Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for coming to the House to make a statement and for advance sight of it. We come together at a time of national grief and what must now be a time of change. The news of Sarah Everard’s death is heartbreaking for us all and our thoughts are with her family and friends. Although I of course appreciate the legal sensitivity of the case, reports around its circumstances are extremely distressing.

The reaction to Sarah Everard’s death throughout the country has been extraordinarily powerful and moving, led by the passionate voices of women and girls who are rightly demanding action and change. It cannot be right that so many women continue to fear for their safety on a daily basis, whether on the streets or at home. The testimonies that have been shared highlight the unacceptable levels of abuse and misogyny—harassment on the streets; women walking home with their headphones turned off so that they can listen for threats, keys between fingers; women being told to stay home after dark to avoid attackers. Let me be clear: it is not women who should change their behaviour; it is men and wider society that need to change.

At times like this, it is vital that people are able to have their voices heard—in, of course, a way that is lawful and covid-secure—yet this weekend in Clapham things clearly went very wrong. I share the anger about the policing and the scenes that we saw. It is right that the Mayor of London has shown leadership by calling on Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and the Independent Office for Police Conduct to investigate. The Home Secretary asked for a report from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and I hope she will publish it, because transparency is so important. Will the Home Secretary also publish the minutes of the advance meeting that was held on Friday, as mentioned by the Minister for Crime and Policing in the media this morning? Will she confirm what communication she personally had with the Metropolitan police prior to the events on Saturday?

Although Saturday’s event was a vigil, not a protest, the scenes from Clapham should be a red warning light to the Government: Ministers should not be rushing through laws that crack down on protest. The truth is that the Government are failing to address violence against women and girls and Ministers even want to curtail their right to protest about it. It is a chronic failure of the Government. Meetings and the reopening of surveys are nowhere near enough—and we understand that the Minister for Women and Equalities will not even be attending the meeting this evening.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that recorded rapes doubled between 2014 and 2019—doubled. The crime survey for England and Wales showed that more than 2 million people experience domestic abuse in a year, yet only a tiny fraction of perpetrators are charged and charging rates are falling. The justice system sends a perverse message that murdering someone at home—which predominantly means men killing women—is a lesser crime than killing someone in the street, because it hands out shorter sentences for domestic homicides.

The 296-page Bill that we will consider later contains the word “memorial” eight times and fails to include the word “women” once. The Government’s message is that they want to lock up for 10 years people who damage the statues of slave traders, when rape sentences start at half of that. I say to the Government that unless this changes—unless there is action on homicide, on street harassment and on stalking—the Bill will risk becoming an abuser’s charter that just allows violence and injustice on our streets and in our homes to continue unchecked.

Ministers have been on the airwaves today struggling to find aspects of the Bill that will make a difference to addressing violence against women and girls. Let me take just one example: Ministers have pointed to whole-life tariffs for rape. When the Home Secretary gets to her feet, will she say how many rape convictions have resulted in life terms? The answer is hardly any. Today, the High Court ruled in favour of the status quo on rape. It is a status quo that is shameful and that the Government must change. The figures show that 99% of rapes reported to the police in England and Wales result in no legal proceedings whatsoever—99%. It is effectively a get-out-of-jail-free card and it is appalling.

It does not have to be this way: this could be a time of national unity when we decide to come together as a country to put forward protections. Either the Government can change course and take the necessary action, or Ministers will find themselves on the wrong side of history once again.

[Priti Patel]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments, but at a time when the country is mourning a significant loss and there are moments of great unity,

I am quite sorry to hear his tone, particularly regarding the Government’s record on and commitment to tackling violence against women and girls.

The right hon. Gentleman will be well sighted—more than aware—of the significant contributions of all Members of this House to the Domestic Abuse Bill, which has been under debate, scrutiny, challenge and amendment for a considerable period of time, and is in the House of Lords right now. I emphasise that we are committed to addressing violence against women and girls at the highest level. Look at the work of this Government over the last decade; I pay particular tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for all her work, as she was the one who really set the bar high in legislation. That work includes not just the DA Bill, but all the measures to address female genital mutilation, and violence against women and girls, and all the money and support that has been put forward for charities. This Government are building on those measures, and no one can ignore that simple fact.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which will be debated this afternoon, and he specifically mentioned rape and rape convictions. The Bill is a criminal justice Bill as well as a policing Bill, and he will be very mindful of the work that the Government are undertaking right now through the end-to-end rape review to completely reverse the decline in outcomes that we have seen in recent years; this Government are increasingly very honest and upfront about that decline in outcomes. We are working with all relevant parties, including the Crown Prosecution Service. We want to change the direction there. There is much more work to come and that will be published in due course—shortly, in fact.

To say that the Bill does nothing for women is completely wrong, especially when it comes to sentencing, because it will end the halfway release of those convicted for sexual offences such as rape. Instead, our laws will go after those vile criminals, and they will spend at least two thirds of their time behind bars. It is worth reflecting that it was a Labour Government in 2003 who made automatic halfway release mandatory for all standard determinate sentences, regardless of whether the offender had been convicted of a violent or sexual offence. The Bill that the House will debate later will reverse that policy.

The right hon. Gentleman said that there is no specific mention of women in the Bill. That is another accusation that I reject, primarily because it is a criminal law and sentencing Bill, which applies equally to everybody. The Labour party knows that it is in line with the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 and the Criminal Justice Act 2003, neither of which, as Bills that related to criminal justice and sentencing, mentioned women.

There are many other measures that we will discuss later in the passage of the Bill, but I want to come back to the points that I made in my statement. It is right that I have had many discussions with the Metropolitan police and specifically the commissioner on Friday and over the weekend in relation to preparations and planning prior to Saturday evening. My comments are public and on the record regarding what has happened and, quite frankly, the upsetting images of Saturday evening. A review is now being conducted by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary. It is right that that takes place. No one should prejudge anything in terms of conduct until we absolutely see what has happened through that report. The police are, rightly, operationally independent.



All of us in this House—this is not just about the Government—want to work to drive the right outcomes, so that women feel safe. Laws and legislation will absolutely do that; there is no question about that. But this is also about behaviour and culture—that is culture across society, and that is culture with men as well, and we should be up-front about that and never shy away from being honest in discussing that. Right now, all Members should have in their thoughts and prayers Sarah’s family and friends at this particularly unbearable time.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 1
Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

The House meets today in the shadow of the tragic loss of Sarah Everard, and I know the whole House will be united in sending our thoughts to her loved ones at this time of unimaginable pain. In an incredibly moving tribute, her family said:

“She was strong and principled and a shining example to us all. We are very proud of her and she brought so much joy to our lives.”

Sarah was just walking home at night—a freedom that sounds so simple, it should be unquestionable. But in recent days, we have heard extraordinarily powerful testimony yet again from women across the country about the dangers they face all too regularly—women speaking of suffering vile harassment on the streets, being told to walk with keys between their fingers to protect themselves and being told they should stay at home. It is not women and girls who should be changing their behaviour because of danger. We must change as a society, and as men in particular, we must do better by listening and, most importantly, acting.

I want to turn immediately to the distressing scenes we saw at Clapham. I share the anger there is about the policing of this. Deep and profound lessons need to be learned, and there must be change. People should have been able to mark this moment peacefully and safely. We need to find a way for people to show solidarity safely and in a covid-secure way. As I mentioned in response to the statement earlier today, the Mayor of London has shown leadership on this, asking Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary to conduct an independent investigation alongside the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

Saturday’s event was not a protest; it was a vigil. But there is no doubt that it brings into sharp focus the proposed measures in this Bill about curtailing the right to protest—the right to give public expression to deep feeling and the right to campaign for change. The scenes from Saturday should be a red warning signal to the House that rushing through ill-judged and ill-thought-out restrictions on the right to protest would be a profound mistake that would have long-lasting consequences and do great damage to our democracy. The right to protest is a cornerstone of that democracy.

On our statute book, we already have the Public Order Act 1986, together with other existing powers to police protests. It is of course right that protests should be peaceful and legitimate—nobody would suggest otherwise—but the Bill significantly expands the conditions that can be imposed on protests. Unbelievably, it includes

“the noise generated by persons taking part”

causing people “serious unease” as a reason to warrant police-imposed conditions. I do not know about Government Members, but the protests that I have been to have certainly generated a lot of noise.

There is also a penalty in the Bill for someone who breaches a police-imposed condition on a protest when they “ought to have known” that the condition existed. That would have the effect of criminalising people who unwittingly breach conditions.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that no one should be able to block an ambulance from crossing a road or bridge, and that no one should be able to block a printing press from printing newspapers? If he does agree, why will he not vote for the Bill?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Because the existing laws deal with those issues. The Conservative party is not making the case for the additional powers.

The right to protest to those in power—including the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who waves his Order Paper at me—is extremely precious. I declare an interest as a proud trade unionist and refer to my relevant entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests on support from the Unite union and the GMB. Whether it is our trade unions or another group that wants to make its views known loudly in our streets, we curtail their ability to do so at our peril. The right to protest is one of our proudest democratic traditions, and that this Government seek to attack it is to their great shame. Our existing laws on protest strike a careful balance between legitimate rights and the need to keep order. Our laws on protest do not, and never should, seek to shield those in power from public criticism and public protest. We on the Opposition Benches will oppose a Bill that puts at risk the whole right to protest, hard-won by previous generations, that is part of the fabric of British democracy. In seeking to preserve the right to protest, we on these Benches stand in a long tradition of British democracy. It is this Government who seek to undermine those traditions.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the inclusion of parts 3 and 4 of the Bill undermines victims, the police force and the whole point of what the Government are trying to do to reform our criminal justice system and make it work for the people? The Government should withdraw parts 3 and 4 and get on with deliberating on some of the detail that could be half good.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Parts of the Bill could have been removed and we could have had a cross-party discussion on making the rest of it work. The Government have failed to take that approach.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that for him to vote against the entire Bill, much of which is extremely good and much of which the Labour party has campaigned for for many years, because he believes that there may be some curtailment of free speech—I do not believe that is the case—in one small part of the Bill, would be to throw the baby out with the bath water? Surely that is the wrong thing to do.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I will come to other concerning aspects of the Bill in a moment, but it says a great deal that when I am talking about the great British tradition of the right to protest, it is a Conservative Member of Parliament who stands up to challenge it. That is quite remarkable.

Let me turn to what is needed to address the appalling issue of violence against women and girls. To our shame as a country, we see unacceptable levels of female homicides at the hands of men every year. Labour is committed to working on a cross-party basis to bring forward additional protections; to deliver on the inadequate sentencing for domestic homicides; and to address unacceptable and intimidating street harassment. Labour is committed on stalking, on improving rights for victims of crime, on better domestic abuse services and on recognising misogyny as a hate crime.

There are wider issues, too. On 29 January, I wrote to the Government, together with the shadow Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy); the shadow Housing Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire); the shadow Minister for domestic violence and safeguarding, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips); and the shadow Minister for victims and youth justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle). We raised the awful practice of sex for rent—people coerced into providing sex in lieu of payment—and put forward proposals. We wrote to the Secretary of State for Justice, the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government; not one of them has even bothered to reply. That shows that this is a Government who too often like to talk tough but who fail to take the action needed. In its current form, the Bill does not meet the ambition of the time and will be a terrible missed opportunity.

[Peter Kyle]

As a signatory to that letter, campaigning on this means a great deal to me. Actually, I contacted the two previous Home Secretaries and Amber Rudd, when she was Home Secretary, set a workstream up to tackle this issue. It has been cancelled. We have been trying very long and very hard to give protection to those 30,000 women every year who are propositioned for sex in return for rent. Is it not time that this cross-party offer is taken up?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Absolutely. The cancellation of that workstream is entirely wrong. I say to the Home Secretary that the offer is open on that. The letter has been sent to the Home Office; reply and engage with us on the Opposition Benches.

[Priti Patel]

I am actually not aware of that workstream being cancelled or the letter, so I would be more than happy to come back to the House and follow up with the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle).

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am grateful for that, and when the Home Secretary returns to the Home Office, I would be grateful if she could dig out the letter and respond. That would be extremely useful—it was sent on 29 January, for reference.

[Chris Bryant]

As my right hon. Friend knows, I, and I think we as a party, support clause 2, because we believe that emergency workers should not be subject to the terrible assaults that there have been over the years. But this does pose a problem, because a lot of women who work in shops are subjected to exactly the same problems and are often terrified to go into work. We had a terrible incident in the Co-op in Penygraig less than a year ago. Is there not a job of work that we need to do to make sure that all workers, but in particular women workers working in shops, are also protected?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I will come on to that issue in a moment, when I have some proposals to put forward.

Ministers risk sending out an awful message on the level of importance that they attach to violent crime. The Government want a maximum penalty of 10 years for damage to statues. No Government should ever send out a signal that the safety of a statue carries greater importance in our laws than the safety of women, but, as currently drafted, this Bill would allow someone to receive a sentence of up to 10 years for attacking the statue of a slave trader when rape sentences start at five years. That does not reflect the priorities of the people.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

The shadow Home Secretary should well know and should honestly tell the House that the maximum sentence for rape is life.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I asked the Home Secretary earlier in the statement to tell me how many people convicted of rape were actually sentenced to life imprisonment, and she could not answer the question. The answer is hardly any. Ninety-nine per cent. of reported rapes do not even get close to a court, and then we hear the Minister trying to come to the Dispatch Box to boast about the rape statistics—absolutely appalling.

[Peter Kyle]

My right hon. Friend and the whole Labour party and Opposition agree that protecting private and public property is incredibly important, but it is about balance. If an angry mob throws a statue into water and then turns around and throws a woman or a child into water, can he tell us which one, if the Bill passes and goes into statute, gets the longer sentence?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance that is being put on statues over women, and the Government should be ashamed. This comes at a time when—

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

In one moment, because I need to deal with the issue of the rape statistics that has been raised. We are seeing fewer people being prosecuted and convicted for rape than at any time since records began, and that is at a time when the number of reported rapes is increasing. What message do the Government think that that sends to victims about coming forward? As I said to the Minister—he is a Justice Minister; he really should be concentrating on trying to deal with this problem—99% of reported rapes do not even get near a court. That is absolutely shameful. I say to the Home Secretary: think again about the Government’s priorities on this, make changes, such as end-to-end support for victims pre-trial and post-trial, and fast-track these trials through our system, instead of the two years that there have to be at the moment.

[Steve Brine]

If the desecration of our war memorials does not move the right hon. Gentleman, can I check this one with him? Two of my constituents lost their daughter when somebody impaired by the incorrect use of prescription drugs careered across the carriageway and hit her car head-on at high speed, killing her outright. In part 5 of the Bill, on road traffic, we introduce clause 64, on increased penalties for causing death by dangerous driving. Does the shadow Home Secretary support that and will he vote for it?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I do absolutely support that and I will come to it in a moment but, to deal with the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, he seemed to imply that I did not understand the value of war memorials. I absolutely do. The difference is that this Bill has now been extended to every form of memorial, including statues of slave traders. It really sums up the problem with the Government’s approach. If they genuinely wanted to introduce proportionate measures to protect war memorials, they could have done so and not introduced the measures that they actually have.

I come to the sentencing elements of the Bill. It is of course right to extend whole-life orders to cover the premeditated murder of a child. The tragic murder of Ellie Gould on 3 May 2019 highlights the failure of the justice system to impose strict enough sentences on those who murder in a domestic setting and the issue of the age of the killer. But this measure is insufficient. The current approach to sentencing seems to forget the context in which many female victims are killed—in the home, with a weapon taken from that location. The minimum tariff in such cases is 15 years, but it is 25 if the weapon is brought to the scene of the crime. That is a systemic problem; violence against women and girls seems to be seen as less serious than other forms of violence. This has to be addressed.

The Opposition also say that tougher sentencing on its own is not enough. We know that wider change across our society is needed, and we know that the Government who have decimated our public services over the past 11 years have totally lost sight of addressing the causes of crime as well, with the sadly predictable consequences of rising violent crime in every single police force area of England and Wales. The Bill is shamefully short of measures to address the unacceptable violence women and girls face. In that, it fails woefully to meet the urgent need for change.

[James Gray]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned my constituent, Ellie Gould, and her appalling murder two years ago. He is right to say that we campaigned for the issue of premeditation, as proved by taking a weapon to the scene, to be removed. I hope therefore that he will vote for the Bill this evening. There is one counter-argument to that, however. Abused women at home may well defend themselves with a knife, bottle or other weapon at home, and if that were to happen and it became premeditated, that defence would be lost.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

With great respect, the hon. Gentleman identifies a complexity, but I think he agrees with me that that difference in the law—the 15 and 25-year tariffs—is not justifiable as it stands and needs to be equalised.

The need for overdue action brings me to elements of the Bill that have taken too long to introduce, but which we welcome. My hon. Friends, often working across the parties, have campaigned passionately on important issues and they have secured change. It is welcome that the Government have finally brought before Parliament the long-awaited legislation to increase the maximum sentence for assault on emergency service workers to up to two years in prison. I want to pay special tribute to the tireless work of my hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Halifax (Holly Lynch) in securing this change. They have been campaigning since 2018. Indeed, on 27 April 2018, when the matter of two-year sentences was considered, the then Minister said that

“it would begin to create the kind of situation that exists in Russia, which I hope will never exist in the UK”.

He went on to say that such sentences would create

“a category of a superior form of human being with an entitlement to a quite separate form of protection.”—[Official Report, 27 April 2018; Vol. 639, c. 1193.]

Those comments were, frankly, deplorable and the Government’s conversion to the two-year penalty is to be welcomed.

The pandemic has been a powerful reminder, not that one should be needed, of the extraordinary bravery and commitment that our frontline emergency workers have shown throughout. They have put themselves in harm’s way to keep us safe day in, day out, even at the very height of the first wave, when tests and PPE were so shamefully hard to come by. Despite that work, emergency service workers have been subjected to a rising number of attacks in this past year, with a 31% increase in attacks compared with in 2019.

[Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

Recently in Wolverhampton, two ambulance staff were stabbed. I am watching you go through this Bill saying that you welcome and agree with so many things, so why on earth have you asked your party to vote against it? It just makes no sense.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I do not want to stop the debate for this, but you do not call the person who is speaking “you”. “You” means the Chair; the right hon. Gentleman is the right hon. Gentleman. I call the right hon. Gentleman.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Yes, I was not aware of your position on the Bill, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have not finished my speech yet, so the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) will just have to wait for me to complete my argument.

As welcome as this measure is, the Labour party is clear that it does not go far enough. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda said, we need to consider the workers on the frontline of the pandemic who should also be given that level of protection. First, it does not cover the whole of the NHS family, so we are calling for protections to be extended to social care workers as well. Throughout the pandemic, the range of frontline service workers who put themselves at risk to serve our community has been clear.

[Mr Perkins]

I wonder whether the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) has actually hit on something that might be helpful to the House. There are many aspects of the Bill that we all agree on. If only the really divisive aspects that the Home Secretary has put in were removed, could not the whole House get behind supporting our police, rather than going through the mess that we have in front of us today?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Absolutely. The Government could press pause on the Bill and bring the whole House together.

Research has shown that, during the pandemic alone, one in six of our shop workers have been abused on every shift, with 62% of UK shop workers experiencing verbal abuse and almost being threatened by a customer. There have been awful examples of attacks on other frontline workers, who have been spat at, punched, verbally abused and intimidated. Labour is calling for wider measures to protect the pandemic heroes, extending protections to shop workers as well as other frontline workers. There is widespread support for this, with the additional protection for shop workers supported by organisations such as the Federation of Independent Retailers and chief executive officers from a number of major retailers, including Aldi, the Co-op, Marks & Spencer, McColl’s, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and WHSmith.

I would also like to mention the work of the USDAW—the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers—which has been passionate in campaigning for its members to receive these vital protections and has generated well over 100,000 signatories on petition. We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to frontline workers for putting themselves at risk to keep our country running. We should repay some of that debt with decent legal protection as well as decent pay.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making, in many parts of his speech, a very strong case for supporting the Bill, but he started by saying that he was not going to support the Bill because of one particular element. The Opposition were going to abstain at the end of last week; then they shifted their position. May I gently suggest to him that a decent way of doing this would be, if necessary, to abstain today, debate the amendments and decide on Third Reading whether the Government have moved at all? Would that not be more logical?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I will always bow to the right hon. Gentleman’s guidance on parliamentary procedure, but we took a final decision to vote against this Bill. Let me say to Government Members that I will make it clear when I agree with the Government on something, but as I move on to other aspects of my speech, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will see that there are other parts of the Bill that also cause deep concern; he need only wait for that.

[Chris Bryant]

I want to take my right hon. Friend back to the emergency workers legislation. One of the difficulties about the way in which it works is that magistrates courts can only sentence up to six months and the Government have still failed to change the law to allow them to issue longer sentences in certain circumstances. The danger is that increasing the sentence will make absolutely no difference whatever, unless the Government do what they could already have done in the last two years.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Having understood the attitude of the Government in 2018, perhaps it is not surprising how slow this has been.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Let me make some progress; I have taken a number of interventions.

I come to the police covenant and frontline police officers across the country. Like the Home Secretary, I meet the chair of the Police Federation and work with him on a regular basis. Only in recent days, I met my local officers in Gwent—virtually, of course—with hon. Friends and listened to the work that they are doing. It is clear that throughout this pandemic frontline officers are putting themselves at risk to keep us safe, but across the board, frontline workers in the police, fire service, education and so many other areas are facing a pay freeze. Their efforts in this pandemic are being rewarded with a real-terms pay cut.

The police covenant is welcome but overdue—it is in this Bill, some three years after it was promised. It is right that the Home Secretary makes an annual report to Parliament, addressing key issues on physical protection, health and wellbeing, and support for families, but we will study this provision closely, in consultation with representatives from across policing. We will be arguing for protections including support for mental health, which is too often overlooked.

I turn to the toughening of sentences for those who cause death by dangerous driving. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) deserves great credit for securing these changes, together with other right hon. and hon. Members who signed the Bill introduced by the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), last year. They included my hon. Friends the Members for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) and for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), together with MPs from a number of parties. We support those proposals; too many people have taken lives and left families heartbroken, with insufficient punishment—that has to end.

On the extension of laws that prevent adults in positions of trust from engaging in sexual relationships with young people under 18, sports coaches and faith leaders should be included in those safeguards. I give great credit here to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), with others, including Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch). I am sure everyone from across the House would send her our very best wishes.

[James Gray]

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman and the whole House will be pleased to hear that my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford was in the Tea Room this afternoon and she tells me that her treatment is fully successful and she will be on her way to a full recovery shortly.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

That is a wonderful intervention to take; I am sure we will all be delighted to hear that.

The Government could do more on the issue I was discussing. For example, tutors and driving instructors are not included, and I hope that the Home Secretary will look at that again.

Another area where some measures are welcome is in parts of the review from my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham being implemented, but that review was published in September 2017, nearly four years ago; there are provisions for the pilot of problem solving courts, for recognising the remand of children as a last resort and for reform of the criminal records disclosure regime. On the issue of reform of the Disclosure and Barring Service, I wish to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) for his work in securing that change.

All those things are welcome and overdue, but we have heard such powerful testimony of the lived experiences and family legacies of the prejudice that black people have faced. Black people have bravely stepped forward to share their testimony of structural racism and the impact it still has. The Government cannot ignore the disproportionality that exists from start to finish in our criminal justice system and continue to take steps that make it worse. The Bill contains so-called serious violence reduction orders, which raise serious questions about disproportionality and community trust. As a minimum, the whole of the review by my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham, all 35 recommendations, should be progressed without further delay.

Similarly, the Government must look again at the sections of this Bill on unauthorised encampments. The proposals create a new offence of residing on land without consent in or with a vehicle. The loose way it is drafted seems to capture the intention to do this as well as actually doing this, with penalties of imprisonment of up to three months or a fine of up to £2,500, or both. This is clearly targeted at Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, and the criminalisation would potentially breach the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010.

When Friends, Families and Travellers researched the consultation responses the Government received, they found that 84% of the police responses did not support the criminalisation of unauthorised encampments. Little wonder that senior police officers are telling us that the changes in the Bill would add considerable extra cost to already stretched policing, while making situations worse. I ask Ministers to think of the signal they are sending. We have already had the discussion about how responding to letters to the Home Office quickly is not the Home Secretary’s strong point, but she will surely have seen the letter to her in January—possibly not, given her earlier answer—from nine different organisations, ranging from the Ramblers to Cycling UK. That letter sets out that these unclear proposals not only risk discriminating against Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, but risk criminalising wild camping and even rough sleepers in makeshift shelters or tents.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is very generous to take so many interventions. Is it not the case that, notwithstanding the consultation, the Government have listened and have added the requirement to enter with a vehicle? There is no form of rambling I am aware of where one brings a vehicle on to land with the intention of residing there.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I think the hon. Member needs to reread the Bill on the scope of the provisions, frankly, because it is extraordinarily loosely drafted.

Rights of access to the countryside were hard won through the protests of previous generations. I do realise that there is some ill feeling between this Prime Minister and his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, but I did not realise that it ran so deep that he would be happy to see people locked up for naughtily running through a field of wheat. [Interruption.] If only she had all those years ago as well.

The Bill before the House could be a landmark Bill, and we must seize this opportunity for change. Yes, absolutely, there are measures in this Bill that we welcome—mostly because Labour Members have actually campaigned for them—but addressing violence against women and girls cannot be at the bottom of this Government’s list of priorities. If Ministers disagree with my interpretation, they must show it by their actions, and drop the elements of the Bill that suggest that attacking a statue could be a worse crime than rape, drop the elements of the Bill on protests, and revisit the elements that drive up disproportionality and the controls on encampments, which are discriminatory and unworkable. Instead, let this Bill be an opportunity for people to come together and seize the moment to drive through vital changes to address violence against women and girls. Whatever this Government say as the Bill progresses, we on these Benches understand and we hear the call for change. Labour will work to bring about that change, and I would ask all Members to work with us in that endeavour.

Policing (England and Wales)

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I would like to begin by putting on record our continuing gratitude for the selfless service, bravery and professionalism shown by our police officers and police staff. This pandemic has been a powerful reminder—not, frankly, that one should have been needed—of the risks they take daily on our behalf. I say to the Minister that warm words are not enough. It is scant recognition for these officers and staff that they are rewarded for their efforts throughout the pandemic with a pay freeze.

I call on the Minister to work quickly with the Health Secretary to introduce concrete plans to make good on lukewarm commitments to prioritise frontline officers in the vaccine roll-out. We know that officers are not able to control who they come into contact with—they are unable to socially distance as they go about their duties—so it is vital that they are able to be vaccinated as soon as possible. Officers have made the ultimate sacrifice and died from covid while on service, so it is vital that we extend that protection as soon as possible.

Even before the pandemic, the risks and the pressures heaped on police officers have increased significantly over the past decade. Attacks on police officers have jumped by 50% over the past five years. That is, sadly, unsurprising when we have seen such steep increases in violence and violent crime on the streets and in homes across the country. Officers have been placed in an impossible position. This Government oversaw huge cuts to police officer and staff numbers. Between 2010 and 2019, police officer numbers fell by 21,000. At the same time, there have been huge cuts to the services that are vital to preventing crime in the first place—youth clubs, mental health services, local councils and probation.

The Home Secretary and other Ministers like to talk tough, but the reality is that they are soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime. [Interruption.] The results have been devastating for victims of crime right across the country. The Minister chuckles, but in fact, violent crime has risen in every single police force area. In 2019-20, violence as a proportion of all police recorded crime reached its highest level since comparable records began. The Home Office’s own research has shown the link between cuts to police officer numbers and violent crime. It is good that the Government have finally woken up to the huge damage that their police cuts have done to public safety and started to replace some of the huge numbers of officers they have cut. However, it should not have taken the devastation that rising crime has caused to families and communities across the country to spark that action.

In terms of the new recruits promised, I call on the Government to do everything possible to improve diversity in recruitment. I know all Members will agree that joining the police is a noble calling, and it is vital that police services look like the communities they serve. That is one of the many lessons we need to learn from the powerful testimonies that so many black people have shared in the past nine months, and it is incumbent upon us to act. There are excellent examples of initiatives to try to improve diversity that it would be good to share across the country. Much more needs to be done to ensure that officers from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities rise through the policing ranks, and we must put in place better structures to enable greater community involvement in police training.

Looking more widely across the criminal justice landscape, I again call on Ministers to properly commit to fully implementing the recommendations in the Lammy review and other reviews that the Government have commissioned in recent years. It is vital that we all live up to the words uttered on building a more equal society.

[Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much for giving way. He suggests that the Government are giving warm words in their commitment to the police, which I wholly disagree with. The Mayor of London has kindly given an exemption from the congestion charge in London to emergency workers, but not to police officers and police staff. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman might share his view on whether real prioritisation of the police is something that the Labour party supports.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

It is nice actually to take an intervention. That is not something we can do regularly in House debates at the moment, but on the point raised by the hon. Gentleman in his attempt to criticise the Mayor of London, I have to say that the Mayor of London has been taking action on violent crime. The rise in violent crime is right across the country. In terms of prioritising police officers for the vaccine, that is precisely the case I am putting to the Government. They have been saying warm words about that, too, and I am asking them to make good on those warm words that I know they have been uttering to police representatives for some time. We would all agree about the dangers that police officers put themselves in every day, which is why I am asking for this action to take place.

Moving back to the funding of the commitment on police recruitment, as ever with this Government, the devil is in the detail, and the policing grant is no different. I point out, first, that when the Prime Minister pledged to increase the number of police officers, he did not make it clear to voters that a significant proportion of it would rely on increasing the council tax precept by £15 a year, at a time when family finances are very hard-pressed. In his opening remarks, the Minister described it as flexibility; I would describe it as a Government who are not putting the needs of families first.

Will the Minister confirm why the Government have decided to slow the speed of police recruitment so sharply? He will be aware that police forces across the country were planning for 6,000 officers to be recruited in year 1, 8,000 in year 2, and 6,000 in year 3. However, we now know that there will be 6,000 officers recruited this year and presumably 8,000 in year 3. What is the reason for this worrying slowdown, which will mean thousands fewer officers on our streets?

Also, it will not have escaped attention that there is a sharp decline in the amount of funding that the Government have allocated to recruiting the promised officers for this year. When setting a target for 6,000 officers for 2020-21, the amount of money allocated was £750 million, but for 2021-22 the amount for the same number of officers—6,000—has sharply reduced to £400 million. The Minister may say that that is in part due to so-called front-loading of costs for additional officers.

[Kit Malthouse]

indicated assent.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Indeed, the Minister confirms that is what he would say. However, we know that in fact police forces have been incredibly stretched. Even with the promises of additional officers, there are huge budget pressures elsewhere, and that is why many forces have had to freeze police staff recruitment.

Since 2010, there has been a fall of more than 13% in police staff numbers. Police staff across the board, as I am sure the Minister would agree, play a vital role in keeping communities safe, through key roles such as answering emergency calls from the public, staffing our custody suites, crime analysis and crime scene investigations. That fall also includes the loss of PCSOs, who played and play such a vital role in neighbourhood policing.

Undermining all those functions makes our communities less safe and keeps police officers behind desks and away from the streets where we want them to be. It is little wonder that the number of police officers in frontline roles fell by 16% between 2010 and 2019. These funding pressures are likely to be even more keenly felt when the required £120 million of efficiency savings outlined in the provisional police grant report in December —indeed, they were repeated by the Minister from the Dispatch Box today—come to pass.

The fact that our brave officers have been forced to work with reduced numbers of colleagues and with a pay freeze is particularly galling when such huge sums of money are being wasted on Government inefficiencies. That is why the answer given to the shadow policing and fire Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), at Home Office questions was so revealing. So poor, frankly, is Conservative management at the Home Office that delays to the emergency services network mean that police forces will have to spend an extra £600 million—bringing the total to £1.5 billion—to replace the old radios, while they wait even longer for new equipment.

Perhaps we should not be surprised at the Home Office’s complacent attitude to serious errors or the impact that they can have. Members will have seen the deeply worrying statements and the lack of grip at the Home Office over the catastrophic loss of police data. It is a confused picture that has seen Ministers contradicted by the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s letter and now an independent review having to be held to get to the bottom of what went wrong. One thing is clear: thousands of police records have been deleted and criminals will, in all likelihood, go free as a result of this fiasco. Frankly, more effective Home Secretaries than this one have gone for lesser mistakes on their watch. These errors are not isolated incidents. They are part of a picture of Ministers who have lost their grip on vital issues of national security. We have seen it over the failures on quarantine, the rises in violent crime, and the failure to get a grip of the data deletion, and too often we fail to see the Home Secretary taking charge of these issues and delivering results.

Today, we welcome the fact that Members across the House now all agree that it is vital to at least start to fill the hole created by the Conservative cuts to policing since 2010. None the less, there remain a number of worrying aspects, including the huge general financial pressures for the police; officers being forced off the streets to backfill for police staff; and the slowing down of police recruitment. We will judge the Government by their actions on this, as people are fed up with empty promises. Although we welcome the new police officers and staff joining the ranks, and we thank them for their service, we will continue to campaign for them to have the support they need to keep us all safe.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In fairness, I was contacted as Speaker as well, so it did go a long way.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I would like to begin by wishing the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) a swift recovery following his recent surgery.

Hotel quarantine for travellers will be introduced on a far too limited basis for 33 red list countries on 15 February, more than 50 days after the South African variant was discovered in the UK. To prevent a variant reaching our shores that could threaten the vaccination programme, that should be a comprehensive policy. Worse still, analysis over the weekend showed that, of the 41 countries that have confirmed they have cases of the South African strain of the virus, 29 are not subject to the hotel quarantine controls. Neither are a further six with the Brazilian variant. When will the Government publish the specific scientific basis for their existing red list?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman and I have spent some time at this Dispatch Box discussing this particular issue, and I think it is important that I make a couple of points to emphasise the work of the Government. The new health measures at the border are necessary to protect public health and our world-class vaccination programme. We have throughout the pandemic kept all measures under review, and that is absolutely right. He mentions new variants. However, I do want to emphasise, in the light of the many discussions that have taken place at the Dispatch Box between the hon. Gentleman and me, and colleagues from other Government Departments, that the Labour party has repeatedly flip-flopped on hotel quarantining measures. The Government have been very clear about measures that will be announced, some in due course, because a lot of operational and logistical planning is taking place around these measures. At the same time, it is worth recognising that there are many people on the frontline looking at the implementation of this policy, which is based on the advice by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies and other Government advisers. It is important that we take time to absolutely make sure that these measures are put in place in the right way.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

First, the Labour party has not flip-flopped on this. The 14-day blanket quarantine was only necessary because of the Government’s own failure on testing. Secondly, although the Home Secretary and I have had plenty of discussions about it, she was very clear about her own views last March that the border should have been closed, and we have all seen that on the video.

Is it not true that Ministers have been behind the curve throughout? There was no formal quarantining system until June last year, and when it was introduced, it proved ineffective. The South African variant is already here. Border testing was only introduced in recent weeks. On the hotel quarantining policy, we hear today that no formal contracts have been agreed—too little, too late. Is not the truth that the borders policy is a gaping hole in our defences against the virus? When is the Home Secretary going to take charge of this situation and put in place the proper protective measures that she knows are needed to protect the health of the British people and safeguard the vaccine roll-out?

[Priti Patel]

I appreciate that it has been a while since Labour has been in government, and Labour Members will obviously fail to realise that there is cross-Government work on the delivery of these measures. We are in a pandemic. Just to restate this to all colleagues in the House, health measures at the border have been in place since January last year. Those measures have been developed, as everyone would expect, as the situation changes; they are calibrated measures. I think it is an absolute shame to see the hon. Gentleman joining his colleagues in playing party politics with this crisis while attacking the Government, because although he originally welcomed the measures on the border that we brought in last year, he then wrote to me calling for the “blunt tool” of our border quarantine to be lifted quickly. Labour’s behaviour throughout this pandemic has shown the British public that it has no interest in being constructive or acting in the national interest, and that is exactly what we can see right now, while the Government are getting on and dealing with this hotels policy.

Health Measures at UK Borders

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for her statement and for advance sight of it. We stand here today with knowledge of the terrible fact that more than 100,000 people have died as a result of this awful virus. We mourn all those lost and think of the families for whom life will never be the same again. In marking that fact, it is not enough to say, “Let us wait to find out why Britain has fared so badly.” We must learn from past mistakes and, crucially, act now. One of the key areas where the Government have clearly fallen short is on protecting our borders. I am deeply concerned that the measures outlined today are yet another example of that—too little, too late.

Yet again, the Government are lurching from one crisis to another, devoid of strategy. Limiting hotel quarantining to only the countries from which travel for non-UK residents was already banned means that the Home Secretary’s proposals do not go anywhere near far enough. Perhaps that is why it appears that there has been briefing to newspapers that the Home Secretary is personally not in support of the policy that she is now advocating to the public.

Mutations of the virus risk undermining the efficacy of the vaccines, threatening life and hope. We cannot know where these mutations will emerge from next. The truth is that the Government are once again behind the curve. Labour is calling for comprehensive hotel quarantining. Today’s announcement is too limited. It leaves huge gaps in our defences against emerging strains. We know that the strains that emerged in South Africa and Brazil have already reached these shores. That is little wonder given that controls have been so lax, with just three in every 100 people quarantining having been successfully contacted and border testing introduced only 10 months after our first lockdown—and even then the start had to be delayed, because the Government could not get the necessary systems in place.

We have seen this reluctance to be decisive from the start of crisis. From 1 January to 23 March last year, only 273 people were formally quarantined, when more than 18 million people entered the country by air. That was at a time when the Government’s chief scientific adviser said:

“A lot of the cases in the UK didn’t come from China…They actually came from European imports and the high level of travel into the UK around that time.”

In April, I wrote to the Home Secretary to ask her to learn the lessons, but by May the UK still was an international outlier, with no travel controls.

As the Home Secretary today belatedly announces very limited hotel quarantining, many questions remain, and I would appreciate it if she would address them. First, how can we be assured that travellers will not arrive with emergent strains via countries that are not on the control list? Secondly, what support is being made available to ensure improvements to quarantine compliance and the isolation assurance service? Frankly, why has it taken so long to step up checks, as the Home Secretary said today, when we know that the system has been failing for months? What discussions have taken place with hotel chains to ensure the availability of rooms? Again, for those travelling out of the UK, why is the enforcement being stepped up only now?

Will the Home Secretary ensure that sufficient support and resources are made available for these very important tasks? When will the Government announce a sector-specific support package for aviation? Getting this policy right is absolutely crucial. The Government cannot allow our border policy to continue to be the Achilles heel of the heroic efforts of the British people during this pandemic.

[Priti Patel]

I would like to make a number of comments before I come to the hon. Gentleman’s questions. I was here yesterday reeling off the endless measures at the border that have been put in place since January last year, including Foreign Office advice; statutory instruments, regulations and powers under the Coronavirus Act 2020; quarantine; passenger locator forms; test and release; and banning flights and travel from specific countries. It is important to recognise the incredible work we have done in this country on the vaccine, with our world-leading vaccine programme.

However, we are in a very different situation from last year because of the additional risk to public health caused by new variants. We should be focused on the new variants, because they could be less susceptible to and have implications for the vaccine. So it is important that we reduce risk by reducing the number of people who enter our country who could be a new threat in terms of the variants and mutations. We have already implemented numerous measures and protections to reduce that risk, but we are announcing today a number of new, additional levels of protection at our disposal. Some are forthcoming with regard to hotels, and I will come on to the specifics in a moment.

The hon. Gentleman made the point about travel. The fact of the matter is that there are reductions in travel already; the number of people travelling has reduced by 90% compared with the number travelling at this time last year, but obviously that number will become lower through the various travel bans that have been put in place. He has touched on enforcement measures, the isolation assurance service and police enforcement. A number of new measures—enhanced measures, I should say—will increase the checks that will take place. For example, from tomorrow the IAS will be checking more than 5,000 people and will also contact those who have arrived 10 days prior, in the way in which it has been doing and is naturally being asked to do with regards to self-isolation.

I have spoken today about an enhanced police presence at ports, borders and airports. There will be an increase of about 1,000 targeted follow-up visits a day, and that at a time when the numbers are reducing. That speaks about the stringency of these measures and speaks to the point about giving assurance on these particular enforcement measures.

It is disappointing that the hon. Gentleman, naturally, is being critical of Government measures. As I said yesterday, and as I have said on a number of occasions and will say again today, from January last year we have had a layered approach to our measures at the border. That is clearly about the travel ban—a ban on travel from countries that pose a risk, or high-risk countries. Measures are in place that I have outlined, and we are building on those. For Labour Members to claim that they have been calling for tougher restrictions since the start of the pandemic is nonsense; that is simply not the case. Labour has been flip-flopping, as I said yesterday, by calling quarantine a blunt tool or a blunt instrument. The shadow Transport Secretary, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), said that quarantine measures should be lessened. There is clearly inconsistency in the position of the Labour party, and we have always taken an approach of managing risk.

The hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) made a point about support packages, and work is taking place with other Government Departments—we are working together on that. Discussions with hotel chains are naturally under way. It is not for me to talk about them right now, but a lot of work is taking place. Again, it is important to recognise that these measures—indeed, all measures—have logistical and operational implications as well as challenges. We will work through those practicalities with all our stakeholders and partners. My colleagues in government will come to the House, as the hon. Gentleman would expect, to provide those updates, whether that is on hotels, sectoral packages, or the dialogues that are taking place.

The British public recognise that this is a deeply challenging period for our country. No one would dispute that these are difficult times throughout the global pandemic, but there is no simple or single binary approach that can be taken. It is right that we manage risk and that we do so with this layered approach. The British public, our constituents, would like all political parties to come together at this important time, to consider how we can bring in and support these measures, so that we can protect public health.

UK Border: Covid Protections

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on Covid protections at the UK border.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)]

From January 2020, the Government have had a comprehensive strategy for public health measures at the border. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office swiftly discouraged all but essential travel to China and announced that anybody entering the UK from Wuhan should self-isolate for 14 days.

In February, advice from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies recommended that those from Thailand, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Macau, and those who were symptomatic, should also self-isolate, and regulations were introduced to allow officers to detain and direct individuals. In March, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advised against all non-essential travel, initially for 30 days. On 23 March, the Prime Minister advised that everyone should stay at home and travel only for essential purposes.

A raft of measures followed in May, including 14 days’ self-isolation, passenger locator forms and fines for those who failed to comply with those mandatory conditions. In July, the Government announced the introduction of the international travel corridors. The countries on those travel corridor lists were kept under constant review and removed as the risk of importing covid-19 increased.

However, as the safeguarding of the vaccine roll-out has become the Government’s priority, we have introduced stricter controls. In December, following the identification of the new variant of the virus, we introduced a travel ban on arrivals from South Africa, later extending to a ban on South America and Portugal. We suspended travel corridors and required all passengers to show proof of a negative coronavirus test before they embark on their journey to the UK. Anyone arriving must also self-isolate for 10 days.

Those new measures are being robustly enforced to keep the public safe. Passengers must continue to fill in a passenger locator form, and those who fail to comply face a £500 fine. Carriers are under a legal obligation to check that each passenger has proof of a negative test, and are liable for a fine of £2,000 for not complying. To date, Border Force has checked an estimated 3.7 million passenger locator forms, issued more than 2,300 fixed penalty notices and referred more than 22,000 cases to the police.

The UK has a world-leading vaccination programme that should all be proud of. It is therefore right that the Government continue to do everything we can to protect the roll-out of the vaccine from new strains of the virus. We keep all measures under review and will not hesitate to take further action to protect the public.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, and to the Home Secretary for her response. It is good to see her in her place, and I hope we will see her there again to answer questions about how 400,000 police records were deleted and give us the promised update on that matter.

The efforts of the British people and the hopes of the vaccine are being undermined by the Government’s inability to secure our borders against covid. Conservative incompetence is putting our country at risk. Labour is calling for a comprehensive hotel quarantine system, with protections to secure us against new strains. It cannot be restricted to only a handful of countries, leaving gaping holes in our defences against different strains of the virus emerging around the world. The Government must also announce a sector support package for aviation.

The Government’s proposals being briefed to the press are half-baked and will be ineffective. As ever, it is too little, too late. From the start of the pandemic, the Government’s handling of measures at the border has been chaotic. There has not been a comprehensive strategy as the Home Secretary suggested. Indeed, from January last year to 23 March, only 273 people were formally quarantined. I wrote to the Home Secretary in April and asked her to learn the lessons of that, but still by May the UK was an international outlier, with virtually no travel controls.

When formal quarantining was introduced in June, the policy was so badly handled that it was ineffective. It is not being properly enforced, and the Government’s own figures show that only 3% of people are being successfully contacted to ensure that they are observing the quarantine. Even the introduction of mandatory testing was delayed because the Government could not get the structures in place.

On the briefed plans for hotel quarantine, can the Home Secretary confirm when formal plans will be introduced? Will they be comprehensive or limited to a few countries? If they are limited, how will that be acceptable when the quarantining system is in such disarray? Put simply, what confidence can the public have in the Government on this issue if Ministers are not prepared to learn from their own mistakes?

[Priti Patel]

Let me begin by saying that I welcome the hon. Gentleman giving us a chance to discuss these measures. He has also mentioned the police national computer, about which we will provide an update in due course; I can give him that reassurance.

There has been a comprehensive strategy across Government, and it dates back to 27 January last year. The hon. Gentleman will be fully aware and sighted of that. It started with travel advice from the FCO, followed by guidance from SAGE from 10 February last year. New statutory instruments, including regulations, were introduced, and there were new powers for the medical profession and the police to detain individuals carrying symptoms of coronavirus. Guidance was issued to airports in February last year around how to handle coronavirus, and there was a flurry of travel advice. That was supported by self-isolation measures and, in March, the Coronavirus Act 2020. There was a parcel of mandatory quarantine, passenger locator forms, shutting the border with Denmark when the new strain was identified, test and release, banning flights from South Africa, pre-travel tests and carrier liability.

This is a comprehensive approach and strategy. It is important to note that throughout, when it comes to coronavirus and measures at the border that involve other Departments, the measures set out have naturally come with logistical and operational challenges. I take this opportunity to thank our operational partners—our airports, in particular, and Border Force, which has been on the frontline day in and day out, checking passengers. I mentioned earlier the number of checks, and Border Force is now checking 100% of passengers arriving in the UK. We have the isolation assurance service, which is increasing the number of checks to 5,000 a day. The National Police Chiefs’ Council is already surging capacity to provide those checks.

The hon. Gentleman has referred to newspaper reports and speculation. It would be wrong of me to speculate about any measures that are not in place right now, as policy is being developed. He spoke about quarantining, and he claims that the Labour party has been calling for tougher restrictions. If I may say so, his party should reflect on its position. In August last year, the hon. Gentleman himself called quarantine “a blunt tool”. In July, the shadow Transport Secretary, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), said that quarantine measures should be “lessened”. In June last year, the Leader of the Opposition also said that the system was “a blunt instrument”.

Measures are always under review, and it is right that the Government review all measures. As I have said, we have a world-leading vaccination programme. We are proud of that programme, and the Government will do everything that they can to protect that vaccine from new strains of the virus.

Police National Computer

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the policing Minister for his statement and for advance sight of it, and I am grateful to him for his briefing over the weekend, but I must ask where the Home Secretary is. The loss of hundreds of thousands of pieces of data—data so important for apprehending suspects and safeguarding vulnerable people—is extraordinarily serious. It was the Home Secretary who needed to show leadership and take control. That is what previous Home Secretaries have done in a crisis. On the Passport Office, Windrush and knife crime, whatever their mistakes, Home Secretaries came to and answered to this House; they did not just offer a media clip, as has happened today. This Home Secretary, who is failing on violent crime and failing on the Windrush compensation scheme, with chaos on border testing, and who was found to have broken the ministerial code, will now not even answer to Parliament and the public on this most serious of issues. The Home Secretary likes to talk tough, but when the going gets tough, she is nowhere to be seen.

Will the Minister tell us when the Home Secretary first knew about the data loss and why the public had to find out from the media? Given that the initial reports were of 150,000 items of data, and the figure now seems to be over 400,000, can the Minister be sure of how much data has actually been lost? In his statement, the Minister said that on 10 January the process of deletion was stopped, but will he confirm that the faulty script was introduced into the police national computer on 23 November, meaning that the problem was not identified for 48 days?

The Minister said in his statement on Friday that

“the loss relates to individuals who were arrested and then released with no further action”.

This is serious in itself. For example, let us consider cases of domestic abuse: when suspects are released, the data becomes very important to protecting victims and making further arrests. In a letter, Deputy Chief Constable Malik, the National Police Chiefs Council lead for the police national computer, said that the deleted DNA contains

“records…marked for indefinite retention following conviction of serious offences.”

This is, therefore, not only data on individuals released with no further action; it includes data about convicted criminals, so will the Minister now correct the statement that he issued on Friday?

Will the Minister confirm whether 26,000 DNA records and 30,000 fingerprint records held on separate databases have been deleted? Will he assure the House that the engagement with the PNC to delete the Schengen information system—SIS II—database was unrelated? What is the full impact on the UK visa system from the data loss, and how is it affecting ongoing police investigations and intelligence gathering?

The PNC and the police national database are due to be replaced by the national law enforcement data programme, but the assessment by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority is that the successful delivery of the project is in doubt. Is it still in doubt? If so, why? There are reports that 18 months ago senior police outlined that the Home Office was not investing in the PNC and that it presented a significant risk to the police’s ability to protect the public. Was that warning heeded?

Finally, if it is not possible to recover data via the process currently under way, what contingency plans are in place to seek to recover the data via other means? Does the Minister accept that maintaining the security of this vital data is critical to addressing crime, bringing criminals to justice and keeping our communities safe, and that if the Home Office is not doing that, it is failing the public?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman has given me a long series of questions, which I shall try to answer as efficiently as I possibly can. Once the error became clear to the team, they escalated it up through the Home Office, first of all on Monday, and then through Wednesday into ministerial and other offices, in accordance with normal protocols.

As to the scale of the data, while the figure of 400,000 has been quoted, that is an accumulation of the various bits of information that may or may not have been deleted. As I said, a number of bits of information may apply to one individual, so the number of individual records on the PNC that might be affected could be smaller, but we will not know exactly until later this week, once the programme that is being analysed has come to an end.

As for when the script was introduced, that was indeed six weeks prior to what is called the weeding date, which is when the deletion was due to take place. That is standard practice, to load the script into the system some weeks before it is due to run. It did not run until the Saturday, when the error within it became immediately apparent.

As to the records that are affected, I am informed that the records that have been deleted are those that relate to people who were apprehended or put under investigation by the police. When there was subsequently a declaration of no further action to be taken, if there were prior convictions or offences on the police national computer, my information—what I have been told thus far—is that that those will remain. Only information relating to that specific incident, which was no further action, may or may not have been deleted. To a certain extent, that helps to mitigate some of the risk.

It is also worth pointing out that, as I said in my statement, there are other databases, both locally and those held nationally, such as IDENT the fingerprint database or the national DNA database, which may also be searched. The PNC draws its data from a number of other databases and when, because of our legal obligations, a deletion request is put on to the police national computer, it cascades deletions down through the other databases in accordance with the law. Those subsequent deletions were halted immediately, and that should help us, we hope, with recoverability of the dataset.

The hon. Gentleman asked about SIS II. That is indeed unrelated, and visa processing was suspended for approximately 24 hours. Everybody whose customer service threshold could not be met as a consequence of that was informed, but processing was resumed pretty quickly. We are assessing the impact on ongoing police investigations, while we analyse the report that has been run, which will give us the full picture of what has actually happened on the system.

Having said that, policing partners and the Home Office have put in place mitigations, not least informing other police forces—as Nav Malik did—that they should be making subsequent checks of their own and other databases, not least the police national database, which is a separate database from the police national computer and holds intelligence and other information.

On the national law enforcement data project, the replacement of the PNC, while that process has had its fair share of problems, it is fair to say we have undergone a reset. There is now a renewed sense of partnership working between the Home Office and the police, to make sure we get that much needed upgrade in technology correct.

The hon. Gentleman’s final point was about accepting the maintenance of data. He is absolutely right: we accept that it is very important that we, and indeed police forces and other governmental bodies that hold people’s personal data, do our best to maintain its integrity and to do so as faultlessly as possible. In these circumstances, we were attempting through this code to comply with our stringent legal obligations to delete personal data where it cannot be held by us or by other databases. Sadly, human error introduced into the code has led to this particular situation, which we hope is rectifiable. I am more than happy to keep the hon. Gentleman updated, as I did on Saturday afternoon, when I briefed him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. He will know the strength of support I have for Thames Valley police force in particular and the exceptional work they have done and do. I commend them for their work, particularly on burglary. I want to wish everybody a happy Christmas, and a safe and secure Christmas to all members of the public.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I open by thanking the many neighbourhood police officers who did so much work last month visiting schools in support of the vital message of Anti-Bullying Week. I am sure all Members of the House would agree with that message and with teaching the importance of upholding those values, yet we have a Home Secretary in office who has been found to have broken the ministerial code by bullying. What signal does the Home Secretary think that sends to victims of bullying all around the country as to whether they should come forward?

[Priti Patel]

First, as the House will know, I have already made an apology to those I have inadvertently upset, and I have also made it clear that I am now getting on with delivering on the people’s priorities.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

The truth is that the whole episode shows a Government who have lost sight of their moral compass. The Prime Minister’s former distinguished adviser on ethics, Sir Alex Allan, found that the Home Secretary had breached the ministerial code for the second time, yet he is the one who loses his job. It sends the most terrible signal to victims in workplaces and schools around the country. Let us be clear: this has happened in the context of chronic failure, with violent crime rocketing across the country, conviction rates at record lows and domestic abuse charities struggling to keep their doors open. It has taken two and a half years for the Government to consider any meaningful action on the offensive mess that is the Windrush compensation scheme. Is not the truth under this Government that it is one rule for the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and their friends, and another for everybody else?

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and may I thank her for the conscientious way in which she has been raising this issue, but also tackling it locally? I am abundantly clear, and Ministers have spoken of it in the House this afternoon as well, that the support is out there. We continue to work with police forces across the country, which will continue to use the tools of law enforcement to go after abusers, but also to make sure that victims are protected.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

With your leave, Mr Speaker, I begin by warmly congratulating American President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris. It is historic that we will see the first woman and the first woman of colour to be vice-president. Their victory is a lift for all around the world who believe in decency, value the truth and recognise the unifying power of hope.

Last week, we saw far more depressing news at home, where it emerged that at least nine people have died waiting for compensation for the Windrush scandal and just 12% of people who have applied have received compensation. Those figures are shameful. May I ask the Home Secretary what message she would send to those who are still waiting for justice?

[Priti Patel]

I thank the shadow Home Secretary for raising the important issue of Windrush, and he will know of my own personal commitment, not just within the Department, to tackle the injustices that have taken place in the past. He is right in the figures he gave about the nine individuals who have passed away, and all our thoughts are with those families. We continue to work specifically with those families, to make the claims and ensure that compensation is still paid out to families of claimants who have passed away. Importantly, the compensation scheme has now paid out more than £1.6 million, and a further £1.2 million has been offered. As the hon. Gentleman will know from all the discussions and from each time I come to the House, I am determined to go further and faster. Let me add one other point: it is important that we treat everybody humanely. These are individuals. They are people and not just cases.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I recognise what the Home Secretary says, but the Windrush taskforce was set up more than two and a half years ago. Another five months have passed since June, when the Government promised that it was time for action, and the Home Secretary told the House that she had individual cases passing across her desk. Let me be clear: the Home Secretary will not regain trust on this issue unless the process starts delivering. Let me make a suggestion. Will she work to apply targets to the process, and give victims binding guarantees about how long claims will take, so that they can be processed efficiently? Surely she must accept that things cannot go on as they are?

[Priti Patel]

I have been clear that we are absolutely determined, with conviction and commitment, to support those who have been affected by the whole Windrush scandal. This is not about targets; this is not just about cases. This is about people, and it is right that processes are in place. I have offered the hon. Gentleman and other colleagues across the House, the chance to work with us and see how those claims are assessed and processed. It is right to pay attention to detail with these cases. Detail was missed in the past, which was how we had that great sense of injustice. I am committed, as are my Department and officials, to righting the wrongs of the past, and we will do that in a thoughtful and proper way.

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

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

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for his opening speech, and for his briefings and approach to this Bill. He has been generous with his time and I appreciate that.

First, I thank our police and security services, the National Crime Agency and wider law enforcement for the work they do in keeping us safe. Those on the frontline put themselves in danger every day to help others, to protect us and to prevent loss of life. That work is vital and in the national interest, and we thank them for what they do on our behalf. We on the Opposition Benches recognise the importance of that work, and of covert human intelligence sources and the results they achieve. The issue is how we ensure that vital work continues, but on a statutory footing and with the strong safeguards that are also vital.

I have listened carefully to what our law enforcement agencies have said about covert human intelligence sources. The Minister referenced the director general of MI5, who has said that

“Since March 2017, MI5 and Counter Terror Police have together thwarted 27 terror attacks.”

His judgment was that

“Without the contribution of human agents, be in no doubt, many of these attacks would not have been prevented.”

To be clear, that activity is saving lives by stopping terrorist attacks on people.

I have also considered the wider data available, particularly on the National Crime Agency. In 2018, for example, covert human intelligence operations disrupted threats to life, arrested serious criminals, seized thousands of kilograms of class A drugs, safeguarded over 200 vulnerable people, and took firearms and rounds of ammunition off the streets. I also appreciate the role that covert human intelligence sources play in addressing heinous crimes such as child sexual exploitation, and organised crime such as black markets in, among other things, vital medicine. We on the Opposition side of the House recognise the importance of that work.

At the same time, though, that work has not been on a statutory footing. Frankly, it should be, alongside formal safeguards. This activity is not new; it has been going on under existing practices for many years, and it should be on a statutory footing because that will allow for the necessary and robust safeguards that we on the Opposition Benches will be pressing for. It should be on a consistent and clear basis, and a system with clear protections should be in place. As we put this system on to a statutory footing, it is a moment to be clear about what we expect of those engaged in this conduct and the standards we should set; as this Bill passes through the House, it is a moment to detail not just those standards, but how we expect them to be implemented. That is why we in the Opposition will not be voting against this Bill tonight, but feel it should move to Committee for consideration and improvement.

I know that there are deep concerns about the safeguards in this Bill and it is to that crucial issue I now turn. The matters we are dealing with today are difficult for any Parliament; they are deep and serious questions for any democratic society, and raise critical issues that the Government will need to address as the Bill progresses through the House and the other place. It is crucial, too, that there is public confidence in what our security services and other agencies that use covert human intelligence sources actually do with regard to authorised criminal conduct. I entirely accept that an agent embedded in a proscribed organisation is committing an offence every day by virtue of being part of it, but is doing so for the purpose of thwarting plots and stopping greater loss of life. I appreciate that, but it is still vital that the wider framework under which they operate has trust and confidence.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Members of this House, when considering this Bill, should take comfort from the fact that we have one of the most rigorous and toughest oversight regimes in the world for regulating our intelligence services?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I of course welcome the oversight that has been introduced for our intelligence services; the situation is very different from how it was in decades past. However, that does not detract from the additional safeguards that are needed in this specific Bill.

Under the Bill as it stands—I am quoting, because I want to press the Minister on this point—authorisations for participation in criminal conduct may only be granted

“if it is necessary (a) in the interests of national security; (b) for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder; or (c) in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom.”

The Government need to be clear about what is within the scope of that framework. It cannot and should not encompass any lawful activity, nor should we allow mission creep in the years ahead.

I hope the Minister would agree that a Bill such as this one should have no business whatsoever interfering with the legitimate and lawful work of our trade union movement, which is a cornerstone of our democracy and a bastion of rights. I welcome what the Minister said in answer to an intervention—that trade union activity is legitimate and lawful and therefore is not within the ambit of the Bill—but some concerns have been expressed that the words I quoted referring to economic interests could refer to the legitimate work of trade unions. I would welcome it if the Solicitor General, when he responds to the debate, could repeat the Minister’s assurance that trade unions are not meant to come within the ambit of those words.

In addition to the test of necessity, the authorisation may be granted only where it is

“proportionate to what is sought to be achieved by”

the conduct. I welcome and note the test of necessity and proportionality. Nothing should be authorised in contravention of the European convention on human rights, to which I will return in a moment. But first the Government must justify the need for each and every agency and body listed in the Bill—what powers, what purpose. Nobody expects details on ongoing investigations—of course we do not—but a sense of the type of issues expected to arise is crucial to enable the House to consider that list properly and whether the presence of the organisation on the list is necessary.

In answer to an intervention from the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who is no longer in his place, the Minister mentioned, with regard to the Food Standards Agency, mislabelling and unsafe food. We need more detail on that and the links to organised and serious crime. Similarly, the Gambling Commission is another example, and it is absolutely clear as to why that is on the list. I do not propose to go through the list one by one; suffice it to say that each and every one needs to be justified.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

As a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I have seen how the security services conduct these activities in detail in some cases. When I saw the Bill and the list of organisations, I was a bit shocked, to be honest. The Minister made the argument for the inclusion of the Food Standards Agency; from my experience—not personal experience, I hasten to add—of a case that involved waste theft and the Environment Agency, the lead was the police, and the Environment Agency worked across agencies. I want some assurance as to why it is necessary for the Food Standards Agency or the Environment Agency, for that matter, to have a lead in these situations.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I was relieved to have the reassurance that my right hon. Friend’s experience did not involve him personally, but he is entirely right about the reassurances that are necessary in terms of each and every case.

As the Minister has said, there is a section 19 certification from the Home Secretary on the face of the Bill regarding its compatibility with convention rights. In addition to that, I note that in clause 1, what will become the new section 29B(7) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 mentions the Human Rights Act 1998 specifically. There is a real need for reassurance on this issue, so that the public and the House know that the most heinous of crimes will not be carried out in the name of this Government or, indeed, any other future Government. I appreciate that the European convention on human rights protects the right to life and is clear about the prohibition of torture or, indeed, subjecting anyone to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and that is important, but the Government need to be crystal clear about their intention for when the courts come to consider this legislation, as they inevitably will. We cannot have any doubts about the Government’s intention or Parliament’s intention.

I accept that it is important that the Human Rights Act is, unusually, mentioned on the face of the Bill, and I notice that the accompanying memorandum sets out the following:

“Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 makes it unlawful for public authorities to act in a way which is incompatible with Convention rights. Nothing in this Bill detracts from that fundamental position. Authorising authorities are not permitted by this Bill to authorise conduct which would constitute or entail a breach of those rights.”

What we cannot have is a position, referred to by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), in which any argument is put on the Government’s behalf in courts or tribunals that this system is not in place covering the activities of covert human intelligence sources, or that this system is somehow free or exempt from Human Rights Act considerations. Nor could we have a situation where there are deliberate attempts to prevent the Human Rights Act from coming into play. That is why we will be pressing the Government on public limits and on their position regarding those limits on criminal activity to be authorised.

[Mr David Davis]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, by not specifying in terms, the Government are inviting a challenge to the whole Bill, not under the Human Rights Act but under the torture convention? The international view of torture is more absolute than the international view of murder. Therefore, I think it highly likely that if the Bill goes through as it stands, the Government will be facing the courts within the next year, losing their case and having to rewrite the Bill.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. If the Bill does not have those safeguards on its face as it should, it will simply be successfully challenged in our courts. It is in nobody’s interests for that position to pertain, which is why I am making this point, on which I hope we can work on a cross-party basis.

[Julian Smith]

In its legal adjudication on the third direction earlier this year, a majority on the Investigatory Powers Tribunal—the special tribunal overseeing the intelligence services—found that the oversight powers currently given to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner provided

“adequate safeguards against the risk of abuse of discretionary power”.

It is important in our debate on the Bill to recognise those comments in that judgment, which is partly the reason that the Government have introduced the Bill.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

The right hon. Gentleman refers to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, an issue to which I will return in a moment, but what he is actually referring to is one of the instances where the Government have tried to argue that the Human Rights Act did not apply. It is precisely for that reason, and because such arguments were raised in the past, that I am raising the point that I am.

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I understand that one of the filings that the Government put to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal said that

“the state, in tasking the CHIS…is not the instigator of that activity and cannot be treated as somehow responsible for it…it would be unreal to hold the state responsible.”

Does he share my concern about the various get-out clauses for the Government in these powers, and does he agree that it is better to have a public limit and safeguards, as they do in Canada for example, on a number of such activities?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, both on the Canada model and on the point, which I put to the Government, that we cannot have a situation in future where there is any doubt about what was meant on the face of this Bill. We cannot have the Government having put forward on their behalf the argument that the Human Rights Act somehow does not apply.

[Mr David Davis]

The Government should not rest too hard on an IPT judgment. It is normal in these intelligence oversight commissions to have unanimity from the judges. In this case it was a 3-2 judgment, and the minority in that judgment described the Government’s argument as “fanciful” and “extraordinary” and as setting “dangerous precedents”, so I do not think they should rest on that at all.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

No, and the right hon. Gentleman illustrates precisely the point I am making. That is why the position has to be crystal clear. We cannot have a situation where such arguments are being put in written submissions, or in other ways, before a tribunal or indeed any other court. The public limit—this reassurance—is so important because, as I have said, if the Government do not get it right, and if they are not crystal clear on issues such as murder, torture and sexual violence, they will get into trouble in the courts in any event.

Given the nature of some of the networks that the Bill looks to disrupt, there are also clear concerns about the gendered impact of actions by covert human intelligence sources. The Government must seek to uphold the highest possible standards on gender impact. We will be pushing for such safeguards as the Bill moves forward, particularly in relation to rape and sexual violence. Members have also rightly expressed concerns about the risk of a disproportionate impact on black, Asian and other ethnic minority communities. We will push for safeguards on that, too, as the Bill progresses. When the Solicitor General winds up, I hope he can also provide assurances about the work being undertaken by law enforcement to address that and commit to publishing full and extensive Equality Act 2010 assessments.

On those who make decisions to authorise criminal conduct, the memorandum on the European convention on human rights supplied with the Bill states:

“The Bill strengthens the current legal position by putting the power to authorise criminal conduct by a CHIS on an explicit statutory footing.”

A legal framework is needed—I am clear that this activity should not continue in the shadows without clear accountability—but at present there is self-authorisation in the Bill.

If the police were to enter the property of any Member of this House, they would need a warrant to do so beforehand. I appreciate that things in this sphere move at speed, but in a number of areas of law we have judges available 24 hours a day who can offer services and give judgments on things such as emergency injunctions, so we will press that issue of prior judicial oversight. The more serious the crime authorised, the more senior the level of authorisation necessary—the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) made that point—subject to that oversight, and there needs to be assurance that the standards that this House sets will be adhered to and implemented.

Clause 4(3) amends section 234 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 to require the Investigatory Powers Commissioner to include information about public authorities’ use of criminal conduct authorisations in its annual report. It is stated that that will include statistics on use of the power, the operation of safeguards, and errors, which I will come back to in a moment.

I appreciate that that requirement is subject to the existing protections in the Investigatory Powers Act for information that relates to national security. I also appreciate that public authorities will have to disclose all documents necessary to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. However, as it stands, the requirement is too vague, as was pointed out by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper).

The requirement must involve more than the inclusion of a section or some sort of confidential annexe in the commissioner’s annual report. There is no reason why, for example, categories of crime cannot be published without compromising operational security. Every single authorisation should be notified to the commissioner, who can then provide ongoing oversight. That seems to me to be a far more effective way of giving reassurance on the operation of safeguards and of ensuring that where there are errors—again, I will return to that—something can be done immediately to ensure that such a mistake does not happen again. It seems to me that if this is looked at only on an annual basis, there is more scope for errors to be built into the system. I do not think it is unduly onerous for each and every authorisation to be notified to the commissioner.

I also see no reason why Members of this House—I mean the Intelligence and Security Committee, which deals with sensitive information all the time—cannot have more detail about the use of this power and in what context. Again, that would give far greater reassurance about the use of the power over time and public confidence in it.

In addition, there is the issue of redress and civil claims for wholly innocent victims. In the memorandum on convention rights, the Government state:

“The individuals who are most likely to be affected by the criminal conduct of a CHIS are those with whom the agent is engaging in order to thwart the criminality.”

That may be, but the key words there are “most likely”. What about a wholly innocent person who ends up with material or other loss as a consequence of the actions of a covert human intelligence source?

The position in the Bill is that a complaint can be made to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner with regard to these powers, which can be independently considered. I appreciate that the Investigatory Powers Tribunal has the jurisdiction to determine complaints against public authorities’ use of investigatory powers, including the use of covert human intelligence sources, but that is not the same as a proper civil claim. What if the authorised criminal act is botched? What if there is mistaken identity? Again, that is something that we will press in Committee.

While there is a narrow but fundamental part of the Bill about authorising criminal conduct, I want to talk about some wider issues. In relation to Northern Ireland, it must be clear that legacy issues are not affected by the Bill in the context of the peace process. On the issue of past injustices, I am grateful to the Minister for setting out again that this is not a retrospective Bill, but it has to be clear that those seeking justice for what happened in the past can still do so. We on the Labour Benches are committed to a full, independent public inquiry into the events at the Orgreave coking plant on 18 June 1984. It will only be by shining a penetrating light on the events of that day that we can have justice, and I commend those who have been campaigning on it for so long.

There is an ongoing inquiry into undercover policing—the so-called spy cop scandal, referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy)—chaired by Sir John Mitting. The evidential hearings open next month, and it has to be clear that recommendations from that inquiry will be implemented and victims will not be denied access to justice. I appreciated the Minister’s reassurance that such appalling behaviour was never lawful in the past and will not be lawful in the future. We must never stand to one side on issues like this. We commit again to pressing for justice for all victims. The delays in the existing inquiry have been unacceptable. Victims have been put through a terrible ordeal, and the least they deserve is access to justice.

I also want to talk about the practice of deceitful and unlawful blacklisting. In doing so, I refer to my entry into the Register of Members’ Financial Interests regarding my union, the Unite union, and its financial support for my election campaign to this House. I appreciate that the Bill is a narrow one on criminal conduct, rather than the wider issue of when an undercover policing operation begins, but since the blacklisting scandal surfaced over a decade ago, it is clear that these are not merely allegations. I appreciate that, in relation to blacklisting in the construction industry, we have seen a substantial out-of-court settlement, and there are ongoing proceedings. However, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin’s findings in the Metropolitan police’s internal investigation stated:

“The report concludes that, on the balance of probabilities, the allegation that the police or special branches supplied information is ‘proven.’ Material revealed a potentially improper flow of information from Special Branch to external organisations, which ultimately appeared on the blacklist.”

That is a hugely serious issue. The Government should be on notice that we will not hesitate to raise this and hold Ministers to account on the involvement of our law enforcement in the disgraceful process of blacklisting.

[Mr Davis]

I also declare an interest: a member of my family was blacklisted. This concern is not confined to the Labour party. The probable handing on of information from special branch is something that needs to be resolved as part of the honour of our country.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s support in that matter, and I am happy that the Minister has made clear that this legislation has no impact on the search for justice in relation to that appalling practice.

The aim of this legislation should be to keep people safe and bring dangerous criminals to justice. I appreciate the assurance that this does not, and is not designed in any way to, disrupt legitimate and lawful trade union activity. Should any Bill do that, it would be opposed by Labour Members.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy]

From listening to the arguments that have been made, it strikes me that the Bill is presumably intended to protect undercover officers from facing prosecution in a situation where they should not, because they are doing their work. More experienced Members might be able to give me examples of situations where officers have faced prosecution in those circumstances, but I certainly cannot think of any. A few weeks ago, during our debate on the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, we were told about ambulance-chasing lawyers, and I am wondering whether we will now hear about police-chasing prosecution services.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I certainly would never use divisive rhetoric about those before our courts who are protecting people’s rights; we should be absolutely clear about that. This Bill is on the narrow issue of criminal conduct. It should not and would not have anything to do with trade union and lawful activity, and if it ever did, it would, of course, be strongly opposed. On my hon. Friend’s final point, existing practice versus what happens now is a very important issue. At the moment, this happens in the shadows: it happens where prosecuting authorities are given specific information and the prosecutions simply do not take place. This should be on a proper statutory footing, with the safeguards we are arguing for.

Labour’s commitment is to work in the national interest to keep people, their families, their community and the country safe. That is why I have taken the approach I have with the Bill. We recognise the importance of this activity being on a statutory footing, which is why I will not be opposing the passage of the Bill today. However, in Committee we will look to press the Government on their position. We will hold Ministers to account, seeking to improve the Bill on the vital issue of safeguards, so that the public can have confidence in the process, while law enforcement bodies can carry out the vital work of keeping us all safe.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am going to start with a time limit of nine minutes, which is advisory. I put on a time limit of nine minutes so that no individual Member is encouraged to take dozens of interventions and therefore take 20 minutes. I hope that that will be roughly about right to ensure that everybody gets a decent chance to speak on this extremely important issue.