Data Protection Bill [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)

Matt Warman Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Liam Byrne]

The reason we would do that is that there has been an exponential increase in drone strikes by President Trump’s Administration and, as a result, a significant increase in civilian deaths in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, Yemen and east Africa. It would be pretty odd for us not to ensure that a piece of legislation had appropriate safeguards, given what we now know about the ambition of one of our most important allies to create flexibility in rules of engagement.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman on that point, but is not the more important point that our legislation cannot be contingent on that of any other country, however important an ally it is? Our legislation has to stand on its own two feet, and we should seek to ensure that it does. To change something, as he attempts to, purely on the basis of changes over the past couple of years would set a dangerous precedent rather than guard against a potential pitfall.

Data Protection Bill [Lords] (Fourth sitting)

Matt Warman Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Victoria Atkins]

That is a particularly sobering development. I know that we all feel the gravity of our responsibilities when considering the Bill in the context of national security today. I am grateful to my hon. Friend.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

The Minister and I served on the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill Joint Committee and we had many debates on this subject. It struck me that the House was at its best when we passed the Investigatory Powers Bill on Third Reading, with the support of the Labour party, having had these debates. It is frustrating that today of all days, as my hon. Friend says, we should go over that ground again having already reached a useful consensus.

[Victoria Atkins]

On the judicial review point, the test was debated at length in the Joint Committee, in the Public Bill Committee and on the Floor of the House. The House passed that Act with cross-party consensus, as my hon. Friend has said, so I do not understand why we are having the same debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I will deal with the definition of high risk in a moment. Clause 64 separates out the processing most likely significantly to affect an individual’s rights and freedom, which requires an additional level of assessment to reflect the higher risk. The amendments would water down the importance of those assessments. That is not to say that consideration of the impact on rights and freedoms can be overlooked. It will, of course, remain necessary for the controller to carry out that initial assessment to determine whether a full impact assessment is required. Good data protection is not achieved by putting barriers in the way of processing. It is about considering the risk intelligently and applying appropriate assessments accordingly.

On the question of high risk, officers or data controllers will go through that process when considering whether a data protection impact assessment is correct. I will write to the hon. Lady to clarify whether the bodies and lists she mentioned will be defined as high risk. The fact is that they are none the less regulated by various organisations.

[Matt Warman]

The crucial point—I do not think the Opposition disagree with it—is that, although some things contain an element of risk, there are also huge benefits. Surely nobody wishes to do anything that prevents law enforcement from using hugely advantageous new technology, which will allow it to divert its resources to even more valuable areas.

[Victoria Atkins]

Indeed. A pertinent example of that is the development of artificial intelligence to help the police categorise images of child sexual exploitation online. That tool will help given the volume of offences now being carried out across the world. It will also help the officers involved in those cases, because having to sit at a computer screen and categorise some of these images is soul-breaking, frankly. If we can use modern technology and artificial intelligence to help categorise those images, that must surely be a good thing.

Vote 100 and International Women’s Day

Matt Warman Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow a moving speech by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali). One of my faults is usually overconfidence, but I confess that I begin to speak in this debate with a degree of nervousness. So much often goes wrong when men try to talk about issues related to women and their rights, and I could too easily end up saying that women need to step up when the truth is that grotesque imbalances at a senior level often mean that it is men who need to step up and work with women to deconstruct the obstacles that stand in the path of female progress. We need more men from all sides of the political debate to step up and speak up about that in this place.

I could also easily end up being one of those men who says that simply because we have a female Prime Minister, a female Home Secretary and more female MPs than ever, this debate should be over. However, just because suicide is a disproportionately young, male problem that does not mean that a gender pay gap, whereby women effectively work for free for 63 days a year, is okay. We need to work on both those issues, not pretend that one cancels out the other. Worse still, the deeper one goes into such issues, the more likely it is that one will be accused of mansplaining, and then one will hear from the Prime Minister. I hope to avoid most of that, and I want instead to make three points.

I could not go on the women’s march on Sunday, but I was sorry to miss it, so I tweeted as much, saying:

“A better gender balance will make parliament stronger for everyone.”

For just a few hours, I subsequently received if not the torrent of abuse that women often receive on Twitter, then a small flood of abuse. Twitter is not an equal opportunities abuser, but users were certainly keen to tell me what equal opportunities would look like. Users told me that a meritocracy would produce the best Parliament, never mind if it was a balanced Parliament. The more I explained that I am not in favour of positive discrimination—I had not said that I was—the more I realised that Twitter was showing me what being mansplained to feels like. While it seems self-evident that, in an equal society, a balance in Parliament or the workplace is an obvious consequence of equality of opportunity, to too many it is not. Likewise, it seems obvious that if an equal Parliament better reflects the population it serves, it better represents that population and acts more instinctively in the whole country’s interests.

In saying all that, I cannot help thinking that I am preaching to the converted here, but I was shocked to see that what felt obvious to me was interpreted as an attack on men, and that is the second thing that I want to talk about. Too many people still seem to think that men have to lose for feminism to succeed. The reality is surely that a society that draws without discrimination on the talents of all its members is better for all its members. When women are treated better, men and women are the winners. A fairer division of labour both in how people bear the burdens of childcare and in the pressure of earning the money that pays the mortgage would benefit everyone. Men have nothing to fear from the shards of glass that fall after the shattering of the glass ceiling.

Finally, I want to talk about what men might do to create a society that is so equal that nobody would bat an eyelid at the idea of a man having the same aspirations to equality as a woman. Here are a few tiny ideas: should men—still more often the senior people at work—do more to promote the flexible working that might promote equality? Should the Government incentivise that? Should teacher training include more on the casual use of language, which shapes children, whereby boys are good if they are strong, and girls are praised for being pretty, but somehow “pretty boy” doesn’t always ring true as a compliment? Should toy manufacturers think more carefully, as they increasingly do, about whether blue is always for boys? Should we not consider that if we make catcalling a hate crime, we are treating the symptom, when all of us here should be committed to treating the causes of sexist behaviour wherever it starts? Should we not all do all of that, because when the country is better for all women, it will be better for all men, too?

I wanted to speak not because I am some paragon of right-on virtue—

[Gavin Newlands]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Matt Warman]

On the point of my virtue, I give way.

[Gavin Newlands]

I have no knowledge of the hon. Gentleman’s virtue, but I thank him for giving way. I praise him for a good speech so far. May I add to his list? He should join the white ribbon campaign and the all-party parliamentary group for the white ribbon campaign UK, so that we can try to end violence against women and girls. He is most welcome at our meeting next Tuesday.

[Matt Warman]

Not least because the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is nodding vigorously on the Front Bench, I take it that the white ribbon is a good campaign to join. It is obviously a weakness that I do not know a huge amount about it. I will do my best to join the hon. Gentleman on Tuesday.

I am not pretending that I am a paragon of virtue on this matter, or indeed on any other; I wanted to speak because I know that I am not. The more we are conscious, across this House, of where we are weak, the stronger we can be. I know how often I have failed to step up, at home, at work and in this Chamber—it is not always possible to do so, for a whole host of very real reasons—but personally and professionally, inequality is the loss of all of us. Now more than ever, we need men to stand up with women for fairness, because we will all be better off for it.

Seasonal Migrant Workers

Matt Warman Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) on securing the debate and I shall speak briefly.

Let me start by saying that, without wishing to be unhelpfully competitive, I think that the issue of migrant workers has been shown to matter perhaps more in my constituency of Boston and Skegness than anywhere else in the UK. I say that not because of the hugely valuable contribution made by people from outside Lincolnshire to our largely agricultural economy over many centuries, or because of the quality of the brassicas, but because it was the issue of migrant workers from primarily eastern Europe that in large part provoked the stronger vote for Brexit in Boston and Skegness than anywhere else in the country.

I have said before in this House that we should not be shy of saying that in certain parts of the UK immigration was for the great majority the prime reason for voting to leave the EU, and I say it again now. I hope that this debate will be part of the process that secures for Britain not only the labour force we need for the future of our agricultural sector but an immigration policy that carries with it popular consent and does not precipitate the kind of widespread discontent that was in part expressed during the debates we heard around the referendum.

Let me emphasise that my constituency has always welcomed seasonal workers—at first from the midlands, then from Ireland, then from Portugal and then from the expanded EU countries such as Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and beyond. The many shops that might otherwise be empty in my constituency and that call themselves eastern European supermarkets now serve the vibrant new communities that exist because of seasonal work. Although that vibrant new economy is a great thing, the social complications of a huge new community have been hugely challenging for many in my constituency. The lack of a functioning immigration policy primarily based around seasonal workers, as a result of Tony Blair’s decision not to take up transitional options, served only to highlight the real need for a functioning seasonal agricultural workers scheme, such as that which we used to have and which I hope we will have again in the future.

A third of Boston’s population is now made up of people from abroad who most often came for seasonal work, exercising the rights they had acquired under freedom of movement. That approach did not work for my constituency then and it would be wrong to suggest that it would now. What we need is an approach that acknowledges that the season, so called, is in fact now much longer—partly because of the associated industries, as we have heard—and that also acknowledges that, when we have freedom of movement such as that which we have seen previously, it results in significantly increased pressures on public services and significant social challenges.

The scheme we are talking about today is needed for both economic and social reasons. It is vital we get this right and that we seize the opportunities that it might present. I would like to plant three ideas in the Minister’s enormous mind. First, a SAW scheme should be demand-led. The Migration Advisory Committee should pay heed to the possibilities of mechanisation, which I believe are genuinely enormous—I would suggest to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), were she in her place, that there is no part of the industry that could not in due course be mechanised. But we need to pay attention to the needs of the industry now. That is of course not to say that enormous numbers are always necessary, but the NFU and large major operators such as those in my constituency must have their voices heard.

Secondly, we should explicitly tie the conditions in which a person lives and the consequent pressures they place on local services and local housing supply to the supply of seasonal work permits. I would argue that a sponsor, either a major operator or a properly regulated gangmaster, should have to indicate the length of time a person will definitely be paid for, regardless of what work they are doing, and they should have to prove that they will be housed appropriately. Properly done, this is a real opportunity to tackle some of the modern slavery that taints agricultural work and on which this Government have already done so much.

Thirdly and finally, I would ask that through the sponsorship scheme I have just spoken about we might be able to have a little nudging influence over regional patterns of migration. There can be no border posts between Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, but it might allow us to better monitor and predict local pressures on some public services, although of course changes to free movement will affect that much more.

I conclude by saying that this economically vital move can be a huge opportunity—an opportunity to avoid the mistakes of the past and to shape our country for the better. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will consider both sides of that coin as she works on this vital project.

Policing

Matt Warman Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

Again, I refer the hon. Gentleman to table 1 on the “Provisional change in total direct resource funding compared to 2017/18”—I apologise to Labour Members if they do not have it to hand—which tells me that, if the proposals are accepted, and they are out for consultation, South Wales will see an additional £6.7 million cash increase in investment; and Gwent, which we should note is sitting on reserves worth 42% of its income, will receive a cash increase of £3 million. Again, I do not see how that can be a cut in anyone’s language.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

Lincolnshire’s police and crime commissioner tells me that he considers the precept changes to be very good news, so I welcome the Minister’s statement. Can he confirm that the unique challenges faced by large, rural and sparsely populated counties, such as Lincolnshire, will be addressed by additional money for digital transformation?

[Mr Hurd]

Lincolnshire police are a good example of a force that feels under a great deal of pressure at the moment, so I am glad that the PCC has welcomed the settlement, as most have. I am sure that Labour MPs, when they talk to their PCCs and chiefs, will recognise that this settlement is better than many of them expected. My hon. Friend’s point about digital transformation is absolutely fundamental, and Lincolnshire police is a leader in that regard. I remember sitting around a table in the police headquarters listening to a young officer talking about how mobile working and the platform that has been developed there has transformed the force’s efficiency and productivity. I repeat my previous statement about the amount of police officers’ time that can saved by embracing the full digital potential. The Government are determined to support the police in achieving that.

Online Hate Speech

Matt Warman Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I repeat that the invitation to the President for a visit has been extended and accepted. We must remember that the United States has such an important relationship with this country in keeping us safe, and I urge all hon. Members to keep in mind the importance of that relationship before rushing to make such changes. I hope that the hon. Gentleman has heard from me this morning how seriously we take the need to make sure that all illegal content, including extreme content, is taken down from Twitter and other online platforms; and the importance of the platforms taking a more active role in ensuring that such material does not stay up.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

In a cynical attempt to harness the Brexit vote in my constituency, the English Defence League last year sought to organise a far-right march. Just nine people showed up, but that is nine people too many. Although the abhorrent views of the EDL and Britain First do not represent the mainstream in this country, does the Home Secretary agree that there is still work to do to disabuse people of such views, and that we need to bring forward more measures to allow us to do that?

EU Nationals

Matt Warman Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

It is with some sadness that I rise to speak in this debate, because my constituency has received proportionally more migrants from eastern Europe than anywhere else in the country. Of all places, Boston and Skegness knows the value that people from Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and elsewhere bring to our local economy. Today we have heard a great deal about surgeries being flooded with people worried about their livelihoods. If I may be blunt, surgeries may be flooded if Members scaremonger and tell people that they might not be welcome here. Being prepared to weaponise the lives and livelihoods of people who have come to this country in good faith, and who the Prime Minister has said are welcome to stay, is not good politics or good democracy. Frankly, it is shameful conduct over a genuinely important matter for constituents on the part of people with other political motives.

Government Members have a responsibility, which we are prepared to take up, to reassure people who are genuinely concerned about their future in this country. We have already heard from the Government Front Bench—from not only the Prime Minister but a number of members of the Government—a solid and sensible pitch that we want people to stay. People who have asked for EU nationals to leave do not represent the mainstream of Brexit voters, and they do not represent a large number of people. In my constituency, the only people who ask for “foreigners to go home”, as it is often put, are either those who seek to misrepresent the views of Brexit voters or those who have their own nakedly racist proposition. Neither position represents the views of the Conservative party. We in politics have a duty to reassure our constituents. I know that the small number of people—I mean less than 10—who have come to my surgery seeking reassurance have received just that. They have gone away knowing that this Government seek to provide them with what they need.

I will end by asking, what can Members of this House do? Well, we can do things such as invite the Polish ambassador to our constituency, as I have done. We can stand on a platform with him and say, “This Government welcome the contribution of EU nationals. We want you to stay, and we will deliver that deal as best we can.”

General Election Campaign: Abuse and Intimidation

Matt Warman Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

“Where’s my shotgun?” Those were the words I heard from the receptionist at a venue where I held a surgery a year to the day after the murder of Jo Cox. I should confess that my reaction was to think of it as just another example of the casual contempt with which many members of the public treat politicians in this day and age. Wrongly, I rather brushed off the comment, which in any other context would be treated as pretty obscene. I say that that was wrong partly because of the upset it caused to my staff, who were helping me with the surgery. They are by no means thin-skinned, and I do not think that I am either, but they see a continuum, as the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) has said, from the contempt—particularly online and very often in person—that starts as casual abuse but somewhere crosses a line and can become some form or other of very real abuse and pose a threat to people in real life.

In my judgment, I have never experienced any serious abuse on the scale of some of the extraordinary and quite moving examples we have heard today, and I do not want to pretend that I have experienced anything that equates to any of those examples. However, I want to talk about the continuing contempt with which the public—in small numbers, but often at great volume—treat politicians. I want to pose questions, to which I do not necessarily have any answers, about whether everyday contempt and abuse are to some extent the building blocks or enablers of greater levels of much more extreme abuse, as well as about the extent to which we can tackle it or should put up with it.

Several Members have talked about the role of social media companies, particularly Twitter and Facebook. It seems to me that, as has been mentioned a couple of times by the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham P. Jones), we need to tread a very careful line between reining in free speech and setting the right parameters for debates that are rightly robust, given the gravity of the decisions we as politicians have all signed up to take.

Some Members have suggested that the way in which Facebook or Twitter deal with complaints of abuse are inadequate, and in some cases the evidence we have heard shows that that is clearly true. However, it strikes me that I do not want to live in a country where those who set the parameters of free speech are Facebook or Twitter. Whether or not we like it, it is down to us to set the parameters of free speech. I would like the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary to set out what constitutes free speech, not Mark Zuckerberg or the founders of Twitter, although I mean no disrespect to their remarkable achievements.

[Graham P. Jones]

I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s arguments. Does he share my view that free speech arises where a debate is able to reach a conclusion without being interrupted or stopped by abuse, and where such a democratic debate is based on discourse and an exchange of views?

[Matt Warman]

Absolutely. Although we would never seek to end the debate on Facebook, if the hon. Gentleman sees what I mean, we must acknowledge that some of those debates will ultimately end with a vote in this Chamber. That is the case that we as politicians must continually make.

I do not pretend for a moment that we will ever convince everyone to be nice or to agree with us on the internet—nor should we seek to do so—but we should realise that part of tackling the smaller building blocks enabling larger problems of abuse is relentless political engagement, whether that is in the form of the Education Centre a few hundred yards from the this Chamber or all of us continuing to hold our regular surgeries whatever a receptionist may say. We should not blame Facebook or Twitter for the abuse we face. Ultimately, we have to acknowledge, as the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton said, that we are sometimes experiencing the unpalatable real face of views that are sincerely held by members of the public. If we find those views unpalatable, it is surely our role to have the debate we just talked about and try to change some of those minds, but that is harder than ever in the social media age. Whatever the size of a constituency, there will always be more constituents than Members of Parliament, so we cannot engage with every single individual, much as we wish we could.

As a number of speakers said, politics should be a debate about policy, but the fact is that in every election campaign we all make politics personal. We talk about our own characters and about why people should vote in a representative democracy for one representative rather than another. We should be careful about having our cake and eating it, and saying, “We should talk only about policy, but here on my leaflet is a picture of me and my family.” To tackle all of those things, we have to say that politicians ultimately set the boundaries of free speech and that, by working with social media companies, we will ensure that free speech is properly experienced in the real world.

Ultimately, we should acknowledge that there are hugely passionate debates online and in person, which we should protect, because of the gravity of the decisions we take in this place. We should be clear about where we draw the line between abuse and free speech. In recent years, thanks to social media, the line has become a lot blurrier and the area has become a lot greyer than we might wish it to be. If politicians are to tackle the small building blocks of abuse, we have to address that issue much more clearly—I do not for a moment suggest that it is of the same order of magnitude as the extreme forms of abuse that we have heard about today, but if we are to tackle the social media side of the problem, which so many people have spoken about, we have to acknowledge that we hold the solution in our hands, and we cannot pass the buck to others.

Rural Policing and Hare Coursing

Matt Warman Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I absolutely recognise the situation described by my hon. Friend. It is particularly true of hybrid constabularies that have to serve significant urban populations, but the rural element needs to be properly recognised.

May I urge the Minister to take those factors into consideration in his deliberations on the new police funding formula? Although Wiltshire is the 15th largest county geographically, it receives the fourth lowest budget from Government. The resources needed to tackle rural crime must be reflected in allocations within the overall funding envelope. That will require him to challenge his officials on the different spreadsheets that they put in front of him and make sure that the pockets of rural need are properly reflected in the review’s outcome.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

Is not the real challenge faced by rural police forces the fact that they have to deal not only with issues such as hare coursing, which is a form of organised crime, but with those challenges that are also faced by urban policing, including changing tactics for cybercrime and domestic violence? That is a perfect storm and it requires special attention.

[John Glen]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who once again comes up with a sensible analysis and a sense of how we need better to join up the different attempts to tackle this very difficult problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

Absolutely; on the basis of reports I am getting from constituents, I am beginning to ask myself “where next?” .

For historical reasons, Essex has always felt underfunded, and if any of my Essex colleagues were present for tonight’s debate, they would heartily agree, because we are always pressing for more resources. This is now a new situation that has to be confronted.

[Matt Warman]

The chief constable of Essex was recently quoted on Radio Lincolnshire complaining that Lincolnshire’s success at dealing with hare coursing meant that Essex was being placed under even greater strain. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that underlines the fact that we have to work together to tackle this problem?

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I absolutely agree, and I hope that the Minister will be able to respond in the right terms to indicate that this has to be a co-ordinated approach.

Let me add one further point about the impact of this activity. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury spoke mainly about the farming community, which is absolutely right, but there have been some particularly odious practices performed in my constituency that affect not the farming community, but ordinary residents in villages. Mutilated corpses of hares are being laid on people’s cars or lawns, and parts of these dead bodies are being draped round the handles of doors. This is sickening, and small children will obviously be more vulnerable to the horror of seeing that kind of thing. We are getting well beyond the thought that this is some illegal sport that is far removed from everybody. Yes, this affects the farmers, as my hon. Friend clearly said—my farmers have spoken to me about it, too—but there is also this extra dimension, which makes the problem truly appalling and underlines the need for special attention to deal with it.

If this activity has not been as prevalent in former years and is now becoming a phenomenon to which we are all giving witness here today, perhaps we need to stamp down on it, to quell it once and for all. That requires special attention, special resources and special drive of policy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Warman Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I understand the concerns that the right hon. Lady has raised. We have all experienced this as MPs in our surgeries. My point to the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) was that as MPs we can give that reassurance that EU citizens are valued here and that it is the Prime Minister’s intention to do that. We will make it a priority as we begin the EU negotiations.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

If we are to be accused of using EU nationals as bargaining chips, could the same accusation not apply to the attitude of other EU 27 nationals towards British citizens abroad?