Oral Answers to Questions

David Hanson Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I am pleased that the family has the courage to want to campaign on knife crime. It is very important that victims feel that they have the confidence to come forward. I am sure that either the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), or I will be more than happy to meet to discuss this matter. The issue around mental health is at the core of the Bill that is going through the House at the moment. The police must be used as a last resort when it comes to safety. We must make sure that we have a better understanding of mental health issues. Street triage and other such work that is going on at the moment has really helped us with the type of policing that we want to see in the 21st century.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

One thing that makes the police extremely effective is the co-operation that we receive from our European partners. What will the Minister say on 25 June if we are no longer eligible to be in Europol?

Asylum Seeker Dispersal Policy

David Hanson Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr David Hanson (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I call Patrick Grady, I should say to the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), who will be speaking from the Front Bench for Scottish National party, that we started early because both the mover of the motion and the Minister were present. The hon. Gentleman missed only the aperitif; he is here for the meat of the debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Hanson Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I commend the work that has been done by John Dwyer as the first PCC for Cheshire. He has done an excellent job in getting, as my hon. Friend said, more police officers and in managing the budget well. As my hon. Friend said, crime is down, and a Conservative PCC in Cheshire after the 5 May election will continue to do an excellent job and provide an excellent service for local people.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Is the Home Secretary aware that, in areas such as mine in north Wales, the police and crime commissioner has had to put up the precept at more than the rate of inflation to compensate for Tory Government cuts? Is it a fair use of taxpayers’ resources to compensate for cuts imposed by central Government?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that we are protecting police budgets when the precept is taken into account, which is in sharp contrast to proposals from his Front-Bench team, who want to cut police budgets by 10%.

Investigatory Powers Bill

David Hanson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I will make some progress, if I may, but my hon. Friend may very well try again.

I want to turn to communications data—the who, when, where and how of a communication that provide the communication’s context, but not its content. Such communications data are vital to investigations carried out by the police and the security and intelligence agencies. They have been used in 95% of organised crime prosecutions by the Crown Prosecution Service. They are used to investigate, understand and disrupt terrorist plots. They have played a part in the investigation of some of the most serious crime cases in recent times. They can tie suspects and victims to a crime scene, prove or disprove alibis, and help to locate a missing child or adult.

Parts 3 and 4 of the Bill will preserve that power for the police and the security and intelligence agencies, but also provide strong privacy safeguards. Requests for communications data will require the approval of an independent designated senior officer and will be subject to consultation with communications data experts. In addition, requests for communications data by local authorities will also require authorisation by a magistrate, and requests by any public authority, including the security and intelligence agencies, to identify a journalist’s source will require the authorisation of a judicial commissioner.

I have outlined how communications data are vital in providing investigative leads and for pursuing suspects, but where communications take place using social media or communications apps, it does not make sense that those communications are currently out of reach. For example, in respect of online child sexual exploitation, the absence of such records often makes it impossible to identify abusers. As I have said, such an approach defies logic and ignores the realities of today’s digital age. The only new power in the Bill is the ability to require communications service providers to retain internet connection records, when served with a notice issued by the Secretary of State, and after consultation with the provider in question.

To reiterate, internet connection records do not provide access to a person’s full web browsing history. An internet connection record is a record of what internet services a device or person has connected to, not every web page they have visited. I am pleased that the Joint Committee agreed with the Government on the necessity of that power, and concluded that

“on balance, there is a case for Internet Connection Records as an important tool for law enforcement.”

Indeed, the Committee went further and said that law enforcement should be able to access those records for a wider range of investigative purposes, and the Bill reflects the Committee’s recommendations.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary is right to say that about the Joint Committee, but it also wanted greater clarity about those internet connection records. It also wanted to ensure—I would welcome her assurance on this—that the capability existed for the retention of those records, and it asked whose cost that would be.

[Mrs May]

We have clarified definitions in the Bill, and that point was made not only by the Joint Scrutiny Committee but by the Science and Technology Committee. In considering this issue we have spent—and continue to spend—a long time discussing the technicalities of this issue with companies that could be subject to such notices, because companies operate in different ways. I reiterate that the Government will reimburse in full the reasonable operational costs that companies will be subject to in relation to this matter.

[Mr Hanson]

That is important, and I support the Home Secretary’s objective in this case. She will know that the Bill contains a figure of around £180 million for that cost. Is she satisfied—the providers were not—that that figure will cover the costs of the implementation of such a scheme?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman raised that issue with me when I gave evidence to the Joint Scrutiny Committee, and was concerned about the cost. We have discussed in detail with companies the technical arrangements for access to internet connection records, and we have assured ourselves of the feasibility of that. As is currently the case for such matters, the Government will be prepared to reimburse those costs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I wanted to contribute to today’s debate, because, like several other hon. Members in the Chamber, I served for four months on the Joint Committee on the draft Investigatory Powers Bill, which considered the Bill in some detail. They may be four months of my life that I will never get back, but scrutinising the Bill was certainly a worthwhile experience. The Joint Committee was appointed by the House in October and met from 25 November under the chairmanship of my noble Friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen. I pay tribute to him and to the Clerks of the Committee for the way in which they stewarded its deliberations. We had 54 witnesses and nine evidence sessions. We met in public and in private to scrutinise the Bill, in recess and out of recess, when the Commons was sitting. We received 148 submissions and more than 1,500 pages of evidence. We visited GCHQ and the Metropolitan police, and we gave detailed, fair, cross-party consideration to a difficult subject to bring forward proposals on. Our conclusions were relatively unanimous.

The first conclusion was that we need to modernise the current legislation, including that which expires on 31 December. There is therefore a clear need for this Bill, in order to modernise RIPA, the terrorism Acts, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and other legislation to hand. We have to look at, and we ensured that we did look at, not only the issue of privacy, but the issue of security, both of which were central to our concerns. Although we welcomed consideration of the report, we did make 86 recommendations. If people want to read about this, as I am sure they will, they will see that our report contains 157 comments and recommendations in the summary and conclusions to improve the Bill and make it stronger, and to address some of the concerns that people raised.

I wish to draw the House’s attention, first and foremost, to our first recommendation, which states:

“Resolving the tension between privacy and effective law enforcement in this area is no easy task. The Home Office has now come forward with a draft Bill which seeks to consolidate in a clear and transparent way the law enabling all intrusive capabilities. The Committee, together with the many witnesses who gave evidence to us, was unanimous on the desirability of having a new Bill.”

The Labour party members, the Conservative members, the SNP member, the Liberal member, Lord Strasburger, the bishops and the independent members were unanimous on the need for a new Bill.

The question is: why do we need this Bill? I believe we need it for several reasons. First and foremost, we need it to tackle terrorism, strong and serious organised crime, paedophilia and organised crime across the board. If we look at the annexes to the reports presented to us as part of our evidence from, among others, David Anderson, we will see cases where terrorism has been stopped by activities dealt with under this Bill. For example, in 2010, an airline worker in the UK who had access to airline capability was stopped as a result of access to bulk data. We have information on GCHQ intelligence uncovering networks of extremists who had travelled to Pakistan and then been stopped as a result of the acquisition of bulk data. We have GCHQ evidence on bulk data that have tracked down men who have been abusing hundreds of children across the world and are now in UK prisons because of the powers dealt with in this legislation. We have information on criminal investigations into UK-based crime groups that were supplying class A drugs from south America, where intercept evidence provided intelligence on their modus operandi and they have subsequently been put in prison, resulting in fewer drugs on our streets. We have evidence, and we took such evidence in the Committee, about criminal investigations into London-based gangs, money laundering and dark web activities.

I took some of the previous legislation in this area through as the then Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism under the Labour Government, but things have changed since then. Six years ago, I did not use Twitter, I never had Facebook, and I did not have WhatsApp or the Fitbit that I have on my chest today—now I can talk to my family using them. We have not got the information material now to be able to keep up with the technology, which has advanced. If we look at the type of activity being covered by these Bills, we will see that terrorism is pretty low on the list, at only 1%. Other offences are crucial, such as those relating to vulnerable or missing persons, as well as drug offences, homicide and financial offences, and they cover a large bulk of the amount of work done to date. As I have said, the Joint Committee made 86 recommendations and the Government accepted 46 of them. I hope that we can look in Committee at 20 other recommendations that the Joint Committee made. To do that, this House needs to pass this Bill. I support the decision by my Front-Bench colleagues and the SNP to abstain, but, given that there are Conservative, Labour, SNP and, indeed, Liberal Members who support the Joint Committee’s report, I hope there will not be a vote today and that we will let the Bill go through and then deal with the key issues that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) has mentioned, which are important to the Labour party. I hope we will also look at the 20 or so Joint Committee recommendations that have not yet been adopted by the Government.

The key issues include those mentioned by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) with regard to the definition of internet records. They also include targeting warrants for equipment; recommending and removing emergency procedures; recommending further safeguards for the sharing of information with overseas agencies; and more support and recommendations for strengthening the protection the Bill affords to journalistic material.

[Andy Burnham]

I am listening very carefully to my right hon. Gentleman and I agree entirely with everything he has said. Before he finishes, will he say a little more about the Committee’s recommendation on the definition of national security? The Committee raised that as a concern and the term has been used to cover a multitude of activities. Does he agree that it would be better for the Government to provide a clear definition of national security in the Bill and to drop the justification of economic wellbeing for the more intrusive warrants?

[Mr Hanson]

I cannot speak for the Committee as a whole, but my right hon. Friend makes a very important point. We asked, “What is national security?”, and the answer we got was, “What the Government deem it to be.” Perhaps it is time to make a definition.

My right hon. Friend said that the Labour party would set important challenges. If he looks at the 20 cross-party recommendations that have not been accepted—I am sure that he and the Government will do so—he will see that we have the ability, here and now, to make real and effective changes that would improve the Bill further. The key one is that relating to the definition of internet records and, as I asked the Home Secretary earlier, their deliverability. I genuinely do not have a great problem with the principle of defining an internet record or with the question of how we store it and eventually track individuals who have committed crimes or who could commit crimes in the future. The key point, however, is that we do not yet have a definition, nor do we have clarity on how the Government will fund and manage the storage of internet records.

I hope that the Bill Committee members will look at the written evidence received from Vodafone, TalkTalk and EE. They are very clear that they can use the budget set by the Government over 10 years to develop and manage the storage of internet records. We need a better, more effective way to deal with the issue.

I hope that there will not be a vote. If there is one, I will abstain—it is not my job to support the Government’s Bills through the Commons—but I really hope that the Bill will make it to the statute book in due course, after meeting the strong challenges set by my right hon. Friend and the cross-party Joint Committee. If that happens, the Bill will be used appropriately to stop paedophilia, organised crime and drug trafficking, to prevent terrorism, and to protect our citizens, which is the first duty of this House. That is what we should aim to do this evening.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Police Funding, Crime and Community Safety

David Hanson Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House recalls that the Chancellor announced in the Autumn Statement 2015 that there would be real-terms protection for police funding; notes that, based on the scale of cuts proposed, police budgets will fall by between nine and ten per cent over four years in real terms; further notes that the failure to provide real-terms protection for the police budget will lead to further cuts in police numbers in addition to the 18,357 police officers already lost since 2010; notes that the inclusion of cybercrime in crime statistics will show that crime has doubled; notes the heightened threat of a terrorist attack in the UK and the operational role of neighbourhood police in preventing such an attack; and calls on the Government to honour the Chancellor’s statement to the House and provide real-terms protection for the police budget.

We called this debate for one simple reason: the public have not been told the truth about police funding or crime figures. With the second police and crime commissioner elections just weeks away, people need the facts so this evening we set the record straight.

A matter of weeks ago the Chancellor of the Exchequer stood at the Dispatch Box and made this explicit promise to the police and to the public:

“There will be real-terms protection for police funding. The police protect us, and we are going to protect the police.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1373.]

I am sure Conservative Members remember that because they waved their Order Papers. It could not have been clearer—“real-terms protection”. That was not an off-the-cuff remark or a slip of the tongue. It was the centrepiece announcement of the Chancellor’s autumn spending review statement, made with the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister at his side; it was the traditional rabbit out of the hat that we have come to expect on such occasions, designed to produce mass waving of Order Papers.

There was once a time when, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer made a statement of that kind in that way to this House, it would have meant something more than just a grab for the next day’s headlines. People could trust it to be true, because it had been said by a Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Dispatch Box in the House of Commons, but it seems that we live in different times. Ministers these days, from the Prime Minister downwards, are decidedly less attentive than they used to be to the veracity of what they say at the Dispatch Box. Every Member of this House should worry, because in the end it goes to the heart of trust in this place and what we all do.

Surely, of all public services, the police should be able to trust the word of Ministers of the Crown when commitments are given here. Would it not be a sign of disrespect to people who put themselves in harm’s way on our behalf day in, day out if the Chancellor was writing cheques that he knew he would not be able to cash? You would think so, wouldn’t you, but in today’s politics Ministers think they can say what they like and get away with it.

This evening I will present to the House new analysis which shows that the Chancellor has broken his promise to the police and to the public. He has failed to provide real-terms protection for police budgets in 2016-17. In fact, he is about to cut those police budgets yet again, for the sixth year in a row. For the six years that he has been Chancellor and the six years that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) has been Home Secretary, we have had six years of cuts to the police. What a record! And to think that the Conservatives used to call themselves the party of law and order.

The issue before the House tonight is this: are we prepared to let the Government think that they can get away with making promises to this House and then breaking them within days, or are we going to do something about it? Are we going to hold them to account and make them honour the promise they made to our local police forces?

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I do not want to go too far back in history, but if my right hon. Friend looks at 3 February 2010 he will see that there were 18,000 more police officers under the Labour Government, but the increase in the budget for 2010-11 was 2.7%, and the Conservative party felt that it was not enough at the time.

[Andy Burnham]

I was just about to make that very point. The cuts that we are now facing come on top of the loss of 18,000 police officers over the previous Parliament, as my right hon. Friend has just said, and 12,000 of them were front-line officers. Thousands of police community support officers and civilian staff have lost their jobs. We have begun to see the break-up of neighbourhood policing, which was a great achievement of the previous Labour Government, bringing police out of their stations and cars and back into communities, restoring trust and bringing down crime. That is a record that Labour should be proud of.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Hanson Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman of that and, as I said in my answer to his initial question, we will ensure that full cost recovery applies to operational costs for any companies that have, for example, notices issued to them. It is clear that that is what we have done as a Government in the past and what previous Governments have done, and we will continue to do it.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Will the Home Secretary look carefully at the recommendations from the Joint Committee on the draft Investigatory Powers Bill on the definition of internet connection records? We were very clear that greater clarity is needed on the definition to allow the private sector fully to cost its proposals.

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman and the other Members of this House and of the other place who sat on the Committee and did an excellent job of producing a well-thought-through and careful report. We will of course carefully consider the issue of definition. We are looking at all three of the reports from the Science and Technology Committee, the Intelligence and Security Committee and the Joint Committee and we will make revised Bill proposals in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Hanson Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

The National Crime Agency does vital work, both here in the UK and overseas, to track down the source of plots and conspiracies, as well as to disrupt the activity of organised crime groups. It has been crucial in recent operations, for example in arresting those suspected of drug smuggling offences in Greece, intercepting shipments of cocaine passing through the English channel and cracking down on Europe-wide people smuggling operations. The NCA is increasingly showing the importance of that international work, and equally it is working through organisations such as Europol to show that we have the best intelligence and good co-ordination to combat organised criminality.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Given that at least 67,500 small planes or boats landed at British ports or airports unchecked by Border Force, does the Minister have any concerns that that might be a route for illegal drugs or firearms?

[James Brokenshire]

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware, through his experience of being a Home Office Minister, of the steps that are taken by all our various agencies in looking at each potential way in which people may smuggle into this country. We are improving the systems through which general aviation reports are captured in order to ensure that we are tackling non-compliance. We are also working through air traffic control to track flights that fail to report and, through improvements to legislation, take action against those who fail to comply with the requirements. We remain focused on these issues.

Counter-terrorism

David Hanson Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend by saying that counter-terrorism units exist not just in London, but elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Following the Paris attacks last November, a piece of work has been started—we are now finessing it—in relation to armed police response, looking across the United Kingdom to ensure that we have the appropriate numbers of trained armed officers in the right places.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Of course, the Home Secretary has form when it comes to absconding. Can she update the House on the current whereabouts of Ibrahim Magog, who absconded in a black cab in January 2013? Can she update the House on the whereabouts of Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed, who absconded wearing a burqa in November 2013? Both were on terrorism prevention orders at the time, under the instruction of the Home Secretary.

[Mrs May]

It is interesting that the right hon. Gentleman chooses to speak about previous absconds, because I seem to recall that seven people absconded under the Labour Government’s control orders, only one of whom was ever found.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Hanson Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

Can I first say to the hon. Lady that my thoughts and prayers are with the family of the police officer lost on Merseyside? I had the honour and privilege of going to Merseyside to pay my own respects, as well as meeting with officers.

I fully understand different PCCs trying to negotiate a position, but scaremongering is not the best way forward. I will come back with further ideas—that is what the consultation is all about, and that is what I promised I would do when I started it.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

The turnout in north Wales for the police and crime commissioner elections last time was 14.83%, which under the Trade Union Bill would make them null and void. Will the Minister look at how he can improve turnout, perhaps by considering again what he refused to do last time—a freepost in all PCC elections?

[Mike Penning]

I have a great deal of respect for the right hon. Gentleman and his work in his role as a Minister, but we did that during the west midlands by-election and it made absolutely no difference to the turnout. What will make a difference to the turnout, without any shadow of a doubt, is having that coincide with other elections, which is what is going to happen this time. I am really pleased that the Labour Opposition now realise the work that PCCs do and are now supporting them, rather than trying to abolish them.

Draft Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (Risk of Being Drawn into Terrorism) (Guidance) Regulations 2015

David Hanson Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 General Committees

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I welcome you to the Chair of the Committee, Mr Davies. It is a pleasure to see you joining Mr Speaker’s Panel of Chairs. I am sure you will have a long and fruitful career on the panel, and I hope today provides a useful starting point for your chairmanship. I also thank the Minister for how he has approached the issue today. He has reached out the hand of friendship, and I gladly offer it him back. We support the regulations in principle and we will not vote against them. He is right to say that terrorism and the growth of terrorist potential are some of the greatest challenges that we face in the United Kingdom as a whole.

I had the privilege of serving in the Home Office as the Minister with responsibility for policing and counter-terrorism during the previous Labour Government, a post the Minister now holds. I was also involved with the Ministry of Justice, looking at extremism in prisons. He is right to say that people can be drawn into terrorist activity through communities, universities or prisons. We need to have a strong strategy to ensure that we prevent that from happening in the first place. Prevention is part of a number of tools that the Government and communities have to ensure that we support resilience in our society as a whole.

The Minister is right to point to the pressures from ISIS, the changing nature of social media and the challenges we face generally. The way that he phrased the debate on terrorism was around the threat from ISIS and the radicalisation of people involved in a warped view of the Muslim religion, but having been a Northern Ireland Minister for two years—I can see that the hon. Member for Belfast East is here—I am conscious that there is more than one form of terrorism, more than one form of extremism and more than one form of people being indoctrinated.

I represent a lovely constituency in north Wales where in February a lone wolf neo-Nazi attacked an individual in a supermarket in my town as an act of terrorist revenge for the death of Lee Rigby. He was radicalised in his bedroom by material pushed through by neo-Nazis that gave him a warped view of society. Terrorist activity can happen even in sleepy parts of Wales, so the Minister’s point is well made: prisons, particularly vulnerable communities, higher education institutions and universities are vulnerable to extremist ideology. The Government have a duty, as do we as a Parliament, to give support to tackle that issue. If I have one point, it is that we should widen the debate to talk about all terrorism and not focus just on one type, but he has our support on this matter.

The regulations show the occasional strength of parliamentary democracy. When the counter-terrorism legislation went through Parliament in February, there was concern in the House of Commons and the House of Lords about certain aspects of how the Prevent strategy was being developed. As a result of pressure from Members of Parliament and Members of the House of Lords, the Minister and his predecessor have brought forward proposals that go some way to mitigating those concerns.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) would normally be here today, but she is on constituency business, so I am representing the Home Office shadow team. Who knows what I will be doing next week? I will put this on the record, just in case, but I calculated yesterday that on Saturday I will have done 17 years and 46 days on the Labour Front Bench. I may get to 17 years and 47 days on Sunday, but we will have to see what happens. That is a small aside.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

With your permission, Mr Davies, may I say on behalf of many of my colleagues that we hope that that long period will be extended still further?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hanson]

We are slightly digressing, Mr Davies, and I would not wish you to pull me up in your first moments in the Chair. Whatever happens, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North would have been here, and she wanted me to recognise that there have been some changes. For example—I know that the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway will recognise this—we are particularly pleased that there is now an agreement to include Scottish bodies in the Act. There have been discussions with the Scottish Government—they could have started earlier, but at least they have now reached a conclusion—so that Scotland is involved in the United Kingdom response to issues of Prevent. I am pleased to see that the Government have clarified in particular how universities should balance their duty to protect freedom of speech with their duties under the Prevent agenda; there is an element of agreement on those issues.

I must say that this was not originally going to be part of the business before Parliament, but amendments pushed mean that Parliament now has a say on the guidance and it will, I hope, with our support and the Government’s, confirm the guidance today, as will another place in due course. Overall, the guidance seems far better. The original guidance was, in my view, too prescriptive, with too much focus on procedure rather than on the cultures in which extremism can flourish. We are pleased with the new focus. I am particularly pleased to see, for example, that the section on nurseries has been amended. Although small children could be extremists, I doubt that they would be. Again, there are issues about how young people’s vulnerability to extremism is tackled.

Having said that, I want to give the Minister an opportunity to reflect on some of the points put to me and to other Committee members. This very day, I received in my inbox a parliamentary briefing from Universities UK. Helpfully, the Minister has received the same briefing, as undoubtedly all of us have. Whatever changes have been made—the regulations are not amendable, so the Opposition have no amendments—it would be useful for the Minister to reassure Universities UK on one point. In its briefing, it says that

“we remain concerned about the guidance’s provision for external speakers who hold views which could be classed as ‘extremist’. While there is no longer a blanket ban, universities are required not to allow any event to proceed where ‘the views being expressed or likely to be expressed constitute extremist views that risk drawing people into terrorism or are shared by terrorist groups’ unless the university authorities are ‘entirely convinced’ that these risks can be ‘fully mitigated’”.

I put to the Minister the first three words of that quote: “we remain concerned”. If Universities UK says in a briefing to all Members “we remain concerned”, it is my duty to ask the Minister to give some reassurance during his response to the debate to reduce that level of concern. Again, universities undoubtedly have the potential to have speakers who can involve people in being radicalised, whatever political persuasion or warped ideology might be present. The key question is how to protect freedoms of speech so that we do not discriminate against people who have views that we do not like, but also how to deal with those who have views that potentially radicalise individuals who hear them.

The key remaining concern, judging from this submission, is how universities can monitor that, how they will be accountable for it and, in particular, whether it involves a de facto ban when there is any doubt about risk. It is important that the Minister clarifies, if he can, what his definition would be and how he would respond to that. If he cannot, can he agree to meet Universities UK again to give it the assurances that it wants? Universities UK is asking us in the briefing to clarify with Ministers the intention of the guidance, and particularly whether it will involve a de facto ban if the university has any doubts about the speakers involved.

As ever, it requires a bureaucracy to monitor who is coming, what they will say, the quality of their contribution and whether it is potentially radicalising. It is important for the Minister to reflect on that briefing; I know that he has had it. I know the difficulties that he will face, but if he has the opportunity today it is important for him to reflect and to give a response.

I have some more questions. I would welcome an assurance from the Minister that he will keep the guidance under review. Will he look at issues to do with the involvement of health bodies, training and co-ordination in future, and in due course the experience of the statutory instrument in practice, and then report back to Parliament as and when he can? He mentioned Ofsted looking at some issues, which I welcome, because it is important. It is also important for the Minister to agree to the publication, perhaps 12 months from now, of how things have worked in practice and to report on the outcome in respect of the concerns, including those expressed by Universities UK.

The concerns are not those of Universities UK alone. Today I and, I am sure, other Members received a parliamentary briefing from the University and College Union, representing university and college lecturers, who express their concern not about the principle of preventing, but about whether and how that will be managed. Given such concerns, the Minister’s assurances would be helpful, in particular on how we review things—will he review in 12 months, will he produce the review and will any documents by Ofsted be published?

If there are to be amendments to the document, I would welcome the Minister’s assurances that they, too, will be debated and approved by Parliament. In particular, will he comment further on the revised definition of “extremism”? When we held the privileged position of being Ministers, we used a definition, and the current Government and the previous Government have one, but there is still work to be done. I would welcome an assessment, with a timescale, of the definition of “extremism”. That is important not for us, but for those people who have to use the document practically. I have been around for far too long not to know that we can pass many things in this House with worthy discussions and debates, but that, passed down the line, they mean nothing to the people who have to implement them, although ultimately those people are accountable for the challenges when things go wrong. It is important that we have a strong and clear definition.

Nurseries, the Youth Justice Board, every university, every college, every further education establishment, every prison and, potentially, every police force and, down the line, health authorities and other boards will have to look at this document, interpret it and work with Prevent co-ordinators locally on it. They will have to be accountable for it. My challenge to the Minister is this: who trains? What assessment is there of the cost implications of the work? Who monitors? Who will assess when things are going well or badly? If the clarity of purpose is not there in the first place, when things go wrong—as they automatically always do—how do we hold people accountable?

I give the Minister the hand of friendship on the document. It is better than it was, but concerns remain—relevant because they were brought to our attention by the people who will have to implement the document—so it is important for him to be clear about how he will assuage those concerns, how he will monitor use of the document and how he will ensure that it serves its purpose. Will he come back to the House to report on the document’s usage and to ensure that Parliament agrees any changes, if it is to be improved or changed?

I wish the Minister well and I hope that the Committee will support Government Members in giving the statutory instrument a fair wind today.