European Council

Robert Neill Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland does an excellent job. She is exercising her ability to reach a personal decision and to campaign for Britain to leave the EU, and it is absolutely right she is able to do that. The key thing is that everyone in Northern Ireland should make up their own mind based on the evidence, and I look forward to coming to try to help persuade them to remain in a reformed EU.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister accept that the thousands of my constituents, the hundreds of thousands of constituents in London and the millions of constituents across the UK who work in financial services will be glad that he, at least, values their jobs, even if the Leader of the Opposition appears to dismiss them? Will he also recognise that the economic governance package is an important win for a strategic British interest and, therefore, that the pragmatic and businesslike thing is not to walk away from a market we are in, but to stay in it, improve it and make it work better?

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly agree with that. We should recognise that there are something like a million jobs in finance in Glasgow and Edinburgh—I think there are almost a million jobs in Manchester and Birmingham. The key point here is this: because we are in the single market, we have the right to passport—that is, to have a bank or a financial services company here in Britain that can trade throughout the EU. Leave the single market, and you lose that right. What would then have to happen is that companies based in the UK would have to move at least some of their jobs to another European country—that is why HSBC said the other day they would lose 1,000 jobs. So real jobs, real people’s salaries and real prosperity are under threat. We really need to explain this. It is complicated, but there is no doubt in my mind: leaving the single market for financial services would mean fewer jobs in Britain.

UK-EU Renegotiation

Robert Neill Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will look very carefully at that issue, but I seem to recall from conversations I had with the Taoiseach that there are particular arrangements for the common travel area. But I will come back to the hon. Gentleman on this.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

The legal certainty that the Prime Minister referred to and the protections in the economic governance section of the document are very important to maintain the status of London as an international business and financial centre, but does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the risks to that position that would remain if this agreement were not successful would be the uncertainty of leaving a market which we can grow, improve and strengthen, and having then to try to get back into the market from the outside with uncertain cost, time and terms?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend, with his constituency, is right to talk about the importance of financial services and the City of London. We have 40% of Europe’s financial services here in the UK. The current arrangements work quite well because people can passport their way through to establish themselves in any European country, so those arguing for alternatives will have to answer some quite difficult questions about how exactly we put those sorts of protections in place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I pay tribute to him, as he is retiring from this place, for his assiduous work on this and other issues over the years. He rightly says that it is important for the reputation of this country that cases are brought, under either the new Act or the old Act. We must not forget that we have had a number of key successes in non-Bribery Act cases that predate the passage of this legislation, most notably the prosecution of Smith & Ouzman Ltd for bribes paid to Kenyan officials in relation to the electoral processes. We have had a number of successes, which we should celebrate.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Does the Solicitor-General agree that part of the SFO’s success in recent years in these matters stems from the rigour that David Green, QC, has brought as its director, because of his experience in private practice? Is that perhaps a lesson for future appointments to other senior prosecuting bodies?

[The Solicitor-General]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that, and I join him in thanking the director for the hard work he is putting in to ensure that the SFO performs well and improves its progress. On the previous question on resources, may I just say that the availability of blockbuster funding means that the SFO has the flexibility to prosecute cases as and when they arise and meet the threshold test?

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Through the better care fund we are producing £5 billion, which is money that health authorities and local authorities can spend together. Up to now, the Labour party has opposed that fund and said that it should not be established; but I am afraid it is worse than that. The shadow Secretary of State for Health has been wandering around the television studios today, telling anyone who is prepared to listen that he would increase funding for social care. There is only one slight problem with that. The shadow Chancellor said on the news as recently as 5 January that

“there will be no additional funding for local government unless we can find money from somewhere else”—[Interruption.]

Ah—we are! If Labour Members had waited until the end of the quotation, they would have heard this:

“but we have not been able to do that in the case of local government.”

So there we are: total and utter chaos. One of them is going around saying that there will be extra money, another is saying that there will not be any extra money, and there are £20 billion of unfunded commitments that would lead to total chaos in our economy and a total breakdown in our health service.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister update the House on the future arrangements for the upkeep of the Royal Air Force memorial chapel at Biggin Hill, the iconic former Battle of Britain airfield?

[The Prime Minister]

I can absolutely confirm to the House that that chapel will be preserved for future generations, as we have always recognised its importance and its rich heritage. I think it possible that of all the great moments in British history, the Battle of Britain 1940 stands out as one of the most important times that there have been. So we will protect the chapel, and will do all that we can to protect it for future generations.

Recall of MPs Bill

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan) and the right hon. Gentleman make my case for me: there is not agreement across the House. I merely observe that this Bill was a commitment that we made in the manifesto on which we fought the last election, and that is true for the three main parties. It is reasonable to reflect that there is an expectation on parties that stood on such a commitment that they will bring forward such a Bill.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a good case, and I shall certainly be supporting him. As the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) said, is not the key issue that if we are to have a greater degree of openness towards our constituents, there must none the less be something that triggers an objective finding of bad behaviour—be it by conviction or by some other form of sanction? Without that, there is a risk that campaigning MPs who take up unpopular causes could be subject to victimisation by various pressure groups.

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his point. He is taking up a popular cause, but there are occasions when Members should and will take up unpopular causes. It would be infinitely regrettable if they were to lose their seat in this House by a campaign that sought to silence them.

Ukraine (Flight MH17) and Gaza

Robert Neill Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What I have said clearly is that the Israelis need to exercise restraint, obey the norms of international law, do more to avoid civilian casualties and help bring the situation to an end, but they would be assisted in that if Hamas agreed to the ceasefire that Israel has agreed to.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

The Prime Minister is right to identify that Russia’s behaviour has been so gross that it cannot expect the access to international markets that a normal, civilised country might. Does he agree that the logical next political step might be to consider the appropriateness of Russia continuing as a member of the Council of Europe, which is supposedly a body of civilised democracies?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We demonstrated with the G8 that if countries want to belong to organisations that have at their heart a belief in democracy and the fundamental values that we share, they have to act accordingly.

Local Growth Deals

Robert Neill Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

Of course, I meet the local enterprise partnerships—all of them—regularly to discuss the kinds of deals we are announcing. The hon. Gentleman will know that the local authority leaders work very closely together—in fact, his own local authority leader, Simon Henig, is the chair of the combined authority—and that they are democratically elected, and I know that they make sure that taxpayers’ money is wisely spent.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

May I congratulate my right hon. Friend, both politically and personally, on his commitment to delivering a further significant tranche of devolution? Does he agree that, in order to see this through, it is very important not only that local authorities abandon the tribalism in evidence on the Opposition Benches, but that they make maximum entrepreneurial use of the other important devolutionary power we gave them—the power of general competence in the Localism Act 2011, which will complement this tranche of measures?

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He has personal responsibility for that power, since he, with me, piloted the Localism Bill through Committee. The power is available to local authorities and I hope they will take it up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

Sharing legal services brings considerable benefits in greater flexibility and reliance; more efficient deployment of legal resources, including specialist expertise; and more opportunities for savings and improved knowledge sharing. It also provides a more coherent legal service for Government as a whole and good career development opportunities for lawyers, and it improves the legal support to individual Departments.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that one area of expertise that could be improved by shared legal service is that of awareness of and consistent access to expertise in forms of alternative dispute resolution, such as mediation, which should be available to all Government Departments?

[The Attorney-General]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. That is precisely the benefit of bringing the legal advisers from different Departments into one organisation. There is now a single board that groups those people together in the Treasury Solicitor’s Department, and I am confident it can deliver savings, lower charging costs for Departments—we have already seen that—and greater efficiency and expertise in-house.

Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Clarke]

I shall give way one last time, and then I must press on to the JCHR’s amendments.

[Robert Neill]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that although the proposed system is not perfect and never can be in litigation, it is surely preferable to have that than a system where an ex parte application for PII can be made without the defendant having any notice of any kind and without anybody, not even a special advocate, being able to test the material?

[Mr Clarke]

The time has come for reform. The present system is not defensible, in my opinion, and my hon. Friend confirms that all kinds of features of PII are hopelessly unsatisfactory. We have to deal with them.

Let me move on—

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart). I seem to remember studying some of the judgments of Justice Learned Hand myself when I was doing my jurisprudence course at the London School of Economics. I knew they would come in handy one day.

I was much impressed with the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips), and I agreed with him entirely. He put it more elegantly than I could—that is why he is a Queen’s counsel and I am not. I also rather agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland).

I want to concentrate on part 2 of the Bill, because it relates to the area in which I have been interested as a lawyer. It seems to me that we should not allow the best to become the enemy of the good. The best, of course, is open hearings in court with the normal, full process. However, in a limited number of cases there are particular circumstances, which my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon rehearsed well, in which it is necessary to have a different procedure.

With respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Simon Reevell), who is not in his place at the moment, I do not accept the proposition that the Bill will be used to prevent people from bringing claims. Nothing that is currently available in open court will become secret as a consequence of it.

[John McDonnell]

Let me give the hon. Gentleman an example of how the argument about security is used—the Shrewsbury 24, the pickets who were imprisoned 40 years ago. When they sought the information upon which they were arrested and prosecuted by the Government, the letter sent back from the Secretary of State for Justice told them that a “security blanket” had been wrapped around that information, so the records would not be published on the grounds of national security. Is that the sort of issue that the Bill should cover?

[Robert Neill]

With respect, it seems to me that at the moment public interest immunity would be invoked in such a case, possibly by an ex parte application, without any notice to the claimant. I fail to see how that would assist people in such a situation. It is better at least to have the opportunity for any relevant and admissible material to be considered, albeit through the less than perfect closed material process.

In my 25 years at the Bar, I predominantly practised in the criminal jurisdiction, and it is right that the Government are not seeking to apply the closed material procedure to that jurisdiction. When I started, public interest immunity criminal cases were a little-developed area, and the jurisprudence grew as time went on to reflect, as other Members have said, the changing demands placed upon the courts system and the nature of how intelligence operations were conducted. The jurisprudence moved flexibly to reflect that, and the same is occurring in the Bill.

I know two things from my experience of the use of PII in criminal cases. First, the judges took extremely seriously their responsibilities in relation to PII applications, including their duty to review the material and their initial rulings. I have no reason whatever to doubt that the same judicial meticulousness will be applied to the closed material procedure in civil cases. It is right that there should be safeguards, which I think are broadly accepted and will be taken forward. I, too, am pleased that the discretion allowed for in clause 6 is widened by the use of the word “may”. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon that that is adequate, and I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to resist the temptation to refine the definition further by including certain factors in the Bill. The risk of that would be that jurisprudence would grow up around the definition of those factors, and case law would eventually erode the jurisdiction and make it worse than simply using the word “may”.

The second point that strikes me from my experience at the Bar is that, as has been observed, it is not always the individual who is the loser as the result of a PII application. I believe the same will apply to the closed material procedure. I remember, in a criminal case, invoking not PII but the court’s inherent jurisdiction to sit in camera. Part of the mitigation that I needed to advance on my client’s behalf related to his activities in relation to reputable freedom movements in the Soviet bloc. I could not advance that mitigation in open court, because the consul of the Communist-controlled country was represented in court and was sitting in the gallery, and there would have been serious consequences for my client and his family. Mr Justice Steyn—later Lord Steyn; a very eminent judge—acceded to the application, and important material in my client’s favour was put before the court. Again, the point is that the material could be ventilated, and it is better in a civil case that that is done through the closed material procedure than were it not ventilated at all. That is why we should not allow the best—an open procedure—to become the enemy of the good, or CMP, which is an improvement in civil cases on existing PII arrangements.

There is general consensus about the importance of removing the Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction from such cases. We have to be realistic and concede that although many meritorious claims are brought against Government and Government agencies, many unmeritorious claims are brought in the courts. There is, as the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) suggested, a growing tendency for jurisdiction shopping in relation to the Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction, which has moved away from its original purpose in intellectual property cases to cases of this kind. It is not right that we should allow that to be abused in these cases.

Similarly, it is not right that the British taxpayer should pay millions of pounds when it is not possible to resist a claim in cases where, if the material were considered by the judge under the closed material procedure, it might be discredited. In the criminal jurisdiction, the choice facing the prosecutor is either to disclose material if ordered to do so or not to continue with the case. We have a tradition in this country of respecting assurances that have to be given in the interests of furthering justice. We have discussed that in relation to the assurances that we give the security services of our allies abroad.

We already do so in a different way in criminal cases in relation to informers, and have done so on more than one occasion. It is distasteful but necessary that we sometimes employ informers so that wrongdoers can be brought to book, and it is important that they are given assurances by the police that their anonymity will be protected. In certain circumstances, rather than disclose someone’s identity, I and other prosecuting barristers would offer no evidence so as not to put the informer’s identity at risk. Otherwise not only are they at risk, and not only is an undertaking breached, but there is a risk that other people will be less willing to come forward and provide information that might be helpful. The same applies even more strongly to assurances given in relation to our national security. I do not think that we should worry about that, subject to the proper safeguards.

In conclusion, it is important to stress again that we are not discussing secret courts. Yes, it is a less than satisfactory process, but ultimately it is one part of the process: the rest is an open process, and the hearing of the claim, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon set out, remains in the public domain. A number of hon. Members have cited Lord Kerr and the al-Rawi case, but to balance Lord Kerr’s judgment it is worth quoting the judgment of Lord Clarke, who took a different view:

“A closed procedure might also be necessary in a case in which…the non-state party…wishes to rely upon the material which would otherwise be subject to PII in order to defend itself in some way against the state. In such a case either party might seek an order for such a procedure based on necessity, namely that such a procedure would be necessary in order to permit a fair trial.”

That is a balanced statement on what is proposed in the Bill. I agree with Lord Clarke, and it seems to me that Mr Justice Ouseley, in the AHK case, made a similar proposition.

When he responds to the debate, I hope the Minister will take on board some of the legitimate concerns that have been raised. I shall support the Bill on Second Reading and we can examine the detail in Committee. We should not, however, allow ourselves to retreat from a necessary—albeit not always desirable—step in this class of case, and allow the best to become the enemy of the good. I therefore hope that the Bill will commend itself to the House.