Immigration

John McDonnell Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab) [V]]

I find it hard to believe that we are having this debate today, and that this delegated legislation has been introduced at all. Emotionally, many Members of the House will find it hard to take, especially those of us who have taken any interest in detention, and specifically modern slavery and trafficking, over the last two to three decades.

After all the years of campaigning to expose modern slavery and trafficking, and after Parliament’s achievement of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which we are all proud of, this is like stepping back in time. It is a hugely retrograde step. After the exposure of trafficking and the recoil from the policies of the hostile environment, I thought we would never see this sort of legislation again. It is shameful that it has been brought before us. Have we learned nothing about the suffering that trafficking imposes on people? I urge the Minister and hon. Members not to support the motion, and to go back and look at some of the reports and investigations that led us to put in place extra protections for trafficking victims.

In 2017, Rahila Gupta—a member of Southall Black Sisters and now a famous author in my local community—wrote the book “Enslaved: The New British Slavery”. It was reported extensively at the time, and it shook many of us to the core with its descriptions of trafficking and the impact on our fellow human beings. Many other reports then followed, and we learned something of the scale of trafficking and its consequences in this country.

Yesterday, in Westminster Hall, the Government seemed to claim that the reason for this legislation was that the system was being abused somehow. No evidence for that claim has been published by the Home Office, and we have seen no independent assessment of the claim or data that the Government may want to bring forward to argue this case. What we do know, however—this is on the basis of research backed by the Home Secretary and undertaken in 2020 by Justice and Care and the Centre for Social Justice—is that there are estimated to be more than 100,000 victims of modern slavery in the UK. In 2020, only 3,000 people were positively identified as survivors of slavery in the second stage of the decision-making process.

I contend that the Government’s main worry should be their failure to identify and make safe the vast majority of people who have been trafficked into this country. The Government should concentrate on that, rather than on unsubstantiated allegations of abuse in the system. With no data published to prove it, the Government have argued that over the last 12 months, there has been a surge in foreign national offenders claiming to be victims of trafficking to disrupt immigration proceedings. That represents a complete failure to understand everything that we have learned about how many of those who are convicted are convicted of crimes that they were forcibly trafficked to commit in this country. I cite the recent examples from many of our constituencies of the Vietnamese young people who have been trafficked into cannabis farms in the UK. Many of those who are trafficked and then convicted of crimes lack access to legal advice and support even to explain their circumstances and case.

The Government appear to be arguing that the threshold of reasonable grounds for determining whether someone has been trafficked is too low. Under the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking, the threshold was deliberately set low to ensure that people are identified. I believe we have an international obligation to uphold that standard under the convention. People who are referred into the system are referred, as the Minister knows, by first responders, who are professionally trained and authorised by the Government. In detention, virtually all the referrals come from the Home Office itself. As the Minister said, the Government have offered us revised casework guidance. That has not even been published, yet we are expected to vote into law this statutory instrument—a leap in the dark.

If the consultation had been adequate, no Government could have reasonably brought forward this statutory instrument. As other Members have said, the consultation was extremely limited, in both who was consulted and the timescale. Consulting for only two weeks on something so significant is a dereliction of the Government’s duty, particularly on openness, transparency and the consideration of all reasonable factors. As others have said, the Home Office admitted to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee that more people will be held in detention if the instrument is approved. It will mean more people going into detention, but it will also be more difficult for people to get out of detention.

We need to recall the people we are talking about. These people are trafficked, exploited and abused, physically, sexually and mentally. They are extremely vulnerable. They are isolated and confused, often even lacking the ability to speak English, and they are suspicious of authority. Often, they have been emotionally abused to the extent that they are traumatised, and many suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. These are the people that this statutory instrument will increasingly force into detention. And let us be clear: we know now that, in detention, there is little access to legal advice or to emotional or health support, so it is often very difficult for these people to communicate their circumstances and their case.

What does detention mean? Well, this is the reality of detention. I have two detention centres in my constituency: Harmondsworth and Colnbrook. I have been visiting Harmondsworth for more than 30 years. Years ago, it was a couple of Nissen huts, with no more than about a dozen people detained there. Now we have what are, effectively, two prison-style buildings housing anything between 800 and 1,000 detainees.

These detention centres are notorious. Detainees have died, with accusations of neglect, lack of care and abuse. Perhaps the Minister will remember the 83-year-old man who was taken from detention to Hillingdon Hospital and died still in handcuffs. On two occasions, riots have broken out, with Harmondsworth being burned down.

Detainees get lost in the system, too, with examples of some being detained for long periods, trapped in detention. The irony is that most will eventually be released and allowed to settle, becoming valuable members of our community. The moral of this story is that we detain too many people unnecessarily and in unacceptable conditions. I believe that, in years to come, people will look back on this system with incredulity but also disgust.

I believe that this legislation, in addition to increasing the number of victims of trafficking in detention, will deter victims from coming forward. It will be used by traffickers to discourage victims from escaping. If the SI is passed, traffickers will say to victims, with some accuracy, “If you try to escape, you’ll be locked up anyway in a detention centre or prison.”

I believe that, if this House allows the statutory instrument to go on to the statute book, it will be seen as a disgraceful act of inhumanity. To attack some of the most vulnerable people, living in fear in our community, is a new low for this Parliament. I thought that we had all moved on. I thought we had moved forward. I hope that sufficient Members of this House still have the humanitarian instincts to reject this appalling measure.

Support for Asylum Seekers

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab) [V]]

I have two detention centres in my constituency, Harmondsworth and Colnbrook. I will come back in another debate to explain the brutality of the regime in those detention centres, which is abhorrent.

One of the opportunities given to us by Westminster Hall debates is to explain to Ministers what is happening on the ground, as against some of the advice they might be getting from officials. Since last June, two hotels in my constituency have been used to house 600 asylum seekers, as a response to the covid pandemic.

I welcome those people into my constituency. I have met them and they are largely seeking refuge from Syria, Iran and other oppressive regimes or war-torn or impoverished areas of the world. Many arrived here with little more than the clothes they stand up in. To respond, I set up a working group, with representatives from the Home Office, the contractor Clearsprings, the local NHS, council and community groups. I commend the Bell Farm Christian Centre, and Diane Faichney and Stuart Mathers in particular.

Despite all the hard work of those involved, major problems have arisen due to the basic administration of the scheme. For instance, outsourcing food provision to a hotel resulted in people going hungry, and the Bell Farm Christian Centre’s foodbank being overwhelmed, as refugees simply sought food to feed their families. The small financial support allowance is often not paid and backlogs build up. At one point a curfew was imposed, causing real anxiety because detainees felt they were almost in a prison. We also struggled to get agreement with the local council on school places.

Since then, there have been sudden removals of families from those hotels. Although we had been assured that there would be adequate notice, people have sometimes been given just two hours to move, and not told where they are going or where they will eventually be put. Local teachers have contacted me extremely distressed about the impact on already vulnerable children, who had just begun to settle in their schools. We were assured that everything would be done to provide settled accommodation, but we now discover people have simply been dispatched around the country into more hotels and often into appalling standards of accommodation.

We all accept that the overriding concern during the pandemic was to keep people safe, but immediate action is needed to provide support and assistance to these often extremely traumatised people, many of whom have already been diagnosed with PTSD. That means decent, settled accommodation and advice and support, ensuring that those families are fully engaged in determining their own futures. This has been a shameful, disgraceful performance by this Government.

Fire Safety Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. We will have to leave it there.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab) [V]]

I, too, send my best wishes to the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) and wish him a speedy recovery.

I have been listening to the debate and the various interventions. A question asked consistently in interventions from Conservative Members has been whether it is not best to put things right rather than act quickly. I remind those Members, as others have, that it is now four years on from Grenfell. Four years is a timescale in which we should have been able to address this issue and given people security and some form of confidence.

Confidence has been shattered by the failure to include in the legislation the recommendations from the first phase of the Grenfell inquiry. I share the view of the Fire Brigades Union that the Government seem to be doing the bare minimum to fend off bad headlines. I have not the eloquence to speak on behalf of my constituents and portray just how strongly they feel about this matter. They are really very angry—and, I have to say, distressed. They feel not only at risk but that their lives have been put on hold by their inability to sell their properties and move from them.

We have heard today about the £5 billion that the Government have allocated; my constituents, like those of other Members, are asking what happens if the money runs out—the costs so far have been estimated to be nearer £15 billion. In addition to that, just as the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said, the money will not cover many of the defects that have now been found and the additional measures that have been demanded and required. My constituents are now being hit with potential bills from the developers—including the worst, Ballymore—for things such as rectifying wooden balconies and other defects that were not of their making. The idea of waiting for the Building Safety Bill is like “Waiting for Godot”, what with the time it takes to get the right type of Bill and then get the legislation through and implemented.

My constituents in lower-rise blocks do not see why they are being discriminated against. My constituents were blameless. They were failed by developers, regulators, suppliers of materials, inspectors—all of them. Many of those developers made fortunes out of developments in my constituency; it is they who should pay the cost of their own failures. I urge urgency, which is why I will support all the amendments that would protect leaseholders from being burdened with the debt caused by others who have failed us all.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s commitment to correct the historic wrongs, and I especially welcome my hon. Friend the Minister’s commitment to fundamentally change the culture in the building sector and to take a more robust, risk-based approach. Leaseholders are the innocent parties in this matter and rightly expect that the developers, builders and current landlords—some of whom were developers—along with the local building controllers, national regulators and component manufacturers, should be the ones to bear the costs.

My constituents have raised a range of their outstanding concerns that they feel still need to be addressed. They are concerned, first, that those responsible should take far more of the financial burden; secondly, that they have the unfair burden of massively increased insurance costs and waking watches; and thirdly, about the distinction between buildings above and below 18 metres and why they should be treated so differently.

To many people, a monthly cost of £50 may not be a great deal, but for many others who are already at their financial limit, the equivalent of a 13th month of mortgage payments is a huge burden that they can barely afford—if they can afford it. They want to be able to move on with their life—they may want to have a family, or move for work or for a whole range of other reasons—but they cannot. They feel trapped.

Money Laundering

John McDonnell Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the Government’s action to address dirty money being laundered in the UK.

[The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)]

I thank the shadow Chancellor for giving the Government the opportunity to come here today to say what they have been doing on dirty money and money laundering in the United Kingdom. It is a long list, Mr Speaker, so I ask you to have a bit of patience and I will try to be as quick as possible in reading it.

We have made it harder for crooks to launder money through property, jewellery and betting. We have reversed the burden of proof so that people we think have links to organised crime have to prove where their assets come from. If they cannot prove it, we will seize the asset and dispose of it, or keep it to distribute it to countries where it may have been stolen. We have, for the first time, through the Magnitsky amendment made it possible to confiscate assets from people guilty of gross human rights abuse. We will complete that with an amendment to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill currently going through Parliament. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), who actually led the campaign on the Magnitsky amendment, not Labour Front Benchers.

We have made it easier to seize criminals’ money from bank accounts. We have introduced new powers to be able to freeze terrorists’ assets, and we did so on the very day that the provision came into force. We have made it a criminal offence to fail to prevent tax evasion, both at home and overseas. We are currently exploring the potential of widening other areas where failure to prevent may apply in economic crime.

We have brought a number of prosecutions under the Bribery Act 2010 of those involved in bribery, and we have had the first conviction of a company for failing to prevent bribery. [Interruption.]

[Mr Wallace]

We introduced deferred prosecution agreements to ensure that we maximise incentives for companies to face up to fraud and corruption. We are setting up the National Economic Crime Centre within the National Crime Agency. We have brought together the many strands of economic crime under one Minister—namely myself. We have bolstered the Serious Fraud Office by ensuring access to blockbuster funding so as to ensure that big business and overseas oligarchs cannot use their wealth to obstruct justice. The previous Prime Minister, David Cameron, initiated an international anti-corruption summit. In response to the Panama papers, we established a joint financial analysis centre within the NCA. We have established one of the world’s first public registers of beneficial ownership of companies. We have helped to establish in all overseas territories and Crown dependencies a register of beneficial ownership, with mutual and, in some cases, live-time access to law enforcement. We have committed to establishing a public register of overseas owners of property in the United Kingdom.

This Government have taken real steps to tackle criminal finance in this country. Whoever the crooks are, wherever they are from, and no matter what their nationality, we will pursue them and their cash.

[John McDonnell]

I thank the Minister for his response.

Twelve months ago, I raised in an urgent question the issue of the Russian laundromat, as it was called, laundering £20 billion of criminal funds through the City of London. Despite all that the Minister has said, the National Crime Agency estimates that £90 billion from the rest of the world is still laundered through the City each year, while the United Nations estimates that $100 billion has been lost in the British overseas territories. Despite all the actions that he set out, there is still a major problem. At the weekend, the Government said that they would enter into “detailed discussions” on further reform proposals. I therefore have a number of questions to ask the Minister.

Let me be clear: we welcome the Government’s new willingness to incorporate Labour’s proposals for Magnitsky measures to be included in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill, but we would welcome, in the spirit of co-operation, full and thorough discussion of the final drafting of the new clauses and amendments. We all agree that there is a need for complete openness and transparency in our financial system if we are going to be effective in tackling money laundering. Back in 2015, the Government initially promised, following two consultations, a date for a register of owners of UK property based overseas. After repeated delays, why are we now told that a register will not be published until 2021? There is minimal checking of the UK’s own register of company ownership. Indeed, it was possible for a journalist to set up a company called Crooked Crook Crook Ltd. Have the Government undertaken an assessment of the number of fraudulently registered companies in the UK? If not, when will they do so?

In the recent Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill Committee, the Government justified their lack of action on foreign trust or company service providers by saying that they were lower risk than the UK’s own trust or company service providers. In the light of the most recent evidence of money laundering via overseas TCSPs, will the Government revisit that assessment?

Why have the Government not included trusts in the register of beneficial ownership, as Labour has so long asked for? Given the concerns about corrupt funds being laundered through properties in the UK, will they now consider including Labour’s proposal for an offshore company property levy in their reforms? Will they finally join Labour in accepting the need for public, transparent registers for overseas territories and Crown dependencies?

Finally, 634,000 suspicious activity reports have been filed since October 2015. What will the Government now do to ensure that the enforcement agencies are fully resourced to tackle this scourge on our society?

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I think the point of order appertains to the recent exchanges, and I will therefore take it now.

[John McDonnell]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker. We were hoping for a much more bipartisan approach today, but the Minister started off by making a statement in which he implied something that I do not think he wanted to imply, namely that we had not raised the issue recently. He implied that I had not raised it since, I think, 2016.

On 21 March 2017, Mr Speaker, you were kind enough to allow me a very similar urgent question, in which I asked the Government to address the allegations

“that, via an operation referred to as the “global laundromat”, banks based in Britain have been used to launder immense sums of money obtained from criminal activity in Russia linked to the FSB spy agency there.”—[Official Report, 21 March 2017; Vol. 623, c. 777-8.]

I am sure that the Minister would not want in any way to mislead the House, but I think it important for him to correct the record and to confirm that we have raised the matter consistently, not just in that urgent question but time and again during the Committee stage of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill.

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman has put the position very clearly on the record. The Minister is welcome to reply if he wishes. He is not obliged to do so, but if he does, it will stand in the Official Report.

Immigration Detention

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I apologise for coming late to the debate, after the first half hour, and missing the earlier contributions.

It is interesting that no one is defending the system overall, which is a significant breakthrough. I do not think we would have had this debate five or six years ago, but people have learned a lot of lessons. I have two detention centres in my constituency because I have Heathrow airport: Harmondsworth and Colnbrook. Thirty years ago as a local councillor, I used to visit Harmondsworth. Back then, it was a Nissen hut with no more than a dozen people in it. I now have two detention centres with a combined population of 1,000 detainees, and the system is absolutely brutal.

As I have Heathrow in my constituency, I am almost the last resort MP before deportation. My number is scrawled on the walls of the detention centres, and those detained contact my constituency office. My caseload is enormous. I do not know how my staff get through it, to be frank. It is so distressing, I wonder how they get through it emotionally as well. The pleas we receive are desperate, because of the system itself, not just the issue of deportation or removal; it is about how people have been treated up to that point. Often, someone will report as normal to the Home Office on a weekly or monthly basis and will get swept in, or it is as a result of a raid. Years ago in my constituency, we had dawn raids, with white vans and so on. They have gone now, but more raids are happening at workplaces now, so the white van system is returning. People are dragged traumatised into a detention centre. The paperwork is chaotic—we all know that—partly because of staff cuts in the department dealing with these cases. In addition, the access to legal assistance and advice is largely non-existent, except for the wonderful people providing volunteer services in the detention centres.

People do not know whether they will be there a week, a fortnight, a year or longer. The indefinite detention is the worst thing possible and it undermines individuals’ psychological wellbeing, because they do not know their future either way. That results in self-harming. I have had suicides in Harmondsworth. The case of the 83-year-old man who was handcuffed was from my detention centre in Harmondsworth. An 83-year-old man on his deathbed was put in chains and handcuffs. It was a scandal. I pay tribute to the monitoring board visiting the detention centres in my area. It monitors the system voluntarily, produces reports and exposes such scandals.

I accept all the recommendations from the all-party groups and commend the work they have done. Sarah Teather, who is no longer a Member, did fantastic work on this, both as a Minister and as a Back Bencher. I accept all the recommendations, but I want the detention centres closed. There are alternatives within the community, such as those my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) raised. There must be a more civilised way of dealing with people. I used to visit children in Harmondsworth, and I raised the matter time and again with the then Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. I am pleased we no longer have children in the full detention centres, but we still detain children.

I give this warning: if the detention centres are not closed, there will be more self-harming and more suicides. Harmondsworth has been burned down twice as a result of rioting. The hunger strikes go on, as we speak, on a regular basis. The riots will come back. This is no way to treat our fellow human beings. We have to find another way. Yes, let us accept the recommendations today, but in the long run let us close these establishments, which have so significantly failed to respect the human rights of those detained.

Reports into Investigatory Powers

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I am chair of the cross-party National Union of Journalists parliamentary group, and for the last two years, with Government co-operation, we have gone through the highways and byways of each piece of legislation—ranging from the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to RIPA to DRIPA, then on to the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015—to see how we can best protect journalists and their sources. I thank the Government for their co-operation throughout. We have had detailed consideration of the codes of practice to each piece of legislation, and with our lawyers meeting on a regular basis, and with the Society of Editors, we have tried to move the debate forward.

On the protection of journalists, I say to the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) that an issue of confidence was raised in this House by all parties. As he may recall, that stemmed from the introduction of PACE procedures, whereby there was an understanding in Government that journalists and in particular, their sources, should be protected as an inherent part of protecting our democracy. Under PACE, there was a protection whereby, if there was an application for seeking information, a journalist would be notified. They would have their day in court and be able to represent themselves, and there would be a right of appeal. That process was generally accepted by all, except some authorities.

Many of us were shocked 18 months ago when we received reports that to avoid the use of PACE, a number of authorities—the police, the intelligence services, and even local councils—had used RIPA to avoid the due process of applying, judicial overview and the right of appeal. The scale of the use of RIPA by individual authorities was immense, and I think it shocked us all when that was exposed. Local councils were using it to spy on their own staff or even people who were making applications for local schools, and so on. There was shock on both sides of the House and a feeling that that was inappropriate use of the legislation.

We then went through discussions about DRIPA. Through the NUJ and the Society of Editors, we met the Government and applied our minds to getting some protections within the codes of practice, and eventually, under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill. Throughout the continuing theme was the same as in today’s debate—that there was a need to rationalise the legislation, so that not only was it effective and understandable, but that it had protections in place for those with privileged or confidential information.

Anderson has been welcomed by the NUJ and others, because it goes some way towards doing that. The NUJ’s position was straightforward: it wanted an independent judicial process. In addition, it wanted automatic and mandatory prior notification of requests for accessing information, and it wanted mechanisms to challenge an application with the right of appeal. Anderson goes some way towards doing the first, and in recommendations 67 to 69, he makes special consideration with regard to journalists. He clearly states that the designated person

“should be obliged either to refuse the request”—

when it comes to identifying a journalist’s information or confidential source, and then automatically—

“refer the matter to ISIC for a Judicial Commissioner to decide”.

The NUJ welcomes that process, but I speak briefly to make a couple of appeals on the matter. Anderson recommends that there is a code of practice or ISIC guidance that specifies:

“the rare circumstances in which it may be acceptable to seek communications data for such a purpose, and…the circumstances in which such requests should be referred to ISIC.”

I say to the Minister that it would be really helpful, if the Government are going down the route of further guidance, to start the consultation process now. Again, the NUJ would welcome access to officials to commence those discussions in advance of the publication of any such guidance.

[The Minister for Security (Mr John Hayes)]

Given the brevity that I will no doubt be obliged to adopt at the end of this debate, I am more that happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the specific point that he is making.

[John McDonnell]

I am grateful to the Minister; I thought that would be his response.

May I ask that, this time round, any draft guidance is published in advance of the primary legislation, so that we are fully conversant with the implications of the primary legislation in detail when we discuss it? We were not capable of doing that in the past because of the rush of emergency legislation, but it would be helpful.

One issue that is not addressed effectively by Anderson is prior notification. I accept that there are circumstances in which prior notification becomes difficult, some of which have been mentioned today. However, there needs to be wider discussion of this issue and it must not just be dismissed in the way that it was in the report. There also needs to be further discussion about the right of appeal in respect of any decisions by the judicial commissioners in addition to those that are set out in the Anderson report. I would welcome further consultation on those elements.

I will make one final point because I know that I must be brief and that others wish to speak. Anderson does, to give him his due, stress the importance of the protection of journalists and their sources, and quotes Liberty on the issue. We must remember that those are the journalists that we sometimes do not hold in great affection. They are the journalists who exposed the MPs expenses scandal and who expose corruption. They do so on the basis of information that is brought to them by sources that need to be protected. The word “chilling” was used earlier. We said in the debates about the movement from PACE to RIPA that any undermining of the protection of sources would have a chilling effect and they would not come forward, thereby undermining the democratic accountability of administrations at all levels.

I am grateful that David Anderson quotes Liberty and bases his proposals on its principles, which state that a

“free press and the right to free speech is dependent on respect for private correspondence”.

If we establish those principles in the legislation that is brought forward, it will lay the basis for firm legislation. That will also inform the debate that we eventually have on the Pitchford inquiry into surveillance more generally.

Counter-Terrorism (Statutory Instruments)

John McDonnell Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I will not delay the House more than a minute. Over the past 12 months I have bored the House enough, like a needle on a cracked record, on the subject of the protection of journalists.

That started with a debate on the concerns expressed by the National Union of Journalists about the volume of production orders that were being used against its members, as well as the range of organisations using and abusing RIPA, and the police moving away from PACE to avoid accountability through the courts, and then using RIPA. In addition, concerns were expressed by the NUJ about the development of DRIPA.

I am grateful to the Minister for allowing the interchange of views between the NUJ and his officials. That has helped us to move forward clearly on the codes of practice, but those do not go far enough, nor do these regulations, to meet the NUJ’s position on the protection of journalistic sources. However, the draft clauses have been published. We are about to go into purdah. Whoever is in government after the election will have to address the issue fairly quickly, as the Minister knows. Can the lines of communication between the civil servants and the NUJ remain open during this period? Also, can further meetings take place with the NUJ’s legal advisers and the NUJ representatives to ensure that the eventual legislation, or the advice on the eventual legislation, that goes before the incoming Ministers will meet with the approval of all stakeholders, as well as journalists?

Counter-terrorism and Security Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank you for your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I hope that the way the provisions in part 4 are put together will not lead to airlines or countries saying, “We will not allow people from this particular country to travel here.” I hope that reassurance will be provided in the guidelines that are produced later on.

I know that what I am saying may be different from the conventional view of some people in this House. However, as somebody who talks to young people all the time and deals with people who commit criminal offences, defending and prosecuting, I have a very good knowledge of the criminal justice system and the people who often come into it. Most of them are unhinged and most have problems. Prevent is the worst possible thing to put on to a statutory footing. It will criminalise people. I do not often agree with Peter Hitchens of the Daily Mail, but I agreed with his article of 15 January where he said that these kinds of things are going to lead to people being banged up, and in 10 years time we will ask how that happened. It happened, I am sorry to say, because not enough people in this House got up and said that Prevent is a bad idea and the whole process of looking at these things is wrong.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

My local mosque is extremely progressive, but I was invited to visit it on Monday because it has concerns about the Bill. Perception is sometimes as effective as reality and they feel that the Muslim community is under suspicion and that this Bill is targeted at them.

I understand what has been said about the speed at which the Bill has gone through, but I do not think that the wider community has caught up with the debate or why there is a sense of urgency. On the Bill’s implementation, it is absolutely critical that we engage at local level and allow the community to lead, rather than just the police. I completely agree with the argument about the involvement of families and mothers in particular, but that involvement has to be resourced as well. There is a real feeling in my community that these measures are targeted at Muslims in a way that will infringe on their religious freedoms and divide the community rather than unite it.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi): real care needs to be taken in how the Bill is implemented at the local level. In my area, we are bringing all the mosques and agencies together to talk through the detail of the Bill, not only so that people can be brought up to speed, but, more importantly, so that we as a local community can drive the initiative, rather than its being seen as something that is being done to the Muslim community by the state.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) made some very important points. I have two concerns about the Bill, which unleashes worries about civil liberties in this country. The first relates to the effective banning of people from either travelling from or returning to this country. That will open a can of worms, the effects of which we will suffer for many years to come. Surely the principle of holding nationality is that a person should be free to return to the country of which they are a national.

My second concern relates to freedom of speech. I recognise that the House of Lords has tried to improve the question of freedom of speech in universities, but I draw this House’s attention to the letter signed by 500 professors in The Guardian on 2 February. It pointed out that the issue is fraught with enormous difficulties. On the one hand, the Prevent strategy is being imposed on universities, but at the same time it is being insisted that they have freedom of speech.

Racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are all awful things—

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Commons Chamber

Most important of all, the agencies’ job now begins to look more possible. Even some members of the Intelligence and Security Committee have been critical of the agencies. The right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) criticised the agencies, saying that they seem unable to deal with the thousands of suspects that they have in front of them and to sift them in such a way that they can find the ones who are really dangerous. That is what happened in 7/7, 21/7 and in the terrible murder of Lee Rigby. This tool will give us a powerful anti-terrorism weapon and make the job easier to do. It will reduce the size of the target and, at the end of the day, deliver justice. I take the view that one of the most important things that we can do with would-be terrorists and actual terrorists is to convict them in a court of law so that their own communities understand what they have been planning and then punish them properly and take them out of circulation so that they are no longer a threat to the public. We need to take this matter incredibly seriously. Frankly, it is more important than most of the other issues in this Bill, except perhaps for Prevent. The Government should get a grip of this issue after 30 years of indecision.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) on his consistent approach to this matter. I wholeheartedly support new clause 3, and hope that he brings it back on Report. I still cannot comprehend why intercept evidence has not been used. I have never had a satisfactory response to that in all the debates we have had.

Let me turn now to amendments 8, 9 and 10, which stand in my name. I bring the Committee back to the debates we have been having throughout this Bill and that we had during the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014. I am talking about the protection of professionals, journalists in particular, who have a duty of confidentiality and secrecy. Let me remind Members of the background to this. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 has been used as a device to avoid the requirement in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 for judicial authority to undertake police investigations of the operation of journalists in particular, which also means collecting data on them.

There is currently a case before the courts involving six journalists. Despite frequent freedom of information requests, there has been a complete inability to find out how much RIPA has been used by the police to investigate journalists. That puts journalists at risk, undermines the relationship that they have with their sources and puts their sources at risk.

In addition to that concern, which is now being addressed by the courts, there is the issue with regard to the European Court of Justice, which struck down the EU data retention directive. That directive explicitly recognised the importance of data retention in preventing and detecting crime. It also stated that one of the 10 principles that a state must abide by is to

“provide exceptions for persons whose communications are subject to an obligation of professional secrecy.”

The Minister helpfully allowed me, National Union of Journalists representatives and its solicitor to meet officials to discuss his earlier indication that the data acquisition code of practice would be amended to ensure that where there are concerns relating to professions that handle privileged or confidential information, such as journalism, law enforcement should give additional consideration to the level of intrusion.

The Minister kindly published the guidance last week. It is now out for consultation, which I welcome. Paragraph 3.74 states that

“applicants, giving special consideration to necessity and proportionality, must draw attention to any such circumstances that might lead to an unusual degree of intrusion or infringement of privacy, and clearly note when an application is made for the communications data of a medical doctor, lawyer, journalist, Member of Parliament, or minister of religion. Particular care must be taken by designated persons when considering such applications.”

I think that is really helpful. It does not go as far as the NUJ and others wanted, which was judicial oversight or approval in some form, but at least it gives us the basis for special considerations being taken into account with regard to journalists and others.

My amendments would simply strengthen the role of the privacy and civil liberties board, or whatever title we give it tonight as a result of various amendments. Amendment 8 would ensure that the Secretary of State publishes regulations under section (3) that include a provision requiring the board to undertake an inquiry into the retention of and access to data relating to professions that operate under a duty of confidentiality. That would allow the privacy and civil liberties board to look at how the new code of practice is operating and report on what impact it is having on the operation of journalists and those in the other professions.

Amendment 9 seeks to amend the regulations so that the membership of the board includes representatives of those professions that operate under a duty of confidentiality. In that way, we would ensure some overview of the new code of practice and of the implications for journalists and others. In addition, the voice of journalists and others in professions that operate under this duty of confidentiality would be represented and heard on the civil liberties board when it advises the Secretary of State on the overall operation of this legislation.

The amendments are in the spirit of trying to find, as we have done throughout our considerations of the Bill and the debate on DRIPA, a balance between ensuring that the authorities can investigate appropriate crime, including terrorism, and protecting those professions that work under this duty of confidentiality. It is a serious matter for journalists. There is a real concern that it might undermine their operation and put them at risk, but it would also undermine the ability of whistleblowers and others to come forward and put them at risk. As we have seen in recent cases, that might now be tested in the courts.

I do not intend to press my amendments to the vote. They put forward some points for debate. Hopefully we will get a positive response from the Minister on the inclusion of at least some review, but also perhaps representation on the board.

[James Brokenshire]

Let me first address that last point from the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). Obviously we touched on that during our previous consideration of the Bill with regard to the code of practice under DRIPA, which has now been published, and I welcome his comments on that. We look forward to receiving feedback from him and from the NUJ on their views about our proposals as part of the consultation exercise. I understand his desire to see further scrutiny and challenge. Indeed, that examination remains ongoing on a number of different fronts. The interception of communications commissioner is carrying out a review in that area, which he intends to complete by 31 January next year. I repeat that we will of course want to consider his recommendations when we come to finalising the code, along with any other comments received. This is an important area that we have already debated. As I made clear on that occasion and am happy to reiterate, the Government recognise the importance of a free press and are determined that nothing should be done that might jeopardise that.

It is notable that the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation is examining the issue more broadly. The civil liberties and oversight panel is intended to support the independent reviewer in some of his work. The Home Affairs Committee has provided its thoughts in relation to this issue, and Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee is looking more broadly at privacy and liberty. We look forward to receiving its report in due course, which may well touch on some of the themes that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington brought to the Committee this afternoon. Although I think his amendment is not necessary in the context of the debate today, I can reassure him about the level of scrutiny and examination that is being given to these essential points. I look forward to continuing the discussion of the matter.

On clause 36 and the Opposition amendments, the privacy and civil liberties oversight board is intended to support the independent reviewer and in so doing will provide much-needed capacity to allow the reviewer to consider a wider range of subjects than it is currently possible for one individual to undertake. However, it is right that we ensure that the statutory functions and objectives of the board are in line with those of the role it is designed to support.

Clause 36 provides for regulations to be made that would set out the detail of the board, including provisions about its composition, functions and appointment. These regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure. Clearly, this is an important matter and any changes to existing oversight must be carefully considered—the point that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) rightly highlighted. That is why the Government will publish a full public consultation that invites comments on the proposals and provides an opportunity for all interested parties to influence key elements of the board, including its composition and appointment, some of the rights of access to documentation and the structure of the membership.

We will carefully consider the outcome of the consultation prior to bringing forward the regulations. We will invite comments on key elements relating to the organisation, membership, appointment and work programme of the board. Clause 36 already provides, subject to the outcome of the consultation exercise, that regulations may include provision about any number of the most important considerations relating to the board. That would allow the matters addressed in the amendments to be dealt with in the regulations, should it be appropriate to do so.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. and learned Friend highlights the mechanisms provided in paragraph 5 of schedule 1 on the manner in which the judge must be satisfied with the continued need to retain the documentation. His point is the basis or central tenet for the use of the power in the first place. Indeed, I think this relates to the point advanced by the right hon. Member for Delyn in one of his amendments. Judicial review is available to challenge the basis of the original decision. Therefore, there is a judicial right to question and challenge the basis on which the officer has used the power in the first place, as set out in paragraph 2 of schedule 1. We therefore believe there is a direct means to be able to challenge the underlying decision.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

The Minister refers to a point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson). Judicial review is an extremely difficult and expensive route to secure justice. The point about magistrates, as the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) says, is the diligent and expeditious use of an administrative power. Where there are grounds for a simpler right to appeal relates to a point made by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), which is where someone has suffered repeated instances of having their documents taken off them. On that basis, a swift appeal system would at least give some confidence that it was not being used indiscriminately.

[James Brokenshire]

For the relevant document to need to be retained, the provisions in paragraph 5 of schedule 1 must remain outstanding: there must be consideration of whether the Secretary of State would use the royal prerogative, whether there are charges to be brought against that person, or whether there are other measures that may be relevant. The requirement still needs to be satisfied, which is why we have brought in the 14-day provision to ensure direct oversight and checks and balances through the mechanisms in the schedule.

On cost, following further discussions with the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, it may be helpful to clarify and expand on the evidence I gave to the Joint Committee on Human Rights on 3 December, on the availability of legal aid for those subject to the proposed temporary passport seizure powers and to provide clarity on the potential scope of legal aid in this context. I have written to the Chair of the Joint Committee today on this issue.

Legal aid would potentially be available for the magistrates court proceedings provided for in the Bill, but at present that would be a discretionary decision for the director of legal aid casework. The Government are considering whether it would be proportionate to bring those proceedings within the scope of the general legal aid scheme to put individuals’ access to legal aid, subject to the statutory means and merits tests, beyond doubt. Legal aid is available under the general civil legal aid scheme for judicial review challenges by those subject to the temporary passport seizure power and the temporary exclusion order power, subject to the statutory means and merits tests.

Returning to the provisions, a code of practice will provide clear guidance on how police and Border Force officers will exercise the powers. The Government will carefully review all responses received to the consultation that we propose to undertake in respect of the code, to ensure it contains effective guidance and provides clarity to officers on how the new powers should operate. The power is a proportionate and prudent response to the threat we face. It will allow the police to disrupt travel at short notice when there is reasonable suspicion that someone is travelling for terrorism-related purposes.

Let me now turn to the amendments before us. I shall deal first with those from the Opposition. Amendment 17 seeks to provide a process for individuals to appeal to the courts against the decision to remove their travel documents at port. As I have described, the Bill already provides a specific court procedure. In addition, the individual can decide, at any time, to seek a judicial review of the initial passport seizure in the High Court, where closed material proceedings may be available to allow consideration of any sensitive material. I do not believe, therefore, that the amendment adds a significant additional safeguard to the use of this power.

Amendment 29 seeks to introduce a sunset clause to the temporary passport provisions. Doing so may send an inadvertent message to would-be jihadist travellers of our lack of intent to deal with the threat they pose if they believed that the powers would end in two years’ time. Terrorism-related travel is a serious and ongoing issue. Our law enforcement agencies need to have a range of tools at their disposal to deal with it in a necessary and proportionate way. I wish we could be confident that the conflicts that attract these individuals will be resolved in two years, but it would be imprudent to plan on that basis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Howarth]

I think I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention, although I rather suspect it was aimed more at the Home Secretary than at me. Some fighters out there are involved in ISIS or another group and they went out to fight for a completely different cause from the one they have ended up fighting for. It is literally that complicated.

On the disillusionment front, we will talk about the Prevent strategy tomorrow. I suspect there are some means by which Prevent, or a revised form of Prevent, would be appropriate for those who have come back disillusioned and want to reintegrate back into society.

I am sure nobody will disagree that the most difficult group are those who were radicalised in the UK, adopted a particular kind of Salafist view and went out specifically in pursuit of jihad. They think still that they are out there creating a caliphate, which is the whole meaning behind what ISIS are doing. Some will return not because they have stopped believing in that particular ideology, but because they want to resume their activities in the UK. That is the most difficult group.

To conclude, I would be grateful if the Home Secretary answered a couple of questions. I realise it is difficult in an open forum such as this, but will she indicate what assessment will be carried out of the individuals concerned to determine which of those three categories—it might be all three—they fit into? Will the conditions applied to a managed return relate to that assessment? If she could say a bit more about that, it might give people greater confidence that the process she is proposing is preferable to a judicial process that, because it is based on intelligence, might at worst be completely closed and at best partly closed.

[John McDonnell]

I seek some clarity on clause 9 on pages 5 and 6.

We know of two young men who have left my constituency to fight—we believe—in Syria, and we worked with one of the families, with the assistance of the Government, to enable them to go to Turkey to try and convince the young man to return. When I read his letters to his parents, I found them to be extremely sincere. He thought he was going to Syria to fight against the Assad regime—he called it “jihad”—to protect people being bombarded by the regime and to prevent what he considered to be war crimes. I also found him sincere in his hope that his parents would not be distressed. It was a rather sad leaving letter. At one point, he explained to his parents that there was still a few bob left on his Oyster card for them to use. It was a short, extremely moving letter from a young man in his late teens, early 20s, explaining his intentions. I believe that many young men, and possibly women, have gone out with what they and others would consider to be the best of intentions: to engage in a military action to protect people from the abuse of human rights by a dictatorial regime that, as we now know, was using gas and other weapons against its own people.

I am trying to find a mechanism to encourage people to come back and be reintegrated into our society because I think that a lot of people who went out realise they made a mistake; they might have thought their intentions virtuous in the first instance, but I think many of them would now acknowledge that they made a mistake and it has gone wrong. Clause 9, however, introduces significant offences. It states:

“An individual subject to a temporary exclusion order is guilty of an offence if, without reasonable excuse, the individual returns to the United Kingdom in contravention of the restriction on return specified in the order.”

It would be extremely helpful if the Home Secretary gave us greater clarity, either now or later, about what a reasonable excuse would be. I would not want practicalities—for example, a person not knowing they had an exclusion order against them—to be an issue. Clause 9(4) states:

“In a case where a relevant notice has not actually been given to an individual, the fact that the relevant notice is deemed to have been given to the individual under regulations under section 10 does not…prevent the individual from showing that lack of knowledge of the temporary exclusion order, or of the obligation imposed under section 8, was a reasonable excuse for the purposes of this section.”

We need to be clear about what a reasonable excuse would be in this instance.

Many of these individuals already led chaotic lives, but they are now in a zone of operations that in itself is chaotic, and I think that many will want to return. However, the fact that there is uncertainty about what would be a reasonable excuse for returning—of getting on that plane and coming back—and the risk of up to five years in prison or a summary conviction of up to 12 months could act as a disincentive.

I think we should be easing the path as best we can to as many as possible of those who want to come back to be de-radicalised or rehabilitated. In some instances, unless we are absolutely clear about the nature of these offences and, in particular, about what would be construed as a reasonable excuse for return when the person does not know whether a temporary exclusion order is in place, it could provide a disincentive to carrying out the purpose that the Government, the Opposition and others want to happen—the process of managed return.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I shall speak briefly because I know the Home Secretary is about to reply. Following the speech of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) about the general direction in which anti-terror law has gone, I want to make two essential points. Ever since I have been a Member, we seem to have had some piece of anti-terror legislation before us every year. I assume that there is a very large department in the Home Office that is writing next year’s anti-terror Bill and the one for the year after that. I am sure there will be an ambition to do that.

The theme that runs through all such legislation is an attempt to give greater and greater executive powers to the Home Secretary, which are usually rowed back by a combination of the courts and parliamentary action; then, a year or two later, we come back to yet another counter-terror Bill in respect of which the Home Secretary, no doubt with the very best of intentions, is nevertheless given a high degree of executive power. It is no part of our duty as elected Members of Parliament to undermine an independent judicial process and hand executive powers to Ministers, on the basis of which they can either detain or exclude people under any process whatever. That is fundamental to what I understand our democracy to be.

Although there is—ultimately, I suppose—some degree of judicial oversight when an excluded person finally comes back to this country, I would have thought that the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) are surely true and important. If someone goes abroad, albeit on the basis of perhaps misguided notions about what they can do when they reach the zone of conflict to which they have gone, they will be there and will subsequently be prevented from returning. That might render them at risk of imprisonment by another judiciary, which might have much less concern for human rights than anyone here, and they could then be tortured and all kinds of terrible things could happen to them. Would the possession of British nationality on the part of someone affected in that way require the British Government to intervene on their behalf to stop them being tortured, given that the Government opposed their return to Britain in the first place? This whole process is full of many complications and contradictions, which I hope have been adequately thought through by the Home Secretary in introducing this legislation.

Secondly, I want to note the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth). We are involved in a process of making subjective judgments about who goes where to fight for what, and for whom. My right hon. Friend made the point that if somebody goes to fight for ISIS in Syria—I wish they would not; I have no truck whatever with ISIS—they will be deemed to be a terrorist and a dangerous person. If they go to fight for the Syrian Government, I presume the same point applies, but if they fight for the free Syrian army, which is supported by the Americans and the British, and they do things as despicable as they would in any other force, are they then deemed to be all right? Do they then have to prove which particular force they joined in Syria’s three-way civil war?

There is a further complication. If someone enters Syria from Turkey to fight with the Kurdish forces, having been taken there by the PKK, which is a listed terrorist organisation in Turkey, they would nevertheless be on the side of the Kurdish forces against the forces of the Syrian Government and against ISIS. There are an awful lot of contradictions surrounding how we decide who is a good fighter and who is a terrorist; who is struggling for liberation and who is a terrorist. There was a time when people involved in Umkhonto we Sizwe in South Africa were known as terrorists; they were later welcomed to this country as freedom fighters. Things can turn full circle.

None of what I am saying is intended to give any succour, comfort or support to ISIS, but I feel that we should think about this rather more carefully and avoid the knee-jerk reaction of saying, “These are bad fighters and those are good fighters, so we will ban these and allow those in.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

As I have said, when it is impossible to serve an order on an individual in person, it is standard practice to make every attempt to serve it in a way that ensures the information gets to them. Using their last known address is one way in which such decisions are served.

[John McDonnell]

Can we be clear on this point? Clause 9(4) states that when a relevant notice

“has not actually been given to an individual, the fact that the relevant notice is deemed to have been given to the individual…does not…prevent the individual from showing that lack of knowledge of the temporary exclusion order…was a reasonable excuse”.

To be frank, that will not be strong enough in many cases.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but as I have just said to the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras, the point is that what is a reasonable excuse will be tested in the courts. I did not quote the exact words but I cited the spirit of the point in clause 9(4). As I say, that matter would be tested by the courts and it would be for them to determine whether or not what the hon. Gentleman describes constituted a reasonable excuse.