Investigatory Powers Bill (Second sitting)

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

Q There has been a description of Tor as a facility that allows digital abuse of anonymous online activism. It is linked to encrypted information. I want you to say a bit about what effect encryption has on some of the work that you are involved with?

Alan Wardle: A lot of the activity that we take for granted online—shopping, banking and all the rest of it—could not be done without encryption, but of course, as with all these tools, encryption can be used for bad purposes by bad people. Similarly, with services like Tor and Freenet—the dark web—in the cases that we are concerned with, you get your most highly committed and dangerous offenders, quite often, particularly sharing very explicit images or videos of children being abused. Those services enable them to hide there. The police do the best they can, but, again, for a lot of that they will be dependent on traditional undercover techniques.

I think there is a question that is—I say this respectfully —beyond this Committee’s remit and beyond many of our remits. The direction of travel generally is that we are seeing greater moves to encrypt data as a matter of course, with things like Google Chrome browsers and so on. With browsers such as that, internet service providers cannot put in place the kind of protections they have, so they do not know what is going on there. That is a direction of travel and something that is worrying. It is clearly a global issue, but the police not being able to track what is going on due to increasing levels of encryption is a worry.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

Q Just to pick up on the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West about the missing child, is it right that, sadly, the victims of sex grooming rings do not surround themselves with friends and parents, because one of the tools that the groomers use is to isolate the victims, so that they have no one they can turn to in their hour of need?

Alan Wardle: That can be true. They can even turn the child against their family and friends as well.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q So in those circumstances, as you have said, the police need every tool that they can get to help those very vulnerable young children.

Alan Wardle: Absolutely. Again, as I have said, the issue of grooming is often about a period of time and establishing patterns of behaviour. Being able to gather evidence from a range of sources is really important.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Q Following on from that, in your work in the NSPCC, do you always see a willingness for children to open up and to tell people in a position of authority personal facts about themselves and their friends, or can it be quite difficult to coax out information about children who are friendly with the vulnerable?

Alan Wardle: It will depend. Generally, it takes quite a lot for a child to come forward and disclose. In recent years, we have seen a huge increase in the number of children who are reporting sexual abuse generally. It is going up across the UK, and was up by about a third last year. A large part of that is because of a greater willingness of children to come forward and talk about the abuse that has happened to them, but we know that it can take decades for people to come forward and talk about abuse.

What we are talking about, particularly sexual abuse, is a very personal thing, so the idea that a 15-year-old who is being groomed will just walk straight into a police station and start disclosing all these very personal things is generally not quite how it works.

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[Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)]

In my experience, the UK is regarded as a world leader in intelligence-led law enforcement and I am sure that you agree that the Bill will enhance your capability. Can you tell me how important to your work it is that this legislation applies extraterritorially?

Chris Farrimond: It is rare for serious crime to be investigated and to have no international aspect to it at all. Certainly in the case of the National Crime Agency, almost every single case that we investigate has got an international aspect to it, but I suspect that that is the same for both my colleagues as well. That means that communications data will almost certainly be held in a third country at some point, because we have been communicating with people in other countries. The extraterritoriality will at least give us the ability to ask for those data. I do not doubt that there will be some complications when it gets compared with the host nation legislation along the way, but, nevertheless, at the moment we have a very lengthy process to get material back from other countries, so if this can help in any way, shape or form in speeding that up, that will be a good thing.

Richard Berry: It certainly is a strategic priority for law-enforcement policing to look at how we can ensure, as Chris said, this fragmentation of data across server farms, in clouds and across several countries is increasingly a challenge for us, so any legislation that can help with that process will be particularly useful.

The other point that I would make, building on what you said in your introduction, is also quoted by the commissioner in the 2015 report. Communications service providers, certainly in the US, very much favour the British SPOC system, because there is a dedicated, rigorous system, whereas they could perhaps be approached individually by—I think, to quote them—one of “10,000 FBI agents”, all adopting a slightly different process. So we have got the right systems in place; I think it is really the relationships and the access that is critically important.

Simon Grunwell: I will just add that the internet obviously provides mobility and anonymity. We could have an attack from anywhere in the world, online, so we need to keep pace effectively with digital changes. Sometimes the only clue that we have as to who is criminally attacking us is a digital one. The ability to go extraterritorial to pursue that one clue could be vital.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q In the Government’s response to the pre-legislative scrutiny, they refer to a sample of 6,025 referrals to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre—CEOP—with which, I imagine, Mr Farrimond, you are very familiar. It says that of those more than 6,000 referrals, 862 could not be progressed and would require the ICR provisions in the Bill to have any prospect of being progressed. In other words, for at least 862 paedophiles out of that sample, you can go no further because you do not have the tools. Does that accord with your day-to-day working knowledge of this field?

Chris Farrimond: Yes, we get around 1,500 referrals per month, some 14% of which we cannot resolve. We cannot take them any further. Whether it is that number of paedophiles, or whether it is a smaller number who are sharing the same images, we cannot be sure, but the bottom line—the important thing—is that we cannot protect the child because we cannot resolve the data.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Focusing on the point you have just made about protecting the child, a witness this morning referred to the collection of nude images and the security services apparently running facial recognition techniques on those images. Are such methods used to try to identify child victims so that law enforcement can find them?

Chris Farrimond: Yes, of course.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Finally, on the extraterritoriality point, Europol is the EU’s information and intelligence-sharing agency in The Hague. What sort of data do law enforcement across Europe share, through Europol, to try to tackle serious organised crime and for counter-terrorism?

Chris Farrimond: Quite a lot, actually. We feed into the Europol databases. We also, in fairness, have bilateral relationships, particularly when it comes to specific investigations, but for criminal data on themes, trends and so on, we will feed it into Europol to see if there are any cross-matches with any other country experiencing the same criminality.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q So in those two areas—counter-terrorism and serious organised crime—this legislation could help not just our country, but our neighbours overseas as well.

Richard Berry: Yes, absolutely. From experience, I was involved in running a national operation on human trafficking, and we basically created a dataset from a significant amount of intelligence gained during that national operation over six months. It went straight into the analytical work files within Europol and we were able to map organised criminality right the way back to mainland China in some cases. The added value point, which is what you are making, very much comes from that sharing.

Simon Grunwell: Can I just add to that? A significant thread for us is organised tobacco smuggling, which is international by default. So it can only help.

[Gavin Newlands]

Q Just a follow-up to a question asked in the last panel about ICRs as they relate to mobile devices and third-party apps. You brought up easyJet earlier, and I have got an easyJet app on my phone. As far as I am aware, it creates a lot of ICRs as defined in the Bill. There is no way to differentiate between an ICR that is created manually or automatically by a third-party app. How would that limit the operational effectiveness of ICRs for you?

Chris Farrimond: To go back to my previous answer on this point, from your mobile record—the ICR from that—we would require your provider, Vodafone or whoever, to help us to understand which flight provider you were using. If they came back to us and said, “One of the domain names is easyJet”, we would say, “Thank you very much.” That is what we would expect from Vodafone. We would then go to easyJet and say—with the right authority signed off, obviously, and with the proportionality, necessity and everything that goes with that—“Can you tell us about his travel plans?” They would, hopefully, be able to do precisely that with the data that they hold on their flight details. But as for the actual app, all that we would look for from your provider would be to tell us that you have been making use of easyJet, and that would give us the next point in our investigation.

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[The Chair]

Actually, on this occasion I did not ask you to be brief, but thank you for being brief in the spirit that that was offered.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Just so there is no mystery—people might ask themselves, “Crikey! What on earth do local authorities need these powers for?”—what sort of offences do local authorities investigate and prosecute?

Mark Astley: Local authorities have been provided with a wide remit in legislation to assist them in investigating a wide range of high crimes and serious crimes, which can range from rogue traders to dangerous goods and fake alcohol and tobacco.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q In some cases, fake alcohol can be fatal.

Mark Astley: It can be fatal, yes. There was a recent case of children’s clothing that was not fire retardant. It is important for those officers to react quickly to prevent any loss of life or serious danger to life.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q They also prosecute housing benefit fraud, don’t they?

Mark Astley: Not any more.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Do they still prosecute landlord offences?

Mark Astley: Yes. Tenancy fraud offences as well. There is also internal fraud. There was one specific case where people were setting up rent accounts and filtering thousands of pounds from within the organisation.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q But, just as importantly, and probably more importantly, they can also safeguard the lives of people who are renting properties from landlords who, for example, are not keeping up to date with their gas certificates.

Mark Astley: That is correct.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Just to be clear, under this Bill local authorities will not be entitled to internet connection records.

Mark Astley: That is correct.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q I do not know whether you have already done this, but could you briefly help us with the process that exists at the moment? What will happen after the Bill in terms of your organisation getting this information?

Mark Astley: In how we deal with an inquiry?

[Victoria Atkins]

Yes.

Mark Astley: Inquiries come through to our organisation electronically from an applicant, and our SPOC will work with the applicant to get the application either up to standard or cancelled because it is not appropriate. Once it is up to the required standard, the application is passed over to the designated person, who will then look to authorise it for proportionality. Once that has gone through, our systems provide a court pack, which is delivered to each individual applicant, and they then have to arrange for a court attendance to get judicial approval.

Differently, in Scotland they also have a legal representative process, except they have a fourth lock in place in that their legal representatives get involved and then go on to the sheriffs for judicial approval. It is then returned to us. Once we have that approval, we then obtain the information accordingly.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Of course, the Bill also introduces the further safeguard of the criminal offence of making an unauthorised disclosure. In other words, there is also safety from the perspective of the telecommunications organisation, BT or whoever it is, knowing that if they do not make sure that you have complied with all of your duties, they themselves may be criminally responsible for giving you any information that they should not be giving you.

Mark Astley: Yes, and I think there is an intention to make the SPOC—the single point of contact—responsible for any recklessness or wilfulness in that misuse. That is another safeguard in place to ensure that there is no abuse or misuse of telecommunications data.

[The Chair]

With the permission of the Committee, I might suspend the sitting for 10 minutes at 10 minutes to 4 to allow people to have a quick break, because this is quite a long sitting. Is that with the permission of the Committee? Brilliant.

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[The Chair]

We really are pressed for time, gentleman. Can we have shorter answers so I can get as many colleagues in as possible?

Charles Clarke: My short answer is yes, I would have been in favour of introducing such a Bill. I think the question of updating with future-proofing is very important. On the timing, I cannot comment on whether the Home Secretary was right to introduce it now as opposed to in five years, or five years before, or whatever. The only factor that I would add to John’s remarks is that the capacity of the organisations that we are trying to contest is a very important issue and they are very wealthy, very effective, very scientific and very powerful, as John said. An assessment will be being made, which I am not privy to now, of how effective those organisations are now, which undoubtedly would have informed the Home Secretary.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q I have one question for Mr Clarke. You were the Home Secretary during the 7/7 bombings. How important was your experience of warrantry and your relationship with the security services in the hours and days that followed that terrible event?

Charles Clarke: Critically important. I believe that one of our strengths in the UK is that we have good relations between the different security services, the police and the political establishment in these areas. Indeed, with 7/7 itself, there had been substantial rehearsals of the various co-operations that needed to take place. I think that co-operation between the various agencies charged with the security of the country is exceptionally important, and 7/7 reinforced that for me very much.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q When you were standing up in the House of Commons at the Dispatch Box explaining what the security services and the police were doing, how important was your personal oversight of that, as opposed to just a judge doing it by themselves?

Charles Clarke: The implication of your point I could not agree with more. My personal experience was very important. It did lead me, personally, directly to have relations with the individuals in the security services who were involved with these things, and I think that helped my whole job as Home Secretary.

[Matt Warman]

Q You talked about updating the legislation and the importance of that. Do you see an internet connection record or something equivalent to it as a key part of updating this legislation for the world we live in now?

Charles Clarke: I do personally, yes.

Lord Reid: I do as well. Not to test the Committee, but two years after 7/7, on 6 August 2006, there was a plot to bring down seven airliners. There would have been 2,500 victims, and intercept was absolutely essential in protecting those lives—absolutely essential—with both the internet and telephone communications.

Brussels Terrorist Attacks

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that Daesh is indiscriminate in whom it chooses to attack. Its terrorist attacks have taken place not only in Europe and Turkey and the countries I referred to, but nearer to its base in Syria and Iraq, where many Muslims have died as a result. It is indiscriminate in the people it attacks, and it is attacking our fundamental values which, as he says, include those of democracy, freedom of religion, and law and order, and which underpin our society. That is why it is so important for our society to say once again that we will not let the terrorists defeat us, and I welcome all the comments made around the Chamber that go out from this House today.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

On a recent visit to Europol, the Home Affairs Committee viewed one of the horrific videos on the internet created by Daesh, and the propaganda that it uses to recruit people to its hideous cause. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the security services and police need modern, digital powers, including bulk powers, to destroy those criminals and keep us safe?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and those powers are necessary for our police and security services. That is why we will be putting the Investigatory Powers Bill through the House, because it includes powers to ensure that those whose job it is to keep us safe have what they need to do that job.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

Like the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) and others in the Chamber, I had the privilege of serving on the Joint Committee. Against that background, I have no doubt that the Bill will help the security services and the police to keep our nation safe while preserving our civil liberties. That alone is reason enough for the Bill.

But the Bill serves another purpose—one that is just as important to our constituents as national security—and that is to help the police and law enforcement officers to catch the most dangerous and serious criminals. These powers will be used to stop the very worst of humanity—those who commit unspeakable acts against children, those who run their criminal networks in our streets with violence and fear, guns and knives, and those who seek to undermine our civil society by stealing from the state and from our families. This is the reality of the crimes our police officers have to investigate. The Bill will help to prevent crime, and to protect the victims of crime from people who mean us harm.

If I may, I will try to bring these powers to life in the Chamber. In my previous career I used to prosecute criminals, and I am very familiar with the law enforcement powers in the Bill because all of them, with the exception of ICRs, already exist and have been used for many years.

One example was a case involving an organised crime gang who, with the mafia, used to run the counterfeit cigarette market in the north of England. Over six months, that conspiracy involved the import of millions of dodgy cigarettes and the evasion of over £10 million in duty. The case relied on digital evidence to prove the involvement of 11 defendants. We used mobile phone records and cell site data to build a map of the six months, showing, for example, when defendants drove from the port to HQ to distribute the cigarettes to couriers and further afield. The map was so detailed that we could point to a single call and suggest to the jury that that was the call to the gang to say, “The load is here. Come and get it.” That is an example of communications data. It is used in 95% of organised crime cases and 100% of counter-terrorism cases.

There was another piece of compelling evidence that caused real difficulties for the leader of the gang, and that was a microphone in his car. When the tape was played to the jury, the conversations revealed plans, not to import cigarettes but to import drugs. Criminals diversify, just as legitimate businesses do. That is equipment interference. It is vital in the modern age and has been for some time, but this case was five years ago. I used it deliberately, because we now use our phones in a very different way and so do criminals. If that case were investigated now, a major part of the prosecution case—the communications between defendants—might well be a black hole because of the changes in the way that criminals communicate. How many paedophiles, gangsters, drug lords, gun runners and terrorists are to escape justice while some critics of this Bill—not here, I accept—try to divert our attention with misleading claims of a snoopers charter?

Finally, I end as I began, with the Joint Committee. This was a Committee of all parties and none—Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, the SNP and Cross Benchers. It was unanimous in its support in principle for the Bill. I therefore have no hesitation in advising the Chamber that the Bill is necessary, proportionate and just.

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[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

The primary duty of any Government is the security of its people. Above all, we need to ensure that those tasked with keeping us safe have the powers to do so. I congratulate the Secretary of State for listening to concerns about the draft Bill and taking steps to improve it before bringing it to Parliament. It is a better Bill than before. However, I am afraid I still have some concerns that prevent me from wholeheartedly supporting it.

First, everyone in this House wants the police and security services to have the necessary powers to intercept communications data, but the Bill goes further than that. It extends those powers to public and local authorities. Clause 64 states that a designated senior officer may grant an authorisation for obtaining telephone data to detect or prevent crime and disorder. A designated senior officer is defined as anyone at a local council with the

“position of director, head of service or service manager”.

I would suggest that there are no circumstances under which the head of waste services at my local council should be able to authorise an application for telephone data to prevent crime or disorder.

The Bill should not give councils these powers in the first place. We have seen what happens when we extend these sorts of powers to local councils: they abuse them. We all remember examples of local authorities using terrorism legislation to rummage through residents’ bins or to spy on local paperboys. If local councils need to investigate crimes and require telephone data, my response is simple: go and speak to the police. These are very serious powers, which is why I urge Ministers to restrict them to the police and the security services.

[Victoria Atkins]

Local authorities will not have the powers to deal with internet connection records. Indeed, the powers of local authorities are very much restricted, following the very legitimate concerns voiced several years ago about exactly the things my hon. Friend describes.

[Will Quince]

I take my hon. Friend’s point about internet data, but local authorities will have the powers in relation to telecommunication data. That is still very much in the Bill.

My second concern is around the modification of warrants. Clause 30 allows the Secretary of State to add, remove or change the names of people, organisations or premises to a warrant already issued. We are told this is for situations where the same target uses different names—in other words, the use of aliases. For example, the same individual may be known as Mr Smith with O₂ and Mr Clark with Vodafone. That must be made clear in the Bill. These modifications should apply only to adding, removing or altering aliases of existing targets on warrants; the Bill should not permit changing names to investigate a completely different person.

My third and final problem concerns situations where a judicial commissioner refuses an urgent modification. The Bill says that where a commissioner refuses an urgent warrant, they can require that the information collected through that warrant be destroyed or restrict how it is used, but it does not make clear the commissioner’s powers when they refuse an urgent modification of a warrant. When the commissioner refuses urgent modifications to a warrant, I would like the Bill to allow them to require that any material obtained under the modified provisions of the warrant be destroyed or that restrictions be put on its use. In some instances, judicial commissioners are not required to review or approve modifications made to warrants at all. The Government should agree that all modifications require the approval of a judicial commissioner.

Despite those concerns, I will vote with the Government today. In order that we be kept safe, we need a Bill that confirms the powers of our police and security services, but we have only one chance to get the Bill right, so I hope that amendments can be made on Report.

Donald Trump

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I must make a declaration: I am the only Member of Parliament who can claim to represent the good people of New York—New York in Lincolnshire. When those seeking religious sanctuary in the 1600s reached the shores of what we now know as the United States of America, that tiny hamlet in my constituency lent its name to a patch of land that grew to be one of the greatest cities on the planet. The good people of the original New York—all 150 or so of them—wear that honour lightly.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Ted Cruz has launched a vicious attack on the people of New York, saying they are cosmopolitan—[Laughter]—so I hope my hon. Friend will stand up for the people of New York. Will she note, as I have, having looked at the map, that not a single person from Lincolnshire has signed the petition to ban Donald Trump?

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend reaches my point before me. I promise to deal with New York values at the end of my speech.

I turn, as I must, to Mr Trump. His comments about Muslims are wrong. His policy to close borders, if he is elected as President, is bonkers. If he met one or two of my constituents in one of the many excellent pubs in my constituency, they may well tell him that he is a wazzock for dealing with the issue in that way. I sense that my constituents, whether in New York or Tetney, in Minting or Mablethorpe, feel that their values are more than robust enough to survive anything that Mr Trump may say. We in Lincolnshire—in fact, we in the United Kingdom—should have enough confidence in our values to allow him to say whatever he wants in New York, New York, or in New York, Lincolnshire, or anywhere else in the world, because our British values are stronger than some among us here today appear to fear.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Does the hon. Lady understand that it is all very well for us to say, “We feel strong and we can withstand this, so you can criticise and offend and we will stand up to you,” but she and I are not Muslims living in a country where Islamophobia is already rising? Comments such as his, from someone who has such influence over so many people and is getting so much media exposure, can only harm not people like us, but those on the streets who feel vulnerable. They do not feel as strong as she and her constituents claim to feel.

[Victoria Atkins]

I can only give the hon. Lady reassurance. As someone who used to prosecute criminals for a living before I came to this place, any defendant who tried that on in court would get very short shrift from me and, I am sure, from the jury. We must not allow people who behave in such a disgraceful way—criminals who beat up other people on the basis of their religion or beliefs—to remove themselves from that by blaming someone on a different continent. If they beat up a Muslim on the streets of Britain, that is their responsibility and no one else’s.

One of the values that best sums up our country is the freedom to exchange thoughts and ideas within the law—the freedom to persuade or rebut; the freedom to inspire or eviscerate in argument; the freedom to speak; and the freedom to listen. That freedom is not always comfortable. Indeed, my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax) and for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) referred to the rising problem in some of our universities about allowing free speech and providing safe spaces for it, for fear that people may be offended, but the freedom of speech must mean that we will sometimes be offended. It means allowing those whose views we hold to be unedifying to speak their minds. Crucially, it also means the freedom to reply—to say, “No, Donald Trump, you are wrong, and you are wrong for the following reasons.” That freedom was hard won over centuries and it must be defended jealously, because it goes to the essence of democracy and the rule of law.

Opposition Members may rely on the argument of consistency—indeed, one Member said, “So-and-so has been excluded, so Mr Trump must be excluded.” Let us remind ourselves of the threshold that must be met for that to happen. The Home Secretary must conclude that the person’s presence in the United Kingdom is not conducive to the public good.

The House of Commons Library helpfully provided a briefing paper for the debate, which gives 14 examples of people who had been excluded by Labour Home Secretaries by May 2009. Of those, 10 were considered to be engaging in “unacceptable behaviour” by seeking to foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence. Nine were considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour in order to provoke others to commit terrorist acts or serious crimes. Five were considered to be fostering hatred that might lead to inter-community violence in the UK and one had spent 30 years in prison for killing four soldiers and a four-year-old girl.

I ask a simple question of those who would ban Donald Trump: are they really saying that his conduct, no matter how offensive it may be, meets those criteria? If Donald Trump poses any question for us as a country, the answer is not to fuel his publicity by talking about banning him—incidentally, this debate is doing that nicely—but to rebut his arguments. The answer is to challenge him in a robust, democratic argument on why he is wrong about the contribution of American and British Muslims to this country.

[Tulip Siddiq]

The hon. Lady cites 14 cases of people who have been banned. Has she considered the 84 hate preachers who are banned? If so, she will see that there is a striking resemblance between what was said by Donald Trump and by two bloggers who were banned two years ago by the Conservative Home Secretary. Will she comment on whether the same should apply to Donald Trump?

[Victoria Atkins]

Forgive me, but I have already answered that. The House of Commons Library paper, as I think most people would accept, is a neutral document and those were its examples. I used every single one of the 14 examples given, and they are in a very different category from what Donald Trump has said on this issue and many others.

Finally, I will deal with the point raised by my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). In a recent Republican debate, Ted Cruz accused Donald Trump of having New York values. Both of them would be enriched by the values of my constituents in New York and beyond, who are hard-working, generous and welcoming. They may be rather bemused that we are fuelling that man’s publicity machine by having the debate at all.

Policing

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Julie Cooper]

As my speech progresses, the hon. Gentleman will see that I do not accept what he says.

There is no doubt that these reductions are impacting on crime levels and on the public perception of crime. Now, worryingly, crime is on the increase in some areas of Lancashire. Sexual offences, burglary and violent crime are all showing significant increases. In addition to that, and very importantly, the nature of crime is changing, and we ignore that at our peril. Cybercrime is growing at a phenomenal rate. A person is now more likely to be mugged online than in the street. Added to that, an ever-increasing amount of police time is spent countering terrorism and tackling child exploitation. Such crimes are more complex to investigate and place a massive demand on police resources. Bearing that in mind, I am hugely concerned by the further proposed cut to Lancashire’s policing budget. Under the new funding formula, the cut to Lancashire would be an additional £24.5 million.

I understand that savings must be made, but a reduction of that magnitude is particularly hard to stomach when the same formula proposes significant increases in funding for several other police authorities.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

Yesterday, in the Home Affairs Committee we had the privilege of meeting, among others, the chief constable of Lancashire police. I asked him why he has a reserve of £65.3 million. Would that money not be better spent on front-line policing to cover the situation described by the hon. Lady?

[Julie Cooper]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that matter. The reserve is a result of prudent policing and developing new tactics to adapt to changing crime. It is about responsible policing.

There is no doubt that less delivers less, and Lancashire’s police constable has put his concerns on record. He talked about what would happen if the cuts went ahead. He said:

“Lancashire Constabulary will no longer be able to keep the public safe.”

Surely, when the police constable believes that cuts at the proposed level will mean that he cannot guarantee to keep the public safe, it is time to take notice. This is about not politics, but the safety of the people of Lancashire.

Last year, Lancashire police responded to more than 90,000 crimes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

8. What steps her Department is taking to tackle extremism.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

11. What steps her Department is taking to tackle extremism.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

14. What steps her Department is taking to tackle extremism.

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[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue. The counter-extremism strategy will introduce comprehensive measures to stop extremism spreading. Extremism disruption orders were announced in the Queen’s Speech, and we will also tackle extremist ideology head on in a number of ways, promoting opportunities that life offers to people living in our pluralistic society in Britain, and confronting the extremists’ twisted narrative. We will work with others across the Government, including my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor in the Ministry of Justice, to consider what actions can be taken in prisons to tackle extremism.

[Victoria Atkins]

Notwithstanding the dreadful events of the past two weeks, does my right hon. Friend agree that we must tackle extremism across the board, and not focus only on Islamist extremism?

Border Management (Calais)

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was merely saying that I think this country can be proud of the contribution we have made to help to deal with the Syrian refugee crisis.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

I welcome the measures the Home Secretary is taking to tackle the problems in Calais. Do we not need to work on the longer-term problem of illegal immigrants trying to find their way into Europe and into this country? What measures is the Home Secretary taking to tackle this long-term issue?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to ensure that we deal not with the symptoms of the problem—people arriving at Calais and trying to get into the UK—but the origin of the issue. We need to work with the countries of origin on the provision of support such that people can have a better life: a better economy and the stability to ensure that they are less likely to wish to move to Europe. We must also ensure that we catch the criminals, the people smugglers, who are helping people on their way. They take people’s money and then put them into dangerous conditions on the sea. We must break that link, so people see that paying out that money will not actually get them to Europe.

Anderson Report

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear that I take a different view from him on the communications data capabilities of the security and intelligence agencies and of law enforcement. These are important powers and it is clear that those powers are degrading, so the ability of law enforcement to catch paedophiles and serious criminals has been reduced, as has the ability of our agencies to deal with the matters they deal with.

The right hon. Gentleman refers to web logs. In the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, we took one step to increase the capabilities of the agencies in respect of IP addresses, but it remains the case that not all those IP addresses can be recognised and reconciled because of the inability to introduce the further legislation that his party blocked when we were in coalition.

Finally, it is not the case that that legislation was about investigating, mapping or monitoring the web browsing habits of 40 million citizens every week of the year. That is a complete misdescription of what was proposed, and I suggest that if the right hon. Gentleman wants a proper debate, he stops using those terms.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

In my previous life, I prosecuted criminals for a living and I relied on evidence obtained under RIPA to convict the guilty. What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the importance of communications data in the fight against terrorism and serious organised crime, including helping those who prosecute criminals to bring them to justice in court?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing her experience to this House. It is important that people recognise that this is not just a debate about what this House puts into legislation; it is a debate about the powers that our agencies have and the ability prosecutors then have to bring people to justice. Some 95% of serious and organised crime investigations make use of communications data, and such information is essential for prosecution in many of those cases. I am sorry that the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) is not in the Chamber today, because in his former incarnation as Director of Public Prosecutions, he was clear about the importance of communications data not only in investigating but in prosecuting criminals.