Policing in the 21st Century

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Caroline Flint

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

We are considering our response to the proposals for the European investigation order, and I will ensure that the House is informed of our decision on it. I suggest that my hon. Friend has another look at the order if that is his interpretation of it.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for clarifying that the Government intend not to abolish SOCA, but rather to build on it. How will she ensure that efforts are made locally and regionally, whether by elected commissioners or chief constables, to focus on serious organised crime, so that the national agency can perform appropriately and for the benefit of the whole country?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for raising that important point. Of course, individual police forces will still have a responsibility to deal with serious organised crime, but we need to strengthen that national co-ordination and tasking in relation to such crime, which is why we are bringing the serious organised crime command into the national crime agency. However, we are also looking at imposing strong duties of collaboration among police forces to ensure that, when collaboration across force boundaries is necessary to deal with issues such as serious organised crime, that does indeed take place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Caroline Flint

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I commend the hon. Gentleman on the campaign in which he, too, participated in the Chamber to ensure that his party’s Government did not introduce the 90 days or the 42 days, which we collectively opposed at the time when they were proposed. We consider 28 days to be a temporary measure. We will look at the issue in the round, in the context of other counter-terrorism measures introduced by the last Labour Government and the requirement to balance civil liberties with the need for national security.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

We have had to take a number of measures which have not always involved easy decisions, such as the 28 days’ detention. The right hon. Lady said after she had had assumed her post that she would review control orders. Has she reached a view, and if so, when will she inform us of it? If we could charge people through the courts we would all want to do so, but it is not always possible.

[Mrs May]

In my answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), I cited control orders as one of the items in counter-terrorism legislation that we were currently reviewing.