Drug Crime

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Robin Millar]

The hon. Member makes an interesting point. This debate is perhaps not the one to get into that, but some of the services to veterans exclude some of those who need them the most. Some services in receipt of large amounts of public moneys, for example, will not treat those with a criminal record, who are often the ones who are furthest from help and need it the most; we must be careful about that. The hon. Member makes a worthwhile point that I am sure will be explored on another day in another debate.

On the subject of interrupting pathways, how often have we heard that young people—we have heard of at least one such example this afternoon—are attracted into a lifestyle that offers them easy money and luxury goods because they cannot see another way in their community to achieve that? I am mindful of a report published by the Centre for Social Justice about membership of gangs entitled, “Dying to Belong”. It was a brilliant title, frankly, which highlighted the problem that young people were dying and that their principal motivation for involvement with gangs was that they did not feel that they belonged to their community or their families. Those are real problems and we can interrupt those pathways.

We need to provide better jobs in those areas, better role models and the education that will help people. It is about setting out clear alternative pathways for those young people. We must not flinch from mentioning the love of family and parents. We all know what family means to each of us. I do not refer to some Victorian ideal. We all know that if I asked anyone in this room, “Who is your family?”, we would know who that was. It might look different for each one of us, but we would all know. We would also know that we bear the imprint—for good or bad—of that family for the rest of our lives. We must find a way of grappling with that and saying, “How do we help the family around those young people, to keep them off those pathways?”

Aspiration and hope are essential. I must mention briefly the work of the Government, with their levelling-up fund. The idea is that talent is spread everywhere, but opportunity is not, so if the fund can do one thing, it is to deliver opportunity in such areas. If young people see an opportunity forward to a Mercedes, a flash car, a better phone, nicer trainers or whatever, and are able to build in their mind an aspiration that is positive and constructive, and does not lead them into the embrace of the gangs, that is a good thing.

I urge the Minister to think about supply and demand, and how often our efforts in dealing with drugs are about shutting down supply, on the enforcement end. That is vital, but I remember the inspector in Suffolk who memorably told me when I lived there and we in local government were dealing with county lines: “Robin, we can’t arrest our way out of this problem. This is not a problem just for the police; it is a problem for the posse. It is a problem for the communities.”

In Newmarket in Suffolk, we recognised that communities owning the spaces that gangs would occupy, being aware of the problems, spotting the signs in young people and acting early in the pathway, were as important as CCTV and the PCSOs who were on the beat in the town. We must look at everything together. We must not delegate or just assume that the police can handle these issues, and, in working together, we must make sure that we provide the resources for community groups, which can often reach further into the communities to help those who need the most from our services.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

I am hoping to call the Front-Bench spokespeople just before 3.30 pm. I call Jim Shannon.

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[Jim Shannon]

I am sorry—Mr Pritchard was clear on times, and I have less time than everybody else.

It is as a community that we can and must defeat the scourge. The difficulty in the community is the sense of fear about passing on information—that “the boys will find out”. Families live in fear and feel unable to stand up; they watch helplessly as their children are dragged into the darkness of gang warfare.

I get very angry, as I have had sobbing mothers in my office, telling me that their sons are being coerced into drug running. When I ask for names, they cannot give them, because they are afraid. I have given assurances that information passed on to the PSNI is strictly anonymous, but there is a lack of trust in the PSNI.

I have discussed the need for visible community policing that builds up relationships, as a key element of any war on drugs. When the community know and trust their local police, it can make all the difference. That is why we need to go back to the days of the local bobby who knows the names and is there to protect, not to prosecute. I am of that generation. Too many lives are lost, too many hearts are broken and too many fortunes are being made off the backs of drug abuse in the communities. It is past time that we took our community spirit and safety back into our own hands.

I know the Minister does not have responsibility for Northern Ireland, but my stories are similar to everybody else’s. We need the police, social workers and youth workers all to be on the same page, doing their job and giving young people options and support to resist and beat the scourge of drugs in our society—the biggest and deadliest challenge that we face today. Thank you for the time you have given me, Mr Pritchard; I have worked well within your confines.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for finishing on time. I call the SNP spokesman. Front Benchers, including the Minister, will have 10 minutes each.

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[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. The sitting is suspended due to a Division. There will be 15 minutes for the first Division and 10 minutes for subsequent Divisions. I remind hon. Members that, if they have attended, it is a courtesy to the House to come back and hear the shadow Front-Bench spokesperson and the Minister of State’s response. We do not know how many Divisions there are. On the final vote, can we try to make it back a little quicker and not use the full 10 minutes? Then we can all get away a little quicker.

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[Sarah Jones]

I was talking about online drugs and how easy it is for kids to buy them. Fiona Spargo-Mabbs, an inspirational woman in my constituency—the Minister will share a platform with her soon—has brought together a group of mothers whose children died from taking drugs that were bought largely online. I am sure that she will talk to the Minister about the need to educate all our young people on what to do when they are confronted with drugs and on the causes and impacts of taking them. All our children come across or are invited to take drugs in some form or another.

Our police are ill-equipped to deal with the advancement of technology and its use by criminals. Sir Michael Barber spoke of a “Betamax police force” stuck in the analogue era while fighting a digital threat. A Sky News report recently found that officers are not aware of the tools they can use to investigate online crimes or gain online evidence. Crest, the crime and justice think-tank that we all use a lot, notes that there is a technological knowledge gap in police forces.

In the ’80s and ’90s, the Home Office had at its core strong teams that produced top-notch research on the state of the drugs market and its ebbs, flows and patterns, but those teams have been sadly cut under this Government. We have learned from increasing drug use over recent years that we need to understand more about where they are coming from and how to tackle them. In truth, although we welcome the 10-year plan that the Government introduced last year, it was too little and, in many cases, too late. The drug dealers have got so far ahead of us that it will take a long time for us to catch up.

Finally, I have some questions for the Minister on how we can tackle some of those issues. We have talked about the core need for neighbourhood police officers to tackle drugs and some of the impacts of drug crime, be they street begging, drug dealing on our streets or other antisocial behaviour. This week, the Labour party has produced evidence showing that the number of neighbourhood police officers per person has fallen dramatically: there is only one neighbourhood police officer per every 2,400 people in this country, whereas 10 years ago the figure was about one per 1,600. That is a very dramatic drop in neighbourhood policing, and we all think that that needs to be addressed.

I ask the Minister to look at the responses of the sectors to his 10-year drugs plan. The specialist drugs organisations remain concerned about the focus on abstinence, the adequacy of the out-of-court scheme for casual users, and whether the real victims of county lines—the young dealers—will actually be helped. What has he done in response to those responses to his strategy?

Will the Minister consider introducing more police to our neighbourhoods and ensuring that more of the new police officers are on our streets, in our neighbourhoods, as Labour has called for continually? Will he consider police hubs, which we have talked about today and Labour has called for, where we can have police in our neighbourhoods, on our streets, tackling antisocial behaviour and lower-level crime?

Is the Minister considering the number of digital and data analysts in the Home Office and our police forces, so that we can understand some of the newer challenges posed by drugs being sold online? Will the Minister look at the county lines networks? There is lots of evidence that closing a phone line does not stop the drug dealing at all, because most drug dealers will keep their phone numbers elsewhere. If the police take a phone, dealers will just get another one and that will not stop the drug dealing. What conversations is the Minister having with his colleagues in DCMS and beyond about the sale of drugs online? What will he do to tackle that?

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. Forgive me, I cannot cut the shadow Minister off and I would not want to do so, but I encourage her to draw her remarks to an end, in order for the Minister of State to respond.

[Sarah Jones]

I will. I always have so many questions for the Minister, as I am sure he appreciates. I will draw my comments to a close with the Prime Minister’s own words:

“It’s that much harder to level up a community while criminals are dragging it down.”

I agree with him, but we need more action.

Asylum Seekers and Permission to Work

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Chris Philp]

We conducted a review of that back at the beginning of the pandemic, and the numbers that I was given were very, very small, but I will say that the professions that are on the shortage occupation list and can be applied for include medical practitioners, psychologists, nurses, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists—and even actuaries and architects. Paramedics are on there as well. There are quite a lot of medical professions on the shortage occupation list already. A review is ongoing. It will report as soon as we are able to complete it, and I will of course report back to the House when that happens, but in the meantime I completely take the point about speeding up and making sure that we make these decisions quickly, for all the reasons that we have discussed this afternoon.

Question put and agreed to.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

If Members can exit, I will suspend the sitting for two minutes. Have a good evening.

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Thursday 15th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis]

I will pay attention to your encouragement to be brief, Mr Evans. Although I support the intent of the amendments in the name of the Mother of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), and the hon. Members for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) and for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), I will focus solely on amendment 13.

There is no doubt that there is a need for a Bill like this. Infiltrating terrorist gangs and going under cover as an informant is dangerous and risky work which often requires breaking the law, and the Bill enables authorisation of those breaches of the law. However, amendment 13, in my name and in those of others, explicitly exempts the most serious crimes of murder, torture, rape and others from powers in the Bill. The Government argue that that is not necessary because the Human Rights Act already limits their actions. The question before the House today is this: do we believe that? Do we think that that is sufficient?

Back in the early 1990s, I was one of the Ministers who took the Intelligence Services Act 1994 through the House. Section 7 of the Act enabled MI6 officers abroad to commit crimes in the interests of the state. Inevitably, in the tabloid press, it became known as the James Bond clause, but that is precisely what it was not. It was not a licence to kill. It was a licence to bribe, burgle, blackmail and bug, but it was not a licence to kill. Nevertheless, within a decade, section 7 was being used to authorise rendition, torture and the mass invasion of innocent people’s privacy—crimes that were never countenanced when the Act was put in place. I know that, because I did all the work behind it. It should be understood that the authorisation of those crimes, often within the United Kingdom, occurred after the Human Rights Act had been passed—indeed, while the ink was still wet on its pages in some cases—and it provided precisely zero protection. Likewise, the European convention on human rights, the international convention on torture and the 1949 Geneva convention, to all of which we are signatories and some of which are absolutely binding in law, provided no protection whatever.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has huge experience in this area, both legislatively and professionally. He is an expert. If a checklist, as he suggests, is put in the Bill, is that not also a checklist for terrorist gang leaders to prove a rite of passage and loyalty to somebody who might be working covertly on behalf of our national security interests?

[Mr Davis]

I will say a couple of things on that. First, if the gangster is smart enough to read the Act, he is smart enough to read the Human Rights Act. Secondly, I put a specific reference in amendment 13 to the Director of Public Prosecutions, so that if my hon. Friend is in such a circumstance and he has to do something violent to prevent himself being killed, that is an exoneration for the DPP. So it specifically allows that clouding, if you like, of the judgment. I draw his attention to the intervention in The Times last week—I was going to mention it later, but I will mention it now—by one of the best DPPs of modern times, Lord Ken Macdonald. He is not of my politics, but he is very, very experienced and he knows all about these things. He described this as Soprano-watching judgments and Soprano-watching logic. I am afraid that I agree with him, and I will come back and illustrate why in a second.

Officers in the intelligence and policing agencies can face huge pressure to authorise improper criminal activity, particularly when the demands on the agencies themselves become enormous. We saw that after 9/11, when after the dodgy dossier we had all the rendition issues. I always said in those days that we should not prosecute the individuals, because they were trying to prevent a 9/11 happening in Canary Wharf, but it was still wrong. Those morally indefensible actions by the state and their agents occur at the darkest times in our history, and we must remember that. We must write our laws to cope with the darkest times in our history, which is what we are trying to do here today.

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[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Sir Desmond did something else in his report: he quoted Lord Atkin, who, in a landmark case during world war two, said that

“amid the clash of arms, the laws are not silent. They may be changed, but they speak the same language in war as in peace.”

I am afraid that the Bill, necessary as it is, does not meet that test, and that is the problem.

[Mark Pritchard]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Davis]

You will kill me, Mr Chairman, but I will give way.

[Mark Pritchard]

My right hon. Friend rightly mentions the Pat Finucane case which David Cameron, as Prime Minister, correctly apologised for, but does my right hon. Friend recognise that since then the security services have more judicial oversight than ever before? We did not then have the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, and even the powers of this House for more oversight of the security services have increased. There has been a marked difference. Times have changed.

[Mr Davis]

Well, they have changed a bit. One of the things that the Intelligence Services Act 1994 created was the Intelligence and Security Committee. The Committee tried to look into rendition and torture just recently, under its previous Chairman, and it was refused access to 15 cases, so I am now suing the Government on exactly this matter, to force them to have to have a proper judge-led tribunal. So even now, it is not good enough; after 20 years, it is still not good enough.

The trouble is that others do it better. America and Canada learned the hard way about the need to include specific limits on the crimes that agents can commit. In those countries, informers and their handlers were involved in carrying out numerous cases of racketeering and murder, and they were found out. Since then, both countries have set clear limits. Just as an aside on the overall public interest, we all want our agencies to be able to work, but the FBI investigation found that the lack of limits and the wooliness of the controls led to more crimes, not fewer, so the so-called Soprano effect worked in reverse in terms of protecting the public interest.

The Bill puts no express limits on the crimes that the agencies can authorise—not on murder, not on torture and not on rape—and it claims that the Human Rights Act provides a safeguard. However, their own submissions in court, which have already been referred to by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, showed that their own lawyers do not believe that. If Members have a bit of quiet time travelling back to their constituencies, they should read the Investigatory Powers Tribunal’s findings on the behaviour of the agencies. It is almost a James Bond novel in its own right. The scathing descriptions of the operations are worth reading.

Amendment 13, tabled in my name, addresses the most egregious elements of the Bill. It puts hard limits on the extent of criminal conduct that can be authorised by officers, and it specifically prohibits murder, torture, serious bodily harm, sexual assault and other heinous crimes. Crucially, it explicitly permits prosecutors to drop a case in a situation where an agent is truly forced to participate in a serious crime and where a decision not to prosecute is in the public interest. There is a real need for legislation in this area, but the Bill as it stands carries real risks of serious injustice. My amendments would give the intelligence services the protections they need, but stop short of giving them carte blanche authorisation to carry out the heinous crimes in the name of the state that have happened too often in the past.

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I would like to put on record my thanks to all those who serve in our security agencies—they keep us all safe every day of every week—and to add my support for this important Bill.

Covert human intelligence sources, or agents, provide invaluable information to the UK’s intelligence agencies and those tasked with fighting serious and organised crime. These sources provide vital information—often time-sensitive—in saving lives. Even as I speak, they are probably saving lives—lives not in the abstract, but real lives; the lives and futures of men, women and children. We know that terrorists are no respecters of age, gender, faith, nationality or community. They seek to kill and to maim, to divide, to terrorise and to spread misery and fear.

Covert sources disrupt plots, secure prosecutions and give our intelligence agencies a critical human intelligence edge. Let me be clear: this type of human intelligence work is unique and cannot, as we have heard from the distinguished Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, be replicated through regulated signals intelligence or communication intercepts. Covert sources save lives. As the head of the Security Service recently said, without covert human intelligence sources many of the attacks planned over recent years would not have been foiled. Covert human intelligence sources deny terrorists success.

I think there has been some misunderstanding about some parts of this Bill. It seeks to put existing powers on an explicit statutory basis and existing practice on a clear and consistent statutory footing, and surely that should be welcomed by the House. I am very pleased that the Minister has been explicit today about safeguards. They are needed, necessary and very welcome.

For the record, I would not be supporting the Bill if those robust safeguards and those meaningful checks and balances were not in place. Clause 4 should offer reassurance to any colleague who still has concerns about oversight. In it, colleagues will find a reference to significant oversight measures, with the Investigatory Powers Commissioner having significant powers of scrutiny and oversight.

I referred to my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), who rightly referenced improvements of oversight over recent years. However, it would provide further reassurance to colleagues from all parts of the House if those oversight measures were strengthened further to include an annual report to the Intelligence and Security Committee on the use of those authorisations, broken down by each organisation the Committee oversees and by the category of the conduct authorised. The Committee will be looking potentially to table an amendment to the Bill as it progresses through the House, although the Government are at liberty to listen to some of the comments that are being made today. I hope that amendment will reassure those on the Opposition Front Bench, as well.

I am also reassured that all authorisations will be compliant with the European convention on human rights, and rightly so. Indeed, I encourage all right hon. Members and hon. Members to read the Government’s ECHR memorandum, which accompanies the Bill.

Covert human intelligence sources are vital in the fight against terrorism, as well as against serious and organised crime. They are a critical operational element for the security of the whole of the United Kingdom and the whole of the Union. Given the improved oversight and scrutiny, the important application of the test of proportionality, the legislation’s compliance with the Human Rights Act and the European convention on human rights, and with further amendments to it, I support the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

Fines will be put in place, but licensees also run the risk of losing their licence and their livelihood.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

As the Home Secretary will know, covid-19 has already had an impact on police numbers on the frontline and in back office support roles. What discussions has she had, or would consider having, with the Foreign Office about getting the key workers, including police officers, nurses and support staff, who are currently stranded in other parts of the world back as a priority?

[Priti Patel]

On police officers in particular, the numbers of frontline staff are proving to be very resilient, but my hon. Friend makes an important point about those who are abroad and how we can repatriate them, so that they can rejoin the frontline services in our country. That work is taking place across Government, specifically with the Foreign Office, and Border Force is now tasked with joining up with the Foreign Office to make sure that happens.