Child Sexual Abuse (Independent Panel Inquiry)

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. In a sense, this inquiry is like no other before it in terms of the subject matter it is dealing with, and it must obviously maintain the confidence of survivors. Information and communication will be an important issue for the inquiry panel, and I certainly intend that to be addressed by the chairman at an early stage.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her obvious commitment to getting this inquiry right. People are concerned that there has not been enough co-ordination between the different police investigations around the country—that comes up time and again. In her statement she mentioned Simon Bailey’s work in charge of Operation Hydrant. As she said, his job is to follow up any lead that the inquiry uncovers, and to be responsible for recording all referrals from the inquiry that relate to criminal abuse. Will she reassure the House that Simon Bailey’s job will involve ensuring proper co-ordination between those inquiries, and that there is not just a liaison with the inquiry but between the various police outfits that are already up and running?

[Mrs May]

I can give my hon. Friend that reassurance. At an earlier stage, Chief Constable Simon Bailey raised with me his concern to ensure that investigations are properly joined up between police forces, and that information that might be helpful to an investigation in one force is not held by another force and not passed on. Part of his work in Operation Hydrant will be to co-ordinate all child sexual abuse investigations that concern people of public prominence or institutional settings, and he will also consider the responses from police forces to the inquiry to ensure that they are of suitable quality.

Wanless Review

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Yes, it absolutely will. As I have said, the inquiry will be comprehensive when it comes to the institutions it looks at. It will look at state and non-state institutions, because there have clearly been failures not only in state-run care homes, for example, but in other areas of life, such as the Church. The review will be comprehensive.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

The Home Secretary has rightly pointed out that the report identifies no clear evidence of cover-up, but I want to draw her attention to a reference it makes to a letter that the then Home Secretary wrote in reply to Mr Dickens on 20 March 1984. It states that a dossier of letters provided by Mr Dickens was passed to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and that, as the review states,

“in the view of the DPP, two could form the basis for enquiries by the police and have been passed to the appropriate authorities.”

If that is true, it is very hard to understand how there can be no evidence of those letters. That is exactly the kind of loose end that the inquiry will have to resolve if it is to have any credibility at all with victims and the wider public.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. It is precisely those sorts of issues that have led people to query what has happened, question the attitude taken to these matters and ask the very question he raises about why there do not seem to have been any prosecutions off the back of it. Wanless and Whittam were specifically asked to look at how the police and prosecuting authorities dealt with any reference that had been made from the Home Office because, as I said earlier, in my view it is not good enough for the Home Office to say, “Well, we’ve reviewed what the Home Office did.” We need to know what happened to the evidence that the Home Office passed on. It is in looking at what further action was taken that I have gone back to Wanless and Whittam in the letter I sent them today.

Criminal Law

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. He is prescient because it was a point to which I was coming soon in my speech, and it is an important statistic. Sometimes people think that the European arrest warrant is just used to extradite United Kingdom citizens from the United Kingdom, but that is not the case.

Hon. Members have expressed concerns about people being charged with offences over and above those specified in their arrest warrant if they consent to extradition, so we have lifted the requirement that individuals lose their right to “speciality protection” when they consent to extradition. Those changes have been made in UK law, and came into effect earlier this year. They are already making an important difference to the operation of the arrest warrant.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

The concept of proportionality is hard to define and therefore hard to understand. The Home Secretary has already given examples of cases that have been refused on the basis that they are too trivial. Can she give an example of the least serious offence where extradition has been possible since July?

[Mrs May]

I do not have a list of all the European arrest warrants that have been refused, but there are two steps to the proportionality decision. The first is an administrative decision taken by the National Crime Agency as the body that initially receives the request. Then there is the possibility for the courts to make a determination about proportionality, and they will consider a variety of issues. It is not a tick-box approach; the courts will make judgments not just about the nature of the crime but about the nature of the disposal available in the other member state in relation to that crime, so that they can decide whether the arrest warrant is appropriate.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) indicated that the vast majority of people extradited from the UK—more than 95%—are foreign nationals. They include suspects wanted for 124 murders, more than 100 rapes, nearly 500 serious assaults and seven terrorism cases. In the same period, the arrest warrant has been used to return 647 people to this country to face justice. The list includes 51 suspected killers, 80 suspected paedophiles, 46 suspected violent thugs, and one suspected terrorist.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Of course Ministers visit Heathrow and other ports at various times to see the operation of those ports in a variety of circumstances. At terminal 4 today, queues were in fact not over an hour long, as I understand the right hon. Gentleman has said that they were, staff were quickly redeployed and more than 80% of desks were open to process passengers as quickly as possible. That is what we have been doing by increasing the staff in recent days and in a week or so, the Olympic numbers will kick in, which will bring even more staff to Heathrow and ensure that people are processed properly and quickly.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Will the Home Secretary please review her decision to approve the extradition of Richard O’Dwyer to the US, where he faces up to 10 years for an alleged breach of copyright rules, an offence, if it is one, that our own authorities did not think merited a prosecution?

[Mrs May]

As my hon. Friend will know, that case is due to go to court later this year. The extradition decision has already been taken and, as he will know, I have decided to uphold it.