Orgreave: Public Inquiry into Policing

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Lady makes a clear and passionate case as she always does in the House when she campaigns. My office spoke to the campaign group this morning and I will be meeting the group in September. I appreciate the levels of distress, hurt and historical anger that are part of this case, which is why I will take it seriously.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

With my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), I brought the campaign group down to meet the then Home Secretary over a year ago. It was therefore unexpected and unwelcome to hear last week that, after all that, she was still waiting for the investigations to be concluded. The shadow Home Secretary raised a serious question about the IPCC’s advice. Will the Home Secretary take this opportunity to correct the record, and will she give a firm commitment about exactly when after meeting the campaign group in September she will be making a decision?

[Amber Rudd]

I recognise that this has been a long time in coming—the incident happened of course in 1984. The previous Home Secretary met the campaign group in July last year. Six months later, it came back with the evidence, so we have had that since the end of last year. I have decided that I will look at it over the summer—it is substantial—and will meet the campaign group in September. I will come to a decision as soon as I can after that. I hesitate to say anything firmer than that, but I reassure the hon. Lady that I will come to a decision as soon as I can.

Hate Crime

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

I am pleased to hear the Minister recognise the importance of training and of a joint strategy between the CPS and the police. As a former special constable in the Metropolitan police, I have to say that my experience of training for hate crime was very poor. May I suggest she bring in an external organisation, such as HOPE not hate or Tell MAMA, to look at the training being delivered to the police and to investigate how seriously they are taking the matter internally?

[Karen Bradley]

I wonder whether the hon. Lady would be willing to meet me to discuss her personal experience, because I would like to hear about what is happening on the ground probably as much as she would like to tell me.

Hillsborough

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Obviously, the next stage of the investigation and the CPS is important for the families, and I hope that they will continue to work with Bishop James Jones through the family forums, and on his work to hear about their experiences. That process is important for the families, and also for us, so that we ensure that we have heard their experiences and can take away from that any lessons that need to be learned and any action that the Government need to take.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

May I add my thanks to the Home Secretary for her excellent statement, and for her work on the Orgreave truth and justice campaign? I look forward to her response on that. Having served as a special constable in the Metropolitan Police Service, I recognise the institutional defensiveness that was mentioned yesterday by the families, and I fear that that problem is not unique to South Yorkshire. As part of her review of lessons learned, will the Home Secretary consider ending the practice of officers conferring together when recording statements?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Lady is right, and there are issues not just for policing but for public sector institutions generally about the desire, which I described earlier, to look inwards and protect themselves. I will reflect on her comment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Some weeks ago, I visited the new combined firearms training facility that is being used in that way by the Avon and Somerset, Wiltshire and, indeed, Gloucestershire forces. That is a very good example of collaboration. It is absolutely right that police and crime commissioners should also be looking for ways in which they can collaborate, not just in relation to the police, but, increasingly, in relation to fire services.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

Such co-operation is vital for the Disclosure and Barring Service to meet its target of 40 days to deal with applications, but it is taking much longer in many cases, including that of a constituent of mine who has been waiting five months since his initial application, causing serious hardship. Is the Home Secretary aware of such delays, particularly within the Metropolitan Police, and what steps will she take to correct the situation?

[Mrs May]

I assure the hon. Lady that I am aware of the delays taking place in the Metropolitan Police, which is a matter that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), is taking up and looking into in detail.

Immigration Detention

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

I would like to add my congratulations to my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), who has done so much to highlight the growing concerns around this issue, and to the all-party groups on their excellent report. I am particularly grateful for the opportunity to raise the experiences of my constituents unfortunate enough to come into contact with the immigration detention system, and some of the flaws in our immigration policy that exacerbate the problem.

Our detention system is arbitrary and brutally effective at taking those, who may or may not have a case to remain, out of the communities in which they live. We detain far more than almost any of our European partners, depriving people of their liberty often because we have a system which treats detention as anything but a last resort. These places are prisons in all but name and, as has been mentioned, in many cases they are considerably worse than prison. The increase in those entering detention by 10%, to 32,000 in the most recent figures, is part of a longer upward trend. I do not want to repeat the valuable recommendations that have been laid before the House, except to say that the experience of my constituents is certainly consistent with the findings of the all-party groups.

The findings were true in the case of a young man resident in my constituency who fled Afghanistan in the most appalling of circumstances aged nine years old. After four years incognito, he arrived in the UK. He was given temporary leave to remain under the international humanitarian obligations by which the UK is bound. His entire family had been murdered by the Taliban, excepting his older brother who tragically died on the journey here. He is understandably now suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The young man was schooled here and built a life here. To all intents and purposes, this man is as English as you and me, Madam Deputy Speaker. He has no family and almost no connection to the country he fled at nine years old. Yet two weeks ago, after he had turned 18, he was hauled out of the community in which he lived, handcuffed and taken to the Brook House removal centre at Gatwick—[Hon. Members: “Shame”]—where he was put in a cell, and where food and drink was limited. He was even given his plane tickets, despite there being a block on his removal due to my intervention. After an entirely unnecessary traumatic and expensive experience, he was granted an injunction preventing his removal and release. He is now afraid to sign in with his caseworker, as he is required to do weekly, for fear of being arbitrarily detained again.

That case alone would tell of a disproportionate detention system and a fundamentally unjust immigration policy, but it is just a small insight, as we have heard, into wider failings. Problems remain with communication, conditions, illegal detention, a lack of a time limit and cost. The all-party groups’ recommendations are so desperately needed if our constituents are to retain their liberty and dignity throughout the immigration process. Community-based solutions, alongside time limits and proper judicial oversight, are all sensible solutions to help to ease those problems.

I turn briefly to the nearly 15,000 unaccompanied minors, such as my constituent, who are given temporary leave to remain when they arrive alone as children and find themselves in a prolonged legal battle as the clock strikes midnight on their 18th birthday, which usually ends in a detention centre and occasionally in deportation. These people, barely adults, are wrenched from the lives they have made since arriving alone in Britain and, undoubtedly terrified, are put on a charter flight back to their countries of origin. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found that 605 individuals over the past six years who arrived unaccompanied seeking asylum have been deported to Afghanistan on turning 18. The Home Office has given me the dubious assurance in the case of my constituent that his western upbringing will be of benefit to him in his new life in Afghanistan, but that is simply not the reality for many young people who return, fearing reprisals from the Taliban simply because they are known to have lived in the west.

The issue gained further prominence this week with the announcement in the other place that Syrian refugees aged 18 would be deported, which was retracted the following day by the Prime Minister. I would be grateful if the Minister could provide details of exactly how these children will not be deported on turning 18. For example, will they be granted indefinite leave to remain upon entering the country? The process for dealing with unaccompanied minors when they turn 18 seems at best ad hoc and often leaves young men and women in limbo for years, in and out of the detention system.

I hope the Minister will agree that the harm facing these 15,000 unaccompanied minors is a considerable cause for concern and that perhaps time might be granted for further debate and to review this specific issue in our asylum system. For now I implore the Government to listen carefully to the views and experiences of hon. Members and our constituents and to signal a direction of travel away from detention as an arm of the immigration system. Detention should be used as originally intended: a last resort used only in exceptional circumstances.

Reports into Investigatory Powers

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

It is a great honour to have listened to two maiden speeches today, by the hon. Members for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) and for Falkirk (John Mc Nally). It is clear that at least the former is a significant improvement on her predecessor.

I am pleased to be able to speak in today’s important debate. It is clear that there is agreement throughout the House that surveillance is necessary to protect the public from the serious threats that we as a country face. However, in recent years we have gradually become aware that there is also surveillance of perfectly legitimate activity. For instance, just this week the Investigatory Powers Tribunal revealed that GCHQ had spied on two international human rights organisations: the South African Legal Resources Centre and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. Both are entirely legitimate civil liberties organisations, and are co-claimants in a legal challenge against GCHQ, alongside Privacy International and Amnesty International, brought after the Edward Snowden revelations.

The IPT ruled that GCHQ’s mass surveillance systems violated the Egyptian NGO’s fundamental rights by intercepting, accessing and then unlawfully retaining material for longer than permitted. For the other NGOs that took the case, including Privacy International, Amnesty International and Liberty—all UK-based civil society organisations that are leaders in their field—no statement was made by the IPT as to whether they were spied on. The court’s finding of no determination means either they were not spied on, or, more worryingly, they were but the spying was done in line with GCHQ’s internal rules and so, under the current inadequate law, the spying was done lawfully.

It is not just perfectly legal NGOs that have been put under surveillance, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). The intelligence services routinely intercept legal privileged communications between, for example, lawyers and their clients in sensitive security cases, according to internal MI5, MI6 and GCHQ documents. We also now know that the Metropolitan police used RIPA to access the phone records of journalists to expose their sources. A number of leading civil liberties lawyers believe they have been put under surveillance by the Metropolitan police. Former undercover police officer, Peter Francis, even disclosed that Scotland Yard had a special file on the leading London human rights firm, Bindmans.

As Anderson notes in his report, there can be no fairness in litigation involving the state if one party to it has the ability to monitor the privileged communications of the other. Anderson’s report, as we have already heard, makes a serious recommendation that could help to prevent abuses of power such as these, namely his call for judicial commissioners to approve surveillance warrants. This recommendation is critical and I hope the Government take heed of it in their deliberations. Introducing impartial arbiters into the process of authorising surveillance would put us in line with the practice undertaken in other democracies, and make the system more rigorous and accountable. Clearly, this should be taken by the independent judiciary.

I also hope the Government listen to Anderson’s recommendation that legislation should not be brought back to Parliament until a strong operational case has been made. Anderson is clear that so far the Government have failed to do so.

We need targeted surveillance against those suspected of breaking the law, but the case for mass untargeted surveillance against entirely innocent British citizens has simply not been made. We need to ensure that journalists, lawyers and human rights activists can go about their lawful democratic activities without the chill from surveillance that is enabled by an overly broad law and too few legal safeguards. Both Anderson’s report and the ISC’s make the case for fundamental legal reform. I hope the Government do this in a way that respects the recommendations of both reports.