Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Norman Baker]

I am tempted to say that I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago and at great length in the Home Affairs Committee. I went through the careful procedure that led the Home Secretary to conclude that the matter should be dealt with in the way that she dealt with it. That matter was decided long before I was a Minister in this office.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

5. What steps she is taking to tackle online crime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)]

The Government are taking a range of steps to combat online crime. They include significantly strengthening law enforcement’s capabilities through the creation of the national cybercrime unit, the establishment of specialist regional policing teams and training 5,000 police officers in digital investigation skills.

[Stephen Mosley]

Investigating and preventing online crime often requires specialist technical skills. Will the National Crime Agency be able to bring in non-police specialists, to ensure that it has access to the widest range of technical skills to tackle cybercrime?

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend makes an important point on the need for specialist capabilities in the new national cybercrime unit, and indeed in the National Crime Agency. The NCA has established a specials programme to encourage people to volunteer to provide specialist knowledge. I do not know whether my hon. Friend, who has a strong background in IT, is making his case for being a special in the National Crime Agency, but that is certainly something that we are seeking to encourage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

7. What assessment she has made of tourism spend in the UK.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

11. What assessment she has made of tourism spend in the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is right that we should always keep these sorts of things under close review, which is exactly what we do. He will be aware that Sir Howard Davies is undertaking an independent review of airport capacity and how we can better use existing capacity. He is due to report in 2015. As for accommodation, the figures for the UK overall show that we have a one-third capacity available in hotel accommodation across the country. There are particular issues in London, which is why I very much welcome this week’s announcement of £700 million of investment in luxury hotel accommodation at Nine Elms, which we should applaud the Mayor for securing.

[Stephen Mosley]

I recently had the pleasure of attending the launch of Chester Civil War Tours, a new small company showing people the sights of the siege of Chester in the civil war, including the battlefields and also the pubs. What role does my right hon. Friend think heritage and culture have in promoting tourism in our towns and cities?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of culture in supporting the tourism industry. That is why I was so pleased that the Treasury was able to understand the arguments we put forward and that we have secured such a strong deal for the culture sector in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman listened to my answer. I acknowledged that the statistics had not been as good as we had hoped. I will take no lectures from somebody in the party that let immigration spiral out of control and that had no grip on the system. It is this Government who are getting a grip and who have seen net migration fall by more than a third.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

13. What assessment she has made of the potential effects of incorporating legal highs in the scope of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne)]

The Government have banned a significant number of so-called legal highs following expert advice, including two groups of drugs from today. That sends a clear message about their harms and gives law enforcement bodies more powers to take action. We continue closely to monitor new drugs through our early warning systems to inform our response.

[Stephen Mosley]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s response, especially given that my local council has spent two years prosecuting the sellers of an illegal high called Gogaine, which left a 17-year-old student in hospital suffering convulsions. The prosecution fell mainly because the product was labelled as harmful and not fit for human consumption. Will my hon. Friend commit regularly to review the list of legal highs to ensure that as new legal highs come on to the market, they can be banned immediately?

[Mr Browne]

I am aware of the extremely serious case in my hon. Friend’s constituency and we have received representations about it. I pay tribute to him for raising that harrowing example in the House. We actively monitor new substances and already control hundreds. We act rapidly to respond to new threats and continue to keep our response under review.

Hillsborough

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

The atmosphere that enveloped the Chamber when the Prime Minister made his statement to the House last month will stay with me for the rest of my life. That atmosphere was echoed across the country as the truth of what happened at Hillsborough was revealed.

To learn that the lives of 41 people might have been saved and to discover that those responsible sought to manipulate the truth to conceal their own guilt and shift the blame on to the innocent victims of the day made this one of the greatest scandals in our history. The failures, flaws, corruption and deceit of those who were culpable have been laid bare for all to see. Most importantly, the reputation, honour and persistence of those who sought the truth for so long have been vindicated.

Reading through the panel’s report, it is difficult to identify which of the many failings caused the most harm: the cavalier attitude towards health and safety at the stadium, which had no safety certificate and a terrible record of near misses at big matches in previous years; the complete absence of leadership, communication and responsibility among those who were supposedly in charge on the day; or the perpetuation of lies by those self-serving individuals in senior positions of authority who tried to absolve themselves of responsibility. Each of those revelations, and the many others that the report highlighted, were truly shocking to discover. We owe the members of the panel a huge debt of gratitude for their diligence and hard work, and for the clarity with which they presented their findings.

Looking around the Chamber, I can see many right hon. and hon. Members who fought long and hard to ensure that the truth about Hillsborough was brought to the public’s attention. What many of us cannot understand is why it has taken so long. Although there is much in the panel’s report that has been revealed and published for the first time, there is a huge amount that has been known about for a long time, but that has been ignored, dismissed or ridiculed over the course of the 23 years.

A case in point, where information and evidence have clearly been ignored, is that of my constituent’s son, Kevin Williams. As with all 96 victims, the inquest into his death ruled that Kevin died at or before 3.15 pm, yet video evidence showed Kevin being lifted out of pen 3 at 3.28 pm and resuscitated on the pitch by PC Michael Craighill. At 3.31 pm Kevin was carried across the pitch by, among others, an off-duty fire officer, Mr Tony O’Keefe, who stated that Kevin was still alive. At 3.37 pm, Kevin was resuscitated by an off-duty police officer, PC Derek Bruder, who testified that Kevin was still alive. Finally, Special WPC Debra Martin found Kevin’s pulse, picked him up in her arms and watched and listened as he opened his eyes, spoke the word “Mum” and then died just before 4 o’clock.

There has never really been any doubt about what happened to Kevin Williams. The eyewitness accounts on the day were unequivocal: Kevin was still alive just before 4 pm. The evidence has been presented to three previous Attorneys-General on three separate occasions, and the facts of what happened to Kevin were recounted in the House in an Adjournment debate as far back as 1994. What happened to Kevin, and to so many others, has not been a secret, yet only last month, with the Prime Minister’s statement and the publication of the independent panel’s report, was the truth finally accepted.

[Steve Rotheram]

I spoke today to Anne Williams, who is not well enough to be here but will be watching the proceedings on the television. Is it not testament to a mother’s love that somebody would continue their fight despite the fact that, time after time, the legal doors were slammed in that woman’s face? She went as far as the European Court and was turned down. Is that not a national disgrace?

[Stephen Mosley]

I spoke to Mrs Williams on Friday and she passed on her regards and thanks to Members such as the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who have done so much to ensure that we have got to where we are now. I am grateful for the fact that the truth is now out there, and as the hon. Gentleman says, it is a total disgrace that it has taken so long.

We now know that witness statements were altered in the weeks and months after the tragedy. Last week, the Independent Police Complaints Commission launched an investigation into the process of amendments undertaken by South Yorkshire police. In addition, the IPCC said that the role of West Midlands police would be examined as part of its investigations, and it is that role that I wish to address.

As I said, at 3.37 pm Kevin Williams was being resuscitated by an off-duty police officer, PC Derek Bruder. PC Bruder had seen Kevin moving his head and being sick, so he went over to help. He saw an ambulance and tried to stop it so that Kevin could receive medical attention. PC Bruder provided an official statement shortly afterwards, along with a second statement four months later.

PC Bruder was then visited at his home on 3 May 1990 by a West Midlands detective inspector to take a further statement. PC Bruder was told that the video footage had been studied and that the ambulance to which he referred in his statement was not in the ground in the time, so he must be mistaken. He stuck to his evidence and told the detective inspector that he would be available to give evidence at the inquest. But PC Bruder was not called to give evidence at the inquest. Instead, Detective Inspector Sawers said at Kevin’s inquest that PC Bruder was mistaken about the ambulance; mistaken about taking a pulse from Kevin; and also mistaken about seeing him be sick. It is worth noting that, contrary to the evidence given at the inquest, video and photographic evidence was available, along with a statement from the assistant driver of the ambulance in question, Mr Tony Edwards, confirming PC Bruder’s testimony that an ambulance passed them at 3.37 pm. His evidence was correct all along and should not have been ignored and dismissed at the initial inquest.

Another example of the inappropriate actions of West Midlands police relates to the special constable who held Kevin in her arms as he passed away shortly before 4 pm. Special WPC Debra Martin’s original statement, made within weeks of the disaster, described finding Kevin’s pulse, resuscitating him, hearing him call for his mother and holding him as he died just before 4 pm. However, a few months later Miss Martin was visited at her home by West Midlands police officers. In total, she was visited on four separate occasions by senior police officers whose aim was to convince her that her original statement was mistaken and that Kevin was not alive when she treated him. Considerable pressure was put on Miss Martin to ratify the amended statement, and I understand that she was even told that she could not have looked after Kevin because she was not at Hillsborough. She was accused of standing by and doing nothing as people died; she was told she was making the whole thing up. In the end, she succumbed to pressure and signed the second statement without reading it. In that second statement, everything that referred to signs of life in Kevin was gone, and there was no reference to a pulse or to him saying, “Mum”. Miss Martin has stated on numerous occasions that she stands by her original statement and that she was bullied by senior police officers to sign the second, inaccurate statement.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Miss Martin was not bullied, but rather the course of justice was perverted?

[Stephen Mosley]

This is my reading of the situation. Miss Martin is very clear about what happened; I heard her talking about it on the radio just last week. She was terribly bullied and found herself in an awful situation.

Although the conduct of West Midlands police is not detailed in the independent panel’s report, it must be seriously called into question, and the actions of the police thoroughly investigated in the IPCC inquiry.

The Hillsborough independent panel has done a fantastic job not only in overseeing the full disclosure of information, but also, importantly, by adding to public understanding about what happened. To ensure that we finally complete the quest for justice, two more tasks must be undertaken. First, where responsibility has been neglected and evidence either altered or deliberately ignored, prosecutions must follow. Secondly, the Attorney-General must deliver on his promise to ask the High Court for new inquests into the 96 deaths. Previous inquests have been shown to be false, and they must be quashed in law. The circumstances surrounding Hillsborough have remained clouded in the minds of many for more than 23 years. People did not understand what happened, but now they do. After 23 years, the truth has finally been revealed and it is time for justice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I certainly recognise the contribution that the families have made, and I pay tribute to the work of the hon. Lady’s constituent. The Government attach the utmost importance to the recommendations outlined in the coroner’s report and are fully committed to seeing through the implementation of actions to address them. She will be aware of the Green Paper on justice and security, which examines the role and powers of the Intelligence and Security Committee, including its ability to obtain wide-ranging information from intelligence agencies. The Government will report back to the House shortly on progress made and the consultation.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

10. What progress she has made on the establishment of the National Crime Agency.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

We are on course to establish the National Crime Agency in 2013, subject to the passage of legislation. To drive early progress, work on the four operational commands is under way. The Organised Crime Co-ordination Centre, which is part of the intelligence hub, is now established, and the UK cyber-security strategy sets out the role of the cybercrime unit. Keith Bristow, the NCA director general, is in post and will drive progress further.

[Stephen Mosley]

One of the concerns raised when the Home Secretary announced the launch of the NCA in the summer was about the future of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. Is my right hon. Friend confident that CEOP’s role in protecting children will be enhanced and improved by its inclusion in the NCA?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising an issue that was raised when the NCA was announced. I am pleased to say that CEOP is indeed one of the commands in the National Crime Agency. Peter Davies, the chief executive office of CEOP, has made it clear that

“we know that we will go into that future”—

that is, as part of the NCA—

“with our brand, purpose and operating model intact.”

Indeed, Peter Davies sits on the programme board and will work closely with Keith Bristow on the agency’s operating model. As part of the NCA, CEOP will not only be able to continue doing what it does today, but will be able to enhance its work, improving the vital work of protecting children.

UK Border Force

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I have just made a statement in which I set out the timeline for when decisions were made. If the right hon. Gentleman had listened carefully, he would have heard it.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

We heard suggestions earlier that documents were being shredded and e-mails were being deleted. What powers will the three inquiries have to ensure that documents are available to them and witnesses can be called to give evidence?

[Mrs May]

I can assure my hon. Friend that the internal inquiry has been ongoing since the first information on the matter was available on Thursday and is continuing. I expect it to be a relatively quick inquiry. The inquiry by the chief inspector is starting today, and I saw him and one of his assistant chief inspectors this morning. They have already started the necessary work for conducting the field work at various ports around the country and will have the full powers available to the chief inspector in normal circumstances.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

May I write to the hon. Gentleman and set it out to him clearly?

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

T4. Organised crime costs the British economy £40 billion a year and affects families, businesses and local communities. What action is my hon. Friend the Minister taking to recover criminal assets and the proceeds of crime?

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend has rightly highlighted the issue of criminal finances. We are determined that criminal proceeds will be taken away from those who commit these appalling offences. In total, using powers such as asset denial and by targeting money launderers, the agencies involved denied criminals more than £1 billion last year. However, we want to take further action, which is why we are setting up the National Crime Agency, and we also want to make asset-recovery quicker, more robust and more effective in order to address the point that he rightly highlighted.

Hillsborough Disaster

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

For the families of all those who tragically lost their lives on 15 April 1989 and all those still traumatised by the events that unfolded before them that day, today is another milestone in their arduous pursuit of justice. I commend the solidarity shown by all who have enabled this debate to take place. Their quest for truth must not be hindered any longer.

As the Member of Parliament for the City of Chester, a city with close ties to our neighbours on Merseyside, I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak on behalf of the residents of my constituency whose lives were irreversibly changed by the tragic events in Sheffield 22 years ago. Many people from Chester were at Hillsborough that day and there are many heartbreaking stories and memories. One of the stories is that of the Rogers family. Seventeen-year-old Henry Rogers and his 19-year-old brother Adam were both at Hillsborough. Henry died in the disaster and Adam, who survived the crush, died just six months later after falling into a hyperglycaemic coma as a result of diabetes. Their parents, Steve and Ronnie, whom I have known for about 10 years due to their tireless involvement in the local community in Chester, recall how Adam was unable to talk about what happened in the months following his brother’s death. Although it was diabetes that took their eldest son from them, Steve and Ronnie maintain that Adam died of a broken heart. For the Rogers family, who are members of the Hillsborough family support group, and the hundreds more affected by Hillsborough, questions surrounding the deaths of their loved ones have remained unanswered for 22 years.

A second constituent, Mrs Ann Williams, who is watching this debate from the Gallery, lost her 15-year-old son, Kevin. Mrs Williams has campaigned tirelessly to discover the truth surrounding her son’s death and is patron of the Hope For Hillsborough charity and campaign group. Like those of many others, Mrs Williams’ campaigns have centred on the decision taken by the coroner, Dr Stefan Popper, to pronounce that all the victims of the disaster had died by 3.15 pm from compressive asphyxia. However, witness statements at the time highlighted the fact that Kevin was still showing signs of life at 3.55 pm, calling out for his mother. Many families of the victims are still angry at the 3.15 pm cut-off point, which meant that the inquest was unable to consider the response of the police and the other emergency services after that time. Having had three requests to the Attorney-General for a new inquest into Kevin’s death refused, Mrs Williams submitted her case to the European Court of Human Rights, but in 2009 that attempt was scuppered by the Court, which declared that her application should have been lodged within six months of Lord Justice Stuart-Smith’s scrutiny in 1997. Like so many others, Mrs Williams hopes that the release of the papers will cast new light on the events that truly occurred before, during, and after Kevin’s death.

This is not the first time Kevin Williams has been mentioned in the House; an Adjournment debate entitled simply “Kevin Williams” was held on 26 October 1994, in which the former Member for Crosby, Sir Malcolm Thornton, said:

“It was inevitable that judgments would be made on the spot which perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight and of considering the matter after some years had passed, should not and certainly would not have been made. But what is there to hide?”—[Official Report, 26 October 1994; Vol. 248, c. 978.]

Seventeen years after Sir Malcolm asked that question, and 22 years after Kevin’s death, we still do not know the answer. What is there to hide? It is now time for that question to be answered.

We are united in this House in recognising that all the papers must be released, but the manner in which they are released is of equal importance. A drip-drip release of information is dreaded by many of the victims’ families, who fear that snippets of selected information will hit the headlines, creating a feeding frenzy in the press and potentially distorting the overall picture that the release of papers is intended to piece together. The Hillsborough independent panel, chaired by the Bishop of Liverpool, James Jones, is the only legitimate vehicle through which this information should be initially released. A large quantity of the information will be extremely sensitive, as it details the deaths of many families’ loved ones, so the families must be allowed to make sense of the information before it is released to the general public. Furthermore, a conscious effort must be made by the independent panel to include all the families in the process. With a number of different groups supporting the families of those affected, including the Hillsborough family support group, the Hillsborough justice campaign, and Hope for Hillsborough, I would like to stress the importance of ensuring that all the families are kept informed of the progress of the independent panel and of the disclosure of the panel’s findings. We must not allow the families to experience any more unnecessary anguish, and we must grant them the dignity that they so rightly deserve.

To that end, I support the Government’s position on the BBC’s freedom of information request, which could lead to the Cabinet papers bypassing the independent panel and being released immediately. The BBC submitted the FOI request with the best of intentions, but now that the Cabinet Office has recognised the overriding public interest in releasing all the papers to the panel, the BBC should recognise that its FOI request has achieved its objective and that the documents should be released only through the independent panel.

As I have said, the events of that fateful day in the spring of 1989 have lived long in the memories of those who so sadly lost their loved ones—they will never be forgotten. Although the release of the information contained among the mountain of unpublished papers is undoubtedly in the public interest, the interests of the families and survivors of Hillsborough are now the most pressing concern. For their sake alone, clarity is of the utmost importance. I believe that that can be achieved only by allowing the Hillsborough independent panel to conduct its investigation. Once the families have been given the opportunity to digest the panel’s final report, and only then, the documents must be widely and publicly disclosed.

National Crime Agency

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

There is a cyber-security office in the Cabinet Office that looks at cyber-security from a national security point of view. The NCA will focus on cybercrime. It will have a specific cybercrime unit that will develop our capability to deal with such issues. The mistake is often made of talking about cybercrime as if it is something completely new. Sometimes cybercrimes are new forms of crime, but sometimes it is simply that cyber-techniques and technology, rather than physical means, are used as tools to commit normal crimes such as fraud or robbery. That capability will be developed in the NCA.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, but I echo some of the concerns expressed by Opposition Members, including the shadow Home Secretary, in highlighting the success of CEOP. I ask for reassurance that CEOP’s excellent work, such as its leading global role in tackling international child abuse networks on the internet, will continue under the NCA.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend absolutely has my confirmation and reassurance on that point. We are very conscious of the excellent work of CEOP, and nothing that we are doing will upset it. CEOP will continue to work in the way that it has, but it will also be able to build on its work because of the links that it will have with other commands under the National Crime Agency. I suggest that if he has any further concerns—I hope he will not, following my reassurance—he look at the comments that the chief executive of CEOP made a couple of weeks ago on the “Today” programme. He was absolutely clear that moving to the NCA would in no way degrade or affect CEOP’s ability to carry on doing its work.

Student Visas

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I note the hon. Gentleman’s comment and request; my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration will be happy to meet him.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

One popular scam involves students deliberately failing their examinations repeatedly in order to retake them and hence prolong their stay in the UK. What action is my right hon. Friend proposing to tackle such scams?

[Mrs May]

I referred in my statement to students who stay on and move from course to course but I had not got as far as those who deliberately, as my hon. Friend suggests, fail their exams. There will be a time limit on how long someone can stay in the UK—three years for a below degree-level course. The limit will be extended for postgraduate studies and to accommodate those who are doing medicine and longer courses, but there will be a limit on the number of times that someone can try that ruse.