat, but I want everyone to get on together and work together on the same agenda, because the real suffering of our children and the women in this country is there for everyone to see. FGM is a cruel, horrific crime and we will bring the people responsible to justice.

Question put and agreed to.

Hillsborough

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I recognise my hon. Friend’s concern around this issue. It is not my place to say whether a criminal prosecution will take place. The investigation takes place and the Crown Prosecution Service will independently determine whether prosecutions are appropriate. What I can say is that all those involved in the investigation are absolutely clear that where they find criminal activity, they will do their best to ensure that that is pursued, because everybody wants justice for the families.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I also welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and thank her for updating the House in the way that she has. May I take her back to the questions of the hon. Members for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey)? The right hon. Lady is right that we should encourage people to co-operate, but I understand that 13 police officers have refused to be interviewed by the IPCC and two have declined to respond to its letters. She may have better figures. We do not just need encouragement; we need compulsion. They need to be made to co-operate so that we get to the truth.

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman is right: for the purposes of the IPCC investigation, 13 of the 242 officers whose statements have been amended have declined to be interviewed. Those who are being regarded as witnesses are not required to be interviewed at this stage, and there are those who have said that they do not believe that they have anything to add to the information that has been available in the past. I would therefore suggest a degree of caution in respect of how those who are not taking up the request for an interview are portrayed. As I have said, if the IPCC identifies someone who is potentially suspected of a criminal offence, that will not be an impediment, and the IPCC will act accordingly.

Immigration Bill

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

It is not an easily ascertainable figure. The proposals that we are discussing will enable us to investigate more cases. We have made assumptions based on marriage registration statistics, the volume of reports of suspected sham cases from registrars and feedback from immigration caseworkers who deal with applications that are made on the basis of marriage or civil partnership. The resulting estimate was that between 4,000 and 10,000 applications a year are made to the Home Office on the basis of a sham marriage or civil partnership. My hon. Friend will see from the breadth of the estimate that we need to approach the matter with caution, but it does give a guide to the potential scale of the abuse. There are details in the explanatory paper that we have published on part 4 of the Bill. I expect these provisions to give us a greater ability to identify cases, and therefore to ascertain the number of them.

I apologise to the House, because I was getting ahead of myself in setting out my new clauses. New clause 12 relates to fees. I will come on to the new clause that relates to the deprivation of citizenship afterwards. On fees, we remain committed to ensuring that the UK continues to attract tourists and the brightest and best migrants, including those who are considered to be commercially important to the UK. To ensure that we can do that, it is important that our immigration and visa services are a match for or better than those provided anywhere else in the world.

In a number of important respects, our visa services are already world class. We have expanded and improved the network of visa application centres. There are now 200 around the world, with 12 in each of India and China compared to the three or four that are on offer from most of our competitors. We have introduced online application and booking systems, and 95% of applications are now submitted online. Online applications are supported by translated help text and extensive web guidance. We have also established a business network with dedicated UK visa staff to assist businesses with their visa requirements. All of that is in line with our desire to attract the brightest and best to the UK.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I endorse everything that the Home Secretary has said about the international section of the Home Office. Does she think that there is an opportunity for more face-to-face interviews to be conducted in the posts abroad, or at least for people to be interviewed from this country through the new system of televised interviews?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman raises the important matter of face-to-face interviews. I have made it very clear that I want to increase the number of such interviews. We reached the number that I had hoped for by the end of the year, which was 100,000. Some of the interviews are physically face-to-face and some, as he has indicated, take place remotely through the use of video screens. That is an important tool in ensuring that people who apply for visas meet the criteria that have been set. I have seen interviews take place in a couple of countries overseas and have seen that the ability of our entry clearance officers to make judgments is enhanced considerably by conducting interviews, rather than just looking at a piece of paper. We have already achieved 100,000 interviews, but I want to see how we can extend that further across the visa system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

The Home Secretary is right that she seeks to amend a very important part of the Bill. When she appeared before the Home Affairs Committee on 16 December we raised the case of Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, who was in Somaliland. He did not want to return to the United Kingdom, but Charles Farr told the Committee, and the Home Secretary supported this in her evidence, that there was an obligation to bring him back. There was no legal justification for taking away his citizenship or preventing him from returning. Is she now telling the House that the new clause gives her the legal basis to prevent a British citizen involved in terrorist activities abroad from returning to the United Kingdom because she can strip that person of citizenship and leave them stateless? Does it give her that power?

[Mrs May]

If the right hon. Gentleman will have a little patience, I will explain exactly what the new clause does. It extends the Secretary of State’s powers to deprive someone of citizenship. It is in response to a particular case—not the one that he has quoted—which I will describe in order to set the background in a way that I hope will be helpful for the whole House. The right hon. Gentleman has a knowledge and understanding of these issues, but it would be helpful to set out the whole background.

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[Mrs May]

The answer to the second question is that there are no people in that situation, because I have not been able to deprive anybody of their citizenship and therefore potentially make them stateless. That is the existing situation. If somebody is stateless and either does not apply for citizenship of another state despite having access or is denied permission to do so, but stays in the United Kingdom, we would have to look at the situation and at their immigration status. Crucially, their status would not attract the privileges of a British citizen—they would not be entitled to hold a British passport or to have full access to certain services—so they would therefore be in a different position from the one they were in when they held British citizenship.

[Keith Vaz]

I am most grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way for a second time. I understand what she is trying to do and I believe her when she says that she will use the powers only rarely, but she still has not answered this question: once she has taken away citizenship from someone in this country and they are stateless, how will she get them out of this country? We know full well that she is doing this because Jacqui Smith tried to get rid of al-Jedda and was not able to do so. That matter is still before the courts, and the right hon. Lady’s judgment will also be challenged in the courts. How will she get such people out once she has taken away their British passport and they have no travel documents?

[Mrs May]

The al-Jedda case went to the Supreme Court, which promulgated its verdict last October, which was when we started to look at how we could legislate and what vehicle we could use to remove people. That circumstance might apply to somebody in the United Kingdom or, as in that case, to someone outside it. The important point is that the process applies in cases where the individual could access the citizenship of another country, and it would be open to them to apply for such citizenship. That is the whole point.

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[Mr Straw]

I am sure that the Attorney-General and the hon. Member for Esher and Walton have had discussions about this, but for the avoidance of doubt, it does not lie in my mouth to suggest that the Attorney-General’s advice to Ministers should be made public. [Interruption.] And I would say to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that I do not think there are good reasons to make that advice public. We are all entitled to legal professional privilege, including Ministers.

[Keith Vaz]

And former Ministers.

[Mr Straw]

Yes; that is even more important.

I want briefly to comment on a point made by the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) on the way in which the higher courts have interpreted the Human Rights Act. I am proud of the Act, and although we can always amend legislation in the light of experience, I do not believe that it needs to be amended. It is a well crafted Act that brings into British law the convention rights to which we are subject anyway. The idea was that those rights should be accessible here, rather than in Strasbourg. Abolishing the Act would not remove our obligations under the European convention; the British Government would still be subject to them, but those rights would be more difficult to access.

The problem with the Human Rights Act is the way in which our higher courts have interpreted sections 2 and 3. They place on the courts an obligation to “take into account” Strasbourg jurisprudence, but our courts have interpreted that as meaning that our courts should follow Strasbourg jurisprudence. If the House had meant to use the word “follow”, we would have put it into the legislation. We did not do so; we used the words “take into account”. The Law Lords, in their wisdom, decided that in practice that meant “follow”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox). I feel as though I am in the middle of an application for judicial review rather than discussing the politics of this country. I take a different view from him. When I came into the Chamber, I would have supported what he said. However, I was very impressed by the speech made by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) and I will support new clause 15 if he moves it. It is compatible with what the Select Committee on Home Affairs has been saying for a number of years. We hold the Government to account every three months on the number of foreign prisoners that they manage to remove from this country and every month they produce figures for the Committee. If the new clause is a way of ensuring that that happens on a more regular basis, I will certainly support it.

As far as new clause 18 is concerned, I was also impressed by the speech made by the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), who has just as big an immigration case load as I have. The Home Secretary is right: previous Home Secretaries have sought to remove citizenship as a way of punishing those who have broken our laws. Jacqui Smith certainly sought to do that in the al-Jedda case. She lost when it went before the courts, and I understand that it is still before the courts as there is an appeal. In that case, the court determined that there was a hope that taking away British citizenship would mean that al-Jedda would be able to get Iraqi citizenship. The Secretary of State told the House today that she will take away citizenship, leaving people stateless without a way out of the country—[Interruption.] She did not tell the House how she would get a stateless person to leave the country. They would require a passport from another country or a travelling document and neither are on offer when citizenship has been taken away.

I am very impressed by how the Home Secretary delivers her speeches and statements in the House, but I thought there was a slight reluctance today to put her case. Yes, she spoke for an hour and a half and took a lot of interventions but I am concerned that the measure has not been thought through. If there was a way out and we knew how a stateless person would leave the country, I would certainly support her proposals in new clause 18, but this is a work in progress. There is no final determination on it.

I put to the Secretary of State the one case about which the Committee was concerned when she gave evidence to us on 16 December—that is, the case of Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed. He did not want to come back to the United Kingdom; he wanted to stay in Somaliland. In evidence to the Committee, both the Secretary of State and Charles Farr said that there was an obligation to bring him back to the United Kingdom. He was subject to a terrorism prevention and investigation measure, but he then put on his famous burqa and is now somewhere in the country.

I understand that the proposal would affect people in and outside the country and I know that it would affect only very few people. I take the Home Secretary at her word, but if this measure was passed today would it have affected the Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed case? Would he have been left in Somaliland, stateless? Would there have been no obligation, therefore, to bring him back? I will support the hon. Member for Brent Central in opposing new clause 18. I hope that by the time it gets to the other place there will be a plan that will finally determine what will happen to people who become stateless.

Syrian Refugees

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. This will depend very much on the relationship that we have built up and will be exercising with the UNHCR in terms of identifying those cases that it believes it is appropriate for the UK to take, and in doing so to work with it to ensure that we understand the nature of the case and the particular needs of the individual. The transition will depend on that relationship and us working with UNHCR.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I, too, warmly welcome what the Home Secretary has done. She has done absolutely the right thing. On the question of resettlement, will she ensure that she involves the British-Arab diaspora? There are 10,000 Syrians living in this country. I do not know what the formal structure will be— it will certainly not be as big as the resettlement of the Gurkhas—but their involvement could be helpful for those who are vulnerable.

There is £90 million sitting in bank accounts in London that has been frozen that belongs to the Syrian Government. Will she speak to the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to whether we can access some of those funds, as other EU countries have done, to help with our humanitarian efforts.

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman makes two very good points. On the first issue, as I have said, we have some existing relationships with local authorities, for example, which we work with in resettling through existing resettlement programmes. He makes an important point that refugees coming into this country being able to be welcomed into an environment by people with a similar background can make that transition easier, particularly for someone who is vulnerable. We will be looking carefully, on a case-by-case basis, at how we deal with individuals.

I am certainly willing to talk to the Chancellor about the right hon. Gentleman’s second point. My understanding was that there are strict rules about these frozen accounts and whether it was possible to access money within them. If there is an opportunity to do so, I will certainly be talking to my right hon. Friend.