Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ben Wallace and Yvette Cooper

Monday 29th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend’s suggestion is similar to what already happens through the regional organised crime units. We have injected £140 million in grant funding to help to establish them and to ensure that we put in place the right financial investigators in each region to tackle fraud.

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

Organised crime crosses borders, and the National Crime Agency relies on the European arrest warrant and databases and joint operations with Europol, all of which will fall if we leave the European Union without a deal in place in April. Given that Ireland has repealed its extradition arrangements to do with the previous 1957 convention, will there be any legal way to extradite organised criminals from Dublin if there is no deal?

[Mr Wallace]

The right hon. Lady makes an important point about what happens post Brexit. She will of course know that the negotiations with Michel Barnier are all about issues like that. I suspect that Ireland will go along with whatever the EU’s deal is to implement, and we are seeking a security treaty so that we can put in place many of these important measures.

Foreign Fighters and the Death Penalty

Debate between Ben Wallace and Yvette Cooper

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. In fact, I would not just have shot such people on the battlefield; I would have acted within the law and with the powers I was granted by Parliament and by the Government of the day, as he and I did under emergency deployment. We acted within the law, and just being a soldier on the battlefield did not exempt us from the law or human rights obligations.

I totally agree with human rights, and that is why Ministers have acted in line with our legal obligations and, indeed, taken advice in relation to the European convention on human rights. The right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) mentioned rendition, but no one is rendering. The UK Government fundamentally oppose rendition and will continue to do so.

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

The whole House would agree that those who commit barbaric crimes should be locked away for the rest of their lives, but what the Minister has said is a contradiction of the long-standing abolition of the death penalty strategy—No. 10 have reaffirmed these words today—which says:

“It is the longstanding policy of the UK to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle.”

In this case, the Home Secretary seems to have unilaterally ripped up those principles on a Friday afternoon in the summer. What does the Minister think “principle” and “all circumstances” mean if somehow these circumstances are not “all circumstances”? Is he not actually saying that principles mean nothing to the UK Government any more?

[Mr Wallace]

No, I am not saying that, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary did not rip up anything unilaterally. My right hon. Friend followed the advice, as did other Ministers, of the OSJA—the guidance that has been in existence for very many years—which does allow Ministers to sometimes seek the ability to share evidence where there is an absence of assurances. That is what the OSJA has done, as part of the guidance for the Government, and it has been there for many years.

Kerslake Arena Attack Review

Debate between Ben Wallace and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. If we are really to reduce the risk to our people, we need to invest in prevention. Although some people have issues with the Prevent scheme, we published the first lot of figures last week showing yet again that more than 200 people have been diverted away from following a path of violent extremism, and schools play one part of that role.[Official Report, 19 April 2018, Vol. 639, c. 3MC.]

This is about safeguarding, and it is key that people remember young people are being preyed upon right now—I am afraid that I see it in ongoing operations—by people who choose to groom them. Whether young people are being groomed sexually, being groomed for violent extremism or being groomed by the extreme right wing, the methods are exactly the same. We have to invest in Prevent, and we hope to see more investment in Prevent with the Contest review. If we do not deal with it effectively upstream, we will still be here having this debate in many years’ time.

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

I support the urgent question and powerful words of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), and I welcome both Front-Bench responses. I join the report in paying tribute to the hundreds, if not thousands, of acts of individual bravery and selflessness and to the work of the emergency services and their support for the victims.

Does the Minister agree that the seriousness of the failure of the Vodafone contract is compounded by the fact that the contract is drawn on only in such extreme circumstances? Also, in his reflections on the importance of such a report, will he look further at commissioning an independent report on the Parsons Green attack and on the implementation of the Prevent programme in that case, so that lessons can also be learned from that attack?

[Mr Wallace]

The right hon. Lady will know there is still some way to run in the coroner’s inquest and other inquiries, certainly on Manchester, when it comes to attribution and the avoidability of death, etc. We should not forget that a live police investigation of the event in Manchester is still ongoing, with an extradition request outstanding that we are working to help the Libyans to fulfil so we can see justice be done—that is another plank in this process.

On Prevent and the case of the Parsons Green bomber, there has been an internal review by the police with the local Prevent organisation. I am happy to brief the right hon. Lady on some of that on Privy Council terms, if she would like to come. There are definitely issues there that need to be sorted, but Prevent, as a policy, is not guaranteed. We have to try, as a society, to deradicalise and divert people. There are people who are determined to commit acts of murder and brutality, but we would be totally wrong if we did not try to deradicalise them because we cannot give a 100% guarantee. We will continue to try to make sure we are safe.

Money Laundering

Debate between Ben Wallace and Yvette Cooper

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

If there are criminal assets, we now have the powers to do that. We will bring forward any cases where we have collected the evidence and prepared a case. As I said, the Criminal Finances Act became law on 31 January, so we now have those powers. On sanctions, the sanctions Bill is currently transiting the House. We will bring forward our amendment in due course on Report. I hope we will work across the House to ensure the amendment is acceptable.

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

The Minister will be aware of the allegations in the press that the First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia owns two flats in Whitehall through a company worth over £11 million. Does the Minister believe that he has the powers to know whether that is true? If he does not, when will those powers be in place?

[Mr Wallace]

I do not think I have to tell the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee about standing at the Dispatch Box and commenting on an individual case. She will know that, through our intelligence agencies, the police and a variety of partner organisations, we have the ability to find out information about people and gather evidence, if it is there, to make sure we make a case either to serve some of the new measures I have mentioned in the Criminal Finances Act or take action under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and other measures that have been around for some time. We will not hesitate to do that if we feel that it is the right thing to do. It does not matter who that person is—whether they are a politically exposed person, or whether they are linked to friendly countries or adversaries—we will take action to take that money. I do not want that reputation for London and I know the right hon. Lady does not.