Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

I agree, and my biggest regret from when I was the Minister responsible for entry clearance 10 years ago is that I did not introduce that approach. I left it to the system, and I was wrong to do so. If we had a system that allowed new information to be accepted, we would be able to save the taxpayer a huge amount of money and save those who are seeking to bring people into this country a lot of anguish.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if the motivation for the change is financial, another option may be to increase the fee payable for appeals? I understand that would put some people off and might significantly reduce the number of appeals, but the possibility of entry clearance officers’ decisions being reviewed by a judge might help to ensure that decisions are made better than if the right of appeal is removed.

[Keith Vaz]

That is an option. I would not be enthusiastic about putting up fees, but people do not mind paying fees if they get results and cases are dealt with quickly. If that can be guaranteed, it is certainly an option. The hon. Gentleman’s intervention and that of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) have shown us that it is quite possible to put forward alternative measures to abolishing the right of appeal. I hope that the Government will consider them.

I wish to say a couple of things about the parts of the Bill that I welcome. One is the establishment of the forum bar, which the Home Affairs Committee recommended when we examined extradition. Following the whole Gary McKinnon saga and the marvellous work of the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), who campaigned so passionately for his constituent, we put forward the idea of the forum bar, and now it will legislated for. We are delighted about that.

I am less delighted by the Home Secretary’s wish to give all the rest of her extradition powers to High Court judges. If we have Ministers, we should allow them to make decisions. I am not sure why people wait so long for ministerial office, then get there and want to hand all their powers over to judges. I actually think it is a good idea that Members of Parliament and others should be able to make representations to Ministers if there are exceptional cases. That will not be the norm—Gary McKinnon and Richard O’Dwyer’s cases were not the norm. They were exceptional cases that got to the Home Secretary’s attention only because of the work of people such as Janis Sharp, Gary McKinnon’s mother; the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate; and Richard O’Dwyer and his mother Julia. They were able to bring those cases to Parliament’s attention, and we should ensure that Ministers keep those powers rather than give them away.

I have been watching how the hon. Member for Croydon Central has pursued the campaign concerning drug offences when people are driving. Given the circumstances of his constituent, it must be a great relief to him and his faith in parliamentary democracy that a case he has raised so frequently in meetings with Ministers over the past year or so has ended in the fruition of a clause in a Bill that will change the law. What satisfaction it must give him as a constituency MP to know that he, along with other Members, has been a part of changing the law. I welcome what the Government are doing, and they are quite right to ensure that that change takes place.

I was never a great fan of the Judicial Appointments Commission introduced by the previous Government. Perhaps because both Lord Chancellors under whom I served—the noble Lord Irvine and the noble Lord Falconer—were, in my view, exceptional people, I thought that they could make better decisions about the diversity of the judiciary than a quango. I was right: they would have made better decisions and the judiciary would today have been quite different. I welcome what the Government are doing; it is a message to those who make such decisions that the judiciary needs to look not as Parliament did when I was first elected but as how it is today—Parliament looks like the country and so must the judiciary. Obviously, people must pass the merit test. Nobody wants jobs given away because someone happens to like the person sitting in front of them, or because they are a particular gender or race. Jobs are given to people who are qualified and able to do them effectively.

I will end with a comment made earlier today by Lord Wasserman, the Government adviser on some of the policing reforms. As the House knows, the Home Affairs Committee has been trying to get Lord Wasserman to appear before it, and he came before the Committee today as part of our international conference. He spoke most eloquently and I was quite taken by his comments. He suggested that the Government look at how police and crime commissioners have operated, and that the Committee hold an inquiry into that at the end of the year—obviously, the Committee will decide whether it wants to do that. The Minister has escaped; he has got political asylum from immigration and gone to policing. He survived the little problem of a few years ago, when I understand from The Sunday Times he ended up in the Cherwell. I did not see the Attorney-General in the Chamber making up with him; he was here earlier, but he is not present at the moment.

The Minister has one of the most exciting jobs in government: the chance to finish off the new landscape of policing. I know my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) enjoyed being policing Minister, but the way to really enjoy the job is to ensure the jigsaw is completed and that we get a police service that fits the structure. We have the best police service in the world. Let us ensure that the organisations that are there to serve it really work.