Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

The House is considering this Bill and these amendments at a time when we recognise the difficult job that we ask our security services, and indeed our police, to do to keep us safe. However, these practices have gone on for some years and it is right to legislate to give the protection of a framework as to how they can happen. It is important that that framework is protected. I therefore want to speak in support of amendment 4, tabled in the other place by Baroness Kidron and supported by a cross-party group including Lord Young, Lord Kennedy and Baroness Hamwee, which sets out the protections and safeguards that we should ask for if we expect children or vulnerable people to commit crimes on our behalf. Like others, I thank the people in the Lords who have done a huge amount of work to get us to this place on these protections. I also thank the previous Minister, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), and his counterpart in the Lords, Baroness Williams, both of whom have listened to concerns with regard to this amendment. I know that the Minister has come to this matter late and he wants to listen too.

That is why I want to put on record how sorry I am that we have not yet got to agreement across this House and across this Parliament. If the Minister was listening to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who I recognise also has strong feelings about this, he would see that there is concern across this House about how we best protect children. I think that everyone in this House knows that when it comes to other people’s children, it is a fundamental principle that we should want for them what we want for our own. Sadly, some children will not be as loved as others, as well cared for as others or as well-behaved as others, but they are all children.

That is why, although I listened carefully to the Minister’s comments on amendment 4 and why he will not accept it, I want the Government to go further and give assurances about what will happen next. Ministers have yet to acknowledge that if we do not include amendment 4 in the Bill, there is no alternative provision to cover this scenario and the inconsistencies in the arguments that they are making today. The Minister has said that there are no new powers in the Bill with regard to child CHISes, but there are no protections either. He will be well aware that the Government were taken to court by Just For Kids and the court said that children were put in harm’s way as a result of these proposals. Therefore, this House does have to act. The Government’s own guidance accepts that participation in criminality is an inescapable feature of being a CHIS, including for children. Ministers have said that there is increasing scope for young people to be used as they are increasingly being involved in criminality—that as the criminals use more children, so should we.