Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Graham P Jones

Monday 10th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

Is the Home Secretary aware of the numbers of UK nationals who are subject to an overseas arrest warrant for serious offences such as murder and child sex crimes?

[Mrs May]

Of course I am aware that a number of UK nationals are subject to such warrants. Indeed I applaud the work that is done by the National Crime Agency, particularly in some of the areas that the hon. Gentleman has identified, in relation to working with other police forces across the world to ensure that whoever and wherever the perpetrators are, they are brought to justice.

Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Graham P Jones

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

If the hon. Gentleman has a little patience, I shall refer to some of the other measures we have taken a little later on in my speech, but first I want to address the issue of funding.

As part of the TPIMs package, we provided additional funding to the Security Service and the police of tens of millions of pounds a year to help keep the public safe. For obvious reasons, I cannot go into detail on how that money was spent, but I can assure the House that it has significantly strengthened the police and the Security Service’s surveillance and counter-terrorism capabilities.

We followed that up by increasing spending on the security and intelligence agencies, most recently also protecting counter-terrorism policing budgets in the 2015-16 spending round. The police and Security Service made it clear that the move from control orders to TPIMs, combined with the additional funding for counter-terrorism, would not substantially increase overall risk. In fact, I can tell the House that the police and Security Service believe that TPIMs have been effective in disrupting the individuals subject to TPIMs and their networks.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

Did the Home Office not fail to confiscate Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed’s passport when he was subject to a TPIM? Surely that is not a secure system.

[Mrs May]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, and as I made clear to the House following the statement I made on that individual, when that individual returned to the United Kingdom he did so on a document that was not a passport, and therefore the passport was not available to be taken.

Let me deal with the specific points raised by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). Anyone listening to her would sometimes think that the control order regime would have solved every terrorist plot, but as well as the eight people released when the courts revoked their orders, another seven people absconded during the six years that control orders existed, and only one of those seven was ever found again, so people did abscond on control orders.

Policing in the 21st Century

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Graham P Jones

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that prospect. One of the purposes of directly elected commissioners is to be responsive to local needs. Of course it will be necessary to ensure that the collaboration between police forces that I referred to earlier can be undertaken when necessary, and that will also involve ensuring that national policing issues are addressed properly. However, it is not the Home Secretary who should determine what happens in regard to local policing—which is what happened under the Labour Government—but the directly elected commissioners.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

The cost of elections in Lancashire is expected to be at least £1 million. Given that the Home Secretary has just said that there is no money, can she tell us whether they will be paid for by the Treasury or by Lancashire taxpayers?

[Mrs May]

As I said earlier, we will release figures for the costs in due course.

The hon. Gentleman claims that I said that there was no money. In fact, it was the former Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury who said that.