Police and National Crime Agency Remuneration Review Bodies

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Written Statements

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

I am pleased to announce that I have appointed Anita Bharucha and Paul Leighton as members of the Police and National Crime Agency Remuneration Review Bodies. These appointments will be to 31 August 2017, commencing on 11 December.

Anita Bharucha is currently an independent management consultant and brings a wealth of experience to the role. Anita was a civil servant from 1993 to 2012 and served in a number of Departments including the Home Office, Cabinet Office, Northern Ireland Office, and latterly as a Director in the Ministry of Justice.

Paul Leighton is currently, a non-executive director on the Prison Service management board for Northern Ireland and Chair of its Audit Committee. Among the extensive experience he brings to the role is an understanding of the specific context of policing in Northern Ireland. Paul retired as Deputy Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland in May 2009 and he has previously worked in policing in both Northern Ireland and the north-east of England.

These appointments have been made in accordance with the code of practice issued by the Commissioner for Public Appointments.

Police Integrity

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Written Statements

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

On 22 July, Official Report, column 1265, I gave a statement to the House on this Government’s ongoing work to ensure the highest standards of integrity in the police. I informed the House that I would undertake a number of reviews, including an end-to-end review of the police complaints system and an independent review of the police disciplinary system, led by Major General (Retd) Chip Chapman. I am pleased to tell the House that these reviews have now concluded and the Government are today launching a public consultation on reforms to improve police complaints and discipline to better hold police officers to account and deal with misconduct appropriately.

I have always been clear that I believe the vast majority of police officers in this country do their job honestly and with integrity. They put themselves in harm’s way to protect the public. They are cutting crime even as we reduce police spending. And the vast majority of officers do their work with a strong sense of fairness and duty. But as I have said before, the good work of the majority threatens to be damaged by a continuing series of events and revelations relating to police conduct.

This Government have carried out a radical programme of reform of the policing landscape. We have given chief constables greater operational independence, by scrapping national targets, while at the same time strengthening local accountability to the public through the creation of directly elected police and crime commissioners (PCCs). We have reformed police pay and conditions, established the College of Policing to improve police standards and beefed up the Independent Police Complaints Commission to take on all serious and sensitive cases. Crime has fallen by a fifth under this Government, according to the crime survey for England and Wales.

The reforms I am consulting on today will build on this programme of reform. The reviews show that the police complaints and disciplinary systems do not meet the standards that both the public and the police rightly expect. Those wishing to lodge a complaint find an opaque and bureaucratic system with insufficient independence. The police see a system designed to punish them, rather than one that provides feedback to help them improve performance.

The Government’s proposed reforms put the public at the heart of the system, replacing bureaucracy and complexity with accountability and transparency. We propose giving Police and Crime Commissioners the powers to handle complaints in a way that makes sense for their local electorates. This includes PCCs taking on responsibility for how complaints appropriate for local resolution are dealt with, making sure that issues are resolved quickly and effectively. We propose giving the IPCC new powers, strengthening its role as an independent oversight body and building on this Government’s commitment to transfer resources to enable the IPCC to investigate all serious and sensitive cases. We suggest the introduction of police super-complaints, a feature of the financial markets regulatory landscape, to allow designated organisations to present evidence of systemic problems to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), and give a voice to those who choose not to complain directly.

It is impossible to separate the police complaints and disciplinary systems and the Government’s reforms also address the way in which police performance and misconduct matters are dealt with. I am grateful in this regard for Major General (Retd) Chip Chapman’s thorough investigation and analysis of the police disciplinary system, which is published today alongside the Government’s proposals. On 18 November, Official Report, column 6WS, I announced proposals to hold police disciplinary hearings in public with independent, legally-qualified chairs and the intention to legislate in this Parliament. In addition, the Government are now seeking views on the majority of the remaining Chapman recommendations, which include benchmarking to ensure consistency of sanctions; streamlining and integrating the performance management and misconduct processes; and consulting on merging the disciplinary systems for police officers and police staff.

Finally, the Government have already announced a consultation on protections for police whistleblowers to ensure that concerns can be raised without fear of disciplinary action. Today’s consultation document contains further proposals, including strengthening the independent route for whistleblowing to the IPCC and allowing the IPCC to conduct investigations in a way that protects the identity of the whistleblower.

In addition, I am today announcing the commencement of the first triennial review of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, part of the Government’s commitment to ensuring that public bodies continue to have regular independent challenge. The review will focus on examining whether the IPCC is operating efficiently and whether its control and governance arrangements continue to meet the recognised principles of good corporate governance. I will inform the House of the outcome of the review when it is completed.

These proposals are a key step of the Government’s reform of the policing landscape, ensuring that, where the public have concerns about their contact with the police, these will be dealt with in a transparent, fair and effective way. These reforms are vital for securing confidence in this system and in the work of the police.

We will be consulting on these proposals for eight weeks and will respond to the consultation before the end of the Parliament. The consultation document has been published as a Command Paper (Cm 8976) and copies will be available from the Vote Office. A copy of Major General Chapman’s report will be placed in the Library of the House. Both of these publications can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications?departments%5B%5D=home-office&publication_filter_option=consultations

I hope that those with an interest in these very important matters will take the time to respond to the consultation.

Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Written Statements

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

Section 19(1) of the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 (the Act) requires the Secretary of State to report to Parliament as soon as reasonably practicable after the end of every relevant three-month period on the exercise of her TPIM powers under the Act during that period.

The level of information provided will always be subject to slight variations based on operational advice.

Justice and Home Affairs Council

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Written Statements

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

The Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council was held on 4 and 5 December in Brussels. The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), and I attended on behalf of the United Kingdom. The following items were discussed.

The justice day began with a discussion on the proposed general data protection regulation. The presidency sought a partial general approach on a number of articles intended to provide member states with flexibility to adapt the application of the rules to their public sectors, and on chapter IX, on rules for data processing for research, scientific and journalistic purposes. The Commission encouraged member states to accept the compromise between common standards and a measure of flexibility now available for particular national approaches. A majority of member states, including the UK, agreed the deal.

The discussion of the data protection regulation continued with an orientation debate on the presidency’s proposed structure for a “one stop shop” mechanism, which is intended to reduce burdens for business by enabling all of their operations in different member states to be overseen by the data protection regulator in their home state. While there was support for the principle and most member states accepted the compromise proposed by the presidency, the UK and a number of other member states expressed concerns that, with legally binding powers for the European data protection board (EDPB) to resolve disputes, the model proposed would fail to achieve the stated objectives of legal certainty, quick decisions and proximity for the data subject. The presidency concluded that a majority of member states accepted the basic elements of its proposal, including the proposed European data protection board, but noted that questions remained, and tasked the official-level working group to develop the detail in the light of this steer.

The presidency also provided a separate update on the proposed data protection directive covering the processing of personal data for criminal justice purposes. The file remains under discussion, and the working group has recently focused on the scope of the directive. The UK Government believe that the priority should be on agreeing the text of the general regulation.

The Council adopted a general approach on the proposed directive on the presumption of innocence in criminal proceedings. Commissioner Jourova supported the Council compromise, though regretted that the absolute right to silence and right not to self incriminate had not been fully upheld in the proposed text. The UK has not opted into the directive.

There was a partial general approach on the draft Eurojust regulation, covering all parts except the provisions covering its relationship with the European Public Prosecutor (EPPO) and data protection. However, the Commission stated that they still have a number of issues with the text, including the need for them to be able to participate in administrative decision-making because of their budgetary responsibility, and the proposed compensation mechanism. On the EPPO, Ministers concluded that there was a need to strengthen the prosecutor’s independence within the supervisory regime. They noted the presidency’s suggested drafting but mandated further discussion at expert level on this issue. The UK is not participating in the EPPO and has not opted in to the draft Eurojust regulation.

Political agreement, supported by the UK, was reached on the proposal to amend the EU insolvency regulation 1346/2000. The presidency noted the importance of this file for cross-border insolvency and the considerable work that had gone into finding an acceptable compromise with the European Parliament. The next step is for the text to be finalised by lawyers before adoption under the Latvian presidency.

The Council adopted a general approach on the proposed regulation on small claims, which the Government generally welcome. The Council has agreed a threshold of £3,137 for the maximum value of a claim under the regulation, but expects this to be one of the issues for negotiation during trilogue with the European Parliament, which will start in January.

Next, the Council endorsed, without discussion, orientation guidelines for the negotiation of the draft regulation on simplifying the cross-border acceptance of certain public documents—abolishing the process of “legalisation”. The guidelines will steer discussions at working group level, and narrow the scope of the draft regulation; allow certified translations to be accepted in other member states, and allow for simple translations of original national documents rather than translated stand-alone forms with their own evidentiary value.

In a “state of play” update on the proposed legal aid directive, the presidency noted that there were still divergences of views between member states, some of which advocated more flexibility on the provision of legal aid in the case of minor offences, while others wished to see the directive extended to ordinary legal aid, beyond the provisional legal aid proposed by the Commission. The presidency will provide the incoming Latvian presidency with a document setting out their understanding of the main outstanding points in the negotiations. The UK has not opted into this directive.

The presidency gave a state of play update on the draft directive on the fight against fraud by means of criminal law—the so-called “PIF” directive—noting that a few substantive issues remained. These included whether to include VAT in scope, the definition of fraud, and the definition of serious offences.

The presidency invited Ministers to take note of its latest text of the proposals on the applicable law and jurisdiction in relation to matrimonial and registered partnership property regimes, which it hoped would be an acceptable compromise. It suggested a period of reflection to last no longer than until the end of 2015 to allow member states to consider whether unanimity could be reached. The UK has not opted into these proposals.

Under AOB the presidency invited Council to take stock of the activities undertaken over the course of 2014 by the Special Committee on Organised Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering (CRIM), established by the European Parliament.

The Latvian Justice Minister set out his priorities for their forthcoming presidency. These included reaching a general approach on the data protection regulation at the March Council, continuing work on the “PIF” directive and the EPPO, reaching a general approach on the legal aid directive by March, continuing work on the small claims regulation, reaching agreement on the access to public documents file, and continuing work on the common European sales law.

The interior day began in mixed committee which included a discussion on “managing migratory flows”. This focused on the implementation of the October JHA Council conclusions on this topic. The Commission introduced its “scorecard” on progress, and the incoming Latvian presidency informed the Council of its commitment to continuing this work. There has been progress, including with the launch of the Khartoum process, which focused on people smuggling and human trafficking in the horn of Africa.

With regard to the Mediterranean, member states continue to provide support for Frontex’s Operation Triton, while the presidency confirmed that the Italian search and rescue operation “Mare Nostrum” would be phased out by the end of January.

The Council underlined the importance of implementing the common European asylum system (CEAS) and of all member states providing concrete solidarity to those facing particular pressures. There were calls from some member states for further resettlement activities, including for a “distribution key” guiding allocation among member states, while others made clear their views that resettlement should remain voluntary. The Council agreed that proposals for enhanced regional devolvement and protection programmes would continue to be taken forward.

The UK emphasised the need to focus on upstream activities in countries of origin and transit and to tackle smugglers and traffickers, and joined other Ministers in calling for all member states to fully respect their responsibilities under the CEAS, including the need to fingerprint and register claims.

The Commission presented its latest biannual report on the functioning of the Schengen area, highlighting increased illegal migration at the EU’s external borders and calling for member states to fulfil their commitment to share information on secondary illegal migration movements within the Schengen area. The Government have a strong interest in the effective functioning of the Schengen area and continue to work with European partners to tackle migratory pressures across the EU. The UK emphasised how the openness of the Schengen area and the principle of free movement continue to be exploited, for example by organised gangs and criminals, and how the EU needs to work harder to manage these risks and put the right safeguards in place.

The Council and the Commission noted achievements during 15 years of Schengen evaluation and agreed Council conclusions which authorise the continuation of Schengen evaluation work within the Council under the new Schengen evaluation mechanism.

During the main Council, member states returned to the issue of counter terrorism and in particular foreign fighters, following discussions on this issue at the October Council. Member states, along with the Commission and Europol, discussed how best to tackle the threat posed by those returning from Syria and Iraq, as well as efforts to tackle radicalisation.

Over lunch, the Commission (Avramopoulos) stressed its commitment to achieving an EU passenger name records (PNR) directive, despite the European Parliament’s referral of the EU Canada PNR agreement to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The UK expressed disappointment at the likelihood of significant delay and stressed that in the face of a severe threat it was now essential for member states to press ahead with bilateral arrangements for PNR. There was general agreement among member states that an EU instrument was needed to set common standards and protect privacy and that the directive should still be pursued. The UK agreed, but stated that we would not support a PNR directive which was overly constrained and that in the interim further progress on intergovernmental agreements should be pursued.

Under AOB, the Commission congratulated the presidency for the organisation of recent meetings on the Rabat and Khartoum processes in Rome and said work would continue on greater co-ordination across the board on migration issues. Slovenia informed Council of the outcome of the Salzburg forum ministerial conference in Slovenia on 11-12 November. The conference had discussed the fight against foreign fighters, support for the integrated approach for the western Balkan regions, strengthening regional co-operation and the new regulation for training of law enforcement authorities.

The presidency set out the background to the students and researchers directive and updated Council on the recent progress made, in particular on the scope. It hoped that member states could agree to a compromise package by the end of the year, so as to begin negotiations with the European Parliament early next year. The presidency also said that negotiations continued on the amendments to the Dublin III regulation and aimed to reach agreement on a Council position. The Commission hoped that Council would reach a balanced position and that trilogues could start as soon as possible.

The incoming Latvian presidency explained its priorities for interior business. It would concentrate on implementation of the strategic guidelines for the justice and home affairs area, as agreed at the June European Council, with a particular focus on: countering foreign fighters, renewing the EU internal security strategy and continuing the work on a comprehensive and structured approach to managing migratory flows. It would continue legislative work on the students and researchers directives, amendments to the Dublin regulation, the visa code recast, Europol, the European Police College (CEPOL) and the smart borders package and continue progress with PNR. A special priority for the Latvian presidency would be strengthening co-operation with eastern partners. Latvia would host an Eastern Partnership meeting in the margins of the informal Council on 29-30 January.

On both days, under AOB, Council was informed of the outcome of the EU-US JHA ministerial meeting, on 12-13 November.

Article 10 of protocol 36 to the treaties

Under the arrangements in article 10 of protocol 36 to the treaties, which were negotiated by the last Government, the United Kingdom had the right to opt out of all EU police and judicial co-operation measures adopted before the entry into force of the Lisbon treaty. In July 2013, following votes in both Houses of Parliament endorsing the Government’s decision, the Prime Minister formally exercised the opt-out. This decision took effect on 1 December 2014 and on that date the United Kingdom opted out of more than 100 EU police and criminal justice powers.

The Government have always been clear that we wanted to remain part of a smaller number of measures which give our police and law enforcement agencies vital and practical help to tackle serious crime and keep the public safe. Following consultation with operational partners and the relevant parliamentary Committees, and detailed discussions with the European Commission, the Council and other member states, the Government reached final agreement to rejoin 35 crucial police and criminal justice measures with debates in both houses on 10 and 17 November this year.

On 20 November 2014, following votes in both Houses of Parliament endorsing the Government’s package, the Prime Minister notified the President of the Council of Ministers of the United Kingdom’s wish to rejoin the 35 measures set out in Command Paper 8897: “Decision pursuant to Article 10(5) of Protocol 36 to The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union”. A copy of the Prime Minister’s notification letter has been placed in the Library of the House.

A Council and a Commission decision were required to give effect to the United Kingdom’s application to rejoin the measures. These processes were concluded on 1 December and copies of both decisions were deposited in Parliament on 4 December. Explanatory memoranda for both decisions have now also been deposited in Parliament.

The Government voted, via the written procedure, to approve the adoption of the Schengen Council decision, in order to ensure that it entered into force on 1 December without an operational gap for our law enforcement agencies occurring. This decision required the overriding of the scrutiny reserve resolution, but did no more than approve the UK’s participation in the six Schengen measures that had already been endorsed by both Houses of Parliament. Given unanimity was required for the measure to pass, the Government had to vote to approve this decision to ensure that the package of measures could come into operation as soon as possible, to avoid a legal vacuum which could have arisen, to allow negotiations to conclude, and in order to conclude an advantageous package deal with other member states.

The Commission decision, which contained no more than a short provision approving the UK’s application to rejoin the 29 non-Schengen measures, did not require the formal endorsement of the United Kingdom or other member states prior to its adoption.

Two further decisions relating to this matter were adopted by the Council at the Transport Telecommunications and Energy (TTE) Council on 27 November. The UK did not have a vote on the transitional decision, but voted in favour of the financial consequences decision in order to secure the advantageous deal we had reached with other member states and ensure that the package of measures could come into operation as soon as possible. The European Scrutiny Committee did not clear the draft Council decision on financial consequences from scrutiny ahead of this Council. As a result, this decision required the overriding of the scrutiny reserve resolution to allow negotiations to conclude, and in order to conclude the deal with other member states.

The Government’s undertaking not to override scrutiny save in exceptional circumstances is embodied in scrutiny reserve resolutions of the House of Commons (last updated in 1998) and the House of Lords (in 2010). These resolutions are the cornerstone of the scrutiny procedures and provide assurance to Parliament that Ministers will not agree to measures in the Council of Ministers unless scrutiny has been completed. Ministers are committed to the scrutiny process and do not override them lightly. However, the circumstances were such in this case that it was necessary in order to deliver on a significant and successful negotiation where the measures implemented an outcome endorsed by both Houses of Parliament.

The Government are confident that the deal reached is a good one for all parties and that the smaller package of measures that we have rejoined will give our police and law enforcement agencies vital and practical tools to maintain co-operation with our European partners.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The threat that we face from terrorism is serious, and it is growing. The Security Service believes that since the attacks on 7 July 2005, about 40 terrorist plots have been disrupted. It is thanks to the hard work and dedication of our security and intelligence services, the police, and our allies overseas that almost all those plots have been thwarted, and countless lives have been saved. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in paying tribute to those men and women, whose work so often goes unreported and unrecognised as they strive to keep us safe.

Today, however, the threat from terrorism is becoming ever-more complex and diverse. Last year we saw the first terrorist-related deaths in Great Britain since 2005: Fusilier Lee Rigby was brutally murdered by Islamist extremists, and Mohammed Saleem, an 82-year-old Muslim from Birmingham, was stabbed to death by a far-right extremist who then tried to bomb mosques in Walsall, Wolverhampton and Tipton.

ISIL and its western fighters represent a clear danger. This summer, partly in response to that threat, the independent joint terrorism analysis centre raised the threat level for international terrorism from “substantial” to “severe”. That means that JTAC considers a terrorist attack to be “highly likely”. We face the very serious prospect that British nationals who have fought with terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq will seek to radicalise others, or carry out attacks here. We have already seen the appalling murder of four civilians outside the Jewish Museum in Brussels, and the recent attack on the Canadian Parliament was a shocking reminder that we are all targets for these terrorist organisations and those whom they inspire.

However, ISIL is not the only threat that we face. There are further threats related to Islamist extremism, and there are threats from far-right and Northern Ireland-related terrorism, among others. Just last week, a report from the Intelligence and Security Committee on the intelligence relating to the murder of Lee Rigby highlighted the real, and potentially very dangerous, capability gaps that exist for the security and intelligence agencies—and when our security and intelligence agencies tell us that the threat that we face is now more dangerous than at any time before or since 9/11, we must act.

We are engaged in a struggle against terrorism which is being fought on many fronts and in many forms, so our response must be comprehensive, coherent and effective. Since April 2010, in Great Britain, more than 800 people have been arrested for terrorism-related offences, more than 210 have been charged, and more than 140 have been successfully prosecuted. Only last week, Mohammed and Hamza Nawaz became the first Britons to be jailed for terrorist training in Syria, and we have outlawed groups linked to terrorist attacks in Syria, Iraq and Egypt.

We have protected the budgets for counter-terrorism policing and for the security and intelligence agencies, and, as the Prime Minister announced last week, we have made an additional £130 million available over the next two years to help us tackle the increasing terrorist threat. We have replaced control orders, which had been whittled down by the courts, with terrorism prevention and investigation measures, or TPIMs. We have strengthened the criteria governing the use of the royal prerogative, which allows the Government to cancel British passports to disrupt the travel of people planning to engage in terrorist-related activity overseas. I have used that enhanced power 29 times since April 2013.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary referred to the Government decision to replace control orders. One of the decisions she made when she did that was to remove the relocation powers within control orders. That was a decision of choice, not one forced on her by the courts. This Bill reverses that judgment to get rid of relocation powers. Will she now admit that it was a grave error to put the public at increased risk as a result of a political deal within the coalition, and that the fact that she is now legislating to reverse those changes shows that it was a grave error of judgment?

[Mrs May]

I would say two things to the right hon. Gentleman. First, as I have just been outlining, we face today a different threat background from that we faced in recent years. Also, if he looks carefully at the Bill, he will see that we are not simply reintroducing a power of relocation into the TPIMs. We have taken on board the recommendations of the independent reviewer of counter-terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC, who did propose the reintroduction of relocation, but who also proposed a number of other changes to TPIMs, which we are introducing, including the raising of the threshold for the introduction of TPIMs from “reasonable suspicion” to “the balance of probabilities”.

We have worked hard to make it easier to get rid of undesirable foreign nationals, including terrorists and terror suspects. We have changed the law to make it clear to the courts that article 8 of the European convention on human rights, the right to respect for a family life, is qualified and not an absolute right. We have significantly reformed the Prevent pillar of the counter-terrorism strategy so that it is tackles the ideology behind the threat, and we are working with the internet industry to remove terrorist material hosted in the UK or overseas. Since December last year, the counter-terrorism internet referral unit has secured the removal of over 46,000 items that encouraged or glorified acts of terrorism.

The emergency legislation that Parliament approved in the summer ensured that two important capabilities, communications data and interception, were not eroded further. Both of these capabilities are absolutely crucial to the investigation of those involved in terrorist activity.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Is the right hon. Lady satisfied that we now have enough interception powers, or not?

[Mrs May]

If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the power to issue warrants on companies who offer services in the UK but who are based overseas or the holding of whose data is based overseas, we addressed precisely that issue in the legislation introduced in the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 that this House put through under emergency powers in the summer.

So we are taking action at home, but we must also have a comprehensive strategy to defeat these extremists abroad. This involves using all the resources at our disposal: humanitarian efforts to help those displaced by ISIL’s onslaught—efforts that Britain is already leading—and diplomatic efforts to engage the widest possible coalition of countries in the region as part of this international effort.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I am glad the Home Secretary just mentioned tackling the terrorists’ narrative. Does she have in mind in that respect not only taking down extremist postings on the internet, for example, but promoting a counter-narrative that exposes the fallacies of the terrorist narrative?

[Mrs May]

I commend my hon. Friend because he has been resolute in promoting this aspect of dealing with terrorism for some time, and he is absolutely right that it is important to promote that counter-narrative, but I think it is also important to do something else: to take a further step back and look at the whole issue of extremism more generally. That is why we have been very clear, and the work of the Prime Minister’s extremism taskforce is very clear, that we need to introduce an extremism strategy, and the Home Office is currently leading on that. It will be a cross-Government piece of work, but the Home Office is leading on that and the strategy is being developed.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary is right to say that progress has been made during the past year, but will she help me on one point? Where a British citizen has been found to be involved in terrorist-related activities in a foreign country, is it right that we will no longer seek their return to this country, and that they will have to be punished and dealt with abroad?

[Mrs May]

No. Under the temporary exclusion power in the Bill, when someone who has been involved in terrorist-related activities—that will be considered on a case-by-case basis—returns home to the UK, that will happen on what I would describe as our terms. In other words, that return will be managed so that appropriate action can be taken here in the United Kingdom.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary has just said that we need a counter-extremism strategy. May I ask her when that might be available? I remind her that the Department for Communities and Local Government was charged with producing just such a strategy three years ago, but it has not done so. My big concern about the Bill is that it appears to have a gaping hole at its centre. We have a lot about action on individuals who are radicalised, but it has little to say about countering the narrative and countering extremism in general.

[Mrs May]

As I have indicated, the Home Office is leading on the extremism strategy. We will be working on that, but the right hon. Lady should not expect to see anything published before the end of the year. On the wider issue, when we came into power, we made two changes to the way in which Prevent operated, and we did so for a good reason. First, we ensured that Prevent looked not only at violent extremism but at non-violent extremism. Secondly, we saw that in some communities, work being done on community integration under a Prevent heading was being rejected or arousing suspicion. People saw that the work was being done under a counter-terrorism heading and thought that it was about spying on individuals, when it was actually more about community integration. That is why we separated the integration work and gave it to the Department for Communities and Local Government, which has been undertaking that work.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

May I press the Home Secretary about the temporary exclusion orders that she wants to have the power to exact? They would, in effect, result in the exile—albeit short term and temporary—of British citizens, in many cases, to other countries. All history suggests that such action further radicalises people and makes them more dangerous enemies to this country. If we do so without any judicial process, as she advocates in the Bill, is there not a real danger that we will put ourselves in more danger rather than less?

[Mrs May]

I caution the hon. Gentleman about the terminology that he uses in relation to the power. He has used the term “exile”, but the proposal is not about saying that people cannot return. It is possible for people to return, but they will return on the basis that we have set out in the Bill. Their return will be managed and we will have some control over it.

In response to an earlier intervention, I said that the change that we were making to the threshold for TPIMs was from “reasonable suspicion” to “the balance of probabilities”. The change is actually from “reasonable belief” to “the balance of probabilities”. I apologise to the House for having given the wrong impression about that.

Aside from the diplomatic efforts that we must make and the work we must do with those in the region, I have always been clear that we would keep our terrorism laws and capabilities under review. As the House knows, the first and most important duty of Government is the protection and security of their citizens. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear to the House on 1 September, we must ensure that our law enforcement and intelligence agencies have the powers that they need to keep us safe. The Bill will strengthen our existing powers so that we can disrupt people’s ability to travel abroad to fight, as well as their ability to return to the country. It will enhance our ability to monitor and control the actions of those in the UK who pose a threat and it will help to combat the underlying ideology that feeds, supports and sanctions terrorism.

Part 1 of the Bill will provide the police and MI5 with two new powers that will significantly enhance their ability to restrict the travel of those suspected of seeking to engage in terrorism-related activity overseas. First, it will provide the police, or a designated Border Force officer under their direction, with the power to seize a passport at ports. That will allow them to disrupt the travel of individuals, and give operational agencies the time to investigate and assess whether long-term disruptive action should be taken, on a case-by-case basis. Such action could be taken through, for example, criminal prosecution; the exercise of the royal prerogative to refuse or cancel a passport; a TPIM; deprivation of citizenship; or deportation. The use of this power will be properly safeguarded through a range of measures, including the need for a senior officer’s approval; an additional check by a more senior officer independent of the investigation after 72 hours; an initial retention period of 14 days for the passport; and a court review of the ongoing need to retain a passport, where a judge can allow more time for the police to continue their investigation—up to 30 days. There will also be a statutory code of practice for officers on how to exercise the power, and we intend to publish this code for consultation shortly.

Secondly, the Bill will create a power to issue temporary exclusion orders, to which I have already referred in response to interventions. These orders can temporarily disrupt the return to the UK of a British citizen suspected of involvement in terrorist activity abroad, ensuring that when individuals do return, it is done in a manner that we control. This power will cancel an individual’s travel documents and add them to watch lists, notifying the UK if they attempt to travel. Depending on the individual case, it may also require the individual to comply with certain activities once they are back in the UK. There has been a lot of interest in the nature of this power, as we have seen already this afternoon, but I want to reassure the House that it will not render an individual stateless. All those concerned will have the right, which their citizenship guarantees, to return to the UK. But when they do, it will be on our terms—quite possibly in the company of a police officer. Once they are back in the UK, the police will interview them, in order to explore their activities abroad, and can make them subject to further requirements. We are discussing this proposal with other Governments, in order to agree how it will work best in practice. So far these discussions have been constructive, and this proposal is consistent with all our existing international legal obligations.

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

Will the Home Secretary clarify something so that we can understand the implications of the legislation? What are the circumstances in which she would not grant a permit to return?

[Mrs May]

These matters will be looked at on a case-by-case basis. The point is to be able to manage the return of individuals who have been involved in terrorist-related activity abroad, and we are discussing how the power would be operated practically with a number of other Governments, as I have said. The point is to ensure that when somebody returns, they do so under control and on our terms.

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

I confess that I am by no means convinced of the legality of what is being suggested under temporary exclusion orders, which will, no doubt, be known in due course as TEOs, given our enthusiasm for acronyms. What is the position of someone who declines to accept conditions of return and who is not subject to deportation by the country in which they temporarily find themselves? Are they not de facto stateless in such circumstances?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

They are not de facto stateless. It is open to somebody to return, but the proposal is that they would be returning on our basis, under documents that would be issued by the Government, and therefore we would be aware of their return, be able to manage that return and, as I have indicated, take appropriate action when they return to the UK. So this is not rendering people stateless.

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I understand the system that my right hon. Friend is putting in place of managed return, but what is not clear in the Bill is the system that will be present to enable that managed return requirement to be challenged. I wonder whether she can help the House on that point. It seems to me that there must be a mechanism by which a person who is told that they have to return in a particular way can challenge it on their return to this country, and do so expeditiously, if it is not to be an unwarranted interference with their rights.

[Mrs May]

There will be a form of challenge available to an individual under judicial review. We will also have to notify the individual that action is being taken against them, so that they are aware that the measure is being put in place.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

On a point that was made earlier, if an individual has the right to challenge how they are managed—I think the right hon. Lady said that it would be by means of judicial review—can we ensure that they have legal aid to do that?

[Mrs May]

As the hon. Lady knows, the Government have made a number of changes to legal aid, and we are looking at the position in relation to that particular issue on these new measures.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

The Home Secretary is being very reasonable to a lot of Members who wish to get in. Let us take the position of someone subject to one of these orders who finds themselves in a friendly country such as Turkey or France. If the Governments of Turkey or France request the British Government to take that person back into the United Kingdom without going through the deportation process, is it not a fact that we would really feel under an obligation to take back such a person?

[Mrs May]

If someone were in a country such as France or Turkey, and the Government of that country requested us to take back the individual, it would be possible in those circumstances for us to act in exactly the way that we are proposing in the Bill. I am talking about managing the return of that individual. For example, they might be accompanied by a police officer who would go out to bring them back into the UK, and various actions might be taken on their return. There might be an interview with the police, the introduction of a TPIM notice or a requirement to go on a Prevent programme. Those sorts of measures could be judged on a case-by-case basis.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

I will give way one further time, and then I will move on to part 2 of the Bill.

[Richard Fuller]

As someone who wants to protect civil liberties in this country, may I warmly welcome this measure from the Home Secretary? There are many in my constituency who would like to see people in this situation given a one-way ticket and not allowed back into the country, so she has found a balance. Does she not think that one benefit of this piece of legislation is that it empowers mothers and fathers of impressionable teenagers to have a clear conversation with them about the consequences of their mind being warped by people on the internet trying to induce them to acts of terrorism overseas?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. That is part of the process of trying to disrupt people from travelling to Syria and Iraq or from being active with terrorist groups. We want to get the message across to young people that if they want to help people in Syria there are better ways of doing it than crossing into the country. They can, for example, assist the humanitarian efforts in the UK to support refugees from Syria, which can be of genuine support to people in Syria. In recent weeks, I have met some very impressive women from Muslim communities around the United Kingdom. They have been working with young people and their families, developing a number of programmes, which relay the message, “Don’t go to Syria.” The #MakingAStand campaign and the work that is being done by the charity FAST are about helping families to ensure that young people get the message that they should not be going over to Syria.

Part 2 of the Bill relates to TPIMs. It gives effect to the recommendations of David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, in his most recent report on TPIMs. The changes to the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 will provide the police and MI5 with valuable new capabilities. That includes allowing TPIM subjects to be relocated to different parts of the country. We will also be raising the legal test for imposing a TPIM—

[Hazel Blears]

rose—

[Mrs May]

May I make a little more progress and then give way to the right hon. Lady?

[Hazel Blears]

It is on that point.

[Mrs May]

Will the right hon. Lady at least allow me to get to the end of the paragraph before I give way?

The changes to the TPIM Act include allowing TPIM subjects to be relocated, but we will also be raising the legal test, as I said earlier in response to an intervention, and narrowing the definition of terrorism-related activity in relation to this power. David Anderson is clear that there is no need to turn the clock back to the previous Government’s control orders regime, and I agree with him.

[Hazel Blears]

I have a simple inquiry, as I genuinely do not understand why the clause as drafted states that if someone is going to be relocated 190 miles away that can be imposed by the Home Secretary, but if they are going to be relocated 205 miles away it has to be a matter for agreement. I do not understand the logic in that provision at all.

[Mrs May]

We looked carefully at the proposals made by David Anderson and I believe he suggested that there should be a geographical limit for the relocation.

Part 3 seeks to amend the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 to help us identify who in the real world is using an internet protocol, or IP, address at a given point in time. Changes in how service providers build their networks, made to enable them to cope with the increased demand for their services, mean that these identifiers are often shared between a great number of users. Companies generally have no business purpose for keeping a log of who used each address at a given point in time, which means that it is often not possible for law enforcement agencies to identify who sent or received a message. The provisions will allow us to require the key UK companies to retain the necessary information to enable them to identify the users of their services. That will provide vital additional capability to law enforcement in investigating a broad range of serious crime, including terrorism.

The Bill deals only with limited fields of data relating to a specific technical problem. Without the full package of data types included in the draft Communications Data Bill, published in 2012, there will still be gaps in law enforcement and intelligence agencies’ capabilities. For example, the child exploitation and online protection command in the NCA might still struggle to identify those who have been accessing servers hosting illegal images of child sex abuse. That is an issue to which Parliament will need to return after the general election, subject to the outcome of David Anderson’s statutory review of investigatory powers.

Part 4 contains measures on aviation, shipping and rail security. They will help us to stop terrorists and those involved or suspected of being involved in terrorism-related activity from travelling to and from the UK, and will mitigate the threat of an attack on those transport services. The proposals cover three main areas. First, they will require carriers to be able to receive instructions not to carry a specific passenger in a way that is compatible with our border systems. Secondly, they will establish a new framework for authority to carry schemes, commonly known as our no-fly arrangements, that will extend to new categories of British nationals and apply to outbound travel. Finally, they will enhance our ability to require carriers operating to the UK to undertake specified security measures, including the screening of passengers. Carriers that will not comply with security requirements will not be allowed to operate into the UK.

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

I am puzzled that the Home Secretary has just said that carriers will be required to provide some sort of security screening. How will they do that? Would that not involve additional cost?

[Mrs May]

Obviously, carriers in most parts of the world are already required to carry out some security screening. From time to time, we say that if someone is going to fly into the United Kingdom we wish them to adopt additional methods of security screening. At the moment, this is done on a voluntary basis, but the Bill takes that and puts it into statute, which will enable us to stop someone from flying into the UK if they do not adopt the security procedures.

Part 5 addresses the issue of those at serious risk of succumbing to radicalisation and terrorism. We propose a new statutory duty on certain bodies, including local authorities, the police, prisons, probation services, schools, colleges and universities, including in the private sector, to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. That will ensure that Prevent strategy activity is consistent across the country and in all those bodies whose staff work on the front line with those at risk from radicalisation. The detail of how the duty should be fulfilled will be set out in statutory guidance, which we will publish shortly.

I hope that the House will find it helpful if I take the opportunity to clarify one specific issue that the guidance will address, which is the need to create an appropriate and sensible balance between the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and the existing duty on universities to promote freedom of speech. I believe that our universities, with their commitment to free speech and the advancement of knowledge, represent one of our most important safeguards against extremist views and ideologies. There is no contradiction between promoting freedom of speech and taking account of the interests and well-being of students, staff and the wider community. That is already subject to guidance issued by both Universities UK and the National Union of Students. We must ensure that poisonous, divisive ideologies are not allowed to promulgate.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The right hon. Lady mentioned universities and other institutions being sent statutory guidelines on Prevent. Why do the guidelines have to be in statutory format? Why cannot they just be sent, knowing that any responsible institution will follow them without their having to have legal force behind them?

[Mrs May]

The purpose of putting Prevent on a statutory basis is twofold. First, the statutory duty will now relate to a number of front-line institutions, as I have said, such as local authorities and universities. There is already some guidance that Universities UK and the National Union of Students apply to universities, as I have indicated. However, I believe it is important to ensure that there is that statutory duty on bodies such as universities, and the Bill allows the Secretary of State to make a direction to one of the bodies covered by that power if they are failing to exercise their statutory duty.

[Yvette Cooper]

Will the Home Secretary clarify what she means by that? Could she envisage a Home Secretary making a direction in order to tell a university or institution not to allow somebody to speak?

[Mrs May]

That is not the intention of the duty; its intention is to ensure that the university or institution has in place a policy on matters relating to extremism. For example, they might have a general policy that they apply in relation to extremist speakers coming to their institution. The purpose of the power to make a direction in the Bill is to ensure that they are doing something like that, taking their statutory duty seriously. It is for those institutions that are failing to comply with the statutory duty that that particular power has been put into the Bill.

Alongside that statutory requirement in relation to Prevent, the Bill will also provide a statutory basis for the existing programmes for those at risk of being drawn into terrorism, known as Channel in England and Wales. That will enshrine existing good practice and help to ensure consistency across all local areas.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

As the Home Secretary knows, the Prevent strategy falls within the competence of Scottish Ministers under the devolved settlement. Scottish Ministers have their own priorities and agenda when it comes to delivering those measures in Scotland. I know that there have been discussions with Home Office Ministers about excluding Scotland from that power, so that we can have the opportunity to consult our public bodies properly. Is she open to that type of approach, so that Scotland could be included in the measures later, when we have had an opportunity to work out what it would actually mean for our public bodies and their responsibilities?

[Mrs May]

I point out to the hon. Gentleman that counter-terrorism is obviously a reserved matter. He might like to know that his point relates to the very next paragraph I was about to read. It is the Government’s hope and intention that these provisions should also apply to Scotland. We are consulting Ministers in the devolved Administrations about the practical implications of our proposals, and obviously those discussions will continue with the Scottish Government.

Part 6 includes amendments to two provisions in the Terrorism Act 2000. First, it will put it beyond doubt that UK insurance firms cannot reimburse payments made to terrorists in response to ransom demands. To put that in context, the UN estimates that ransom payments raised up to £28 million for ISIL over the past 12 months alone. We need to avoid any uncertainty on that issue.

Secondly, the Bill will clarify our counter-terrorism port and border controls in relation to where goods may be examined and the examination of goods comprising items of post. That is an important part of our counter-terrorism port and border controls and the disruption of those engaged in terrorism. We must ensure that the law is clear and that the police can fulfil their duties.

The powers in the Bill are essential, but they should be used only where it is necessary and proportionate to do so. Their use will be stringently safeguarded, including through suitable legal thresholds and judicial oversight of certain measures. Part 7 of the Bill will also allow for the creation of a privacy and civil liberties board to support the important work of David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation.

Finally, the Bill includes a provision to ensure that challenges to refusals of applications for British overseas territories citizenship can be heard before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, so that sensitive material can be protected. This simply addresses an anomaly in existing legislation.

I have stressed the urgency and importance of this legislation. This is not a knee-jerk reaction but a considered, targeted approach that ensures that our law enforcement and intelligence agencies have the powers they need to respond to the heightened threat to our national security. Substantial work, in consultation with the police and MI5, has gone into drafting the clauses. Where the measures impact on those in the private sector or civil society, we have consulted the relevant bodies.

I am grateful to the shadow Home Secretary for engaging in constructive discussions on the timetable for the Bill.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

I commend the Home Secretary for the measures in this Bill, which are reasonable measures that accord with our international obligations. Does she agree, though, that there is a gap as regards communications data? I hope that we will be able to include that area in future measures as soon as possible, because although the measures she is announcing go some way towards improving national security and meet our national obligations, we must address that gap.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is right that we continue to have a gap in relation to communications data. Although the Bill introduces the question of IP address resolution, it will still be the case that data that previously would have been available to our law enforcement agencies and security services will not be available in future. I am very clear that Parliament will have to return to this issue after the general election.

The need to introduce this legislation today is pressing, but I do not propose to rush it through Parliament in a matter of days or weeks. Parliament must have adequate time to consider these measures. Expediting the Bill’s passage over the next couple of months will enable that to take place, while allowing us to seek approval for crucial secondary legislation prior to the election. This will ensure that proper scrutiny can take place, and that the police and agencies are able to use these new capabilities without undue delay.

We are in the midst of a generational struggle against a deadly terrorist ideology. That is why we have brought this legislation forward at the earliest opportunity, and we will seek its swift passage through Parliament. We must ensure that the police and the security and intelligence agencies have all the legal powers and capabilities they need to stop people travelling to fight in Syria and Iraq, to tackle this terrorist threat, and to protect all the law-abiding citizens who believe in keeping the UK an open, free and tolerant nation. That is what this Bill will do, and I commend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that more needs to be done at the national level. The Bill introduces a statutory duty on a series of organisations to do more, and those organisations should certainly work in partnership to prevent people from being drawn into extremism and terrorist activity. Given the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) about some of the gaps, particularly in relation to the Department for Communities and Local Government, there is a question about whether the duty should in fact extend to that Department, rather than simply to local organisations across the country.

In Committee, we will probe the Home Secretary further on what she intends to do with her power of direction. That is still unclear from the Bill, and it is unclear what she envisages putting in guidance. She said that guidance would be published alongside the Bill, but we have not yet seen it. I do not know whether it has already been published.

[Mrs May]

I have listened very carefully to what the shadow Home Secretary is saying about the Prevent programme. As I said earlier, one of the first things that the Government did when we considered the programme was to decide that it should no longer look simply at violent extremism, but at non-violent extremism as well. Does what she is saying mean that she agrees with the step that we took, and does she therefore accept that the previous Labour Government got it wrong in concentrating the Prevent programme only on violent extremism?

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), whose excellent and thoughtful speech leads me to conclude that were he still the Attorney-General, the Bill would not have appeared before the House in the form it has. I hope he makes it to the Committee, because the points he raised are extremely important to ensuring that the Bill is robust before it is passed by the House.

I agree with the Home Secretary, the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), and the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield that these are dangerous times, which is why we require the greatest possible scrutiny of the Bill. I therefore begin by raising the concern of the Home Affairs Committee that we have not had the opportunity to scrutinise the Bill to the extent we would have liked. It was published only last week, and today is its Second Reading. We have not had an opportunity to hold any sessions, and no Minister has come before us. I know that the Home Secretary is extremely busy, but she managed to fit in several other engagements instead of coming before the Committee. It would have been much more appropriate had a Minister come before us before the Bill came to the House.

[Mrs May]

When we were discussing the Wanless and Whittam report, the right hon. Gentleman challenged me in the Chamber over the fact that I had not appeared before the Committee, when in fact the Committee had withdrawn the invitation. As I understand it—he might have a different understanding—I am due to appear before his Committee in two weeks.

[Keith Vaz]

The Home Secretary is right that she is due to appear before us in two weeks’ time, but the legislation will probably have passed through the House by then. If a piece of emergency legislation is coming before us, as it is now, Ministers should put themselves before the relevant Select Committee. The right hon. Lady managed to fit in a visit to the British curry awards last night, at which we were of course all delighted to see her, but the point is that the date of 16 December for this emergency legislation to come before the House was fixed many months ago, and Ministers must be prepared to be scrutinised on such legislation. That message clearly applies to all Select Committees. The Home Secretary may nod her head, but that is the position. Our Select Committee is now left to conduct a session on this Bill after its Second Reading, which we will do tomorrow.

Deferred Divisions

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary set out in her opening remarks why she believes it is necessary to introduce this Bill. She referred to the threat level, which has increased, and to the number of terrorist threats thwarted by our intelligence and security services and the police. She also referred to the need for the Bill’s additional powers to keep this country safe.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the shadow Home Secretary, said that we will work with the Home Secretary: “We agree with her on some things, but we do not think she has got it right yet on others, and amendments are needed. Parliament as a whole must be thoughtful and responsible, because our liberty and security depend on each other. We need both in a democracy to keep us safe.”

This afternoon’s debate has been very thoughtful and responsible. The contributions of Members on both sides of the House have been of very high quality, and the debate has been very well informed and knowledgeable. The former Attorney-General, the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), started with a succinct but powerful speech. The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), reminded the House of the need for effective scrutiny of legislation and the role the Committee can play in that regard. He was followed by the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), who is an esteemed member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), who is also a member of the ISC and a former counter-terrorism Minister, said that the provisions were both necessary and proportionate.

I will comment on Members’ contributions when I refer to specific provisions. The hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) is another member of the ISC, and he was followed by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), who speaks with such authority, as a member of the Muslim community, about his own experience in Birmingham, particularly with regard to schools and Operation Trojan Horse. He was followed by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) and it is important to note that GCHQ is in his constituency. I think that all Members would want to pay tribute to the security and intelligence services for all the work they do, every day of the week and every week of the year, to keep us all safe. I think the hon. Gentleman is the Liberal Democrat spokesman on this issue and it was interesting to hear him say that he thought the Bill strikes broadly the right balance. He noted in particular the support for the data retention provisions.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), who is a former Home Office Minister and another member of the ISC, spoke powerfully about radicalisation and the work of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s college to inform the debate. We then heard from the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). We know, of course, that terrorism has touched Scotland in recent years, with the attack on Glasgow airport. Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) spoke with her experience as a prosecutor and her knowledge of her community.

I will now briefly refer to the specific contents of the Bill to pick up some of the issues raised in the debate. Part 1, which deals with exclusion and passports, introduces new powers to deal with the emerging threat from ISIL—it is known by various names—and the British citizens and residents who have gone out to fight for it. The level of the threat is unprecedented, and we accept the need for new powers.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles referred, very interestingly, to academic studies about those who go to fight but then want to return to this country, and she mentioned the three categories of the disturbed, the dangerous and the disillusioned. That will help to inform our debate on ensuring that the laws are proportionate and deal with the problems we face.

As my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary set out, we have some concerns about aspects of part 1. Strong powers must be accompanied by equally strong checks and balances, but such checks and balances are absent from the Bill.

That issue was raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield, who made a very interesting comparison. He used the fact that a regime was put in place to ensure that there was judicial oversight, originally for control orders and then for TPIMs, to argue very effectively that we need to do something similar for exclusion orders. He also made a point about passports and possible claims for compensation, and I hope that the Minister for Security and Immigration will respond to that. The right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife also talked at length about exclusion orders and his concerns about interfering with the right of return.

We will table amendments in Committee to strengthen part 1. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East asked whether we would do so, and I can reassure her that we will. We will also seek information about the exclusion power, as it is called in the Bill. As my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary mentioned, the Prime Minister originally promised to exclude people from the United Kingdom, but the Home Secretary has said that the power is in fact about managing the reintroduction of individuals into the UK on certain terms. The process is important, but many questions remain about how part 1 will work, and about whether the powers will be used proportionately.

On part 2 on TPIMs, we of course welcome the Government U-turn. Having looked at the evidence, they are reintroducing relocation powers. The Opposition have called for that to be done for several years. The last Tory Home Secretary, the noble Lord Howard, has also called for it, as have both the current and the former independent reviewers of terrorism legislation. We are therefore very pleased by that change, and we also welcome the proposals to strengthen TPIMs in various ways.

We will seek clarification from the Minister on certain issues in Committee, including the 200-mile relocation limit and firearms licences, which my right hon. Friend mentioned. There is concern about the fact that firearms licensing officers did not know in the past that someone was on a TPIM.

[Mrs May]

indicated dissent.

[Diana Johnson]

I am very pleased that the Home Secretary is shaking her head, but it would be helpful if the Minister enlightened us about why the Government feel the need to make a provision specifically about that issue.

Part 3 is about data retention. We know that telephone records have always shown who receives calls and from whom, and that it has always been possible to link a number to the individual who owns the line. The Opposition think that it is appropriate for equivalent records to be kept for e-mails and peer-to-peer sharing.

As my right hon. Friend said, that issue is particularly important in relation to the National Crime Agency. It has IP addresses for about 20,000 individuals whom it suspects of accessing online child abuse images, but against whom it has not been able to follow through. We think that this power is urgently needed because, until the NCA can get the names of the 20,000 individuals, it will not know how many of them are known sex offenders, are working with children or are living with children. Those are the most basic checks that should be undertaken. The case of Myles Bradbury, which ended in the last 24 hours, should serve as an urgent reminder to the Government of the dangers of the NCA failing to follow up on leads. We accept what was said this evening about the drafting of clause 17. It should be looked at to improve the clarity.

On part 5, we welcome the fact that Prevent is being put on a statutory footing. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles made an excellent contribution on that and spoke, in particular, about the need for consistency and evaluation. It is important to show that whatever is put in place is working and having an effect. We are concerned that the guidance must be made available as soon as possible. Even if the guidance is in a draft format, it would be helpful to have it available when the Bill is in Committee over the next couple of weeks so that we can see what the Government’s thinking is on this issue.

There is, of course, a need for the community to develop resilience and for us to get into the DNA of the community, as a number of hon. Members said. The point has been made strongly this evening that the Department for Communities and Local Government has not taken the lead on the Prevent agenda in the way that the Home Secretary had perhaps hoped. It is therefore important that Prevent is put on a statutory footing. There are lessons to be learned from the experience of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr of schools in Birmingham in relation to Prevent and the duties that will be put on schools.

Finally, the hon. Member for New Forest East gave a thoughtful speech about the need for a counter-narrative at a national level, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley spoke about how private companies can be engaged in getting that message out. That area needs to be developed.

In conclusion, this Second Reading debate has been constructive. It has highlighted where there is support for the provisions in the Bill and where changes are needed. It has raised a series of specific questions for the Government to answer in the coming stages of the Bill’s passage. We must act proportionately, ensuring that the balance between security and liberty is dealt with properly, and that all the checks and balances are in place, in order to secure as much support as possible for the proposals.

Policing in England and Wales (Annual Assessment)

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Written Statements

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

Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary has today laid before Parliament his annual assessment of policing in England and Wales in accordance with section 54 of the Police Act 1996. Copies are available at: www.hmic.gov.uk and in the Vote Office.

This report forms a part of HMIC’s first police efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy (PEEL) assessment. The PEEL assessment represents a radical shift in how police forces are held to account by enabling the public to see for the first time how well their force is performing when it comes to cutting crime, providing a service that is fair and providing value for money. The individual force assessments are also available today at: www.hmic. gov.uk

Pre-Council Statement

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Written Statements

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

The Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council is due to be held on 4 and 5 December in Brussels. The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), and I will attend on behalf of the United Kingdom. As the provisional agenda stands, the following items will be discussed.

Justice day on 4 December will begin with the Italian presidency seeking a partial general approach on chapter IX of the proposal for a general data protection regulation. This deals with personal data processing for statistical, scientific and medical research purposes as well as provisions dealing with freedom of expression, employment and social protection. The presidency is also looking to secure a partial general approach on the issue of public sector flexibility within the instrument. Although progress has been made in improving some aspects of the text, the Government are against the use of partial general approaches with regard to this dossier, given the amount of technical detail on which disagreement remains.

Separately, they will hold an orientation debate on the regulatory one-stop shop which is intended to clarify in which member state regulatory decision-making should take place where there is a cross-border element to the processing of personal data.

The presidency will also provide a state of play update on the proposal for a data protection directive, covering the processing of personal data in the investigation and detection of crime. At this stage, it is not looking to secure any agreement as there has been more limited progress than is the case on the proposed general data protection regulation.

There will be an orientation debate on the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) proposal. The UK does not and will not participate in the EPPO. Debate will centre on the EPPO’s nomination and appointment procedures and how best to deliver independence within the “college” structure. While the UK plays an active role in the negotiations as a non-participating member state, to shape and protect our position, we do not anticipate a need to intervene on these internal matters.

The presidency will present a partial general approach in relation to the Commission’s proposal to reform Eurojust, covering Chapters I-III and V-IX—omitting the chapter on data protection—of the proposal with all references to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) removed. Given that Eurojust’s relationship with the EPPO is not covered in the revised text, it is impossible to take a definitive view on items such as governance arrangements. However, the presidency text provided is broadly positive from a UK perspective. One of our key concerns was to ensure that member states are not obliged to give additional powers to their national members. The presidency text is much improved in this regard.

The presidency will be aiming for a general approach on the directive on presumption of innocence. The UK has not opted in to this proposal though monitors negotiations.

This will be followed by a state of play debate on the directive on legal aid; again the UK has not opted in to this proposal. The Council also seeks an update on the state of play for the draft directive on the fight against fraud by means of criminal law following the European Parliament’s first reading position of April 2014; the Council continues to discuss the content of the directive ahead of trilogues.

Next, there will be a political agreement on the proposal for a revised regulation on insolvency proceedings. This represents the end of negotiations which began in January 2013 following a proposal from the Commission to modernise the existing regulation, particularly to expand its scope to ensure businesses in the EU are rescued where possible and jobs preserved. The Council is being asked to reach political agreement on the text with a view to adoption in 2015. The UK Government support this revision.

There will be orientation guidelines on the regulation on promoting the free movement of citizens and businesses by simplifying the acceptance of certain public documents in the EU. This measure aims to abolish the process of “legalisation” of certain public documents. Legalisation is the formality to confirm the authenticity of an official signature or seal. The regulation also proposes establishing EU multilingual forms. The Government support the principle of reducing red tape and costs and welcome recent amendments to both parts of the proposal which have limited the list of documents in scope to core civil status documents, such as birth, death and marriage certificates. They also welcome ongoing discussions to replace the proposed multilingual forms with simple translations of the original national documents rather than creating translated standalone forms with their own evidential value.

The presidency hopes to obtain a general approach to amend the European small claims regulation. From a UK perspective the negotiations have been successful in achieving our main objectives, including returning to the current definition of what constitutes a cross-border case and ensuring that no arbitrary cap on court fees is imposed on member states. The Government would have preferred a higher threshold for a small claim than €4,000 but understand that a compromise had to be found between the different positions of the member states.

The presidency is to provide a state of play report on the negotiations of the proposals on matrimonial property and the property consequences of registered partnerships. This is likely to state that while most technical issues have been finalised agreement on the proposals has not yet proved possible because of political concerns from some member states regarding the status of same-sex relationships. As these proposals will be decided under the special legislative procedure for family measures, agreement must be obtained by unanimity. The UK has not opted in to either proposal.

Under AOB, there will be an update from the presidency on the outcome of proceedings of the EU-US justice and home affairs ministerial meeting which took place in Washington DC on 12-13 November 2014. Finally the Latvian delegation will give a presentation on their incoming presidency programme.

The interior session on 5 December will begin in mixed committee with Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland—non-EU Schengen states. We expect the Council to focus on the implementation of October’s JHA Council conclusions on the response to migratory pressures, in particular those from the Mediterranean. The UK will press for full implementation of the conclusions, in particular supporting further action in key countries of origin and transit, offering further support for the new Frontex operation in the Mediterranean, and pressing for further efforts to ensure member states are meeting their responsibilities in the area of asylum and illegal migration.

The Commission will present the latest biannual report on the functioning of the Schengen area, and Council will be given the opportunity to discuss its content. Although the UK does not participate in the border and visa elements of the Schengen acquis, the Government maintain a strong interest given the effect of illegal migration transiting the Schengen area on UK borders. We will call for the EU to consider the role that Schengen visa liberalisation with non-EU member states can play in creating opportunities for immigration abuse, including the abuse of free movement rights by non-EU nationals.

Ministers will be invited to note a report highlighting the achievements of 15 years of Schengen evaluations under the Council’s management. Council conclusions will then be discussed, to allow the continuation of the relevant evaluation working group beyond 27 November. This will retain Schengen evaluation expertise within the Council structure and assist Ministers in effective delivery of the new Schengen evaluation mechanism. The UK supports this move.

The presidency currently plans a debate on Bulgarian and Romanian accession to Schengen, at the request of Romania and Bulgaria, who are seeking to finalise their accession to the border aspects of the Schengen acquis and then lower border controls with their EU neighbours. While the Italian presidency would like to see this issue resolved at Council, accession remains blocked by a minority of member states. The presidency may well withdraw it from the agenda—as it did in October. If the debate goes ahead, Bulgaria and Romania are likely to express their frustration. As this currently concerns only borders elements of Schengen, the UK does not have a vote.

Over lunch on the interior day there will be an update on passenger name records (PNR). The Council will consider how to proceed on PNR given the recent decision by the European Parliament to refer the EU Canada PNR agreement to the European Court of Justice. It is possible the LIBE Committee will use the referral to further delay progress on the draft PNR directive. The UK supports speedy adoption of the PNR directive, but we are clear that it should provide for intra-EEA PNR.

The Council will return to the issue of foreign fighters travelling to Syria and Iraq. Member states will be invited to discuss a number of issues based on a presidency paper, as called for at the June European Council. The Council will also be asked to adopt the guidelines which accompany the EU strategy for combating radicalisation and recruitment to terrorism, following the adoption of the updated strategy earlier this year. The UK supports the guidelines and has taken an active role in negotiations at working level, drawing on the UK’s experience of Prevent.

Under AOB, there will be an update from the presidency on the outcome of proceedings of the EU-US justice and home affairs ministerial meeting which took place in Washington DC on 12-13 November 2014. The Latvian delegation will give a presentation on their incoming presidency programme.

G6 Paris

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Written Statements

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

The informal G6 group of Ministers of the Interior from the six largest European Union countries held its most recent meeting in Paris on 6 November 2014. Representatives of the United States of America, Canada, Turkey and the European Commission attended for part of the meeting.

The summit was chaired by the French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and I represented the United Kingdom. The other participating states were represented by Jorge Fernandez Diaz (Spain), Teresa Piotrowska (Poland), Angelino Alfano (Italy), and Thomas de Maiziere (Germany). The USA was represented by Alejandro Mayorkas (Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security) and Eric Holder (US Attorney-General). The European Commission was represented by Dimitris Avramopoulos (Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship) and the European Union by Gilles de Kerchove (EU counter-terrorism co-ordinator). In addition to the usual attendees Efkan Ala (Turkey) and Steven Blaney (Canada) were present.

The first session of the day was on priority issues for the next European Parliament. The discussion touched on border checks and the importance of balancing security and liberty but focused mainly on the passenger name record (PNR) directive. Delegates agreed on the importance of making quick progress to conclude the PNR directive.

The lunchtime discussion was on migration flows. The group collectively agreed the importance of implementing the JHA Council conclusions of 10 October covering action in co-operation with third countries; reinforced management of external borders and Frontex; and action at member states’ level-reception and fingerprinting. The European Commissioner (Avramopoulos) said the implementation of the conclusions would be a priority for the Commission. Conversation in this session also touched on the importance of securing borders and the need for fingerprinting asylum seekers at their point of entry to the EU.

The first session after lunch was titled “Radicalisation via the Internet”. Delegates noted the positive progress that had been made following discussions with internet service providers (ISP) and agreed the need for joint working.

The final session of the day was on the issue of foreign fighters. A number of countries reported developments and M. Cazeneuve (France) noted their new legislation which enables them to ban people from leaving the country if they thought they were involved in terrorism by way of withdrawal of their passport and ID card. He concluded by suggesting that all countries would benefit from a power to revoke passports and that it was vital that information sharing be improved. He noted that there must be progress on PNR and border checks and strengthening of co-operation with Turkey.

In my interventions, I supported the need for an EU PNR directive which included PNR on intra-EU journeys, supported the JHA Council conclusions of 10 October on future migration policies and set out the action which the UK has taken to tackle the problem of returning foreign fighters.

It was announced at the meeting that the next G6 will take place in Dresden in Germany on 1 and 2 June 2015.

EU Justice and Home Affairs Measures

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is right. The truth is that the Home Secretary’s handling of the whole thing has been chaotic from start to finish. We have had no proper opportunity to debate the subject and have a vote at the right time and we have had confusion about when we were going to have the votes at the wrong time. We had parliamentary confusion, votes in chaos, Tory MPs scuttling back from their dinners, champagne banquets abandoned and a humiliated Prime Minister returning to the House of Commons with his tails between his legs.

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

I think I heard the right hon. Lady say just a few moments ago that one of the measures she wanted to debate was the European Police College. Perhaps she has not noticed that CEPOL is not in the list of 35 measures that the Government are rejoining, because it has been “Lisbon-ised” and does not need to be in the list. It falls out of the opt-out altogether.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Secretary knows that an awful lot of the measures she has removed from the 35 are in fact measures that she plans to continue to co-operate with. There is a whole series of different aspects of guidance and pledges for co-operation across the policing and Eurojust world that she plans to continue to co-operate with. However, she has told her Back Benchers that she will not co-operate with them at all so that she can promise them a grand repatriation, when in fact it is the equivalent of repatriating the “Yellow Pages”.

--- Later in debate ---

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

We return to an issue that has been much debated in the House. Last Monday was the sixth time that it was debated on the Floor of the House since the Government announced that they were minded to exercise the opt-out in October 2012. We had debates that month, in June and July 2013, and in April, July and November this year. The Government have published two Command Papers providing the House with the provisional and final lists of measures that we are seeking to rejoin, and with full impact assessments on the final list. We have responded to four parliamentary inquiries on the matter and to the joint report of the European Scrutiny, Home Affairs and Justice Committees in April. I am grateful for the scrutiny that those Committees and other hon. Members have given to this important matter, and I am happy to return to it today.

This is an issue that the shadow Home Secretary judges so important that she curtailed debate about it last week; so urgent that she strung it along for another week; and such an issue of principle that she is determined to try to score political points about it even though we agree on the substance of it.

As the Justice Secretary and I made clear to the House last week, and as I made clear to the right hon. Lady in an open letter the day before, the Government saw last Monday’s debate and vote as being about the whole package of 35 measures, including the arrest warrant, that we want the UK to remain part of in the national interest.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

Will the Home Secretary clear up for the benefit of the House the simple fact that there was no reference to the European arrest warrant in the Government’s motion in the House of Commons last week, but there was in the motion in the House of Lords? Will she please explain why that was the case?

[Mrs May]

What I have just said about our view of the debate—[Interruption.] Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to be a little patient and wait for my answer to his question. As I have made clear, we felt that the debate was on the 35 measures, and Mr Speaker made clear that hon. Members could speak about all those measures in the debate. In the House of Lords it is open to the Government to amend an affirmative motion—something not open to the Government in the House of Commons—so when the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), said that there were different procedures, she was absolutely right.

Last week we had the opportunity for a full day’s debate. The hon. Members for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) and for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) complained about a lack of debate last Monday, but that was because the shadow Home Secretary moved a motion that cut short the whole debate. We are now able to debate today’s motion, and as the right hon. Lady has made clear, there is nothing in it for the Government to disagree with, so we will support it.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Does the Home Secretary think that the wording of the motion last week was in the spirit of what her Back Benchers understood when the Prime Minister offered a debate and vote on the European arrest warrant? Did it reflect what he said to the House of Commons, and does she think her Back Benchers believed that?

[Mrs May]

I am clear that there was no requirement on the Government to bring the measures, other than those in the regulations, to the House, or to hold a debate on the Floor of the House on those regulations. There would normally have been an hour and a half debate upstairs in Committee, but we chose to bring it to the Floor of the House and to use a business motion to extend the debate. We chose to say to the House that we were clear that because the debate was about only those measures in the regulations that required a legislative instrument, we would nevertheless be bound by the vote on the whole package of measures, including the European arrest warrant.

[Wayne David]

rose—

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman may wish to carry on talking about procedure, but I want to get on to the issues and I am happy to do that.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

Is the Home Secretary surprised, as I am, that the shadow Home Secretary’s speech was all about procedure, not the policy area? She did not mention the fact that one major concern of a number of us on the Government Benches is that we are ceding powers to the European Court of Justice for the first time, and therefore taking away some parliamentary supremacy. I would like to hear the Home Secretary’s views on that.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I am well aware that for a number of right hon. and hon. Friends the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice is key. I have been clear—as I was in previous debates—that the issue of our relationship with the European Court of Justice should be in the work that we will do as a Conservative Government after next May’s election to renegotiate our relationship with the European Union. That, of course, is not in the motion tabled by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) today, and there is no reference to it or to the overall opt-out issue.

I think I am right in quoting the right hon. Lady as saying that the opt-out was an opt-in, opt-out “hokey cokey”. I remind her that that opt-in, opt-out hokey cokey was negotiated by the previous Labour Government. I am not sure from her comments whether she now supports our decision to exercise the opt-out, which, as I have said, the Labour Government negotiated, voted against last year, and have never said whether or not they would use. Is she congratulating the Government on successful negotiations in Europe and bringing back a deal that is good for the UK? Does support for our package mean that she supports the return of around 100 powers from Brussels and the largest repatriation of powers since this country joined the EU?

I am pleased that today’s motion supports all 35 measures, because last time the Opposition called a debate on this matter in June last year they highlighted only seven measures that they wanted us to rejoin. The list did not include Eurojust, which the right hon. Lady has now said that she supports, or the prisoner transfer framework decision, which allows us to send foreign criminals home to serve their sentences. It also left off the asset recovery office, which allows law enforcement to pursue the criminal proceeds of crime.

[Yvette Cooper]

Can the Home Secretary give a single example of a moment when she has put to Parliament the opportunity to vote on any of those measures?

[Mrs May]

I have made it absolutely clear, and I will repeat it again for the sake of any doubt, that the Government did not have to be bound by any vote in this House on the European arrest warrant. There was no legislative requirement. We were very clear—

[Sir William Cash]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs May]

I will give way to my hon. Friend in a moment. We were very clear that the only measures that needed legislative motions in this House were those in the regulations. We would be bound by the vote on those regulations as a vote on all the other measures in the package of 35. As I have said, this is the sixth debate we have had on this matter.

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

If the right hon. Lady will forgive me, I will give way to my hon. Friend who indicated that he wished to intervene before she did.

[Sir William Cash]

As my right hon. Friend knows, I accused her and the Government last week of chicanery, which, put another way, means relying on legal quibbles to try to achieve an objective. The fact is—I am sure she will accept it—that these issues involve the application of the European charter of fundamental rights. In that context, is she now going to tell us that the charter of fundamental rights does apply to the United Kingdom?

[Mrs May]

I am tempted to say to my hon. Friend that I suspect he knows more about legal quibbles, and has more experience of them, than I do. I have to say to him that the view the Government take on the charter of fundamental rights is the same view. We are consistent in that view: we consider it to be declaratory only and we do not consider that it applies to the United Kingdom. I know he has a different view on this, but that is the consistent view the Government have taken on this matter.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs May]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I did say to the right hon. Lady that I would take her intervention.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Secretary now says that her position is that she does not actually have to offer the House of Commons a vote on anything and therefore we should be grateful for the 11 measures we got to vote on last week. When did she say that to Parliament? Is it not the truth that she said repeatedly, over many months, that she would give the House a vote on the measures? She did not say that she would not give the House a vote because she did not have to; she said she would give the House a vote. If she has changed her position, why did she not say that before?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Lady really needs to understand the difference between a requirement on the Government to bring a vote to this House and a decision by the Government to bring a vote to this House, which we did last Monday. I also say to her that for most people looking at these measures, the issues are whether they are important measures for the Government to opt back into and whether they are important measures for law enforcement. It sounds as though we have absolutely the same opinion on that and I would be happy to be able to get on to questions about the measures themselves.

[Mr Raab]

On the opt-out from the charter of fundamental rights, this is not a matter of political opinion anymore, because Justice Mostyn has made it very clear that our opt-out does not apply. Whatever one’s view on the implications of that, it leads to the argument, at least in this House, that we should be sceptical about opt-ins and the relationship with the EU on these matters. There is a constant salami slicing of both our opt-outs and our democratic control.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend has made a considerable study of these matters, as the House is aware, but I have to say to him the same thing I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash): the Government’s position on the charter of fundamental rights has not changed. We have maintained a consistent position and our position is not changing.

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

I must say that many of my constituents who take a great interest in this issue will be very frustrated that the Labour party seems only to want to discuss process and not talk about the really important issues. My right hon. Friend will recall that recently I raised with her the concern of my constituents who found themselves living alongside a convicted murderer from Latvia, about whom they had no idea and nor did the local police. Does my right hon. Friend agree with my constituents that it would be absurd not to opt back into the system for sharing information on criminal records? Does she also agree that, if anything, the system needs to be more rigorous and comprehensive to be more useful?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Opting back into the European criminal records information system, which is one of the 35 measures we wish to opt back into, and to the exchange of criminal records is very important. We need to enhance our ability to exchange criminal records with other member states. Going back into Schengen information system II will also enable us to have more information of this sort at the border. We are doing a project with the Latvians and one or two other member states to improve our ability to deal with these issues, but there are challenges. For example, some countries have a different attitude from us to criminal records—in some countries, as soon as somebody is out of prison, effectively there is no criminal record—and as part of our discussions, we have to deal with those differences if we are to do what we all want to do, which is keep people safe.

I welcome the fact that the Opposition agree with the Government’s position on opting back into the 35 measures. It is a pleasure to agree with the right hon. Lady so often in one week: I understand the Labour party thinks that immigration was too high and out of control under the last Government; that it was a mistake not to have the full transitional controls to stop significant migration from the new member states; and that we must take action to reform European free movement rules. As a final step, perhaps she could ensure that her party agrees with the Conservative party’s commitment to an in/out referendum so that we can get on with the good work of negotiating a better deal for the British people.

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

[Mrs May]

I assume the right hon. Lady wants to say that Labour’s position has changed and they support the Government on an in/out referendum.

[Yvette Cooper]

Will the right hon. Lady tell us the level of net migration now and how it compares with her target—her “no ifs, no buts” promise?

[Mrs May]

I am happy to tell the right hon. Lady that the figure for net migration into the UK is down by a quarter from its peak under the last Labour Government.

[Yvette Cooper]

Will the right hon. Lady confirm that it came down by a quarter under the last Labour Government and that net migration is at exactly the same level now as it was when she became Home Secretary?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

The fact I quoted is absolutely correct: net migration is down by a quarter from its peak under the last Labour Government. Furthermore, net migration from outside the EU is down to the levels of the late 1990s—something that never happened under the last Labour Government and has only happened because of the action taken by this Government to control immigration.

I welcome the opportunity to reiterate the Government’s support for the package of 35 measures, including the arrest warrant, which help us to tackle serious crime and keep this country safe. I think that the right hon. Lady’s commitment to the arrest warrant would carry more weight if, when in government, she and her party had taken action to address the concern that many people raised about how it was being operated—concerns that were eroding the public’s trust in this important measure.

Since 2010, we have made the important reforms that the Opposition failed to make in the previous eight years, and our law enforcement and prosecution agencies, the devolved Administrations, the Extradition Law Committee in the House of Lords and other experts, including the Lord Chief Justice, all wish us to continue to use the arrest warrant to bring offenders to justice and keep our country safe. That is not the arrest warrant bequeathed to us by Labour, but the arrest warrant that now has proper protection for those wanted for extradition, including British citizens. We have taken positive action to address the issues that have caused people such concern.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

How confident is my right hon. Friend that after 1 December, when the Court of Justice of the European Union will decide whether an arrest warrant issued by another member state is valid, the protections brought into domestic British law will prove to be robust?

[Mrs May]

I am confident that some of the measures we have taken to deal with concerns raised about the EAW, such as proportionality, are measures that are available to other member states and which have not been challenged in the way my hon. Friend suggests.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The Home Secretary has mentioned the importance of contact with the devolved Administrations and police services in other parts of the UK. What contact has she had on these issues with the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland?

[Mrs May]

There has been considerable contact with the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland; there has been contact with all the devolved Administrations on this matter. I have personally had a discussion with the Justice Minister in the Republic of Ireland about it. If the hon. Gentleman will be a little patient, I will refer to the difference that the EAW makes to extradition as between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. That is an important issue, and if we were to come out of the EAW, it would be a matter of concern both to the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland and to the Justice Minister in the Republic of Ireland.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Hon. Members]

In unison!

[Mrs May]

Should I go left or right? [Laughter.] I suspect that in the interest of balance, I should give way to both my hon. Friend and my right hon. and learned Friend, but I think my right hon. and learned Friend has seniority.

[Mr Clarke]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the valuable improvements she has made to the arrest warrant were achieved by negotiations with other member states—they were Europe-wide—and that we were strongly supported by, for example, the German Government who also had concerns about the proportionality of the arrest warrant and by many member states regarding the problem of the Polish constitutional position, which did not fit in with everybody else’s. All this was sorted out in a perfectly friendly negotiation, led very much by my right hon. Friend, and its enforcement would be guaranteed by the jurisdiction of the European Court of law if that were ever called upon, which is very unlikely. Better that, however, than 28 separate Supreme Courts putting their interpretation on the rules that we have now sorted out.

[Mrs May]

My right hon. and learned Friend is right that we have had discussions with other member states on the European arrest warrant. Indeed, some other member states, notably Poland, will take steps themselves to change the way in which they approach this particular issue in their legislation. That would mean fewer trivial or smaller cases resulting from the European arrest warrant. The changes we have made are, of course, changes we have made in domestic legislation here in the United Kingdom. The House has had the opportunity to vote on them and to put them through.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Further to the point made by our hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), I do not think that he and I have quite the same touching faith as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) in the European Court of Justice. Is it not the case that however we see the ECJ interpreting things now, by opting into this European arrest warrant now, we do so in perpetuity and we will for ever be subject to the jurisdiction of the ECJ—unless we leave the European Community? What upsets and concerns so many Conservative Members, and indeed people across the country, is that we are surrendering a power to the ECJ over which we have no control whatever. It is a surrender of sovereignty that many of us just feel unable to accommodate, even though we understand the forceful argument on security that the Home Secretary makes.

[Mrs May]

Let me say to my hon. Friend, as I did to a previous intervention, that I fully accept the concerns that a number of right hon. and hon. Members have about the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, but this is not an issue confined to the measures we are considering today. As part of the opt-out/opt-in decisions we take for measures brought forward in the justice and home affairs area post-the Lisbon treaty, we look at the question of jurisdiction because the jurisdiction of the ECJ applies to those measures as well. We have opted in to a number of measures on the basis that a balanced judgment of the importance of those measures and the benefits they bring outweighs the concerns that my hon. Friend has raised. He uses the term “in perpetuity”, but as I said, if we have a Conservative Government after May 2015, we will have the opportunity to renegotiate a relationship with the European Union and a number of issues can be dealt with within that. Both the Prime Minister and I have indicated that we think free movement should be included within it, and I believe that our relationship with the European Court of Justice is another candidate for consideration in those negotiations.

[Sir Alan Beith]

I want to point out that the Government were right not to opt in to a series of standards measures where we are already well above the standards precisely, because it unnecessarily imported European Court of Justice jurisdiction into our own system.

[Mrs May]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The Government made a conscious decision not to ask to opt into those minimum standard measures, precisely because of the impact that doing so would have had in relation to the justice system.

[Geraint Davies]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs May]

I have given way a number of times, but I will give way one further time to the hon. Gentleman.

[Geraint Davies]

The Home Secretary—who has not given way to me until now—has just said that she is in favour of opting back into the 35 measures. A moment earlier, she said “If you vote Conservative, we may end up with a renegotiation”, which implied that she would reconsider whether to support those 35 measures. Which is it?

[Mrs May]

I have made clear my view that our relationship with the European Court of Justice could well be one of the measures that should be part of the renegotiation and part of the process of looking again at our relationship with the European Union, which would happen after the election of a Conservative Government in May 2015, leading to an in-out referendum by the end of 2017. I hope that that is now clear to the hon. Gentleman.

I want to discuss some of the issues surrounding the European arrest warrant, given the degree of concern that it has raised among Members in the past. One such issue is that of lengthy pre-trial detention, which was highlighted by the case of Andrew Symeou—a case that has been championed relentlessly by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) in the interests of his constituent and his constituent’s family. Our reforms of the arrest warrant mean that, when the requesting country is not trial-ready, we will not extradite people. Had the measures that we have now passed been in place at the time, they would have allowed Mr Symeou to raise, in his extradition hearing, the question of whether a decision to charge him and a decision to try him had been made. It is very likely that they would have prevented his extradition at the stage at which he was due to be surrendered, and could have prevented it altogether.

We have reformed the arrest warrant to make it possible for cases to be heard in the requesting country before an extradition hearing, either by video conference or by temporary transfer, with the consent of the person concerned. That may lead to a withdrawal of the arrest warrant in some cases. We have also reformed it so that British citizens, and others, can no longer be extradited for minor offences. The reform came into effect in July, and has already resulted in the turning down of 21 arrest warrants. That has freed police and court time so that more serious matters can be dealt with, and, crucially, has protected individuals from the sledgehammer of extradition for minor offences.

The Government have reformed the rules on dual criminality to ensure that an arrest warrant must be refused if all or part of the conduct for which a person is wanted took place in the UK and is not a criminal offence in this country. The National Crime Agency is now refusing arrest warrants when it is obvious that the dual criminality test has not been met. It has done so 59 times since our reforms came into force in July.

Our reforms have been implemented, and they are already making a difference. I believe that the arrest warrant is operating more fairly, and it is British judges who have the final say on whether or not to extradite people. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot)—whose wife is an extradition judge—said last week,

“The suggestion that there is no judicial oversight of European arrest warrants in this country is nonsense.”—[Official Report, 10 November 2014; Vol. 587, c. 1228.]

That is absolutely right, and, thanks to our reforms, British judges are now better able to protect the interests of British citizens.

I am also pleased to have the opportunity to remind the House of a few of the problems involved in the alternative system of extradition that we would have to fall back on if we were not part of the arrest warrant, namely the 1957 Council of Europe convention on extradition. First, returning to that convention would require changes to domestic legislation in a number of member states. While we would be able to control our own legislative urgency, we would not be able to control what other member states did. For some, it would take months or even years to make the necessary legislative changes. The Netherlands, for example, has made it clear to us that it would take at least 18 months for it to change its domestic legislation, which would mean that UK criminals could travel to Holland with impunity and vice versa. That would have made the UK a virtual “safe haven” for some of Europe’s most dangerous criminals, and would have allowed UK criminals to hide from the law, which is certainly not an option that appeals to me.

Secondly, using the convention would mean a return to the days when extradition requests were sent to Ireland, perhaps more in hope than in expectation. Before the introduction of the arrest warrant, fewer than 10% of our requests to Ireland for individuals connected with terrorism resulted in their being returned to this country. Members should compare that with the present situation. We are not aware of a single request to Ireland for terrorism-related offences that has been refused. That is surely why—as I said earlier—the authorities in both Dublin and Belfast are such strong supporters of the arrest warrant and our continued participation in it.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does the Home Secretary accept that the comparison she is making is not a fair one, given that many of the extradition requests that were made to the Irish Republic were turned down often on political grounds? Of course, those grounds have now been removed because of the constitutional changes that have been made recently.

[Mrs May]

I understand that the political scenario has changed over the years, but the Justice Minister in Belfast and the Justice Minister in Dublin in the Republic of Ireland have been keen to impress on the Government their concern to ensure that the UK remained in the European arrest warrant, precisely because it now provides a much smoother and easier process to enable extraditions to take place successfully.

[Mike Gapes]

The Home Secretary is making an excellent case for the European arrest warrant. Why did she not put that forward two weeks ago? She could have made the case then.

[Mrs May]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman but I cannot remember whether he was in the Chamber for the debate a week ago on Monday. However, I made exactly these sorts of argument in that debate. Other right hon. and hon. Members would have been able to express their concerns about or support for the European arrest warrant had that debate not been curtailed by his Front-Bench team.

[Keith Vaz]

Could the Home Secretary clarify one point? Has she notified the European Union that we are opting in already, is she waiting for this vote, or did she do so after last week’s vote?

[Mrs May]

We have not yet notified the European Union. [Interruption.] Someone says, “Why?” It is partly because the timetable has not required us to notify the European Union by that point.

Thirdly, under the convention, we would return to a system where 22 other member states would not extradite their own nationals to the UK and where, owing to constitutional bars, there would be no hope of that situation changing for some countries. In the last five years alone, those 22 states have extradited 105 of their own nationals to us to stand trial. That would end if we returned to the 1957 convention, and victims, and their families, would suffer as a result.

The convention would also mean that, if there is a long delay between the offence occurring and the extradition request being made, extradition can be refused because of the length of time that has passed under a state’s statute of limitations.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs May]

May I first give a concrete example of that? Last month, Philip Gordon Knowles was jailed for eight years after being found guilty of four counts of gross indecency with a boy under the age of 14 and eight counts of indecent assault on a girl under the age of 16 in the St Helens area in the 1970s. His conviction followed his extradition from Spain using the arrest warrant. In an earlier age, Knowles would have escaped justice. Under the 1957 European convention on extradition, the length of time that had passed between his offences and his extradition being requested would have rendered him immune to prosecution by the Spanish authorities, and he could not have been extradited. It is thanks to the arrest warrant that Knowles is now behind bars.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the Home Secretary for giving way to me a second time. She has made two cases—the reason for opting in and what would happen if we went back to the 1957 protocols—but there were other choices. A couple of years ago, there was the chance to try to have a bilateral treaty with the EU, or indeed individual member states within it. Equally, as the treaties stand, there are transitional arrangements under which the current arrangements could continue. Could she comment on those? I know that the commonly held view in her Department was that the transitional arrangements would be quite short, but I have gathered from the European Commission that they could go on for quite some time. I would appreciate her view on that.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend has raised two important points. I will address both of them. He refers to the temporary transitional extension. The option that is proposed to extend that transitional period for a significant time would require secondary legislation to override the primary treaty right of the UK to opt out of measures and would effectively override the opt-out itself. That is a precedent that no one would want to set. A transitional decision is proposed by the European Commission. We have no vote on its adoption. We would have no power to amend the drafting of the decision and it could extend to all 135 measures and make them subject to ECJ jurisdiction to boot. That would effectively hand over our power on this matter to Brussels, which would determine it for us. I think that that would run entirely counter to our aim of bringing powers back from Brussels.

The other point is that it has been clear in discussions we have been having with the European Commission that the purpose of the transition arrangement was, for a very limited period, potentially to ensure that while the process of opting in was taking place there was no operational gap, so that we would make sure there was no point at which it was possible for somebody to claim that an arrest warrant, for example, was no longer operational as a result of the decisions we had taken.

In relation to the suggestion that we could have negotiated a separate treaty with the European Commission, reference is often made to the Danish position on that, but in fact that is different as the Danes have no alternative option for participating in the JHA measures. Protocol 36, the opting-out decision protocol, sets out our ability to opt out and to rejoin these JHA measures, so it puts us in a different position. The EC argues that that provides us with an adequate ability to go into these measures, and therefore renders a third-country agreement unnecessary.

Given my hon. Friend’s interest in European Court of Justice jurisdiction, the other point I would make is that in all the measures Denmark has negotiated separate arrangements on with the EC, it has been required to submit itself to the jurisdiction of the ECJ. That has been the price of getting the negotiated agreement with the European Commission, so I really do not think it is an option that resolves the issues my hon. Friend and others have concerns about.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs May]

I am conscious that this speech is taking rather longer than I had intended, but I will give way.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My right hon. Friend’s speech is taking a long time because it is so interesting and important. Following on from the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), I wanted to say that there are three points the Home Secretary has just mentioned where Her Majesty’s Government have negotiated with the Commission and have accepted the Commission’s no as authoritative without really pushing. This does not bode particularly well for an attempt to renegotiate the treaties after the next election.

[Mrs May]

The fact is that we have been able to go into the negotiation with the European Commission and other member states, wanting to rejoin 35 measures, and the package we have brought back is rejoining 35 measures and not more measures. Many people said to us, “You will not be able to negotiate 35 measures. The European Commission and other member states will require you to join more measures.” They have not done so. The negotiation in that sense was successful, and contrary to what my hon. Friend says, I think that bodes well for the future.

I want to say a little more about some of the other 35 measures. I have mentioned already that they include important tools such as SIS II, the second generation Schengen information system. We are scheduled to join it shortly. It further strengthens our ability to detect foreign criminals at the border, including individuals wanted in their own countries for serious crimes such as rape and murder.

When the UK connects to the system, we will gain access to 51 million alerts, including on individuals who pose a very real security risk, such as foreign fighters who have travelled to Syria and Iraq and who could pose a serious risk to this country on their return. It is a tool that I am sure the whole House will want us to have at our disposal.

The package of measures also includes the Council decision on child pornography, which ensures that international co-operation to tackle this abhorrent crime is prioritised and that collective pressure is put on internet companies to tackle the disgusting crime of online child sex abuse wherever it takes place.

The package also includes Europol, which does excellent work to tackle cross-border crimes—under its British director, Rob Wainwright—and Eurojust, which often operates hand and glove with Europol, such as during the horsemeat scandal early last year. As I have already said, the package includes the European criminal record information system—ECRIS—as well, which has dramatically increased the number of criminal record checks on foreign nationals, and also the prisoner transfer framework decision, which helps us to remove foreign criminals from British jails.

The package also includes joint investigation teams, which allow our police and their European counterparts to co-operate in cross-border operations, such as Operation Birkhill which saw five criminals sentenced to a total of 36 years’ imprisonment this summer for their involvement in the degrading trafficking of over 120 women from Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland into the UK.

These are all vital measures which the Government were clear we should remain part of in the national interest. We have exercised the opt-out, which the Labour party negotiated but voted against using. We have brought back some 100 powers from Brussels which the Labour party gave away. We have negotiated a good deal to remain part of a much smaller package of 35 measures in the national interest, despite being told by the Labour party that we should have sought “guarantees” that they did not bother to negotiate into the Lisbon treaty.

It is this Government who are providing leadership on European issues. We have cut the EU’s budget, secured an exemption from the new EU bank bail-out fund, vetoed a new treaty and secured a position of real influence in the Commission. That is leadership—an issue I know the Labour party might not want to discuss at the moment. Where this Government are leading, I am happy to see the Opposition follow, so I am glad to have the support of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford today, but given her party’s failure to reform the arrest warrant, her opposition to our exercising the opt-out, her refusal to back the repatriation of powers and her continued efforts to deny the British people their say through an in/out referendum, it is clear that the Labour party can never provide the leadership that this country needs on Europe.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—