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Sir Ivan Lawrence: And there are many of them.
Mr. Hutton: My hon. and learned Friend says--well, I do not want to embarrass him. The distinguished Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. andlearned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), mentions that the Committee made many recommendations. In fact, that is not so. It is not the case either that our reports are so uniquely complex that the Home Office needs twice as long to respond to them as other Departments need to respond to other Select Committee reports. The problem
is that it is inefficient and involved in a battle with the Department of Trade and Industry, which is apparent to anyone who has been involved in the debate about the private security industry.
The Home Office cannot make up its mind. It is torn between the need to do something to deal with a problem that it recognises and its ideological obsession to deregulate at every opportunity. It is increasingly the Government's trademark to pursue ideology at the expense of common sense. Before us is a classic example of the need for less ideology and more common sense, plus a commitment to do something sensible to tackle problems.
Mr. Ian McCartney (Makerfield):
We have heard little so far about the victims--those who have been let down by an industry that has been infiltrated in certain key sectors by the criminal classes. I have in mind companies that have been set up as front organisations for organised crime. They sell their wares to unsuspecting licensees of public houses or the managers of hotel catering establishments. During the 1980s, such infiltration increased enormously, with the result that there was a huge increase in criminal activities. Such organisations realised from the outset that, if they controlled the door security industry, they would control access to clubs and leisure areas, the selling and distribution of drugs there, prostitution, and other key intimidation and protection rackets. As a consequence, they use violence against the companies who own the clubs and pubs and their customers.
I could not believe it when the Minister of State made light of the issue and claimed that it was not one of law and order or of crime prevention, but of some obscure issue of regulation. In the past eight years, I have provided the Home Office with a dossier of violence, murder, grievous bodily harm and intimidation, leading to people having to give up their licence because of their refusal to allow these companies into their premises. There have been arson attacks, physical violence against people and their families and racketeering leading to companies' losing control of their premises.
The dossier includes examples of constituents of mine who have been visited at home because they were witnesses in court cases against bouncer companies that had been violent. On two occasions, for example, they have been told that, if they proceeded as witnesses, their child would end up in a coffin with them. The dossier also includes examples of constituents who have been beaten up with baseball bats in mistaken revenge attacks against an enemy of a company and of rice flails being used against licensees who objected simply to the use of violence in their premises by the companies.
During the campaign, we have had the support of the security and leisure industries and the police. There is a strongly held view that, unless we register and regulate the industry, the expansion of criminal activities will continue.
I say without exaggeration that the companies and criminals are ruthless. They will stop at nothing. They threaten the people who stand against them. For example, I gave evidence to the Home Office about personal threats to kill me and my family. My children were threatened and a wreath was nailed to my door by a company. My wife has received condolence cards about my death and I have received such cards about my wife's death. We have had telephone calls threatening that, if we continue the campaign in the local community, violence will be inflicted on me or any individual who associated with us in that campaign. Despite that, the Home Office has taken no action. It must do so not because of the threats against me--I am only one individual--but because thousands of people are experiencing daily attacks by these companies.
I shall conclude soon because some of my hon. Friends want to speak. The Home Secretary has a full dossier of evidence about the extent of infiltration of this sector of the industry by organised crime. I raise one issue contained in the dossier that he has not yet revealed and refused to reveal in the debate. In Merseyside, a detailed report was supplied revealing widespread criminality, including drug dealing, organised violence and extortion, among door supervisors. A survey of 476 door supervisors found that three had convictions for murder and manslaughter, that another two were on bail charged with murder, that 25 had weapon convictions, that seven had firearm convictions, that 18 had drug convictions, that101 had assault convictions and that 97 were claiming unemployment benefit while working as regular door supervisors. Those figures do not include the people who employ the door supervisors. A survey of the employers found that they had a similar record. The companies were just front organisations for organised crime.
The Home Secretary should take action urgently. During Home Department questions, I asked the Minister of State if he would
He said that the Government had no plans to do so.In response, I said:
Ms Janet Anderson (Rossendale and Darwen):
What has been most striking about the Government's utterances about the need to regulate the private security industry, and their inadequate and long-delayed response tothe Select Committee's report--forced on them by this Opposition day debate--is the sheer complacency of Ministers. Despite statistics that occasionally suggest otherwise, the growth of fear of crime is now a disturbing social phenomenon. Since the Government came to office,
There is considerable public unease about the intrusion of the private security industry into areas that were previously the domain of the police. As a report in the Independent on Sunday in June last year pointed out,
Once it was exclusively the task of the police to keep the unruly at bay, marshal parades and check shop doors after dark. On rare occasions, special constables were sworn in to subdue riots. That is no longer true. Privateers escort prisoners to gaol, run prisons and guard installations; they repel anti-road protesters, and defend construction sites. They kept mourners in line at, for example, Ronnie Kray's gangster funeral. There are now at least as many people employed by private security firms as there are uniformed police. According to one estimate, the former--162,000--outnumber the latter by 4,000. According to another, there are as many as 250,000 privateers.
Last year's Police Federation conference was warned by David French, chairman of the constables' central committee:
The chief constable of Northumbria told police staff college recruits:
As the Independent on Sunday report also pointed out,
The list of those aspects is almost endless. It ranges from property protection to surveillance services, from bodyguarding to dog handling, from investigations of theft, from fraud and product piracy to airport, bank and embassy security. Security firms' advertisements reveal men in police-like uniforms with German shepherd dogs, or on horseback, or at control desks. They wear shields and crests with lions rampant.
Nearly 8,000 private security companies now operate in Britain, making the British industry the second largest in Europe, behind Germany's. It is a £3 billion industry, accountable to no one but itself. Counting the firms--never mind regulating them--is a problem. AsBSIA spokesman Andrew Mackay has said,
"bring forward proposals for statutory regulation of the security industry."
"Was it not extraordinary that just before Christmas Conservative central office, through its security company, recruited one Bob King who had just served 15 years for armed robbery to work as a security guard at central office? Does that not prove that infiltration of the industry has gone right to the top, including the Government?"--[Official Report, 12 January 1995; Vol. 252, c. 263-64.]
"Already, security firms have fingers in a staggering number of pies."
"The growth in private security services means that those who can afford it are looking to hired hands to protect them. There is no plan behind it, no legislation. They're leaving it to market forces."
"The private security industry has begun to enter areas of public life which, until recently, have been seen as the sole preserve of statutory regulated bodies such as the police and prison services."
"A glance in the Yellow Pages shows the extent to which unregulated private security firms have invaded aspects of our daily lives."
"There could be hundreds if not thousands of firms in London. Anyone can set up a security company using a mobile phone."
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