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1 Apr 2003 : Column 842—continued
Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath): The debate has attracted a lot of interest on the Conservative Benches, but staggeringly little on the Government Back Benches. Indeed, for the vast majority of a debate that began at about 12.45 pm, the Government Benches have been empty, apart from the places occupied by the Ministers, a Parliamentary Private Secretary and the Government Whip, so there is clearly no enthusiasm on the Government side for the legislation, or indeed recognition that it is in any way important. However, that deficiency has been well made up for by a number of speeches from Conservative Members, which showed serious interest in this important Bill.
As all speakers have said, there is support on both sides of the House, as in another place, for measures against terrorism, but, despite that support, concerns remain that we shall want to scrutinise in Committee. One of the most important issues raised in another place, which we shall also want to discuss in Committee, was co-ordination of anti-terrorism activity and, in particular, what is referred to in the United States as homeland security.
My noble Friends sought to include a provision to ensure that we would know precisely who is dealing with all matters involving protecting our citizens in the light of a possible terrorist attack. The position is this: the Prime Minister is in overall charge of intelligence and security matters; the Home Secretary is responsible for the Security Service; the Foreign Secretary is responsible for the Secret Intelligence Service and for GCHQ; and the Defence Secretary is responsible for the defence intelligence service.
In addition, there is a ministerial committee on the security services, which is chaired by the Prime Minister and includes the Deputy Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. An Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs is the junior Minister responsible for counter-terrorism issues at the Foreign Office, while the Home Secretary takes responsibility for terrorism policy at the Home Office. The Minister of State for the armed forces is responsible for intelligence and security matters at the Ministry of Defence. Furthermore, last year, Sir David Omand was appointed to the civil service post of security and intelligence co-ordinator at the Cabinet Office.
That confusion and that litany could have come straight from a script for "Yes, Minister" or "Yes, Prime Minister". We simply must have much clearer lines of responsibility and there ought to be, in this important legislation, as part of the protection of UK citizens against a terrorist threat, a clear statement that a Cabinet Minister is alone responsible for civil security and civil defence.
Chris Grayling: My hon. Friend is making an extremely important point. Does he agree that, in the final analysis, we should also be certain that, despite the undoubted desirability of collaboration and co-operation across Europe on those matters, we should never be placed in such a position that the final decision
on the protection of our citizens cannot be taken in this country? I hope that he ensures in Committee that that is the case.
Mr. Hawkins: Certainly. I, along with my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) and other Conservative Members, will seek to ensure that that happens.
There are a number of general worries about the Bill. On 2 December, my noble Friend Lady Anelay pointed out that in many parts of the Bill the Government seek to lead us into Schengen by the nose and through the back door. That can be found in column 976 of the House of Lords Hansard. A number of my hon. Friends, notably my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), have stressed our anxieties about that.
Our scrutiny role in the United Kingdom Parliament has already been undermined by this Labour Government's signature to various protocols and agreements. The regulatory impact assessment makes clear that the Government have already agreed
- "to urgently ratify the Protocol".
Of course our involvement in European co-operation against international crime and international terrorism is important and welcome. Not long ago, my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire and I visited the authorities in the Netherlands, and went to see the European police co-operation centre—known there as Politie. We had some good meetings, and we recognise that there is a huge role for international police co-operation. Nevertheless, the need for co-operation against international terrorism and international crime should not be allowed to give the Government licence to ignore the vital need to keep this British Parliament's sovereign rights intact, and to ensure that decisions are made by this sovereign Parliament.
Many of my hon. Friends have mentioned concerns about shared information systems. Ministers may or may not know about what those in the information technology world describe as the GIGO factor—garbage in, garbage out. A number of Conservatives, and other Opposition speakers, have referred to the problem posed by the number of terminals that already have access to the Schengen information system, and to the dangers of misinformation—for instance, the possibility of improper arrest. There is a further danger: if so many people have access to a system, there is a risk of deliberate misuse of that system for criminal purposes. Sadly, it is not unknown in any country for those with access to a secret information system to misuse it in an attempt to become involved in crime.
Concern has also been expressed about the way in which recognition of motoring offences will be dealt with. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) was particularly worried about that. I shall say something later about my experience of international aspects of driving matters when I practised in the courts.
Conservative Members are pleased that in another place the Government were prepared to accede to a number of points raised by my noble Friends Lady Anelay, Lord Bridgeman, Lord Dixon-Smith and Lord Renton. As can be seen in column 70 of Hansard, on 23
January the Attorney-General accepted Lords amendment No. 127, tabled by Lady Anelay. I hope that the fact that the Government have started to accept Conservative amendments exactly as drafted will be a helpful precursor to what happens in our Committee. All too often in Commons Committees, even if the Government and their advisers realise that we are right, rather than accepting our amendments as drafted they oppose them at the time but, grudgingly, return with Government amendments, having changed the odd word, so that it cannot be said that they have accepted a Conservative amendment.I also want to talk about important banking issues, which parts of the Bill raise. I may be one of a small number of lawyers in the House—perhaps the only one—to specialise in banking and financial services law. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only one to have specialised in credit card law for several years before entering Parliament. I look forward to posing detailed questions about that matter to Ministers in Committee, based on some of the international banking issues raised in the other place and on my own experience.
Several hon. Members have already referred this afternoon to fishing expeditions. We want to ensure that prosecuting authorities do not improperly use what the courts call fishing expeditions: constraints should be placed on them. Once again, my noble Friend Baroness Anelay explored that subject in the other place and the Government gave some undertakings on how fishing expeditions would be constrained. It is fair to say that in Committee we shall want to build more protections into the Bill. At this stage, however, I want to say that we recognise and are grateful to the Government for the undertakings that were given from the Dispatch Box in the other place.
As I look across the Chamber I see the Under-Secretary, who, like myself, is a veteran of the Proceeds of Crime Bill—the longest Bill with the most Committee sittings of the previous parliamentary Session. Some issues from that Bill, and from the Extradition Bill, which we both had to deal with more recently, will crop up again. As so often, the Home Office Bills produced by the Government are interlinking, and the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) rightly said that the Government are producing criminal justice legislation drip by drip without fitting all the pieces together. We have already heard in some of this afternoon's speeches how some of the provisions interlink with arguments about the EU arrest warrant in the Extradition Bill and how other issues overlap with the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
As I have discovered in my own constituency, if the Government, for proper motives, seek to impose new legislation on banking, banks can use the cover of what they must do to stop money laundering to demand more and more—in my view, unnecessary—information from customers for commercial reasons. I stress to the Minister that I recently had occasion in a Delegated Legislation Committee to place on record my concern on behalf of one of my constituents, Doris Christie—a trustee and clerk to a local charity—about the way in which a particular bank was asking for improper information of a personal nature, going far beyond what the legislation required. When pressed, the bank was forced to admit that it had acted for commercial reasons, after initially using the cover of the Proceeds of
Crime Act 2002. Conservative Members certainly warned the Government about that during the passage of that legislation.
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