Police Reform
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mrs May
It is important that we do this because one concern that the public had was that they had seen police officers who were under suspicion or potentially subject to misconduct hearings being able to retire or resign and those misconduct hearings were stopped. We have been very clear that in those circumstances, misconduct hearings should continue and if an officer would have been struck off, they should go on the list so that they will not be employed by another force. The measure I have announced is part of ensuring that that can take place. We have also, of course, taken some action on the IPCC’s powers for people to attend interviews. The question of what is said when someone attends an interview is another issue, but we have already taken some steps as regards these historic cases.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Last night, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) had a very thoughtful Adjournment debate, responded to by the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims, about a case in Sussex. One of the points the hon. Gentleman made was that the family of a road traffic victim had lost confidence in Sussex police, who were trying to investigate one of their own officers. Does the Home Secretary feel that there is merit in reconsidering whether other police forces should be asked to lead on the investigation when off-duty officers are involved?
Mrs May
I note the hon. Gentleman’s point and I understand that the case considered in last night’s Adjournment debate went before the courts and the individual concerned was found not guilty by the court—[Interruption.] I understand the point he is making about the question of the police investigating the police. One of the issues when the complaints system is considered will be the question of public concern about the police investigating the police. Obviously, the issue to which he refers involved a criminal investigation that was taken before the courts.
HM Passport Office
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Mrs May
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. The point is that, as I have indicated, the vast majority of straightforward passport applications are still being dealt with within the time scales that people normally expect, and we should recognise that tens of thousands of people are having their passports sent to them and their applications dealt with to the normally expected timetable. When urgent cases are brought to the Passport Office’s attention, it is doing everything it can to deal with them expeditiously.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
What would the Home Secretary like to say to my constituent Elizabeth Dey, who after more than four weeks of waiting may well miss her honeymoon in 10 days’ time?
Deregulation Bill
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I will not speak for long as I am aware that one of my former colleagues, a fellow survivor of the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), also wishes to contribute.
On behalf of Members across the House, I thank the Clerks for their assistance on the Committee, particularly Liam Laurence Smyth, the Clerk of the Journals, who so skilfully kept most members of the Committee in order. I felt quite intimidated as a member of that Committee because we had such august parliamentarians as the hon. Members for Stone and for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt)—now promoted to shadow Education Secretary—and of course yourself, Madam Deputy Speaker, the most able member of the Joint Committee, who ensured that we kept things right.
Amendment 4 stands in my name and those of the hon. Member for Stone and others, and—as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, having served on the Committee—it is the second attempt by a Joint Committee to get this legislation removed from the statute book.
Briefly, back in the mid-1990s, Mr Neil Hamilton, then a Member of Parliament, was seeking to sue The Guardian for defamation over what turned out to be true allegations about his cash links with Mohamed Al-Fayed. As I am sure the whole House knows, under parliamentary privilege Members are not allowed to use parliamentary proceedings in a civil or criminal case. Mr Hamilton persuaded the then Conservative Government to introduce a clause that allowed a Member of Parliament to waive their privilege, so that they could use parliamentary proceedings as evidence in a defamation case when suing a newspaper. However, it was done in such a way that a newspaper could not also seek to have parliamentary privilege waived. That created an unfair playing field and, frankly, was done to help Mr Hamilton, who it then turned out was a liar and a crook—that is probably why he is a member of UKIP these days. The Joint Committee in 1999 and again last year recommended that the measure be taken out of statute because it was unfair on newspapers and an abuse of privilege.
Obviously, the amendment is supported by the Opposition, and my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) made clear our support last Thursday during the debate on parliamentary privilege. I welcome the fact that the names of the Solicitor-General and the Deputy Leader of the House now appear next to the amendment. I assume that they speak for both parts of the coalition and that the Government will be addressing the issue. To conclude, this is about silly legislation that should never have been introduced, and I welcome the fact that the Government are taking the Joint Committee’s recommendation on board.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I am most grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your service on the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege along with me and the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), not to mention the litany of others—the hon. Gentleman has already mentioned them, so I do not need to. Amendment 4 is necessary, and I will refer to articles 163 to 170 of the Committee’s report, which include our recommendations for the repeal of section 13 of the Defamation Act 1996, just to get that on the record and make it easier for people to follow what is being said—we do not have much time to go into all the ins and outs.
The hon. Gentleman has explained the background to this issue, but I will add one or two further points. As my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General stated, the proposal was endorsed by the 1999 Joint Committee, and most recently by the 2013 Joint Committee, in your presence, Madam Deputy Speaker. The 1999 Joint Committee stated that,
“the enactment of section 13, seeking to remedy a perceived injustice, had created indefensible anomalies of its own which should not be allowed to continue”.
That is why it recommended that section 13 be repealed. The fundamental flaw identified by the 1999 Joint Committee was that,
“the section undermined the basis of privilege: freedom of speech was the privilege of the House as a whole and not of the individual Member in his or her own right, although an individual Member could assert and rely on it.”
The 1999 Committee noted that,
“the anomaly that section 13 was available only in defamation proceedings and not in any other form of civil action”
or criminal action. The Committee pointed out that,
“since the exercise of section 13 is a matter of individual choice, where two people are involved in the same action, one may choose to waive privilege and another may not.”
The 1999 Committee recommend that,
“the mischief sought to be remedied by section 13 of the Defamation Act 1996 should be cured by a different means: the replacement of section 13 with a short statutory provision empowering each House to waive Article 9 for the purpose of any court proceedings, whether relating to defamation or to any other matter, where the words spoken or the acts done in proceedings in Parliament would not expose the speaker of the words or the doer of the acts to any legal liability.”
That approach was supported by Lord Lester of Herne Hill, and by Dr Adam Tucker and Geoffrey Lock, a former head of the research division in the House of Commons Library.
The Newspaper Society opposed any discretionary power to waive privilege, the use of which would be unpredictable and retrospective. It argued that,
“the power of waiver could create a chilling effect, by the mere threat or possibility of its use, which would be detrimental to openness of debate and press reporting of proceedings in Parliament.”
In its response to the Government consultation, the legislative council of Western Australia argued that,
“it was preferable for privilege not to be waived for any reason, in order to avoid the potential for the waiver being used for purely political purposes.”
Our Clerk of the House of Commons, the distinguished Sir Robert Rogers, who is sadly retiring, told us that his preference would be for the repeal of section 13, “without replacement”. The Media Lawyers Association took the same view.
In evidence, the Government told the 2013 Committee:
“There are clearly problems with Section 13 of the Defamation Act. It is at odds with the principle that freedom of speech is a privilege of the House, not just individual members and it can create an imbalance where one party to proceedings can choose to use the parliamentary record but the other cannot.”
At that time, the Government told us that,
“the Government is not aware of any instances in which anyone has used the power of waiver and as such it would not appear to be a pressing priority to repeal Section 13.”
On reflection, the Government have decided that repealing section 13 is a good idea. We are grateful to them for following our recommendation.
I ought to say that, initially, there was an attempt to include the proposal in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill but, as a result of consultation, members of the Committee agreed that it was better to include it in the Deregulation Bill, which is why we are debating it. The Committee recommends the repeal of section 13 of the Defamation Act 1996. That is all I have to say for the time being.
Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Mrs May
We take individuals to court where it is possible and where there is evidence on individuals to prosecute them for crimes under the Terrorism Acts. The court is then able to make those decisions. The issue is what does society do with the individuals we are not able to deport or to prosecute. The Government took the decision at an early stage that we introduce TPIMs and give them a two-year time limit. That matter was debated and discussed in this House.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way. Further to the point raised by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), can she confirm on how many occasions the First Minister of Scotland or Scottish Ministers have lobbied her, expressing concerns about this or any future arrangements?
Mrs May
I am happy to say to the hon. Gentleman that these matters of security are reserved matters for us here in Westminster. I have not looked at the debate on these issues in Hansard, but I would not be surprised if the hon. Gentlemen from Scotland or indeed Northern Ireland took part.
I will now make some progress. On the specific cases, the police and Security Service have now been working for some time to put in place tailored plans to manage each individual once their TPIM restrictions are removed. Those plans, which are similar to those put in place for the release of prisoners who have served their sentences, are kept under constant review, and they are similar to the plans the police and Security Service use every day to manage other suspects who are not subject to restrictions.
I completely reject the suggestion that the Opposition are putting about that the police and Security Service have not carried out proper risk assessments of these individuals. They have done so because that is their job, and they have put in place specific, tailored plans to deal with each individual.
Immigration Rules: Sponsors
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Harper
It was to ensure that people could not abuse the system by holding the money for only a day or two, making the application, succeeding and then giving the money back. It is to make sure that the money is genuinely under someone’s control and available to them rather than their borrowing money that belongs to someone else for a short period. We felt that six months met that requirement without being overly burdensome and putting unreasonable requirements on individuals.
Perhaps I will follow up the point made by the hon. Member for Slough if she speaks to me about the specific case. Inspiration has told me that the savings do not count in that way with self-employed people. If she has a specific case, which it looks like she has, perhaps she will draw that to my attention and I will look at it and see whether I think the rules are sufficient to deal with it.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the House sit in private.
Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163).
The House proceeded to a Division.
Thomas Docherty
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. There is some confusion over whether it is technically possible under “Erskine May” to call for a Division on the Adjournment. Of course, you are the gatekeeper and the guardian of good order, but my understanding is that there have been occasions on which the House has divided on the Adjournment. I believe that after an Adjournment debate on Norway in 1940, there was a Division on the Adjournment. Any guidance that you can give me would be gratefully received.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I know that the House is waiting with eager anticipation for the answer. The answer is that it is gone 5.30, so the Question would not be put in any event. Therefore, the Question cannot be put.
Thomas Docherty
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am incredibly grateful for that clarification. I had a brief opportunity in the few moments that I spent in the Aye Lobby to look at “Erskine May”, but I could not find that reference. Is it possible for it to be circulated, for the benefit of Members such as me who are not as knowledgeable as you, Mr Deputy Speaker, so that we do not waste any more of the House’s time?
Mr Deputy Speaker
Some people may interpret what is going on now as being a waste of time, but certainly not the Chair. I am absolutely certain that clarifications on the rules of procedure will be made. The Question could have been put before the moment of interruption, for instance at 5.29, which, as the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, has happened in the past. I think that the last time it happened was in the 1970s. On this occasion, we have clearly gone past the moment of interruption and, therefore, the Question will not be posed.
Abu Qatada
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
When the Home Secretary came to the House on Tuesday, was she aware that there was a different opinion from hers about the deadline?
Mrs May
As has been made clear to the House, the BBC was making claims about the deadline at that time. The Government have been absolutely clear that the deadline was 16 April. As I have tried to explain to the House today, the Government have also been absolutely clear that the decision as to what the deadline was and whether an application for referral can be accepted—and whether it is within the deadline or whether it can be accepted outside the deadline at the discretion of the European Court—is a matter only for the panel of the Grand Chamber of the European Court. It is the arbiter of this—nobody else.
UK Extradition Arrangements
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg
There are, indeed, but that is of a completely different order of magnitude: one gets a little off one’s sentence if one pleads guilty early—rather than being threatened with hundreds of years against a week in a golf club. That does not happen under the British system, but we know that it happened to the man who turned the equivalent of Queen’s evidence against Conrad Black. We know that it happens in the United States system, but we are willing to risk British subjects going over there.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is always worth listening to, even if his arguments are not the strongest of cases. He began by espousing the benefits of English—I must add—history, but surely we share that system with our colonial cousins, so having made great merit of the English judicial system he cannot then criticise our American friends.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. It is up to the hon. Gentleman who takes the intervention, but the Member had only just come in.
Immigration (Stranraer/Cairnryan)
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
I am pleased that I have managed to secure this debate this evening. That said, I am disappointed that it has needs this action to try to secure answers from the Minister. That, along with a number of freedom of information requests, has meant I have had to bring my concerns to the Floor of the House.
My concerns are about one of the most irresponsible cuts this Government have imposed—the withdrawal of UK Border Agency funding from the police ports unit protecting the Galloway ports in my constituency. At the end of this week, I will be attending the official opening of Stena Line’s new terminal building on Loch Ryan. This has replaced its old base in the heart of Stranraer, where ferries have crossed the Irish sea for 150 years. There is also a ferry port operated by P&O just a few miles further round the loch, in the village of Cairnryan.
The Galloway ports are the second busiest ports in the UK, and they have more immigration issues than anywhere else in Scotland. Even though they are entry points to the UK mainland, they are internal ports and a well-known route for illegal immigrants seeking to gain access, and for organised criminals to smuggle contraband goods or illegal drugs. It is well recognised that those last issues were a regular source of funding for terrorist activity in the past.
The chief constable of Dumfries and Galloway constabulary has described the ports as a
“nexus point for illegal immigration”.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has been a champion for Dumfries and Galloway for the 13 or 14 years that he has been a Member. I am disappointed that not a single Scottish National party Member has bothered to come to support his case tonight. He has mentioned the chief constable. Will he say whether there have been any further cuts recently to the number of police officers in the region, from which the ports might have suffered?
Mr Brown
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I will come on to that point.
The chief constable’s comments did not stop the Government deciding last summer completely to withdraw the UKBA funding that paid for three officers in Dumfries and Galloway police’s ports unit. That funding had been put in place in 2006. A former Home Office Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), visited the Stena facility with me early last year and agreed that we needed to increase the resources to ensure security. She was astonished by what she witnessed.
Just a few weeks after the general election, the position was turned on its head and the Government announced the complete withdrawal of the UKBA funding. Clearly what had changed was that the Government had embarked upon deep cuts, whatever the price. That was confirmed by the UKBA’s regional director for Scotland and Northern Ireland, Phil Taylor, who admitted in a letter to the Scottish Government’s Justice Secretary that the cuts at the Galloway ports were due to the
“government’s requirement to bear down on the cost of the public sector”.
It is pertinent to note that the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch was based on witnessing at first hand the difficulties at the ports. The decision to terminate the UKBA funding at the ports was decided without anyone having the decency to visit the facility to witness how the system operated. In fact, no Minister, not even the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland who represents part of the region—I appreciate the fact that he has turned up this evening—has visited the Galloway ports, despite imposing major cuts on them.
I come now to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty). It is worth mentioning the role of the SNP Scottish Government in this. Although they have been quick to join the chorus of criticism of the UK Government’s cuts, they themselves cut the equivalent of 14.5 officers from the ports unit over the previous couple of years. The crocodile tears from the Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, who visited the ports to discuss security issues yesterday, are shameful in the extreme. The truth is that the Galloway ports have suffered from a double whammy of cuts, first from the SNP Government in Edinburgh and then from the Conservative-led coalition Government.
Today I call on the UK Government to consider either reinstating the UKBA financial support to the Dumfries and Galloway ports unit or providing UKBA staff at the ports. The case is overwhelming and I want to highlight three areas. First, the Government must take heed of their own national security strategy, which identified a
“significant increase in the levels of terrorism relating to Northern Ireland”
as a tier 1, or priority, risk to the country. It makes no sense to recognise an increased threat and then to essentially downgrade the security at the route on to the mainland through the Galloway ports.
Secondly, Dumfries and Galloway constabulary has revealed that the scale of the illegal immigration is worse than had been measured previously. Indeed, a UKBA study earlier this year found that the number of illegal immigrants detected at the ports had rocketed by 65% since the previous year. The Government clearly decided to cut the resource based on an estimation of the number of illegal immigrants passing through the ports. Surely the Minister must concede that if the facts change, so must the conclusions. The most recent figures show that the number of immigration cases between 1 September and 10 November increased by 20% compared to the same period last year, and that whereas in the past one in every six people who were stopped were non-EU citizens, that has now increased to one in five.
Thirdly, the cut at the Galloway ports was made with the assurance that greater effort would be put in at the Northern Ireland end. That approach has so far failed. In September, Dumfries and Galloway police told me that
“a lack of checks/coverage at the Northern Ireland side…has led to more offenders getting through the Northern Ireland ports undetected.”
It is clear that the UKBA failed properly to plan how the ports would cope with the withdrawal of the funding support. New procedures came into place only in September this year, 10 months after the cuts. That should have been done before any decision was taken but it was not, because the cuts were rushed through in a matter of weeks. The consequence is that the Government not only reduced security at the ports but left us exposed for almost a year as they decided how to try to compensate for that.
Drugs (Roadside Testing) Bill
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg
I think that my hon. Friend’s point is slightly disconnected, because belonging to a voluntary body, the rules of which state that one must subject oneself to a test, is very different from Her Majesty’s Government and Parliament, through legislation, taking away one’s right not to self-incriminate. One does not have to be an athlete—I never could be anyway. It is not compulsory to be a runner or a jumper. It ought to be compulsory to be a cricketer, but sadly it is not. However, if the Government get involved, one may commit an offence by going about one’s ordinary daily life and that is a higher degree of intrusion. The same point applies to the earlier intervention about the Home Office testing the people who work for it with these machines.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Where the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) is slightly wrong is that a sportsman who does not take a drug test does not commit a criminal offence, although he may be banned by his sport. However, I understand that it is a criminal offence for airline pilots and crew not to give samples when required by the aviation authorities. Is not the bar set so much higher for airline pilots and drivers because they are responsible for other people’s lives?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I was merely making the point that this is something that we should be concerned about, and that we should be aware of what we are doing. The fifth amendment in the United States gives a clear protection. Our constitutional system does not have such clear protections. It is therefore quite easy for Parliament to eat into them and gnaw away at them slowly, sometimes without really thinking. Once we have done it for drink-driving, we say, “Well, why don’t we do it for driving on drugs?” We then say, “Well, drugs are illegal anyway, so why not just test the whole population and see whether they are committing a criminal offence?” That might not be hugely popular in all our constituencies.
Counter-terrorism Review
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Mrs May
Yes, there are significant differences between the past and present situations. The curfews under the control order regime allow 16 hours of detention in the home. The overnight residence requirement will replace the curfews and there will be a requirement for people to stay normally in their nominated home overnight. Most people would consider a normal overnight residence to be eight to 10 hours, but we are not suggesting that we should put a figure in the legislation. That would be a matter for the courts to decide. There is a significant difference between the proposal we are making and the regime that the previous Government introduced.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Just like the “Grand Old Duchess of York”, the right hon. Lady marched the Liberal Democrats up a hill last May and has brought them back down again this week. On the specific issue of what she now calls the overnight residence requirement, does she not accept that if something acts like a curfew, looks like a curfew and sounds like a curfew, it is a curfew?