Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I recognise that, and it is one of the consequences of the blockade that has affected the people of Gaza for a very long time.

Secondly, what about peacebuilding organisations such as Forward Thinking? Over the years, as the Minister may be aware, Forward Thinking has brought leaders of the parties to the conflict, from Israel and from the Palestinian side, to Britain and Northern Ireland to meet former foes who talk them through the journey they made that led from armed conflict to the Good Friday agreement. That has included leaders from Hamas. I have seen the work of Forward Thinking at first hand, and I have participated in some of it. It is deeply impressive and, in my view, very important.

The Home Office document, “Proscribed terrorist groups or organisations”, published in 2015, sets out the offence and draws attention to section 12(4), which

“provides a defence, in the case of a private meeting addressed by a member of a proscribed organisation, if a person can prove that they had no reasonable cause to believe that the address would support the proscribed organisation or advance its terrorist activities.

Further, the explanatory notes to the Terrorism Act 2000”—

the explanatory notes are designed to help the courts and prosecutors in deciding whether it is in the public interest to prosecute—

“explain that the defence in section 12(4) is intended to permit the arrangement of ‘genuinely benign’ meetings…designed to encourage a designated group to engage in a peace process or facilitate delivery of humanitarian aid where this does not involve knowingly transferring assets to a designated organisation.”

There is also the question of journalists. On reading the guidance, it seems to me that the activities I have highlighted would not be caught by this order, but I look to the Minister for reassurance.

None of the individuals involved will want to fall foul of the law. I recognise what is said in the Home Office document but, for the kinds of organisations that a number of Members have raised, it is not a satisfactory answer to leave people in the following position: “Well, there is a defence. Hey, if you are prosecuted, you can go to court and advance the defence. You may win, you may not. You may be found guilty.”

Will the Crown Prosecution Service now produce guidelines on the implications of this kind of order for the activities to which I have drawn attention? I am aware that the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation suggested such guidance in 2018, and I understand that in October 2020 the Home Secretary said she had written to the Attorney General to ask her to discuss the question of such guidance with the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Can the Minister tell us how those discussions are going? That would help to reassure Members who want the good work of Forward Thinking to continue while supporting the order today. We have an obligation to the staff who do the work and to the trustees of the organisation, because what they are doing is self-evidently good and important work, and I hope it will be able to continue.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

rose—

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Olney]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will keep my remarks short.

The Government should undoubtedly be doing all they possibly can to combat terrorism and stamp out antisemitism wherever they find it. Within Gaza, Hamas’s persecution of and discrimination against marginalised groups—including Jews, the LGBT+ community and women—civil society organisations and democratic opposition is abhorrent, and it is certainly true that Hamas’s attitude to the conflict in Israel and Palestine, including its entrenched and extremist rhetoric, its antisemitic incitement and its refusal to recognise the state of Israel, is a significant barrier to peace.

That was only too apparent in the dreadful terrorist attack carried out by a Hamas operative in Jerusalem on Sunday, in which an Israeli citizen tragically lost their life, with others wounded. I hope that Members on both sides of the House will join me in paying tribute to those victims and their families. Those awful scenes underline the fact that this is a conflict, in which peace is desperately needed. It is needed for Israeli citizens and for Palestinians.

The military wing of Hamas is currently proscribed by the Government and has been for nearly 20 years, and rightly so. However, we have some concerns about the legislation before us today. Under the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, jurisdiction for offences relating to proscribed organisations was extended on an extra-territorial basis. Offences such as these carry a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. We are seriously concerned that someone who meets the political wing of Hamas for the purposes of advancing peace, in the UK or even in a country where the political wing of Hamas is not proscribed, such as Palestine, could still be prosecuted for it in the UK. We must not risk criminalising those who work towards peace building and dialogue. There is a concern among UK charities who play an important role in working towards peace that this measure may impact them. There is genuine confusion about what this means for their work.

Worryingly, we have heard from such charities that the Home Office did not conduct a consultation regarding this step. If that is true, it is remarkably irresponsible. Those charities may find that overnight they are criminalised, with a risk of significant prison sentences, for work that they are currently undertaking, and have undertaken for years. Will the Minister commit to meeting charities such as Forward Thinking to discuss how this may impact them? Will the Government consider exemptions for British-based charities working on peace building and dialogue? I hope that Members in all parts of the House agree that it is vital that greater reassurance is provided to these charities, so does the Minister agree that the Crown Prosecution Service should urgently bring forward prosecutorial guidance in England, to provide that certainty?

We also have concerns regarding the delivery of aid to Gaza; again, it is vital that this step does not obstruct or criminalise charities that are trying to improve the situation on the ground in Gaza. Have the UK Government carried out any assessment of how this might, for instance, impact the work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which helps to assist the 1.4 million refugees in Palestine by delivering education, healthcare, and relief assistance? As we work towards peace in the region and a two-state solution, I urge the Government to take an approach that actively supports humanitarian and civil society efforts within Israel and Palestine to support peace. I hope that the Minister will consider this proposal, and I hope that the Government will address the concerns I have raised, and centre peace building and dialogue at the heart of their approach to this conflict.

Protection of Retail Workers

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) on introducing this really important debate.

As the first woman to speak in the debate, I would like to take issue with the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) when he was making his points earlier. I have to tell him that my husband is actually a much better grocery shopper than I am and much better at seeking out the bargains. Where I agree with the hon. Gentleman is that what is really needed is a change of culture and a change in attitude towards shop workers.

Like the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), I draw on my own experience. Twenty years ago, I was working in a bookshop and I had those experiences of facing customers every day. I also know that the experience in the last year for people working in supermarkets in particular has been really difficult. I know that because both my brother and my brother-in-law are supermarket workers. They have been on the shop floor every day during the pandemic and they have had, along with their colleagues, a really hard time. I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to everyone who has kept our grocery sector going at this time.

In common with many other hon. Members, I have been speaking recently to a constituent whose daughter has not been able to work because she is suffering post-traumatic stress disorder after a knife was pulled on her during a shift she was working in a shop not far away. The impact that that kind of behaviour has on young people, on women and on vulnerable people is really serious, and that is why I support calls for the Government to introduce a specific law.

It is really important to recognise that we are asking shop workers to enforce the law themselves; they are enforcing the law on age-restricted products such as alcohol, games, DVDs—all sorts of things. We need to recognise that, during the pandemic, they have been called on to enforce all the extra regulations and the social distancing and they have played a really important part in managing shortages. That, of course, has created a great many difficult situations for them. They have put themselves at risk, in harm’s way, to protect the public from the impact of the pandemic, and I think it is high time that we recognised the role that retail workers play in keeping us all safe.

I also want to mention the really important role—again, we have noticed this more and more during the pandemic, but we knew about it already—that retail workers play in maintaining our communities. The biggest issue that so many of us have been dealing with in our constituencies over the last 18 months has been loneliness and isolation, and our retail workers have been the ones to really make a difference in that. Whether we are talking about the lady on the cash register or checkout, or the person bringing groceries to someone’s front door, it is that human connection that has made all the difference to many of our constituents. That is why I think it is high time that we recognised the important role that retail workers play in every community in the land and that to pass this law, or to make the amendment to the Bill that the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) mentioned, would be a real step forward. What is absolutely critical is to demonstrate to the public how much we value our retail workers. That will be critical in changing the culture, as the Member for Huddersfield mentioned, and that to me is the most important thing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We have another substantive question for Minister Philp.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

What steps she is taking to ensure that EU citizens with indefinite leave to remain will not be required to apply for EU settled status.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

It is my lucky day today, Mr Speaker. It is, of course, open to EU citizens with indefinite leave to remain to apply for EU settled status. Some of them choose to do so because the rules are slightly better for EUSS in terms of the ability to leave the country for a particular period and the family reunion rules. There is no obligation on people with ILR to apply for EUSS, but it is a choice that each individual may or may not choose to make according to their own personal wishes and circumstances.

[Sarah Olney [V]]

I am grateful to the Minister for his answer, and I would like to offer my condolences to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster).

Many constituents of mine who have previously been granted indefinite leave to remain have received letters suggesting that they should apply for EU settled status instead. This has created a great deal of consternation and a fear that their indefinite leave to remain status may not be valid in the future. Can the Minister tell me why those letters were sent? It is not clear to people whether or not they should be applying for EU settled status. Could he give a clear answer to my constituents on this matter?

[Chris Philp]

My understanding is that those people with ILR who are also eligible for EUSS can continue to enjoy ILR whether or not they apply for EUSS. Letters were sent out to people who might be eligible for EUSS, but I believe those letters did make it clear that someone who received those letters who was already naturalised as a British citizen or indeed had ILR needed to take no further action. If the hon. Lady thinks those letters were unclear, I will be happy to look into it further, but I understand that they were worded in such way as made it clear that no further action was taken in the circumstances she describes.

Policing in South-West London

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to debate this important issue on the Floor of the House. I want to start by paying tribute to our fantastic police officers in the south west command unit, who continue to provide exceptional service to local residents and who have gone above and beyond to keep our communities safe during lockdown. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Commander Sally Benatar for her years of service and wish her well in the future. I welcome Lis Chapple, the new lead of the south west command unit, and look forward to a productive working relationship with her.

Within the four boroughs that make up the south west command unit of the Metropolitan police, we have three of the four safest boroughs in London, including Richmond and Kingston, which I represent. The relative safety of our streets is, of course, something that local residents value highly and is part of what makes south-west London such an attractive and popular place to live, work and study. Those three relatively safe suburban boroughs, however, share the command unit with Wandsworth, with all the complexities and additional demands on policing that an inner-city borough represents. The resources of the south west command unit are therefore frequently skewed towards one borough, with implications for the remainder.

I want to state clearly that I support the Met’s goals of targeting violence reduction and that I absolutely want to see it putting all the resources needed towards saving young lives. The recent, tragic case of Archie Beston in my constituency has highlighted how quickly and unpredictably violence can occur, the devastating impact it has on those who are left behind and the importance of a rapid police response. My heart goes out to Archie’s family and friends, and I pray that the sentencing of the perpetrators later this month will help them to feel that justice has been done.

I remain concerned that, with scarce resources being targeted towards the most serious crimes, we lack sufficient officers to provide the kind of everyday policing that is so necessary to keeping our streets safe. I have written to the Mayor to share my concerns, and he has responded with information about the various measures that he has taken to increase police resources across the capital. He was unable to reassure me that we might see a future boost to police numbers in Richmond and Kingston because of the impact of the coronavirus on local authority budgets. That is not, of course, a problem confined to the capital, but in London, a shortfall in funding will mean that our police budget has to be cut. The Mayor’s estimate is that, unless the deficit can be addressed, our policing budget will be cut by £109.3 million over the next two years. This means even scarcer resources being targeted, by necessity, at the most serious crimes, leaving comparatively safer boroughs, such as those in the south-west, with even fewer resources for everyday policing.

In addition to the impact on funding, it is important to consider what impact the coronavirus has had on demand for policing. It will not have escaped the Minister’s notice that footfall in central London has dropped dramatically since March, and has not yet recovered, and the considerable resources that were once dedicated to policing the shops and leisure outlets of central London are not required in the same numbers that they once were. By contrast, footfall in suburban areas such as south-west London has increased considerably. During lockdown, in common with many other areas across London and the country as a whole, south-west London saw a big increase in antisocial behaviour.

On Richmond Green, Barnes Riverside, and Canbury Gardens in Kingston, crowds gathered to play loud music, get drunk and—most distressingly to local residents —private gardens were used when no public toilets were available. Large crowds attracted drug dealers and drug use, and those were only the most noticeable changes. Local police report an increase in cases of domestic violence, and incidents involving mental health issues. Crime, antisocial behaviour and other incidents requiring a police presence have shifted from our city centres to our suburbs. A policing demand profile that prioritises city centres may not be an appropriate template in future, and I urge the Home Office to work with the Metropolitan police and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime to review how resources are allocated.

I wish to speak about how the absence of a physical police presence affects communities. Although we are far from unique in having this issue, the rise in antisocial behaviour that we experienced in Richmond and Kingston over the summer has made residents extremely anxious about their safety. Public drunkenness is extremely intimidating for everybody, but especially for lone females and the elderly. It is frightening to imagine that there is nobody to protect someone confronted by an unpredictable and aggressive individual. The same is true for drug dealing and drug taking. It takes only one incident to make people feel afraid of walking in their own streets and neighbourhoods, and that can have an incredibly repressive effect on people’s lives.

For young people, the threat of being mugged in our boroughs is real. I applaud some of the community initiatives that have sprung up to help young people protect themselves and their belongings, especially the excellent Mothers Against Muggings initiative in my constituency. Young people should not be made to feel they are responsible if they become victims of a crime, and neither should they have to curb their educational, sporting or social activities because of a fear of going out. A police presence, or at least the knowledge that the police are nearby, can go a long way towards helping people go about their lives with confidence. We can also deter crimes from being committed. That is not just better for those who avoid becoming victims of crime, with all the mental and physical anguish that results from that; it is good for those who are deterred from committing an act that may burden them with a criminal record.

These are anxious times everywhere, and it is not surprising that people are more concerned than usual about their safety, or that police should have had more demands on their time than before the pandemic. However, the feeling that the community is not being well served by the police has, in parts of my constituency, reached a point at which some residents are canvassing support for a privately funded police force to patrol specific areas. I wish to state publicly and clearly that I am completely opposed to any such initiative. Everybody has the right to safety and justice, regardless of their background or income, and it should not be reserved specifically for those who can pay for it. I am deeply concerned about the implications of the interests of customers of a private police force being enforced against those who have not paid for it. Will the Minister join me in opposing such initiatives, and reinforce the Government’s commitment to provide sufficient resources to maintain the safety of our streets?

If people do not live in fear of going out into their communities, they are more likely to engage with people of different backgrounds, to provide support to their neighbours, to shop in local shops, and to contribute to a safer, friendlier neighbourhood that is the best possible deterrent to crime and antisocial behaviour. Will the Government make a commitment to neighbourhood policing as the best way of building strong communities that prevent crime and support all their residents? Will they review policing demand profiles in response to the pandemic, and—above all—will they ensure that policing authorities across the country, and especially in London and the four boroughs of the south-west, have the resources they need to police effectively everywhere?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) on securing this important debate, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for her contribution.

I have to say that I am surprised that in more than 12 months as Minister for Crime and Policing, this is the first Adjournment debate that I have done on crime. There have been lots of other debates about process-type issues, or issues of concern to Members, but not about crime, which is a frustration I find myself expressing about much of the policing family. There is lots of talk about process, computers and human beings, and all that is very important, but in the end the product, which is fighting crime, has to be our primary concern.

I am therefore pleased that the hon. Member for Richmond Park has raised this issue from her part of the world. Although it is a very safe part of London and, indeed, a very safe part of the country, that does not mean that we should not pay attention to the concerns of her residents. She should be assured that wherever and however a crime occurs in this country, it is a personal offence to me that it has, and I will be stretching every sinew in the time that I am allowed in this job to do something about it.

I start by offering my congratulations and thanks, along with the hon. Lady’s, to Chief Superintendent Benatar, who is moving on to pastures new. Presumably she is no relation to the pop star of the same surname from my youth, Pat Benatar, whom the hon. Lady may well know; it is an unusual name that sticks in the memory. I also welcome Lis Chapple, who is coming along hopefully to do as fine a job. We should recognise that south-west London in particular has been rocked by a tragedy in the policing family—a terrible, heinous crime that occurred a couple of weeks ago with the death of a police sergeant in Croydon. That is deeply, deeply regrettable and is something that we all mourn.

Moving on to the broad issues, the speech that I was given to read out today, as Ministers are wont to do in Adjournment debates, is not entirely appropriate to what was raised by the hon. Lady, notwithstanding the steers that were given to us. I am going to do what I think is known technically in the trade as winging it.

Broadly, I think the hon. Lady raised four issues. On funding, I am sure she will understand that we stand apart slightly from the police funding in London. The best we can do is to provide significant and generous funding to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime through the police funding settlement, and that is exactly what we did last year. The overall police funding package went up by about £1 billion to £15.2 billion, and a very significant proportion of that went to London. Much of that was to fund an uplift in police officers, as part of the 20,000 extra police officers we will be recruiting over the next three years. The Met allocation is 1,369, which is a lot. I know that recruitment has gone extremely well in the Metropolitan police, and numbers are up 4-point-something per cent. year on year. I am pleased to say that over 92% of those police officers are dedicated to frontline duties, which is a very high proportion.

The hon. Lady rightly pressed me, and there will be more to come. That number is just the Met’s share of the first 6,000, and there are another 14,000 to recruit. I am hopeful we will be announcing the allocation of those soon. It has obviously got wrapped up in the discussions with Treasury colleagues in the spending review, but our commitment to recruiting those 20,000 is rock solid. Indeed, it is a bigger job than 20,000, because we actually have to recruit about 45,000 to backfill those who are retiring during that period to make sure we reach an extra 20,000. That will give us an extremely high number of police officers, not least in the capital.

The hon. Lady raised the issue of covid being a distraction for the police and said it has been a huge burden for them, and indeed it has. The police have frankly done a brilliant job of dealing with a fast-moving and very complex backdrop to their job. They have had to embrace a new role over the past few months that they have never done before. They have done it with alacrity and happily.

The resilience of the police has been incredible, frankly. In many parts of the country, absence in police forces has dropped below pre-covid levels. It is almost as if police officers across the country wanted to step forward and do their bit at this time of national crisis in a way that they perhaps have not done in the past. Many a detective has squeezed into their uniform and got out on the frontline to do their bit for the national effort to fight crime.

There have also been other impacts. Some of the demonstrations that we have seen, especially in central London, have had an impact on the police, particularly in terms of the extractions that the hon. Lady mentioned, not least because many of those disputes take place out of normal hours—at weekends or whatever—and require overtime, which mean that rest days or holidays are missed that have to be caught up. There becomes a backlog of time not spent policing that is absorbed by that public order duty. We also find that has an impact on the workforce, because, frankly, they become tired. If an officer is busy out fighting crime and then they are called to a demonstration in central London to do their public order duty, often it means they miss that downtime with their friends, their family, or whatever it might be. They become tired and weary, and that has to be rectified, too.

[Sarah Olney]

The Minister makes the point about demonstrations this summer, and obviously I am aware that there have been quite a few. I just wonder whether there have been significantly more than there normally are in any given year. Should the resourcing plan perhaps not take account of that, in as much as if people are being called to these additional duties, the resourcing plan should have enough in it to reflect, as he says, the rest days that they then need to catch up on?

[Kit Malthouse]

I do not think that there have been appreciably more demonstrations. In fact, we may well have seen years in the past when there were bigger demonstrations. However, a lot of the demonstrations this year took place against the backdrop of covid and, as they say in policing, had “potential” and therefore required that a greater potential resource might be appropriate. If the police have intelligence or a sense that a public order situation might get a little out of hand, frisky, or even turn violent, there will often be police officers held in reserve elsewhere, away from the action, to be called up, should they be required. They may well be wearing more body armour or protective equipment just in case things, as they say, kick off. We have seen that once or twice this summer, sadly.

To be honest, that is part of the regret about some of these demonstrations, well-meaning though they may have been, such as the Extinction Rebellion demonstrations that cause so much difficulty. They do absorb police resource—I do not think people realise how much—and very many of those officers are drawn from neighbourhood policing and neighbourhood teams. They are trained to public order standards so that they can be extracted—or abstracted, if you like—and that does cause problems in neighbourhoods, not just on the day, but in the catch-up, because it absorbs rest days, holidays, training days and other days that are naturally part of a police officer’s cycle of existence. There is an element of tail—of absorption —that causes a problem. However, the Metropolitan police—we have been in constant touch with the force, on an almost daily basis—has done a fantastic job from top to bottom over the last few months. It has been really fantastic and I pay tribute to it for the work that it has done.

The other area that the hon. Lady mentioned is antisocial behaviour. While she is hearing from her residents that they have a particular experience that is causing them concern over antisocial behaviour, we have seen a fall in antisocial behaviour across the country over the last few years. During the covid lockdown, the Office for National Statistics could not do its standard crime survey, so it was doing telephone surveys throughout it on crime. The ONS’s results show that about 20% of the people who they called during the lockdown witnessed antisocial behaviour during the three months of lockdown, but, at the same time, 21% said that they saw a reduction in antisocial behaviour during that period, so nationally, the figure is broadly flat. Nevertheless, I understand that in a low crime area, such as Richmond or Twickenham, the impact of antisocial behaviour is amplified because people are used to existing with a much quieter background in that leafy part of London. Antisocial behaviour does have that impact.

While the police should and could play their part, I ask that both the hon. Member for Richmond Park and the hon. Member for Twickenham make sure that their local authority is making full use of the tools that were given to communities and local authorities in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. There is a suite of tools there, such as civil injunctions, criminal behaviour orders, public space protection orders, community protection notices, dispersal powers and closure powers, all of which could be used. Some of the antisocial behaviour to which the hon. Member for Richmond Park referred is related to licensed premises and the consumption of alcohol, and making sure that local authorities have both their licensing policy and enforcement in good shape is critical to success.

[Sarah Olney]

Perhaps it would be helpful to clarify that some of what I described in my speech as antisocial behaviour has been referred to by the police, I believe, as unlicensed musical events or in that sort of category. It is my understanding that there has been a big increase in that across London during the summer, particularly as there have been no licensed musical events such as Glastonbury or other festivals, and nightclubs have all been closed. A lot of that activity has moved to open spaces. That is the experience that we have been having in Richmond and in Twickenham.

[Kit Malthouse]

Yes, the hon. Lady is right. We have seen a surge in unlicensed music events across the whole country as two things happened. First, young people have a natural desire to be sociable, but for them, the rock concert/festival schedule was abandoned. However, at the same time, in one or two instances, there is perhaps initial evidence to show that those involved in the drugs industry are co-ordinating these events as a natural place in which they can sell drugs. Dealing with that was behind the regulations that the Government introduced to impose £10,000 fixed penalty notices on those who organise such gatherings. As she will know, a number of those penalty notices have been handed out. With unlicensed music events, the police have powers to confiscate equipment, and they very often do so. Sadly, however, despite the fact that such equipment costs several thousand pounds, they are under a duty to return it in time. I did wonder whether we could either take our time returning it or find some other use for it, to act as a suitable disincentive to organising such events, but the £10,000 fixed penalty notice was apparently more powerful.

Since then, there has been a reduction in unlicensed music events. Some of that has related to—let us say—assertive action by the police, and the change in the regulatory environment. It has also, frankly, related to the weather. As the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), who is sitting in the Whip’s place, will know—he has been, in the past, a special constable of some note—the police often refer to their greatest friend and ally in fighting crime as PC Rain. The weather will, we hope, have a depressive effect on such events over the autumn.

Alongside all the powers, however, the hon. Lady is quite right to say that there is an urgent desire in London, in particular, and in the whole country for a greater sense of police presence. People want much more assurance that public space is governed and controlled. That desire is a large part of what lies behind our pledge to recruit 20,000 more police officers.

[Kit Malthouse]

I recognise the issue that the hon. Lady raises, but as a former cabinet member for finance in a London borough for five years, although I understand the funding pressures on councils, much of their financial fate lies in their own hands. During my time in local government in the capital, we saw, let us say, variable performance from a financial point of view. There were those who managed their finances well, and those who did it not so well.

I have not looked recently at the balance sheet of Richmond Council, and I would be happy to have that discussion if the hon. Lady wishes. Nevertheless, it is not terribly expensive to put in place, for example, a public spaces protection order. Such an order could be used somewhere like a park, where antisocial behaviour is taking place. The order can insist either that certain activities do not take place or, indeed, that certain things should take place, and the breaching of it is an offence. If Richmond Council wanted to focus on that, I am sure that it could. The council has, obviously, changed hands politically a number of times, but in my day it was never known for being on the back foot, under either Conservative or Liberal Democrat control, when it came to protecting its residents. I hope and believe that it will step forward this time as well.

Both hon. Members raised the issue of privately funded police forces. I am a Conservative, and I believe in freedom of association. I would therefore not want to restrict the ability of private individuals to gather together to protect themselves in a particular way. We see that happening in other parts of our world. For example, the Jewish community in this country has its own protection organisation called the Community Security Trust, which mounts guards and protection outside synagogues every Saturday because they are a particular community who feel that they might be targeted when they are on their way to worship their God. That is legal, allowable and perfectly reputable, as far as I am concerned.

[Sarah Olney]

Does the Minister not accept that there is a difference between arranging a private security firm to protect private property and arranging a privately funded police force to patrol a public area?

[Kit Malthouse]

Actually, the Community Security Trust is not a security organisation. It is a voluntary organisation and, as I understand it, members of the community volunteer to be part of the CST to protect their own community. It does require some funding, but it is nevertheless very organised and they train very well. It is a remarkable organisation. In fact, it has worked with other faith groups and talked to them about their own safety, because sadly, many faith groups are often the target of extremists.

Of course, we have private security firms who cater to businesses and others at events and concerts—like those rock concerts that have not happened this summer—and who do that kind of work, so I am hesitant to condemn it. However, the situation that the hon. Lady is talking about, which we have seen elsewhere in the capital, not least in St John’s Wood over the past 10 or 12 years, is undesirable. It would be great to be in a position where people did not feel a compulsion to do those things because the police presence was such that they felt a sense of governed space and security, and my hope and ambition is that, over the next three years, that is exactly where we will get to.

Question put and agreed to.

Windrush Compensation Scheme (Expenditure) Bill

Sarah Olney Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion
Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I am glad to have this opportunity to contribute to the debate. To my mind, the ways in which this Conservative Government have treated the immigrants of the Windrush generation are among the most scandalous actions ever undertaken by the British state. Thousands of people have been denied their lawful right to housing, employment and healthcare by a Government who prioritise their political rhetoric on immigration over the safety and welfare of their citizens. Elderly people were deported—forced to leave the country where there had been educated, worked to raise their families and hoped to retire peacefully, living off the benefits to which they had spent a life- time contributing—for no better reason than that they had spent a short part of their childhood in a different country.

There is no doubt that the Home Office hoped to meet its deportation targets, set by its political masters, by targeting a highly vulnerable group, and let us be absolutely clear about why this group were targeted. It is because they were from the Caribbean. This was an openly and unashamedly racist policy. The deliberate deprivation of the rights of a targeted group of citizens by their own Government is beyond scandalous, beyond disgraceful and beyond shameful, so I find it quite frustrating that we are here today only to discuss compensation. The question that the Government really need to answer is when are they going to abandon their hostile environment policy?

The various ways in which the everyday lives of our fellow citizens have been inhibited, infringed and made more precarious for having committed no greater crime than to be born in a different country continues to be an appalling scandal. There is no evidence that the Government have changed their fundamental attitude or approach towards deportations. They continue to deprive lawful citizens of their rights and their citizenship. We continue to hear the same political rhetoric from the Conservative Government that led to these shameful deportations, and there is no let-up in the other manifestations of the hostile environment policies. Lawful citizens are still being deprived of their right to seek housing, healthcare and employment, and there are no plans to change Government policy. I am deeply concerned that these restrictions will shortly be extended to European nationals who have not yet applied for settled status or who have had their applications turned down despite years of residence here. I urge the Government to rethink the hostile environment policy without delay, before further outrages occur.

Instead of the urgently required change of policy, we have the Windrush compensation scheme that we are here today to discuss. The Liberal Democrats do not plan to oppose the compensation scheme, and we welcome the announcement on Friday that the scheme will be available to a wider range of claimants, but it is clear from the Bill’s accompanying impact assessment that the Home Office still has no clear idea of the extent of the damage it is seeking to mitigate. The assessment estimates the total compensation payments as being somewhere between £20.5 million and £301.3 million. That is an extremely wide range, and it raises worrying questions about just how many people may have been affected by this appalling policy beyond the cases that have already been reported. Furthermore, it is clear that the scheme is failing to deliver the compensation that it is committed to distributing. Of 1,108 claims made to the scheme by 31 December 2019, only 36 awards have been made, totalling just £62,198. Is that because the scheme is poorly run, or does the hostile environment policy extend to making it difficult for citizens to claim the compensation to which they are legitimately entitled?

Further evidence that the Government are finding ways to wriggle out of their commitments is to be found in clause 1, in which they reserve the right to modify the scheme “from time to time”. Does this mean that the Government may seek to downgrade the compensation available or to limit the types of people who might be able to make a claim? It is clear that the same Home Office that allowed this appalling scandal to arise in the first place cannot be trusted to administer the compensation scheme. Friday’s announcement of an independent adviser is welcome, but it would be far better if the scheme were removed entirely from the Home Office and administered by a different Department or by an independent body.

Along with many other Members of the House, I look forward to reading the Windrush lessons learned review, whenever it is published. It is essential that everybody takes some time to reflect on how the situation was allowed to occur, and I very much hope that the Government will listen hard to the lessons of this scandal and take the opportunity to end the hostile environment.

Automated Facial Recognition Surveillance

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on police use of automated facial recognition surveillance.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and the Fire Service (Kit Malthouse)]

The Government are supporting the police and empowering them with the tools they need to deliver on the people’s priorities by cutting the crime that is blighting our communities. We have already pledged 20,000 more officers, new powers and the biggest funding increase in a decade, but embracing new technology is also vital and we support the use of live facial recognition, which can help to identify, locate and arrest violent and dangerous criminals who may otherwise evade justice.

Live facial recognition compares the images of people passing a camera with a specific and predetermined list of those sought by the police. It is then up to officers to decide whether to stop and speak to those flagged as a possible match. This replicates traditional policing methods such as using spotters at a football match. The technology can make the search for suspects quicker and more effective, but it must be used strictly within the law.

The High Court has found that there is an appropriate legal framework for the police use of live facial recognition, and that includes police common-law powers, data protection and human rights legislation, and the surveillance camera code. Those restrictions mean that sensitive personal data must be used appropriately for policing purposes, and only where necessary and proportionate. There are strict controls on the data gathered. If a person’s face does not match any on the watchlist, the record is deleted immediately. All alerts against the watchlist are deleted within 31 days, including the raw footage, and police do not share the data with third parties.

The Metropolitan Police Service informed me of its plans in advance, and it will deploy this technology where intelligence indicates it is most likely to locate serious offenders. Each deployment will have a bespoke watchlist made up of images of wanted people, predominantly those wanted for serious and violent offences. It will also help the police to tackle child sexual exploitation and to protect the vulnerable. Live facial recognition is an important addition to the tools available to the police to protect us all and to keep murderers, drug barons and terrorists off our streets.

[Sarah Olney]

We must not allow the UK to become a society in which innocent people feel as though their every movement is being watched by the police. We must not throw away UK citizens’ right to privacy or their freedom to go about their lawful business without impediment.

An independent review of the Met’s facial recognition trial was published last July, and its conclusions are damning. Does the Minister agree with the report that the legal basis for this roll-out is questionable at best and is likely to be in conflict with human rights law? According to an analysis of the Met’s test data, 93% of supposed matches in the four years of trials have been wrong. As well as being inaccurate, facial recognition technology has been shown to be much less accurate in identifying women and ethnic minorities than in identifying white men. This means that women and black, Asian and minority ethnic people are much more likely to be stopped without reason than white men. Given that a black person is already 10 times more likely to be stopped and searched than a white person, does the Minister share the Liberal Democrats’ concern that this technology will increase discrimination and further undermine trust in the police among BAME communities?

The biometrics commissioner, the Information Commissioner and the surveillance camera commissioner have all raised concerns about facial recognition surveillance, and all three have argued that its impact on human rights must be resolved before a wider roll-out. What steps has the Minister taken since those warnings to examine and address the human rights issues they raise?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady rightly raises a number of issues that need to be addressed in the operation of this technology. I assume she is referring to last year’s statement by the Information Commissioner’s Office. The commissioner reviewed the Met’s operation and raised some concerns about how it was operating the pilot of live facial recognition. Happily, the ICO put out a statement on Friday saying that it is broadly encouraged by the fact that the Met has adopted some of its recommendations in this deployment, although she is right that the ICO remains concerned about the legal basis.

Since the ICO report was published, we have had the judgment in a case brought against South Wales police’s deployment of this technology, in which the High Court found there is an appropriate legal basis for the operation of facial recognition. However, I understand that there may be an appeal, and there is a suspended judicial review into the Met’s operation, which may be restarted, so if Members do not mind, I will limit what I say about that.

As for disproportionality, there is no evidence of it at the moment; the Met has not found disproportionality in its data in the trials it has run, and certainly a Cardiff University review of the South Wales police deployment could not find any evidence of it at all. The hon. Lady is, however, right to say that in a country that prides itself in being an open and liberal society, we need to take care with people’s impressions of how technology may impinge upon that. As she will know, live facial recognition has an awful lot of democratic institutions looking at it, not only this House: the London Assembly has a policing ethics panel; we have the Surveillance Camera Commissioner and the Information Commissioner; and there is a facial recognition and biometrics board at the National Police Chiefs’ Council, which brings people together to look at these issues. There is lots of examination to make sure that it is used appropriately, and I am pleased to say that the Met will be operating it on a very transparent basis. As I understand it, the Met will be publishing information about which data was gathered and the success rate, and other information that will allow the public to have confidence that where the technology is deployed to identify wanted criminals it is having the effect intended.

Leaving the EU: Security, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

The Prime Minister made it clear in her speech yesterday that one of her objectives in exiting the European Union would be to release the United Kingdom from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. During yesterday’s proceedings on the statement made by the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, an issue arose of how cross-border trade disputes are to be settled if the UK refuses to be bound by the rulings of the ECJ. The Secretary of State did not give a comprehensive answer to how such disputes will be arbitrated once the UK is outside the EU, which raises the possibility that he does not yet know.

It gives me enormous concern that the Department for Exiting the European Union does not yet have a clear idea of how the role of the ECJ will be replaced once we leave the EU. Although it might be possible to cobble together a mutually acceptable compromise for trade deals, as the Secretary of State airily declared yesterday, the ECJ has a far greater role to play in our national life than just being the arbiter of trade deals.

As members of the EU, we benefit from a range of different schemes for sharing data and resources across borders, including the Schengen information system, the European arrest warrant, Europol and the European criminal records information system, among many others. We collaborate with our European neighbours on matters relating to family law, asylum and the freezing of assets.

The Prime Minister argued passionately in favour of those measures as Home Secretary, and when leading the Government’s case for opting into 35 justice and home affairs measures in 2014. In this very House, she argued that without such measures we would

“risk harmful individuals walking free and escaping justice, and would seriously harm the capability of our law enforcement agencies to keep the public safe.”—[Official Report, 10 November 2014; Vol. 587, c. 1229.]

Our membership of the European Union gives us an automatic right to the co-operation of our EU neighbours in all those measures. Once we exit the European Union, we will lose that automatic right. As we have seen with the single market, the Prime Minister and her Cabinet are failing to support measures that they have spent their whole careers championing as fundamental to our security and public life.

It is entirely possible that we can negotiate a new agreement to maintain access to data and resources. The UK has been instrumental in setting up many of the cross-border police and crime systems that the EU has adopted, and our contribution will be missed when we leave. It is to be hoped that this will provide a powerful negotiating tool when we come to strike a new deal. However, so much of that cross-border co-operation and data sharing depends on all parties accepting the jurisdiction of the ECJ. There are several reasons for that. First, the EU can only act in compliance with the charter of fundamental rights. The ECJ is the ultimate arbiter of that, so it is impossible for the EU to sign an agreement with the UK that conflicts either with the charter or with ECJ case law.

Secondly, any agreement needs to be policed. If the UK acted in ways that breached the terms of this agreement, it would be open to an EU citizen to take a case to the ECJ and have the EU’s decision concluding the agreement annulled. Thirdly, the developing jurisprudence of the ECJ is binding on EU member states. If the UK failed to keep pace with legal developments on the continent, or diverged from EU law on any significant matter, a gap would open up. The international deals that the EU signs with third countries tend to include a mechanism for discussing legal divergence, including the ability to allow the agreement to be terminated if the differences cannot be reconciled. The UK would therefore have to stick closely to the rulings of the ECJ to avoid the agreement being annulled.

One of the most valuable contributions that membership of the European Union makes to the UK’s continuing security is the sharing of data between national police and intelligence agencies, but the sharing of personal data must be subject to stricter safeguards to prevent misuse. Within the EU, all countries have signed up to data protection legislation that governs the sharing of this data. Once the UK has left the jurisdiction of the ECJ, which oversees the data protection legislation that governs such data sharing, any bespoke agreement will have to continue to be governed by similar levels of protection.

Should UK law diverge from EU law on data protection, any agreement will become void if the ECJ deems that UK law is insufficient to protect European citizens’ data. That would result in the flow of data from the EU to the UK being immediately stopped, putting at risk the ability of British police and security forces to investigate and prosecute potential threats.

Given the Prime Minister’s determination, as expressed yesterday, to cut all ties with the European Court of Justice, I urge the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union to form, with the utmost urgency, a proposal for the future of information sharing and co-operation on security matters between the UK and the European Union. He needs to set out detailed plans for how collaboration can be continued if the UK will not accept the jurisdiction of the ECJ. He also needs to state how the risks of any bespoke arrangement will be addressed, especially the risk that UK and ECJ case law diverge in the future, making negotiated arrangements untenable.

I hope that Members on both sides of this debate will acknowledge that the full implications of rejecting the ECJ were not put to voters in a referendum campaign and that, had they been, the Prime Minister might not now be so determined to remove the UK from its jurisdiction. I hope that the very real risks to our future security are being properly considered by the Secretary of State and look forward to hearing his proposals in greater detail in due course.