G20

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to read the hon. Lady the Government motion. It said this:

“Believes that the United Nations Security Council must have the opportunity immediately to consider that briefing”—

from the weapons inspectors—

“and that every effort should be made to secure a Security Council Resolution backing military action before any such action is taken”.

The fact is that Opposition Front Benchers are wriggling and quibbling because they know they had a choice. They could have done the difficult thing and the right thing for the country; instead, they chose the easy and simple thing that was politically convenient. They have to live with the consequences.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

Was there an opportunity at the summit to discuss the emerging evidence that sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war in Syria?

[The Prime Minister]

Many of the issues around the appalling nature of the Syrian conflict were raised. The Foreign Secretary has taken international leadership on the issue that my hon. Friend speaks about, to say how unacceptable the use of sexual violence is as a conflict weapon.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I am a former human rights and criminal lawyer who has worked in this country and abroad, and I want to address the legality of the process we face today. The effectiveness of chemical weapons is beyond doubt—that is why people want to use them. Their usage is a war crime and a humanitarian catastrophe, and I agree that the perpetrator, in any circumstance, should face justice.

It is a sad fact that all of our constituents are scarred by the Iraq and Afghanistan experience, which has poisoned the well of public confidence in so many ways. The public clearly lack confidence in our attempts at foreign policy. I know that the majority of my constituents in Northumberland and the majority of those in this House of Commons do not want to get involved in a civil war in Syria. Neither do I. I am clear that I have no desire for land forces or long-term involvement in this civil war, however abhorrent both sides are. I am grateful that both the Government and the Opposition have made that point clear. The reality of the situation is that we are only discussing the limited use of potential air strikes to diminish chemical weapons capacity.

I welcome the Prime Minister’s approach in holding the debate today, the decision to hold a second debate in the future, the publication of the JIC report and the Attorney-General’s legal summary. I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for the meeting yesterday. The revised motion gives a stronger and greater role to the United Nations. If anybody could urge the United Nations to resolve this, all of us would do so. Both the motion and the amendment seek the UN’s assistance. Whether we would be able to achieve that is a separate matter.

On usage and evidence, many have made the case that there is widespread and extensive evidence—from multiple intelligence agencies and the Arab League—of the repeated use by Assad of chemical weapons in the past couple of years, certainly in excess of a dozen times. All participants admit the usage on 21 August, when 300-plus were killed and 3,000-plus were maimed. If there is a delay, we hope that the UN can assist, but what do we do if 98% of the UN wish to pass a resolution but a country such as Russia blocks us? That has been the reality for some time and I suspect that that will be the reality in the future. One has to pose the question that if an incident like the holocaust were to happen tomorrow and one of the Security Council objected, what would the rest of the world do? We have to ask whether we are prepared to allow Russia to be the sole determinant of which part of international law is to be observed. Exact parallels can be found in the Kosovo situation in 1999, when Russia sought to prevent any NATO action.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend’s analysis of the UN. The General Assembly is about to meet. Does he agree that using the General Assembly as a mechanism by which we could obtain a recommendation for action in Syria would be a sensible option for us to consider before exhausting all mechanisms within the UN?

[Guy Opperman]

I completely endorse that. In Kosovo in 1999 there were three broadly supported UN resolutions. Although not enough to get over the UN hurdle that we seek to overcome, they did provide the assistance and support that such a course would entail. We have to address what the legal basis is for any proposed action by the British or other international troops.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We need to build more houses in our country, and that is exactly what the Government are doing. We are building more social houses and more private houses, and we are reforming housing benefit so that we can better use the money. The question now is for the Opposition. They spent weeks and weeks complaining about the removal of the spare room subsidy. I do not know whether anyone else has noticed: they do not ask questions about it any more. Could that possibly be because they have not got a clue about whether they would restore it?

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

With an estimated £10 billion boost to our economy, does my right hon. Friend agree that a free trade agreement with the United States represents a glittering prize for Britain and for Europe?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is very good news that this free trade agreement has been launched at Lough Erne in Northern Ireland. It will now take many months of very difficult and patient negotiation. It is a hugely complicated problem, because we want it to cover all sorts of areas, such as public procurement and services, and not just manufactured goods, but it is good that it is getting going, because this could mean millions of jobs right across Europe and great benefits for us here in the UK.

Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I am glad to be able to add my voice to the warm and proper tributes paid to this most remarkable of Prime Ministers. I joined the Conservative party back in 1985 in south Wales in the middle of the miners’ strike. It was another world politically. We have heard a lot about the politics of division. The truth is that the country was a different place and the issues at stake were pretty visceral. I played my part in campaigning for the Conservative party that I believed in then and believe in now and with which I am proud to be associated.

At a time when politicians seemed to loom very large in the lives of us all, Margaret Thatcher loomed the largest. Thinking about it, the role of politicians now looms somewhat less in our lives precisely because of what she achieved. She came to power in an age when far too many of the major decisions affecting day-to-day life in this country were made directly by the state, which possessed far too much control over too many of the levers of power in Britain. Her greatest legacy is that she ceded control over many of those levers and gave power back to the people.

Margaret Thatcher’s uncanny knack of understanding the aspirations and concerns of the people of this country was reflected in her deep commitment to wider home ownership and her passionate belief in trusting families and individuals to make the most of the key decisions affecting their lives. She shared the instinctive suspicion of the British people for those who wielded and abused unaccountable power. Her fight to tame militant trade unionism here at home and her fight against Soviet hegemony abroad were testament to that innate understanding. The message for us today, in the House and beyond, is that we should not shy away from facing up to those who abuse power, whether in the form of a poorly regulated banking sector or monopolistic self-interest.

Much has been made of Margaret Thatcher’s background as a scientist, and there is no doubt that that was important, but she was also a lawyer. She was a qualified member of my profession, and I firmly believe that that honed her skill not only for debate but for analysing evidence and for testing it in argument before putting it to the people. She developed policy by debate and discussion, but once her mind was made up she was determined and took action. She did not shy away from the maxim that it was deeds, not words, that mattered.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) described Mrs Thatcher as a Gladstonian Liberal, but she was far more than that. She was driven by ideas but not ideology, which makes her very firmly a Conservative. She understood the value of meaningful tradition, and her beliefs in freedom, the rule of law and the old Tory slogan, “Trust the people”, shall and must endure.

Royal Charter on Press Conduct

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lilley]

No; I have got the hon. Gentleman’s point.

My third point is on prevention. The charter says:

“The board should not have the power to prevent publication of any material”.

I am not sure what the legal power of “should not” is. The charter also states that the board “should” be able to do other things.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend raises an important point about the wording of the document. The document sets out the criteria for recognising the regulator, not the terms of reference for the regulator itself, which will be a separate matter for the independent regulator. That is why the word “should” is used.

[Mr Lilley]

My hon. Friend reinforces my point. The document does not prevent the regulator from preventing publication; it says merely that publication “should” be prevented by someone else if they get around to it.

In any case, since the regulator can offer advice to editors of subscribing publications on how they should best comply with the code, and punish editors with fines of up to £1 million if they subsequently do not follow such advice, it effectively means that the regulator has the considerable power to prohibit or discourage publication.

The final question I asked Hacked Off was whether there were any limits in the measure as to how far the body and the code can go in future when it is annually reviewed. Each time it will be made more intense and its scope will be extended because that is how regulators work—they always increase their powers. As far as I could work out from Hacked Off’s rather incoherent reply, there are no limits to the powers that the body can grant itself or the extent to which it can go.

It find it worrying that we are, so far with no discussion, setting up a body with open-ended powers. It will have the ability to levy £1 million fines and effectively to deprive people of a livelihood if they break the code it establishes—[Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) says, like the Climate Change Act 2008, which we have subsequently learnt to regret, the charter has the support of those on both Front Benches.

I hope that when the body is established, a lot of media organisations will have the courage to follow The Spectator and stand aside from it and remain free while, hopefully, adopting the highest standards in how they publish and how they treat the public.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Roger Gale]

I understand where my hon. Friend is coming from, but we need to remember that the Press Complaints Commission set its own code of conduct, in precisely the same way, as I understand it, as the press will be invited, under the terms of the draft charter before us, to set its own code of conduct.

[Mr Buckland]

rose—

[Mr Whittingdale]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I am mindful of your exhortation, Mr. Speaker. I shall curb my natural exuberance, and my wish to wax lyrical about a subject that has occupied my waking and, dare I say, sleeping hours in the last few weeks. I share that experience with my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice).

I pay warm tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin), who, I know, has spent many hours when he should have been sleeping working extremely hard to secure an agreement, and I echo the warm tributes that have been paid to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and all other Members on both sides of the House who have been involved for ensuring that the royal charter can genuinely proceed to approval by the Privy Council as a result of a cross-party consensus. I believe that without that consensus, use of this prerogative power would have been very difficult indeed. Negotiations were key if this was to work.

Today is not a day for euphoria, and it is certainly not a day for self-congratulation, but it might, just might, mark a welcome new chapter in the life and role of the press in our society. It is clear why Lord Justice Leveson had to embark on his 15 months of work. Let us not forget the reasons, which have again been outlined eloquently in the House today. If we stay true to the reasons why the Prime Minister rightly set up that inquiry, we must recognise that it was inevitable that we, as a House of Commons, would have to reach the decision—a tough decision—to make a change, and we have reached that decision today. We have broken the logjam of generations of politicians who have gone before us and who have said much about the need for reform, but have done precious little. There is a moment, perhaps, for just a bit of quiet pride in the fact that we, as a Parliament, are able to make that break.

Many speakers have rightly expressed concern, and want to understand more, about the nature and meaning of the royal charter, but let us not forget that this document is not the constitution of the regulator. It sets out, in clear terms, what a regulator should look like according to the recognition body, which is why it includes terms such as “should” and why it is exhortatory rather than prescriptive. That has to be right. Some of my right hon. and hon. Friends have asked what is the full ambit of the regulator. My answer is simply this: it is an independent body and a voluntary body, but, for the first time, we are to have a body that can be periodically assessed in relation to objective criteria. That is what the schedules to the royal charter are all about.

Before I sat down to watch the wonderful Six Nations victory by Wales in the match against England on Saturday, I donned my anorak and spent a few hours comparing and contrasting the royal charter published by Her Majesty’s Opposition with the one published by the Government. I came up with very few differences. Most involved a word here and there, but I considered one difference to be important. It related to the power of any new regulator either to “require” or to “direct” appropriate remedial action following a breach of standards.

We have heard a great deal about the difference between the meaning of the word “require” and the meaning of the word “direct”. I must admit that before I looked at the wording carefully, I did not think that there was much of a difference. However, I think it right for us to put the position beyond peradventure and include the word “direction”, which implies an order, a mandate, a compulsion for the member of the body to right the wrong that it has done. That could lead to the printed apologies on the front page, and to the remedies that actually mean something to those who have been affected by wrongdoing. That may sound boring, but it is very important to those concerned. It is the job of the House of Commons to do the boring but important things. That is why I think it is vital for us all to consider the detail of this important document as carefully as we can.

Much has been made about the use of statute, but I think it was inevitable. There had been a hope, at one stage, that the civil procedure rules that govern the way in which civil trials are held in England and Wales could be amended to allow for the regimen of aggravated damages and costs that is now in statute. That proved not to be the case, which is why, sensibly and inevitably, it has to be in statute. As for the entrenchment clause, whether we call it underpinning or supporting matters not. The point is still well made that this charter should not be subject to the whim of the Executive, to be amended by them at their pace, in their time and in their way; it should be for this House to consider any amendment. The role of the politician in the new system of regulation should and must stop there. This system is not about politicians interfering with the life and work of journalists; it is simply an important and significant step along the road to make sure that all the work of decent professional journalists, who spend their lives investigating wrongdoing and exposing that which should not be secret, is supported. So it will be good for them, just as it will be good for those who have been and those who may still be the victims of wrongdoing.

Some years ago, my profession, the legal profession, went through a similar process, and we now have an overarching body, the Legal Services Board, which recognises independent regulation. There was a worry that that would interfere with the independence of the Bar and solicitors, but the truth is that solicitors and barristers go about their daily work without having to look over their shoulder at a recognising body. In fact, that body is enshrined in statute and has a wider remit that anything I have read about in this royal charter. For those reasons, we can confidently support the agreement that has been reached between all parties in this House and look forward to a time when the victims of wrongdoing will receive a fairer deal.

Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

On that point, is the hon. Lady aware that closed material procedures are already used by, for example, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, and have been held not to be incompatible with the European convention? Is she not waving her shroud a little too strongly?

[Caroline Lucas]

As somebody who has a constituent who has been subject to SIAC, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I am not waving my shroud nearly strongly enough. The SIAC process is inhumane. We can discuss later whether it falls foul of article 6, but the idea that because we already have CMPs in that example it is somehow appropriate to export them to civil cases is misguided.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

First, it is important that proportionality has been reintroduced to the Code for Crown Prosecutors. We have all seen examples of the schoolyard scuffle or other matters that should not be prosecuted, and where it is important to achieve a balance. On recording, the CPS keeps a considerable amount of records. Of course, that costs money and so there is a balance to be struck, but I will certainly think over the hon. Gentleman’s point.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I welcome the reintroduction of the proportionality test as part of the wider public interest test. Will my hon. Friend reassure the constituents I represent that the question of cost is but one of eight questions to be asked by Crown prosecutors when applying the public interest test, and that it will not be determined on the basis of cost alone?

[The Solicitor-General]

My hon. Friend makes the point better perhaps than even I could, but I will just make two short points. First, this is not just about cost, but about assessing cost, the likely sentence, the full circumstances of the case and the other points made by my hon. Friend. Secondly, with regard to effective case management, it is often important in a complex case to concentrate on the main and most serious suspects, and so this gives an opportunity for the prosecution to consider that.

European Council

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. That is why, within a budget that needs to be properly constrained, we need changes to the common agricultural policy in order to deliver more money for research and development and things that can help growth in Europe. We have achieved that: I wish we had gone further in that regard, but we can still make that argument in individual budget negotiations.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

May I echo the support for my right hon. Friend and the work that he and his ministerial team have done, not only in the last week but in the months preceding these negotiations—engaging with countries such as Germany, building alliances, showing that Britain has real influence in Europe and being positive?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is strong support for the different agenda items that we want to pursue—whether that is constraining properly the European budget, completing the single market or making sure that we are having the impact that we want in terms of terrorism—and we should build those alliances and work accordingly.

Algeria

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What my hon. Friend says is absolutely right and should form part of every speech and statement made about this issue. This is not a clash of civilisations; it is all people against a very small minority who are poisoned by that ideology. It is worth making the point that the biggest number of victims of al-Qaeda violence are Muslim men and women. That remains the case, and we cannot make that point too often.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s refocusing of attention on the causes of instability in that troubled region; some are recent, but some are of much longer standing. Will he do all that he can to resolve the plight of thousands of Sahrawi refugees who continue to languish in the camps of Tindouf in Algeria, which may be a source of instability in the region?

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

I have noted what Lord Justice Leveson has said and it may be something to be incorporated in press regulation. The current position on the law of contempt is that proceedings are active from the time of arrest. Those considerations are not identical to those that Lord Justice Leveson was considering, but they raise the issue that after arrest the press has to have in mind the possible impact on the fairness of the trial process thereafter. That could include naming a suspect; equally, it might be perfectly acceptable to do that.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

There is continuing concern, nevertheless, about the almost habitual naming of suspects after arrest, which in the minds of many of us has the potential to cause real prejudice. Will my right hon. and learned Friend do all he can to monitor the current situation and ensure that the law is prosecuted to its full effect?

[The Attorney-General]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I am certainly mindful that in many of the contempt matters brought to my attention the problem has arisen in the period between arrest and charge. Of course, if the House were minded to change the law on anonymity, which has been floated previously in private Members’ business, that could be done by enacting legislation. However, let me make it quite clear that this would need a legislative solution, not one that I can in some way “magic up”. The law of contempt has to be applied free of all political considerations, and that is what I try to do as best I can.