Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising an important issue. In looking at saving police time so that they can do the job that we want them to do, we need to look across the whole of the criminal justice system. That is what I am doing, together with the Justice Secretary, the Attorney-General and the Policing Minister, who is also a Minister in the Ministry of Justice.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s commitment to reducing police bureaucracy. As she knows, in October last year Jan Berry published her report and made 32 recommendations. How many of those recommendations have now been implemented? Will the Home Secretary continue Jan Berry’s term of office so that this is not just a one-off piece of research, but a continuing monitoring of the bureaucracy in our police service?

Sex Offenders Register

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments about the balance of rights. It is the case, I believe, that the police decision could be subject to judicial review. It is absolutely right that the police will look at all aspects of cases and take every consideration into account when deciding whether a review should be upheld such that the individual no longer remains on the register. I cannot second-guess any decisions that the police will take, but they will be making every effort to ensure that they are, absolutely, looking properly at these cases to ensure that the decisions they take enable them to maintain public protection.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary has struck exactly the right tone today, and it is heartening to hear both Front Benchers being very clear about where they stand on this issue. Protection of the public is the most important consideration, but, in view of what the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) has just said, will the Government ensure that the appeal process is examined very carefully indeed so that it is as robust as possible and there is not a legal challenge? That will mean proper consultation with Parliament and a proper scheme, so that people are well aware that it is very tough indeed.

Higher Education (Student Visas)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

I am pleased to have this opportunity to debate the impact on higher education of the proposed changes to tier 4 immigration rules, otherwise known as visas for students. The importance of this issue was drawn to my attention by my constituent, Professor Edward Acton, vice-chancellor of the university of East Anglia, who is chairing the Universities UK taskforce on this issue and who, like the Minister for Immigration, has recently given evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs inquiry on the subject. I should remind the House at the outset that the UK punches above its weight in this area: we have one in 100 of the world’s population, but seven in the top 200 of the world’s best universities.

Let me start by making a couple of basic observations. First, some people will perhaps be surprised—I certainly was—to learn that proper, genuine students are seriously considered to be part of the migration figures at all. Certainly, students must be subject to proper controls and have visas—student visas—but since they are self-evidently a transient population who come to this country to study, and who spend money in doing so, and who then leave when their studies are over, it is not immediately obvious why they should be considered as migrants. There is of course an issue—a very real issue—to do with whether students actually leave and, more to the point, whether those who call themselves students are nothing of the kind but in essence migrants by a different name, playing the system to come to this country for the purposes of long-term settlement. I will come to that later, but for now let me just say that students who come from overseas to this country genuinely to study should not in my view be properly understood as migrants, in the sense that they come here to stay and settle, that by being in this country for a given period of years they somehow acquire rights to stay that they did not have at the outset, or that they are somehow the source of political anxiety about immigration—they are not. They come here, they pay significant sums into our economy, they study, they eat, they drink and then they leave.

My second observation is that I have noticed that some people talk about this issue as a political problem. “I know there is a political problem,” they say, and they mean by that that this Government came to office saying that they would sort out immigration; they said that net immigration was too high and the figures would have to be reduced; and that that was the political reality that must be faced. The result is a clampdown—or potential clampdown—on visas.

One hears stories about eminent and hyper-qualified people, including some of the world’s foremost jurists and scientists, being unable to come to the UK to work, although without having personal experience of each such story one never knows for sure how true they are. I can say, however, that in my constituency I have encountered a Japanese paper conservator qualified to postgraduate level in both western and eastern conservation techniques who has had to leave the country because of the new rules. On hearing such stories, people say, “That’s not what we mean. We don’t want to exclude those who are going to help the country.” I think of what my constituents say to me on the issue. They have never said, “Let’s make sure we exclude the highly skilled—those with something to offer and who are going to help the country.”

The political problem in respect of immigration is quite different. My constituents are sick to the back teeth of people cheating when they want to migrate to this country—of people playing the system, and being more interested in what they can get from this country, including our benefits and health service, than in what they can contribute. My constituents hear stories about cheating, and they believe that at least some of them are true and they want it stamped out. For most fair-minded people, that is what lights the blue touch-paper in respect of immigration. There is not any desire to keep out those who will help us or those who want to study.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman both on securing the debate and on having sat through the entire Select Committee sitting this morning. He will have heard every single witness, including the Minister and the representative of Migrationwatch UK, say that they have nothing against genuine students coming here, but that the people they are against are bogus students at bogus colleges.

[Mr Bacon]

I was particularly interested to hear Sir Andrew Green of Migrationwatch UK, who I have always thought is a very articulate spokesman on these matters, say that he was interested in bogus students, bogus applicants, bogus colleges and genuine students who overstayed, because those categories contribute to net migration, but that he would welcome more genuine overseas students, as he thinks that is good for the country and the economy.

My fear is that genuine overseas students have been caught up in all this, so let me say how pleased I am that the Government have taken steps to deal with bogus colleges. The Select Committee on Home Affairs produced a useful report on that issue in 2009 and I gather from the Minister’s evidence to the Committee today that some 58 colleges have had their status revoked and the Government have taken compliance action against a further 235, which may lead to suspension or revocation of status. I applaud those excellent and worthwhile moves. Nobody has a stronger interest in seeing bogus colleges put out of business than legitimate providers. I should add that the Committee’s previous recommendation to restrict by law the use of the word “college” is a good one that Ministers should take seriously.

There is no place for bogus colleges or bogus applicants; nor is there any place for genuine applicants who overstay. We should have clear rules that everyone understands and that are enforced. If we deal with the bogus colleges, the cheats, the bogus applicants and those who fiddle the system, a great deal of the heat—the political problem about immigration—goes away. At that point, we face chiefly not a political problem, but a much more entrenched and difficult economic problem. We are all living through the consequences of the worst financial crash for a century or more. We know that this will be very painful and that severe belt-tightening will take place, and we have seen the Government make a start on that. We all know that any Government would have had to do the same. We know that we have to rebalance the economy away from its heavy dependence on financial services and have much healthier growth in other sectors.

We know that in Norfolk as well as anywhere does in the UK, because Norfolk is poised for significant growth in other areas of the economy, particularly once we get the dualling of the A11 completed, which I am pleased the Government have agreed. Norfolk is poised to help that rebalancing and not only through tourism, agriculture and high value-added food production, in which East Anglia has excelled, because there is a broader potential for growth. For example, Norwich is home to a cluster of internationally renowned research organisations in health and life sciences.

Alcohol (Minimum Pricing)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be present in a debate under your chairmanship, Mr Sheridan, and to follow the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), who made an eloquent and thoughtful speech.

I think that this is going to be a great debate. It will also provide a lot of information for political diarists. We have already heard this morning about butter-related crime, or the possibility of butter-related crime, from the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope); we have heard the hon. Member for Burton offer the working men in his constituency the prospect of welcoming my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) with open arms, and we have also heard about the Minister’s various meetings with beer groups, of which I am sure there are many, although some will think that the Minister, with his youthful good looks, might not even be old enough to drink.

Having said that, this is a very serious issue and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) for choosing it for a debate. It has attracted so many right hon. and hon. Members to Westminster Hall on a Wednesday morning, each one of whom has a constituency interest and a desire to ensure that we continue to move in the right direction.

Other Members here will be able to talk about the health aspects of the issue, for example, the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), who has vast experience in the NHS. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent and the hon. Member for Burton both mentioned the cost of binge drinking to our health service and the health of the nation.

In the next few minutes, I want to concentrate on alcohol-related crime and the report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, “Policing in the 21st Century”, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent referred. That report was published last year and it addressed the cost to the taxpayer and to the public of alcohol-related crime. When our Committee began the inquiry that led to that report, we were looking at what a police officer did with his or her time; we never intended to look at alcohol-related crime. It was only after we had visited a number of town centres, including Colchester, that we did so. The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), who was then a member of the Committee, invited the Committee to visit Colchester and hear from local police officers there about the amount of time that they spent on alcohol-related crime, especially on a Friday or Saturday evening. The latest estimate is that 70% of police officers feel that they are distracted from other aspects of policing because they are dealing with alcohol-related crime.

A statistic was sent to the Committee from the Cabinet Office showing that it costs £59 extra to process someone in a police station who has been arrested because of alcohol-related crime. In the current climate, the Government want to save money on policing, and there is no better way of doing that than to have responsible laws that reduce the time that police officers spend on this issue.

[Mr Chope]

I do not think that anyone will disagree with the right hon. Gentleman about the problem, but how will limiting the price at which supermarkets sell alcohol be the solution? We know from our constituencies that it is alleged that small shops, where alcohol is sold at a much higher price than at the supermarkets, enable young people under the legal age to access booze.

[Keith Vaz]

I have huge respect for the hon. Gentleman because he was my Greater London councillor when I was in Richmond many years ago. I have always had a great deal of time for what he says, but I think that he is wrong on this issue. It is not the little shops or the pubs, but the supermarkets, that cause the problem. The evidence is clear, and it is in our report. As the hon. Member for Burton has pointed out, people get tanked up before they go out on a Saturday night, because of supermarkets’ special offers, which make beer cheaper than bottled water, even the cheapest water—I am not saying that we should not drink tap water.

[Mrs Chapman]

I do not know where the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) lives, but where I live I have noticed that small shops are actually becoming supermarkets, and those Tesco Metros and Sainsbury’s Locals have the same cut-price promotions on alcohol, which occupies a larger proportion of shelf or floor space than it does in a larger store. Such stores are taking over territory that we might like to see remain with small local traditional shops.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She tries to tempt me down Leicester high street, especially the Melton road, where we are currently fighting an application by Tesco to build one of its supermarkets in the middle of one of my main shopping areas.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent mentioned the cost to the health service, but the cost to the taxpayer as far as crime is concerned is £7.3 billion a year—a huge amount. What do we do about that? It is in the hands of the Minister. At the last Home Office questions, I got up to praise the Home Secretary for moving in the right direction. We could not get the previous Government to do this; I do not know why. It is not that they were not concerned about the matter—I think that they were worried about alcohol-related crime and the pressure on the health service—but that the debate perhaps got distracted by claims that somehow the extension of licensing hours meant that people were drinking more alcohol. I do not think that that is correct, but as someone who does not drink alcohol, and has no constituency interest—no distilleries or production units—I feel that the previous Government should have taken up the Select Committee’s recommendations. This Government are moving in the right direction, but not far enough, as I think we will find from the contributions of most Members here this morning.

Some would say that the hon. Member for Burton has the most to lose because of the production in his town. I have visited Burton and been to the Coors headquarters there. It is a remarkable town, and the world centre of beer making, but down the high street there is an alcohol addiction centre—how very convenient. The people I visited made the case for minimum pricing, so if they can do that, we can look at the issue very seriously. There is something of a practical nature that the Minister can do, picking up on what the hon. Member for Gainsborough said.

[Mr Chope]

I represent Christchurch.

[Keith Vaz]

Oh, I am so sorry: Christchurch, of course. How could I confuse the hon. Gentleman with the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh)?

What the Minister needs to do is to get the chairmen and chief executives of the five biggest supermarkets around the table for an alcohol-free sandwich lunch with both him and the Home Secretary, to discuss the issues. It is in their hands; they can do this.

[Dr McCrea]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that if we are going to make a difference, the Government need to confront not only the supermarket low prices, but the non-stop availability of alcohol and the saturation of its advertising?

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Those issues have to be considered.

I shall end here, because so many other Members wish to contribute. The Government are moving in the right direction, but they have not accepted all the Select Committee’s recommendations. I make a plea to the Government to get those supermarkets together—that is in their hands—and I say to the Minister, “Do not be afraid.” I know that supermarkets are powerful organisations; we face them in our constituencies, and some of our constituents actually shop at them—I do. The fact is, however, that on this issue we need to make progress, and it needs to be now.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Counter-terrorism Review

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

We are, of course, very conscious of the severity of the threat that this country faces. That is why the threat level is currently set at severe, which means that a terrorist attack is highly likely. We are constantly undertaking with the security services, the intelligence agencies and the police painstaking day-by-day work, which is necessary to ensure that we not only prevent activity by those already known as terrorists, but that we identify others who might be in the process of trying to undertake terrorist activity. I pay tribute to the police and the security services, particularly to West Midlands police, for the operation undertaken before Christmas, which led to the arrest of 12 individuals and the charging of nine of them for terrorist-related offences.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I welcome the reduction in the detention period and the changes to control orders, although we will need more detail on exactly what they mean. I also welcome the Home Secretary’s attempt to try to develop consensus across the House. I certainly think it right that she should meet the shadow Home Secretary—following the robust relationship that seems to be developing, I, for one, would like to buy a ticket to that meeting. I ask the right hon. Lady not to forget Parliament or the need to engage with the Select Committee on these issues. Will she give us an assurance that her Prevent strategy will remain robust, that she will protect the counter-terrorism budget and that she will ensure that reviews of this kind—I know that she has more of them planned—will in future be more orderly than the one we have just had?

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

As the Home Secretary knows, 50% of crimes are alcohol-related, according to the British crime survey. May I welcome the Government’s proposals for a minimum price for alcohol? They are of course in keeping with the recommendations that the Home Affairs Committee made last year, but will she look at the level of pricing? She is putting it at 21p per unit, whereas health campaigners say that it should be 50p per unit. Let us make this a genuine exercise, not just a box-ticking exercise.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question, and I also commend the Home Affairs Committee for its work in this and a number of other areas. He refers to a minimum price for alcohol, but we are banning below-cost sales of alcohol, and we have set that cost at VAT plus duty. That is slightly different from a minimum per unit price for alcohol, but it is important to recognise that, in relation to cracking down on problem drinking, we have taken not only that step but a number of other measures of the sort that I set out in my earlier response.

Counter-terrorism

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend makes a very wise point. I am still not entirely clear whether those on the Opposition Front Bench support this, because the shadow Home Secretary neglected to say that.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

There may be support for the substance of what the Minister has said today, but what concerns the House is the fact that we have had to wait for an urgent question to be asked before being given this information. It is unsatisfactory. The Minister for Security was clear to the Select Committee when she appeared before us last December that Parliament would be told first about these matters and that it would not appear in the newspapers. Is not the best course of action to move the statement from Wednesday to Monday, when the order lapses, so that Parliament can question the Home Secretary on these matters? That is a way to resolve this rather unfortunate state of affairs.

[Damian Green]

The right hon. Gentleman will have heard me say several times that the statement has long been planned for next week, and it was announced to the House that it would be made then. With regard to the deadline being Monday, it is entirely reasonable that the law should revert to what it was. It was a temporary emergency arrangement for six months, which would lapse on Monday anyway. To try to equate that with the wider counter-terrorism review is not quite right. As I have said repeatedly, the Home Secretary has always planned to come to the House to talk about the very important wider counter-terrorism review. Indeed, the House was given unusually long notice of when she would appear, so it has been kept entirely in the loop on this.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

Indeed, that is one of the activities that concerns Ministers and it is one of the things that has happened in the past. Organisations have sought to reappear under different names and have been re-proscribed. We are extremely aware of the very serious problem to which my hon. Friend refers.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I take the Minister back to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)? I do not think my hon. Friend was challenging the subject matter before the House. He was raising the issue of the process. The Act under which the proscriptions are laid before the House is 10 years old. Is the Minister satisfied that the way in which proscription is challenged is robust and will give organisations the opportunity to put their case to the tribunal? That is the point being made, not a challenge to the subject matter.

[Damian Green]

I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point. As he knows, all proscribed organisations are reviewed on an annual basis by a cross-Government group that assists the Home Secretary to come to decisions on these matters. Each case is carefully considered, taking into account all the detail as time passes. The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point that organisations can change over time. There is an appeal mechanism not just to the Home Secretary, but beyond the Home Secretary to an independent committee, so I am confident that organisations can present a case that they have changed. The system and the Act allow for that.

Proscription is a tough power, as is clear from the various interventions, but it is necessary. Its effect is that the proscribed organisation is outlawed and is unable to operate in the UK. Proscription means that it is a criminal offence for a person to belong to or invite support for a proscribed organisation. It is also a criminal offence to arrange a meeting in support of a proscribed organisation or to wear clothing or carry articles in public which arouse reasonable suspicion that an individual is a member or supporter of the proscribed organisation.

Given the wide-ranging impact of proscription, the Home Secretary exercises her power to proscribe an organisation only after thoroughly reviewing all the available relevant information and evidence on the organisation. This includes open source material, as well as intelligence material, legal advice, and advice that reflects consultation across Government, including with the intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Decisions on proscription are taken with great care by the Home Secretary, and it is also right that the case for proscribing new organisations must be approved by both Houses.

Having carefully considered all the evidence, the Home Secretary firmly believes that the TTP is currently concerned in terrorism. Although hon. Members will, I hope, appreciate that I am unable to go into much detail, I am able to summarise. The TTP is a prolific terrorist organisation that has committed a large number of mass-casualty attacks in Pakistan. It has announced various objectives and demands, such as the enforcement of sharia, resistance against the Pakistani army and the removal of NATO forces from Afghanistan. Examples of recent attacks include a suicide car bomb attack outside a courthouse in Mingora in March 2009 that killed 14 people and injured 130. Another attack on a police station in Lakki Marwat in September 2010 killed 17 people. Although the majority of attacks have been against military and Government targets, the TTP is also known to target religious events. In September 2010, a suicide attack on a Shi’a rally killed 50 people.

The group has also claimed responsibility for attacks on western targets. For example, in June 2010 an attack on a NATO convoy just outside Islamabad killed seven people and destroyed 50 vehicles. In April 2010, an attack on the US consulate in Peshawar killed at least six. The TTP has also threatened to attack the west and was implicated in the failed Times square car bomb attack last May.

Proscription will align the UK with the emerging international consensus against this murderous organisation. The TTP is already designated by the United States and proscribed in Pakistan. The proscription of the TTP will contribute to making the UK a hostile environment for terrorists and their supporters, and show our condemnation of the terrorist attacks the group continues to carry out in Pakistan. Proscribing the TTP will enable the police to carry out disruptive action more effectively against any supporters in the UK.

I should make it clear to hon. Members that proscription is not targeted at any particular faith or social grouping, but is based on clear evidence that an organisation is concerned in terrorism. The TTP is not representative of Pakistani or wider Muslim communities in the UK. The organisation has carried out a large number of attacks in Pakistan resulting in large numbers of civilian casualties. It is clear that these actions appal the vast majority of British Muslims.

As a final point, I have already said that the Government recognise that proscription is a tough power that can have a wide-ranging impact.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shabana Mahmood]

I will return to the issue of Hizb ut-Tahrir shortly and hopefully deal with the substance of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.

I have a number of questions about the order for the Minister. Paragraph 7.2 of the explanatory memorandum states:

“The Secretary of State has regard to additional criteria (announced by the Secretary of State in 2001) in deciding as a matter of discretion whether or not to proscribe an organisation. These are:…The nature and scale of the organisation’s activities…The specific threat that it poses to the UK…The specific threat that it poses to British nationals overseas…The extent of the organisation’s presence in the UK…The need to support international partners in the fight against terrorism”.

Those criteria seem to be perfectly sensible in providing the basic test against which a Secretary of State may decide to exercise his or her discretion, but will the Minister shed some light on how, in this particular case, they have been applied? The 2001 criteria are not contained in primary or secondary legislation, so in light of that are they under regular review by the Home Office? Will he give us some details about how the Government intend to keep them under review? How frequently will that be done?

Given that the criteria were stated first in 2001, does the Minister consider them to be fully comprehensive still? Could they usefully be added to, and are there any plans to do so? He will be aware that there is a large and settled British Pakistani community in this country, and many British citizens from that community travel regularly to Pakistan to visit family and friends. What is his assessment of the threat that Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan poses to them? That will be a matter of some interest to the British Pakistani community, so I hope that he will take this opportunity to address it. Related to that, is Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan operative in this country? How has the threat that the organisation poses in this country changed since it was set up in 2007, and what is the extent of its operations in this country?

The Minister will also be aware that, as a result of the devastating floods in Pakistan last year, the effects of which are still being felt by the Pakistani population, a large number of British aid workers operate in Pakistan and are involved in vital efforts to provide humanitarian relief and assistance to the flood affectees. Soon after the floods, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan made a number of statements, widely reported in the British media, threatening British aid workers. Will the Minister update the House on the threat posed to British aid workers engaged in flood relief work in Pakistan, and will he give some detail about the efforts being made to provide the maximum possible security and support to them?

The organisation was set up in 2007, proscribed by the Pakistani authorities in 2008 and designated by the United States in September 2010. What prompted the Government to follow suit now? How was the timing of the decision arrived at? There is, of course, necessary and close co-operation between the Pakistani authorities and the Government in combating terrorism. Is the Minister confident that the Government are doing enough to support the Pakistani authorities and society as a whole to prevent the rise of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan.

[Keith Vaz]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend. Is she satisfied about the current process for challenging decisions? We understand that once the House makes a decision, an organisation is proscribed, but there is a process for challenging such moves, and that is right in a democratic society. Is she satisfied with that process, or do the Opposition wish to make any changes to it?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention. In fact, I intended to put that question to the Minister in relation to any plans that the Government might have to look again at the legal process of appeal for an organisation that has been proscribed. I know that, in previous debates when the previous Labour Government proscribed organisations, my right hon. Friend raised the potential deficiencies in the processes for proscription and for challenging proscription, so can the Minister state the Government’s plans in that regard?

Do we know whether other countries intend to proscribe the organisation in the near future? What co-operation has there been between the Government and our allies engaged in operations in Afghanistan and other parts of the world in terms of proscribing it? Will there be continued co-operation, and what is the extent of such work?

Will the Minister give the House some details about the procedure by which the Government intend to keep the list of proscribed organisations under review? Will such reviews take place monthly, quarterly or less regularly, and can we be confident that all organisations that pose a threat to our national security are proscribed?

The House will be aware that during today’s Prime Minister’s questions, my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) asked the Prime Minister about his plans to proscribe another organisation, Hizb ut-Tahrir. This was also mentioned by the Minister. Although Hizb ut-Tahrir is not subject to this order, the Prime Minister’s comments about it raise questions about the Government’s policy on proscription as a whole.

Further to what was said at Prime Minister’s questions, my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State has written to the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. Let me refer to his letter, because it is important for the House to know this. His letter points out that last year the Prime Minister made a commitment to banning Hizb ut-Tahrir

“despite having not seen any of the evidence”.

He continues:

“The clear suggestion was that proscribing this organisation was a simple act that could be made without any legal obstacles on the basis of the…evidence”

that was available in the public domain. He asks the Prime Minister a number of questions, which I will repeat for the Minister to comment on. He asks the Prime Minister when he intends to fulfil his commitment on Hizb ut-Tahrir and on what dates the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have met to discuss the matter. He asks:

“Will you share with me, on Privy Council terms”—

and, one hopes, in a timely way—

“the latest available evidence about”

Hizb ut-Tahrir’s

“activities?”

He says:

“On the basis of the available evidence, is it still your intention to proscribe this organisation?”

and asks whether the Prime Minister has

“any plans to amend the relevant legal tests”

as set out in the Terrorism Act 2000 and amended in the Terrorism Act 2006.

Perhaps the Minister could shed some light on the Government’s response to those questions, because it is important that the House has placed before it the Government’s exact procedures and intentions in relation to proscription. Proscription should be a matter of last resort in order to safeguard our national security, and not the subject of off-the-cuff remarks or ill-thought-out pronouncements by the Prime Minister when he was Leader of the Opposition.

As I have said, we will work with the Government to protect our national security, and in that spirit we will support the order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I hope not to detain the House for too long. I know this is a special day for you, Mr Speaker, and I would not like to keep you away from the birthday celebrations that are no doubt being planned for you in the Speaker’s house once you vacate the Chair.

This is a very important debate, and it is right that there is a full House to hear what the Minister has to say. In previous debates of this kind, the House has been almost empty; there is an assumption that such orders will go through automatically. That is why I am grateful for the way in which the Minister put the Government’s case, and for the way in which the Opposition said—I think—that they will support the Government.

[Shabana Mahmood]

indicated assent.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend nods. It is right that the questions that she put forward should be answered at some stage—not necessarily this evening, but as soon as possible. I associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), who raised issues that have to be addressed.

I sat through a number of debates on such orders on the Government Benches, when the Labour party was in power, in which Ministers came to the Dispatch Box and made the case for proscription. It is difficult for the House, because it cannot really challenge Ministers when they make such a case, because they come in good faith and they are in possession of all the information, much of it confidential and much of it given to them by the security services. We therefore accept what the Minister says in good faith.

Just the name of the organisation, the Pakistan Taliban, makes one want to ban it immediately because of the word Taliban. It is obviously not a friendly organisation. Although I know nothing about the organisation—I have heard as much as I know about it from the Minister tonight—I am happy to support what the Government are doing.

However, I caution the Minister and the Opposition—a number of Members raised this point when the Labour party was in government—to look again at the process that should be adopted when organisations want to challenge the decision. I was in the House when Mujaheddin-e-Khalq managed to get its proscription lifted. As the Minister knows, it was proscribed in March 2001, it challenged the decision in June 2001, and it was deproscribed seven years later. It took the organisation seven years to make its legal case against proscription. Therefore, from the point of view of the public, as opposed to that of the organisations, it is important at this time in the life of the Terrorism Act 2000, which has been with us for 10 years, to review the processes. I would offer a review by the Home Affairs Committee—I see that the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) is here—but because the Government’s agenda on home affairs is so exhausting and plentiful, it is difficult to find the time to look at this issue. I am sure that we will do so, and certainly in the life of this Parliament.

It is important to consider the process. I will use the example put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), which involves a constituency interest for myself and others, of the previous Government’s decision to ban the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. As you know from visiting the island of Sri Lanka, Mr Speaker, the war is over. The LTTE has been defeated, its leaders have all been killed, including Prabhakaran, who was killed as part of the conflict, and the Sri Lankan Government have said that the LTTE no longer exists. However, members of the community who wish to support charitable causes in Sri Lanka are still sometimes questioned about their involvement, including those who take part in the annual ceremony that takes place on 26 November each year to celebrate the lives of those who have been killed.

Although this is, of course, a narrow order and the proscription applies to those who support the Pakistan Taliban, it is possible that other members of the community who are completely unassociated with this terrible organisation will in some way be caught up in the problem. I think that is what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) was trying to allude to when she put her questions to the Minister.

I do not expect the answers tonight. After all, the Minister present is the Minister for Immigration, not counter-terrorism. I therefore do not expect the answers, although he is obviously very well briefed, a highly intelligent Member of this House, a hard-working Minister and all the other nice things I could say about him. I have mentioned your birthday, Mr Speaker, but it was also the Minister’s birthday on Monday, so we have to be nice to him. The questions that I have asked must be considered, and I hope that if the Minister cannot give me the information that I want today, the Minister with responsibility for counter-terrorism, perhaps in a letter to my Committee, or the Home Secretary next time she addresses the issue, will be able to put my mind at rest.

I fully support the order and hope that the whole House will. We look forward to ensuring that these matters, which by their nature have the possibility of affecting the civil liberties of citizens of this country, are kept under review as closely as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I hope you are enjoying your birthday, Mr Speaker, and that this is an appropriate way to celebrate it.

I hold no brief for Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, and I do not wish to defend or support them in any way this evening. However, I want to follow the points made by other hon. Members on the process, which is not satisfactory. We add to the list of banned organisations during a Parliament, but the additions cannot be amended and the subject of the proscribed list is not open to general debate. There is therefore an argument for reviewing that process, and I hope the House heard what the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee said—he seemed to indicate that his Committee might well be prepared to conduct an inquiry into the process.

The legislation is now 10 years old. According to the list that I have just downloaded, 46 organisations are proscribed under the 2000 Act, and a further group of organisations are banned in Ireland—presumably that ban applies in this country too. The list contains organisations that clearly no longer exist, and organisations that have changed their names and exist under others. It therefore seems to me to be high time to review the whole question.

I take the point made by the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins). Proscribing an organisation from a particular country or community affects that country or community, and it affects the attitudes that officials take towards them. It is therefore necessary to consider such things very seriously. For example, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) asked about the LTTE, but it no longer exists and the situation in Sri Lanka has changed dramatically. I would have thought that we ought to look at that as a way of promoting political discourse and dialogue to ensure that the Tamil community has a place for negotiation, representation and political action. That is surely what we are trying to achieve.

[Keith Vaz]

Another point is the pressure that proscriptions put on the police and their resources. We must be very careful how we proceed with proscription, because the police must go out there and interview members of the community, and possibly prosecute people.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Indeed we must, because proscription puts a requirement—not just a pressure—on the police to do those things. Therefore, there is the potential for an enormous waste of resources, not to mention damage to community relations. After all, in this country, as I understand it, we try to include and incorporate, and to build good community relations rather than divisions.

Temporary Immigration Cap

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend makes a perfectly good and valid point. The reason why we needed the interim limit was that we inherited an immigration system that was in complete chaos. We said at the election that we were going to introduce a permanent limit that would come into force next April. Between that point and next April there would have been an unimaginably large surge in applications if we had not imposed an interim limit. It is a perfectly sensible policy, and we will take steps tomorrow to ensure that it meets the Court’s requirements so that it can continue to do the essential job of bringing immigration numbers back down to a level with which this country can feel comfortable.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that, in paragraph 110 of the Home Affairs Select Committee’s report on the immigration cap, we warned that this might happen. It is not just this Government but successive Governments who have legislated on immigration without giving Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise what was happening. Can he give the House an assurance that the consultation that he is now undertaking on students and on the permanent cap will not be affected in any way by the judgment? Clearly, if there are lessons to be learned from the judgment, when he gets it, it will be important to extend that consultation period.

[Damian Green]

I absolutely can give the right hon. Gentleman that guarantee. I was grateful for the Select Committee’s report; as ever, it was extremely thoughtful and useful. The judgment has no effect at all on the permanent limit, and the lessons will certainly be learned. As he will have seen, our consultation on the permanent cap was a genuine consultation, and the policy that we announced at the end of it was welcomed by many business groups, including the CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce, that had expressed worries about it in advance. That shows that this Government’s consultations are genuine, that we listen to people and to Parliament, and that we change policies in sensible ways after those consultations.

Public Order Policing

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and have said so on a couple of occasions, both in my statement and in response to the shadow Home Secretary.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I am most grateful to the Home Secretary for agreeing to appear before the Home Affairs Committee tomorrow, when I am sure she will be probed on these and other issues. She is right that the police did an excellent job in protecting the Houses of Parliament, but there were concerns about other areas of the city. Although there will be an internal investigation, does she not consider it appropriate that Sir Denis O’Connor, chief inspector of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, provide guidance, not just for the Metropolitan police but for police in other areas, as that would be of great value to those who have to police such demonstrations in different cities in the future?