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Miss Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone and The Weald): I thank the Home Secretary for that statement, but he must be aware that many will regard it as woefully complacent and inadequate.

The situation that faces the Home Secretary is that UEFA has said that if there is any more trouble, England could be banned from the rest of the contest. That is the extremely serious situation that faces us. It would have very much strengthened his hand in dealing with UEFA and other Governments if he had been able to say that he had taken all measures that other countries have taken. Is he aware that one of the most pathetic exhibitions over the past few days has been that of a Home Secretary who has been in office for three years trying to blame the Opposition for his own inaction?

Perhaps it would help to put on the record exactly what happened and to ask the Home Secretary whether he agrees. Does he agree that, in 1998, my right hon. Friend

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the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler)--who then held the post that I hold now--tabled an amendment not to a private Member's Bill, but to a Government Bill, which would have allowed unconvicted persons to be restrained from travelling? Does the Home Secretary agree that he himself rejected that very sensible amendment?

Does the Home Secretary agree that, having rejected it, he then wrote to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield and said that, although he had rejected it, he agreed that it was an important issue, that such a measure was necessary and that, therefore, perhaps it could be tagged on to a private Member's Bill--namely that being produced by my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns)?

Lo and behold, my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford proposed his Bill and my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) tabled an amendment to it to prevent unconvicted persons, in certain circumstances, from travelling during international matches. Is the Home Secretary aware that, far from it being my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) who stopped that, it was actually Labour Members as well?

The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who was the Minister responsible for the Bill, said--[Interruption.] I am afraid that Labour Members are going to hear what actually happened. The Home Secretary is going to have to admit what happened because he has been trying to shelter behind the flimsiest of excuses for the last three days. The House is now going to hear the truth.

Does the Home Secretary agree that, in Committee, the Minister for Sport said:

We need to find a way of dealing with those people. We accept that the issue is complex and that the Bill is not the right place to deal with it . . . we may be able to deal with this issue later in a Government Bill.--[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 5 May 1999; c. 5.]

That was in May 1999; it is now June 2000. Does the Home Secretary admit that he has done absolutely nothing in between to fulfil that promise? Even as Euro 2000 was starting, once again--following in the footsteps of my right hon. Friends the Members for Sutton Coldfield and for Penrith and The Border--the Opposition offered the Government support for any emergency legislation that they wanted to propose. The Government proposed no such legislation.

Is the Home Secretary aware that the mayor of Brussels has said that there was an agreement between the British Government and the Belgian Ministry of the Interior to stop as many people as possible who might commit offences, but that it had not been implemented? What was that agreement and why was it not implemented? UEFA has criticised Government inaction; the Football Association has criticised Government inaction; the National Federation of Football Supporters Clubs has criticised Government inaction. Will the Government now admit that they have indeed been inactive?

Will the Home Secretary, even now, use the remaining stages of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill in the House of Lords to introduce the measures that the

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Minister for Sport was foreshadowing over a year ago--or is he instead going to leave it to the next Conservative Government, who are now not very far off?

Mr. Straw: Yet again, we have seen a display from the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) that fails to meet the requirements of the occasion. A huge amount of work has been undertaken, by the Government, the National Criminal Intelligence Service, and by--[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Home Secretary, but I must tell the House that this extremely serious matter is better conducted without chorus and counter-chorus.

Mr. Straw: A huge amount of work has been undertaken by Ministers, the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the territorial police and by many people overseas to ensure that the arrangements that have been put in place work effectively. I remind the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald that, as I mentioned in my statement, the Dutch Minister of the Interior telephoned me today to tell me that he was very grateful for the extent of the co-operation. He certainly understands the problems that we have faced.

The right hon. Lady does no service at all to herself, and still less to this country. The simple truth is that we would have liked to have in place the powers to which she referred, but they would not have helped us to deal with this situation. The right hon. Lady wants to make party political points and to ensure that people outside the House are misinformed about the reality.

The reality is that virtually all the people against whom such a civil order could have been made were on the list of 1,000 names provided by NCIS to the overseas authorities in Belgium and the Netherlands. We are pretty certain that, in all but 15 cases, our work has been effective in ensuring that those people did not travel abroad.

The right hon. Lady referred to an offer concerning emergency legislation that she made earlier last month. The Football Association raised the matter with the Government, and I would have brought emergency legislation to the House if I had thought that that would have been worth while and would have amounted to anything more than a gesture. However, the simple fact is that emergency legislation at that stage would not have achieved anything. Indeed, it could have raised expectations that we had some process by which we could identify all the people who had not been identified by then, and taken action against them. That would not have been the case.

As I said, we have done a huge amount of work, through NCIS and the police, to pass to the Belgian and Dutch authorities details about every one of the 500 people subject to banning orders, and about those with convictions for football-related offences. Other information has also been provided and it has been acted on.

I regret that the right hon. Lady now seeks to make rather obscure party points about this matter. Although earlier this month she did indeed make the offer to which

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she referred, I note what an official Conservative party spokesman told The Times on 30 May. He said:

What the Government must now do is show that they are prepared to invest in the resources necessary to ensure that everything can be done to track down and convict those who commit football violence.

I do not agree with that sentiment, but the spokesman went on:

Only once these measures are fully used can we start to assess whether there is a need for further legislation.

That was the opinion of the right hon. Lady and her party one week; she changed her opinion the following week.

Over the years, the Government have strengthened the legislation and the powers available, and we are grateful to the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) for his support of the Football (Offences and Disorders) Act 1999. However, no one in the House or the country should try to avoid the problem that exists. Although our police and intelligence activity has been very effective generally against those who we know are likely to cause trouble, the huge proportion of the people who have caused trouble were not previously known to the police or the authorities as being likely to cause football hooliganism. The right hon. Lady should apply her mind better to making constructive suggestions for dealing with that problem.

Mr. Joe Ashton (Bassetlaw): Will my right hon. Friend impress on those fans who are still in Europe what a very serious situation this is? Is he aware that UEFA will not hesitate to ban England, like it banned Liverpool and every other English club after the Heysel disaster, and that there will be provocation tomorrow from German fans who, having lost, will try to get British fans to riot so that they will be thrown out.

There is no doubt that there are people at the top of UEFA, such as Lennart Johansson, who think that Germany should host the World cup. The decision will be made in less than three weeks. Many in UEFA think that Germany was promised the World cup and should still hold it. However, Lennart Johansson lost the election to Sepp Blatter, whom we support. Some deep political chess will be played in the next 24 hours. If a handful of drunk yobboes respond to any provocation tomorrow, this country could lose the opportunity to host the World cup. Millions have been poured into the new Wembley stadium, but Britain could lose the prestige that hosting the World cup would bring, and all because of half a dozen yobboes throwing pint glasses.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on what has been done regarding those who have been sent back. Can he impress on the Dutch and Belgian police that it is not enough to turn hosepipes and water cannons on these people, whack a few heads and chase them off the streets? They have to be prosecuted, imprisoned if necessary, and fined, so that some who have quite good jobs are exposed and lose their jobs.

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