Olympics (Security)

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on Olympic security.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

Since I updated the House on Olympic security last week, there have been several allegations in the media, and I want to deal with each of them.

First, it was reported that Ministers knew there would be a shortfall in security staff last year. This is untrue. Last September, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary reported, at my request, on the security preparations by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, and it recommended several measures. HMIC reported again in February and concluded that LOCOG had plans in place to deliver the required number of security personnel. Neither HMIC report identified specific problems with G4S scheduling.

Secondly, it was reported that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), who is the Minister for crime and security, had attended meetings in which he was told there was a security staff shortage. In fact, G4S repeatedly assured us that it would overshoot its targets. As I told the House on Thursday, G4S told the Government that it would be unable to meet its contractual obligations only last Wednesday, and we took immediate action.

Thirdly, it was reported that we must have known about the shortfall because the military was put on standby in April. This is also not the case. In fact, 7,500 troops have been part of the security plans since December, a further 1,000 were on standby in the event of flooding or other such civil emergencies, and we placed a further 2,000 on standby as a precaution in case the threat level increased. The 3,500 troops whose deployment I announced last Thursday are a direct response to the failure of G4S to meet its contractual obligations. A further contingency will remain.

The Government have strengthened the oversight of the security planning operation since we came into office. I will go through briefly what has happened since the bid for the games in 2005. From the beginning, the organisers planned to use private sector personnel for venue security. LOCOG confirmed that it would be using private sector security personnel well before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It started the procurement process for security personnel in April 2010.

When we entered government in May 2010, we instigated a comprehensive review of Olympics safety and security planning, overseen by the then Security Minister, Baroness Neville-Jones. That audit and review identified a shortfall in LOCOG’s venue security budget, which we addressed in the comprehensive spending review.

We recognised that, with a project of this size and scale, even that additional funding might not ensure the level of security that we needed, so I asked for outside assurance of LOCOG’s venue security planning. In September 2011, I commissioned HMIC to carry out an inspection of LOCOG’s venue security plans. As I have said, that led to several recommendations that were acted on by the Home Office, the police and LOCOG.

LOCOG and the Home Office monitored delivery throughout the following months. G4S assured LOCOG and the Government continually that it would be able to deliver its contractual obligations. However, on Wednesday 11 July, following the difficulties with scheduling that the company has acknowledged, G4S notified LOCOG and the Government that it would not be able to provide the numbers of security personnel specified in its contract. I want to be clear that that was the first time that G4S admitted to any Minister that it would not be able to deliver the numbers of security personnel that it had promised.

We acted immediately to make further contingency arrangements by agreeing the deployment of 3,500 further troops. That brings the total military contribution to the games to 17,000, including personnel from all three services.

G4S has failed to deliver its contractual obligations, but we have the finest military personnel in the world—troops who are willing, ready and able to step in when their country calls—and we can be sure of their professionalism in helping to deliver a secure and safe Olympic games.

[Yvette Cooper]

Everyone wants the games to be an outstanding success. After the G4S shambles, we need things to be back on track and the Home Secretary needs to show that she is sorting it out.

First, will the Home Secretary tell us precisely how many people she now expects G4S to provide? It was contracted to provide 17,000, it now says that it will be 13,000, but it has admitted that the vast majority of those are still in process. Today, we learned that only a third of the expected G4S staff turned up to lock down a venue in Manchester and that the police had to do it instead. The monitoring has failed once spectacularly and the Home Secretary has failed to assess the numbers once before. Will she now tell us how many staff she believes G4S will provide?

Secondly, the Home Secretary told us on Thursday that 3,500 extra troops would be sufficient to fill the gap. If G4S fails to deliver the full 13,000 people it now promises, will those troops be enough? If more troops and police will be needed, she should say so now and not let this drift. The troops and the police will do an excellent job, but they need to be able to prepare.

Thirdly, the London Mayor said this morning:

“Everybody that was organising the Olympics knew this was coming up…ages ago.”

The deputy mayor said:

“This issue was flagged up repeatedly by both the Metropolitan Police Authority and subsequently the Mayor’s Office…for more than a year to G4S directly, the Olympic Security Board, and the Home Office.”

Even G4S says that it has been discussing the detailed shortfall for “eight or nine days”. And yet, last Monday, the Home Secretary told the House that she was

“confident that our partners will deliver”.—[Official Report, 9 July 2012; Vol. 548, c. 9.]

It is incomprehensible that the monitoring was that poor that no one told her until Wednesday. How on earth could the Minister responsible for delivering Olympics security be the only person who did not know? When was she first told that there was a problem with G4S?

We need to know why the Home Secretary has failed on this, because we need to have the confidence that she understands what went wrong and is competent to sort the problem out now, so that everyone can get on and make the Olympics a great success.

[Mrs May]

I will respond to the various points that the shadow Home Secretary has raised. She asked what the numbers look like. The revised solution of more than 23,000 personnel that was decided on at the end of last year was made up of 10,400 G4S guards, 7,500 military at peak, up to 3,000 Bridging the Gap, up to 3,000 volunteers and up to 2,000 incumbents that—

[Yvette Cooper]

What about G4S?

[Mrs May]

The very first figures that I gave were 10,400 G4S guards, 7,500 military, 3,000 Bridging the Gap, up to 3,000 volunteers and up to 2,000 incumbent security suppliers at existing venues. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) asks, “Bridging what gap?” Bridging the Gap is the name of a programme under which students and others can get employment.

The shadow Home Secretary says that we need to get a grip, but that is precisely what we have been doing. When we came to office, we made an immediate security audit, increased the budget and revised the plans. I have commissioned several reports on Olympic preparedness, each of which has led to a refinement of the plans. When G4S told us last Wednesday that it would be unable to deliver its contractual obligations, we decided to deploy extra military personnel to fill the gap.

The right hon. Lady asked why the situation was not known about earlier. I have explained that we commissioned reports on G4S’s preparedness, which contained recommendations on which LOCOG, the Home Office and the police acted, but those reports all made it clear that subject to acting on those recommendations, LOCOG was on track to deliver the necessary security personnel. Last Wednesday, G4S told us that it would be unable to deliver its obligations.

The shadow Home Secretary asked about timing. On Friday 6 July the managing director of G4S Global Events told Reuters:

“We are delivering a London Olympics now. If there was a similar event going on in Australia, I would be bullish that we could deliver that at the same time.”

I suggest that the right hon. Lady listens to the comments of some of her colleagues. Lord West has said:

“I don’t think it will affect the security of the games. That’s been taken care of. The Government have sorted that out, because the military are in there.”

The shadow Olympics spokesman has said:

“The important thing now is to focus on the solutions.”

I suggest that the shadow Home Secretary listens to her colleagues.

Olympics (Security)

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that point. On his earlier point about generosity to the armed forces, I should say that the Secretary of State for Defence has taken that very seriously. He has been ensuring that we will be generous to those who are taking on the responsibility. As I outlined in my remarks, a number of arrangements are being made to cover that, particularly if members of the armed forces have personal arrangements, to make sure that they are not out of pocket and that they will get the leave to which they are entitled.

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

Everyone wants us to have a safe and successful Olympics, and we support the Home Secretary’s decision to bring in extra military support in the circumstances. We also recognise that, given the scale of the Olympic challenge, no one can guarantee that everything will go smoothly.

However, I have to say to the Home Secretary that this really looks like another huge Home Office shambles. On Monday, she was asked specifically about recruitment at G4S. She said:

“The Home Office has put in place a number of assurance processes to ensure that we have effective and robust scrutiny of venue security planning. We have been testing our plans thoroughly and are confident that our partners will deliver a safe and secure games”—[Official Report, 9 July 2012; Vol. 548, c. 9.]

She was so confident that two days later she called in the troops. What does it say about the Home Secretary’s assurance process that it took until two weeks before the games to realise that 3,500 military additional personnel would be needed? G4S is not just a few volunteers short—we are talking about 3,500 people from a contract to provide 10,000 staff and 6,000 volunteers. That is a breach of contract of about 25%. Why did it take until lock-down to realise what was going on?

The Minister responsible for security, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), told the “Today” programme this morning:

“We’ve obviously been monitoring the progress and been challenging them, asking the questions, really going down, kicking the tyres and doing all those sorts of things.”

Well, it was not very effective—was it?—if, with just 15 days to go, we could be in this situation. Can the Home Secretary tell us again what will happen to the G4S contract? Has she even asked those questions to make sure that the security budget is not affected and that the taxpayer does not end up out of pocket?

Of course we pay tribute to our military, who I am sure will do an excellent job, but what does it say about the Home Office that there are still two-hour queues at Heathrow, that borders staff sacked last year are being re-recruited, that the borders force is becoming a borders farce, and that the dynamic duo of the security Minister and the Minister for Immigration were tripping up this morning in the “Today” programme studios to defend themselves on different aspects of Home Office incompetence?

Everyone is working really hard to make the games a success and show the world the best of British. The Home Office is making that harder, not easier. I say to the Home Secretary: please get the security and border problems sorted out and stop letting everybody else down.

[Mrs May]

I think that I can deal swiftly with the right hon. Lady’s response. First, I thank her for her support for the decision. Secondly, I should say that it is not a shambles when the Government take the action necessary to ensure that we are providing the venue security. Troops have always been part of the provision of venue security and we are taking the action that ensures that we have the confidence that the numbers will be there. She should have listened to the answer I gave to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) about the timetable in relation to the G4S contract. It is a LOCOG contract, and it is for LOCOG to exercise the penalties within it.

As for the right hon. Lady’s reference to my hon. Friends the security Minister and the Minister for Immigration, I am sure that if neither of them had been speaking publicly about these issues today she would have complained about that as well. I am slightly sorry that she has not taken the approach of her noble Friend, Lord West, who has said, “I’m not trying to indulge in a blame game regarding Governments.” It is a pity that she could not, like him, be a bit more statesmanlike.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the shift patterns issue, and I welcome the work that a number of police forces across the country, including Leicestershire, have taken forward, so that they can use their resources rather better to ensure they can prioritise front-line services to the public while making the necessary savings. I would expect my hon. Friend’s force to be prioritising front-line services in exactly that way in his constituency.

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

The Home Secretary has to make sure that there is proper border security without long queues. In April, Ministers promised that all immigration desks at Heathrow would be fully staffed during peak periods over the summer. Instead, June BAA data show that in the early-morning peak at terminal 3, there were only seven staff and at least half the desks were closed, and queues reached almost two hours long as a result. There are only 18 days to go until the Olympics; why is it still such a mess?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Lady should have listened to the response that my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration gave to the shadow Immigration Minister just now. Over recent months we have been increasing the number of staff who are available at Heathrow and elsewhere, including the number of contingency staff, in response to what were, when we looked at them in April, unacceptably long queues. The right hon. Lady refers specifically to the Olympics. Extra arrangements will be in place for the Olympics. That was always what was planned. They will come into play before the Olympics opening ceremony, and therefore before significant numbers of tourists arrive for the Olympics.

[Yvette Cooper]

But BAA has said the queues over the last few days have been unacceptably long. Targets have been breached throughout June. There has been chaos again this morning. Olympics visitors are already starting to arrive. The rest of the country is working hard to show the world the best of British. All the right hon. Lady is doing is showing visitors how to queue. She has had years to plan this, but now she has got only two weeks to sort it out and make sure the Home Office does not embarrass everybody else.

[Mrs May]

I repeat to the right hon. Lady that, under the plans for the contingency numbers during the Olympics, there will be an increase in the number of staff at the borders. We will be manning all desks at peak times during the Olympics. The numbers will be there to do that. It is important that we ensure that we are providing security and a good experience for people arriving at Heathrow, and I was very pleased when I was at Heathrow a couple of weeks ago to be able to welcome five members of the Chinese team and ensure that they were put through the games family member lane.

European Convention on Human Rights

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

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

The Government have raised concerns about how article 8 of the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act 1998 are interpreted in cases involving foreign criminals convicted in the UK and then put up for deportation. I agree with the Home Secretary that the Government should be able to deport foreign citizens who have come to Britain and then broken British laws. People who come here from abroad need to abide by our laws and our values.

As the House will know, in 2007 the Labour Government introduced provisions for the automatic deportation of foreign criminals in the UK Borders Act 2007, and the number of foreign criminals deported each year trebled from 1,673 in 2005 to 5,528 in 2009. The Home Secretary has raised what the Home Office says are 185 cases that have gone to appeal each year on grounds of family life. We agree that there is a problem, with people finding it hard to understand the justice of the decision by the courts in some cases where foreign criminals have not been deported.

Article 8 is a qualified right. It says:

“Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life.”

However, it also says that that needs to be balanced with

“the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”

It is not like article 3 on the prevention of torture, which is properly an absolute right, and which is not affected by this motion.

It stands to reason that article 8 should be a qualified right. People can be imprisoned if they break the law even if it affects their family life. The courts decide the balance of rights in individual cases, but it is part of our legal framework that Parliament can set out how qualified rights should be balanced in different areas; indeed, Parliament does so all the time through legislation. That relationship between Parliament and the courts is made even more explicit in the Human Rights Act, where Parliament is actively encouraged to debate how the rights should be balanced, and the judiciary are expected to take that into account.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

That being the case, why has our system apparently been so unbalanced over the past decade?

[Yvette Cooper]

It was the Labour Government who introduced the UK Borders Act 2007, which provided for the automatic deportation of foreign criminals. The number of deportations of foreign criminals increased substantially from 2005 until the election in 2010, after which the number fell significantly. I therefore say to the hon. Gentleman that his Government bear some responsibility for the action that is being taken. More needs to be done in practice to deport foreign criminals, as opposed simply to discussions of the motion today.

[Mr Clappison]

If the right hon. Lady is proceeding down that track, perhaps she will remind the House how many prisoners were found not to have been considered for deportation in 2006, let alone have their article 8 rights taken into account. Will she confirm that the figure was just over 1,000?

[Yvette Cooper]

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned the figure of 1,000. The number of foreign criminals being deported each year trebled between 2005 and 2009 to more than 5,000. In the most recent financial year, the number of foreign criminals being deported from this country fell by 1,000 compared with the previous year. The UK Border Agency has raised a series of concerns about how individual cases are being dealt with and the problems with travel documentation. Those are effectively administrative concerns. Some 1,000 cases are not being dealt with, not as a result of article 8, but because of serious problems with administration at the UK Border Agency. I think that that is serious, and I hope that he does too.

[Mr Clappison]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman one more time.

[Mr Clappison]

Is the right hon. Lady telling us that the Home Secretary of the day, Charles Clarke, who was an honourable man, resigned because he presided over such a glorious success?

[Yvette Cooper]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, as a result of the problems over foreign criminals, a series of actions and measures were taken that increased the number of foreign criminals being deported. The problem for the Government is that the actions that they have taken seem to have reduced the number of foreign criminals being deported by more than 1,000 a year—a drop of nearly 20% in 12 months. That means that foreign criminals who should be deported are staying in this country and in the community. The UK Border Agency is not deporting them because of the chaos and fiasco within it.

[Alok Sharma]

Will the right hon. Lady be supporting the motion this evening? Everything that she is saying suggests that she supports what the Home Secretary has set out.

[Yvette Cooper]

I think that we need action to deport more foreign criminals. That includes more practical action through the UK Border Agency. The Home Secretary and the Minister for Immigration need to explain what they think the motion means. I will come on to that now, because it is an important issue.

The relationship between Parliament and the courts is made explicit in the Human Rights Act 1998. Parliament is actively encouraged to debate the way in which rights should be balanced, and the judiciary is expected to take that into account. Similarly, the British courts cannot strike down an Act of Parliament or primary legislation on immigration, even if they think that it does not comply with the Human Rights Act. Parliament has to decide how to respond if that is the case. That is the legal and democratic framework within which we operate. As part of that, it is reasonable for Parliament to express its view on the balance of different rights, and in particular the balance of different qualified rights. Indeed, we do so all the time through our legislation.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My right hon. Friend will have heard the intervention of the Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Does she not think that it would have been better if this proposal had been laid on the Table today to enable his Committee to examine it and its implications for our participation in the European convention on human rights?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, because the Joint Committee on Human Rights does important work. The status of the motion is unclear, because we do not know exactly how the Home Secretary expects it to operate. For example, we know that the new immigration rules affecting foreign criminals, which were set out last week, explicitly refer to how article 8 should be addressed. We believe that is legitimate, but other immigration rules do not make such reference. The rules on foreign criminals also allow the courts to consider exceptional cases, but the process remains deeply unsatisfactory and confused. The Home Secretary has said that she wants to send clear signals to the courts, but she is not sending clear signals to the House.

[Mr Cash]

Is the Home Secretary aware of the series of speeches made by the Lord Chief Justice to the Judicial Studies Board and others? He has made it abundantly clear that in his opinion the judiciary, including the senior judiciary, have given far too much attention to the Strasbourg precedents and not enough to what he describes as the “golden thread” of the English common law. He says that it is therefore essential that we get this right and do not engage in generalised waffle about the question—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has had two interventions that have taken up speaking time. I am sure he would not want to do that, in case he wants to catch my eye later.

[Yvette Cooper]

I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) was accusing me or the Home Secretary of “generalised waffle”. Given his record, I fear that it could have been either of us. It was probably both.

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will have read considerably more of the judicial pronouncements on this subject than I have, but the House is being challenged to send a clear signal to the courts, and we are not being clear about what we are doing in the motion. The status of the motion remains unclear because it is neither primary nor secondary legislation.

[Mr Straw]

Although the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) is quite right to refer to the important observations of the Lord Chief Justice, does my right hon. Friend accept that even if the Human Rights Act had never have been passed, we would still have been faced with this conundrum about the balance between the articles in the European convention on human rights so long as we remained committed to the convention? That is a key part of the Conservative party’s policy as well as ours.

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is right. The convention provides an important framework, and like him I understand that the Conservative party remains committed to it. A strength of the Human Rights Act—I know he was a key pioneer in bringing it into British law—is that it provides Parliament with the ability to debate article 8. It is legitimate for us to do so as part of our debate on immigration rules and all kinds of other legislation.

[Mr Burrowes]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I have given way many times, but I will do so one last time.

[Mr Burrowes]

I will help the right hon. Lady not to take any further interventions by asking her to be clear about the Opposition’s position. They cannot have it both ways. I understand that they accept the observation of the House of Lords in the Huang case in 2007 that immigration lacked a clear framework, but do they also accept the observation that that was because the immigration rules

“are not the product of active debate in Parliament”?

We are having that debate today, so surely she should welcome that and accept the motion. Let us not just talk about it, let us have some action.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman is right that we need a proper debate in Parliament and proper scrutiny. However, there are concerns about how the Home Secretary has set the matter out today. For example, the motion represents neither primary nor secondary legislation, so it is not clear whether the Home Secretary wants it to trump case law. She spent some time reading individual cases on to the record, so we can only assume that she wants the motion and today’s debate to trump case law and individual decisions. However, it is only a motion of the House. We have told her that we are happy to work with her on primary legislation to ensure that there is a proper legal framework.

[Pete Wishart]

rose—

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way one last time, to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who I know intervened on the Home Secretary.

[Pete Wishart]

Is it the right hon. Lady’s understanding that what the motion asks us to do—she is absolutely right that it is neither primary nor secondary legislation—is sign up to the Home Secretary’s immigration rules applying in their totality unless the shadow Home Secretary and her colleagues introduce another motion to challenge them?

[Yvette Cooper]

That is not what the motion says. It deals simply with an issue of principle about whether Parliament should be able to set out how article 8 is interpreted. Various lawyers have said that the motion is little more than a statement of fact and is effectively the equivalent of the Home Secretary regarding the immigration rules as compliant with article 8.

That is what the motion does, but it is not clear whether the Home Secretary expects us to endorse the detailed content of individual immigration rules, only some of which she discussed in her speech—many were not discussed. She referred, for example, to foreign criminals. The Opposition believe that the Government’s broad approach to foreign criminals is the right one—we think it is right to take stronger action, including through the immigration rules and the Border Agency—but this process is not appropriate as a general rule for the scrutiny of the content of immigration rules. For Parliament to attempt such scrutiny just two sitting days after the rules were published would be inappropriate, and it would be unlikely to reassure the courts that the detail had been properly scrutinised and debated.

In particular, today’s debate cannot be about the detail of the wider family immigration rules, which were published only last week. Further scrutiny will be needed, because there are concerns about whether the rules are the most effective way of protecting the taxpayer, and whether they are fair and just. Those concerns should be debated properly, but that cannot happen in a debate on a general motion.

The motion refers simply to the broad immigration rules and cannot suffice as proper scrutiny or endorsement of the changes to individual rules. The Opposition are happy to support the Government’s approach to tackling foreign criminals, because we believe that more action needs to be taken, including through the immigration rules. We also believe the Government are right to consider how to ensure that article 8 is interpreted. In that way, they can provide a framework of guidance when it comes to dealing with foreign criminals through the immigration rules.

There is a wider challenge. The Home Secretary’s reason for introducing the motion was that she is concerned that more foreign criminals should be deported. She will know that the number of foreign criminals deported in 2011-12 fell by nearly 18%. If all those in the cases to which she referred—the 185 cases that the Home Office said were granted appeal on article 8 grounds—were instead deported, the number deported in the most recent financial year would still have fallen by around 15% on the previous year. Whatever the Home Secretary’s intention, the motion still deals with only a small minority of cases involving foreign criminals.

The border inspector has made it clear that one of the main reasons why people are not being deported is difficulty in obtaining travel documentation. Everyone recognises that that can be difficult and untimely in some cases, but those practical operations have clearly become significantly worse since the election, which is a deep concern. The Home Secretary has said nothing today to answer those concerns or to address the growing concern that the Border Agency’s performance is deteriorating substantially on the Government’s watch.

The Opposition want to be able to support the Government’s approach to tackling foreign criminals, but we need more answers from the Home Secretary about what she hopes the motion will do.

[Mrs May]

There is a very simple question for the shadow Home Secretary. Does she believe it is right that, as the courts have said, Parliament should give a clear view on what the public interest is in relation to the operation of article 8 of the European convention on human rights, on the right to a private and family life? If she believes that that is the case, and that fewer foreign criminals should be allowed to stay in this country on the basis of article 8, she should support the motion and give a clear message to the courts. I am beginning to think that she is trying to confuse the courts and to prevent them from taking that interpretation of the motion. Does she support a clear message to the courts or not?

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Secretary talks about clear messages, but she is not giving a clear message to the House, never mind to the courts. She has been confused at every step about what the motion is supposed to do. Time and again, she has been asked whether it is supposed to trump case law or endorse the details of individual immigration rules, on which no opportunity for proper scrutiny has been given, and which have not even gone through the normal processes in the House. It is not clear whether this is supposed to be an endorsement of the existing immigration rules or the future immigration rules. She has not made her position clear.

We would like to be able to support the Home Secretary in her principled statement that article 8 should be discussed by the House and is a matter for legitimate debate. We also want to support her in taking action to deport more foreign criminals, but we urge her to do something about the real problem, which she is still ignoring. She also needs to provide answers to the House about how the detail on other aspects of the immigration rules, particularly on family and other parts of her proposed immigration changes, will be scrutinised, and whether she is trying to bypass the normal scrutiny processes.

The Home Secretary has not chosen a normal approach today. She needs to do more to deport more foreign criminals, but she should not try to subvert normal processes and should be straight with the House about what she is asking it to do.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In her speech, the Home Secretary referred extensively to rules laid before the House but not prayed against and therefore not debated. Is it in order for us to discuss the contents of those proposed rules, because that is exactly what she did throughout her opening speech?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harris]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that, unlike him, I speak to constituents all the time, and I know that my constituents have exactly the same view as citizens throughout the United Kingdom. They want to welcome asylum seekers, they want to welcome immigrant communities, but they want a sense of fair play that applies equally across the border. Scots are no more or less tolerant of foreign-born criminals remaining in the UK than are our fellow citizens unfortunate enough to live south of the border.

Now that the hon. Gentleman has had a chance to calm down and get his breath back, I would like to ask him whether, if Scots throughout the country are some sort of homogenous entity, all thinking the same thing, he can explain why the only local authority in Scotland that applied to welcome asylum seekers was Labour-controlled Glasgow—not Perth, not Edinburgh, not another local authority anywhere in Scotland, just Glasgow?

As has already been highlighted, the deportation of foreign criminals is more often frustrated by bureaucratic process than by appeals under article 8 of the Human Rights Act. My concern today is that some Members of the House and many members of the media—yes, the right-wing media—are using the relatively small number of appeals under this part of the Act to make the case for the Act’s repeal. That would be unacceptable. It is important that the debate focuses on the reasons behind the failure of the Government—and, yes, the failure of previous Governments—rather than on the straw man of the Human Rights Act.

Nevertheless, it is a concern to all our constituents when someone who has enjoyed British hospitality, and who has chosen to repay that hospitality with contempt for our law is allowed to remain in the UK. My understanding—perhaps the Immigration Minister will be able to clarify this in his summing up—is that the interpretation of article 8 as representing an absolute right to a family life is a peculiarly British interpretation. My understanding is that other judiciaries operating elsewhere in the EU under the European convention on human rights attach a significantly different interpretation to article 8—one that more frequently allows the deportation of foreign criminals.

The Government’s own policy on the circumstances in which deportation would not be appropriate—for example, if the person had lived here under valid terms for at least 15 years—deserves some attention.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) has already referred to the shocking case of Aso Mohammed Ibrahim, who in 2003 was responsible for the death of 12-year-old Amy Houston in a hit-and-run incident in Lancashire. Mr Ibrahim is variously described as an asylum seeker, a failed asylum seeker and an illegal immigrant. In fact, only the last term is correct. He arrived in the UK in 2001 and was refused refugee status, so he was never—not for one second—a refugee, and his appeal rights were exhausted by the end of 2002.

It is not the Human Rights Act that is to blame for the fact that too many criminals are allowed to remain here; it is the failure of the UK Border Agency to remove illegal immigrants in far greater numbers, and that should concern the House. Of course I accept the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, who is a former Home Secretary, which is that on many occasions we simply cannot return people to their country of origin because it would not be safe to do so.

However, I have come across many constituents who have been in the country for eight or 10 years, applied for asylum and had the application refused, but who regard the refusal simply as an indication that no decision on their case has yet been made. They are wrong. They have been given the decision on their case: they have been told that they are in the country illegally and so should remove themselves. Far too often we allow time to march on and they do not make arrangements to remove themselves, but the UK Border Agency should remove them forcibly—I know that that process costs a lot—if they are not prepared to remove themselves voluntarily. I should point out that, although this debate has been billed as being about the scandal of permitting criminals to remain in the UK, the motion rightly refers only to migrants, not criminals.

I welcome the Government’s statement that one of the exceptions to the presumption that an individual will be deported is where an individual has been resident in the UK legally for 15 years. I hope that the Minister, in summing up, can confirm that the many thousands of individuals who have remained here illegally, ignoring decisions to refuse them refugee status, will not qualify under that exception as they have not been in the country legally. That issue is as pertinent to the cases of law-abiding immigrants as it is to criminals, and article 8 has been used to confirm the residency in the UK of many who have no criminal past and who are of less interest to the right-wing tabloids.

Countries across the whole UK are relocating, but our hospitality is sorely tested when people who come here either to seek refuge or to build a better life for themselves repay it by exhibiting contempt for our rules and, by implication, contempt for our citizens. Whether they have broken the law through an appallingly violent and callous act, as in the case of young Amy Houston, or by ignoring an appeal ruling that they have no right to remain here, the right to a family life cannot be absolute. The Government are right to say so. However, they are merely reflecting what the whole country already believes.

[Yvette Cooper]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Home Secretary did not properly clarify earlier whether this motion is separate from the normal and proper debates on the different immigration rules. The Clerk of the Journals has now provided some clarification and reassurance that these are in fact separate. He has advised:

“The effectiveness of the statutory disapproval procedure for any particular Statement of Changes in the Immigration Rules laid before Parliament is a matter of law, which cannot be altered or over-ridden by any Resolution of the House of Commons.”

Will you confirm that that is indeed the case, because I think that would provide the House with important clarification and allow it to deliver a clearer message?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for notice of her point of order. The legal effect of the resolution is not a matter for the Chair; it is a matter for the courts. But I can confirm that, as a matter of procedure, agreeing the motion would not prevent the tabling of any motion to disapprove a Statement of Changes in the Immigration Rules as provided by statute.

Family Migration

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2012 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Home Secretary for giving us early sight of her statement on family migration, article 8 and foreign criminals. I thank her for giving us early sight of it in The Sunday Times and on “The Andrew Marr Show” as well.

I shall respond first to the Home Secretary’s points about article 8. Foreign citizens who come to Britain should abide by our rules. The Government should be able to deport people who break the law and, as she will know, the number of foreign criminals being deported trebled in the last five years of the Labour Government. However, there continue to be cases in which it is difficult to understand why the courts have allowed the foreign criminals involved to stay in Britain. We therefore agree with the Home Secretary that action is needed.

Article 8 of the European convention on human rights is a qualified right, and the right to respect for family life should be balanced against other issues, including public safety, economic well-being and preventing disorder or crime. Parliament is therefore entitled to set out how those rights should be balanced against those considerations when dealing with foreign criminals, and to provide a framework within which the courts should operate. We should discuss those details, but the way in which Parliament provides that framework must be legally effective.

I am puzzled by the Home Secretary’s decision to use a motion in Parliament that will obviously not change the law or override case law in the way that primary legislation would. Surely that approach will risk creating confusion and legal uncertainty. Would it not be better for her to do this properly, through primary legislation, instead? If that were to happen, we would happily hold discussions with the Government to work on getting that right.

On the measures on family migration, when people travel and trade across borders more than they ever did before, there needs to be a fair framework for those who fall in love and build family relationships across borders, too. We agree that stronger safeguards are needed for the taxpayer on family migration. If people want to make this country their home, they should contribute and not be a burden on public funds, but it is not clear that the best way to protect the taxpayer is to focus solely on the sponsor’s salary. For example, in the current economic climate, someone on £40,000 today could lose their job next month, and then, of course, there is no way to protect the taxpayer. The system does not take account of the foreign partner’s income, which might have a differential impact on women. Will the Home Secretary explain why the Government ruled out consulting on a bond that could have been used to protect the taxpayer if someone needed public funds later on?

There is also a wider problem about the gap between the Government’s rhetoric and reality. The Home Secretary admitted yesterday that these changes to the family visa will not mean “big numbers”, yet she said again today that she anticipates meeting her net migration target of tens of thousands, even though the latest figures show net migration still at around 250,000. Will she tell us when she expects to meet that target? Does she still think it will be met by the end of this Parliament, in line with the Prime Minister’s promise—“No ifs. No buts.”—that it would be met or are she and the Prime Minister making promises that they have no intention of keeping?

There is also a gap between rhetoric and reality on deporting foreign criminals. The number of foreign criminals deported increased every year until the election, but since then it has fallen, year on year. It fell by 18% in the last financial year alone, as nearly 1,000 fewer foreign criminals were deported in 2011-12 compared with the previous year. According to Home Office briefings to the newspapers, the Home Secretary’s measures on article 8 will apply to 185 foreign criminals. Even if every single one of those article 8 cases had been deported, the Government would still have deported hundreds fewer foreign criminals last year compared with the year before, and we would still have more foreign criminals in the community instead.

The truth is that this announcement does not deal with the growing problem under the Home Secretary’s Government. Too many foreign criminals are staying in Britain—not because of article 8, but, in the words of a borders inspector, because of

“difficulty in obtaining travel documentation”

resulting from the Border Agency’s weaknesses in enforcement and administration. This is another example of problems that have got worse for the Border Agency in the last two years.

We will work with the Home Secretary to get the detail right and on some of the sensible points she has made, but statements and parliamentary motions are not enough; she also needs to take action on the practical problems that have got worse on her watch.

[Mrs May]

I thank the shadow Home Secretary for supporting the action the Government are taking in some areas, and I hope she will be able to carry that support through when the motion comes before Parliament, because a strong voice from this Parliament on article 8 and the rules on family migration will be all the more effective in relation to the courts.

The right hon. Lady asked why we have chosen to work through a motion in Parliament and immigration rules. We will change the immigration rules, and this Parliament will have an opportunity to make its voice heard and to give its clear view on where it feels the framework should sit in respect of article 8. I have every expectation that that will have an impact on how article 8 is interpreted in the courts.

The right hon. Lady asked why we had gone down the route of the income threshold. We asked the independent Migration Advisory Committee to advise us on what we should do and on what income level we should adopt. It gave us a range of income levels from £18,600 up to a higher point, and we chose to adopt the lower point, adding in elements for individual children, rather than go down a route that would be available only to those people who had capital and were able to put up a bond in the first place.

Changes in the numbers were also raised. The right hon. Lady was right to refer to the net migration figure shown in the last published set of statistics from the Office for National Statistics, which includes migration numbers up to September 2011. What she may have failed to look at, however, are the figures for student visas thereafter, as we have seen a significant decrease in the number allocated through to March 2012. [Interruption.] The shadow Immigration Minister, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), says “That is good”, as though getting rid of abuse in the student visa system were not good. I am not surprised, because for too many years Labour allowed too many people to come to this country claiming to be students when they were not students. We are getting on with dealing with that.

The right hon. Lady talked about the need to deal with deportation. We are increasing the enforcement action that is being taken. All Governments have experienced problems in regard to the acceptance of an individual as being from the country concerned and the granting of the recognised travel documents on that basis, but the right hon. Lady’s claim that this Government are somehow failing in relation to immigration sits ill with the record of her Government over too many years. Her Government failed to control immigration; this Government are controlling immigration. Her Government failed to end the abuse of student visas; this Government are ending the abuse of student visas. Her Government failed to deal with article 8; this Government are dealing with article 8.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

That was one of the issues that Tom Winsor looked at in the second part of his review of pay, terms and conditions for police, and he has proposed a number of ways for direct entry at various levels in the police for those from outside the police so that we can see a broader range of experience and skills being brought into policing. Those proposals, like other proposals from the Winsor report part 2, are currently going through the appropriate police negotiating body and other bodies.

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

The borders inspector has said that the number of people absconding at border control, slipping through without permission, escaping from detention or disappearing after temporary admission has more than doubled since the election, and the number who are later caught has fallen. Can the Home Secretary explain why that has happened?

[Mrs May]

We take the issue of security at the border extremely seriously. That is why we have been following up the report of the chief inspector of the UK Border Agency, as his title then was, in relation to the Border Force and ensuring that the—sadly—poor situation that had developed over a number of years under the Labour Government is being addressed.

[Yvette Cooper]

The problem has got substantially worse since the election. At terminal 3 alone the number of absconders was 115 in 2009; in 2011 the report estimates that it was “between 300 and 350, significantly higher than previous years”, and the proportion being caught later has halved. That is what the report says. Time and again, the situation is getting worse month on month, not better. Is not the truth that this is another example of failing border control and weaker action on illegal immigration on the Home Secretary’s watch? We have controls being downgraded hundreds of times, hundreds of staff being cut and at the last minute re-recruited, drugs and gun checks stopped, and more people like Raed Salah managing to walk through, when they should have been stopped. Will the Home Secretary get a grip?

[Mrs May]

I say to the right hon. Lady that it is this Government who are putting in place controls on our immigration system; it was the previous Labour Government who allowed people to come in without any controls on the immigration system. We are putting in place a policy that will see the number of people coming into this country reduced and in both the UK Border Agency and the UK Border Force, we are putting right the problems that grew up under the previous Labour Government. She talks about the relaxation of controls, but the inspector said that that had been happening since 2007. It is about time that the Labour party accepted responsibility for what it did in government.

Home Affairs and Justice

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Many would have wished to see a conclusion to the Abu Qatada case rather more swiftly than has been possible so far. I am confident, however, that we are closer to the deportation of Abu Qatada today than we were two days ago. We need to go through the proper processes in the UK courts. My hon. Friend rightly referred to the written ministerial statement and the two available processes.

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

rose—

[Mrs May]

If I can finish providing an explanation to my hon. Friend, the right hon. Lady might not need to ask a question.

Two processes are available. A very high bar is set for the Government to go down the route of adopting the certification process. Declaring a case against deportation as unfounded is effectively the same as saying that there is no legal argument against the deportation. As I said, a very high bar has been set in relation to that, but I am, of course, taking advice on both options. I shall make the Government’s position clear in due course.

[Yvette Cooper]

Like the Home Secretary, I strongly welcomed yesterday’s decision by the European Court to refuse Abu Qatada’s appeal. I think that we all want him to be deported to Jordan as rapidly as possible. Of course we recognise that she will have to make complex and difficult decisions in order to ensure that she gets the next steps right, but will she now accept that she got it wrong when she told the House of Commons 12 times that the date of the deadline for Abu Qatada’s appeal was the Monday rather than the Tuesday night?

[Mrs May]

Obviously I welcome the fact that the European Court came out and refused Abu Qatada’s application for referral yesterday. As I told the Home Affairs Committee, I had been strongly advised that that was expected to happen because of the case that we had made.

Of course I accept that the Court has made its decision on the matter of the deadline. The Government still do not agree with that decision—[Interruption.] As I have said, we accept the Court’s decision. I made clear at every stage to the House and to the Home Affairs Committee that it was only ever going to be that panel of judges that finally decided whether the referral could be accepted. However, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office wrote to the European Court today drawing attention to inconsistencies in the guidance that it had published on how to calculate the date, and asking it to clarify the position for future purposes and provide revised guidance.

I was talking about the Crime and Courts Bill, and the matters relating to the criminal justice system that it reflects. We will ensure that fines represent real justice by making defaulting offenders, not the taxpayer, pay the cost of collection. A single county court and a single family court will be established to increase the efficiency of the civil and family court systems, and the judicial appointments process will be reformed to introduce greater transparency, flexibility and diversity. Court broadcasting will be allowed, in limited circumstances, to help to demystify the justice system. We will improve the efficiency of our immigration system by removing full appeal rights for family visit visas and removing in-country appeal rights for excluded persons, and we will strengthen our borders by extending the powers of immigration officers to tackle serious and organised immigration-related crime.

--- Later in debate ---

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

Yesterday, it was clear that this Queen’s Speech will do nothing to tackle jobs and growth, nothing to get Britain out of a double-dip recession, and nothing to help family finances. Now, sadly, it is clear that there is not much to help tackle crime or improve policing, border security and justice, either.

As we gather to debate the Queen’s Speech, 16,000 police officers from across the country—officers in black hats, and many more thousands beside them—are gathering and marching through London. Constables, sergeants, inspectors, superintendents, even chief constables, are protesting against the 20% criminal cuts the Home Secretary is making. There are many more whom they represent who could not make it today because they are at work or out on the beat. There are officers such as Tony MacDonald, whom I met last month, who used to be a beat officer in Retford. He loved his job. He has been forced to retire years early, and police support for the town has been cut back. There are the officers in the midlands who told me that their response units have been cut back, so when a 999 call came in about a hit-and-run involving a child, it took the nearest officer 45 minutes to get to the scene of the crime.

This morning, I spoke to officers from Yorkshire who told me that they are spending more time on bureaucracy, not less, because the back office has been so heavily cut—officers such as Chief Constable Tony Melville, who warned that his force was at a cliff edge because of the cuts, and who has tendered his resignation because of his opposition to Government reforms.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

The officers who risk life and limb to keep us safe are deeply angry at the cuts and the chaos they face. They are worried about whether, in the light of the Winsor review, they will be able to keep up with their mortgage payments. Morale is at rock bottom and they are overstretched, especially with the Olympics coming up. They are angry at a Home Secretary and a Prime Minister who do not recognise or sufficiently value the work they do.

[Andrea Leadsom]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Lady if she will say whether she supports the officers from her constituency who are marching in protest today.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. Will she give the House an idea of what her party thinks the outcome of the police review should be?

[Yvette Cooper]

We have said many times that we think the police could sustain cuts to their budgets of some £1 billion over the course of a Parliament, but instead, the Government have gone for £2 billion—going far further and too fast. That is why 16,000 officers are being lost, including thousands from the hon. Lady’s region. These are deeply destructive decisions that, in the end, are putting communities at risk. Of course, 16,000 officers is the number we needed on the streets of London to take back control after rioters burned Tottenham and Croydon, and looters ransacked Clapham, Hackney and Ealing; and 16,000 is the number of police officers that this Home Secretary has decided to cut.

[Mark Lancaster]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way. So that we are clear, will she explain to the House from where she will find the £1 billion difference between this Government’s proposals and her party’s proposals?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have said many times that, overall, this Government are cutting too far and too fast. Their deficit reduction plan is going so far and so fast that it is hitting jobs and hitting growth, and it is not working. His Government and his Chancellor are borrowing over £150 billion more in order to pay for the bills of failure. The economy is not growing, jobs are being cut, businesses are not paying tax because they are not growing, and unemployment benefit has to be paid to all those people stuck on the dole.

[Mr Watts]

Can my right hon. Friend tell us how many police officers could have been paid for had we maintained the level of growth—2%—that we had before the last general election?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point: the economy was growing at the time of the general election, but we now have a double-dip recession instead. The Government have shoved the economy into reverse. As a result, businesses are not growing and paying their taxes, and more and more people are needing unemployment benefit. We are spending billions more on unemployment benefit and social security benefits. The Government are paying the bills of failure, rather than supporting growth and success.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady can certainly argue about the pace at which the cuts have to be made, but may I take her back to the question my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster) asked about whether the Government were going too far? The Chancellor is seeking to remove the structural deficit and, as I understand it, the Labour party is committed to exactly the same objective, and so the argument is only about pace, rather than about the overall scale. If that is so, can she answer the question: where will she find the extra £1 billion?

[Yvette Cooper]

I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that this is also about the “how”, because we want the economy to grow and his party has given up on growth, as even The Daily Telegraph has admitted. The economy has gone into a double-dip recession and, as a result, businesses are not paying the taxes that we need and more people are needing unemployment benefit. The economy is therefore suffering and the Chancellor is having to borrow an extra £150 billion more. He is failing on every single count; the approach is hurting but it is not working.

[Nick Herbert]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give the Policing Minister the opportunity to tell us what he would say to the 16,000 or more officers who are out on the streets today.

[Nick Herbert]

The right hon. Lady has conceded that the Labour party would be cutting £1 billion a year from the police budget—I doubt she told police officers that when she saw them earlier. Will she also concede that she has said that there should be a two-year pay freeze, which saves another half a billion, and that her right hon. Friend the shadow Policing Minister has said that there should be changes to overtime and shift patterns that would save another £600 million—those were his words—which means that they are committed to exactly the same savings as the Government? Does she therefore understand that police officers will not believe her when she makes the claims that she does?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Minister, you should know better. Interventions are to be brief; they are not an opportunity to make a speech. That applies to Ministers as well as to Back Benchers.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Policing Minister can try this as often as he likes; it does not matter how many times he says it, he knows that it is not true. We have made it very clear that we think that this figure of £1 billion would be sustainable and, yes, it would include pay measures, changes and other ways of making efficiency savings. His figures may not include that, but we have made it very clear that to deliver the number of police officers—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Minister, you should not shout across the Chamber. You made an intervention. You are not required to like the answer, but you are required to listen to it and not heckle.

[Yvette Cooper]

Government Members need to recognise that their decisions are cutting 16,000 police officers. Our approach is to say that we do not believe that 16,000 police officers should be cut. We believe that the police should have enough money to support those 16,000 officers. We should not have had to cut 5,000 police officers already from 999 units, from neighbourhood response units and from the urgent response units that we need to keep us safe and to arrive in an emergency.

[Mrs May]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the Home Secretary if she will tell us why she thinks that it is a good idea to have already taken more than 5,000 police out of 999 units, neighbourhood units and the traffic cops.

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Lady just said that the 12% cut in police budgets that she has told us in this Chamber the Opposition would support includes the pay freeze, but it does not. She has said that she would support the 12% efficiency savings outlined by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, but those did not include either the pay freeze—£500 million—or the overtime cuts of a further £600 million announced by the shadow Policing Minister. What Opposition Members need to understand is that what she has said about cuts to police budgets would lead to cuts in police officer numbers and that they should not say anything other than that when they talk to the police.

[Yvette Cooper]

We heard nothing then to defend the 5,000 officers being cut from 999 response units, from neighbourhood policing units and from emergency response units across the country. The Home Secretary is dealing in fantasy figures. She needs to think about what she has just said. If the figures she has just used were correct, no police officers would be going—no front-line staff would be being cut—everything would be hunky-dory and she would be able to do it all through the pay freeze and through the back-office cuts that she has proposed. But that is not what is happening. Instead, 16,000 police officers are going, from every corner of the country. They are being taken from the very front-line services we need. Time and again the Government told us that the front line would be protected and would not be hit, but that is not happening. She is out of touch. The Prime Minister told us:

“We won’t do anything that will reduce the amount of visible policing on our streets.”

But 5,000 police officers have gone already, and many thousands more are to go.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

This is not just about the number; it is also about the considerable experience of many of those police officers. That is especially the case in respect of the grotesque picture in the west midlands, where, under rule A19, which the Home Secretary has blithely ignored and dismissed, very experienced police officers are being dismissed. They are going on to the pension scheme—this does not fall on the west midlands account, but it sure adds on to the public finances because of the pensions. When we talk about dodgy figures, that is exactly the sort of dodgy accounting we are discussing. This is a real loss to policing in the west midlands.

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we are losing some of our most experienced officers. I have spoken to officers from other places around the country who wanted to carry on working, and who had great skills and experience to contribute to the police force, but are being forced into early retirement. The evidence and research from the House of Commons Library shows that that will actually cost the taxpayer more. This approach is absolutely crazy. It is bad for communities and bad for the taxpayer.

We know now what the Prime Minister’s response to this situation is. He does not think it is a problem; cutting 999 response teams is not about emergencies or about visibility—it is not even austerity. He said that it is just “efficiency”. He calls it “efficiency” but communities across the country call it, “Out of touch, irresponsible and unfair”, because they know it is communities that are paying the price.

[Michael Ellis]

How can the right hon. Lady reconcile her current rhetoric on numbers with the fact that under the Labour Government only 11% of the police were available to the general public at any one time? Was that not because mismanagement and bureaucracy ran riot under Labour?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman knows that that figure does not actually reflect what happens in police forces across the country. Barely an hour ago, I spoke to police officers who told me that they are now having to deal with more bureaucracy, not less. They have to do all their own recording of crime and all their own collecting of statements, which used to be done by civilian support staff. Those police officers told me categorically that they are now spending less time out on the beat and having to deal with more bureaucracy than they were before. The police are becoming less visible, not more visible, as a result of this Government’s decisions.

What then does the Queen’s Speech have to offer to cut crime or to improve public safety? The answer is: not much. The previous Queen’s Speech was bad enough: 17,000 suspected rapists were taken off the DNA database; 20% cuts were made in policing at the same time as £100 million could be found for elected police commissioners; counter-terrorism powers were watered down; and getting CCTV was made tougher. So what do the Government have to offer this time to make good the damage? The answer is: cameras in courts. I guess they had to put them somewhere, now that they are taking them away from the town centres and the housing estates.

The Home Secretary did promise stronger oversight of the intelligence and security agencies. We will support that, and I hope that she goes far enough. She also said that she wants more closed material procedures—the devil will be in the detail on that. There is a problem with foreign intelligence, and I agree with her that there is a problem with the Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction. The proposals that she set out in the Green Paper were not justified and went too far. I recognise from her remarks today that she has made some changes to those positions, but we will need to see the detail, reflect and give the matter consideration. She also talked about extending communication surveillance. Again, we will await the detail. Everyone wants the police to be able to keep up with new technology in the fight against terrorism, but no one wants the police or security agencies browsing personal e-mails or Facebook pages at will. I hope that we can have cross-party discussions on this. The Home Secretary will know that the practice of previous Home Secretaries has been to provide extensive briefing for the Opposition and for Select Committees, so we will wait to see what detail she is able to provide.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way again. May I please press her in particular on the point about closed material proceedings? When the Green Paper proposals were announced in this House, the Opposition made it clear that they supported closed material proceedings and recognised the need to protect certain material. Is she now suggesting that the Opposition’s position has changed?

[Yvette Cooper]

As the Home Secretary will know, we have said that the scope of the Green Paper was too wide. We recognise that there is a problem for the security agencies with regard to how civil claims are made and how material needs to be considered. However, proper safeguards need to be in place, as we have said. She also knows, as I have said this to her, that I am very willing to have further cross-party discussions with her about the detail. We have not yet seen what amendments she may have made to the Green Paper proposals and we will wait to see them and scrutinise them in detail. It is important that she should do that. On communications surveillance—I do not know whether she heard my points earlier, as she was conferring with her Front-Bench colleagues—it has been normal practice in the past for Home Secretaries to provide extensive briefing for the Opposition and the Select Committees. We will wait for that briefing and consider and scrutinise the detail as it is proposed.

The Home Secretary has also proposed stronger community sentences. That sounds good, although we gather that the Bill will be published and debated in the House of Lords without any clauses on community sentences. We should also consider what is missing. There is nothing on equal marriage—not even a draft Bill—even though, as Minister for Women and Equalities, she made it clear that she was consulting not on whether but on how to introduce the changes. There is nothing on violence against women and nothing on antisocial behaviour, even though she promised more than two years ago that new action would be taken. There is nothing on gangs, even though after the riots the Government told us that that was their big priority and even though we know that gang injunctions need to be improved. There is nothing on problem families, even though the Government told us in the autumn that they were the priority, and there is nothing to protect core public policing or to stop neighbourhood patrols being contracted out to private companies such as G4S or KBR as the cuts bite.

[Keith Vaz]

Is my right hon. Friend also surprised that there is no legislation on the criminalisation of forced marriage, something that was recommended by the Select Committee in the last Parliament and that was supported by the Prime Minister as Leader of the Opposition?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is certainly right that the newspapers have been briefed on that subject, but as it is not in the Queen’s Speech we do not know the Government’s position. It is obviously a complex issue; nevertheless it would be useful to know the Government’s view.

There is nothing on knife crime, crime prevention or counter-terrorism. This was the Queen’s Speech that the Government briefed as being tough on crime and tough on antisocial behaviour, but it is hardly the stuff to have criminals quaking in their boots.

To be fair to the Home Secretary, she did tell us about the National Crime Agency. We support it; it is sensible enough, it is right and there are serious national crime issues that need to be addressed, but let us be honest that this is not radical reform but mainly a rearrangement. It is a cross between the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, with the police national computer and a new command structure thrown in. It is sensible enough, it will be an improvement, but it will not compensate for the lack of 16,000 police.

As for Britain’s borders, the Home Secretary says the new National Crime Agency will include a border policing command. Will that deliver extra staff to deal with queues, extra technology to improve security checks, better management to sort out the chaos, and help for families queuing for hours with tired kids? No. Instead we will have a border command in a separate organisation from the border force, which is itself in a separate organisation from the border agency, and there will still be no clear direction from the Government about what any of the three of them is supposed to do. The Home Secretary is adding to the chaos, not solving it.

[Keith Vaz]

I am grateful to the shadow Home Secretary for giving way a second time. Has she had the opportunity to read the report by John Vine that was published this morning, in which he specifically points out his concern about constant reorganisation not helping the protection of our borders?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend, who is the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, makes an extremely important point. I wanted to come on to that report, because, overall, we can see the queues getting longer while Ministers do not seem to have a clue what is going on.

Last Monday, the Minister for Immigration claimed the maximum queues were an hour and a half and accused the media of making “wild suggestions”. By Tuesday he was admitting the wild suggestions were nearer the truth; by Wednesday we were told the Prime Minister was getting a grip; by Thursday and Friday the queues were getting worse and worse. There were two-hour waits at Stansted and three-hour waits at Heathrow, reports of trains delayed by queues at Paris, Customs checks stopped at Heathrow and reports that staff from Manchester were being put on a plane, told to work for a few hours at Heathrow and put on another plane back again.

Finally, this week, we got the truth from the borders and immigration inspectorate. Passport staff at terminal 3 have been cut by 15%, shortages mean that they cannot cope with the queues, and management changes brought in under this Government are making things much worse. The Minister for Immigration charmingly told us that the report was out of date because action had been taken since September to sort it out, but since September things have got worse, not better. The report says the staff are all on at the wrong times—more when the airport is quiet and fewer when all the planes are coming in.

It is just baffling to everyone that the UK Border Force and the Minister for Immigration do not seem to be able to work out what time of day it is, but at least they are doing better than the Home Secretary, who is still rather challenged by the day of the week. I know that the Home Secretary is not on Twitter and she might have missed the attempts to cheer her up through the difficult time that she is having. They have started to suggest songs, such as “ Sunday, Wednesday, happy days,” “I don’t know why I don’t like Tuesdays,” “Eight days a week” and—clearly—nothing by The Police. How about Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Not leaving on a jet plane and I don’t know when I’ll be back again”?

Getting the date wrong in a case such as Abu Qatada’s, however, could have been very serious. Everyone is very relieved that the European Court decided to reject Abu Qatada’s appeal not because of the date, but because of the merits of the case. We should all welcome that decision. We all want him deported as soon as possible and the case has been repeatedly and thoroughly considered at every level in the courts, but lessons also have to be learned at the Home Office too. Three weeks ago the Home Secretary came to the House and was adamant that she had got the date right. Twelve times she told the House the deadline was Monday. In scathing tones she said to me:

“We are talking about a simple mathematical question.”—[Official Report, 19 April 2012; Vol. 543, c. 509.]

Sadly, it was a mathematical question that neither the Home Secretary nor her Ministers seemed able to answer.

The Court was very clear in its judgment that the deadline was Tuesday and Court officials said so at the time. It is no good the Home Secretary’s saying that the Foreign Office is now complaining that the Court’s guidance was not clear enough. If it was not clear enough, why not ask questions at the time? Why did they not ring up the Court and ask the question? Why did they not listen to the media and to the others who were raising with her the point that the Court was saying very clearly that the date was Tuesday, instead? Why take the risk?

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

It is all irrelevant now.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Justice Secretary likes to chunter from a sedentary position that that is all irrelevant now, but the trouble is that it is not. The Home Office makes these serious decisions every day of the week. If it cannot even get what day of the week it is right, how can we have confidence in its decisions about the future? How can we have confidence when the Home Secretary next comes to the House and tells us categorically that she is right and that the Home Office advice is right when we still do not know why they got it so catastrophically wrong this time around? Surely she should now come to the House and explain why the Home Office got this so wrong, why it could not ask the right questions and why it did not take advice, listen to it and avoid taking the risk—a risk that could have added further considerable delays to this process.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady is making good knockabout political points, but is it not the case that, given that Abu Qatada’s deportation process started in 2001, the real question she should be answering is why her party made so little progress in all that time whereas this Home Secretary has made so much progress in such a short time?

[Yvette Cooper]

We still have a problem in that we all want Abu Qatada deported but he has not yet been deported. I agree that the process has taken far too long in the British courts and in the European Courts. I even agree with the Justice Secretary that reforms need to be made to the European courts to try to speed things up although there are considerable questions about the progress he has been able to make. I do not think, however, that we should have self-inflicted problems with the Home Office creating additional delays by getting something so basic wrong. This is about the serious decisions the Home Office takes and if it is unable to learn the lessons of the past or to recognise the errors it has made there will be serious problems in the future.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

Do I gather that the right hon. Lady welcomes the fact that we got 47 countries to agree to get rid of these arrears so that there are not years and years of delay before things can get on? Does she welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has just won her appeal, which has not been delayed, and that we are now able to resume the ordinary deportation process? Why is she getting bogged down in procedural niceties that are now quite irrelevant and why did not her Government do anything about this for eight years, as my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) has just asked?

[Yvette Cooper]

It is indeed gallant of the Justice Secretary to leap to the Home Secretary’s defence. They are huge friends—this is obviously a change of relationship between them. We are delighted to see their rapprochement.

I agree with the Justice Secretary that it is important to get rid of the arrears and try to deal with the backlogs at the European Court. That is a problem and I hope that some progress can be made. We are all very pleased that the Court rejected Abu Qatada’s appeal, but I must say that the Home Secretary made that more difficult, not easier. Abu Qatada should not have been able to appeal and she could have delayed her decision by a single day. The procedures matter because we do not want the Home Office to screw up important procedures. Whether it be in situations such as that when Raed Salah walked into this country because the Home Secretary did not get the procedures right to enable his being stopped at the border when she wanted him to be stopped, or whether it is about getting the date right, it does matter because this is not just any other omnishambles for this Government. It is not like a pasty tax or queues at the petrol pumps—this affects our national security. Whether about counter-terrorism or police on our streets, these decisions affect public safety. Whether on our borders or in our courts, these decisions affect our national security.

When we have 16,000 fewer police, a 10% increase in personal crime, 1,000 fewer foreign criminals being deported and this latest report showing 100 more illegal immigrants absconding according to the most recent figures, people are anxious. They are already worried about their jobs and their financial security and they do not want to have to worry about crime and public safety as well. This Queen’s Speech is failing the people of Britain just as the Home Office is failing on policing, border security and public confidence. It is a Queen’s Speech that offers no change, no hope and no direction from a Government who are not listening or learning. They should change course before it is too late.

Stephen Lawrence

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I think we should recognise the steps that have been taken since the Macpherson inquiry to try to root out racism in the Metropolitan police and, indeed, in other police forces, but there is clearly more to be done. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner said recently:

“We have a duty to challenge or report any behaviour by colleagues which is less than the high standard demanded by the service and Londoners themselves”.

He added:

“ You cannot avoid that duty. Nor can I."

He also said:

“I will not stand for any racism or racists in the Met.”

I entirely endorse that message.

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

I welcome the urgent question from my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), and also his persistent campaigning and determination to secure justice for Stephen Lawrence on behalf of his family.

Stephen Lawrence was murdered in an unprovoked racist attack 19 years ago on Sunday. The country was shocked both by the murder and by the failure of the initial investigation to bring Stephen’s murderers to justice. It is only the determination and dignity of the Lawrence family that has persisted, and has led to the two recent convictions.

Two new allegations of police corruption in the original inquiry have been reported in the media. Those allegations are very serious. The first is that information on corruption was available, but was not passed on to the Macpherson inquiry. The second is that additional witness testimony about corruption in the original inquiry is now available, and must be looked at afresh.

I urge the Home Secretary to go further than simply organising an internal Met review. The new information should be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission immediately so that it can pursue a full criminal investigation of the allegations. I also support the call by Doreen Lawrence, and by my hon. Friend, for a public inquiry, perhaps through a reconvening of the Macpherson inquiry. We need to know not simply whether criminal corruption was involved, but whether information was withheld from the original inquiry and whether that has implications for the inquiry’s conclusions. A public inquiry could also take the opportunity to review the progress that has been made in implementing the 70 recommendations of the Macpherson report.

There have been progress and change over the last decade, but people are still rightly concerned about the recent serious allegations of racism against individual officers, which are now being investigated. The Minister quoted the new commissioner, who has rightly made clear his determination that there should be zero tolerance of racism in the Met and, of course, any force. In support of his work, a new inquiry could review the progress that has been made and could also make further recommendations.

Confidence in the police must be complete, and the mistakes of the past cannot be left to fester. We owe it to Stephen’s memory to ensure that these allegations are investigated in full now.

[James Brokenshire]

I welcome the shadow Home Secretary’s recognition of some of the important steps that have been taken since the initial Macpherson inquiry. I think it essential for us to emphasise that racism has no place or part in modern policing, and to be robust in confronting issues of corruption.

It is notable that some of the more recent claims, cases and allegations involving racism in the police have come from within the force itself. That, I think, underlines the fact that the police are taking these issues much more seriously, and are ensuring that officers who engage in unacceptable behaviour are dealt with appropriately.

The right hon. Lady has identified some of the serious new allegations made about the original Macpherson inquiry and also about the availability of information or otherwise. It is precisely those matters that the Metropolitan police are examining. The Home Secretary is awaiting their response before considering any appropriate next steps and whether a public inquiry is needed to give the necessary reassurance to the Lawrence family, the community and the public. It is therefore appropriate that the investigation be undertaken appropriately, but also with due speed, to ensure that we can take the necessary action and that the necessary support and safeguards are put in place. We therefore look forward to receiving that report from the Metropolitan police, so that the Home Secretary can then determine what is appropriate in the context of the next steps.

Abu Qatada

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary if she will make a statement on the deportation of Abu Qatada.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

Yesterday, the European Court of Human Rights informed the Government that, late on Tuesday evening, Abu Qatada applied for a referral of the judgment in his case to the Court’s Grand Chamber. He did so on the grounds that he would be at risk of torture if he returned to Jordan. The British courts and the European Court have found that, because of the assurances we have received from the Jordanian Government, there is no such risk.

The Government are clear that Qatada has no right to refer the case to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, since the three-month deadline to do so lapsed at midnight on Monday. Article 43 of the European convention on human rights explains that a request for referral to the Grand Chamber must be made:

“Within a period of three months from the date of the judgement of the Chamber”.

The letter that communicated the European Court’s judgement, dated 17 January, confirmed that, saying that

“any request for the referral of this judgement to the Grand Chamber must be duly reasoned and reach the Registry within three months of today’s date.”

Therefore, the deadline was midnight, Monday 16 April.

Because the European Court has no automatic mechanism to rule out an application for a referral based on the deadline, Qatada’s application will be considered by a panel of five judges from the Grand Chamber. They will take into account the deadline, as set out in article 43 of the convention, as part of their consideration. The Government have written to the European Court to make clear our case that the application should be rejected because it is out of time.

The Government believe that the case should be heard instead in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission court, as I outlined in the House of Commons on Tuesday. However, until the panel of the Grand Chamber makes its decision, a Rule 39 injunction preventing the deportation of Abu Qatada remains in place. That means that the deportation process and any potential SIAC appeal is put on hold, but we will resume the process as soon as the injunction is lifted. In the meantime, we will continue to build our case, based on the assurances and information we have received from the Jordanian Government. Abu Qatada remains in detention, and the Government will resist vigorously any application he might make to be released on bail.

As I said in the House of Commons on Tuesday, despite the progress we have made, the process of deporting Qatada is likely to take many months. The fact that he is trying to delay that process by applying for a referral to the Grand Chamber after the deadline has passed, and after he has heard our case in SIAC, is evidence of the strength of our arguments, the weakness of his, and the likelihood of our eventual success in removing him from Britain for good.

[Yvette Cooper]

On Tuesday, the Home Secretary told us that the deportation of Abu Qatada was under way; on Wednesday, it stopped. On Tuesday, she told us there would be no appeal to the Grand Chamber; on Wednesday, an appeal was under way. Yesterday, the Home Office said the appeal deadline was Monday night, but European Court officials said it was Tuesday night. So on the Tuesday night deadline, while Abu Qatada was appealing to European Court judges, the Home Secretary, who thought the deadline was Monday night, was partying with “X Factor” judges. [Interruption.] When the Home Secretary is accused of not knowing what day of the week it is, confusion and chaos have turned into farce. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The right hon. Lady has a right to be heard. Has she concluded her remarks, or does she wish to continue?

[Yvette Cooper]

indicated assent.

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Lady must be heard. There are strong feelings on this matter but opinions will be heard. If the exchanges are longer as a result, so be it, but Members must hear what one another has to say.

[Yvette Cooper]

This farce has serious consequences: additional delays, a greater risk that Abu Qatada will be put out on bail and a risk he will sue the Government. Did the Home Office get specific assurances from the European Court that the deadline was Monday night? If so, will it publish them? If not, why not? Why did it not pick up the phone to sort it out? The Home Office was told by journalists on Monday, nearly 24 hours before Abu Qatada was arrested, that European Court officials were saying that the deadline was Tuesday. Did it do anything about it?

I hope that the Home Secretary’s interpretation is right, but at best there is uncertainty, and several eminent lawyers now say that they agree with the European Court. So why take the risk? What was the harm in waiting until Wednesday? Why create a legal loophole for Abu Qatada’s lawyers to exploit? We all want Abu Qatada deported as soon as possible, under the rule of law, and kept off the streets in the meantime, but both those things are now less likely because of her actions. On Tuesday, I warned that there was a troubling level of confusion around this case, but even I did not imagine that the confusion was this great. When will she sort this out?

[Mrs May]

The shadow Home Secretary tells us that she wants Abu Qatada deported, but I am beginning to wonder whether she really does. [Interruption.]

Abu Qatada

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

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

I welcome the Home Secretary’s pursuit of the deportation of Abu Qatada in compliance with the law. Given her assessment of the threat that he poses to national security, it is right to try to deport him as soon as possible and to return him to custody in the meantime to protect public safety.

I accept the Home Secretary’s apology for the late delivery of the statement, which I received only 10 minutes ago. Unfortunately, the Evening Standard clearly received the statement at 12.30 pm today, when it reported what she was to say in the House.

I understand that, as the Home Secretary said, SIAC is sitting as we speak, but none of the content of her statement appeared to be contingent on the conclusions of that court hearing, and there is a troubling level of confusion about today’s events that it would be very helpful for her to clear up.

I welcome many of the points that the Home Secretary made, although I have a series of continuing concerns. I welcome the assurances that she has obtained from Jordan. Previous agreements were in place, but she was right to pursue further assurances. I welcome, too, the arrest of Abu Qatada today as part of action through the courts to pursue deportation.

The Home Secretary will know that our concern remains that the Home Office should have acted faster after the European Court judgment in January, and that had we not had early drift and delay after that judgment, Abu Qatada might not have been released in the first place. When I asked her in February, several weeks after the judgment, whether she had had personal contact with Jordan after the European Court ruling, she had not been to Jordan at that point, nor did she go for a further four weeks. Indeed, the court that gave Abu Qatada bail cited as one of its reasons that there was no sign of progress in getting a deal with Jordan. Indeed, the court said:

“I do not know precisely what the Secretary of State has in mind. Indeed, the negotiations are only at the earliest of stages.”

It is therefore very welcome that the Home Secretary has now got further reassurances from Jordan, which are important and I hope will be sufficient, and it is welcome that she is taking action today, but three important sets of questions remain.

First, can the Home Secretary set out how long this will take? Does she expect to deport Abu Qatada in weeks, months or years? She has previously told the House that she hoped to deport him by the Olympics. Does she believe that she is on track to do so? The media appear this afternoon to be reporting that Abu Qatada is expected to be on a plane by the end of April. Does she believe that that will happen or that it is realistic?

Can the Home Secretary also confirm that the action that she has taken today is simply to start the deportation process again from the beginning by going back to SIAC? Can she confirm that she has decided not to conclude the previous deportation proceedings, which started in 2007, by going to the Grand Chamber, and decided instead to start the process again by going back to square one and to SIAC today?

The Home Secretary and I would agree that the process that started in 2007 has been way too long. The British and European courts should be faster, and reforms are needed to deal with the delays. We are happy to work with her on discussing that. However, I continue to be concerned by her confidence that she has taken the fastest route today. She has said that the route that she is taking is quicker than going to the Grand Chamber. Can she confirm, however, that the process that she has started today is still potentially subject to a whole series of appeals throughout the British court process, or to Abu Qatada and his lawyers taking the matter to the European Courts or the Grand Chamber again? Although she has decided that simply going through the final stage in the process is too long and is ditching the Grand Chamber, in fact she may be starting from scratch a process that will still have the Grand Chamber at the end of it.

We understand, too, that the Home Secretary believes it is too risky to appeal to the Grand Chamber. I understand that she will have had legal advice on that, and I do not want her to pursue an unwise and risky process, but we equally want her to pursue the fastest possible safe process to get Abu Qatada deported. May I therefore ask her to share with the chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee and the Opposition, on Privy Council terms, the detail of that legal advice, so that we can understand the judgment that she has reached on not going to the Grand Chamber as the fastest way to get Abu Qatada deported?

Finally, we need to know what safeguards are being put in place in the meantime. We understand that the special court is meeting as we speak, but also that it has been suspended this afternoon. Has the Home Office asked for Abu Qatada to be returned to custody? The Home Secretary did not make that clear in her statement. On the basis of what we know about the case I believe that would be the right thing for the Home Office to do. However, she will know that as Abu Qatada has already been released on bail, there is a significant risk that the court will decide either today or at a future date to continue with bail. It remains, therefore, a serious concern that Home Office delays in January and February led to Abu Qatada being released in the first place, and are also making it harder to return him to prison now.

Given reports that Abu Qatada has been in contact with extremists in Jordan while out on bail, the Home Secretary needs to set out what safeguards she will put in place if the courts do not agree to bail. There are also reports of chaos at the SIAC hearing as we speak. Those proceedings have been held up and we understand that lawyers are being scrambled to court. The BBC is reporting that the hearing is a “bit of a mess”. Can she confirm that the hearing has been properly applied for and planned rather than cobbled together in a rush in order that it sits at the same time as the House?

There is something a little odd about the timing and confusion. We are debating Abu Qatada without knowing what the courts will decide this afternoon and what action the Home Secretary will need to take next. [Interruption.] Will she therefore agree to return this House—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is far too much noise in the Chamber. May I just say to the shadow Home Secretary that I think she is bringing her remarks to a close?

[Yvette Cooper]

Will the Home Secretary agree to return to the House this afternoon or tomorrow morning if the court does not agree to revoke Abu Qatada’s bail and return him to custody, so that we can hear what action she will take and what safeguards she will put in place?

I hope Abu Qatada will be back behind bars by tonight in line with the security assessment that the Home Secretary and the courts have previously made, and that we have a clear and reliable timetable for his deportation to Jordan. I hope we will not be back to square one. There was too much drift earlier this year and we have had a troubling level of confusion this afternoon. Will she assure the House that she is in control of events, and that the deportation everyone wants to see is back on track?

[Mrs May]

May I first say that I welcome the support the shadow Home Secretary has given to the resumption of deportation and to the work that has been done to receive assurances from the Jordanian Government? A number of the points she made in response to my statement were made in her press release yesterday, but I recognise that she received my statement late. Although I covered a number of her questions in my statement, I will respond to the points she has made.

The right hon. Lady asked whether the SIAC proceedings this afternoon were properly applied for. Of course they were, but I am sure she will understand that when we are moving to arrest an individual whom we intend to deport, there is a limit to the number of people we tell before we move.

The right hon. Lady seemed to suggest that the Government had done nothing about the Strasbourg ruling until the bail hearing a few weeks later, and quoted Mr Justice Mitting, the judge at the bail hearing. The quote she gave made clear that negotiations with the Jordanians had already begun at the time of the bail hearing. I know she is always keen to attack, but her arguments might have a little more strength if they did not contradict each other.

The right hon. Lady asked about my estimated timetable for Abu Qatada’s deportation. As I said in my statement, we have resumed deportation against him and he was arrested earlier today. He has the right to appeal to SIAC, and I understand that he or his lawyers have made it clear that he intends to appeal and to ask for revocation of the deportation, possibly beyond SIAC—there are rights of appeal beyond SIAC. Because any appeal will be based on narrow grounds and because of the quality of the assurances we have, I am confident of our eventual success, but the process could take a number of months. I have been clear about that and said it in my statement.

The right hon. Lady appears to misunderstand the process. She says that we are going back to the beginning. In fact, we are resuming the deportation, which was set to one side during the appeals that went through to the European Court. She asked why we were not referring the case to the Grand Chamber. Again, I covered that in my statement. I said absolutely clearly that referring to the Grand Chamber would open up the whole of the judgment set down by the court on 17 January, part of which was positive for us. We have looked at the issues involved and taken the decision that the appropriate and right course of action that will ensure we can deport Abu Qatada is to follow the action we have taken of gaining assurances from the Jordanian Government and resuming the deportation.

The right hon. Lady asked about the length of time it is taking to deport Abu Qatada. May I remind her that deportation proceedings began in 2001, nine years before the end of the Government of whom she was a member? The time it is taking to deport Abu Qatada is not down to political will, but down to the nature of our legal system. As I said in my statement, I am willing and keen to look at how other European countries deport dangerous foreign nationals quickly, which is something that the last Government never did. We are following what I believe to be the right course of action to ensure that we can deport Abu Qatada. I have been clear in my statement—and I am willing to repeat it—that I believe that Abu Qatada should be in custody. That is why we arrested him this morning, have taken him to SIAC and are asking for his detention. The work that we have done has resulted in assurances from the Jordanian Government that I believe will enable us to deport Abu Qatada. That is what the whole of this House should want: Abu Qatada deported from this country, back to Jordan.