Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
TUESDAY 4 APRIL 2000
MRS BARBARA
ROCHE, MR
JOHN WARNE
AND MRS
LESLEY PALLETT
Chairman
1. Good morning, Mrs Roche, or perhaps I should
say welcome home, when I recall very well that you were for two
years a member of this Committee, and then life altered. Would
you be kind enough to tell us who is with you today, please.
(Mrs Roche) Thank you for your very kind welcome,
Chairman. As I say, it is a rather nerve-wracking occasion this
morning. I was about to say that I feel rather like a gamekeeper
turned poacher, coming back to this Committee today, where I spent
two very happy years. Thank you very much for your kind invitation.
First of all, if I may introduce my officials. John Warne is the
Director of the Organised and International Crime Directorate.
I ought to make it clear, fighting organised crime! Also, Lesley
Pallett, who is the Head of the European Union and International
Unit. Until recently, Mrs Pallett was Head of the European Directorate
in the Immigration and Nationality Directorate.
2. We were expecting Mr Potts, as you will have
seen. Were we misinformed?
(Mrs Roche) Yes. Mr Potts is not joining us today.
3. Okay. May we just have a look at the last
Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting. Could you explain to
us what the United Kingdom was able to contribute to the open
debate on victims in the EU jurisdiction areas, and what action
you expect to follow from that debate.
(Mrs Roche) We had a very good debate on victims.
We had a round table debate, which took some time, but it was
an extremely worthwhile debate and I, on behalf of the United
Kingdom, very much welcomed the focus on victims. The first point
I made was that I very much felt that in our criminal justice
system the needs of victims have not always been to the forefront
of those decisions. The key aspects I was able to highlight, as
far as the United Kingdom were concerned, were of course the very
valuable work of Victim Support which, of course, the Government
supports. To praise the work of the volunteers, who give so much
of their time to Victim Support. I am sure we all have examples,
as constituency Members of Parliament, of the very valuable work
they do. I think they have something like 11,000 volunteers, which
is a tremendous amount. It is very much in the great United Kingdom
tradition of volunteering. To talk about the Criminal Injuries
Compensation Scheme, which is a very good scheme, but also to
look to see what we can learn from other Member States. There
are some seminars and discussions that are coming up on this.
I very much hope that what we will be able to do is to benchmark
what we do. That we will also be able to have some input into
looking to see what other Member States do and to see whether
we can learn from them, particularly in some areas about the rights
of victims when they are to be informed about the conduct of criminal
proceedings. We also had a very useful presentation by the Commission
on the "scoreboard" of the Tampere work, basically a
timetable for action post-Tampere. There is, in our view, more
for the Commission to do here, but we feel that the Commissioner
Vittorino has made very good progress in this area. What the Commissioner
has done is to do a talk in the capitals. He has gone round and
spoken to all Member States. He came here quite recently. I had
a very useful meeting with him. He had a very useful meeting with
the Home Secretary. We certainly feel that he has taken on board
some of the issues that we want to have. We had a discussion on
the draft Mutual Legal Assistance Convention and also other issues
were discussed such as the European Refugee Fund. We were looking
at the Dublin Convention too and also, very importantly, discussing
an initiative from ourselves, an anti-drugs initiative, which
has come from the Prime Minister personally, and which the Prime
Minister has launched. There are two main themes of that anti-drug
initiative. First of all, looking at applicant countries and what
more we can do with applicant countries in various programmes,
like the PHARE programme, to look at joint working with them over
a number of things, so that we can make sure that, in working
with them, their strategies to combat trafficking in drugs is
in place; but also, as far as EU Member States are concerned,
to look at minimum sentences as well, where drug trafficking is
involved. I hope that is just a useful introduction into some
of the last Council. It was very much an interim council. We are
looking forward to taking it further in May.
4. You mentioned the Tampere "scoreboard".
Do you know if it is proposed to publish the draft proposals of
that? If not, when do you expect the final version to be published?
(Mrs Roche) It is still very much in draft at the
moment. I think there is a bit more work that needs to be done.
I would certainly look towards May for seeing some progress on
this one.
5. Do you find that useful?
(Mrs Roche) If I can say this, if you look at what
has happened post-Tampere, there is now a vast agenda for the
Council. I think it is very important that we do not lose sight
of the main thrust of what we do; that we have a sense of priorities
as far as this is concerned. So I think this is a very useful
exercise. Of course, the key task of all of this is to make this
as practical as we possibly can.
6. In terms of brickbats and bouquets, as a
result of this Justice and Home Affairs meeting, what would you
give to what? Where would the bouquets go, first of all?
(Mrs Roche) I think it was a pretty good working meeting.
We had the advantage of having an informal two days in Lisbon
earlier. That gave members of the Council the opportunity to have
some broad-ranging discussions. It was very much a practical working
Committee. However, I think we would look for a bit more progress
come May. But it is not at all bad.
7. And the brickbats? What disappointed you?
(Mrs Roche) I do not think there were any overall
disappointments. What we need to do to is to make sure that we
get some of the items progressed. Overall, I thought it was a
very good working council. There was certainly very much a feeling
that the Commission were making quite a lot of progress in these
areas.
Mr Fabricant
8. Just a quick one. You said earlier on that
there were going to be future meetings with other countries, in
order to learn from them regarding the way they deal with victims.
I was just curious as to which countries in particular impressed
you, and why, in the way they deal with this.
(Mrs Roche) I think all of the countries were quite
interesting. Some of them had similar things. Some of them would
have other things. But there are ways in which we can learn from
the way victims' families can be kept informed throughout the
process; arrangements as to the seating arrangements, where victims'
families can be placed in court. All of those things. We have
moved on a lot. There is also the recognition now that it is not,
say, for example, just for one particular section of the criminal
justice system. It is not just for the police. The police have
a tremendous role to play as far as victims are concerned but
it is all sections. It is the way the judiciary deal with victims.
It is the Crown Prosecution Service. It is something that we have
to keep in mind. I very much felt from the basis that far too
often, (and it is not just ourselves), that the rights of the
victim have not been to the forefront and, of course, obviously
in very tragic cases, there are also the rights of the victims'
families. I thought this was really a mark of the importance of
this but nothing which we must be complacent about.
9. So there was no particular scheme that you
witnessed or heard about in another country?
(Mrs Roche) Not one thing. I do not want to be complacent
about this but we can take quite a lot of pride in our Criminal
Injuries Compensation Scheme and we can take a lot of pride in
our Victim Support, but I do not want to be complacent about it.
I think probably the one thing I would like to learn a little
bit more from others is perhaps the way in which victims are treated
in the court process: the seating arrangements, that sort of courtesy
and involvement. There is a lot more to do in this area.
Chairman: Can we now move on to a major area—I
was going to say a major area of your responsibility—because
I suspect it takes up the biggest part of your time: asylum and
immigration. Mr Linton.
Mr Linton: It is day two, of course, of the
Immigration and Asylum Act and it may be too early to ask you
about how it is going, although you are able to say, I am sure,
what may be of interest to the Committee.
Chairman: Did you bring any leaflets for us!
Mr Linton
10. We wanted to explore how far immigration
and asylum should be approached on a collective basis in the EU,
and how far on a unilateral or bilateral basis. Could I explore
the areas, which seem obviously intended for collective action,
such as presumably the Dublin Convention or EURODAC or immigrant
smuggling; and the areas that may be less open to collective action.
(Mrs Roche) What yesterday marked was the roll-out
of a couple of very important aspects of the legislation, which
is the civil penalty and also the National Asylum Support Service.
I felt rather like on Friday—and I am sure members of the
Committee will understand this—I remember saying to my officials
that a lifetime in politics of handing out leaflets to unwilling
recipients would stand me in very good stead and so it proved.
There are, of course, as far as the United Kingdom is concerned,
things that we very much want to do. That is, because of our geography
and history, they are unique to us in the controlling of our borders;
and keeping control of our borders is absolutely essential. That
is the special recognition that we have. Clearly there are things
that can be done together and I am very glad that you mentioned
smuggling. I know it is appreciated by this Committee, (but I
do not think it is appreciated enough), that there is a world-wide,
heavily organised trade in the smuggling and trafficking of people—two
slightly different things, smuggling and trafficking—but
there is a world-wide trade. We are seeing organised criminal
gangs—probably very much the same sorts of gangs that are
or have been involved in the drugs trade—organising this
despicable trade in the smuggling of human beings. There are people
who are making a great deal of money from doing this. Quite clearly
there are things that we can do. There are things that intelligence
services and police agencies throughout the EU and with like-minded
countries can do to disrupt those routes and those gangs. That
is what we are absolutely committed to do. As far as the EU is
concerned, there are a number of measures that we will look at
and then we will decide whether we wish to opt into. One of the
things that you mentioned was EURODAC. That is very important.
We have made a decision so to deal with that. EURODAC is important
because what it does is provide that exchange of fingerprints
of those seeking asylum. We know, unfortunately, that there are
asylum seekers who claim asylum, who may well have made several
claims in different Member States. Of course, the reason why we
feel very strongly about this is because that brings nothing but
discredit to the system. Therefore, we think EURODAC is something
we very much want to see and is going to make our life easier.
You mentioned the Dublin Convention, which has been in operation
since 1997. As far as Dublin is concerned, we are a net beneficiary
from Dublin by about a factor of 13 to one. Having said that,
although we think the Dublin Convention is good in principle,
in practice it can be quite slow, so we would certainly be looking
to see what we can do about that. The other important thing we
are looking at is common standards of reception of those seeking
asylum, so that we prevent the concept of asylum shopping. In
a nutshell, what we are trying to do is to have a system of asylum
in place by which we honour our long-standing traditions of giving
sanctuary and protection to those genuinely fleeing persecution,
but we deter those who are making unfounded claims.
11. Could I just pursue the point about bilateral
agreements. It seems that Italy and other countries have approached
the issue in a bilateral way, with agreements with Albania and
all sorts of other countries. In terms of controlling the flow
of asylum seekers from other countries, is there some scope for
that, or would you prefer to see everything done on a collective
basis?
(Mrs Roche) The approach we take, because we have
the opportunity to opt in, we look at every measure. We seek to
improve every proposal of our EU partners but clearly looking
at the United Kingdom interest. Then we decide whether it is suitable
for us. There are obviously always things we would want to do
individually. I think what you are referring to bilaterally are
readmission agreements, whereby say you have somebody who has
applied for asylum in the UK or a Member State, and at the end
of the process the application has failed and it is decided to
remove the person, there are some countries where it can be very
difficult to remove people. The process can be very slow and bureaucratic.
Chairman
12. Even when it is their own nationals?
(Mrs Roche) Yes. There is sometimes a difficulty.
It is a difficult one in that sometimes you are dealing with people
who have destroyed all of their documents; so you then have to
show to the receiving state that they are a national. That can
be quite a complicated process for my officials, which is why
I am going to be increasing resources in that particular area.
I get personally involved where we have a situation, where we
know that person is a subject of that state. We are trying to
have them readmitted. I am absolutely determined to put resources
into that area. In some cases we do not have any difficulty with
readmission agreements. As far as we are concerned, readmission
agreements would only be sensible where there was a particular
perceived difficulty. Our concern about readmission agreements
is that they can give you another bureaucratic layer for delay.
So we look to see where this is practical. With many countries
we do not have a problem.
Bob Russell
13. Minister, bearing in mind that a lot of
asylum seekers arrive in this country via EU countries, why is
that? Is it because some of the European countries are turning
a blind eye; almost encouraging asylum seekers to come to the
United Kingdom rather than dealing with the issue in their own
country?
(Mrs Roche) I do not think that is the case. We have
very good relationships with other EU Member States, who are seeing
some of the same difficulties that we are seeing. We exchange
information, we exchange intelligence information. One very good
example that has happened very recently is that we have exchanged
a lot of information with the French authorities. On the basis
of the information that we have supplied and their activity, we
have had large numbers of facilitators, the criminals who organise
this trade, arrested; and a number of them have received prison
sentences. That is good. The difficulty that we are facing—I
come back to what I was saying earlier to Mr Linton—is this
trade in the trafficking of people. You are talking about very,
very sophisticated gangs. I do not think we ought to pretend that
these are amateurs. They are not. They are very sophisticated
gangs. They know about the transporting of people, so people are
bundled into lorries—there is nothing dignified about this
process—and smuggled in, in this way. Quite clearly, if
we can show where it is that somebody entered the EU, then we
will return them under the Dublin Convention. We do return people
under the Dublin Convention. As I say, we are very much a net
beneficiary on that. We want it to work much more efficiently.
The difficulty that we will have, as I say, is when people destroy
documents. There is no doubt in my mind that if we have some more
common standards in terms of the reception of asylum seekers,
then we can prevent this asylum shopping, where people can look
at what is the best deal on offer rather than, if you are a genuine
asylum seeker, what you want is safety and security and a level
of maintenance while your claim is being determined.
14. Are you looking to our European colleagues
to be more rigorous in their activities to deter asylum seekers
reaching the United Kingdom through their countries?
(Mrs Roche) I think your question is a very good one.
In all the JHA Councils that I have attended recently the question
of people smuggling, of illegal entry, is going higher and higher
up the agenda. So, for example, quite a lot of the discussion
about the operational police chiefs coming together has centred
on this. This is now going to be a major focus of people's attention.
Mr Howarth
15. Minister, following on from what Mr Russell
was saying about the arrangements of our Continental partners—leaving
aside the question of the organised gangs, which we all agree
is reprehensible—nevertheless there is very clear evidence
that the French authorities, on the other side of the Channel
at Calais, are simply not being rigorous in enforcing the controls.
They are openly allowing people to come to this country. I was
phoned up late one night by a reporter from the Daily Mail
saying, "You would never believe what is going on here. We
are watching it with our own eyes. The French officials are doing
nothing." What steps are you taking to try and force our
Continental partners to act in a more communautaire spirit?
(Mrs Roche) If there are concrete examples, please
do let me have them, Mr Howarth, and I will take them up with
the French authorities. Let me assure you, both at ministerial
level and at official level, the contacts are extremely good.
They are not just talking contacts. They are operational contacts.
I do not think that what you have outlined is necessarily the
accurate picture, if one might say so. If you have some isolated
examples of where people are doing what they should not be doing,
please let me know and I promise we will investigate it. Just
to say, my immigration officers and the officers of the appropriate
agencies in France and around Calais, work incredibly closely
together. There is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes.
There is a lot of exchange of information. As I say, we would
not have arrested the number of facilitators that we have, and
actually prevented entry in a large number of cases, if we did
not have the co-operation that we are getting. That is why the
civil penalty is so important. It is very important indeed as
a way of deterring those who would abuse the system.
16. I would like to say I have given the Home
Secretary a specific example, raised by a constituent of mine
in Aldershot, whose son is a lorry driver and told his father
precisely what was going on. Under the eyes of French officials,
these people were just clambering onto lorries. That is why the
lorry drivers feel very aggrieved because they are not being helped
by the French authorities. Furthermore, there was a very good
article in the newspaper, following the reporter's visit to Calais.
(Mrs Roche) I saw it, yes.
17. I hear what you are saying about your contacts
with your counterparts on the Continent but it does seem that
there is, at the very least, scope for improvement, do you not
think?
(Mrs Roche) Of course. I have read all the reports.
That is what we seek to do but part of the co-operation is, for
example, the agreement that we have just signed with the French
authorities over the Eurostar; the checks we are making now; the
criminals and the facilitators that are now being prosecuted on
the exchange of information. If there are examples, Mr Howarth,
we will rigorously look at those and bring them to the attention
of the French authorities. But what we are dealing with is very
determined gangs of criminals, who are determined to get in. That
is why I am equally determined to be very vigorous, as far as
the civil penalty is concerned. That is why yesterday, at Dover,
we were searching every lorry. We will be as vigorous as we can
be.
Chairman
18. It seems to me that the civic authorities
from Calais, (the term "councillors", as it were), have
said that they simply cannot afford to detain people who they
reasonably believe are illegal immigrants. The financial consequences
are too severe, which may touch on the point Mr Howarth was making.
Have you heard that?
(Mrs Roche) I know it is a lively debate in France,
as it is in the United Kingdom; but, as far as I am concerned,
the key thing that we have to do is to have effective measures
at our ports which is why, as I say, the civil penalty is so important.
I do not have the latest up-to-date information but from the last
time I checked last night—as I say, we had checked most
lorries going through—we did not find any clandestine entrants,
when we had just introduced the civil penalty. That is an illustration
of how powerful the civil penalty is. I would not be complacent
about it but that was my up-to-date information when I left last
night.
Mr Winnick
19. These criminal gangs—and they are
obviously criminal gangs, Minister, who engage in this vile traffic—what
information does the Home Office have, or at least is willing
to put into the public domain at this stage, of these gangs? Are
they small time criminals or is it more highly organised across
Europe?
(Mrs Roche) That is a very good question. Sometimes
it will be small; it will be people at the other end. Sometimes
it will be people connected with this country. We have all come
across the unscrupulous immigration advisers, which you were kind
enough to mention when I was on the Home Affairs Select Committee
before. I remember some of the work we did on that. At the worst,
some of those immigration advisers are not just unscrupulous,
they are corrupt. They connive in this trade. Sometimes it is
quite international. We were talking before about our ports, at
what is happening in that direct traffic; but, of course, there
is sometimes a world-wide trade. So, for example, let me give
you a very graphic example, Mr Winnick. Somebody comes in on a
long-haul flight to Heathrow. They come from a country where there
is no trouble or persecution of any kind, if one looked at the
situation. By the time they arrive at Heathrow, (and you know
the size of Heathrow), they will get on the aeroplane with documents—perhaps
legitimate documents identifying them, a proper passport—but
by the time they come to Heathrow they have been met by one by
the facilitators, and by the time they arrive at the immigration
desk those papers would have been destroyed and they would be
claiming to be a national from a totally different country. That
gives you some graphic example of just how organised it is. Sometimes
there are bizarre routes that people come through, with people
helping the trade. It is very complicated. The one thing I can
reassure you is this is not just a matter for myself, as the Minister
of State concerned, with immigration. I have regular discussions
with Charles Clarke, my fellow Minister of State, who has policing
and crime. We have had some joint presentations together as well.
What we want to get across is that this is now a major criminal
activity; probably when we look at organised crime, one of the
most organised activities that there is.
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