Libya

Debate between Mark Field and Mark Pritchard

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman knows much about this subject, and has obviously kept an eye on Libyan affairs for quite some time. General Haftar may not be the only old man in a hurry, in certain ways.

I think that the hon. Gentleman is broadly right, although I fear that the situation is less linear than he suggests. There may be groups who do not like the Muslim Brotherhood, but I think that some Faustian bargains are being made when it comes to the coalitions that are being formed. As the hon. Gentleman says, given that the strength of General Haftar’s work has tended to be in the Benghazi region, oil is clearly very much at the forefront of his mind.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

The Secretary General of the United Nations said that he was leaving Libya with a heavy heart, and that he was deeply concerned about the escalation of the conflict there. However, a diplomatic and political conflict is going on behind the scenes between France and Italy. Given that both those countries are members of the European Union and of NATO, what more can the UK Government do to bring about political and diplomatic consensus, especially in view of the fact that the Russians are now very close to the new Italian Government?

[Mark Field]

I think that there is consensus among our European Union neighbours, and, as I have said, the G7 have issued a statement. It was greatly to be regretted that, for safety reasons, the Secretary General of the United Nations had to flee literally 10 days before we were hoping to get the conference under way. However, I think that a lot of diplomatic work is going on. There is a great deal of concern in the international community, which recognises that if Libya were to become a failed state, all the migration issues—as well as, obviously, the massive humanitarian issues—that we have seen in recent years would only worsen. However, we are working very closely with all our international partners, and will continue to do so.

Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Debate between Mark Field and Mark Pritchard

Monday 22nd April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pritchard]

No, not at all, but the hon. Gentleman’s point is a bit of a red herring. He is right: 1.4 million UK citizens live in the other 27—26 plus one—EU states, several hundred thousand of whom live in Spain, as he points out. But I think he knows full well that my point is that the previous Labour Government, over 13 years, failed to recoup any funds, which, as he alluded to, they could have done and which this Government are doing. I hope he will support that policy.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mark Pritchard]

I shall move on to jobs after I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Mark Field]

My hon. Friend has made a robust case. I represent this area, which has two big hospitals— St Mary’s Paddington and Barts—that have had a significant problem with NHS tourism going back many decades. Does he not recognise that many doctors feel strongly about the Hippocratic oath, so they would be very reluctant to have any sort of pecking order, whether of UK and non-UK citizens or EU citizens and others? Some of the problems he has identified therefore, real though they are, will be incredibly difficult to resolve. It is wrong to make too much of a party political point on the subject; yes, there have been problems, but I know St Mary’s Paddington has done a hell of a lot of work to get a lot of the money back, although significant NHS tourism is still unrecompensed.

[Mark Pritchard]

I was not making a party political point; I was merely making a statement of fact. The Government are rightly seeking to recoup funds from EEA states and the previous Government failed to do so. With regards to the particular points my hon. Friend raises, first, those same GPs know that the NHS has scarce resources and, secondly, whether GPs are prepared to deal with health tourism or not, let us at least discuss it with the General Medical Council, the British Medical Association, GPs and acute trusts and primary care trusts—now clinical commissioning groups. We need a grown-up discussion about whether we should do it. I believe we should and the Government appear to think the same—or I think the same as the Government—so it is a matter of how we do it. It is right and fair for the British taxpayer and the British people that we do so.

[Mark Pritchard]

I shall give way to my right hon. Friend after my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) has intervened.

[Mark Field]

My hon. Friend makes a fair case about trying to change attitudes in the NHS—among GP commissioners and in hospital—but I hope that he recognises that some moneys will inevitably be incredibly difficult to get back, partly due to the ethos of the medical profession, and it would be wrong to second-guess that to any large extent.

[Mark Pritchard]

I give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames).

Police (Public Trust)

Debate between Mark Field and Mark Pritchard

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce this debate. Sir Robert Peel, the founder of policing, said:

“The police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.”

His comments were true in the 19th century and they are true today. Policing remains a noble vocation. For many serving police officers, their duties remain much more than a job or profession. At its very best, the police service still manifests the highest of public service attributes; it is public service in uniform. I pay tribute to the 11 police officers who have been killed on duty since 2002 and the 3,271 police officers who have been seriously injured over that same period, and, indeed, to officers on the front line today who are perhaps being injured in the course of their duties.

Like most Members of this House, I was brought up to respect the police, and for the most part that respect still remains, but in recent years I have become aware—not only from the mailbag and inbox from my own constituency, but from the experience of those whom I read and hear about in different parts of the country—that public trust in the police is declining. It is indisputable that a sizable minority of officers are increasingly overshadowing the dedication, courage and professionalism of the vast majority of serving police officers—officers who do the right thing, not the wrong thing. I do not in this debate set out to criticise the police, but, as a candid observer and supporter of those who do their duty, I want to raise a number of serious concerns that I have about some aspects of modern policing, which, in my humble view, unless the police address them, will continue to undermine much needed public confidence and encourage the growing lack of trust in those to whom we entrust so much.

I understand that the police need and want a good working relationship with the media. The success of broadcast programmes such as “Crimewatch” underscore such a relationship working well, and the same is true in relation to the press. The police and the media working well together—working lawfully together—can and does bring results, which are welcomed by the law-abiding public. However, what is not acceptable to the public is when serving police officers sell their stories, whether true or untrue—stories often obtained by officers in the course of their official policing duties. In such instances, disciplinary action needs to be far more severe than it is on the disappointingly rare occasions that such action occurs now. If officers breach internal disciplinary codes over relationships with the media, what other laws and rules might they be breaking? If they break the law, action should be taken.

Police officers also need to be reminded, under caution if necessary, of their legal obligations to uphold the Official Secrets Act. Police officers are not above the law; they are subject to the law and they must uphold the law. Moreover, when senior officers fail to take action against officers who fail to uphold the law, public trust ebbs away. This personal feasting on the media can bring the whole of the police service into disrepute. That lesson applies to senior officers too. They should try to avoid losing their sense of perspective in exchange for a few moments of glory in newspapers, which are decreasingly read. It would be far better for the police to stick to policing.

It is also not for senior and chief officers to decide what is and what is not in the public interest, or what they will or will not investigate. The law is set by this Parliament, by the people and for the people, not around a large and strategic coffee table. That is why the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions must avoid any hint that it is the police, rather than the Crown Prosecution Service, who ultimately decide what cases may or may not be investigated and brought before the courts. That is why I am calling today for a review of what is and what is not “in the public interest”. What does the term “in the public interest” actually mean? Who really determines what is in the public interest, using what criteria?

One of the key areas of concern for many of my constituents and, indeed, for many serving police officers I speak to is the apparent lack of discipline exercised in and by some police forces. It is not acceptable to taxpayers or to dedicated and hard-working police officers for other police officers to break the rules—sometimes consistently—many of whom are subject to no discipline or, if they are disciplined, are only very lightly disciplined. It is the view of those of my constituents with whom I have spoken about this issue that far too many bad apples remain in the police service, often with impunity. For every officer who “gets away with it”—whatever “it” might be—public trust in the police ebbs away.

Indeed, the culture of the police service offering a job for life, or for 30 years, even to officers who have a very poor disciplinary record and years of complaints against them, must end. Honest, hard-working police officers deserve better and so do the public. As one police officer put it to me recently,

“from the junior ranks to chief officer level, there needs to be a 21st century reminder that it is not a ‘warrant card’ that gives the police service its success, but public trust, public co-operation and policing by consent.”

I welcome the Government’s review into policing pay, terms of employment and conditions, but I hope that that review will also look at that important area of discipline and especially at the public demand for chief officers to approach their disciplinary responsibilities far more proactively. That will mean far more than the call to limit payouts at employment tribunals; often, it will mean enforcing warnings and disciplines at a very early stage in a police officer’s career—early intervention. A problem ignored today will often emerge as a more costly and complex problem tomorrow. Chief officers have the rank and the pay to deal with important man-management decisions, and they need to show a little more forthrightness in doing so.

Corrupt police officers should be brought before the courts, and on conviction thrown out of the force. Being dismissed from a particular force does not serve justice in the way that the public rightly expect and deserve. Furthermore, when I say “courts”, I mean local courts. It is not acceptable that officers are brought before courts in a neighbouring county to the one in which they serve. I am sure that it has nothing to do with avoiding potentially negative media and public scrutiny, but whatever the reasons or causes for the practice, it must end. There should be no special treatment for police officers.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his very interesting speech and I agree with the thrust of quite a bit of what he has said. As a London MP, I think that the mendacity of the Metropolitan police at times in relation to some high-profile events, such as the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and indeed even Mark Saunders very recently, is very worrying, particularly as it seems to be a mendacity that is implied at the very highest level.

My hon. Friend made a very important point early in his contribution about policing by consent. Does he have a view on that issue? Policing by consent is a very particular element of policing in this country, which makes us very different from many European countries. Does he not think that now is the time for a much more open and much broader debate about precisely how our policing should be organised? Historically, going back 160 or 170 years, it has very much been a case of policing by consent rather than policing on a European-type model, but perhaps the model of policing and the expectations of the general public are now changing.

[Mark Pritchard]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that important intervention. I know that he has a lot of experience in this area. In response to his question, I think it is important that when the Government undertake their review, the whole issue of the relationship and building trust between the police and the public is examined. I have touched on discipline already; I will touch on some other issues shortly. I think that my hon. Friend came in just a few moments after I began the debate. I refer him to the words of Sir Robert Peel that I quoted at the outset; perhaps he can read them in Hansard. It is an important point that, of course, the police are themselves members of the public. However, on the question of policing by consent, perhaps we need to look at Bramshill, Hendon and other places where our police officers—from junior officers to senior officers—are trained. We should remind officers that they are policing by consent and that there must be a relationship with the public that does not exist through the warrant card alone but through trust and mutual respect.

As I said, there should be no special treatment for police officers. Police officers are not above the law; they are subject to the law, as we all are. Some officers forget that and as a result public trust in the police ebbs away. [Interruption.]

Offshore Financial Centres

Debate between Mark Field and Mark Pritchard

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

As international organisations and major Governments seek to understand the cause of the global financial crisis, small international financial centres have repeatedly endured political attacks and misguided criticisms—from pejorative sniping about their being tax havens and offshore centres for avaricious bankers, to allegations that they provide secrecy jurisdictions for shady figures in the international business community. Those criticisms suggest that they are partly to blame for the shortcomings in the financial markets. The debate about the role of small IFCs has, to date, been remarkably one-sided, which is unfortunate as it demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding about their function and the benefits that they provide to the wider global economy.

Before the United Kingdom and our global partners look to develop further rigorous international standards on financial regulation, it is critical that politicians and policy makers should formulate and implement policy in an informed, consistent and balanced manner and vital that we should now take a dispassionate view of the offshore IFCs and look sensibly at the significant benefits that they can offer, both to our nation and the broader global financial system.

The UK has an almost unique position in the debate about IFCs. We have a constitutional relationship, through our Crown dependencies and overseas territories, with half of the top 30 offshore financial centres. With the Chinese Government successfully lobbying the G20 last month for both Macao and Hong Kong to be excluded from any OECD grey list on matters of tax transparency, it looks increasingly likely that the standards and regulations currently being formulated may be imposed in some jurisdictions yet overlooked in others. Not only is that incompatible with the need to find a global response to the formation of new financial regulation, but it risks undermining the UK’s financial sector and the wider British economy, which is a major recipient of investment capital raised through small IFCs.

Some small international financial centres, such as Jersey and Guernsey, are used by the global financial community for various reasons, including political stability and a favourable economic outlook; familiar legal systems, often based on English common law; a very high quality of service providers; the ability to meet important investor requirements, such as a legal infrastructure to sell shares; a lack of foreign exchange controls that remove restrictions on the payment of interest of dividends; tax neutrality—not to be confused with tax evasion—which enables investors from multiple jurisdictions to ensure they do not meet multiple layers of taxation as funds pass through the global financial system; and legal neutrality, which ensures that no nationality is given special treatment.

For those reasons there has been a mutually beneficial relationship between the City of London, in my constituency, and many Crown dependencies and overseas territories. That is demonstrated not only by the massive capital flows between the two, aiding market liquidity and investment in the UK, but by the legal and constitutional similarities and the transfer of skilled professionals.

To give some idea of the scale of the capital flows, I should say that UK banks had net financing from Guernsey alone—one of the 30 top centres—of $74.1 billion at the end of June 2009. Unfortunately, because the public debate is largely myopic in respect of IFCs, these benefits are often overlooked or conveniently ignored, in part as a result of small IFCs’ relatively low profile and partly because of a lack of seats on intergovernmental bodies that design global financial regulation.

There now needs to be a much greater understanding of the role and proven benefits provided by small international financial centres as part of the City of London’s transaction chain. I therefore seek to dispel some of the popular myths that surround such centres. The first myth is that IFCs have a negative impact on growth in the global economy. In reality, many of the smallest IFCs are able to provide a stable, well regulated and neutral jurisdiction through which to facilitate international and cross-border business. Investment channelled into small IFCs will in turn provide much-needed liquidity, further investment opportunities, genuine competitiveness and access to capital markets for businesses and investors in both the major developed world and, increasingly, in countries with vast emerging markets.

The recent Treasury review of this area, undertaken by Michael Foot—not that one, Mr Caton—concluded:

“The Crown Dependencies make a significant contribution to the liquidity of the UK market. Together they provided net financing to UK banks of $332.5 billion in the second quarter of 2009.”

Those funds are largely accounted for by the up-streaming of deposits collected by UK banks to their UK head offices, including the nationalised or part-nationalised Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland, as well as Barclays, HSBC, Santander and a number of building societies.

In addition to aiding capital flows, a report by the university of Michigan’s Professor James Hines on the relation between IFCs and the world economy reveals that expanding investment opportunities through offshore centres leads to increased domestic investment and employment, creating jobs both at the financial centre and in the domestic economies.

Small IFCs play an important role in helping to allocate capital efficiently. To this end, they act as important financial intermediaries, matching the capital provided by savers in one country with the investment needs of borrowers in another. Although that has, understandably, led to concerns about “round tripping”, in which capital is recycled through an offshore centre to give it the appearance of foreign investment and attract a more favourable tax regime, the experience of China and India throws those concerns into doubt, because both of those countries have removed tax breaks for foreign investment during the past decade and both have seen internal and inward investment continue to soar. As a major net recipient of capital flows from small IFCs, our firms in the City might suffer if they found it more difficult to access capital via the international markets.

A second myth is that small IFCs played a part in causing the global financial crisis over the past three years. Although it is convenient to blame offshore centres for causing the crisis, even those who work in the financial markets do not accept that small IFCs were a major cause. Last year, the Treasury Committee found that Guernsey did not contribute at all to global financial contagion. Indeed, it could be argued that the liquidity provided by the small IFCs was significantly positive for the UK during the crisis.

The third myth is that IFCs engage in harmful tax practices. The Foot review suggested that the potential for tax leakage from so-called full tax jurisdictions, such as the UK, towards low-tax or zero-tax regimes, is relatively limited. Although the TUC has argued that the tax gap created in UK Government tax receipts as a result of offshore centres is some £25 billion, the Deloitte report commissioned by the Treasury at the time of the Foot report showed that only £2 billion is potentially lost in tax leakage per annum. Foot also concluded that the real figure might even be lower than that.

Concerns about the UK’s tax base being stripped by unfair competition have also been overstated. It is clear that the debate about tax competition needs to be properly redefined and any further policy initiatives need to protect the important principle of tax sovereignty, as well as adequately recognising the impact of tax regimes on the productive sector. The OECD has clearly warned about the detrimental effects of high corporate tax on productivity. In that regard, I welcome the moves to reduce corporation tax and peg capital gains tax. The recent attacks on the zero-10 tax regimes reveal a worrying trend, in which the sovereignty of independent states to set their own tax rates is undermined and high-tax countries seek to export their high tax rates around the world.

Economic models vary country by country. The adoption of a tax regime premised on the principles of lower tax burdens, efficient government and dynamic private sector activity is legitimate and some degree of tax competition should therefore be recognised as positive. Regardless of that, small IFCs have shown a willingness to engage with the concerns raised by their tax regime—for example, Guernsey and Jersey are voluntarily undertaking a corporate tax review to act within the spirit of the EU tax code.

A fourth myth suggests that small IFCs have a negative impact on transparency, regulation and information exchange. With the G20 placing tax transparency at the top of its agenda, understandably, small IFCs are actively participating in the expansion of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information. Indeed, an International Monetary Fund review of Jersey’s regulatory standards in September last year concluded that it was in the top division of financial centres, and gave it the highest ranking ever achieved by a financial centre in respect of compliance with IMF recommendations.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about tax transparency, and he also mentions capital flows. Does he accept that offshore centres such as the British Virgin Islands, which are on the OECD’s white list and peer review group, have set the trend in many ways on transparency? The Government should recognise that, and that such centres help rather than hinder the UK’s economy.

[Mr Field]

I agree, and that is greatly to the credit of the British Virgin Islands and other overseas dependencies, as well as some of the Crown dependencies to which I have referred. They have played an important role and led the way in the transparency agenda.

One of the great myths to have grown up is that small offshore centres do not benefit developing countries. Small IFCs have been accused of supporting capital flight out of developing countries, but the Commonwealth secretariat is publishing a new report this month to illustrate the importance of the role played by IFCs in helping developing countries, by enabling them to rent financial expertise from other countries while they develop their own financial centres. Crucially, they also offer investors greater protection of their property rights against domestic political uncertainty.

It is no exaggeration to say that without smaller offshore financial centres many developing countries would not secure key funding for project finance, which makes a substantial improvement to the lives of some of the most vulnerable global citizens. Furthermore, the financial action task force gives many IFCs a positive assessment in meeting its 49 rigorous recommendations on anti-money laundering and terrorism finance. Centres such as the Channel Islands perform better in fighting financial crime compared even with bigger countries such as France, Italy, the US or—dare I say it?— the United Kingdom.

Finally, the UK’s Crown dependencies are often accused of being fiscally unsustainable. Again, nothing could be further from the truth. The debate within the UK Government has, naturally, been framed by events surrounding the collapse of Iceland’s banking system. When the Icelandic banks imploded in September 2008, it quickly became apparent that the contagion would spread to British savers and ultimately to British taxpayers. Furthermore, the role of the Isle of Man as a core financial intermediary between British savers and Icelandic borrowers illustrated the UK’s exposure to offshore centres.

However, the subsequent Treasury review went some way towards allaying the two main concerns. In particular, the worries over the fiscal sustainability of UK Crown dependencies proved to be massively overstated. Throughout the years, IFCs such as Gibraltar, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey, have amassed large budget surpluses while actively diversifying their tax base, as Foot recommended. Indeed, the Foot report commented on the fact that none of Britain’s Crown dependencies has taken on significant levels of borrowing.

It is important that the G20 summit in Korea later this year is made aware of the beneficial role that small IFCs play in the global economy. Above all, we must stand up to misinformed or narrow views of the valuable contributions that small IFCs can offer to the world economy in terms of liquidity, efficiency, investment and economic growth. Let us make no mistake: ensuring that the voices of small IFCs are heard in Korea is very much in our national interest. If we look at the example of Jersey and its positive effect on the wider UK economy, we see that the island provides a conduit through which mobile capital from around the world can be aggregated and invested, primarily here in London.