Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Crockart Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

While ensuring sufficient resources so that those arriving are supported at reasonable levels, the minimum income threshold is also intended to ensure that family migrants can participate sufficiently in every-day life to facilitate their integration into British society. That is one of the fundamental purposes of the policy, and I think that is right.

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

13. What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Scotland on the potential introduction of a scheme to allow international students graduating from Scottish further and higher education institutions to remain in Scotland to work for a defined period of time.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary meets colleagues regularly for discussions on a range of issues, including how we can continue to attract the brightest and best to study here while bearing down on abuse.

[Mike Crockart]

The recommendation comes as part of the Smith agreement. It recognises that the higher education sector is a multi-billion pound industry, and Edinburgh university is one of the most successful participants in that. More than 10,000 foreign students are now studying at Edinburgh, generating some of the highest quality research in the UK. Does the Minister agree that keeping more of those excellent students in the UK while their research is commercialised would be of enormous benefit, not just to the Scottish economy but to the UK as a whole?

[Karen Bradley]

My hon. Friend will know that the Russell Group of universities, of which Edinburgh is a member, has seen a 30% increase in the number of applications from overseas students since 2010, showing that studying in the United Kingdom is an attractive offer to students. There is no cap on the number of students who can stay in the UK after completing their degree, provided they have a graduate-level job, get an internship or become a graduate entrepreneur.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Crockart Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

I am seeing my counterpart in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills this afternoon to talk about this very issue, so the hon. Lady’s question is well put.

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

T8. Today has seen the launch of the all-party group report on nuisance calls. It contains 16 excellent recommendations which, if implemented, would significantly increase protection for vulnerable consumers, improve the effectiveness of the regulators, and renew confidence in the telecoms and direct marketing industries. Will my hon. Friend therefore support my private Member’s Bill tomorrow to implement some of those recommendations as soon as possible?

[Mr Vaizey]

As my hon. Friend knows, he and I have been discussing this issue for many months. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the fantastic work he has done to make progress on the issue. He knows that I support many of the points that he makes in his private Member’s Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Crockart Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Browne]

I am happy to have discussions with any parties that are interested in trying to ensure that we can make improvements, but I can tell the House that new measures will be introduced as early as 3 December to create a new criminal offence that prohibits cash payments in the purchase of scrap metal. We are putting a series of measures in place; we are not merely waiting for my hon. Friend’s private Member’s Bill to come into effect, which we hope will happen. We are acting more swiftly than that and I am keen to draw on support from all parties and none to try to ensure that we tackle this serious crime as effectively as possible.

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I understand the intense concentration on what is a dreadful crime, but does my hon. Friend agree with me that, as I know from my experience as a police officer, effective and robust regulation of brokers and recyclers will have a far greater effect on the prevalence of this crime than concentration on a particular payment method?

[Mr Browne]

I partially agree with my hon. Friend. It is important to consider payment methods, because cash payments make it easier to facilitate criminal activity than more easily recordable methods of payment. I do not for one moment believe that dealing with that will be effective in itself, however, so it is necessary to see it as part of a package of proposals, which is the approach that the Government are taking.

London Metropolitan University

Mike Crockart Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman has connections with an institution that is itself closely connected with London Metropolitan—I am not aware of any problems with that other institution. The message being sent out is quite clear: as I have said, Britain absolutely welcomes the brightest and the best; we want the best students from around the world coming to our universities, some of which are themselves among the best universities in the world. However, the message also has to go out to the university sector and individual students that they have to be genuine students, be able to speak English and be properly qualified to benefit from a university education in this country, and that they cannot use a student visa as a loophole in our immigration system to come here and work. That went on for far too long; now it is stopping.

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The Minister mentions the Home Affairs Committee report. One of its reports recently urged the Government to remove students from the immigration statistics and instead use the OECD measure. If he agreed to that recommendation, it would surely remove much of the push for such heavy-handed, rhetoric-induced action by the UKBA.

[Damian Green]

Of course, I reject the hon. Gentleman’s point that this is heavy-handed—and it is the opposite of rhetoric. Instead of years of Immigration Ministers from the previous Government talking tough and acting weak, we now have a Government who are acting tough as well. On the point about immigration statistics, it is a UN definition that an immigrant is somebody who comes to a country with the intention of staying for more than one year. Students who come for less than one year do not count in the immigration statistics. Students who come for more than one year do count. It would be simply perverse to say that someone coming here for a four-year course is less of an immigrant than somebody who comes here to work for 15 months on a work visa. That would be simply absurd.

Abu Qatada

Mike Crockart Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I will come back to my hon. Friend with more details on that in due course, if I may. I have already initiated some work on this within the Home Office, and we will be looking at the matter as soon as we can. If we were to require legislative changes, we would have to look at the legislative timetable.

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Torture is abhorrent no matter where it happens, and we must all be happy that Abu Qatada’s deportation will be achieved without implicitly condoning such behaviour. The Secretary of State must agree, however, that that is still the second-best option, behind the option of trying Abu Qatada in this country. Will she therefore redouble her efforts to remove any remaining barriers to that happening in future, such as by addressing the use of intercept evidence?

[Mrs May]

As I have said in answers to a number of other Members, the Government have, of course, at all times looked as widely as possible at what action could be taken in relation to Abu Qatada, as I assume the previous Government also did. The hon. Gentleman raises the issue of intercept as evidence. As he will know, we have a Privy Council group that is still looking into that issue, and the only comment I would make is that very often it is assumed that that is the one answer that will solve all our problems when all the evidence is that it is not.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Mike Crockart Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

I consider the retention of the six-year limit specified by the 2010 Act to be a proportionate response. Certainly issues related to stop-and-search powers and charging need to be investigated in the context of police practice, but the fact remains that the DNA that is being kept under the Act has prevented the committing of further crimes, and would continue to do so if the six-year period were retained. I am happy for my right hon. Friend to take up the issue of how DNA is taken in the first place, and to draw attention to instances in which people are picked up and charged but not convicted, or picked up and not charged at all. However, I venture to suggest that that issue is separate from the one that we are considering, which is the retention of DNA over a long period.

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

May I try to help the right hon. Gentleman? The basic principle being advanced is that the retention of DNA prevents further crimes, but I think that what he really means is that it assists in the detection of further crimes. The mere holding of DNA would not have prevented even the case that he cited.

[Mr Hanson]

I am afraid that I disagree fundamentally with the hon. Gentleman. Someone might be picked up as a result of the retention of DNA following the commission of one crime, but how many times has the hon. Gentleman seen reports about serial rapists or serial murderers on the television news? Potential further victims might not be actual victims because the individual concerned had been apprehended owing to the collection of his DNA. As I have said, I accept that my amendment is flawed, but I believe that the principle behind the use of DNA and the retention of the six-year period for the purpose of dealing with serious sexual crimes is fundamental.

[Mike Crockart]

I accept some of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, but he should be very careful about the language that he uses in debates such as this. He should not blindly claim that the retention of DNA would prevent 6,500 further offences, as he did earlier, because that is simply not correct. The retention of DNA would contribute to detection, but it would not prevent.

[Mr Hanson]

I venture to disagree. The figures that I gave were Home Office figures produced for the Minister in July 2010.

The point that I am making, which I think is valid, is that the retention of DNA could, in a number of cases, prevent repeat offences. That is why the hon. Member for Shipley supports the amendment, and why my hon. Friends agree with what I have said. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), it is sometimes a case of making a balanced judgment. We make judgments as Ministers, and the six-years judgment was the one that we made within the envelope that was available to us. I believe that it was the right judgment, and my amendments—which I accept are flawed—were tabled so that we could debate the principle again.

UK Extradition Arrangements

Mike Crockart Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I, too, begin by welcoming the debate and congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) on securing it. Last week’s debate in Westminster Hall and the number of hon. Members present tonight show the strength of feeling on this important issue. It is absolutely right that it is debated on the Floor of the House.

Some 140,538 individuals have added their signature to the “Free Babar Ahmad” e-petition, which is rightly the catalyst for this debate, although the problem is much wider, as has been shown. I am glad that such cross-party support exists—even the Daily Mail, which I do not normally read, supports the campaign—but it was not always so. The Liberal Democrats have been vocal in our criticism of the lopsided extradition arrangements between Britain and the US for many years. Indeed, my hon. Friends the Members for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) and for Southport (John Pugh) were the only Members to vote against it in a scrutiny Committee. In 2006, we proposed amendments to the Extradition Act 2003 to protect the freedom and fair judicial treatment of British citizens, but, sadly, the previous Government refused to accept them.

I am pleased that the Liberal Democrats are acting on this issue in government and that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) will lead a Liberal Democrat review of UK-US extradition arrangements. I await the findings of his report with interest.

No one is denying that extradition remains a necessary process in pursuing the ends of justice. It is rightly founded on the concepts of reciprocity and mutual respect among jurisdictions, although it recognises differences between them. However, extradition also deals with the most basic human right—that of liberty—and as such we must ensure that it is not entered into lightly or without proper process and oversight.

The affect of extradition on that basic right has been examined in detail regularly and recently by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and other Committees of both Houses. Reform is now advocated by Members on both sides of the House, which is to be welcomed. Both in the House and outside, it is recognised that extradition has changed. The process altered significantly in the wake of 9/11, as my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton said. Although the aim of such change was undoubtedly positive, the reality is that arrangements continue to be open to abuse.

A few high-profile cases have demonstrated that to all. The lack of discretion to allow the UK to decline extradition when the case should be prosecuted in the UK has become synonymous with the case of Gary McKinnon; problems with the European arrest warrant and trust in suitably high standards of justice in Europe are synonymous with the case of the British student Andrew Symeou; and the lack of a prima facie safeguard, previously an integral part of UK extradition law, is synonymous with the case of Babar Ahmad. High Court rulings even today give examples of further concerns, on, first, the definition of a “judicial authority” and whether that authority is truly independent; and, secondly, on whether extradition should be allowed when no charges have been laid, or whether it should be limited to being for the purpose of trial or sentence.

Those concerns add to the feeling that there is no reciprocal arrangement in practice. For every person extradited to Britain from the EU, we surrender nine back. We have surrendered 50% more of our citizens than the US. Today’s motion would implement the JCHR recommendations, which offer basic safeguards to prevent miscarriages of justice and deal explicitly with the concerns highlighted by those cases. The Committee suggests a forum clause that would allow UK courts to refuse extradition when an individual should be tried in our country; a requirement for any requesting country to show a prima facie case; and proportionality checks to ensure that EAWs are not issued for minor offences.

As well as proportionality, the presumption that human rights are respected equally in EU member states is another significant issue with EAWs. The JCHR was minded to agree that judges are reluctant to refuse extradition on human rights grounds because of that presumption. As such, we agreed with evidence given by Liberty that highlighted the clear difference between equal protection of all rights in practice and protection in law, which means that there is a need to give defendants the ability to rebut the presumption of equality.

The Committee is clear that we need to deal with significant EAW issues, even if that means renegotiation of the framework decision. I am heartened by the Government’s willingness to act on that.

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he support the principle of renegotiating things in Europe to get the right balance in our relations with the EU?

[Mike Crockart]

I do indeed. That is exactly what the JCHR report asks for. It supports that unequivocally, as do I—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] That does not make me anti-European, however.

I am not saying that the use of EAWs has not been beneficial to the UK and Europe in the fight against serious and organised crime, or, to a certain degree, helpful in establishing a common area of freedom, security and justice, but we should not ignore the problems to support such advances.

The independent Baker review focused on five areas of extradition. Although I disagree with many of its findings, I share many of its points. On the Home Secretary’s power to extradite, I instinctively have grave reservations in giving Ministers further powers when the distinction between state and judiciary becomes blurred. I believe that human rights considerations are more appropriately examined by the judiciary rather than a Minister, with proper consideration of relevant case law.

The Baker review also calls for a strengthening of legal representation in both issuing and executing states; an improvement in the process for the removal of EAW alerts, which was highlighted by the dreadful treatment received by Deborah Dark; and the prevention of excessive pre-trial detention. As a side comment, I would say that seven years is almost certainly excessive. There is a degree of unanimity on the need to act on those points.

One fundamental consideration is lost in the detail: whether our constituents—British citizens—have sufficient protection in respect of their safety and human rights. As Liberty eloquently wrote in its 11 November letter to the Home Secretary, that is a balancing act:

“There is, of course, a balance to be struck in any system of extradition between the public interest in expeditious extradition to enable prosecution of crime and the provision of essential safeguards to ensure procedural fairness for the accused…the Extradition Act 2003 secures the former at the dangerous expense of the latter.”

I agree that the balance is wrong, and commend the Government’s willingness to re-address it and secure the fundamental rights of the nation’s citizens. However, I trust that the Minister will put a time scale on the willingness to act that is more precise than the one he articulated in last week’s debate. Such affronts to justice have waited too long. We must put them right and do so soon.

Crime and Policing

Mike Crockart Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on a subject that is so close to my heart, as I served for eight years in the Lothian and Borders police. I am happy to follow the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who spoke with so much passion, and I agree with much of what he said. Neighbourhood policing is an aim that we share; we differ only in the way in which we seek to deliver it.

When I first expressed an interest in joining the police 25 years ago, the general reaction was, “Well, you’ve got the height for it”, as if being tall were the defining characteristic of a good police officer. Other stereotypes also do nothing to help the debate on policing. Dixon never actually policed Dock Green, and Sam Tyler did not actually go back to 1970s Manchester. [Hon. Members: “Really?”] No, he really did not.

In fact, every day police officers not only deal with crime, but fulfil the role of part-time social workers, youth workers, marriage guidance counsellors, tourist information officers, crime prevention officers, licensing officers and, yes, dog-catchers, a role that has become tragically relevant in recent weeks. All those roles are important to the general public, as they are performed by those whom the public would describe as “beat bobbies”. Survey after survey shows that many people’s top priority is to see more bobbies on the beat, but where is the evidence to show that that is effective? Scotland’s police numbers per capita are roughly average, but it unfortunately suffers from a higher-than-average level of crime. The simplistic argument has been that if crime numbers are to be reduced, the number of police must be increased, as if a direct proportionality existed—a point ably made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley).

[Toby Perkins]

The hon. Gentleman is presenting an interesting theory, which I do not think I have heard before. When the Liberal Democrats spoke of putting an extra 3,000 police on the beat, was that not something to do with reducing crime?

[Mike Crockart]

It was a policy with which I did not necessarily always agree. I have argued long and hard—Members will not find my words in Hansard, but they will find them in other places—against the use of the term “bobbies on the beat” as a catch-all silver bullet that would solve every crime-related problem, because it simply will not. The problem is far more than that, as I shall explain shortly.

That simplistic argument confuses the presence of police with what should be our real aim: the absence of crime. Labour Members have argued today that a decrease in police numbers will inevitably and necessarily mean an increase in crime, but that simply does not stand up to scrutiny. Belgium has more police officers per capita than Scotland but has a higher crime rate, while Switzerland has fewer police officers but a lower crime rate. The three European countries with the lowest number of police per capita are Sweden, Norway and Finland, which could hardly be described as crime-ridden countries. According to figures published today in The Scotsman, the detection rate has not moved by a single percentage point in the last year despite the presence of a record number of police officers. Instead of focusing on the number of officers, we should pay more attention to how those officers are used and deployed, and how their priorities are set and monitored.

When I left the police 13 years ago, there was much talk of cutting bureaucracy, freeing up police officers’ time, and using technology to enable more efficient working. Thirteen years on, however, the HMIC report that has been quoted so extensively today states that the “visibly available” police level is still, on average, only 11%—although in some forces it has fallen as low as 6%—and that as little as 13% of the time of those who are available is spent patrolling. The report also states that those police officers are still tied down by mountains of paperwork and central directives. In 2009 alone, 2,600 pages of official guidance on aspects of police work were issued, at an estimated policing cost of £2.2 billion per year. Moreover, the report states that the police are involved in dealing with any one crime on an incredible 40 occasions, from point of arrest to conviction. That does not sound like progress or efficiency to me. This then is the opportunity: not the simplistic position of some Opposition Members that if there is a problem we throw more money at it, but that we find a better, more efficient model for deploying existing resources. The involvement of local people in setting local priorities and helping to achieve them is key to this change.

I will save my views on the specific issue of police commissioners for another debate, but I believe that the direction of travel is the right one. Indeed, many police services are already moving in this direction on their own. In my home force of Lothian and Borders individual police officers are assigned to areas mirroring council wards and a divisional superintendent sits alongside council departments in partnership to set priorities. We should contrast that with the official model of priority setting: the police board for Lothian and Borders covers five council areas and the chair of that board represents only a small section of one of those authorities. How can local priority-setting come from a model like that?

West Midlands police has reorganised itself along council boundaries, and Sussex police cars are marked as “Brighton and Hove”, “Eastbourne” and “Lewes”, but this is still piecemeal reform and it will not deliver the savings needed or the increased localism wanted in the years to come.

We need to have proper reform to create larger, more efficient, professional police forces. That must, of course, be done by local agreement, and there must also be the ability within these forces for day-to-day operational decisions to be devolved down to a much lower level and to be made accountable through stronger and more transparent ties with local elected officials. Big police services do not have to be distant from public opinion and priorities.

In Scotland, we are already beginning to think the unthinkable: we are considering having a national police service with 32 operational divisions matching local authority boundaries, where local priorities are set in association with locally elected officials. That would be a far more efficient model that could deliver significant savings and a locally focused service as well as allow a national joined-up response to areas such as serious organised crime and national security. I hope we in Scotland will go down that route, and perhaps it is time for other Members to consider such a system for England and Wales.

DNA and CCTV (Crime Prevention)

Mike Crockart Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) on securing this debate on an important subject. For me, the title of the debate is important because it specifies tackling crime by effectively dealing with either the prevention or detection of crime. In this way, it mimics the most basic aspects of my police training 20 years ago, where I was taught the function of a police officer, which is fourfold: to protect life and property; to preserve law and order; to prevent and detect crime; and to prosecute offenders. We judge the effectiveness of policing against those four aims, and, equally, as tools used as an aid to those aims, we should judge DNA and CCTV against them. We all agree that more rapists, muggers and murderers should be in prison, but we have to be clear about whether a DNA database or CCTV will achieve that.

DNA is undoubtedly an effective tool in detecting offenders. In 2008-09, DNA evidence helped to clear up 1,700 serious crimes. However, when looking at broad figures such as those, we should remember that in many cases the DNA evidence might not have been the only evidence or the decisive evidence. In my time in the police, I spent two years as a scenes of crime officer and attended many murder scenes, and murders are by far the best example. Most murders are committed in the heat of an argument by friends and family members, and, after the fact, no attempt is made to conceal the crime or to evade detection. DNA swabs would be taken as a matter of course and form part of the evidentiary process, but, in real terms, they would add very little.

We need to be careful about seeing DNA evidence as some sort of scientific knight in shining armour for serious crimes. It is still too expensive to be used in all but the most serious crimes, and fingerprints will still be left at many more crime scenes and are identified far more cheaply. Whether we have the correct legislative balance between DNA’s effectiveness in crime detection and an individual’s right to privacy is an important question. The European Court of Human Rights does not think we do. It described existing English and Welsh legislation as “blanket and indiscriminate”, but noted the consistency of the Scottish approach. The problem is the blurring of the line between innocence and guilt.

The national DNA database is the biggest DNA database in the world, with 5.6 million people on it, but 1 million of those have not convicted of any crime. Despite the growing database, its effectiveness is declining year on year. Its costs doubled between 2006-07 and 2008-09 to £4.2 million, but detections fell by a quarter, and we must examine why. It is because we are getting closer to the point at which the database captures our criminal fraternity. It is the law of diminishing returns; as we capture the criminal profiles of fewer and fewer new convicted criminals, we are instead trawling our way through more and more innocent suspects. The focus needs to change, and we must ensure that anyone convicted of a crime is on the database; they have forgone their right to privacy, but the innocent have not.

CCTV is a far more difficult subject. Many people like CCTV, because it makes them feel safe and secure, but it is a comfort blanket. Surely, something that costs the Government hundreds of millions of pounds should be judged on its effectiveness. There is nothing in police legislation, which mandates the police to deal with the fear of crime. The right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) mentioned a politician’s need to deal with fear of crime, which we must do, but if we mandated the police to deal with it, how would it be measured? How would we measure DNA and CCTV’s usefulness in dealing with it? In examining their effectiveness, we must ask, do they prevent crime? Some crime, in some areas, possibly, though whether it is prevention or displacement is arguable.

In city centres, where alcohol is involved in the commission of many crimes, as mentioned earlier, CCTV has little effect in crime prevention. Even in the examples of crime falling, the extra lighting, fencing and security guards, which come with many CCTV installations, might be the active element in preventing crime. Interestingly, the public believing that cameras are effective can have two adverse effects: first, people may become careless, having been given a false sense of security by the presence of cameras, which makes the commission of crime easier; and, secondly, people believe that someone is watching the footage in real time, which allows them to abrogate responsibility for becoming involved upon seeing a crime being committed. CCTV can work against creating the involved responsible society we need.

Do DNA and CCTV help to detect crime? Possibly, in some circumstances. It is important to be clear about the purpose for which a camera is introduced. If it is for number plate recognition in a car park, to detect stolen cars or cars with no tax, and that information is acted upon immediately, then it is effective. If it is city centre CCTV being watched in real time and acted upon, as in the example mentioned, then it can be effective. However, we should be clear that a tiny fraction of the 4.2 million CCTV cameras across the country fall into that category, and that is the issue. We have allowed the unrestrained proliferation of CCTV over the UK. We have reached the point where Shetland has more cameras than San Francisco, and Scotland, as a whole, has 10 times the number of cameras as Johannesburg, with a population of 4 million. In London, only one crime a year is solved for every 1,000 cameras. The hon. Member for Shipley mentioned the age of austerity as an argument for CCTV; I am sorry, but the numbers do not stack up. The time for regulation of CCTV is definitely here, not only to ensure that those systems that effectively help in the detection and prosecution of crime can continue, but to ensure that those systems that do not contribute to the fight are overhauled.