(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberAs I said earlier, the White Paper will be published soon, but it is important for people to keep in mind that this is the biggest change to our immigration system in 45 years, and it is important that we get the detail right; then we can evaluate it together, properly.
For many victims of burglary, the intrusion into their home, personal space and life is tantamount to an assault. Is it not time that steps were taken to ensure that domestic burglaries are effectively treated as crimes of violence, in terms of police resourcing and priority, and sentencing?
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is absolutely right: the intrusion into a person’s home in a domestic burglary can completely undermine their feeling of safety at home. That is why we continue to ensure that the police have the resources that they need to cut crime and keep our communities safe, and of course make sure that police and crime commissioners—for example, in London—set the policing priorities for their area.
(5 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberWith great respect to the hon. Gentleman, his argument seems to be circular. He will not vote for the new clause because he agrees with it: that appears to be his position. The idea that any piece of legislation is immune from becoming out of date, given time, is simply not credible.
I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Gentleman, and I understand the substance of where he is trying to get to, but in fairness to my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), will the hon. Gentleman accept that there is a difference between what might be termed Brexit-facing legislation, such as the Trade Bill—and I myself have sometimes not been afraid to push a point because I thought it relevant—and a Bill that does not face in that direction? Given that the Government have made very clear their desire to replicate as closely as possible our arrangements under the European arrest warrant, I cannot, in this instance, agree with the hon. Gentleman that this is the right route for the Bill, although I accept his objective.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have a great deal of respect for the work he does as Chair of the Justice Committee, but I simply say to him that security, which is what this Bill is about, is very much engaged in the issue of the European arrest warrant. As we look in the round at our security position, which we must do and are doing in the context of this Bill, I believe the EAW and the tools it gives us cannot be excluded from our consideration of security. That is why in my view this new clause belongs in this Bill, and why I hope that still, even at this late stage, the Security Minister might support it, because I think that deep down he agrees with it and I would like to see that reflected in the Division Lobby.
I think the Security Minister and I do agree on the original clause 14. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) and I both tabled amendments to it in Committee. This is the part of the Bill that gives the power to impose charges on the organisers of an event for the purpose of protecting a relevant event or site from danger or damage connected to terrorism. The concern I and many others had in relation to that clause was to do with article 10 of the European convention on human rights, on freedom of expression, and arguably article 11 and the right to peaceful assembly. We did not wish to get to a position where somehow people were priced out of the right to peaceful protest. I am glad that the Government listened on that and have amended this clause so as not to impose any potential charges on those organisations that wish to gather and protest peacefully. I understand of course that the priority must be to keep citizens safe when people gather together and that that sometimes requires infrastructure in terms of policing events, but we must strike a balance between these charges and the right to assemble. On that basis, I am pleased that the Minister has made the concession and can support that amendment.
Amendment 26 in my name addresses a specific concern that I have flagged previously with the Security Minister. It relates to border stops where there is no reasonable suspicion in relation to the individual. I previously suggested that the Investigatory Powers Commissioner be informed whenever a person is stopped under the provisions of the relevant paragraph and that there be an annual report. I have suggested this amendment again on Report because of a concern about the position in Northern Ireland, which I will come back to shortly. However, the Minister justified the power in Committee by referring to an example. An aeroplane may land at one of our airports and we may have general intelligence that someone on it poses a threat, but we do not know which person it is. That is the justification for the power and the context in which the Security Minister and I had a discussion in Committee.
This evening, however, I am seeking some reassurances about how this applies to the situation in Northern Ireland, and the Security Minister will be aware that proportionately the number of border stops is high in Northern Ireland. In 2017, that border represented 3% of the passenger numbers for the whole UK but 18% of the stops. In other words, people are six times more likely to be stopped there than in another part of the UK. The figures show that nobody who was stopped was detained for more than an hour, and in the rest of the UK the figure for that is 9%. But this power applies to the first place a train from the Republic stops in Northern Ireland to let passengers off, and I refer the Minister specifically to paragraph 2 of schedule 3, which states that an examining officer may question a person who is in the border area for the purpose of determining whether their presence in the area is connected with the person’s entry into or departure from Northern Ireland. This applies on the border strip and at the Newry and Portadown train stations. Under the provision as it stands, people could be stopped, questioned and detained without reasonable suspicion.
As I have said, I understand the need for that power in relation to the perpetrators of hostile activity outside the United Kingdom coming in, but we do not want through this provision to somehow create a hard border for people on the island of Ireland, between the north and south. I really hope that, even if the Minister does not respond to this at the Dispatch Box tonight, he will at least go away and look at this issue before the Bill appears in the other place, and indicate what protections he envisages in relation to that power being exercised in Northern Ireland.
I do not want to detain the House for long, but having served as a member of the Bill Committee I wanted to put on the record some of my concerns about the new clauses and amendments in this group.
I wholeheartedly support new clause 1, tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds). I cannot see any reason why the Government would want to reject it given that the Chequers agreement and the White Paper—I have read both carefully—point out the 40 different areas of justice and policing co-operation that are so essential to our security and our counter-terror efforts across European borders. The White Paper suggests that some of that co-operation could even be strengthened and deepened, so I cannot see any reason why setting out in the Bill the importance of seeking participation in the European arrest warrant, one of the most crucial of those 40 instruments, would be a problem.
Given the transnational nature of some of the terror plots and serious organised crime that we have seen not only in my constituency, but in some tragic events over the past year at a UK level, I cannot see why we would want to diminish our security co-operation through, for example, Europol and Eurojust. As we approach the Brexit deadline that was set when the Government triggered article 50, we are potentially leaving a great deal of uncertainty around such issues. We do not want criminal or counter-terror investigations that are ongoing at the end of March next year to be jeopardised by the failure to secure participation in the European arrest warrant going forward.
As for my hon. Friend’s amendment 26, the Minister is aware of my concerns because we have discussed them both in person and in Committee. I fully support appropriate strengthening mechanisms to ensure that individuals can be detained at border points and that the police and security services have the appropriate powers to interdict those who might be trying to commit terror acts, serious organised crime or, indeed, espionage or other serious matters. However, it is important that that is balanced against ensuring that such powers are used carefully and effectively. Where problems exist, there should be appropriate appeal and oversight mechanisms to ensure that citizens feel that such matters are being used appropriately and securely and that individuals who are wrongly interdicted have appropriate restitution, which is important for confidence in the system as a whole.
My last point is an important one for the Bill as a whole. This part of the Bill includes many new powers and schedules, and there is cross-party agreement that our security services and the police need them to keep this country and other countries safe and to prevent us from experiencing terror attacks or the consequences of serious organised crime, but they can be applied only with appropriate resourcing.
We have seen what the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has had to say today about the 2% pay rise for police being a “punch on the nose.” We have seen the National Audit Office’s reports on the concerns about cuts in policing, and we in the Home Affairs Committee have been conducting an inquiry into police funding. The frontline policing community policing and specialist counter-terrorism policing that will be required to apply the provisions of the Bill, on which there is cross-party agreement, cannot happen out of thin air or by magic; it only happens if it is properly resourced.
I urge the Minister to make a strong case in the Home Office in the coming months that the police need more resources. We cannot continue cutting in this area, otherwise we put our national security at risk.
I promise to keep my remarks short. Two important matters have been raised, and I take on board the force of the shadow Minister’s arguments in favour of the value of the European arrest warrant. My right hon. Friend the Security Minister will know that, in the last Parliament, the Justice Committee produced a report on the legal implications of Brexit, which included a strong case for retaining access to the European arrest warrant and its arrangements.
It is important that we stress the value of the European arrest warrant to our crime-fighting arrangements. It is particularly significant, of course, that the National Crime Agency, giving evidence to our Select Committee at the time of the report, stressed the value of the European arrest warrant. All the legal practitioners stressed its importance, and the Minister recognises that the European arrest warrant arrangements are infinitely superior to those that were available under the Extradition Act 1989.
It has sometimes erroneously been said by one or two Members of this House that the European arrest warrant can be used disproportionately, and my right hon. Friend the Minister will know that, since the reforms to the operation of the European arrest warrant back in 2013, that disproportionality has been removed and the UK is actually an overwhelming beneficiary of the proper use of the European arrest warrant.
The Prime Minister made it clear at the beginning of this negotiation process that it is her objective to achieve this, and I am sure my right hon. Friend the Minister will be able to say that whatever the mechanism, whether in the Bill or not, the Government are committed to maintaining access to the EAW and to the rest of the supporting mechanism of criminal justice arrangements, such as data sharing, information sharing and intelligence sharing, the European criminal records information system and other schemes. All those will necessarily be a crucial part of the Government’s negotiating strategy. Whether or not it is mentioned in the Bill is not the point—the Government are reaffirming their commitment.
Legal professional privilege is an important issue to be considered. Unless I am wrong, there are sometimes arrangements for counsel, such as in relation to some of the specialist tribunals dealing with these matters, to be specially cleared and vetted. Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister will take that away and consider whether further application of that scheme might offer a sensible and proportionate way forward.
It is a great pleasure to follow the irrepressible Chair of the Justice Committee, of which I am a member.
Before I discuss access to lawyers under legal professional privilege, it would be churlish of me not to thank the Minister for tabling amendments 6 and 7, versions of which both the shadow Minister and I tabled in Committee. The amendments will essentially ensure that public demonstrations cannot be subject to any financial charge under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. It is vital for our democracy, now more than ever, that the right to assemble, and to do so without charge, is protected.
Without going over the ground covered fairly extensively from the Labour Front Bench, I put it on the record that I share the concerns voiced by the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) about the Northern Ireland border stops and the huge sensitivity of this issue. I genuinely hope that the Minister will look at that, take it away and come back having addressed it.
The Bill as it stands restricts access to a lawyer for those detained under schedule 7. Specifically, it would restrict the right of an individual to consult their legal representative in private, away from a relevant officer. Being able to speak with a legal representative in private is a fundamental right, which should not be infringed. Indeed, in oral evidence, a whole cast of people backed us up. Michael Clancy of the Law Society of Scotland spoke about the fundamental importance when he said:
“If we want people to be in a position where they can freely discuss matters with their legal representatives, we have to preserve this value. It is key to the rule of law that people can discuss matters openly with a legal representatives so that the solicitor, advocate or barrister is in a position to advise properly on what avenues are open to the person. Clearly one would want to ensure that that was adequately protected.”––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Public Bill Committee, 26 June 2018; c. 49, Q103.]
Richard Atkinson from the Law Society of England and Wales also raised concerns, suggesting that the proposal risked the excellent reputation across the world of UK justice systems. He said:
“The cornerstone is legal professional privilege. That is not access to a lawyer; it is the confidential nature of discussions between a lawyer and their client. That is the cornerstone that has been in existence for hundreds of years and that is held out internationally as a gold standard that we have in this country. That is what is being undermined by this Bill saying that a police officer can stand and listen to the consultation that is going on between the client and the lawyer.”––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Public Bill Committee, 26 June 2018; c. 28, Q63.]
Access to a lawyer—fundamental access to justice—is something we should not compromise on. This is not about constraining the powers of the hard-working men and women who work at our borders; it is acting on the concerns that were expressed to us, to ensure that correct and proper due process is followed.
I suspect that the schedule has been drafted as a result of concerns that lawyers and legal advisers could be exploited and manipulated in some way, as has been outlined. However, as was pointed out, it is not unknown to our criminal justice system; we already have powers in place to deal with such occasions. For example, in code H of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which deals with counter-terrorism cases, if there is a concern about an individual lawyer, there is provision for the suspect to have the consultation with that lawyer delayed, but to be offered the services of another lawyer in the meantime, so the suspect is not devoid of legal advice. We should protect that access at all costs. I accept that the Government propose the changes with the best of intentions, but we have pointed out that there are ways for it to be done without eliminating or infringing on the basic principle under the rule of law.
I express my support for the Liberal Democrats’ new clause 1, to which I have added my name. One of the greatest threats to our national security currently is, of course, Brexit and the fact that we face losing our seamless access to multilateral information-sharing tools. As we have heard, organised crime and terrorism do not respect borders and it is essential that Police Scotland—in fact, all the police services in the United Kingdom—can access the information systems, support and technical expertise available through Europol, not only to make Scotland safe, but to contribute to making Europe safer. As the hon. Member for Torfaen said, the recent naming of two suspects in the Salisbury incident and the issuing of a European arrest warrant showed just how vital this tool is to protecting the UK from threats, and why it must be maintained.
Following our exit from the EU, there is a major risk that any new arrangements that are put in place will be suboptimal to those at present. Further to that, there is also an issue with data sharing between the UK and the EU, as the EU will most likely require the UK to maintain data protection and privacy laws that can be deemed equivalent to those in force in the EU. We must ensure that our law enforcement agencies can continue to have the same access to Europol as they currently enjoy.
There is also a need to preserve stability in the law. Repealing legislation and preparing new legislation to fill in gaps arising from leaving the EU will compromise a significant part of domestic legislation that is passed at, or following, a withdrawal. Any future arrangements must take into account the autonomy of Scottish criminal justice institutions and provide a continuing basis for the direct co-operation that currently exists between law enforcement agencies in Scotland and their counterparts.
As a matter of security, we cannot afford an operational break in our access to EU cross-border tools, because they are part of the day-to-day work of the police force. Just today, the Lord Advocate of Scotland, giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee, said:
“I don’t think it controversial to observe that leaving that regime without replacing that regime would significantly and adversely affect our capabilities. From a professional criminal justice point of view, the realistic issue is the extent to which this can be mitigated.”
The Government’s dangerous Brexit plans, such as they are, may well leave us outside the European arrest warrant and key agencies such as Europol. I cannot insist enough that that would be incredibly dangerous to the future security of Scotland, the United Kingdom and, potentially, the EU. We must be able to share vital information to keep people safe from terrorism, human trafficking and organised crime. Leaving the European arrest warrant is yet another potentially disastrous Brexit bonus that we could all do without. I wholeheartedly support new clause 1.
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberI thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He will appreciate that I am not able to comment specifically on those cases, but I ask him to write to me about them so that we can see what further can be done. I want to emphasise that it is getting harder and harder for prisoners to get mobile phones into prisons and to then use them. Indeed, at least 150 phones have been disconnected since the telecommunications restriction regulations came into force.
We know that in December some 79 illegal mobile phones were seized as a result of joint operations between police and the Prison Service at HMP Hewell. What steps are being taken by the Home Office, police and crime commissioners and the Prison Service to set up proper protocols and systems for joint working between the police and the Prison Service? Obviously, illegal activity is taking place on the outside in order to get these phones in, as well as within the prisons.
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Of course, as Chair of the Justice Committee he knows a great deal about this. More than 23,000 handsets and SIM cards were seized from prisons last year. The Government are investing £25 million to create a new security directorate in prisons and £14 million to transform our intelligence, search and disruption capabilities in prisons at the national, regional and local levels. That includes more than £3 million to establish serious organised crime units to deny offenders space to operate in prisons.
(6 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy understanding is that the Commission’s decision was based on legal advice that we accept.
I hope that the House will agree with our decision not to opt into the returns regulation. The draft police co-operation regulation would replace the 2007 legislation that governs this aspect of SIS II and would bring in a number of useful changes. For example, it would allow pre-emptive alerts to be created for children who are in danger of going missing through parental abduction rather than allowing for alerts only after the child has disappeared, as now. It would also allow member states’ law enforcement to ask specific questions of people on whom information is sought via an alert, and it would update SIS II’s technical standards.
However, there were some aspects of the proposals that we were less happy with. For example, the original text proposed to make it compulsory to create alerts in cases involving terrorism, with implications for the autonomy of our police and security services. We wanted to be clear in the regulation that none of the new actions that it provides for would require police to act contrary to national law, but we felt that we would be better able to address these issues if we did not opt out and thus continued to participate fully in the negotiations with a vote.
I welcome the Minister’s pragmatic approach. The Justice Committee looked at the matter when we published our report in the last Parliament on the implications of Brexit for the legal system. It was very clear from the evidence given to us that a continuing involvement for SIS II in criminal justice and judicial matters is very much to our advantage, even though there may be some aspects that we will need to discuss, so I support him in his approach. Will he bear in mind the important issue of making sure that we have the proper data arrangements to enable us lawfully to exchange such information, as we wish to?
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and for his support of the Government’s position, based as it is on evidence received by the Justice Committee, which he chairs. I take on board fully his point about data.
I was saying that we had concerns about the proposal in the original text to make it compulsory to create alerts in cases involving terrorism. We felt in general that we would be better able to address the issues if we did not opt out, and thus continued to participate fully in the negotiations with a vote. Our feeling is that opting out at this stage would have sent the message that we sought to pull back from co-operating with our law enforcement and security partners after Brexit, and that is not the message that we want to give. On the contrary, we have always been clear that it is in the interests of both the UK and the EU that we continue to co-operate across borders through a range of tools, measures and agencies even after we have left the EU. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made the Government’s position clear in her speech in Florence this September:
“It is our ambition to work as closely as possible together with the EU, protecting our people, promoting our values and ensuring the future security of our continent. The United Kingdom is unconditionally committed to maintaining Europe’s security.”
The exact details of our future relationship with the EU on internal security will need to be agreed in the negotiations.
Again, I welcome the Government’s pragmatic approach. The evidence to our Committee stressed not only that we should be looking at SIS II, but that it comes as part of a suite of measures that include access to Eurojust, to the other databases in the Schengen Information System, right across the piece, and to other information exchange arrangements and databases. Can the Minister confirm that it is our intention to seek a co-operative relationship across the raft of criminal justice co-operation measures?
I thank my hon. Friend for that constructive intervention and for his support for the principles that the Prime Minister laid out strongly. He will understand that the exact details of the future internal security relationship with the EU will need to be agreed in the negotiations. The Government’s paper on the future partnership that we seek with the EU on security, law enforcement and criminal justice makes it clear that we value our current capability to share law enforcement and security alerts with EU countries. That capability is provided by SIS II, but how we might retain similar capability after Brexit is a matter for negotiation.
The exit negotiations are an opportunity to build on what we have already achieved through decades of collaboration and working together. The decision to opt out would suggest that we wished to move in the opposite direction and disengage from security co-operation with Europe. That is not, and cannot be, our position, so it would have been wrong to opt out.
Before I wind up, I want to touch on how the negotiations on these legislative proposals have progressed. The Council of Ministers has recently agreed a general approach on all three draft regulations. That is an agreed Council position to form a basis for negotiations on the final text with the European Parliament. The police co-operation text was satisfactory in most respects. In particular, it gives member states sufficient discretion over whether to create alerts in counter-terrorist cases. But the Government voted against it because it did not address the restrictions on when alerts can be used for purposes other than those for which they were created.
In some limited circumstances, such an alert would be advisable; for example, where the alert shows that a person is particularly dangerous and needs to be kept out of the country. Unfortunately, the text on the general approach continues to make doing this too difficult, so we did not think it was ready for negotiation with the European Parliament. However, there was a qualified majority in favour of the text, and these negotiations are now under way. We expect the incoming Bulgarian presidency of the Council to try to conclude them in the first half of 2018. We will of course keep the European Scrutiny Committee updated.
The Government’s decisions show that we are committed both to protecting our borders and to effective co-operation with our European partners on policing and security issues, and I hope that the House will endorse them tonight.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that no deal is simply not acceptable for security or for data, which I will come on to shortly.
The Minister mentioned that four non-EU countries are members of SIS II, which is absolutely right. Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein participate by virtue of their membership of Schengen. These non-EU member states are bound to avert any substantial differences in the case law of the ECJ, and they are required to implement structures and procedures that keep pace with changes in the Schengen rulebook. If they do not do so, their agreements will be terminated.
I understand precisely where the hon. Lady is coming from, but in fairness to the Minister, this may be a question about the direct nature or otherwise of the jurisdiction. Does she agree that the evidence to the Justice Committee was most compelling about the practical need to get the data regulations aligned so that data can lawfully be passed from EU member states to us as a third country in the same way that they are passed to the four non-EU countries she has mentioned?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because he pre-empts my next point.
At the heart of these strictures is the issue of data. All SIS II systems operate on a hub-and-spoke model, with a central SIS II hub exchanging data from national servers in each participating member state. The European Commission is very clear that this is European data. Although the police may have some leeway on the speed at which they create an alert, once they do, the data passes to the central SIS II hub. Therefore, without an agreement on data transfers, we simply cannot participate in this critical information-sharing system. That is the insanity of having no deal.
The proposals before the House require compliance with EU data protection laws and fundamental rights enshrined in the EU charter. The EU will insist on these rights being protected in order for the UK to share information, so what exactly do the Government propose? Can the Minister reassure the House that no arbitrary red lines, on the ECJ or otherwise, will be put before the safety and security of the British public? Will he confirm that it is the UK’s negotiating aim to retain full access to SIS II? If not, can he explain how after Brexit we would track the hundreds, if not thousands, of serious criminals, foreign fighters and those who pose a threat to our national security who are flagged by the system every month? There are few areas in which the UK is more dependent on agreement than security co-operation as we Brexit. The consequences of failure are scarcely imaginable.
The regulations are necessary to maintain our membership of SIS II for the time being and for our negotiating position, but they signify the huge risk that Brexit poses to our national security and the gaping holes in the Government’s approach to negotiations. We will support the motion and any and all of the Government’s efforts to maintain access to such security systems and close co-operation with our European partners, but we will continue to hold the Government to account on their approach to negotiations that are so fundamental to our national security.
(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Order. I am keen to try to conclude these proceedings by 4 o’clock, if possible. This is an important matter, but there is a statement to follow and a very, very heavily subscribed continuation of the Budget debate, which colleagues will want to factor into their calculations when asking questions.
Perhaps the Minister can help us a little more on this very serious matter. Can he give us some idea of the dates over which this alleged wrongdoing took place and how they relate to the changes in the Forensic Science Service? What percentage of the samples involved were or were not used for evidential purposes in criminal cases or others?
My hon. Friend is entirely right that what is alleged goes back over many years—[Interruption.] Some of the issues at the other organisation may go back as far as 2010. My central point is that any attempt to try to link this to the FSS issue is driven by tribal politics, rather than clear assessments of the underlying reality.
(6 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberThat was not requested, but I am, as usual, in a generous and benevolent mood.
We recently brought together motorcycle insurance industry leaders, law enforcement partners, the Local Government Association, charities and representatives from the motorcycle-riding community to have a full and open discussion about the issue. All parties agreed to work together to devise a comprehensive action plan to tackle this type of crime. As a first step, we have announced a review of the law, guidance and practice surrounding police pursuits and response driving.
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we do not have operational control over what goes on in his constituency; what we do have is the ability to pull people together to get the right answers. This sort of evolving crime needs to be dealt with by bringing people together to find out the best way to address it. We need to be guided by the police and local authorities. I urge him to engage with that consultation so that we get the right answers for his constituents.
In the course of the Home Secretary’s welcome review, will she undertake to get the message out that pretty cynical and street-hardened young people, such as some in my constituency, are taking off their helmets when the police appear on the scene because they believe that the police will not chase them under the current guidelines? The guidelines are utterly out of touch with reality and frustrate police officers who are trying to do their job. Will the review look at that specific issue?
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point in his particularly distinct way. He is absolutely right—he has put his finger on it—that the police do have a concern and we are having the review to address that concern. I hope that I will be able to come back to him with some progress soon.
(7 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberIt is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who speaks with great authority and commitment on these matters. I will come on to a practical matter on which I disagree with him, although I do not disagree with the objective that he seeks to achieve.
I endorse the thrust of the Bill, as my right hon. Friend has just done, and the observation—it is worth repeating, and it is all the more important as we look towards the world as it will be after we have left the European Union—that Britain is a world leader in transparency and effectiveness at dealing with financial crime. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) was right to stress the value of the Serious Fraud Office’s work. It is extremely successful and highly regarded the world over, not least because it is operationally independent of any investigating authority. Many of us believe that it would be quite wrong to do anything to change that arrangement. The SFO works well as currently constituted, and it has an international reputation as a leader precisely because of that important independence.
I turn to new clause 6. I have much sympathy with what the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) has said, but I do not think that new clause 6 is an appropriate or proportionate way to achieve the desired objective. Let me set out why. Before I do so, I should declare an interest as the secretary of the all-party group on Gibraltar, one of the British overseas territories, and I am also a member of the all-party group on the Channel Islands, which are Crown dependencies. Crown dependencies are not covered by new clause 6, but they are covered by other new clauses.
My concern is that the way the argument is put assumes that all the overseas territories should be lumped in together, which I do not think is fair. I particularly want to address the position of Gibraltar. Its position is different, first, because of the nature of its constitution and, secondly, because unlike other overseas territories—I do not criticise or make any comment about them—it is, in effect, part of the European Union. As part of the European Union, it has had to comply, and has done so willingly, with international and EU standards in the same way as the UK.
It is important not to lump Gibraltar in with other jurisdictions where there has been controversy. I say that specifically—it is important for the House to have this on the record—because I am afraid that some politicians on the other side of the land border in Spain unscrupulously seek regularly to slander Gibraltar and its constitutional and legal arrangements, doing so wholly unfairly to advance an unjustified claim against Gibraltar. I would not want anything said in this House in any way to give comfort to people seeking to do down a loyal and effective British territory, so we need to draw such a distinction.
There is a twofold point to be made about Gibraltar. Although I accept the 2010 White Paper’s observations about what can be done, I argue that it is undesirable to contemplate legislating, certainly in Gibraltar’s case, because to do so, even by Orders in Council, would have the effect of abrogating the 2006 Gibraltar constitution. The constitution gives Gibraltar, and the democratic and elected Gibraltar Parliament, entire home rule in matters relating to its economy and domestic legislation, save only those matters reserved to be exercised by the Governor on behalf of the British Crown.
I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, who should be “right honourable”. I absolutely agree that it is very welcome that Gibraltar has complied not only with the EU initiative, but with the OECD as well. I would gently ask him, however, why Gibraltar is not in favour of following the UK route of having a public register of beneficial ownership?
The reason was very properly and sensibly set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield. There is a risk of a competitive disadvantage, and as I have said, we must bear in mind the situation in which Gibraltar finds itself. I suggest it would be inappropriate for it to be at a competitive disadvantage compared with other Mediterranean jurisdictions, some of which are not well disposed towards it.
Gibraltar has done a great deal, and continuing dialogue is a sensible way forward. It would not be appropriate to legislate, particularly as undermining Gibraltar’s constitution, even if it was legally possible theoretically—I suspect it would be challenged in the courts—would be most undesirable politically, because our commitment to Gibraltar must be made particularly clear as we leave the European Union.
It is worth adding that Gibraltar has taken very considerable practical steps and has been recognised internationally for doing so. It is worth simply saying that it has transposed all the necessary EU directives into its law—perfectly willingly, without any difficulty and of its own volition—and it has also complied with all OECD initiatives in this regard. It has gone beyond that to establish a central register, under the terms of the fourth anti-money laundering directive, for which the deadline is this June. It has entered into an exchange of notes to accelerate access to all UK authorities for investigative purposes. It has agreed to the EU5 proposal for the automatic exchange of beneficial ownership with participating countries, covering all EU countries, including Spain. Gibraltar has therefore been extremely willing to co-operate, even with countries that do not always behave well towards it, and that needs to be recognised. The Gibraltar Government are actively looking at the 5 July 2016 EU proposal to amend the fourth anti-money laundering directive by introducing a register, and that ought to be their decision. As I think the Minister would confirm, Her Majesty’s Government have worked very closely with Her Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar on this issue. A constructive dialogue is taking place, which is the right way to deal with it.
Finally, before I move on to Crown dependencies, it is worth saying that Gibraltar’s record of effectiveness in the exchange of information was recognised by the 2014 OECD “Phase 2” review, when it was ranked as largely compliant. That is actually a very high ranking, which ranks Gibraltar as being as good in terms of compliance as the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany. Gibraltar, therefore, is doing the job. That really needs to be stressed, so that others do not misuse the linkage, which, in Gibraltar’s case, is not borne out by the evidence: it has some 135 tax information exchange mechanisms with some 80 countries; it has already implemented the Financial Action Task Force recommendations with the United States and the United Kingdom; and it is implementing common reporting standards, the global standard, along with the UK and other countries. I therefore suggest it would be heavy-handed and inappropriate to involve Gibraltar in this approach when it is already doing so much.
I would like to touch on the Crown dependencies, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield. Frankly, I think the constitutional position is more difficult because they are not, and never have been, subject to the United Kingdom. Their allegiance is purely to the British Crown, not the United Kingdom. The difficulty of attempting to legislate for them would be real and profound in constitutional terms. That is why the relationship falls under the Ministry of Justice and their legislation is signed off by the Privy Council. The new clauses that seek to bring them into the position here are not well-conceived legally in that regard. That is the key issue.
It is also worth observing, since the Justice Committee recently visited all three Crown dependencies as part of an inquiry, that they, too, are up to the highest standards of reporting and ensuring information is readily available to the authorities. It is worth saying in relation to Jersey, but it applies to them all, that a report by Moneyval, an established body of international repute, stated:
“Jersey’s combination of a central register of the UBO with a high level of vetting/evaluation not found elsewhere and regulation of TCSPs of a standard found in few other jurisdictions has been widely recognised by international organisations and individual jurisdictions as placing Jersey in a leading position in meeting standards of beneficial ownership transparency.”
Similar provisions, in different legislative forms, have also been made in the two other Crown dependencies. Again, it would be unfair, inappropriate and disproportionate to lump the Crown dependencies in with this issue.
We all share the same objective. We want to make sure there is maximum transparency and honest money in our system. For the reasons I have set out, however, I hope those who support the new clause, and other new clauses that have not yet been moved, will reflect and conclude that this is not the appropriate legislative vehicle to achieve that objective.
I, too, would like to say a few brief words on new clause 6. I declare an interest: I chair the all-party British Virgin Islands group and I am a former Minister with responsibility for the overseas territories.
I am well aware of the challenges in Africa. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) mentioned the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He and I will remember when Tullow Oil had its licences expropriated by the Kabila Government. It transpired that the interface company was a BVI-registered shell company in which Kabila, and part of Zuma’s family, had shares. It would have been very useful if we had been able to confirm that at the time.
I entirely accept that looking to the future and envisaging public registers across the world makes a lot of sense. What I am very worried about—this is the only point I am going to make—is that if new clause 6 is passed and territories like the BVI lose their business model, there would be a massive exodus by legal services, accountancy firms, banks and so on. They would have to then rely on tourism, and it could well be that they move back to being dependencies.
The other issue is this: would it solve the problem? No. The companies registered in the BVI, the Cayman Islands or the Turks and Caicos Islands would simply register elsewhere in countries that do not have public registers. They would go to Panama or Colombia. Indeed, I saw recently that the United States, Hong Kong and Singapore have said specifically that they will not bring in public registers until the rest of the world moves on. New clause 6 is well intentioned, but we should be very mindful of the unintended consequences.
Apart from the BVI losing its business model, those unintended consequences would include, above all else, the loss of some excellent intelligence and exchange of information arrangements. For example, the BVI has in place a beneficial ownership secured search system that enables our crime and fraud agencies to co-operate immediately and confidentially to get the information required. If these companies were registered elsewhere in the world, we would lose that crime-busting capability.
First, I would like to finish what I was trying to say. I was coming to the Crown dependencies and overseas territories, which I realise are two different things. I would also like to hear what the Minister has to say, because at earlier stages of the Bill he was conciliatory and we backed down on some things.
We are dealing with not just new clause 6 but new clause 17. We are looking at both overseas territories and Crown dependencies because, internationally, the UK will be able to lecture and persuade others to adopt transparent finance practices only if its overseas territories and Crown dependencies stop engaging in—
I will carry on for the moment because I want to make some progress—I am not able to get a sentence out at the moment. The hon. Gentleman will be referenced later in my speech. We worked well together under his excellent stewardship of the Justice Committee.
The previous coalition Government’s White Paper on the overseas territories has already been quoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley. It referred to how, as a matter of constitutional law, the UK Parliament has unlimited power to legislate for the overseas territories. The phrase “unlimited power” is pretty clear. On the Crown dependencies, which the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) mentioned, it appears that not only the Government but the SNP, given the remarks of the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless), who was a member of the Justice Committee with me, have accepted, or been cowed into believing, that the Crown dependencies are somehow untouchable.
I want to quote from a report by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). The Justice Committee’s 2010 report on the Crown dependencies stated:
“the restrictive formulation of the power of the UK Government to intervene in insular affairs on the ground of good government is accepted by both the UK and the Crown Dependency governments”.
A list of examples was given, but the hon. Gentleman probably knows it better than I did, because he wrote it.
It would not be unreasonable for the hon. Lady to note that I was not Chair of the Justice Committee at that time. Can she give me any example of a time when the United Kingdom has specifically legislated for a Crown dependency, as opposed to acting under the prerogative power through the lieutenant governors, which indeed itself has not been done in many years? The overseas territories are not the same as the Crown dependencies legally. I honestly urge her to reflect on that, because she is genuinely on shaky legal ground.
As I have said, there seems to be a lack of will. The hon. Gentleman talked at length about Gibraltar—[Interruption.] If he will listen to what I say back to him, that might be useful. There is a lack of will to act. People have been lobbying all of us, probably including him. The fact that we have the power to make a change is more significant than examples—if this is needed, it can be done. New clause 16 does not coerce anyone to do anything, but it sets out steps that would facilitate matters.
I am most grateful for that clarification, Madam Deputy Speaker. Some of those on the list are the DOM-TOMs—the départements d’outre-mer and the territoires d’outre-mer—so there is a long list, including Guadeloupe and Martinique, but I shall move on.
It is a bit of a nonsense for the Conservative party to claim that the overseas territories and Crown dependencies are leading the world in financial transparency because of the creation of central registers if 46 other dependencies are doing that already. Not only have some been incredibly slow to catch up with the aforementioned countries, but some of our Crown dependencies and overseas territories are among the worst offenders and have not adopted centralised registers, let alone made them public. More accurately, they have adopted platforms.
The Government ask us to believe that the British Virgin Islands or the Cayman Islands will be able to police their own financial businesses by relying on those businesses, which facilitate crime. It is asking them to mark their own homework and to be judge and jury. Call me a cynic, but I doubt that that is a workable solution. Do we really believe that anonymous companies in the British Virgin Islands—which, for example, allowed the former wife of a Taiwanese President to illicitly purchase $1.6 million of property in Manhattan—would be capable of policing themselves?
There are several other examples. Would Alcoa, the world’s third largest producer of aluminium, be capable of policing itself when it has used an anonymous company in the British Virgin Islands to transfer millions of dollars in bribes to Bahraini officials? Would the anonymous British Virgin Islands-based company used by Teodorin Obiang, the son of the President of Equatorial Guinea, really be capable of policing itself when it allowed him to squirrel away $38 million of state money to buy a private jet? It was thanks to the US Justice Department that he was caught. The Government’s protestation that we are working with the territories and dependencies, and that we are 90% of the way there, is at best highly questionable.
No, there is more.
The main point I want to make is that our Government should be at the forefront of the push to cast off the cloak of secrecy under which terrorists have previously been able to fund their attacks and gangsters have stored their ill-gotten gains. We should not be dragging our feet on this. Some of these jurisdictions, including the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, have hidden behind the fig leaf of the consultation.
I shall dispense with the rest of what I was going to say, but we wish to press new clause 17 to a Division—[Interruption.] If anyone had listened to me, they would know that I was largely talking about the Crown dependencies.
In conclusion, we could have gone all the way and become the gold standard for other Governments to follow. We could also have dealt with the public disquiet over perceived levels of tax evasion, which the former Prime Minister, to his credit, wanted to tackle. This massive oversight undermines not only the claims made by the former Member for Witney, but citizens in some of the poorest developing countries of the world, which are at the end of these complex supply chains of criminality. Those citizens are the main losers in all of this.
The Home Office’s press release that accompanied the publication of the Bill said that the new offences were aimed at
“sending out a clear message that anyone doing business in and with the UK must have the highest possible compliance standards.”
Although we agree with large parts of the Bill, it does, none the less, fall short. New clause 17, which Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition wish to press to a Division, would go some way towards addressing a number of these issues.
(7 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberAs the right hon. Gentleman will be aware, we are at the start of negotiations. I cannot predict where we will end up. However, I will come specifically to the European arrest warrant and its implications for us in a few moments.
Criminal networks are driving migrant smuggling; Europol estimates that more than 90% of migrants travelling to the EU used facilitators—provided, in most cases, by criminal groups with an estimated turnover of €3 billion to €6 billion in 2015 alone. We are at the beginning of a complex process to agree a new relationship with the EU. This is new territory for both sides, and it is way too early to say exactly what that relationship will look like. I am sure there will be many and varied views expressed from around the Chamber today and in the months ahead, but I am also confident that nobody will argue against the importance of fighting cross-border crime and of defending security across Europe.
To reinforce that point, will the Minister concede that what we are talking about is a system of European criminal justice co-operation? Much of this is about practical co-operation and information sharing and does not largely touch on the substantive criminal law of the states. Sometimes it extends beyond member states of the European Union. Does not that reinforce the importance of the point about practicality?
As ever, my hon. Friend makes a really important point, and he is absolutely right. Some members of and countries involved with organisations such as Europol are not part of the European Union, highlighting that they see the importance of ensuring that we share information efficiently and proactively to fight crime. It is absolutely right that we work to protect that ability. Whatever shape our future relationship with the EU takes, I hope that we can all agree that it should not compromise the safety of people in the UK or, indeed, the rest of Europe.
My hon. Friend makes an important point in that the work we have done across Europe—we have been a leading country in working to get this information—we are also continuing to do with countries around the world to make sure that we are able to do everything we can, in every context, to keep our country and our citizens safe.
For example, we work bilaterally and through the Counter Terrorism Group to combat terrorism effectively in Europe, and that work retains our local sovereignty. It includes working with European partners on information sharing, tackling foreign fighter flows, law enforcement co-operation, tackling radicalisation, and countering the narratives of terrorist groups. That group sits outside the EU, and we will therefore continue to be a member of it. Furthermore, as my hon. Friend rightly points out, our EU co-operation is of course just part of a wider landscape of international counter-terrorism work, which includes co-operation through relationships such as those with Interpol and the “Five Eyes” countries, and bilateral work with individual countries and NATO.
I am glad that my right hon. Friend makes that point. May I make a point in relation to the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash)? The evidence given to the Justice Committee was very clear that although there are other means of international co-operation with countries outside the EU, the current mechanisms are much more efficient, as they very often have to be conducted on a bilateral basis rather than as part of a joined-up system. It is therefore desirable, as my right hon. Friend says, that we do all we can to stay in them.
My hon. Friend makes a very good point in that there are different agreements in different parts of the world with different partners around the world. It is important that we work to improve all those arrangements and get the benefits that we have seen from some of the work we have done and agreements we have secured across Europe more widely. Key partners in Europe have already assured us, as a Government, that they value our close co-operation on counter-terrorism matters as well.
We are very clear that effective co-operation with EU member states on security and policing in order to combat terrorism will continue to be a top UK priority. Looking ahead, our EU-level relationships will, of course, have to change, but our shared goal of assuring and enhancing the security of our citizens will not. It is important that we can find a way forward that works for the UK and the EU jointly, for mutual benefit. We will approach the negotiations from the perspective of what is best for the safety of all our citizens, and what is worst for those who seek to cause serious harm to innocent people and democratic values.
During negotiations, we will look to maintain the excellent co-operation that currently exists with our European partners. We fully recognise that the nature of our future relationship can be decided only in negotiations with member states and EU institutions. We are confident, however, that all citizens will be safer if we continue to work together and co-operate. We recognise the challenges involved in negotiating a new relationship, but we are committed to finding innovative solutions that enable us to continue to work together for the collective security of Europe and all the citizens of the United Kingdom.
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). She is a distinguished, practical lawyer, and I agree with her on some of the practical issues that arise, to which I shall return in a moment.
I endorse the views of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) in relation to our mutual situation—we both fought to remain in the EU, but, having lost, we both accept the verdict of the people. I also endorse his comments commending the Prime Minister for her realistic, practical and determined approach to this issue and on the importance of our NATO relationships. He is much more of an expert on those than I, but I endorse what he said, although I add one thing: we must not only strengthen our NATO relationships but maintain the best possible relationships with our colleagues who happen to be members of both the EU and NATO, not least our nearest neighbour, France, the other great military power of Europe. It is a nuclear power, a significant military power and a member of the UN Security Council. I am sure the Minister, being the diligent Minister he is, will gently remind his ministerial colleagues that we have a long history with France and were actually on the same side in the second world war.
That said, let me return to the specific issue of law enforcement and criminal justice co-operation. That has concerned me during my years at the criminal Bar and is also an issue on which the Justice Committee took evidence only in the last week or so—and we shall publish our report soon.
Unlike the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West, I do not expect the Minister to reveal the mechanism by which we achieve our objectives, because we are at the beginning of a process. The Prime Minister was right to set out the plan, and I expect there will be a lot more detail that we will have to think about. In my short contribution I want to flag up some of the issues that I hope the Minister and his colleagues will bear in mind when we look at the negotiations and how we put the plan into reality.
The Minister of State at the Home Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), started by talking about the importance of the European arrest warrant. That is recognised by the Prime Minister. She is right that we must do all that is necessary to remain within the European arrest warrant, which involves some compromises. As for the purity of any break, I personally would be prepared to make some compromises, as I would in relation to other matters, to achieve the practical objective of keeping our country safe. They are critical. As I said to the Minister of State, many of these issues are not about our domestically determined criminal law being overweened or supervened by some international system. These are matters of practical co-operation, tracking down suspects and arresting them, the exchange of information and the enforcement of court judgments to everybody’s mutual advantage.
All member states of the European Union have varying degrees of approach to their criminal justice systems. Ours is particularly different because of our common law system, of which we are immensely proud, but that does not mean—I hope people would never suspect that it does—that the systems of other European member states should automatically be regarded as inferior to ours. Some of us in this country are occasionally a bit too sniffy about the quality of the justice systems of other European member states. I have no hesitation whatever in commending the integrity of the justice systems of France, Germany, Italy and many others, as I would in respect of Scotland, Ireland or Northern Ireland, for that matter.
My hon. Friend is making some good points, but would he concur, given that we are fellow members of the Council of Europe, that some of the prison systems that he and I have probably both visited simply do not come up to British standards? I would mention Greece in particular.
I thought that that issue might be raised, and I was going to say that that does not alter the importance of criminal justice co-operation and, secondly, that where this has been relevant as a criticism of the arrest warrant in the past—in the Symeou case, for example—that is essentially history. What is not often sufficiently recognised are the very important amendments made to the European arrest warrant in 2014. We heard evidence from both the criminal lawyers society and the Criminal Bar Association, who strongly concurred that the amendments of 2014 had removed the risks that had put the unfortunate Mr Symeou in his position.
It is a great pleasure to serve under the hon. Gentleman’s chairmanship of the Justice Committee. The point made in the intervention by the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), which is a cause of concern to me, is that sometimes countries in the EU issue their European arrest warrant for very minor offences. One example is an individual who had a warrant issued against him because he had stolen a bicycle. It is important that individual countries focus on the reasons why they take out their arrest warrants. I have always regarded it as very serious when a European arrest warrant is issued; it is not appropriate for the minor offences that some countries use it for.
I accept that that is a significant issue, but the two amendments achieved two things. First, they removed any risk of extradition before commencement of proceedings; and, secondly, they introduced in the UK a proportionality filter. It would be better if all other countries that use the European arrest warrant had a proportionality filter, too. From the evidence we heard from Professor Wilson of the Northumbria University’s centre for evidence and criminal justice studies, it seems that even Poland, which has resisted a proportionality filter in the past, is now moving in that direction. The situation is improving there.
The fact that we have those two important safeguards is significant, and it is also important that the European arrest warrant system is a court-driven system, which is subject to judicial supervision rather than being an executive act of extradition. That is why it would be undesirable for us to lose the advantage of the European arrest warrant and have to fall back to the 1957 extradition convention, which was a purely administrative act, carried out through diplomatic channels, without the protection of court intervention or review. It was also much more cumbersome.
It is indeed a privilege, as mentioned by others, to serve on the Justice Committee under the hon. Gentleman’s chairmanship; he is making a fine speech. Will he respond to some of the comments made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry)? Notwithstanding her clear desire to stay within the European arrest warrant, there will be difficulties as a result of different data-sharing regimes in the European Union and the UK. How is it possible to reconcile the two, following the UK’s leaving the EU?
It is certainly clear from the available evidence that the Government will need to take that necessity on board. We will have adhere to European standards of data protection for other member states to be able to share the information with us, according to their law. We may also want to share information with other third-party countries, so both we and they will have to be prepared to adhere to international standards. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) rightly said, that might involve some form of international adjudicative process to deal with disputes between member states. I am not going to tie anyone down on how best to solve that, but there are serious issues that we will have to bear in mind from day one of our negotiations.
Equally, when we talk about involvement with some of the other agencies—we referred to ECRIS, the European criminal records information system, to Prüm and to a number of other valuable tools—we need to recognise that there is a financial cost to the development of the databases. I would certainly encourage the Government not to be afraid to continue to make a financial contribution to the development and maintenance of them. That would be a small price to pay in view of the advantage of protection for the British public. I think there is common ground on the objective of the European arrest warrant. I just wanted to raise some of the practical issues that we will have to grasp if we are to succeed in achieving our continued full access to it as a non-EU member state.
I want to refer to other matters of concern—co-operation between the courts, which involves our continued membership or association with Eurojust. There is a precedent for non-member states continuing to co-operate with Eurojust. Norway has a co-operation agreement and has liaison prosecutors based at Eurojust. If we leave the EU as it stands, we would have to move from being national college members, but we could have a Norwegian-style status. Perhaps we should be bold and try to argue that we should remain as national college members on some sort of basis if the constitution permits it. That would be preferable.
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about Norway, but is he aware that the Prime Minister, in her former role as Home Secretary, was very disparaging about the abilities of Norway and Switzerland, outside the EU bloc, because they do not have access to all the tools and have to come under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, without having the same input into the law-making process?
Prior to the referendum, neither the hon. and learned Lady, the Prime Minister nor I would have wished to be in the conundrum in which we now find ourselves. However, I accept the verdict of the British people, so we must find a practical means of achieving the objective that we want. It would be better to find something that is beyond Norway. That is why I have suggested starting as a negotiating point with the idea that we should be national college members rather than associates of Eurojust. If we are ambitious, we lose nothing from pressing for that from the beginning.
In April last year, the Prime Minister as Home Secretary referred to the whole of the European criminal record system—financial intelligence units, the prisoner transfer unit, Schengen Information System II, joint investigation teams and Prüm—in the context of seeing them as practical measures that promote effective co-operation between different European law enforcement organisations. If we are not part of them, Britain will be less safe. As Francis FitzGibbon, the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, told the Select Committee, that would be a pretty good starting point for bringing this whole area to greater prominence, and a pretty good starting point, I would suggest to the Minister, for our negotiation objectives. Witnesses to the Justice Committee repeatedly said that this is part of a mutually reinforcing system of justice co-operation.
We may concentrate on the arrest warrant, but the information exchanges, the ability to enforce court judgments and the ability, for example, to seek a European information order to obtain evidence from abroad are all part of the same process. That is why it is critical for us to set our objectives at the highest possible level when it comes to seeking our continued engagement with these matters.
This is an important debate because it concerns an immensely important topic. Those of us who now want to move on constructively from what, according to any view, has been a bruising experience for this country will want to do so on the basis of an ambition to protect the country, while also recognising that both our judicial system and our police force are immensely highly regarded, not just in Europe but internationally. We have something to bring to the table as well. I hope that the Minister will take those points on board in a bold and ambitious negotiation, and I wish him and his colleagues well.
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Is he aware that similar evidence exists in relation to the Schengen information system? The National Crime Agency has stated:
“Loss of access to SIS II would seriously inhibit the UK’s ability to identify and arrest people who pose a threat to public safety and security”.
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. In fact, I do not think that a single senior police officer or police organisation takes a view counter to the one he has just outlined.
Beyond the police—apart from some concerns about the European arrest warrant, which I do not share—I do not detect any desire among members of the public for any rowing back on our policing and criminal justice co-operation with the EU. I do not detect any such appetite within this place either. Certainly since I have been here, the only pushback—particularly on these Benches—has been on the requirement to submit to the oversight of the European Court of Justice. I will come back to that matter shortly, but to take it out of the equation for the moment, I doubt that there will be a voice of dissent in this place relating to the panoply of policing and justice co-operations we currently enjoy. Time does not permit me to go through each and every one of them, so I shall focus on just four.
Europol exists to assist law enforcement agencies in member states to tackle cross-border crime. It focuses on gathering, analysing and disseminating information, rather than on conducting actual investigations. The UK has 12 liaison officers at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague, which I was able to visit with colleagues on the Home Affairs Committee last year, including the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). It is a very impressive operation indeed. It is important to note that Europol also has representatives from non-EU countries such as Norway and the US. We had a long conversation with representatives from the US and the Department of Homeland Security, who have a significant presence there. It was not immediately clear from that conversation that they were significantly worse off for not being a member of the EU. However, they certainly do not have the automatic right of access of EU member states to the Europol information system. There is a specific provision for them to have access on a case-by-case, supervised basis.
We were also able to meet online counter-radicalisation officers from the European Cybercrime Centre, an initiative very much championed by our Prime Minister when she was Home Secretary. The Europol information system is a central database with information on suspected criminals and objects associated with crime, such as vehicles. If a vehicle is suspected of being connected to a crime in Kingston, for example, British police officers can search the EIS to find out whether there is any information on that vehicle, or people associated with it, anywhere in the EU. In 2015, the UK sent and received 37,000 alerts through Europol channels, half of which related to high-priority threats such as child sex exploitation and firearms. As crime and criminals respect state borders less and less, the role of Europol in supporting cross-border co-operation will only increase and become more vital. It must be retained, with British involvement.
I shall move on to the Prüm convention. Like the EIS, Prüm allows and facilitates member states to search each other’s databases for fingerprints, DNA profiles and vehicle registration details. The UK has not yet fully implemented Prüm, although I believe that it will do so later this year, but we ran a pilot for DNA profile exchange in 2015. As I mentioned, I heard from a senior police officer yesterday that that has allowed checks that would previously have taken hours or days to be performed in 15 minutes.
I am sure we will hear my right hon. Friend’s expertise in the defence field in a few moments. The starting point of the European arrest warrant system is that any country in it has a legal system that will give a British citizen a fair hearing, just as citizens of that country would have a fair hearing here. That is the starting assumption, and that was why the House approved our membership of the system. I accept that some people hold the view that my right hon. Friend describes—I mentioned that fact earlier—but, on balance, the majority of people in the House and in the country think that being a member of the European arrest warrant keeps us safer.
Perhaps my hon. Friend would like to know that that was the view of the Criminal Solicitors Association, whose members largely represent defendants, and of the Criminal Bar Association. They agree that, on balance, membership of the European arrest warrant system is an advantage because it is a court-led system that involves judicial overview, unlike the classic extradition system, which is an Executive process.
I thank my hon. Friend for his helpful intervention.
There are many other measures that I could mention: ECRIS; the Schengen II information system; the system for providing enforcement alerts, including for those wanted on European arrest warrants, which includes more than 70 million live alerts; and the European image archiving system, which is a database of genuine and counterfeit ID documents and travel stamps. In all those fields, I agree with the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, that we should be aiming for full membership, or the closest possible approximation to it.
Turning to the UK’s position since the general election, the Government have put us in a good position to take forward policing and justice co-operation with the EU. First, in December 2015, we decided to opt into Prüm II. Secondly, in December 2016, we decided to opt into new regulations governing Europol, and I was pleased to sit on the European Committee that unanimously approved that decision. Thirdly, the Prime Minister set out yesterday how a global Britain will continue to co-operate with its European partners in the fight against the common threats of crime and terrorism. She made it clear that she wanted our future relationship with the EU to include practical arrangements on matters of law enforcement and the sharing of intelligence material with our EU allies. That came as no surprise because she personally led several such initiatives during her many years in the Home Office.
Clearly it is up to the European Union and others to decide whether to allow the UK to remain part of the policing and criminal justice architecture that we are debating today, but the case for the EU and EU member states to do so is clear. It is probably clearer in this area than in any other area of EU co-operation, not only because it affects the security of each citizen of every EU member state, but because the UK is at the forefront of each and every one of these criminal justice measures. For example, 40% of contributions to Europol’s shared intelligence come from the UK—we are behind only Germany—and the UK is the main contributor of intelligence in several of the most important areas. It would not be in the interests of any EU member state, or the EU as whole, to shut itself off from access to that vital intelligence in pursuit of some lofty EU principle or ideal—this is a matter of practicality. If the tables were turned and another country that contributed 40% of Europol’s intelligence—this intelligence helps British police officers to fight crime—were leaving the EU, I would be the first to call on our Government to do everything possible to maintain access to that intelligence and to preserve our co-operation with that country. Without wishing to labour the point, it would be an act of self-defeating nihilism for the EU to seek to shut the UK out of policing and criminal justice co-operation measures.
How could we co-operate outside the EU? We could either be allowed to remain a member of such measures, which would require EU legislation to be rewritten, or we could be given informal or bespoke access, which the US already has with Europol. Once any legal hurdles are overcome, the two main sticking points will be money and judicial oversight. As for money, I am clear that we should pay to play. If we are to benefit from Europol, for example, which has an office and staff in The Hague, there can be no question but that we should expect to pay. On judicial oversight, I understand that oversight of the European Court of Justice is a sticking point for many Members and for many members of the public who voted to leave, but that must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, looking at each measure on which there is co-operation. When we enter multilateral agreements with other countries on issues such as extradition, there is often an international court that arbitrates, such as the International Criminal Court.
I do not believe that we immediately became less safe because we decided to leave the EU. The measures we are discussing are hugely beneficial to law enforcement. The police and the public want us to continue with them, and I am pleased that the Prime Minister agrees. The litmus test for me on this and all other EU co-operation is simple: if we were not currently a member of the EU, is this is something in which would we be looking to get involved because it would benefit British people? For all the measures we are debating today, the answer is a resounding yes.
There will undoubtedly be legal hurdles to overcome, but it is clear beyond peradventure that our side is willing. I hope that the EU will respond in kind and that the starting point for any negotiations will be not whether we should do it, but how we should do it. Some Members have demanded guarantees and more information, but given the consensus in this area, it falls on everyone in this House, particularly those with expertise and legal training, to contribute on the question of how we assist the Government to ensure that we maintain this vital co-operation in policing and criminal justice for the benefit of all our constituents in Britain, and of citizens in Europe as a whole.
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberIt is a pleasure to deal with the second group of amendments. It is a large group, which some hon. Members have described to me as “unprecedented”. I would not be so bold as to say that, having served a mere six years in this place. I concede, however, that the group is considerable. That perhaps reflects the huge and legitimate interest of Members of all parties in these particular parts of the Bill.
Parts 2 and 5 of the Bill were debated at length in Public Bill Committee. The Government have listened to what was said in those debates and we have brought back a number of amendments in response. These changes will strengthen protections for parliamentarians; enhance the safeguards for targeted thematic warrants; and provide greater assurances in respect of the obligations that might be placed on communications service providers.
Before I come on to the detail of the Government amendments, let me say a few words about one of the most important issues that we will discuss in this group: the authorisation of warrants.
When the Government published the draft Bill in November last year, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced the intention that warrants for the most sensitive powers available to the security and intelligence agencies would be authorised by the Secretary of State and approved by a senior independent judge. This would maintain democratic accountability and introduce a new element of judicial independence into the warrant authorising process. This double lock represents the most significant change in our lifetimes to the way in which the security and intelligence agencies exercise their vital powers. This is ground-breaking, innovative and important in striking a balance between the public interest in protecting our citizens and the interests of privacy. There is a range of views in the House on the question of authorisations, and I am sure that we will have a productive and weighty debate on these matters this evening.
The amendments tabled by the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) seek to remove the reference to judicial review principles. The House will be aware that the Joint Committee that considered the draft Bill said that it was “satisfied” with the wording of the Bill and that judicial review principles would
“afford the Judicial Commissioner a degree of flexibility.”
That flexibility is important. It provides that judicial commissioners can undertake detailed scrutiny of decisions where appropriate, but it does not oblige judges to undertake forensic scrutiny of even the most straightforward warrants, because to do so would be unnecessary and would threaten the operational agility of the security and intelligence agencies.
In our debate on the first group of amendments, we had a mini-debate—we might have strayed slightly off piste—on the language that should be used in relation to the scrutiny that we want the judicial commissioners to deploy when considering their part in the double-lock mechanism. However, I believe that the manuscript amendment provides precisely the assurance that Opposition Members were seeking in Committee and in subsequent correspondence, and I am grateful to the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras and other Opposition Members for agreeing to it. I am also grateful to the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) for his involvement in these important matters. I believe that we now have an amendment that will satisfy the concerns of all hon. Members and provide the robust safeguard that we were all looking for. The wording that the parliamentary draftsmen have come up with ties in the privacy provision that we debated in the last group of amendments and puts this matter right at the heart of the Bill. We now have a robust double lock that will maintain the important distinction between the Executive and the judiciary. As I have said, this is truly ground-breaking.
I shall speak to the other Government amendments as quickly as I can, to ensure that other hon. Members can be accommodated in the debate. New clauses 9 and 13 will deliver on our commitment to strengthen the safeguards around so-called thematic warrants—that is, those targeted warrants that apply to a group of suspects rather than to an individual. They will introduce a new requirement that major modifications to warrants—adding the name of a gang member, for example—must be notified to a judicial commissioner as well as to the Secretary of State.
Amendments 97 and 54 will strictly limit the operation of modifications, making it clear that a warrant targeted at a single suspect cannot be modified to expand its scope to target several suspects. This builds on the assurances that I gave in Committee, and the provision will now be on the face of the Bill, should the amendments be accepted. New clauses 8 and 12 make it clear that modifications that engage the Wilson doctrine or legal professional privilege should be subject to the full double-lock authorisation.
I am grateful to the Solicitor General for recognising the importance not only of the Wilson doctrine but of legal professional privilege. Would he accept that Government new clause 5 ought to be capable of embracing legal professional privilege within the overarching public interest in protecting privacy? Will he also continue to work with the Bar Council and the Law Society to ensure that we monitor the practical application of the protection of legal privilege in these matters?
I am extremely grateful to the Chairman of the Justice Committee, who speaks with knowledge and experience on such matters. He will be glad to know that Bar Council representatives, whom I recently met, have kindly undertaken to come up with further proposals by which the issues that took up so much time in Committee might be resolved. I will be meeting representatives of the Law Society this very week. It is perhaps a little unfortunate that those particular proposals were not crystallised prior to today’s debate, but there will of course be more time. If clear proposals come forward—I am sure that they will—they can be subject to full, proper scrutiny in the other place.
Labour has taken a responsible and pragmatic approach to this Bill. We have supported the principle of a modern legal framework governing the use of investigatory powers, recognising that as communications have migrated online, the police and security services have lost capability, but equally, we know that much stronger safeguards are needed in law to protect individuals from the abuse of state power. That is the balance we have been trying to achieve.
Following Second Reading, I wrote to the Home Secretary setting out Labour’s seven substantial areas of concern, and I said that unless there was significant movement from the Government in those areas, we would be unable to support moves to put this Bill on the statute book by the December deadline. The group of amendments before us covers three of those seven issues: the double-lock process and the test to be applied by judicial commissioners; the protections for sensitive professions; and the position of trade unions with respect to this Bill. I will discuss each of those issues in turn, but I start by raising an issue that emerged in Committee.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), the shadow Immigration Minister, identified a potential loophole that allowed warrants to be modified after initial approval without proper scrutiny by judicial commissioners, thereby undermining the double lock. The Government have part-closed this loophole for sensitive professions, but we feel they need to go further and close it for everyone, to ensure that people cannot be added to thematic warrants by modification without the involvement of a judge. I hope that Ministers will listen to that concern and reassure us that they are open to further discussion.
I know that the judicial review test and the double lock have been discussed today, so I will not detain the House long. As Members on both sides of the House know, one of our earliest demands was that there should be independent judicial oversight of the approval of warrants, and we were pleased when the Home Secretary conceded that point some months ago. Labour has always believed that the judicial commissioner must be able to consider the substance of the Home Secretary’s decision to issue a warrant, not just the process. Put simply, it must be a double lock, not a rubber stamp.
My hon. and learned Friend has done painstaking work on this issue in Committee and outside, and we thank in particular the Minister for Security for his willingness to listen to our concerns and for the manuscript amendment tabled today by the Home Secretary. It accepts the spirit of the proposals we tabled in Committee by ensuring that judicial commissioners will have to take into account their duties under the overarching privacy clause when reviewing the Home Secretary’s decision to grant a warrant. Judicial commissioners’ decisions must therefore be taken in line with human rights concerns. They must consider whether the same result could have been achieved by other means, and whether public interest concerns are met. In short, it will require much closer scrutiny of the initial decision of the Home Secretary and, significantly, bring greater clarity than the Government’s initial judicial review test would have done. We believe that that does indeed amount to a real double lock and, I have to say, a real victory for the Opposition. I confirm that we will support the Government’s amendment tonight.
When we talk about protections for sensitive professions —lawyers, journalists and Members of Parliament—it might sound to anyone watching this debate as though we in this House were once again seeking special status for ourselves in the eyes of the law. That is why it is important that I emphasise that these are not special privileges or protections for Members of Parliament, but protections for members of the public. If someone seeks the help of an MP at a constituency advice surgery or of a lawyer, or blows the whistle to a journalist, they should be able to do so with a high degree of confidence that the conversation is confidential.
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that a point we need to make is that the privilege is not that of the lawyer, but that of the client? It is therefore entirely proper for us to emphasise that particular care should be taken when dealing with privilege, which is attracted to the client. It is not ourselves as lawyers or as Members of Parliament that we put in a privileged position; it is the person who comes to seek advice who has to have protection.
The hon. Gentleman makes a tremendously important point very well. This is about a basic protection for the public—a safeguard for the public. Also, on MPs and the Wilson doctrine, it is also a protection for our democracy that people can seek the advice of a Member of Parliament without fearing that someone else is listening. The hon. Gentleman is spot on, but I have to say that we do not feel that the Bill as it stands provides sufficient reassurance to the public that that confidentiality will be mostly respected. To be fair, the Government have moved on this point, but we believe that further work is needed, and that they need to continue to talk to the professional representative bodies. I will take each group in turn, starting with MPs.
We believe that the Bill is the right place to codify the thrust of the Wilson doctrine, but in our letter to the Home Secretary we expressed concern that the Bill required only that the Prime Minister be consulted before investigatory powers were used against MPs. We argued that the Prime Minister should personally be asked to approve any such action, and we are pleased that the Government have accepted this. I note that the Joint Committee on Human Rights, chaired by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), has proposed a further strengthening of the doctrine and a role for the Speaker, who should be notified and able to challenge a decision on intercepting the communications of a Member of Parliament. We have not yet taken a view on that proposal. It is right to debate it as the Bill progresses to the Lords, and perhaps we can return to it later.
(8 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe hon and learned Lady mentioned public confidence in the police and it is correct to say that this shattered some people’s confidence in the police. The representative from the IPPC made the point to the media yesterday that for some people in Liverpool, their trust in the police was severely damaged, if not destroyed, as a result of what they had seen. However, in talking about the actions of police officers at Hillsborough that day, we should recognise that some officers actively tried to help the fans and do the right thing.
On police responsibilities and attitudes, the College of Policing has introduced a code of ethics for police. We need to ensure that that is embedded throughout police forces, but it is an important step forward.
The hon. and learned Lady asked about ensuring that prosecutions take place where there is evidence of criminal activity. Of course, that is entirely a decision for the CPS. We must leave it to make that decision independently, as we must leave the police investigation and the IPPC investigation to prepare their cases independently.
On the hon. and learned Lady’s final point, I simply observe that we have had the coronial process in the UK for a considerable time, and the right to request an inquest and to request fresh inquests long before the ECHR was put in place.
May I, too, pay tribute to all those who worked so hard to see that justice was done in this case, and to the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary for their very balanced approach?
Does the Home Secretary agree that it is important that we learn lessons? For example, although the court process is inevitably stressful for victims and witnesses, as I know, none the less in this case the coroner and the jury did their duty and have proved that the jury system can be capable of grappling with the most complex and distressing of cases. That is to the system’s credit.
Will the Home Secretary also look at ensuring that there is proper equality of arms with regard to access to justice on such matters? That is fundamental to our rule of law? The Crown Prosecution Service must now consider and deal with a considerable volume of work and material. I note, for example, that some 238 police statements are said to have been altered in one way or another. Will the Home Secretary therefore discuss with the Treasury and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General whether some blockbuster funding could be made available to deal with the pressures of resourcing the Crown Prosecution Service in this case, and whether the approach could be similar to that taken towards the Serious Fraud Office when it has to undertake major and unexpected inquiries?
My hon. Friend will have noted that the Attorney General is sitting on the Treasury Bench and has therefore heard what he said about funding this sort of case. On my hon. Friend’s first point, he is absolutely right about the importance of the jury system. This shows the value of our jury system, and I repeat what I said in my statement: for people on the jury to have been prepared to take two years to ensure that justice was done in this case is absolutely commendable. They have shown considerable civic duty and our thanks go to them.