Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Michael Ellis Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

We are opposed to directly elected police and crime commissioners as set out in the Bill. Having said that, the Bill will presumably go through—unless Government Members vote against their own Whip—so then what should we do? The proper and responsible thing to do is to acknowledge that fact and propose another model—the hon. Gentleman will have seen our amendments. If we are to have a directly elected individual, then as well as saying that we are opposed to that in principle, what we as a responsible Opposition should do is say how we would improve it. The amendment that we moved in Committee—the hon. Gentleman knows this, but I am repeating it for the benefit of other Members—would have made that directly elected individual the chair of the police and crime panel, and thereby would have introduced proper checks and balances in the system.

The proposal that we are putting before the House today offers another way forward. What we are saying is, “Keep them as two distinct entities”—that is, have a police and crime commissioner as a figurehead, but also have a police and crime panel with significantly enhanced powers. These are all things that, with a proper inquiry and proper research, we could check to see whether they might be more appropriate, but I will tell the hon. Gentleman this. If he was stood where I am and he was opposed to something that the Government of the day were doing, he would say that he was opposed to it, but he would also seek to improve and adapt it, to take some of the edge off. That is what we did in Committee and that is what we are doing now.

It is not just the Opposition; hon. Members will no doubt have read Lord Imbert, the former chief constable of Thames Valley police and a former commissioner, setting out his opposition in The Times today. He will not be alone, although it is easier for him, as a non-serving police officer and a noble Lord, to say why he is opposed. He says:

“If passed unamended, this Bill will undermine”

the policing model that we have had in this country for years,

“threatening the crucial political independence and non-partisanship of the police and the Rule of Law itself.”

Yesterday, Liberty published the results of a survey conducted on its behalf by YouGov, which showed the lack of public trust in elected police commissioners. In answer to the question “Who would you trust more to protect your family from crime?”, 65% chose “A Chief Constable reporting to a Police Authority, as now” as their preferred option. “A Chief Constable reporting to an individual politician elected as a Police and Crime Commissioner” was the preferred option of just 15%. Just to show that that goes across the length and breadth of the country, I found out that a survey had been conducted in Hampshire showing that only 5% of the public there support having a single elected police and crime commissioner.

That is just the sort of evidence that any inquiry would have to look at. However, the Government’s response is simply to stand back and pretend that those people are all dinosaurs who would inevitably say that, because they are looking to protect their own interests, when in fact they are trying to say to the Government, “You need to slow down a bit and look at the consequences of what you’re trying to do.” All the Minister says is, “We believe it’s the right thing to do.” I have said to him before that, with respect, simply asserting that something is the case is not the same as arguing the case. Where is the evidence for this change to policing, which will make such a fundamental difference to governance arrangements?

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman recall saying when he was Police Minister:

“only direct election, based on geographic constituencies, will deliver the strong connection to the public which is critical,”

and if so, did he have any evidence for saying that?

[Vernon Coaker]

The model of policing governance that we were considering at that time was exactly the sort of model that I was describing to the hon. Member for Cambridge. We were looking to see whether direct elections at a neighbourhood and local level would lead to improved governance arrangements, but let me say this to the hon. Gentleman. When all those people lined up to oppose the idea, I took the view—as did the Home Secretary at the time—that if everybody opposed something that we were trying to do, we should sometimes step back and reflect on whether we had got it wrong and whether, in all honesty, we should change direction. Some say that that is a sign of weakness or not knowing what we are doing, but we cannot have it both ways. We cannot propose to do something, have a public consultation and then say, “We don’t care what the public consultation says. If we disagree, we’re not going to take any notice.” What the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) described was something that was proposed at the time to deal with governance issues, but it was also something that we withdrew because we listened to what people were saying.

We could look at other issues, but I will leave the evidence there. Any inquiry that HMIC conducted would need to consider a range of other matters, but the Minister—and others on the Committee, given that we did not manage to carry the day—had no concerns about politicisation. We will come later to the debate on operational independence and the code of practice—it was a memorandum of understanding, but it has now become a protocol. Whatever: the serious point is that, given that the Government have agreed to the protocol, they must be worried that having a directly elected individual who is responsible for policing in an area risks politicising the role of chief constable. Many people have raised that issue at great length with us.

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[Vernon Coaker]

My point is that the system the Government are seeking to introduce will not deliver the improved accountability that we want. The hon. Gentleman does not agree, as I said in Committee, but, to return to the point I was making, at least he has tried to use a piece of evidence—a small piece, but a piece none the less. Where is the massive amount of evidence that contradicts all the evidence that I have brought forward? The Government made great play of evidence-based policy when they came into power, and the main driver of our new clause is that an HMIC inquiry would allow policing experts to collect evidence to understand whether these improved governance arrangements would lead to the improved accountability that we all want.

The Devon and Cornwall, Cumbria, West Midlands and Greater Manchester police authorities all say that one person in charge of policing in their area will mean far too much work.

[Michael Ellis]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that a good piece of evidence is the fact that such a system is already working in London?

[Vernon Coaker]

First, if the system in London was working so well, why would the Government want to change it? Secondly, the change that the Government are making is to a completely different system from that which operates at the moment. The Metropolitan Police Authority is being abolished. The person who, through primary legislation, is going to be put in charge of policing in London through the Mayor’s office for policing and crime will be an unelected individual appointed by the Mayor of London. They will not be a directly elected individual as per the rest of the country, but an appointee of the Mayor following the abolition of the Metropolitan Police Authority. The hon. Gentleman asked why, if the system works so well, we should not expand it to the rest of the country. If the system in London is working so well, why are the Government changing it? Why not just leave it as it is? We are not changing the system in London to that in the rest of the country—we are completely changing the system in London to another system.

The inquiry would also need to look at the arrangements between a police and crime commissioner and the local democratic framework. One of the great successes of the current policing arrangements has been the introduction of the neighbourhood policing model, with the development of community safety partnerships in Wales and crime and disorder reduction partnerships in other parts of the country. Those arrangements have brought together all the various partners at a local level in order to try to tackle crime and improve confidence. The police and crime commissioner is not a responsible authority under the terms of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

What, then, is the relationship of the police and crime commissioner with the police and crime panel? Again, we do not understand that, and the Bill is unclear about it. I have referred to the complete lack of power that a police and crime panel has, leaving an omnipotent individual in charge of policing. Police and crime panels will have one person from each local authority—if there are not 10 authorities, we can make up the number with another couple—and a couple of independent members. If there are more than 10 local authorities, we can have a few more so that we stick to the basis of one person per authority. There is no reference to how many people might be in that local authority area or to its size—the reference is just to one person per authority, so it could be a tiny district council and a massive local authority area. My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) mentioned Northumbria, which is a huge area covered by one council and a very small, highly populated area covered by another.

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[Dr Huppert]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I apologise for being confusing; I was trying to be helpful.

It is a pleasure in many ways to continue the work that we did on the Bill Committee with many right hon. and hon. Members whom I see around the Chamber. These are slightly larger, grander surroundings than those in which we had our last, rather extensive, discussions.

[Michael Ellis]

But about the same number of people.

[Dr Huppert]

Indeed. We have had a fair discussion in Committee, and I am glad that we are continuing it.

The shadow Minister spoke about a desire for delay, and I can understand why he sees that as his role. I am sure that the Minister will respond to the detailed points that he made. I was rather touched by the shadow Minister’s comment about how I would behave if I were in his position. He did not make it clear whether that was in a scenario where the Labour party had completely collapsed and was now a minor party, whether that had happened to the Conservatives, or whether there was a Labour-Conservative coalition. I am sure he can comment on that later.

I want in particular to speak about Government amendment 14, which deals with a rather detailed point raised in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart). It is a great pleasure to see him in his place. He spotted that lines 4 and 16 on page 22, in clause 30, did not quite fit together—that there was a drafting error. That led to an interesting discussion in which we genuinely explored some ideas—I think we all learned a lot—about what should be the process for suspending a police and crime commissioner, the standards and thresholds and the effects of such a suspension. There is an interesting balance to be struck as regards what should happen. The amendment corrects the drafting error and leaves the provision that a commissioner may be suspended by the panel—I emphasise that the term used is “may” rather than “must”—if charged with an offence that could lead to a term in prison of greater than two years.

Is the balance right? First, the position of police and crime commissioner is very responsible and we would not want to see a holder of it being seriously investigated for a major crime, which would put them in a position that would simply be untenable in the public eye. On the one hand, one could suggest that we should bring the threshold lower and lower until, if we want to be absolutely sure, they would be suspended if they were accused of anything. I think that would be going too far, and I shall come up with a suggestion on that point a bit later.

The flip side of the argument, however, is that such a commissioner has been charged, not convicted. There is a clear difference and a clear principle. Members on both sides of the House mentioned in Committee that we should not punish people excessively based on the fact that they have been charged. There is the principle of innocent until proven guilty that still applies to most public law—I shall avoid talking about terrorist offences on this occasion. Clause 30(3) says that during a suspension period, a commissioner does not draw their salary, their pensions or their allowances. That is a punishment, in effect.

We had a number of discussions in Committee and the Liberal Democrats have had some discussions about our proposals on the way forward. We have also discussed that with the Minister. There is the question of what offences we wish to catch. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West gave a number of examples of offences that would not be covered by the rules for the possible suspension in the context of offences with sentences greater than two years. I shall not go through every example, but they included racially or religiously aggravated assault or harassment, and I think we would have concerns about a police and crime commissioner who was charged with that. Other similar offences include aggravated vehicle taking, causing damage to property and causing injury. Vehicle taking without consent has a sentence of six months, as does assault on a police constable, as my hon. Friend pointed out. One would have great concerns if a police and crime commissioner was being charged with assaulting police constables, particularly on a regular basis. That would suggest that the relationship was not working

We must work out what to do. Our proposal—I hope that the Government will respond to it and will consider it as a way forward, and I look forward to hearing any other contributions—is that the period should be brought down from two years to six months, as suggested in the amendment originally proposed by my hon. Friend. It should be specified that the charge should be carried out by the Crown Prosecution Service—by a prosecutor—rather than a police officer, as they have powers to charge in some circumstances. We do not want police constables to be able to get at a commissioner with whom they disagree over some issue.

The flip side of bringing the threshold down to give greater public certainty is that there should be no loss of pay, no loss of pension and no loss of other allowances that would be incurred in the job—the person might not be doing that job during that period, but there might be some ongoing costs. That would avoid excessive punishment while providing public certainty that a prominent figure in such an area was not under a cloud and could not get out from under it.

There should also be a provision, regardless of the threshold, for the commissioner to be able effectively to suspend themselves and to say that there is an allegation against—

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[Keith Vaz]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), who rightly put the debate in the context of what is happening locally in his constituency. Every right hon. and hon. Member can talk about the local impact of the changes that the Government are making, but I will concentrate my remarks on new clause 4, and particularly on the desire of Opposition Front Benchers that there should be an impact study of the Government’s proposals before they are put in place.

The Government have embarked on a very ambitious and challenging policing agenda. I have just finished reading the speech that the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice made on Monday, and he used in it the memorable words:

“Reform cannot wait; we do not have the luxury of delay while a committee of wise men”—

slightly politically incorrect—

“deliberate and eventually agree to differ.”

I am not sure whether the Home Secretary would compose a committee of that type, but what the Minister was saying was that the Government want to get on with reform.

Those of us who serve on the Home Affairs Committee have been pretty exhausted by the amount of proposed legislation and the changes that the Government have brought into effect since last May. However, one would expect that from a Government who took office after 13 years in opposition. Of course Ministers, particularly the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, who I know has a passion for the debate on policing, want the Government to get on with what they want to do.

[Michael Ellis]

Was the right hon. Gentleman not also exhausted by the 13 years of the previous Government and their 10 criminal justice Bills and 3,000 new criminal offences?

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[Steve McCabe]

If I was to stand as a candidate for police commissioner and was setting out my stall for the kind of police force I would want to see, I would not have to put on my election material the caveat, “By the way, I’ll have no power over the fundamental decision about funding.” With the greatest respect, I think that the hon. Gentleman has missed the point. The Government are trying to have it both ways: they want to create political commissars to run the police, but they also want to retain the power to mitigate the risk that the commissioner might come up with a precept that is unacceptable to the electorate. That is classically what is wrong with the Bill. It is designed to give the commissioner power in the areas that suit the Government, but at the heart of the Conservative party there is a doubt about that. The Government are trying to back the proposal while simultaneously watering down its key element because they fear that the course of action that they have embarked on will have electoral consequences for them.

[Michael Ellis]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm whether the previous Labour Government did something very similar on elected mayors?

[Steve McCabe]

I am talking about police commissioners, although I am happy to tell the hon. Gentleman that I am not particularly a fan of elected mayors. However, if we are going to have mayors, I would have them elected, not imposed under a shadowing arrangement first, because that suggests that there is some doubt about their validity. If he wants to talk about elected mayors, he should move on to safer ground.

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[Dr Huppert]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, although this is a matter of great interest, so I have sympathy for the hon. Gentleman, having made my own mistakes earlier this afternoon. I lean towards pure localism. Let us remember that the people on the panel making the decision will be councillors appointed by their local authorities. In Cambridgeshire, for example, I find it hard to see how, say, the representative from Cambridge city council could look at a budget that was insufficient to provide the basic policing and say, “Yeah, that’s fine. I can’t be bothered to interfere with this one.” I do not have that lack of faith in our local councils or our local democratic system. I have concerns, although I prefer the new clause to the original proposals, under which the Secretary of State would have had a strong role. However, I do not entirely agree with everything in the new clause. In particular, I am not comfortable with the idea of having to have a three-quarters majority, which we discussed in Committee, as Members will know. I tend towards a somewhat lower figure.

[Michael Ellis]

My hon. Friend has misgivings about having a 75% majority, but does he not feel that it ought to be that high, because that is what would be required to overrule a democratically elected figure, which ought to be a severe circumstance and rare happening?

[Dr Huppert]

It is important to remember that, with the exception of the two independents—another example of how I would not have designed the system—the majority of panel members will be democratically elected, representing their councils in their system. They are not directly democratically elected, but they are indirectly democratically elected. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will know, the model in London is a two-thirds majority for scrutiny of a democratically elected individual, so I am more comfortable with two thirds. That does not make a huge difference for a typically sized panel, which will have 12 people. We said in Committee that the difference will be between nine votes and eight votes, but it is more useful to look at it the other way. In order to stop the veto, the commission would have to get four or five people either to vote with him or not to be there. That makes a bigger difference as the panel gets bigger.

The structure of the new clause is more positive than has been described, because it leans towards trying to have sensible discussions and negotiations. It starts with a commissioner making a proposal. Then the panel looks at the proposal and comments on it, before the commissioner works out what he will do. Unless it is vetoed, the precept is set, but if it is vetoed, it does not go to a referendum straight away. Ultimately, that is something that we are all trying to avoid, because of the associated costs of running unnecessary referendums and the risk of re-billing, which is a particular problem with this issue and capping. There is then another opportunity, over 14 days, for the two sides to negotiate and see whether they can come to a more sensible arrangement that works for both of them. Only if that is not possible is a further step taken.

That step is not about saying, “Secretary of State, tell us what to do. It’s up to you.” It is about saying that what should be done is up to local people. It is up to the commissioner to set one option and the panel to set another, and then the public will decide which they prefer. That is a much more appropriate way of doing things. The panel would act responsibly when it came to cost, with the exception of the independents, who do not have that responsibility and are a piece of undemocratic grit in the system. However, it will be local decision making that makes a difference. Local people should have a say in how their precept should be set and how their policing should be run. That is what I would like to see. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) has moved the new clause for discussion, and I hope that the Government will consider it carefully.

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[Ann Clwyd]

That was to have been my very next point. It is amazing that in the past 10 years, there have been just two successful applications for arrest warrants, and that they were then either withdrawn or not acted on.

[Michael Ellis]

Does not that 80% failure rate indicate that people have been making frivolous and vexatious applications? Also, is it not right that proper evidence should be tendered to a court or other authority before the issue of an arrest warrant that could have international ramifications?

[Ann Clwyd]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is not aware of the facts. The fact that there have been 10 applications and that only two were granted means that the judges who currently implement this legislation are absolutely spot on. They do not take frivolous applications—quite the contrary: they are only too careful. They are experienced judges, not ordinary magistrates. The current system works comparatively well, and no one can point to any frivolous applications.

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[Ann Clwyd]

I am concluding; I am sorry.

It is already too hard to try to bring war criminals to justice. Sadly, there are already too few prosecutions. Let us not make it even harder.

[Michael Ellis]

It might be useful to inject some legal realism into the debate. At present the law in England and Wales provides for no real evidential threshold, and contains no requirement for a prosecutor to check the credibility of a claim before an arrest warrant is issued. In other words, all that is required is for an individual to go into a police station or the equivalent and make an allegation. That allegation amounts to a prima facie case: the establishment of a prime facie case is the smallest burden that must be borne. Attention-seeking lawyers and campaign groups are being given an opportunity to use the arrest warrant process as a campaign tool. To describe it as providing immunity from prosecution is completely wrong in law, in fact and in degree, and if newspapers have described it thus they are simply wrong.

[Dr Huppert]

I had much experience of disagreeing with the hon. Gentleman on this matter when the Bill was in Committee. I am now trying to understand how he squares what he is saying with what is actually happening. As we have heard, eight of the mere 10 applications that have been made in 10 years were rejected by the district judge, so the threshold is clearly higher than he is suggesting. Moreover, the clause does nothing about the process of applying for an arrest warrant. People could still apply for one; there would just be a delay before it could be granted.

[Michael Ellis]

I have a feeling that any Member of Parliament who was subject to the arrest warrant would not be so cavalier as to consider that one or two instances were nothing to worry about. We ought to have a system that applies fairly across the board.

According to a case study, in March last year the former Vice-President of Bosnia, Ejup Ganic, was arrested at Heathrow airport after Serbian judicial authorities issued an extradition warrant. He was accused of conspiracy to murder 40 Yugoslav People’s Army soldiers in an attack in May 1992. He was subsequently released on bail when the judge remarked that the arrest warrant issued by Serbia had been politically motivated. It was reported that Serbia had yet to produce any real evidence, and that most of its supposed evidence consisted of news articles about the incident. City of Westminster magistrates court blocked Ganic’s extradition in July last year. The presiding judge—who, as was pointed out by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), had considerable experience—said that he had been led to believe that the extradition proceedings were

“brought and being used for political purposes, and as such amount to an abuse of the process of this court”

Having worked in the criminal justice system for 17 years, I am concerned about the way in which the English legal system is perceived abroad, and the ramifications of some of the incidents that have occurred. For generations, the United Kingdom has been at the forefront of peace conferences and other such meetings. The very recent meeting to discuss Libya is a classic example. Circumstances in which people were fearful of entering this country because an extremely low threshold might result in their arrest would be injurious not only to the reputation of the United Kingdom’s legal system, but to the UK’s overall reputation for being a place where peace can be sought and arrangements can be made across the negotiating table. It is not in the interests of world order and international peace for obstructions to be placed in the way of people wishing to enter this country in the way that they have been doing. That does not, of course, apply to only one country; there are several other examples.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the example he gave has nothing to do with private prosecutions being pursued in relation to universal jurisdiction, as it was an extradition matter? Does he not also accept that the court had a very serious threshold and made a very serious judgment, so the process clearly could not be abused for political purposes?

[Michael Ellis]

It is important to remember that there is the issue of fear of arrest, as well as arrest itself. If someone were to say to anyone in this House, “There’s a prospect of your being arrested should you enter the United States, or France,” they would think very carefully before entering those countries, even if they knew there were no grounds for any allegations and they were entirely innocent. They would not put themselves through the hassle.

[Mark Durkan]

Can the hon. Gentleman therefore tell us how this clause removes that fear? What signal will people have that the Director of Public Prosecutions would not entertain any such warrant?

[Michael Ellis]

There seems to be a fear, including in apparently authoritative newspapers, that the provision will grant immunity from prosecution, but all it does is raise the test to the same level as for prosecutions that occur by the thousands per week in this country. Whenever there is an allegation against an individual—whether for murder, shoplifting or anything in between—the Crown Prosecution Service has to consider two tests: whether it is in the public interest to proceed, and whether there is a realistic prospect of conviction. No one suggests that the need to consider whether there is a realistic prospect of conviction in those contexts in effect means immunity from prosecution for everybody, and that is all that will be applying here.

[Dr Huppert]

This brings us on to what I consider to be an important point. Shortly after an arrest, the Attorney-General has to engage with deciding whether to continue with the private prosecution; that is one of the weaknesses of the private prosecution system. Does the hon. Gentleman think that one way in which this clause might help with prosecutions is that it would be hard for the Attorney-General to overturn a decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions, because he could not come up with the claim about the relevant person being just a magistrate? In fact the Attorney-General might find that he was in a weaker position, and it would be easier to proceed with a prosecution.

[Michael Ellis]

I am not concerned, as my hon. Friend appears to be, about the Attorney-General, because safeguards are built into our system in this country. The Attorney-General has been in a position similar to that envisaged in the Bill for decades, and there is no evidence whatever that that has been a problem in other areas. There are prosecutions in this country that can take place only with the consent of the Attorney-General, and there are other prosecutions that can take place only with the consent of the DPP—I myself have been involved in one or two of them—but no one is suggesting that those cases involve political interference. The reality is that we have to have safeguards against the misuse of a process that has increasingly been employed in highly controversial circumstances and has deeply injurious effects on international relations and British relations. As I have already enunciated, my primary concern is to maintain the good standing of the English legal system.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman is deeply confusing me; I hope he did not confuse the courts in the same way when he was practising. We are trying to ensure that people against whom there is prima facie evidence of war crimes or crimes against humanity could be subject to an arrest warrant in this country. The opposite of that is that they would be welcome in this country. I am sure that is not the hon. Gentleman’s intention, but it is beginning to sound a bit like it.

[Michael Ellis]

Of course it is not my intention that war criminals be welcomed to this country. They would be welcome to be prosecuted in this country, and I would support that. The reality is very different, however, and we must ensure that only appropriate people in appropriate circumstances are subject to the heavy penalty of arrest.

[Mike Wood (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman said that this provision had been increasingly used—10 times in the past 10 years—but what evidence has he got to suggest that that is the case?

[Michael Ellis]

As I have said, there are several offences that are rarely used, but whose presence on the statute book is in itself damaging. Many would argue that although the 42-days provision was hardly ever used, its presence on the statute book would not be uncontroversial. During the 13 years of the Labour Government some 3,000 new criminal offences were created, dozens of which have never been prosecuted yet remain on the statute book. The principle is that one ought to be interested in justice for every individual, rather than having no justice for a handful and thinking that because only a handful are being subjected to injustice we should not worry about it.

[Mike Wood]

Is the hon. Gentleman agreeing that this provision has not been increasingly used? If so, does he wish to retract what he has just said? Either it has been increasingly used or it has not. He said that it has been used 10 times in 10 years, but what was the incidence in the previous 10 years? If he cannot produce that evidence, or if the evidence suggests that this provision has not been increasingly used, perhaps he should withdraw what he has just said.

[Michael Ellis]

That is a matter of personal opinion. As I have indicated, one would have to make a comparison with the previous 10 years. The universal jurisdiction law is a common law matter and has, therefore, presumably been available for decades. If it has been used only 10 times in the past 10 years, one would have to go back to see what happened during the previous 10 years. Perhaps one would discover that during that period it had never been used once. If that is the case, it has been increasingly used; I would just posit that.

I am conscious of the fact that other hon. Members would like to speak, so may I conclude by saying that Canada is not considered to be a country that is in any way permissive towards war crimes, yet it has adopted a tack similar to the proposed British solution? Although boasting a very broad piece of legislation implementing universal jurisdiction, Canada’s law requires that all claims based on universal jurisdiction first be personally approved by its Attorney-General or deputy Attorney-General before they can be introduced in any court. So I would posit that to Labour Members, and say that if Canada has done this and is doing it—

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Michael Ellis]

I am going to finish now. If Canada has done this and is doing it, I see no reason why England and Wales should not do it as well.

[Vernon Coaker]

I start by saying that we support the Government on the clause. It is strangely placed in this Bill, as it deals with a foreign policy and justice issue, but our foreign policy team has made its support clear. The provision is essential to maintain universal jurisdiction: it allows for the prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity anywhere in the world. We also support continuing with private prosecutions.

We do not believe that there should be any weakening in the standards for and likelihood of prosecution, as that would be completely wrong. However, there is a difference between the standards and procedures for arrest and the standards and procedures for prosecution. For prosecution, a higher standard of proof and the agreement of the Attorney-General are needed, whereas for arrest they are not. That means that there could be cases where people are arrested but there is no likelihood of prosecution, because the evidence is not there and the Attorney-General will not give agreement, perhaps because of campaigning on international issues in this country. We do not believe that that is appropriate, especially if it deters people from coming to Britain for purposes associated with diplomacy or peace. So it is essential to make the change that the Government propose, which would bring arrest better into line with prosecution but would not affect the chances of a prosecution. However, if the Director of Public Prosecutions is to take these decisions, he will need to do so swiftly. Justice must not be denied by being delayed.