Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Damian Green

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 4—Firearms’ licensing—

‘(1) The Firearms Act 1968 is amended as follows.

(2) After section 28A (Certificates: supplementary) insert—

“28B Assessing public safety

(1) When assessing the threat to public safety under sections 27, 28, 30A, 30B or 30C the Chief Police Officer must ensure that a range of background checks are performed.

(2) Where these checks uncover substantiated evidence of violent conduct, domestic violence, mental illness or drug or alcohol abuse, the presumption is that the Chief Police Officer should refuse the licence application unless exceptional evidence can be brought forward by the applicant as to their suitability to possess a weapon.

(3) When assessing public safety within this section the Chief Police Officer must follow any guidance issued by the Secretary of State.”.

(3) Section 113 of the Firearms Act 1968 (power of Secretary of State to alter fees) is amended as follows.

(4) After subsection (1) insert—

“(1A) Before making an order under this section the Secretary of State must consult with chief police officers to ensure the level of fees collected by the police under sections 32 and 35 are appropriate after considering the costs they incur through the administration and assessment of firearms’ licences made under this Act.”.’.

Government amendments 100 to 105.

[Damian Green]

The purpose of the amendments is to preserve the position of the authority of Scottish Ministers under section 5 of the Firearms Act 1968. The new firearms offence of possession for sale or transfer of any prohibited weapon is committed where the conduct is undertaken

“without the authority of the Secretary of State or the Scottish Ministers”.

The existing functions of the Secretary of State under section 5 were transferred to Scottish Ministers by order under section 63 of the Scotland Act 1998 on devolution. Additional functions under section 5 need to be transferred to Scottish Ministers in relation to new offences created by the Bill. Therefore, new clause 20 revokes the entry in the 1999 order in respect of section 5 of the 1968 Act, and transfers afresh all the Secretary of State’s functions under that section to Scottish Ministers. Amendments 100 to 105 are consequential on new clause 20.

I suspect it will help the House if I respond to new clause 4 before the Opposition deal with it, in that peculiar way we sometimes have. The new clause has been tabled by those on the Opposition Front Bench and relates to two firearms licensing issues that we discussed in Committee and during the Westminster Hall debate initiated by the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) in early September. The first part of the new clause seeks to create a presumption that if an applicant for a firearm meets one of the stated criteria, the police should not grant a licence. The stated criteria include evidence of domestic violence, mental illness, and drug or alcohol abuse.

As I said in Committee, the police already have the ability to take those factors into account when assessing the risk to public safety. I understand that there are particular concerns about domestic violence and abuse, and in response to those, on 31 July we published specific guidance on that issue, providing greater detail on how the police should handle such cases. Just last week, we published a new consolidated guide on firearms licensing law. It is therefore fair to say that the Government have taken on board the many important points that were raised in Committee, and we have been quick to act. As the House will agree, decisions must be made on a case-by-case basis, but guidance is clear that evidence of domestic violence will generally indicate that an application should be refused. That new guidance is being applied now by police forces up and down the country, which I hope will be welcomed across the House.

New clause 4 also seeks to introduce a requirement that the police must follow any guidance issued by the Home Secretary when assessing public safety. I consider, however, that guidance must remain just that. It is right that chief officers have discretion to assess applications for firearms in their local area, taking into account the merits of each case and the newly published guide. Chief officers are ultimately responsible for public safety at local level. The Government have sought to make decision making a local responsibility wherever possible. I do not want to undermine that, which is what new clause 4 would do.

We are ensuring that where national action can support local decision making, it does. We are working with the national policing lead for firearms and explosives licensing to ensure that police have a more detailed awareness and understanding of the Home Office guide. The College of Policing will be publishing authorised professional practice on firearms licensing, which will complement and cross-refer to our guidance. In order to assess standards, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has carried out a scoping exercise on how firearms licensing is conducted in practice, and we will use the findings from the exercise to drive up the consistency of decision making across the country. Again, that was a legitimate point made in the course of our debates and outside. People wanted greater consistency and, again, we have taken action. As I said, HMIC is now doing that work.

The second part of new clause 4 seeks to introduce a legal requirement for the Secretary of State to consult all chief police officers before revising the licence fees so that they achieve full cost recovery. I reiterate that consultation with the police is integral to the fee-setting process and we accept the need to consider the impact of licensing on police resources. That is why we are introducing a new online licensing system, which cuts the administrative burden of the old paper-based system. We do not need primary legislation to make this happen.

Until we have driven out the inefficiencies in the current paper-based approach to the licensing function, it would not be appropriate to raise the fees fourfold in order to achieve, in one giant step, full cost recovery, which I assume is the purpose of new clause 4. As I have said in other forums, we are considering proposals for an interim fee increase and I will make an announcement on that in due course.

In conclusion, I hope the Opposition Front-Bench team will acknowledge that progress has been made in all the significant areas where criticism of the system could legitimately be made a few months ago. I hope I have persuaded them that further legislation is unnecessary. On the off-chance that I have been unsuccessful in persuading the Opposition Front Bench that new clause 4 is unnecessary, I will have no hesitation in inviting the House to reject it.

Child Protection

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Damian Green

Thursday 12th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. If I keep giving way, I will not get through any of the responses that I want to make to points that have been made.

It is reasonable to ask what the national group has achieved. We have issued new guidance for consultation on protecting children who go missing or run away from home or care. On the policing side, the College of Policing and the Director of Public Prosecutions have launched a public consultation on revised guidance for sexual violence victims. It was launched in June and runs until September. Although we are still consulting, the new guidance is already in effect, which is critical if we are to move the focus of investigations away from testing the credibility of victims to testing the credibility of the allegation and ensuring that the police listen to victims.

In the criminal justice system, we have improved the experience of victims by launching the new criminal justice strategy, which includes significant measures to improve the court process for victims of sexual abuse and exploitation. As the hon. Member for Stockport acknowledged, later this year we shall be piloting measures for recorded pre-trial cross-examination of vulnerable and intimidated witnesses. I agree with her that it is important that victims do not have terrible experiences in court.

On the online front, leading companies have pledged £1 million to the Internet Watch Foundation, which will strengthen the work that it is doing in tandem with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre to identify child abuse images.

On wider child protection reform, on 21 March this year we published statutory guidance entitled “Working together to safeguard children”, and we have strengthened the role of local safeguarding children boards in holding the local agencies to account, providing funding to the association of independent LSCB chairs to drive forward that improvement and share good practice across the network. We are also continuing to drive improvements in the quality of serious case reviews so that the system learns from past mistakes.

I was asked whether there would be a review of what went wrong in Oxford and Operation Bullfinch. The LSCB in Oxford has commissioned a serious case review to learn the lessons and will ask precisely what went wrong and make sure that it does not happen again.

I was asked about hotels and bed and breakfasts. Earlier this week, I attended the launch by the National Working Group Network charity and the Children’s Society of a new toolkit for local practitioners, which I think will be useful.

The hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) raised the Daniel Pelka case. We have strengthened arrangements for serious case reviews and we will see what the case review has to say next week. On the issue of child protection at a local level, everyone who works with children obviously has responsibility. The hon. Gentleman asked whether, if everyone has responsibility, no one has responsibility. That is why the local safeguarding children boards have the key and central role and why we have sought to strengthen them.

Various hon. Members have called for mandatory reporting of concerns. There is already a clear framework in place for all who work with children to report concerns. The statutory guidance is clear that immediate referral should be made to a children’s social worker if there is concern about a child. So I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) that already in a few months many changes have been made.

Points have been made about culture in the context of Christian Churches and of groups of often predominantly Pakistani heritage men grooming and abusing white British girls. It is worth saying that political or religious sensitivities must not get in the way of preventing and uncovering child abuse. The same laws apply to all of us in this country whatever our background, religion or ethnic origin. There are no excuses for anyone committing this disgusting crime. The vetting and barring arrangements apply to those who are working in a faith context as much as anyone else; I can assure hon. Members of that.

I thank the many Members who have contributed to a serious and very good debate.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Can I sit the Minister down? It is now 3.30 pm and we should have started the next debate. I am sorry that there are not two more minutes for winding up.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered child protection in the UK.

Police (Complaints and Conduct) Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Damian Green

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

On the first point, I know that the IPCC is extremely aware of the desire for things not to appear to be unduly delayed. Indeed, that is one reason why we are here today—to put a Bill through all its stages in one day, which shows that the House and the Government are trying to speed the process up as much as we can.

On the application to the High Court, I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General is proceeding as fast as he can, and I think a decision will be made public very shortly. I can go no further than that, but the hon. Gentleman’s wider point is well made, and I absolutely take it. I am very conscious that people want to see that this process, having started after the report, is not unduly delayed at any stage. I am very keen, as I know are many other people who have been involved from the start, that that should happen.

That explains why the House should not today consider the wider reform of the IPCC, although we will examine whether there are other gaps in its powers. We have asked it what tools it needs to progress its investigations into Hillsborough, and this short Bill will ensure that it has the two additional powers for which it asked. The Bill thus represents an important step on the road from truth to justice for Hillsborough. All who support that aim will, I hope, support this Bill. I commend it to the House.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I must now announce the result of the deferred Division on the draft order amending schedule 1 to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. The Ayes were 288 and the Noes were 213, so the Question was agreed to.

I must also announce the result of the deferred Division on the draft Civil Legal Aid (Merits Criteria) Regulations 2012. The Ayes were 287 and the Noes were 213, so the Question was agreed to.

Immigration Queues (UK Airports)

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Damian Green

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Hon. Members should be asking short questions, not making speeches. [Interruption.] Mr MacShane, you can throw yourself back on the Bench as much as you want, but it is not going to impress me. I brought you on early to get you in, and I am sorry that you are disgruntled.

[Damian Green]

The right hon. Gentleman cannot come back often enough for some of us in the House. I take his point, but the whole purpose of having flexible rostering and flexible use of staff is that when large numbers of people are arriving, more gates will be open. It is not rocket science; that is a sensible way to run an airport.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

Yes. We do work closely together, but we can always work more closely together. The Home Secretary, the senior management of Border Force and I are absolutely determined to set up systems that make it instinctive for Border Force, the airport operators and the airlines to work together, not only for the mutual benefit of all those organisations but, even more importantly, for the benefit of the hundreds of millions of passengers who use our airports every year.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call Mr Pincher.

Equality and Diversity (Reform) Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Damian Green

Friday 21st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I think that it would be foolish to enter into Church politics in that way from this Dispatch Box, so I will merely note what the hon. Gentleman has said. I wanted to correct him on a point that was perhaps not central to his argument. In referring to my former neighbouring MP for Maidstone and the Weald, Ann Widdecombe, he said that she had been voted off “Strictly” very early. That is not true. She went a very long way in “Strictly”, and indeed the BBC was panicking that she was going to win.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Not being an entrant of “Strictly”, I can be strictly authoritarian on this—we are going to stick to the Bill.

Identity Documents Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Damian Green

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I have in any way drawn Members into other areas.

The short answer to the hon. Lady is to ask her this question: if the ID cards satisfaction survey showed that they were so popular, why did so few people sign up? Fewer than 15,000 signed up, and several thousand did not have to pay.

[Damian Green]

The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) inadvertently misled the House by saying that Liberty is against biometric residence permits. I have Liberty’s briefing for today’s debate. It states that—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I do not think that the permits are part of the debate, and we are being drawn into other areas. I am sure that Mr Opperman would like to continue his speech.

Points of Order

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Damian Green

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That is not a point of order, but it is now on the record.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I try as hard as I can to be as helpful as possible to the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) and others. He can, of course, go into the Library, go on to the net and view it online, if he wants to.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I thank the Minister for that reply, although I do not think it was quite what the hon. Gentleman wanted. However, it is now on the record. He feels that he should have been given the information directly, and I am sure that that can be looked at again.