Chilcot Committee: Intercept Evidence

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Henley

Tuesday 24th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the noble Lord is correct to point out that there are other countries that have similar common law legal systems that do use intercept as evidence. They do not have the constraints of the European Court of Human Rights—a point that ought to be made to the noble Lord. As I said, all Governments have been trying to get there since 1993. It is going to be a very long road.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I am scarred from two years of my Liberal Democrat friends slapping me around when I was in government because I took too long to do anything about this. I am glad that now they are in a coalition, they are finding this quite a difficult issue. Does the Minister not agree that some 25 years ago terrorists did not know that when they picked up a mobile phone we would get them straight away? Now there are techniques that, if exposed, would mean that we would not get the tip-offs that we get all the time which allow us to monitor whole teams of people who wish to do our nation harm.

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord makes a very valid point about the importance of intelligence, and why we do not necessarily want to risk losing that intelligence by making use of it as evidence. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his support, and I look forward to being slapped around on this by noble Lords from all sides of the House for months to come.

Police: Misconduct and Corruption

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Henley

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my right honourable friend can make use of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary; that is still there. However, the important point, which the noble Lord ought to remember from his time, although things have become more independent since, is that people can make complaints to the police but, if they want to ratchet them up thereafter, such complaints should be made to an independent authority. That is why, in 2002, legislation was changed under the previous Government to bring in the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It must remain independent. If my right honourable friend can second-guess what the IPCC does, it will very quickly cease to be independent.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, police corruption is loathsome and must be rooted out. In many years of going around the world, I have come across many police forces and seen some pretty appalling things. To get the balance right, does the Minister not agree that in this country we are generally very fortunate in the standard of our police forces?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we take any allegations of unlawful or inappropriate behaviour or corruption very seriously, as we ought to. However, the noble Lord is quite right to emphasise the very good story that we have to tell about our police in this country. That is why I was very pleased that, as the noble Lord made his intervention, he seemed to receive support from all sides of the House.

Abu Qatada

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Henley

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we will maintain very close contact with the Jordanian Government when we manage to extradite this man to Jordan and he faces his trial there. We will make sure that we keep fully cognisant of what goes on in the trial in that country.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, when I was the Security Minister I was constantly struck and somewhat surprised by how my opposite numbers in a number of European countries seemed able to return terrorists to the countries to which they belonged. Perhaps we could ask those countries how they manage to circumvent the rules and how they avoid getting into the complete muddle that we seem to have got in.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, other countries do things in other ways. The important thing to remember is that this country abides by the rule of law and listens to what the courts say, however unpalatable that might be. I think that what that court has done is unpalatable. We hope that it will see reason on this occasion and accept that his referral is out of time and that there are no merits in the case whatever.

Alcohol: Minimum Pricing

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Henley

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, certainly the consequences of the changes made under the previous regime were not exactly what we were led to believe would be the consequences. It did not lead to the European-style drinking culture—the cafe culture—that the then Prime Minister thought that it would lead to. That is why we made a number of changes to the licensing regime, which, again, is part of our overall strategy on alcohol.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, we all know the dangers of excessive use of alcohol, which is a terrible thing. However, in the interest of balance of all these questions, does the Minister agree that sensible consumption of alcohol, or “poison” as it was called, can be very enjoyable and has been an integral part of western civilisation for millennia?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I absolutely agree with the noble Lord in those remarks. He will remember from his naval experience—I do not know how far he goes back—that originally a tot of rum was provided to all serving naval officers and ratings. That was removed because of the increasing complexity of ships and the technology on board, and the thought that it might not be a sensible thing for them to continue to drink. But, quite rightly, the Navy did not go dry in the style of the United States Navy. The noble Lord is right to make the point that there is a sensible balance to be drawn on this matter.

Piracy

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Henley

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we made it clear that we do not believe that the money going in ransoms to—if I can put it this way—the ordinary Somali pirates is generally going into terrorists’ hands. What is being gathered by AQIM is coming from other kidnapping operations and, as the noble Lord will be aware, there is a very good chance that that is going into terrorism operations, in which case it would be illegal to pay that ransom.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, is the national maritime intelligence centre now fully manned and operational at Northwood?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, to the best of my knowledge, that is the case, but if I am wrong, of course I will write to the noble Lord.

Police: Vehicles

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Henley

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I am very grateful that I was not driven in that car by my noble friend or her late husband. Police cars do not last that long because they have a fairly heavy life. The police sell them at the end of their lives and try to get the best possible value for them.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, when I was a Minister in the Home Office I was shocked at how little co-ordination there was across police forces in terms of procurement, and I tried to change that. Can the Minister reassure us that, notwithstanding some differentials between police forces, they are quite minimal and there would be a huge gain to the public purse if we could co-ordinate procurement?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the noble Lord refers to his time in government. I was trying to make clear in my original Answer that there have been considerable changes since then. That is why we have brought in the framework, which brings in co-ordination of a great deal of procurement across all police forces that we believe will save something of the order of £350 million a year. This is money that we need to save.

“Honour-related” Violence

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Henley

Tuesday 14th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am aware of the report and am very grateful to the noble Baroness both for making a copy available to me, which I have read, and for bringing it to the attention of the House. That is very important indeed. I am also aware of the underreporting of this particular crime, which the report draws attention to, and the reasons behind that. It is quite obvious that we need much better information in this field. One of the objectives of the honour-based violence strategy of the Association of Chief Police Officers is for all forces to collect data for honour-based violence and forced marriage in a consistent and considered way. We encourage them to do that because once we have the information, it will be far easier to take action.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that this is so far removed from what we might consider to be honour that perhaps we should find a new word to describe it?

Justice: Evidence

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Henley

Thursday 15th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the only reason why the membership changed was because the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, stood down due to reasons of health. He has been replaced by Shaun Woodward, and there is nothing else behind that.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, during my three years as Minister for Security, almost every key plot against this nation was first identified through the auspices of GCHQ and this sort of intelligence. While one has to be sad that things have been delayed, will the Minister confirm that the most important thing to get right is not to lose any of the skills and capabilities that have been lost in the past when people have spoken about them unnecessarily?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right to underline the importance of intelligence—and I stress the importance very often of intercept as intelligence. Whether it can be used as evidence is always another matter. Frequently, even if it could be used as evidence, it would not be very useful evidence, having been useful intelligence.

Police: Officer Numbers

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Henley

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I hope I will be able to answer yes to my noble friend in due course. I will have to look at those figures, but I am unsighted on them at the moment. If my noble friend is prepared to accept it, I will write to him in due course.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, when I asked the noble Lord’s predecessor but one about the retiring of more senior police officers and how this would have an adverse impact on people such as the terrorism support officers, I was told that a central register would be kept of how many were going, so that it did not have a disproportionate effect if they were taken from each police area. Where do we stand on that now? Has it had a disproportionate effect or are we managing to keep a balance across all the police areas?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, again, I am somewhat embarrassed in that I cannot answer the noble Lord’s precise question. I will certainly look at that, but I have not been made aware of any problems in that area. If I have not been made aware of them, I suspect that there is not a problem in that field. If I am wrong, of course I will let the noble Lord know.

Police: Stop and Account

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Henley

Thursday 20th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, the fleet off Cadiz some 206 years ago was completely blind to race, creed or anything like that. With the anniversary of Trafalgar coming up tomorrow, would the Minister be willing to pass the good wishes of our House to our rather battered fleet around the world and perhaps ask his colleague the Secretary of State for Defence to pass a signal to it by recognising that day?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I think that that matter is slightly beyond the Question on the Order Paper. The noble Lord mentioned that the fleet was blind to matters of race at that time; I think that the same was true of the fleet at the time of Trafalgar. We have only to look at the pictures by Daniel Maclise next door in the Royal Gallery to see that very fact. I thank the noble Lord for his intervention, even though it is not strictly relevant to the Question on the Order Paper.

Thames Tunnel

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Henley

Monday 18th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I would have thought that what I have said has given some idea of where Ministers in Defra stand on these matters. Again, I think that the planning process should decide the appropriate route, how it is done, where to dig the access tunnels and so on. In the end, we want the right solution for London and for the customers of Thames Water to ensure that we can get rid of that waste water and that we do not have, again and again, the kind of environmental disasters that we have seen, on a number of occasions, further up the Thames, with vast quantities of dead fish and other such things.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a waterman and lighterman. It seems to me that the Government have to take an overview of this. Leaving the matter to separate planning authorities can lead to things like the green aspects of using the river, which are dramatically less harmful to the environment, being forgotten. The Government ought to take an overview, if not pass legislation on it to make it happen. I notice that as regards the Olympics we have failed abysmally to use the river as much as was promised. That is a great failure and a loss to the nation.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I had a sneaking suspicion that a number of noble Lords in this House, who live further west up the Thames, would want to declare an interest in how these building works are to take place. Fourteen planning authorities are affected by this and it is one of the problems that has to be dealt with overall at government level. That does not mean that Defra should make the decision; the appropriate planning process should take place. Obviously, we will feed in our views and I have given some indication of a desire to use brownfield sites where possible rather than greenfield sites. In the end, we must leave this matter to the planning process.