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Mr. Heald: Does the Home Secretary intend to introduce legislation to enable international banning orders to be made if there is evidence that someone who has not necessarily been convicted is a risk? The Home Secretary said that he would have liked such provision introduced in the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), so when will he do it himself?
Mr. Straw: If the hon. Gentleman will wait, I shall make my view clear during my speech.
Mr. Banks: I by no means seek to excuse unacceptable and inexcusable behaviour, but I can back up my
right hon. Friend's point. Is he aware that judges in Argentina recently closed down the football season twice because of deaths by shooting inside and outside football grounds? That sort of thing happens, tragically, around the world, but we tend not to read about it quite so much in our newspapers.
Mr. Straw: Of course a great many countries have serious hooliganism at home. On the whole, thanks to the very good efforts of our police forces and greatly improved acceptance of responsibility among the clubs, that is generally a thing of the past here.
Mr. Burns: Will the Home Secretary clear up one point beyond doubt? How many of the British subjects arrested in Belgium and Holland rather than turned around at the port of entry have convictions not for football-related offences, but for other matters?
Mr. Straw: I cannot give the House the precise figure, but it is a significant minority--somewhere between 30 and 40 per cent., I understand. I have already made that point about three times, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to make a further point about it I shall be happy to give way.
Mr. Burns: I am grateful. The point that I am trying to make is that, as about 35 per cent. of those people had criminal records--albeit not football-related--we could, if we had had the power to withdraw passports from hooligans unconvicted of football-related offences, probably have removed their passports because the courts might have been satisfied that they might offend abroad.
Mr. Straw: That proposition needs thought, for it goes way beyond anything advanced in any part of the House during the passage of the hon. Gentleman's Bill--which was about taking powers in respect of individuals convicted of football-related offences.
We have to be careful about proportionality. Removing a person's passport in any circumstances is a significant sanction. The fact that a substantial minority of those arrested in Charleroi have criminal convictions should come as no surprise. because it simply reflects the proportion of men aged 30 in the population as a whole who have convictions--although I accept some may be serious. My central point is that a majority of those arrested had no convictions. Those persons arrested in Belgium did not, overwhelmingly, have football-related convictions. Nor were they subject to banning orders. No legislation predicated on stopping or preventing convicted and suspected football hooligans would have made much difference to the number who travelled abroad. That is a fundamental shortcoming of the argument advanced by the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald.
As I made clear yesterday, the Government are committed to examining the powers and arrangements for dealing with football hooliganism in the light of events. The Football (Offences and Disorder) Act 1999, implemented last September, followed widespread consultation about the adequacy of football-related legislation--which had grown up piecemeal over the previous decade. None the less, that statute has limitations. When we have a serious debate, we can go into who said what to whom at the time. The fact is that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst
(Mr. Forth) accepts that he said things in opposition to the propositions of the hon. Member for West Chelmsford--as did other hon. Members. The right hon. Lady said that opposition did not come "exclusively" from Conservative Members. I noted with care her use of that adverb--but significant opposition came from Conservative Members and was the reason for the legislation's limitations.Although there are 101 recipients of international football banning orders, there are 400 domestic banning orders in force. The public may see no reason for allowing a person on whom a court has seen fit to impose a domestic ban to attend football matches abroad. I share that view. Almost certainly the right way to proceed is to merge international and domestic banning orders--but I will consider representations from right hon. and hon. Members and the police before reaching a final view.
Mr. Pike: In addition to the two categories my right hon. Friend specified, would it not be a good idea to ask all the premier division and Nationwide clubs? Almost every club has a list of undesirable people whom they do not want at their grounds--not all of whom have been in court.
Mr. Straw: I cannot speak for Burnley but a large amount of information--[Interruption.] I am told that the Prime Minister's press secretary speaks for Burnley.
As to spinning, I may tell the right hon. Lady that I am the most unspun Minister I know. The only spinning in which I am ever involved is at 8 o'clock on Monday mornings, in the gym--when I have a spinning lesson that goes on for three quarters of an hour.
Mr. Straw: On the spinning bikes.
Mr. Straw: In the House of Commons gym. If anybody wishes to be visually offended at that time of the morning, they are welcome to join me.
Mr. Ashton: I am a former director of a premier league club, so may I point out to my right hon. Friend that the Data Protection Acts inhibit the exchange of information tremendously? As my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) said, every club has about 50 or 60 names and addresses of the people who have been arrested, evicted or convicted. The clubs are forbidden from trading such information because of the Data Protection Acts, and the police are forbidden from letting them have such information. If my right hon. Friend could slightly amend the Data Protection Acts to allow for the trading of that information so as to prevent crimes or hooliganism, that would be very helpful.
Mr. Straw: I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised this issue. There are many myths about the Data Protection Acts and we are seeking to deal with them. We sought to deal with them by an amendment to the law in section 115 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 to ensure that there can be proper data sharing not only by
law-enforcement agencies, but by others involved in the prevention and detection of crime. I have talked directly to Elizabeth France, the Data Protection Commissioner, about the issue and she has made the point that the data protection legislation is there not to prevent the transmission of data, but to regulate the circumstances in which it takes place.I am happy to take the matter up with my hon. Friend's club and with the football league and the premier league. As I understand it, there is no reason at all why such information should not be made available to the police. There is a different issue about whether the police can make information available in return, but the purpose will be served if information is made available to the police.
As I have told the House, only a handful of the 464 people who have so far been deported from Belgium were known to the National Criminal Intelligence Service as confirmed or suspected hooligans. That again raises the point about the limitations of such orders. Even in those cases, it cannot be assumed--not least given what Colonel Blickie of the Belgian police said this morning--that the evidence against them would have been sufficient to satisfy a court that a banning order ought to be issued to the civil standard of proof.
As I have also told the House, NCIS is carefully analysing the lists of those deported to check on previous convictions and on occupations better to profile the kind of individual who gets involved in hooliganism.
Miss McIntosh: Will the Home Secretary give way?
Mr. Straw: No, I have given way to the hon. Lady once and other Members wish to speak.
With the benefit of experience, we shall sit down with the police, NCIS and others to see what further legislative and other changes may be needed in the future. As I made clear yesterday, the disgraceful scenes that we have seen over the past few days require a more immediate response. That is why I announced yesterday further measures to put pressure on would-be hooligans.
First, we have taken steps to ensure as far as possible that none of the several hundred people who have been deported from Belgium in recent days may slip back into that country or the Netherlands without the knowledge of the authorities. We have intensified the scrutiny of passengers leaving ports and airports en route for France as well as for Belgium over the critical period before tonight's match at Charleroi.
Mr. Heald: The Home Secretary will recall that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) made the point that Eddie Curtis, who is the head of the anti-hooligan spotting team, has said that most of the undesirables that they do not want in Belgium and Holland are actually there already. Is that right?
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