Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]

Paul Goggins Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Browne]

I am grateful, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak to the amendments and thus begin our deliberations on Report. The Government amendments in this group deal with two substantive issues: first, whether the Bill should include a mechanism to confer counter-terrorism functions on the National Crime Agency; and secondly, the extent to which the NCA should operate in Northern Ireland. I will deal with each issue in turn.

New clause 3 seeks to restore to the Bill the power to confer counter-terrorism functions on the NCA by means of an order, subject to the super-affirmative procedure. The House will be aware that on Report the other place removed from the Bill what was then clause 2. In explaining why we have brought back this clause, it is worth reiterating the comments of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on Second Reading. She said:

“I have been clear that no decision on this issue has been taken and that none will be taken until after the NCA has been established and following a detailed review. However, the creation of a national crime agency with a national remit to combat serious, organised and complex crime invites the question whether it should take on national functions in respect of counter-terrorism policing.”

She continued:

“ I do not come to this question with any preconceived ideas about what the answer should be, but it was prudent, in my view, for the Bill as originally introduced to have included a future-proofing provision.”—[Official Report, 14 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 635.]

Since then we have reflected further on concerns raised in the other place that this was not an appropriate matter to be left to secondary legislation. This theme was also a feature of the debates in this House, both on Second Reading and in Committee.

Having reflected carefully on the debates on this issue thus far, and on the reports by the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, the Government remain firmly of the view that this is an appropriate matter for secondary legislation and that the super-affirmative procedure provides a sufficient level of parliamentary scrutiny. Indeed, the conditions that are tied to it provide ample opportunity for this House and the other place to scrutinise any such order.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Browne]

Let me finish the point first.

There is a duty on the Home Secretary to consult persons affected before laying a draft order. There is then an opportunity for Committees of either House to scrutinise the draft order—I envisage that this task would fall to the Home Affairs Committee—and then the draft order must be approved by both Houses of Parliament. This is not a parliamentary process that we take lightly or that would be taken lightly by either House. For that reason we believe that it would entail the appropriate level of scrutiny to satisfy those who rightly take a close interest in these matters.

[Paul Goggins]

My question is a simple one. Why did the Minister not table new clause 3 in Committee and allow the Committee to scrutinise in detail and in depth the proposal that he is now making? He will remember the exchanges that he had with various Members in Committee. It is disingenuous to table the new clause on Report and not to have allowed the Committee to have a detailed debate. He has been doing a lot of reflecting. Why did he not reflect on the detail of the debate that we could have had in Committee?

[Mr Browne]

It seems to me that this is not a very substantive issue; it is a procedural issue. The Government have not taken a view as to whether counter-terrorism should be transferred into the NCA. The NCA is not even up and running yet. It requires the assent of the House before we get to that stage, and we have said that when the NCA is up and running, that is something that the Home Secretary may wish to consider.

If the Government recommend at a future date that counter-terrorism functions should be transferred to the NCA, there is, as I have just explained, a provision for that to be considered in great detail. I will repeat it briefly in case hon. Members did not latch on to the point—that is why I made it before giving way: there is a duty on the Home Secretary to consult persons affected before laying a draft order, then there is an opportunity for Committees of either House to scrutinise the draft order, and I said that I envisage that task falling to the Home Affairs Committee, a cross-party Committee chaired by a distinguished member of the Opposition, and then the draft order must explicitly be approved by both Houses.

When it comes to deliberating on the content of the proposal, as distinct from the parliamentary mechanisms—the merits or otherwise of counter-terrorism being exercised by the National Crime Agency—if that process of deliberation is necessary, because the Government regard that as a wise way to proceed, there will be the opportunity for Members to make their views clearly known. But the question we are considering is whether it is suitable and appropriate for that provision to be made in the Bill, using the super-affirmative procedure. I hope that the House is persuaded by what I have just said about there being ample opportunity to debate the substance of these matters and that it is therefore an appropriate way to proceed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hanson]

I am grateful to the Minister. Perhaps between now and the super-affirmative order coming forward he will guarantee that he will make the order amendable. It currently would not be amendable; for another place and this House it would be a question of take it or leave it. Primary legislation would allow either House to examine the proposals and amend, refine or challenge them, but a super-affirmative order would not.

I say gently to the Minister that although three Metropolitan Police Commissioners may have an interest in the Metropolitan police, they have been responsible for co-ordinating counter-terrorism activities. If they raise concerns, he has a duty to allow them to be listened to. The concerns are not about the ultimate position but about whether it can be reached via primary legislation so that either House can make tweaks. The Minister is simply saying that the Government will review the matter and decide on it, and then table a take-it-or-leave-it order for both Houses to decide on. That is not an appropriate way forward.

[Paul Goggins]

My right hon. Friend is doing an excellent job of highlighting the Government’s inconsistency on the issue. Does he recall that earlier in this Parliament the Government insisted that provisions for enhanced terrorism prevention and investigation measures or the extension of pre-charge detention beyond 14 days could be made only through fresh primary legislation? Now they want to give the Home Secretary the power to transfer the lead responsibility for counter-terrorism to the National Crime Agency through secondary legislation. It is completely inconsistent.

[Mr Hanson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who knows what he is talking about. He had to take executive decisions on important matters, particularly to do with Northern Ireland and terrorism, at a time when Northern Ireland was not as stable as it is now, even though there are challenges today.

I say gently to the Minister that he should listen to some of the experience that is out there. This is not about the end product, because we can debate that and the review will raise a number of issues about it. It is about how we get consent to that end product, which could be through amendments to legislation. I defy him to say that there is no time for legislation to be brought forward in the next 12 months, either as a new clause to another Bill or as a stand-alone Bill, to make the changes in question. I do not believe that is the case, and I think he is being disingenuous—dare I say that? Perhaps I should say that he is reflecting on the matter in a way that I would not wish him to reflect.

The situation with regard to Northern Ireland is a bit of a shambles. I fully understand why political parties in Northern Ireland have taken the view that they have, and why it is important that the Government do not legislate for Northern Ireland. However, I ask the Minister who is responsible for negotiating with the Northern Ireland Assembly to get some traction on the matter. I have tabled questions to the Northern Ireland Office and the Home Office, and both have said that they are meeting David Ford, the Northern Ireland Justice Minister, on a regular basis. However, who is taking on the challenge of ensuring that the Northern Ireland Policing Board, the four or five political parties represented there and the people who have concerns about the proposal, as well as those from all sides who do not, are heard? What is the process, and how is it being taken forward?

The Bill has been trailed for perhaps 18 months, and it was produced in another place and has been debated in the Commons. The issue has arisen not this week but over many months. The National Crime Agency will not have input into key issues in Northern Ireland, including drug trafficking, fuel laundering, smuggling and a range of serious organised crime. Its relationship with the Police Service of Northern Ireland is still to be defined in a practical way. How has it come to that point?

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Goggins]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), who spoke with his usual authority and attention to detail. I shall return to some of his points later.

I am deeply unhappy about new clause 3, which would provide the Home Secretary with an order-making power to change the lead responsibility for counter-terrorism by secondary legislation. In an intervention, I said it seemed odd that the Government wanted fresh primary legislation to extend pre-charge detention beyond 14 days—where urgent action would be needed if speed were of the essence—but here, on something that needs to be considered very carefully and at great length, they want to provide for an order-making power. I deeply regret that the Minister has completely ignored the Second Reading debate, when the Home Secretary said that she had not made up her mind. He failed to produce an amendment in Committee. Even though we finished our deliberations in Committee a day early, we had no opportunity to scrutinise this proposal. We can debate whether lead responsibility should be with the Met or the NCA, but it should be decided in fresh primary, not secondary, legislation.

As we heard, an unfortunate side effect of the proposal is that some in Northern Ireland have been able to suggest that it muddies the waters in relation to who is in charge of counter-terrorism operations and investigations. I asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland last week whether she would clarify that, and very helpfully she said:

“The primacy of the Chief Constable is retained to ensure consistency with the devolution of policing and justice.”—[Official Report, 6 March 2013; Vol. 559, c. 941.]

The Chief Constable has the lead in counter-terrorism, yet some have been able to suggest that that is confused by the Home Secretary’s proposal. That is a regrettable further side effect of the proposal. If the Government prevail today, I hope that those in another place will once again throw the measure out.

Like virtually everyone in the House—I think an exception might be made in a short while—I am deeply unhappy that the Government have had to table new schedule 1 to deal with the lack of a legislative consent motion in Northern Ireland. I generally accept the argument advanced by the hon. Member for East Antrim that we cannot simply blame the Ministers in this Government, but there has been a clear lack of urgency and clarity from them about who has the lead in these negotiations. Negotiations in the context of Northern Ireland are hard work, but I have not really seen any evidence that they have been taking place. It may be that they have been going on hidden from view, but if they have been going on, they ought to continue apace because it is essential to resolve this issue—the sooner, the better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Naomi Long]

I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman would agree that there is another important issue here, to which the Government might be able to respond. Where the NCA is operating in the reserved field in Northern Ireland, we will still have an input into the organised crime effort. The Home Secretary, however, has removed the statutory requirement to consult the Department of Justice and the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland on strategic priorities and in respect of the annual plan by the director-general. That leaves another deficit that could be filled if the Government acted now.

[Paul Goggins]

I compliment my hon. Friend on her ingenuity in seeing two pages ahead in my speaking notes; I will come on to her very important point in a few moments.

I was reflecting on the effectiveness of the Organised Crime Task Force and how SOCA has been able to work with all the other law-enforcement agencies. Last year alone—this is in the annual report—£13 million-worth of drugs were seized, 33 potential victims of human trafficking were rescued, £4.44 million-worth of criminal assets were seized, and the list goes on. That is the result of working together to combat organised crime. That is now being put at risk because of the breakdown in negotiations and the failure to get a legislative consent motion. As reported by the BBC today, a recent massive operation against the illegal fuel trade involved law enforcement north and south of the border, with 300 officers deployed. If we do not get that sort of co-operation continuing at the highest possible level and to the fullest extent, the impact of such operations will be greatly diminished.

I have four specific points to put to the Minister, some involving broader issues. The first has been alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long). I think it is a mistake to take the Northern Ireland Justice Minister out of the loop of consultation, as suggested by the Minister in new schedule 1. That Northern Ireland Minister will no longer be consulted on strategic priorities, on the annual plan or indeed in respect of the appointment of a director-general. We have an impasse here: taking the Northern Ireland Justice Minister out of the loop of consultation is, I think, the result of a failure to co-operate or to show the right spirit. We want to get this issue dealt with across the line, not to retreat from the line. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East made an important point in her intervention. David Ford chairs the Organised Crime Task Force and is in a leading position in the fight against organised crime, so not to consult him on these key issues is a big mistake.

In that context, the Minister has described himself as a “collegiate” Minister—and who am I to argue with that description? I was rather hoping, in that spirit, that he would have come back with an amendment to schedule 6, paragraph 1(2), which deals with inspection. Provision is made there for inspections relating to the NCA in Scotland, but no mention is made—there is still no mention of it anywhere in the Bill—of Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland. It inspects the police there. It should be involved in any inspection of the NCA. In the spirit of trying to move this forward to get a meeting of minds, the Minister could, even at this late stage, make a commitment to involve Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland in the same way that he is involving the Scottish inspectors in Scotland.

Secondly, the Minister has to tell us more about how the negotiations will continue. Who is in the lead? Is he in the lead? Is it the Home Secretary or the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland? Is there a meeting this week? Is there a meeting next week? Are Ministers planning to meet the parties? How is it being done? Is there any real urgency in the negotiations that should be happening? Are Ministers just sitting back and waiting for Northern Ireland politicians to come forward? We really need to know whether something is happening. As I said, negotiation is hard work, but it is important for Ministers to get on with it.

Thirdly, let me deal with operational co-operation. I particularly want the Minister to address the issue of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. Frankly, many of our constituents think that CEOP, an excellent organisation, operates independently, but it is in fact part of SOCA and will be part of the National Crime Agency. The huge irony is that Jim Gamble, an excellent first chief executive, is from Northern Ireland and was a former officer with the Royal Ulster Constabulary. He did so much to put CEOP in the place it is as a world leader in this field.

What is going to happen in Northern Ireland? Will the Chief Constable have to establish a new team to deal with these issues? What happens if CEOP has intelligence and important information about paedophiles in Northern Ireland? What is going to be done? What are the practical arrangements that Ministers are overseeing and how will they ensure that they are in place to deal with such problems? It is important not just to have reassurance about the operational responsibilities but to ensure that the message goes out to people that, if they know of abuse or if they have been abused, they must come forward to report it. Goodness me, after all we are supposed to have learned from Savile, any message that says “Frankly, CEOP is closed in Northern Ireland” would be a dreadful message to send. It is essential that the Minister provides some reassurance about that.

[Naomi Long]

I hope I can reassure my right hon. Friend slightly. The Justice Minister is aware of that particular risk and is working to try to put in place mechanisms to ensure that such a gap does not exist and that alternative arrangements are available for co-operation and the trading of information if we fail to get to the desirable point where the whole of the NCA is operating properly in Northern Ireland.

[Paul Goggins]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that assurance. It is timely to pay tribute to David Ford, the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland, who has done a superb job since devolution and who is, even now, looking at and trying to deal with the risks that may occur if consent is not given to these provisions. It does not come as a surprise to me at all to know that he is trying to plug the gaps in these provisions. The Minister, however, is the Minister responsible for the NCA and for CEOP, so that Minister has to offer us some reassurances.

My last point is about the relationship between the NCA and the Northern Ireland Policing Board. The hon. Member for East Antrim made the point that when he was a member of the Policing Board it was important to establish what the relationship was between a UK-wide body and the Northern Ireland Policing Board. I remember going, as the Minister responsible for policing in Northern Ireland, to the Policing Board—I did that once a year—for a formal session on organised crime. I would take with me senior SOCA officers, so that the Policing Board could ask them questions and get to the bottom of certain issues. We were as open as we possibly could be, even though there was no formal requirement for accountability. That was the spirit in which we operated. What will happen now? If the NCA is to have no formal relationship in Northern Ireland, the danger is that such discussions, formal and informal, will cease to happen. Yet the NCA will still have responsibilities for customs and immigration in Northern Ireland. There will be a loss of communication and dialogue about those and other important issues.

There is a huge agenda here. I hope that the Minister will be able to offer us some reassurance about the urgency with which he is dealing with these matters and the negotiations that need to take place, and that he will respond in detail to the points that I, and others, have raised. There are continuing and serious differences of opinion in Northern Ireland, which must be respected and worked through in a democratic way, but surely there should be absolute unanimity when it comes to the need to combat organised crime and the awful evil that it brings. That, at least, should be a matter of absolute consensus between the politicians of Northern Ireland.

[Mark Durkan]

Let me begin by saying that if the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) presses amendments 95 and 102 to a Division, my colleagues and I will vote for them. My name is also attached to those amendments.

I fully understand and support what the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) said about new clause 3. I have a particular and positive regard for the principle contained in subsection (2), which relates to the Chief Constable of the PSNI, but the wider issues raised by the new clause are also important, and I share the concern that was expressed about them by the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) and others.

Like others, I find it regrettable that, in new schedule 1, we have a clumsy legislative provision that precludes functions for the time being, but provides for them to be introduced later by order, subject to other agreements. That proves that time was not used properly to secure those agreements. I do not believe that agreement on such matters is impossible. The discussions have been positive and practical rather than intractable. It is not a question of people trying to play politics, which some people unworthily accused us of doing some time ago. The character of the discussions with the Minister and his officials, and indeed the constructive role of the Minister’s special adviser, has been entirely positive. No one is saying, “Because this is coming from England, we want nothing to do with it.” There is no “green against green” competition. That is certainly not the SDLP’s position.

As I said in an intervention, some of us raised issues in relation to this Bill, and similar but different issues in relation to the Justice and Security Bill. We pointed out that there would be implications and complications when it came to the interface with, and the impact on, Northern Ireland and the Patten architecture. We cannot throw in new fixtures and fittings that are UK-wide, or even Northern Ireland-specific, and say that some of them do not affect the Patten architecture, if their character does affect it, or possibly affects it. When it comes to such matters as legislative consent motions, members of my party—as conscientious legislators both here and in the Assembly—must ask ourselves whether we have fully understood the implications, and assured ourselves that the results of these legislative changes will be positive. Are we persuaded that they will add to the fighting and the reducing of crime, but will not cause any difficulties in relation to the policing ethos, the upholding of the Patten principles and the new start to policing?

That is something we have consistently done. The right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East and I have had many discussions about the whole issue of national security—about the re-routeing of certain responsibilities and balances of interest, and about the changes that were made in the context of the St Andrews agreement, which took some of the Patten accountability and the Patten complaints process out of some of the purview of national security.

We opposed that. We had worked hard to ensure that the issue of policing would be addressed in the negotiations for the Good Friday agreement when no other party would address it, and we had ensured that an international commission was set up. Having done that, and having helped to drive the Patten reform programme, we were not going to say, “That does not matter. We never really cared about those principles. It was purely ephemeral.” When we saw measures relating to national security that we thought might provide a way of getting around or undermining Patten, we registered our concern about them, and we must ensure that that does not happen in the case of the National Crime Agency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan]

The hon. Lady’s point about the discussions and modifications that have already been made proves that many of us have raised valid concerns. When they are validly accommodated, we accept that, and we will want to raise any further outstanding concerns.

What would have happened if we had not raised our misgivings? For a long time people were saying, “That’s just an SDLP hobby-horse.” For instance, it was certainly said that I was still hung up on all the stuff about MI5 and so forth. It was said that we had too much emotional and intellectual capital invested in the Patten reforms, and that we had a hang-up. Latterly, Sinn Fein seemed to realise some of the issues as well, but it is not a matter of them trying to outflank us, or us trying outflank them. We, as parties, have a duty.

We have made our own contributions and decisions about the new policing dispensation. If we are saying that assurances are in place and policing in Northern Ireland both now and in the future is different from the historical policing dispensation, we have to show that that will continue to be the case, and that it is not being got around by the lateral legislation and policing arrangements being produced by the Government here.

We have the NCA taking over from SOCA. As the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) said, we agreed with, and came to terms with, some of the SOCA arrangements and the safeguards in relation to it. Then the NCA came along, and it cannot be the case that parties will just say, “Whatever other changes you at Westminster want, and whatever you’re having yourself, we’ll just take it and we won’t look at what difference it makes to us.” We need to be reassured.

Time should have been taken to address this matter. This is not a criticism of the Minister or anyone else; it might be to do with how legislative consent motions are handled, and how we get better joined-up scrutiny between a devolved Assembly in Northern Ireland and Westminster so we are not left in the current clumsy situation, which is not just the case in relation to this Bill. Sometimes, legislative consent motions come before the Assembly long after a Bill has passed through this place. Introducing such motions earlier might give the Assembly more influence on the form of the legislation or the sensitivities that need to be taken into account. There are lessons to be learned at the procedural level for all of us, therefore.

I am not trying to point a finger at the devolved Minister or anybody else. As others have said, however, these issues were raised with Northern Ireland Office Ministers early last year, and they were asked, “What are you doing through conversations with the Home Office and devolved interests to make sure these issues are being well accommodated?” They did not seem to know, or to want to know, what we were talking about.

[Paul Goggins]

I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman and his party for all the risks they have taken down the years in relation to policing. They have often been willing to become members of the Policing Board and other bodies, which have put policing at the heart of the community for everybody. The longer I listen to his speech, the more I hear that there is an issue of principle that has to be respected, and I agree with that, but there is also an issue about time, and there has been insufficient time to have the detailed discussions needed. I am amazed the Minister has not leapt to his feet to intervene to offer the hon. Gentleman discussions very soon to resolve this whole matter as quickly as possible.

[Mark Durkan]

I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman says. We have mentioned some of the discussions that have taken place involving different parties and the Minister and his officials. Some of them have also involved the director of the NCA, and I understand that he came away with a new appreciation about how the Policing Board accountability arrangements worked. He said no police agency at any level could be expected to be involved in accountability in such a way, only to find that senior Police Service of Northern Ireland officers said, “Well, we are, and it works.” A fuller conversation would have been better, therefore, and the relevant Westminster Ministers should have been involved in those discussions earlier, rather than leaving it to everybody else.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jeremy Browne]

In a way, points or lines of difference are being drawn between the two Front Benches that do not exist. The right hon. Gentleman described the situation correctly because the status of a criminal from Taunton—that was his example—would be different from that of a criminal from Belfast when it came to the seizure of assets. The Government of the United Kingdom do not want that to be the case and wish the arrangements to apply universally across the United Kingdom. That is partly because measures to rectify the offence of illegally acquired assets and to address that wrong should apply regardless of where in the United Kingdom it took place, but also because, as the right hon. Gentleman said, this situation creates an extremely worrying incentive for people wishing to perpetrate organised crime and acquire financial assets to base themselves in Northern Ireland. That is an extremely worrying development, I would have thought, for any Member who represents a Northern Ireland constituency, but it is also a concern for the United Kingdom Government as a whole, because we do not want such perverse and malign incentives to result from decisions made by politicians.

[Paul Goggins]

rose—

[Ian Paisley]

rose—