Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I hope my hon. Friend is grateful for the opportunity I gave him to clarify that particular point. I simply say in response to that and his comments about the judiciary that legislation is, of course, set by Parliament, but I believe that the relationship between politicians and the judiciary has changed as a result of the operation of the Human Rights Act. As a Government, we have set up a commission, which will report in due course, to look at the Human Rights Act and the possibility of introducing a Bill of Rights.

I said that I felt the Bill was necessary because public safety is enhanced, not diminished, by appropriate and proportionate powers. Protecting the British public will always be my top priority, but the current control orders regime is neither perfect nor entirely effective. I believe that the Bill will give us appropriate, proportionate and effective powers to deal with the risk posed by people we believe are involved in terrorist-related activity whom we can neither prosecute nor deport.

Our approach is clear, consistent and coherent. We will repeal the control order regime and replace it with a more focused and targeted regime of terrorism prevention and investigation measures. We will then support the new measures with increased covert investigative resources. So this Bill starts by repealing the Act that provides the power to impose control orders on individuals: the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005.

The Bill sets out the essential elements of the TPIM—terrorism prevention and investigation measures—regime that will replace control orders. It enables the Secretary of State to impose specified terrorism prevention and investigation measures on an individual by means of a TPIM notice. Unlike under the control order regime, the detail of the measures that will be able to be imposed will be specified in legislation and so will be specifically approved by the House. It is only right that it is Parliament, and not the Executive, that decides what types of measures may be imposed.

The Bill establishes 12 types of measures that could be imposed as part of a TPIM notice. It also provides clear limits on the restrictions that may be imposed under each measure. These measures include: an overnight residence measure; a travel measure, mainly to prevent travel outside the United Kingdom; an exclusion measure to prevent individuals entering specified areas or places; a financial services measure; an electronic communication device measure; an association measure; a reporting measure and a monitoring measure.

The overnight residence measure is not the same as the control order curfew requirement. Under control orders, curfews could last up to 16 hours and apply at any point in the day. Our intention is not to force individuals to remain in their homes during the day, when they might normally go out to work or study, but to ensure they are in their homes overnight, as most people normally would be. This will reduce the scope for involvement in terrorism-related activity and reduce the risk of absconding.

The travel measure will allow the banning of overseas travel without permission. It will also allow the individual to be required to surrender their passport or travel documents. This measure is, I believe, absolutely vital to stop travel for terrorist training, for example.

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

The Home Secretary has said that the overnight residence requirements are different from curfews and that she does not want to prevent people from going out in the evening. Why, then, did she apply for a control order that included a curfew between 5 pm in the evening and 9 am in the morning—a total curfew of 16 hours?

[Mrs May]

We are currently operating—and have been since the Government came to power—the control order regime that was put in place by the Prevention of Terrorism Act. That is the basis on which I am currently operating. The new regime that will be put in place—of terrorism prevention and investigation measures—is a package that includes not just the measures in the Bill, but, as the right hon. Lady knows, the extra resources for the security services and the police.

[Yvette Cooper]

But will the Home Secretary confirm that she has the power to specify how many hours a curfew should be for and that she has chosen to specify a curfew for 16 hours rather than for fewer hours?

[Mrs May]

I will not comment on a particular case, which the right hon. Lady appears to be trying to get me to do. What I will say is that under the current control order regime it is possible to specify the length of a curfew. As she will know, the length of curfew has been challenged—and challenged successfully—in the courts. What we are doing with TPIMs is taking a different approach to the issue. The TPIMs in the Bill are intended to ensure that we allow prevention of terrorism activity for national security requirements, while also ensuring that individuals can take part in what is regarded as normal activity, such as work or study.

--- Later in debate ---

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

The Home Secretary barely had time to draw breath between statement and debate, but that transition exposes again the gap between the Government’s rhetoric and reality in regard to counter-terrorism. On a day on which the Home Secretary has launched her review of the strategy to prevent terrorism, with tough talk about clamping down, she is simultaneously watering down measures proven to prevent terrorist activity.

The fact is that, for the most part, the Bill is a confusion and a con. It does not do what it says on the tin, and it does not fulfil the grand promises made by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. In 27 clauses, it takes us in a circle and—almost—back to where we started. However, in a few areas it does make changes, and some of them are worrying.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Lady confirm that Labour party policy favours a more authoritarian version of this Bill?

[Yvette Cooper]

If the hon. Gentleman persists with such simplistic soundbites, he will misunderstand the nature of the terrorist threat to Britain, and also the nature of the Bill that he is supporting, because this Bill represents a complete reversal of the promises he and his party made during the election, and does not abolish the control orders regime but simply renames it with a few minor amendments.

We on the Opposition Benches do not have access to the latest security assessments from the experts. We believe it is important to support the Government on counter-terrorism issues where we can, but in order to do so we will need more reassurances from the Home Secretary, and also some changes. The first duty of any Government is the protection of the people and the safeguarding of national security, yet the Home Secretary’s changes currently make it harder for the police and security services to limit the actions of a small number of dangerous people. We therefore need more reassurances on that.

Ideally, we would not have control orders because, ideally, we would not need them, but the Labour Government introduced them because we recognised that we needed to deal with a very small number of difficult cases, where prosecution was not possible for a range of reasons and where the public still needed to be protected from terrorist activity. In opposition, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives condemned control orders, but now they are in government they have changed their minds. Indeed, the Home Secretary has introduced six new control orders since she came to office, and renewed eight more, but rather than admit that, she is desperate to maintain the fiction that control orders need to be replaced by something fundamentally different and that this Bill does the trick.

Most of the Bill is a fudge, drawn up to meet promises made to the Deputy Prime Minister that control orders would be abolished. Clause 1 does exactly that, but clauses 2 to 27 just reinstate most of the elements of control orders. The Bill does not therefore meet the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto promise to scrap orders that use evidence in closed sessions of court, nor does it meet the Conservative pledge of

“eliminating the control order regime.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 March 2010; Vol. 717, c. 1530.]

It certainly does not meet the grand claims of the Deputy Prime Minister in January, when The Sunday Times was briefed that he had

“won his Cabinet fight to scrap control orders”,

that suspects will no longer have to wear electronic tags or have a home curfew, and that they

“will also be allowed to travel wherever they want in Britain”.

As all Members now know, the Bill allows for tags, home curfews and restrictions on travel around Britain. Where control orders use closed proceedings and special advocates, so too do TPIMs. Where control orders are instigated by the Home Secretary with the permission of the High Court, so too are TPIMs. Where control orders are used when prosecution is not possible, so too are TPIMs. Where control orders can restrict people’s movements, communication, association, travel and bank accounts, so too can TPIMs.

Let me read out some extracts from the Government’s own explanatory notes to the Bill. Clause 1 abolishes control orders, and clauses 2 to 4 introduce TPIMs. On clauses 6 to 9 and schedule 2, the notes say:

“This replicates the position in relation to control orders”.

On clause 10, they say:

“The clause maintains all the existing requirements contained in the 2005 Act.”

On clauses 12 to 15 and schedule 3, they say:

“The clauses make provision—equivalent to that in the 2005 Act in relation to control orders”.

On clauses 16 to 18 and schedule 4, they say:

“This provides similar rights of appeal to those that exist in relation to control orders.”

They say that clauses 19 to 20

“place requirements—equivalent to those contained in the 2005 Act in relation to control orders”.

On clause 21, they say that

“this effectively recreates the main offence of the 2005 Act of contravening an obligation imposed under a control order”—

and they then add, in brackets—

“(including the same maximum penalty)”.

This Bill is one big set of square brackets which reads: insert control orders here.

[Pete Wishart]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right: there is almost no difference between TPIMs and the former control order regime. What is the Labour party’s position on this? Would she amend control orders to make them more in line with her party’s new view on civil liberties? Indeed, what is the Labour party’s view on civil liberties? Were control orders a step too far? Will she now come on our side and start to take on the anti-civil libertarian state that Labour created?

[Yvette Cooper]

As I said earlier, control orders are not ideal, and ideally we would not need them, but we do. We need to continue with control orders and this kind of protection.

I will set out my view of the Bill’s measures and where we think greater scrutiny is needed, and highlight the reduction in safeguards and checks and balances that the Home Secretary is introducing, because the point is not simply that she is weakening the powers of the police and security forces in certain areas, but that she is weakening the checks and balances, and in particular the parliamentary checks and balances, on the system that is in place. Those parliamentary checks and balances are extremely important for safeguarding our civil liberties, as well as for protecting national security.

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

I rise in search of some clarity on where the right hon. Lady stands. She seems to be saying on the one hand that TPIMs are simply recreating what existed under control orders, but on the other hand that what the Government are doing is making the situation much more dangerous, but it cannot be both.

[Yvette Cooper]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman listens more closely to what I am saying. The overall approach of the Government’s Bill, which he should read, is to reinstate most of the elements of control orders. I agree however—and I have said this clearly—that the Home Secretary is changing control orders in a series of ways, and I will address them shortly as they are significant. Some of them are justified, but others create risks, and changes will need to be made.

Overall, the Government should admit what they are doing. This is a cut-and-paste job. In place of control orders, all we have is “son of control orders”. It is irresponsible to maintain this pretence. That is not being straight with Parliament or the public on an issue of grave importance: how we safeguard our national security and our civil liberties. Debates on matters such as these should be open, transparent and considered, not fudged, fraudulent and confused. This is an area where Governments need to maintain the trust and confidence of the public, but we do not achieve that by playing these kinds of political games.

This is also a very strange use of parliamentary time. There are some limited and specific differences between control orders and “son of control orders” that I am not concerned about, but, frankly, the Home Secretary could have achieved them with about four clauses amending the 2005 Act which could have been debated as part of the Protection of Freedoms Bill. She could have covered the issues of relocation, the length of the curfew and access to phones through amendments to an existing Act. She did not need an entirely new piece of legislation to abolish control orders and then reintroduce them under another name.

Why are we not doing that? Why do we have an entire additional Bill with 27 more clauses, all redrafted, doing the same thing? Why are we here today? The answer is because the Home Secretary has lost yet another battle with her Cabinet colleagues on her policy areas, so she is forced to go through this charade of entirely new legislation; and because, once again, the Government are putting politics before good policy.

As I have made clear, some of the changes to the control orders are limited. We can support some of them, but some are very troubling. The first change is to move the burden of proof from “reasonable suspicion” to “reasonable belief”. We understand that the view of the experts is that none of the control orders that have been upheld would have failed that higher standard, and that this will not make a significant difference to the serious cases they worry about. We believe it is right to follow the evidence, and we are happy to support this change on that basis.

The second change is to alter the wording in respect of the hours. That is a bit of a joke. In place of curfews, we have a reference to overnight residence requirements, but what is the difference? The online “Oxford English Dictionary” definition of a curfew is

“a regulation requiring people to remain indoors during specified hours, typically at night.”

It is, therefore, a requirement to stay in one’s residence overnight, or, as one might say, an overnight residence requirement. The Deputy Prime Minister made great play of the fact that people would be restricted for fewer hours under TPIMs than under control orders, but that is not what the Bill actually says. In fact, there is no specified limit on the number of hours someone has to stay at home. All the Bill says is “overnight”.

Let us turn again to the OED for illumination about what that should ordinarily mean. Overnight means

“for the duration of a night”,

and night means

“the period from sunset to sunrise.”

So does the Home Secretary intend TPIMs to apply for the hours of darkness? Does she want them to be longer in winter than in summer, and longer in the north than in the south? Does she want them potentially to be used to prevent evening activities and meetings, or only to require people to sleep in their own beds? If she does not think TPIMs should be used to prevent evening meetings or people going out after dark when surveillance is much more difficult, is she confident that this will not increase the risks to the public, or make it harder for the security services and police to do their jobs?

I asked the Home Secretary this during her speech, but how does this fit with her own decisions? A number of the 14 orders she has made or renewed since she took office include curfews, several of more than 12 hours. A recent one runs from 5 pm to 9 am—it is summer, so does that count as “overnight”? She can refuse to answer all these questions, but if she does not answer them, the courts will. Her definition just invites legal challenge or judicial review and, for the sake of the Government’s legal bill alone, she should tighten it up.

Thirdly, the Home Secretary has replaced an inexhaustive list of restrictions with an exhaustive list to choose from. We will ask in Committee whether or not any case, historical or current, would have been affected by this change. Fourthly, she and the Deputy Prime Minister have said that the new Bill would prevent relocation. This matter does raise some significant concerns. Preventing people from entering an entire area, or requiring them to live somewhere else, is, in general, deeply undesirable. However, many experts have concluded that in certain limited circumstances it is extremely important and can be justified. Indeed, police officers have told me that relocation can, in some exceptional circumstances, be the most effective way to disrupt terrorist activity and break someone out of a network of dangerous contacts and associations.

The Home Secretary must think that too, because in February she imposed a control order on a suspect that banned them from entering London and less than one month ago her lawyers defended those restrictions in the High Court. I have gone through the Court papers for this case, which, like so many, is extremely serious. The individual on the order, who is known as CD, was suspected of planning forthcoming attacks using firearms in London. The Court was told that he was attending regular meetings with associates in this city to plan an attack and had previously travelled to Syria for what was alleged to be extremist training. The assessment of the security services and the Home Secretary was that it was necessary to relocate CD outside Greater London to prevent him from having these meetings and co-ordinating an attack—that is what they argued in Court just last month. The High Court judge concluded that the relocation obligation is

“a necessary and proportionate measure to protect the public from the risk of what is an immediate and real risk of a terrorist-related attack.”

All this happened just last month, so the House needs to consider why we are seeking to introduce a change to control orders that would remove a function that the Home Secretary believed, and the High Court agreed, was needed for national security only one month ago?

Fifthly, the Home Secretary is restricting individual TPIMs to two years. Control orders could be renewed repeatedly, and she has not explained what will happen to the two people currently on control orders for more than two years once this Bill comes into force. Will they transfer to TPIMs or will the Home Secretary have to apply to the courts all over again? Sixthly, she is permitting access to phones and computers. She has assured the House that that will be monitored, but we will seek assurances from the monitoring agencies as to whether sufficient safeguards are in place and whether they have the resources to manage the continued monitoring that will be involved.

A wider question is being raised because these changes—the potentially reduced hours for curfews; a potentially narrower list of restrictions; more association with others who may be causing trouble; and the greater use of phone and internet—all require greater surveillance and resources to fill the gap. The Home Secretary has refused to confirm a figure, but the figure of £20 million has been routinely used in the newspapers and, presumably, has been briefed from her Department. Yet the overall police budget is being cut by £2 billion, the police counter-terrorism budget is still being cut in real terms and experienced counter-terrorism officers are being laid off through the A19 process.

I am concerned that the Home Secretary knows that there are troubling gaps in her plans. She has said that

“in exceptional circumstances, faced with a very serious terrorist threat that we cannot manage by any other means, additional measures may be necessary…So we will publish, but not introduce, legislation allowing more stringent measures, including curfews and further restrictions on communications, association and movement…We will invite the Opposition to discuss this draft legislation with us on Privy Council terms.”—[Official Report, 26 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 309.]

What “additional measures” are these, given that control orders are pretty far-reaching? Does this mean that she knows already that there is a potential gap in security as a result of the new TPIMs? The Home Secretary has said she would consult the Opposition about these plans, but she has not yet done so. If new emergency legislation is needed to fill the gaps her own Bill creates, Parliament needs to know about this before we get to the evidence and Committee stage; otherwise we will be debating the Bill under false pretences, legislating only to legislate again.

This Bill is a con, recreating most of control orders while pretending not to do so, and it is risky, as some elements and changes water down the protection for national security, but there is a third problem: the Bill also reduces, rather than increases, parliamentary checks and balances on the Home Secretary. As I have said, the right approach to take to ensure that we protect civil liberties and national security together is to support strong powers for the police and security services to act in difficult circumstances, and to make sure that there are strong checks and balances to prevent abuse.

The current checks and balances on control orders are both judicial and parliamentary: the High Court has to approve every control order but Parliament has to give its approval every year for the control order regime to remain in place. Democratically elected MPs have to decide every year whether the terrorism threat remains sufficiently severe, whether anyone has come up with a better alternative and whether to allow the Home Secretary to continue to use these exceptional powers. That is an important parliamentary check on the exercise of Executive power which should continue to be unusual, yet she is removing it in this Bill. The power of the Home Secretary to impose TPIMs under this Bill is not a temporary one—it is permanent. TPIMs do not have to be renewed annually, as control orders do, and the TPIMs regime does not have to be renewed annually, as the control order regime does. This is therefore a serious downgrading of parliamentary oversight of a regime which is always supposed to be exceptional. She will know that serious concerns have been raised about this by Liberty, Justice and others, who say that far from representing a positive innovation, the TPIMs regime is, in one crucial respect, more offensive than the system it is designed to replace.

The Home Secretary is now in the astonishing situation of pleasing no one. She has a Bill that fudges the issue and does not fundamentally change the control order regime in the way that she and others promised its critics. However, it does water down some measures, worrying those who monitor national security, and it waters down the checks and balances that allow Parliament to prevent abuse, and that should worry this House.

The Opposition have very serious reservations about this Bill. Where possible, we want to support the Government on counter-terrorism. That is made more difficult when neither we nor the Intelligence and Security Committee have access to more detail about the risks in individual cases that would allow us to be reassured that the Home Secretary’s judgments are right. We believe that it would have been better not to introduce this Bill at all. We believe that it is, in the main, unnecessary, that it includes elements that take risks and that it reduces accountability to Parliament. Now that the Government have introduced it, we believe that it needs a serious rethink in Committee. We will not vote against Second Reading tonight, but we will expect greater transparency on these measures, more answers to the questions we have posed and significant changes to be made to the Bill to reassure us about our concerns. Counter-terrorism is too important for us to take risks for the sake of political expediency. The Home Secretary should forget deals done to save face for the Deputy Prime Minister—it is beyond saving—and she should ignore the demands for short-term headlines from the Prime Minister, as in the longer term she has to carry the can.

Policing and Crime

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House opposes the Government’s cuts leading to over 12,000 fewer police officers across England and Wales; believes that the 20 per cent. cut to central Government funding to the police goes far beyond the assessment of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary of efficiency savings that are possible without affecting frontline services; calls on the Government to withdraw plans for American-style police and crime commissioners for which there will be no checks or balances; and believes that the Government is making it harder for the police to cut crime by weakening the National DNA Database, leading to the loss of 1,000 criminal matches per year; ending anti-social behaviour orders, increasing bureaucracy on CCTV, creating serious loopholes in child protection and failing to develop any cross-Governmental strategy to cut crime.

This is our fourth debate on policing and crime on the Floor of the House in the past four months. Time and again we have warned the Home Secretary that she is stirring up a perfect storm on crime. Time and again we have warned the Prime Minister that he is making the wrong decisions on law and order, and they are still not listening. The Home Secretary is not listening to the warning words from chief constables across the country. She is not listening to the cries from communities such as All Saints in Wolverhampton, where hundreds of people have signed a petition to keep their local bobby on the beat. She is not listening to the public telling pollsters and researchers that they do not trust her party on crime. As she showed at the police conference last week, she also is not listening to the silence.

The storm we warned of is building. Cuts to police officer numbers are being felt. Front-line services that the Home Secretary promised to protect are being hit. There are cuts to youth services and family intervention projects that were helping to bring crime down. There is higher youth unemployment and poverty is rising. There are cuts to the powers that the police and courts need, and chaos in her policing reforms. American-style police and crime commissioners were rejected by the House of Lords for putting centuries of impartial British policing at risk.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady speaks of the Government not listening. Will she now listen to the Justice Department, whose statistics show that antisocial behaviour orders do not work? They are seen as a badge of honour, and three quarters of ASBOs are breached. Were Labour to come back into power, would she retract Labour’s claims?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman’s concern about antisocial behaviour would be rather more convincing if he were criticising the cut of 250 officers and staff in his area. Antisocial behaviour orders are not right in every situation, but he obviously has not talked to police officers such as those I have spoken to in Wakefield or the community residents I have spoken to in Blackpool, who would tell him of case after case where antisocial behaviour orders have worked, have made a difference and are fighting antisocial behaviour in their communities. They are appalled at the Government’s decision.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

When the shadow Home Secretary was in Blackpool, did she join in welcoming the decision by the Lancashire constabulary to increase community policing in Blackpool, as it recently announced?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman knows that while every chief constable across the country is trying to do everything they can to get as many police as possible out into neighbourhoods, the Lancashire constabulary is already being hit by cuts to front-line policing. The chief constable has raised his concerns about the cuts to front-line policing, including hundreds of officers and staff in his area.

[Paul Maynard]

rose—

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I am delighted to give way to another hon. Member on the Government Benches, but their points would be more credible if they would tell us that they would put the cuts to police officers in their constituencies on their leaflets at the next election.

[Mr Jackson]

I am grateful for the campaigning advice from the right hon. Lady. Does she think one would have to be cynical to be perplexed by the fact that before the general election, her right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) was not prepared under any circumstances to name the percentage decrease in the budget for the police, but since the general election he just happens to agree with Her Majesty’s inspector of constabulary on a 12% figure? Is that cynical, or does it reflect the fact that the Labour party has no policy on cuts in the police service?

[Yvette Cooper]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman’s facts are wrong. In fact, the former Home Secretary set out in November, before the election, areas where he believed reductions in the budget for the police could be made, which would come from efficiency savings. That is why he backed a 12% reduction, which was supported by HMIC, not a 20% reduction, which is hitting thousands and thousands of police officers across the country and putting front-line services at risk right across the country. Senior police chiefs are deeply troubled by chaotic changes to national policing, and police morale is at rock bottom. Members on the Government Benches are deeply out of touch if they think their constituents want to see 12,000 police officers across the country go.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady references the former Home Secretary’s comments about policing. He also said that officer numbers would fall under the spending programme proposed by Labour. The shadow Chancellor said that there would be reductions in non-uniformed police staff. What cuts and what staff numbers would she envisage under Labour’s deficit reduction plans?

[Yvette Cooper]

We have been here before. We have had this debate before. There is a clear difference between our plans and the Government’s. We said yes, there would be reductions—[Interruption.]—and that that would mean being able to maintain the number of police officers and police community support officers across the country and being able to maintain, as HMIC said, front-line services across the country. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. It is one thing to make an intervention; it is quite another for Members to carry on shouting once an hon. Member has resumed her seat. There will be plenty of opportunity for Members to take part in the debate if we can make progress.

[Yvette Cooper]

The noise on the Government Benches conveys Members’ desperation about the cuts being made to police officer numbers in their constituencies right across the country. The difference is that we said yes, cuts of about £1 billion would need to be made over the course of the Parliament; their Front-Bench team is making cuts of £2 billion, with the steepest cuts in the first few years. That is why we are seeing 12,000 officers go and front-line services being hit.

The storm will not go away. It will keep building. The Prime Minister may think he can make it go away by finally making a speech on crime in the next few weeks—his first since the Government began—just to show that he is taking the grip that he clearly thinks the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary lack. But it is too late for tough rhetoric, because communities across the country are already facing a tough reality—12,000 police officers to go.

How can the Government have got so out of touch on law on order? Many people have claimed that the Prime Minister just doesn’t get it—that he is out of touch and does not understand the fear of crime in communities across the country. It is true that crime is lower in Witney than in Wakefield, but one would have thought that the Prime Minister had plenty of experience of antisocial behaviour in his street. Surely the Defence Secretary must be the first candidate for an ASBO after throwing brickbats at the International Development Secretary and the Chancellor. The Business Secretary may need an injunction for throwing brickbats at himself.

The Justice Secretary has clearly been causing carnage wandering unmonitored through the TV studios. The Prime Minister should tag him at least, although Downing street probably thinks he is rather better locked up. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs should serve a community sentence, replanting trees, and the Deputy Prime Minister is clearly regarded now as a nuisance neighbour. The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change is the only one the Government can count on to be supportive—he is only person rather pleased to see the cuts to the traffic cops. The entire Cabinet is in desperate need of a family intervention project. What a shame the Government have cut those!

Time and again we have warned in the House of the serious consequences of cutting 12,000 officers. Let us look at the evidence: domestic violence units cut in Hampshire, officers in sexual offences teams forced out in London, traffic cops cut in Manchester, fire arms officers cut in Nottingham, CCTV officers cut in Merseyside, neighbourhood police cut in Birmingham and—get this—in Kent the police have told us that surveillance officers have been called off their targets after six-hour shifts because of overtime cuts. I presume that as part of the big society the Home Secretary has kindly asked criminals to keep their misdemeanours to office hours.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady at least turn her attention to London, where the Conservative Mayor, Boris Johnson, through judicious management of his finances, is on course to increase the number of police officers by 1,000 by next year?

[Yvette Cooper]

Judicious only until the mayoral election, after which the number will be cut. The Mayor has realised, as Government Members everywhere else in the country seem not to have done, that the public do not like police cuts, so of course he is pretending to put the numbers up, having seen them fall already since the election.

Government Members tell us that all these problems will be solved by cutting bureaucracy, but even the Home Secretary’s most optimistic claims are to save the equivalent of 1,200 police officers in several years’ time. Unfortunately, she is cutting 12,000 officers now. As for the A19s, you couldn’t make it up, with up to 2,000 experienced officers being forced to take early retirement. Chief constables are being put in an impossible position, forced to use A19s to make the savings that their forces need. However, now we see, with the calculations from the House of Commons Library, that when we take into account the lost tax and pension contributions that those police officers and police authorities were making, forcing those officers to retire early will actually cost the taxpayer more. Tens of millions of pounds spent and thousands fewer experienced officers on the beat—how on earth does that fight crime?

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he can answer that question.

[Michael Ellis]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Lady, who is being generous in giving way. Will she accept that Labour would be cutting £7 for every £8 cut under the Government’s proposals, that it is completely unacceptable for the police, as Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has reported, to have only 11% of police officers on duty and available to the public at any one time, and that by cutting bureaucracy more police can be put on the streets, rather than filling in forms in the police stations?

[Yvette Cooper]

It is right to keep working hard to cut bureaucracy, but the hon. Gentleman is out of touch with the reality of what is happening across the country. In west Yorkshire, for example, the police are now having to go back to their offices between incidents to deal with the bureaucracy themselves because of the scale of the cuts, whereas previously they could ring in with the details of an offence or incident that they had attended. In the west midlands and Warwickshire, time and again police officers are having to do more paperwork and bureaucracy because of the scale of the Government’s cuts.

It is not just the cuts that are causing the problems: the Government are also making it harder for the police and communities to fight crime. As a result of the DNA restrictions, the police estimate that there are 1,000 fewer criminal matches every year, including for serious offenders. It means not holding DNA at all in up to three quarters of rape cases, where charges are ultimately not brought, and we know the difficulties in rape cases.

On CCTV, the new code of practice means a bubble wrap of bureaucracy, with more checks and balances on a single camera than the Government are introducing for police and crime commissioners, yet the Home Secretary knows the benefits that CCTV can bring. They have just installed CCTV at Twyford train station in her constituency. Did she complain then that they had not done an impact assessment on the environment, privacy or disproportionality or introduce safeguards, as her code of practice required? No. She congratulated the station manager, saying that people needed the

“added reassurance that they can travel in safety”.

Too right they do, and they do not want too much bureaucracy to prevent them from getting the reassurance they need.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Before my right hon. Friend moves on from CCTV, I wonder how many Members of this House have had constituents come to them demanding that CCTV be removed? I am sure that every Member has had large numbers of people come to them asking for more CCTV, rather than less.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. CCTV can make a difference for communities that are struggling, such as the community in Blackpool that I talked with a few weeks ago, who told me about the difference that having CCTV installed has made on their estate, where they had had persistent problems. CCTV was helping them to turn it around.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady may have heard the Justice Secretary say in the previous debate how important it was from the Government’s perspective to prevent people from having to be witnesses and give evidence in court and how distressing that was. Does she therefore agree with me, and I presume with the Justice Secretary, and recognise the role that DNA and CCTV play in preventing witnesses and victims having to go through the trauma of giving evidence?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman is right, and I know that he has spent considerable time looking at the issue of DNA. When the police analysed the offences in 2008-09—just one year’s worth of offences—they found that there were 79 matches for very serious crimes, including murder, manslaughter and rape, which they would not have got had it not been for the DNA database. The concern is about not holding DNA for people who are not charged, even though they might have been suspected of a very serious offence and where the reason for not charging may not be that they are now thought to be innocent, but simply that there are difficulties, as, perhaps in a rape case—we know it is sometimes difficult to take such a case through the criminal justice system.

The Government are out of touch with their plans to end antisocial behaviour orders. The Home Secretary has said that she wants to end ASBOs because she is worried that they are being breached, but what is her answer? Her answer is to replace them with a much weaker injunction, with greater delays, which offenders can breach as many times as they like. She is removing the criminal enforcement for serious breaches of ASBOs and removing interim ASBOs altogether, making it much harder for communities, police and local authorities to get urgent action when serious cases arise. No matter how many times an offender breaches the new crime prevention injunctions or ignores the warnings of the police, they will still not get a criminal penalty. They are not so much a badge of honour as a novelty wrist band. How does that help communities that want to see antisocial behaviour brought down?

The area that I worry about most is child protection. The Home Secretary has now been advised that there are serious loopholes in her plans—by the Children’s Commissioner, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Children’s Society, Action for Children, the Scout Association, the Football Association, the Lawn Tennis Association and countless other national sporting bodies. Her plans still mean that someone could be barred from working with children and yet still get part-time or voluntary work in a school or children’s sports club and the organisation would not even be told that they had been barred. She really must stop and think again on this or she will be putting children at risk.

Time and again the Home Secretary is undermining the powers of the police and the authorities to fight crime. Time and again she is telling them to fight with one hand behind their backs. Worrying signs are already emerging. In Yorkshire, the police are saying that their figures show that crime has gone up this year. In the west midlands it is the same. Over the 13 years of the Labour Government, crime fell by 40%. The risk of being a victim of crime is now at its lowest since the British crime survey began and there is rising confidence in the police, but people want crime to keep falling. She is putting that at risk.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady has confirmed that she agrees with the independent inspectorate of constabulary that £1 billion-worth of savings can be made to the police without affecting front-line services. Could she share with the House what challenges she made to the Home Office budget when she was Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 2008-09 to remove this inefficiency?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman will find that the Home Office made efficiency savings every year, and we can always rely on Chief Secretaries continually to press for them. Before the election, the then Home Secretary set out in the 2009 pre-Budget report, the 2010 Budget and in the policing White Paper a series of areas where, yes, savings could be made. It is right to make savings, but it is also right to ensure that we give the police enough resources to fight crime and to protect the public in their areas.

The Government tell us that they have no choice. That is rubbish. They have made a choice to put the Tory party’s political timetable for deficit reduction ahead of keeping the public safe. They have made a choice to roll back police officers, because they do not believe in public sector action. They are hitting jobs in the economy, but they are hitting law and order, too.

This policy is driven by ideology, not by necessity. The Government are fighting the police rather than fighting crime, and they are making life easier for offenders and harder for victims of crime. They have turned their backs on communities, they are out of touch on crime and justice, and communities throughout the country will pay the price.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

I am saying to all police officers that we value the work that they are doing, though it is important that we look at their pay terms and conditions, which have not been changed significantly for some time. We need to ensure that we have a modern, flexible work force in the police who can take us forward in the policing that we need today in the 21st century. That is why I thought it important to set up an independent review. We will look at the results of the proper processes that that independent review report is going through with the Police Negotiating Board.

I have set out a number of areas in which it is possible to make savings over and above those identified in the HMIC report in areas, such as increasing efficiency, IT, procurement, and a pay freeze. Together, these savings amount to £2.2 billion a year—more than the £2.1 billion real-terms reduction in central Government funding to the police. Even that ignores the local precept contribution from council tax payers, which independent forecasts suggest will rise by £382 million, or 12%, over the comprehensive spending review period.

[Yvette Cooper]

If the Home Secretary is so confident in her savings figures, why does she think that chief constables from across the country, including in Lancashire, South Yorkshire, Kent and Norfolk, are all saying that front-line services will be hit as a result of her cuts, and why are 12,000 officers going?

[Mrs May]

Chief constables up and down the country are giving a commitment to maintaining the quality of their front-line services. The chief constables of Gloucestershire, Kent and Thames Valley, and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, are all saying that they have a commitment to ensuring front-line services.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. The chief constable of Staffordshire is another chief constable who is committed to protecting front-line and neighbourhood policing and ensuring that he does so in a way that makes sense and introduces greater efficiency in several areas. The problem with the position taken by the Opposition is that they do not want to see any change of any sort in policing, and yet there are chief constables out there who know that a transformation of policing is what is needed in the circumstances that we find ourselves in. In many cases, as has been evidenced by my hon. Friends, we may see an improvement in the service that is given to people.

[Yvette Cooper]

Then what does the right hon. Lady say to the chief constable of Lancashire, who says,

“we cannot leave the frontline untouched and that is because of the scale of the cuts”;

to the chief constable of South Yorkshire, who has said,

“we will be unable to continue to provide the level of service that we do today in such areas as neighbourhood policing”;

to the chief constable of Kent, who said that 20% is

“a significant drawback into police numbers, both civilian staff and police numbers, and clearly there's a potential impact that crime will rise”;

and to the chief constable of Norfolk, who says that given the scale of the cuts,

“Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary…report confirms what we have always maintained, that…the constabulary will have to reduce its front line over the next four years”?

Her policing Minister has said that he likes chief constables who stay quiet. Does she want to gag the chief constables of Lancashire, South Yorkshire, Kent and Norfolk, or does she think they are doing a bad job?

[Mrs May]

A number of those chief constables, including the chief constable of Kent, have made it absolutely clear that they are going to protect neighbourhood policing. Perhaps the right hon. Lady should reflect on the evidence given by the chief constable of Greater Manchester to the Home Affairs Committee, when he said that an artificial numbers game had been necessary under the last Labour Government, with the result that some officers were being put into back-office roles that need not be undertaken by officers.

Crucially, all the savings that I have set out can be made while protecting the quality of front-line services. At the same time, as I have made clear in response to several interventions, we are reviewing police pay, terms and conditions to make them fair to police officers and to the taxpayer. If implemented, Tom Winsor’s proposals to reform police pay and conditions will help the service to manage its budgets, maximise officer and staff deployment to front-line roles, and enable front-line services to be maintained and improved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that we have protected the counter-terrorism policing budget, because we recognised the importance of that.

The next mistake in Labour’s motion is on antisocial behaviour. We are giving the police and local practitioners a simpler and much more effective set of tools. The current alphabet soup of powers is confusing, bureaucratic and, far too often, simply not effective. The number of antisocial behaviour orders issued has fallen by more than half, and more than half of them are now breached at least once. More than 40% are breached more than once, and in fact those that are breached are now breached an average of more than four times.

We are introducing a smaller number of faster, more flexible and more effective tools that will allow practitioners to protect victims and communities. Far from making it harder for communities to get action on antisocial behaviour, we will introduce the community trigger, which will give communities the right to force agencies to take action to deal with persistent antisocial behaviour if they have failed to do so. The last shadow Home Secretary said:

“I want to live in the kind of society that puts ASBOs behind us.”

I find it rather concerning that the current shadow Home Secretary does not want to live in the same kind of society as the shadow Chancellor.

The Opposition’s final mistake in the motion is on child protection, and it brings me to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) raised. There are no loopholes in the programme that we have proposed. If by “loopholes” the Opposition mean that our scheme will no longer require 9 million people to register and be monitored by the state, they are right. We will not put nearly one in six of the entire population on to some enormous, intrusive Government database. We will not stop famous authors from reading poetry to schoolchildren. We will provide an appropriate and proportionate scheme that will give vulnerable people and children the protection that they need, while allowing those who want to volunteer to do so without fear or suspicion. That will make children’s lives better, by encouraging, not discouraging, people to work with them. I am sure that many Members, like my hon. Friend, can give examples of people who have found the whole process difficult and, sadly, been put off volunteering.

[Yvette Cooper]

Will the Home Secretary respond specifically to the NSPCC’s concern? It has raised the issue of a loophole whereby someone who has been barred from working with children can apply for a voluntary or part-time supervised job with a sports organisation or school, and that organisation will not even be told that they have been barred. Her junior Minister confirmed in the Protection of Freedoms Bill Committee that that was the case, and children’s organisations, the Children’s Commissioner and Labour Members are deeply concerned about that loophole. Can she confirm that it does indeed exist?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for mentioning the NSPCC, because it enables me to put the record right and quote its chief executive, Andrew Flanagan, who has said:

“The Government’s amendment is absolutely right. We welcome this wholeheartedly as it will make a huge difference to the safety of young people. We look forward to working with the Government as the new scheme is implemented.”

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Lady will know that the matter was discussed in detail in Committee, and my hon. Friends who served on the Committee were clear that that NSPCC comment referred to the changes for 16 and 17-year-olds. She rightly listened and made the changes in question. Will she also make a change in the case of someone who has been barred? It might be known that there is a problem with someone working with children, yet they will be allowed to do so again. The organisation that is supposed to be supervising them will not even be told that they have been barred from working with children. Will she look again at that matter? It is very serious.

[Mrs May]

The issue was discussed in Committee, and the points that were made were very clear. As she said, she is talking about a situation in which an individual will be supervised. In the past she has talked about people with part-time jobs in schools, whose activity will be regulated. The potential for barring will therefore apply. In situations in which people’s activity is supervised, information will be available from the enhanced CRB check.

I accept that throughout, there has been a difference of opinion between Government Members and the Opposition. Labour wanted to put millions of people on to the database, which prevented people from volunteering to work with children and prevented authors from going into schools to read to children. Frankly, the scheme needed to be revised, and the Government are doing so.

We have a clear and comprehensive plan to cut crime. We are empowering the public, cutting bureaucracy, strengthening the fight against organised crime, providing more effective and appropriate powers and getting better value for money for the taxpayer. Those are the right reforms at the right time. In contrast, the Opposition are wrong on police numbers, the HMIC report, front-line availability, police and crime commissioners, DNA, CCTV, antisocial behaviour and child protection. They are wrong on each and every point, and that is why their motion deserves to fail.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

We have had a typical debate on policing this evening, in which Government Members have spoken with knowledge about policing in their local areas and offered constructive suggestions on how policing could be improved and, as usual, Labour Members have simply sought to play politics, as they have in every debate that they have called.

I begin by mentioning what I believe all of us should agree about—the value of the police in our country, the contribution that they make and the need for us to support them. I note in particular the tribute that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) paid to PC Nigel Albuery, who was stabbed on duty last week serving the Metropolitan police. His service, and what he went through, reminds us of the importance of the job that the police do, which we must recognise is frequently difficult and dangerous. Police officers, of course, cannot strike. It is therefore important—I say this in response to hon. Members on both sides of the House—that we treat police officers properly and value their service. However, none of that means that the Government do not have to take the difficult decisions that it is necessary to confront at the moment.

I agreed strongly with my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) on criticism of the police, which was levelled, for instance, in relation to the disorder in London in past weeks. He made the point that the police are so often damned if they do and damned if they do not. This Government have sought not to join in with that criticism; instead, we have offered support for both the leadership of the police and the officers who did their job on the ground in difficult and trying circumstances. Many of those officers were injured, and we believe that criticism should be levelled at, and reserved for, the people who perpetrated that violence. It is simply wrong-headed to criticise the police for the action that they took.

I am afraid that Opposition Members continue not to accept the fact that we must deal with the deficit, which means that we must take tough decisions. It is quite clear that Opposition would be simply unwilling to take those decisions—meaning decisions on the public sector. Do the shadow Home Secretary and the shadow Policing and Criminal Justice Minister really think that it helps to criticise chief constables as they seek to take the inevitable and difficult decisions to protect front-line services and restructure their forces? That does not help those chief constables at all.

The Opposition pretend, both to the police and to the public, that their policy would be completely different from ours, but as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary pointed out, their policy is to cut, this year, £7 of every £8 that we would cut. As the shadow Home Secretary has been forced to admit, the Opposition would cut £1 billion a year from police budgets. She must be the only person in this country who thinks it possible to cut £1 billion from police budgets without any reduction in the work force. How on earth does she think such savings can be realised?

Of course, there will be savings from reducing the work force. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary was quite clear that cuts would be made across legal and investigation services, and in estates, criminal justice, custody, training, intelligence, business support and community policing. That is where HMIC said savings must be realised. Why do the Opposition believe it possible to reduce spending on the police by £1 billion a year—their policy—and yet pretend to police officers and staff that not a single job would be lost? Frankly, in taking that position, they are not being straight with police officers and their staff about what would happen.

That is very different to the position taken by the former shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). When he was Home Secretary, he at least had the honesty to admit that Labour could not maintain numbers. He admitted that, but the current shadow Home Secretary will not admit it. The truth is that she has absolutely no idea how that £1 billion of savings would be achieved. Let me give her an example from the HMIC report. The inspector talks about the importance of making savings from collaboration. He says:

“Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire forces anticipate savings of”

£1.5 million

“from joint work on scientific support, major crime, firearms, a single dog unit and a single professional standards department.”

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

[Nick Herbert]

I am not going to give way. [Hon. Members: “Give way!”] No. I gave way to the right hon. Lady last time, and she abused that privilege. I am not going to give way to her again. How does the right hon. Lady think that Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire could make these savings other than by reducing the number of people?

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

[Nick Herbert]

Those forces talk about a single dog unit. Does the right hon. Lady think they are just cutting the number—[Interruption.]

[Nick Herbert]

With only a few minutes to go, I will not give way.

The Labour party does not wish to admit to police officers and the public that it, too, would be cutting budgets, staff and police pay. In her speech, the right hon. Lady criticised a police force that was having to cut its overtime bill. What does she think a cut in overtime is if not a cut in police pay? Frankly, the Opposition’s position is one of nothing more than shameless opportunism. Government Members know exactly what we have to do.

Incredibly, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), the right hon. Lady said, “We have had this debate before”. Yes we have, and she has called it before, and several times she has come to the Dispatch Box and repeated her constant claim about police cuts, but in all her speeches what has she actually said about policing policy? What has she said on any of these issues?

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

[Nick Herbert]

The right hon. Lady has had her opportunity already because she has called three debates, but what has she said about policing policy? She has said nothing about serious organised crime. She has said nothing about procurement and IT, on which we argue that savings can be found. We say that nearly £400 million of savings can be made through better procurement and IT. What is the Opposition’s policy on that? They are silent. They have nothing to say on that.

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

[Nick Herbert]

The right hon. Lady has never mentioned it in her speeches. She opposes the two-year pay freeze that we are asking the whole public sector to apply, and which will save a considerable sum in policing. Why is she opposing the two-year pay freeze and then arguing that we have not identified how to make the savings? Of course we have.

[Yvette Cooper]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In your experience, is it parliamentary procedure and parliamentary protocol for a Member to make so many comments about the shadow Home Secretary and not allow them to intervene to respond?

[Mr Speaker]

It is the responsibility of the Member on his or her feet to decide whether, and if so when, to allow an intervention.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

As I said in response to the previous question, there will be proper and careful consideration of all these issues as the Bill goes through Committee and its further stages in the House of Lords. I am aware that issues have been raised about the police and crime panels and how they use properly the checks and balances in place to hold police and crime commissioners to account. It is our intention to introduce commissioners across England and Wales.

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

The Home Secretary will know that on the Bill’s Third Reading five weeks ago we called on the Government to stop and think about the plans for police and crime commissioners, given the deep concerns about the lack of checks and balances in this American-style reform, but she refused. She will have heard Liberal Democrat Front Benchers’ plea to listen. The Deputy Prime Minister has now said that he supports pilots first, his parliamentary aide said this morning that this is the key area, in addition to the NHS, on which Liberal Democrats want to see changes, and Liberal Democrat peers are proposing a two or three-year pause for proper pilots to take place. Will the Home Secretary tell the House whether she is indeed listening, and whether she will consider amending the Bill to introduce pilots first?

[Mrs May]

I have to tell the right hon. Lady, after that lengthy question, that I answered the point about our intention regarding pilots in response to the previous two questions. I gently remind her that this is not an idea of which we have no experience: the Labour Government made the Mayor of London responsible for overseeing the Metropolitan police and therefore acting as a pilot for police and crime commissioners.

[Yvette Cooper]

So this, it seems, is the Home Secretary’s answer to the Liberal Democrats: they have done a pilot and it was the Mayor of London. In fact, as she will know, the Mayor of London works under a completely different arrangement, and I am not sure that the Liberal Democrats will see that as the Prime Minister’s so-called listening mode. These American-style plans concentrate considerable policing power in the hands of one person without putting in place the proper checks and balances. They are opposed by crime and policing experts and are deeply illiberal and not very British. The Deputy Prime Minister says he wants to hear a louder Liberal Democrat voice. It sounds like they are shouting, but she is not listening. The so-called new business relationship is just business as usual: the Conservatives take the decisions, the Liberal Democrats take the blame.

[Mrs May]

It was a coalition agreement commitment that we would introduce directly elected individuals to oversee police forces and to hold them to account, and that there would be proper checks and balances. Far from there not being proper checks and balances, as the right hon. Lady suggests, the police and crime panels will provide real checks and balances to the police and crime commissioner. Perhaps she needs to speak to the shadow policing Minister, the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), who a couple of years ago said that

“only direct election, based on geographic constituencies, will deliver the strong connection to the public which is critical”.

We agree with him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend has made a very important and valid point. Of course, a number of the recommendations refer to Transport for London and to emergency responders. The proposals that have come specifically from the coroner will be looked at in great detail and with great care because it is absolutely right that we ensure that the lessons that can be learned from 7 July 2005 are learned.

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

I welcome the Home Secretary’s words about the 7/7 inquest and add our thanks to Lady Justice Hallett and the team. That inquest brought out the heroism and the tragedy of that terrible day. The moments of bravery shown by the emergency services, many members of the public, those who were directly affected and their families will be remembered, as will the tragic loss of the 52 people who were killed.

It is important that Lady Justice Hallett’s recommendations are taken forward and that the relevant services have the resources to do that. May I ask the Home Secretary when she expects to be able to report back to the House on the detail of her response to those recommendations? Can she give the House a sense of whether she expects to be able to support the broad thrust of the recommendations because they were each considered in great detail and it is important that they can be taken forward?

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her question. On the issue of timing, the formal position is that anybody to whom recommendations are made is given 56 days to respond to the coroner’s report and recommendations. We will be responding within that timescale but, as I indicated in my previous answer, I intend to do so within a timescale that will enable me to make a statement to the House about that response. I am sure she will understand that as the recommendations were made to a number of bodies across government, as well as Transport for London, it is necessary to co-ordinate that response and make sure that all considerations have properly been taken into account.

On the right hon. Lady’s final point, significant improvements have already been made since 7 July 2005, but the Government are always looking to learn lessons from that incident and any other incidents that take place—should they do so. In doing that, of course we always put at the forefront of our thoughts the intention of ensuring that we can provide the highest level of public security and safety possible, but sadly we can never guarantee that no further terrorist incident will take place.

Government Reductions in Policing

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House notes the Association of Chief Police Officers’ statement that there will be 12,000 fewer police officers because of the Government’s cuts to central government funding for the police; considers that chief constables across England and Wales are being put in an impossible position by the Government’s 20 per cent. cut to central government funding; notes that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) said the police budget could be reduced ‘at best’ by 12 per cent. and that ‘a cut beyond 12 per cent. would almost certainly reduce police availability’; further notes that HMIC has said that 95 per cent. of police officers do not work in back office roles; regrets that because of the Government’s 20 per cent. cut frontline police officers are being lost in every region of England and in Wales; is deeply concerned by recent statements from police forces and authorities that show the level of cuts being forced upon them by the Government, amounting to 1,158 police officers in the South West, 1,428 police officers in the South East, 1,215 police officers in the East of England, 579 police officers in Wales, 783 police officers in the East Midlands, 1,573 police officers in the West Midlands, 573 in the North East, 3,175 in the North West, 1,242 in Yorkshire and the Humber and 1,200 in London; calls on the Government to think again; and rejects the cuts to frontline police officers the Government is forcing upon police forces.

We come to this debate rather later than any of us had expected, and I congratulate those Members who have managed to sit through all four statements and an urgent question in order to be present for it.

This debate offers a chance for the House to reflect on the full scale of the cuts in policing the Home Secretary agreed and announced last October, a chance for Members on both sides of the House to consider what this means for their constituents, and a chance to urge the Home Secretary to pause and think again, because if Government Ministers can do that for trees and for hospitals, then this is her moment. It is time the Government stopped to think about the damage they are doing to the nation’s policing before it is too late.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

Does this debate also present the previous Administration with the chance to say sorry for the huge economic mess we were left in, which is why tough decisions are now having to be taken in policing and other areas?

[Yvette Cooper]

In fact, at the time of the election unemployment was falling, the economy was growing and borrowing was lower than expected, whereas nearly 12 months on we have seen borrowing come in higher than expected, unemployment continue to rise and growth stall. The hon. Gentleman should, perhaps, consider those points when he thinks about the impact these foolish decisions are having on public services.

I was contacted last week by a local beat officer from the west midlands, and I want to read out what he said about the job he did:

“When I arrived it was a run-down, deprived area frequented by pimps, prostitutes, druggies and drug dealers. By working with the community we were able to change it into an area where the residents were happy to walk the streets at all times of the day and night. Crime was reduced and the feel-good factor returned. The local community saw me every day. If I wasn’t there, they would phone me. I was able to rebuild trust and confidence in the police. I was the single point of reference for them.

In 2010 I was awarded the ‘coppers’ copper award’ by the Police Federation…this spoke of my professionalism and dedication. Now I am being forced out and will not be replaced. Residents are up in arms and have even started a petition to keep me. These people know that in a very short space of time”

their area

“will return to what it used to be and they are frightened.

I believe I am good value for money...My presence prevents crime and antisocial behaviour. It makes people feel good. I’m totally devastated to be leaving as I feel that I have a number of good years in front of me doing the job I’m good at. I took an oath in 1979 and have stuck to it. Ultimately the people who will suffer are the public.”

Those are the words of one beat officer in the west midlands, who is at the sharp end. That is what it is really like on the front line of the Government’s 20% cuts in policing, and there is much more such evidence from across the country.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

One of the sharp-end decisions this Government have had to take is to deal with the economic legacy to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) referred. Is the biggest Budget deficit in the developed world part of that golden economic legacy that the right hon. Lady believes her party left to our country and Government?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Lady chose not to comment on the more than 100 police officers being lost from the Wiltshire force, as well as the more than 100 support jobs being lost from that force. I look forward to seeing her put that in her leaflet for the next election. As I have already pointed out, at the time of the election borrowing was, in fact, lower than expected and unemployment was falling. By cutting too far, too fast, the hon. Lady’s party is going to make it harder to cut the deficit, with more people on the dole and more spent on unemployment benefit.

From Nottinghamshire, another officer writes:

“Since 2006 when I took this office road casualties have fallen by 33%...that’s saved over £90 million in costs...I haven’t achieved this by myself for sure but we’ve contributed massively to that effort and now they want to get rid of me.”

Hampshire police have been forced to cut their domestic violence units. In Lancashire, they are reducing air-support cover. In Dorset, they are cutting traffic policing by 33%. In north Wales, they have cut back on the handlers and sniffer dogs for explosives. In the west midlands, neighbourhood policing teams are being lost.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he wants to comment on the policing cuts in his area.

[Stephen Barclay]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way. Under the 12% cuts she proposes, what does she consider to be the right ratio between the numbers of senior management staff and bobbies on the beat, whose comments she is quoting in her speech? Cambridgeshire police has a sergeant for every four constables, an inspector for every three sergeants, and a chief inspector or officer of more senior grade for every one-and-a-half inspectors. Does she consider that to be the right ratio between the number of senior police figures and those on the beat?

[Yvette Cooper]

Of course we want to see more police officers out on the beat, and, in fact, that was the consequence of the policies of the Labour Government over many years. We also believe it is right for forces to do everything they can to improve their efficiency and to make sure they are supporting officers. However, in force after force and area after area we are seeing police officers, not just police staff, being lost: 12,500 officers to go. These are not our figures; they are figures from the Association of Chief Police Officers and individual police forces and police authorities across the country. There will be 12,500 fewer officers and 15,000 fewer support staff. That is the equivalent of the combined police strength of Yorkshire and Humberside, or the equivalent of the forces of Durham, Cumbria, North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Surrey and Dorset combined.

[Claire Perry]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Lady if she thinks it is really possible to make cuts of that scale to police forces and still have no impact on the front-line services that communities across the country receive.

[Claire Perry]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Lady for her generosity in giving way for a second time. I am very interested in the statistics she is quoting, and I ask her for the source of the data she just gave suggesting that 100 officers were going in Wiltshire, because I have very frequent conversations with the chief constable of Wiltshire, and that is not a number that either he or I would recognise. Please can she tell us the source of the data?

[Yvette Cooper]

All the figures we have seen and released have come either from chief constables, police forces or police authorities. That is also where the figures of 12,500 fewer officers and 15,000 fewer support staff have come from. I know that Ministers have repeatedly refused to acknowledge those figures, but I hope they will take the opportunity of today’s debate to admit that police officer posts are being cut across the country. That is what happens when you cut too far, too fast. Of course the police can make efficiency savings; they should strive to do more and do better, and should make savings in procurement, on overtime and by changing the way they do things. That does mean cuts to their budgets, but by forcing cuts of 20%, with the steepest cuts occurring in the first two years so that there is no time to adjust and plan, the Government have lost any sense of balance and any grip on the reality of what such cuts will mean for communities across the country.

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

The right hon. Lady is making a lot out of the issue of police numbers. What would she say to Chief Constable Peter Fahy from Greater Manchester, who in January said to the Home Affairs Committee:

“The other issue has been political—if I can say it—almost an obsession with the number of police officers, which meant that we've kept that number artificially high. We have had lots of police officers doing administrative posts just to hit that number.”?

[Yvette Cooper]

As the Home Secretary will know, chief constables have been put in an impossible position. They are rightly trying to do everything they can to deliver strong policing within the budgets they have been given and to reassure the communities for which they have to provide services, but the rug is being pulled from underneath them. If the Home Secretary now believes that police numbers are artificially too high and higher than they ought to be, she is the first Conservative Home Secretary in history to say that the problem with the police force is that police numbers are too high.

The right hon. Lady referred to chief constables. Chief Constable Steve Finnigan of the Lancashire constabulary, who is the ACPO lead on police performance management, was asked whether he would have to reduce front-line policing in order to meet the Government’s budget cuts. He replied: “I absolutely am.” He has also said:

“Let me be really clear. With the scale of the cuts that we are experiencing…we can do an awful lot of work around the back office…but we cannot leave the front line untouched.”

That is because of the scale of the cuts and it is what chief constables are saying across the country.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend not amazed that at a time when we are cutting front-line policing, the Government intend to spend more than £40 million electing police commissioners that nobody wants? The Government have failed to put forward an argument as to why they are required.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, because that money could be spent on keeping some of the 2,000 police officers who have been told that they will be forced to take early retirement as a result of the scale of the cuts. Electing 43 police and crime commissioners seems to be the only crime policy that the Government have. They are electing 43 new politicians in place of the thousands of police officers across the country who are to go.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

Meredydd Hughes, the chief constable of South Yorkshire, has said that Government expectations of improving performance were

“challenging if not unrealistic in the longer term.”

Does that not demonstrate beyond doubt that the service will be damaged between now and 2015?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to mention the concerns of the chief constable of South Yorkshire. He is reported as having recently raised concerns about what would happen to crime in many areas as a result of the scale of the cuts in the Government’s plans. The cuts go way beyond the 12% that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary said could be made through genuine efficiency savings over several years, and they go way beyond the 12% cuts that the previous Labour Home Secretary identified and promised to implement over a Parliament—they are more than 15% in real terms in the first two years alone. The Government are cutting more in the first two years than Labour proposed to cut over a Parliament.

[Mr Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Lady not feel any need to apologise for the state in which Labour left this country? We had the worst deficit in the G20—worse than Ireland and Greece. We are now trying to do something about it, but she criticises every saving. What is the matter with Labour? Do Labour Members not understand that everybody and every economic organisation across the world is saying that we need a deficit reduction package and that what she is saying is nonsense?

[Yvette Cooper]

Government Members have obviously been primed by the Whips today to join the debate but not make any points about policing. They are obviously afraid to discuss the consequences of the cuts for policing and crime in communities across the country, and they are starting to sound like a stuck record. They are cutting too far, too fast, and it is having serious consequences for our economy, the level of unemployment, and police forces. They are going too far, too fast, and communities will pay the price.

The charge against the Home Secretary, as she sits in the dock aided and abetted by the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, is serious. She is the first Conservative Home Secretary in history to champion cuts to the police as a way to cut crime. What is her defence? First, she tried to claim that she was not at the scene of the crime, and that it was the Chancellor who cut her budget and not her. She then tried to claim that no crime had been committed, saying

“lower budgets do not automatically have to mean lower police numbers.”

Faced with the incriminating evidence of 12,500 fewer police, she changed her story:

“We have been absolutely clear about the need for forces to ensure that the cuts are made to the back office, procurement, IT provision and so forth.”—[Official Report, 6 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 19.]

Her accomplice, meanwhile, said that savings could all come from the back office and the newly defined “middle office”.

The expert witnesses from HMIC have blown that defence away. Instead of proving that cuts could all be made from the back office, they showed that 95% of police officers do not work in the back office. Instead of identifying a wasteful middle office, they said that that office carried out 60% of intelligence support, included the CID specialist crime units, and worked on tackling hate crime, vice, drugs and burglary. Even the Conservative councillor who chairs the Norfolk police authority has switched sides to give evidence for the prosecution. He stated:

“I have to fundamentally disagree with the Minister’s assertion that we can find further efficiencies in the so-called ‘back office’…you can’t take £24.5 million out of our annual spend and still deliver the policing service to the same current standards.”

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

In my local area, the police tell me that their back office is already cut to the bone. We are reaching a point—[Interruption.] That is what I have been told. Government Members may laugh, but that is what police officers have told me. We now have the ridiculous situation of front-line police officers taking time to do things such as empty the bins in a police station in my constituency. That was done by the back office, but it is no longer a back-office function as the back office is not there. The police are spending time emptying bins rather than being on the street fighting crime. How on earth is that justifiable?

[Yvette Cooper]

That is a hugely important point, because the scale of the cuts to the back office is having an impact on the front line. The sheer scale and pace of the cuts that hon. Members are making and supporting are having an impact. Making the police implement those cuts so fast makes it hard for them to plan, make reforms and change services. Instead, they are having to make deep cuts that hit services as well.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend recall that last year, when I was the Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism, we proposed £1.5 billion-worth of cuts and the then Conservative Opposition did not vote against those cuts or propose the extra £1 billion that they are now taking out, and the Liberal Democrats asked for 3,000 more police officers on the beat? Will my right hon. Friend update us on where we are on that promise?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is right. We had identified a series of areas where savings could be made while still protecting front-line services. It is true, as the lonely Liberal Democrat on the Benches today will concede, that the Liberal Democrats had called for 3,000 more police officers, rather than voting to cut 12,500 police officers in constituencies across the country.

The Home Secretary has tried a final line of defence. She hopes that the Merseyside force will come to her rescue as a character witness. She claims that if every force improved its visibility as well as Merseyside has done, more officers would be available. We agree that forces should increase their visibility, as many started to do when we introduced neighbourhood policing, and that they should learn from the best. But Merseyside’s testimony does not help the Home Secretary’s case, because it is losing more than 800 police officers, along with an estimated 1,000 staff. Its evidence shows that, despite its good work, it is already being forced to make cuts in front-line services, including to officers in visible jobs, who are already losing their jobs, and it is also cutting the antisocial behaviour task force.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I apologise for being a little late arriving for the debate. Is she aware that the second phase of redundancies in the West Midlands police force will cost an extra £10 million a year over the next two to three years?

[Yvette Cooper]

I was not aware of the further plans in the West Midlands police force. It is certainly true that many of the cuts in police numbers cover only the first year or two, and many forces are concerned about the consequences in future years as well.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend will know that Merseyside police force made the biggest efficiency savings in the country before it received its grant settlement. That means that 800 police officers and 1,200 police support staff will now not be employed, and we are still waiting to find out how many policy community support officers will lose their jobs. Is she as worried as I am that police officers in domestic violence units, undercover police units, child protection units and race hate crime units are no longer to be considered front-line police?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. She will know from her constituency the impact that the cuts are having on communities across Merseyside. While Merseyside has certainly done excellent work in getting as many police on the beat as possible and in ensuring that its officers are as available as possible, as well as making very substantial efficiency savings, it is now being penalised. Its services are being hit, and it is the local communities in Merseyside that are paying the price. The truth is that the Home Secretary is making visibility more difficult to achieve in Merseyside, not easier.

It is the same story in Warwickshire, where the force is having to take police officers off the front line to cover critical support jobs that have gone, and South Yorkshire’s chief constable has said:

“A reduction in back officer support will put an increased burden on operational officers, detracting them from frontline duties.”

HMIC said in July last year that

“a cut beyond 12 per cent would almost certainly reduce police availability”.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Lady accept that HMIC also said last year, in a report commissioned by her Government, that only 11% of police officers were available to the general public at any one time? Does she not accept that there are efficiencies that can properly be made, and that this Government are cutting forms and bureaucracy that have taken up hundreds of thousands of hours of police time? Those are the kind of efficiency savings that can be made.

[Yvette Cooper]

We have always said that efficiency savings can be made. That is why we set out 12% reductions, but HMIC said that

“a cut beyond 12 per cent would almost certainly reduce police availability”.

The hon. Gentleman also cited the HMIC figure on visibility, but he is misusing the figures. In fact, HMIC said in its most recent report that it is right that forces should try to increase visibility, but pointed out that policing is a 24/7 service. The report stated:

“HMIC estimate that between five and six officers are needed in order to provide one on duty 24/7…This suggests that, overall, the police are operating at the upper end of the efficiency range.”

That is not my conclusion, but that of the independent HMIC.

Chief constables are being put in an impossible position. They are doing their best within their budgets to deliver strong policing and to reassure the public, but the rug is being pulled out from underneath them. Whichever way we look at it, the evidence from the police and the expert witnesses is clear. The sheer scale and pace of the cuts mean that front-line services, and not just front-line numbers, are being hit. The Home Secretary and her co-defendants can change their story as much as they like, but every claim collapses under interrogation. The evidence from the police and the expert witnesses is damning, and the mood among the jury, as Lord Ashcroft’s polling proves, is already hostile, even though the cuts have barely started to bite. It is little wonder that the Ministers are backing softer sentencing; they know that they are going to be found guilty as charged.

Whatever Ministers say at the Dispatch Box, in their offices and in the TV studios, they are a long way from the reality in the police stations and out on the beat. They are out of touch. They think that if they talk fast enough and loudly enough in management-speak about efficiency, bureaucracy, visibility, availability, back office, middle office and even Middle Earth, it will somehow make the real cuts go away, but it will not. This is all a far cry from their pre-election promises. The Prime Minister promised that the front line would be protected. The Lib Dems wanted 3,000 more officers, not 12,000 fewer. Even the Policing Minister told his local paper, just a year before the election:

“I will continue to press for more PCSOs and police officers”.

So much for that, then.

As for Ministers’ claims that there would be no link between the cuts in police numbers and crime, influential members of their own coalition see things rather differently. Before the election, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) said that

“putting 2,700 more police on the beat in England and Wales will lead to 27,500 more arrests and an extra 24,500 crimes being solved.”

I am not sure that I would sign up to his level of precision, but he made his point. And one prominent Tory Front Bencher said the following:

“The case can certainly be made that the increase in police officers in the last few years has had a positive effect both on providing reassurance to the public and on reducing some crimes…I am making an argument in favour of an increase in police numbers”.—[Official Report, 3 May 2007; Vol. 459, c. 1671-73.]

Who said that, in this House? The current Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice.

Let us listen to the concerns from the top police. The South Yorkshire chief constable has warned of the impact of higher unemployment, shorter sentences, cuts in probation and cuts in police on increasing crime. The Kent chief constable has said that a 20% cut was

“quite a significant drawback into police numbers, both civilian staff and police numbers, and clearly there’s a potential impact that crime will rise.”

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I am a member of the Kent police authority, and the chief constable of Kent has also said that he sees this as an opportunity to deliver a more efficient and effective force. He is increasing the number of neighbourhood officers by more than 75%.

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome anything that the Kent chief constable is able to do to support neighbourhood policing, but the hon. Gentleman will know that Kent police are having to lose more than 500 officers and about 1,000 support staff. That means that they will be under pressure in a number of different areas.

What on earth has happened to the Conservative party? The traditional party of policing and crime is throwing it all away. They have left the Liberal Democrats in charge of policing powers and sentencing policy, and they have left the management consultants in charge of the police. They are taking serious risks with crime and communities as a result. Over the 13 years of a Labour Government, crime fell by more than 40%, but most of us think that it is still too high. We want it to come down further. But instead of building on our progress, the Government are putting it at risk.

The Government’s amendment today

“welcomes the Government’s comprehensive proposals to cut crime”,

but what are those proposals? In 13 years of falling crime, Labour increased the number of police officers and got more of them on to the front line, increased the powers of the police through ASBOs and other measures, increased the use of CCTV and DNA, increased crime prevention through youth services and intensive family support, strengthened sentencing and, yes, sent more people to prison. What are this Government doing? They are making cuts in the number of police officers and cuts in the number on the front line. They are cutting the powers of the police and ending ASBOs. They are cutting the use of CCTV and DNA. They are cutting prevention, youth services and specialist family support. They are cutting sentencing, cutting prison places and cutting probation, all at the same time. They are increasing unemployment and child poverty, too. Those do not sound like crime-cutting proposals to me.

The Government are whipping up a perfect storm. None of us knows when it will blow, but they should think again before it is too late. Let me say this to them: they used to be the party of law and order once. Not now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes two extremely important points. First, judging by the replies from the shadow Home Secretary to a number of interventions from my hon. Friends—as well as the noise just made by Labour Members from a sedentary position—all those on the Labour Benches fail to recognise the state in which they left this country’s economy, with the biggest deficit in our peacetime history. By the necessary measures we have taken to cut public spending, we have taken this country’s economy out of the danger zone. My hon. Friend also makes an important point about bureaucracy. Central to our reforms is the need to get central Government out of the way and to start trusting the police again.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Secretary claimed that our plans would have been the same as hers. By what maths does she make 12% over a Parliament the same as 15% in the first two years and 20% over a Parliament, which is what she is doing?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely clear that if Labour had been in government, it would have made cuts. We are making cuts. My point was very simple: she is claiming today that it would have been possible for a Labour Government to have protected police numbers. It would not have been possible, as the last Labour Home Secretary admitted during the election campaign. The right hon. Lady must consider that very carefully.

The one thing that the previous Labour Government failed to do was to address the bureaucracy that ties up our police officers in filling in forms rather than doing the job that they want to do and that the public want them to do out on the streets. Indeed, the former president of the Police Federation and the previous Government’s own police bureaucracy fighter, Jan Berry, said that as a result of their

“diktats the service has been reduced to a bureaucratic, target-chasing, points-obsessed arm of Whitehall”.

We have done away with the diktats, we have scrapped the central targets, and we are ripping up the red tape. Instead, we are putting our trust back in the police and we are making them accountable to the people who really matter—the public.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

No. I shall make some more progress.

I have made the point about the bureaucracy, but what we have done is just the start. Working with the police, we are looking at sweeping away a wide range of the red tape, bureaucracy and paperwork that get in the way of officers doing what they want to do—getting out on the streets and keeping us safe.

[Yvette Cooper]

What does the home Secretary say to the police and Warwickshire and South Yorkshire and the HMIC, who have all said that the scale of cuts means that police officers will be doing more bureaucracy and will be less available because of the scale of the cuts and the support staff who used to do those jobs being lost?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Lady just does not get the fact that this Government are getting rid of much of the bureaucracy that has been tying up the police in red tape and taking them off the job that they want to do—something that the previous Government singularly failed to do. I would have thought that Labour supported us in our efforts to get officers out from behind their desks and back on the streets, but when one of their several former shadow Home Secretaries was asked by the Home Affairs Committee:

“Do you think it would be better if police spent more time on patrol than they do on paperwork?”,

he replied:

“I think that is too simplistic a question for me to give a sensible answer.”

Perhaps the right hon. Lady would like to tell us whether she agrees with the shadow Chancellor that the police should be behind their desks, filling in forms, or does she agree with me that they should be out on the street, fighting crime?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake]

I thank the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. I am absolutely certain that the work that Jan Berry has already done will inform what the chief constable and the Government are doing to address bureaucracy.

A previous Labour Home Secretary, when he was asked in April 2010 whether he could guarantee that police numbers would not fall, said that he could not. The shadow Chancellor is on record as saying that under his plans,

“you will lose some non-uniformed back office staff”.

It is interesting that the shadow Home Secretary and the shadow Chancellor cannot even agree among themselves what their position on the Winsor review is. The former has attacked the Government for initiating the review, but the latter has said that overtime and shift work savings are something that

“any sensible government would look at”.

I suggest that they need to get their house in order first.

[Yvette Cooper]

To clarify, we have criticised the Government many times for pre-empting the Winsor review, not for commissioning it. We have criticised them for announcing their views on the amount of money that should be cut, and for criticising the police in the newspapers, in advance of the Winsor review rather than after it.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the shadow Home Secretary, but maybe she would like to intervene again and confirm whether she agrees with the shadow Chancellor that overtime and shift work savings are something that

“any sensible government would look at”.

[Yvette Cooper]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is inviting interventions, because we have said that it is right to examine how the police work. However, will he confirm that his party’s pledge of 3,000 additional officers was made when the now Deputy Prime Minister said that although financial circumstances were extremely difficult, the position of the police was so important that there would be 3,000 additional police officers as part of his party’s manifesto commitment?

[Tom Brake]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for intervening and putting on record the Labour party policy on policing—that it is right to examine how the police work. That is as close to a policy statement as we are going to get tonight.

The debate could have been an opportunity to discuss the coalition’s programme of police reform and budget reductions, and to contrast that with the Opposition’s track record and future plans. Regrettably, the Opposition did not grasp that opportunity. Instead, we had the usual “too fast and too deep” or, alternatively, “too far and too fast” line from the shadow Home Secretary, peppered with lame police and justice themed jokes, recycled from an earlier speech. When will she accept that saying that the coalition is going too far, too fast does not amount to a policy for the Labour party? If she wants to be taken seriously, she will have to work out her party’s policy before she next stands at the Dispatch Box.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

First, I join other hon. Members including the shadow Police Minister in paying tribute to the police for the job that they do for the whole country in every constituency, particularly at this time when, as the House did earlier, we remember PC Ronan Kerr, who tragically lost his life serving the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

We should always value the work that the police do and remember that they do a difficult and dangerous job, but none of that means that we can avoid the decisions that have been forced upon us by the need to deal with the deficit. My first point to Opposition Members is that they are silent about the savings that can be driven by police forces working together and individually that reach beyond the savings identified in the HMIC report. That report stated that savings of more than £1 billion a year were possible while front-line services were protected. It did not examine the potential savings that could be made through, for instance, police forces working together to procure goods and equipment—some £350 million on top of that figure.

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary pointed out, there are 2,000 different IT systems in our forces, employing 5,000 staff. I welcome the comment of the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), that we were right to examine such procurement. He should know, and I know he does, that we have already laid regulations to drive collective procurement by forces to save money.

I repeat for the benefit of the Opposition, who have not heard or understood the point, that those savings are in addition to those identified by the inspectorate, and that they can be made by police forces working more effectively together. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) criticised that approach when my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary talked about it earlier. Do the Opposition Front Benchers not support that collective approach to procuring goods and equipment, and why did they not take it in their 13 years in government?

Let us examine another matter on which the Opposition are completely silent, which is the proposed savings that we have set out in relation to pay. Any organisation in which three quarters of the costs rest in the pay bill has to look to control that bill when resources are tight. That is the responsible thing to do. That is why we have said that, in common with other public services, we expect the police to be subject to a two-year pay freeze. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) was right that that directly answers the point about the savings that we require forces to make being higher in the first and second years than in the third and the fourth. In those years, we propose that another £350 million should be saved through the pay freeze. Here is a question for the Opposition: do they support that pay freeze? If not, they would put more jobs at risk in policing. They are adopting an irresponsible approach.

What about the Winsor savings? Police officers should know that it is proposed to plough back the majority of the savings that Tom Winsor identified in his report on pay and conditions into new allowances to reward front-line service and specialist skills. We will consider those matters carefully in the recommendations of the Police Negotiating Board. Do the Opposition back those savings, for which police forces have not budgeted at the moment? Do they support those proposals in the Winsor review? Again, we do not know because the Opposition are silent on the matter.

Let me explain for the benefit of the Opposition that the total effect of the savings of more than £500 million, on top of the savings that HMIC identified, add up to 10,000 officers. In opposing the pay reforms, the Opposition put those 10,000 jobs at risk. That is why their position is untenable.

Several hon. Members mentioned the front line. Of course, it includes not only visible policing but investigative units. However, the Opposition have again completely missed the point. The hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) shouts “smoke and mirrors” from a sedentary position, but he uses a fair bit himself when he claims that 5% of officers are in the back office. Does he expect officers to do IT and payroll? Those are back-office functions. The inspectorate says, “Look at the back and middle offices—the support functions—not the front line.” How many police officers does the hon. Gentleman think are serving in the back and middle office? The same report tells him—I assume that he has read it. A fifth of officers and PCSOs are in the back and middle office. In case he cannot do the maths, that means that 30,000 police officers are not working on the front line, and we should begin looking for savings in the back and middle office so that we can protect front-line services.

The Opposition mentioned Northumbria police and claimed that there would be an impact on front-line services. Chief Constable Sue Sim said:

“I am absolutely committed to maintaining frontline policing and the services we offer to our communities.”

Every chief constable is saying the same. They are committed to doing everything they can to maintain front-line services.

As the chief inspector of constabulary said, we must consider a total redesign of the way in which policing is delivered in this country. We must look at forces sharing services and collaborating. We must consider radical solutions, which will enable a better service to be delivered. Is the Labour party in favour of police forces outsourcing their services to the private sector? That is another matter on which it is silent. Some forces have contracted our their control rooms and their custody suites. Those are defined as being in the so-called front line. Is the Labour party in favour of those cost-saving measures? There is deafening silence from the Opposition when they are faced with difficult questions about how to drive value for money.

There is silence again about bureaucracy. The Opposition spent 13 years tying up our police officers in red tape. All the shadow Chancellor could say about that when he was shadow Home Secretary is that he did not think it mattered that officers spent more time on paperwork than on patrol. Let me say to the Opposition that the Government think it does matter and we are determined to reduce red tape and improve productivity on the front line because we want police officers to be crime fighters, not form writers.

Let us look at another matter in which the Opposition seem simply uninterested: how resources are deployed. Labour is only ever interested in how much money is spent rather than in how well it is spent. Why, therefore, do Labour Members have not the slightest interest in the fact that officer visibility and availability in the best-performing forces are twice those of the poorest-performing forces within the existing resource? Apparently, they are not interested in that. Government Members have consistently made the point that, even as resources contract and even as forces find savings, they can and should prioritise visible and available policing, and good forces are doing so.

As we have heard from my hon. Friends, Kent is increasing numbers in neighbourhood policing teams, as is Gloucestershire, and Staffordshire is protecting them.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Minister says that good police forces are doing all the things he wants, but what does he say about the Warwickshire, South Yorkshire and Merseyside police forces, and all forces that are being forced to take police officers off the front line? Does he think that those chief constables are doing a bad job?

[Nick Herbert]

The right hon. Lady just does not get it, does she? She does not understand the difference between how much is spent and the service that we get at the other end, because Labour measures the value of every public service by how much is being spent on it.

Let me tell the right hon. Lady what the South Yorkshire chief constable said in January this year. He said that

“the reduced level of government funding announced late last year was expected and I’m confident that our service to the public won’t necessarily decline over the next two years.”

Let us look at the sums. Labour Members always say that there will be 20% cuts in budgets.

[Yvette Cooper]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Herbert]

I shall make a little more progress, and then give way.

The Labour party says that there will be 20% cuts in budgets—that is the language that Labour Members always use—but there will not be. No force will have a 20% cut in its budget, because forces raise money from their precept. Assuming reasonable rises in precept over the next four years, the cash reduction is 6%. Provided that forces do the right things, that is challenging but nevertheless deliverable.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Minister again says that some police forces are doing the right thing, and some the wrong thing. He referred to Chief Constable Meredydd Hughes of South Yorkshire police, who said this week:

“We will be unable to continue to provide the same level of service we do today in such areas like neighbourhood policing”

and diversionary and problem-solving activities. He also said:

“A reduction in back office support will put an increased burden on operational officers detracting them from frontline duties.”

Is the South Yorkshire chief constable right or wrong?

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Many chief constables have made the point that what is happening will not mean that there will be no change to front-line services but that they can protect front-line services. That is exactly what chief constables such as the chief constable of Greater Manchester have made clear. There might need to be reform in front-line services, but that does not mean a reduction in the front-line services available to members of the public.

Directly elected police and crime commissioners will bring real accountability to local policing. They will ensure that the police focus on what local people want and not on what the national Government think they want.

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

rose—

[Mrs May]

I see that the piece of paper has been passed to the right hon. Lady, so I will give way to her.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

I want to follow up that point with the Home Secretary. She is right, I have the full quote to which my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) referred, which was from the “Today” programme. Chief Constable Finnigan was asked:

“You are chief constable of Lancashire which has a bit of both”—

meaning urban and rural areas—

“are you going to have to reduce frontline policing in order to meet the budget cuts that the government wants to see?”

His answer was: “I absolutely am”. Faced with that categorical statement from a chief constable, will she admit that front-line services are being hit as a result of her decisions?

[Mrs May]

I have to say to the right hon. Lady that her intervention and that of the hon. Member for Rhondda betray the difficulty that the Labour party has had, both in government and in opposition, with this issue of front-line services. Chief constables such as Chief Constable Steve Finnigan have said that they are determined to protect the front-line service that is provided to members of the public. There is a difference between the service that can be provided and the number of police who are there, and the trouble with Labour is that it has always focused on numbers. What we have seen recently is that there are great variations in, for example, invisibility and availability of the police who are out there on the streets being seen by members of the public. Percentages can vary from 9% of police being available and visible to the public to 17%, as in Merseyside. If that highest figure was followed by every force, then just under 8,000 more officers would be visible and available to members of the public. This is about the efficient use of resources. Police and crime commissioners, as I have said, will bring accountability to local policing.

--- Later in debate ---

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

After 50 hours of debate and evidence, the Commons stage of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill has come to a close. The Members from all parts who endured the Committee stage will doubtless be delighted that in 19 minutes they will be released from custody. The Policing and Criminal Justice Minister will, I am sure, be relieved to have reached the end of this round of interrogation and hope to be released without charge, with his DNA destroyed and his fingerprints wiped.

I thank all Opposition Members for their work, but I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), aka Station Sergeant Coaker, who has ably led our investigative team, and of course to my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), Custody Sergeant Tami, who has granted but few bail applications and always on the toughest terms.

Members have had the pleasure of debating the details of pub drinking, the definitions of a duvet and whether a toothbrush counts as sleeping equipment, and during the passage of the Bill we have welcomed some of the Government’s measures to which the Home Secretary referred, such as those on supporting local government, on licensing and on universal jurisdiction.

Other measures still have us baffled, however. The last time the Home Secretary spoke in the House on legislation she told us that the Government offered

“a chance to roll back the creeping intrusion of the state into our everyday lives, and to return individual freedoms to the heart of our legislation.”—[Official Report, 1 March 2011; Vol. 524, c. 205.]

Today, she has defended a Bill that lets councils leap to the barricades when their byelaws are breached. She will support them in confiscating dogs that foul verges, guitars that are played near churches and even shoes that leave mud on the pavements. More importantly, she has supported a Bill that puts at risk centuries of independent policing, free from political interference, and concentrates considerable policing powers in the hands of one individual with hardly any checks and balances. That is hardly a defence of traditional British liberties.

[Mrs May]

I hesitate to interrupt what started as a comic turn by the right hon. Lady, but she knows full well that throughout the debate on the Bill we have been at great pains to ensure that there is operational independence for chief officers and for forces. We will defend that operational independence. The police and crime commissioners do not have policing powers; they have powers to ensure that the police are accountable, and respond to local people.

[Yvette Cooper]

That is what the right hon. Lady says, but where is the protocol? Time and again we have been told that there will be some sort of code of practice or some kind of protocol to reassure people that there will be operational independence, but where is it? We have not yet seen it, and the House is being asked to let the Bill go through without being given the opportunity to vote on such a protocol or agreement when it is reached. A draft has been given to the Association of Chief Police Officers, yet this week ACPO still raised some serious concerns about the way in which impartial policing will be protected, and that leaves us with considerable suspicions that she is not yet close to reaching an agreement with ACPO about how the operational protocol will perform. I have to say to the Home Secretary that asking the House to give consent to this Bill without providing crucial reassurances about the operational independence of our police is frankly irresponsible in the light of the traditional and historic British liberties that she has previously been so keen to defend.

During these 50 hours of debate, the Bill has not changed in its fundamentals. This period follows one in which crime fell by over 40%, public confidence in policing went up, and substantial improvements were made in the fight against crime. Yet instead of building on those improvements made under the Labour Government, this Government instead want to launch a massive experiment in governance alongside the steepest cuts in many generations.

The Government are putting considerable policing powers in the hands of individual politicians without any of the serious safeguards or checks and balances that are needed. We do not support the approach of elected police commissioners. During the passage of the Bill, we have tried to suggest ways of limiting the damage and providing additional checks and balances, yet each time they have been rejected. People want responsive and accountable policing, but they also want impartial policing that is accountable to the rule of law—a tradition secured in Britain since Peel. The Government face a grave challenge from the most senior police officers in the country, who have argued this week that that tradition is being put at risk by the Bill. ACPO said that

“the developing framework of safeguards is too undeveloped and uncertain, and in several respects too weak, to be confident that it will effectively ensure that this Peelian principle will not be compromised.”

That is a very serious charge.

We still wait for the protocol and for other explanations of how this will work. This is about the impartiality of our police force and the public perception of that impartiality. For the first time, policing powers will be concentrated in the hands of individual politicians, with hardly any checks and balances on what they do. The Home Secretary at least has to answer to Parliament. She has to persuade her Cabinet colleagues. She can be scrutinised, she can be challenged, and she can even be sacked if she makes a real mess of it—which I am sure, of course, that she will not—but a police and crime commissioner is there for four years, with just a toothless watchdog to keep guard in between.

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Lady is continuing to use the term “policing powers” in relation to the responsibilities of the police and crime commissioners. That is inaccurate and wrong. These individuals will not be “policing”—they will be elected to hold the chief constable to account to ensure that the local voice is heard and that what local people want in policing is being undertaken. There will be checks and balances through the police and crime panels. She talks about politicians having a relationship with the chief constable in relation to operational independence. Politicians already have a relationship with the chief constable through the police authority.

[Yvette Cooper]

Unfortunately, none of those reassurances has been enough to convince the most senior chief constables in the land that their operational independence will be safeguarded. That is the primary issue that this House should be worried about. We do not think that the Home Secretary has done enough to, for example, provide enough powers for the police and crime panels to allow them a stronger role as checks and balances in the system. Time and again, she has not provided enough safeguards for national policing. She will know that some experts have raised concerns about corruption, too. Of course, the public do not want this either. A YouGov poll commissioned for Liberty found that 65% of people preferred to have a chief constable reporting to a police authority, compared with 15% who wanted her reforms.

Then, of course, there is the cost: £100 million to be spent on elections and bureaucracy at a time when 2,000 of the most experienced officers are being forced into early retirement. If she ditched the police and crime commissioners and put that money back into policing, she could save almost a third of those jobs.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way if the right hon. Gentleman will tell us what he would do to safeguard the jobs of the 2,000 experienced police officers whom he is pushing off the front line as a result of his cuts.

[Nick Herbert]

The right hon. Lady challenged us on cost. Can she tell us how much her proposal for directly elected police authority chairs would cost, and is she aware that it would cost considerably more than our proposal?

[Yvette Cooper]

My proposal is to ditch all of it, and that would save £100 million. [Interruption.] I am afraid that it is. We have offered Government Members several ways to limit the damage of their proposals if they want to protect British freedoms. If they really want to do something sensible, they should save £100 million by ditching it altogether. That is what we will be voting for this evening.

Most importantly, this drastic re-engineering at the top of policing—this massive experiment in governance—comes in the middle of the deepest cuts that police forces have had to face for many generations; at a time when 12,500 officers and 15,000 police staff will go; at a time when a report by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary shows that 95% of police officers are not in back-office work; and at a time when front-line services across the country are being hit. If the Home Secretary and the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice continue to deny that front-line services are being hit, they will just show how out of touch they are, not just with the police but with communities across the country who can already see changes happening in their areas and know exactly who is to blame. We know that neighbourhood police officers who want to stay in their jobs are being cut, and that steep cuts are being made in probation, youth services and action to prevent crime.

We know why the Home Secretary really wants police and crime commissioners: so she has someone else to blame when it all goes badly wrong. These policies were not the Home Secretary’s idea. It was not her idea to cut 20% from the police—it was the Chancellor’s, but she did not fight to stop it. It was not her idea to bring in police and crime commissioners—it was the Prime Minister’s, but she did not stand up against it. It was not her proposal to cut DNA use and limit the power of the police—it was the Deputy Prime Minister’s, but she did not prevent it. She is ducking the big battles and is not standing up for people across the country, who need a Home Secretary who will defend their views. She is the Home Secretary, and in the end she carries the can. On Second Reading, she claimed that that crime would be cut as a result of these reforms. The truth is that she is starting to fear that the opposite is happening, and she needs someone to blame.

The clouds are gathering over the Government’s crime and policing plans, and we have raised the warning. We will vote against these plans today, just as we will vote against the police cuts next week. Ministers are creating a perfect storm; at some point it will blow, and it will be communities across the country who pay the price.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Disturbances (London)

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to report on the violent disturbances over the weekend.

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

On Saturday, 4,500 police officers worked to keep order during the TUC march of up to 500,000 people. During the afternoon and evening, gangs of thugs carried out acts of violence against the police, private property and public monuments. I want to place on record my gratitude to the officers who put themselves in harm’s way during Saturday’s operations. I want also to praise the Met’s senior officers—Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens and Commander Simon Bray—for their leadership, and I want utterly to condemn in the strongest possible terms the mindless behaviour of the thugs responsible for the violence.

I can confirm to the House that 56 police officers were seen by force medical examiners and that 12 of them required hospital treatment, while 53 members of the public were also hurt. I can also confirm that officers arrested more than 200 people on Saturday, and that 149 of them have already been charged. I expect that number to increase as the police go through video evidence, as they did after the student protests last year. The message to those who carry out violence is clear—they will be caught, and they will be punished.

Throughout Saturday and Sunday, Ministers were kept informed of events. The Home Office was in regular contact with the Metropolitan police and City Hall. The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice has spoken to Kit Malthouse, the deputy Mayor, and I have spoken to Lynne Owens to thank her for the police operation, which was, on the whole, a success. The police might not have managed to prevent every act of violence, but they were successful in preventing wider criminality and are now actively engaged in investigating the perpetrators so that they can be brought to justice.

In my statement to the House following the student demonstrations in December, I said that the police would learn the lessons of that experience. Since then, the Metropolitan police have been learning the lessons necessary, and the tactics deployed on Saturday reflected that learning, but there is more that can be done. Just as the police review their operational tactics, so we in the Home Office will review the powers available to them. I have asked the police whether they feel they need further powers to prevent violence before it occurs. I am willing to consider powers that would ban known hooligans from attending rallies and marches, and I will look into the powers that the police already have to force the removal of face coverings and balaclavas. If the police need more help to do their work, I will not hesitate in granting it to them.

That is the right way of doing things. The police are operationally independent, the Mayor holds them to account for their performance and the Home Secretary’s role is to ensure that they operate within the right legal framework and have the right powers to do their job. I know the whole House will want to join me in sending this message: we will always back the police when they do their important work, and we will back them as they do everything they can to bring these mindless thugs to justice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank the Home Secretary for her answer to my urgent question, after she withdrew her planned statement earlier today.

Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated peacefully on Saturday in support of their families, services, jobs and communities, but a few hundred mindless idiots and thugs launched violent attacks against property, businesses and police officers, and 31 police officers were injured. In a democracy, that kind of violence is no form of political protest. It is violent assault and criminal damage, it is thuggish behaviour of the worst kind and it must face the full force of the law. I welcome the speed with which the police have acted to charge 149 people with offences already. They will have the Opposition’s support in taking a strong line.

The police have made it very clear that those violent incidents were separate from the legitimate, peaceful march, and the Home Secretary has rightly done the same today, but I have three things to ask her. First, she rightly praised the police—like her, I have thanked Lynne Owens and Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin for the work of the Metropolitan police and other police forces, to which I pay tribute—but in addition to the 4,500 officers on the streets hundreds more officers and support staff worked on the operation behind the scenes. Will she join me in paying tribute to all of them, and assure the House that the police will have the resources that they need on the front line and behind the scenes to deal with future events?

Secondly, I welcome the Home Secretary’s consideration of further action. Will she consider co-ordinated action to deal with the so-called anarchist groups? It is vital that we do not let a violent minority undermine the power of peaceful political protest in a democracy. Such incidents have been increasing every time there is a crowd event, and, frankly, people are fed up with it. Co-ordinated, determined action was successful some years ago in tackling the football hooliganism that used to hijack crowds and frustrate ordinary fans. May I offer her the Opposition’s support? We will work with her and the police on a parallel or similar co-ordinated approach to wider action to deal with problems at crowd events.

Thirdly, we have a tradition in the House of standing together against extremism to protect public safety, property and the public right of peaceful protest. The Home Secretary will know that the Mayor of London today claimed that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor will feel quietly satisfied—[Interruption.] I want to quote the Mayor of London accurately because this is important. The Mayor said that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor will

“feel quietly satisfied by the disorder”

and that:

“They will be content to see the police being unfairly attacked on all sides”.

Will she condemn those disgraceful and outrageous remarks? The Mayor is the man whom she wants to put in charge of the governance of the Metropolitan police. Does she agree that it is the worst kind of politics to slur those who supported hundreds of thousands of peaceful marchers?

Will the Home Secretary answer those three questions on the police, a future strategy and the London Mayor? Let us be united in this House on rooting out hooliganism and supporting peaceful protest.

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Lady for the tone in which she conducted most of her comments. Unfortunately, towards the end, she chose to move into a rather more political tone.

May I make two factual corrections to the right hon. Lady’s remarks? First, she claims that I withdrew a statement to the House, but I never asked to make one. Secondly, she said that I intended to put the Mayor of London in charge of the Metropolitan police, but, of course, he is in charge of them.

I, too, put on record the House’s support for and thanks to all those involved with the Metropolitan police who were not in police uniform or not warranted officers who took part in the policing operation on Saturday, both in relation to the march and the mindless acts of violence that took place.

The right hon. Lady mentioned the possibility of co-ordinated action. She will have noted that I said in my response that I was prepared to look at the possibility of some sort of pre-emptive banning orders for hooligans, which we have in place for football hooligans. It is now worth our looking at such experience, and I welcome the support she was willing to give on behalf of the Opposition. Everybody in the House wants to ensure that the police have the right powers and tools available to do the job of keeping our streets safe. The great majority of the march went ahead peacefully, but, sadly and unfortunately, it was damaged by the mindless violence of the thugs. The description given by Liberty is a very good one:

“The demonstration appeared to have been infiltrated by violent elements who periodically separated from the main route in order to attack high profile commercial properties and the police before melting into the demonstration once more…This minority presented significant challenges for the police and trade union stewards alike and at times jeopardised both the safety and ability to protest of those with peaceful intent.”

Student Visas

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

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

The UK has a worldwide reputation for providing quality education to overseas students, and Britain is rightly the destination of choice for many people wishing to study abroad, but under the previous Government the student visa system became the symbol of a broken and abused immigration system. Labour claimed that it had capped unskilled immigration at zero, but it was happy just to sit back and watch as unskilled migrants abused the student route to come here. We had too many people coming here to work and not to study, we had too many foreign graduates staying on in the UK to work in unskilled jobs, and we had too many institutions selling immigration, not education.

We want to attract only the best and the brightest to Britain. We want high-quality international students to come here, we want them to study at genuine institutions whose primary purpose is providing a first-class education, and we want the best of them—and only the best of them—to stay on and work here after their studies are complete. That is exactly what we are doing across all the immigration routes: tightening up the system, tackling the abuse and supporting only the most economically beneficial migrants.

I have already announced and begun to implement our plans to limit economic migration—cutting the numbers by more than one fifth compared with last year. I will return to the House later this year with a consultation that will set out proposals to break the link between temporary migration and permanent settlement. I also intend to consult on changes to the family migration route. I will be bringing forward proposals to tackle sham marriages and other abuse, promote integration and reduce the burdens on the British taxpayer. We aim to reduce net migration from the hundreds of thousands back down to the tens of thousands.

The most significant migrant route to Britain is the student route, and we must take action there, too. Immigration by students has more than trebled in the past 10 years, and it is now far larger than immigration through the work or family routes. It is unsurprising that more and more overseas students are attracted by our world-renowned higher education institutions, but there has also been an increase in abuse in the private further education sector.

Students now make up the majority of non-EU migrants: including their dependants, they accounted for about two thirds of the visas issued last year under the points-based system. When Labour introduced the current system in 2009, almost a third more student visas were issued that year than the year before—an increase from 230,000 to 300,000. Numbers were so high that the UK Border Agency had to suspend student applications in some parts of the world because it could not cope with the demand, and much of that demand was simply not genuine. We have so-called students turning up at Heathrow airport who cannot answer basic questions in English or even describe what their course is about. One institution has an intake of 90% international students and asks only for GCSE-level qualifications to do a supposedly degree level course. Another college’s own sales agent actually helped a student to cheat in their entry exam. Legitimate colleges should still be able to recruit legitimate overseas students, but we need to stop the abuse and return some common sense to our student visa system.

The current system is based on a sponsorship regime that trusts educational institutions to assess the quality and ability of students, and puts the responsibility on the institution to ensure that the student is in fact studying and obeying the immigration rules. That trust has been well placed in some sectors: universities, independent schools and publicly funded further education colleges mostly take their sponsorship duties seriously and act responsibly. But some, particularly in the private FE sector and parts of the English language college sector, are not exercising the due diligence we expect. Those institutions make up the largest single group on the sponsor register. The sector is essentially unregulated; those institutions are not subject to a statutory system of education inspection and can offer any type of course they like. Although some of them are legitimate, for many their product is not an education, but immigration, together with the ability to work here.

It is absolutely clear that the current regime has failed to control immigration and failed to protect real students from poor-quality colleges. That is why the proposals I am announcing today are unashamedly targeted at the least trustworthy institutions. Our proposals protect the interests of our world-class universities, protect our leading independent schools and public FE colleges and, ultimately, are in the best interests of legitimate students.

In future, all sponsors will need to have been vetted by one of the approved inspectorates—Ofsted and its devolved equivalents, the Quality Assurance Agency or the relevant independent schools inspectorate—and all must become highly trusted sponsors. Once they achieve that status, private colleges offering quality, bona fide training programmes of genuine educational value will be able to continue to recruit legitimate international students. All current sponsors who do not meet the requirements will be allowed to stay on the register for a short period from April 2011. During that time they will be limited in the number of students they may sponsor. They will first have to apply for highly trusted sponsor status and accreditation. They will then be required to achieve highly trusted sponsor status no later than April 2012, and accreditation by the relevant agency by the end of 2012.

As well as cracking down on bogus colleges, we will crack down on bogus students. Students who want to come here should be able to speak English, to support themselves financially without taking paid employment, and to show that they are coming for study, not for work. So we will toughen up the entry requirements. First, we will strengthen the evidence that students need to demonstrate that they have the financial means to fend for themselves. Secondly, we will streamline the requirements for students from low-risk countries and prioritise resources on high-risk students. Thirdly, we will toughen up the rules on English language competence. Those coming to study at degree level will have to speak English at upper intermediate level; others will have to speak English at intermediate level. UKBA officers will be given the discretion to refuse entry to students who cannot speak English without an interpreter and who do not meet the required minimum standards. Let me be clear: you need to speak English to learn at our education establishments; if you can’t, we won’t give you a visa.

If someone is coming to the UK as a student, study should be their main purpose, not work. So we will end permission to work during term time for all students other than those at university and publicly funded FE colleges. Students at public sector FE colleges will be allowed to work for 10 hours per week in term time, and students at university for 20 hours per week. We will reduce the amount of work that can be done on work placement courses for non-university students from 50:50, as now, to two thirds study, one third work. At present, students on courses of six months or more can bring their dependants with them. In 2010, over 31,000 student dependants came here. We will remove this right for all but postgraduate students at universities and Government-sponsored students.

Coming to the UK to study for a course should, by definition, be a temporary step, so we will limit the amount of time that students can spend in the UK. Too many students who originally came here for short courses have been staying for years and years by changing courses, often without showing any tangible academic progress. We will limit the overall time that can be spent on a student visa to three years at lower levels, as now, and to five years at higher levels. There will be exceptions for longer courses such as medicine and veterinary science, and for PhD study, but no longer will students be able to stay here and switch from course to course to course.

We want the best international graduates to stay and contribute to the UK economy. However, the arrangements that we have been left with for students who graduate in the UK are far too generous. They are able to stay for two years, whether or not they find a job and regardless of the skill level of that job. In 2010, when one in 10 UK graduates were unemployed, 39,000 non-EU students with 8,000 dependants took advantage of that generosity.

We will therefore close the current post-study work route from April next year. In future, only graduates who have an offer of a skilled graduate-level job from an employer licensed by the UK Border Agency will be allowed to stay. Post-study migrants must be paid at least £20,000 or the appropriate rate for the occupation, as set out in the relevant code of practice, whichever is higher. That will prevent employers from recruiting migrants into skilled occupations but paying them less than the going rate. We estimate that had this measure been applied last year, it would have halved the numbers staying in the UK through this route. We will not impose a limit on that group next year, but we will keep the position under review. If the number of foreign students entering the labour market as post-study workers increases significantly and unexpectedly, we will ask the Migration Advisory Committee to look at how abuses can best be addressed. That would potentially include the introduction of a separate temporary limit on post-study workers.

As we restrict the post-study work route, we will ensure that innovative student entrepreneurs who are creating wealth can stay in the UK to pursue their ideas. The message to the brightest and the best students around the globe is clear: Britain’s world-class universities remain open for business.

We recognise the need to implement these changes in a staged manner that minimises disruption to education providers and students. We will therefore implement the measures in three stages, starting with new rules, which will be laid by the end of this month. I will publish the full details shortly.

The package of measures that I have outlined today is expected to reduce the number of student visas by between 70,000 and 80,000—a reduction of more than 25%—and it will increase the outflow of foreign students after they have concluded their studies. There will be a proper system of accreditation to root out bogus colleges; tough new rules on English language skills, financial guarantees, working rights and dependants, to root out bogus students; and new restrictions on post-study work to make sure that all but the very best return home after study. This package will stop bogus students studying meaningless courses at fake colleges, protect our world-class institutions, stop the abuse that became all too common under Labour, and restore some sanity to our student visa system. I commend this statement to the House.

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

I thank the Home Secretary for the half-hour’s advance sight of her statement, as has become the form for the Home Office. Helpfully, however, we were, of course, able to read about the main changes in the newspapers this morning. As has become the form for this Government, we were also able to read opposing stories in opposing newspapers. The Business Secretary briefed the Financial Times that the policy had been completely changed so that he could support universities in expanding the number of their foreign students; the Home Secretary promised The Sun that the policy meant slashing foreign student numbers. Different policies for different papers, policies changing all over the place, and an unseemly row at the heart of the Government—such is the chaos at the centre of the Government’s immigration policy for students.

The Home Secretary is right to say that migration makes an important contribution to our economy, the strength of our business and our vibrant society. She is also right to say that migration needs to be properly controlled to sustain social cohesion and an effective labour market. She will recognise the importance of the higher and further education sector to the British economy. Non-EU students contribute an estimated £5 billion to the UK economy, support thousands of jobs in teaching and related areas, and make education an extremely important export industry. It is important that we recognise that economic value in providing workable migration policies. She will know that the Home Affairs Committee stated in its important report that it

“would caution against measures which could be detrimental to a thriving, successful industry.”

Does she recognise, too, that CentreForum has said that moves to tighten the restrictions on overseas students will risk nearly 12,000 jobs in education and another 12,000 in the wider economy?

Some of the damage has already been done. Anecdotally, some universities are already noticing a significant drop in applications from foreign students as a result of the signals being sent out by the Home Secretary’s consultation. Does she believe that the 80,000 drop in student visas to which she has referred will consist entirely of visas for bogus students on bogus courses, or does she believe that some legitimate students, too, will be put off as a result of the measures that she has announced?

We agree that we should not tolerate bogus colleges and fake students. People who want to come to this country need to play by the rules. That is why the Labour Government introduced a system of highly trusted sponsors through our respected universities, and we support measures that will build on that, so long as they are introduced in a workable way. It is also why we closed 140 bogus colleges.

Can the Home Secretary tell the House how the UKBA is going to increase its checks on colleges and students when it is facing staff cuts of 9,000?

What is the Home Secretary’s position now on pre- degree courses? In the consultation she said that she would introduce substantial restrictions on pre-degree level courses being covered by tier 4 visas, but there was silence from her on that issue in her statement today. Can she confirm that she has now ditched that proposal to remove pre-degree level courses?

We also agree that there should be appropriate restrictions on students’ employment. It is welcome that the Home Secretary has taken into account some of the evidence about the international competitiveness of UK higher education, but she put that into the context of trying to help youth unemployment. Is not the truth that her figures will mean restricting post-study work permits for non-EU students by about 19,000 at a time when youth unemployment is nearer 1 million? If she were serious about tackling youth unemployment she might be talking to the Chancellor about reversing some of his cuts, and reinstating the future jobs fund. Is not the truth that this policy is not about youth unemployment or bogus courses, but about hitting higher education because she cannot meet her promise to cut net migration to tens of thousands over the course of this Parliament?

What is now the Government’s policy towards foreign students studying bona fide courses at legitimate institutions? Does the Home Secretary want their number to increase or fall? The Business Secretary has said of the higher education sector:

“It’s an export industry; we want to grow it.”

But the Home Secretary has said that she wants the numbers cut. The Business Secretary wants more foreign students, and she wants fewer. If Britain’s major universities and colleges, faced with nearly £3 billion of cuts, decide to expand their courses and double the number of legitimate foreign students paying full fees in order to subsidise British students, will she support them or not? If they increase their legitimate students by 80,000, will she support them or not?

Finally, will the Home Secretary tell the House what the position is on student visitor visas, which she did not mention? Will she confirm that although she is restricting tier 4 student visas, in December she increased the number of students and courses eligible for student visitor visas? Will she confirm that under that visa, people can still apply for non-degree courses that are not run by highly trusted sponsors and do not have any minimum language requirement? Will she confirm that she has done nothing to prevent an increase of perhaps 80,000 in student visitor visas, and will she admit that the people on those visas will not be included in the net migration figures? Does that not expose the real con at the heart of her policy? Although she is making restrictions in one area, she is increasing the student visitor visas in another area that does not count towards her net migration targets.

The Home Secretary promised that she would put an end to non-EU students working once they had finished their course: the plan is ditched. She promised that she would put an end to non-EU applicants taking courses that were not degrees: that plan is ditched. She promised a new border police force, and that is still on the Conservative party website, but instead the Government have cut 5,000 staff from the UK Border Agency.

Time and time again policies are switched backwards and forwards, and in the end, it is all because the Home Secretary knows she cannot meet the promise that she made to cut migration numbers to the tens of thousands by the end of this Parliament. Is that still her target, will she still deliver it by the end of this Parliament, and is it not time she made policies that are in the interests of British universities, the British economy and a sensible, controlled migration policy, rather than taking risks with an important export industry for the sake of promises she knows she cannot keep?

[Mrs May]

I have to say that I am incredibly disappointed by the right hon. Lady’s response—but to be fair to her, there was one bright spark in it: she actually gave a statement on Labour’s immigration policy, which she has failed to do for two months. She said that the Labour party agreed that migration should be properly controlled. Sadly, however, in every other statement that the Opposition have made, be it in response to this announcement or the announcement on curbing the number of non-EU economic migrants, they have refused to support the measures that will bring about that proper control. We see that policy approach from the Labour party in relation to other things as well, such as public spending. The Opposition say they want to do something, but do not support anything that would enable it to be done.

The right hon. Lady made an amazing series of statements and asked an amazing series of questions. It would have helped her if she had actually listened to my statement and looked at it properly before she responded. She asked me whether it is still our aim to reduce net migration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands, but as Hansard will confirm, the answer to that was on page 3 of the text of my statement. The very sentence I used was, “We aim to reduce net migration from the hundreds of thousands back down to the tens of thousands.” I said that in my statement; she did not need to bother with that question.

Let me go through the right hon. Lady’s other points. I find it difficult to take some of her statements. She said that the previous Labour Government targeted bogus colleges, but listening to her, one would have thought that immigration was fine under the previous Government—that it was controlled, and there were no problems with abuse of the student visa system. I could take such things from her a little better if the number of student visas had not increased by a third to 300,000 when the Labour Government closed tier 3 of the points-based system. They were not controlling the student visa system or immigration at all. Because of their lack of control, the most recent figures show net migration of over 200,000 in the last year. Far from Labour controlling that, it was going up under the previous Government.

There are one or two other facts that the right hon. Lady might like to reconsider. She claims that 9,000 staff have been cut in the UKBA, but that is not the correct figure; the correct figure is around 5,000. She said that the Government were not going to do anything about courses below degree level. The whole point of the private FE college sector is that it offers courses below degree level. We intend to remove the bogus courses, colleges and students so that we can do what her Government failed to do: deal with and control immigration.

The right hon. Lady made a lot of statements about the importance of universities to the UK. Yes, universities are an important part of the UK economy. That is precisely why the measures that I have introduced take great pains to ensure that we protect universities. We are protecting universities, our independent school sector and public sector FE colleges, and we are ensuring that those who want to come here as legitimate students on legitimate courses of study at legitimate institutions can do so. We are doing what she failed to do: we are cracking down on the abuse.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

The requirements will be B2 for university-level study and B1 for below degree-level study, so there will be a B1 requirement for the pathway courses. As the hon. Gentleman will know—this enables me to answer a question asked earlier by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) —we are piloting a system enabling student visitor visas to remain valid for 11 months. The right hon. Lady appeared to suggest that they were included in the migration figures, but they are not.

[Yvette Cooper]

That is the point.

[Mrs May]

They are not included in the migration figures, and they are therefore not covered by my statement. However, as the hon. Gentleman will probably know from discussions in which he has engaged in the past with, among others, the Minister for Immigration the requirements of the English language colleges were of particular concern to us, and we have dealt with that by piloting the extension of the visitor visas.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Central Government have sent a clear message about the importance and vulnerability of the sector. To send that message and set an example, we have ring-fenced £28 million of funding for violence against women services. We hope and expect that councils will follow suit.

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

Last week, the Home Secretary confirmed to the House that under her new arrangements, someone who is barred from working with children could still get a job as a voluntary teaching assistant without the school or the parents knowing that they were barred. Now that she has had a few days to think about it and about how concerned parents will be, has she changed her mind?

[Mrs May]

I think what matters for parents is the decisions that are made about individuals who play any part in dealing with their children, in a school or any other setting. As I made clear to the right hon. Lady last week, information that informs the decisions on barring will be available as part of the check that I would expect employers to make in such circumstances. We have a simple view: employers must take some responsibility for ensuring that they make the appropriate checks and judgments about who should be involved in dealing with children.

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Lady said last week that employers would get “exactly the same information” as the barring authorities. However, Home Office officials have told some people in the charities something rather different. Will she therefore confirm whether employers will be given “exactly the same information” as the barring authorities? If so, why not give them the barring authorities’ expert recommendation about whether someone should be barred? Parents want to know that the teaching assistant in their child’s classroom has not been previously barred by the experts from working with children. Safeguarding children is too important to have such loopholes. I urge her to listen to the experts and think again.

[Mrs May]

Of course safeguarding children is important—we all have that as top priority. Of course, the regime that is in place will in future cover those who deal with vulnerable adults as well as children. That is important. The information that informs a decision on barring will be available as part of the check so that a decision can be made. However, as the right hon. Lady has raised a query about that, I am happy to write to her with the detail on it so that she will have that to inform her questions in future.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

No I do not agree, and my hon. Friend will see that that will not be the case if he looks at the many provisions in the Bill setting out the circumstances in which people’s DNA can be retained. I come back to the fundamental issue, which is whether we think it is right for the DNA profile of innocent people to be retained on the database. Before and since the election, both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have consistently taken the view that it is not right for the DNA of innocent people to be retained on the database, but that it is right for guilty people’s DNA to be retained. The last Labour Government did not do that.

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

Will the Home Secretary confirm that under her proposals the DNA of innocent people will be kept on the database? She is not removing from the database the DNA of everyone who has not been convicted.

[Mrs May]

Indeed, the police will be able to apply for the DNA of some people who are arrested but not charged to be retained. I would expect that application to be made in certain circumstances, such as when the victim has been vulnerable, which may mean there is very good evidence that the individual concerned has committed a crime but the victim is not able or not willing to come forward and see that case through.

I also say this to the right hon. Lady: the last Government wanted the DNA of all innocent people to be retained on the database indefinitely. We do not think that is a proportionate response, and what we are introducing today is a proportionate response. We would expect the DNA of the majority of the 1 million innocent people on the database would now to be removed from it.

An adult who is charged with, but not convicted of, a serious offence will have their fingerprints and DNA profile retained for three years, with the option of a single extension for two years with the approval of a district judge in the magistrates court, and an adult who is arrested for a minor offence but not convicted will have their fingerprints and DNA profile destroyed as soon as possible once a decision has been taken not to charge them or once they have been found not guilty by the courts. Different arrangements will apply for under-18s who are convicted of a first minor offence, and there will be special provisions for DNA and fingerprints to be retained for national security purposes. If the police believe there are sufficient public protection grounds to justify the retention of material following an arrest for a qualifying offence that does not lead to a charge, the Bill allows them to apply to the new commissioner for the retention and use of biometric material, who will decide whether retention of the DNA profile and fingerprints of the arrested person is justified.

We must protect the most vulnerable in society, so when the victim of the alleged offence is under 18, vulnerable or in a close personal relationship with the arrested person the expectation is that the police will apply to the commissioner for retention. I believe that these rules give the police the tools they need without putting the DNA of a large number of innocent people on the database. In all cases, the DNA profile and fingerprints of any person arrested for a recordable offence will be subjected to a speculative search against the national databases. That means that those who have committed crimes in the past and have left their DNA or fingerprints at the scene will not escape justice.

The Bill also fulfils our coalition agreement commitment to outlaw the fingerprinting of children at school without parental permission. I must say that I found it amazing that any school ever thought it appropriate to fingerprint schoolchildren without their parents’ permission. The Bill will contain a double lock, whereby a school or college must obtain the consent of the parents and the child before processing their biometric data. If either opts out, the school or college must ensure that reasonable arrangements are in place to enable the child to access the full range of school services.

I shall deal now with surveillance. As with DNA, it is clear that CCTV can act as a deterrent to criminals, can help to convict the guilty and is warmly welcomed by many communities. This Government wholeheartedly support the use of CCTV and DNA to fight crime.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I suggest to the Home Secretary that some of the rhetoric in her speech was perhaps unwise. She is probably still thinking too much like an Opposition politician three months before an election, and not enough like a Home Secretary less than a year into a Parliament who will have to live with the consequences of her decisions and the laws that she changes.

There are difficult balances to be struck between protecting people’s freedoms from police or Government interference and protecting their freedom not to become victims of interference or violence by criminals and terrorists. Those balances should be guided by the evidence, not by the political rhetoric that she has used today about the march to authoritarianism or the ending of British liberties. Although some of the measures that she is introducing are perfectly sensible—we will support many of the sensible measures and arrangements—they are not, as the Deputy Prime Minister has tried to claim, a fundamental rolling back of the powers of the state. There are other areas where we think she has got the balance wrong.

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

Will the right hon. Lady tell Members what evidence there was for 90-day pre-charge detention?

[Yvette Cooper]

As I have said before, I do not think that it was right to go for 90-day detention and it was not justified by the evidence. There will always be areas where Governments need to be cautious in getting the balance right. Equally, however, they must be cautious not to over-hype the rhetoric and inappropriately claim that problems will somehow be easily solved. There is always a difficult balance to be struck.

I hope that the right hon. Lady, in her tenure as Home Secretary, will not have to deal with some of the extremely difficult and dangerous terrorist incidents that her Labour predecessors had to cope with, such as the Omagh bombing, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) referred, and the London 7/7 bombings, that led to many of the stronger counter-terrorism measures that her predecessors introduced. I also hope that she will rarely have to deal with some of the deeply disturbing and serious crimes, such as the Soham case, which led to the new procedures on vetting and barring.

The Home Secretary will know that when in the Home Office one can never predict what is coming around the corner, what problems might be uncovered or how one might need to respond in order to protect people’s freedom not to become victims of crime or terrorist threats. In those circumstances, it is wise to build consensus, rather than engaging in the kind of over-simplified political rhetoric that will make it more difficult to strike the right balance in future.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Does the shadow Home Secretary think it right that the details of 1 million innocent people should be on the DNA database, which is exactly what the 2009 report stated? Can that possibly be right?

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

[Michael Ellis]

Is that not a damning indictment of Labour’s record on civil liberties?

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

I will discuss the DNA database later. It is important to have safeguards, but it is equally important to ensure that proper processes are in place to protect people against crime.

[Mr Blunkett]

I want to reassure my right hon. Friend that my DNA is on the database, and I have never been arrested or convicted of anything. I was proud to do that because I thought that it was an example that would encourage people not to see the database as something that should be feared, but as a safeguard and a real asset to policing and security.

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point. In many cases, the DNA database is also a way of protecting the innocent by ensuring that they are not wrongfully convicted of crimes. DNA evidence will ensure that the person who is guilty of the crime is convicted.

Let me cover some of the areas of the Bill where we agree with the Government. We agree wholeheartedly with removing old convictions for gay sex, which is now legal. We think that it is right to remove them, just as we thought that it was right to abolish section 28 and introduce civil partnerships. We also agree that we should remove the restrictions on when people can get married or become civil partners. If people want to get married at 2 o’clock in the morning and can find someone nocturnal enough to conduct the ceremony, Parliament should not prevent them from doing so.

We support sensible extensions to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. As the party that introduced that Act, we believe that it is a vital way of ensuring proper transparency and accountability. In passing, I would appreciate it if the Home Secretary would have a word with the Chancellor and ask him to stop blocking my freedom of information requests on the impact of his changes on women.

We agree that action was needed against rogue car clampers. In fact, the Opposition Chief Whip, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Ms Winterton), has run some fantastic campaigns against wheel-clamping bullies. Some action had been taken to legislate for new licensing measures, but we are ready to support alternatives that work and will discuss those in Committee.

We also agree with tighter restrictions on stop-and- search powers, which were being used more widely than originally intended under the legislation. The Home Secretary will be aware that her predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), had already taken some action in that area and that the provisional data had shown a significant drop in stop-and-search cases in 2009-10, but we are ready to support sensible changes that bring the legislation more closely in line with the original intention. As I have said to the Home Secretary before, I am still worried about the implications in Northern Ireland. I hope that she will be able to reassure me, and the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, about the measures that she is taking in those areas.

For all those reasons, we will not oppose the Bill on Second Reading, although we have serious concerns about some elements and believe that significant amendments will be needed in Committee.

I also agree that in some cases the implementation of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 has gone beyond Parliament’s original intention and that further safeguards are needed. Again, we will scrutinise the detail, as it is important that the new procedures are not so bureaucratic that they prevent councils from doing a sensible job. We believe that communities across the country will be concerned if they find that a new code of practice makes it harder to get the CCTV they have been campaigning for, because they know it is critical to preventing crime and antisocial behaviour in their areas.

There is a massive contradiction in the Government’s approach to councils’ powers and abilities. In the Bill before us, the Home Secretary wants to make it harder for councils to gather information or to use surveillance. Yet, in her other Home Office Bill, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, which is also going through the House at the moment, she wants to give local councils extra powers to seize people’s property if byelaws are breached. So she does not want council officers watching people, but she does not seem to mind them taking people’s property away.

The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill states that byelaws will be able to

“include provision for or in connection with the seizure and retention of any property in connection with any contravention of the byelaw”.

Local councils have byelaws on things such as dog fouling, mud falling on roads, music outside churches or, in the case of Westminster, giving out free refreshment, all of which could be covered by future byelaw seizure powers. The Bill before us contains an entire clause entitled “Protection of Property from Disproportionate Enforcement Action”, but at the very same time disproportionate enforcement action is being actively encouraged in the other Bill. Imagine: a council cannot monitor the noise from a nuisance neighbour, but it can, if a child is playing a tune in the church square, seize the recorder; it cannot check if any dog fouling is taking place, but, if an officer happens to pass by at the critical moment, they can confiscate the dog.

So what on earth are the Government up to? We are used to chaos and confusion in this Government, but that is usually because the Deputy Prime Minister says one thing while the Home Secretary does another: he abolishes control orders; she renames them; he abolishes antisocial behaviour orders; she introduces criminal behaviour orders. We know that she does not agree with lots of what the Deputy Prime Minister says and does, but now it seems that she does not even agree with herself. Such chaos and confusion is absurd when it comes to council byelaws, but it is rather more worrying when it comes to counter-terrorism, because the process has been chaotic from beginning to end.

We can agree to support limiting pre-charge detention to 14 rather than 28 days, on the basis of the evidence from experts, but we also take very seriously the conclusion of the Home Secretary’s own counter-terrorism review, which states that the Government must provide for the possibility of needing to hold someone for longer in exceptional circumstances.

The right hon. Lady’s original plan was to allow the old limit of 28 days to lapse without even showing us the review or telling us the Government’s plans. Then, the Immigration Minister told the House that the draft emergency legislation would be put directly in the Library. Then, the Home Secretary said that it would not and the order-making power to increase detention to 28 days would suffice. Then, we learned that the Government’s own review stated that the order-making power would not be fast enough. Then, the Home Secretary said that she would consult the Opposition on the emergency legislation so that it could be agreed as soon as possible. We are still waiting on that one. The legislation has finally been published, but, while the draft Bill refers to three months, the explanatory notes refer to six months, and the Government’s intention is still not clear.

[Mr Ellwood]

The right hon. Lady has rattled on a bit, but I wonder whether I can take her back to 90 days, because she did not really answer the question about the evidence on which that limit was based. I have taken a personal interest in the matter and in the issue of 14 and 28 days. When there is a case for more than 14 days but there are difficulties in recalling Parliament, officers can choose to put forward a lesser charge that can result in a conviction, thus allowing the person to be detained. The police say that that is easy to do, rather than having to go for the super-charge that would result in the major conviction. It is a simple solution to an easy problem.

[Yvette Cooper]

That might be possible in some cases, and officers might be able to use it, but there is an issue, because, although it is right to make 14 days the norm, it is also right to have the provision to move to 28 days if needed. Doing so through emergency legislation, as the Government propose, however, raises some significant difficulties.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn has raised the question of what happens if Parliament is not sitting, and whether it will be possible in those circumstances to move fast enough. The Home Secretary says, “Well, it’ll be all right because we’ll find out on day one whether we might need longer,” but we might not. We might not find out until day 10 of an interrogation that, in fact, a longer period is required.

Let us suppose, for example, that the police have a serious case, including credible intelligence on an imminent terrorist attack or some extreme situation. After 10 days it becomes clear that they need more time before they can charge, but they are afraid of releasing the suspect because they might abscond abroad or even trigger the attack. What happens in those circumstances? The Home Secretary will come to Parliament and say, “We need emergency legislation,” but neither she nor anyone else in the House will be able to discuss why we need it, for fear of prejudicing an investigation or a possible trial. Parliamentary scrutiny will be very difficult, so, given how difficult and risky it might prove, I urge her to look again at options such as special bail conditions, which could reduce the need for emergency legislation.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I have listened to my right hon. Friend’s reservations, which I share: I am very much in favour of a reduction from 28 to 14 days; that goes without saying. Leaving aside whether the House is to be recalled, and assuming that it is sitting, what details will be given to us about those whom it is felt should be held for longer than 14 days? If we cannot have the relevant information because it will prejudice any proceedings that will take place if the person is charged, what are we supposed to do? Are we just supposed to nod our approval? If we are not, and the details are given out, it will be argued in any later court proceedings that the House has prejudiced the case.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point that goes to the heart of the problem. The reason for emergency legislation through primary legislation to change those powers is, in theory, to give Parliament the chance to scrutinise, debate and decide whether the action is reasonable. In practice, however, it is very hard to see how Parliament will be able to discuss the detail at all without being at serious risk of prejudicing a potentially dangerous investigation and important case, which we would all want to see go properly through the courts, with the proper judicial process followed.

That is why I say to the Home Secretary that it seems sensible to explore whether there are alternatives, such as bail conditions and other procedures with a judicial process, that might be used in such extreme circumstances. We all hope that the circumstances do not arise, but those alternatives would reduce our need to use emergency legislation.

[Mr Cash]

Has it occurred to the right hon. Lady or, indeed, to those on the Government Front Bench that we have habeas corpus, and that in such conditions it is the first duty of any judge to give effect to that provision? It does not matter what statute says; habeas corpus comes first, unless it has been expressly excluded by statute.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman has considerable legal expertise, and I shall not attempt to get into a detailed debate about that point, but the critical issue is the complicated interaction between not only the work of the police and the role of Parliament, but the necessary role of the judiciary, and the alternatives merit more thoughtful debate, so that we do not prejudice individual cases or put the House in a difficult position.

[Mrs May]

Given what the right hon. Lady says about our proposals for emergency legislation on 28 days, will she explain why the previous Government put on the stocks emergency legislation for 42 days?

[Yvette Cooper]

Legislation is not the right way to respond in such extreme circumstances. In the end, it might be the backstop that the right hon. Lady needs, but she should do more to avoid the situation arising. She is not even looking at what the appropriate special bail conditions might be, for example, or at other measures that could prevent her from ever needing to use emergency legislation in the middle of an extreme situation. She should look at the possible alternatives.

Part 5 makes significant changes to the vetting and barring regime, which works to protect children from abuse. As the Home Secretary knows, the Labour Government said that changes were needed to the system to ensure the right balance between protecting children and vulnerable adults without being unnecessarily burdensome. Indeed, Sir Roger Singleton recommended removing a series of unnecessary checks, and we welcome the recent technological developments that will enable portable Criminal Records Bureau checks and substantially simplify the system.



Some practical issues have been raised, and we will want to pursue those further in Committee.

We think that this is an important development. However, the Home Secretary’s proposals go too far. She is creating a series of loopholes in child protection that parents will rightly be very worried about. The evidence from the NSPCC makes that clear. It says that her proposals leave

“a disturbing gap in the planned legislation that could put children at harm.”

Under these plans, it will be possible for people to spend long hours in positions of authority and in regular intensive contact with children without being covered by the barring arrangements because someone else is in a supervisory role. For example, voluntary teaching assistants may well not be covered. As the NSPCC points out,

“supervised employees and volunteers are still able to develop and exploit relationships with children…A volunteer part time teaching assistant in a classroom of 30 children with only light touch supervision by the classroom teacher has plenty of opportunity to develop inappropriate relationships and groom children.”

[Mrs May]

Perhaps I can help the right hon. Lady and the House. This afternoon, the Minister for Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), who is responsible for criminal information matters, had a meeting with a number of children’s charities, including the NSPCC, and was able to reassure them on that precise point. The employer will be able to get an enhanced CRB check for an individual who is volunteering in a capacity such as a teaching assistant, which will contain the same information that has been available in making the decision on the barring of that individual. The employer will therefore be able to make a decision based on exactly the same information as that on which the decision on barring was taken.

[Yvette Cooper]

If the Home Secretary is changing her policy, perhaps she will take the opportunity to intervene again to clarify this point. Will somebody in these circumstances—

[Mrs May]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

Let me ask the question. Will somebody in these circumstances be able to find out whether the Independent Safeguarding Authority has made the judgment that somebody should be barred?

[Mrs May]

I am very happy to intervene again on the right hon. Lady, but may I just correct her on one thing? I have not changed the policy. The policy remains exactly as it was, and the Bill remains exactly as it was. A misinterpretation of what was in the Bill has led to the comments from the NSPCC, which, as I said, is one of the children’s charities to which my hon. Friend the Minister has been speaking today. In the circumstances that the right hon. Lady outlines, the fact of the barring will not be available to the employer, but the information that led to the decision on the barring will be available to the employer. We take a slightly different position from that of the right hon. Lady and her party—that the employer must then take some responsibility for making a decision as to who it is appropriate to have potentially dealing with children in the classroom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

This is really weird. It means that somebody—a teacher, for example—who has been working with children and has been barred for grooming a child, may then apply for a job, perhaps a voluntary post as a teaching assistant, and the school will not be told whether they are barred, but the Home Secretary thinks that that is okay because the school may be able to get some of the information that led to the barring in the first place if it is summarised on the CRB check. Why not give the school the information about the fact that someone has been previously barred?

The Home Office guidance says:

“Some people who may previously have been barred…may be able to gain posts in other areas where they are able to work less closely with children or adults. It will be up to employers to weigh up the risks involved”,

but let us think of the position in which that puts employers. They will not even know if they have got the full information; nor will they have the judgment of the experts at the safeguarding authority who have made a decision, based on their professional experience and expertise, that the person should be barred. The guidance also says that

“employers will not be able to find out the barred status of people who are not working in regulated activity roles.”

A lot of parents will find this puzzling and worrying. Why should they not be able to find out whether someone has previously been barred for working with children if they are going to be working with children again in a similar way?

Let us consider the other consequences. If a voluntary teaching assistant is caught grooming a child, then as long as they have never been a teacher, worked in regulated activity, or expressed a desire to do so in future, they will not even be added to the barred list. So two years later they can apply for teacher training and no one will know that they were kicked out of another school for deeply inappropriate behaviour. Future employers may be able to get a criminal records check but, as the NSPCC has made clear,

“This is highly concerning as most people who pose a risk to children are not prosecuted, and thus future employers may not be alerted to the risks they pose.”

I have to say to the Home Secretary that most parents will not just think that it is “highly concerning”—they will think, like me, that it is wrong.

[Mr Watson]

My right hon. Friend is right that this is a complex and puzzling piece of the Bill, and the devil will be in the detail when it comes before the Committee. I hope that the Home Secretary is in no doubt, though, that what is very clear is that if a child is harmed as a result of this deregulatory measure, she will carry the responsibility for it.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Secretary needs to think again about this matter and take responsibility for the changes that she is making. As parents, we want to be sure that someone who has a history of inappropriate behaviour towards children will not end up as a voluntary teaching assistant in our child’s class. The Deputy Prime Minister has described the proposed new arrangements as common sense. I am afraid that the truth is that they look, at best, naive and confused, and at worst, extremely irresponsible. I urge the Home Secretary to change this proposal and not to put political rhetoric above the safety of children.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Although there are many excellent things in the Bill that I welcome, the right hon. Lady is absolutely right on this point. When it comes to the protection of children and to giving confidence to parents, is it not right always to err on the side of caution?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. This is a difficult area. People will raise concerns if they feel that there are inappropriate burdens in reporting arrangements, and of course it is right to try to reduce those and to prevent inappropriate checks or bureaucracy, but it is also right to put safeguards for our children at the heart of the measures that we set out, and not to do things that feel inappropriate given the potential risks, given the evidence, and given the security that parents want for their children.

[Robert Flello]

My right hon. Friend is talking about the incredibly important issue of safeguarding our children. Given what we have seen in the media over the past week about the risks to vulnerable adults, would she care to comment on the fact that, although those of us who are parents are deeply concerned about children, including other people’s children, there are serious implications for vulnerable adults too?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. Some cases of very distressing abuse have taken place involving vulnerable adults, and it is important that they, too, should have protection against that. The key is to ensure that if one authority or organisation knows that somebody has a history of abuse, that person should not be allowed to work again in a position where they may put vulnerable adults or children at risk in a way that other authorities, or the families, were not aware of, and which might lead to harm.

I want finally to turn to DNA, which is another area where we believe that the Government are going too far. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle had already legislated for safeguards on DNA use, including a six-year limit on retention for those who were not convicted. He based those safeguards on analysis of reoffending rates and the benefits in terms of preventing and solving crimes. The Government have decided to reject those safeguards and to go much further in restricting the use of DNA, but not on the basis of evidence. Some people object, as a matter of principle, to DNA being held at all if the person has not been convicted. I do not agree with that, but neither does the Home Secretary. She claimed that nobody’s DNA should be kept at all if they were innocent, but that is not what the proposals in her Bill achieve. Rightly, she recognises that there must be a balance that supports the needs to prevent crime and to ensure that crimes are solved. A balance needs to be struck, but she is not striking the right one. The changes go too far in restricting the use of DNA and will make it harder for the police to solve and prevent serious crimes.

This is a particular problem in rape cases. As the Home Secretary knows, rape cases not only have a notoriously low conviction rate, but a notoriously low charge rate. That is because the trauma for the victim is so great and because of problems with evidence. Many perpetrators of serious sexual crimes are not brought to justice for their first offence. In about 70% of cases in which a rape suspect is arrested, there is no charge. According to Home Office papers, in cases where there is no charge, DNA will be kept only in very limited circumstances, so in most of these cases the DNA will be destroyed, even though it might be critical in catching a repeat offender for a nasty and violent sexual offence.

The Home Secretary will know that a considerable number of cases have been solved because of DNA. Kensley Larrier was arrested in 2002 for the possession of an offensive weapon. The case never reached court, but two years later he raped someone and was found because of a DNA match. Lee and Stephen Ainsby raped and kidnapped a 17-year-old girl in Barnsley. A match with Lee Ainsby’s DNA was found years later in a case review. It had been taken because he had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Under the Home Secretary’s system, his DNA would not have been kept. Without that DNA, those two men would still be free, and justice for that young girl would not have been done. Abdul Azad was arrested for violent disorder in Birmingham in February 2005, but released without charge, according to the Forensic Science Service. In July 2005, he raped somebody in Stafford and was identified only because the police had his DNA. The senior investigating officer for the case said:

“We would never have caught him had his DNA not already been on the database—he didn’t even live locally so we had no intelligence leads either.”

Case after case would have been much harder for the police to solve under the Home Secretary’s new rules. Yes, she has an obligation to ensure that individuals are protected from unjustified interference, but she also has an obligation to protect people from crime and to deliver justice for the victims of horrific crimes.

[Mr Cash]

I am sure that the right hon. Lady will appreciate, given the importance of this debate, that many of the points that she has made about those cases derive from European rulings and the European convention on human rights. The problem with almost everything she has said is that it was her Government who were responsible for bringing in and endorsing many of these provisions, including through the Human Rights Act 1998. Does she not accept that there is a dilemma, which has to be resolved in Committee, about whether we should go down the human rights route and follow article 8 or legislate in this House to ensure that we achieve justice for the people concerned?

[Yvette Cooper]

The Crime and Security Act 2010, which was passed before the election, addressed many of those issues and concerns. A wider discussion, which we will not stray into, is about whether one of the benefits of the Human Rights Act is that it refers issues back to Parliament and allows it to respond.

[Mr Hanson]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that when my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) and I took the DNA provisions through this House at the beginning of last year, the then Opposition did not oppose the six-year retention period? That was because they recognised that many murderers, rapists, sexual offenders and others were caught after committing crimes because of DNA profiles, meaning that other victims were not created. Does she agree that the proposals threaten to create more victims?

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is right about the importance of protecting victims, as well as protecting other people. It is a shame that the Government, having supported the measures in the 2010 Act and allowed it to go through, have not chosen to implement it. The revised measures will take much longer to put in place.

[Mr Watson]

I was not aware of the cases that my right hon. Friend raised. Before we decide where we stand on this matter, I think that the people of Stafford, Birmingham and Barnsley deserve an explanation from the Home Secretary about why these measures would have allowed serious criminals to remain free.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. If these restrictions go through and make it harder for the police to solve serious crimes, the Home Secretary will have to explain to the victims of crime and those who are worried about serious crimes and offences why she has chosen to draw the line where she has, and to strike the balance in a way that will mean that more victims will not get the justice that they deserve and that we have a responsibility to pursue on their behalf.

Protecting freedom means getting the balance right. It means protecting the freedom of victims as well as protecting everyone else from unnecessary suspicion or interference. It means making sure that there are safeguards, checks and balances that protect people’s freedoms and protect the innocent. It also means making sure that the police have the tools they need to fight and prevent crime that hurts innocent people.

In reality, what are the Home Secretary and her Government doing? Their record on protecting freedoms and ensuring checks and balances is a mass of confusion and contradiction that makes a mockery of their rhetoric: new powers of confiscation for local councils; restrictions on protest in Parliament square and powers for non-warranted officers to move people on physically; substantial powers over the police concentrated in the hands of a single politician—the police commissioner; and a populist assault on the courts and the Human Rights Act, which play an important role in preventing arbitrary state power. The Government are not putting in place checks and balances or protecting freedoms. At the same time, they are making it harder, not easier, for the police to fight crime and bring offenders to justice—through restrictions on DNA, loopholes in child protection, weakening the sex offenders register, ending antisocial behaviour orders, weakening control orders and by having more than 10,000 fewer police officers thanks to the 20% front-loaded cuts. That is not a good list.

The Bill does not do what it says on the tin. It does not deliver a fundamental change in the protection of freedom for the innocent, and it does not protect the freedom of victims. The Home Secretary has given in to the rhetoric of the Deputy Prime Minister and she will be judged by the reality of her decisions today. She is getting some of those decisions wrong.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)]

This has been a good debate. The passion shown and the wide-ranging nature of the debate has underlined the fact that freedom of speech is very much alive and well in the House. I take heart from the broad support across the House for many, if not all, of the Bill’s provisions. There is a clear recognition from Members on the Government Benches—and, indeed, by a number of Opposition Members—that the previous Government’s approach during their 13 years in office eroded a number of freedoms and, importantly, failed to enhance our security. Freedom was not enhanced by the creation of a leviathan national identity register containing the personal details of every adult in the country. Civil liberties were not protected by creating a database holding the details of every child. The vulnerable were not safeguarded by requiring more than 9 million employees and volunteers to register with a Government agency. Justice was not served by including more than 1 million unconvicted individuals on the national DNA database, and community cohesion was not strengthened by the police stopping hundreds of thousands of people under anti-terrorism powers but making only a handful of arrests for terrorist offences.

I remind Opposition Members of the Leader of the Opposition’s words to the Labour party conference:

“But we must always remember that British liberties were hard fought and hard won over hundreds of years. We should always take the greatest care in protecting them. And too often we seemed casual about them.”

This Government will not be casual about liberty. That is why the Bill sets out a different approach that will protect our communities while defending personal freedoms.

This has been a good debate and I thank hon. Members on the Government side, including my hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) and for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), whom I welcome as the successor to Evan Harris, although there have been some comments in support of the activities that Evan continues to do outside the House. I thank also my hon. Friends the Members for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), for Salisbury (John Glen), for Witham (Priti Patel), for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), for Colchester (Bob Russell) and for Stone (Mr Cash). In addition, I thank many Opposition Members for their contributions, including the light relief provided by the vision of his brush with Oddjob described by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who did not specify whether his fingerprints were taken by Goldfinger. I know that the right hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Ms Winterton) would have liked to take part in the debate on wheel-clamping, and we appreciate her support for those measures.

I am conscious of time and I will do my best to cover as many as possible of the points that have been raised, but I apologise if I am not able to get through them all. On CCTV, I welcome the support of many hon. Members for the introduction of a statutory code of practice and the appointment of an independent surveillance commissioner. Those measures will help to maintain and strengthen public confidence in the use of CCTV systems and will ensure that the millions of pounds invested in such systems deliver value for money. Some hon. Members have commented on whether this trust and confidence is required, and I highlight the comments of Sara Thornton, the chief constable of Thames Valley police, in her review of Project Champion concerning CCTV usage in Birmingham. She said:

“As a consequence, the trust and confidence that they”—

in other words, the local people—

“have in the police has been significantly undermined.

There is a real opportunity to learn from Project Champion about the damage that can be done to police legitimacy when the police are seen to be acting in a way which prizes expediency over legitimacy.”

That is the context in which we should consider the provisions in the Bill relating to CCTV.

My hon. Friends the Members for Carshalton and Wallington and for Oxford West and Abingdon highlighted the application of the CCTV code of practice. The code is intended to benefit all system users. The specific requirement to have regard to the code is initially limited to the police and local authorities as the principal operators of public space CCTV systems, but the use of privately operated cameras in private or semi-public spaces is more complex. We wish to achieve a consensus on key issues before considering whether to extend the duty to have regard to the code of practice to other operators—for example, in shopping centres. I take on board the comments that were made. I can offer my hon. Friend the Member for Witham an assurance that we recognise the important role played by CCTV in detecting and deterring crime.

An issue that was raised which is not in the Bill was section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. It is essential to consider in the round whether current laws strike the right balance on freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom to manifest one’s religion and the need to protect the public. In its report, “Adapting to Protest”, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary suggested that changing the law was not the answer. In many ways it was the constant changes to the Public Order Act that had led to operational confusion. The Government will continue to review the law throughout the course of this Parliament to ensure that it allows competing rights to be properly balanced.

Comments were made on the provisions for safeguarding vulnerable groups. Some Opposition Members expressed concern that reforms to the vetting and barring scheme would put children and vulnerable adults at greater risk. We do not consider that that will be the case. The remodelled scheme set out in the Bill will cover those who may have regular or close contact with children or vulnerable adults. It will provide for a more proportionate and efficient scheme in tandem with a refined criminal records disclosure service. The creation of a huge database to monitor millions of ordinary people created an artificial sense of security. We are moving back to a common-sense approach.

[Yvette Cooper]

Will the Minister confirm that if somebody applying for a post as a voluntary teaching assistant has been barred from work as a teacher owing to inappropriate contact or behaviour with children, the school will not be told that the independent experts at the ISA have barred that person?

[James Brokenshire]

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made clear, the underlying information will be known. That is the key point. It is worth mentioning that the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) met the NSPCC and other bodies, which said that they were assured by the explanations that they were given.

On DNA, we reject the allegations that we are being soft on crime. That is not the case. We recognise the importance of DNA and how it combats crime. Our approach is based on putting the guilty on the database to make a difference there, not putting on the database those who are innocent.

The Bill strikes the right balance between individual freedom and collective protection. It guards against the unnecessary and unregulated intrusion by Government into the lives of the many. It protects the fundamental values of liberty and freedom that mark this country out. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

protection of freedoms bill (programme)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Protection of Freedoms Bill:

Committal

1. The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee

2. Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 10 May.

3. The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Consideration and Third Reading

4. Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

6. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.

Other proceedings

7. Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed.—(Bill Wiggin.)

Question agreed to.

protection of freedoms bill (money)

Queen’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Protection of Freedoms Bill, it is expedient to authorise—

(1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

(a) any expenditure incurred by a Minister of the Crown by virtue of this Act; and

(b) any increase attributable to this Act in the sums payable by virtue of any other Act out of money so provided, and

(2) the making of payments into the Consolidated Fund.—(Bill Wiggin.)

Question agreed to.

Sex Offenders Register

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

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

The sex offenders register has existed since 1997. Since that time, it has helped the police to protect the public from those most horrific of crimes. Requiring serious sexual offenders to sign the register for life, as they do now, has broad support across the House, but the Supreme Court ruled last April that not granting sex offenders the opportunity to seek a review was a breach of their human rights—in particular, the right to a private or family life. Those are rights, of course, that those offenders have taken away from their victims in the cruellest and most degrading manner possible.

The Government are disappointed and appalled by that ruling. It places the rights of sex offenders above the right of the public to be protected from the risk of their reoffending, but there is no possibility of further appeal. The Government are determined to do everything we can to protect the public from predatory sexual offenders, so we will make the minimum possible changes to the law in order to comply with the ruling. I want to make it clear that the Court’s ruling does not mean that paedophiles and rapists will automatically come off the sex offenders register. The Court found only that they must be given the right to seek a review.

The Scottish Government have already implemented a scheme to give offenders an automatic right of appeal for removal from the register after 15 years. We will implement a much tougher scheme. Offenders will be able to apply for consideration of removal only after waiting 15 years following release from custody. In England and Wales, there will be no automatic appeals. We will deliberately set the bar for those reviews as high as possible. Public protection must come first. A robust review, led by the police and involving all the relevant agencies, will be carried out so that a full picture of the risks to the public can be considered.

The final decision on whether an offender should remain on the register will be down to the police, and not, as in Scotland, the courts. The police are best placed to assess the risk of an offender committing another crime, and they will rightly put the public first. There will be no right of appeal against the police’s decision to keep an offender on the register. That decision will be final. Sex offenders who continue to pose a risk will remain on the register, and will do so for life if necessary.

When we are free to take further action to protect the public, we will do so. We will shortly launch a targeted consultation aimed at closing four existing loopholes in the sex offenders register. We will make it compulsory for sex offenders to report to the authorities before travelling abroad for even one day. That will prevent them from being free to travel for up to three days, as they are under the existing scheme. We will force sex offenders to notify the authorities whenever they are living in a household containing a child under the age of 18. We will require sex offenders to notify the authorities weekly of where they can be found when they have no fixed abode. We will tighten the rules so that sex offenders can no longer avoid being on the register when they change their names by deed poll.

Finally, I can tell the House that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Justice Secretary will shortly announce the establishment of a commission to investigate the creation of a British Bill of rights. It is time to assert that it is Parliament that makes our laws, not the courts; that the rights of the public come before the rights of criminals; and, above all, that we have a legal framework that brings sanity to cases such as these.

I commend my statement to the House.

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

This is an important matter involving some of the most serious crimes in society. I thank the Home Secretary for supplying me with the statement within the last half hour, but I must say that it is worrying that the Home Office has again allowed information to be given to the media before it has been given to the House.

The depravity and seriousness of sex offences, and the harm and damage that they do to victims, mean that the systems that we operate to protect the public must be paramount. We have an obligation to ensure that vulnerable children and other victims can be protected from such terrible crimes. As the Home Secretary knows, that is why the sex offenders register was established in the first place. The law rightly requires people who have been convicted of such serious crimes to meet further registration requirements once their sentences have been served, in the interests of public protection and to prevent further terrible crimes from taking place.

The priority now must still be public safety, and the protection of our young and vulnerable people. Those victims of crime have suffered and continue to suffer greatly because of the actions of sex offenders. We know, too, that many such offenders can still pose a serious threat to the public. The court judgment to which the Home Secretary has responded today itself quotes the research finding that just over a quarter of those imprisoned for such offences did reoffend. Those offences included some that were very serious, a large number of which were committed many years later.

Does the Home Secretary agree that, while of course proper and fair processes must always be followed for individuals through the courts, the protection of families and communities up and down the country is paramount? She has said that the new system will be tough. Let me say to her that it is vital to the safety and protection of children in particular, but also to that of other victims, that the new system is extremely tough if it is to have the support of the House.

The Home Secretary said that Parliament should decide the level of protection that is needed, and that Parliament should set the laws. However, she has given Parliament very little information today about the way in which the new system will operate. Will the new framework be enshrined in legislation? Will Parliament have an opportunity to debate the details? The Home Secretary will know that many Members of Parliament and members of the public will be very concerned about the possibility that any new framework might enable serious offenders to manipulate the system. It is essential that that is not allowed to happen, but it is also important for Parliament to have an opportunity to debate it to ensure that it does not happen.

Will the Home Secretary ensure that the focus is on public protection, rather than on the convenience or rights of those who have been convicted of serious crimes? Will she tell us how many offenders will be affected? Will she tell us what the level of the police assessment will be, and what standards the police will seek to meet as part of their review?

Will the police be given additional resources to do this? She will know that there is concern in the House about the police’s resources and about whether they are stretched already as a result of the cuts the Government are making. Will she say what additional resources the police will have, what additional resources they will require and the number of people on whom they will be expected to carry out reviews as a result of the changes she is proposing? She will know that some police forces have already expressed concern that as a result of the 20% cuts they are facing, their need to respond and their need to try to keep as many people in neighbourhood policing as possible, many specialist units within police forces are coming under the greatest pressure as a result of the decisions she has made. What reassurance can she give the House and the public that there will be no increased risk to the public as a result of these changes and of pressure on the police?

I welcome the Home Secretary’s proposal to consider other tighter measures on sex offenders, but does that have any implications for the changes that she appears to be making in the opposite direction to the vetting and barring provisions? She has also raised, as part of her statement, discussion of a Bill of rights. We would welcome a debate about that, although wider issues associated with written constitutions can also be debated. However, I am concerned at the form that this announcement has taken, because it is, in itself, a major announcement and the House should have an opportunity to have that debate and raise questions.

In conclusion, the Home Secretary will know that the public would be horrified if the rights, or even the convenience, of people who have been convicted of very serious crimes were to be put above the right to safety and family life of the public and of vulnerable people and vulnerable victims. She will know that Labour Members will not support any changes that will do that, and I hope that she intends not to do that. I look forward to her answers to the questions.

[Mrs May]

I can say categorically to the right hon. Lady that it is indeed the Government’s intention to put the protection of the public first. Had she listened to my statement or read it beforehand, she would have noted that it says that in a number of places. We are appalled by the Court’s decision. I would far rather not have to stand here saying that we have to make a change to the sex offenders register, but we do have to make a change. We will do so in the most minimal way possible to ensure that we do put public protection first, and that we give the police and others the ability to ensure that the public are protected from such serious and appalling crimes as have been committed by individuals on this register.

The right hon. Lady asked quite a number of questions. She asked whether we are making the protection of families paramount, and I have said that we are. She said that the system should be extremely tough and, yes, our intention is that it will be as tough as possible. That is why we have looked not only at what we can do in the minimal way to put this judgment into effect, but at ways to toughen up the sex offenders register regime—for example, by the requirement that we want to introduce for individuals on the register to have to notify when they are going abroad for at least a day. That is a toughening of the current system.

The right hon. Lady asked about Parliament’s opportunity to debate this measure. It will be introduced through an order—a statutory instrument—so there will be an opportunity to debate it. She asked about the numbers who will be affected. That will be set out in the regulatory impact assessment that will accompany the statutory instrument. She asked about the process of consideration that the police will go through. They will be talking to all other agencies that have an interest in this area, so they will talk to the probation service, local authorities, social services, youth offending teams and a variety of other agencies to ensure that they have the best possible picture of the individual concerned in order to make the best possible judgment. I am sure that she will agree that the police are very clear about the importance of public protection. That is why I want the police to make these decisions; I believe that they will put public protection first. They will examine a series of issues, such as the seriousness of the offences originally committed and the age of the victims. They will address a range of issues when they are considering whether a review should be upheld and whether the individual should stay on the register.

The right hon. Lady asked about the ability of the police to deal with this. ACPO and the National Offender Management Service have been actively involved in putting together and shaping the policy. One of their considerations has, of course, been its deliverability. We are confident that the policy can be delivered, as is ACPO. Like us, ACPO wants to ensure that we have the toughest possible policy to protect the public. It is different from the vetting and barring scheme, where the problem was that lots of innocent people found themselves on it and were subject to its requirements. This proposal is about the people who have been found guilty of heinous crimes and is about making sure that we reduce the risk of reoffending to members of the public. As I have announced in relation to the Bill of rights, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Justice Secretary will make further announcements about that imminently.