Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

James Cleverly Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important that as a society—not just as a Government and a House—we make it clear that the norms of international behaviour that we impose on ourselves are not universally accepted? The willingness to deploy both poisons such as Novichok and fake news, lies and so on might seem beyond reality to us, but is the norm for other regimes in the world. We have to be prepared to deal with such regimes and to push back against them.

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend makes a strong observation about the rest of the world. Now is not the time for us to abandon our belief in the rule of law and, indeed, in the maintenance of our freedoms. In fact, we defeat others by leading by example. As he rightly points out, however, when we are faced by such adversaries, the challenge for any Government is to navigate their way through, to keep people safe while upholding their belief in the values and freedoms that we enjoy in the United Kingdom and maintaining the rule of law.

The stops—the powers under schedules 3 and 7—have been around in the terrorism space since 2000. They are strong powers, and they are limited by being used only at the border. Their use is not open to normal police officers going about their normal business. We do that to ensure that we maintain the freedoms in our society, while at our vulnerabilities, such as at borders, we have that extra layer in order to deal with—

Serious Violence Strategy

James Cleverly Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I now feel under a significant degree of pressure. I will crack on.

I welcome the strategy. Right from the start, and peppered throughout, the strategy makes the point that the issue cannot be resolved by just arresting people. That is absolutely key. Police intervention must form an important part of the solution, but it is not the only solution. I will come on to my thoughts about police intervention, and, in particular, I will address the points about police resourcing that were raised by the shadow Home Secretary.

In the years immediately preceding my election to the London Assembly, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) being voted in as the Mayor of London, the murder rate in London reached unacceptable levels. Without a shadow of doubt, the previous Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, had not taken the issue as seriously as he should have done. Indeed, he accused the reporting of murders in London of being a media construct, with the particularly vile and inappropriate line

“If it bleeds, it leads”,

implying that the murders were being reported only because they were sensationalist stories.

In 2008, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) and I were elected to London government, getting a grip on the unacceptable level of violent crime in London was a priority. It was done in two parts. First, Operation Blunt 2 was immediately initiated. The shadow Home Secretary, I think quite fairly, ran through some of the question marks over Operation Blunt 2. It is always very difficult to measure the exact implication of a policing strategy. She asked what message or signal it sends when politicians do or do not take action. Under Ken Livingstone, the message sent was that City Hall did not take this as seriously as it should have done. We were very clear that the message we wanted to send was that this was absolutely a priority for the incoming Conservative administration in City Hall.

Operation Blunt 2 was a very high profile, visual, police-led operation which made it completely clear that knives were unacceptable and that people carrying knives would be arrested and charged. I do not row back from the importance of such visual policing operations, but we were also very well aware that a policing response on its own could not and should not be the only response to knife crime. That is why, in addition and in parallel to Operation Blunt 2, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire and I worked together to produce the Time for Action youth violence strategy, which addressed a series of potential intervention points in the lives of young people, up to and including rehabilitation of offenders.

There was a programme in Feltham young offenders institution to get young men who had been incarcerated after involvement in knife crime on to rehabilitation programmes, with a gateway to employment with a number of employers directly from the gates of that YOI. While they were on a ROTL—a release on temporary licence—they would be able to start working for their future employers before they had completed their sentence, so they had the incentive to stay on the straight and narrow when they came out of prison. We also considered looked-after children who, unfortunately, still disproportionately find themselves involved in criminality. The sad truth to this day is that looked-after children are still more likely to go to prison than to university. That is an unacceptable truth, but we worked to address that.

We looked at community programmes and diversionary programmes in communities. As the Mayor’s youth ambassador, I visited numerous programmes that were doing fantastic work around London. We also looked at such things as uniformed youth organisations, including the Scouts, the cadets, the Boys’ Brigade and Girl Guides. Why? Because in many parts of London, they became the quasi-parents of children who often led very dysfunctional lives. I had the pleasure of meeting the air cadets squadron not far from this place. They have an amazing mix of young people, from some of the most wealthy and privileged families in the country to children of recent refugees and some impoverished people. They rub shoulders, mix together and work in that military structure, which we know so often develops the kind of life skills that help to keep people out of trouble. Why did we do these things? We did them because we knew that we had to work upstream and had to do them to prevent young people from getting into trouble.

The shadow Home Secretary, who is not in her usual place, although she is in the Chamber, made the point about police resourcing. It is worth remembering that we halved the number of young people who were murdered on the streets of London between 2008 and 2016 against the backdrop not just of tightening budgets, but of having to deliver the policing operation for the Olympic and Paralympic games, which imposed a huge operational burden on the police. Yes, police officers, police numbers and police funding matter, but—

[Mr Lammy]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[James Cleverly]

I will.

[Mr Lammy]

I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I want to put on record that the 2011 riots happened during that period. Against the backdrop of the riots, many of those young people were put in prison and that reduced the numbers, because the whole subject was about gang violence—he forgets all the media coverage at that time.

[James Cleverly]

I am sorry, but the right hon. Gentleman is wrong. The idea that somehow the police response to the 2011 riots swept potential murderers from the streets and locked them up is just statistically wrong. [Interruption.] No, the big drop in teenage murders in London happened in the operational year—

[Mr Lammy]

In 2012.

[James Cleverly]

No. There was a massively significant drop in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 elections—in the 2008-09 year followed by the 2009-10, preceding the 2011 riots. [Interruption.] I am going to try to make some progress, because I promised Madam Deputy Speaker that I would.

The philosophical underpinning that works with the Time for Action strategy and the work that we did in London is exactly the same as the one that works here. That is why I welcome this strategy so much. I am very pleased that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), is responsible for driving this through. We have spoken about it previously, and I do not think I am giving away any trade secrets if I say that I know her personal passion for getting this resolved.

As I come to my conclusion, I want to say—this has been mentioned by others—that we have to educate our young people, and I have discussed plans for doing that. However, we also have to educate the people who think that drug use—that occasional line of coke at some middle-class party—is a victimless crime. It is not. There is an absolute causal relationship between that so-called victimless crime at some party or some club and the kid that lies bleeding out in the stairwell of a block of flats in south London. Until we look people in the eye and remind them of that fact, this problem, as much as we try to mitigate it, will not go away. That might be a difficult conversation to have. To have celebrities bragging on social media about their drug use is unacceptable and it needs to be called out.

My final point is not explicit in the serious violence strategy, but it is implicit in what it says about some of the preventive measures that the Government are pursuing. It is that we need to find a way—I do not pretend that it is easy or that a solution would be perfect—of capturing the downstream savings of preventive activity, so that they can be recycled to fund those preventive activities. For example, typically, the layer of government that takes responsibility for diverting young people away from crime tends to be local government, which often funds community projects and so on. If it is successful, the bit of government that reaps the savings—through not incarcerating young people—is the Ministry of Justice, but there is no practical way of recognising the downstream saving, harnessing it and reinvesting it in the diversionary activities often discharged by charities and local government in the first place. If we could do that, I have little doubt that it would only take a small percentage of the downstream saving to put these projects on a much more stable financial footing.

I know that my hon. Friend the Minister works incredibly hard—she is famous for it—and I hate loading up her shoulders with extra work, which she will tell me off for later in the Tea Room, but if anyone can come up with a plan, she can. I am more than happy to help. This is my offer and my ask. If we can find that alchemy, that way of capturing the savings and reinvesting them in front-end projects, we could really make a difference. I have little doubt about the Government’s commitment. It saddens me that some Members—unintentionally, I assume—question the Government’s commitment to protecting the lives of young people, and I urge the Opposition spokesperson, when he sums up, to be cautious about accusing anyone in the House of being uncaring on this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

On Friday, I will attend the funeral of Tanesha Melbourne-Blake, who was shot dead at the age of 17 in my constituency on Easter bank holiday Monday. It was her death that triggered a national conversation about why 67 young people have lost their lives in our capital city. It is important to say that many of those young people who have lost their lives are black-British in their description. It is also important to say that this debate must, as it already has done, quite properly land on the issue of whether in fact black lives matter in this country. It is sad and depressing to have to say that, but all resources should be brought to bear to deal with this problem, and there is a feeling that had 67 young people lost their lives in a leafy shire, much more attention would have been paid.

It is important to say right from the beginning that if any of my three children picked up a knife and took it to another child, I would be absolutely horrified and, frankly, the response that I would have as a father would be tougher than that of the police or the law. Of course these issues come back to parenting and to neighbourhoods, but it is also the case—we get used to it in this Chamber—that some Members have been to the best public schools, and that experience is not only about education, because one way in which those schools achieve all that they achieve is the fact that there is the most fantastic extra- curricular work at the end of the school day. If someone is lucky enough to go to one of our public schools, for that 30 grand a year, the rugby, cricket, football, drama and swimming are tremendous. It has always surprised me that some of those very same Members—not all, but some of them—do not realise that a black child in my constituency deserves exactly the same after school. If the Government cut local authorities in the way that we have seen, so that there cannot be the sport or youth services, how do we support a parent to raise her child?

It is just like a doctor facing a patient and assessing whether the illness in front of him has got worse. Is it about the same, or is it getting better? When we look at youth violence, which has now been with us for well over two decades—certainly for the two decades that I have been a Member of Parliament—we have to ask ourselves whether it is the same, about stable or getting worse. The answer is that it is getting worse. Why is it getting worse and what will the strategy do to deal with the problem?

The central issue, about which we hear so little and which the strategy does not really deal with in depth—we did not hear enough on it from the Minister when he was at the Dispatch Box, either—is the work of the Home Office and the National Crime Agency on serious organised crime and serious gangsters. According to the EU’s drugs agency, this country is the drugs capital of Europe. The UN has said that the global drugs market is thriving and London is the capital of the cocaine market in Europe. Some 30 tonnes of cocaine come into our country every year. Our illegal drugs market is worth at least £5.3 billion. The National Crime Agency says that drugs trafficking costs our country £11 billion per year.

The Home Office’s own data shows that at least 1 million people in this country have taken cocaine in the past year, so there is a seriously lucrative market. If there is a lucrative market worth billions every year, that is worth fighting, so why are we not hearing more about cutting off these gangs at source and stopping the flow of drugs and firearms into our country? Why has the Border Force been cut by 25%? How is the Border Force to deal with the drugs coming into our country if there are not the personnel to do it? I have been to the National Crime Agency and had briefings from senior officers. They are being asked to do more with less. They are being asked to deal with cyber-crime; they are being asked to deal with terrorism; and they are being asked to deal with child sexual exploitation and many other issues. They are not being told that drugs are a priority. We have not had any statements from this Home Office on drugs policy. Many people think that the war on drugs has failed, but we have had nothing to replace it, and because we have had nothing to replace it, there is a growing market. Foot soldiers in my constituency and others are being recruited to feed the demand that exists across our country.

In the serious violence strategy, there are no new announcements on organised crime. In the summary on the Government’s website, there is no mention of organised crime. In the four themes of the serious violence strategy, there is no mention of organised crime. When we read the strategy, we find out that, apparently, there is “ongoing” work to tackle serious and organised crime, thanks to the 2017 drugs strategy that has promised to “restrict supply” by criminal gangs, “disrupt domestic drugs markets”,

“respond effectively to the threat posed by organised crime groups”

and make our borders “more resilient”. Well, it is not working.

The strategy is linked to ongoing work on serious and organised crime, but there is not just a link; the two issues are the same. Serious organised crime drives violence, so we cannot have a serious violence strategy without a strategy to deal with serious organised crime. It could get worse. The National Crime Agency has been clear that eastern European organised groups are bringing guns into this country. It is worried that they are actually beginning to supply some people with grenades—grenades! You heard it here first in Parliament. When will we get serious about this? When will a grenade go off to protect a county line?

The Government strategy recognises the following fact:

“Serious violence, drugs and profits are closely linked. Violence can be used as a way of maintaining and increasing profits within the drugs markets.”

The Government’s own strategy tells us that the share of homicides that are explicitly linked to drugs stands at 57%, yet, again, there is nothing new here on organised crime.

I have been passed a document by the Metropolitan police showing that half of the homicides that we saw in the capital last year were linked directly to gang activities and turf wars, but we are hearing very little about breaking that cycle—that cycle of protect and serve to sell drugs—and the myriad organisations that sit well above the youth crime on the ground.

Let me put this bluntly. Very, very sadly, because of poverty and a lot of the issues in many of our constituencies, recruiting young people is much easier than it should be. We have to cut off the demand for the drugs that they are selling and the violence that it is driving in communities such as mine.

This document is not a strategy; it is a wish list full of jargon. It is not sufficient—not even close. Let us look at the key actions and commitments. They include to undertake “nationwide awareness-raising communication activity” and provide £175,000 to deliver support to children at risk in schools and pupil referral units. The Home Office is apparently to provide £1 million to help communities tackle knife crime and provide £500,000 for a new round of heroin and crack action areas. Am I really supposed to believe that if 50 or 60 white middle-class young people were killed in Surrey or Kent in space of five months, we would just have an “awareness-raising communication activity”?

If innocent children were being gunned down on the streets of Richmond or Guildford, would we have a £175,000 fund to deliver support to at-risk children? A person cannot buy a house in London for £175,000, and that is what we are spending on at-risk children. Really? It is not good enough. Of course Ministers have been quick to celebrate the £11 million early intervention youth fund, but what will that fund deliver when in my borough alone—the London borough of Haringey—the local authority has had to cut £160 million since 2010, when funding has fallen by almost 50%, and when there has been a 45% cut in staff? Unison has calculated that youth services have been cut by almost half. Will that £11 million meet the gap? Really? The Mayor is putting in a fund of £40 million, but that will not meet the gap and, going back to what I said originally, it gets us nowhere near the extra-curricular activities that some young people in our country who go to certain schools get, when the poorest young people who need as much, if not more, are getting less.

It takes a village to raise a child. No parents or single mother can do it on their own. My wife and I certainly do not do it on our own, but we have the resources to pay for help and to bus our kids all over London to activities. Why should people on the poorest housing estates in London not have the same thing? The response is not good enough when all that the Government and the Met Commissioner want to talk about is stop-and- search or YouTube. Those two things are important, but they are not the only issues.

[James Cleverly]

rose—

[Mr Lammy]

Given the time, I will not give way.

When asked why crime had risen, the Met Commissioner said, “We think that stop-and-search has had some bearing on this.” Let us not have another argument about the merits of stop-and-search when we reached cross-party consensus on it under the current Prime Minister. We should of course bring in intelligence-led stop-and-search where there has been a spike in crime, but that will not deal with huge amounts of cocaine or stop the death of Tanesha, who was shot in the chest. This is not about stop-and-search. Yes, we must challenge YouTube, and we have to get the drill music videos down, but if the unemployment rate in a constituency such as mine is between 40% and 50% for some young black men—they have no work—it is unsurprising that they rely on putting drill music videos online to get a little money. Why are we surprised? We should get the videos down, but they are almost a distraction, because the real issue is organised crime. I want to hear about “McMafia”, eastern European gangs, Albania and transhipment routes. I want to know why we are cutting the Border Force by 25%.

It is not just gang members getting caught up in all this. There are two other types of young people I care a lot about, because I was them once. A second group of young people are picking up knives on our estates. Why? They are picking them up because they are shit-scared. I was once one of those young people, and I am so lucky that I had things to distract me, but they are scared. We in this House have failed and the Met has failed as a police force if those young people are scared on their estates. That is why they are picking up knives. It is not because they are gang members. They are hiding knives in bushes on the way to school and then finding them on Saturdays and Sundays because they are scared. We will have failed and the Minister will have failed if we do not make them feel safe.

The third kind of young person are those who are dyslexic or have ADHD. They are not going to get access to medication, and there will be no access to CAMHS in the constituencies that we are talking about—it is not going to happen for months—so those young people are seduced into following the crowd. They get seduced by the videos, end up in a group, get arrested on joint enterprise and then go to prison. What are we going to do about that growing number?

Those two groups need a proper strategy—a much better strategy than this. I look forward to working with the Government on their serious violence strategy, because if we do not solve this problem, the figure will be over 100 by the autumn. You heard it here first. Over 100 young people—more than New York—will have died in this country. Do black lives matter or not? That is the question for the Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Cleverly Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question; I am conscious of her keen interest in this subject. She will of course know that, since 2010, 24,000 family reunion visas have been issued, but I will look very carefully at the Bill from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), which has received cross-party support. We will continue to look at what we can do to help the most vulnerable families from the region. They should, quite rightly, be our priority.

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

13. What steps she is taking to recruit a broad range of people to the police and law enforcement agencies with the skills required to tackle modern crime.

[Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)]

17. What steps she is taking to recruit a broad range of people to the police and law enforcement agencies with the skills required to tackle modern crime.

[The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Mr Nick Hurd)]

As crime and society change, so must the police. That was why we established the College of Policing to raise standards and the quality of training, and why we funded innovative schemes such as Direct Entry and Police Now, which are bringing in fresh skills and talent.

[James Cleverly]

Will my right hon. Friend outline the specific measures that are being taken to recruit cyber and technical experts to crack down on the vile crimes taking place on the dark web?

[Mr Hurd]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that fundamental point, because more and more of our constituents are vulnerable to crime online—crime enabled by the internet—and it is absolutely vital that our police forces have the right skills to tackle crime. That is why, as part of our £1.9 billion cyber programme, we are investing in awareness programmes such as CyberFirst and creating the cyber digital career pathways project to ensure that officers have the skills that they need to face modern crime.

Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy)

James Cleverly Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend speaks from great experience and I hope the Minister listened to what she said. If the Minister is really prepared to consider this matter, he should watch the documentary made by Liverpool footballer Dejan Lovren about his experience as a refugee and the uncertainty that he lived through. He has been brave in speaking openly about his life. I encourage the Minister to take heed of his words. It is no wonder that it has taken the best part of a year for many children’s applications to be processed, leaving them in the kind of limbo my hon. Friend mentions.

Let me be clear with the Minister. There are agencies working in Greece and Italy with the capacity to make referrals, but they will not raise the hopes of children when the process itself is so dire. The Government must commit today to streamlining the system, so that agencies and children have confidence in it and can start to make referrals quickly. We know that this can be done because it was done in France when hundreds of applications were processed in a matter of weeks. This situation is just not acceptable and we must do more.

I want to address an argument we hear constantly from the Government when we talk about resettling refugees—a line we have heard repeatedly from the Home Secretary, especially when talking about the Dubs amendment. She says it encourages people traffickers and that it acts as an incentive for perilous journeys. We have heard again today that it is a draw for migrants. The Government must drop this feeble line of argument once and for all.

People are not getting on those boats because of pull factors; they are doing so because they are fleeing war, poverty, famine and exploitation in their own countries. Even refugee camps in Greece or Italy, dangerous though they are, are safer than the hell they are running away from. We know this and the Government know this. If they do not, they should try to understand the reality. They should look at a picture of the ruins of Homs or Aleppo and tell me again about pull factors. They should see the desperation on the faces of starving people in Yemen or Somalia and explain to me again how Dubs was an incentive. They should speak to a child escaping forced servitude as a soldier in Eritrea, and repeat again to me that our immigration system is a draw. It is not; it was not; and we should not pretend otherwise. Have the Government any hard evidence to support that claim, and, if so, will the Minister produce it?

If the Government really believe the pull factors nonsense, there is just one obvious change that they could make. Under the current system, children in camps in the region can only apply to be transferred under Dublin III if they have a parent living in the United Kingdom with whom they can be reunited, but for children already in Europe, the rule can apply to extended families, grandparents, siblings or aunts and uncles. However, many of these children are orphans.

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

I genuinely thank the hon. Lady for giving way, but does she not recognise that the idea that pull factors do not exist just because push factors do exist is an inappropriate construct? There can be both push factors and pull factors; they are not mutually exclusive.

[Alison McGovern]

If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that safety is a pull factor, I agree with him. If he is suggesting that not starving is a pull factor, I agree with him. If he is suggesting that escaping the bombs dropping on a child’s head is a pull factor, I entirely agree with him.

This debate will continue. I think it right for us to have the debate out in the open, and Members who disagree with me will have a chance to make their case, too.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Cleverly Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I have set out what we knew at the time and its relevance. It is really important that this inquiry continues. The hon. Lady asks questions that are for the head of the independent inquiry. It is essential for the authenticity of this inquiry that it is held independently. It is not run by the Home Office, and that is an essential part of its integrity. I urge her to stop knocking the inquiry and start getting behind it.

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

T3. Essex constabulary and Essex county fire and rescue service have a long track record of working closely together and are seeking to do more of that in the future. What can my right hon. Friend’s Department do to support police and fire services and encourage them to work more collaboratively?

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend is right that we are delivering on our manifesto pledge by allowing, through the Policing and Crime Bill, police and crime commissioners to take on the governance of fire authorities. There is also a statutory duty to collaborate, which applies to all the services that work together. It is important that our police and fire services work closely together, and I know that those in Essex are keen to be at the forefront of that work.

Draft Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 (Continuation) order 2016

James Cleverly Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 General Committees

[Dr Huq]

As always, my right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is true that we want to know what happened to Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, who was disguised in a burqa, and Mr Magag, and it is right and proper that we know. My right hon. Friend anticipates my point a little. Although we support these measures, we do not want to give the Government a completely free ride and we believe that TPIMs could be made even better, so I will ask some questions.

The Minister pointed out that the balance of probabilities test replaced the previous one of reasonable belief of involvement in terrorist activity. That is all well and good. The higher legal threshold was enacted, which shows again that the Government were not getting softer; they were getting harder on some things. We are pleased about such changes, and he also pointed out other measures such as the extension of the sell-by date.

I am pleased that both changes I have touched on were acted on by the Government and that those recommendations were implemented under the 2015 Act. The changes to restrict where an individual may reside were accepted in full. The legal threshold was changed, so that the Home Secretary had to be satisfied on the balance of probabilities rather than just reasonable belief. That is not exactly what the independent reviewer asked for. He recognised, however, that that key change to the legislation increased the legal threshold.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister and I will be taking notes on whether he answers. Does he agree that the process was an example of the independent reviewer offering effective post-legislative scrutiny that as a result has made us all more secure and increased public confidence in our counter-terrorism laws? If so, does he also agree that we need that same model of independent post-legislative review if the Government move forward with their proposed counter-extremism legislation? Hon. Members will be aware that that recommendation was made by the independent reviewer to the Home Affairs Committee under the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend.

Section 21 of the 2011 Act allows the Secretary of State’s TPIM powers to be renewed every five years so long as she has consulted the independent reviewer, the intelligence services commissioner and the director general of the Security Service. We are now at that five-year date, which is why the draft order is before us. I hope that the Minister can assure the Committee that the Secretary of State has indeed conducted those statutory consultations and that all recommended that the powers be renewed.

I note that the 2011 Act does not require the Government to publish the advice given by the independent reviewer, the intelligence services commissioner or the director general of the Security Service during the consultation. There may be national security issues here, but I wonder whether the Minister is willing to make that advice public, perhaps in redacted form so that nothing too sensitive slips out.

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady concede that, particularly when counter-terrorism and national security are involved, the fact that some bits of information are put into the public domain and others are not in itself can give intelligence to the very people we are trying to protect the British people from?

Rights of EU Nationals

James Cleverly Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

I will endeavour to keep my comments pithy—I do not have a lisp. First, I thank the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) for being so unwilling to take interventions from my hon. Friends during her speech, because so many of the points I had scribbled down for my speech were being brought up by colleagues that otherwise I would have nothing left to say.

I had intended to begin by saying that I assumed that the motion was driven by genuine concern, rather than a desire to play simple party politics. Unfortunately, however, as the hon. and learned Lady’s speech progressed, I found it less easy to maintain that position, because, time and again, I heard examples of this important issue being used as a Trojan horse simply to cast unpalatable accusations at my party. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) says from a sedentary position, “Look in the mirror.” I look in the mirror every morning when I shave, and what I see is a black face looking back at me. When hon. Members start accusing Conservative Members of being xenophobic, I ask that they reflect on those comments before they start accusing—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Comments are to be reflected upon and discussed; they are not be made from a sedentary position. If the hon. Member for Darlington wishes her comments to be noted, she should stand up and make them. If not, she should not make them.

[James Cleverly]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[James Cleverly]

Time is limited, so I will make some progress. The most important point—this has been brought up numerous times by my hon. Friends, but it has been ignored and left unanswered by the motion’s proposer and those Labour Members who support it—is that British citizens currently living in the EU have had no confirmation about their future status. I remind Members that it is not from the British side of the negotiating relationship that we hear words such as “punishment”. It is from voices at the Commission—EU members—that we hear that Britain needs to be punished. I have spent a lot of time scouring the internet, but I am yet to find an assurance from the EU that British citizens can expect protection as part of the negotiations.

[Dr Philippa Whitford]

The hon. Gentleman casts an aspersion that members of the Commission are threatening British citizens in Europe. Has he actually seen, read or heard that, because nobody else has? We started it: we voted to leave, so we are the ones who have to start the solution.

[James Cleverly]

No Government Members or likely members of the negotiation team have been using words such as “punishment”. We should respect the decision of the British people and enter the negotiations—this has been said by Members on both sides of the House, to be fair—with a desire to get the best outcome not only for the British people and our friends and colleagues in the EU, but for British people living in the EU and EU nationals living in Britain. Our collective desired outcome is to come out of the negotiating period with a relationship that works for the EU, us and all people living both in the EU and in the UK.

An estimated 1.2 million British nationals live in the EU, and at the moment their status has a question mark over it. Yet we heard nothing from SNP or Labour Members, despite the numerous opportunities they were given, about whether any effort has been made to secure the status of those British nationals. My right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who has unfortunately left the Chamber, was right to say that the British Government’s first responsibility is to the British people. While there is a question mark over the status of British nationals living in the EU, unfortunately it is not legitimate for us to say, unilaterally, that we are going to secure the rights of EU nationals. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Darlington speaks again from a sedentary position, saying, “Humans as bargaining chips.” She accuses the Government of doing that, but fails to use the same phraseology when talking about the people negotiating on behalf of the EU.

We want—this has been said from the Dispatch Box on numerous occasions—to maintain, as closely as possible, our excellent relationship with EU nationals in the UK. We value their commitment.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

rose—

[James Cleverly]

I am short of time, so I am afraid that I am going to make progress. As the son of a migrant, I absolutely recognise the incredible value to the UK of immigrants from EU countries and wider afield. This Government have said on many occasions that the value of migrants will be recognised, both now and moving forward.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

I am the daughter of an immigrant. Does it not cause the hon. Gentleman great concern that, since the EU referendum, there has been an exponential rise in hate crime in England and Wales? That is not the position in Scotland.

[James Cleverly]

I do not have access to the detailed figures or the time to answer that question fully, but I would be more than happy to have an extended discussion about the validity of those figures. With the best will in the world, I find it hard to believe that there have been no racially motivated crimes north of the border.

The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West, who moved the motion, kept saying that people were being used as bargaining chips. That fundamentally misses the point that everything we do in politics, including every policy position and every negotiating position we take with the EU, is about people. Politics is about people—always has been, always will be. Every decision that we make through this negotiation will have an impact on people. Yes, our collective attitude towards migration polices has an effect on people, but so do our policies on trade and agricultural subsidies. All those things have a real effect on people. To single out one element of a future negotiation and say that we should unilaterally close it down suggests a naive at best and cynical at worst attitude to our negotiating position. I want the negotiations to be successful for both Great Britain and the EU, but that will not be possible if Great Britain takes unilateral decisions. It has been confirmed from the Dispatch Box that if our EU partners provided a resolution on this issue, it would go away immediately, yet I have heard nothing from them.

Our Government need to have the flexibility to negotiate the best possible deal for the British people. I encourage hon. Members who support the motion to put as much energy and passion into speaking to people on the continent with whom they may have influence about clarifying the position of British nationals in the EU. The whole issue would then be taken off the table and we would end up in the position that I think Members on both sides of the House want—namely, that of having a positive attitude towards the negotiations, with the ultimate goal of giving as much clarity and reassurance as possible both to EU nationals living here and to British nationals living in the EU. I call on Members to reject the motion.

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

The simple reason we should make the move is that it is the UK that has voted to leave. It is we who have caused the insecurity, whether for our citizens in Europe or for EU nationals here, so it is incumbent on us to make the move to try to deal with that. As for the idea that people are not having problems, I have constituents struggling to get loans or mortgages for businesses and for houses. It is ridiculous to say that they are not concerned; they absolutely are. The idea that they should spend two years in limbo is frankly appalling.

Obviously, with my health background, I can say that we know that our health and social care system completely depends on EU nationals. We have more than 50,000 such doctors and nurses. The Minister was berating Shona Robison about trying to collect the data in Scotland, but we do not have data for Scotland. The 130,000 is for England, because we never considered it at all relevant where someone who was settled in Scotland came from and therefore never asked. Now, we need to know how many people might have an issue, whether it is that they will get thrown out or that they will get fed up with the insecurity and leave.

The other question is how we think we will attract more. One in 10 medical jobs in England is empty; we have massive rota gaps. How easy do we think it will be to attract EU doctors to come and fill those posts in the coming years when the message they get is that they are not terribly welcome and that, if they come, they might be asked to go home because they came after—

[James Cleverly]

rose—

[Dr Whitford]

The hon. Gentleman was not keen on taking interventions, so I shall crack on.

Investigatory Powers Bill

James Cleverly Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Grieve]

Yes, I was aware of that. That has, I think, been public knowledge for some time. So far as I am concerned, as the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, we take that very seriously. Indeed, I believe the agencies took the matter very seriously as well, and that those involved were disciplined. The point was made that however innocent the activity of looking up one’s friend’s address might appear, it was not an acceptable thing to do. I certainly agree. That was one reason why, yesterday, I highlighted the issue of offences and was pleased to get the response from my hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench that they were taking this issue seriously. I worry that the penalties attached to some of the potential offences appear to be insufficient. I fully understand the point the hon. and learned Lady makes, but we must be a bit careful before we translate what appears to have happened in such cases into a belief that there is systematic abuse of the data sets that may be held—that is what we are talking about—by agencies, and that the material in them is being misused or put to some nefarious purpose that is not legitimate for the purposes of national security.

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Is it not the case that there are many things in public life—the police, computers, firearms and so on—that have the potential for misuse, but that the potential for misuse is not a reason to eradicate them from public life? It is a reason to ensure there is a robust framework and—this is the point my right hon. and learned Friend is making—a proper system of penalties for misuse, rather than just scrapping a whole capability because of potential future misuse.

[Mr Grieve]

Yes, I agree entirely. I am afraid that, because human society is not perfect, eradicating every instance of misconduct by public servants is likely to be impossible. We therefore have to ensure proper safeguards and ethics. Here I simply repeat what I said before. My own experience is that the ethical standards of the agencies are very high; that is not to say that one does not have to be vigilant about maintaining those standards, or that there might not have been instances where their ethical standards slipped, but everything I and, I think, my fellow members of the ISC have seen has constantly reassured us that those ethical standards are at the heart of what they do. I recollect Sir Iain Lobban saying that if he had asked his staff at GCHQ to do something unethical, they simply would not have done it. He said they would have refused, had he made the request of them.

I simply say that about the framework. I now turn to our amendments, the first group of which consists of amendments 9 to 12 and deals with an issue that goes to the heart of bulk powers: operational purposes. In the ISC’s report on the draft Bill, we were critical of what appeared to us to be the lack of transparency around operational purposes, which are of the utmost importance—this picks up on what the hon. Member for Glasgow North East said—as they provide the justification for examining material collected using bulk powers. If it falls outside legitimate operational purposes, one cannot examine it. We therefore recommended that in some form and in a manner consistent with safeguarding security—the two things are often difficult to reconcile—the list ought, so far as possible, to be published. We also recommended that the ISC have a role on behalf of Parliament in scrutinising the full classified list of operational purposes.

We were also concerned, when we investigated the matter further, that in some cases the nature of the list of operational purposes lacked clarity, as did the procedures for managing it, which seemed largely informal, particularly those for adding an operational purpose to the list. As matters stand now, that can effectively be done by a senior officer in the organisation. Our amendments are therefore intended to give effect to our original recommendations for greater scrutiny and transparency, while also trying to create a formal mechanism for the establishment, management, modification and review of the list of operational purposes.

Policing and Crime Bill (Second sitting)

James Cleverly Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Public Bill Committees

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Q Can any of you see an opportunity—some of these issues were brought up by our previous witnesses—in areas that are very fast moving, particularly in the digital space, for example with social media, where there is a lot of activity that I and, I suspect, many warranted police officers find bewildering? For example, could subject-specific experts be brought in to volunteer alongside warranted officers and give the additional knowledge that it would be very difficult to have permanently embedded in a force area?

David Lloyd: Exactly that. In Hertfordshire only the other week I was at an awards evening, next to a special who had been brought in specifically because of his IT skills. He has far greater IT skills than anyone in the constabulary and does that for free. He sees that as giving something back to society. It is very helpful to have, and you can dip in and out and use those skills in a specialist way, because it is no longer the case that if you sign up as a special you have to go out on the streets arresting people; you can be there and working in those specialist areas.

I disagree with Vera. Clearly, things are very different in Hertfordshire from how they are in Northumberland—and we have not lost any police officers, either. One of the reasons it is different is because we think about other ways of using people and volunteers, too, so that we get a far more effective, efficient use of local people. That is the way to do it.

David Jamieson: We have lost 2,500 officers and staff over the last six years, so we are not in the comfortable position that some areas are in. [Interruption.]

[The Chair]

I remind the Committee that this is not a debate, but an evidence-taking session.

David Jamieson: To answer Mr Cleverly’s point, there can be no substitute for officers who have the skills that we need to investigate complaints and crimes. With the chief constable, I am looking closely at how we build up that level of expertise.

[James Cleverly]

Q You expressed an opinion as a statement of fact and I want to explore that.

David Jamieson: Which fact do you mean?

[James Cleverly]

You said that there can be no substitute—

David Jamieson: First, if you have volunteers coming in to work on computers or IT, you would need those who supervise them to have at least the same knowledge as the people coming in. [Interruption.]

[The Chair]

Q I hear one question from several voices: why?

David Jamieson: I am giving a view from my perspective as a police and crime commissioner. I would be very worried if I did not have officers with sufficient capability to understand what those who were working in the force were actually doing. That applies to all levels of work, whatever sort of investigation was going on. There is a good example in forensics, where we bring in particularly scientific knowledge. Those in the force know what they are calling for and what they want out of the forensics team. Whether they have the high levels of scientific skills in those offices is a different matter. I think that you are getting to where I am. In the end, we have to have full-time, trained officers to do those jobs. Could we bring in specials and the others we have talked about with other skills, apart from those walking around the streets? Yes, of course we could. However, we have to be very careful if we are bringing people in to do highly complex work that involved cases and access to all the computer systems. We would need very close safeguards before we did that.

Vera Baird: I would jump at the chance. We have one guy—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

You are asked to confirm an opinion, or not, but carry on.

Alex Marshall: We share the opinion that bail needs to be very closely managed and that long periods of bail are bad for everyone in delivering good justice. What we have been doing is separate from the legislation: we are looking at how bail operates in local forces and what tighter management controls might make a difference. We have not had the data analysed yet. We have been finishing it in the last couple of weeks, but early indications are that around 30% of all the people who are arrested are put out on bail and in the forces we looked at—about half of those in England and Wales—70% of those who were bailed were bailed for more than 28 days. The rough number of people arrested each year in England and Wales is just under 1 million: about 950,000, down from 1.5 million a few years ago. That gives you an idea of the scale.

We then looked at the reasons why bail went beyond 28 days. They include getting professional statements from doctors and others, getting phones and computers analysed, taking detailed statements from vulnerable victims of crime, getting banking information and details, and getting forensics analysed and back to the investigation. We agree that the time limits should be closely monitored, but can see the resource implications of requiring a superintendent and others to be involved in what looks like a very high volume. The onus will rest on many people across the system to respond much more quickly to requests from the police conducting their investigation.

[James Cleverly]

Q Dame Anne, there are proposals in the Bill for super-complaints. Could I have your views on the impact that will have on public confidence in policing and the integrity of the process of policing, rather than the individuals?

Dame Anne Owers: Yes, we have noted those. The proposal is that they would come to the inspectorate of constabulary in the first instance, not to us. It will be interesting to see how that pans out. We asked for, and have been given, a power of own-initiative to be able to go into an individual investigation when we need to. We would need to see how the super-complaints work because, at the moment, between ourselves and the inspectorate of constabulary we have quite a lot of powers to go in and look at themes and issues that are arising. We are always slightly worried that a gateway will open that then leads to many things that we cannot do anything about but will be expected to. We are waiting to see what happens.

[James Cleverly]

Q Okay, fair enough. Following that up, you mentioned the interrelationship between yourself and HMIC. Are there crossovers? Could there be convergence? Could you and should you work together closely, or indeed is there a requirement for two separate organisations?

Dame Anne Owers: My view is that there is a need for two separate organisations because investigating, which is inevitably reactive and responds to an incident, is different from inspecting, which is essentially preventive and regular. There is a close connection between them and with the work that the college does. Insofar as our work reveals problems and issues and we make recommendations, there is then an opportunity for HMIC to look at whether those recommendations are more than pieces of paper when it goes round and does its police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy programme inspections. There is also an opportunity for the college to reflect on whether that should feed into authorised professional practice and standards. Between us, we ought to be able to create a virtuous circle.

Professor Dame Shirley Pearce: I think we are now working much more closely together. We have a concordat about how our executive and those at non-executive level work together. We have a system whereby the standards are set in one place—the forces—and assessed in another. It also requires us to look at and to monitor quite carefully the powers in the Bill, as we develop much further away from a system where we have a barred list of people who have been struck off, and towards having lists of people who are qualified to do the job and have licences to practise—therefore, we hold a list of people who have skills—to see how those powers are implemented. Do we actually have the right powers?

We welcome some of things in the Bill to give the college powers for individuals, but when it comes to forces delivering things consistently, we are still dependent on a rather heavy-duty code of practice which still only requires forces to have regard to it. As we implement this tripartite system more effectively, we are going to have to watch that we have all the right powers in the right place.

[James Cleverly]

Thank you.

[Amanda Milling]

Q My question is for Dame Anne on the complaints framework. Can you see the logic of a single complaints framework for both police and fire under the single employer model?

Dame Anne Owers: I think there is a problem about that. It is a problem about our specific remit and about some of the incidents that may happen in a fire situation. Our remit is over bodies exercising policing powers. It is very clear. That can extend to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, it can extend to some of the immigration functions of the Home Office and it is going to extend to gangmasters, but it about the exercise of policing powers. I think there is real difficulty in just transporting the Police Reform Act onto bodies that do not do that.

Also, under the PRA, every death or serious injury must be referred to us so that we can decide whether it needs to be investigated. I think there would be real difficulty if that provision were to be applied to anyone, for example, who died in a house fire. I do not think the two run together: we have considerable concerns about whether that complaints system is suitable for the fire service.

Policing and Crime Bill

James Cleverly Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for mentioning Hampshire before I did. I know that she is looking for reform to continue and for collaboration between the emergency services. I am sure that she is aware of the H3 project in Hampshire between the county council, the constabulary and the fire and rescue service, which is a genuine trailblazer in this area. The partners in that collaboration are already delivering savings of 20%, so is Hampshire not the apple of her eye as she embarks on this Bill?

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Go on, make his day.

[Mrs May]

I am tempted to do that. I should perhaps respond that my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) is the apple of my eye when he stands up and makes such a point about Hampshire. [Interruption.] Well, I have to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) that he has not yet put into practice what he said he wished to do.

Hampshire is a very good example of the collaboration that can work. The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice has visited Hampshire. He has seen Winchester fire and rescue service and the police station. These are all innovative ideas that provide a better service to people. I commend Hampshire and other parts of the country where they are putting this collaboration into practice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that cybercrime or online crime is one of the biggest challenges that we face, but there would probably be agreement across the Floor of the House that, among the 43 police forces in England and Wales, there is not yet the capability to investigate cybercrime. That is an issue for everybody. My question is how those forces will develop that capability if they face year upon year of real-terms cuts? I just do not think that that is sustainable.

The hon. Gentleman must also think about public safety and the cuts to fire services. There are cuts to the fire service in London and thousands of the number of firefighters, pumps and stations is being cut all over the country. Thousands more are set to go following a local government settlement that has inflicted the biggest cuts on urban areas. The embarrassing truth for Ministers is that if their northern powerhouse catches fire, there will be no one there to put it out.

[James Cleverly]

As a former chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will concede that at the same time as the reductions that he has spoken of, the London fire brigade had the best performance year in its recent history.

[Andy Burnham]

Again, I urge Government Members not to be so complacent. The hon. Gentleman may have seen that there was a fire in north London, around Euston, in the last couple of weeks where the London fire brigade missed its response target and, sadly, there was a fatality. I would not be so complacent if I were him, because fire services up and down the country are missing their recommended response times. If he believes that the cuts to London’s fire brigade and to fire and rescue services around the country can carry on in the way that his party proposes, I think he is putting public safety at serious risk.

The Government’s answer to the funding challenges is to have greater collaboration and greater use of volunteers. Neither is wrong in principle; the question is how they will be implemented. There are risks inherent in both policies if they are done in the wrong way. Together, they do not add up to a convincing solution for the future of emergency services. Patching two leaky buckets together does not make one that works. As the police and crime commissioner for Northumbria, Vera Baird, said today, the Bill looks suspiciously like a plan for “policing on the cheap”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

I say to all Government Members that an increased reliance on volunteers is no way to backfill cuts to core provision. Volunteers can add value—they can extend the reach of emergency services—but they are no substitute when filling the gaps left by cuts to front-line services that potentially leave the public at risk. The hon. Gentleman might be happy with a part-time police force or a part-time fire service, but I can tell him that most of my constituents would argue that that is not acceptable and that we need sufficient full-time resources on the front line to keep people safe.

[James Cleverly]

Will the right hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to correct what I can only assume to be an inadvertent slur on the many thousands of people in the part-time police force, the part-time fire service and the part-time armed forces who put their lives at risk, and do so because they are driven by a sense of public duty? Will he take this opportunity to remove that slur on the professionalism of all those individuals?

[Andy Burnham]

Clearly the hon. Gentleman was not listening because I praised the role of police specials and said that there was a role for volunteers. I happen to believe, however, that it is not fair to put those volunteers in dangerous positions without the powers, without the training and without the resources to do the job properly. If he thinks that emergency services that are increasingly run by volunteers represents the right way for us to go, I can inform him that Opposition Members seriously disagree with him.

The most worrying part of the Bill is part 1, given its implications for the future of fire and rescue services. Fire services have already faced severe cuts over the past five years, and they face another five years of deep cuts to front-line services. Our worry is that the Bill could make them even more vulnerable and could lead to fire and rescue services disappearing altogether as separate services. There is a real concern that the proposals to put fire under the control of police and crime commissioners has simply not been thought through. I am sure that the Home Secretary agrees that this is a major change, so will she answer this question: where is the Green Paper or the White Paper examining the pros and cons for such a change to the governance of our emergency services?

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock]

But what if they have retired?

I am getting into the rather unusual situation of wanting to ask questions of the Minister who has intervened on me. If my understanding is wrong, I hope he will point that out now or in his summation, but I understood that the only sanction available for an officer who had already retired was not to reduce their pension further, but simply to put them on a list to prevent them from going back to the job from which they had retired to escape accountability.

[James Cleverly]

I hope I can clarify the situation. I have served on the professional standards sub-committee of the Metropolitan Police Authority, so I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we are discussing the difference between a conduct sanction, for which the maximum penalty is dismissal from the force, and a criminal offence, for which pension forfeiture is one of the options. We must not confuse the two elements.

[John Woodcock]

That is helpful. I must say that I was not confusing the two of them, but I am grateful to the Minister for attempting to provide clarification.

I think we are clear that, at the moment, there is no such sanction for a finding of misconduct against an officer who has already retired. That is surely still a gap because it seems palpably absurd to suggest that some sort of blacklist would be a sufficient deterrent or, if that is not what the sanction is for, to give a sense of confidence and justice. I really hope that the Government will think again about this issue. They should also consider whether community work could be mandated in certain appropriate circumstances in certain fields for officers who have subsequently been found guilty of misconduct. I suggest that what is being proposed will simply not be enough to meet the real need for people to have greater confidence that retired officers can be sanctioned.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

I will limit my speech to part 1 of the Bill, which deals with collaborative working, and specifically to the provisions to bring fire authorities under the umbrella of police and crime commissioners, and the changes to the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. I served for many years on the Metropolitan Police Authority, and I was, until just prior to my election to this place, the chairman of the LFEPA, so I have seen at first hand the police authority structure, the current fire authority structure and now the workings of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime in London. I have also seen at first hand the confusion sown by the existing structures, particularly within the London fire authority. That confusion exists in the minds of voters and firefighters, and it also sits in the minds of the members of the fire authority itself.

Since the introduction of PCCs, we have seen a clear line of accountability from the electorate, through the PCCs, to chief constables and ultimately police officers themselves. There is no ambiguity about where the buck stops, and that is absolutely how a democracy should work. The people who hold and deploy budgets, and who set agendas and priorities, should be accountable to people at the ballot box, and that is what we see with PCCs. I therefore welcome the shadow Home Secretary’s statement that the Labour party’s position on PCCs has evolved. That is a mature position. I would like to see it evolve further and for him to embrace the model, but we will take one win at a time.

In comparison with the PCC system, the LFEPA, when I chaired it, had a mixed fleet of members: some were borough councillors; some were London Assembly members; and some were direct appointees of the Mayor of London. None—myself included—were elected to sit on the London fire authority, as every single member was appointed by the Mayor. The local government appointees were appointed on a proportional system, based on the local government elections, which created the perverse situation that the Mayor, as the only one of us elected with an explicit fire and rescue mandate, did not have a majority on his own functional body

I referred to the confusion among members. We had Labour and Liberal Democrat members describing themselves as “the opposition” on the London fire authority, despite the authority as a whole being the executive body. We also had the ridiculous situation where I, as the chair of the authority, had almost a Prime Minister’s Question Time-style monthly grilling by other executive members, of whom I was no more than the chair. If members of the fire authority do not understand its function—if they believe they are the scrutineers of the executive, rather than part of it—and misunderstand its scrutiny role, how on earth are members of the general public, or firefighters themselves, expected to understand it?

Chapter 3 of part 1 of the Bill remedies that situation by introducing a much clearer line of accountability so that the Mayor can take a direct role in the governance of the London fire brigade, rather than acting via the rather cumbersome mayoral direction process, as set out in primary legislation, which is what currently happens. The Bill provides for a much clearer golden thread from the Mayor, through the deputy mayor for fire and emergency, the London fire commissioner and the London fire brigade, to the voters, as should be the case.

I would like that model replicated around the country so that people can understand how the system works. We currently have a weird mixed fleet with fire authorities. Some are nothing more than a committee of a county council, while others have mixed systems with some councillors and some direct appointees. This incredibly cluttered system is past its sell-by date, if it were ever within it—I am not sure it was ever the right structure for fire and rescue.

There are also far too many fire authorities in the country. Fire authorities and brigades do a good job, but I struggle to comprehend how the fire and rescue requirements of east Sussex can be so fundamentally different from those of west Sussex.

[Andy Burnham]

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but will not the Bill make things even more complicated by providing for local authority control, traditional fire authority control, potential elected mayoral control and then another model of PCC control—even within that, as the Bill states, there are three models of PCC oversight? Will that not be even more complicated?

[James Cleverly]

I do not believe that it will be. Ultimately, the Bill will result in a gravitational pull to clear, clean lines of accountability. I foresee that the elements in the Bill that facilitate but do not mandate will prove to be a more effective model. I predict—I would be willing to be pulled up on this in the future—such a gravitational pull. It is what firefighters, police officers and the general public want, and it is what the House should also want.

Although I have been very supportive, I shall be a critical friend on one particular issue, for which I apologise to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. I was quietly critical of a measure in the primary legislation that created the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime in London that introduced an explicit requirement for a scrutiny committee on the London Assembly. I cannot imagine any circumstance in which the London Assembly would not have a scrutiny committee for either its policing function or its fire function. In my mind, the explicit provisions in schedule 2—proposed new sections 327H and 327I of the Greater London Authority Act 1999, if my memory serves me right—are superfluous. I will not die in a ditch over this, because I think that the function is necessary, but I am not sure that an explicit requirement in the Bill is needed. Having worked in the old cluttered universe in both policing and fire in London, and having seen how much clearer the lines of accountability are now that we have a Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime—the functions have been very ably discharged by my long-standing good friend and colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse)—I cannot wait until we have an equal amount of clarity in the fire service.

The shadow Home Secretary raised several concerns about whether the Bill would lead to cheap policing by the back door and the convergence of roles. I remind him that the fire department in New York conducts both the fire and emergency response that one would expect from a normal fire brigade and also runs the ambulance service in New York. There is no blurring of roles. The ambulance crews are explicitly ambulance crews and the fire crews are explicitly fire crews. It is only at the top of the organisation, with emergency call handling, mobilising, deployment, finance procurement and so forth, that there is convergence. I hope that such a model will be replicated here.

The Bill represents absolutely the right direction of travel. I have seen how cluttered and ungainly the current system is. It is absolutely right that we move to much clearer, cleaner lines of accountability, and I commend the Bill to the House.