Iraq: Coalition Against ISIL

Simon Reevell Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Simon Reevell (Dewsbury) (Con)]

I will significantly reduce what I was going to say to the content of an e-mail that I was sent by two constituents who live in a small village called Shelley. They had sat up and talked about the situation, because they realised the seriousness of the prospect of war. They had had on their minds the civilian casualties that may follow and the dire consequences for hostages if the country takes part in air strikes. What they said encapsulates why I will support the motion:

“There comes a time when it is paramount for the collective to defend citizens of other nations whose government can’t defend them. There is also a need to show that as a country we are prepared to defend our own citizens.”

Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

Simon Reevell Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Simon Reevell (Dewsbury) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a few observations on this special occasion.

I have been struck over the last few days by the number of times I have heard the word “divisive” being used on the television—as if every one of Margaret Thatcher’s policies created division, especially so in the north of England. That is not right. There are no complaints in Dewsbury about us taking on Argentina and throwing foreign invaders out of the Falklands, or about us helping to throw Iraq out of Kuwait. In Kirkburton, no one moans about us standing alongside the USA and against the USSR in a process that saw democracy come to countries of the former Soviet bloc. In Mirfield, there is no suggestion that IRA prisoners should have had political status, and in Denby Dale they do not say that the trade union legislation should be repealed so that the unions become so powerful that it is possible to turn up for the night shift with a sleeping bag and expect to get paid. Across the whole of my constituency, people nodded their heads as warnings of European federal ambition from over 20 years ago were replayed on Monday night’s television.

Of course there are differences of opinion. The gentleman in Thornhill who told me he would always be grateful to Maggie because being able to buy his council house changed his life had a different outlook from that of a man in Emley who was kind enough to tell me I seemed a nice lad, but then explained that as an ex-miner he could not vote Tory. Of course, it is the latter area—industrial policy—where controversy might lie. In the early 1980s, when I had had so many problems with my Austin Metro that they sent a man from Longbridge to look at it, he shrugged his shoulders and said it was a Friday car—built at the end of the week when people were in a hurry to be away. That was not Margaret Thatcher’s fault. They did not have Freitag cars at VW, and VW still builds cars. None of the manufacturers in my constituency would be thankful if the clock was turned back to the 1970s.

But what of the coal industry? On Monday, I watched an old clip of a younger Mr Scargill on television. He was telling his audience that a miner’s job was not just that miner’s job; it was his son’s job and his grandson’s job. No it wasn’t: my granddad was a Yorkshire miner and he worked in conditions that were said to be cruel for the pit ponies but okay for the men. He was blown up underground twice, each time going back to work as soon as he was healed. He did not do that in the hope that his children and grandchildren would still be doing it for decades to come; he worked like that to try to ensure that his children and grandchildren would not have to work underground, swallowing dust and dirt and facing the threat of explosion and even drowning. And he was as big an NUM man as anyone else in the pit.

I remember the miners’ strike because members of my family were caught up in it. For some it was about jobs, but for others it was about power—about who ran the country. The democratically elected Government run the country, and from 1985 everyone understood that. That does not mean that there were not mistakes, but the Britain of 1990 was a far better place than its counterpart of 1979; better in the sense of who we were, of how we saw ourselves, and of how others saw us. The period from ’79 to ’90 was overwhelmingly one of positive achievement, and it is nothing short of remarkable that one person was the driving force behind an entire nation rediscovering its pride and re-establishing itself in the world.

That is why I, along with many of my constituents from Dewsbury, in Yorkshire, in the north of England, will pay our respects on Wednesday of next week.

Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Simon Reevell Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Simon Reevell (Dewsbury) (Con)]

One of the least attractive things I have seen in 20-odd years practising at the Bar is lawyers trying to persuade a judge that he should deal with evidence in private because the evidence had the potential to embarrass the then Government. It did have that potential. Employees of the Ministry of Defence on oath were giving evidence that six months before the invasion of Iraq, they had been told not just that it was going to happen, but the day on which it would take place, and that the British Army had been told that it could not commence its training because it would give away the fact that a decision had been made. A properly robust judge sent them away and told them in no uncertain terms that the functions of the court do not include preserving the modesty of the Government.

So I come to the proposals, proposals that for years and years no one in the world of civil litigation ever dreamt or thought were necessary. Suddenly we encounter a different sort of civil litigation in which the body most concerned is the state. Allegations are made that the state has been complicit in kidnap and torture—we call it rendition, but rendition simply means kidnap and torture—and that drone strikes have killed innocent families, and suddenly the civil rules that have been good enough for as long as anyone can remember are no longer good enough and there needs to be secrecy. It is, at best, an unfortunate coincidence that the need for secrecy coincides with litigation in which the state finds itself at the very heart.

The effect of the proposals could be that a claimant who brings a case is suddenly and quite literally ushered out of court and told to take their lawyers with them. They will then have to sit and wait until they are invited to go back in, at which point they might be told, “Sorry, but you’ve lost.” The reason is that these proposals are not the same as PII, although there has been much talk of PII, and they are not simply a replacement for it.

The way litigation works means that parties to it must consider whether they possess material that might assist the other side. If they have such material but want to keep that secret, they can make a PII application. If they win they are allowed to keep that secret, and if they lose they have two options: they can hand the material over or they can settle the case. That is what PII is all about, but that is not what this proposal is about. This is about being able to use material aggressively against a case. It is about the state having material that it can use to defeat a claim and wanting to use it in secret.

At the moment, if the state wants to use that material it must do so in open court, but it is about the decision on how to fight the case; it is not about public interest immunity. That is why the Bill clearly goes through the PII phase before getting to the point where closed hearings are contemplated. For example, if I know something that might assist you when you sue me, Mr Deputy Speaker, I must either tell you or claim PII, but this proposal is about me wanting to use something against you to defeat your claim and you will never know what it is. You will not have the chance to question it, to say that it is not accurate or to say that it has been fabricated. You will know nothing about it. You will simply be told, “I’m sorry, but you’ve lost your case.”

When such a proposal is introduced on the back of litigation aimed at the state, making allegations of the worst sort of behaviour on the part of the state—I have referred already to kidnap, torture and killing—people are bound to be suspicious. Either it is just a coincidence, or someone somewhere wants to take on these claimants using information that no one will ever be able properly to test.

The House sat very quietly last week to listen to the Prime Minister deal with the report prepared in respect of Mr Finucane. He ended his observations by saying this:

“One thing this Government can do to help is to face up honestly when things have gone wrong in the past. If we as a country want to uphold democracy and the rule of law, we must be prepared to be judged by the highest standards.”—[Official Report, 12 December 2012; Vol. 555, c. 299.]

These proposals are not a very good start.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend, and professional colleague, the Member for Dewsbury (Simon Reevell). I accept with alacrity what he says on the differing functions of PII and closed material proceedings, but information will be dealt with in closed material proceedings that could equally support the claimant’s case, just as there will be information that might undermine it. That is why it is important to support the amendment made in the other place to allow not just the defendant, such as the Government, but other parties, including the claimant, to make an application for the use of closed material proceedings.

Like my hon. Friend, I have spent many years in the criminal courts. I have, I suppose, been dealing with human rights; that was my stock in trade as a barrister prior to my election to this place. We did not really use the words “human rights”; every day we did a job of dealing with the liberty of the individual and the power of the state when it came to imprisoning and dealing with individuals who may have committed criminal offences. It was my life, my bread and butter, and my stock in trade.

It is difficult for me to accept any departure from the principles of open justice. I never liked being confronted with public interest immunity applications, whether I made them on behalf of the Crown or in relation to third party disclosure, or whether I found out about them later because I was not party to the application. These principles do not sit well with me. However, I learned a long time ago that politics has to start from the world as we find it, not necessarily the world as we would like it to be. No matter how idealistic I may be and how important certain principles are to me and many other Members, the realities of international politics and security will often conflict with some of the principles that I hold so dear.

The scenario that the Bill seeks to deal with represents one such conflict. In an ever-changing world, one certainty endures. We have more and more information sharing and the world is ever more interconnected, so greater and greater challenges to our national security are posed every day. We also live in an age when decisions of the state itself are rightly called into question. As a result of those proper questions being asked, we are seeing a rise in civil litigation mounted against the state by individuals who claim grievance.

All those factors mean that a challenge has arisen. Given the information provided by the Government and my understanding of the situation, the problem is not going away any time soon—in fact, it is going to get worse. The Government cannot hide behind inactivity when looking at that challenge; only last week, we saw a further settlement of a civil claim, in this case by the Libyan dissident Mr al-Saadi. That is but the latest manifestation of an issue that is causing real concern not only to the Government and security services but to those who risk their lives for this country and to the public at large who are rightly worried that millions of pounds of their money—our money—is paid over for reasons to which they and we will never be privy in any real sense.

[Simon Reevell]

Does my hon. Friend accept that a good way to avoid having to make payouts to Libyan dissidents would be not to be involved in kidnapping them and shipping them and their families back to Libya to be tortured?

[Mr Buckland]

We do not know that, and that is the problem with the current system. I would accept my hon. Friend’s argument if we had a system in which such issues could be properly tried, or at least tried in some second-best scenario; I accept that closed material proceedings are very much a second best to the principles of open justice in which my hon. Friend and I believe. However, we will never know—we will never be privy to whether the British state infringed principles of justice and international convention when it came to unlawful rendition.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Simon Reevell Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Simon Reevell (Dewsbury) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate and, indeed, to follow the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane). The electoral process is something that we all have experience of, but it is clear from the contribution we have heard today that we have encountered it in a number of different forms. If it varies between the good, the bad and the ugly, I am afraid that I have seen at first hand its downright ugly form. The central purpose of the Bill is to ensure that individual voters retain ownership and control of their vote right up to the moment when, either by post or in person, their vote is cast, which is absolutely crucial.

I realise that to many that is simply a statement of the very obvious. The idea that the voter retains control of their vote until it is cast is anticipated almost with certainty at every election, but unfortunately, owing to the actions of a relatively small number of individuals in one part of my constituency, it represents a change that is essential and, sadly, long overdue.

For some years in the Savile Town area of my constituency, annual elections have gone hand in hand with annual allegations of voter fraud and intimidation. In 2010, I saw the intimidation for myself. I witnessed groups of young men outside a polling station, whispering, spitting, gesturing, milling around and pushing in front of me. Having to leave a group of people to guard cars should not be a part of polling day, nor should warnings to stay away or to leave.

I have spoken to the police officers who have to deal with the situation, and I have heard the accounts of those manning the polling stations. When I saw that the Bill contained provisions for police community support officers to enter polling stations, my first reaction was that it was to allow reinforcements to be called, not that they would operate as an alternative to police constables.

I have no doubt that the enthusiasm of a small number of people to try to ensure victory for their side continues to result in behaviour that is not only inappropriate, but unlawful. Persistent rumours and allegations of postal vote fraud accompany that intimidatory behaviour. This year, the local authority raised concerns with the police about the similarity of the handwriting on a large number of postal votes; and some people turned up to vote only to be told that, according to the register, they already had done so by post, when they clearly had not or, at least, had not done so themselves. I do not know whether the result of the election was affected, but that really is the point: I do not know.

You may wonder, Madam Deputy Speaker, why that behaviour has been going on for so long. Why have the police not investigated it? Why has no one got to the bottom of the repeated allegations of postal fraud which, if untrue, represent a dreadful slur on the community concerned? According to local people, including those affected, the answer is said to involve that word: community.

When asked to take this year’s allegations seriously, the police, so the complaint goes, referred to “community sensitivities” and showed a reluctance to engage which has defined their response in previous years. Why is that? It is because all those who are said to be involved are from Savile Town’s Asian community, a minority of individuals who appear to insist that they know best and who take it upon themselves to ensure that someone else’s vote is cast however they think fit.

It is hugely insulting to the vast majority of Savile Town’s community that the police appear reluctant to act. That is so, whether the police are prepared to regard sensitivities as more important than the democratic process, or whether the police think it appropriate to make an allowance due, as they put it, to a

“lack of understanding of the process.”

The former is to ignore the legitimate sensitivities of the vast majority, who must resent this issue being the local headline every time there is a ballot, and who no doubt want it resolved once and for all. The latter is to make condescending allowances that excuse deliberate criminal activity—and is offensive in the assumption that, somehow for some people in Savile Town, it is all too difficult.

I thought it appropriate to raise with the chief constable of West Yorkshire my intention to refer to this topic and my observations regarding the attitude of the police. I did so not least because he might seek to challenge the assertion that the issue is being held at arm’s length, or is regarded as too difficult, because of the matter of race. I know that the chief constable of West Yorkshire is a busy man—to be fair, so is the Member for Dewsbury—but the message left on my telephone by his assistant, informing me that the chief constable had been busy on Monday, was travelling on Tuesday to Manchester for a conference and, therefore, could not speak to me, might seem to confirm the reticence repeatedly complained of by the vast majority, who are the decent citizens of Savile Town and who have rightly bemoaned the lack of proactive investigation. It also does little to silence those who would try to incite hatred in Dewsbury by saying that people in Savile Town are somehow treated differently by the police. The lesson of the recent trial arising from the dreadful abuse in Rochdale is that all communities must be treated equally where there is evidence to suggest that police investigation is required.

Perhaps the most important right is the right to vote. Perhaps the most important responsibility is to exercise that right in accordance with the law. If the Bill encourages and facilitates that right and assists in the exercise of that responsibility, it will be a step in the right direction.