Operation Conifer

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Wednesday 11th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, far be it from me in any way to contradict the noble Lord, but I understand that the PCCs are locally elected and democratically accountable. It is their role to hold the local police and the chief constables to account. Any inquiry or review of the police investigation would be a matter for the PCC and the chief constable.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, Chief Constable Veale says that his investigation—this sham investigation—complied with national guidance. If that is the case, why can the guidance not be reviewed? Is that not the function of the inquiry that we are now demanding? Secondly, when is this man “Nick” going to be prosecuted?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord makes a very good point about false allegations. Of course, they can certainly be dealt with in relation to perverting the course of justice. As for the other question asked by the noble Lord, it is up to the PCC and the chief constable to decide whether a review of the police investigation should be held.

Child Sexual Abuse

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I hear those concerns and I recall the comments that the noble Lord has previously made and written to me, and to the Home Secretary. I am sorry to reiterate the point but the police are independently operational of the Government, so it would not be appropriate for me to comment on a particular case. We are absolutely clear that, where allegations are made, they should be thoroughly and professionally investigated so the facts can be established.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, why are the people who make allegations that turn out subsequently to be untrue not required to pay back the compensation they receive from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, as has indeed happened in the Heath case?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I think I have gone through the process for what happens with false allegations. It will be up to the determining bodies to decide whether compensation is payable.

Security: ID Cards

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration has been given to the introduction of ID cards as a contribution to the maintenance of security in the United Kingdom.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government have considered the introduction of ID cards and have concluded that they would not contribute significantly to the maintenance of security in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government’s policy paper on EU citizens who wish to live in the United Kingdom proposes that up to 3.2 million EU citizens would need to apply for settled status supported by an identity document which could include personal data, a photograph and, according to paragraph 35 of the paper, possibly even nationally recorded biometric data; in other words, a national identity card-like document that will open the door to entitlements. With national security in mind, why not use the introduction of these identity documents as the test bed for a national roll-out of identity cards for us all throughout the country?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I have to pay tribute to the noble Lord’s tenacity on this point. He is absolutely right to observe that, as we leave the EU, we are entering new territory. We said in the EU citizens policy paper that all EU citizens and their families in the UK, regardless of when they arrived, will, on our exit from the EU, need to obtain an immigration status in EU law. They will need to apply to the Home Office for permission to stay, which will be evidenced through a residence document. The form it will take may be digital in the longer term, but when introduced it might be similar in format to the current biometric residence permit.

Brexit: UK-EU Movement of People (EUC Report)

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak only very briefly in the gap. I had no intention of speaking in this debate until, during Question Time today, my noble friend Lord Hain passed me a question he had asked the Minister and included with it the response that he had received. I shall come back to that in a moment.

I do not want to repeat my own contribution of 20 February to the debate on the withdrawal Bill apart from to say one thing: I believe that in Labour areas of the United Kingdom the vote in the referendum was based entirely on attitudes to immigration. I am convinced that, in the event that immigration was not surrounding this whole debate on the future of our position in Europe, there would have been an overwhelming vote in favour of remain. We have to isolate the issue of immigration if we are to understand the way forward. The debate taking place today contributes to that, but we have to go far further and in more detail. That brings me to my noble friend Lord Hain’s question.

He asked,

“how many EU nationals in the UK have the Home Office removed under article 14.4(b) of directive 2004/38 because they did not satisfy its work requirements? Does not this provision enable EU nationals not in work to be returned home while the UK still remains in the single market and the customs union?”.—[Official Report, 4/7/17; col. 787.]

You would expect an answer to that question. The Answer he received to a Written Question of the same date and requesting the same information was,

“only … obtained at disproportionate cost”.

That is the problem with this whole debate. Insufficient information is feeding public prejudice. If you want to deal with public prejudice on the issue of immigration, you have to provide hard statistics. Such Answers are nothing but rubbish. They are meaningless and they discredit the institution of Parliament.

I was talking to a colleague in the House of Commons only an hour or so ago who said that you would not get away with an Answer like that there. It might well be that we should start tabling Questions at both ends, because we cannot carry on on this basis. There are many questions. Earlier in the debate, we heard about the inaccuracy in information provided, with it being based on general assumptions and statistical nonsense. That is not good enough. If we are to deal with the issue of immigration and satisfy the British people and the views that many of them hold, we must have the facts. I ask the Minister to go back to the department and tell it that we want statistically accurate information if we are to proceed properly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Are statistics on the removal of EU citizens from the United Kingdom kept anywhere at all?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

In answer to the noble Lord’s noble friend on behalf of his noble friend, to unpick it was quite an expensive undertaking. That is the response that I gave his noble friend, but I am quite happy to take that point up with his noble friend if he would like to speak to me about it.

Terrorist Attacks

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, as we deal with extremism in all its forms, we look not just at Islamist extremism but at far-right extremism. My noble friend is absolutely right to point out that we cannot forget the events in our recent history that caused such damage in our communities, both here and in Ireland.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a tendency for party political polarisation to dominate this debate about handling terrorism. I wondered whether Ministers saw the interview with my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti during the middle of the election campaign in which she suggested that it might be possible to put together a team of privy counsellors, operating within the rules that apply to them and comprising members of all political parties, to sit down and evaluate these things and then make recommendations, bypassing the Government, directly to Parliament. There is a precedent for this from the late 1940s, when Mr Attlee did precisely that when dealing with national emergencies. Might Ministers consider what my noble friend said and perhaps come forward with some recommendations?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, it is fair to say, certainly in this House and in the other place, that when events such as this happen, there is broadly a consensus on how we should deal with things. We conflate matters sometimes when we talk about extremism, radicalisation or indeed terrorism and get mixed up in various activities, but the point is that we all seek the same ends. When the extremism commission starts its work, it will seek to get the views of Parliament on its recommendations. I think we all seek the same ends.