Immigration and Home Affairs

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

May I start by sending my congratulations and those of my party to the hon. and right hon. Members who have been elected today, the hon. Members for Sussex Weald (Ms Ghani) and for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) and the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes)? I congratulate them all; I am sure they will fulfil their roles as Deputy Speakers with great integrity and honour.

I turn briefly to some of the maiden speeches, of which there have been the most extraordinary number. I am grateful to have sat through many of them, although perhaps not all. My hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden) brings fantastic previous service to the House, although I hope he is not bitten by another dog. I must also pay tribute to his wife Caroline’s courage and his campaign. I also cite the hon. Member for Worthing West (Dr Cooper), who is not shy of a cake. Although that may not be the public service or public health message that she wishes to bring, it is one that I share. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Gateshead Central and Whickham (Mark Ferguson) highlighted the Glasshouse, which is indeed at the cultural heart of our nation. The hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) gave a moving account of a tragic loss, and his campaign for recognising baby loss is one that will be backed across the whole House. The hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) surprised us all by actually discussing the subject of the debate.

The direct access of the hon. Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) to the Chancellor will no doubt raise huge hopes in her constituency. The addiction of the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) to ice cream suggests that he should team up with the hon. Member for Darlington. I suggest they might one day be friends.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White) does belong here, no matter what she says and no matter what anybody else says. The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) taught us the meaning of pier envy, which was a new one on me. The baby girl of the hon. Member for Barking (Nesil Caliskan) will no doubt bring enormous joy, but if my experience is anything to go by, enormous sleepless nights, too. No doubt she too will be voting in the Lobby very soon.

I must pay enormous tribute to the work of the hon. Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) in healthcare. As a child I was a frequent flyer and user of the William Harvey hospital, so I am grateful that he continues to serve in that community. The hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam) hid a king or found one—I am not sure quite which. The hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) made a passionate defence of the need for domestic energy production, and I share that view enormously. I am sorry he does not share it with the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband), but perhaps he will inform him better.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) had kind words to say about our friend Alex Chalk, who served the House and that constituency with great integrity and decency. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) recalled the last battle on British soil and is now seeking to power our country with nuclear energy. As he will know well, this country only ever builds nuclear power stations under a Conservative Government.

The hon. Member for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker) committed to work on disabilities, and that sentiment will be shared by many here. The campaigning technique of the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) is undoubtedly original. The hon. Member for Coatbridge and Bellshill (Frank McNally) can only hope to break the track record of getting a second term in that seat, and even those of us on the Opposition Benches might be supportive of that.

The history of piracy of the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) will no doubt worry the Whips something rotten. I am sure she will fail to put them at their ease—certainly not so early in the Parliament. The fashion advice of the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) would be welcomed by those of us who missed the 1960s, but he no doubt will be contributing. I thank him for his kind words to our friend Greg Hands, who served the constituency so well.

I turn to the King’s Speech, rather than the maiden speeches—the King, after all, has given one himself. Sadly he did not choose his own words, and I am not sure they were the ones he would have chosen. It is, however, as ever a pleasure to be speaking across the Dispatch Box from the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), and I wish her the very best of luck in her new role. Becoming a Labour Immigration Minister must be a strange experience. After all, Barbara Roche, one of her predecessors, wrote that she was “appalled” to be appointed Immigration Minister in the Blair Government. One of Barbara’s contemporaries, David Blunkett, famously said that there was “no obvious limit” to the number of migrants who could settle in the United Kingdom. I suspect we will not get such frank honesty from this Prime Minister or this Home Secretary. However, in their hearts I suspect that neither of them truly believes in controlling legal and illegal migration.

The hon. Member for Wallasey has my sympathy. It cannot be easy to defend a Government who have already scrapped the deterrents that worked, lost the commander of the border strategy unit and now all but offered an amnesty. Oh dear, these days are difficult, are they not? No doubt she has already read the advice of her frontline officers, because the National Crime Agency was extremely clear. It has been tasked by that Government to tackle criminal gangs, but it has already said that we need an effective deterrence agreement, and since it has publicly pointed out that no country has ever stopped people trafficking upstream in foreign countries without a deportation scheme, I am certain that it will not have minced its words in private.

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Dame Angela Eagle)]

rose—

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Lady will get plenty of time in just a moment.

Despite that, the Home Secretary has promised the British people results and urged us to put faith in her plans. I have long heard and listened to the right hon. Lady, who has been a friend for many years, so let me ask the question put yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). If, God forbid, the Home Secretary is wrong and the numbers rise—I know; wonders will never happen—what will she do? Will she take responsibility and resign, or will she reach for the old Blair-Brown playbook that is the golden thread running through the King’s Speech and instead farm out the blame, set up a new quango, pretend it is not her problem and hope that it all goes away?

I am sorry to tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that having listened to the debates over the last few days, it seems that Labour’s approach to illegal immigration is absolutely typical of how it plans to govern. This is a Government who will be overbearing when they should stand back and absent when they should stand tall. They will be too hesitant in defending our country from her enemies abroad, too controlling—or uncontrolling—of our borders, failing to protect decent people from criminals. But they will be all too willing to creep into every corner of our personal lives. This is a Government who seem determined to prioritise left-wing ideology over the interests of the British people; I am afraid that is what Labour does.

That is what is happening in education, where the Government are rolling back the quiet revolution that has made our schools some of the best in the western hemisphere; in energy, where they claim that they will reduce bills by creating an energy company that does not generate energy; and in skills, where the best they can offer a generation that aspires is another bloated regulator. Those are the policies of a Government who value jobs for bureaucrats over results and ideological purity over the wellbeing of the British people.

I am afraid that the economy cannot afford such ideology. We need honesty in the challenges that we face. Despite the Chancellor’s attempts to talk down the position that she has found herself in, that is indeed what she has inherited. Despite the selective memories on the Government Benches, we know the facts. We have the lowest inflation and the fastest-growing economy of any G7 country, the deficit is down, unemployment is down and the economy is growing, all despite a global pandemic and a war raging in Europe. That recovery is now at risk. Labour talks about growth, but businesses are already groaning at the proposed increase in regulation that the Government are proposing and are fearful of the tax rises that we are all expecting from the Chancellor and that she is effectively rolling the carpet for this autumn.

The changes in workplace regulations will not protect new employees; they will simply put businesses off hiring them. The trouble with Labour’s plans is that we know that however well-meaning they are, they always lead to the same outcome. While Conservatives see industry as the source of our prosperity, Labour just views it as something to be taxed. It thinks that entrepreneurs are not grafters but greedy, and it cannot see that drive and energy bring opportunity to a whole community, not just to an individual or a company.

To that, I say this. Just as our security should not be taken for granted, neither should our wealth or prosperity. No one owes us a living or a good life. If we punish those who create jobs and make it harder or more expensive to run a business, this country will get poorer. It will not happen overnight; it will creep up on us, with investments not made, business ideas not taken forward and entrepreneurs moved abroad. Little by little, those good intentions will lead to well-predicted consequences. Where we should be going for growth, Labour is designing a state of stagnation.

The direction that the Government have chosen to take is all too clear: a state that is weak on defence, weak on protecting our borders and weak on maintaining order, whether in schools or on the streets. Yet, that state presumes to tell us how to live our lives, offering us less choice about how we educate our children, run our businesses, rent our homes and do our jobs. In only a few weeks, the Government have already shown themselves unable to commit to the steps needed to keep us safe, unable to secure our borders and unwilling to let the British economy thrive.

The Labour party talks a good game, but actions speak louder than words, and its actions so far have been those of a party determined to put ideology over this country’s interests.

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Dame Angela Eagle)]

Hon. Members would not think that the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) was in the Government that presided over a Parliament in which living standards were lower at the end than at the beginning. They would not think that this is a man who presided over a hash of a Government that had eight Home Secretaries, five Prime Ministers and 10 Education Secretaries all within a few years. To listen to him, hon. Members would think that he was still on the Government Benches, lecturing us about the fantastic record that his party has delivered for this country when, actually, he has just lost an election by a landslide.

It is a great pleasure to respond to this debate on the King’s Speech. We have had a fascinating debate, of the type that we can only really have at the beginning of a Parliament, particularly a landslide Parliament where the Government have changed. We have had 20 maiden speeches today, which means that we have had 68 over the past five days of the debate on the King’s Speech. From listening to the contributions from all sides of the House that we have been privileged to hear today, I know that in this Parliament the new Members on the Government Benches will drive the Government forwards, and those on the Opposition Benches will hold them to account. I certainly look forward to being a part of it.

I congratulate all those Members who have made their maiden speeches today, including the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden), who was the police and crime commissioner in his area. My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Dr Cooper) explained how beautiful her constituency is and how she was trying to make it even more sustainable. Her commitment to equity and public health shone through. My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead Central and Whickham (Mark Ferguson), an old mate of mine, made Gateshead sound as interesting as I knew it was. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) mentioned Janet Anderson, one of his predecessors, who came to the House when I first arrived. His comments on the Boundary Commission were heard with empathy across the entire House.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who came in and did his usual. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy), who paid tribute to her predecessor Peter Gibson, who is a particularly good friend and had many friends across the House, who were all sad to lose him. She gave us another gastronomic tour of her constituency. Not being able to eat at all while listening to the debate, and listening to 20 maiden speeches with massive amounts of information about the food offering in those constituencies, has been a bit of a torture for me.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), who also did the food thing. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White) told us she is proud of her parents, and her insights into working class aspirations and success will have struck many a chord on the Government Benches. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde), who I learned is one of seven Joshes who have flooded into the House of Commons after the election. He presented us with a particular nightmare of actually defeating the teacher who taught him when he was 15. That would be a nightmare for any of the teachers on the Labour Benches. Just be careful who you teach at school—you never know what might happen in future.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Nesil Caliskan), who made a fitting tribute to her predecessor, the right hon. Margaret Hodge, who is a particular friend and inspiration for a lot of us. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) made a superb speech. We heard from the hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam). My hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) was particularly fast in talking about his transferrable skills as a golf professional, and transferring them over to being an MP. We look forward to claret jugs arriving to ensure he can make friends of us all.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) was particularly thoughtful about Alex Chalk, whom he defeated and who, again, was well liked across the House. We also heard from the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox). My hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker) talked about the differences between the Scottish Parliament and this Parliament. I am sure he will continue to see differences as they emerge, but he is right that this place is indeed older and more complex. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) made a very good maiden speech, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Bellshill (Frank McNally). Last but my no means least, my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) had to wait over six hours to make her contribution and did not waste a word of it. They all showed that the House continues to go from strength to strength.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will have heard the concern across the House about the Conservatives’ two-child cap on benefits. Because it exists, in the past year alone 3,000 women have had to fill in a form to admit to the Department for Work and Pensions that they have been raped and had a child that was non-consensual. That is more than the number of rape convictions under the last Government. Can she assure us that that form and that approach has no future under this Labour Government?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The work of the taskforce on child poverty is beginning. All aspects of the mess the Conservatives left us with, including that disgraceful clause, will be looked at.

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I am very happy to give way, but could the right hon. Gentleman hurry up? I’m very close to the end of my speech.

[Stephen Flynn]

I thank the Minister for giving way. Can she perhaps clarify to the House why a taskforce is required to delete the appalling and abhorrent rape clause? Can she clarify that any Labour MP who votes for the SNP amendment tonight will not lose the Labour Whip?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I am not a Whip, so I am not going to clarify what will happen. I am doing a difficult enough job as it is without trying to become the entire Labour Whips Office.

We have to turn the page and move on from the last period that we have all lived through. The Gracious Speech is the first Labour programme for government in 14 years and it is an exciting and ambitious programme. There are 40 Bills on topics ranging from clean energy through to economic stability and the Hillsborough law. It is a programme as ambitious for the country as the British people are, a programme that lays out a vision for a brighter, better future: to establish GB Energy to bring down energy bills; an employment rights Bill to end fire and rehire, and strengthen sick pay for workers; reforms to bus franchising to deliver local transport; regulation of water companies to clean up rivers, lakes and seas; and critical measures to strengthen Britain’s border security and improve policing across the country, two of this Government’s core missions. That is the change for which Britain voted on 4 July. It is a King’s Speech to be proud of, it is a King’s Speech to deliver, and I commend it to the House.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Investigatory Powers (Amendment)Bill [Lords]

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 25th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

It is a privilege to open debate on Report of this important Bill. At the outset, it is worth reiterating that Labour supports the Bill, which updates aspects of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. That is because it is imperative that legal frameworks are updated to ensure that our police and security services keep up with changes to communications technology. Doing so ensures that they are always one step ahead of criminals and malign forces who seek to harm us and undermine our national security.

I hope the Minister, and all Members who were present in Committee, agree with me that we had a constructive debate, testing the Bill’s proportionality and robustness. Some matters relating to third-party bulk personal datasets and the oversight process for the addition of new BPDs to existing category authorisations have been largely resolved to the satisfaction of Labour Members, but other important matters still need to be addressed. I will speak first about the new clauses and amendments that stand in my name, before dealing with some of those tabled by other Members.

New clause 1 seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State publishes an annual report on the engagement between the Prime Minister and the Intelligence and Security Committee regarding the investigatory powers regime. A very similar amendment was tabled in Committee, but was withdrawn after a lengthy debate on the ISC oversight arrangements did not make any meaningful progress despite helpful contributions from my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). We tabled this new clause because the Government must recognise that the ISC has a vital role to play in the democratic oversight of some of the most powerful measures that the state has at its disposal to keep us safe, to intercept communications and to interfere with equipment.

The ISC is and should be the only Committee of Parliament that can appropriately hold a Prime Minister to account on investigatory powers. There must be accountability at the highest level, and the Prime Minister is no exception. However, many Members, not least members of the ISC, know that this important mechanism is not just broken but has stopped working altogether. Not since 2014 has a Prime Minister appeared before the Committee, but, when asked about successive Prime Ministers’ lack of appearance, the Minister said that such decisions were above his pay grade. That might well be true, at least for now, so if the Minister cannot commit himself to reinstating the convention of Prime Ministers’ appearing before the Committee, the new clause would, at the very minimum, ensure that this new convention of non-attendance is reviewed annually, and scrutinised by this House and the other place. I therefore give notice of our intention to push the new clause to a vote.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not above the Minister’s pay grade to be able to confirm that the conventions and arrangements that give the ISC a particular constitutional place in the way our system works ought to operate, even if they have not done so for the last 10 years? Does he, like me, look forward to being able to hear the Minister—rather than dismissing this important concern about the dereliction of a constitutional duty—give us an assurance that this will be the case in the future?

[Dan Jarvis]

My hon. Friend has made an important point, and one with which I suspect the overwhelming majority of Members would agree.

--- Later in debate ---

Every time we have doubt and fear when facing the wicked people who seek to do us harm and who took the lives of our dear colleagues, we give them solace. Every time we stand firm, and do what is necessary to defend our nation and its people, we do what is right. The Minister has the great privilege of leading that effort tonight, and in doing so he should have the support of all men and women of good will across this House.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), and indeed all the fellow members of the ISC who have spoken on both sides of the House in our debate on seeking to improve this important piece of legislation. I must say that it is very rare, when one is called towards the end of a debate, for there to have been concessions on most of the areas at issue, leaving very little else to say. It makes me happy that I did not write my speech in advance, since I would have had to rip most of it up following the Security Minister’s very welcome concessions on a range of issues during our debate. They are on the record, and they are indeed extremely welcome.

However, there is one area of detail that I want to comment on, which is about the triple lock amendment—amendment 22—on the qualifications and experience of the Secretaries of State who, under the widening of the triple lock, could if the Prime Minister of the day is incapacitated for some reason, be drawn into making a warrant to intercept the communications of a Member of this Parliament, or indeed a Member of any of the devolved legislatures in the UK. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) was very explicit about why that particular protection should be in existence, and I completely agree with his analysis. One of the ways we defend our democracy is by allowing Members of Parliament to do their unique jobs without interference unless it is for an exceptional and a very good reason, and has been authorised at the highest level.

There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing while the Bill has been going through its parliamentary stages about precisely how this widening of the power to make such a warrant away from the Prime Minister, if he or she is indisposed or unable to be near secure communications, should actually be defined. We have got down to the stage where everybody agrees that to make the system robust there should be an expansion, and we have even come up with a number of Secretaries of State—five—who should be authorised in such exceptional circumstances to make that warrant.

We are now down to the last piece of disagreement between the ISC and the Minister, which is about what the qualifications of those Secretaries of State should be. In seeking to try to draw out precisely what the Government mean, we have asked as a Committee that the relevant Secretaries of State who may be down to do this duty ought already to be responsible for warrantry, or have had previous responsibility for it. Thus far, however, the Government and the Minister have been unwilling to be that deliberate in the arrangements they have made.

As the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) said in his contribution to the debate, the only qualification apart from being a Secretary of State that the Government appear to have admitted is that the person standing in for the Prime Minister ought to have had a 20-minute security briefing about warrantry.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me that this is so important, because the Secretary of State will be acting as the Prime Minister at that time? Once that decision has been taken—even though we now have the commitment from the Minister that the Prime Minister will be told, not should be told—they will not be able to overturn or review it in any way, so that person is acting as the Prime Minister at that stage.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes, and it is clearly important that there is a reassurance that the Secretary of State who is picked to do that job in these exceptional circumstances will either have previous experience of being responsible for warrantry and issuing warrants, or have current experience. I do not see why the Security Minister cannot concede that that is where we should be. I do not understand why, over all of the parliamentary time spent on this Bill, the Government have not been able to give us that assurance, which just shores up the important nature of the commitment to widening the triple lock.

Clearly, the Minister’s very welcome decision to make the concession on amendment 23, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) has just pointed out, strengthens the situation, because that means the Prime Minister will have to be notified of such a warrant. However, my right hon. Friend is also correct in pointing out that the warrant cannot be rescinded if it has already been granted. I therefore gently ask the Security Minister whether he will not take the opportunity, in responding to the debate, to give the ISC members and the public we all represent the reassurance that the Secretaries of State who may have this power delegated to them either will already be responsible for warranting, or will have previously had responsibility for warranting. I do not understand why he cannot just get up and give us that final assurance. If he does, I think we will have done extremely well on Report and in Committee. I am rather disappointed that the Minister is not leaping to his feet, since he has been leaping to his feet a lot while my colleagues have been making their speeches. I see no such flicker in him as I am making mine. I suspect and hope that that is because he is just thinking about how he will wind up the debate and give us that final assurance that we need.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The measure is doable, because we are not asking for something in the Bill; it could be done in the guidance. The Minister has already agreed on changing the “should” to “will”, so this measure could be reflected in the guidance that goes alongside the Bill.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I can see that the Minister is looking pensive, so I hope that means he is thinking of some way to reassure us on this final, important point with respect to the triple lock and the widening of those powers to other Ministers who are not the Prime Minister.

The whole debate around the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill demonstrates that when threats evolve, the requirement to meet them also has to evolve. We know that this area is rapidly developing, and we know also that we will probably be back in the not-too-distant future to see how these powers can be changed again to defend our democracy and meet some of the threats of serious organised crime and terrorism, which our security forces help us deal with day in, day out. We also know that if our citizens are to give us effective permission and consent to take some of these powers, any increase in powers has to be accompanied by an increase in proper oversight, to reassure them that democracy is being defended, not undermined. That includes oversight by the ISC, which is why I am a big supporter of new clause 1 as tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). It is important that that can be an ongoing reassurance.

I do not want to repeat a lot of the arguments made by colleagues, and it is important now to listen to what the Minister has to say. I thank him for the concessions he has made, and I hope he can make just a slight move towards us on the warrantry issue in the instance of the triple lock, so that we can be even more content than we are now.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I rise to speak to amendments 15, 20 and 22, and Government amendments 3 and 6. I highlight that the investments declared in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests include a data company.

The intelligence services carry out vital work in keeping us safe in a dangerous world, as we have heard from many colleagues this evening. The secrecy that surrounds what the agencies do inevitably means that the majority of people who work for them will never receive public praise or recognition, so I take this opportunity to thank them for their brave and dedicated efforts on our behalf. This Bill provides important updates to the law to enable them to operate effectively and to adapt to fast-moving technological change and innovation. This kind of update to legislation will be essential again and again in years to come to enable our intelligence services to keep ahead of those who would seek to do us harm. For example—this is at the heart of what we are doing today—it makes no sense to require, as the current law does, that the intelligence services undertake the full range of actions designed for holding sensitive, confidential and private information when dealing with datasets that are readily available to the public or to commercial users and over which there is little or no expectation of privacy.

Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill [Lords]

Angela Eagle Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The simple truth of the matter is that I disagree. In legislation of this nature, maintaining consistency of language with previous relevant legislation, including the Intelligence Services Act 1994, is incredibly important to clarity of intent. I recognise that the right hon. Gentleman has given thought to this, and we do not disregard his point, but we have thought through the importance of consistency of language, which is why we have maintained it.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

A general listener to our proceedings might worry that the new powers could be used for fishing expeditions, rather than the very specific powers that they replace. Could the Home Secretary give some words of reassurance from the Dispatch Box that the broadening of bulk data collection without specific dates will not be used for fishing expeditions, which might affect the privacy of ordinary citizens who have done nothing wrong?

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Lady makes an important point, but the powers could be applied to any bulk dataset collection, of which she knows there are many across Government. Provisions are in place to ensure that innocent people’s data is not held but deleted, and that our security services and other organisations that will utilise these powers always do so carefully and cautiously. There are relevant safeguards in place, as I have made reference to—the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and the tribunal—if there is wrongdoing. The proposals are put forward for a very specific reason. The Government have given thought to mission creep and broader expansion, and we feel that this is a modest extension that will give significantly greater protection to the British people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

In common with all the speakers who have made their contributions thus far on Second Reading of the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill, I will not say that I oppose the Bill or that these powers should not exist or be updated in this rapidly developing area of technology. As others have observed, the rapidly evolving technology is creating threats about which we could not have dreamed when the original Act was introduced after an ISC report on privacy and security in 2015. Although the issues are evolving, some things stay the same, namely that in a democracy it is important that the security services and all the agencies, whether they relate to police or security, can be held to account by the democratic structures that are created to make our democracy real.

I emphasise a point that has not been stressed by others: we are living through an era during which authoritarian governments across the world are beginning to challenge the openness of democratic structures and test whether those who live in a democracy have the political will to maintain their democracy, keep it vibrant and protect it from threats. Against that background of being challenged—we do not have to look much further than Europe and the borders of Ukraine to see how some of those challenges are beginning to develop—we are being asked whether we rate the health and strength of our democracy enough to protect it. We are also being asked, which is the nature of this debate, to justify the powers we are giving to the security and police services to our constituents and those citizens of our country who wish to see their democracy protected, as well as having a proper balance between democratic oversight safety and the powers we give our security services to do their jobs.

As others have mentioned, there is a balance between the effectiveness and speed of those powers and the safeguards that this Parliament puts in place in order to ensure that there is proper oversight and use of them. We have heard how that balance and safeguarding has been developed in law. We are looking now at amendments to the existing law in order to update and modernise those powers to make them more effective, efficient and easier to use, and to ensure protecting our security, be it from criminality, terrorism, paedophilia or state actors who wish to our country harm, is balanced correctly with safeguards, openness and transparency oversight. Then we can protect our society and values, while respecting the privacy of every individual citizen who enjoys the freedom of living in our democracy.

The Bill seeks an expansion in investigatory powers and some of those powers available to agencies to deal with the evolution of this area. Our job, not only in the debate tonight, but in the scrutiny of this Bill in Committee, is to test and ask the appropriate questions about whether the right balance has been struck by Ministers and the relevant agencies in the extra powers that they want to introduce. As the newest member of the ISC, I believe that, as the investigatory powers evolve, it is also important that the powers of the Intelligence and Security Committee to do its job in these new areas are properly developed and resourced. I shall just leave that on the record. It is not a surprise to those who have read the Lords debates that this is an issue.

I draw attention to an area of the Bill where amendments were agreed in the Lords: what is known as the triple lock, rather than the double lock. That is the mechanism that protects the communications of Members of this Parliament and other relevant legislatures from being arbitrarily intercepted by agencies for no reason. In fact, it is part of the protection that one would expect in a robust democracy for those people who are elected to represent their constituents. They have a reasonable expectation, I think, to be allowed to go about their business without being subjected to that kind of intrusive power, unless there is an extremely good reason for it. Members will know that the underlying principle is that the communications of Members of this Parliament and other relevant legislators should be intercepted and read only where it is absolutely essential to do so—in the most serious of circumstances. In the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, which this Bill will change, Parliament recognised that that was an issue by adding a third layer of safeguards to the approval process for warrants for targeted interception and targeted examination of communications. Those warrants are issued only by a Secretary of State and reviewed by a judicial commissioner, which is the double lock, but they are also approved by the Prime Minister personally. As my right hon. Friend said from the Dispatch Box, there is an issue if the Prime Minister is unavailable to do that. It is important that there is not a gap in security protection, which would happen if the Prime Minister is unable to be the third part of that triple lock.

Nobody disagrees with the idea that that process should be made more robust, but there is also an issue about how wide the power to issue that final approval—currently, that final approval rests only with the Prime Minister—should go. There were debates about that when the Bill went through its stages in the other place. The question of balance is how the new Bill deals with ensuring that the triple lock is robust while not creating a lacuna should the Prime Minister be indisposed and unable to issue warrants without that power going too wide. The ISC supports the intention behind this, which is to provide resilience around the current arrangements. It is important that the Prime Minister is the person who approves these things, but this may affect the operations of the intelligence agencies when they are seeking a targeted interference or a time-sensitive warrant. None the less, there was agreement that, in truly exceptional circumstances, it may be appropriate for a Secretary of State to temporarily deputise for the Prime Minister. The Committee considered that it was important that decisions in this area should be delegated only in the most exceptional circumstances, and delegated only to a limited number of Secretaries of State who are already responsible for authorising relevant warrants. We want the Prime Minister to retain sight of all warrants relating to Members of a relevant legislature. Most of that was agreed in the other place, although there is an issue about whether the relevant Secretaries of State—there can be up to five of those—are ones that already issue warrants.

[Mr Jones]

I was a little taken aback that the Home Secretary just assumed that, once these had been agreed by a substitute, they would automatically be reviewed by the Prime Minister. Clearly, that is a big assumption. Does my hon. Friend not think that it would be better if we put it in the Bill that the Prime Minister had full oversight of this warrant?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Clearly, putting such things in the Bill is often an important safeguard. Certainly, I do not understand why the delegation of these powers should not be limited to Secretaries of State who also issue warrants. I do not quite understand why there is an obsession with five Secretaries of State. We could have four and still have robust oversight.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Is the hon. Lady aware that the Wilson doctrine is still in operation? This came about in the ’60s and ’70s when Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister of the day, gave an undertaking to this House that the mail of Members of Parliament would not be routinely tapped; it would happen only in exceptional circumstances. All this triple lock is doing is putting that doctrine on to a statutory footing.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. Obviously, the Wilson doctrine is in the previous Investigatory Powers Act. However, given what happened with the incapacity of the Prime Minister during the covid pandemic, we are seeking to tweak it. It seems sensible to do so, but we need to tweak it in a way that is as narrow as possible to ensure that there is no lacuna in protection.

I wonder why this idea of five Secretaries of State is so important. I also wonder why we cannot restrict the Secretaries of State who could operate in place of the Prime Minister in this very particular circumstance to those Secretaries of State who also issue warrants, and why that cannot be on the face of the Bill. I hope that, in his response, the Minister might have some contribution to make about why the Government are sticking on this particular issue, given that everyone understands how important it is to have resilience. But the resilience that the ISC is seeking is slightly stricter than that which the Government seem to wish to grant. It would be helpful for Committee stage if the Minister explained why that is.

It is important that our discussions on particular bits of the Bill, which we will have in Committee, are seen in the context of a widespread acknowledgement that we need to ensure that the investigatory powers to which the Bill relates are updated, and continue to evolve, to make them relevant, and efficient and effective to use. At the same time, any expansion in investigatory powers must have particular safeguards and oversight in a democratic country, so that we can assure our constituents that it is being done in the interests of preserving our democracy and ensuring that we can protect the population from growing and ever-evolving threats, be they of terrorism, state actors or crime, and that their human rights and rights to privacy are still appropriately protected with proper oversight, which of course the ISC is an important part of.

Hate Crime Against the LGBT+ Community

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be in this debate with you in the Chair, Ms Cummins. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) for securing the debate on hate crimes against LGBT+ people as part of National Hate Crime Awareness Week.

I recognise that there is a rising trend of hate crime across the board, as our society becomes more divided. Those politicians who seek to peddle the politics of blame and division have a great deal of responsibility on their hands. We have seen a rise in that kind of politics across the globe, and sadly in some areas of our country. Today at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister said that

“the words we say here have an impact beyond this House.”

We have seen that sometimes global issues have an effect on levels of hate crime for other reasons, and we are conscious of that today.

We are also conscious of some others. Problematising members of the community, particularly trans members of the LGBT community, othering them, and perpetrating discourse that casts them as a threat and a danger to children—the usual tropes that many who are old enough and have been involved in politics as long as I have remember from the 1980s—can end only with one effect. It is the effect that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth outlined effectively in his speech, and that we have heard about in other contributions: a massive increase in hate crime on the basis of sexual orientation in the past five years, up 112%. Hate crime against trans people is up 186%. In Merseyside, where my constituency of Wallasey is, hate crime based on sexual orientation is up 162%, and against trans people it is up 1,033%.

I ask the Minister what the Government are planning to do, given that six Cabinet Ministers took to the podium to rail against the trans community and so-called gender ideology and wokeism at the recent Conservative party conference? The Home Secretary’s speech was

“a signal to people who don’t like people who are LGBT+ people.”

Those are not my words; they are the words of the Conservative chair of the London Assembly as he was being thrown out of that conference. Let us get a grip. Let us remember that real people are involved. When hate crimes rise it ruins lives. Let us do something about it and let us unite to do so.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Hillsborough Families Report: National Police Response

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

A duty of co-operation on police in relation to inquiries was set out in the professional standards for policing in 2020. We will respond to the wider duty of candour, to which point of learning 14 in the bishop’s report referred, along with everything else, shortly.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

The Minister speaks from the Dispatch Box for not only his Department, but the entire Government. I would have expected him to know what the approach of the Ministry of Justice to the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend and sister the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) on Friday would be before he came here. Will he at least say from the Dispatch Box that when he leaves the Chamber, he will go to the Ministry of Justice and get permission from them to ensure that on Friday, my hon. Friend and sister’s Bill, which provides for an independent public advocate, will be let into Committee and not be blocked, so that the clauses that the Ministry of Justice is currently drafting can be incorporated into the Bill in Committee? We have a legislative vehicle, we could do it now, and he could enhance his reputation. We have a legislative vehicle, we could do it now, and he could enhance his reputation.

[Chris Philp]

I would be very happy to convey the hon. Lady’s request to my Ministry of Justice colleagues.

Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

We take extremely seriously our duty of care towards children and young people who are in the system. As I said, there are delays in the system because of the extortionate amount of cases due to be processed. We are working to prioritise applications from children and young people where possible. We want to increase overall decision making, numbers and capacity, so that children are processed far more quickly than others.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary has come to the House today and announced to us that the immigration system is broken. Can she tell us who has been in power for the last 12 years?

[Suella Braverman]

I tell you what the British people need to know. They need to know that it was the Labour Government who oversaw mass migration and, effectively, a de facto open borders policy with record levels of immigration to this country. The Labour party would continue to allow uncontrolled borders. It would cancel the Rwanda scheme. It would not take any action to stop illegal migration and it would make a mockery of our borders.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Angela Eagle Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with my hon. Friend that action should have been taken much earlier to address that, which should mean that there is an even greater imperative on us all now to ensure not only that this Bill passes, but that the subsequent economic crime Bill that we badly need is brought forward as swiftly as possible. That is one of the areas where the Opposition have submitted amendments.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend as surprised and worried as I am that the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, which is in the Treasury, has 37.8 full-time equivalent people working in it?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Unless we have the ability to use the powers we have and the powers we are discussing in this Bill, in practice nothing will happen. We know that there is considerably more investment in taking some of these measures in the United States, for example. There are also issues with enforcement resources for the National Crime Agency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

I will come to those figures because I totally agree with my hon. Friend that the rules and new laws must be enforced. We can talk as much as we like, but this is about action, and we are leading the way on action.

This Bill will also reform unexplained wealth orders by removing the key barriers to their use by law enforcement and include amendments to financial sanctions legislation, helping to deter and prevent breaches of sanctions.

Questions have been raised today about why it has taken this long to come up with the legislation. We had prelegislative scrutiny on the register of ownership a couple of years ago, which obviously was interrupted by the pressures of covid on parliamentary time. None the less, that means we have been able to adapt the paragraphs that have already been drafted, undergone prelegislative scrutiny and had a clean bill of health from Committees in this place to the new norm following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We on the Treasury Committee have just published a report on economic crime and some of the evidence we took highlighted a great deal of frustration among those working in this area and trying to make the system work, in particular at the Minister’s Department’s lack of progress with reform of Companies House. That is in the Minister’s own specific bivouac; why has more not been done faster?

[Paul Scully]

I am thinking of the word bailiwick rather than bivouac, but I hope the hon. Lady will agree that our being able to reflect on that legislation and align it with the broader reforms of Companies House that we have subsequently announced has enabled the broader legislation to work together and be more effective. That has been absolutely essential in ensuring that the new requirements are workable and proportionate and the register strikes the right balance between improving transparency and minimising burdens on legitimate commercial activity.

Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his questions. He is right in some cases, but I think in the interests of time, we will come back to some of these points shortly when we discuss the Bill.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab) [V]]

We now live in a country where domestic violence has soared but prosecutions have plummeted, where rape has effectively been decriminalised because prosecutions are at their lowest ever level and where stalking a woman gets a shorter sentence than fly-tipping. This is the record of the Home Secretary and her Government. Is she proud of it?

[Priti Patel]

I refer the hon. Lady to the comments I made earlier, including the fact that I disagree with the points that she has just made.

UK Border: Covid Protections

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab) [V]]

On the day that Office for National Statistics figures show that the UK now has the highest number of covid deaths per million population in the world, and given that currently the isolation assurance service does not check the vast majority of those required to isolate, how can the Home Secretary assure us that enforcement of these new rules will be adequate, and that they will not be more honoured in the breach than the observance?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady has made a very important point. The number of deaths from coronavirus has reached 100,000. Every death is an absolute tragedy. I think that puts this discussion today into some context—a great deal of context, in fact—regarding not only measures but the fact that we are working night and day to reduce the spread of coronavirus. I have highlighted the checks done by the isolation assurance service, but it is not just about that service. It may reassure the hon. Lady to hear that Border Force is now fulfilling 100% of compliance checks, working with airport staff on triaging to bring in those checks and with airports and ports on queues and managing the flows coming in. Those are important measures, but it does come back to the need for compliance, which is why, again, I urge everyone who should not be travelling to please stay at home.

Police National Computer

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend has a background in technology, so it is quite right that he should raise such pertinent questions. On his first question, no, there is no allegation of wrongdoing over and above error. On his second, he is absolutely right that we should be reassured by the fact that this human error was picked up the moment that it ran on the system. The ability to keep deleting items was stopped, and general instructions were sent out to the linked databases to stop them also deleting data, so we caught it pretty much as soon as it was happening. The question now is how quickly we can rectify it.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab) [V]]

If these 400,000 lost records are not recovered, this human error will have an impact on public safety, will it not?

[Kit Malthouse]

We will not know entirely until we have analysed the reports, but early indications were optimistic about recovery, as I say, because data is held elsewhere. If, in some circumstances, data is irrecoverable, we will have to consider other mitigations with policing partners to make sure that we remain as safe as we can in this country.