Yemen

Debate between Keith Vaz and Tim Loughton

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

I absolutely agree and I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for all the work that she has done on Yemen, keeping this issue very much alive in this Parliament and elsewhere. She is right that there is no excuse for bombing medical facilities.

In fact, 19,200 airstrikes have hit since those first raids in 2015. Violence is being perpetrated on all sides. A total of 267 civilians have died because of landmines that are now hidden in the landscape of western Yemen. In January 2019, five charity workers were killed while trying to de-mine. There is no point in the UK Government generously pledging funds if the aid cannot actually reach the people of Yemen.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) for yet again bringing this subject to this House and for his tenacious pursuit of justice for the country of his birth. In addition to the extraordinary litany of human tragedy, just some of which he has reeled off, and the fact that, incredibly, it seems that no fewer than 80% of Yemeni people are in need of some form of humanitarian assistance, does he agree that there has also been a particularly worrying increase in gender-based violence in a country not best known for its women’s rights? Aid agencies estimate that there has been a 63% increase in gender-based violence, including rape and sexual assault, during this conflict—just to add to the woes of the bombs, the famine, the disease and the warfare that is going on as well.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I pay tribute to him for his work in the all-party parliamentary group on Yemen. The last time I was in Sana’a, it was with him; he took some beautiful pictures of the wonderful heritage there. He is right: these figures on assaults are even more worrying. In the middle of all this war, there are still these assaults going on. They need to be addressed and they need to be contained.

Following the failure of the Geneva talks, the sides convened in Stockholm in December 2018. Two bodies were established, one to oversee the exchange of prisoners —the Redeployment Co-ordination Committee—and the other to monitor the agreement: the UN Mission to Monitor the Hodeidah Agreement. Critical was the establishment of a ceasefire in the governorate of Hodeidah; that would free a vital port and allow much-needed humanitarian aid into the country. But the peace talks appear to have stalled. The original deadline for troop withdrawals was 1 January 2019, yet agreement as to how to implement the first phase was made only on 17 February. Despite Stockholm, the most up-to-date figures suggest that 568 incidents of violence occurred in Hodeidah alone, along with six coalition airstrikes. I ask the Minister: on what date will the peace talks reconvene, and why do bombs continue to fall on Yemen during the peace process?

I thank the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for their efforts to support the peace process. The Foreign Secretary himself travelled to Stockholm—an indication of where his and the Government’s priorities lie. I am also grateful to the Foreign Secretary for, earlier this month, meeting me and other members of the APPG: the hon. Members for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who are in their places; the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman); my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) and for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg); and the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt).

A meeting of the Yemen Quad of the United States, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates took place in Warsaw on 13 February. When is the next meeting of the Quad going to take place? There have been only five meetings since 2015. They must meet every month until we have peace. These high-level meetings must be followed with action on the ground. We need to ensure that the Yemen Government and Houthi rebels implement the agreements made in Warsaw and in Stockholm.

I understand that the Foreign Secretary is visiting Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates over the next few days. I welcome his efforts to keep pressure on and maintain dialogue with those key countries in the region. I urge him to go to Yemen during that time. What better message could we send our allies and the Yemeni people than to have the British Foreign Secretary himself present in the country and, subject to security considerations, opening a diplomatic presence in Sana’a and Hodeidah? The work of the Yemeni ambassador to the United Kingdom, His Excellency Dr Yassin Saeed Noman, has been important in maintaining our dialogue with the Government in Yemen and President Hadi, who is in Riyadh. I hope that those strong links will continue.

The United Kingdom has long been one of the greatest financial backers of Yemen’s relief effort. That includes £175 million in 2018-19 and £2.5 million for the functioning of the United Nations civilian coordinator’s office, including to assist in de-mining efforts. The £200 million funding announced by the Prime Minister on Sunday 24 February in Sharm el-Sheikh with the Minister for the Middle East, who was in Egypt with her, brings the total amount that the United Kingdom has pledged to £770 million.

But pledges of financial support alone will not feed the victims of this conflict, nor provide the medical help they need, unless the money is spent. We are horrified to hear reports of executions. The Lords International Relations Committee has published a devastating report suggesting that UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia may have been used in Yemen. If that is true, it is a negation of our international obligations.

I commend again the work of the United Nations, the Security Council and special envoy Martin Griffiths for bringing forward resolution 2451 on 21 December 2018 and resolution 2452 on 16 January 2019. Earlier this week, the UN raised $2.6 billion in Geneva at its annual high-level pledging conference, but to the people of Yemen—those who are starving and dying—that is Monopoly money. Around $8 billion has been raised over the past decade, since Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s first pledging conference, but where has the money gone? Where has it been spent, and where is it being held? Since this week’s pledging event, 126 people have died in Yemen.

I am glad that the pledging conference has brought attention to this crisis. Daily, we see individuals and celebrities appealing for financial support on behalf of the Yemeni people. I want particularly to thank Eddie Izzard—who, like me, was born in Yemen—as well as Michael Sheen and our recent Oscar winner Olivia Colman, who have made appeals for Yemen over the last few weeks and who speak in their campaigns for the silent of Yemen.

At last, parliamentarians in other countries seem to be paying attention to Yemen. The US Congress passed House joint resolution 37 on 14 February, calling for an end to American involvement in the Yemen conflict. Congressman Ro Khanna from California, in particular, and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont have been instrumental in maintaining pressure in the United States. It would be good if President Trump could follow their lead and personally participate in these peace discussions.

In Paris in November 2018, at the first inter-parliamentary conference on Yemen, along with Sébastien Nadot, the Assemblée Nationale Member for Haute-Garonne, the APPG and the Assemblée Nationale brought together MPs and activists from across Europe. Following our conference in Paris, a petition was put forward calling for an end to the war in Yemen, which has been signed by 7,600 people.

The next inter-parliamentary conference on Yemen will take place in May in Edinburgh, hosted by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, who is the secretary of the all-party group. I extend an invitation to the Minister of State to attend that meeting in Edinburgh and join parliamentarians from Europe and all over the world.

Today, we will send a letter, co-signed by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), to the Foreign Secretary, urging him to keep Yemen as his top priority and to maintain pressure on our allies for immediate peace. I hope others will sign it. The all-party group is having a meeting next week on the rule of law in Yemen, and on 19 March, just a week before the bloody war’s anniversary, a meeting on the humanitarian situation.

This is what we want the Minister to commit to tonight: we need an immediate ceasefire—the bloodshed has gone on for too long—and we need a date for the next peace talks. Stockholm was a breakthrough, but it was only the beginning, and it needs to be implemented. When will the next round of talks take place? They need to happen now.

I commend the aid agencies, such as Oxfam, the International Rescue Committee, Médecins sans Frontières, CARE International, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Save the Children, which have provided food and medicines. They have food and medicines waiting at the border, but they cannot access the country while there is fighting around the vital entry points. They are coming to Parliament in 10 days’ time. Without them, so many more Yemenis would have died. The United Kingdom Government must work unceasingly with international partners to allow immediate and comprehensive access for the aid agencies to ensure that humanitarian support can reach those most in need. This Parliament, this Government, our country must lead the world movement for peace in Yemen. There is no point holding the pen for Yemen if we do not use it.

I want to end by quoting Amani, a young Yemeni woman currently living in Yemen who wrote this poem:

“Three years have passed and

an English newsreader told

me home was only

a lost young man holding

his Ak47, with no shoes.

But the shackled arms,

malnourished hips stare

into the distance and arcs

of bones screech waiting

for food parcels to arrive

and slouching shoulders

sitting with an empty

stomach it growls, hoping

war could speak, it would

chop it’s tongue, loose it’s

limbs and hide under the

rubble shattered in regret.

Three have passed and counting

You watch your home

collapse to its ground,

the same ground your

fathers fed this soil with

their blistered hands.

The same ground that

raised you, fed you and

taught you to stand

up straight.

Three years have passed and counting

You ask yourself, ‘Do they know

who suffers the most?’

The people in-between.

The ordinary lives.

The survivors.

The forgotten people,

The forgotten Yemen.”

I beg the Minister to spend every working moment in the Foreign Office keeping Yemen at the top of his agenda. I yearn to return to the country of my birth, to the happy times I spent with my parents and sisters, and to take my son and daughter and wife with me. To do this, we need to stop the bombing, save the children and prevent this beautiful country from bleeding to death. It is in our hands.

Yemen

Debate between Keith Vaz and Tim Loughton

Thursday 4th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar). We share a border in Leicestershire and now we share a cause, and it is good to see someone who was elected only last year become passionate about an overseas country and become such an expert on it. I know that his interest in Yemen preceded his election, and I am glad to see him as a strong and effective vice-chair of the all-party group on Yemen. I speak not just as a Yemeni by birth, but as the chair of the all-party group for the past 27 years. I must rival President Saleh with the years that I have spent in office—that is not a good comparison, I know. It has been a huge honour to serve in that capacity and to be joined recently by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) and the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond), both of whom are Yemenis by birth.

We now have three Yemenis sitting in the House of Commons. That should help everyone to understand that for us this is not just business; it is very personal. The situation matters greatly. My fondest memories of my childhood were watching the boats coming in. They went past Steamer Point as they were about to enter the Suez canal. Indeed, only Leicester beating Liverpool last Tuesday could match that kind of warm feeling that I had as a child. Sadly, those wonderful memories of our childhood have gone, and we face in Yemen a roll call of catastrophe, which was set out so eloquently by the hon. Members for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) and for Charnwood.

I know that the Chairman of the International Development Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), will have more horrifying statistics that we will struggle to understand—some 21 million in need of aid, millions of children without food and people starving to death. We hear such figures as if this is a piece of fiction, but it is fact.

I thank the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) who came on one of the all-party group’s last visits to Yemen. He caused us a lot of worry. He had been told to stay in the Sheba hotel, but, as everybody knows—especially the Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State who worked with him in Government—he cannot be told what to do. When we got up one morning and found that he was missing, we thought that he had been kidnapped. In fact, he was out in Sana’a, a world heritage centre, taking photographs. Like all visitors to Yemen, he had fallen in love with the country.

What is this country now? It is a country in poverty; a country facing the possibility of civil war; and a country that is being fought over by other foreign powers. It is not the people of Yemen who want this conflict. The conflict arises because those from outside want to topple the democratically elected Government of President Hadi, and because of that there is outside intervention.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I was touched by the care that the right hon. Gentleman showed for my welfare. It was indeed an extraordinary trip. Talking about children, at the time, the British Council was matching 1,000 schools in the middle east with schools over here. On our journey, I was able to twin a school in Worthing with a school in Aden. Does he agree that, as well as the killings and the injuries, one of the biggest tragedies is the fact that about half of all children in Yemen are not in education? So much is being done to ensure that Syrian children have some continuity in their education, but the situation in Yemen is so much worse. If we do not have the future in mind for those children, the future of the whole country will be in peril.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. He is the House’s expert on education. When he talks about the need for education, he is absolutely right, because it offers a life chance. Some 1,500 people have died, and 9.9 million people are in poverty. The fact that the children cannot go to school will affect the rest of their lives, and childhood passes so quickly. They will not have the advantages of education, and we need to concentrate on that.

I join the hon. Member for Charnwood in praising the Minister—Members on the Opposition Benches do not tend to do that very often—because he deeply cares about the situation in Yemen. Whenever the all-party group has asked him to address us, whenever we have made suggestions, and whenever the right hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan) has made suggestions, which I am sure that he does on a daily basis, the Minister responds. If he had half a chance, he would be on a plane via Dubai to Sana’a international airport to try to stitch together the patchwork of international diplomacy that now exists.

Much mention was rightly made by the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire of the involvement of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia’s involvement has been important; had that not happened, I believe that the country would have been overrun and that President Hadi would not have returned to Aden. We now need to pause. The all-party group, individual Members and the Minister have been clear that there has to be a ceasefire. The airstrikes have to stop, and we have to find other methods of trying to secure the country without the scenes that have taken place. Civilians may not have been targeted, but they have died. We need to make sure that we work with the Saudis, who are the regional power—we cannot do this without them—to make sure that we get peace in Yemen. They have a big responsibility to ensure that that happens. If Yemen falls, that will affect every other country in the middle east.

As the Prime Minister has said on numerous occasions, the frontline in Sana’a is the frontline in London. Many of the terrorist plots that I have come across as Chair of the Home Affairs Committee have come from people plotting in places such as Yemen. Indeed, many of the Paris bombers were involved in some way with what was happening in Yemen; I think one of them was trained there. We are not talking about a country far away that we do not need to care about; it really matters to our future, not just because of the humanitarian crisis but, more importantly, because of how it will affect Britain and the rest of Europe.

I thank this Minister and the Minister of State, Department for International Development, the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne), who has also listened carefully to what we have said. One of the great things about how the Government have approached Yemen is that they have continued what was started by the previous Government. There is no party politics in this; the whole House is united, as were the previous Prime Ministers, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, in ensuring a focus on Yemen. The current Prime Minister is also very focused on it. I have written to him on numerous occasions and his responses are detailed and relevant. He wants to make sure that peace is restored. We are all on the same side.

As I conclude, I have a few asks. First, as he also supports the ceasefire, will the Minister give a commitment to intensify the support of the UN to try to bring peace to Yemen and to ensure that we continue the dialogue with all sides, especially with Saudi Arabia? There has been a lot of criticism about the use of British weapons by the Saudis in this conflict. That will go on, of course; we live in a parliamentary democracy and we have to raise these issues. The Government have to respond, and they have.

However, we need to work with the Saudis and the Omanis. Oman has not been mentioned enough in these debates, but the Sultan in particular has a big role to play. Here is a border in the Arab world: to the north, Oman is as peaceful as a country can be but to the south is the turmoil in Yemen. The Gulf Co-operation Council also needs to be involved. It cannot be absent from the table.

It is not the Minister’s job to chase up debts, but I remind him of the great donor conference in London before the last but one general election. Billions were pledged but very few countries have paid up. We should go back to the countries that pledged and make sure that something is done.

Let me end by saying this. We still have a lot of friends in Yemen. My two children were very friendly with the son of one of the Yemeni ambassadors who came here. His name was Salman, and we have lost touch with him. The last time we saw him, he had come up to Leicester to see a football match with my young son. I think of that bright young boy and his sisters, who came to this country for a short time as the children of diplomats, and the bond of friendship that we formed with them. To think of them in a house in Sana’a without electricity, schooling or food is terrible. I hope that, if Salman is listening to this debate or hears about it in some way, he will contact us so that we know that he and his family are safe.

My real worry is that Yemen is bleeding to death. Unless we are prepared to stop the bleeding, the consequences will be horrendous.

From the bottom of my heart I beg the Minister to continue doing what he is doing, to make sure that this issue is centre stage. I thank parliamentary colleagues from all over the country, who have so much on their agendas, for coming here in such numbers to think and talk about Yemen. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), who has just joined the Front-Bench team, for coming. He will be a wonderful shadow Minister. I hope he makes this issue a priority. I know we talk about the big countries, but Yemen matters to us. Please let us not allow Yemen to bleed to death.

Female Genital Mutilation

Debate between Keith Vaz and Tim Loughton

Thursday 29th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The French need to be congratulated on the way they have dealt with the issue. He will recall the evidence given to the Committee by the witnesses from France whom I have already mentioned. I went over to Paris to meet doctors and prosecutors, and I was extremely impressed by not just the passion of those on the front line but the willingness of the authorities themselves to get things done. We went to meet the officials of the relevant Minister. They were determined to ensure that that willingness continued. We could not understand why there was a difference between what the French were doing and what we were doing, with so many prosecutions in France and only two in our country.

We asked every one of our witnesses from Britain whether they had gone over to France to look at good practice. Frankly, none had done so, from the ACPO lead to those who run our royal colleges. It is really important that we compare what is being done abroad to ensure that we are doing the right thing.

We also believe it is important that all schools provide training for teachers on the issue on in-service training days. Although we did not take direct evidence from schools to the extent that we would have wished, simply because we did not have time to see everyone, we felt that that training was important. Teachers and those in the education profession should be aware of and able to deal with the issue. If we look at a place such as London, there is no reason why every teacher in every school ought not to be made aware of the problem. They should be told about it and told exactly what to do about it, so that we can get to the truth of what is happening.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I apologise because, alas, I am unable to stay to the end of the debate. I joined the Committee after the original report was published, but have been at the subsequent sittings. The Chair rightly talks about the need for prosecutions, and we have better examples to follow in France. He also rightly talks about the need for better training and awareness, although, frankly, ignorance is no defence in this case. However, surely the heart of what we need to do is to challenge the culture and mentality of communities and families who allow FGM to go on, whether we do so through schools educating girls that they have a right to say no, or through working with the communities to say that it is an act of barbarism and a terrible form of child abuse. That is where the root of the problem lies, and it is what has to be rooted out.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I will come on to the role of the community and family members, but he is right to raise the matter at this time. I agree with everything he said; this is a matter for communities and families.

We have dealt with the police and the lack of action by the police. The report has dealt with the comparisons with France. The report deals with the prosecutors. We have dealt with the medical profession, but before I finish with the medical profession, I have to say—this is my personal view—that of all the witnesses who came before us, the royal colleges seemed to lack understanding of the seriousness of the subject. They kept talking about the need for guidance and guidelines and for it to be dealt with on a disciplinary basis within their professions. We were talking about criminal sanctions for doctors who failed to report. They were relying on patient confidentiality to ensure that, whoever came before them, the information was kept within the parent-doctor or client-doctor relationship. We did not agree with that. We feel that the medical profession and the royal colleges have not acted swiftly enough to deal with the issue, because they are not sensitised to it; they do not have enough expertise in dealing with it.

There are individual doctors in different parts of the country who do have expertise. I remember doing a radio interview on this. There is a doctor in Reading who has made it her life’s work to deal with FGM, so many women go to Reading to see her, but that kind of expertise needs to be taken all over the country. St Thomas’s hospital is a classic example. Comfort Momoh is doing wonderful work there, but she has built things up herself; no one asked her. She has developed that work and ensured it will help women and children.

Privilege

Debate between Keith Vaz and Tim Loughton

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That the Police Information Notice from Sussex Police addressed to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, dated 4 September 2013, be referred to the Committee of Privileges.

I am very grateful, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to raise a matter relating to a breach of parliamentary privilege by Sussex police and briefly to provide the context to this motion to refer the matter to the Committee of Privileges.

You will recall, Mr Speaker, my Adjournment debate on 13 March when you kindly sat in the Chair to hear the extraordinary story of the six-month investigation into me by Sussex police on account of a single e-mail I had sent to a constituent in which I had endorsed the right of my local council, Adur council, to refer to a particularly troublesome resident as “unkempt”. Subsequently the constituent complained that as he claimed to be of Romany Gypsy origin, unbeknown to me or anybody else, this was in some way racist. When the case was rightly thrown out six months later, I questioned the bizarre behaviour of Sussex police in wasting so much time and taxpayers’ resources on an obviously vexatious complaint from a serial complainer. I also raised the implications this had for the right of other hon. Members to correspond with their constituents without fear of the police knocking on their constituency doors.

The account I gave during the debate raised, unsurprisingly, disbelief and indignation in equal proportions. However, what has transpired since will, I am sure, top that and, again, has implications for the way in which all hon. Members go about their business. I believe it represents a clear breach of parliamentary privilege by Sussex police, and in the full knowledge of the Chief Constable Martin Richards.

In the debate, I stated that such was the vile abuse that had been aimed at me and my staff by the constituent and his attempts to have me prosecuted that it was no longer tenable for me to act as his MP. I said, therefore, that I would no longer be responding to his correspondence or abusive phone calls, which had left my staff in tears. I proposed to write to him to that effect but, given the spurious grounds on which he had previously referred my correspondence to the police, I first sought the assurance of the chief constable that such a straightforward and innocuous letter would not again lead to their involvement. In a singularly obstructive meeting, in which he repeatedly stated that he had complete confidence that the police had handled the case perfectly correctly, Chief Constable Martin Richards refused to comment on my proposed letter.

Subsequently I sought guidance from the Clerk, who in contrast has been singularly helpful. He advised me that I should send a complete copy of the Hansard record of 13 March, including the report of the debate, to the constituent, with a compliment slip and without any need for a covering letter, and that that would be protected by parliamentary privilege. That is exactly what I did. Subsequently I have had no communications with my ex-constituent, have made no public statement and have not responded to or initiated any social media to do with him.

In contrast, the constituent has stepped up an onslaught of vile abuse since 13 March, primarily against me as well as the leader and the chairman of Adur district council, his ward councillor and assorted others who cross his path. Yesterday he abused the organisers of Worthing mental health awareness week, which I launched, and to date he has posted on his blog and sent tweets to or about me and my councillor colleagues on well over 200 occasions.

Many come under the heading of political abuse, which, however offensive it may be, we all know is part of our job. However, what is not part of our job is that they have included doctored photographs of my children, taken from their social media sites. What a man in his 40s is doing trawling the social media sites of teenage girls, I do not know. They were eventually taken down, but he then attempted to blackmail me, saying he would put them up again unless I complied with his demands. He has posted doctored pictures of the council leader’s young children regaled with Nazi insignia. He has posted vile, contorted accounts of my parents’ divorce, forged tweets, posted references to my neighbours and photographs of my home, and most recently a direct tweet urging me to commit suicide, along with assorted lies, made up stories and pure fantasy. He has also recently sought to disrupt our regular street surgeries and pour his abuse on anyone who happens to be in the vicinity, and to menace guests at the chairman’s charity dance. I guess we all sometimes have to deal with very nasty people, but this one wins all the awards.

Despite my complaints—which have led to the man’s arrest on just one occasion—the police have failed to secure any charges and he carries on harassing, bullying, stalking, trolling and abusing me, my family and colleagues. However, on 4 September, out of the blue I had a formal police information notice served on me by Sussex police for harassment. Other hon. Members will probably have come across these notices when used on constituents in anti-social behaviour cases. The notice stated that the police had received an allegation of harassment against me by the aforementioned constituent, making me aware that if the kind of behaviour described were to continue I would be liable to arrest and prosecution. The specific single incident of behaviour that gave rise to this PIN was the act of sending a copy of Hansard to my ex-constituent. Apparently this had caused him alarm and distress. That came as a surprise to me and various others, particularly given that on his blog on 14 March that ex-constituent had described how he had watched my Adjournment debate on television with “great amusement.” Therefore, apparently, Hansard is a cause of alarm and distress, and Sussex police believe that our deliberations are a potent weapon of abuse.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tim Loughton]

I will not give way, if I may.

For good measure, the leader of Adur council, the chairman of the council and my constituent’s ward councillor were also issued with PINs for supposed harassment, as was my constituent. Clearly, that has only fuelled his vile crusade.

Apparently, a gold group led by Assistant Chief Constable Robin Merrett met on 3 July to approve those PINs at the highest level. Two months later, they were served on me and my councillor colleagues without my knowing that a complaint of harassment had even been made against me, or that I was under any investigation, in clear breach of the police guidance, which states that I should be given the opportunity to be interviewed to account for my actions and show that they were reasonable and lawful. No such interview took place. There is no appeal against the PIN, which remains on file for at least one year.

The increasingly hapless Detective Chief Inspector Wardley-Wilkins, who has led the investigations, having failed to secure vital evidence, having misled me about the earlier investigation and the current one and having failed to explain why he has breached police guidance, has offered me instructions on how I should correspond with constituents without risking a PIN. That is the police telling us how to do our job.

The chief constable, who has been copied in on all the events, has been content to waste taxpayers’ resources on this nonsense while the senior management of his force is brought into disrepute. He has clearly lost the plot when it comes to distinguishing between the victim and the perpetrator. I know that my local police officers, whom I rate highly, are as embarrassed and gobsmacked as I am at this action by their bosses.

Such a sequence of events would offend against natural justice were it suffered by any of our constituents, and we would rightly raise the matter in the House. However, in this case, the events are an intolerable affront to the rights of the House and hon. Members to go about their business of representing their constituents without fear or favour. If it goes unchecked, any constituent with a grudge against his or her Member of Parliament could claim harassment. Any hon. Member exposing any dodgy organisation in Parliament could find themselves being questioned by the police, or, with reference to DCI Wardley-Wilkins, being given advice on how to do their jobs. Indeed, Abu Hamza could well have a case against the Home Secretary for being rightly beastly about him in Parliament and she could find herself on the receiving end of a police information notice.

Therefore, for all hon. Members, I propose that we pass the motion and refer the matter to the Committee of Privileges.

Question put and agreed to.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Keith Vaz and Tim Loughton

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Actually, I think the British people know the issues now. They understand the issues that confront Europe, and I am not sure that a public education campaign is what they need, as long as we are committed to reform, and to changing the way in which the European Union operates. There is much that we need to change on the justice and home affairs agenda, for example, including measures on the European arrest warrant and on the way in which countries such as Greece have to deal with illegal migration. There are so many other areas that we need to look at. We can be part of that process as we go along within the European Union; we do not need to have a separate set of negotiations. The only way, in my view, that we can do this is to put the matter to the EU now.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Keith Vaz]

Yes, but many Members want to speak, so I give way for the last time.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and I praise him for the candour of his approach to this debate. We all agree that reform is needed, but the British public need to be sure that sufficient reform is going to take place if we are to stay within the EU. Does he agree that having a referendum after the renegotiation has happened will absolutely crystallise in the minds of the rest of the EU member states the fact that we are absolutely serious that the current position is just unsustainable?

[Keith Vaz]

I think the member states know that the current situation is unsustainable and that they understand that we want change. The Prime Minister has made that clear every time he goes to a summit meeting of the European Union. I do not know whether the Minister for Europe has a row with his colleagues every time he goes to the General Affairs meetings, but the fact is that the Prime Minister always comes back to this House to make his statement after a European summit and says that he has confronted colleagues so that they know where Britain stands.

I think that the major political parties should be publishing their manifestos for reform. Frankly, we do not know what they are. I think we should be very clear about what we want to change about the European Union—and we can put that into operation now rather than having to wait.

My final point is that I hope nobody votes against this private Member’s Bill. I hope that it will go through unanimously and that nobody will seek to divide the House. That would send a powerful message that all parties believe that there is a case for the British people to make a decision. If we do that, it will mean that people will trust us even more than they do at the moment.

Protecting Children Online

Debate between Keith Vaz and Tim Loughton

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones). I declare myself a dinosaur where online issues are concerned. I was going to say the same thing about my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), but she is much more modern than I am. Although she, I and you, Madam Deputy Speaker, were elected 26 years ago yesterday, she is thoroughly modern in her approach. She was able to name the Pokémons as one of the groups that children look at online, though Pokémons are perfectly fine as creatures and they probably need protection from the children.

In the short time available to us to speak, let me say that I normally go to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who is a member of the Home Affairs Committee, for advice on these matters, and I listened carefully to what he said about filters. However, I think the real responsibility is on the internet companies and the service providers. They have got away with murder—literally, in some cases—because people have been able to use the internet to groom young girls and children and to behave in an irresponsible way. The internet companies throw up their hands and say that is freedom of speech.

We recently had some of those companies before the Home Affairs Committee during our last inquiry and also during a previous inquiry, so we have questioned them about both the roots of radicalism and e-crime. We will invite them again when we look at this matter again. They are very reluctant to intervene, and a tiny proportion of their profits—a tiny proportion—goes to the Internet Watch Foundation. It is not enough. They cannot sit back complacently and allow these things to go on without intervening and cleaning up the internet.

The Home Secretary has made positive statements, after what happened in Woolwich, about her desire to get things done. I am glad that there is a summit next week. I hope that she will be invited and that this is not just being seen as an issue for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, because when dealing with crime it is important to ensure that the police are fully involved.

[Tim Loughton]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Keith Vaz]

I will get into trouble with you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I will give way briefly.

[Tim Loughton]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the search engines, most of which are based in America, pleading freedom of speech. Does he agree that every search engine could have a simple sign on its home page alerting users to how they can report material they are concerned about, which would cost nothing? That way, there would be no excuse for not knowing what to do. They could also put money into having moderators to ensure a rapid response to unacceptable material.

[Keith Vaz]

Yes, and I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for all the work he did in that area as Children’s Minister and since then. The internet companies must be proactive. They have to go in and clean up the internet. They cannot just sit back and allow others to do it for them. It is so difficult to get internet companies to appear before Select Committees. It takes an age to find them, and then they always respond by saying that they are based in California or New York and therefore do not come over to the UK. They send us their public relations officers, but they, very nice people though they are, are not the decision makers.

I am full of praise for the work CEOP does. I have visited it, along with members of the Home Affairs Committee, and encourage other right hon. and hon. Members to go—it is just across the Vauxhall Bridge road—and see the fantastic work being done. I pay tribute to Jim Gamble for his work in setting it up in the first place and to Peter Davies, who leads it ably. I say to the Policing Minister—he is now in conversation with the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), who has done a great deal of work in these matters, for which we are grateful—that it is very important that we protect CEOP’s budget. The Home Affairs Committee expressed concern that CEOP was being put into the National Crime Agency. We accept what the Government have done and understand the need to rationalise the policing landscape, but it is important to maintain CEOP’s budget and focus. I understand that its budget will be cut by 10% over the next four years. Perhaps the Minister can reassure me that that is not the case and that CEOP, even though it is in the NCA—the Committee thinks that is fine for the moment, but we will revisit the subject—will still retain its focus. Ultimately, it provides terrific expertise that could benefit police forces across the country.

Finally, I recently visited Europol and Interpol. I urge the Policing Minister to visit those organisations, because I gather that no Home Office Minister has visited Europol in recent years. They are doing some fantastic work internationally. I know that the Cabinet Office has funded a project in Interpol specifically dealing with online child exploitation. I think that we can take credit for the work we are doing internationally. To return to my first point, the internet is a marvellous invention and a power for good, but as we have seen, and as we have heard today, it can be used in a different, darker way to exploit children. I hope that internet service providers and others involved in this whole area will understand their responsibilities and act accordingly.