UK-France Migration: Co-operation

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Certainly, the hon. Member for Clacton has been travelling around the world, and sadly he is once again not here in Parliament when we are discussing these issues. If Reform Members are serious about taking action against the criminal gangs, why on earth did they vote against the counter-terrorism powers to go after them in the first place? Sadly, their one in, one out approach seems to simply be about their parliamentary party.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I have been a bit taken aback by the lack of humility shown by the Home Secretary in the face of what has been a catastrophic first 12 months in terms of crossing numbers. It might have been better for her to acknowledge that “smash the gangs”, which she was always told was going to be a complete failure, has indeed been so. I suppose we should be grateful that she has finally reached for the briefing notes left in the Home Office and No. 10—not about a returns agreement but about a swaps agreement. I suppose I offer her congratulations on getting that deal over the line with the French. However, I disagree with her about it not being a silver bullet; I think this has always been the only solution. But she will know that it will be effective only if we can get to a very high percentage of returns to France.

I have two questions. First, what further incentive could she offer to the French to go beyond this relatively small pilot? Given that we are offering swaps and the theory is that no one will then cross, would she be willing to go for a two-for-one swap? Secondly, as she pointed out, the gangs will react, so does she plan to cut a similar deal with the Belgians?

[Yvette Cooper]

I disagree with the right hon. Member about the criminal gangs. Whatever we do, we must have much stronger enforcement on the criminal gangs; otherwise, if they are given free rein to do whatever they want, they will find other ways around any arrangement and other ways to make money. It is crucial that stronger enforcement is part of any action we take against them. The National Crime Agency has delivered a 36% increase in high-impact disruptions in the last 12 months compared with the year before, and has been building that partnership with other European countries to be able to go further.

The right hon. Member has argued previously, when others were not doing so, for one-for-one returns, as well as for innovative approaches. I agree with him, and we want to develop that, but we need to start with a pilot arrangement that allows both the UK and France to trial things that we have never done before. The previous Government always made grand claims that somehow everything would be solved in the next three days, and repeatedly failed because they did not build up the credibility, the plans or a systematic approach, working in partnership. That is what we need to do.

Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 30th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention, as I always am, and he is absolutely right that it is necessary to close this particular loophole, and that is the purpose of the Bill. He has raised a very interesting example, and I am grateful to him for saying he is happy for me to come back to him. If he lets me reflect on it further, I will respond to him when I make my concluding remarks at the end of the debate.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

The Minister keeps referring to a “loophole”. In fact, it has been an important principle of British justice that successful appeal equals vindication. This Bill is trying to remove that presumption. That is not a loophole; it is a basic judicial right on which we all rely.

[Dan Jarvis]

Again, if the right hon. Gentleman bears with me, I will come to his specific point in a moment, and if he is not satisfied that I have responded adequately then, I am happy to give way again. I will make some progress.

Deprivation decisions are made following careful consideration of advice from officials and lawyers, and in accordance with international law. Each case is assessed individually. Decisions to deprive, where it is conducive to the public good, are personally taken by the Home Secretary. The power is used sparingly. It complies with the UN convention on the reduction of statelessness, and always comes with a right of appeal.

Turning to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), let me give the House a sense of the frequency with which deprivation powers are used. From 2018 to 2023, on average 12 people a year were deprived of their citizenship where it was conducive to the public good. The available period for fraud-related deprivations is slightly different, but from 2018 to 2022 there were an average of 151 cases per year in that category.

Let me turn to the Bill, dealing first with why it is required; I hope this will go some way to responding to the point made by the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). In a recent case, the Supreme Court decided that, if an appeal against a deprivation decision is successful, the initial deprivation order will have had no effect and the person will be considered as having continued to be a British citizen. This means that people who have been deprived of British citizenship will automatically regain that status before further avenues of appeal have been exhausted by the Home Secretary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Jarvis]

The hon. Member is absolutely right about the point of due process. I can say to him and to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall that these powers are used very sparingly. Each and every individual case is decided on by the Home Secretary. I know that this Home Secretary has—and I am sure previous Home Secretaries have—taken these responsibilities incredibly seriously. Decisions are made carefully, on advice and in accordance with international law, and I am happy to give the hon. Member and others that assurance.

[Kit Malthouse]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dan Jarvis]

Let me make a bit of progress, and then I will happily give way again.

The key point is that deprivation of citizenship on conducive grounds is rightly reserved for those who pose a threat to the UK, or whose conduct involves very high harm. We are talking about some of the most serious cases handled by any Government. Where a loophole is identified in the processes underpinning it, it is the job of any serious and sensible Government to close it, and that is precisely what this Government will do.

Let me turn to the substance of the Bill. The House will note its brevity and narrow scope; it contains just one substantive clause, focused solely on addressing the specific issues that have already been discussed. Its primary objective is to protect the United Kingdom from dangerous people, which includes those who pose a threat to our national security. The Bill will achieve that by preventing those who have been deprived of British citizenship from regaining that status automatically when their appeal is successful, until further appeals have been determined. That will replicate the approach taken on asylum and human rights appeals; in those cases, the effect of an appeal is suspended up to the Court of Appeal and extended to appeals to the Supreme Court.

To be clear, the Bill does not change any existing right of appeal or widen the reasons why a person could be deprived of their citizenship. Should an appeal mounted on behalf of the Government prove unsuccessful, then where there is no possibility of further appeal, British citizenship would be reinstated with immediate and retrospective effect.

[Kit Malthouse]

The Minister keeps referring to a loophole in justice. I do not understand why he cannot see that “innocent until proven guilty” should apply in these cases, as in any other. The idea that my winning an appeal would not automatically mean I was innocent, as it does in every other case, seems a breach of a fundamental tenet. He is also not correct to say that the power is used sparingly. Since 2010, dozens of people have been denied citizenship on the say-so of the Home Secretary, despite there being nothing proven in court. That is what is different about these cases. This is effectively something that is done in secret, behind closed doors, without the facts necessarily being proven in any way. I have a lot of respect for the hon. Gentleman, but this is a case in which we should be even more reliant on due process, rather than trying to legislate judges out of the room, as we are trying to today.

[Dan Jarvis]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman will understand and appreciate, from his time as a Home Office Minister, the huge responsibility that the Government invest in the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary of the day has to make some incredibly difficult, finely balanced judgments. I hope that he would agree that we have to ensure that the Home Secretary, whoever they are, and whatever political party they are from, has the necessary power to make decisions that safeguard the security of our nation. I am certain that he and I agree on that. The Bill essentially ensures that the Government can continue to do that, precisely as the Government whom he served could.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

As I hope the Minister knows, I have devoted much of my adult life to keeping individuals, neighbourhoods, towns, cities and indeed the entire country safe, but I have to confess that I have never been entirely comfortable with the deprivation of citizenship regime. Unfortunately, his Bill, which he is trying to pass off as an innocuous correction, has sparked that sense of unease.

The reason I am uneasy is that, although the objectives that the Minister proposes are laudable, I believe that the cost to our sense of self and the corrosiveness to our sense of citizenship and to the judicial process are perhaps too high. I will not detain the House for too long, but I want to raise three points. We have covered them to a certain extent, but they are worth reiterating.

First, the Minister’s sense is that the Supreme Court has created a loophole; my view is that it has corrected an anomaly. It has long been a tenet of the protections with which the judicial process provides me as an individual that an appeal equals vindication and that it is for my accuser to appeal, on the basis that I remain innocent, even prior to the first action that is taken against me. This regime will reverse that.

The second alarming point is that the legislation is retrospective. As the hon. Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons) asked, there may be a number of cases going through the courts for which this law will have a highly prejudicial impact. The Government are effectively moving the goalposts mid-litigation to get what they want. That, again, is not something we would normally tolerate, and it is a further development of the power.

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I always enjoy our debates. He says that the Government are moving the goalposts, but does he accept that we are ensuring that we have the same powers to deprive that he had when he was a Home Office Minister?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

The Minister is quite right—not that I ever exercised those powers. But as I said, in my view the Supreme Court has corrected an anomaly that the previous Government took advantage of. Yes, absolutely, hands up, they did—I am not saying that is correct. He is proposing that in the face of a Supreme Court decision that he does not like, he will change the law to say that the court was in effect wrong and that the fundamental right on which the Supreme Court has decided—we should not forget that the courts basically decide our rights within the legal framework—is somehow not to be tolerated.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

I have some sympathy with my right hon. Friend’s argument, but surely the effect of this change will kick in only if, in the end, the Government’s appeal succeeds. Therefore, it will be the case that the court previously was wrong; otherwise, the Government’s appeal against its decision will not succeed.

[Kit Malthouse]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. However, it does mean that the state can render someone stateless by inaction, because it can take many years for cases to work their way through the courts. It is also, as I said, highly prejudicial, because it means that for the duration of the legal action that person will not be able to come to the UK and therefore will have to litigate from outside our borders.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

I grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again. As I said in my first intervention, I am new to this whole debate, but I thought I heard from the Minister that the idea was for this measure to stand only until the Government appeal was resolved or the Government ran out of time to appeal. How long would that period be? I do not see how that would put things off for the inordinate amount of time that my right hon. Friend suggests.

[Kit Malthouse]

As I am sure my right hon. Friend knows, there are various layers of appeal that can be taken, right up to the Supreme Court. The Bill says that, throughout that period, as long as the Government continue to pursue appeals, the person remains deprived of their citizenship, rather than what the Supreme Court is saying, which is that if the person wins any one of those appeals, they immediately become in effect innocent, and their citizenship is restored as if it was never removed in the first place. That is in the same way as if, were I accused of a crime and found innocent and the prosecutor decided to appeal my conviction, I would remain innocent until that appeal was heard and decided against me. If it were appealed beyond that, I would remain innocent then still.

The Government are attempting to revert to the erroneous situation as determined by the Supreme Court. In my view, they are moving the goalposts on an individual who frankly seems to have won a case fair and square in our highest court in the land.

Finally, I want to raise a more fundamental issue about this entire process. Call me an old romantic, but my view is that once you are a citizen, you are a citizen. Once you are in, you are in. Unfortunately, the development of this power over the last however many years since the 1981 Act, which brought it in, has created two classes of citizens in this country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross), who spoke for the Opposition—she is no longer in her place—said, “citizenship is a privilege, not an unconditional right.” That is not true. It is an unconditional right for me as a freeborn Englishman of two English parents going back I do not know how many years. I have no claim on citizenship anywhere else. It is my absolute, undeniable, unequivocal right to have citizenship in this country, and it cannot be removed from me by any means whatsoever. That is not true of my children. I am married to a Canadian citizen, so they have a claim on Canadian citizenship. If the Home Secretary so decides, they could have their citizenship removed. That is also true of every Jewish citizen of the United Kingdom, who has a right to citizenship in Israel. There will be millions of British people of south Asian origin who feel that they have a second-class citizenship.

This law applies only to certain of our citizens. It does not apply to me. I do not know whether it applies to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Perhaps it is making other hon. Members think about whether it applies to them.

While the Minister has been clear that we should trust him and has given us lots of undertakings, we do not make the law on the basis of a Minister we like, trust and respect; we make it on the basis that the law might fall into the hands of somebody we are not that keen on and who may be more cavalier with the powers bestowed upon them. As the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart), who spoke for the Liberal Democrats, said, we are a country that uses this power disproportionately more than any other western country. We have been free in our use of it, despite the fact that Minister after Minister has stood in the House and said, “We use it sparingly.” We do not. Dozens and dozens of people have been excluded, and we have to be honest about why. Sometimes it has been for safety, but sometimes, on balance, it has been to please the papers—because it looks good and plays well. We never ask ourselves about the cost of that to our sense of cohesion.

The hon. Member for Makerfield gave a lyrical and poetic view of citizenship, but if a large proportion of our fellow citizens believe that they have a second class of that citizenship—if some can say, “I am undeniably and unchallengeably a citizen, but you are not, so watch yourself”—what does that do to society?

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy]

Does the right hon. Member believe just by looking at me and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) next to me that the legislation could apply to people who look like us?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady makes the point powerfully. I do not know, but she does. This legislation leaves people from minority backgrounds, second or third-generation immigrants, and those like my children who are of two parents of different nationalities, with a lingering sense of doubt about how secure they are in this nation.

[Josh Simons]

The right hon. Member is portraying the United Kingdom as an exception to a global rule in which citizenship is a straightforward binary and a right. I am of Jewish ancestry and have a right to claim citizenship in Israel, though I have not. My wife is American and our children are dual citizens, so this very much pertains to me. I gently point out that the United States has a similar regime. If a naturalised citizen in America breaks certain laws and is demonstrated to be a national security threat to the United States, they too can have their naturalised citizenship revoked. It is not accurate to paint the United Kingdom as a complete exception to a rule in which citizenship, whether by birth or by naturalisation, is treated differently by the state, by the court and by the legislature.

[Kit Malthouse]

I understand the hon. Member’s point, but I am afraid that I am not interested in comparisons with the United States. I would hold us to a higher bar. We are a more ancient country that should have, as he rightly pointed out, a better developed sense of how we build a cohesive society.

I would challenge whether the United States can be held up as a paragon of virtue on societal cohesion or whether actually it is a divided country, with part of that division coming from a sense that there are first, second and maybe even third-class citizens there. At the moment, it is going through a period of challenge as to what it means to be a United States citizen. We have seen litigation under—it has slipped from my mind. It starts, “We the people”. [Hon. Members: “The constitution.”] That is the word—forgive me; a senior moment. The United States is seeing legal challenge under its constitution on precisely those grounds of what it means to be a citizen.

I do not want to detain the House for much longer, but we need to think carefully about the impact that this regime has beyond the people whom it targets. We may say of cases like Shamima Begum that what she did was completely appalling and she deserves to be punished. Obviously, the decision was taken to revoke her citizenship. I am not sure whether that was the right thing to do. I do think she needs to be punished. In many ways, I would rather she had been brought to this country, and punished and jailed here. She is nobody else’s problem but ours. As I say, by promoting this regime I think we undermine the value of what it means to be a British citizen because, once acquired, citizenship should be a right. Civis Romanus sum. It should mean something. It is not the keys to the executive lavatory, to be removed when you lose the privilege and rights of your position; it is something that you acquire that is fundamentally in you once you are in the club, and we should be wary of the wider impact if we decide to remove it.

I have one final suggestion for the Minister. I realise that I am in a minority, and the House is not going to comply; he is going to get his legislation. However, I ask him to think carefully about the value of the judiciary in this process. Would it be possible to amend the process such that, when an appeal is won by an individual and the Government wish to continue to deprive that person of citizenship, the permission of the judge should be sought for that, pending a further appeal? The Government will have to seek permission to appeal in all circumstances; I ask the Minister to consider whether they should have to seek also permission to maintain the condition of a deprivation of citizenship, as part of that permission to appeal.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Jarvis]

I do not agree with my hon. Friend’s second point. This Bill has been very carefully and narrowly drafted, and I do not think it does the things that she has said it does. As to why the Government would seek to use these powers, I hope she understands that we will do everything we possibly can—as I am sure the previous Government did—to keep the public safe and protect them from high-harm individuals such as extremists, terrorists, and serious and organised criminals, and that this Government, as was the case with the previous Government, consider that this is an appropriate, necessary and proportionate way in which to do that. I hope that the public and the House will understand why we are progressing in the way that we are.

The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) made a very thoughtful speech. He has clearly thought about this matter long and hard, and he has done the House a great service with his contribution.

I want to reflect briefly on the contribution made by the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). I enjoy debating these matters with him, and I am genuinely grateful for his contribution. He suggested at one point that he might be an old romantic. I couldn’t possibly comment—but I could possibly say that he has advanced some interesting points. They are not points that the Government agree with, and I hope he does not mind me saying that they are not points that the majority of Members of this House agree with, but he has ensured that this debate has been richer than it would otherwise have been had he not made those contributions.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman acknowledges that the Government are acting in good faith in order to ensure that we are best placed to keep the country safe. I know that he is not satisfied with the measures that we have brought forward and does not agree with them. That is absolutely his right. I respect his right to make the case in the way that he has, but I would ask him briefly to consider an alternative scenario in which the Government of the day, regardless of their political party, did not put in place the necessary powers to keep the public safe. One can only imagine the criticism that any Government would face, were they not to do that.

[Kit Malthouse]

I can imagine that situation, but I have been an enthusiastic supporter of lots of powers to protect the public from people from whom the Minister cannot remove citizenship. For example, terrorism prevention and investigation measures, or TPIMs—previously control orders—were specifically designed to put restrictions on individuals who presented a danger to the country but from whom the Government could not remove citizenship. If those measures are good enough for those people, why are they not good enough for the people on whom the Minister is conferring second-class citizenship? He must see that this legislation applies only to certain of our citizens, and that they are not the only ones who present a danger to this country.

[Dan Jarvis]

Again, I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution. I do not doubt that if he and I and others sat in a room and sought to design a system, we probably would not end up with the one that we have, but I hope he understands that, given the constraints on parliamentary time and the bandwidth of Government, we are seeking to go back to the position that we had a number of months ago—I know that he did not agree with it then—to ensure that we have the powers that we need so that we are best placed to respond in the circumstances that I have described.

I want briefly to come back to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), because I gave him an assurance that I would do so. I can say to him that a dual British-Irish national could be deprived of British citizenship and excluded by the Home Secretary. An Irish national who had been excluded from the UK would then require leave to enter. I hope that responds to his point.

This Bill, although short in length, will have an important impact on the safety of those in our nation. It will ensure that those who pose a threat to the safety and security of our country do not have their citizenship restored until all appeals have been determined. The safety and security of those in our country is the foundation on which everything else is built and, as I have remarked in this House before, for this Government nothing will matter more. With that, I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill: Programme

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill:

Committal

(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House.

Proceedings in Committee, on Consideration and on Third Reading

(2) Proceedings in Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion two hours after their commencement.

(3) Any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion three hours after the commencement of proceedings in Committee of the whole House.

(4) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings in Committee of the whole House, to any proceedings on Consideration or to proceedings on Third Reading.

Other proceedings

(5) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Martin McCluskey.)

Question agreed to.

Draft Investigatory Powers (Communications Data) (Relevant Public Authorities and Designated Senior Officers) Regulations 2025

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 General Committees

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to appear before you for the first time, Dr Murrison. I do not want to detain the Committee too long, but I have a couple of questions.

Obviously, I am familiar with this legislation, having served at the Home Office. We should be under no illusion: the powers that we are extending today are actually very intrusive. While the Minister is absolutely right, for example, that there is not a single murder in this country that is not solved without this kind of data, the extension of these powers to the organisations named in the regulations is broadly what was predicted by critics of the Investigatory Powers Bill when it was introduced in 2016. Slowly but surely, they said, everybody would grab these powers just in case they needed them. As Members of Parliament, whose job it is to balance the rights of the public against the Government’s ability to intrude on them, we need to think carefully about whether what we are doing today is proportionate.

My first question, which troubled me when I was at the Home Office, is about the internal conflict for the commissioner. The way that the Act is drawn, the commissioner both authorises and supervises. Although the commissioner is responsible to Parliament and produces reports to it, I am not entirely sure that the commissioner should effectively be both judge and jury on whether an organisation should have authorisation and therefore, presumably, whether its internal structures for controlling and managing the data are satisfactory. One would have thought that in normal circumstances there would be some separate authorisation system that was then assessed to be adequate by the commissioner. That conflict causes me some problems, and I would be interested in the Minister’s comments on it.

My second question is about the use case, which was raised by both the hon. Member for South West Devon and the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam. It seems odd that some ambulance services are saying, “We don’t actually need this,” but others are saying that they do. What is special about the East Midlands ambulance service that means it needs to retain this power? It would be interesting to understand the use cases for all these organisations. For example, why is location and time data for telephone communications useful to the Intellectual Property Office? I do not quite see it myself. I might be missing something—I am not an expert in intellectual property—but it would be helpful to see the use case that I presume it made to the commissioner for the authorisation. Has that been published?

The guidance states that there has been a consultation with the commissioner. I presume that the consultation has been published, although I have not been able to find it. If it has, does it contain information about how the commissioner tested the use cases? Has the commissioner tested the proportionality—that is what we are making a judgment on here—of the case made by each organisation? Are there real examples that Members can look at and say, for example, “Okay, we understand that East Midlands needs it because it is particularly prone to fraud in which this kind of data is useful for prevention and detection, but the other ambulance services aren’t”?

Similarly, for the other organisations, I can see why location data would matter for DVSA, but I have never heard of the integrated corporate services counter fraud expert services team. I do not know what it does; I would love to know. It would be great if either now or afterwards we could get some information on what it feels like in the real world so Members can make a proportionate judgment, albeit after the fact.

On authorisation levels, the Minister said that there is no requirement because the organisations are all going for authorisation direct from the IPC, but in the regulations, in the column that is amended in the legislation, it gives authorisations at particular levels. For example, it states that in the East Midlands ambulance service, a duty manager of an ambulance control room is able to authorise a request. In the Department for Business and Trade,

“so far as relating to the Insolvency Service”

it specifies:

“Grade 7 in the Investigation and Enforcement Services Directorate”.

Will the Minister explain why he is happy with that level of internal organisation? To me it feels a little low that a request so intrusive and, in certain circumstances, speculative could be authorised by a no doubt hard-working and dedicated duty manager of an ambulance control room, rather than somebody who we might imagine was part of a senior management team of an organisation who is able to take a strategic view about whether a request was proportionate.

As I say, I understand the need for the legislation. It was introduced in 2016 in my first year in the House; I was not the Minister at the time, but obviously I voted for it. It seemed to be the right kind of construct, but we always knew the day would come when we expanded it. The undertaking given then by the Government was that MPs would exercise their judgment about the proportionality of these organisations beyond the police, counter-terrorism and normal enforcement organisations that were really the primary targets of the legislation.

[Dan Jarvis]

First, let me thank the hon. Member for South West Devon for her remarks, which are much appreciated, not least for the constructive tone in which she delivered them. It is important that we ensure there is broad political support for the investigatory powers regime. These are vital powers for our intelligence services, law enforcement and, as we have heard, a number of public authorities. It is absolutely right that we debate these matters and that they are subject to scrutiny in this House. On that basis, I welcome the challenge from Opposition Members, because it behoves the Government to justify the continued need of these powers in the way that we seek. I will say a little more about that in a moment.

The hon. Member for South West Devon asked about the use of powers and consultation with public authorities. She asked for an assurance that adequate, appropriate resources are in place to support the use of the powers, which I can give her. I also say to her that the Home Office, as I am sure was the case under the previous Government, takes such matters incredibly seriously, both in terms of ministerial oversight and the work of officials in the Department. We look very carefully to ensure that the use of powers is necessary, proportionate and appropriate. I assure her that there has been an appropriate level of consultation leading up to these regulations. I am grateful for her broad support of the regulations and of the investigatory powers regime more generally.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam specifically asked about ambulance trusts. I can tell him that the six English ambulance trusts being removed, as well as the Scottish ambulance service and the Welsh ambulance service, made a direct request to the Home Office for removal from schedule 4. For the purposes of clarity, the remaining four English ambulance trusts—the West Midlands ambulance service, the South East Coast ambulance service, the North West ambulance service and the East Midlands ambulance service—and the Northern Ireland ambulance service have not requested removal and therefore remain listed in schedule 4. Only one ambulance trust, the West Midlands ambulance service, responded to object to its removal. I assure him that the Government will continue to review the necessity of communications data powers for all public authorities listed in schedule 4, including these ambulance trusts, to ensure that their inclusion in the schedule remains justified. Basically, we do not want organisations to be listed in the schedule if they are not using the powers.

[Kit Malthouse]

I guess what we are asking is why these four did not respond. Was there communication with them to say, “We haven’t heard from you. Should you have responded? Have you missed it? Is it in the pile?” Six have made the case that they have never used the powers. Four have not responded—I would guess they have not used the powers either but just did not respond. How far did the investigation go? From our point of view, it would be interesting to understand why Birmingham objected. What is the real-life case for which an ambulance service needs this data? Make it live for us, Minister. Give us a story that we can tell our constituents.

[Dan Jarvis]

I genuinely welcome the challenge offered by the right hon. Gentleman; he is right to press us on this. I assure him that there are specific operational reasons why ambulance trusts may wish to retain and use this power. One reason why we have proceeded in the way that we have is that removing public authorities that did not respond to the Home Office’s correspondence from schedule 4 could risk operational errors—for example, ambulance trusts, unaware that they were no longer listed in schedule 4, could continue to make requests for CD without the necessary authorisation. I broadly agree with his points, and I accept that there is a case for further tidying up. I assure the Committee that we will continue to do that, and ensure that the right public authorities, which are using the powers for genuine operational reasons, are listed in schedule 4. I assure him that there are genuine operational reasons—if he will forgive me, I will not go into specific detail—why an ambulance trust might want to exercise these powers. However, I accept his basic point that we will need to look carefully at this and do any further tidying up of the four.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Jarvis]

Again, I am grateful to the hon. Member, because it is an entirely fair challenge. I assure the Committee that the Home Office works very closely with the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office—I will say a little more about that in response to the questions of the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire—to ensure that all the entries in schedule 4 remain up to date and reflect those with a requirement or compelling need for the use of CD powers. The consideration of a public authority’s addition to the schedule is entirely based on the operational case, its proposed approach to compliance and its understanding of the appropriate, necessary and proportionate use of the powers. We give these matters very careful consideration, but I will happily reflect further on the point made by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam with regard to the single ambulance trust.

Let me turn to the points made by the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire about proportionality, which he was right to raise. He will know from his time in government, both as deputy mayor and as a Home Office Minister, about the vital requirement for these powers. As I said in my introductory remarks, communications data is routinely used as evidence in upwards of 95%—that is probably a conservative estimate—of serious organised crime investigations. That is a key statistic. That data has played a significant role in every major terrorism investigation over the past decade. It provides vital evidence in both criminal and national security investigations. At the same time, he is right to make the point that we need to be proportionate in its use: strong powers, yes, but with an absolute requirement for strong oversight as well. I completely understand and am genuinely pleased about what he has said. It is not that often that we get the opportunity to debate these niche but important matters about the role of the commissioner.

The commissioner, Sir Brian Leveson, does an outstanding job. Anyone who knows him is aware that he is, by any metric, an extraordinary character and a true public servant with a wisdom and integrity that are a huge credit to the work that he does. He is incredibly well supported by an excellent team who work hard to ensure appropriate levels of oversight for this regime. We would not be able to operate without the independent oversight that he and his team have carried out for the previous Government and this Government, and will carry out for the next one, without fear or favour. All that said, it continues to be right, of course, for us to look carefully at the structural arrangements in place and, as a still relatively new Government, to satisfy ourselves that they are fit for purpose, that they are appropriately resourced and that the right people are doing what is a difficult and important job.

I give the right hon. Gentleman an absolute assurance that the Home Secretary and I personally take these matters very seriously. I meet Sir Brian and his team regularly, who look carefully at the work we do. But if the right hon. Gentleman or any other Member has any thoughts about how the regime could be tweaked or improved, I will happily have that conversation.

[Kit Malthouse]

I do not want to cast any aspersions on Brian Leveson, whom I know well—not least because he was educated at the same school as I was; obviously, a little before.

The challenge is about proportionality. We all acknowledge the importance of such evidence if we are dealing with serious criminality, violence or terrorism—as I said, 100% of murders are solved with the use of this data—but I guess my concern starts when the powers stray into matters that are primarily commercial, for example. The Intellectual Property Office deals essentially with commercial matters—disputes about patents and intellectual property, and possible fraud thereabouts. It is unlikely that anybody will go to prison as a result of the operation of the Intellectual Property Office, although they might pay a big fine or compensation to somebody.

I guess the issue is where the line is between criminality, violence, terrorism or serious and organised crime, and more commercial matters. Take the Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency: it may be a crime under DVSA regulations to do x, y or z, but the British public would not put that up there with terrorism. That is the proportionality that we are asking about: whether we are straying too far. The Government obviously do not think so, which is why they have put the regulations forward, but I ask the Minister whether he has satisfied himself about the point I am making.

I am sorry to make this slightly long intervention, but my prediction is that we will be here again in 12 months’ time. Suddenly all sorts of organisations will be saying, “D’you know what? It might be useful to have a bit of a fishing trip—we just don’t know. Let’s see if we can persuade the Minister whether, once he has put the Intellectual Property Office in, we can be in as well.”

[Dan Jarvis]

I am genuinely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, because he raises some important points. Some of us were here a week ago debating a not dissimilar statutory instrument. I had a very constructive debate with a former security Minister on his Benches—the right hon. Gentleman knows him well—and we repeated some of the debate that we had during the passage of the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Act 2024 in the previous Parliament. We debated precisely the issues that the right hon. Gentleman raises.

I do not disagree with much of what the right hon. Gentleman said, but let me seek to give him a bit of assurance. First, we definitely do not do fishing exercises—as the Minister, I would not consider that remotely appropriate—and we do not do mission creep either. We need to be really careful to ensure that all the public authorities listed have an absolute operational requirement to use the powers.

The right hon. Gentleman’s raised the Intellectual Property Office in his earlier remarks, and helpfully did so again just a moment ago. The Intellectual Property Office engages with law enforcement agencies and other Departments to tackle intellectual property crimes, including those relating to patents, designs, trademarks and copyright, via a multi-agency approach. It also supports investigations to tackle serious organised crime, such as countering counterfeit goods, illegal streaming and associated money laundering offences under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. I take his point, but I hope that in the specific example he raises I am able to assure him that the powers vested in that organisation are necessary and proportionate. I further assure him that I will continue to look very carefully at these matters to satisfy myself that all the public authorities listed have that operational requirement.

Finally, I thought the right hon. Gentleman made a reasonable point about authorisation. I assure him that very careful consideration is given to matters relating to authorisation—I am sure he remembers that from his time in the Department. He raised an interesting example, but I assure him that, as a Minister, I have looked very carefully at the details of this, as have officials. We will satisfy ourselves that matters relating to authorisation are designated at an appropriately senior level. He is right to raise that point. I assure him that the regulations are appropriate, but I will look carefully at them to further satisfy myself that that is the case.

I hope that I have responded reasonably to all the questions, and that I have illustrated the importance of the regulations, which I commend to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Investigatory Powers (Communications Data) (Relevant Public Authorities and Designated Senior Officers) Regulations 2025.

Border Security and Asylum

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. I welcome her to Parliament, and I welcome her asking questions on this issue. We have to take a strong, rigorous and robust approach to value for money in every Department. It cannot simply be the responsibility of the Treasury; it has to be the responsibility of the Home Office, and of every Government Department. That is the approach that this Labour Government will take. I am frankly shocked that under the last Government not just the Home Office but the Treasury, the then Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues all signed off on these incredibly high payments and costs. They must have had the modelling that would tell them how much the costs would go up by, yet they signed off on them. Our Government are determined to pursue value for money at every stage.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

If the number of small boat crossings are higher next summer than this summer, will she resign?

[Yvette Cooper]

I realise that the right hon. Member is keen to get rid of me before I have even finished standing up at the Dispatch Box. Unfortunately, we have seen a succession of Conservative Home Secretaries—eight, I think, in the last eight years—none of whom resigned. Two of them were sacked under the last Government—actually, those two were the same person. Look, we have to be serious about this, because the dangerous boat crossings are undermining border security and putting lives at risk. Nobody should be making those journeys, and we have to work not just here but across other European countries to stop boats before they reach the French coast in the first place, to ensure that lives can be saved and the gangs are held accountable for their terrible crimes.