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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. While I acknowledge that the hon. Gentleman has considerable experience in these matters, I must ask him to put a question, because many others also wish to contribute.
Mr. Ashton: We have no protest or complaint about what the Government are doing, but does my right hon. Friend agree that the seriousness of the situation has gone far beyond a football issue?
Mr. Straw: I note what my hon. Friend says, but he will appreciate that it is not for me to comment on what he describes as the internal politics of UEFA or FIFA.
On convictions, it is plainly better, where possible, for the Belgian and Dutch police not only to arrest people but to charge them with specific offences. Our law does not know, as far as I am aware, of the notion of an administrative arrest. We know of arrest for alleged criminal offences. Our provisions have been designed to ensure that when people are convicted abroad of a football-related offence, they can be subject here to a banning order. My opposite numbers in Belgium and the Netherlands--Antoine Duquesne and Klaus de Vries--are well aware of that and, wherever possible, they will seek convictions in their own courts.
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey): As this is a statement about Euro 2000, may we first ask the Home Secretary to pass on, through the Minister for Sport, our congratulations to an England team that won on a day when the cricket and rugby teams lost? We hope that the team will go on winning without being distracted by people, whom we all condemn, who are doing nothing to advance the cause of English football.
I hope that the Home Secretary accepts that the best way to deal not just with this game and this trouble but with the future of England's participation in football is to concentrate not on what might have been and on changes to the law that would probably have made no difference in practice, but on what we can do now. In that context, does he accept that there are two things that might usefully be on the agenda? First, I refer to an affirmation of the law, which is that the British, Dutch and Belgian authorities have the power to arrest anybody whom they reasonably believe is likely to commit an offence, and they should use that power, either this side of the channel or the other. Secondly, if the Home Secretary were minded to ensure that all future orders were simultaneously national and international, and if he considered, as a matter of urgency, converting the national domestic banning orders into international orders, he would have support from the Liberal Democrat Benches.
On the basis of the practical experience of the weekend, will the right hon. Gentleman look urgently to his colleagues in Belgium and ask them to follow the Dutch experience, which was good, in banning alcohol in the area of the match and possibly in some areas in Brussels, and to increase the number of spotters? I am informed by law-abiding travellers that, during train journeys in Belgium, people are phoning one another and arranging plans for meeting to cause trouble after the match.
Lastly, let us ensure that the Belgian and Dutch authorities work together to impose cordons, which they are lawfully entitled to do, to exclude people without tickets and without lawful reason to go into certain places where matches are being played.
Mr. Straw: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his constructive approach to what is unquestionably a difficult situation. He asked me four questions. As for affirmation of the law, wherever possible, whether here, in the Netherlands or in Belgium, the police should arrest people and then charge them and have them prosecuted in the relevant courts. That is our approach, too.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether we should make future national domestic banning orders apply internationally as well, along with, I might add, a passport
condition. Yes, we should give urgent consideration to that. He asks whether we will invite the Belgians to follow the Dutch experience and to ban alcohol. As I said in my statement, we are already asking the Belgian authorities whether they will follow the lead of the Dutch authorities. Alcohol was not banned in the Netherlands, but regulations were laid down requiring the sale only of very low-strength alcohol. That seems to have worked satisfactorily.As for increasing the number of spotters, I held a meeting this morning with John Abbott and Brian Drew from the National Criminal Intelligence Service. The British police service stands ready to provide additional resources where they can be used effectively.
The hon. Gentleman suggested the imposition of cordons round the main squares--for example, in Brussels and Charleroi. I shall relay that suggestion to the Belgian authorities.
Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley): Does my right hon. Friend accept that we should not try to rewrite history about a private Member's Bill last year, the Football (Offences and Disorder) Bill? As one of its sponsors, I urged the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) to be wary of amending it in the way suggested. To introduce a major amendment, which had not been seen by me as a sponsor, was probably not the best way to proceed.
The lesson is that we must examine what has happened over the weekend and say that the Government and football authorities together, recognising that football clubs have tremendous information throughout the country, should take action to ensure that such behaviour cannot be repeated. A Government Bill should be introduced to deal with the matter.
Mr. Straw: I certainly accept that. That was the point of my statement, among other things. We need to examine the lessons of what happened over the weekend. We must take stock and introduce further measures in the light of those events.
Mr. Simon Burns (West Chelmsford): First, I welcome the Home Secretary's comments about international banning orders. When passing legislation, it was Parliament's intention that they would be used against anyone committing a football-related offence. Anything that tightens up that procedure to ensure that the courts use such powers is to be welcomed. It is to be hoped that that need not be made mandatory, but if need be, so be it.
I say more in sorrow than in anger that I am disappointed by the spin that the right hon. Gentleman has been putting during recent days on the question of unconvicted football hooligans and the withdrawal of passports. I, more than anyone else, should know why I withdrew the amendment to the Bill to which the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) referred. It was my proposal, and it was my decision to withdraw it. May I tell the right hon. Gentleman, with all due respect, that he is wrong with the spin that he is putting on this matter?
I did not remove the proposal because some of my hon. Friends made certain speeches on Second Reading. Three Labour Members also spoke about it. Equally importantly,
the civil liberties industry was mounting campaigns against the proposal. I feared that certain sections of the media were opposed to it and that there could be serious trouble in the House of Lords. I did not want to lose all the valuable weapons in that legislation just because of that. It would be fair to say that I had the Minister's agreement that it was more important for the Government to deal with that controversial issue. I understood that the Government intended to introduce their own legislation, using their substantial majority, to take away passports from unconvicted hooligans provided that certain conditions were satisfied before a court of this country. I urge the Home Secretary to take that action. The seven months since the state opening has been too long for no action to be taken.There are apparently 300 convicted football hooligans who can travel to Belgium and Holland because my Act is not retrospective. Had we had that legislation on unconvicted football hooligans, we could have used it on them, because they have a track record of causing trouble. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that, had that legislation been on the statute book, all the people who were deported from Copenhagen earlier this year could have been prevented from travelling to Holland and Belgium now?
Mr. Straw: I note what the hon. Gentleman says, and the House is grateful to him for having promoted the legislation that came into force in September last year. I also note what he said about the problems being not only on his side of the House. I shall not detain the House, but I could if invited to do so. He will be aware that vociferous opposition about the proposal to be included in that legislation was the most intense from his side of the House. The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) compared the proposal with systems in the Soviet Union. That was the measure of the Tory opposition.
The hon. Gentleman will also know that it is quite common for Governments of both parties to use what are described as hand-out Bills, as we did in that case, as a vehicle for legislation. None of us anticipated that these proposals would run into such problems. I understand the problems that he mentioned with the civil liberties industry. The House will know that there is a modest proposal to bring our law on the mode of trial into line with that of other European countries and other common law Commonwealth countries. That ran into the most intense difficulties in the other place, such that we had to start again in this place.
The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of the 300 hooligans who had convictions against them but were not subject to retrospective banning orders. Those were, in the main, people against whom there were football-related convictions. I repeat that, for reasons that the House understands, those people would not be the subject of the civil orders that it was intended to include in the hon. Gentleman's Bill. However, the names of 500 people, including those 300, against whom there are football- related convictions but not banning orders have been communicated on lists by NCIS to the Belgian, Dutch, French and German authorities. As I have already made clear, the provision of that information has worked almost completely to prevent those people from travelling abroad, so we have achieved the same end by a different method.
I must repeat the point to the House, because it is extremely important to our understanding of the problem, that the British Government have done a huge amount with the police and other authorities to crack down on those whom we know are football hooligans either because there is an order against them or because they have football-related convictions. However, the huge difficulty has been in spotting people against whom there are no convictions or who have convictions that are nothing to do with football.
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