Terrorist Attacks (Paris)

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Sammy Wilson

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

This is very important. As I indicated earlier, I have met the CST and other Jewish community leaders on a number of occasions. My last meeting with them was shortly before the Christmas recess. We are committed to ensuring that the work of the trust and others, in keeping Jewish communities safe, is supported. As I also indicated earlier, the police talk with the CST and others, and indeed with individual institutions, about what protective security can be provided. As I understand it, they have been providing extra patrols in certain areas to ensure that greater support is given. I am very clear that nobody should feel that they are likely to be subject to the sort of anti-Semitic attacks that, sadly, we have seen too many of in the United Kingdom in the past year. It is very important that people are able to live in this country, follow their faith and live a life free from fear.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Last week, while gunmen were rampaging through the streets of Paris, a leading Muslim spokesman in Northern Ireland, Dr Al-Wazzan, was telling the BBC that the west had brought this on itself through its foreign policy. He later withdrew those remarks under pressure. Will the Home Secretary join me in calling for all those who have leadership in the Muslim community to say and do nothing that would give any justification for people to believe that terrorism in the name of their faith is ever justified, and to realise that such words only breed and create division?

[Mrs May]

It is absolutely right that it is important for those in leadership roles in the Muslim community to make it very clear, as many have been doing, that these terrorist attacks are not about their religion and their faith and are not in their name. It is very important to send a very clear message that the only people responsible for terrorist attacks are the terrorists themselves.

EU Justice and Home Affairs Measures

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Sammy Wilson

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am confident that some of the measures we have taken to deal with concerns raised about the EAW, such as proportionality, are measures that are available to other member states and which have not been challenged in the way my hon. Friend suggests.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The Home Secretary has mentioned the importance of contact with the devolved Administrations and police services in other parts of the UK. What contact has she had on these issues with the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland?

[Mrs May]

There has been considerable contact with the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland; there has been contact with all the devolved Administrations on this matter. I have personally had a discussion with the Justice Minister in the Republic of Ireland about it. If the hon. Gentleman will be a little patient, I will refer to the difference that the EAW makes to extradition as between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. That is an important issue, and if we were to come out of the EAW, it would be a matter of concern both to the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland and to the Justice Minister in the Republic of Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

I have made clear my view that our relationship with the European Court of Justice could well be one of the measures that should be part of the renegotiation and part of the process of looking again at our relationship with the European Union, which would happen after the election of a Conservative Government in May 2015, leading to an in-out referendum by the end of 2017. I hope that that is now clear to the hon. Gentleman.

I want to discuss some of the issues surrounding the European arrest warrant, given the degree of concern that it has raised among Members in the past. One such issue is that of lengthy pre-trial detention, which was highlighted by the case of Andrew Symeou—a case that has been championed relentlessly by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) in the interests of his constituent and his constituent’s family. Our reforms of the arrest warrant mean that, when the requesting country is not trial-ready, we will not extradite people. Had the measures that we have now passed been in place at the time, they would have allowed Mr Symeou to raise, in his extradition hearing, the question of whether a decision to charge him and a decision to try him had been made. It is very likely that they would have prevented his extradition at the stage at which he was due to be surrendered, and could have prevented it altogether.

We have reformed the arrest warrant to make it possible for cases to be heard in the requesting country before an extradition hearing, either by video conference or by temporary transfer, with the consent of the person concerned. That may lead to a withdrawal of the arrest warrant in some cases. We have also reformed it so that British citizens, and others, can no longer be extradited for minor offences. The reform came into effect in July, and has already resulted in the turning down of 21 arrest warrants. That has freed police and court time so that more serious matters can be dealt with, and, crucially, has protected individuals from the sledgehammer of extradition for minor offences.

The Government have reformed the rules on dual criminality to ensure that an arrest warrant must be refused if all or part of the conduct for which a person is wanted took place in the UK and is not a criminal offence in this country. The National Crime Agency is now refusing arrest warrants when it is obvious that the dual criminality test has not been met. It has done so 59 times since our reforms came into force in July.

Our reforms have been implemented, and they are already making a difference. I believe that the arrest warrant is operating more fairly, and it is British judges who have the final say on whether or not to extradite people. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot)—whose wife is an extradition judge—said last week,

“The suggestion that there is no judicial oversight of European arrest warrants in this country is nonsense.”—[Official Report, 10 November 2014; Vol. 587, c. 1228.]

That is absolutely right, and, thanks to our reforms, British judges are now better able to protect the interests of British citizens.

I am also pleased to have the opportunity to remind the House of a few of the problems involved in the alternative system of extradition that we would have to fall back on if we were not part of the arrest warrant, namely the 1957 Council of Europe convention on extradition. First, returning to that convention would require changes to domestic legislation in a number of member states. While we would be able to control our own legislative urgency, we would not be able to control what other member states did. For some, it would take months or even years to make the necessary legislative changes. The Netherlands, for example, has made it clear to us that it would take at least 18 months for it to change its domestic legislation, which would mean that UK criminals could travel to Holland with impunity and vice versa. That would have made the UK a virtual “safe haven” for some of Europe’s most dangerous criminals, and would have allowed UK criminals to hide from the law, which is certainly not an option that appeals to me.

Secondly, using the convention would mean a return to the days when extradition requests were sent to Ireland, perhaps more in hope than in expectation. Before the introduction of the arrest warrant, fewer than 10% of our requests to Ireland for individuals connected with terrorism resulted in their being returned to this country. Members should compare that with the present situation. We are not aware of a single request to Ireland for terrorism-related offences that has been refused. That is surely why—as I said earlier—the authorities in both Dublin and Belfast are such strong supporters of the arrest warrant and our continued participation in it.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does the Home Secretary accept that the comparison she is making is not a fair one, given that many of the extradition requests that were made to the Irish Republic were turned down often on political grounds? Of course, those grounds have now been removed because of the constitutional changes that have been made recently.

[Mrs May]

I understand that the political scenario has changed over the years, but the Justice Minister in Belfast and the Justice Minister in Dublin in the Republic of Ireland have been keen to impress on the Government their concern to ensure that the UK remained in the European arrest warrant, precisely because it now provides a much smoother and easier process to enable extraditions to take place successfully.

Criminal Law

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Sammy Wilson

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Given that the Home Secretary wrote yesterday in The Sunday Times that the European arrest warrant and 34 other measures were in the package proposed by the Government, and given that she knew that the European arrest warrant was one of the most controversial of those measures, will she explain why she has included those issues in the regulations that we are discussing today but left out the European arrest warrant?

[Mrs May]

It has been made clear that it is possible to discuss the other measures in our debate today, and I have explained why the regulations include only certain measures—those required to be transposed into UK legislation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) was right to refer to the package of 35 measures being the product of tough negotiations in Europe. In July, when we last gave Government time for a debate on the issue, I informed the House that good progress had been made in negotiations with the European Commission and other member states and that we were close to reaching an in-principle agreement. The matter had been discussed at the General Affairs Council in June, but some member states had expressed technical reservations. I published Command Paper 8897, which included the full list of measures discussed at the General Affairs Council and impact assessments of each of those measures. I had hoped to be able to return the matter to Parliament for consideration before the summer recess, but the reservations expressed by other member states meant it was not possible to do so. In September, two of those member states lifted their reserves and I am pleased to be able to inform the House that on Friday, Spain, the one remaining member state blocking the deal, formally lifted its reservation in Brussels.

I believe that the deal we have negotiated in Europe and that we are bringing before the House today is a good one for the United Kingdom. It includes important tools such as SIS II, the second-generation Schengen information system, which the United Kingdom is scheduled to join shortly. That will further strengthen our ability to detect foreign criminals at the border, including individuals wanted in their own countries for serious crimes such as rape and murder.

The package of measures we have negotiated includes Europol, which does excellent work under its British director, Rob Wainwright, to tackle cross-border crimes. Three weeks ago, for example, Europol played a key role in Operation Trivium, a UK-wide operation led by West Midlands police that saw police forces from 14 European countries jointly targeting foreign criminals in the UK. Senior officers from across Europe came together at the control centre in Edgbaston to witness the operation in action and Europol provided a mobile unit to co-ordinate activities on the ground. In the first 48 hours of the operation, more than 700 suspected criminals were arrested and a further 950 were handed on-the-spot fines for minor offences, cautioned or summonsed to court. They included a 51-year-old Polish man arrested on suspicion of involvement in a fraud of more than £11,000.

Europol also played a key part in tackling the horsemeat scandal that so appalled this House and the British public last year, as did Eurojust, another of the measures in our package.

Child Sex Abuse (Rotherham)

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Sammy Wilson

Tuesday 2nd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

May I thank and commend my right hon. Friend for the work that he did when he chaired the national group and for work that he did with internet service providers in relation to abusive images of children on the internet, which can fuel interest and action in these areas? My hon. Friend the Minister for Crime Prevention will bring the national group together very soon, and it will consider the report of Alexis Jay to see whether it needs to do any further work to ensure proper co-ordination. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right in what he says: bringing together Departments to address these issues may sound simple, but it is crucial if we are to deal with these issues.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The Secretary of State is right that the perpetrators must be hunted down and brought to justice. Does she also agree that officials who failed to do their duty must not be allowed to get off scot-free? It does not matter whether we are talking about the police who failed to uphold the law and let rapists walk free, councillors who put community relations above the interests of vulnerable children or council officials who deliberately destroyed evidence to hide the trail of betrayal. Does she not agree that, far too often in the past, people have either been moved aside, promoted or given pay-offs and that only rubs salt into the wounds?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. When people see somebody who has failed in their duty simply moving away to a similar job in another authority or another police force and nothing is done about it, then that does add insult to the original injury.

Policing in the 21st Century

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Sammy Wilson

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes an important and valid point. We need to restore that confidence and the link between the police and the public—the link that has sadly been damaged over the years by the increased bureaucracy and imposition from the centre under the last Labour Government. He is right that our proposals will increase the public’s confidence.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

There will be concerns about the possible disruption of activities against organised crime as a result of the changeover from SOCA to the national crime agency. What contact has the Home Secretary had with regional assemblies across the UK and can she give an assurance that the formation of the new agency will not mean a downgrading of the fight against crime in regions such as Northern Ireland?

[Mrs May]

We certainly wish to ensure that the fight against crime is in no way downgraded; indeed, the whole purpose of our proposals is to help to strengthen the fight against crime across the UK, as I have said in answer to a number of questions. The directly elected police commissioners will relate to England and Wales, and both the Minister for Police and I have had discussions with the Welsh Assembly.