Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

12. What assessment she has made of the effect of serious and organised crime on communities.

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

Serious and organised crime has a damaging and corrosive impact on communities across the United Kingdom. This includes violence, drugs trafficking, fraud, modern slavery and child sexual exploitation. Reducing the effects of these crimes and bringing the perpetrators to justice is why I launched a comprehensive new strategy and a powerful new crime-fighting organisation, the National Crime Agency, in October 2013.

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her answer. Last month, the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims visited Brierfield in my constituency to meet the local police and learn about their success in tackling organised crime in Pendle. Will my right hon. Friend offer assurances of her Department’s continued support for protecting communities such as Brierfield from serious and organised crime?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Protecting communities lies at the heart of how we want to deal with serious and organised crime. We work with a range of partners to ensure that we tailor our response to the needs of individual communities such as Brierfield. We are also ensuring that every possible avenue is taken to deal with serious and organised crime. Lancashire police’s Operation Genga is bringing together about 20 local organisations to address the issue, and it is a very good example of the benefits that can be achieved through such a partnership approach.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

What actions is my right hon. Friend taking to seize more of the proceeds of organised crime?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend touches on an important issue. Criminals pursue criminal activities for profit, and by seizing their assets we can have a significant impact on them. We have set out in the serious and organised crime strategy our approach for attacking criminal finances. We want to make it harder for criminals to move, hide or access the proceeds of crime. The criminal finances board, overseen by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), oversees cross-departmental work to improve performance on accessing and recovering assets. We are also taking extra powers in the Serious Crime Bill, which has already started its passage in another place, to make it easier for us to get hold of criminals’ assets.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

18. Will the Home Secretary say why the number of arrests based on Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre intelligence on serious, organised child abuse has gone down in the past year?

[Mrs May]

CEOP is an important part of our panoply of organisations that are dealing with various aspects of serious and organised crime. Bringing CEOP into the National Crime Agency was right because it now has access to the agency’s capabilities, but it is important that CEOP continues to have access to a range of capabilities. Sadly, one of the issues that has been raised is the extent to which it can continue to have access to things such as communications data. As that degrades, of course, it becomes harder for CEOP to investigate certain crimes.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Home Secretary will also know that much serious and organised crime is related to fraud. Is she not worried that many people, both outside and inside this House, are saying that the Serious Fraud Office is not fit for purpose, is not resourced enough and depends on advice given by the big accountancy firms? Everyone is saying that we need a powerful Serious Fraud Office. Does she agree that it needs reforming?

[Mrs May]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to ensure that we have strong capability for dealing with fraud. That is precisely why I wanted the National Crime Agency to have an economic crime command, which it does. That economic crime command will be looking at a variety of economic and financial crimes. Fraud will, of course, be key within that. It will also look at other issues such as money laundering. That is also why we have changed our approach to the reporting of fraud such that we are now better able to capture incidents of fraud through Action Fraud. We have ensured that the capabilities of City of London police, given its expertise in that area, are fully available. Of course we need a strong Serious Fraud Office, but we also want that strength in the economic crime command within the National Crime Agency.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

2. What recent assessment she has made of the performance of the Passport Office.

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

The Government have made much progress in tackling this horrendous crime. Our ground-breaking Modern Slavery Bill will have its Second Reading tomorrow in this House. Later this year, we will publish a modern slavery strategy, which will co-ordinate a comprehensive programme of national and international activity. It will include: the national referral mechanism review, which will report its interim findings shortly; child trafficking advocate trials, which will launch in the summer; and establishing specialist teams at the border.

[Andrew Jones]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply and congratulate her on introducing the Bill, the first of its kind in the world to tackle this disgusting crime. Does she agree that it is important to work with businesses to tackle this part of the problem by eliminating forced labour from supply chains?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. It is absolutely vital that we work with business on the issue of forced labour and slavery in supply chains, which is why I hosted a round table recently with representatives of business organisations and individual businesses, together with other Ministers, including the Under-Secretary with responsibility for modern slavery and organised crime. We are doing a great deal with businesses to help to raise awareness so we can prevent people from being abused and exploited. Of course, companies have a social responsibility to take appropriate action. If they do not, their reputations will suffer.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Two thirds of the children identified and found as trafficking victims by the authorities go missing again. Will the Home Secretary legislate for a guardian for each of these children, to keep them safe and to act in their best interests?

[Mrs May]

We are trialling the child advocate concept in a number of ways in the coming months. We have made it absolutely clear that, through the Modern Slavery Bill, we will provide for the opportunity to put it on a statutory basis. I hope everybody in this House would want us to use the work of those trials to identify the best approach to take in relation to individuals, whatever their title, who work with trafficked children, to take them through and to help to give them the support they need. We need to ensure that we find and take forward the best approach.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

Does the Home Secretary agree that the trafficking prevention orders included in the Modern Slavery Bill will be a valuable tool for police seeking to disrupt trafficking gangs? What discussions has her Department had with police on the practical implementation of the orders?

[Mrs May]

I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that the police welcomed the concept of prevention orders that we are putting in place through the Bill. She is absolutely right: crucially, the prevention orders will enable us to ensure that action can be taken against someone who has been convicted of an offence of modern slavery so that we can reduce the possibility of that offence being recommitted. Up until now, it has been possible for someone who has served a sentence for such an offence to come straight back out, become a gangmaster and carry on with what they were doing in the first place. The prevention orders will enable us to prevent that from happening.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

14. What representations she has received on the potential effect on UK migration figures of further EU accessions.

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[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

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

I echo the earlier comments of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey). I too was deeply saddened to hear of the death of West Midlands police and crime commissioner Bob Jones, and my thoughts and prayers are with Bob’s family and friends and his colleagues. He had given years of public service as a councillor, a member of the West Midlands police authority for more than 25 years, and then as the area’s first police and crime commissioner, and his contribution to keeping the people of the west midlands safe was very impressive. I know that he will be greatly missed.

Last week I visited Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories to meet senior politicians from both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. During my visit, the bodies of the three abducted teenagers were discovered near Hebron. Since then, we have also heard about the terrible killing of a Palestinian teenager. No reason, belief or cause can justify the abduction and killing of innocent civilians.

In spite of that harrowing news, I was able to hold encouraging discussions on how best to combat modern slavery as part of our efforts to garner greater international co-operation on that important issue. Those discussions will feed into the substantial work that the Government are doing to stamp out the horrendous crime of modern slavery. As I said earlier, the Second Reading of the Modern Slavery Bill will be debated tomorrow, and the Bill’s progress will take place alongside the work that the Government are doing to develop a comprehensive strategy to deal with this horrendous crime.

[Kerry McCarthy]

It is almost a year since my constituent Bijan Ebrahimi was horribly murdered, and we are still waiting for the results of the inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into the involvement of the police in the days leading up to his death. As the Home Secretary will know, a separate IPCC inquiry is proceeding, and the chief constable is currently suspended. Can she assure me that the IPCC has been given all the resources that it needs to bring both inquiries to a speedy conclusion?

[Mrs May]

I am sure the hon. Lady will recognise that as the cases that she has mentioned are live, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the details. However, we are committed to ensuring that the IPCC has the resources that it needs to be able to investigate all serious and sensitive complaints against the police, and to carry out the rigorous scrutiny that the public expect. We have given the commission an extra £18 million and £10 million capital this year, so that it can deal with all serious and sensitive cases involving the police.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

T2. Will my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary say what steps she and her Department are taking to ensure the police use technology to a greater extent to improve their effectiveness?

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

First, may I welcome the Home Secretary’s words about her visit and about the terrible loss of young lives in the middle east, and also her tribute to Bob Jones, who, as she knows, was a very kind and thoughtful man as well as a great public servant, and is a friend who will be missed by very many of us?

May I also join the counter-terrorism Minister, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), in remembering the 52 people who were killed on 7 July 2005 and pay tribute to their families and also the 770 people injured that day? That is why the whole House and the whole country recognises the continued need for vigilance against terrorism and those who want to kill, maim or divide us.

The Home Secretary will shortly outline her response to calls for action against historical child abuse, but let me ask her about the child protection system today. Since she changed the law, there has been a 75% drop in the number of people barred from working with children even though the number of offences against children has gone up. Why has it fallen so much, and is she worried about that?

[Mrs May]

There has, indeed, been a fall in the number of people who are automatically barred from working with children. That fall has taken place since 2010 because we did change the system: I think we restored some common sense to the barring regime, because the scheme is now focused on groups of people who work closely with children or other vulnerable groups. Unless they have committed the most serious offences, we no longer bar people who do not work with those groups, such as lorry drivers or bar staff. They were barred under the old scheme, and I do not think those bars did anything to help keep children safe, but anyone working closely with children is still barred and that is the important point.

[Yvette Cooper]

I have listened to the Home Secretary’s response and I have to say I find it very troubling. What is to stop a lorry driver who is convicted of a very serious offence applying to work with children or becoming a volunteer in the future? The figures show the numbers who have been barred have dropped from 11,000 to 2,600. That means there are people who have been convicted of sexually assaulting a child, possessing or distributing abusive images of children, grooming or trafficking who are not being barred from working with children in future, and there has also been a serious drop in the number of those who are barred on the basis of intelligence about grooming even where convictions have not been secured. I really would urge her to look again at this because I am concerned that this system is exposing children to risk.

[Mrs May]

We all want to ensure that the system we have makes sure that those who will be a risk to children are not able to work with children, but I repeat the point I made in response to the right hon. Lady’s first question: under the previous scheme a large number of people found themselves automatically barred who were not directly working with children and were not working closely with children. The new scheme that we have has, in fact, barred some people who would not have been barred under the old scheme. The Disclosure and Barring Service can now pick up and consider serious offences by those who apply for criminal records checks to work with children and those in the new update service, so I say to her that the scheme we have introduced does actually mean some who would not have been barred under the previous scheme are today barred from working with children.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

T3. The news of UK citizens becoming radicalised and then travelling abroad to participate in terrorism and conflicts is very worrying. Will my right hon. Friend outline how the Prevent strategy is being used to tackle the problem at source by stopping people being radicalised in the first place?

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[Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

Does the Home Secretary agree that essential to restoring the public’s confidence in the immigration system is not just counting people into the UK, but counting them out of the UK? What progress is being made on that?

[Mrs May]

I can tell my right hon. Friend that this Government are committed to introducing exit checks by the time of the next general election. We have a programme that is working well; we already receive a significant amount of information on people exiting the country from the advance passenger information, provided through the airline industry. I have had discussions with representatives of the rail industry and our ports on how we can ensure that we are also getting exit checks for those who travel out of this country by rail and by sea.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I have been asked to raise this question by my constituents, Mr and Mrs Egan, who are foster parents. Their foster child had a passport which, the agency acknowledges, was handed in and destroyed. Apparently he cannot get another one until his natural father completes a lost or stolen form. The father is in Kurdistan and cannot be traced. As things stand, the child will have to wait three years until the destroyed passport expires before they can have another one. I am sure that this is not what anyone intends to happen, but the consequence is that the child will end up in emergency care instead of being on holiday with his foster parents. Will the Minister take a look into that case?