Criminal Finances Bill (First sitting)

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 15th November 2016 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from the National Crime Agency, the National Police Chiefs Council and the Metropolitan police. Before calling the first Member to ask questions, I remind Members that questions should be limited to matters within the scope of the Bill and that we must stick to the timings in the programme motion that the Committee has agreed for this section, which will end at 10.20 am. Will the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record?

Donald Toon: Good morning, Chair. I am the prosperity director for the National Crime Agency. As part of my role I am responsible for the agency’s response to financial crime, including the operation of the UK Financial Intelligence Unit and, therefore, the suspicious activity reporting system. I am also responsible for our work on money laundering and asset recovery. As part of the agency, we have a responsibility to co-ordinate the law enforcement response to serious and organised crime, in this case in respect of money laundering and criminal finances.

Mick Beattie: Good morning. I work for the National Police Chiefs Council, which is the governing body of chief officers for the policing forces of the UK. I report directly to Mick Creedon, the national lead for financial investigation asset recovery. I am also the subject-matter lead for the regional organised crime units, which is the serious organised crime response from UK policing.

Detective Superintendent Harman: Good morning. I am a detective superintendent with the Metropolitan Police Service, specifically the SO15 counter-terrorism command. I head up the national terrorist financial investigation unit. Our responsibility is the investigation and prosecution of terrorist financing offences and financial investigation more generally within a counter-terrorism context.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Q Thanks very much for coming in today. I have an easy question first. Because you all enforce this every day, what are the current difficulties with the legislation that we have in recovering assets from individuals who are suspected of involvement in criminal activity overseas?

Donald Toon: One issue is the ability to have an effective overseas end to the investigation. A particular problem around international corruption has been the need to have evidence from overseas, often from a difficult jurisdiction if we are talking about political-level corruption, that is capable of being used in a UK court to take action to recover assets. From our perspective, the introduction of the unexplained wealth order is a particularly important step in response to that.

The other issue, perhaps, has been very much the ability to have sufficient time to be able to get evidence from overseas in standing up a law enforcement response to a suspicious activity report, where that report may be looking for a defence against money laundering, commonly known as a consent SAR. The difficulty there is that we run against a 31-day moratorium period. Essentially, if we cannot have a law enforcement case in front of a court within 31 days for restraint of the assets, there will be a deemed consent and transactions will continue. That is acutely difficult when we are looking for information from overseas. In some jurisdictions that can take an extended period.

Another piece in the Bill that is particularly useful is the extension of the moratorium period, subject to court order, of up to 186 days. In terms of references to the legislative position, it is very much that ability either to get evidence or find a mechanism by which we do not need to rely on overseas evidence, particularly when we are talking about difficult jurisdictions.

The other area that is particularly difficult for us has been very much around the ability to access beneficial ownership information overseas. Although not strictly part of this Bill, that has been a recent focus for legislative change. That is a particular issue for Crown dependencies and overseas territories. I can expand on that as necessary.

Mick Beattie: Yes, I echo those sentiments. Over the past 13 years, operational use of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 has thrown up some operational challenges, many of which have been addressed in the Bill. In terms of investigative resources, an example of that would be disclosure orders. The current system operates as follows: if you have a suspect A identified as having accounts in bank B, then an investigator investigating that person for money laundering would go to the court for a production order. If the court approves the order and it is then served on a financial institution that subsequently gives over the information required that identifies yet another account at bank C, then the investigator has to go back to the court to obtain another production order, and go through the same process of serving an order on the second bank.

If that bank again identifies another account at another bank, then the process is repeated. When awarded, a disclosure order, or something like it, lasts for the lifetime of the investigation, and can be served on anybody with an interest in or information relating to the matter. The resource implications could be massively improved from something like a disclosure order.

As far as items of portable wealth are concerned, legislation exists that refers to cash seizure. We have civil legislation that caters for anything over £1,000 that is deemed to be identified as resulting from criminal conduct or being used in criminal activity, but criminals are adaptive. They can transfer that cash into items of wealth such as watches and jewellery, which are easy to transport. The new legislation relating to that gives us more opportunities to search and seize those kinds of items.

[Dr Huq]

Q In relation to what you said about portable wealth, do you think the £100,000 limit is about right, or can people convert money into things worth £95,000 by buying paintings up to that value?

Mick Beattie: They can, and obviously they can collaborate among themselves to do that. Getting through that is an operational challenge for us. We have to try and investigate that as part of the investigation, and we have to look for those kinds of things. Anybody who facilitates that is potentially committing money laundering offences themselves, and can be brought into the investigative chain.

[Dr Huq]

Q Is £100,000 a good figure or is it an arbitrary figure plucked from the air?

Mick Beattie: I do not know how the figure came about. It is a high figure, but we are talking about serious and organised crime and criminals here, and they operate in those kinds of areas of value. I would not know the origin of the £100,000 figure.

Detective Superintendent Harman: There are a great deal of positives around international co-operation in the counter-terrorism area, as you might expect. There are strong relationships across the world for the purposes of sharing intelligence, and doing so quickly. As with our colleagues, what can slow us down is when we are looking for evidence that we can use in a court during a criminal prosecution. That can take a bit more time, so the first challenge is the time that it can take.

There is also the issue of the visibility of what money is used for. We may very well be able to show that money was sent out to Syria, for example, and we may have a strong case for believing that that money was used for terrorist purposes in theatre, but to follow that money into the hands of a terrorist and show what is was actually used for is and probably always will be a challenge for us. Where this Bill may help us is in the fact that the more that banks—they often have an international visibility and reach—can tell us about transactions, the more they can share information with each other and build up that picture. That will help us in our international anti-terrorism efforts.

The other point I would make is that in terrorism we are often talking about smaller amounts of money. Sadly, it does not cost a great deal of money to commit a terrorist attack, depending on its scale. Spotting those smaller amounts within the financial system and dealing with those smaller amounts moving overseas is again more challenging, although not impossible.

[Dr Huq]

Q The Public Accounts Committee did a report on confiscation orders. It said that there was a tension between whether the point is to disrupt crime or recover criminal assets—sometimes they are facing in two different directions. Would you three agree with that? If we enact all the clauses in the Bill, will the new version improve the mismatch between those two limbs?

Donald Toon: I am not sure I would necessarily feel that there was a tension overall. The issue from our perspective is around the roles and responsibilities of the agencies involved that are using the legislation. The statutory duty of the National Crime Agency is to secure an effective response to the threat from serious and organised crime. One aspect of that is to make use of the powers in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 for the disruption of criminality. From our perspective, that is the responsibility of the agency. It is about the relentless disruption of serious and organised crime, where we are able to do so, using whatever tools are available to us, rather than purely focusing on the recovery of assets. That said, to be effective in using financial disruption we will very often use either the criminal confiscation process or civil recovery, which ultimately recover assets.

One of the points to cover is that, from our perspective, it is very much about asset denial. If we are talking about overseas, large-scale corruption, the point is about denying the criminal, the corrupt individual or their representatives access to the funds. If that means the funds are ultimately dissipated, for example, through legislation, we have still denied the criminal that access. Our focus is fundamentally around the vulnerability within the system, rather than purely about getting money and assets back for the Government and the taxpayer. That is a particular point when talking about overseas criminality.

[Dr Huq]

Q Do you think £100,000 is about right as a threshold or should it be lower for the unexplained wealth order?

Donald Toon: I think it is a perfectly reasonable value. The vast majority of property involved is of high value. If we are talking about property in the UK linked, for example, to non-European economic area politically exposed persons, it is almost certainly going to be of significant value. A small case from our perspective would be somewhere a little under £1 million. The majority of the casework in that space will be multiple millions, if not much higher.

Mick Beattie: For me, anyone who enters the criminal justice system should not be leaving it with their criminal assets intact. It is all about removing those criminal assets. First, they provide the symbolism of wealth and status that money or assets can provide. Secondly, removing those assets is a good mechanism for reinforcing the compensation programme—we can compensate victims as a result of confiscation, with the enforcement capability behind it. It also stops reinvestment into crime, as mentioned by Donald. Commodity purchase is required to perpetuate the continuing criminality.

For me, it is all about removing those assets and everything associated with it and the image that is portrayed by the retention of those assets. It is well documented by some that serious and organised criminals are quite happy or quite prepared to do the time relevant to a prison custodial sentence. What really hurts them and their associates and family members is the denial and removal of the assets and the image that portrays to the public. It gets a lot of positive reception when we carry that out. From a public perception point of view, we know how much they appreciate the removal of assets.

[Dr Huq]

Q And on asset recovery?

Detective Superintendent Harman: Counter-terrorism is quite a different context for asset recovery, as you will appreciate. The people we are interested in are not looking to make a profit, and they are not looking to embark on an enterprise that is going to last for a long period of time and create a huge amount of wealth. They are looking to get money to achieve an objective. Our absolute priority is keeping the public safe and stopping a terrorist attack. Our absolute priority is therefore getting hold of that money and controlling it before it can be used. It is not much good to us to be retrospective after the fact: we are looking at stopping the attack. For us, it is about seizing assets before they can be smuggled overseas, seizing assets while they are sitting in a bank account, and interrupting and intercepting transactions that banks have hopefully reported to us as being suspicious.

Yes, of course, some of our terrorists do use crime to make money to commit terrorism, but really, we are not so much in the business of seizing huge amounts of assets. We are looking at stopping the cash before it can be used to hurt the public.

[Dr Huq]

Q What do you think of the £100,000 figure?

Detective Superintendent Harman: It sounds a reasonable figure to me when we are dealing with a higher end, it certainly does, but we operate less in that realm. We are more about the slightly smaller amounts causing a great deal of harm.

[The Minister for Security (Mr Ben Wallace)]

I want to clarify the point: the seizure threshold is £1,000 and the unexplained wealth order threshold is £100,000. I did not want members of the Committee to get confused about the two. If we are talking about taking money out of a bank account, it is at the £1,000 level; if we are talking about confiscating assets on an unexplained wealth order, it is £100,000.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear evidence from HMRC, the Serious Fraud Office and the Crown Prosecution Service. Gentlemen, please present yourselves and give a brief background to why you are here.

Simon York: Good morning. My name is Simon York. I am the director of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs fraud investigation service. We deal with criminal attacks and the most serious tax fraud against the tax system. I am here because we use a range of proceeds of crime powers alongside tax powers. We also have a specific provision in the Bill on the corporate offence of failing to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion, among a number of important provisions for us.

Nick Price: I am Nick Price. I am head of the Crown Prosecution Service proceeds of crime service. Why am I here? We have been working closely with the Home Office and partner agencies in bringing the Bill together.

Mark Thompson: I am the chief operating officer of the Serious Fraud Office. I was appointed only in September and before that I was head of the proceeds of crime division in the SFO for the previous four years. That is why I am here.

[Dr Huq]

Q Thank you for coming in. I guess to the layperson there are many bodies involved in these issues—the police, who we have just heard from, the CPS, HM Courts and Tribunals Service and the Serious Fraud Office. The natural thinking is that there should be more co-operation between different bodies. I notice that the report from the Home Affairs Committee says that one person should take the overall lead. Where do you stand on being more joined-up and having a more overall person? It said for the recovery of criminal assets it should be the National Crime Agency that co-ordinates and oversees the various different agencies operating at local levels, with the proviso of adequate resources and tools. Where do you stand on the point about an overarching person and who that should be, if we did have one?

Simon York: We all work closely across law enforcement on a whole range of issues tackling criminality including the proceeds of crime, and that co-operation is really important. What we find particularly useful in HMRC, though, is the ability to use tax powers, proceeds of crime powers and criminal investigation powers in concert. That is what we find works best. We will use whatever combination of powers gets us the right result that allows us to confiscate, recover and prevent the losses. It is important to us that we have the ability to do that in the range of other things.

[Dr Huq]

Q And you are happy with how it is at the moment with you all working in concert. Does anyone think there should be overall supervision?

Nick Price: We all work very closely together. It is worth the Committee being aware that the CPS has lawyers embedded with HMRC, the NCA and the regional organised crime units where the regional asset recovery teams work. We work very closely with the SFO. So, we already work very closely.

In terms of overall supervision, the Committee will be aware that there is a Criminal Finance Board that is ministerially chaired. Sitting beneath that are a number of sub-groups. There is a criminal finance improvement plan. Those things draw together the agencies with real strategic oversight as well.

Mark Thompson: The only thing I would add to that would be the need for integration between those tackling proceeds of crime and those who are in a criminal investigation. I actually think one lead agency would make things worse, not better. The reason these things are successful is that I have proceeds of crime people working in the Serious Fraud Office alongside our criminal investigators, and that is the best way to tackle these crimes.

[Dr Huq]

Q Part 3 of the Bill introduces the controversial criminal offence of failing to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion. Some people who have given evidence to the HMRC consultation have argued against the new corporate offence. How do you rate the risk posed to the Exchequer from illegal tax evasion, compared with tax avoidance and other activities that contribute to the tax gap? There are some really scary figures; the most shocking one I saw was that over the last 26 years, the Government have collected 26p of every £100 generated by criminal activity. What do you think of the new offence? Nobody here has a crystal ball, but could you comment on the scale of offshore tax evasion?

Simon York: We estimate the tax gap in relation to tax evasion as a whole as around £5 billion a year. That includes a range of different types of evasion, such as what is colloquially known as offshore evasion. This is certainly an important issue. Corporates can be significant facilitators of tax evasion, as we have seen on a number of occasions. There is a real public and, I think, political appetite to tackle it. We find a difficulty in attributing criminal liability to these sorts of corporate entities. We think this is an important proposal in improving corporate behaviour in this area—deterring bad behaviour and improving good behaviour. This is by no means the only provision or capability that we need to tackle tax evasion, which is a very broad issue, but it is an important one in tackling a very specific area.

Nick Price: I cannot really add a great deal to what Simon said on that topic.

Mark Thompson: Me neither. Tax is HMRC’s primary responsibility.

[Dr Huq]

Q This is modelled on section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010. Am I right in thinking that so far under that Act there have been zero prosecutions—[Interruption]—or a very low level of prosecutions, shall we say?

[Mr Wallace]

We are getting there.

[Dr Huq]

That is only from 2010, so it is not an old Act, and again, nobody here is Mystic Meg, but do you have the tools in this legislation to bring about successful prosecutions or are there too many obstacles, such as that the SFO is involved and that behavioural change would be needed, as you said? Do you foresee there being a low or high level of prosecutions when the Bill is enacted?

Simon York: A good result would be that corporates change their behaviour and that there is less facilitation of tax evasion, and consequently, less tax evasion. We certainly have the tools, through a combination of this proposed legislation and our existing capability—HMRC is a very competent and successful law enforcement agency and criminally investigates many people and convicts them successfully every year, so I think we have that capability. Do I think we will have a lot of prosecutions in this area? I hope not, but I think we will be looking for a number to act as part of this deterrent to show that the legislation has teeth and to show that we mean business.

Nick Price: I would just make a quick general observation: all prosecutions are difficult and we operate an adversarial system, which of course we are well used to. This is a really useful piece of potential legislation, with some really useful elements to it. Are we going to see a phalanx of extra prosecutions coming over the horizon? Perhaps not, but there are some really useful aspects of the Bill that we will no doubt deal with shortly.

Mark Thompson: In my experience, it is not inherently a numbers game, in terms of numbers of prosecutions. We have found that the section 7 offence of the Bribery Act is a useful tool for us as prosecutors. It focuses the corporate mind and there has been a large response from the private sector in complying with that. I would be surprised if the tax evasion offence did not have the same implications.

[The Chair]

Thank you. May I point out that we have got 30 minutes left, and eight other Members of Parliament want to ask questions? I remind both witnesses and Members that it is your time, and that witnesses are here today to answer as many questions as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Scott Mann]

Q There are information and data-sharing initiatives as part of the Bill. How would you interact with those measures and with the joint money laundering intelligence taskforce?

Mark Thompson: We do already interact with the joint money laundering intelligence taskforce, and we have a representative who attends it. We have access to that through the National Crime Agency. The data-sharing provisions are mainly for the NCA, and we would benefit from those arrangements. We entirely support them and think they would be advantageous.

[Dr Huq]

Q Are there any other changes to the existing proceeds of crime regime that you would like to see in the Bill? I was thinking of some sort of parallel enhanced supervision of the property market. Is there anything else on your wish list that you would have liked to see?

Nick Price: From a CPS perspective, we are content with the provisions in the Bill for now. It is too early at this stage to know how those will play out and the impact they will have. Inevitably, we will assess the use of these provisions as we go forward.

Mark Thompson: These are the second changes to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 in relatively recent succession. We still need to work out exactly how we use all these powers effectively. Like the CPS, I am content with where we are.

Simon York: We are content and very supportive.

[Dr Huq]

Q Finally, I would like to ask a question that I asked the other selection of witnesses. The Public Accounts Committee’s report on confiscation orders said that sometimes there is a bit of tension between whether the point of those orders is to disrupt crime or to recover the proceeds and collect criminal assets. What would you say to that statement?

Nick Price: From a CPS perspective, as I said earlier we deal with cases at the low end of the spectrum, and we deal with cases that are very much at the high end of the spectrum. In all those cases, there are victims. In many of those cases, there are people worthy of compensation. I do not believe there necessarily is, and I would not see it as, a tension. We deal with the full range of cases, and it is important we do that.

Mark Thompson: From our perspective, we only deal with the top end of fraud and corruption cases. Inevitably, there is a financial element, and it behoves us to consider confiscation and compensation of victims in all those cases, which is what we do.

Simon York: Our aim is to take the profit out of crime, whichever way we do that. Whether it is disrupting criminals or recovering proceeds afterwards, it is all part of that overall picture.

[The Chair]

I thank the witnesses for appearing in front of us. We are grateful for the concise and informative way in which you have helped us today. We will now move on to the next panel.

Examination of Witnesses

Alex Cobham and Professor Richard Murphy gave evidence.

[The Chair]

We will now hear evidence from Tax Research UK and the Tax Justice Network. You have until 11.25 am prompt. Even if we are not concluded by then, I will adjourn the Committee because Members have to be over in the House for other business. Would you introduce yourselves and outline the work you do?

Professor Murphy: I am Richard Murphy, the director of Tax Research UK. I am a chartered accountant and also a professor of practice in international political economy at City University.

Alex Cobham: I am Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network and a visiting fellow at King’s College London.

[Dr Huq]

Q It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. It is good to have two academics in front of us; I am an academic trapped in an MP’s body.

Part 3 of the Bill would introduce the new criminal offence of failure to prevent facilitation of tax evasion. How do you rate the risk posed to the Exchequer by illegal tax evasion? We have just heard the figure of £5 billion a year. Is that accurate? Is it a conservative estimate? What are your thoughts on tax evasion versus tax avoidance and other activities that contribute to the tax gap? What would you say is the true scale of offshore tax evasion?

Professor Murphy: I have probably prepared the only alternative estimate to HMRC’s. My estimate is that tax evasion in the UK could be as high as £70 billion a year, in contrast to the HMRC estimate of £5 billion. Let us put that in the context of a £1.8 trillion UK economy. My estimate of tax avoidance is around £25 billion a year, as opposed to the Revenue’s, which again is around £5 billion. I believe its estimates are wrong. I think this Bill is focusing heavily on types of tax evasion that are a small part of the problem. The biggest part of the problem is the domestic economy; the biggest risk within the domestic economy is the fact that HMRC does not collect tax returns from 1 million UK domestic companies a year. The problem is with HMRC in this case.

Alex Cobham: We find Richard’s analysis rather more compelling than HMRC’s on the tax gap in general. Perhaps the difference is that we consider the international avoidance element to be particularly badly treated in the HMRC methodology. In some ways, if all your estimates are lower than they should be but in proportion, that is not a big deal, because it is not telling you to go the wrong way, but if your estimates of avoidance are significantly depressed compared with your evasion estimates, and you then put your policy emphasis according to those bad estimates, that does matter. I think we would be concerned that the tax gap is not a neutrally wrong estimate; it drives attention towards evasion rather than avoidance. We think evasion is important—certainly Richard’s numbers show that—but we are concerned that it encourages HMRC to take avoidance less seriously, and that is a risk.

[Dr Huq]

Q Several stakeholders who responded to the HMRC consultation—these clever people who know how to get around the rules—argued that a new corporate offence was unnecessary. It sounds as if you take issue with that. Do you think there is enough in the Bill to provide the significant behavioural change that is really needed to drive this out?

Alex Cobham: I think the behavioural change question is really important. There are two elements of it: one is how directly it affects the behaviour of actors involved in the process, but the second is how it affects the wider behavioural change. Over the years, we have had any number of economic models of tax behaviour, all of which have suggested that, in country after country, if we were rational economic maximisers we would be much more abusive about tax than we actually are. The reason for that is that we do not respond just to the risk of being caught and the price of being caught. Paying tax is a social act, and by and large two things drive people’s tax compliance. One is the extent to which tax revenues are redistributed and seen to be redistributed in a fair way—the more you think that, the more likely you are to contribute. The other is your perception of other people’s compliance. If you think that the people at the top—the big companies and wealthy elites—are systematically not paying their fair share, the prospects of you complying as a normal citizen are much lower. Who wants to be the only mug if the big guys are not playing the game?

There is one thing that I think is really important for the Bill. On the technical side we can have concerns about how it is framed, and on the enforcement side we might have concerns whether the resources are actually there to make it happen, but what is perhaps missing from that discussion is whether or not we have consistent reporting about the performance under this measure. If, year on year, we hear HMRC saying, “This is our estimate of the tax gap in this area. This is the amount of evasion we have stopped and the number of prosecutions, the revenue at risk in that area,” then, “This is the number of those cases where we have also gone after the facilitator, and so this is the proportion where we are consistently tracking this all the way through,” what you do, apart from giving HMRC a useful metric to demonstrate progress—if HMRC thinks this is the biggest part of the tax gap, then clearly it needs to be tracking this, showing the reduction over time—it also shows the public this is not just one more piece of tax law that may be more form than substance.

Particularly if you think about the Google tax law, for example, there is a growing sense of a lack of trust among the public that when tax laws are passed they are actually meaningful or meaningfully enforced. This is a great opportunity to go the other way, to make sure from the beginning that you will have that accountability and, to go back to your question, to have that in place in a way that is likely to drive behavioural change both of the immediate actors and facilitators but also of the wider public.

Professor Murphy: Can I make three brief points? The first one is that the law as drafted is going to be very difficult to prosecute. We have seen that from the Bribery Act 2010 on which it is based. The number of prosecutions is likely to be very low indeed. This is a strict liability offence—tax evasion triggers the potential liability. The defence that is provided is that there are systems in place. That means that the company—the corporate entity that permits the action—has a defence available to it. That defence will largely be available only to the biggest companies. They will have systems that can be easily documented. Most money laundering training systems now in place in large companies will provide an automatic defence to them: the defence is that they have the systems in place and that there was a bad apple who did the wrong act. Therefore, I think the chance of prosecutions against large companies under this Bill is remote in the extreme.

I think at most this will reinforce the impression that smaller companies are subject to penalty and larger companies are not. First, the chance of prosecution is low because the amounts of money involved will not attract SFO attention—by and large the SFO goes for high-profile cases and there will not be many here that can be prosecuted. Secondly, the behavioural change resulting from this Bill will be very low indeed. There are vastly better ways to achieve behavioural change in this Bill.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Q One of the attempts to deliver that kind of behavioural change is among the new clauses I am submitting. Will they garner your support for asking the Secretary of State, for example, to make an annual report to Parliament about unexplained wealth orders, to make it a duty to prevent corruption, and to establish quite swiftly a publicly accessible register of beneficial ownership of UK properties? Do you think the good intentions of the Bill could do with a boost to make sure the foot is on the accelerator on some of this?

Professor Murphy: I would entirely agree with a number of points you make. In fact, I would support all those measures. I do not need to comment further; they would all help.

It is clear that transparency is of enormous benefit. The biggest problem with regard to transparency in this country is that 400,000 companies a year in the UK do not file an annual return with the Registrar Of Companies and do not file accounts as required by law. We have no idea what those companies do. They are struck off. It is assumed they have no tax liability, so it is just assumed they have not traded. That is a completely unreasonable assumption for the registrar to make. HMRC does not pursue these companies. I did some research in 2014 on the recovery of penalties imposed on these companies for non-compliance. More than 99% of the penalties imposed were not paid.

In other words, we have an enormous hole in our economy, so we cannot rely upon these systems of registrars and beneficial ownership. The proposed register of beneficial ownership in the UK is simply a voluntary honesty box arrangement, because there are only four extra people being tasked to monitor it. When 400,000 companies do not even file a return, which is where they would disclose their beneficial ownership data, the chance that we will have reliable information is incredibly low indeed. We have to get down to very basic levels to get this right.

I am not saying that the Bill is wrong, but in terms of direction of effort, parliamentary time and resources, there are many more important tasks that would bring about the behavioural changes that Alex has talked about that would encourage compliance.

Criminal Finances Bill (Second sitting)

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 15th November 2016 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Before I call Dr Huq, I want to apologise to you; the Minister is involved in the debate in the Chamber at the present, as is the Whip, who is also on the Committee. Hopefully they will be able to attend, but perhaps not during your session.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Q 7070 Thank you for coming to give evidence. To continue the thread, although I guess you were not here this morning, I will compare some of your answers to what we heard from the panels then. Part 3 of the Bill would create a new criminal offence to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion. Quite a few of the stakeholders who provided evidence to the HMRC consultation do not think that that is necessary. Why do you think that might be, and do you think that it is needed or not?

Nausicaa Delfas: If I can answer from the FCA’s perspective, we would be looking at systems and controls in banks in any event. Tax evasion is a predicate offence to money laundering, so that is something we would look at in any event, but we do not have a view on the provision in the Bill; it is just our perspective.

Anthony Browne: We are not convinced that it is necessary, but we are not opposed to it, and we accept it. We think it is probably better to lead as a regulatory approach with the co-operation of the regulators and the banks in a partnership way, but we accept the Government’s wishes to do it.

[Dr Huq]

Q So it is a good step up, but it was not absolutely necessary?

Anthony Browne: We think that it would be better to use regulation to enforce this, rather than creating a criminal offence for banks as such, although there are also already criminal offences for individuals.

Amy Bell: Our view is that there is already a predicate offence in relation to this, but our tax law committee has been involved, and they are generally happy with the drafting.

[Dr Huq]

Q There is also evidence that since 2009, a lot of specialist trained investigators of financial crime who were trained on the public purse have jumped ship and gone over to the commercial sector, some of them even to gambling. An amendment that we are tabling would keep people within—I cannot remember the exact wording, but they would have to repay the cost of training. Do the three of you have any thoughts on that and potential poaching?

Nausicaa Delfas: I do not have a view on poaching, but we have accredited investigators at the FCA.

Anthony Browne: I do not have any views on this, but I can ask my members about it. There is clearly circulation between law enforcement authorities generally and banks on a two-way basis, in the sense that people at banks go to work for law enforcement authorities and vice versa. If you ask the law enforcement authorities and certainly the banks, it is actually very valuable to get that exchange of information, insight and expertise across the two. This is partly a development of the fact that the battle against financial crime, to which the banks are very committed, is a lot more of a partnership now.

Law enforcement authorities see that the banks are fully committed to this and working to the same ends. We have the same goal in mind: banks do not want to handle illicit money. Bringing the expertise of law enforcement experts within the banks helps the battle against financial crime. I do not have a view on the costs of training.

Amy Bell: We do not have a view on that either. It is not something that we see very often, people coming from law enforcement into solicitors’ firms. It happens occasionally but not on a widespread basis. We prefer investigators.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

Q A lot of research indicates that about 70% of major organisational crises are caused by culture. Why has the FCA scrapped the proposed review of the culture of banks? How is that going to assist in an attack on criminality?

Nausicaa Delfas: You are aware that the FCA is looking at culture with each individual institution. Although we would not be conducting that particular piece of work, we are doing other work. In terms of the Bill, I do not have anything further to add.

Anthony Browne: It was an investigation into the culture of retail banking and it was a decision for the FCA what it did with it. We did not ask for them not to do it at any time and would have been very happy for them to do it. As Nausicaa said, the FCA does a lot of work on culture already. The banks are doing a lot of work on culture through a lot of different means. We completely agree with your assessment of the importance of culture and of getting a better culture in banking. That is why from the chairmen and chief executives down they are spending so much time, effort and money trying to improve the culture in banks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tristram Hunt]

Q I will pursue this slightly differently. Do you have any sense of the international comparisons? Is the UK behind the curve on these investigations or is it out in front?

Anthony Browne: I do not know.

[Dr Huq]

Q Can you think of anything that is not in the Bill that you would have liked to have seen in it? I was kind of thinking sideways—maybe enhanced supervision of the property market or something. I know that is not one for you three directly, but if there is anything you would like to see in the Bill, we are told that the Minister is in listening mode.

[Mr Wallace]

Always.

Anthony Browne: We broadly support this Bill and almost all the provisions in it. The one thing we would like to see changed in the Bill is the threshold for intelligence sharing, which is a point that Ms Delfas made earlier. It would be beneficial and make the regime more effective if you lowered the threshold for intelligence sharing. If there was activity that was just below the formal level of suspicion, so that banks do not deal with it as a suspicious activity report, if they could at that stage share intelligence with other banks like two pieces of a jigsaw, they could find out that something happening in bank A is also happening in bank B.

That could raise it to a suspicious activity and so enhance the intelligence sharing and make it far more useful and effective. We are worried that the way it is prescribed at the moment would actually be a lot less effective than either the Government or the banks want.

[Dr Huq]

Q Do you think that the £100,000 for an unexplained wealth order is about right as the threshold where that kicks in? Would you like to see it higher or lower?

Anthony Browne: I do not have a view on that, but I can get back to you.

Nausicaa Delfas: I do not particularly have a view but, certainly from our experience, the cases of money laundering tend to be of higher value. I do not have a view on the figure as such.

[Dr Huq]

Q Is there anything you would like to see?

Nausicaa Delfas: Yes, there are other points. I have mentioned the lower threshold on information sharing. There are other ideas that we have in terms of how the SARs regime could be improved so that it is better quality rather than quantity. One is information sharing. Other ideas would probably not be in the Bill but are for future thought. What are the incentives for people who are submitting the SARs? For example, there is criminal liability on an MLRO. Is that right? Obviously, it is a difficult question but there are certainly incentives to report defensively.

We have heard from banks other ideas in which we can see the merit, such as having a sort of centralised transaction monitoring system to be able to see how transactions are flowing through banks. That is another very big issue that would need to be looked at. Again, it would improve the effectiveness of the system.

There are other provisions such as reliance. A bank cannot rely on another bank’s due diligence of a customer, so the customer has to go through due diligence again with the second bank. There would be a question about whether legal liability on the second bank could be removed, so that it could rely on the due diligence of the first bank, provided it had done some checks.

All those things are ideas that we are happy to share, or have shared, with the Government for the future, in terms of improving the regime overall, its effectiveness and efficiency. Mr Browne mentioned that his members estimate that the current regime costs them about £5 billion. Things that can reduce the cost and relate to effectiveness are welcome.

[Richard Arkless]

Q You have made it clear that you are broadly supportive of the measures in the Bill and you have given the reasons why. I think most people in the Committee are broadly supportive. The point of contention comes when some of us do not think that the Bill goes far enough.

I am quite perturbed by some of the answers you have given in relation to what could be done to make it easier for the people you regulate or your members. I am not getting the impression that those are things that you think would make it easier to catch the criminals. Am I confused by this? It smacks of self-preservation. What I want to hear are things that we could put in the Bill to make it easier to catch the criminals, not to make your lives easier.

Nausicaa Delfas: I am not suggesting how we can make our lives, or anyone else’s, easier. I am suggesting exactly what you said: to improve effectiveness in terms of being able to produce useful intelligence that helps to prevent money laundering in the financial system. That is certainly our aim; it is not to make anything easier. I think the Bill contains good provisions that will go towards that aim. We can always think about these issues and what we can do in future. We are certainly supportive of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

You informed me, Mr Leask, that you were defended earlier by one of our Scottish Members, who explained that you were the chief reporter of The Herald, not “The Glasgow Herald”. We were put right on that.

[Dr Huq]

Q Thank you for coming in, gentlemen. Part 3 of the Bill introduces a new criminal offence to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Dr Huq]

Before we were so rudely interrupted, Toby, because of the stuff you have published, I was going to ask you—this may also be relevant to David—about the new corporate offence, which will apply to tax evasion offences both in the UK and overseas. Will the foreign tax offence have a significant impact on developing countries?

Toby Quantrill: Potentially, yes. We very much welcome the extraterritorial nature of this. We would like to see this extended beyond tax evasion to all financial criminal activities—we are slightly puzzled as to why it is restricted in that respect.

The question will be implementation. As long as sufficient resources are put into implementation, we think this has the potential to have quite a significant impact around the world and in developing countries. So, yes, we welcome it.

[Dr Huq]

Q The same question about other jurisdictions—which Scotland might be if certain things continue going in one direction.

David Leask: The thing that we have been interested in at The Herald is the way in which some of these Scottish companies are directly marketed as a means of not paying tax. In that respect, when you have UK entities explicitly sold off the peg as a way of not paying tax, perhaps that is something that you will want to think about.

[Dr Huq]

Q How do you rate the risk posed to the Exchequer by illegal tax evasion? We heard different figures this morning: the witness from HMRC told us the tax gap was £5 billion and the professor said it was £70 billion. Do you have estimates on that?

Toby Quantrill: No, we do not take a particular view on the tax gap. It is clearly significant. There are many different ways of calculating it, but our main view is it is significant. It goes beyond pure resources and finance; this is about fairness and justice as well. It is about people everywhere in the world understanding that if they pay their taxes, so should everybody else.

[Dr Huq]

Q Christian Aid’s evidence keeps going on about the need for the beneficial registers of ownership to be made public. Will you stress again why you think it is important that it can be consulted when needed, and why it is not enough just to have it?

Toby Quantrill: As I said, we welcome the Bill overall. We very much welcome the leadership that has been shown by successive Governments. David Cameron especially at the G7 at Lough Erne put the issue of financial transparency and tax on to the global agenda, and the UK is the first of the G20 countries to create a public register of beneficial ownership, so that UK companies registered in the UK have to put on the public record who really owns them and who sits behind them.

Our concern is that this is a criminal finance Bill that does not address the question of our overseas territories and the role that they play in the global system of corruption and financial crime. That is strange and rather odd. We do not really understand why that has not been included. For us, what is really critical is that the company secrecy that is enabled in our overseas territories in places such as the BVI and Cayman Islands needs to be dealt with by doing exactly what we have done in the UK. We need to ensure that the registers of beneficial owners that are being created are put on to the public record and made public. We would like to see that done through this Bill or through some other process, but done with a clear timeline so that we know when it will happen, because that is not something that can wait. As I say, I represent civil society from across the world in many respects and there is a clear concern about the role the UK plays.

[Dr Huq]

Q Do you have a list of your investigations?

David Leask: No. Sorry.

[Dr Huq]

Q The Public Accounts Committee has raised concerns that there is not a sufficient number of successful prosecutions of offshore tax evasion for it to deter people effectively. Do you agree and do you think that the new corporate offence in part 3 will make a difference?

Toby Quantrill: I think it has the potential to make a difference. The critical thing is to avoid these things happening in the first place. It is important to have some sort of measure that creates the requirement to put in place the measures to stop this from happening. As I said, it is a measure that we welcome. We especially welcome the fact that it applies to the way that UK companies act anywhere in the world.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

Q I am not as familiar with the Scottish devolution settlement as you are, but I had always understood that Scotland had a separate legal jurisdiction.

David Leask: That is correct.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you very much for that. We are time limited. We have until 4.52 pm, which does not leave us much time at all, so will Members please be concise with their questions?

[Dr Huq]

Q It is great to have you here, Dame Margaret. You were the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee when a landmark report came out in 2014. How much of the stuff that you recommended is reflected in this legislation? You hinted that there are some omissions that need addressing. Could you tell us about those?

Dame Margaret Hodge: Again, in the context of general welcome for the Bill, let me talk about three issues, including the overseas territories and Crown dependencies. What is missing is a clause in the Bill— I know an amendment has been tabled already and I hope the Committee will consider it carefully—that provides for registers of beneficial ownership that are open to the public. Let me just quote from somebody who made a statement about this because it is really important:

“Now some people will question whether it is right to make this register public. Surely we can get the same effect just by compiling the information and using it within government and sharing it between governments? Now of course, we in government”—

that gives it away a bit—

“will use this data to pursue those who break the rules, and we’re going to do that relentlessly, but there are also many wider benefits to making this information available to everyone. It’s better for businesses here, who’ll be better able to identify who really owns the companies they’re trading with. It’s better for developing countries, who’ll have easy access to all this data without having to submit endless requests for each line of inquiry. And it’s better for us all to have an open system which everyone has access to, because the more eyes that look at this information the more accurate it will be.”

That was actually David Cameron when his Government launched the UK public register of beneficial ownership.

We have given the overseas territories and the Crown dependencies three years to come on board with this. It was first raised by David Cameron in 2013. I think that is long enough. I know there is a reluctance by the Government and that they feel that we have come some way, but that commitment to openness and transparency is vital. It is at the heart of ensuring that we really tackle corruption and money coming into the UK. If we cannot get the commitment in the Bill, which is what I would love, we are seeking a timeline that says that, within a certain time if the overseas territories and Crown dependencies have not come on board with public registers, we will instruct them through Order in Council to do so. We have the powers to do that.

[Dr Huq]

Q Are there examples of where that has been done before? You probably know more than me but I think there is precedent.

Dame Margaret Hodge: There are plenty of examples where we have used those powers. May I quote again from a Government White Paper? This is particularly about the overseas territories, which is a slightly different position from the Crown dependencies. This is a Government White Paper—I understand that there have been some questions about that during your consideration today. The paper says:

“As a matter of constitutional law the UK Parliament has unlimited power to legislate for the Territories.”

We do have that power. I am sure you heard examples this morning. A Conservative Government used it to outlaw capital punishment. A Labour Government used it to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of sexuality. We used it in the Turks and Caicos when there was systemic corruption and maladministration, and we should use it again. This is so much at the heart of the whole agenda. It would be a terrible missed opportunity if we did not, during the course of the Bill, go for public registers of beneficial ownership. I just cannot see an argument against it.

[Dr Huq]

Q A last question from me: the new corporate offence relates to cases of tax evasion, so is there a case for extending it to come down on companies for facilitating tax avoidance?

Dame Margaret Hodge: Or economic crimes. Can I just say again that I really welcome the Bill? This is the first time that we have tried to get at those companies and organisations that are actually responsible for devising many of the schemes that lead to aggressive tax avoidance or evasion. It is a really important toe in the water and a first step forward. The real experts on this are Edward Garnier, Nigel Mills and Catherine McKinnell—all lawyers who have been arguing strongly that the provisions ought to cover all economic crime.

Another amendment could be really helpful. If we could at least have a report to Parliament showing how the failure to prevent tax evasion power is actually being used by the enforcement authorities, I think that would really improve the Bill. I would like to see how much it is used. We could then see how effective it is, as with the unexplained wealth orders—it is important to report to Parliament once a year on the progress made on the use of unexplained wealth orders. I cannot see anything particularly controversial about that sort of amendment, so I would do it for both. Of course, I think you will find that the lawyers think we should do this for all economic crimes. I am with the lawyers on this.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

Q Dame Margaret, I am very interested by your proposal that that should apply effectively to every company’s beneficial ownership, because it was, of course, the Government that you were part of in 1998 that passed the Data Protection Act, which recognised that there should be privacy around individuals and disclosure of their data. Why, at that time, did you not—

Dame Margaret Hodge: Sorry, I am trying to think what you are getting at here. I do not quite understand what aspect of the Bill you are referring to. I am really sorry.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We are now going to hear oral evidence from the Royal United Services Institute, Corruption Watch, Global Witness and Transparency International UK. I have got to warn you before we start that we have had votes and they have put everything back. We are also restricted on time because there are Members who have got other things to go to, as do two of the panel, so we are going to conclude by 5.30 pm at the very latest. Can you briefly introduce yourself and be very concise, because Members want to ask questions?

Duncan Hames: Good afternoon. I am the director of policy at Transparency International in the UK.

Tom Keatinge: I am director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at RUSI.

Chido Dunn: I am from Global Witness, and I work on governance and corruption issues.

Dr Hawley: I am from Corruption Watch.

[Dr Huq]

Q I have an easy question first of all. What difficulties in recovering assets from individuals suspected of involvement in criminal activities overseas have you encountered? Can we start with Susan Hawley?

Dr Hawley: I think Chido and Tom might be better placed to start off with that one.

Chido Dunn: Based on our investigation in Global Witness, the use of anonymous companies incorporated in places such as the overseas territories and Crown dependencies—[Interruption.]

[The Chair]

Order. I am afraid we have some bad news for you. We are suspended for 15 minutes for a vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We have around about 12 minutes left, so would all Members and witnesses be concise in their questions and replies?

[Dr Huq]

Q Are you confident that enforcement agencies will have sufficient resources to make full use of the new powers in the Bill? I am thinking of the creaking IT system, ELMER, which was designed to cope with 20,000 SARs a year, and the figure at the moment, before this legislation, is more than 300,000.

Tom Keatinge: Resourcing is clearly a major issue. Cynically, one of the reasons for involving the private sector is to harness it to do some of the work. The point that I was trying to make in my remarks was that implementation will be critical. I do not believe we have the resources that we need. For the structure as it currently exists, the question is whether we are tackling financial crime the right way or whether we can make more efficient uses of the resources we have. Do we really need to have 381,000 SARs a year, and everything that that means for resourcing? We do not have them for the structure that we have now. Is the structure we have the right one? That is the question that we need to answer.

Duncan Hames: I would not go as far as to say that we were confident, although I am sure that people make special pleading cases with every area of Government spending. Reform of the use of the consent SAR would help to give more time for law enforcement bodies to collect the information they need to know how best to respond to it. That is a welcome measure in the Bill.

Chido Dunn: One argument made for public registers in places such as the overseas territories is that there can be more eyes than just law enforcement and Government actors. People such as journalists and civil society actors like us can help the process by identifying potential crimes and alerting the authorities to them.

Dr Hawley: We would like to ensure that the National Crime Agency’s international corruption unit, which will bear the brunt of enforcing unexplained wealth orders, is adequately resourced. We have concerns that at the moment there is not enough transparency in the funding model of that unit. It is partly funded by the Department for International Development, which leaves a whole series of countries that are not DFID priority countries to be funded. We need transparency that the Home Office is putting up the matching funding to cover those countries, because UWOs are going to be global—they will not be just for DFID priority countries.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

Q Mr Keatinge, may I pick up on the point about reporting to Parliament? It is very easy to get data in the public domain about the number of requests or prosecutions under a particular Act: you can use the Freedom of Information Act, or parliamentarians can table written questions to get those data in the public domain. Why do you feel that that requires a report? Dr Hawley, in relation to the cadre of specialised financial crime judges, why do you say that judges are not capable of adequately dealing with financial cases when effectively you have juries sitting on them? If you cannot explain them to the jury, you will certainly not be able to explain them to the judge.

Tom Keatinge: Let me take your first question. The way in which we seek to tackle financial crime in the UK cuts across a number of different Departments. There are many cooks in this particular kitchen, for various reasons. As an outsider, my question is: who is ultimately accountable for ensuring that the Bill is used effectively when it is enacted? Should there be a commissioner? Ultimately, what I would like to see is someone who has to report to Parliament what has happened as a result of the new legislation. As for where that information comes from, I accept that it can be brought to light by Freedom of Information Act requests or other means, but I would like to see someone made accountable for explaining how the Act has been used.

Dr Hawley: Judges play a key role in instructing the jury how to interpret some parts of the law. These are incredibly complex cases. In a way, we are reflecting what has been expressed to us by some in the law enforcement community who are trying to put these complex cases to judges who are not specialists and so do not have the level of knowledge about the crimes that they would like.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

We are determined to prevent illegal migration, from whatever route it comes. That can be through people getting on vehicles coming through the channel crossings, or through general aviation or general maritime routes. We are determined to clamp down on all of those.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The policy to limit migration is at odds with the promise that we heard in the referendum campaign from the Secretary of State for International Development. She said that if we voted to leave, chefs from the sub-continent could have their visa restrictions relaxed to avoid a curry crisis. Was that pledge of the same value as the one that we saw on the side of a bus promising money for the NHS—meaning that it will never happen—or will the Government address the skills shortage in our economy rather than aping the UK Independence party?

[Mr Goodwill]

I will certainly take no lessons from Labour, as it was the party that allowed people to come in from outside the EU with no skills at all. Indeed, search parties were sent out to encourage mass migration. I lay down a challenge to the restaurateurs in our country to train our own people, because we have tremendously talented people in the UK who would love to train and work in that environment. We do not always need to bring people across from the sub-continent.

Draft Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 (Continuation) order 2016

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 General Committees

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

This is my second outing as shadow Minister, although it is my first in Committee. The Minister and I faced each other yesterday, and he will be relieved to know that, as with the Criminal Finances Bill, the Opposition support the draft order.

The draft order will renew for a further five years the Secretary of State’s power to issue TPIM notices. Such notices are rarely used, but as was pointed out, they remain a vital last resort in ensuring our national security. As the Minister explained, the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 enables the Secretary of State to restrict an individual’s freedom of movement, association and financial action where that person is under suspicion but cannot yet be prosecuted or deported. Those powers enable the Government to prevent and investigate terrorist activity and ensure that our security services never have to wait for a terrorism plot to be carried out before they act. The Secretary of State can use such powers by issuing a TPIM, with the approval of the High Court. As has been explained and the Committee is now aware, TPIMs, like all aspects of our counter-terrorism legislation, were reported upon by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation in 2013. We have had all that explained to us.

I want to touch on the two fundamental things that were changed as a result of those 2013 recommendations. TPIMs were tightened up, so that the Government could restrict where an individual may reside, which had been part of the control order regime. In the original debate in 2011, the Labour party argued that because of Liberal Democrat forces, or something like that, the Government were softer than we were on that issue, but that has been rectified. That recommendation was important, because individuals might find it easier to abscond if they can keep in touch with their former networks and the usual gang. There are two examples of people absconding: Ibrahim Magag and—this is close to home for me—Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, who, completely coincidentally, visited the mosque right next to our Labour party office in Acton on a Friday and escaped in a burqa. People in Acton still remember that.

[Keith Vaz]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her appointment. She mentioned the so-called burqa case. She will have listened to the Minister’s reply to me that lessons have been learned from how that situation arose. We of course accept the Minister’s assurances that things have been tightened up, but does she agree that given that both cases resulted in statements to the House to inform Members that those individuals had gone missing, the Committee is entitled to know whether they are still at large or have been found? Does she agree that that would reassure the citizens of not just Ealing but the rest of the country?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huq]

As always, my right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is true that we want to know what happened to Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, who was disguised in a burqa, and Mr Magag, and it is right and proper that we know. My right hon. Friend anticipates my point a little. Although we support these measures, we do not want to give the Government a completely free ride and we believe that TPIMs could be made even better, so I will ask some questions.

The Minister pointed out that the balance of probabilities test replaced the previous one of reasonable belief of involvement in terrorist activity. That is all well and good. The higher legal threshold was enacted, which shows again that the Government were not getting softer; they were getting harder on some things. We are pleased about such changes, and he also pointed out other measures such as the extension of the sell-by date.

I am pleased that both changes I have touched on were acted on by the Government and that those recommendations were implemented under the 2015 Act. The changes to restrict where an individual may reside were accepted in full. The legal threshold was changed, so that the Home Secretary had to be satisfied on the balance of probabilities rather than just reasonable belief. That is not exactly what the independent reviewer asked for. He recognised, however, that that key change to the legislation increased the legal threshold.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister and I will be taking notes on whether he answers. Does he agree that the process was an example of the independent reviewer offering effective post-legislative scrutiny that as a result has made us all more secure and increased public confidence in our counter-terrorism laws? If so, does he also agree that we need that same model of independent post-legislative review if the Government move forward with their proposed counter-extremism legislation? Hon. Members will be aware that that recommendation was made by the independent reviewer to the Home Affairs Committee under the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend.

Section 21 of the 2011 Act allows the Secretary of State’s TPIM powers to be renewed every five years so long as she has consulted the independent reviewer, the intelligence services commissioner and the director general of the Security Service. We are now at that five-year date, which is why the draft order is before us. I hope that the Minister can assure the Committee that the Secretary of State has indeed conducted those statutory consultations and that all recommended that the powers be renewed.

I note that the 2011 Act does not require the Government to publish the advice given by the independent reviewer, the intelligence services commissioner or the director general of the Security Service during the consultation. There may be national security issues here, but I wonder whether the Minister is willing to make that advice public, perhaps in redacted form so that nothing too sensitive slips out.

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady concede that, particularly when counter-terrorism and national security are involved, the fact that some bits of information are put into the public domain and others are not in itself can give intelligence to the very people we are trying to protect the British people from?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huq]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. That is why, had he listened, he would have heard me use the caveat that non-sensitive advice with bits redacted could be published. One of the virtues of having an independent reviewer—not a Labour party person—is that it allows a degree of transparency and scrutiny in counter-terrorism legislation that is not otherwise possible in areas that concern national security. That builds public and parliamentary confidence in our laws. When the Government can be transparent, they should be transparent—the previous Prime Minister was always saying that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Therefore, although we support the draft order, I have a couple of questions for the Minister about the effectiveness of TPIMs. The security forces have been using TPIMs on fewer and fewer occasions. Between the first quarter of 2012 and the last quarter of 2013, between eight and 10 individuals were controlled by TPIMs at any one point, whereas three people at most have been controlled by them since 2013. In the last written statement to the House, the Minister revealed that there is now just one individual subject to a TPIM. I wish that I could say that that is a result of the terrorist threat having disappeared or receded, but throughout that time we have all seen the annunciator screens in our offices that say the threat level is severe. We have also seen a new wave of Islamist attacks on the continent. The Minister listed Nice and Brussels; there are loads of them, including Paris. The list goes on.

There is a danger that the security forces are using TPIMs on fewer occasions because they do not find them to be a useful tool for tackling terrorism. The previous independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Lord Carlile, said:

“It is surprising and worrying that we are down to just one T-Pim given the situation appertaining all over Europe. We know that there is a severe risk of a terror attack. I hope that the Government is examining the possibility of increasing the use of T-Pims or toughening them up.”

As we have already heard, TPIMs have already been toughened up in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015—in particular, the security forces can now restrict where an individual resides. In the impact assessment that accompanied that Act, the Government anticipated that their changes to the TPIM regime would lead to an increase in the use of TPIMs. In fact, they estimated that there would be an

“additional five to 15 TPIM cases per year”.

At the time, there were two TPIMs in use; here we are a year later and there is actually one fewer.

[Mr Wallace]

There are six now.

[Dr Huq]

Are there six at the moment, not one? [Interruption.]

[The Chair]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huq]

No, I did not say that. I said that, counter-intuitively, only one TPIM is in existence at the moment. The impact assessment said there would be between five and 15. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s thoughts on how this inverse square rule seems to have appeared when we are told that there is a severe threat. I am coming to the end. My question related to that observation is: do the Government still anticipate a substantial increase in the use of TPIMs as we move forward? If so, why are we yet to see an increase? If the Minister no longer expects to see an increase, are the Government working closely with security forces to ensure that TPIMs are drawn up in a way that allows them to control the threat of terror?

I really am ending now. I still have vivid memories of 7 July 2005, as most Members here probably do. I am a London MP. Many ordinary Londoners—people of all faiths and none; luckily, none of my constituents—were indiscriminately maimed and killed while on their way to work. Some 52 lives were lost at Aldgate East, Edgware Road, Russell Square and Tavistock Square. It was one of the saddest days in the history of our nation’s great capital. I know that every Member wants to give the security forces the powers that they need to prevent such attacks from happening again. That is ultimately why the Opposition supports the draft order. In that spirit, I urge the Minister to take seriously some of the criticisms on independent review and making advice public and to say what he thinks about TPIMs and their declining use. He should work with Parliament to offer an honest and transparent assessment of their continuing utility.

[The Chair]

It would be very good if Members who wish to catch my eye bobbed in their seats, as I can see being beautifully demonstrated over there.

Criminal Finances Bill

Rupa Huq Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

This is the first time that I have spoken from the Dispatch Box and I am pleased to find it accommodates even people of Rupa size.

I am pleased to be responding for the Opposition on the Criminal Finances Bill, which touches on issues that have been catapulted into the public eye with both the Panama papers scandal and the anti-corruption summit held here in May under the previous Prime Minister—how long ago that all seems now.

We have had a good debate today, which has strayed into the murky underworld of illicit finance, terrorism and international aid as well as home affairs, and we have had contributions from my right hon. Friends the Members for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans), the right hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) and the hon. Members for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) and for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) among others.

This Bill seeks to tackle money laundering and corruption, to recover the proceeds of crime and to counteract terrorist financing, all measures Labour supports. This seems like good news in a year in which that has been in short supply on many fronts, but we must temper our reasons to be cheerful by identifying certain omissions and sounding some notes of caution.

First, the green ticks. We welcome the eye-catching unexplained wealth orders, which would force individuals with assets way above their means to account for those possessions, which can now include jewellery and art work as well as property. The new seizure and forfeiture powers will mean that such assets can be frozen and possession of them can be taken. As a London MP, I am all too aware of genuine Londoners who want to get a foot on the property ladder, but the transactions involving the ill-gotten gains of gangsters are messing things up for those people and creating an over-heated property market.

We also commend the fact that the investigatory powers are being extended to politically exposed persons. A thumbs up, too, for the new offence of failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion being applied to corporations and regulatory bodies. We also applaud the improved data sharing between the private and public sectors, and the Government’s extension of disclosure orders to money laundering investigations, bringing them into line with corruption and fraud investigations. Also to be commended are the strengthened suspicious activity reports. The period of investigation used to be 31 days. I think that there will now be six extension periods, adding up to 186 extra days. We live in an age when terrorism is probably the biggest threat of our time, so we also welcome the extension of powers to include terrorists’ property and finances.

So, what’s not to like? We acknowledge the steps being taken to tighten the net on corrupt practice, and we shall not seek to divide the House this evening, but more could be done to end the status of the UK as a magnet for dirty money. There should be no safe havens, particularly in our own back yard, where the proceeds of international corruption often turn up. Taken as a package along with its overseas territories and Crown dependencies, the UK constitutes the most secretive tax jurisdiction in the world. That is not a record to be proud of. Good work has been done in the reports produced by the Public Accounts Committee and the Home Affairs Committee, when they were chaired by my right hon. Friends the Members for Barking and for Leicester East, but not all their suggestions have been taken up. Many Members on both sides of the House have flagged up the fact that action must be taken on our overseas territories and Crown dependencies, and we argue that they need public registers of beneficial ownership. The British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands are among the worst offenders, and we administer them. We assert that this is the most gaping hole of all.

A trick has been missed. Applying transparency to those opaque corporate structures is a key part of the solution, but the Bill does not go there. We know that 75% of the corruption cases investigated by the Met police’s proceeds of corruption unit involve companies in secrecy jurisdictions, and that 78% of the companies involved are registered in the UK’s overseas territories or Crown dependencies. We need full transparency, but the Bill does not go far enough. A measure on the failure to prevent economic crime was trumpeted in May 2016, but it is missing from the Bill. Without some degree of transparency in company ownership, we cannot be completely aware of the scale of the problem or the damage that is being done. Kenya, Nigeria and Afghanistan have all conceded this point.

It has been pointed out that the people interpreting the rules need resources, and the weaponry that we use for crime-fighting could do with an update. The National Crime Agency will have more work to do, so the Bill will have cost implications in that regard. The agency is the successor to several bodies that have been merged. Notwithstanding the one-off cash injection that it received in the spending review, it needs consistency in its funding rather than just receiving one-off blockbuster sums. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East eloquently made the point that there were serious question marks over the IT system designed to support the suspicious activity reports regime. It was originally designed to deal with some 20,000 cases, but, as he said, it is currently processing 381,882 of them. It is creaking at the seams. A new system was promised—I think its name is ELMER—and I again ask the Minister to tell us when we can expect it.

[Keith Vaz]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Huq]

Will it come off my time?

[Hon. Members]

No.

[Dr Huq]

Okay. Go ahead.

[Keith Vaz]

I can assure my hon. Friend that I would never want to reduce her time. I congratulate her on making an excellent maiden Front-Bench speech.

The delay in ELMER, and in the new system that the Government will want to put in place as technology moves on, will lead to more criminal activity. The quicker this is done, the better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huq]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I will resist the temptation to sing, rap or recite poetry and will finish well before 10 minutes to 7.

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. We cannot fight modern cyber-wars with catapults. Technology changes and we need to upgrade this wholly inadequate system. We were told that that was happening; we want to know when.

New powers for the Serious Fraud Office are all well and good, but it needs officers with the right training. Since it was set up in 2009, it seems as though the public purse has been used to train officers in financial crime, yet we are simultaneously powerless to prevent them from falling prey to private sector poaching, so something needs to be done. There was to be a working group on the recruitment and retention of investigators—what became of that? Are some of those deficiencies to be plugged at a later stage?

At the moment, 27 separate bodies are responsible for asset recovery—people who investigate SARs—and they are often in the private sector and sometimes funded by the groups they regulate, so there is a mismatch. It would not be a bad idea to have an overall SAR tsar or tsarina to get some coherence. What progress is being made on the anti-corruption strategy due by the end of the year? I understand that a joint ministerial council will meet at the Foreign Office next week. Will tax issues be on the agenda? If the Minister does not know, will he have a word with his friends in the Foreign Office to find out? If it is not on the agenda, can I politely suggest that it be added urgently?

What are the Government doing to ensure transparency in our overseas territories and Crown dependencies? What is the plan? My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking suggested that the Government could at least set a timetable to allow them time to adjust. In the meantime, will the Government give them every support to transition their business? They have propped up this business model for a long time and they need to move away from facilitating corruption. Without action in our tax havens, the small bits of good news in the Bill will be overshadowed by the Government’s failure to act. The Government should be able to persuade their own territories to follow their lead. Members on both sides of the House paid tribute to the former Prime Minister and his ambitions in this area.

We need to get away from the idea that not paying tax, whether by avoidance or evasion, is a victimless crime. Countries in the developing world lose three times as much to tax havens through illicit funds and re-laundering than they gain in aid. It adds up to a trillion pounds a year and we are pumping aid into these places at the same time—it makes no sense. Given our straitened circumstances, we should be justifying every pound spent, but HMRC estimates the tax gap to be £36 billion, including £5.2 billion owed to our Exchequer from tax evasion. My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking quoted the same figures, but other interest groups say that they are conservative estimates. By definition, secret transactions and hidden money mean that we do not really know the true extent. For that £5.2 billion, we could get 42,000 full-time doctors or 54,054 nurses a year. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East pointed out, we have a poor record of recovering costs, and these things do not pay for themselves.

The practices that this Bill seeks to tackle expose the dark side of globalisation, its links to terrorism, and the way global financial cross-border crime, terrorism and all these things can be done nowadays at the click of a mouse, meaning that illicit funds can fuel a golden age of money laundering. That is entirely possible and we do not want it to happen. We do not want illicit funds to finance terrorist operations, aided and abetted by financial secrecy jurisdictions of our own.

Governments can hold all the summits they like and people can orate good intentions, but warm words need to be matched with action. This Bill is a case of “could do better” on the Government’s report card, and I urge them to work together with us. In Committee, we will be pressing the Government on some of the issues outlined today—and more. When the opportunity for reform presents itself, the Government will surely not want to go down as having bottled it. We will not oppose this Bill on Second Reading, and we look forward to contributing constructively to its passage through Parliament.

Preventing Violence Against Women: Role of Men

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Newlands]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. Later in my speech, I will call on sportsmen, celebrities and MPs—men of all persuasions—to support the white ribbon campaign.

I am a father of two young girls, and I always worry about their futures—about how they will grow up and who they will settle down with when they are much, much older. As a father and as a citizen, I want to do all I can to stamp out the abhorrent use of violence and bullying that puts down and disempowers women, and I will work with anybody from any party in trying to achieve that.

In Scotland, the stark economic cost of failing to address domestic violence is said to amount to £1.6 billion. A 2009 study completed by Sylvia Walby of Lancaster University suggested that in England and Wales, domestic abuse alone costs society more than £15 billion a year in costs to services and economic output. However, regardless of the sums involved, failure to tackle domestic violence is simply not an option. The figures that I have just read out do not quantify the human and emotional cost that arises from violence against women.

At the very heart of it, this debate revolves around the premise and reality of equality. Some argue that we live in an equal society, that men and women are treated equally and that young girls are provided with the same opportunities as their male counterparts. Those people are sadly wrong. We are not living in an equal society, and still today, in the 21st century, too many men think they are in a position to overpower women and treat them as they see fit.

In England and Wales, abusive partners cost the lives of two women every week. Back home, Police Scotland spends 20% of its operational time dealing with instances of domestic violence. Domestic rape almost doubled in 2013-14, with an increase of 81%. Politicians are known to bandy about figures and statistics, and I do not intend to use too many more, but these are not just numbers; they are horrific and often life-changing experiences suffered by women across the country. The statistics show that we do not live in an equal society. They indicate that for too many women, this is still a broken society. With one voice, this Parliament should say, “Enough is enough.”

If there were any doubt that this debate is needed, by chance it falls in the week in which we have witnessed an angry outcry across the UK about the ridiculous and attention-seeking pro-rape blogger Roosh V. This small, pathetic excuse of a man has some of the most abhorrent views that I have come across, and is endangering the lives of women to further his own career. The views he expresses highlight the long journey that we still have to travel to ensure real, not perceived, equality for women.

A lot of good work is being done to tackle the effects of domestic violence and to enable authorities to charge and convict offenders. Efforts to prevent it from occurring in the first place have also increased. Both the UK and Scottish Governments are committed to eradicating domestic violence from our society and have adopted preventive strategies in combating it.

In 2010, the coalition Government launched their strategy entitled “A Call to End Violence against Women and Girls”, which committed to challenging the attitudes and behaviours that cause many women and girls to live in fear. The strategy is aimed at providing the authorities with the tools that they need to bring perpetrators to justice. The desire behind it is to adopt a partnership approach to preventing violence from happening in the first place. That is the correct approach to take—working across organisational boundaries to achieve a common goal. We need to intervene early, preventing violent acts against women from becoming the norm and working with all bodies to help eradicate domestic violence from our society. I will come back to the subject of prevention work.

The UK Government are providing funding to local groups that perform services that help to tackle violence against women. However, earlier this week Women’s Aid informed me that the current crisis funding for women’s refuges in England will come to an end on 31 March. The Minister sidestepped this question in the Chamber this morning, but when she responds, will she commit to a long-term, sustainable funding solution for women’s refuges?

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. He talks about cuts to services. Does he agree that the Government are often clever in defraying those cuts on to local government? In my borough, Southall Black Sisters does very good work for black and minority ethnic communities on issues such as forced marriage, female genital mutilation and the impact of religion and culture. The organisation is being stifled at the moment because the grant to Ealing Council has been cut drastically, which is affecting its ability to deliver those services.

[Gavin Newlands]

Absolutely. It is often the people who need such services the most who suffer as a result of cuts. I will return to funding, but the hon. Lady’s remarks are welcome.

I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government share the approach of seeking to intervene early and to work with others to help create a society in which women and girls are free from abuse. The “Equally Safe” strategy, launched in partnership with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, is aimed at preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls, and creating a strong and flourishing Scotland where all individuals are equally safe and respected. One positive aspect of the strategy is that it not only sets out to prevent violence against women from ever occurring, but seeks to address the daily inequalities and injustice that women face.

The Scottish Government have supported the strategy with sizeable financial support. In March 2015 the First Minister announced that £20 million would be invested in a range of measures to address all forms of violence against women and girls, in addition to the £11.8 million provided as part of the Scottish Government’s equality budget for 2015-16. More than £2 million of that funding has been allocated to prosecutors and the courts service to ensure that cases involving abuse are heard more quickly. Some £1.8 million has been awarded to Rape Crisis Scotland over the next three years to allow it to expand its advocacy services across the country, including by having rape crisis services in Orkney and Shetland for the first time. Less than a week ago, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights, Alex Neil, announced a further £0.5 million to help build stronger and more resilient women’s support groups across Scotland by helping to improve their infrastructure.

That investment by the Scottish Government amounts to a 62% increase on the previous Administration. Last week, during a hearing organised by the all-party parliamentary group on domestic violence, many groups raised concerns about funding for the services that they provide. Can the Minister assure those groups that not only will their funding not be cut but that they might see similar uplifts to the ones their Scottish counterparts have received?

I have spoken about prevention and about adopting a joined-up approach to addressing the issue, and I have said that eight out of 10 cases of domestic violence are committed by men on women. That basic premise is what led me to secure this debate. For the past few months I have been proud to be an ambassador for the white ribbon campaign, a worldwide organisation with active groups both north and south of the border. The campaign concentrates on working with men to speak out and challenge male violence against women. It urges men and boys to wear a white ribbon and sign a personal pledge never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women. Some 25,000 men have signed up to that pledge, and last year I tabled an early-day motion calling on all Members to support the work of the white ribbon campaign. I make that call again today and urge all MPs to sign the pledge, but this is not just about increasing the number of pledges; it is about creating positive male role models.

Other MPs have been long-standing supporters of the white ribbon campaign, including the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), who tabled an early-day motion in November welcoming its 10th anniversary. As MPs, we need to show leadership on this issue. As public figures and representatives, we have a duty to lead by example. Not only should we sign the pledge ourselves, but we should recruit others to the cause. I urge all MPs to go back to their constituency and draw up a list of 20 male figures who are influencers in their local community. They could be faith leaders, community activists, business owners, teachers, sportsmen or celebrities. Target those individuals and urge them to support the white ribbon campaign and to pledge to challenge violence against women in whatever form it takes.

Unfortunately, unlike in Australia, Ireland and Scotland, where central Governments have helped to fund the white ribbon campaign, the UK body receives no state funding. The Government might be interested in learning more about the white ribbon campaign’s work, and I invite the Minister to meet me and representatives of the campaign to learn more about its campaigns and to look at ways in which the UK Government might be able to support that work.

Other organisations are working with young boys to prevent violence against women. That is the key battleground in prevention, and one project that I want to spend time talking about involves going into schools and working with pupils on the issue of violence against women. It might shock Members—it certainly shocked me—to learn that police figures suggest that between 2012 and 2015, more than 5,500 sexual offences were recorded in schools, including 600 rapes. That is an appalling state of affairs and underlines the point that much more preventive action is required.

We need to understand the reasons why a young boy grows up to commit such violent acts. I believe that no one is born a violent person, but along the way something happens that makes them become a violent individual. Working with schools is one way that we can help to address that issue. In 2012, the End Violence Against Women coalition published a schools guide to address violence against women and girls, which includes a factsheet setting out the different forms of abuse that women and girls disproportionately experience. The guide helps parents, students and local women’s groups to work with their schools to promote girls’ safety. The coalition also accepts that we need to intervene early to prevent violence against women from ever occurring and, in addition to producing its schools guide, it has called on the Government to commit to long-term investment in public campaigns to change harmful attitudes and behaviours; and to ensure that all survivors of abuse have specialist support, whether or not they report it.

The End Violence Against Women coalition’s young people’s service focuses on interventions with young people who use violence and abuse in close relationships. That work targets young people aged between 10 and 25 years old and focuses on relationship abuse, parent violence and abusive behaviour within the family. That is an important area of work as it helps to change young people’s attitudes and behaviours and create more positive relationships between young men and their peers.

Some fantastic work is being done in schools by teachers and by groups such as Respect, which goes into schools to intervene when there are signs of abusive behaviour. However, a lot of that necessary work is interventional in nature. We should be looking to use the expertise of groups such as Women’s Aid, the white ribbon campaign and others by letting them go into our schools early and often to speak to young children about relationships, respect and domestic violence. There is evidence to suggest that boys’ attitudes harden when they reach their teenage years, so to get through to them, engagement needs to be either early in high school or later on in primary school, or in my opinion, both.

Will the Minister expand on some of the other work going on in schools that is aimed at preventing violence against women? That is an important area, as we want our boys to treat girls with respect and as equals from a young age. Can she assure us that she will consider implementing a formal national programme of engagement, rather than the current fractured localised work? I would also like her to respond to the calls from Women’s Aid and others for the Government to make sex and relationships education and personal, social, health and economic education a statutory part of the national curriculum. That would help to ensure that all boys and girls had the opportunity to learn about healthy, mutually respectful communication and the meaning of consent, and to be encouraged to develop broader, more flexible gender roles.

The Government have made progress and have done reasonably well in some areas, but they need a helpful shove in others. If we are to achieve the success that we all want in ending violence against women, we need an effective justice system that truly understands the issue and punishes those who commit such atrocious acts. That includes working with those who are serving time in the justice system as a result of committing violent acts against women.

Respect works with perpetrators of domestic violence, and as well as running an advice service for male victims of domestic violence, it runs a series of specialist domestic violence prevention services. Those services focus on changing perpetrators’ behaviour and managing their risk, and the safety of victims, including children, is at their heart. Such services help to prevent repeat cases of domestic violence and help us gain knowledge of why people resort to violence in the first place.

A four-year study conducted in the United States evaluating a similar service to Respect’s specialist domestic violence services showed a clear de-escalation of re-assault and other forms of abuse over time, with the vast majority of men reaching sustained non-violence. The services that Respect provides are extremely important, and I urge the Government to work with it, because we need to do more work with perpetrators. We need to help change their behaviour to prevent repeated abuse and to gain knowledge of the causes of domestic violence. All perpetrators of domestic abuse should be encouraged to enter rehabilitation programmes during and after their incarceration.

My final point is about the ratification, or lack thereof, of the Istanbul convention. The Government signed that document on 8 June 2012. Three and a half years is a long time to delay ratifying something to which they have already agreed. This morning, the Minister reassured us that the convention will be ratified once the one remaining issue with the devolved Administrations is resolved. What is that issue, and is she in a position to give Members an indication of when it will be resolved so that ratification can take place? The convention is important as it argues that no single agency or institution can address violence against women alone. The legally binding framework stresses the need for partnership working, intervening early and having a series of integrated policies that stretch across all Government Departments and across sectors. Ratifying the convention will send a clear and strong message about the UK Government’s commitment to eradicating violence against women from our society.

Tackling and defeating violence against women is one of the rare issues that unifies this Parliament. However, we should not allow that consensus to foster complacency. There are still too many women who are afraid of doing or saying anything at home in fear of violent repercussions. There are still too many young teenage girls in abusive relationships who are too afraid to get out of them. There are still too many children who go to bed at night and cannot sleep because they hear the violence that is poisoning their home. I for one have had enough. I pledge never to commit, condone or remain silent about men’s violence against women in all its forms. Today, as Members of this House, we must resolve that we can, should and must do more combat the abhorrent violence inflicted on women in homes across our constituencies and across the UK. It is an inexcusable shame and a national scandal that these violent acts persist in our society. We have a duty to fight back and eradicate this scourge once and for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

When we look at the fight to stop violence against women in the UK, we see protest after protest by women: reclaiming the night; laying down red shoes to signify the women murdered at the hands of their partners; and women with banners and signs. I know from all my work and from endless academic studies that tackling women’s rights issues here and around the world is always best organised and best realised when women self-advocate. We will not be given a break; we will have to take it. I know that men should not lead this fight, but we women will achieve nothing without the world’s men joining in and helping us.

It is a shame that I have to say this, but I am glad that, as a man, the previous speaker—the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy)—also felt he had to say it. Time and time again, people with egg-faces on Twitter accuse me of thinking that all men are rapists. So, for the record, I will say that I do not think that all men are rapists. I am sure that it is strange for many people out there to hear that I am married to a man, and I have never said that I think all men are rapists, regardless of how many times it has been quoted as something that I have said.

I do not think all men are sexist and I do not think that all men commit violence against women, or against anyone for that matter. Most men are absolutely smashing. Most men would gladly stand up, shoulder to shoulder with their sisters, and demand better. In fact, in a recent Survation poll undertaken by the Fawcett Society, nearly nine in every 10 men surveyed said that they wanted women to have equality in all areas of their lives, which was a higher proportion than the proportion of women who said that. The truth is that men out there want equality, and now we have to help them to act on that.

Unfortunately, a very tiny minority of very vocal men are not like that. A tiny minority of men rape women; a minority of men hit their partners. In any group, there is a tiny minority who let the majority down. It is the same tiny minority of men who get incredibly defensive when women speak up about this issue. I am here to say to them, “Dude, don’t always assume that we’re talking about you.”

It would be fair to say that sometimes I can be clumsy with my words. Sometimes, my emotions and frustration pour out in words that perhaps I should consider just a little more, but I get angry because it is an unpalatable truth that women are sexually harassed and assaulted and physically abused hundreds and hundreds of times every day in this country, and always have been. For every man who has tweeted me, emailed me and called my office this week to say that that is total rubbish, three times as many women have sent me messages telling me their experiences. The most wonderfully heartening messages this week, and I think they were the messages that I received most frequently, were those from hundreds of men showing their support for the women in this country.

Violence against women is not something that just happens on a TV drama or in one section of society; it is everywhere. I have worked with women who have the most horrific tales to tell and I have tried to retell their stories; stories of rape as a weapon of war, and stories of a life of torture and fear. This violence exists—it happens—but the reality of violence against women is far less bombastic, and far more pedestrian and everyday, and that is what people find so hard to believe.

Here are some of the stories from my life, and from the lives of others who have been in touch with me this week. I will start with my own story.

When I was 19, I was having a drink in a bar and a man pinned me against the wall, and stuck his hand up my skirt and inside my knickers, in full view of all of his mates. I slapped him in the face, as I am sure everybody in this room today would expect me to do, and I was thrown out of the bar, even though I told the security staff what had happened. The man and his mates laughed at me as I was ejected. I was terrified, and I am sad to say that that was the not the one and only time that I have been terrified by a member of a tiny minority.

Following my recent outing on “Question Time”—an occasion when my words could possibly have been chosen better—I received hundreds of messages from around the country. Here are just some of them:

“I was dancing on the dance floor. A group of lads started to lift up my skirt and try to pull down my pants. I just walked away.”

“I am a beautician and I was in a consulting room with a client. He asked me if I offered extra. I said no, he exposed himself to me and started to masturbate. I asked him to stop, he said sorry, he couldn’t control himself. I am visibly pregnant. It didn’t stop him. He’s been in since as if nothing happened.”

“I was on the tube this week. A man kept putting his hand on top of mine on the rail, every time I moved it he did it again. I moved my hand, to tip-toe and reach the handle above me. I’m not tall so it was difficult. He then stood so close behind me that his groin rubbed against me. I couldn’t do anything.”

“I stopped going to clubs because I was fed up of being touched inappropriately by strangers. Now, as a barmaid, I just have to deal with ‘banter’ in a work context!”

“I first got my bottom groped in a pub when I was 15. I thought nothing of it. When I was 20, I woke up from a nap on a long-haul flight to find the man in the neighbouring seat with his hand inside my blanket. I was too shocked to respond.”

She said she just sat there with him the whole way. She continued:

“At 21, I was on a train when a man knelt on the floor in front of me and ran his hands up my legs—again, I did nothing.”

This story is from a teacher:

“Last week in the corridor at school, I overheard a girl tell her boyfriend to wait while she just went to the loo. After she walked off, the boy’s two mates laughed at him. One said to another, ‘Don’t let her order you around, keep that bitch on a leash.’ They were 14.”

My story and every one of the hundreds of stories that I have read this week have one thing in common—the victim never mentioned the incident to their parents, their partners and certainly not the police. Figures will never show the reality; this is just part of our everyday normal life. Women shrug it off—“Just one of those things.” For most women, this is an accepted part of life; we think of it as an annoyance. Having to tell a man, and I have done this repeatedly in my life, “No, I don’t want to get into your car”, is a pain but no biggie.

I have met girls who did get in the car. Certain men know where to look for the vulnerable girls who will get in. They are the girls in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford and—before we congratulate our own areas—pretty much every town and city pretty much everywhere in the country.

Violence against women is everywhere; on every street, a woman is taking a beating, or just keeping quiet and waiting for the ordeal to be over. In every nightspot in the country, some teenage girl is being groped and shamed. Every school in the country has a kid whose time there is respite from what they see at home. When a problem is everywhere, we need everyone to join in the fight to stop it.

The first part of this fight is for us to ask the question a lot more. I ask every person in this room, both men and women, to ask the women in their lives—their daughters, wives, sisters and friends—if they have ever been frightened by the behaviour of a man. You will be shocked and surprised by what you hear.

We need action. We need every man who sees his mate touching a woman’s bottom to speak up—don’t laugh; it is not just one of those things. We need every man who hears another man referring to a woman as a worthless bitch, a whore or a slag to speak up. No man should ever let the statement, “She was asking for it”, pass without comment. If men think their mates, their sons or their dads are being a bit lairy, tell them to pack it in. Most of all, when a woman says, “It happens,” do not tell her she is wrong. Do not think that it means she thinks all men are like it or that it means she thinks you are like it. Just listen.

The white ribbon campaign is brilliant. It gives a space for men to pledge to fight against violence. If every man who was on our side spoke up, it would drown out the very loud minority who do not support women’s rights. As I am speaking, hundreds of the noisy men are taking to the internet right now to shout at me and say things like, “She wishes someone wanted to rape her”. Let us not let them be the voice that stands out.

Here in Parliament, I have been proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with men in the fight to protect refuge funding. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) and my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) have fought valiantly to protect domestic violence refuges across the country. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) dedicated much of his previous life as the Director of Public Prosecutions to improving the harrowing situation for victims of domestic and sexual violence in the criminal courts. He now stands shoulder to shoulder with me and the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) and many of our female colleagues from all parts of the House in trying to improve how women and children cope with the family courts.

[Dr Huq]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. She referred to the courts. Last week, the Court of Appeal found against the bedroom tax for discriminating against domestic violence victims. Does she agree that it beggars belief that the Government seem more intent on fighting that decision than protecting those victims and compensating them?

[Jess Phillips]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. There is one particular man seemingly fronting up the case to take the issue back to the courts and to try to damage women who have been put in specialist supportive accommodation. I ask that particular man, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, to stand with me and pledge, as part of being a white ribbon ambassador, to do his bit to stand against violence against women. Unfortunately, I fear that that request will fall on deaf ears.

Our network of specialist services is under threat, and I ask everyone in this place to stand with us and fight for them. I ask Ministers today, as my colleague from over the border, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, asked, to answer how we can make our safe spaces and refuges sustainable for the future so that they are not merely living hand to mouth every year. I ask all the men in Parliament and Parliament itself to sign up to the white ribbon pledge. How councils have done that and the definite beneficial effects have been outlined.

This is not an us and them issue for women and men. Women fighting for their rights to live free from violence are not attacking men; they are defending women. The more men who join us in the fight against violence against women, the less it will happen. More women will speak up and more women will be free to go out dancing, to settle down with a partner and to live full lives. We must encourage every women who suffers violence to report it to the police. I wish I had. All I ask of every man is simple: please just tell us that you believe us. Otherwise, we will just keep keeping it secret; just taking it as if we deserve it. I want to give a massive thank you to the men in the Chamber and especially to my colleague the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North for calling the debate. Men are brilliant, funny, kind and caring. We do not just want them in our lives, we want them in our fight, too.

Donald Trump

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Paul Flynn]

The figures are worrying, but we are still in a position where the President of America is Barack Obama. I am sure that he would look with equal disapproval at those cases, but they need to be investigated. It is certainly of considerable concern, and Mr Wilders’ case is of great significance to us.

The creator of the main petition said:

“Freedom of any kind comes with responsibility; this includes free speech. Freedom of speech is not the freedom to engage in hate. Words can wound and can be a rallying cry to violence…The reality of hate speech’s ability to incite violent acts is why the UK’s laws have stopped some 80 individuals from entering the UK to date.”

The petitioner quotes certain violent acts that have taken place in America, which they put down to Mr Trump’s intervention.

The way in which this debate has been reported throughout the world has created an enormous amount of attention, and we want to make it clear that it is no attempt to disrespect in any way Americans or the American state. Our cultures have melded together over the years, getting ever closer. This is the country that sacrificed more of its sons and daughters in the cause of creating democracy in other countries than any other nation on Earth. This is the land of Barack Obama, Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that the fact that it is Martin Luther King day today makes it even more bizarre that this hate figure is preaching these ridiculous things that we should reject?

[Paul Flynn]

It is a significant day. Martin Luther King was a great man who left a great legacy behind. We should look at what we are doing in this case and what we are doing in pursuing a cause that would expel the—

--- Later in debate ---

[Tulip Siddiq]

The hon. Gentleman should think carefully about what he just said. That is not the same as our deciding not to let into the country someone whose views fall short of the Home Office guidance.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West outlined Donald Trump’s views about Mexicans and black people. Do not forget that Donald Trump ran a dog-whistle campaign to see Barack Obama’s birth certificate to find out whether the President of America is really American. Imagine what would happen if, in the mother of Parliaments, my colleagues decided to question ethnic minority MPs about whether they are really British.

[Dr Huq]

Is my hon. Friend aware that people find that individual repellent because he is not only racist but homophobic and misogynistic?

Riot Compensation Bill

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Friday 4th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Just as everyone from an earlier generation remembers where they were when JFK was assassinated, everyone from Ealing remembers where they were when riots hit our corner of west London, which is known, justifiably, as the queen of the suburbs. [Interruption.] It is, yes, and correctly so.

Footage of the shop front of Helen and Stuart Melville’s Bang & Olufsen franchise on Bond Street in Ealing went viral. It showed rioters trying to smash the glass several times before giving up and scurrying off. Helen, who had had warning through the grapevine, told me recently that, at 5 pm, she was on her way back from Peppa Pig World, when she was given a tip-off that rumours were circulating on Facebook. That shows the modern nature of the 2011 riots. She could not believe it. She thought, “Why Ealing? Why us? I don’t believe this.” The same sentiment of incredulity also hit Ravi and Amrit Khurmy, of Ealing Green local store, who said that the word of mouth was that something might happen.

Both were small businesses into which the proprietors had sunk everything they had, and both, like Ealing itself, were rocked by the 2011 riots. Sadly, the initial prophecies became a reality. Both received a phone call from the company that maintained the alarm system saying, “Something’s up. Can you come?”, and both returned to scenes of destruction and carnage. Mr Melville said it was like something out of a zombie movie: “28days Days” comes to Ealing—is that the one?

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

“28 Days Later”.

[Dr Huq]

Sorry, I am not into zombie movies. It was Mr Melville’s example. They found cars burning and other such things one does not expect to see in Ealing. Bang & Olufsen closed early, as a precautionary measure, but even so, the glass was shattered and the footage attracted many millions of views on YouTube. Ravi found his store in flames. The London fire brigade was in attendance for 24 hours. It was not just the shop; there were flats above as well.

The Bill attempts to redress some of the imbalances in the current legislation and revamp the compensation provisions, as the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) described. The existing legislation is on the aged side, if that is not too much of an understatement. Very few statutes—very few anything—dating from 1886 continue completely unaltered today. It was a time when Queen Victoria was on the throne, and I think both Lord Salisbury and Gladstone had turns at being Prime Minister that year. A house dating from 1886 would at the very least have needed a bit of updating: a lick of paint, central heating and other mod cons. Riots in the UK are, thankfully, relatively rare, but the legal framework needs to be brought into the 21st century, as the hon. Member for Dudley South said.

A lot of people called the riots of four years ago the social media, high-tech riots. Some commentators even likened them to the contemporaneous Arab spring, which I think is going a bit far—the riots in Tunisia and those countries had a different cause. To pursue the parallel, if we were updating an 1886 house in line with what the legislation needs, we would need several coats of paint, not just a lick of paint, and total rewiring and heating, with a new boiler and radiators. The cumulative effect is that it becomes too much of a job to stick with the existing structure, so we do need new legislation. It makes perfect sense, and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing the Bill to the House today, because we need to bring that Victorian legislation kicking and screaming into the present day.

Ealing council’s riot scrutiny panel report from 2012 stated that over 1,000 999 calls were made on 8 August 2011, many of which went unanswered. The report states that there was damage to 100 shops and businesses and that “one supermarket burnt down”—Ealing Green Local, which I referred to. It took 18 months to reopen. It now has half its original footprint and has been rebranded as a SPAR. When the riots happened, I was cowering indoors watching Twitter, but I remember going the next day and seeing an Edwardian turret from the roof structure of that building being lifted away by crane. It was quite surreal.

Ravi outlined what happened in the aftermath and told me what he would like to see in future riot compensation legislation. He said that the insurers had paid out, but that the process was painfully slow. He reckoned that his claim was accelerated somewhat because he knew someone on the inside. That should not be so: we should be a nation above corruption in those things. He pointed out—the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) also made this point—that consequential loss should be covered as well. Ravi said that, at present, compensation covers only fixtures and fittings, whereas he would like loss of earnings to be included.

Ravi’s other point was that the role of the council was relatively limited. Ealing’s report said:

“Feedback on the Council was very positive—the payment of £1,200 was delivered promptly, and the named officer had been in frequent contact with advice and support.”

That is what the council said.

[Mr Steve Reed]

If Ealing is the queen of the suburbs, Croydon is surely the king. There was another role for councils, in the receipt of riot recovery funds. Croydon council—run by the Conservatives at the time—received more than £20 million from the Greater London Authority, spent half of it in an area that was not affected by the riots and left the rest in a bank until the GLA tried to claim it back. Does my hon. Friend agree that there should be a bigger role for communities and victims in overseeing how such funding is spent, so that the worst affected areas can recover faster?

[Dr Huq]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. He anticipates what I was going to say about the Ealing example, but he is correct that these decisions should be taken at a local level.

Ravi said that the council was very good initially, but that

“after 18 months their door was closed.”

He also praised police actions after the event, but recognised that their role too was limited. His was a flat with a shop beneath, and both were subject to an arson attack, as in probably the most extreme case, which was in my hon. Friend’s constituency—or was it in Croydon Central?—with the famous picture of the girl jumping out of the burning building.

[Mr Steve Reed]

That was at Reeves Corner in Croydon Central.

[Dr Huq]

He’s not here, is he?

[Mr Reed]

No, Gavin Barwell is not here.

[Dr Huq]

Never mind. Not to worry.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We cannot have conversations between Members. If the hon. Gentleman is intervening, that is absolutely fine, but we cannot have a running commentary between Members.

[Dr Huq]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will continue.

Now the place is half the size and split into two units, although the takings are thankfully back to normal. As my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North said, further follow-up financial support should be considered at local government level. I have not found any measure proposing that in the Bill, although perhaps I have not looked at it closely enough. Ealing council’s panel report said that larger sums were available in subsequent phases—£157,426 of allocations in total.

I accept that the problem with these sort of events is that they are unforeseeable. Nobody would have guessed on 7 August that this would have happened by 8 August: these things occur out of the blue. We are living in a time when local government budgets are being squeezed like never before, so I would be interested to hear how this Bill fits with local government provision. Ealing is losing £96 million in this parliamentary term.

Clause 8 sets the limits for damages at £1 million, as the hon. Member for Dudley South described. Disappointingly, however, subsection (2) states that the

“compensation must reflect only the loss directly resulting from the damage”

to the property and

“not…any consequential loss resulting from it.”

That is disappointingly short of what Ravi and others said would have made a real difference. Perhaps in extreme cases such as these, an agreement could be reached with the insurers for a limited amount more. It need not all come as a burden to the public purse, as some allowance could be made for special cases.

[Mike Wood]

I certainly understand the hon. Lady’s point on behalf of her constituent, but will she recognise that the independent reviewer specifically considered the issue and concluded that extending the scope of the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 to cover consequential losses would be a step too far currently and might leave the door open for far greater liabilities?

[Dr Huq]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I would feel happy if this issue were addressed to some limited extent. One would expect the Association of British Insurers to be on the side of the insurance industry, but it has found this aspect left wanting in this legislation—it could perhaps be explored at future stages.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

I declare an interest as a commercial business owner and property owner. Most insurance companies insure the buildings and the contents separately. That may not be under discussion in this context, but normally claims for buildings damaged through rioting as separate from contents claims.

[Dr Huq]

I am talking about loss of earnings. The store owner, his wife and two kids had to live off their savings for 18 months. It is an extreme case: 18 months is not the norm, and riots are not the norm. We do not usually expect these occurrences. Let us hope they never happen again.

Helen from Bang & Olufsen remarked that the shop front had not been smashed. The video was shared so many times because people were saying that the rioters had been defeated, along the lines of “Hooray: victory against the rioters”. In the end, she faced a bill of £10,000 for the glass splinters. High-end products were involved, as expensive televisions behind the glass were also damaged. Helen’s point was that a cheque had to be written from the firm’s business account, which caused a problem for cash flow afterwards. She said that she had sunk all her savings into the business, which had been open only for six years, and when it started there was a massive recession. The hit to cash flow to pay the glazier was huge. She suggested that a temporary loan would have been helpful in that instance. It was a frightening time for her: she had a little kid and a second one was on the way.

[Mr Steve Reed]

It was not just Reeves Corner that was affected. Nine businesses and 40 flats were destroyed in London road, west Croydon. Some of the businesses had to continue to pay mortgages or rents on properties that had been destroyed, which is enough to put businesses or individuals who are not wealthy in severe financial difficulty. Does my hon. Friend agree that riot compensation should apply to those who have suffered serious losses of that kind?

[Dr Huq]

That is an excellent point. There were the headline cases that got all the attention and went viral, but I believe that the proprietors of many small Asian shops in the London road have been waiting a long time to be compensated. I am not sure whether they have received any compensation yet. We may focus on the headline cases, but these are all tragic stories.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I understand that local authorities have discretion to deem domestic and commercial properties exempt from council tax and/or business rates in the event of, for instance, floods, fires or riots. Authorities are aware of those powers, and should use them to help people.

[Dr Huq]

I believe that the hon. Gentleman is right, but local authorities live in ever more straitened circumstances, and are trying to do more and more with less and less. I am surprised that the Bill does not mention that, and I should be interested to hear from the Minister what provision will be made for it in future legislation.

Helen also referred to

“just the amount of time it took and the amount of paperwork to submit.”

I understand that the Bill would simplify such processes. Claims can, of course, be made online nowadays, although that was obviously not a possibility in 1886. The Kinghan report, to which the hon. Member for Dudley South referred earlier, recommended that the processes should be speeded up, observing that

“none of the police authorities had any experience of claims handling”

or of the demands,

“or the resources to meet it. They also had to cope with legislation written 125 years previously”.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) mentioned language difficulties. Those difficulties are compounded by the archaic language to be found in a lexicon that was used in 1886.

The Ealing report commented that the public had been reassured by the fact that shops and businesses remained open—that it was business as usual. I remember passing a hairdresser’s shop where all the glass had been blown out. Presumably the clients were being given blow dries “au naturel”! However, although that “business as usual” spirit was reassuring, we need to help businesses to get back on their feet more quickly.

The Bill contains much that is of merit. Clause 4 creates a new body, the riot claims bureau, which the Minister can direct to delegate decisions on claims that are taken to it by local police authorities. While the hon. Member for Dudley South was speaking, however, it occurred to me that if the police are to decide these matters in the first instance and are also to be liable, it is possible that those roles are too close to each other. The Association of British Insurers has referred to a direct conflict of interests, and, although it may have misunderstood the position, the police certainly should not be both judge and jury. The hon. Gentleman did say, however, that if a case straddled two separate police authorities, the Secretary of State would make the ultimate decision.

The highest bill was run up in London, where policing is devolved, and I believe that the Sony warehouse claim is still being contested. The London Assembly welcomed the Bill in its pre-general election version as recently as March; in 2012, it had produced a report entitled “Picking up the pieces”, which recommended an overhaul of the current Victorian legislation.

The 1886 Act was instituted after the Trafalgar square riots, at a time when there was no provision for motor vehicles. I did a Google search to find out how many people in the country owned cars in 1886, and discovered that it was the year in which Benz trialled the first petrol engine, which had just been invented. The Act places the onus on the police, but as early as 9 August 2011, Rob Garnham, chair of the Association of Police Authorities, warned that

“in a context of cuts the public will see little sense in a shrinking police fund being diverted to pay for criminal damage.”

Touch wood, God forbid, let us hope and pray the frightening disturbances of 2011 never happen again, but we do have a duty to learn from precedent and we need to bring the law on these subjects into the 21st century. We need to defend and protect small businesses. I am a child of small business—that is what my dad did. Small business owners sometimes take enormous risks: they sometimes do not eat to put food on the table for their kids and do not take holidays. They are not even SMEs; they are microbusinesses, and people such as Stuart and Helen, whom I described, and Ravi and Amrit need our support as they are key drivers of regional economies and pillars of our local communities.

It was not just the glass at the Bang & Olufsen franchise in Ealing that shattered; it was also the notion of suburban calm in our area. It shocked me and many other long-standing residents. This Bill is a good start, but there are still little bits and pieces that could be improved, such as the issues of leaving small businesses out of pocket when cash flow is difficult and the speed at which claims can be processed.

Riots in this country are, thankfully, pretty rare. I remember them in my lifetime two or three times. In 1981 it was Brixton, Toxteth and Moss Side; then in 2001 it was Bradford, Burnley and Oldham, where we had a very good result for the Labour party last night; and then in 2011 it was Ealing, where I was and where I always thought it would never happen, and other compass points in London—Croydon in the south, Tottenham in the north—and Manchester and Birmingham as well. So we do not know when they are going to happen, but there is a likelihood they will. There is a more than zero probability that in the next 130 years we will see some sort of urban, or suburban, disorder again, so we must never say never.

The 2011 riots were noteworthy for various reasons. Some of the commentary talked about the role and function of social media, and the issues of youth justice and the sentencing process were also raised. Some people saw the looting and violence as spelling the end of society as we know it, while others saw it as solidifying social bonds because of the “broom armies”—the community-led clean-ups that happened the day after. Some of the points that arose are addressed by the legislation: the motives of the perpetrators; whether it was a riot or not; whether it was a consumer orgy or a shopping spree. There is a new definition of riot in this Bill, which I am pleased to see is based on the Public Order Act 1986.

There are still bits and pieces that my residents and businesses would like to see addressed, and I could mention many more such businesses: the Red Lion pub, Santa Maria Pizza, the Hare and Tortoise, Visage Hair, and the Baby Boutique, whose proprietor went on television a lot in the heat of the moment blaming “feral youths”. It has since closed its doors and is now an online business only. Most of the measures they would like to see are here, but one or two could be added at a later stage.

In conclusion, this Bill is a vast improvement on the existing provisions, but if history repeats itself and this little known piece of legislation does have to be dusted down in the next 129 years, we might as well get it right now. On the whole, however, I commend it, and the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) for bringing it to the House today.

Policing

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The police do not usually do politics. The Representation of the People Act 1983 prevents them from influencing any person’s decision to vote by word or deed and the police’s code of ethics states that the police

“must not take any active part in politics.”

That did not stop an open letter being issued on 21 April from 1,000 past and present police staff, including 600 serving officers, 423 police constables and even four chief superintendents, warning of the grave consequences of a Conservative victory at the general election. It said that in power the Tories would “endanger public safety” and leave the force “perilously close to collapse”. We all know the result of the election and it was community safety, not just the Labour party, that was the loser.

The letter said that the public were in “blissful ignorance”, but people are becoming aware of the situation. I have received email after email from people in Hanger Hill ward—the least Labour-friendly territory in my constituency—who are disgusted that their PCSOs are going. And all this from the one-time party of law and order. Since May 2010, the Met has seen £600 million slashed from its budget, resulting in 190 fewer police officers and PCSOs in Ealing. We will find out in the spending review how many will be lost in the next round of cuts. People fear that, with the Tories unfettered by coalition government, things will get worse. The Guardian reckons that 22,000 officers will be lost. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary said last week:

“The reductions in forces’ workforces are likely to lead to a further erosion in neighbourhood policing.”

Hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber have recounted the figures for the Met police. The number of officers has fallen from 33,367 in March 2010 to 31,877. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said last week in an interview with the Evening Standard that the combination of the comprehensive spending review and the recalculation of the formula would lead to £800 million of cuts, which amounts to between 5,000 and 8,000 officers. He stated:

“For the past four years we have taken cuts…and we have just got on with it.”

He continued:

“I genuinely worry about the safety of London.”

Sir Bernard spoke at a public meeting in Ealing town hall the other week that was organised by our Assembly member, Dr Onkar Sahota. He was asked how the cuts would affect Ealing. The answer was that if they were shared equally across all the Met’s frontline teams, including firearms and sexual offences specialists, Ealing borough would lose about 25% of its officers, which is 170 police officers. If they were sliced another way, with the specialist units being protected and the 8,000 officers being lost from all the London boroughs, Ealing would lose 299 police officers, which is equivalent to 44% of the current force.

I have been to Ealing and Acton police stations in recent weeks, where I have spoken to our chief superintendent and officers at every level. People are seriously worried. They talk about devastation and a lack of morale. Just like the iconic Scotland Yard, both those police stations will go and the officers will be relocated to Brent. Everyone was saying, “God forbid if anything like the August 2011 riots were to hit Ealing again.”

[Mrs Moon]

We police by consent in this country, but we also police by local knowledge. Every police officer lost is local knowledge lost. Is not that what the Conservative party fails to understand?

[Dr Huq]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. The contact that means officers know the names of people on the streets is what we value about our police force, and it is endangered by the Government’s actions. The police in those police stations told me that the thin blue line is getting ever thinner and that precious human resources are being stretched to breaking point.

In the 2011 riots, our borough—my constituency—had one fatality. It was not just “happy shopping” or whatever people called it.

Among a long list of people, Sir Hugh Orde, the former Association of Chief Police Officers president, has said:

“The notion you can take money out of policing and numbers out of policing without increasing the risk exponentially is flawed.”

Hon. Members might have seen a story about Epping—the other side of town to my constituency—on BBC “London News” yesterday. A Remembrance day parade that has been held every year since 1919 is not happening this year because there are not the police to marshal and cordon off the areas for it.

In New York, the population is decreasing but police numbers are being increased. It is odd that the opposite is happening in London—it does not make sense. We are in the nation’s capital. Hon. Members see on the annunciator screens in our offices that the threat level is severe. How will slashing our police force to ribbons help? Many hon. Members have said that the nature and scope of policing have changed and that we have new crimes. We should listen to the unprecedented intervention of 1,000 past and present police officers. The letter says that we

“cannot stand by watching the destruction of the UK police service.”

The people of Ealing, Acton and Chiswick deserve better.

Immigration Detention

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I echo the congratulations to the two APPGs and to Members from both sides of the House who have brought this very important and timely debate. In a week when moral indignation from the nation at large has caused action by the Government, I would like to think that this debate too can play its part in awareness raising and have a similar positive effect.

I do not have any of these so-called immigration removal centres in my constituency, but their names are known to me as almost a roll call of shame, and some touch on my constituents. The two nearest to me are Colnbrook and Harmondsworth, which my constituent Diane Lukeman, who is in the Public Gallery and is a lay visitor with Detention Action, visits. The situation at Yarl’s Wood was brought home to me by a visit facilitated by Father Simon of Christ the Saviour in Ealing Broadway. He set up a meeting for me with Citizens UK when I was a parliamentary candidate. It opened my eyes to a world I had never experienced before.

My constituent had fled persecution from the Taliban, but even she spoke of the humiliating, degrading and harrowing conditions that left her depressed and suicidal —my right hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) has told similar stories—behind the tall fence and barbed wire. Defenders of these institutions will no doubt assert that they are not meant to be holiday camps and that they are meant to deter, but their dire conditions and lack of respect for human dignity have left inmates resorting to extreme actions, such as hunger strike.

The 2013 report of the inspectorate of prisons on Yarl’s Wood, which followed an unannounced inspection similar to the old-style Ofsted inspections, said:

“The circumstances of those held at Yarl’s Wood make it a sad place. At best it represents the failure of hopes and ambitions, at worst it is a place where some detainees look to the future with real fear and concern. None of those held at Yarl’s Wood were there because they had been charged with an offence or had been detained through normal judicial circumstances. Many may have experienced victimisation before they were detained, for example by traffickers or in abusive relationships.”

The cumulative result is a moral dereliction of duty. People, including women and children, are locked up for months in draconian centres, not knowing when they will be let out.

Governments of parties on both sides of the House have sought to be tough, in the eyes of the electorate, on undocumented migrants. That is wrong and it blurs the issue of refugees and asylum seekers with the wider immigration debate, which tends to border on hysteria and forms a cycle that breeds a climate of hatred, fear, racism and demonisation of the so-called “illegals.”

The UK has long had a reputation as a defender of human rights and civil liberties where freedom prevails, but the detention system is a stain on our character. The only beneficiaries seem to be the private providers. Serco is literally profiting from the misery at Yarl’s Wood.

I am pleased to report that my constituent, who asked not to be named, has got back on her feet. She got out of there and is enrolled on a psychology degree. She is rebuilding her life and working with Citizens UK on these issues, but she is still haunted by her experiences.

The hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), the Mayor of London—I am not sure which is his part-time position—is not present, but in his 2008 incarnation he stood on a platform calling for an amnesty for all illegal immigrants. I do not know what happened to that, but it was not in our manifesto, which instead called for an end to indefinite detention. I hope we all agree with that. The report by the all-party groups recommends a limit of 28 days. I am sure we can all agree that the processes need to be sped up and that due process needs to be done.

If a time limit on detention could be set that was not prejudicial to the Government’s ability to remove those who have no right to remain, would the Minister support it? The community organising group Citizens UK, which has been mentioned by a few Members on both sides of the House, has a working group devoted to examining alternatives to detention as a means of processing migrant and asylum applications. Will the Minister liaise with and meet that working group?