Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

I just want to say that this part of the Bill is fantastic and that the Home Secretary has my full support for it. [Hon. Members: “Where’s the barb?”] There is none—I just want to be nice. The thousands of people who signed my cowboy clampers petition will thank her for finally listening to the people of West Bromwich.

[Mrs May]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for those remarks. It is good to have cross-party support on such issues as this one, which affects many MPs whose constituents have suffered from cowboy clampers. By criminalising clamping and towing without lawful authority, the Government are committing rogue clampers to history and putting an end to intimidation and excessive charges once and for all.

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[Mrs May]

I always wait with interest and occasionally trepidation for the points that my hon. Friend makes. [Interruption] I could make a response to the sedentary comment by the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), but it would probably be better not to do so in the context of the Chamber of the House.

On the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), the Bill contains a great number of significant measures that will be to the benefit of the people of this country and will ensure that surveillance cameras are used for the proper purposes for which they were introduced.

[Mr Watson]

rose—

[Mrs May]

I am being incredibly generous. I had said that I was giving way for the last time, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Watson]

The Home Secretary is indeed being incredibly generous. What will be her approach in Committee to the Information Commissioner’s powers? The relevant clause seems rather weak. Part of it mentions hearings for the appointment, but it does not really free the commissioner from a Department. The commissioner is currently under the yoke of the Ministry of Justice, but previous Select Committees have recommended that the commissioner be answerable to Parliament, not a Department. Will she take a generous approach in Committee to helpful amendments on those provisions?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman’s previous intervention was extremely helpful in supporting parts of the Bill. Members might wish to discuss that issue in Committee. It has been suggested that the Information Commissioner should be responsible to Parliament. The role goes rather wider than Parliament, however, which is why it has been placed where it has. We intend to increase the commissioner’s independence, so I am sure that the issue will be debated and discussed in Committee.

Finally, the Bill protects one of the most historic freedoms and liberties enjoyed by the British people: the right to trial by jury. The Bill repeals section 43 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which allows the prosecution to apply for a serious or complex fraud trial to proceed in the absence of a jury. We sacrifice the cornerstones of our justice system at our peril.

I have told the House today that the Bill contains a number of provisions that put into effect commitments contained in the coalition agreement, but that does not mean that it should fail to gain support from across the House. Indeed, a number of positive statements have been made by hon. and right hon. Opposition Members.

Any Government and any Parliament must seek to protect not only the security of the British public but the freedoms that we hold dear. The Bill achieves those aims. All those who believe in liberty and the rights of the individual should support the Bill, and I commend it to the House.

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[Yvette Cooper]

This is really weird. It means that somebody—a teacher, for example—who has been working with children and has been barred for grooming a child, may then apply for a job, perhaps a voluntary post as a teaching assistant, and the school will not be told whether they are barred, but the Home Secretary thinks that that is okay because the school may be able to get some of the information that led to the barring in the first place if it is summarised on the CRB check. Why not give the school the information about the fact that someone has been previously barred?

The Home Office guidance says:

“Some people who may previously have been barred…may be able to gain posts in other areas where they are able to work less closely with children or adults. It will be up to employers to weigh up the risks involved”,

but let us think of the position in which that puts employers. They will not even know if they have got the full information; nor will they have the judgment of the experts at the safeguarding authority who have made a decision, based on their professional experience and expertise, that the person should be barred. The guidance also says that

“employers will not be able to find out the barred status of people who are not working in regulated activity roles.”

A lot of parents will find this puzzling and worrying. Why should they not be able to find out whether someone has previously been barred for working with children if they are going to be working with children again in a similar way?

Let us consider the other consequences. If a voluntary teaching assistant is caught grooming a child, then as long as they have never been a teacher, worked in regulated activity, or expressed a desire to do so in future, they will not even be added to the barred list. So two years later they can apply for teacher training and no one will know that they were kicked out of another school for deeply inappropriate behaviour. Future employers may be able to get a criminal records check but, as the NSPCC has made clear,

“This is highly concerning as most people who pose a risk to children are not prosecuted, and thus future employers may not be alerted to the risks they pose.”

I have to say to the Home Secretary that most parents will not just think that it is “highly concerning”—they will think, like me, that it is wrong.

[Mr Watson]

My right hon. Friend is right that this is a complex and puzzling piece of the Bill, and the devil will be in the detail when it comes before the Committee. I hope that the Home Secretary is in no doubt, though, that what is very clear is that if a child is harmed as a result of this deregulatory measure, she will carry the responsibility for it.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Secretary needs to think again about this matter and take responsibility for the changes that she is making. As parents, we want to be sure that someone who has a history of inappropriate behaviour towards children will not end up as a voluntary teaching assistant in our child’s class. The Deputy Prime Minister has described the proposed new arrangements as common sense. I am afraid that the truth is that they look, at best, naive and confused, and at worst, extremely irresponsible. I urge the Home Secretary to change this proposal and not to put political rhetoric above the safety of children.

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[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is right about the importance of protecting victims, as well as protecting other people. It is a shame that the Government, having supported the measures in the 2010 Act and allowed it to go through, have not chosen to implement it. The revised measures will take much longer to put in place.

[Mr Watson]

I was not aware of the cases that my right hon. Friend raised. Before we decide where we stand on this matter, I think that the people of Stafford, Birmingham and Barnsley deserve an explanation from the Home Secretary about why these measures would have allowed serious criminals to remain free.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. If these restrictions go through and make it harder for the police to solve serious crimes, the Home Secretary will have to explain to the victims of crime and those who are worried about serious crimes and offences why she has chosen to draw the line where she has, and to strike the balance in a way that will mean that more victims will not get the justice that they deserve and that we have a responsibility to pursue on their behalf.

Protecting freedom means getting the balance right. It means protecting the freedom of victims as well as protecting everyone else from unnecessary suspicion or interference. It means making sure that there are safeguards, checks and balances that protect people’s freedoms and protect the innocent. It also means making sure that the police have the tools they need to fight and prevent crime that hurts innocent people.

In reality, what are the Home Secretary and her Government doing? Their record on protecting freedoms and ensuring checks and balances is a mass of confusion and contradiction that makes a mockery of their rhetoric: new powers of confiscation for local councils; restrictions on protest in Parliament square and powers for non-warranted officers to move people on physically; substantial powers over the police concentrated in the hands of a single politician—the police commissioner; and a populist assault on the courts and the Human Rights Act, which play an important role in preventing arbitrary state power. The Government are not putting in place checks and balances or protecting freedoms. At the same time, they are making it harder, not easier, for the police to fight crime and bring offenders to justice—through restrictions on DNA, loopholes in child protection, weakening the sex offenders register, ending antisocial behaviour orders, weakening control orders and by having more than 10,000 fewer police officers thanks to the 20% front-loaded cuts. That is not a good list.

The Bill does not do what it says on the tin. It does not deliver a fundamental change in the protection of freedom for the innocent, and it does not protect the freedom of victims. The Home Secretary has given in to the rhetoric of the Deputy Prime Minister and she will be judged by the reality of her decisions today. She is getting some of those decisions wrong.