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7.22 pm
Mr. Straw: On Second Reading, I said that the Labour party supports both the purpose and the principle of the Bill, and I am glad to reiterate that support tonight. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for what he said about the constructive attitude that has been shown towards the Bill. In particular, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth(Mr. Michael) and to other of my hon. Friends who served on the Standing Committee for their support of the Bill.
I thank the Secretary of State and the Minister of State for their approach to the two amendments that my hon. Friend moved in Committee. Their amendments related to the Security Service's support of the police, who will continue to have a lead role, and to the arrangements for the tasking of the Security Service in this new and important area of work.
The Secretary of State referred to the dangers of organised crime. Sadly, all hon. Members have constituents who are addicted to hard drugs. The people who peddle those drugs in our constituencies are often only small-time drug dealers, but behind them lie highly organised criminal gangs. We have not yet reached the situation--I pray that we never will--where organised crime is a threat to our national security, but we do not have to look to Latin America or to Africa to see what can happen if organised crime goes unchecked. We need only look to a fellow member state of the European Union--to Italy--to see what can happen if organised crime is allowed to go unchecked.
Mr. Beith:
On Second Reading, the Liberal Democrats expressed support for the purpose of the Bill but expressed reservations on a number of key points--echoing reservations that had been expressed by the Intelligence and Security Committee, strongly supported by chief constables and police officers. Unusually, two of the crucial reservations were met in Committee, and I agree that the Bill has been substantially improved as a result.
Of the remainder of the reservations, one rests heavily--it is a tenuous thread--on the ability of the Government to bring forward legislation in the next Session to achieve the legal status of the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the provision of warranting powers for the police for interventions on property. The Government have made their intentions clear, and there appears to be no disagreement,in principle, on those points. It remains to be seen whether the Government will deliver that legislation.
I remain dissatisfied with the way in which complaints by the public are dealt with. It will be necessary for the other place to examine further that point during its consideration of the Bill. We are not talking about a major
project. Although the Home Secretary got a little excited in his Third Reading speech, throughout most of the Bill, Ministers have made it clear that any transfer of resources involved at this stage is likely to be small, and that there will be no transfer if it is to the detriment of the battle against terrorism, particularly in the light of the IRA's renewed activities on the mainland.
Mr. Allason:
No one can doubt the determination of every hon. Member to fight crime. We must welcome the Bill if it does anything to decrease crime on our streets, to remove the drug dealers and to deal with the money launderers. However, I have some reservations about the proposition that 20 or 30 Security Service officers--who have probably never given evidence in court and who have no knowledge or experience of collecting evidence for presentation in court--will have the analytical skills that can be deployed against professional criminals.
It was clear from the Second Reading debate that, in some ways, the Security Service has run out of things to do--or certainly thought it had prior to the events of last week. It is unpalatable that the catalyst for this exercise has not been a long and carefully thought out strategy against organised crime, but an examination of the Security Service to see whether its surveillance techniques, personnel and other clandestine skills can be deployed against professional criminals. The truth is that, at the end of the cold war and during the Provisional IRA ceasefire, there was seen to be a capacity available for deployment elsewhere. I doubt whether the Bill will do a great deal of good in the fight against organised crime, but I am certainly aware of everybody's determination to fight crime.
Perhaps the nettle that has not been grasped is the real one--whether the other intelligence agencies that already play a role in countering international drug smuggling and money laundering should not better adopt the role. In 1945, there was a proposal and a firm intention to integrate the Secret Intelligence Service and the Security Service. That is why the building in Horseferry road, now the Department of the Environment, was originally built. There was to be a single integrated service, because it was believed that there was no geographical distinction in terms of counter-intelligence.
The Secret Intelligence Service has for many years been carrying out a great deal of extremely good work in countering international drug smugglers. Its work has been unacknowledged but it is a past master, recognised
by the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency as being in command of a great deal of knowledge relating to money laundering, particularly in the Caribbean. I want to pay tribute to those officers who have risked their lives overseas by making inquiries, delving into bank accounts and liaising with local forces in order to deal with that menace.
Mr. Mullin:
Like the hon. Member for Torbay(Mr. Allason), I wish to register one or two small reservations about the Bill which I have had from the outset. It is true that it has been improved in Committee, but not all the problems have been solved. The problem is--it was mentioned by the hon. Member for Torbay and others during our deliberations--that a large part of the security apparatus has run out of things to do, and search parties have had to be sent out to find something useful for it to do.
If any other Government Department had run out of things to do, redundancies would have been declared and public money would have been saved. That is not the way things appear to happen in the security services, which have always been fairly lavish with public money, anyway. Those whose services were no longer required would be free to reapply to the police or wherever it was though that their talents could be used.
I do not dispute that some of the talents of the security services may be of use in fighting organised crime and, if so, that is how they should be deployed, but the relevant personnel should be transferred to the police so that they come under the authority of the police and are subject to the rule of law and the accountability--imperfect though it is--to which the police are subject. That is what should have happened.
It has been said several times during our deliberations that only 20 or 30 personnel will be involved. That may well be the case now, but the Bill opens up the possibility that in years to come several hundred people employed by the security services may be deployed in that way. The Bill that we are about to pass will be the authority for that. Who knows what those people may get up to or what difficulties may arise in, for example, giving evidence in a court of law?
I say the same as the hon. Member for Torbay.The Intelligence and Security Committee should monitor carefully how things work out with the 20 or 30 personnel. It should also monitor whether there is scope for saving some public money. If it thinks that there is, it should not hesitate to say so. This may be a subject to which the House will have to return if things do not work out as well as we all hope.
Question put and agreed to.
Mr. Frank Dobson (Holborn and St. Pancras):
I beg to move,
The regulations cover local authority staff who work for shire counties or shire districts and who have been affected by local government reorganisation. In particular, they cover those whose remuneration has been reduced as a result of the reorganisation--those who lose money through no fault of their own; those who suffer detriment.
It would probably be helpful to the House to spell out the large numbers who are potentially covered by the regulations. According to my calculations, 137,000 staff are involved in those areas where unitary authorities were elected last May and which will take control of those authorities this April. There are potentially 292,000 staff covered in the unitary authorities that will be elected this May and which will take control in April 1997 and 314,000 staff will be covered by those authorities for which there have been recommendations from the Local Government Commission but which, for one reason or another, have not yet been put to the House. Their position is unlikely to be sorted out for another two years. That makes a total of almost 750,000 people. We must bear in mind the fact that we are talking about the lives and livelihoods of that huge number of people.
That the Local Government Reorganisation (Compensation for Loss of Remuneration) Regulations 1995 (S.I., 1995, No. 2837), dated 3rd November 1995, a copy of which was laid before this House on 7th November, be revoked.
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