National Crime Agency

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Yes, another day, another Home Office statement and, sadly, yet another similar response from the shadow Home Secretary. Indeed, she repeated many of the phrases that she used in her response to yesterday’s Prevent statement. She really needs to go away and think very carefully about what we mean by a cross-government organised crime strategy. She said that the previous Government had such a strategy because it set up SOCA and because SOCA existed, but we are talking about bringing together all the strands of law enforcement, including law enforcement agencies and police forces, that deal with organised crime. We are developing a comprehensive, coherent cross-government approach to dealing with organised crime. That is an organised crime strategy, which is not what the previous Government had.

I accept that SOCA has been doing good work and we want to build on that as part of the organised crime command within the new National Crime Agency, but there are other areas of crime that we need greater focus on. Yes, we need to look more closely at what is happening on our borders and to enhance our ability to bring together various agencies that have responsibility for and operate on the borders. We need to do that in conjunction with organisations such as the organised crime command and CEOP to ensure that we have the advantage of using not only the intelligence capability that will be at the centre of the NCA but the synergies that will be available when those agencies work properly together.

We will also be setting up a new economic crime command. There is a need in this country to look much more closely at economic crime. There is a whole swathe of what could be called middle-level economic crime that we have not dealt with appropriately and properly in the past, and the economic crime command will enable us to put a clear focus on that. It will enable us to ensure that the various agencies dealing with economic crime are working together, are co-ordinated and are working to the same priorities. It will also enable us to ensure that resources are being put in the right place, at the right time, where they are needed. This is a new development and a very important one in enhancing our work on economic crime. Indeed, it will not wait until the NCA is set up. Within the next few months we will establish a co-ordinating board on economic crime which will already start that important work. This is a powerful new crime-fighting body which I believe will make a real difference to our ability to deal with organised crime.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I welcome the focus that the NCA will place on tackling organised crime, and the creation of the border command. We need the NCA to be set up seamlessly. Can the Home Secretary set out how the Government will minimise the disruption caused by the structural change and maximise the speed with which the NCA becomes fully operational and effective?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for an important question. The establishment of the NCA will require legislation. We aim for that legislation to be in place so that the NCA can be fully operational in 2013, but we believe that this is an important area and that we need to start working before then. The transition to the NCA can be eased by work such as developing the organised crime strategy, starting to develop the co-ordination capability on organised crime within the Home Office, which we are doing and, as I have just indicated, starting to develop the co-ordination capacity in relation to economic crime. These are the precursors for a more seamless transition to the NCA.

As we develop the agency, we intend to establish a position for an individual who will head the work. An individual at chief constable level will be appointed fairly soon—within the next few months—and will be able to work within the Home Office over the period before the NCA is set up. At that point there will be a transition for a permanent individual to be established as the head of the NCA.

We want to learn lessons—for example, from the setting up of SOCA, where there were some difficulties in terms of personnel and their move over to SOCA. We will be looking at the lessons to be learned from that.