Immigration Bill

Debate between Keith Vaz and Jack Straw

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[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”.

Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]

Debate between Keith Vaz and Jack Straw

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

My point is this: the establishment of the police and crime commissioners is a matter of party controversy, and we will see whether they are embedded or whether there is some change. In any event there has been an increasing focus on giving local people greater say over local policing, and I strongly support that, but it means that national and international priorities—the threats that lead to quite a lot of local crime—could be marginalised. That is why there is a powerful case for a National Crime Agency and the kind of powers of direction that are inherent there. As I say, we have to go a stage further and accept that there will be two levels of policing—a national police service and the local police services—and ultimately the national police service, the National Crime Agency, will have the power to direct the local police services to ensure that national priorities are met.

On the reform of the courts, I welcome the unification of the county courts, which makes complete sense. I particularly warmly welcome the establishment of a single family court. That arises from the review of family justice under David Norgrove, which I established with support from the then Opposition. I am really pleased that, thanks not least to Mr Norgrove’s great acuity and sensitivity about the way in which the system needs to reformed and further changed, it looks as though the review will have important and beneficial consequences.

I changed the law on self-defence back in 2008. I understand why the Justice Secretary was faced with a blank in his proposed speech to party conference and thought he needed to say something on this issue. I doubt very much whether it will make any difference at all, because the practice and the law have already changed satisfactorily, but I certainly will not oppose the measure and I do not think my right hon. Friends will either.

The next issue is the right of appeal on applications for visitor visas. I ask the Minister and his colleagues to look again at the arguments that have been advanced to them by Home Office officials. No one—I say this without any levity at all—has greater affection for Home Office officials than do I. I went to great lengths in my memoirs—available in all good bookshops—to defend and to celebrate officialdom, not least in the Home Office. I never sought to blame officials when it is Ministers who set policy and implement it. However, the truth is—I may give away a secret, but too bad—that it is inconvenient for there to be a right of appeal in visitor cases. There was a lot of resistance to it when I introduced the right of appeal in 1998, and I can disclose that throughout the rest of my ministerial career, about once every two years there was a proposal from other Ministers, once I had left the Home Office, to abolish the right of visitor appeal. I blocked it, whatever position I was in. That is why it survived.

[Keith Vaz]

Another secret missing from my right hon. Friend’s memoirs is the fact that when I was entry clearance Minister he was one of my biggest customers. The important point about that is that the element of discretion—the need to look again at the decision—is absolutely vital, whether it is a Minister saying that they will overturn the decision or whether it goes to appeal. With the reluctance of immigration Ministers to exercise discretion, it is vital that people get the chance to look again.

[Mr Straw]

My book is being reprinted, I am pleased to say, but when there is a revised edition I will add that. The truth is that—

Constitution and Home Affairs

Debate between Keith Vaz and Jack Straw

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

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

[Mr Straw]

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

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