Yemen

Debate between Tom Brake and Stephen Twigg

Thursday 12th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

The hon. Lady anticipates my final remarks. She used the word “slow”, as did the Minister. I have used the word “glacial”. The process is too slow, and I look forward to hearing the Minister tell us at what point the British Government will take the view that we need to move to an independent inquiry. I quoted the Government saying six months ago that they were not opposed to calls for an independent international inquiry but that first and foremost they wanted to see the Saudi Arabian Government carry out their own investigation. This situation has pertained for 14 months. How much longer do we have to wait before we can move to an independent investigation?

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

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Ministry of Defence has delivered two training sessions in Saudi Arabia on the process of investigating alleged violations of international humanitarian law? I hope, as I am sure he does, that the MOD will have underlined the importance of dealing with these matters in an expedited manner.

[Stephen Twigg]

Absolutely, and I am sure that the Minister will have more to say on that when he speaks later. If it was the purpose of those sessions to remind all parties concerned that they have obligations under international humanitarian law, it is vital that those obligations should be fulfilled quickly.

The view taken by the International Development Committee and other Select Committees of this House was that we would only get the full investigation that we need if it was completely independent. It is now long overdue for us as a country to move to support a fully independent international investigation. It is simply not acceptable for us to wait indefinitely for the Saudi Arabians to conduct their own investigations while people are still dying in this conflict.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Tom Brake and Stephen Twigg

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

That is a subject of debate. If the returning officer in the constituency of Argyll and Bute, which has, I think, more islands than any other constituency, felt that 10 signing places was appropriate, it is difficult to envisage circumstances in which more than 10 would be required anywhere else in the country. There can always be a debate on whether that is the appropriate number. I hope that returning officers will ensure that, for their particular locality, the right number is chosen. I suspect that in my patch, if ever there were to be a recall petition in Carshalton and Wallington, two or three signing places would be the maximum required, as the constituency size is only about four by five miles. However, I have to say that such a petition will not be required in my constituency.

With these amendments, the Electoral Commission will be able to review every recall petition process to help ensure that the spending and donations rules are working in line with the principles. Lords amendment 31 corrects a minor and technical cross-reference in schedule 5 to the Bill.

I look forward to a short debate on these amendments, which I commend to the House.

[Stephen Twigg]

Let me start by apologising to the House, particularly to the right hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), that I was a little ahead of myself in addressing amendments 23 to 25, which are in the second grouping. I echo what the Deputy Leader of the House said by way of tribute to the right hon. Gentleman for his record of work in this House. He has sought not only to work for his constituents but to reconnect the House with the public, which is an important challenge for all of us.

The second group of amendments significantly improves the original legislation. As the Deputy Leader of the House has said, Lords amendment 18 would increase the number of places that the petition officer could designate in their constituency for signing the recall petition, from a maximum of four to a maximum of 10. That is welcome and should ensure that accessing a petition is not an overly difficult process for constituents. Amendment 19 would reduce the length of the period during which the recall petition is available, from eight to six weeks. We support that as it is combined with an increase in the number of signing places. Taken together, those amendments allow for easy access to the petition while giving a realistic time scale for the collection of signatures.

Lords amendment 26 is welcome. It removes the power for the Act itself to be amended by regulations. Lords amendment 32 is especially welcome and important as it requires the Electoral Commission to produce and publish a report on the recall petition process after the end of the petition period in relation to each recall petition. That is important because it enables us to learn from the process as it develops. This is a new and innovative feature of our political system. It is good that the Electoral Commission is tasked with producing and publishing such a report, so that we can learn lessons from each petition and, if necessary, make changes to improve public access to the process.

I agree that the Bill has been improved through the stages of scrutiny in this place and in the House of Lords. I believe it will play a part—probably quite a modest part—in improving the accountability of Parliament and Members of Parliament, and therefore play a small role in renewing our political institutions.

[Tom Brake]

With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I say that the amendments follow thorough scrutiny in both Houses and will improve the operation of recall petitions by encouraging participation and ensuring public confidence in the outcome. I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House for their constructive scrutiny of the Bill. I believe the Bill will provide our constituents with a further means of holding us to account—beyond the greater means that happen on 7 May—in the form of an additional tool that can be used where Members of Parliament have committed serious wrongdoing. I commend the amendments to the House.

Lords amendment 18 agreed to, with Commons financial privilege waived.

Lords amendments 19 to 32 agreed to.

House of Lords Reform

Debate between Tom Brake and Stephen Twigg

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Tom Brake]

That is not a decision that the Government took. It has not been possible to undertake the substantial reform that we wanted, so the Government have continued to appoint peers to ensure that the balance of peers and the parties that they represent is, broadly speaking, representative of that in the House of Commons.

I would like to pick up on some points that hon. Members have made. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire will be reassured to hear that he can call the other place the House of Lords. That is a minor change towards less deference, or at least greater clarity.

I get frustrated when hon. Members refer, as the hon. Gentleman did, to other major parties as “establishment” parties. The Scottish National party, which he represents, is very much an establishment party in Scotland; I am sure that some of his criticisms of the major parties here could be turned around and directed at him and his party in Scotland. I thank him for highlighting in his tweets what he was going to say in today’s debate. That gave us advance notice. Readers of Hansard will be able to judge for themselves whether the debate has been a good one, as he predicted it would be.

The hon. Gentleman said that only one peer had chosen to retire, but my understanding is that under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, five have chosen to retire. Before that, three peers retired under a voluntary retirement system. Earlier still—I am sure we agree that we would not particularly want to trumpet this—five peers retired because of the rules that required those who were not domiciled in the UK for tax purposes to retire. There have been some genuine retirements in addition to the one that he mentioned.

The hon. Gentleman referred, understandably, to the question of donors who have subsequently become peers. To return to my comment about his party being an establishment party, I am sure that the same degree of scrutiny is applied, for instance, to the relationship between the leader of the SNP and Brian Souter, and to the donations that the party receives through that route. Indeed, I hope that the relationship, and the two dozen meetings that took place, between Alex Salmond and Rupert Murdoch received the same degree of scrutiny as do donors here.

I commend the hon. Gentleman on his work for the Westminster Foundation for Democracy—something that I have done in the past—which is an essential organisation that provides support to parties outside the UK. I agree that it is difficult for him as a trustee, as it was for me, to explain to other countries around the world why we have the House of Lords. I understand the difficult position in which that puts him.

I agree with all the key principles that the hon. Gentleman set out. However, I understood him to say that he did not want the House of Lords to initiate any legislation. If that is his position, I hope that he has considered the fact that such a system would present some significant logistical issues for the House of Commons legislative programme. If all legislation was required to start in the House of Commons, either there would have to be much less legislation or Members of Parliament would have to work much longer on the legislative programme and spend a lot less time in their constituencies.

We all agree with the hon. Gentleman that we want a modern, democratic Chamber. Slightly lacking in his speech was the bit in between—the route map that will take us from our concerns about the present system to the creation of a modern, democratic Chamber. That is the difficulty that we all face. The solution proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) was a federal UK Parliament with four national Parliaments. That has the advantage of being a straightforward solution, but there are significant risks associated with it. For instance, the Scottish Government has led to more centralisation in Scotland, and I am concerned that the simple solution of an English Parliament might suck powers upwards into such a Parliament, which is the exact opposite of what I want to achieve.

[Stephen Twigg]

indicated assent.

[Tom Brake]

I believe that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) agrees. I would like to see genuine devolution to communities. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster that English votes for English laws, or proportional English votes for English laws, must move hand in hand with devolution. The knock-on effect on House of Lords reform must also be taken into account.

My hon. Friend had a pop at the Liberal Democrats for swelling the number of special advisers. On the cost of politics, I am sure he is aware that the number of ministerial limos is down. Ministers’ pay has been cut by 5%. Some Ministers—I do not know whether this was the case when the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby was Deputy Leader of the House—have unpaid ministerial roles. Successful attempts have been made to cut the cost of politics.

On the West Lothian question, we all agree that something has to be done, but the question is what is deliverable. There was agreement in party manifestos on the need for House of Lords reform, but when it came to doing it, it was not possible to get people to agree because although some, like me, were willing to make compromises, others were not.

The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) said that he believed the solution to the House of Lords question would have been for the Deputy Prime Minister to press a different programme motion. I assure him that that sort of thing was considered at the time; if it had been the solution, it would have been done. I hope that his karma does not suffer too much from being shanghaied by the feng shui of rearranging our constitutional settlement. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is not in his place, highlighted the need to reduce the number of people in the second Chamber, which is something that we all support.

This has been an interesting and instructive debate, which has engaged questions that go to the heart of our constitution. I am sure that the next Government will return to the matter alongside other key constitutional questions. I hope—as does, I believe, the majority of the House—that a degree of consensus sufficient to support real reform will, at last, be forthcoming.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Debate between Tom Brake and Stephen Twigg

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

Clause 26 sets out the test that third parties need to meet in order to incur controlled expenditure. There has been extensive comment from a number of bodies, such as charities and voluntary organisations, that the Bill will capture their ordinary campaigning activities. That was not the case. However, the Government gave an undertaking in Committee to revert to a test based on the wording of the existing legislation, which provides that controlled expenditure is only that

“which can reasonably be regarded as intended”

to promote or procure the electoral success of parties or candidates. The Government’s amendments meet that commitment.

I would like to thank the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the Electoral Commission and others for the constructive discussion we have had in relation to the amendments. I accept that there is not total agreement on our amendments, but I know that the NCVO, for instance, is at least partially happy about the proposals we have come forward with.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Deputy Leader of the House will have seen the letter today from Sir Stuart Etherington of NCVO, which states:

“Simply returning to the previous form of words does not solve the problem… In our view, the assurances given by ministers on the floor of the house that charities campaigning on policy issues will not be affected have not been met”.

[Tom Brake]

I am aware of that, but I am equally aware that Karl Wilding, the NCVO’s director of public policy, said yesterday that it is partially happy about what the Government have done and that we have made some progress. [Interruption.] Yes, I accept that it is partially happy, but it is worth remembering that one of the NCVO’s other concerns, as highlighted in its letter, is the PPERA legislation, which goes back to 2000, under the previous Government. It may be pertinent to remind the Labour party what the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), said:

“In terms of the day-to-day non-campaigning part of their activity, third parties will not be caught by the provision but, if they seek to influence an election, which is the expenditure in question, our proposed arrangements are reasonable.”—[Official Report, 10 January 2000; Vol. 342, c. 41.]

That is very much our view. We are in the same place.

I know that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) is new to his position, but I am sure that he will have been told in his briefing that, in response to a request from one of my right hon. Friends, the Government undertook to ensure that we reverted to the definition applied in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. That is precisely what we have done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. That campaign was clearly run on the basis of PPERA, which is what we are reverting to. If the Royal British Legion said, “We are endorsing a candidate who has supported our position and encourage people to vote for them,” it would be caught. [Interruption.] Of course it would be caught, because it would be procuring the electoral success of a party or candidate. If it intended doing such a thing in the 2015 general election, it could choose to register as a non-party organisation and spend £390,000 across the country running that campaign. However, I question whether the Royal British Legion would want to be in such a position.

[Stephen Twigg]

rose—

[Tom Brake]

I will give way once more, then I need to make progress.

[Stephen Twigg]

Will the Minister respond to the specific point raised earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) about the Royal British Legion campaign? In that case, what might apply in England, Wales and Scotland would for obvious reasons not apply in Northern Ireland.

[Tom Brake]

What applies in Northern Ireland could equally apply in Scotland, England or Wales. It would all depend on whether the Royal British Legion in Northern Ireland was in some way or other promoting or procuring the electoral success of a party or candidate. If it was doing that, it could be caught. If, for instance, it was promoting or procuring the electoral support of a number of candidates because a number had endorsed its message, that would also be deducted from its spend as a third-party organisation if it was promoting the electoral success of a party or candidate. As I said, I doubt whether the Royal British Legion would want to be in the position of promoting a party or candidate. That is not what it does.

[Tom Brake]

That is absolutely the point. I would make a stronger point. In all the conversations that I have had with charities, they have gone to great extremes to underline the fact that as charities they do not campaign for the electoral success of a party or candidate because the Charity Commission would stop their charitable status if they were seen to be campaigning politically. They do not do that, so the argument that the threshold or total national cap is being dropped or will in some way inhibit charities is not true.

Charities do not campaign for the electoral success of a party or candidate so the threshold would not apply and they would not need to keep details of controlled expenditure. [Interruption.] I find it hard to believe that the question is still being asked. Charities are not affected by the Bill because they do not campaign for electoral success.

The Government amendments meet the commitment we made in Committee, and I thank the organisations that we have worked with on the issue. We believe our amendments provide clarification and reassurance to charities, voluntary organisations, community groups and other campaigners that their normal engagement with public policy will not be subject to regulation as long as it cannot reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure the electoral success of a party or candidate.

By reverting to the existing terminology, amendment 32 achieves the aim of making the test for controlled expenditure one that has been in existence since 2000. I have seen continued comment from some organisations that the rules will prevent charities and other campaigners from making their views known. Those objections are based not on what is being done in the Bill but on the rules already set out in PPERA. Those rules have been in place for a number of elections, including the 2005 and 2010 general elections. I am sure that everyone on both sides would agree that, during those elections, charities and other campaigners were not prevented from engaging and influencing public policy.

[Stephen Twigg]

Why change it then?

[Tom Brake]

I will come to that. Others in the House will know from experience that campaigners make their views abundantly clear at election time, as they should.

In answer to the sedentary intervention from the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, I should say that we are changing the controlled expenditure provisions because the Electoral Commission asked us to bring in line the controlled expenditure that applies to third- party organisations to that which applies to political parties. Do the Opposition believe that the current ability for an individual or group of organisations to spend a large amount in one parliamentary constituency is acceptable, or do they think that it should be controlled, as we do?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake]

I am not aware of a list of defined organisations. If hon. Members look at the list of third-party organisations that registered in 2010 and 2005 they might be able to draw some conclusions about which annual conferences I have in mind.

As I have said, the Government believe that the amendments provide the clarity and reassurance that charities, voluntary organisations and the Electoral Commission have sought. We are aware that campaigners will want to understand how to comply with the provisions of the regulatory regime as amended by the Bill. Just as it has for previous elections, the independent regulator, the Electoral Commission, will develop and produce guidance to inform campaigners what expenditure it is likely to consider to be regulated or not regulated. The Government stand ready to support this work.

Amendment 101, tabled by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), seeks, along broadly similar lines to Government amendment 32, to revise the definition of “for election purposes” to be activity which can reasonably be regarded as promoting or procuring the success of a party or candidate. However, the amendment would also introduce a new primary purpose test, which the Government cannot support. Such a test would be likely to create greater regulatory uncertainty and an obvious avenue for avoidance activity that could fatally undermine these rules, which are supported in principle by the hon. Gentleman’s party.

The concerns of campaigners and the Electoral Commission on the introduction of the draft Bill was that the revised language was untested and caused uncertainty. Our purpose in reverting to the original PPERA test is to address those concerns by reintroducing a test with which the commission and campaigners are familiar, and on which the commission has existing guidance and experience. Introducing a new and untested primary purpose test would completely undermine those benefits. Rather than having the clear test of whether the expenditure can be reasonably regarded as intended to promote electoral success there would be two tests: can it be so regarded and is it also the primary purpose? The opportunity for uncertainty and legal challenge would only be increased by the following questions. What is the primary purpose of your campaign? Is it to promote the issue or to promote those who support your issue? That is an additional test which does nothing to provide the clarity that campaigners say they want.

Perhaps more damaging is the opportunity for avoidance. The primary purpose of an environmental organisation’s advertising campaign might be claimed to be to recruit new members and encourage donations, but it might also urge support for its preferred party. It may be said that the primary purpose is to protect animal welfare, but that may be done only by encouraging support for particular candidates. Those are activities that are and ought to be regulated. The primary purpose test would drive a coach and horses through the legislation. Groups carrying out these activities have previously undertaken campaigning as recognised third parties, which is perfectly appropriate: they can campaign without restrictions. Under the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, however, all could be potentially excluded from registration. The Government have responded to concerns from the Electoral Commission and other groups that the test for controlled expenditure needs to be clear. The amendment would introduce unwanted uncertainty for campaigners.

The amendment would also create a loophole in the law that third parties could use as an avenue for avoidance and that would undermine the regulatory regime. That is not just my or the Government’s view. The Electoral Commission has expressed concerns that the amendment would introduce a new subjective element test which could lead to significant regulatory difficulty. It has also stated that it does not support an exemption for charities from these rules. I urge the hon. Gentleman not to press his amendment.

[Stephen Twigg]

May I first put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) and the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), have led on the Bill until now? I also welcome to his post the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), whom I will be shadowing in my new role.

I have heard very little today to change the view I held before the debate started that part 2 of the Bill is little more than a gag on charities and campaigners which, as hon. Members of all parties have said, both today and during the Bill’s earlier stages, will have a chilling effect on our national political debate. Earlier my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly reminded the House that the Bill underwent no pre-legislative scrutiny, and doesn’t it show? Given that it was published just before the summer recess, it is to the particular credit of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), that it was able to give the Bill a degree of scrutiny and table a number of constructive amendments in September and today. What we are left with from the Government is a half-baked set of proposals that pose a real danger of causing more harm than good. It is clear from the widespread concerns raised by charities and campaigning organisations that the lack of consultation and full scrutiny will limit their activities in practice—not in furthering political objectives, but simply in meeting their own charitable objectives.

I listened very carefully to the Deputy Leader of the House’s speeches on this and the previous group of amendments. Nothing that he said has changed the sense I had in preparing for today’s debate that part 2 is a solution in search of a problem.

As the Minister has rightly reminded us, the previous Labour Government introduced a cap on third-party spending, because we do not want to go down the American route of unaccountable organisations spending vast sums of money. We introduced the cap and have no objection to a tough cap on third-party spending. However, the big money in British politics is not third-party spending but spending by the political parties. At the last election, political parties spent 10 times more than third parties. If the Government were serious—[Interruption.] The Leader of the House heckles me from a sedentary position—I cannot quite hear what he is saying—but if he and the Conservative party in particular are serious, why do they not confront their reliance on a tiny number of wealthy donors from the City of London? There is nothing on that in the Bill, which is supposedly about getting the big money out of politics.

In the 2010 general election, political parties nationally spent £31 million; third-party campaigners spent £3 million. The biggest third-party expenditure was 4% of the £17 million spent by the Conservative party, which spent the same as all the other parties and all the third parties added together. Let us be clear: if the Government were serious about taking big money out of politics, they would consider ideas such as a reduction in the overall expenditure cap for political parties during election years and the introduction of a £5,000 cap on donations to political parties.

[Tom Brake]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Twigg]

I will give way when I have made this point. This Government—[Interruption.] Do I get a permanent commentary on my speeches from the Leader of the House? I will get used to it. The Government have wasted an opportunity to tackle the real problem of big money in politics, and thereby ripped up a cross-party approach to party political funding.

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Gentleman will know that no agreement has been reached on party funding, but the Liberal Democrats would clearly welcome one. The Committee on Standards in Public Life has said that the overall controlled expenditure cap is generous, but does the Labour party believe that it should be reduced or that it is set at the right level?

[Stephen Twigg]

I will come to that, but I am not aware of a problem. When an hon. Friend intervened, we did not get an answer from the Minister on whether there is an example in practice of the limit being too high. However, the Opposition do not have a closed mind on a proper cross-party, evidence-based debate on the matter. We do not believe the Government have done that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Twigg]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that one risk is that the Bill will result in litigation and a shift in the use of moneys that charities would otherwise use to fulfil their charitable objectives. However, I think that the situation might be worse. As I have said, nothing that I have heard today has changed my view, which has been expressed by other Labour Front Benchers, that many organisations will be gagged because they will simply stop their campaigning work owing to their fears about the legislation. [Interruption.] The Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House can shake their heads, but that is what organisations fear. That is deeply unhealthy for our democracy.

In conclusion, will the Government amendments mean that issue-based campaigning will be excluded from the regulations? From Ros Baston and other lawyers it is an unequivocal “no”. Secondly, and crucial to today’s discussion, will the amendments make any significant changes to the categories of activities to be covered by regulation? Ros Baston finds that the changes will not improve the clarity of proposed regulation, and indeed are likely to result in new uncertainties. In other words, instead of making progress, the Government amendments risk making a bad situation even worse.

We have already heard about the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which the Deputy Leader of the House said was partially happy. I invite colleagues to read the letter, dated today, from Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the NCVO. He states:

“The Leader of the House suggests that at both the 2005 and 2010 election this wording has not prevented charities and voluntary organisations from campaigning and influencing policy…The Leader misses an important point. At previous elections the definition of controlled expenditure only applied to ‘election material’ (a much narrower category of activity) and expenditure thresholds were set at reasonable and workable levels. The Bill in its current form has significantly expanded the list of activities, and considerably lowered the threshold. The overall effect will therefore be that more charities and voluntary organisations will be subject to the enhanced and much more onerous rules.”

[Tom Brake]

I am afraid that the phrase I have repeated many times will get repeated again. Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that charities and voluntary organisations do not campaign for the electoral success of a party or candidates, and therefore will not be caught by controlled expenditure?

[Stephen Twigg]

If that is the case, why are we having this conversation and debate? If there is no issue, why have the Government brought this Bill before the House, unless there is something about which they are concerned?

As others have said, there is a real risk of a chilling effect on our national debate given the timing and rush of this Bill. The Minister has acknowledged that the Government are in a rush to get the legislation in place for the 2015 general election, and inevitably people will think that they are trying to insulate their own record, MPs and candidates from legitimate democratic criticism. A number of high-profile campaigns could have been stymied by the legislation, such as that run by the National Union of Students in 2010 on tuition fees, the equal marriage campaign by Stonewall, or, as many Members have said, the Royal British Legion military covenant campaign.

At a time when trust in politics is at an all-time low, why are the Government bringing forward a measure that could restrict the one part of our politics that is doing a good job of engaging people? As well as having a chilling effect on debate, the Bill could also allow this Government, and future Governments, to escape scrutiny on their record and policies. To pluck an example of interest to the Liberal Democrats, might it stop the National Union of Students from holding them to account for how they voted on tuition fees, stop organisations such as the excellent Family and Childcare Trust from highlighting how the Government have driven up the cost of child care for working families, or stop the Royal College of Nursing from warning the public about the impact of Government health policies?

The Royal British Legion was mentioned earlier in the debate, and its circular makes an incredibly powerful case about the weakness of the Government amendment. The Royal British Legion remains

“unconvinced that legitimate awareness-raising activities won’t be captured by the revised definition”.

The Electoral Commission’s own briefing confirms those concerns:

“activity does not have to be ‘party political’ for its costs to be regulated.”

Is it really the Government’s intention for the excellent work of organisations such as the Royal British Legion to be curtailed because of this hastily thrown together Bill? Surely it is not. Had they undertaken proper pre-legislative scrutiny—a case made powerfully by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee—they would have discovered the problems that this clause and this part of the Bill will create.

Government Reductions in Policing

Debate between Tom Brake and Stephen Twigg

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

rose—

[Tom Brake]

Perhaps one could argue that the Liberal Democrats had that obsession too. I am very happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I may have pre-empted his point.

[Stephen Twigg]

I am grateful. In the light of the hon. Gentleman’s comments, does he regret the commitment that he stood on last May of 3,000 additional police officers?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point, and I apologise for pre-empting it. However, I said at the beginning of my speech that the circumstances that we are in have required all parties to reappraise any prior commitments in their manifestos. Quite simply, as the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury said, there is no money.

I turn back to the previous Government’s record. Jan Berry, as the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) mentioned, said about police bureaucracy:

“I would estimate one-third of effort is either over-engineered, duplicated or adds no additional value.”

She was the person whom the previous Government chose to examine bureaucracy, and that was her assessment of police effort.

Police

Debate between Tom Brake and Stephen Twigg

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his rather predictable intervention, but immediately before it I was explaining—he clearly was not listening—why the Government are having to take these decisions. He and the former Ministers on the Opposition Front Bench must accept responsibility for that.

I listened carefully to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), because we expect the Opposition to come forward with some solutions, but during her speech I detected only one sentence in which she referred to the £1 billion of cuts that they would make and said that they would do something about back-office functions and procurement. So that is the Opposition’s solution. That is the one sentence that the Opposition’s spokesperson provided, stating how they, if in government, would have resolved the problems that we face.

[Stephen Twigg]

Will the hon. Gentleman not acknowledge that, in that one sentence—I think it was more than one sentence—of my right hon. Friend’s speech, she referred specifically to the report of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary? The figure is not one that we have plucked off the top of our heads; it is based on the HMIC’s view of the savings that can be made without damaging front-line services.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Of course he is right, and the Government have based their measures on the HMIC report as well, but people who read and listen to this debate will want to hear exactly what impact HMIC’s recommendations, if implemented, will have on, for example, staff numbers, a point to which the official Opposition’s spokesperson did not respond. She ducked and dived on that point.

The Opposition can pretend that the £40 billion of cuts that they intended making, including 20% cuts throughout Departments, would have gone unnoticed, would have had no impact on front-line services and would have left police forces throughout the country unscathed, but we know, they know and people outside know that that is completely untrue.

There is no point disguising the fact that the settlement is tough. That is true, and it impacts on police budgets. As the Minister said, in 2011-12 there is a 4% reduction in cash terms. In 2012-13, there is a 5% reduction, but, thanks to the HMIC report and the measures that police forces are already taking throughout the country, much of the reduction can be made through greater efficiency.

Police forces are already delivering many examples of such efficiency. In one local example, Sutton and Merton police forces are looking at sharing a custody suite, and if successful in those two force areas, the idea might be rolled out across the whole Met police force area and in others further afield. That is exactly the sort of measure that police forces and police authorities should pursue.

The Minister quite rightly identified what is possible through IT systems savings and, as I said in an intervention, we can derive not only cash savings from that source, but great improvements in efficiency and the likelihood of resolving cases, as the communications problems between different systems are addressed.

One issue that I raised in the previous debate, and on which I hope the Minister has had time to do some work, is training for senior officers. The HMIC report identifies that there was no commonly held belief that those officers needed a detailed understanding of how to ensure that the efficiency savings—the mergers—took place effectively. The Government, HMIC or others might be able to assist with training to ensure that officers are equipped to take such tough decisions, because there are real differences between forces’ proposals.

Some forces are coming forward with a headline figure for the number of officers they are going to cut, while others are coming forward with a range of options—particularly on back-office and procurement—that could identify significant savings without the need to cut staff numbers, which some forces seem to have gone for as the first rather than the last resort.

I want to raise some specific Met issues. The Minister will be aware that the force has not yet taken a decision to cut sergeant numbers by 300; it is considering the idea, but it says it

“will be directed by final analysis and must reflect operational delivery.”

I urge the Met to maintain those officer numbers, but if that is not possible, to look at some of the proposals that I mentioned, particularly on sharing back-office functions, joint custody suites and the like to ensure that the number of police officers in the safer neighbourhood teams is maintained at the level at which it is currently set.

Equally, as I said earlier, safer neighbourhood teams may be undertaking tasks that are not their responsibility. I mentioned the example of drive-outs from petrol stations, which are taking up an inordinate amount of time in the case of at least one of my safer neighbourhood teams. After I raised that case, the local force have asked to meet me to discuss it as a wider issue, so it clearly affects not just one safer neighbourhood team but several in the borough. If a large proportion of their time is spent trying to deal with a problem that the petrol companies should be able to resolve technologically, we should look at the issue carefully to try to free up officer time to concentrate on things that really do need police intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Twigg]

Absolutely; I concur with my hon. Friend. Of course, that is not the only promise that the Liberal Democrats made to the British people last May that they have broken. They made that promise knowing, as my hon. Friend said, what the Budget position was. It was a deeply irresponsible pledge to make.

[Tom Brake]

Does the hon. Gentleman not also agree that it would have been appropriate for the Labour Government to announce that the structural deficit was £12 billion higher than they led the public to believe?

[Stephen Twigg]

The figures were very much in the public domain. To be fair to the Conservative party, it did say that it would prioritise cuts. There is a specific issue about the Liberal Democrats having said one thing in opposition and saying the complete opposite now that they are part of the coalition Government.

Consular Services

Debate between Tom Brake and Stephen Twigg

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

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

I welcome the opportunity to hold this debate. I would like to start by reporting my personal experience of a number of harrowing or complex cases, such as that of Mr Khadum al Sarraj—an Iraqi national married to a British citizen, Shereen Nasser—who was detained at Camp Cropper in Baghdad. He was fortunately released eventually, and is now safe in the UK. There are also the cases of Mr El Mahdy, who is currently detained in a police station in Qatar; Mr Neil Juwaheer, who died in suspicious circumstances in a police cell in Brazil; and Robbie Hughes, who was very badly beaten in an attack in Malia in Crete. I want to dwell on the last two cases at some length.

The death, serious injury or detention of a loved one abroad can be the most traumatic experience anyone is likely to face in a lifetime. It is easy to see why. One is stranded in a foreign country with all the language barriers that brings, the cultural barriers, the different legal systems, often dwindling financial resources and corruption in the legal service of the country or within the police. It is clear why it can be a devastating experience for a family. I would like to consider two cases in some depth.

First, there is the case of Neil Juwaheer. My constituents, the Juwaheers, live in Carshalton, and their son, Neil, died in suspicious circumstances while in police custody in Brazil. The Brazilian tourist police report included a statement that a torn package of drug powder was found in his body—and that caused the death by chemical intoxication—a claim that is disputed by the family and by an autopsy that they had carried out. They allege that their son was in fact restrained in a cruel and barbaric way by strapping him up with antenna wire, and was beaten, and that was what probably caused his death while in detention in Brazil.

I first raised the matter with the Brazil desk of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2007. At that point I raised concerns about the family’s inability to get closure on their son’s death, because the process in Brazil is so slow. I tried to identify what further the FCO might be able to do to support the family. Kim Howells, the then Minister, set out in his response in October 2007 what the FCO had been able to do—the consul had assisted the family when they made a visit to Brazil—and confirmed that the Brazilian police were continuing their investigation, though that would take time. He added that the British Government will only consider intervention if the investigation takes longer than the norm for a Brazilian national. I will shortly come back to that point. Mr Juwaheer was provided with a list of English-speaking lawyers, and it was suggested that he should seek legal advice in Brazil and consider appointing a lawyer, which he then did.

I followed that up with a further letter to the then Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband), in February 2008. I set out again the alleged circumstances of the death, explained that Mr Juwaheer had followed the FCO advice, in getting in touch with and securing the assistance of a lawyer in Brazil. I went on to set out why I thought there were reasons for the FCO to get involved in the case. It was not just a routine case as far as the Brazilian police or judicial system were concerned. I set out the concerns that we had about some aspects of the case. For instance, the head of the Brazilian CID, who was investigating the case, had been suspended, and it was alleged that he had been responsible for the deaths of other people. Two autopsies were deemed inconclusive, although miraculously, later, the alleged package that was supposed to contain drugs materialised after the autopsies had been completed. There were allegations that Mr Juwaheer, when he died, was foaming at the mouth, but that can be a symptom of asthma, not drug abuse. If it was suggested that he had been having a seizure, why was he not sent to hospital, as opposed to being detained at the police station? Why was he inappropriately and tightly wrapped up in antenna wire, leaving severe marks on his body which showed up in the autopsy? The autopsy that the family had carried out suggested that he had been beaten and had died. There was some difference of opinion between the autopsies about whether he died a violent death or from an overdose. Clearly, there were a large number of suspicious circumstances that surrounded this death. Even for the Brazilian police and legal system, this must have been an atypical case.

I again took it up with the FCO and, I am afraid to say, simply got a letter repeating the content of a previous reply, setting out that the FCO could do nothing because the case was being dealt with in the way that the Brazilian legal system would deal with it. I want to come back to the question about the British Government only considering intervention if the investigation takes longer than the norm for a Brazilian national. I do not know whether the Minister, when he replies, will be able to set out what he thinks the norm is in relation to a case involving a Brazilian national. One could argue that if the norm for a Brazilian case was to take 20 years, perhaps the FCO would still feel duty bound to get involved to some extent, because I think we would all want to support intervention in cases where a legal system has either clearly failed or is dragged out to such an extent that it is clear that nobody is going to get justice at the end of the process.

The second case I would like to refer to is that of Robbie Hughes. The matter is subject to a court case in Crete at the moment, so I will be careful what I say. The facts are known of what happened and are widely documented. He was seriously injured during an attack in Malia in Crete. It is alleged that his attackers may have been British tourists. His mother is a constituent of mine and made contact with me while she was out there, after she had flown out to Greece to support him. She encountered all the problems that the Juwaheer family had encountered, in terms of trying to overcome the language barrier, dealing the Greek police, dealing with a hospital environment, of which frankly British tourists need to be aware. If they are going to Greece, they need to make some insurance preparations, because if they end up in a Greek national health service facility they are going to be rather shocked by what they find. Certainly, Maggie Hughes was incredibly shocked by what she found and the level of care that was being provided to her son. As a result of what happened to Robbie, she has set up an organisation called Please Enjoy, Don’t Destroy, and is campaigning on these issues.

In defence of the FCO staff, Maggie Hughes said they were as helpful as possible. However, they were grossly overstretched and had six people who were trying to cover all of the Greek islands. If you imagine what the Greek islands are like in the summer with hundreds of thousands of Brits over there holidaying, six people to cover that area is not sufficient. What that meant was that the FCO was ringing my constituent Maggie Hughes and saying, in effect, “We are aware of a British family; something dreadful has happened to their son or daughter. Would you be willing to make contact with them and help them and provide support?” She did not object to that; she was happy to do it; she had been through that experience. However, one has to question whether it is entirely appropriate for the FCO to call on British residents when they are abroad to seek their support for British citizens who have either been injured or seriously affected by an incident abroad.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate today. Two weeks ago at Prime Minister’s questions, I had the opportunity to raise with the Prime Minister the case of Gary Dunne from my constituency, who was murdered in Spain. The Prime Minister kindly agreed to meet Gary’s parents, Steve and Lesley, who have been campaigning on issues arising from that experience in a very similar fashion to the constituents whom the hon. Gentleman mentioned.

One aspect of the Dunnes’ experience in Spain was precisely the lack of efficiency in the consular response in dealing with the family following Gary’s murder. So I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and I hope that, when the Minister responds, there will be reference to the need for greater efficiency and speed in dealing with cases such as those described by the hon. Gentleman and that of my former constituent, Gary Dunne.

[Tom Brake]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As he confirmed, he is simply seeking to reinforce these points about what support can be given to families. I think that we would agree that the type of support that we are talking about is not the FCO and consular staff getting involved to help someone when they have lost their passport. These are cases in which someone has been murdered or perhaps seriously injured as a result of a car accident, an attack or something else of that nature. So we are talking about a relatively small group of people and not about each and every British citizen who encounters some difficulty while they are abroad.

My involvement with Maggie and Robbie Hughes led to Maggie and me holding a meeting in Parliament at the end of last year. I have a copy of the report that was produced after that meeting, which I will hand to the Minister at the end of this debate. The report just sums up the recommendations we made at the end of that meeting. There should be a copy of the report within the FCO already, because Julian Braithwaite, the director of consular services, attended that meeting, and I am sure that he was sent a copy of the report afterwards. However, I will give the Minister another copy so that he has it to hand in case the first one has been mislaid.

So what do we suggest should be done? First, let me say that I am not the only one making these suggestions, nor is it just the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), who just intervened on me, and nor is it just Maggie Hughes and Mrs Juwaheer. Organisations such as Support After Murder and Manslaughter Abroad and indeed the National Policing Improvement Agency also support the recommendations made in the report. We came up with many of them after that meeting, which was with families who have been affected by either the murder or the involvement in a serious accident of a loved one abroad.

I will outline those recommendations. First, the FCO needs to provide more information about the services that it offers. I am pleased that, following Maggie’s intervention, the FCO website has been improved in terms of the level of information that it provides. Secondly, the FCO needs to provide more help in getting family members to wherever their loved ones are abroad. Occasionally, the family involved will have difficulty in physically getting to the place where the incident occurred.

Thirdly, the FCO should help to report crime to the local police and obtain police reports. That was clearly a big issue for some families who attended the meeting, because the police that they had dealt with were refusing to accept that a crime had been committed. Fourthly, the FCO should intervene if no police action is forthcoming. Fifthly, the FCO should challenge police corruption. Sixthly, the FCO should be able to provide information and assistance in serious cases, and I think that that is perhaps the crunch point. We are talking about the relatively small number of people who experience a real tragedy abroad. Furthermore, I would add to that recommendation in our report that there should be an agreed level of service, clearly setting out what different Departments and agencies are responsible for.

I acknowledge that by restricting this type of support to people involved in the most serious cases there will be other people on the margins who will perhaps feel let down by the FCO, even if the FCO makes the improvements that we suggest. Nevertheless, we have got to be realistic about what is achievable, particularly in the present climate. Therefore, I am afraid that there will be families who will miss out, even though they may feel—perhaps rightly—that their cases were as serious as some of the other cases that we have referred to.

Seventhly, the FCO should provide a translation service, or know where such a service can be secured. Simply providing a list of lawyers or a list of translators is not actually the same as providing access to a legal or translation service. Eighthly, the FCO should strengthen or resurrect a network of honorary consuls able to provide local knowledge to support victims and their families at a time of crisis.

Coincidentally, because our meeting was principally about Greece—that was not our intention, but the families who came had principally experienced some tragedy in Greece—there are a number of recommendations about how the Greek police and authorities should work together with the British police. However, I think that those recommendations are applicable to whichever country we are talking about.

So, the report made a strong recommendation that a victim’s family member should attend any joint meetings between Greek and UK police, or between other Greek and UK authorities, so that the family member can provide some insight about what it actually means to a family when such an incident occurs.

There is one other aspect that is clearly not relevant to the Juwaheer case but is very relevant to what happens in places such as Malia in Crete. It relates to what the FCO can do with tour operators, and I know that the previous Minister in the last Government who I dealt with, Kim Howells, worked hard on this issue. The FCO should work with the tour operators to establish what more they can do to try to ensure that the people who are going abroad to have a happy time actually have a happy time and do not end up very seriously injured as a result of binge drinking. Even now, Maggie Hughes, who has been out to Greece on a regular basis, is still hearing of or even overhearing tour operators or tour reps encouraging people to visit Greece, by saying, “Go there, it’s really cheap and you can get completely blotto for next to nothing.” We need to clamp down on the tour operators and ensure that they understand that they have a real responsibility to tackle binge drinking and certainly should not be promoting it, as some of them still appear to be doing.

Also, there may be more work that tour operators can do in relation to insurance, because even if British people are travelling to EU countries the level of care that they will receive in some hospitals in those countries can be absolutely dire, and if they do not have the right level of insurance they will have a really nasty shock if they turn up at one of those hospitals.

Since we produced that report last year, I know that Victim Support has set up a national homicide service, which was started under the previous Government. That service provides one-to-one support for families who have been affected by murder or manslaughter. I wonder what progress has been made on that initiative, and I also wonder whether it applies to victims of murder or manslaughter abroad and not just to victims of murder or manslaughter in the UK.

Before I conclude, there is another issue that I want to bring to the Minister’s attention. More information needs to be made available about the fact that legal aid is available to UK citizens in EU countries. That legal aid is not always going to be as much as one would like, but it is available and people need to know that it is available because at the moment they do not.

To conclude, I just want to say that it cannot be right that—as the recently departed Brazilian ambassador to the UK, Carlos Augusto Santos-Neves, said—there are 22 British embassy staff in Brazil working on climate change and none of them is helping to support people such as the Juwaheers. Equally, as I said earlier, there are only six British diplomatic staff covering the Greek islands, which meant that my constituent, Maggie Hughes, had to intervene to provide support to other British families.

I know that the FCO is working within a tight budget, but I hope that the Minister will be able to provide some comfort to the Juwaheer family, the Hughes family and the hundreds of other families represented by organisations such as SAMM Abroad that in future the support that such families will receive will be more timely, more effective and more comprehensive at their time of greatest need than many families have experienced in the past.