Leaving the EU: Security, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my fellow Select Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). I agreed with many of the points that he made about the importance of continued European co-operation. Like him, I voted for article 50 to be triggered by the end of March, because although, like him, I wanted us to remain in the European Union, I believed that we should respect the referendum result, and that means getting on with the detailed and hard work of establishing how we can get the best possible deal for Britain outside the EU.

I also agree with the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) that we should be cautious about assuming that it will be easy for us to get the detail right, particularly in respect of the important law enforcement issues. If we do not have the right kind of legal basis for the co-operation that we want to see, we shall simply not be able to use the information or intelligence that we have to lock up those who have committed crimes and to keep people safe.

I hope that there is considerable consensus about the objectives that we should have—not just consensus across the House about our objectives in co-operating to keep Britain safe, but consensus across Europe, where co-operation between Britain and other European countries has saved people’s lives and protected us from terror threats and serious crime. The Prime Minister was right to say yesterday:

“With the threats to our common security becoming more serious, our response cannot be to cooperate with one another less, but to work together more.”

So far, however, we have heard very little from the Home Secretary, and, although I have the great respect for the Policing Minister, I am disappointed that she has not come to the House today.

Given the seriousness of these issues, and given that the Prime Minister highlighted the importance of parliamentary sovereignty, I think that we need to hear more from the Home Secretary in Parliament. We will be calling on her to come before the Home Affairs Committee to provide further detail. It is also disappointing that the Policing Minister has now departed, which means that no Home Office Minister is present for a debate on an issue that will have huge repercussions for our security operations for many decades to come. Obviously, the work on security will form part of the Government’s wider plan for securing the best possible Brexit deal and Brexit settlement.

Yesterday the Prime Minister talked particularly about trade. She pledged to secure tariff-free trade, and a better overall deal for British jobs that was outside the single market and the customs union. As the Government will know, there is considerable concern about whether ditching a long-established trade and customs deal will really deliver a better deal for jobs, employment protection and environmental standards here in Britain, and Ministers will need to provide a great deal more evidence to show that they can actually deliver a better deal for our manufacturing and services, as well as for the social and economic standards that matter so much.

Ministers will also need to say more about the Government’s approach to immigration. I am one of those who have believed for some time that we need to change the arrangements for free movement, and I think there are particular concerns about unrestricted low-skilled migration. We shall need to engage in a sensible debate about how to get the best deal for Britain on both jobs and immigration, so that we benefit from international talent and from economic trade as well.

There is some confusion and there are some questions as a result of mixed messages received from the Government. It would be helpful if the Minister clarified the position, as he represents the Department for Exiting the European Union. Some are suggesting that immigration will not form part of the discussions and negotiations about trade and that those issues will be kept separate in the negotiations, while others say that debate about future immigration rules will be dealt with alongside the trade negotiations. It is important for us to understand whether the negotiations about the customs union and the single market are stand-alone trade negotiations, or whether there will be a wider debate on options relating to both immigration and trade.

[Keith Vaz]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on all the excellent work that she is doing as Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. Does she know whether we are to have a debate on leaving the EU and immigration and Home Office policy, especially with regard to the rights of EU citizens to stay here, or whether we are supposed to discuss all those matters during today’s debate about Home Office and justice matters?

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank my right hon. Friend for what he has said, and commend him for his many years of fantastic work on the Home Affairs Committee. I do not know what the plans are for further debates about immigration. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us, because it will clearly be one of the central issues to be discussed. If it is included in the debate, that will affect the kind of deal or agreement that we secure, so it is important for us to have some clarity about what those plans are.

Refugee Crisis in Europe

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

If I may, I will come on to where I think the disagreement still lies, and happily give way to the hon. Gentleman again if he feels I have not answered his point. I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday, which was important. I welcome, too, the huge amount that is being done in aid, where Britain is playing a leading role. I applaud the work that this Government are doing to help and provide aid to those in the camps and to do more to start to help those from Syria.

Many of the troubled travellers no longer have any safe home to return to; they do need help and we should do our bit. There is a difference between immigration and asylum. We cannot let the troubled politics of immigration paralyse us and stop us doing our bit to help those who are fleeing conflict and persecution. Eleven million people in Syria have now been driven from their homes. In Palmyra and Mosul hundreds of men have been beheaded and their bodies hung from the roofs of ancient temples. Four million have fled the country altogether and most are living hand to mouth in neighbouring countries. Another 6 million have been displaced inside the country. Many of them, and many other refugees, are fleeing a new totalitarianism, and we should help those who flee to survive, just as we did against totalitarian regimes in the past.

We agree that Britain needs to do its bit to help. We agree that Britain should do most through support in the region with the aid to the camps, because it is far better to help people nearby to prevent dangerous journeys and to make it easier for them to return if things improve. As I have said, I applaud the Government’s leadership in supporting the camps and doing far more than other countries to provide aid at a time when food rations are running short and the UNHCR is desperate for more support. We agree that the Navy should be part of search and rescue, aiding those in peril on the sea. We agree that Europol and police forces should be driving action against the vile criminal gangs who prey on desperation and put a price tag on freedom—a price tag on breathing—and seek a profit on people’s lives.

We agree too that it is right for Britain to help orphaned and unaccompanied children from Syria if they will not be better off staying with family and friends. However, debates in the other place have raised concern about whether children who came from Syria, having no family back home and having made a life here, would be sent home when they reached the age of 18. That would be inhumane. I seek clarification from the Home Secretary and urge her to assure the House that unaccompanied children who come from Syria to Britain will not be sent back to the region when they turn 18.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

With regard to tackling criminal gangs and the role of Europol, I followed the Minister for Immigration to Europol two weeks ago. It is involved in an operation in Sicily to try to deal with the criminal gangs. This is not just about taking in the refugees; it is also about dealing with the criminal gangs. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important that the EU should increase resources to Europol to enable it, as the only strategic authority, to do a better job in tackling the criminal gangs?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The scale of the criminal challenge and the modern slavery that the Home Secretary has often talked about mean that we must have a response that matches the scale of the crisis and the scale of the trafficking that is taking place. Frankly, our response, not just in Britain but across Europe, does not match the scale of the challenge at the moment. We certainly need to support Europol and police forces right across Europe to work together to do more.

We agree that the Government should offer more sanctuary to those who are vulnerable in the camps in Syria and give them a chance to come to Britain instead. In fact, this House called for that nearly two years ago. I and Sir Menzies Campbell—soon to be Lord Campbell—and many Members on both sides of the House argued for it when we debated the issue in January 2014 and, as a result, the Home Secretary agreed to set up the programme in early 2014. That programme has so far helped just over 200 people and the Government have made a big change to their position by saying that they are now prepared to help 20,000. Even if the timetable is slow, I welcome the fact that they have agreed to do more.

I pay tribute to all those who in the past seven days have signed petitions and contacted MPs, charities and newspapers to speak out and call for action. That has changed the Government’s mind, which is welcome.

Home Affairs and Justice

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Thursday 28th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

That is exactly the point, because the Home Secretary’s net migration target includes some kinds of immigration and not others. She has ignored student visitor visas because they are not included in her net migration target, but she includes refugees in her net migration target and wants to push it down.

[Keith Vaz]

The problem with having a net migration figure is that we cannot control the number of people who want to go out of the country.

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is right—that is a problem.

The Home Secretary’s net migration target includes students, visa overstayers, workers and refugees, but it does not include illegal immigration. That is why she failed so badly in the previous Parliament to deal properly with illegal immigration. It also does not include people who enter the country on short-term visas, even if they may then overstay and break the rules and abuse the system.

The problem for the Home Secretary is that by treating everything as part of her net migration target, she is failing. The area where her approach is failing most, and is most immoral, is the inclusion of refugees in the net migration target. That has created an incentive for the Home Office to resist giving people sanctuary, undermining our long tradition of humanitarian help. Ministers shake their heads, but let us look at the evidence about what they have done as a result of their direct incentive to cut the number of refugees that Britain accepts.

Eighteen months ago, I called on the Home Secretary to make sure that Britain was doing its bit to give sanctuary to some of those in greatest need in the refugee camps outside Syria. She resisted until she was forced to give in, and even then she accepted only 140 people. Last summer, she led the arguments in Europe to stop search and rescue in the Mediterranean, leaving people to drown in the waves in order to deter others from coming here. Now she is again refusing to help when the UN asks for help. Ministers are right to target people-smugglers’ assets and their empty boats before they can set sail, and right to try to build stability in the region, but that is not enough. Frontex has said that the main cause of the increase in boats is the situation in Syria, which has caused the worst refugee crisis since the second world war. Yet the Home Secretary is still resisting the UN’s appeal to give sanctuary to more Syrian refugees, and refusing to help the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to provide refuge to more of those fleeing Syria and so manage the boat crisis.

I do not expect the Home Secretary to sign up to an arbitrary quota system that is beyond our control, but I do expect her to offer to help. She should work with local councils to see how many more places we can offer and do far more to give desperate people sanctuary, because they are now fleeing not just from the civil war with Assad but from ISIL—a barbaric organisation that oppresses, persecutes and beheads people for their faith and for who they are. Throughout our history, from the Huguenots to the Kindertransport, this country has refused to turn its back on those fleeing persecution and seeking sanctuary. Just as she should not rip up the legacy of international standards on human rights, she should not rip up that legacy of international compassion either.

Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Wherever racketeering and exploitation take place, action should be taken to tackle those serious crimes. It is a problem that we highlighted from the beginning, when the legislation for the National Crime Agency was drawn up, but Northern Ireland is not covered by the work of the National Crime Agency. That continues to be a challenge and to cause problems.

If we can increase the resources taken from the proceeds of crime, that will help victims and also help to improve and support the criminal justice system. I welcome the Home Secretary’s comment today that she believes the Bill will raise additional resources and will save money, and that she will consider extending the relevant measure to those who owe less than the £10 million provided for in the Bill. That is the same policy that she claimed this morning would cost £19 million, and her own document claimed would not save any money at all because it assumed that no one would change their behaviour. So she said one thing at noon and something completely different at 5.30 in the afternoon, and undermined her claims from this morning.

Many other aspects of the Bill have been added as a result of strong campaigns and amendments put forward or supported by Labour in the Lords and by many Members across this House. We welcome, for example, the three new clauses and new schedules added in the Lords for stronger action against the appalling and barbaric crime of female genital mutilation that takes place against young girls. We have called for stronger prevention orders and are glad that they are included, as well as the measures on anonymity for victims and stronger responsibility. I pay tribute to some of the campaign groups which have worked so hard, as well as hon. Members who have pursued the issues. We will look further at the detail in Committee.

[Keith Vaz]

There is all-party support for the actions taken by the Government. Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that despite the legislation and the political willingness to get something done on FGM, there have been only two prosecutions in relation to FGM? This needs to change. The prosecution authorities need to understand the seriousness of the issue.

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. It is a matter not just of the legal framework, but of making sure that the law is enforced. We must ensure that the law is strong enough and that prosecution authorities, the police and authorities at every level, including schools and other organisations, are properly aware of the seriousness of the crime and of the risks to young girls in this country, and are prepared and ready to take action to tackle this awful crime.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is right. She has great expertise in looking at the work of the Prevent programme, particularly the community and local work that was being done. This is a concern. The Government originally cut the number of local authorities receiving funding through the Prevent programme from 90 to 23. They have subsequently reinstated some of them, but only four out of the 30 councils that were tasked with delivering Prevent submitted evaluations to the Office for Security and Counter-terrorism last year.

The Home Secretary has talked many times—we have pressed her on this—about the fact that she has passed some of the Prevent work to the Department for Communities and Local Government, but it is of considerable concern to us that there is no evidence that it is doing significant work on it. The community-led programme to counter radicalisation simply does not seem to be strong or effective enough. Much more could be done even without legislation to improve the Prevent programme, and if the Government do not do their bit, all the legislation in the world will not make the programme effective.

[Keith Vaz]

Evidence suggests that the biggest pressure on young jihadists comes not from organisations, but from peer groups. What is missing is that we have not yet got into the DNA of trying to deal with peer group pressure. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should direct more of the funding to such community organisations?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. We should be honest about the fact that we do not know the perfect answers. This is a difficult area, and different things need to be tried. However, the current programmes are not addressing two significant challenges: peer group recruitment, which is clearly taking place in many areas, and social media, through which recruitment and radicalisation are taking place. Much more should be done to address those challenges, and community-led programmes might be considerably more effective than police-led or Government-led programmes in achieving results.

EU Justice and Home Affairs Measures

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. It would have been so simple to cover those measures in the initial debate on a straightforward motion tabled by the Government. I think that it is unprecedented that the Opposition table what should be a Government motion and ask the Government to vote with us on the very measures that they supported in the first place.

The 24 measures include football banning orders, which we welcome, to stop hooligans travelling to matches in Europe. We need to participate in Eurojust to gather evidence on cross-border crime. We need Europol to support and co-ordinate cross-border investigations. We need co-operation to prevent drug trafficking, and we need the European Police College to share best practice.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way and hope that she will excuse me for interrupting her. She is clearly on a roll, because I cannot remember a time on which the Home Secretary has written to my right hon. Friend to say that she will support one of her measures. When the Select Committee on Home Affairs considered the matter, we suggested that the vote should have happened much earlier and that the House should have voted to give the Government a mandate to negotiate, rather than it being left to the last moment. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should really have discussed these matters a long time before?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is right. The truth is that the Home Secretary’s handling of the whole thing has been chaotic from start to finish. We have had no proper opportunity to debate the subject and have a vote at the right time and we have had confusion about when we were going to have the votes at the wrong time. We had parliamentary confusion, votes in chaos, Tory MPs scuttling back from their dinners, champagne banquets abandoned and a humiliated Prime Minister returning to the House of Commons with his tails between his legs.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Lady is right. Although we know that there are issues about the Court judgment and its implications over the summer, there will be considerable concern about the pace at which this Bill has been introduced and has been debated in Parliament. The short-term debate would be easier if there had been a wider longer-term debate about the question of a sensible framework in which the public could feel involved and have their say. If emergency issues came up, as they will from time to time—for any Government in any circumstances there will be court judgments that suddenly mean that an emergency response is needed—it would be so much easier to have the emergency debate against a backdrop in which the broader issues of security and liberty, and how we balance them in an internet age, are being properly debated and discussed, with public involvement.

Those of us who believe in the vital work the police and agencies need to be able to do should be the most ready to debate both the powers and the safeguards that are needed, because they must have public consent. We cannot hide behind a veil of secrecy. Of course, that debate must be handled with care so that we do not expose important intelligence capabilities that need to be kept secret to be effective, but we can have a debate about the legal framework, about the principles and about the powers and safeguards we need.

We know the vital work that we want the police and agencies to be able to do: building the intelligence that foils terrorist attacks; providing the fast response needed to find the last location of a missing child or murder victim; and stopping online fraud and cyber-attacks, which are escalating with every month. We also know that people will only continue to support those vital powers if they also know that there are proper safeguards: protection for innocent people’s privacy; public reassurance about what that protection really is; safeguards so that powers cannot be abused; safeguards, checks and balances on what the police and intelligence agencies can do; and a Government and Parliament that recognise that this is difficult and do not try just to sweep it all under the carpet and deny the public a say.

The lack of a wider debate is making it harder to have a short-term debate today. This is not the right way to have this debate. However, I also believe that we cannot reject this legislation now; it would be wrong to do so. We need to support it today, but we must also use it to get the wider debate that we need.

Let us be clear about what is at stake. The Court judgment means that the regulations on data retention need to be replaced; otherwise, they will fall altogether. This is about the requirement for companies to hold their billing data and other communications data for 12 months. This does not refer to the content of the calls and messages; it just covers the communications data. If the police are investigating a crime or pursuing an emergency that involves risk to life or limb, they can get a warrant and ask the companies to hand over the data relating to the suspect. As the Home Secretary has said, these data are used to identify conspiracies, prove alibis, locate missing children and find out who is committing online crimes or sending online child abuse. The police need warrants to do this, and the data do not tell us what people are saying. They cannot tell us the content of an e-mail—that is private—but they can help us to solve crimes.

These data are particularly important in dealing with serious and organised crime. For example, they can show that drug dealers who claim not to know each other have in fact been calling each other every week. They can show who the armed robber called to help him get away from the scene of a crime, or where a missing child was when their phone was switched off. They can also help to trace who a terror suspect contacted before they went to Syria, for example, and to work out who might be grooming or radicalising more young people to go there.

These data are used in court in 95% of the serious and organised crime cases that reach prosecution. They are particularly important in relation to online child abuse, because they allow the police to get warrants, to contact companies to find out the name and address of the person who has sent vile images of child abuse and to rescue children who are being hurt. A recent Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre investigation resulted in the arrest of 200 suspects and identified 132 children who were at risk of abuse. The prosecutions and actions needed to rescue those children were made possible only through the use of communications data. A similar investigation in Germany, where communications data are not held, led to only a handful of cases being investigated.

The Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan police has described the importance of communications data to rape investigations. She has said:

“As to robberies and rapes, it is very usual for phones to be stolen. The stranger rapist, on many occasions, will take the phone from the victim and within 24 hours we find the rapist.”

The data also protect our children’s safety. In one case that the Joint Committee looked at, an online help service contacted the police, worried about a child who had posted on their website a threat to commit suicide. The police contacted the relevant companies, which helped to track down the service user’s name and address, then sent the local police to the door to find that the child had hanged himself but was still breathing. Fast action and communications data saved his life.

It is because we recognise how crucial this evidence is to so many investigations that we believe it would be too damaging to the fight against crime and terrorism for the police to lose this information this summer. The Government have rightly made changes to ensure that the new legislation can comply with the ECJ directive. They have narrowed the number of organisations that can access the data, for example, and introduced further safeguards to ensure that the process is necessary and proportionate.

The second part of the Bill is more complex, as it addresses the global nature of our telecommunications. Increasingly, the companies that help us to communicate with each other, with the family members we live with and with our neighbours and friends down the road, are based abroad. They should not be excluded from UK law just because of where their headquarters are based. International companies have been covered by and complied with RIPA for many years. Indeed, the legislation has always made it clear that companies should be covered if they provided services in the UK. We recognise, however, that other court judgments have made it more important to be explicit about legislation that has extraterritorial effect, rather than just leaving the arrangements implicit in the legislation. Again, it would jeopardise important intelligence if we were to ignore this factor.

Similarly, on telecommunications data, we have sought assurances from the Home Secretary that these measures are not an extension of powers and that they are only a clarification of the arrangements that already exist and of practices that already take place. It is important to recognise that this is not just about the legislation. The Home Secretary has now given the House assurances that the way in which she issues warrants will comply with that intention not to extend those powers, and that this is simply about maintaining the powers that are already in place.

This means that the safeguards are extremely important. The safeguards in the Bill and in the regulations are welcome. They ensure that the legislation is temporary, as well as restricting the purposes of the legislation so that it cannot be used only for purposes of economic well-being, and restricting the number of organisations that have access to data. We welcome the proposals for a privacy and civil liberties board, although we will need more debate about how that should work and how it should fit with our proposals to overhaul the commissioners and ensure that there is stronger oversight.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important to have the widest possible consultation with as many groups as possible before the names are put forward for the new board?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is right, and I would certainly expect the Select Committees to play an important role in that process. There needs to be a debate about the way in which the board should work. It has considerable potential. Wider, more substantial reforms of the existing framework are needed, including, for example, to the structure relating to the commissioners, who in theory have oversight of different parts of legislation, and to the role of the counter-terrorism reviewer, which is more effective than the work of some of the commissioners. We need to look at the whole framework in determining how the privacy and civil liberties board will fit in with the wider reforms that we need. That might need to be a two-stage process: the introduction of the board and reforms made to the commissioners’ structure in the light of the wider review that we are calling for. We have tabled amendments to secure such a review.

The review of the legislation is particularly important. For some time, we have been calling for an independent expert review of the legal and operational framework and in particular of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. As a result of the communications data revolution, the law and our oversight framework are now out of date. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has said, new technology is blurring the distinction between communications and content, and between domestic and international communications, as well as raising new questions about data storage. We therefore need to reconsider what safeguards are necessary in an internet age to ensure that people’s privacy is protected.

We need stronger oversight, too. We need to know how far the new technology is outstripping the legal framework, and what powers and safeguards are needed for the future. We need to determine how warrants should operate, who should have access to data, and whether the police and intelligence agencies have the lawful capabilities that they need. The police need to be able to keep up with new technology, but the safeguards need to keep up, too. All those elements should be included in the scope of the first stage of the independent review by the counter-terrorism reviewer, David Anderson.

Passport Applications

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I hope the management and work force can work together. It is helpful that the union has shown support to sort the problem out and get things done in time.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The Home Affairs Committee was very surprised when we heard that the amount of work in progress was 493,000, because we have not yet reached the peak of the application period. However, we were even more surprised when no timetable was given. The chief executive said it would be done in a reasonable time. When we asked him what a reasonable time was, he said, “How long is a piece of string?” We need a timetable to get work in progress quickly.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Affairs Committee work in taking evidence has been important, because my right hon. Friend is exactly right that we need a time scale. We need to know how long this piece of string is. Is it a short piece of string or a long one? Are we talking about a few weeks or a few months, or about this time next year? People who have holidays in September or business trips in October need to know how far in advance they should plan and whether they should be worried. Ministers are not giving us answers on how long it will take.

The Home Secretary has said that there will be 650 extra staff on the telephone helpline, which means more extra staff for the helpline than for clearing passports. How much does she think that will help? Currently, most people’s experience of the helpline is that people take messages and promise that someone else will call back. The person who is supposed to call back does not do so, and the people on the helpline do not know the answers.

That system is doing people’s heads in. We heard from Ria Runsewe and her family in Bromley. On 5 May, they applied for a passport for their 10-week-old son, and then heard nothing. She said:

“I called the helpline to check its progress…I was told someone would call me back within 48 hours, but I missed the call while I was changing my son’s nappy. Ten minutes later, I called back—only to be told that I had gone to the bottom of the queue and would have to wait another 48 hours.”

She eventually got through to someone and asked to upgrade to the premium service, and spent two more weeks chasing before someone else called her back to take payment and promise that the passport would be there the following day.

Another family gave us this account of their conversation on the helpline. Passport Office: “We can’t guarantee when your passport will be sent or when you will receive it.” Me: “What can I do?” Him: “You can’t do anything?” Me: “Can’t I pay to upgrade?” Him: “We can’t talk about that. You have to ring another number.” Me: “But that is your number.” Him: “We can’t talk about it until you mention it.” Me: “Okay. I’m mentioning it, and, in fact, I can categorically say I want it.” Him: “We can’t guarantee that they will do anything and they may not respond to you, but you can apply again for an urgent upgrade after that, and you may be lucky that time.” That is not even Kafkaesque; it is Monty Python. We do not need a system that simply has more staff to take messages. We need staff in place to clear passports and ensure that constituents throughout the country are told what is going on.

Home Affairs

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary has set out the Bills and measures announced in the Queen’s Speech, including measures on modern slavery and on tackling organised crime and helping, we hope, pay back the profits of crime—which we have called for before—as well as action on female genital mutilation, child neglect and terrorism abroad. All of those measures will have strong cross-party support and I want to address some of them. I also want to talk about what is missing from the Queen’s Speech, because the Home Secretary’s proposals are not sufficient to address some of the challenges that Britain faces for the future.

I will start with the Bill that we welcome most—the Modern Slavery Bill. I pay tribute, as the Home Secretary has done, to the members of the cross-party Joint Committee, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and my hon. Friends the Members for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) and for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), who have argued for changes and improvements to the Bill.

The Home Secretary was right to talk about the torture, rape and persecution of those who see no way out. The gangmasters, traffickers and slave drivers are not just stealing vulnerable people’s money; they are stealing their freedom and stealing their lives. Tougher laws and penalties are needed, and I also hope the Bill will go further in providing more support for victims by making sure they are not punished in the immigration system or sent back to those who sold them in the first place. It also needs to make sure that there are child guardians, which we have been calling for since 2010, because it is chilling that two thirds of children rescued from trafficking in Britain just disappear. They are betrayed by their abusers only to be betrayed for a second time by the authorities, which fail to protect them when their abusers and traffickers steal their lives and freedom all over again.

The Home Secretary also needs to look again at the domestic workers visa and the risks to those forced into domestic slavery, unable to escape. The charity Kalayaan has found that since the Home Secretary changed the visas, 60% of those on the new visa were paid no salary at all, compared with 14% on the original visa. That is slavery, and the evidence suggests that the Home Secretary’s visa reforms have made it worse. We will also press her to support joint action on supply chains, as the Joint Committee has suggested.

I am glad that the Home Secretary is doing more to recover the proceeds of crime. She will know that less has been recovered in recent years. The amount collected by the police and the volume of confiscation orders have fallen, yet we know there is still £1.5 billion-worth of outstanding orders—ill-gotten gains that criminals are still stashing away. We have already called on the Home Secretary to end early release with regard to default sentences where organised criminals refuse to pay, and to stop loopholes whereby criminals transfer assets to families. I hope those measures will be in the Bill.

We welcome further action on organised crime and those aiding and abetting criminals, and we certainly need stronger action against those who are mutilating the bodies of girls and young women. It is a stain on our country that so many young women are at risk and no one has yet been successfully prosecuted.

More action is also needed against online child abuse. We are glad that the Home Secretary is looking at new offences, but what is she doing to reverse the fall in Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre arrests and the drop in the number of chid abusers being caught?

I am also glad that the Home Secretary is looking at terrorist offences overseas, but after all the noise yesterday about the Prevent programme she needs also to recognise that there is a significant gap in her policies on preventing terrorism and extremism. She claimed yesterday that it was okay for the Home Office to narrow the work it does and to stop funding work by communities themselves to prevent extremism, because, she said, the Department for Communities and Local Government is doing that instead—but it is not.

The reality is that neither the Home Secretary nor the Communities Secretary—nor even the Education Secretary—are taking seriously enough the need to work with communities on preventing young people from being seduced into going to Syria. Some of the strongest voices and most effective people in counteracting the ideology of the jihad are those within the communities, in faith groups and friends in social media, yet not enough work is being done with those communities or to give them support. I hope the Home Secretary will make sure that that happens.

[Keith Vaz]

May I endorse what my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary has said? In my constituency, 52% of the people are from ethnic minority communities and there are more than 27 mosques, 35 Hindu temples and five gurdwaras in Leicester. It is important to bring communities with us. Of course, a tough strategy is very important. We did not get it absolutely right under the previous Government and Prevent had to be modernised, but without those communities we cannot make change.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Affairs Committee has done some important work on this issue and my right hon. Friend is right that we will always have to keep reforming the programmes and learning from things that do not work, because preventing extremism is a difficult area. However, experts in countering extremism and preventing terrorism have raised concerns with me that some of the work done previously with the Somali community to ensure that it got the support it needed to prevent people from going to Somalia to fight is not being replicated to prevent people from going to Syria.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. Many of us have had the experience of trying to ensure that our constituents get their passports in time to go on the holiday that they have put all their savings into, or to go on a business trip abroad. We are told that there is a backlog of 500,000 cases. We all know that people are now in a state of panic and, for fear of losing their money, are putting extra money in to pay for fast-track services or rushing across the country to Durham or elsewhere to pick up their passport.

[Keith Vaz]

For my right hon. Friend’s information, the Home Affairs Committee has called the head of the Passport Office to appear before us on Tuesday. We have heard that the real problem is that 80 members of staff have been moved off passport fraud duties to help with the backlog, meaning that they are not doing the very important work of checking fraud that they are required to do.

Justice and Home Affairs Opt-out

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Monday 7th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

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

[Keith Vaz]

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

[Yvette Cooper]

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

Immigration Bill

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

This is a matter on which the Government still need to answer questions and they are confused about what they are proposing. The Bill contains limited measures, but they also seem to be setting out other measures that are not in it.

The measures on landlords take up 16 clauses—a quarter of the Bill. This, it appears, is the Government’s flagship policy on tackling illegal immigration. The only trouble is that we have no idea how it is supposed to work. There are more than 400 European identity documents, and the Government have not explained whether private landlords are supposed to know which one is which. There are countless different documents to show that people are entitled to be here. Will private landlords have to know each one? On some figures, nearly one in five usual residents, including British citizens, do not have passports. What will they have to do to rent a flat? When the Home Secretary was asked two weeks ago about how this policy would be implemented, all she could say was:

“There’s a lot of confusion.”

That is right, and the Home Secretary has done nothing today to clear that confusion up.

All these policies on driving licences, tenancy agreements and bank accounts will, according to the Home Secretary, tackle illegal immigration. How much difference will they actually make in practice, even where the policy is sensible enough in principle? One does not need a British driving licence to drive in Britain and one does not need a British bank account to take cash out of a cash machine or to earn some cash on the side. What difference will the measures make to the growing number of people who are here illegally because they are less likely to be stopped at the border and less likely to be sent back home? Deportations are down by 7%. The number of people stopped at the border and turned away has halved since the election. The number of illegal immigrants absconding through Heathrow has trebled, and the number caught afterwards has halved. Six hundred and fifty thousand potential smuggling warnings were deleted by the Home Office without even being read, and 150,000 reports of potential bogus students were never followed up.

There is still no answer from the Home Secretary about how many people came in without proper checks as a result of her bordersgate experiment. We get the same response from the Home Secretary each time: to blame the civil servants, to blame the landlords, to blame all migrants, to blame the technology and to blame the Labour Government. Her latest response is to blame the Minister for Immigration.

[Keith Vaz]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The issue of who comes in and out of this country is important. Does she share my concern at the delay in starting the tendering process for the e-Borders project? As we know, there were problems with the project under the previous Government and it is three-and-a-half years since the contract was terminated. Does she not agree that we need this as soon as possible?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. The Government decided to suspend the contract three years ago, in 2010. There has been a complete freeze with no contract in place and no proper action taking place. He is absolutely right that we need not just proper checks in place when people arrive, but proper checks on deportations and departures to be able to take follow-up action on illegal immigration.

What was the Government’s flagship policy to tackle illegal immigration, which was trailed by the Prime Minister, who this summer promised new action? It was to hire a man with a van to drive around in circles for two weeks. What was the Home Secretary thinking? Did she really think that people here illegally, who have ignored Home Office letters and avoided UK Border Force scrutiny, would change their minds because they saw one of her posters on an ad van? What did she think people were going to say: “Oh, thank goodness I saw the ad van today. I had just forgotten I was supposed to go home. Hang on while I pop out and get an airplane ticket”? Will she confirm that only one person has rung up to return? He did not even see the vans: he saw a picture in The Guardian. This has not just been a blunt instrument; it has been a complete failure. Will she admit that this has been a pointless gimmick from the start?

Last week the Immigration Minister said that the vans could be rolled out around the country, but instead the Home Secretary strung him out and today decided that the policy is a blunt instrument and she will not do it again. Why did she do it in the first place? Will she stand up and tell the House how many people returned home as a result of it? The Immigration Minister said that only one person returned as a result of the ad vans, but will the Home Secretary say how many people have returned as a result of her ad van approach?

This is not just about a policy that is ineffective and a blunt instrument. The Home Secretary sent the van around four London boroughs with the highest proportion of ethnic minority British citizens. One Brent resident—a British citizen—said:

“As a child in the 1970s with migrant parents I remember how ‘go home’ was shouted at us in the streets and graffitied on walls. One of my earliest memories is of the panic I felt when hearing my parents discussing in hushed tones whether we would indeed have to ‘go home’, as we watched the National Front march on TV.”

The Home Secretary agreed to that slogan. She agreed to send it round communities whose parents heard it from the National Front in the 1970s, and whose British citizens work in our public services, build our businesses, and fight in our armed forces today. She signed off and defended that policy, all for the sake of one person returning. She should be better than that, and I hope she is ashamed of what she did.

EU Police, Justice and Home Affairs

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I must make a bit of progress first.

We have been struggling to find out what the Government are actually doing, and what their position actually is on these important measures. Today’s edition of The Guardian gave us some clues. It states that the Prime Minister is expected to opt into 30 to 40 measures, that a deal is being done by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Minister for Government Policy, the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin), who sits in the Cabinet Office, and that

“the Tories want to opt back in to no more than 29”

so that they can say that they opted out of 100.

“The Lib Dems, who had been pressing for… 70…recently settled on a figure of about 45.

Ministers are planning to split the difference between 45 and 29, meaning the coalition will sign up to about 35 of the measures.”

This, it appears, is a numbers game. It is no way to decide on serious issues that affect the fight against crime and future justice for victims. However, we think it excellent that the Government have handed over negotiations to the right hon. Member for West Dorset. We recall that the last time the Prime Minister tried that, in relation to Leveson, the Cabinet Office Minister came over to our place and allowed us to draft the policy. We are quite happy to do that again if the Government cannot sort it out.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I realise that my right hon. Friend would quite like the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin) to be involved in these discussions, but I am a bit perplexed by the situation. Such an important question should really involve the Home Secretary. Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the Home Secretary should be there making the deals, rather than the Cabinet Office and the Treasury?

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. The issue is immensely important and there must be a question about where the Home Secretary is in these discussions. Where is the voice for British policing? Where is the voice for law enforcement? Where is the voice for British victims? If she is not being heard on behalf of the police and of victims, she is letting them down.

Let me consider some of the key measures that the Government are threatening to opt out of. The police have said that the most important to them is the European arrest warrant, which gives them the power to arrest people here who are wanted for crimes back home, gives the courts the power to send them swiftly home to face justice, means that police forces abroad will act to arrest suspected criminals who have fled from justice here and means that courts across Europe can send those suspects swiftly back.

The teacher who ran off to France with a pupil was arrested under the warrant and returned within weeks. The man who tried to blow up the tube at Shepherd’s Bush was quickly returned from Italy. However, as I told the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), it took 10 years of legal wrangling to send a suspected terrorist back to France before the European arrest warrant was introduced.

Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary has made some big promises about the Bill today. She has said that it will transform the fight against organised crime—indeed, to hear her speak one would think that there was no fight against organised crime before the Bill was drawn up—and that it would solve the problem of economic crime, transform punishment and rehabilitation, stop illegal immigration, and save money, all at the same time. One might think that this Bill alone would persuade all dangerous criminals to stop in their tracks and embark on a life of charity work.

You will forgive Labour Members, Mr Deputy Speaker, if we express a bit of scepticism about the claims that the Home Secretary has made—although we support many of the measures in the Bill—because we have heard such promises about her legislation from her before. When she stood before us to present one Home Office measure, she told us:

“With a strong democratic mandate from the ballot box, police and crime commissioners will hold their chief constable to account for cutting crime.”—[Official Report, 13 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 708.]

That “strong democratic mandate” turned out to be 15% of the public voting and 3.6% voting Conservative. Introducing the terrorism prevention and investigation measures, she promised that

“public safety is enhanced, not diminished, by appropriate and proportionate powers.”—[Official Report, 7 June 2011; Vol. 529, c. 69.]

As a result of those measures, terror suspect Ibrahim Magag is now on the run, and unless the Home Secretary has any more information with which to update the House, we must assume that she, and we, still have no idea where he is. He was last seen getting into a black cab.

The Home Secretary told us:

“it’s clear… that we can improve the visibility and availability of the police to the public.”

She also said that

“lower budgets do not automatically have to mean lower police numbers”.

The result has been 15,000 fewer police officers, and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has concluded that the police are less visible and less available too. So we start with a certain caution about the promises that the Home Secretary has made. The Bill does not live up to the billing that she has given it. Even when the intentions are good, there are areas in which the detail does not stack up, and Labour Members believe that she is still missing an opportunity to change course on some of the wider policies that are making it harder for the police to keep the public safe.

Parts of the Bill are very valuable. We believe that more can and should be done to strengthen the fight against serious and organised crime, and that more can and should be done to introduce greater diversity into the judiciary. I welcome the points that the Home Secretary has made about that. We also support stronger action against drug-driving. People who drive dangerously, and even kill and maim, on our roads because they have taken illegal drugs and cannot control their cars should be caught and prosecuted. We also think it right for gang injunctions to be imposed by the youth courts; and it is certainly about time we did away with the offence of scandalising the judiciary. My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) will comment on many of those justice issues when she responds to the debate.

Let me say a little more about the central reforms in the Bill. The central measure is intended to strengthen the Serious Organised Crime Agency and to rename it. In fact, the vast majority of the National Crime Agency’s work will be what SOCA does now. We agree that SOCA should be strengthened: it has done very important work, but given the changing patterns of national and international crime, it should have more powers and scope. The valuable work that it has done so far, which the Home Affairs Committee has looked at, includes achieving a conviction rate of more than 90%, and bringing to justice people involved in the organising of illegal immigration, drug trafficking, slavery and cybercrime. However, the police need to do more in certain key areas in which action by individual forces alone is not sufficient, including serious organised crime—which can cost up to £40 billion a year—and people trafficking. The number of international and cross-border crimes has been growing. Economic crimes cost an estimated £38 billion a year, and new offences such as cybercrime are becoming increasingly complex to handle.

[Keith Vaz]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the worrying things about SOCA, despite its success in many respects, was that it seized less than it cost overall? It is important not just to create organisations such as the National Crime Agency, but to benchmark them to ensure that they meet the expectations of the public and Parliament.

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. Evidence given to his Home Affairs Committee by the new head of the National Crime Agency suggested that it did not necessarily expect to increase the amount that it seized, so we shall want to monitor its work closely. As my right hon. Friend says, it is likely that more action will be expected. We think that more can be done overall by all police forces, particularly in regard to matters such as the proceeds of crime and child exploitation. The recent Savile case shows quite how much needs to done throughout society to increase protection and prevention.

We agree that more action is needed in each of those areas, and the Bill provides an opportunity to ensure that more action is taken, but if we look at each area in turn it is not clear to us that the Home Secretary’s proposed measures will be sufficient. She has said, for example, that the National Crime Agency will be able to do more to deal with international crime, but in fact its hands will be tied. She wants to pull out of European co-operation on justice and home affairs. She is keen to opt out of the European arrest warrant, and wants to ditch the sharing of data with other European police officers on sex offenders who travel across borders. The arrest warrant has been used to bring back 39 people suspected of serious child sex offences, 65 people suspected of drug trafficking and money laundering, and 10 people suspected of human trafficking. Those are the very criminals whom the National Crime Agency is supposed to pursue.

It would be helpful if the Home Secretary, or the Minister who responds to the debate, told us how many of the police officers and crime experts who are currently working on international and cross-border crime support the plans to opt out of European co-operation, and how many of them think that the work of the National Crime Agency will be easier or harder if the Government opt out.

Hillsborough

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Monday 22nd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

My right hon. Friend and the Home Secretary have both made eloquent speeches. It is heartening to see Parliament at one on this very important issue.

When the families came to give evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, they talked about the need for co-ordination. My right hon. Friend has pointed to the problems with some of the powers of the IPCC. There may be a case for a special prosecutor—an individual who can draw all the strands together. It has been suggested that it should be the DPP, but I think that he will be too busy to do something of this kind. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we will lose the initiative if we do not have a single point of co-ordination? The Home Secretary has the powers to do this; let us use them.

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with my right hon. Friend about the importance of co-ordination and the value of having a special prosecutor in these circumstances. It might be helpful if Ministers said a bit more about whether there is any concern about how long it will take for the DPP to decide whether further criminal prosecutions will be pursued given that a special prosecutor and a special investigative team may not be established until after that decision has been taken. In other words, what resources does the DPP need in the meantime in order to take the decision about criminal prosecutions? The IPCC is beginning investigations now, and there is a question about how long these will take to get going.

Home Affairs and Justice

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Thursday 10th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

As the Home Secretary will know, we have said that the scope of the Green Paper was too wide. We recognise that there is a problem for the security agencies with regard to how civil claims are made and how material needs to be considered. However, proper safeguards need to be in place, as we have said. She also knows, as I have said this to her, that I am very willing to have further cross-party discussions with her about the detail. We have not yet seen what amendments she may have made to the Green Paper proposals and we will wait to see them and scrutinise them in detail. It is important that she should do that. On communications surveillance—I do not know whether she heard my points earlier, as she was conferring with her Front-Bench colleagues—it has been normal practice in the past for Home Secretaries to provide extensive briefing for the Opposition and the Select Committees. We will wait for that briefing and consider and scrutinise the detail as it is proposed.

The Home Secretary has also proposed stronger community sentences. That sounds good, although we gather that the Bill will be published and debated in the House of Lords without any clauses on community sentences. We should also consider what is missing. There is nothing on equal marriage—not even a draft Bill—even though, as Minister for Women and Equalities, she made it clear that she was consulting not on whether but on how to introduce the changes. There is nothing on violence against women and nothing on antisocial behaviour, even though she promised more than two years ago that new action would be taken. There is nothing on gangs, even though after the riots the Government told us that that was their big priority and even though we know that gang injunctions need to be improved. There is nothing on problem families, even though the Government told us in the autumn that they were the priority, and there is nothing to protect core public policing or to stop neighbourhood patrols being contracted out to private companies such as G4S or KBR as the cuts bite.

[Keith Vaz]

Is my right hon. Friend also surprised that there is no legislation on the criminalisation of forced marriage, something that was recommended by the Select Committee in the last Parliament and that was supported by the Prime Minister as Leader of the Opposition?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is certainly right that the newspapers have been briefed on that subject, but as it is not in the Queen’s Speech we do not know the Government’s position. It is obviously a complex issue; nevertheless it would be useful to know the Government’s view.

There is nothing on knife crime, crime prevention or counter-terrorism. This was the Queen’s Speech that the Government briefed as being tough on crime and tough on antisocial behaviour, but it is hardly the stuff to have criminals quaking in their boots.

To be fair to the Home Secretary, she did tell us about the National Crime Agency. We support it; it is sensible enough, it is right and there are serious national crime issues that need to be addressed, but let us be honest that this is not radical reform but mainly a rearrangement. It is a cross between the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, with the police national computer and a new command structure thrown in. It is sensible enough, it will be an improvement, but it will not compensate for the lack of 16,000 police.

As for Britain’s borders, the Home Secretary says the new National Crime Agency will include a border policing command. Will that deliver extra staff to deal with queues, extra technology to improve security checks, better management to sort out the chaos, and help for families queuing for hours with tired kids? No. Instead we will have a border command in a separate organisation from the border force, which is itself in a separate organisation from the border agency, and there will still be no clear direction from the Government about what any of the three of them is supposed to do. The Home Secretary is adding to the chaos, not solving it.

[Keith Vaz]

I am grateful to the shadow Home Secretary for giving way a second time. Has she had the opportunity to read the report by John Vine that was published this morning, in which he specifically points out his concern about constant reorganisation not helping the protection of our borders?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend, who is the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, makes an extremely important point. I wanted to come on to that report, because, overall, we can see the queues getting longer while Ministers do not seem to have a clue what is going on.

Last Monday, the Minister for Immigration claimed the maximum queues were an hour and a half and accused the media of making “wild suggestions”. By Tuesday he was admitting the wild suggestions were nearer the truth; by Wednesday we were told the Prime Minister was getting a grip; by Thursday and Friday the queues were getting worse and worse. There were two-hour waits at Stansted and three-hour waits at Heathrow, reports of trains delayed by queues at Paris, Customs checks stopped at Heathrow and reports that staff from Manchester were being put on a plane, told to work for a few hours at Heathrow and put on another plane back again.

Finally, this week, we got the truth from the borders and immigration inspectorate. Passport staff at terminal 3 have been cut by 15%, shortages mean that they cannot cope with the queues, and management changes brought in under this Government are making things much worse. The Minister for Immigration charmingly told us that the report was out of date because action had been taken since September to sort it out, but since September things have got worse, not better. The report says the staff are all on at the wrong times—more when the airport is quiet and fewer when all the planes are coming in.

It is just baffling to everyone that the UK Border Force and the Minister for Immigration do not seem to be able to work out what time of day it is, but at least they are doing better than the Home Secretary, who is still rather challenged by the day of the week. I know that the Home Secretary is not on Twitter and she might have missed the attempts to cheer her up through the difficult time that she is having. They have started to suggest songs, such as “ Sunday, Wednesday, happy days,” “I don’t know why I don’t like Tuesdays,” “Eight days a week” and—clearly—nothing by The Police. How about Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Not leaving on a jet plane and I don’t know when I’ll be back again”?

Getting the date wrong in a case such as Abu Qatada’s, however, could have been very serious. Everyone is very relieved that the European Court decided to reject Abu Qatada’s appeal not because of the date, but because of the merits of the case. We should all welcome that decision. We all want him deported as soon as possible and the case has been repeatedly and thoroughly considered at every level in the courts, but lessons also have to be learned at the Home Office too. Three weeks ago the Home Secretary came to the House and was adamant that she had got the date right. Twelve times she told the House the deadline was Monday. In scathing tones she said to me:

“We are talking about a simple mathematical question.”—[Official Report, 19 April 2012; Vol. 543, c. 509.]

Sadly, it was a mathematical question that neither the Home Secretary nor her Ministers seemed able to answer.

The Court was very clear in its judgment that the deadline was Tuesday and Court officials said so at the time. It is no good the Home Secretary’s saying that the Foreign Office is now complaining that the Court’s guidance was not clear enough. If it was not clear enough, why not ask questions at the time? Why did they not ring up the Court and ask the question? Why did they not listen to the media and to the others who were raising with her the point that the Court was saying very clearly that the date was Tuesday, instead? Why take the risk?

Public Disorder

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

First I want to give the Home Secretary an opportunity to clarify the position in relation to the immediate additional operational costs that the Met and other forces will incur. [Interruption.] The Home Secretary says, from a sedentary position, that she has already clarified that. The Prime Minister may need to correct the record, because he certainly gave me the impression, and I think he gave many other Members the impression, that the Treasury would stand behind any of the additional operational costs faced by the Met and other police forces as a result of this unprecedented criminal activity. Those costs could well be considerable, because we do not know how long the police activity will need to continue. Will it continue through the weekend or into next week, and how will it be paid for? Will it have to be paid for by police budgets which are already extremely stretched and already under pressure? Will normal, routine policing be overstretched as a result of the Government’s decision not to fund these extra, additional and exceptional costs?

[Keith Vaz]

The Prime Minister was answering a question that I had put to him, and I was very clear that what was meant was if a police authority dipped into the contingency, the additional costs would be reimbursed to it. I think that what the Home Secretary just said in answer to me was that an authority would have to make an application for that, but she tended to support what the Prime Minister said. That was my understanding; is it also my right hon. Friend’s understanding?

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Secretary will be immensely grateful to my right hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs for desperately trying to create some consistency between what the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have said. I will certainly give the Home Secretary the opportunity to confirm whether my right hon. Friend is correct and in what circumstances the police forces will be able to get additional help, because I am afraid she has not clarified that. I am sure my right hon. Friend would make an excellent Home Secretary, but I think the current Home Secretary may need to answer his questions, and mine as well. I still await the Home Secretary’s answer, but she remains silent.

Police (Detention and Bail) Bill

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Thursday 7th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The article was published on 18 June, following the written judgment becoming available on 17 June. He will have needed time to write it, however, and to seek more information and details about the case; Home Office officials, however, chose not to do that—[Interruption.] Hon. Members on the Government Benches might think that this is amusing or a case for dismissing the argument, but they ought to consider the serious consequences for domestic violence victims and police operations across the country. Faced with such circumstances, Home Office officials are obliged to consider that risks are involved. They might not have known the final details until the written judgment arrived, but they should have been preparing, asking for further information from the judge and starting to work out options in case Home Office Ministers needed to act fast when the full information became available.

[Keith Vaz]

Evidence was given to the Select Committee on Home Affairs on Tuesday that a note was written by counsel for Greater Manchester police, which could have alerted officials to a possible issue, but my right hon. Friend would need to have the opportunity to read that note.

The point I wanted to make was that there is the Treasury Solicitor’s Department, which is headed by the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General, so there are resources that could have allowed this issue to be looked at when ACPO was taking advice from Clare Montgomery and Steven Kovats. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is relevant for the future and that, if alarm bells start ringing again, there is machinery in Government to allow the Home Secretary to have the kind of advice we are talking about?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is right. He makes his points diplomatically, but the complacency of Home Office Ministers is worrying. They seem to think that they have done everything right in this case, that there have been no delays and that everything has moved as rapidly as possible, but that clearly is not the case. I hope that they will learn lessons for the future from this incident because there clearly has not been rapid movement every step along the way. Whether that applies to what Home Office officials should have done when they received the note on this case, what work they should have done, or what further information they should have sought either from the judge in question or through legal advice at that point, it is their responsibility to prepare options for Ministers, so that Ministers can take rapid judgments, know what their options are and move very fast. That is especially true given the significant risks from this case to the operation of police work and to justice.

My right hon. Friend’s point about the role of the Treasury Solicitor’s Department is important. The point of having the Attorney-General and those solicitors is to be able to seek additional legal advice from them. The Home Secretary said that it is not normal practice for the Government to confirm whether and when they have sought legal advice, but in fact it is very common for Ministers to say that they have had legal advice from the Attorney-General or others. They might not reveal the detailed content of that advice but in this case the Home Secretary is not even confirming whether she has had or sought separate legal advice or whether the Attorney-General provided any such advice to set out options, so that the Government could move fast and deal with this matter considerably faster than has been the case.

Phone Hacking

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I respect the spirit in which the Attorney-General made his speech, but warn him against any complacency about the number of inquiries solving the issue. The key is whether the overall public inquiry that looks into the matter has sufficient powers and the right remit and can truly get to the heart of what has been happening.

[Keith Vaz]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Although the Culture, Media and Sport Committee and the Home Affairs Committee have been conducting inquiries they, by their nature and the nature of the Select Committee system, monitor Departments. What is needed is an over-arching inquiry. I have discussed informally with the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee the possibility of setting up a joint inquiry between our two Committees, but that will not be enough. There needs to be something that covers all bases dealing with this very important subject.

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. His Committee has done some extremely important work in pursuing these issues and will, I know, continue to do so.

It is important that the inquiry has the power not only to compel witnesses, but to get to the heart of the information, get detailed answers and examine a range of interconnecting issues that are at stake. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has set out some of the areas that we believe the inquiry must cover—for example, the unlawful practices, including phone hacking, that appear to have been prevalent in sections of the newspaper industry, the ethical conduct and standards of the industry, the nature of robust and credible regulation, and the relationship between the police and the newspaper industry.

We have asked the Government to decide now the nature and scope of the inquiry and to choose now who should take that forward to get the team established in place as soon as is practical, without waiting for criminal proceedings to be complete, as the Gibson inquiry has done. I welcomed the Government’s agreement that it is possible to consider whether elements can be examined in advance of the criminal investigation being completed. Nobody wants to put that criminal investigation at risk, but equally it seems at first sight that some elements could be investigated and explored at an earlier stage, rather than having to wait until the end of the process. We need to know which Minister will be in charge of those discussions and considerations.

Police

Debate between Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The situation in the west midlands is clear. The number of police officers is being cut and that is having an impact on the area.

The latest research on the links between police and crime from Civitas, which the Minister presumably regards as a bastion of left-wing profligacy—he shakes his head to indicate that he disagrees with Civitas—shows that there is a

“strong relationship between the size of police forces and national crime rates”.

That report states:

“A nation with a larger proportion of police officers is somewhat more likely to have a lower crime rate. A nation with fewer police is more likely to have a higher crime rate.”

More importantly, perhaps, those on the Government Benches are ignoring the public. Today’s poll shows that two thirds of people believe that crime will rise as a result of the Home Secretary’s cuts. People do not want the cuts to the police that the Government are introducing.

The Minister often resorts to the claim that it is Labour’s red tape which is responsible for the fact that only 11%—to quote the figure that he uses—of force strength is visible and available. He fails to point out, in a misrepresentation of the HMIC analysis, that that figure for a 24 hours a day, seven days a week service does not take account of the officers on late shift, night shift or rest day, or of the officers working on serious investigations, counter-terrorism, drugs, cyber crime or child protection.

The right hon. Gentleman should consider for a moment what would happen if his own efficiency were measured in the same way. Let us imagine that the test of Ministers’ efficiency was the amount of time in a 24/7 period that they spent speaking in the House of Commons. The amount of time that the Policing Minister spends sleeping, eating and working on knife crime, counter-terrorism or long-term planning would not be counted, as the Government do not count comparable time for the police.

On the basis of the Minister’s week in the Chamber for debate and in the Bill Committee—he has been busy —he gets to an average visibility 24/7 of not 11%, which the police manage, but 3.27%, and that includes the radio time that he was forced to do on Sunday. His visibility is not as good as that of the police, but I am sure he has some efficiency plans to share his red boxes across Departments. His boss, the Home Secretary, is at 0%. Where, by the way, is the Home Secretary?

[Keith Vaz]

I commend my right hon. Friend for her great interest in what the Minister has been doing. It is a fascinating study. I know that she is making a powerful point, but perhaps she could be a little charitable to the Minister. It may be that the Home Office did not envisage the kind of cuts that she has been talking about. Does she agree that Ministers should go back to the Treasury to explain that the effects of the cuts are very severe indeed, and that an additional special grant ought to be given to the Home Office to deal with that?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. It may well be that Ministers believed the figures they were given by the Treasury and believed that front-line services would not be hit. However, the pace and the scale of the cuts are indeed hitting front-line services. They are having an impact on police forces across the country. Ministers ought to go back to the Treasury to discuss that again.