Border Checks Summer 2011

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alan Johnson

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alan Johnson]

If it is, it will go right back to when Willie Whitelaw was the Home Secretary—[Interruption.] “Ah!” they say. I can tell hon. Members why they say “Ah!”. It is because they do not know—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. People want to listen to interventions, and we certainly want to listen to the answers from Alan Johnson.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) should not stand up for such a long time. If he wishes to intervene, he must rise quickly and then sit down straight away.

[Alan Johnson]

The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) was not making much impression on me, anyway, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The Home Secretary claimed on Monday that those on the watch list will have been picked up because of e-Borders, but she knows as well as I do that not every country is meticulous at operating e-Borders. It is patchy around the European Union.

Identity Documents Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alan Johnson

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alan Johnson]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Before the right hon. Member replies, may I remind people that interventions should be very short?

[Alan Johnson]

I apologise to my right hon. Friend in this broad coalition, but I do not have time to quote the whole speech. Of course he made those points in that very important debate, after which the Tories walked through the Aye Lobby with us. I do not agree that the tests were not met. My point, however, is that the Conservatives are now in government. They can carry out the proposal that was in the Queen’s Speech in 1996 and meet the tests that they set.

That debate took place on 20 December 2004, three years after 9/11 and, unfortunately, seven months before 7/7, and before the airline bomb plot, the liquid bomb plot, and all the other terrorist outrages that we have had to counter. The right hon. Gentleman cannot say that anything has changed in relation to national security except that these problems are more acute. We are at a severe level of readiness. No one on the Government Benches can say, “Well, things have changed since 1996,” or since 2004. They have changed—they have got worse, and that has made the case for ID cards stronger.