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10.55 pm
Mr. Jim Murphy (Eastwood): I am pleased to be able to participate in the debate, although I am sure that we all wish that there was no need for the debate and the legislation. Unfortunately, events in the past few months and years have proved that it is an absolute necessity. In the spirit of some contributions to the debate, I will avoid the inter-party dispute because, hopefully, we will try to achieve consensus at some point.
I was in Charleroi with my family during Euro 2000 and I witnessed some of the scenes there. That is why I am keen on much of the Bill.
Mr. Lilley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Murphy: No, not at the moment. The right hon. Gentleman will perhaps have an opportunity to intervene later in my speech.
After the 1998 world cup in France, I contacted English and Scottish premiership clubs to ask them what they thought the Government should do and what legislation they should enact. I also asked them what they had done to tackle hooliganism. Many have taken firm action, but they acknowledge that they could do more. Prophetically for the Government, the club spokesmen, the senior ground safety officers and the chairmen of Aston Villa and Southampton said clearly that hooligans should have their passports taken away. That is the opinion of those in the industry who want respect for the good name of their club and their country, and it directly contradicts what the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) has just said.
Two of our esteemed clubs, Middlesbrough and Newcastle, said that they had problems with data protection legislation, which prevents them from taking effective action. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that point in summing up, or later in Committee. Another club said that there is no proper communication between the courts and the clubs, and clubs are not informed when convictions are secured. Perhaps the Home Secretary could identify whether the Bill, or any likely amendments to it, will meet concerns about data protection and co-operation between the courts and the clubs. Hooligans who are convicted could then be reported to the club that they supposedly follow, and which they have shamed, which might be at the other end of the country from where the crime took place.
I have also carried out research into the huge number of parliamentary questions on hooliganism. To echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks), I should like some of that information to be used in future research. It is an unfortunate fact that English second division clubs have more football restriction and banning orders than do first division clubs. Why is that, when they have smaller stadiums, fewer supporters and a smaller fan base? What is it about those clubs, those towns or the mentality of those supporters that means that they have more orders against them than supporters of much bigger clubs in the first division?
We also hear that the hooligans are all young men. Of course, according to all the recent parliamentary questions, the average age of men who rightly have banning and restriction orders against them is 31. The youngest has just passed his 16th birthday and, believe it or not, the oldest British citizen currently under a banning
or restriction order is 61 years of age. That is a huge age range. The average may be 31, and there are a good number of teenagers, but that gentleman, whom I will not name, although his name appears in a parliamentary answer, is shortly to celebrate his 62nd birthday under a domestic football banning order.I support the Bill. I have followed football throughout Europe, and I follow my own football team. The lesson of Charleroi is clear. I understand that 42 per cent. of those who were there already had criminal convictions, although not specifically for football hooliganism. Some of those who were there may have been banned by their clubs from attending their games, not through a domestic football banning order, but simply through club policy.
We must protect the innocent, but we must also take action against people who are banned by their clubs from attending their own matches but who can travel abroad because they do not have a criminal conviction. The Bill introduces an important clamp-down. It gets rid of the daft distinction between football-related criminal activity and violence, and other violent activity. It brings them under the same legislation, so that police officers at the ports can track those who are banned by the clubs and those who have a criminal record but not an international banning order.
Those are the people who should have been stopped if there had been a foolproof way of dealing with the problem before Charleroi. We could have prevented some of the 42 per cent. who fall into those categories from wreaking havoc in mainland Europe, where their behaviour was all too public and shamed our nation.
According to schedule 2, the Bill will apply only to British citizens. I checked in the House of Commons Library this evening and found that there are officially 2,242,000 non-British nationals living in the United Kingdom. As I understand it from my reading of the Bill, they would not be covered by its provisions. There may be some logic to that, and I would welcome an explanation from my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.
Many of those people care passionately about football and the vast majority are law-abiding citizens, but the tiny minority who are not would not be covered by the legislation. Some may choose to follow England, despite not being British nationals, but they may follow the clubs and, of course, their own country's team. Arsenal has a French manager and many French players, and there are 46,000 French nationals living in London. Chelsea has an Italian manager and the culture of the club is increasingly Italian, and there are 42,000 Italians living in London. The vast majority are law abiding, but why would they not be covered by the Bill if they travelled to a football game in another country?
There are particular problems associated with Scotland, and I accept that there is no easy solution. It is in the nature of devolution. This House no longer has the power to legislate for Scotland; nor should it. A possible longer-term solution is for the Scottish Parliament to consider how it should act and react to the loophole that would allow English nationals to travel to Scotland as a way of getting out of the United Kingdom. Football hooligans from the north of England may even find it easier to travel out of Scotland.
I do not mean that as a criticism of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. It is not his responsibility or within his legislative competence. It is a matter for the Scottish Parliament, which I hope will listen and act.
The only other Scottish issue is that many Scottish supporters, including me, often travel abroad via London. I have the advantage of being the only teetotal, non-smoking vegetarian Member of Parliament from Scotland--I lead a very exciting life--but I do not represent the archetypal perception, or misconception, of Scots. Many Scots with whom I have travelled internationally enjoy leisure and alcohol before leaving the country: they are quite boisterous. Nevertheless, Scottish fans have had a fantastic reputation for many years--although I am not complacent about that--and have won awards in many international competitions. Although Scotland perhaps has one of the poorest teams, it has some of the best supporters.
What consideration might the Home Secretary give those matters? Many Scots have no record of violence or disorder when following their national team. They simply enjoy themselves while nevertheless displaying the characteristics of boisterousness and of perhaps having had a drink. If my right hon. Friend cannot reply this evening, perhaps he will address those points in Committee. I hope that we get beyond the inter-party dispute and pass proper legislation. We must not blame each other; and, come the summer games--not just those involving England, but the champions league matches next month--we must not export violence and mayhem to our European partners.
11.6 pm
Sir Nicholas Lyell (North-East Bedfordshire): Conservative Members are co-operating with the Government to bring this matter forward, but I deplore the rush; and to use the France match of 2 September to justify pushing through a Bill that involves so many civil liberties aspects is entirely unreal and almost disingenuous. I have a nasty feeling that we had not dropped out of the world cup bidding when these issues were first mentioned and that this hurried legislation may have a good deal to do with that.
Any football hooligan who goes to France on 2 September thinking that he might get away with it as some hooligans got away with it in Belgium has another think coming. The French police are extremely tough on these matters, which is why the Bill involves civil liberties aspects. One of my constituents--a young man--was in France for the 1984 match, which was celebrated at the time because so many Brits were picked up. He was of sufficiently high calibre to have been allowed by his firm, which was a household name, to use a spare room in the George V hotel. He was picked up after the match and accused of violence and causing damage, which he absolutely denied. The British embassy found him only after he had spent two days in a suburban police station in which, he alleged, he had been beaten around the head having been made to wear a motor cycle helmet, and then forced to plead guilty to a minor offence, which he had not committed. We must not let any football hooligans think that they can go to France with impunity.
There is no reason to rush the Bill. We will co-operate, but serious human rights issues are involved, the first of which concerns the power to detain simply because an
officer, on viewing the behaviour of a young man leaving the country, believes it necessary to investigate whether that young man may have committed an offence. I refer to proposed new section 21A(2):
- If it appears to a constable in uniform that the behaviour of a person present before him is such that immediate enquiries should be made to determine whether or not the condition in section 14B(2) above is met, the constable may exercise the power in subsection (3)
- to detain the person in his custody
Will the Home Secretary, if he would be kind enough, or the Minister of State explain why that provision is not illegal in terms of being contrary to the European convention on human rights? Why will it not be illegal come October, when the convention is passed into our law? Article 5.1 of the convention states:
- Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be deprived of his liberty save in the following cases and in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law.
- the lawful arrest or detention of a person effected for the purpose of bringing him before the competent legal authority on reasonable suspicion of having committed an offence or when it is reasonably considered necessary to prevent his committing an offence.
- that the behaviour of a person present before him is such that immediate enquiries should be made
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