Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill (Business of the House)

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

What we have been asked to do today—to railroad the Bill through Parliament—is, given the sheer importance of what we have been asked to consider, nothing short of outrageous. Let us not forget that we are bringing forward emergency legislation because the European Court of Justice ruled that what the UK Government were doing was unlawful. That alone should at least take two days of debate. The Home Secretary says that this is just business as usual. It is not. There are significant and substantial new powers being added to the Bill, whether that is international ISPs being brought into the frame or whether it is, as we have heard, the inclusion of other webmail services such as Gmail. This should all be properly considered by this House.

What do the public make of this? If we are not getting an opportunity to debate this properly, the public are not getting that opportunity. They expect us to be here to debate these things properly. I do not know about any other right hon. and hon. Member but I have been besieged by members of the public this morning, asking me to come to the debate to make the points that they feel are very contentious and which should be raised. We have something like three hours to debate Second Reading, four hours in total to debate the necessary amendments and one hour for Third Reading. It is an absolute and utter disgrace that we have been asked to do this today.

What about the stitch-up we have between all the main parties? It is not just a question of the minority parties not being consulted on this; our devolved Administrations have not even been given the courtesy of one conversation about this. The Scottish Parliament is responsible for policing, justice and even parts of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. Not one conversation about the Bill has taken place with Scottish Ministers. They have had no opportunity to look and consider the Bill. It is an absolute and utter disgrace. I hope that we never, ever do this again on something that is so important, significant and substantial to the people who elect us to the House.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I have massive concerns about the Bill. I do not like the way in which it has been brought to the House. I do not like the way in which we have to rush through this process at breakneck speed, even though this is an issue that was flagged up to the Government some three months ago. I am suspicious about the reasons why we are doing all this now. I do not like the fact that it seems little more than a half-hearted attempt to get around a European Court of Justice ruling that declared the European directive invalid and thereafter practically everything that the Government are doing on data retention probably illegal.

I am suspicious about the way in which all the UK parties and party leaders have been brought into line around these unspecified threats. That is reminiscent of the dark days of the creation of the anti-libertarian state by new Labour; unspecified threats were the things we had to address then. I particularly do not like the fact that the Scottish Government, who have responsibility for the judiciary, policing and even delivering parts of RIPA in Scotland, were not consulted about the Bill. Most of all, I do not like the way in which the Government are trying to pretend that this is just business as usual when it clearly is an extension of what the Government can do in the collection and retention of an individual’s personal data.

I want to take that last concern first. I listened very carefully to all the party leaders last week when this was presented. The Prime Minister said that the Government were not introducing “new powers or capabilities”, but clauses 3 to 5 make significant amendments to the range of powers included in RIPA. The Bill extends the Government’s surveillance powers in two very important ways. Clause 4 clearly extends the territorial scope of RIPA, and the Government can now issue interception warrants for communications data to companies outside the UK. It also extends the definition of what “telecommunications services” means within RIPA to include webmail services such as Gmail. The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), who is no longer in his place, said that the most fundamental change is in that relationship between ISPs and the state.

The Government must now come clean with the British people. This is not business as usual. These are significant and substantial new powers. The Bill is more than the sum of its parts. It is a statement of intent. The Home Secretary said as much last week when she introduced it. Her real intention is, of course, to reintroduce her much-coveted snoopers charter in this Bill. The way in which the Bill brings on board the overseas ISPs is little more than a paving Bill for the reintroduction of that most unwanted anti-civil libertarian measure.

There has been a lot of talk about what is and what is not included in the Court judgement. The Government have had three months to address the Court’s findings. It is not the threat of terrorism or of criminal activity that has forced the Government’s hand in bringing this forward today. It is the threat of legal action by organisations such as the Open Rights Group and others that has prompted this emergency legislation. The Government should not mislead us about the urgency of the Bill. Given its significance and the issues it raises about our civil liberties, it should not be passed without proper parliamentary scrutiny. Truncating consideration of the Bill in this way is nothing short of appalling. It does a massive disservice to our constituents who have taken a real interest in this.

We all agree that the targeted retention of communications data can help the police to tackle serious crimes such as terrorism and child abuse. We all want to ensure that our communities are safe. But it has to be done proportionately and responsibly, and first and foremost, it should be legal.

What the European Court of Justice said was that we have a very low threshold for the retention of data, and it made it clear that the retention of data of every single person strikes the wrong balance between the need to tackle serious crime and our right to privacy and a private family life.

What most disappoints me is the total disrespect shown to Scottish Ministers. The first any Scottish Minister got to hear about this Bill was several hours after the statement was made in this House about its introduction, yet Scottish Ministers are responsible for policing and justice. It is Scottish Ministers who sign off any request for intercept on serious crime grounds. Part of RIPA required an Act of the Scottish Parliament and it puts in place the authority to conduct directed surveillance, undercover intelligence and intrusive intelligence. It is therefore staggering that this Government would proceed with this measure without exchanging even the slightest word with Scottish Ministers.

We believe that it will always be necessary to collect and retain the personal data of individuals in the pursuit of serious crime and we will take those responsibilities very seriously as an independent nation, but because this Government have got the balance so badly wrong, we will oppose the Bill today.

Communications Data and Interception

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. I sometimes think that on some issues we cannot win in terms of the length of time available. The important point is that the Bill is not about extending powers or about new powers; it is confirmation of existing powers and of a legislative framework around them. The debate about extension of powers or any change of powers will come after the review and after the election.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Given the real intention and agenda, is this not just the snoopers’ charter—the prequel? Although there have been all sorts of arrangements and discussions among those on all the Front Benches and even with Select Committee Chairs, there has been none with the Scottish Government, even though we are responsible for policing arrangements and for justice? I asked the Scottish Government this morning what detailed discussions the Home Secretary has had with them. There was none. Does she think that is good enough?

[Mrs May]

I am very sorry about the tone that the hon. Gentleman has taken. We are, of course, making the Scottish Government aware of this, and discussions will take place with the Scottish Government. We are facing a situation where we could see the loss of capabilities that lead to dangerous criminals, paedophiles and terrorists being apprehended and brought to justice. I should have thought that every Member of the House, in all parts of the House, wanted to ensure that we maintain those capabilities, and I am very sorry if the hon. Gentleman takes a different view.

Child Abuse

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. There is often a tension between ensuring that a report or an inquiry can look as widely as is necessary to get to the truth, while at the same time ensuring that it does not continue for so long that it ceases to have relevance when it reports. I will be discussing this matter with the chairman of the inquiry to ensure that it can be conducted in such a manner that lessons can be learned sufficiently swiftly for action to be taken to ensure we are protecting children today.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

On behalf of nationalist Members, I welcome the inquiry and the other investigations that the Home Secretary has mentioned, but will she assure me that, where possible, she will keep the devolved Administrations informed of the progress of the inquests and work with them to ensure that we really get to the heart of the matter?

[Mrs May]

I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that we will talk to the devolved Administrations and work with them on the work of this inquiry. Some matters will cover England and Wales, and other matters are of a devolved nature, which makes it particularly important to work with the devolved Administrations.

Student Visas

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

As I have indicated to the House, we have taken firm and decisive action in relation to a number of the institutions involved. I want to underline the point about responsibility. Many, many universities and academic institutions take their responsibility incredibly seriously. They do the work; they perform the checks, and they keep their records appropriately. The issue is those that do not, and it is right for the Government to take appropriate action in those cases, including referral to regulators, which will also help to ensure that academic standards at those institutions are raised.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I know that for this Government it is all about numbers, and about tracking down all these bogus students, but will they not listen to bodies such as Universities Scotland which are telling them, month after month, about the damage being done to universities in Scotland and the perception that it creates for overseas students, who have options and are using them? What is the point of educating overseas students to such a high standard in our Scottish universities, only to kick them out when they could make such a valuable contribution to our economy and they are welcome in our nation?

[James Brokenshire]

I say very clearly to the hon. Gentleman that the point of having a student visa is to study, not automatically to work. The problem is that, too often, people were abusing the student visa system simply to work, not to study, gain an education and make the contribution that he desires. There are postgraduate routes to remain here and study. We need a robust measure to ensure that our systems are not abused. It is the conflation of university education with an automatic right to work that lies behind the mistakes of the Labour Government and the abuses that we are dealing with.

HM Passport Office

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

MPs take up issues in many areas of activity, and they are dealt with perhaps more expeditiously than they would be normally. That is an aspect of the issues that we deal with in our constituency surgeries and so forth. However, the hon. Gentleman is right: we must ensure that information and advice is provided and that when people complain and apply to the Passport Office and raise an issue about their passport, they are dealt with properly and quickly and get the proper information. That is why more staff have been brought in to answer general inquiries, which are often from people chasing the progress of their passport. The Passport Office is making every effort to ensure that people get the service they require, so that it is not necessary for people to go to their MPs or feel that that is the only way they can get that service.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

The Home Secretary will be more than aware that the Scottish summer school holidays come around a lot quicker than in England. This fiasco therefore has a more immediate impact on my constituents in Scotland, yet the Home Office has shed 150 processing staff in the Glasgow office, adding to the crisis. Will the Home Secretary acknowledge the particular difficulty in Scotland, and will she promise all those Scots who want to go on their summer holidays that they will get their passports?

[Mrs May]

As I have indicated, steps are being taken to address the demand we are seeing and increase the ability to process the applications. That is against the background of a real recognition that many people are applying to renew their passport or for new passports at this time because they want to go on holiday in the summer. We recognise that and are making every effort to address the issue.

Home Affairs

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. She knows that many of the strongest advocates of fighting extremism or preventing extremism—for example, preventing Islamist extremism—are those in the Muslim communities themselves, such as Muslim community leaders who have done excellent work on preventing extremism. The Government should do more to support those communities in the work that such communities are often better at leading.

A lot is missing from this Queen’s Speech. There is no serious action to tackle domestic violence or rape, of which reported cases are going up, but prosecutions and convictions are going down on the Home Secretary’s watch. There are no national standards, and no commissioner on violence against women to make sure that such standards are enforced. I still fail to understand why the Government will not do more to prevent violent relationships among young people. Where is the proposal for the compulsory sex and relationship education that all our children should get to ensure that they are taught zero tolerance of violence in relationships from the start?

What about immigration? The Home Secretary’s approach is failing. She set a net migration target, and the Prime Minister promised—no ifs, no buts—that he would get immigration down to the tens of thousands. The Home Secretary said that she would meet the target by the end of the Parliament. Yet net migration is now at 212,000, which is hardly less than the 222,000 at the time of the last election. Despite all her rhetoric and four years’ worth of legislation, the public are more worried about immigration now than when she started as Home Secretary. However, universities and businesses are concerned that they cannot attract the best international talent, which they need. In the past year alone, the number of people saying that immigration is their biggest concern has doubled. It is the worst of all worlds, so why does she not stop pretending about meeting her failed target and act to address some of the practical concerns that people have about the impact of immigration on wages and jobs?

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Lady tell me what the Labour party is going to do? It seems to me that there are only two ways to deal with UKIP’s agenda: either to accommodate and pander to it, or to challenge the very assumptions on which it is based. Labour cannot look two ways on this matter—will it challenge or pander?

[Yvette Cooper]

UKIP is exploiting people’s fears and concerns, and it needs to be challenged every step of the way. We need to set out the practical reforms that would address people’s concerns about the impact of immigration on their wages and jobs when employers exploit immigration to undercut local wages and jobs. I do not understand why the Home Secretary will not take such measures—we could support them—in a new immigration Bill.

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[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I have a declared interest that relates to higher education, which might crop up in my speech.

I thank the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) for his reference to the work of my late friend, Paul Goggins, who was referred to by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition on the day of the Queen’s Speech. I appreciate that reference, because Paul would have been proud that his work, like that of so many in this House, has borne fruit in the form of legislation.

Before I turn to the substance of the Queen’s Speech and the related issues that my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary has deliberated on very effectively, may I reflect on the nature of last week’s events? Having been the Home Secretary at the time of the 11 September attack and the subsequent dangers, I am mindful of the need for security. However, I am becoming increasingly concerned about the way in which we operate the closures in central London around the Queen’s Speech. To close substantial portions of the area around Westminster from Monday to Friday is, in my view, unnecessary. We should protect the Queen—the royal personage—in any way we can, but there has been an extension in what happens over recent years. I mention that only because it is damaging to the London economy and extremely frustrating for the populace, and it does not necessarily do Parliament any good.

Secondly, as we have seen in the debate over the past few days and way beyond, a fixed-term, five-year Parliament can be seen to run out of steam. If we are to continue with fixed-term Parliaments, I think that it is time to re-examine whether they should last for four years, rather than five. Irrespective of whether a coalition is still required, which I sincerely hope it is not, it is clear from history that Governments need to refresh themselves. That is part of our democracy and considering such a change would be a positive move in responding to the changing needs of the population and the political debate. Four-year Parliaments might allow us to have two Queen’s Speeches: one at the beginning of a Parliament and one two years in, which would allow time for substantive debate and measures that have been carefully planned and thought through. I commend the idea of returning to those issues to Front Benchers on both sides of the House.

We face a moment of rapid change that is unprecedented in our history. There is economic, social and cultural change, some of which we touched on yesterday afternoon during the urgent question and the statement. We face an explosion in communications that brings globalisation and issues on a moment-by-moment basis not just into people’s front rooms, which we used to say in relation to television, but into their hands as they use mobile technology. The immediacy of such issues has changed how people see the rapid change in the world around them.

When we were in a position of economic success, with continuing growth, continuing substantial falls in unemployment and rises in wages, and it was possible to invest in improved public services, globalisation appeared to be benign, if not somewhat bewildering, to the populace. The same is not true at a time of deep austerity, with the results of the global banking meltdown—and it was a global banking meltdown; the previous Labour Government were not responsible for the collapse of the sub-prime market in the United States or the recession across Europe. It is risible that people still repeat that calumny over and again, particularly members of the junior partner in the coalition, who were enthusiastically in favour of the public spending that we were engaged in before 2010 and suddenly changed their mind. Indeed, so was the Conservative party, because until autumn 2008 and a change of mind at the Tory party conference, the main thrust of public expenditure was supported by the Conservative Opposition.

I mention that because the confusion, bewilderment and sense of powerlessness that affects so many of our constituents has a knock-on effect on the way they see the political environment around them, and on whether they trust or believe that traditional politics can meet their needs—hence the rise of the UK Independence party and its temporary, God willing, success in the European Union elections and some local government contests.

Old certainties have gone and people are unclear who they should blame for what is happening around them. Is it a change in the world situation and the insecurities that drive asylum seekers and movements of people across the world? Ten and a half million people have been moved outside their homeland either compulsorily or through fear of the danger of death and torture. People are desperately looking for a better life, and hearing about it in the way I have just described and in a fashion that was not present years ago. Bewilderment and a subliminal fear come from those uncertainties, and people are looking to someone to find answers.

We have the chance to debate these issues today, but that rarely happens any more on television or radio, and certainly not in the print media or through the inanity of many bloggers. We are not reaching, talking to or having a dialogue with—never mind listening to—the fears of people, but there is nothing new about that.

One great advantage of being a Back Bencher is that one has the chance to read. I have been reading the biography of Roy Jenkins that came out a few months ago. He was not a favourite politician of mine, not least because he was paraded as one of the most liberal and radical Home Secretaries in history, whereas most of the legislation he took credit for was promoted by Back Benchers. My irritation at that has been overwhelmed by going back and reading extracts of speeches and articles that he wrote. Fifty-five years ago, he was talking about the challenge of whether we should enter what was then the European Economic Community. He talked about a bigger issue of people living in an atmosphere of illusion or reality, and the unwillingness to address Britain’s position in the world. He spoke about a challenge of living in a sullen and incomprehensible environment in which people looked only to the past.

I fear that we are in that moment once again. People hanker for a past that did not really exist, and they look for certainties that are no longer there. They fear that politicians do not have answers to their questions, and they lash out at anyone near them. I think we must try in our own way across all three major political parties to provide answers that are credible. Nobody can underestimate the bewilderment, and no one should belittle the cry for help from our constituents, above all in a constituency such as mine.

People will be aware of the considerable tensions that have arisen after a large influx of people from Slovakia of a Roma background. They are fleeing unbelievable persecution and standards of living that are third world, to say the least. Incidentally, Slovakia managed a turnout of only 13% in the European Union election—I do not think that is a functioning democracy. People come to the UK from that background and those norms of living, and as part of the debate about British values and a society that can address those challenges, we need to invest in and help people through those difficulties. That applies to both the host community, which suddenly finds its way of life affected dramatically, and incomers who need to learn quickly how best to adapt to and adopt the standards of behaviour and norms that we take for granted.

Those big issues require us not to provide simplistic soundbites but to address the underlying complexities. This afternoon I appeal for us all to come together to address those things that are practical and can be addressed. In essence, we are dealing with the transitions of life—transitions that are brought about by economic, social and cultural change globally, and those that affect people in their daily lives as the language and the vista and nature of the community around them changes. We must consider how best the Government, and therefore politics, can assist in that endeavour.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) mentioned immigration, and the importance of getting a grip on things that are possible within the current powers of the Westminster Parliament. There are many pressures outside and many changes we all want, and people can collaborate and work together at local level. There are also global changes that need to be dealt with by a proper debate in a reformed European Union and on the transnational scene. As my right hon. Friend rightly said, many things that could be dealt with at a local as well as national level would assist. I want to touch on some of those today and suggest that in doing so, we might politically give people hope that not only will they be listened to, they will be talked to realistically, be respected, and be told the truth about what we can and cannot do.

For instance, it was never going to be feasible to get net migration below 100,000 unless, as has been pointed out, we rapidly changed the passport system and encouraged our own people to leave the country. We could achieve it that way but that is nonsense. We could never achieve net migration of under 100,000 unless we remove from the statistics those who come here to study as graduate and postgraduate students. The commonsense of doing that has been pressed on the Government over the past four years, and I think it would have got all-party support and told people the truth. If we do not tell people the truth, and if we pretend that we can achieve targets that are frankly unachievable, when we do not achieve those targets we undermine confidence in all the other measures that have been taken.

We have a tendency at the moment to rewrite history—I imagine there is nothing new about that. We all like to paint what we are doing as day zero, and that what came before as either inadequate or totally deniable.

[Pete Wishart]

I am one of the people who think that Labour got it just about right on immigration when they were in government. Will the right hon. Gentleman join me in not being bullied by the Tories and UKIP who want Labour to apologise? Labour should stand up for what it did because it did the right thing. Will it say to the Tories and UKIP, “We got it right on immigration and we will not be bullied out of our former position”?

[Mr Blunkett]

The truth is that we did not get it entirely right because no Government get everything entirely right. That is another part of rebuilding trust in the political system.

I mentioned day zero because the tendency to suggest that nothing that came before was satisfactory, adequate or even addressed the issues undermines fundamentally people’s belief that we know what we are doing, or that what happened in the past can be recorded as at least partially successful.

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[Mr Jackson]

They are not bogus, as my hon. Friend said. I think it unfortunate that the hon. Gentleman should denigrate young people who are, in good faith, seeking to improve their life chances and skills by taking worthwhile courses. If he can suggest any alternative, let him do so, but in 13 years the Labour party did very little to tackle the issues. It was happy to leave thousands, if not millions, of young people innumerate and illiterate when they left secondary school, and primary school, too.

We are focusing on infrastructure; we are reforming welfare; and we are reducing the deficit, which is the major imperative for the nation. I pay tribute to the Liberal Democrats for being far-sighted enough to join us in our efforts to do what was right for our country and our constituents, rather than aiming for short-term, partisan party advantage.

Listening to the shadow Home Secretary’s speech was a pitiful experience. Rolling out examples of Passport Office failures does not speak of a party which, in 11 months’ time, will seek to govern this country. It is bandwagon jumping, and it is pitiful that it does not have a more coherent home affairs programme to put before the House, not least because it is the party that told us 15,000 Polish people would come to the UK after 2004, and it was only out by a factor of about 100. It completely underestimated the numbers that were coming to this country. It is the party that is not believed on immigration. Some 77% of people say that it is a very important concern to them, and the only reason the Labour party is interested in it now is because of the election results in places like Doncaster and elsewhere across the country, where its own core blue-collar, working-class vote does not believe it and does not believe that it has the solutions to deal, long term in a sustainable way, with the problem that it created when in government, which was open-door, unrestricted, unfettered immigration. Incidentally, we will not take any lectures from a party that lost both a Minister of State and a Home Secretary because of its cack-handed mismanagement of the immigration system when it was last in government.

I am not wholly critical of the Labour party, however, because we heard a very considered, erudite and typically thoughtful speech from the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett). He touched on an important point. The issue of immigration can be almost directly linked to a feeling of a crisis of authority and to the estrangement of ordinary people—voters who are not that interested in the minutiae of politics—and the lack of faith and trust that they have in the political system. That is a function of the European Union and of how distant and unaccountable it is, but it is also a function of the fact that they do not believe in the institutions of our country to get things done in a timely way that affects their lives for the better. The right hon. Gentleman was right to make that point.

The Government have done a good job in very difficult circumstances. They were right to concentrate on reducing the net migration figure as a policy priority. I hope they achieve that, and at least they are trying. Interestingly, when the shadow Home Secretary was grilled by John Humphrys on the “Today” programme a few weeks ago, she was big on motherhood and apple pie, saying we should reduce immigration, but she was not specific on whether Labour would adhere to any target number. It is incumbent upon a responsible Opposition to offer proper alternatives, and she was somewhat remiss in that respect.

We have clamped down on bogus colleges; we are doing something about health tourism; and we are also looking at access to benefits, English language skills and the income earnings threshold—all policy issues that could have been looked at and acted upon in the previous Parliament.

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). He has been largely a lonely voice over a number of years in voicing these issues. Some people came close in the past to as good as calling him and others xenophobic or racist for doing so, but he has been proved right. It is important that we have a proper, balanced and reasonable debate on the level—the unprecedented scale—of migration. Between 2004 and 2011, 34,000 people came to my constituency and were granted national insurance numbers. In two schools in my constituency no children speak English as their first language, and there are over 40 schools where the rate is well over 50%. That is an issue of resources and resource allocation, and it is very important. It is nothing to do with xenophobia or racism. It is about keeping the bargain of trust and faith with our constituents.

That brings me on to my European Union Free Movement Directive 2004 (Disapplication) Bill, a ten-minute rule Bill that I put to the House in October 2012. I think that in many respects I was ahead of my time. I will put my cards on the table: I am a member of Better off Out and I will campaign actively to leave the EU, but I will respect whatever decision the British people take when we have a referendum under a majority Conservative Government in 2017. However, I respectfully say to the Government that they need to look at what I was proposing in that Bill 18 months or so ago, which was not to rip up the free movement directive. It is not a tablet of stone; it is not a holy grail. It is a piece of living European law. The Spanish looked at registration controls—registration when people entered the country, when they changed jobs, when they married, when they had children—as a way of reducing the pull factor, and we should be looking at that, too, complementing and building on the announcements we have already made and the regulations we have laid on matters such as welfare tourism and access to social housing.

I ask the Prime Minister to look at that again and perhaps to introduce further regulations that finesse and nuance the free movement directive, not because we are xenophobic—not because we do not want decent, hard-working Polish citizens, Lithuanians and people from the Czech Republic coming to our country, contributing and adding to the variety and diversity of the country—but because many of the people we represent are concerned about large-scale immigration and the length of time that it has been going on.

[Pete Wishart]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern about inward migration, but does he have any concerns about outward migration? Should there be a limit on the number of UK people who go to Spain for a happy and contented retirement?

[Mr Jackson]

That is a fair question, but many of them are older and are very unlikely to need to go to accident and emergency or their maternity unit. Many of them are unlikely to be putting their grandchildren in primary schools, too. There is a balance to be struck between the use of public services and the resources needed.

I accept that the hon. Gentleman might have touched on an important issue in that there are hot spots in respect of such demands, however. In my constituency we have food processing, agriculture, horticulture, packaging and logistics, and younger people will come over with their partners and have children and there will be a big strain on schools, but I accept that might not be the case in the west country or the south of England. It will only be the case in hot spots. One of the things that the Government need to do is reboot the migration impact forum, specifically to assist local authorities. One issue is the number of children who come into a school but are gone at the end of the academic year, for instance. The Government need to look at this.

The Government also need to ensure that everyone who comes to this country is properly exercising their treaty obligations. That is all we are asking. We need to do some work on contributory pensions with the Germans and other key partners.

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[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee), who may have one of the most unusual-sounding constituencies. She must be commended for her work on modern slavery and on children in particular.

I want to address what we now refer to as “the Scotland bit” in the Queen’s Speech. We are always grateful to Her Majesty for acknowledging Scotland in her Gracious Speech; it usually comes about two thirds of the way through, and again this year we were not disappointed. In the Queen’s Speech Her Majesty confirmed that her Government will

“make the case for Scotland to remain a part of the United Kingdom.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 4 June 2014; Vol. 754, c. 4.]

No surprise there; that is what we would expect her to say. In fact, it would have been quite remarkable had she said something else. Imagine if, for example, she had said, “I look forward to my subjects in Scotland securing the normal powers of an independent nation. I look forward to them enjoying the resources that will make their country one of the most dynamic and prosperous in the world.” Of course, she did not say that. Her Majesty knows, as we all know in Scotland, that the whole range of facilities available to this Government and this House will be pitted against Scotland in the next few months to try to influence the vote.

All the donors and cronies down the corridor will be engaged in trying to make sure that Scotland remains in the United Kingdom. All the resources available to all the Opposition parties will be engaged in ensuring that Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom. All of Whitehall, all Government Committees and all Select Committees will be engaged in trying to ensure that Scotland remains a part of the United Kingdom. I am one of six Scottish National party Members, so I am very much aware of the range of forces pitted against us. Out of 650 Members of the House there are maybe 10 of us calling for Scottish independence, and thank goodness for the hon. Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie), who has now joined the call. If we add the 800 Members from down the corridor, there are 1,400 Westminster parliamentarians who are against Scottish independence versus the six of us. That seems like reasonable odds to me. It is reasonably fair. What we have to do now is recognise, as the Queen did in the Speech, that the entire resources of Westminster—the whole of the House of Commons and the whole House of Lords—will be ranged against Scotland. Last week they even enlisted Lego figures in their fight to stop Scotland becoming independent, to much laughter and ridicule.

In the Scotland bit of her speech, Her Majesty confirmed that the Government

“will continue to implement new financial powers for the Scottish Parliament”.

These are not the new financial powers that the Prime Minister apparently signed up to only last week. These are the remaining consequential issues from the Scotland Act 2012 that need to be tidied up.

More devolution is all the rage in Scotland. We cannot walk around one of our big cities without tripping over some Unionist or UK commission looking into the issue. It is like the proverbial buses all turning up at once. It has got me and all the other people in Scotland wondering why they are doing it now. Is it anything to do with the prospect of a referendum on independence? Surely not. Yet that is almost certainly the case. It is curious because our Unionist friends did everything to keep a “more powers” option off the ballot paper for the referendum in September. They would give us anything else, such as the right to administer the referendum. They even allowed us to frame the question. It is we who were in charge of the franchise. The one thing they did not want was a “more powers” option on the ballot paper. Now we are expected to accept that they are sincere in delivering all these shiny new powers, when they did so much to keep them off the ballot paper. There are two things that we say about that: “Aye. Right. Fool us once and we’ll blame you. Fool us twice and it’s our fault.”

[Michael Connarty]

Might not the logic be to expose the fact that what has been offered by the Scottish National party was the lunacy of independence, as against staying within the Union where we could negotiate changes, and to expose the paucity of the hon. Gentleman’s argument that independence might be better for the people of Scotland, whereas we know that it would be a disaster for them?

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman has his own view, but why not offer the option on the ballot paper? There was accommodation with the Scottish Government about that. We were quite happy and relaxed about a third question being put forward. The Scottish people should always get what they want. That is my view and I am sure it is the hon. Gentleman’s view, so the question could have appeared on the ballot paper, but it was rejected. It was the one thing that the Government did not want included.

We have been here before. The hon. Gentleman will remember this. It was in my own constituency—Alec Douglas-Home trooping up to Perth city hall in 1979. What did he say to the Scottish people? “Vote no and we’ll give you something better. We’ll give you a better Parliament” than was on offer in 1979. What did we get? Eighteen years of Thatcherism, the destruction of our industrial base, and Tory obscenities like the poll tax. We will not be fooled by that again.

One of the funny consequences of all this—it is quite ironic—is that the party that so defiantly opposed the Scottish Parliament in any form of Scottish devolution is now the party of more devolution. It has made a more substantial offer than the party of devolution, the Labour party. We might be in the ridiculous situation whereby in the next Parliament, Labour Members oppose a Conservative Government offering many more powers than they ever intended to offer. Incredible, but that may be the case.

There is only one way for the Scottish Parliament to get more powers. There is only one way to ensure we get the powers that Scotland needs, and that is to vote yes in the independence referendum. If we do not, we leave it up to this House. We leave it up to the largesse of predominantly English Members to give us more powers. I know lots of English Members. Some of them are very good friends of mine. I do not detect a mood around the House that if Scotland votes no, they will rush in to give us more powers to reward us. I get the sense that they are much more interested in issues such as the Barnett formula. They believe their own propaganda and are concerned that Scotland gets more than the rest of their English regions. They are more concerned about that than about giving us power over income tax or more powers over welfare.

The other thing that consumes English Members is the West Lothian question about what Scottish Members could do here. Maybe it is just me, but I do not see a groundswell of English Members of Parliament queuing up to reward Scotland for turning down the prospect of independence. They are more likely to be thinking, “Scotland’s had its chance. It’s time for my region for a change.”

Other than the Scotland stuff, there were no other constitutional issues in the Queen’s Speech. That means that we will leave this Parliament with the House of Lords commanding the same position in our democracy as when the great reforming Liberals took part in government. What a disgrace. That unelected, crony-stuffed, donor-inhabited affront to democracy will remain in the same condition as when we came into Parliament.

The Liberals had lots of red lines when it came to the constitutional debate. I am not blaming the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) personally, although he is looking at me as though I am. They could have made much more of reforming the House of Lords. They went for AV—the inconsequential mouse of a reform measure—when they could have done something about that place, so we are left with it. In his parting shot, the Liberals’ Lord Oakeshott hinted that cash for honours is still very much a feature of securing a place next door. It is an absurd place and I hope that the next Queen’s Speech will enable us to do something about that affront to democracy. This Government this time round have done nothing.

Some have described the Queen’s Speech this year as a speech for a zombie Parliament. If it is a zombie Parliament, it must be a phantom Queen’s Speech, because it does not address the political dynamic that exists throughout the United Kingdom, what is going on and what should be debated. A few Members have said that. I think I am the only Member to raise the subject of UKIP. The party won an election a couple of weeks ago and made significant gains. Nobody wants to talk about UKIP here. Nobody will address the issue of what it has done. UKIP is pulling the strings of this Government and they are responding in the only way they know how—pandering to UKIP’s agenda instead of challenging it.

I am much more interested in what Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition are going to do. I challenged the shadow Home Secretary on that today. They are at a defining point. They are at a critical and crucial moment. The Labour party has two choices in relation to the immigration/UKIP agenda. It can challenge the assumptions that it is based on, do something about it, take it on, risk not being the favourite of the right-wing press and maybe alienating a few voters who have bought into this pernicious agenda; or it can pander to it and accommodate it.

I have seen the letters from Labour Members encouraging the party leadership to accommodate the UKIP agenda and saying that it could be addressed. They must reject it, stand tall and do the right thing. I know it is difficult sometimes for the Labour party to do this but it must offer leadership. If the Opposition offer leadership on immigration and challenge UKIP on its agenda, they will get my support. I will help them out. But they must not give in to it. They are in a critical position on the immigration/UKIP question. Don’t blow it, Labour. The nation is watching. Labour cannot face two ways on this—it either takes UKIP on or accommodates it. I very much hope Labour does the right thing.

Labour has let itself be bullied by the Tories and UKIP. It is appalling. Labour has been bullied into apologising for its years of immigration. That is one of the best things the Labour Government did and I cannot believe that the Opposition have been bullied like this. Stand up to them, for goodness sake! They should not be afraid to say that they got it right on immigration. It has been fantastic for the whole of the United Kingdom. It has made the city we are in one of the greatest cities in the world. Only about 30% of the people who live and work in London came from this place; the rest are from overseas. What has immigration done for us, as Monty Python might have asked? Look at this place and see what it has achieved, then try and argue that immigration is not good. Come on, Labour. Get on with it. Stand up to them and do the right thing.

I shall deal quickly with Home Office issues, few of which affect Scotland. We are practically independent when it comes to policing and judiciary arrangements. Thank goodness for that. When the Home Secretary turns up to the Police Federation for their annual meeting, she is booed, jeered and shouted down. Then I see our Cabinet Secretary turning up to the Scottish Police Federation and being cheered to the rafters for what we are doing for police officers in Scotland, compared with what this lot are doing here.

I welcome the Modern Slavery Bill. Even though it is for England and Wales only, I hope it is successful and I pay tribute to the many Members who have spoken in support of the measure. In Scotland we have our own people-trafficking Bill and we will continue to work with the UK on the matter, particularly in areas such as extra-territorial intervention and maritime policing.

Legislative consent motions will be required for some of the measures in the serious crime Bill, and I know that again, my colleagues in the Scottish Government will work closely with the Home Office to ensure a co-ordinated response to serious crime. But Scottish National party Members want more than that. Grateful as we are to Her Majesty, we want more than the Scotland bit. It is great that in every Session of Parliament it is included, and we look forward to it, but we do not want the insignificant wee bits here and there, the bits of Bills that apply to Scotland. We want a legislative programme for Scotland in the interests of the people according to our agenda and our priorities. We do not want to be dictated to by a Government for whom we did not vote. That is what we will get on 18 September. That is what the Scottish people will vote for.

Immigration Bill

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

It may be helpful if I say that the Home Secretary will consider the relevant nationality laws of a person’s country and that person’s circumstances, and she will make a decision based on whether, under those laws, the person is able to acquire another nationality. The test is whether there is a route under the law, but she will have regard to other considerations—for example, about practical or logistical arrangements. Those considerations will obviously vary from case to case, but she will consider them in forming a view. We have reflected that in the concept of the reasonable grounds. The Home Secretary will need to be satisfied about those reasonable grounds in determining whether the proposed power can be utilised.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

What happens if no other nationality is available? Does the Home Secretary simply give up?

[James Brokenshire]

The hon. Gentleman clearly makes the point about what we are seeking to achieve in respect of the concerns highlighted in the House and elsewhere, which is that if the Home Secretary cannot satisfy herself on reasonable grounds that the individual can acquire the citizenship of another state, she will not be able to use the power.

In this context, we are seeking to address the specific issue highlighted by the Supreme Court in the al-Jedda case, with which many right hon. and hon. Members are familiar. The case showed that the existing law was well within our international obligations, but we are seeking to act on the Supreme Court’s statement in that case about how to address the issue appropriately. We judge that the proposed provision is an appropriate mechanism for guarding our national security. It will ensure that what appears to be a loophole identified as a consequence of the al-Jedda case is not open to abuse and, building on the existing deprivation powers, it will therefore ensure that our national security is properly protected.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Richard Shepherd]

I am greatly concerned about this measure, and I will just make some observations. The Minister referred to the power that the Home Secretary used to have in relation to something being not conducive to the public good. Its removal created a real difficulty for Governments, but my concern is not the difficulty for Governments; my concern is for the British common law system. This is not about the European Court of Justice—its rulings or anything else. The issue of concern to me is: what is our process?

I believe, and this was fundamental to our legal system, that a person should know the reasons they are to be aggrieved, but that is not possible under the Bill. He or she will not know the reasons they are being deprived of citizenship, so they can make no case that can be held to be valid, because they do not know what they are challenging—or they will claim they do not know what they are being challenged with. We do not know and the public do not know, so this violates one of the first principles of our legal system—our common law system. I want the House always to remember that our common law system in England has been absolutely essential to our liberties, freedoms, standing and our sense of who we are.

I understand the difficulties that Governments face, as there are a lot of wicked, evil people out there, but the answer has always been to prosecute. We are told, “Oh we can’t prosecute because in a prosecution we may have to reveal our sources.” This is the nightmare situation that the world in which we now live is facing: we are not to know, we cannot know and we cannot challenge. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission is one of the most monstrous extrusions on the national scene, as not even the solicitor representing the accused or the person who loses their citizenship knows the reasons their client is there. Gisting? Well, all those rules that have been put in place essentially deny open justice using the argument of national security.

I have been a Member of Parliament for 36 years, and I look back over the decline of our sense of who we are, what our system is, and our freedoms and liberties, which are concentrated in the concept of the common law. I did not invent it—we did not invent it—it came from the movement of the people of this country over hundreds of years and the development of our legal system. Year after year, in a way that one could never assume would happen, Governments have gone out searching for new measures to conceal the openness of what justice should be. We, as citizens of this country, have a right to know why people are charged. That is why we have an open court system, so that we can judge whether the measures are competent, reasonable or truthful to the purpose of our nation. That is why I cannot support the very notion that so much power should be concentrated in one individual—a Home Secretary—whether good or bad, that they may make decisions of this nature without our being able to challenge whether they are valid, true or right. I want the House to stand up for who we are and what our system of justice is—and it is not secret justice.

[Pete Wishart]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Sir Richard Shepherd). What a powerful case he has made about the closed process of justice, which has become a feature of the Government as they proceed on issues of national security.

When the Government first came to power, I cheered them on, as they practically went around deconstructing Labour’s anti-civil libertarian state, which we all remember: identity cards; the national database; pre-charge detention. I cheered the Government on when they did that, but they have now constructed a closed process with a lack of justice—all the things that the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills powerfully expressed. We have created a new anti-civil libertarian state, helped by the Liberal Democrats. This is not the type of justice, society, country and community that we want. We are better than that. Yes, we need to balance national security and civil liberties, but this is another Government who have got it wrong.

The plans were roundly monstered in the House of Lords, as they deserved to be. If one looks at how many Lords supported the amendment and spoke against the measures, we find one former Director of Public Prosecutions, a former Supreme Court judge and even 23 Liberal Democrat peers. The measure was defeated by 242 to 180 votes in the House of Lords, which demonstrates wide-ranging opposition and great concern about proceeding in this way.

The Lords amendment does not even seek to delete the clause. I wish that it did. I do not have a vocation like Labour spokespeople. I think that this is a bad measure, and I voted against it in principle because it is fundamentally wrong to remove the citizenship of people of this country just because they are suspected of being terrorists. That is absolutely wrong—I make no bones about that—and I wish that the amendment deleted the entire clause. However, it does not do so; all that it seeks to do is to set up a Committee of both Houses to look at the implications of the measure and see whether we are doing the right thing.

We have not had a chance to look at the measure properly in the Commons. It was introduced on Report without our having any opportunity to consider its value or implications and what it meant in the context of the Bill. The Lords had a little more time; we have an hour and a half to consider what the Lords said, to look at the measure again and, I hope, to make the right decision. The amendment does not ask us to reject the measure; it just asks us to look at it again.

Panicked by the Lords defeat, the Government have introduced their own amendments, which would provide a review once the measure had been implemented. That is closing the stable door after the horse has left without its passport, having been deprived of its citizenship. It is too late to do anything then. We have to take a look at how the measure would impact on what we are trying to achieve and secure before we effect any legislation rather than afterwards.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. There has been abuse of the system, with people coming to this country not to study, but to work. We have worked closely with the universities sector, and there has been a successful pilot with one university to encourage universities to see that students do leave at the end of their studies. We will continue to roll that out, as well as working with immigration enforcement to see that those who are not entitled to be here do leave.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Has the Minister seen the comments from Anton Muscatelli, the principal of Glasgow university, who says that this Government are in effect saying to international students, “Don’t come here, we’re closed for business, closed for education”? I know that the Home Office—I hear the Home Secretary saying this—always thinks it knows better than the Scottish academic and university community, but will the Minister at least acknowledge that we have a bit of an issue with this?

[James Brokenshire]

There is no limit on the number of students who can legitimately come to this country to study. When the hon. Gentleman looks at the statistics and the information, he will see that the number of visa applications coming to universities has gone up by 7%. We continue to underline that this country welcomes students to our world-class universities in Scotland and in the rest of the United Kingdom.

Justice and Home Affairs Opt-out

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. We have said that we should argue within Europe for reforms to the way in which the European arrest warrant system works to make sure that it is properly proportionate. We must recognise that this is partly about the people we want to return to this country so that they can stand trial here. It is also about our not harbouring criminals from abroad who have come here and who should go back to their home country to stand trial. He is right that the system needs to work effectively, which means having that debate in Europe with other European countries about the reforms that we hope they will make. There has been considerable interest from many other countries in making such reforms. We need assurances from Ministers that we will have guarantees that we can immediately opt back into the European arrest warrant and important measures on 1 December, when the opt-out is given legal effect, and we want to know whether other member states have agreed to the plan.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

The right hon. Lady gave a useful list of the fluff and nonsense that we are opting out of, but one thing that we are not opting back into is the European judicial network, which is an important body that helps to prosecute European arrest warrant cases. Does the Labour party have any view about what we should do about that to ensure that we can opt back in?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman points to a series of areas where the Government have proposed opting out or where it is not clear why they want to opt out and what the benefits are of doing so. We gather, too, that the Austrians, the Germans, the Spanish and the French have all called for the UK to opt into other measures as part of the negotiations. In addition to the list of 35 measures that the Home Secretary wants to opt back into, they list a further 13. The Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary should tell us whether they support those 13 measures or whether they will make them a red-line issue and call a halt to the negotiations if other countries insist on them so that a deal can be negotiated by 1 December.

The British head of Europol, Rob Wainwright, is worried about Britain opting out of some of the Europol regulations, because the new ones that the Home Secretary is prepared to support are not ready yet. He told the Select Committee on Home Affairs:

“I don’t think it is likely the new regulation will enter into force before December 2014 so there is likely to be a gap and, if there are not sufficient transitional measures in the meantime, then those accompanying eight measures would leave a gap, frankly, in terms of UK capability to carry out its work against international organised crime and terrorism.”

The Home Secretary should tell the House what she is doing about that, because it sounds serious and concerning. Has she put those measures back on her list to opt back into, and has she drawn up transitional measures?

We need to know, too, how much time and diplomatic resources the negotiation has taken up. For the remainder of the negotiating period, Italy will hold the presidency of the Council, and we understand that the Home Secretary is trying to persuade the Italian Government to make this a major priority and allow time for the European Council to negotiate. She should tell us if she really sees that as the top priority for the Council, and how many of her officials have to work on the issue, as opposed to the more substantial matters on which we should argue for reforms, such as changing the rules so that we do not have to pay child benefit and child tax credit for children abroad; or changing the rules on free movement for new accession states; or revisiting the posting of workers directive to strengthen protection for workers; or other things that would be worthwhile reforms in Europe. Instead, they are working on the power to opt out of a guidance document that we already follow. This is one of the most incredible examples of the gap between rhetoric and reality that the Government have come up with.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Cash]

What I am saying is that voting in this House is a test of our democracy. We have already had ample opportunity to consider the ramifications of the block opt-out and we now know the 35 matters in question. Given the importance of those issues to UK citizens, those who represent their individual constituencies in this House should now have the opportunity to vote on them. That is a matter of principle and it is also a matter of democracy. Once the decisions become irrevocable, the reality is that they will be binding, through the European Communities Act 1972, in a way that would not be the case if this were a general debate about home affairs policy. This debate is tied to the role of the European Court of Justice, against which there is no appeal.

Why have the Government set their face against an open, transparent and informed debate and vote on these measures before negotiations are concluded? In the absence of any convincing explanation from the Government—I say with great respect to the Secretaries of State that we have not had one—we are compelled to conclude that the risk of unravelling a carefully crafted coalition deal weighs more heavily than the desire for democratic accountability. Such an approach is inimical to this House’s European scrutiny system, which is based on our Standing Orders and on early analysis and assessment of the legal and policy implications of EU policies and legislation so that Parliament has a genuine opportunity to influence not only the Government’s position in negotiations, but their outcome as well.

In this case, however, the position is reversed. As I said in an intervention, Parliament will simply be asked to rubber stamp the outcome of negotiations that are being held behind closed doors and hidden from the searching gaze of the public and Parliament. Negotiations are being held behind closed doors not only by the Council of Ministers and the European institutions, but by the coalition itself. We do not know the basis on which these decisions have been reached. It is a double whammy.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman needs to forget about the Liberals, because there is a big elephant sitting in the room and its name is Nigel. Does the hon. Gentleman think that growing support for the UK Independence party has been a factor in the way in which this process has evolved?

[Mr Cash]

I do not think so. The driving force behind the arguments being made by the Conservative part of the coalition from the Back Benches is based on objective analysis in the interests of democracy, transparency and accountability in Parliament. Mr Farage cannot deliver anything, because he does not have one Member of Parliament. He cannot change one word of legislation—he can do nothing about any of this. I know that the situation is uncomfortable for the Secretaries of State at this moment in time, but I know for a fact that they will agree emphatically that the United Kingdom Independence party can achieve absolutely nothing. They know perfectly well that Conservative Back Benchers can achieve something. As in relation to many other European matters, Conservative Back Benchers can, by doing what we are doing now—working towards, we hope, a listening Government and listening Secretaries of State—achieve the results that we need, in the interests of the country as a whole. I hope that that answers the hon. Gentleman’s very useful question.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

In the House, one always “follows the hon. Gentleman”, which often highlights differing views. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) on this occasion. He and I have almost diametrically opposite views when it comes to issues such as this, but I enjoyed his speech nevertheless.

In her opening speech, the Home Secretary produced a list of countries, some of which were of great interest to me, for it is always fascinating to hear about our bilateral relationships with some of our friends in Europe; but she did not refer to one nation that is a bit closer to home. My nation, Scotland, did not receive a single mention. Indeed, not one of the devolved Parliaments and Assemblies was considered important enough for the Secretary of State to mention. It should never be forgotten that we have our own judicial system in Scotland, and that we are responsible for the delivery of justice and home affairs there.

I think it reasonable to say—and I will say it to the Home Secretary, who is still present—that this opt-out is not particularly popular in Scotland. What it has in fact managed to do is unite the Scottish Government, the whole of Scotland’s legal community, all the police enforcement agencies and all the civil rights institutions in opposition. There is probably no issue that has managed to unite all those different and divergent sectors in Scotland ever before. That is how unpopular this opt-out is in Scotland. The bottom line is that we overwhelmingly do not want this opt-out in Scotland and we remain very concerned for the security and safety of our citizens in Scotland if this opt-out is pursued. We are very much concerned about the cavalier attitude of this Government in opting out of this chapter and their hope that they can selectively just opt back into the important measures that help keep people in our respective nations safe. We do not share the Government’s Eurosceptic agenda that informs this political decision and we despair at the self-defeating nonsense of all of this.

Even though we do not want this, however, and even though it is overwhelmingly opposed, Scotland will get it. That is just the way it works. The UK Government decide what they will do on behalf of the rest of the nations and Assemblies in the UK and that is what will happen.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman does not seem to want any of these opt-outs, but is not the great argument for independence in the referendum in Scotland that it means Scotland will leave the EU and opt out of everything?

[Pete Wishart]

This is the difference between me and the hon. Gentleman: he wants to opt out of Europe and be a little Englander, all self-enclosed in a joyous new future he would propose for his nation, whereas we want to reach out—we want to share with the rest of our fellow citizens across Europe all the wonderful benefits of EU membership and EU entry. That is what we will secure in Scotland and thank goodness we will not be part of the rest of the United Kingdom, pulling in one direction under the UKIP-informed political orthodoxy that is starting to emerge here. We will do it in our own way and we will reflect our own particular political values when it comes to EU membership. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that topic.

We are going to get this measure in Scotland even though we feel it is not in the best interests of the communities we represent, but, as the hon. Gentleman alluded to, this will end soon when we have the referendum in September. No longer will we have our devolved responsibilities dictated by this Government. The Secretary of State will have seen the correspondence from the Scottish Ministers—the screeds of concerns, the evidence from the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee—but she will of course ignore them. That is what happens; we put forward our concerns and they are first ignored and then binned. This is what this Government still laughingly call the respect agenda.

Colleagues in the Scottish Government have stated repeatedly to UK Ministers the value we place on EU police and justice co-operation measures. We have pointed out that we have our own distinct legal system that needs to be dealt with differently, and we have our own processes of bringing serious criminals to justice and our own particular European partnerships for tackling growing levels of cross-border crime.

For us, the measures in the home affairs and justice chapter are extremely important. They are not something to barter in a game of Eurosceptic or Russian roulette with UKIP. They are measures that ensure that people accused of serious crimes are brought to justice quickly and efficiently. Unlike this Government, we very much support the sharing of information between police forces. We want to see improved joint investigations of cross-border crimes. We think it is a good thing to have better identification of people using false documents and the efficient transfer of criminals back to their own countries.

This has been done with no or little consultation. Scottish Ministers have repeatedly written to explain the possible implications of this decision on Scotland’s devolved justice system and to state clearly their very strong preference to remain fully opted into these measures, but the Government simply brought forward their intention to proceed with this opt-out without even a cursory discussion with the devolved institutions. That just is not good enough any more.

The lack of real discussion and the failure to listen to the devolved Administrations demonstrate this Government’s Eurosceptic arrogance at its worst. We all know why they are doing this. It is all because of the threat of UKIP at the polls, so they have got to be seen to be doing something—anything—about the big Brussels bogeyman.

It would be as well just to have Nigel Farage on the Front Bench trying to get this through. Of course UKIP has not got a Member in the House, but it pulls the strings in the House all the time, and this Government just respond by taking that agenda up. I do not know who will win the battle of the Eurosceptics, but it looks as though UKIP is going to win the battle of the European election polls in May. The point is that you cannot out-UKIP UKIP; they are the masters of Euroscepticism. This Government will never beat them in their race to the bottom to try and be harder on Europe and try to scare people out of Europe more and more. We do not do UKIP in Scotland—we barely do Tory; we have only one Tory Member of Parliament—yet we are going to be dragged into this Euro race to the bottom as the parties attempt to win Eurosceptic votes in the May elections.

The Government say that they are going to opt out of the home affairs chapter, only to opt back into the important stuff. The stuff that they will not opt back into is mostly dead and never used, as the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said, but we could be put into a dangerous period of limbo—a gap during which the important stuff will not apply—that could diminish our security and safety. We have been forced to opt out of everything, including important measures for investigating cross-border crimes and bringing serious, organised criminals to justice.

Those measures include the European arrest warrant, which has been the focus of most of the debate today. Yes, the Government say that they will opt back into the European arrest warrant, but there will almost certainly be a lag period, and that is what concerns us the most. We know that there are those on the Tory Back Benches who do not like the European arrest warrant; we have heard from them today, and they remain disappointed that the Government will seek to opt back into the measure. For them, the warrant is a totem of EU badness—something that sums up Brussels, and must go—whereas to us, it is central to European justice and security, and to the safety of our communities. It has done a great deal to bring dangerous criminals to justice.

I suspect that opposition to the European arrest warrant is based on Euroscepticism, but our experience of it in Scotland is totally different. We have heard today of the example of Moira Jones. The European arrest warrant was instrumental in securing the conviction of her murderer, in that it allowed clothing and other property to be seized before it could be destroyed. That helped to lead to a successful prosecution. The speed with which extraditions take place is important, and long-drawn-out processes can be avoided only by using the warrant. We have none of the issues with the warrant that have been mentioned by other hon. Members. It has been particularly successful in Scotland, and it is something that all our law enforcement agencies welcome.

I shall give the House another example of how the European arrest warrant is working for us in Scotland. In January 2012, Grzegorz Gamla committed a violent attack and murder in Edinburgh. He was arrested within five hours of the issuing of the arrest warrant. That was achieved through the European arrest warrant system, but it was also facilitated by direct contact between Scottish prosecutors and the authorities in Poland under the European judicial network, which the Government say that they will not opt back into. Those two cases show how the ability to act incredibly swiftly using the arrest warrant allowed the criminal process to proceed much more quickly than it would otherwise have done.

There are other important Europe-wide security and policing arrangements from which we might find ourselves excluded for an unspecified period. We have heard about membership of Europol and Eurojust, for example, as well as practical police and judicial co-operation measures and joint investigative teams. The Government have said that they will opt back into most of the important stuff, but they are not seeking to opt back into the European judicial network, which underpins much of the good work of the European arrest warrant. We have been told by Scotland’s police and legal community that that network is invaluable to Scotland, but once again, the concerns expressed by our legal community have been overlooked.

This is all so unnecessary, and it represents a real threat to security and safety in Scotland. We do not share the ingrained Euroscepticism that now infects this Government at the highest level, and we refuse to have our political agenda determined by the threat of UKIP in the polls. The bottom line is that any gap between opt-out and rejoining has to be kept to a minimum. The longer the gaps and transition periods that have to be dealt with, the greater the likelihood of the problems that we have been discussing occurring.

Our preference would have been not to have the opt-out in the first place, but we are part of a UK that barely listens to us and that is pursuing an almost opposite set of political values and a different political agenda from ours. This will be resolved in September when we vote yes overwhelmingly in the independence referendum and Scotland gets what it wants on these issues, at which point we will secure our membership of the European Union on our terms.

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[Mark Reckless]

I think the Liberal Democrats will ultimately find that as we act to others, so they will act to us.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman is becoming awfully exercised about the Liberal Democrats, but the party about which he should be most concerned is UKIP, because it will probably trounce the Conservatives in the European elections. What will the Conservatives do in that event?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We do not want to speculate on what will happen in the European elections. We do not want to speculate on whether they will be won by the Liberals or by UKIP. I think that we want to hear about the point of the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

We will discuss the detail of that motion in due course, but of course we will give the House the opportunity to express a very clear view on the conclusion of the negotiations that we have reached. That is what we said at the start and it is what we will deliver.

We have been through detailed discussions both with the Select Committees and within the Government. We are now going through detailed discussions with the Commission and we will return with the conclusions in due course.

[Pete Wishart]

There is one group the Justice Secretary has not had any discussions with: the devolved Parliaments and Assemblies. Given that this has such a significant impact on our delivery of devolved services, why has he not listened to the Government in Scotland and the devolved Assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland?

[Chris Grayling]

With respect, what the hon. Gentleman says is simply not right. We have had extensive discussions with the devolved Assemblies. The Minister for Security and Immigration has had detailed discussions with the devolved Assemblies, I have been involved in detailed discussions with the devolved Administrations and I believe the Home Secretary has had discussions. We have had extensive discussions and will no doubt continue to do so. We discuss issues with our counterparts in Edinburgh and in Northern Ireland all the time, and we will continue to do so.

Let me deal with the specific issues raised in this debate. The shadow Home Secretary began for the Opposition, and I am still at a loss to know whether Labour supports the list of 35 measures: whether Labour supports what we are putting forward or wants to see a different list. It is absolutely unclear what the Labour party’s view is; we heard a long diatribe from her and a long list of accusations, but no clear policies from the other side. We heard much the same from the shadow Justice Secretary, but I give him credit for picking out one or two measures on the Justice side that he did support, although he did not say whether he supported the minimum standards measures decision we had taken. One way or another, at the end of this debate we have little idea what the Opposition stand for.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) made a typically knowledgeable contribution. He talked about the importance of the issue of European Court of Justice jurisdiction and about the charter of fundamental rights, which is doubtless an issue he and I will return to and discuss extensively. We share the aspiration, aim and absolute clear goal that the charter will not become part of national law in this country. We heard from the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, who is no longer in his place. He talked about the timetable as we work towards 1 December. We need to be very clear that a timetable is already set out for us, as envisaged in the treaty signed by the previous Government, and we are working towards that date of 1 December. We need time to complete the negotiations and, on the back of those, formally apply to the Commission to rejoin the measures. That is precisely where we stand; that is the approach we are taking and it is the approach envisaged in the agreement reached by the previous Government.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) does not want to opt in to any of these measures. I would simply remind him that we secured agreement to exercise the opt-out in the first place. Were we not in that position, we would now face the situation of opting in to all these measures or remaining in all of them. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) set out his concerns about the issue of discussions with the devolved Assemblies, mentioning them again a few moments ago. He made a strong statement, which I suspect had a little more to do with certain campaigning taking place in Scotland than with this debate. The bit I did not understand was that he was talking about the risks he alleged this Government were taking with our relationships within the European Union, yet he and his party are going down a route whereby it is far from clear that if they are successful—heaven forbid—in September, they will even be a part of the European Union. I do not understand how he possibly squares that circle.

We heard a thoughtful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who has done valuable work in the Fresh Start group. I understand her concern about the ability of international courts to extend their jurisprudence. She also made the point about the charter of fundamental rights, and it is very important that we keep a close watch on that issue and resist any attempts to extend its remit. We know that there is a divide in opinions between the Government and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), and he made an impassioned speech about the need for more and more integration. He set out clear differences between us and him, although he could not tell the difference between Spain and Brazil in his comments. It was a typically robust contribution that highlighted to us why there remain some significant divisions across the Floor of the House on Britain’s future in the European Union.

The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) expressed fears about a gap between the discussion taking place now, what happens after 1 December and the continued provision in areas such as the European arrest warrant. I would simply remind him of what Professor Steven Peers said about the issue of the time frame for the next few months in evidence to the Home Affairs Committee on 10 September:

“There certainly ought to be enough time. I would say it would not be the Government’s fault if there is no decision in time by December next year. It would be some kind of political difficulty that the Council and the Commission have dreamed up.”

I am confident, as is the Home Secretary and those involved in the negotiating team, that there is time, will and a desire on the part of other member states to ensure that there is a smooth transition and we can get this done without the gap that the hon. Gentleman is afraid of.

My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) rightly again highlighted the issue of the ECJ at the centre of the debate, and I suspect that we will have further lively discussions about it as the months go by. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) had examined the issue of justice measures and talked about probation, as did the shadow Justice Secretary. There are genuine issues relating to the drafting of the probation directive which make it difficult for us to consider at this moment the concept that we would release this to the jurisdiction of the European Court. I have no intention of going forward with an opt-in under the current wording, as that could cause all kinds of complications for our rules on deportations, in respect of somebody deported to another country who then had to be repatriated because their probation conditions were breached. At the moment we believe the measure is flawed and we have therefore decided it cannot be in the list of things to opt back in to.

My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton gave a thoughtful contribution in which he talked about the “cold, hard lens” of national interest. That is certainly what has guided us, particularly in respect of the discussions the Home Secretary has had with law enforcement bodies about the need to say that there are things they believe need to be in place in order for us to ensure we can provide proper protection for our citizens. Some strong recommendations have been made by those organisations, which she articulated clearly in her remarks this afternoon. Lastly, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) was clear about his views about opting in to these measures. I simply remind him that we have opted out already and the decision to exercise the opt-out is a major step forward for the country; otherwise we would have had no option but to end up with 133 different measures.

So, for reasons of policy, principle and pragmatism, the Government have exercised the opt-out in the national interest. We have decided that it is in our national interest to co-operate in measures that help combat cross-border crime and keep our country safe. That is what we are negotiating for in Brussels and it is what we aim to deliver. It is a coherent package that we aim to bring back to Parliament for a vote before the UK formally makes any application to rejoin later this year. It is very much in that national interest that my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton talked about. It has guided us in these discussions and in discussions across the coalition.