Clause 3 - Functions of SOCA as to information relating to crime
Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill
4:00 pm
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Shadow Minister, Economic Affairs; Sutton Coldfield, Conservative)
This is the first of the six small points that we wish to probe and, following the intervention of the Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), we might call it the Cotswolds amendment. Amendment No. 5 would add the words ''intelligence agencies'', which deals with the point that he sought to elucidate, and amendment No. 6 is rather more explicit about which intelligence agencies we are talking about.
The purpose of the amendment is to add an express requirement to SOCA to disseminate information with the United Kingdom intelligence agencies and places SOCA and the intelligence agencies on a statutory footing. There are similar provisions in the Bill relating to police forces, special forces and the law enforcement agencies. Since a measure introduced by the Conservative Government was passed, both the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service are on a statutory footing. The key point is that the relationship between SOCA and the UK intelligence agencies should be formalised. As drafted, the Bill creates no statutory requirement for SOCA to disseminate information to the UK intelligence agencies. Information and intelligence must flow freely between SOCA and the agencies to remove the risk of duplication—what I believe is known as a blue on blue event—and they must work to ensure joined-up policing.
We want to amend the Bill to add an express requirement for SOCA to disseminate information with the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service. Our amendment puts the relationship between SOCA and those intelligence agencies on a statutory footing to assist information sharing and collaboration. The Bill provides for relationships with other bodies. The clause does not expressly state that SOCA must disseminate information relevant to the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of offences to the security services or the secret intelligence services. As SOCA's remit is focused on serious organised crime, which by its nature crosses international boundaries, highly valuable information will be accumulated.
The British police and law enforcement system has been praised for the high degree of communication between the different agencies involved. We must ensure that the situation that occurred in the United States, where the FBI and CIA were not exchanging compatible information before the tragic attacks on the World Trade Centre, does not occur in this country. For one agency to know that individuals were learning to fly planes but not to land them and for it not to disseminate that information was a grave error. We must do all that we can to avoid any danger of that in the United Kingdom. When I first became a shadow Home Affairs Minister, I went to see the senior people who run the Metropolitan police at Scotland Yard. They made the point that in Britain, because of the joined-up nature of policing, such an event as tragically took place in the United States could not happen in the UK. The purpose of the two amendments is to ensure that that point is underlined in the Bill. I hope that the Minister will be able to agree to the amendment or to explain to us why it is unnecessary.