Orders of the Day — Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 6:27 pm on 7 December 2004.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Andrew Mitchell Andrew Mitchell Shadow Minister (Home Affairs) 6:27, 7 December 2004

We have had an interesting and useful debate. It lacked the party political controversy of some of our discussions, and some extremely interesting speeches were made. I shall try to respond to a number of points made in the debate, but I start by emphasising that in the past, when there has been substantial agreement between both sides of the House, there has often been acute danger ahead for us.

The Bill, which we will not oppose on Second Reading, is something of a Christmas tree, as Mr. Heath, who speaks for the Liberal party, described it in his opening remarks. I agree and place on record our gratitude to NCIS and the National Crime Squad for what they have done. I also underline what he said about the national witness protection scheme. When I recently visited Nottingham to meet Mothers Against Guns, they eloquently stressed the importance of the scheme.

The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome expressed reservations about the new powers for community support officers and cited the 50 measures on law and order that have been introduced by the Government in the past seven years. It is clear from what he said that in Committee he and I will have much in common on our agenda.

Mr. Marshall-Andrews spat out his support for those on his Front Bench and looked much better once he got that off his chest. He warned us not to over-flatter the criminals' success and inveighed against the Government's plans to deal with religious hatred, praising the motivation but pinpointing the dangers in practical terms. I very much agree.

Rev. Ian Paisley, who must be preoccupied today with his other duties, in which we all wish him wisdom and judgment, pointed out that religion is a matter of choice, whereas race is a matter of fact. He stressed that the two concepts should not be confused.

Brian White made a wide-ranging speech in which he dealt with matters such as the proceeds of crime. My hon. Friend Mr. Shepherd said that there had been far too many measures on law and order—50—since the Government came to office. He accused the Government of confusing activity with progress.

Vera Baird made a really interesting speech. She agreed with the formation of SOCA and talked about people trafficking and drugs. She made two key points, on funding and on the danger that SOCA would act as a magnet for the best of our police forces. I shall return to both matters later.

The hon. and learned Member for Redcar also made a number of technical points about disclosure notices. We are concerned that clause 56 goes too wide and that it allows powers to be exercised by a constable, whereas previous legislation required authorisation to be obtained at a very high level. We shall want to look at this matter in Committee. She also mentioned the pivotal role of the custody sergeant and spoke of the dangers of civilianising that post. I thought that she completely demolished the Government's case, and I hope that Ministers will consider what she had to say very carefully.

My hon. Friend Mr. Brazier made an excellent and moving speech in which he inveighed against people trafficking and the vile trade in children, women and men who are exploited and degraded by it. He said that the trade was worth nearly £20 million. He made clear how serious it is and said that the UK was a particular magnet for it, with 2 million people trafficked across our borders each year. In a speech that I have no doubt will be read with care by Ministers, he also set out the case against the clauses on incitement to religious hatred.

Mr. Prentice also spoke about religious hatred and advised us that there are no fewer than 390,000 Jedi knights in Britain. He also dealt with the question of definition. Rowan Atkinson was in the House only yesterday and, like him, the hon. Gentleman talked about the "chilling" of the climate of free expression. That is an excellent phrase.

My hon. Friend Bob Spink and Mr. McWalter concentrated on the issue of religious hatred. The hon. Gentleman treated the House to a philosophical and historical perspective on religion, and attacked the Government for their anodised view. He urged the Government to resile from their support for the relevant clauses.

Mr. Weir gave a Scottish dimension to the debate. He supported SOCA, but expressed some concern about the difficulties inherent in implementing it in Scotland.

Chris Bryant took a view that was rather different from the one adopted by the more senior cleric on this side of the House who preceded him. Apart from him, only one other speaker supported the Government's proposals on incitement to religious hatred. He complained that my right hon. Friend David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, did not give him a peroration. I shall see whether I can give him one towards the end of my speech.

My hon. Friend Mr. Hoban also spoke about clause 119, and pointed out the flaws in the Government's case. Mr. Bailey talked about financial reporting orders and said that crime must not pay. He was the only other speaker on the Government Benches to support the religious hatred clauses in the Bill.

The final contribution from the Back Benches was made by my hon. Friend Andrew Selous. He opposed the religious hatred clauses, and underlined the importance of using moderate language in these discussions. I am sure that all hon. Members will be pleased by the moderate language used this afternoon.

The Opposition want to help the Government with this Bill. We want to identify various matters that we shall raise in Committee, and I hope that the Minister winding up tonight will take a fancy to some of the amendments that we expect to propose.

The first issue that we will want to discuss is the structure of SOCA. Although we support its formation, we understand that recruiting the brightest detectives and the best police from existing forces could damage those forces.

There is already evidence that some key leadership elements are likely to be removed from the police. We hope that the Minister will explain in Committee why she did not consider secondment as an option for staffing the agency, as happens in the Army with the special forces. We hope that she will put our fears to rest about the danger of a leadership vacuum as a result of the brightest and the best being recruited to SOCA.

We shall also want to be satisfied that SOCA, by dealing not with terrorism—we understand that argument—but with level 2 crime, including prostitution, drugs and people smuggling, will find a natural position between other law enforcement agencies. Considerable confusion could be caused, for example, if one agency is dealing with terrorism and another with people smuggling, as they are natural bedfellows. We will want to explore the relationship that SOCA will have with the intelligence agencies.

We shall also want to be clear that there will not be confusion in any particular region in which SOCA is responsible for the fight against drugs but the police are responsible for enforcing the law. We fear that if a failure resulted, each side would blame the other, which would not be good for policing.

We also want to be satisfied that the drive towards localism, local performance and local accountability will not be damaged by the new structure and that it will not have any unintended consequences. We want to be sure that addressing the regional vacuum will not cause problems elsewhere, especially in the relationship between SOCA and the local police forces.

We also want to be clear about the adequacy of funding. How will SOCA's funding needs be addressed? We also want to be clear that the Home Secretary will not, under clause 9, arrogate to himself wide powers to determine strategic priorities. Parliament must be careful not to pave the way for an unscrupulous Home Secretary to determine strategic priorities with an eye to achieving a political purpose. The Home Secretary said today that a Cabinet Sub-Committee would guide him on that. My reading of clause 9 is that that is not in the legislation. I hope that the Minister will be able to persuade us that it does not need to be.

We need to explore also the apparent provision—in clause 38(1)—that any member of staff of SOCA can be designated as having the powers of a police officer. It takes considerable training to be able to exercise those powers and we will need to explore that issue in Committee.

The major theme of the debate has been the religious hatred clauses. It will not have escaped the Government's notice that the Opposition are deeply unhappy about them, and that feeling is shared on both sides of the House. We are keen to maintain the balance between religious freedom and freedom of speech, but the debate has shown that those clauses are confusing, will make bad law and will not work. The Minister should consider carefully the telling intervention by my hon. Friend Mr. Streeter, who asked precisely what threat the clauses were meant to stop. The Government have not answered that question. If it is the BNP, as many hon. Members have suggested, there are better ways to see off such dreadful people than introducing these clauses. My strong advice to the Minister is to have a word with the Home Secretary after this debate and to save the Committee and herself a lot of trouble by dropping those clauses now.

We shall also want to explore the issue of animal rights. My hon. Friend Mr. Djanogly will look at ways of strengthening the Government's clauses, which we support as far as they go.

We shall also want to know why the use of intercepts has not been included in the Bill. We are concerned by the lack of reference to them and we have called consistently for the Government to lift the ban on intercept use in courts. It is clearly odd to confine the fruits of intercepts to intelligence only. The UK is one of the few countries in which intercept evidence is not admissible and we hope that the Minister will explain why she is not changing that situation in this Bill.

We shall also want to look at the changes to PACE, in clauses 101 to 115. We shall want to look carefully at several aspects, including the concept—as set out in the debate—that everything is now arrestable. I shudder to think of the paperwork, let alone anything else that would be involved in that legal change, which must be carefully considered.

We need to look carefully into a number of aspects, including the power of a civilian to make an arrest in very much wider circumstances, which could be counter-productive. The all-premises warrant is a considerable extension of power and we shall want to explore precisely what its effects would be and whether they would be acceptable.

Police community support officers have been discussed. A considerable increase in their powers is advocated in the Bill. We are not opposed to CSOs, but there has been no independent assessment of their effectiveness and value for money. We think that there should be one. Some forces, including Hampshire, have already made clear their view on CSOs and we are concerned about the additional powers of search and arrest, the use of equipment and the lack of training. It looks like an attempt by the Government to achieve policing on the cheap and could undermine confidence in the professionalism of the police.

We should also like to consider the changes proposed on dealing with money laundering.

We welcome the Government's announcement today that they will make the parents of under-10s responsible for the cost of wanton damage. Parents should have responsibility for their children.

There are a range of views on dealing with behaviour in the vicinity of Parliament and the matter will probably be best left until Report, so that the House can have a considered look at it in a wider focus than in Committee.

Finally, I turn to the general context for the Bill, where I fear that I must be somewhat less obliging to the Home Secretary and his team. If they think that by carpet-bombing the Queen's Speech with tough-sounding law and order measures—albeit ones with which the Opposition broadly agree—designed to conceal the Government's lamentable failures in combating crime, they will evade the justified wrath of the electorate at the appalling nature of their record on crime, they are sadly mistaken. The public will remember that these measures are not the start of Labour's agenda for fighting crime, but the product of seven years of talk, seven years of being asleep on the job, and seven years of failure.