Child Abuse Inquiry

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement to the House today.

Two years ago this month, the Home Secretary came to the House to announce investigations into abuse in north Wales care homes. I asked her then if she would set up an overarching inquiry into child abuse. In July this year, she rightly agreed to do so and said that she wanted it to start as quickly as possible. Four months later, that inquiry has not started and has been mired by confusion. I therefore welcome the changes she has announced today and her apology to survivors of abuse for the things that have gone wrong.

This House will be united in our determination that this inquiry should get back on track. For too long, children have not been listened to when they called for help. From the BBC to the national health service, from care homes to the police, from local councils to national Governments of all political parties, no institution or organisation should be complacent about how they may have failed in the past, or might be failing even now, to make sure that children are heard and protected, that criminals are brought to justice, that problems are not covered up, and that survivors get the support they need. No one should be in any doubt about the deep damage that abuse causes to those survivors for the rest of their lives. To get the inquiry back on track, we also need to recognise the things that went wrong, because it is vital that it does not fail again.

First, much more work is needed to involve survivors. I welcome the further announcements the Home Secretary has made today. The Home Secretary was specifically asked in July by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) how survivors would be involved. In July, she said that that was up to the chairman of the inquiry. However, I think that that approach from the Home Office has been what has caused some of the current problems. As she has recognised today, Ministers need to engage directly themselves with survivors on the impartiality of the chair and the work and purpose of the inquiry before it starts. I welcome her commitment now to meet survivors, in particular to develop additional support and counselling, and to establish a survivors’ forum or liaison group to ensure that their voices are heard. She will know how important it is that this liaison group or forum works effectively. Will she specifically consult survivors in those meetings on the terms of reference and on the issues the inquiry should focus on before it starts?

Secondly, on the choice of chair, I welcome the Home Secretary’s proposals to consult more widely. Will she ignore those siren voices who say it is not possible to find someone who is not a close contact of those whose decisions may be investigated by the inquiry? She will know that other sensitive inquiries have managed to do important work without going wrong and without being derailed, including the Hillsborough and Soham inquiries, and the current Northern Ireland inquiry into child abuse.

Thirdly, on transparency, the inquiry has to address concerns about whether there have been institutional cover-ups. Does the Home Secretary therefore agree that it was very unwise of Home Office officials to become involved in redrafting Fiona Woolf’s letters? Will she tell the House whether Ministers or special advisers saw those earlier letters, or were involved in redrafting? Will she make sure that no one in the Home Office is involved in drafting any disclosure letters for the next chair?

I welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement that the Wanless review report will be published next week. Will she make a statement to the House on it? She will know that there will be considerable interest from all parties in the House. This is not just about the past. We know that abuse is happening now on an unacceptable scale. Will she therefore ensure that there is much greater transparency on child protection work today, particularly the work of the National Crime Agency, to make sure that we are not making the same mistakes again and are not storing up more problems for children in future?

Fourthly, on the progress of the inquiry, I welcome the Home Secretary’s agreement to getting the panel moving before the chair is appointed and to keeping open the need for it to be a statutory inquiry, because it is vital that it can get access to all the information and testimony it needs.

This is an extremely important inquiry. The Home Secretary has done the right thing to recognise that things have gone wrong, and we will support her in the action needed and whatever it takes to get things back on track and ensure that the inquiry works. However, let me also urge her not to forget the scale of the problem of child abuse and exploitation happening right now and the weaknesses in the child protection system today. We need a fearless and robust examination of how children have been let down, and we will support her in making sure that happens; but we also need strong action to protect children and make sure they are heard in future. She is right that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity; it is important, not just for survivors but for our children today, to make sure that this historic opportunity is not lost.

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Lady for the tone and approach she has taken to this matter. As I said in my statement, across the House we all feel that we have an opportunity to do something that can deal with the terrible abuses and crimes that have taken place in the past and to learn the lessons that are necessary for the future. As we have seen with the recent reports into Rotherham and the report about Greater Manchester from the hon. Member for Stockport, these issues have not gone away. We continue to see abuse taking place and we continue to see failures, sadly, in our institutions—some of them the very institutions that children should expect to be able to trust to protect them from these sorts of crimes.

The right hon. Lady asked a number of questions. On engagement with survivors, as I indicated, I will be meeting with survivors groups. The secretariat to the panel inquiry has also started some separate meetings with survivors groups already. As I indicated, there will be further opportunities for such meetings and for some open forums in different parts of the country, where it will be possible for people to come forward. I recognise the importance of that process; it is an important part of the work that the panel inquiry will be undertaking.

I believe it will be possible to find an individual who is able to chair the inquiry. Of course, it is necessary that that individual has the confidence of the survivors and the skill set required to lead a team, which is what the panel inquiry is all about. This is not about one person as chairman making decisions; it is about a team of people with different expertise and experience—some on the panel are survivors of child abuse themselves, as I have said—coming together to ensure we can get to the truth.

The right hon. Lady asked a question about the drafting process for the letters and whether I was aware of it. I was not. I have checked with my special advisers; they were aware only that a letter was being written. They had no knowledge of its different iterations and had no part in drafting or redrafting the letter.

The right hon. Lady made reference to the need for transparency in a number of areas and in relation to the National Crime Agency as well. The work that the National Crime Agency has been doing—particularly the now over 700 arrests we have seen in Operation Notarise—is an important sign of the seriousness with which it takes these issues. As she will be aware, the director general of the National Crime Agency, Keith Bristow, has made a number of comments about the significance and the size of the potential problem we face in this country. It is shocking. I am sure every Member of this House is appalled by the scale and nature of these crimes. I believe the National Crime Agency is being open about the work it is undertaking on that.

We owe it to the survivors of historic child abuse, as well as to those who might be subject to child abuse today, to ensure not only that the panel inquiry is doing its work, but that those involved in criminal investigations today are bringing perpetrators to justice.

Foreign National Offenders (Removal)

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary about the removal of foreign national offenders.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

I am grateful to the National Audit Office for its report on managing and removing foreign national offenders. As the report makes clear, this problem has beset successive Governments. Let me begin by being clear that foreign nationals who abuse our hospitality by committing crime in this country should be in no doubt of our determination to remove them from it. We removed more than 5,000 foreign criminals from the UK last year, and have removed 22,000 since 2010. I also want to make it plain that, as in many other areas, it falls to this Government to tackle the problems of the past. Quite simply, the Home Office did not prioritise the removal of foreign national offenders before 2005.

It will take time to fix the problems that we inherited. Chief among them, as the NAO report makes clear, are the legal barriers that we face. The countless appeals and re-appeals that have been lodged by criminals attempting to cheat the system cost us all money and are an affront to British justice. That is why we passed the Immigration Act 2014 to clamp down on that abuse. New powers from the Act came into force this week to cut the number of grounds on which criminals can appeal their deportation, from 17 to four, and to end the appeals conveyor belt in the courts. From this week, criminals can no longer appeal against a decision that their deportation is conducive to the public good.

These reforms build on other measures that we introduced in the summer, which are already speeding up the deportation process. In July we introduced new powers to stop criminals using family life arguments to delay their deportation. We have also changed the law so that, where there is no risk of serious irreversible harm, foreign criminals will be deported first and have their appeal heard later. For those who do have an appeal right, they will be able to appeal only once. These new powers are radically reforming the deportation process, rebalancing human rights laws in favour of the British public rather than the criminal.

We are also pursuing joint working between the police and immigration enforcement. Operation Nexus has helped us to remove more than 2,500 foreign nationals during its first two years, including 150 dangerous immigration offenders considered by the police to represent a particularly serious threat. Alongside tougher crime-fighting measures, improved protection at the border and greater collaboration between police and immigration enforcement officers, the Immigration Act is helping us to deliver an immigration system that is fair to the people of this country and legitimate immigrants, and tough on those who flout the rules. The Home Office will look at the NAO’s recommendations carefully and work with the other agencies involved as we continue to build that system.

[Yvette Cooper]

When people come to Britain, they should abide by the law, and the whole House wants to see foreign criminals being deported. The Prime Minister told us that more of them would be, and promised that that was a major priority for his Government. Instead, fewer foreign criminals are being deported each year than was the case in 2010. There were 375 fewer deportations, a drop of 7%, and fewer deportation orders are being served; there has been a drop of 6% since 2010.

It is no good blaming appeals and human rights. The National Audit Office has found that more than a third of failed removals were the result of factors within the Home Office’s control. They include failures to fill in the forms, failures to get the necessary papers and even failures to book the plane tickets that were needed. It is no good blaming the last Government either, because the NAO audit of this Government’s action plan has found poor use of IT, a lack of communication, failure to use the powers available, cumbersome and slow referral processes, inefficiency in processing, over-complicated arrangements and an action plan that it says

“lacks a sufficiently joined-up and structured approach.”

Nearly 40% of cases had avoidable processing delays.

More foreign criminals have disappeared, too. About 190 absconded last year, and there has been a 6% increase since 2010, yet according to the NAO report, there are only 11 staff working on 700 cases, 10 of whom are very junior. Why does the Home Secretary have so few staff working on such important cases? Will she publish the details of the crimes that those 190 people committed?

The NAO also says that we have worse systems than other European countries for preventing foreign criminals from coming in in the first place. The warnings index has not been modernised, and we are one of only four countries in the European economic area that is still not part of the Schengen information system. Our joining it was delayed because of the Home Secretary’s decision to exercise the opt-out on co-operation with Europe and because she is faffing around with her Back Benchers over opting in and opting out. This is putting border security at risk.

The Government are simply not doing enough. Let us take the case of the convicted killer Rohan Murdock who was able to stay in this country in 2012 because, in the judge’s words, the Home Secretary did not “put up a fight”. So it is no good blaming the past or the others; she has been Home Secretary for four and a half years. The system is still failing on her watch and fewer foreign criminals are being deported than when she started. The tough talk is simply not enough. When will she start putting up the real fight we need to get more, not fewer, foreign criminals deported back home?

[Mrs May]

I have to say to the right hon. Lady that that is a staggering response from the representative of a political party that is still debating whether it even needs to respond to the public’s concerns about immigration. I am sorry that she adopted the tone she did. This is a serious subject and we need to recognise and accept the challenges and respond to them. But the NAO report makes it clear, as I said in my opening statement, that this is a long-standing problem—her party did not face up to it when it was in power.

The report also makes it clear that, unlike the Labour party, we have a plan to deal with the problem, and that plan is working. We have removed 22,000 foreign national offenders since 2010. The NAO report makes it clear that the time taken to deport FNOs is reducing. It notes that the number of removals increased by 12% over the past two years,

“largely because of a change in the Department’s approach to deportation”.

It praises Operation Nexus—the work between the police and the immigration enforcement command—which has helped us to remove more than 2,500 foreign nationals in its first two years. We are the first Government to adopt a cross-government strategy on dealing with foreign national offenders. We want to increase the number of removals, reduce the number of foreign offenders in the UK and tackle the barriers standing in our way. Again, the NAO recognises that removing foreign national offenders

“continues to be inherently difficult”.

The report makes it clear that our efforts have been “hampered” by a “range of barriers”, including the law.

The main problem we face is the rise of litigation; we have seen a 28% increase in the number of appeals. That is why we have made the changes that I have set out in the Immigration Act to cut the number of appeals and why we have made it possible for someone to be deported before they can appeal. Those are the most significant changes to deportation appeals since 1971 and far more than we ever saw from the Labour party when it was in power for 13 years. But those things can take us only so far and we are also faced with the impact of the human rights legislation passed by the right hon. Lady’s Government. Only the Conservatives want to scrap the Human Rights Act and fix our relationship with the European Court of Human Rights, which is why we need a majority Conservative Government.

I do recognise that we face challenges and that we have some issues relating to processes to address. That is why I scrapped the UK Border Agency—Labour’s creation—and since then we have seen a change in the attitude being taken by immigration enforcement. But we will not turn these things around overnight. We have expressed our desire to rejoin the Schengen information system, because it can be a tool we can use in dealing with these FNOs. But we have moved on from the days before 2009 when, under the previous Labour Government, there was no mechanism to trace absconders—there is now a team to do that.

I have to say to the right hon. Lady that if she is going to take on an immigration issue, she really needs to look at her party’s record before she does so. Her party opened the floodgates; her party sent out the search parties and said there was no obvious limit to immigration; and her party passed the human rights legislation that made it difficult to deport foreign criminals. The Opposition still will not say that the level of immigration is too high, they still will not say it has to come down and they still defend the Human Rights Act. Perhaps when she says sorry for those things, the public might start to listen to her.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Mike Penning)]

Mr Speaker, you will be pleased to know that I will visit Norfolk in the very near future. Even though there has been a small reduction in the number of police in Norfolk, there has been an 11% reduction in crime, and I congratulate the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary and the whole House will want to express to the families of David Haines and Alan Henning our thoughts and prayers. Both men were helping innocent people caught up in conflict, and that is how we will remember them.

ISIL’s actions are barbaric—killing and torturing anyone who gets in its way—and the Home Secretary is rightly concerned about British citizens who are going to fight, but may I ask her about those who are returning? Will she tell the House whether the Government agree with reports that between 200 and 300 people have returned after fighting to Britain and whether the police and Security Service believe that they know who and where those people are? She referred to only 24 people being charged. Will she tell the House whether any of the others are now subject to terrorism prevention and investigation measures and what proportion of them are engaged in the Channel deradicalisation programme?

[Mrs May]

I echo the right hon. Lady’s comments about the absolutely brutal beheadings of David Haines and Alan Henning and, of course, of James Foley and Steven Sotloff, the two Americans who have been beheaded by ISIL. Our thoughts are with all their friends and families at this very difficult time.

The Government are, as the right hon. Lady knows and as I have just said in a previous answer, looking at a number of extra powers that we can introduce to deal with these issues and with those who are returning, as well as preventing people from going to Syria in the first place. Some people have returned from Syria—not all of them will have been involved in fighting, of course—and the Security Service and our police do everything that they can to ensure that they maintain the safety and security of citizens here in the United Kingdom. They do an excellent job, day in and day out.

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank the Home Secretary for her answer, but it would be helpful to have more information, as and when she is able to give it, about the scale of the problem and what is being done. More action is needed against those returning. Has she looked at making it a requirement that those returning from fighting engage with the Channel deradicalisation programme? When TPIMs were introduced, she took the decision, which we opposed, to remove relocation powers; can she confirm that she will reintroduce those powers at the earliest opportunity—before Christmas—in the legislation that she plans to bring forward?

[Mrs May]

We are looking at a number of ways of dealing appropriately with those returning from Syria. Part of that will be through measures brought forward in the legislation to which I referred. As the Prime Minister made clear in the House, we are looking at the question of relocation, and at exclusion zones and the extent to which they can be used. We will put Channel and Prevent on a statutory footing, but it is important that we look on a case-by-case basis at what action is appropriate for returning individuals, rather than assuming that one route is always the right way of dealing with them. Of course, in the consultation on the legislation, the right hon. Lady will be appropriately briefed, on Privy Counsellor terms.

Child Sex Abuse (Rotherham)

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary if she will make a statement on child sex abuse in the light of the Alexis Jay report in Rotherham.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

Professor Alexis Jay’s report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013 is a terrible account of the appalling failures by Rotherham council, the police and other agencies to protect vulnerable children. What happened was a complete dereliction of duty. The report makes for shocking reading: 1,400 children—on a conservative estimate—were sexually exploited, raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities, abducted, beaten and intimidated. Like the rest of the House, I was appalled to read about these victims and the horrific experiences to which they were subjected. Many have also suffered the injustice of seeing their cries for help ignored and the perpetrators not yet brought to justice. There can be no excuse for that.

Last week, I spoke to the chief constable of South Yorkshire police to receive an update on the live investigations into child sexual exploitation in south Yorkshire and the force’s plans to ensure that victims and witnesses receive the highest levels of care and support. It would not be appropriate for me to discuss ongoing investigations in detail, but I can tell the House that there are currently a number of investigations covering several hundred victims in south Yorkshire. We must ensure that these perpetrators are brought to justice.

Rotherham is just the latest in a line of harrowing revelations about the sexual abuse of children. It is because of cases such as these that we are establishing an independent panel inquiry to look into the way state and non-state institutions have treated child sexual exploitation. Later this afternoon, I am meeting Professor Jay to discuss her report and make sure that her findings and all the lessons of Rotherham feed properly into the work of the panel inquiry. That inquiry will, of course, take time to investigate the historic failings of state and non-state institutions, but we will not delay in taking action now to protect children who are at risk of sexual exploitation. All local authorities, working with other public bodies such as the police and health and children’s services, have a responsibility to keep our children safe.

This report raises a number of issues that will need immediate action from Rotherham in particular. National Government must also, and will, assist. That is why I will chair meetings with other Ministers, including my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Education and for Communities and Local Government to look at what happened in Rotherham. We will consider the findings of Professor Jay’s report and consider what the state at every level should do to prevent this appalling situation from happening again. The meeting will build on the existing work of the Home Office-led national group to tackle sexual violence against children and vulnerable people, which is bringing the full range of agencies working in this area together to better identify those at risk and create a victim-focused culture within the police, health and children’s services.

The issues raised in Professor Jay’s report are ones that have been running through the work of the national group. It has already taken a number of practical steps that will help to tackle failures such as those found by Professor Jay in Rotherham. For example, we have published new guidance for the police and Crown prosecutors on investigating and prosecuting cases of child sexual abuse, which moves the focus of investigations away from testing the credibility of victims on to the credibility of the allegation. We have given the police new powers to request information from hotels suspected of being used as locations for child sexual abuse, and powers to close premises where child sexual offences have been or are likely to be committed, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins) for his campaigning work in this area. We have provided training for private security workers to spot signs of child sexual exploitation. We have piloted pre-trial video cross-examination for vulnerable witnesses, ensuring that the process of giving evidence is less traumatic, and we published a new victims’ code in December last year. We will do more.

Professionals tell us, and Professor Jay’s report suggests, that co-located teams involving the police, children’s services, health services and others are a successful model for mitigating the risk of children slipping through the safeguarding net. We will therefore consider how best to support that work. Effective multi-agency safeguarding work will help to identify and support those at risk of sexual abuse and to bring offenders to justice.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government shares my concerns over the failings by Rotherham council that have been identified. This includes the inadequate scrutiny by councillors, institutionalised political correctness, the covering up of information and the failure to take action against gross misconduct. My right hon. Friend is minded to use his powers under the Local Government Act 1999 to commission an independent inspection of the council’s compliance with its best-value duty, with a particular focus on its corporate governance and service arrangements. In parallel, he is considering the implications of the report’s findings for all local authorities in England.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has already discussed these issues with the chief social worker and is looking at how better to support victims and children at risk. The Department of Education will consider the skills required by social workers and others to intervene effectively with those at risk of abuse and ensure that existing skills development work specifically addresses support for children who are at risk of sexual exploitation.

The Department of Health-led work into the mental health and well-being of children and young people will include a specific focus on the mental health and psychological well-being of victims of sexual violence and abuse, and consider the particular needs of those subject to exploitation.

I am clear that cultural concerns—both the fear of being seen as racist and the disdainful attitude to some of our most vulnerable children—must never stand in the way of child protection. We know that child sexual exploitation happens in all communities. There is no excuse for it in any of them and there is never any excuse for failing to bring the perpetrators to justice. The abuse of children is a particularly vile crime and one that the Government are determined to stop. We have made significant strides since 2010. We have important work under way but we will learn the lessons from Professor Jay’s report to ensure that we are doing all we can to safeguard children and to prosecute the people behind these disgusting crimes.

[Yvette Cooper]

In Rotherham 1,400 children were groomed, raped and exploited; 1,400 lives were devastated by abuse. Criminals, rapists and traffickers have got away with it and may be harming other children now. The council, social services, the police—people supposed to protect our children—failed time and again to keep them safe. Alexis Jay’s report is damning. It is never an excuse to turn a blind eye to evidence of children being abused. It is never an excuse that vulnerable girls may have consented to their own abuse. It is never an excuse to use race and ethnicity or community relations as an excuse not to investigate and punish sex offenders. That is why the Government need to act.

First, what is being done to ensure that the victims get the support and help that they need now? Secondly, what is being done to catch and prosecute those who committed the dreadful crimes? The Home Secretary will know that there is considerable concern that South Yorkshire police do not have the capacity to pursue both historic investigations and current child protection. What is she doing to ensure that all forces have the resources they need and give child exploitation and protection the priority they deserve?

Thirdly, what is being done to investigate the failings in the police force at the time? The Jay report found:

“the attitude of the Police at that time seemed to be that they were all ‘undesirables’ and the young women were not worthy of police protection.”

The chief constable is right to agree to an independent investigation of South Yorkshire police, which we called for, but can the Home Secretary tell the House why that is not being supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission?

Fourthly, what is being done on accountability? The leader of the council has rightly stood down. The Labour party has started further disciplinary action against individual councillors, but is the Home Secretary concerned that the police and crime commissioner has not stood down and that there appears to be nothing in the legislation to hold him to account? Will she say what the Government can do to ensure that appropriate disciplinary action is taken against individuals involved? What is being done to find out what other institutions, including the Home Office, were informed?

Where is the overarching inquiry? It is two years since we called for it. It is two months since the Home Secretary agreed to it, but we still have no chair and no terms of reference, despite the seriousness of the issue. This is not just about Rotherham. If we look at Oxfordshire, Rochdale, the abuse by Savile ignored or covered up in the BBC and the health service, north Wales care homes, and allegations around Westminster and Whitehall, we see that this is about every town and city in the country. It is about every community. Time and again, it is the same problems: children not being listened to, victims treated as though they were responsible for the crimes committed against them, and institutions that just looked the other way.

This is not just historic; it is happening today. That is why we need the overarching inquiry urgently in place. But we also need to go further. Child protection has rightly been strengthened over many decades but it has not yet gone far enough. I agree with the Home Secretary that action is needed by different Government Departments and different councils, agencies and police forces across the country, but I also call on her to consider changing the law because we need mandatory reporting to underpin a culture change, so that no one ever feels that they can just turn a blind eye or walk away when children are at risk. That means that Parliament and Government cannot turn a blind eye, too, and that is why all of us need to act.

[Mrs May]

The shadow Home Secretary has raised a number of points. The last point was about mandatory reporting. I recognise that this is an issue that has been raised, and we are looking at it, but it is important in doing so that we properly look at the evidence of whether it is effective in protecting children. In some other countries, with mandatory reporting the number of reports goes up significantly, but many of those reports are not justified, and that diminishes the ability to deal with the serious reports and protect children. So it is a very complex issue. It is a serious question, and we need to look carefully at countries such as Australia and the United States, where there is mixed evidence of its effectiveness in improving the ability to deal with these issues.

The right hon. Lady asked about Home Office involvement. A report into child prostitution was funded by the Home Office and conducted by the university of Luton, which is now part of the university of Bedfordshire. As I understand it, the researchers were not employed by the Home Office, although the Home Office was providing funding. Since the connection first came up, the Home Office has been looking at the files to ascertain exactly what happened, and many Members will have heard the researcher herself being quoted on television and radio broadcasts in relation not only to her experience at Rotherham but the suggestion that she did inform the Home Office. The Home Office is looking into that internally. When that work has been completed, Richard Whittam and Peter Wanless—who have already been in the Home Office looking at the process of how what was called the Dickens dossier and the files on that were dealt with—will be looking at that process to make sure that it has been conducted absolutely properly.

The right hon. Lady asked about the overarching inquiry. As Members will be aware, I made an appointment for the chairmanship of the inquiry, but the noble Baroness Butler-Sloss felt that she should withdraw from that. I hope we will soon be in a position to announce the chairman of the inquiry, but we have been taking our time because of the concern expressed about ensuring that the individual who does the job is somebody whom people throughout the communities concerned can have confidence in. We have been deliberately taking our time to ensure that we get the right chairman, and in due course the right panel, to deal with this inquiry.

The right hon. Lady asked what was being done in terms of investigations. I indicated in my statement that I have spoken to the chief constable of South Yorkshire Police, which has a number of ongoing investigations. I have talked to him about resources and the impact on the force, and he is able to support the work currently being done. As he has announced, he will be bringing in another, independent force to look at these issues and whether further action needs to be taken as a result of what the police did over the period of time covered by the Jay report.

In relation to the question of the police and crime commissioner, I have to say this to the right hon. Lady. She made some points that were an attempt to raise political issues around the police and crime commissioner. [Interruption.] If hon. Members will just calm down, I will respond to the point the right hon. Lady made. The police and crime commissioner is an elected individual, accountable to the electorate in the ballot box. That was the point of setting up the police and crime commissioner —that they are accountable to the electorate in the ballot box—but I would also make this point to the right hon. Lady: the Labour party chose the Labour councillor who was responsible for children’s services in Rotherham, and who had stood down in 2010 following the failings there, to be their candidate for PCC. So I suggest that they think carefully before starting to raise that particular issue.

Police Reform

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for sight of her statement. Our long British tradition of policing by consent depends on our maintaining and ensuring the very highest standards of integrity and professionalism in British policing. The international reputation of our police is high. We know about the bravery and integrity of many officers across the country, but we also know that when policing goes wrong, it can cast a deep shadow over all that excellent work and undermine consent and confidence, too. That is why we have called for much stronger action on standards in policing. Lord Stevens is leading a major independent commission on the future of policing, which recommends radical reform. The reforms include: a new stronger police standards authority, replacing the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, with the power to launch investigations without referral and make sure that lessons are learned; chartered registration for every police officer; the ability to strike officers off the register; high professional and ethical standards against which officers must be measured throughout their career; public misconduct hearings; and a new Police First scheme to bring bright graduates, especially from technology backgrounds, into policing and many further reforms.

Today the Home Secretary has announced not strong reforms but a series of reviews—three reviews and one consultation. Many are welcome as far as they go. We welcome stronger action on whistleblowers, with greater protection for whistleblowers and transparency for the public. We welcome more support for police leadership, although she will be aware that when West Yorkshire tried her existing proposals on direct entry, none of the dozens of people who applied met the right standards. We agree that the complaints procedure and disciplinary system need to be reformed because they are not working, but these reviews just do not go far enough. Why not get on with it and introduce a proper register of chartered police officers? I am glad that she has agreed with our call for public disciplinary hearings, but, again, why not get on with disciplinary reform and hand it over to the College of Policing, giving it the power to hold public hearings and to strike people off? Why waste time on piecemeal reforms of the IPCC and the complaints procedure, when the truth is that they need to be replaced?

We have repeatedly called on the Home Secretary to replace the IPCC. The IPCC is supposed to be able to deal with things that go wrong in policing. It is better than the Police Complaints Authority that it replaced, but it has failed in its remit because it lacks the powers, capacity and credibility it needs. It failed on Ian Tomlinson. It failed on the Stephen Lawrence case and had to apologise to the family as a result. It failed to set out the clear lessons to be learned from a series of death in custody cases, including the Camm case in West Yorkshire. It has failed to deal with the problems from plebgate, and is still failing even to make a decision on whether to investigate what happened at Orgreave more than 12 months after a complaint was raised. How many reviews does she need to tell her that this system is not working? If she answers only one of my questions today, will she explain why she will not just admit that the IPCC is failing and needs to be replaced by a much stronger body?

The one thing that the Home Secretary is not reviewing that she should be is her flagship policing reform of police and crime commissioners. She spent £100 million—enough for several thousand constables—on elections in November, and only 15% of voters turned out. Now she is about to spend nearly £4 million of taxpayers’ money on a by-election in the middle of August. What will the turnout be then? How low will turnouts have to fall before she admits that she got those flagship police reforms wrong?

The Home Secretary also claimed that her other policing reforms were working, but the HMIC has today admitted that neighbourhood policing is now being eroded. Prosecutions and convictions are falling for violent crime, rape, domestic violence and child sex offences—even though all those offences are going up. There were 7,000 more violent crimes last year, but 7,000 fewer people were convicted of violent offences. She is failing to reform the police to deal with new and growing crimes. There has been too little action on online fraud, which is growing exponentially. On online child abuse, the National Crime Agency has details of more than 10,000 suspects, but it has no plans to investigate them all, to arrest them or to bar them from working with children because it admits that it does not have the capacity and systems in place to cope.

In the face of those challenges, what are the Home Secretary’s police reforms? The answer is lots more reviews. I am glad that she is moving in the direction that we called for and we are keen to work with her if she will agree now to go much further, but so far we have standards that are not high enough; enforcement that is not strong enough; police and crime commissioners no one wants to vote for; fewer police on the beat; fewer criminals being caught; and less justice for victims. The Home Secretary’s reviews are too little and too late. We will work with her if she goes further. We need not just reviews but reforms that work.

[Mrs May]

Yet again, the shadow Home Secretary has given us a completely confused response on Labour’s policy on a whole range of issues. Let me touch on some of the specifics that she mentioned. She asked why we do not have a register of police officers, but I have to say to her that the Labour party was in Government for 13 years, and if it thought that that was so important, why did it not do something about it? It did not even do anything about the police officers who were struck off and who, once they had departed one particular police force, were able to join another. We have introduced the register of struck-off police officers, so, unlike Labour, we are taking action.

The shadow Home Secretary talked about Labour’s proposal to merge the inspectorate of constabulary with the IPCC. I have to say that that would be a profound mistake. The inspectorate under this Government has become more independent of the police and of the Government. It has delivered hard-hitting reports on stop and search, the recording of crime statistics and domestic violence. Later this year, it will publish, for the first time, annual inspection reports of every constabulary in the country so the public can understand how their local police force is performing. Only today we have seen one of the most transparent and fair reports ever published by HMIC, so we should not be taking any risks in abolishing the inspectorate. Of course we do need to look at police complaints and the role of the IPCC, which is why I have just announced a consultation on changing the whole system of police complaints from end to end—from minor complaints to the most serious. It is a sensitive matter, which is why we will consult on it properly and get the policy right rather than jumping to some risky merger of HMIC and the IPCC, as Labour has proposed.

The right hon. Lady also mentioned the matter of the police and crime commissioners and the by-election for the PCC in the west midlands. Labour has been in Opposition for more than four years. There is less than a year to go before the general election, and she cannot even make up her mind about whether or not she supports the idea of police and crime commissioners. On the one hand, she tells us that Labour is happy to have police and crime commissioners, but on the other she says that they were not a very good idea. She really needs to make up her mind as to whether or not Labour supports police and crime commissioners. Somehow, among all this, she seems to be making the point that with the reviews and consultations that I have announced, there is not enough action on police reform. Again, I wish she would make up her mind. Does she or does she not want police reform? I remember the days when she called police cuts and police reform “the perfect storm”. If what she says amounts to a genuine conversion to the ranks of those who believe in police reform, I welcome her belated conversion.

The right hon. Lady also refers to the inspectorate of constabulary’s report. I do not know whether she has read today’s report, but the lesson is perfectly clear: police reform is working and crime is falling. The police are leading the way across the public sector by demonstrating, whatever the Labour party says, that it is possible to do more with less.

Let me quote what the inspector of constabulary says about police cuts:

“Police forces in England and Wales are to be congratulated. The vast majority have risen to and met the considerable challenge of austerity, with plans in place to save over £2.5 billion over the last four years—while protecting the front line as best they can and making sure that the public still receive an effective service.”

Yet again on that issue, as on so many such as police and crime commissioners and police reform, what we hear from the shadow Home Secretary is nothing more than confusion and chaos. She needs to get her story straight about whether she, like me, wants to build on the excellent police that we have in this country and to ensure that we give them the support that they need to carry on doing an effective job of cutting crime day in and day out.

Points of Order

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I hope that is helpful.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Many Members across the House may have experienced what I have experienced, certainly in my constituency office, which is an increase in the number of cases of people being concerned about passport delays and struggling to get their passports in time. Would the Home Secretary agree to publish weekly figures about the detail of the backlog in the passport agency, so that we can tell whether her reforms are actually working?

[Mr Speaker]

The natural spirit of last-day generosity has been very fully exploited by the shadow Home Secretary. That is not a matter for the Chair. However, the point has been made with some force and it is open to the Home Secretary to respond if she wishes.

Child Abuse

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement about child abuse.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The sexual abuse of children is an abhorrent crime which the Government are absolutely committed to stamping out.

In my statement to the House last week, I addressed two important public concerns: first, that in the 1980s, the Home Office failed to act on allegations of child sex abuse and, secondly, that public bodies and other important institutions have failed to take seriously their duty of care towards children. As I informed the House on 7 July, the whole Government take the allegations very seriously. That is why I announced two inquiries last week.

The first is a review led by Peter Wanless, the chief executive of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, with the support of Richard Whittam, QC, of the original investigations that Mark Sedwill, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, commissioned last year into suggestions that the Home Office failed to act on allegations of child sex abuse in the early 1980s. Peter Wanless and Richard Whittam will also look at how the police and prosecutors handled any related information that was handed to them, and examine another recent review into allegations that the Home Office provided funding to an organisation called the Paedophile Information Exchange. Mr Wanless and Mr Whittam are in post and work on the review has begun. Its terms of reference were placed in the Library of the House last week, and I expect the review to conclude within eight to 10 weeks.

Last week, I also announced a wider independent panel inquiry to consider whether public bodies and non-state institutions have taken seriously their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse. The Home Office has appointed the head of the secretariat to the panel, which will begin its work as soon as possible after the appointment of the chairman.

As the House will know, I asked Baroness Butler-Sloss to act as chairman of the panel and she agreed to do so. However, having listened to the concerns that were raised by victim and survivor groups and by Members of this House, Lady Butler-Sloss subsequently came to the conclusion that she should not chair the inquiry. I was deeply saddened by her decision to withdraw, but I understand and respect her reasons. She is a woman of the highest integrity and compassion, and she continues to have an enormous contribution to make to public life.

Work is ongoing to find the right chairman and members of the panel, and an announcement will be made as soon as possible so that this important work can move forward. I am sure that hon. Members will agree that it is important that the terms of reference for the inquiry are considered carefully. That is why it is right that we should wait until we have appointed a new chairman and a panel, and discuss the terms with them.

I want this inquiry to leave no stone unturned in getting to the truth of what happened and ensuring that we learn the necessary lessons to protect children and vulnerable people in the future. As I said, child abuse is an abhorrent crime that can scar people for life, and the Government are determined to stamp it out. We are working across Government to ensure that victims of historic child abuse who come forward in response to our overarching inquiry get the support and help they need. Our message is clear: the Government will do everything they can to allow the full investigation of child abuse whenever and wherever it occurred, to support victims of it, and to bring the perpetrators of this disgusting crime to justice.

As Members will be aware from the announcement we heard yesterday about the outcome of the National Crime Agency’s operation, which was reported in the media, child abuse is a crime that continues today. I think that that operation shows our relentless commitment to pursue those engaged in online child sexual exploitation, and it was unprecedented in its degree of co-ordination, with the NCA leading and co-ordinating law enforcement efforts that involved 45 police forces across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It has been ongoing for the past six months. People from all walks of life have been indentified, including those in positions of trust, and 660 arrests have been made and more than 400 children safeguarded or protected.

Crucial in investigations of online sexual abuse, and matters of this kind more generally, is the question of access to communications data. The Government are committed to tackling the threat to children online, which is why the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill, which was passed by this House on Tuesday and is currently before the other place, is important. It will ensure that law enforcement agencies continue to have access to another vital tool of communications data. Without access to communications data, the investigative capabilities of public authorities in relation to online child abuse would be significantly damaged, and vital evidence would be inaccessible. If companies do not retain that data and we cannot access it, it will become impossible in future to carry out such operations.

In other areas, the Government are also looking at what actions we can take in relation to this reprehensible crime. That is why in April last year, the Government established a national group to tackle sexual violence against children and vulnerable people, led by the Minister for Crime Prevention, my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker). The cross-Government group was established to learn the lessons from some of the recent cases that have emerged and the resulting reviews and inquiries, and as a result of its work we now have better guidance for police and prosecutors, new powers for the police to get information from hotels that are used for child sexual exploitation, and better identification of children at risk of exploitation through the use of local multi-agency safeguarding hubs.

The Home Office will do everything it can to allow the full investigation of child abuse and the prosecution of its perpetrators. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre command of the National Crime Agency works with police forces to investigate child sexual abuse, and has access to specialist officers who could be called on to assist in complex cases. CEOP is already providing support to forces in the robust investigation of child sexual abuse.

For some time, this House has been considering issues arising from historic cases of child abuse. The news yesterday of more than 600 arrests by the NCA, and ongoing investigations into current incidents of child abuse, show that this is not just a problem of the past but is with us today. The Government will do everything they can to work to stamp out child abuse, but there is a wider question for us as a society about how and why these appalling crimes are still taking place today.

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and the update she has given the House. She is right to condemn this vile crime that hits vulnerable children and can wreck lives. I also welcome the announcement that the National Crime Agency has safeguarded 400 children and arrested 660 people for child abuse offences as part of a major operation involving many police forces. The House will want to commend the police for that work, and recognise the role of online intelligence and communications data that we discussed earlier this week.

However, The Times reports today that the same investigation has in fact identified more than 10,000 suspects who are not currently being arrested or pursued through the criminal justice system. It appears that those are in addition to today’s crime statistics, which also show a 20% increase in reported sex offences, a 65% increase in reported child abuse images, and a 27% increase in reported rape. While car crime may be falling, the reports of these serious, often hidden, crimes are going up, and people will be deeply shocked by the scale of online crime that is growing alongside the internet. At the same time, there has been a 9% drop in prosecutions for child sex offences and a 75% drop in the number of convicted criminals who are barred from working with children as a result of the Government’s policy changes. There are real concerns about chaos at the Disclosure and Barring Service, which is not providing consistent information about the number of people being barred.

Let me ask the Home Secretary the following questions. Can she confirm that the National Crime Agency has identified more than 10,000 suspects as part of its investigation? What is happening to those 10,000 suspects now? Is it true that the police have decided that they do not have the capacity to pursue them? How many of them does she think pose a direct risk to children? Will they be barred from working with children? Can she confirm that there has indeed been a 75% drop in the number of convicted sex offenders who are being barred from working with children? Does she believe that the police and the NCA have the capacity to deal with the scale of this growing crime? Will any of these issues be covered by the child abuse inquiry, which currently has no chair and no terms of reference?

The Home Secretary will know that I have raised concerns with her over the past few years that the child protection system is currently not strong enough to deal with the scale of the problem that we face. Will she now urgently review Government policy and resources, particularly around online abuse, as well as on the wider issues around child abuse, and rethink the barring system approach? Will she agree to come back to this House in September with an urgent action plan to deal with this very serious crime?

[Mrs May]

First, may I say that the right hon. Lady is absolutely right to commend the work of police forces, the National Crime Agency and CEOP command? This work is not easy for police officers to undertake. It is very difficult for those who have to look at the evidence of child abuse images. We should recognise the valuable and important work they do, and the work that goes on around them to ensure that perpetrators and others involved in this horrendous crime are brought to justice.

I have made it clear that the work of NCA investigations is ongoing. I am therefore not in a position to indicate anything in relation to how many suspects they might be looking at or the action I might take against those suspects. Those are operational matters and decisions for the NCA to take in consideration with the various police forces involved, but I can assure Members that this is an ongoing investigation.

The right hon. Lady referred to a number of matters, for example the increase in the number of sex offences being reported. That is indeed the case, but what I think we are seeing in the figures is a number of people coming forward with historic cases of sex offences. While that does have an impact on the figures, I think we would all welcome the fact that there are more people now who feel comfortable in being able to come forward with allegations of these sorts of offences. For too long, people have felt that they would not be believed, and have been hiding their own experiences and keeping them to themselves, rather than surfacing them. It is important that they are coming forward. In some of the historic cases that have gone to trial, some perpetrators have been brought to justice. They have been charged and prosecuted as a result of people coming forward.

We are, of course, making sure that resources are available. In my response to the right hon. Lady’s question, I indicated that CEOP resources, which are specialist and expertise resources, are being made available to other police forces. The child abuse inquiry is being set up to ensure that we can learn the lessons from the various reviews that have taken place into historic cases. As part of that, I expect it will want to look at what is happening today: whether the lessons from the past are already being dealt with, or whether there are still gaps in what we need to do. Obviously, one of the areas that has increased in recent times is online abuse.

At the Prime Minister’s summit in November last year, we made it absolutely clear that we are determined to stamp out online child sexual abuse. That is why we have worked with industry to ensure that search engines block images, videos and pathways to child abuse from blacklist search terms used by paedophiles. We are developing a child abuse image database, which will help officers to work more effectively together to close the net on paedophiles and ensure that internet companies can better identify, block and remove illegal images. We have also established the UK-US taskforce to counter online child exploitation. Through that, we are drawing on the brightest and best minds in the industry, law enforcement and academia to stop the internet being used to abuse children. We saw from the National Crime Agency’s operations yesterday the value of setting it up as a strong crime-fighting organisation that has already shown its ability to root out perpetrators of this sort of crime, to deal with them and ultimately to bring them to justice.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary will recognise that Parliament has been put in a difficult position by this week’s emergency legislation. It has been left until the final full week of Parliament before the recess and must be published and debated in both Houses in a week, and it relates to laws and technologies that are complex and controversial. They reflect the serious challenge of how to sustain both liberty and security, and privacy and safety in a democracy. This is therefore not the way in which such legislation should be done. Let me be clear that its last-minute nature undermines trust not only in the Government’s intentions, but also in the vital work of the police and agencies.

I have no doubt that the legislation is needed, however, and that we cannot delay it until the autumn. After the European Court of Justice judgment in April, legislation is needed to ensure that the police and intelligence agencies do not suddenly lose vital capabilities over the course of the next few months and that our legislation is compliant with EU law. So Parliament does need to act this week so that existing investigations and capabilities are not jeopardised over the next few months, but this is a short-term sticking plaster. As we support the legislation today, we must also be clear that we cannot just go on with business as usual, when the powers and safeguards that keep us free and safe are rarely discussed and only debated behind closed doors. I want to set out today why this parliamentary debate needs to be the start of a much wider debate about liberty and security in an internet age, why we can only pursue this short-term legislation if it is the beginning and not the end of the debate, and therefore why this legislation is needed in the short term, but also why safeguards are needed, too.

[Sir William Cash]

Does the shadow Secretary of State accept that the legislation will be within the scope of EU law and the charter of fundamental rights, in which the previous Government got themselves into a pretty average muddle—if I may put it that way—and that the general principle of EU law will prevail? Does she therefore also accept that it is possible that the European Court of Justice could come back to this legislation, as it did with the Merchant Shipping Act 1988, and strike it down if in fact it takes the view that it is incompatible with EU law? Would she accept the idea in principle—

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. This is an intervention. A large number of people want to speak. Interventions are getting a little too long and I would be grateful if they could be shortened.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that it is always possible for there to be court challenges and legal challenges to our legislation and to individual decisions. The Government have gone to some lengths to ensure that the legislation before us is compliant with the European Court judgment, with European law and with our own legal framework.

[Dr Huppert]

The shadow Home Secretary said that this will be the start of a debate about privacy and security, and those of us who have been campaigning on this issue for many years welcome her conversion. Does she accept that the debate has already started and that many of us have been pushing the issue for some time, much as we welcome her addition to it?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman can always be relied on to pop up in these debates. I have heard that his support for the legislation has made some in this House question whether it is strong enough. Surely it cannot be, if he is supporting it.

The hon. Gentleman will know that I made a speech 12 months ago in which I talked about the need to strengthen the system for commissioners and for oversight in this area, and that I made a further speech at the beginning of March in which I raised specific issues about online security and liberty. The Deputy Prime Minister also made a speech that week which raised some of these issues. I am concerned because I think that, overall, the Government have not responded to some of the challenges. They still have not recognised the wider need for public debate and reform.

[Mr Redwood]

Does the right hon. Lady think that in striking down a directive that Labour agreed to, the European Court of Justice went too far, or does she think on reflection that the directive went too far?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that the directive went considerably further than the regulations we passed in this country. As I recall, the European directive was drawn up in the wake of the 7/7 bombings in London and the terrorist attacks that took place at that time and was designed to provide a framework to ensure that different European countries could legally take the necessary action to investigate terrorism. However, the decision we took in the UK was to implement it much more narrowly, to ensure that safeguards were in place and to ensure that there were safeguards in the operation of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. I think that those safeguards now need to go further in the light of changing technology, and it is important that we do that.

I recognise that the Home Secretary wants only to maintain the status quo and to ensure that powers are not suddenly lost over the summer, but the problem for us is that the status quo is being challenged by the pace of new technology, by the struggle of police and agencies to keep up, by the limitations of a legal framework that dates back to 2000, by the weakness of oversight that does not meet modern expectations, by the Snowden leaks, by the global nature of the internet and by private companies that, in the case of most of us, hold, access and use far more of our private data than any police force or intelligence agency might do.

[Chris Bryant]

Although the Government keep on saying that the status quo is remaining as the status quo, 10 years ago it was the status quo that all electronic communications of MPs were covered by the Wilson doctrine. Earlier this year the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General said quite the reverse when he stated that metadata about MPs’ communications was now being kept by the Government.

[Yvette Cooper]

My understanding is that the Government do not keep metadata on UK citizens and that the data retention directive is about the information that companies hold, but I would certainly be very surprised if companies were able to separate out the billing data for MPs, for example, from that of any other British citizen. It would be startling if they were able to do so. My hon. Friend is right that one would expect things such as the data retention directive to cover not just MPs but all UK citizens in that way, but my point is that the Government cannot take for granted the need to restore the status quo. We need to debate it and we need reform.

My real concern about how the Government handled the issue is not only about the delay in introducing the legislation after the Court judgment in April and the limited time we have to debate it. It is bigger than that. It is about the Government’s failure to rise to the bigger challenge and debate of the past 12 months. They have said almost nothing in response to the Snowden leaks, to provide either reassurance or reform. They tried to limit the debate over the draft Communications Data Bill, drawing it too widely, and have never been clear about what they really wanted and needed to achieve. They have not faced the new challenges of the digital age and recognised the importance of changing technologies and expectations. They have not started a serious review of the legal framework or the powers and oversight needed. The Home Secretary made a speech a few weeks ago that set out some of the safeguards needed, but it has taken time for Ministers to do that.

[Mr David Davis]

The right hon. Lady is making an interesting point. Is not the implication of her last six sentences that the Labour party should support the sunset clause being brought forward to Christmas of this year, which would force the debate that she is asking for?

[Yvette Cooper]

I want to come on to that point in detail, because it is an important one. The wider considerations, the detailed review of the legislation and the public consultation that we need will take longer than just five months, and it is important that this is not simply about repeated sticking-plaster legislation. We need to have a sustainable debate about how to get the right kinds of reforms to sustain the framework for the longer term and, crucially, about how we get public consent in this.

In the US, they have had a public debate. President Obama led a debate on liberty and security after the Snowden leaks, setting up an independent review group last summer. His response robustly defended much of the work that the US agencies do as vital to national security, but he also recognises the need for stronger safeguards. Our system has many more legal safeguards than the US system. For example, our warrant system is much narrower than theirs, and rightly so. We also have strong public support for the work of our intelligence services and the police, but that is no reason to avoid the debate and hope that it will go away. That is what I believe that the Government have done since last summer.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I want briefly to reinforce the right hon. Lady’s point. I have just come back from talking to St Albans Women’s Institute and the ladies made exactly that point. They asked what the difference would be, what it was all about and what it will mean to the public. There will be a problem in getting the message across through the media and the public will not understand why there has been this sudden rush to legislation

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Lady is right. Although we know that there are issues about the Court judgment and its implications over the summer, there will be considerable concern about the pace at which this Bill has been introduced and has been debated in Parliament. The short-term debate would be easier if there had been a wider longer-term debate about the question of a sensible framework in which the public could feel involved and have their say. If emergency issues came up, as they will from time to time—for any Government in any circumstances there will be court judgments that suddenly mean that an emergency response is needed—it would be so much easier to have the emergency debate against a backdrop in which the broader issues of security and liberty, and how we balance them in an internet age, are being properly debated and discussed, with public involvement.

Those of us who believe in the vital work the police and agencies need to be able to do should be the most ready to debate both the powers and the safeguards that are needed, because they must have public consent. We cannot hide behind a veil of secrecy. Of course, that debate must be handled with care so that we do not expose important intelligence capabilities that need to be kept secret to be effective, but we can have a debate about the legal framework, about the principles and about the powers and safeguards we need.

We know the vital work that we want the police and agencies to be able to do: building the intelligence that foils terrorist attacks; providing the fast response needed to find the last location of a missing child or murder victim; and stopping online fraud and cyber-attacks, which are escalating with every month. We also know that people will only continue to support those vital powers if they also know that there are proper safeguards: protection for innocent people’s privacy; public reassurance about what that protection really is; safeguards so that powers cannot be abused; safeguards, checks and balances on what the police and intelligence agencies can do; and a Government and Parliament that recognise that this is difficult and do not try just to sweep it all under the carpet and deny the public a say.

The lack of a wider debate is making it harder to have a short-term debate today. This is not the right way to have this debate. However, I also believe that we cannot reject this legislation now; it would be wrong to do so. We need to support it today, but we must also use it to get the wider debate that we need.

Let us be clear about what is at stake. The Court judgment means that the regulations on data retention need to be replaced; otherwise, they will fall altogether. This is about the requirement for companies to hold their billing data and other communications data for 12 months. This does not refer to the content of the calls and messages; it just covers the communications data. If the police are investigating a crime or pursuing an emergency that involves risk to life or limb, they can get a warrant and ask the companies to hand over the data relating to the suspect. As the Home Secretary has said, these data are used to identify conspiracies, prove alibis, locate missing children and find out who is committing online crimes or sending online child abuse. The police need warrants to do this, and the data do not tell us what people are saying. They cannot tell us the content of an e-mail—that is private—but they can help us to solve crimes.

These data are particularly important in dealing with serious and organised crime. For example, they can show that drug dealers who claim not to know each other have in fact been calling each other every week. They can show who the armed robber called to help him get away from the scene of a crime, or where a missing child was when their phone was switched off. They can also help to trace who a terror suspect contacted before they went to Syria, for example, and to work out who might be grooming or radicalising more young people to go there.

These data are used in court in 95% of the serious and organised crime cases that reach prosecution. They are particularly important in relation to online child abuse, because they allow the police to get warrants, to contact companies to find out the name and address of the person who has sent vile images of child abuse and to rescue children who are being hurt. A recent Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre investigation resulted in the arrest of 200 suspects and identified 132 children who were at risk of abuse. The prosecutions and actions needed to rescue those children were made possible only through the use of communications data. A similar investigation in Germany, where communications data are not held, led to only a handful of cases being investigated.

The Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan police has described the importance of communications data to rape investigations. She has said:

“As to robberies and rapes, it is very usual for phones to be stolen. The stranger rapist, on many occasions, will take the phone from the victim and within 24 hours we find the rapist.”

The data also protect our children’s safety. In one case that the Joint Committee looked at, an online help service contacted the police, worried about a child who had posted on their website a threat to commit suicide. The police contacted the relevant companies, which helped to track down the service user’s name and address, then sent the local police to the door to find that the child had hanged himself but was still breathing. Fast action and communications data saved his life.

It is because we recognise how crucial this evidence is to so many investigations that we believe it would be too damaging to the fight against crime and terrorism for the police to lose this information this summer. The Government have rightly made changes to ensure that the new legislation can comply with the ECJ directive. They have narrowed the number of organisations that can access the data, for example, and introduced further safeguards to ensure that the process is necessary and proportionate.

The second part of the Bill is more complex, as it addresses the global nature of our telecommunications. Increasingly, the companies that help us to communicate with each other, with the family members we live with and with our neighbours and friends down the road, are based abroad. They should not be excluded from UK law just because of where their headquarters are based. International companies have been covered by and complied with RIPA for many years. Indeed, the legislation has always made it clear that companies should be covered if they provided services in the UK. We recognise, however, that other court judgments have made it more important to be explicit about legislation that has extraterritorial effect, rather than just leaving the arrangements implicit in the legislation. Again, it would jeopardise important intelligence if we were to ignore this factor.

Similarly, on telecommunications data, we have sought assurances from the Home Secretary that these measures are not an extension of powers and that they are only a clarification of the arrangements that already exist and of practices that already take place. It is important to recognise that this is not just about the legislation. The Home Secretary has now given the House assurances that the way in which she issues warrants will comply with that intention not to extend those powers, and that this is simply about maintaining the powers that are already in place.

This means that the safeguards are extremely important. The safeguards in the Bill and in the regulations are welcome. They ensure that the legislation is temporary, as well as restricting the purposes of the legislation so that it cannot be used only for purposes of economic well-being, and restricting the number of organisations that have access to data. We welcome the proposals for a privacy and civil liberties board, although we will need more debate about how that should work and how it should fit with our proposals to overhaul the commissioners and ensure that there is stronger oversight.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important to have the widest possible consultation with as many groups as possible before the names are put forward for the new board?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is right, and I would certainly expect the Select Committees to play an important role in that process. There needs to be a debate about the way in which the board should work. It has considerable potential. Wider, more substantial reforms of the existing framework are needed, including, for example, to the structure relating to the commissioners, who in theory have oversight of different parts of legislation, and to the role of the counter-terrorism reviewer, which is more effective than the work of some of the commissioners. We need to look at the whole framework in determining how the privacy and civil liberties board will fit in with the wider reforms that we need. That might need to be a two-stage process: the introduction of the board and reforms made to the commissioners’ structure in the light of the wider review that we are calling for. We have tabled amendments to secure such a review.

The review of the legislation is particularly important. For some time, we have been calling for an independent expert review of the legal and operational framework and in particular of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. As a result of the communications data revolution, the law and our oversight framework are now out of date. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has said, new technology is blurring the distinction between communications and content, and between domestic and international communications, as well as raising new questions about data storage. We therefore need to reconsider what safeguards are necessary in an internet age to ensure that people’s privacy is protected.

We need stronger oversight, too. We need to know how far the new technology is outstripping the legal framework, and what powers and safeguards are needed for the future. We need to determine how warrants should operate, who should have access to data, and whether the police and intelligence agencies have the lawful capabilities that they need. The police need to be able to keep up with new technology, but the safeguards need to keep up, too. All those elements should be included in the scope of the first stage of the independent review by the counter-terrorism reviewer, David Anderson.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on the long list of considerations that she wishes her party to look at, but has she considered the easy availability of strong cryptography? What is her party’s position on that?

[Yvette Cooper]

I will not pretend to be an expert on individual technologies or on the legal framework that is needed to safeguard them. That is exactly why we need an expert review. The honest truth is that most of us here in Parliament are considerably less expert on these technologies than our children, and we therefore need technological expertise as well as legal expertise as part of the review. That is the kind of review that David Anderson needs to lead.

We have tabled an amendment to put the review on a statutory footing and to outline some of the issues that it must cover, so that the House can be reassured that a sufficiently wide-ranging review will take place. It will need to look at the practice as well as at the legislation. We will also need to have a serious public debate about David Anderson’s conclusions, through the Joint Committee of both Houses and through taking public evidence. A public consultation must form part of that process. This is about getting the balance right, but it is also about ensuring that we have public consent. We cannot have any more sticking-plaster legislation; we need a serious and sustainable framework that will command consent for years to come.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Forgive me, but I am slightly confused. It is perhaps because I am a bit thick, but will the right hon. Lady clarify the current situation for me? Do we have these rules and regulations now? If we do not pass this Bill into law, how long can the police and the security services continue to have access to these data?

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Secretary responded to a similar question earlier. The advice that I have received is that the UK regulations are still in place, but that they are likely to be challenged and likely to fall as a result of the European directive having already been struck down. The consequence of that would be that we might risk losing some of those powers over the summer, before Parliament returns in the autumn, and we should not put the police and intelligence agencies in that position. The hon. Gentleman will have heard me argue for the wider reforms and wider debate that is needed, but in the short term we should not pull the rug from underneath the police and intelligence agencies this summer as a result of a European Court judgment.

The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said that the sunset clause should simply be moved to five months’ time. I understand the intention of the hon. Members who have signed the amendment, and I recognise their concern and their desire to increase the short-term scrutiny of the legislation, but I fear that if we do that, we will simply be stuck with another unsatisfactory sticking-plaster legislation process. We will not have the time to obtain the conclusions of the expert review, to consult on them, to debate, to take evidence or to draw up proper primary legislation with the more substantial reforms that I believe are needed. If we continue with repeated sticking-plaster legislation, we will undermine public consent in this process even further. That is why we must not rush things; we must do it properly. We are doing quite enough rushing this week, as it is, without trying to rush through the more substantial debate that we need within five months. That is why the longer period is needed.

Hon. Members are right that we need stronger safeguards in the short term, right now. We need more reassurance that the Bill is doing what the Home Secretary has made clear. That is why we have tabled a second amendment, and why I welcome the Home Secretary’s indication that she will accept it. It is about requiring the intercept commissioner in the mean time to report on the operation of the Bill every six months. During that period, we need to know whether the Bill is simply being used to continue the work that was being done before or whether it is being used to extend the Government’s powers against the will of Parliament. The six-monthly review will reassure the House that the Bill is being implemented in the way that Parliament intended.

We also want to see longer-term reforms, including strengthening the Intelligence and Security Committee so that it has the same powers as other Select Committees and an Opposition Chair, and we believe that an overhaul of the commissioners is needed. We currently have lots of different commissioners, and even when they do excellent reports no one notices them because the reports are not public-facing. Too often, they are limited to assessing compliance with existing legislation rather than looking at whether the legislation is still appropriate or effective.

This is a difficult debate for Parliament today. We have legislation that is urgently needed, but it is against the backdrop of us all knowing that a much wider debate is called for. So we have to make sure that that debate happens and that sustainable reforms are brought forward. Too often, this debate becomes polarised. The hawks say that we need stronger powers to protect national security, but they will not say what and why. The civil libertarians say that it is all a conspiracy; that they do not believe the scare stories; and that privacy is paramount. But most of us, and most of the British public want both—security and liberty, safety and privacy. We want to be kept safe from fraudsters stealing our identity or our money online. We want our children’s innocence kept safe from abusers, and paedophiles to be caught. We want the police and intelligence agencies to be able to track down murderers, fraudsters and terror suspects.

However, we also want to know that, unless we are suspected of a crime or terrorism, we have a right to protection of our information and privacy. We want to know that people will not be listening to our calls, reading our e-mails or checking out where we have been surfing on the web; to know that there are fair, up-to-date laws governing what Government agencies, the police and private companies can do; and to know that there are safeguards, checks and balances in place to make sure that those laws are upheld.

Yes, we need to pass this Bill today, because the powers that it retains are too important to the protection of public safety to lose carelessly one summer. But we also need a proper debate about the balance of privacy and safety, and how we maintain both liberty and security in an internet age, because both are essential to our democracy. Today must be the start, and not the end, of that debate.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Nomanton Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

We have had the Second Reading and four hours of debate in Committee, and we have now reached Third Reading. I, too, pay tribute on behalf of the Opposition to my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who has been in the Chamber since 12.30 pm, as well as to the Minister for Security and Immigration, who has probably not even had a chance to have a cup of tea, and to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who when not popping up and down to speak, has been glued to his seat for many hours.

Many hon. Members have been present for several hours of a very thoughtful debate on such important legislation, but inevitably the debate has been limited. Many of the concerns raised today have been about the process—about the lack of time not only to debate the Bill, but to consider it further. I hope that the Government recognise that the process has undermined confidence. For that confidence to be restored, it will be particularly important for the Government to take steps on the implementation of the review and the wider safeguards.

Some Members have raised concerns about the retention of any data at all. The vast majority, however, have recognised the value of data retention in tackling serious crime, abuse and terrorism, and in protecting our children, but want the right kinds of safeguards to be put in place. Most Members recognise the need for Parliament to take action and to pass legislation before the summer break, because we do not want suddenly to prevent the police and the intelligence agencies from having access, under warrant, to the information on which they normally depend in investigating organised crime and fraud, identifying those abusing children online and building intelligence to foil terrorist activity.

I do not want to repeat the points I made on Second Reading about the Bill, the safeguards and the wider debate, but I will briefly cover some of the points made throughout the debates this afternoon. Some have raised concern about whether the Bill does what it says on the tin, to use the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson)—whether it simply replicates existing capabilities or extends them. The Government have repeatedly made it clear that the purpose of the Bill is to maintain existing capabilities and, indeed, to restrict them in line with the ECJ judgment. I am glad that the Government agreed to our amendments that were designed to ensure that that is the case. They require six-monthly reports on the operation of the Act to ensure that its implementation does not go further in any way.

As I argued earlier, many of the areas of concern that hon. Members have raised are not about the specifics of the legislation, but about the wider framework that governs communications data and interception. That is why we have called for a much broader review of the powers, safeguards and operations in the light of changing technologies and threats. I am glad that the Government agreed to our proposal that the review that we called for should be put on a statutory footing.

Nobody should underestimate the importance of that review, because we cannot keep passing sticking-plaster legislation, we cannot carry on with business as usual, and we cannot carry on with the current framework when new technology is overtaking it. Nor should anybody just hope that these issues will go away once today’s debates are finished, because they will not and they cannot. The changing technology, changing attitudes, changing expectations and changing threats mean that Parliament needs to keep up.

I hope that Members who have argued about the different aspects of the legislation, who have taken different views on aspects of the legislation or who have even disagreed with the legislation will come together to contribute to the review, to decide what the next steps should be and to take part in the wider debate that we need about security and liberty in the internet age. In the end, these issues go to the heart of our democracy. We need both security and liberty. If we do not feel safe or secure on our streets or online, we are not free, but if security is absolute, we lose that precious freedom for which people have fought for generations. We will not all agree on how to sustain both, we will not all agree on how to get the balance right, and our constituents will not all agree either. However, the debate itself is healthy and vital, and I suspect that there will be rather more consensus than most people think.

I hope that we can finally agree on three things today: first, that the wider debate is needed to keep up with the changing world and to ensure that there is public confidence and consent for the vital work that the police and agencies do; secondly, that this last-minute process has not been a good one, and that we really should not do it again; and thirdly, that this temporary legislation, with its safeguards, really is needed in the short term, and that we should pass it tonight.

Communications Data and Interception

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement, and for the detailed legal and security briefing with which her officials have provided me.

We agree with the Home Secretary that a temporary and urgent solution is needed as a result of the European Court judgment in April, because otherwise the police and intelligence agencies will suddenly lose vital information and evidence this summer. It would be too damaging to the fight against serious and organised crime, to the work against online child abuse, and to counter-terror investigations to risk losing that capability over the next two months while Parliament is in recess, and that is why we need to act.

However, as the Home Secretary will appreciate, there will be serious concern, in Parliament and throughout the country, about the lateness of this legislative proposal, and about the short time that we have in which to consider something so important. That lack of time for debate makes the safeguards that we have discussed particularly important, and I want to press the Home Secretary on some of them. It also makes it essential for the Government to engage in a wider, public debate about how we balance privacy and security in an internet age.

The European Court judgment has clearly created an immediate problem for companies that hold billing and other communications data to which the police have access under warrant when they investigate crimes. Action needs to be taken in the short term simply to allow them to continue to do what they have been doing, in a way that complies with the European Court judgment. The communications data need to be properly used under safeguards, but they are also vital to serious criminal investigations and to protecting the public. The police use them to find out with whom a suspect or criminal may have been conspiring to commit serious crimes, or to radicalise a terror suspect. They are used in 95% of all cases of serious and organised crime that reach the prosecution stage. When children go missing, the police can contact their mobile phone companies and find out where they were last. That helped them to find out that Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were close to Ian Huntley’s house when their phone was switched off, and it helped to convict him of their murder.

The data also help the police to identify people who are sending online vile images of children who are being abused. An investigation by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre resulted in the arrest of 200 suspects, and found 132 children who were at risk of abuse and needed to be safeguarded. However, it was able to reach those suspects and those children only because of communications data. The legislation is certainly needed, and the information is certainly needed. The legislation is a more restricted version of the existing data retention powers. It is because we recognise how crucial the evidence is that we believe that it would be too damaging to lose it over the summer.

We also recognise that there is a problem for some companies that provide communications services here in Britain but whose headquarters are based abroad, and which have asked for clarification of the scope of the legislation, as a result, again, of recent court cases. Companies should not be left in limbo or put off from complying with warrants when national security is at stake, for example, simply because they are concerned about whether it is lawful to do so because of the location of their headquarters.

We will scrutinise the detail of the legislation, and we will debate the safeguards that are necessary, but we agree that the legislation is needed now. However, I am concerned about its late arrival. The European Court judgment was in April, and the legislation has been published just seven days before the end of the parliamentary session. I hope that the Home Secretary will realise that it risks undermining confidence for issues as important as this to be left until the last minute and rushed through on an emergency basis rather than being given more time. We recognise the timetable of the European Court judgment and we recognise, too, the information she has provided to us in the Opposition over the last week about her proposals, but she will also recognise the importance of Select Committees being able to take evidence, and being able to consider these proposals, too.

The short time for Parliament to consider this makes the safeguards we have argued for and agreed even more important, so the Home Secretary is right to make this temporary legislation. It means that Parliament will need to revisit this issue properly next year, with detailed evidence and the chance to secure a sustainable longer-term framework. She is also right to add further restrictions to the way in which the legislation will work, and I ask her for further clarification on this, because she will know we discussed, for example, narrowing the scope of some of the measures, as well as narrowing the number of organisations that will be able to access the data, and I would like to ask her for an update on those discussions, and whether she was able to produce that narrowing in practice.

We look forward as well to working in Parliament to make the new privacy and civil liberties board work effectively, but one of the most important safeguards is the Government’s agreement to an independent expert review of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, for which the Home Secretary will know I called this year. The legislation was drawn up in 2000. As a result of the communications data revolution, the law and our oversight framework are now out of date. New technology is blurring the distinction between communications and content and between domestic and international communications, and raising new questions about data storage. We need to reconsider, therefore, what safeguards are needed to make sure people’s privacy is protected in an internet age, and we need stronger oversight, too.

Previously the Government have resisted this proposal for a RIPA review, and I am glad that they have now agreed. I have suggested the review should be done by the independent counter-terrorism reviewer, David Anderson. Will the Home Secretary tell me whether that will be possible and also ensure that he will have the resources and capabilities and expertise he needs to be able to produce a thorough report which can recommend the reforms that we need but that can also give confidence to the process?

There are three other areas, which we have raised with the Home Secretary, and where it would be helpful to see whether we can go further: first, in asking the interception commissioner to provide reports every six months on the operation of this legislation while it is in force; secondly, in strengthening the Intelligence and Security Committee so that it has the same powers as Select Committees to call and compel witnesses and by having an Opposition Chair; thirdly, the longer-term reforms to overhaul the commissioners to provide stronger oversight. Again it would be helpful to have the Home Secretary’s response to those proposals.

Most important, however, we need a wider, longer public debate on these issues, which so far the Government have refused. The majority of people in Britain rightly support the work of the intelligence agencies and the work the police need to do online to keep us safe, but there are growing concerns as a result of new technology and the Snowdon leaks about what safeguards are needed and whether the framework is still up to date. The fact that the Communications Data Bill was so widely drawn last year also raised anxiety and undermined trust in the Government’s approach.

The Government must not ignore those concerns or they will grow and grow. It is vital to our democracy—both to protecting our national security and to protecting our basic freedoms—that there is widespread public consent to the balance the Government and the agencies need to strike. President Obama held such a debate last year. We have urged the Government to lead such a debate now. I hope that the agreement to the RIPA review will now allow that widespread cross-party approach to having that open debate about the safeguards for both privacy and our security that we need, because we cannot just keep on doing short-term sticking plaster legislation in a rush, without the proper consideration of the privacy and security balance modern Britain wants to see.

We will scrutinise the detail of this Bill as it goes through Parliament next week and we will support it, because we know the police and intelligence agencies need this information to fight crime, protect children and counter terrorism, and I hope we can also agree to the wider national debate that we need about how we safeguard our security and our privacy in an internet age.

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Lady for the support she has shown for the emergency legislation and I am grateful for the recognition across the House that we need to ensure that our security and intelligence agencies, and our police and law enforcement agencies, have available to them the powers they need to be able to do the job we all want them to do in catching criminals, preventing terrorism and catching terrorists. There is also a recognition that, as we have said, and as the sunset clause shows, this is meeting a gap now; it is ensuring that those bodies have the capabilities they have until now been able to rely on and that those are able to continue in the face of the legal challenges that have arisen.

The right hon. Lady made a number of points. First, on the timing, the European Court of Justice judgment did indeed come in April, and, obviously, we have been spending quite a time since then looking at the most appropriate way to respond. But to any Members of the House who think it would have been possible to put these changes into normal legislation—into another Bill that is going through the House or into a separate Bill that was not fast-tracked—I say that that timetable was not available to us; it was always going to be necessary for this to be fast-tracked legislation in order to ensure that those capabilities are retained.

The right hon. Lady mentioned Select Committees wanting to be able to look at this measure. The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and I briefed six Select Committee Chairmen yesterday, and today I am publishing a draft version of the Bill. The Bill will be formally introduced on Monday, but I thought it was appropriate to publish it in draft today, as that gives that little bit of extra time for people to be able to look at it. As I have said, I am aiming to make the maximum amount of background supporting information—the regulatory impact assessments and so forth—available to Members of the House, so that people have as much opportunity as possible within the short timetable to be able to look at the various issues.

The right hon. Lady asked whether there was any narrowing in the scope of the powers. The Bill makes something absolutely clear in relation to the issues of intercept. There have always been three areas of scope—national security, serious crime and economic well-being—and the Bill clarifies that economic well-being is there in the context of national security. Just for the avoidance of doubt, the Bill makes it clear that that is the context in which that has been used; it is related back to national security.

The right hon. Lady raised a point about the ISC and its chairmanship. Of course, the House has relatively recently debated the ISC’s structure and its relationship with Parliament. She has raised a specific point about the chairmanship and where that person should be drawn from, and I recognise the strength of view that she and the Opposition have on the matter. Hers is not a policy that we have, but it is open to the House to debate these matters should Members wish to do so.

Finally, let me deal with the review that is to take place. The right hon. Lady made a number of points about that, referring to it as a RIPA review. I should be absolutely clear with the House that it is not just a review that will look at RIPA and ask whether we need to tweak that; as I said, the review will look at the interception and communications data powers we need, as well as the way in which those powers and capabilities are regulated in the context of the threats that we face. That is important because we know that there are new challenges, through new technology, to our capabilities, and the threat context that we face is developing. RIPA came through in 2000 and we would want any legislative changes that the Government make after the next election to stand the test of a reasonable amount of time; we would not want to have to keep coming back to them. That is why this review has to be that wider review about the powers we need against the threat context we have and about the legislative and regulatory framework in which those powers and capabilities are regulated.

The right hon. Lady mentioned the proposal that David Anderson should undertake this review, and I am pleased to say to the House that I have been able to speak to him this morning and that he is willing to undertake it. I think that is very good, given his expertise and his knowledge and understanding of these issues. He and I have been very clear in our conversation. We have not yet been in a position to sit down and discuss terms of reference and the resources he would need, but I am absolutely clear, given the nature of the review that I have just set out, that we need to make sure we get the terms of reference right and that he has the resources and support necessary to be able to do the job that I think everybody across this House wants him to do.