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Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North): While we all condemn the criminal gangs who trade in human misery, should we not also--as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) said--recognise the sheer desperation of those who are willing to venture upon such a journey and recognise, at least to some extent, the risks that they face? Should we not also work on the reasonable basis that they did not undertake that journey to come to Britain to live on benefits? They were desperate people. Although we recognise that immigration control is absolutely necessary, we should not forget for one moment that those people wanted a better life, and that they died for that reason.
Mr. Straw: It is, of course, a matter for common humanity. We must all recognise the desperation of those people--there is no question about that--and the circumstances in which they died, sealed in that vehicle.
I have already explained the Government's approach, and I hope that this event will send a message to those who may be enticed into involvement with these criminal facilitators that any promises that are held out to them of an easy journey and an easy life when they get here will turn out to be empty.
Euro 2000
4.25 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): With permission, Madam Speaker, I shall now make a statement on the violence involving so-called England supporters at the Euro 2000 football championships in Brussels and Charleroi in Belgium. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already made clear, Her Majesty's Government profoundly regret what has happened, and I would like to express our deep apologies to the people of Belgium.
As the House knows, events on the field this weekend were wholly overshadowed by events off the pitch. I am sure that the whole House will have felt my feelings of outrage and shame as we witnessed our fellow citizens engage in appalling drunken violence on the streets of Belgium. Those people have disgraced the nation and our national game.
We, of course, fully share UEFA's anger at the disgraceful scenes, and the whole nation has taken full account of the warnings issued by UEFA regarding our future participation in the competition. Up-to-date information is as follows. There were serious disturbances in Brussels on Friday last, 16 June, and then on Saturday 17 June, in Charleroi and Brussels. So far, we have received information on the identity of 584 United Kingdom citizens who have been arrested in the disturbances.
In a few cases, the individuals have been charged with specific criminal offences, including possession of offensive weapons and assault. However, in the overwhelming proportion of cases the detention was by what is known in Belgium as an administrative arrest, typically for failure to carry a passport or other means of identification, and no charges have followed. Instead, the individuals have been made subject to immediate deportation. So far, about 400 have been returned to the United Kingdom. As they have arrived, police and immigration officials have required them to provide full details of their identity.
The House has been kept informed about the arrangements made over many months to intensify co-operation between the United Kingdom and the Belgian, Dutch and French authorities to ensure as far as possible that anyone previously involved in football hooliganism should not be able to gain entry to those countries.
It is widely accepted across Europe that the British police, led by the National Criminal Intelligence Service and by Assistant Chief Constable Tim Hollis, are among the most professional and thorough in identifying known hooligans and in policing arrangements in co-operation with overseas police forces. The Dutch Minister of the Interior, Klaus de Vries, to whom I spoke this morning, has issued a further statement expressing his satisfaction with the co-operation provided by the British authorities.
Well in advance of the competition, lists were provided to the Dutch and Belgians of 500 British individuals subject to banning orders and a further 500 against whom there were football-related convictions but no banning orders in force. All 500 who were subject to any kind of banning order were sent letters advising them not to travel, and 101 individuals subject to international
banning orders are directly prohibited from travelling abroad. There have been no reports of any of those 101 leaving the United Kingdom during the period of the competition. In addition, the National Criminal Intelligence Service has provided information to the Netherlands and Belgium on another 200 individuals on whom there was good intelligence but who had no football-related convictions.All this has been part of an extensive international operation in which British police and immigration officials and the football authorities have been actively involved. Further details were set out in the report of the Euro 2000 Co-ordinating Group placed in the Library of the House on 7 June.
The House will, I believe, understand that it is, by definition, far more difficult to identify in advance those who might cause trouble if they have not been previously convicted of a football-related offence or if there is no police intelligence about them. The overwhelming majority of those arrested and expelled from Belgium come into that category.
Of the nearly 400 now being deported, just 15 have been identified as previously known hooligans and of those, one has had a domestic exclusion order against him. One of those is too many, but that does demonstrate that our controls against known hooligans have largely been effective. It also demonstrates that legislative changes of the kind that the House has had before it recently, and which have been urged, could not have had the effect of reducing by a significant degree the numbers of people, without previous football convictions or intelligence against them, involved in the trouble in the past three days.
We have always made it clear that we would keep under review the arrangements that we have made in the light of events, including the fact of large-scale arrests that have led in the main to deportation directly, rather to than prosecution and conviction in the Netherlands and Belgium. Further to the measures announced on 7 June, therefore, we are putting in place the following further measures to take account of the current situation.
The scrutiny by law enforcement agencies at ports has been intensified to prevent any of those deported from Belgium in the last few days from returning either to Belgium or the Netherlands. Immigration and police checks have been stepped up and the main carriers and the Belgian and Dutch authorities are being given full access to the information available to the law enforcement agencies so that they may refuse to take as passengers people whom they know will be refused entry at the other end.
British police services are being asked to make contact with all those deported to warn them not to return to Belgium and the Netherlands, and the likely serious consequences of returning. We have offered further assistance from British police forces, in addition to the significant presence already in Brussels and Charleroi and on Eurostar, led by Assistant Chief Constable Tim Hollis, to spot known troublemakers and to help to identify those arrested.
We have proposed that the Belgian and Dutch authorities mark the passports of those they deport to make subsequent identification easier should they try to return. We have urged upon the Belgian and Dutch
authorities the importance, in our view, of restrictions on the sale of alcohol in the areas affected, as was successfully achieved by the Dutch at Eindhoven.Following discussions today involving the Government, the Football Association and the premier league clubs, any supporter convicted of hooliganism, or against whom there is good evidence of hooliganism, will be banned by the clubs for life from attending football matches in England.
Let me now come back to the issue of legislation. The powers of the courts were strengthened last September by the Football (Offences and Disorder) Act 1999, which was piloted through the House by the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) on the basis of drafting provided by the Home Office. The Act imposed a duty on the courts to make a banning order whenever someone is convicted of a football-related offence if a ban would help prevent violence or disorder connected with football matches. The Act also provided for the imposition of passport conditions on anyone subject to an international football banning order. We had hoped that the Act would also include a power for courts to make banning orders preventing unconvicted hooligans from attending international matches--if there was good evidence against them that was insufficient to achieve a conviction--but, as the House knows, that proposal encountered vociferous opposition from certain hon. Members.
The courts have extensive powers to impose passport conditions on anyone subject to an international ban and to impose an international ban whenever a domestic ban is imposed, but few international bans have been made. We will be taking steps to encourage courts to impose such orders in all cases in which they could help to prevent hooliganism by England supporters overseas. We will also consider whether to make a single banning order for domestic and international matches with mandatory passport conditions, as well as powers for the courts in respect of unconvicted hooligans against whom there is other good evidence.
Over the past decade, the United Kingdom has done a huge amount to stamp out football violence at home, and we have done much work with the police, the Football Association and the authorities abroad to prevent violence overseas. However, the incidents remind us once again of the shame that hooliganism has brought on our country down the years and they must reinforce our determination to help to stamp it out overseas as we have done at home.
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