Oral Answers to Questions

Sadiq Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

If it is so easily organised, as the organisations the hon. Gentleman spoke to have said, then we do not need legislation. As I said, every local area would have differing circumstances as far as the register is concerned. What we do not want is EROs spending their time having to go to schools because of legislation, when to maximise the register in their areas they should be going to care homes and talking to elderly people.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

What are you scared of?

[Mr Gyimah]

The shadow Justice Secretary asks me what I am scared of. What we know is that the Labour party is not against IER. Labour Members are pretending in this House that they are interested in students and young people when they are not. It is all about the block vote—that is what they want.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As my hon. Friend will know, a number of steps have been taken to devolve and decentralise what has traditionally been the very over-centralised way in which we raise and spend money. We are not just devolving unprecedented fiscal powers to the various nations in the United Kingdom, but, for instance, giving greater borrowing powers to local government in England. However, the journey is not yet complete, and, in my view, further steps towards further fiscal devolution and decentralisation should be taken in the years ahead.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

We are fast approaching the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. Over the last five years, the Deputy Prime Minister’s Government have extended the use of secret courts, curtailed judicial review, and radically reduced access to justice by making massive cuts in legal aid. Which of those policies of his Government does he consider to be most in keeping with the spirit of Magna Carta?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not remember what his Government did to habeas corpus, and that great tradition? Does he not remember his Government’s flawed attempt to impose an identity card database, which we brought to an end? Does he not remember his push to fingerprint innocent children in schools throughout the country, and does he not remember wanting to store the DNA of innocent citizens throughout the country? For heaven’s sake, let him remember his own record and that of his own party before he starts trying to cast aspersions on this Government.

[Sadiq Khan]

The Deputy Prime Minister has had five years’ experience of this arrangement. It works like this: we ask the questions, and he tries to answer them. Let me try one more question. It may be the last.

It is, of course, important for our country to use its influence with its allies to improve human rights abroad. As the Deputy Prime Minister will know, the Ministry of Justice wants to enter into a £6 million contractual arrangement with the Saudi Arabian justice system to share “best practice”. Many people are rightly concerned about the sentence of 1,000 lashes that was given to Raif Badawi, and the regular use of execution by beheading in Saudi Arabia. What does the Deputy Prime Minister think about the British Government’s making money out of the Saudi Arabian justice system, and what is he going to do about it?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The issue is not whether the right hon. Gentleman has the right to ask questions. The issue is his absolute amnesia about what his Government got up to, from invading Iraq illegally to shredding civil liberties on an industrial scale. As for the question that he has asked, the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), says that no contract has been entered into with Saudi Arabia.

Like the right hon. Gentleman and, I suspect, many Members on both sides of the House, I consider some of the practices that we have seen in Saudi Arabia to be absolutely abhorrent, and completely in conflict with our values. What every Government, including his own, have done in such circumstances is make a judgment on whether to cut off relations with other Governments with whom we disagree, or whether to try to influence them and bring them more into line with our values. That is clearly what his Government did, and it is what this coalition Government are trying to do as well.

Injunctions

Sadiq Khan Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

Let me respond to my hon. Friend’s reference to individual cases by saying that he will not be surprised if I am not drawn into commenting on the matter. What I can say is that widespread public interest and, indeed, disquiet have been expressed about the events of the past few weeks and days, and that—as the report by the Master of the Rolls clearly showed—they raise the question of how a person’s privacy can be balanced against the requirement for the public to be properly informed, and also the question of how injunctions may be enforced. I would add, however, that the courts have power to punish those who breach injunctions, and those who decide flagrantly to do so should bear that in mind when they embark on such a course.

The question of parliamentary privilege is not a new issue. While it is fully recognised that we have complete privilege in this Chamber to say what we like—and the Lord Chief Justice reiterated that in the clearest and most unequivocal terms in his comments last Friday— the question of the extent to which communication between a constituent and a Member of Parliament is covered by parliamentary privilege remains uncertain. What is entirely clear is that—from the judiciary’s point of view as much as those of the Government and Parliament—that is an undesirable state of affairs, which is undoubtedly susceptible to both clarification and rectification if the will is there for that to be done.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I thank the Attorney-General for his answer to the urgent question. I also thank the committee chaired by the Master of the Rolls for its report.

Will the Committee that the Prime Minister is to establish be a Joint Committee consisting of the Culture, Media and Sport and Justice Committees, and how soon will it report?

Until now, the Government’s position on this issue has been a muddle. The Attorney-General may be aware that I raised the issue last week during Justice questions, when I reminded the Lord Chancellor about the importance of balancing freedom of expression with an individual’s right to privacy. I also asked the Government to give clarity and guidance on an issue that has become increasingly confusing and where Parliament has been slow to act. In response, the Lord Chancellor said that

“it is probably right that Parliament passing a privacy Act might well be the best way of resolving the issue”.—[Official Report, 17 May 2011; Vol. 528, c. 137.]

However, on the following day the Culture Secretary said:

“I don’t believe a privacy law is the way forward.”

The Government appear to be at sixes and sevens on their policy on privacy injunctions and freedom of the press. Will the Attorney-General clarify their position?

Does the Attorney-General believe that a new privacy law is needed? If so, how will it differ from article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998? He will be aware that super-injunctions and anonymised orders should apply only in exceptional cases. There is a concern that they are being applied for, and granted, too readily. Does the Attorney-General believe that this report will address those concerns, and how soon will the Committee report?

Does the Attorney-General believe that the sanctions for those who break injunctions are sufficient? What are the Government’s views on how the right to privacy can be balanced with the growing usage of internet-based communications such as Twitter?

Finally, being able to speak freely in the House of Commons and House of Lords is an essential part of parliamentary scrutiny. Can the Attorney-General confirm that the Government will not allow this principle to be undermined in any way?

[The Attorney-General]

I shall deal, so far as I can, with each point in turn. First, the Government have made it clear that it will be a Joint Committee, and have asked

“Business Managers to establish a Joint Committee of both Houses to consider these issues. The remit will be to advise the Government on how current arrangements can be improved and put on a more sustainable footing, aiming to report in the autumn.”

The Government have also

“asked the Justice Secretary and Culture Secretary to liaise…on the Terms of Reference.”

The right hon. Gentleman’s second question was about privacy law. It is undoubtedly the case that it would be open to this House to enact a privacy law, if it wished. However, I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that he misquoted my right hon. Friend the Culture Secretary, as what he actually said was:

“We’re not minded to have a new privacy law but we’re not ruling out the need for legislative changes.”

If I may say so, it is possible to have legislative change without necessarily having a full-blown privacy law, and this seems to me to be precisely the sort of issue that the Committee will need to consider, and in a measured and sensible fashion.

The right hon. Gentleman rightly raised the question as to whether a privacy law would make any difference to the existing arrangements. That, too, is an interesting subject for both legal and political debate, and it is precisely because that needs to take place that the suggestion has come forward that this is the best way in which to proceed.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman asked a number of questions about enforceability. It has been clear for some time in a number of different spheres that the enforceability of court orders and injunctions presents a challenge now that information can rapidly be posted on the internet, but that does not necessarily mean that the right course of action is to abandon any attempt at preventing people from putting out information that may, in some circumstances, be enormously damaging to vulnerable people or, indeed, be the peddling of lies.