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Illegal Encampments
13. Mr. Mark Todd (South Derbyshire): What guidance he gives the police in addressing the problems posed by illegal encampments. [109767]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Hilary Benn): The Government recently published for consultation operational guidance for local authorities and police on managing unauthorised camping. The consultation period closes on 23 May and final guidance will be published later in the year. We have also announced that we will introduce new powers of eviction when parliamentary time allows.
Mr. Todd : I welcome my hon. Friend's answer. Will he reflect, however, on the anger of communities such as Shardlow, Barrow on Trent, Foston, Swadlincote, Castle Donington, in a neighbouring constituency, and elsewhere in South Derbyshire, at the appalling nuisance of unauthorised encampments, and the lack of knowledge that police forces sometimes have of basic environmental protection law? Does he agree that one step might be to ask them to enforce the existing law with more rigour?
Hilary Benn: My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I recognise entirely the problem that he describes and, judging from the response in the Chamber, many hon. Members on both sides of the House have direct experience of it. There are already extensive powers, and it is important that they are used effectively. I commend to all hon. Members the consultation paper, because one of the points that it makes forcefully is the need to do
precisely what my hon. Friend suggests. I urge hon. Members to look at that document and to let us have their views and comments, because we want to ensure that there are effective powers to deal with the problem and nuisance that my hon. Friend so starkly describes.
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East): As I understand it, the Government are giving the police extra powers to evict illegal travellers' encampments provided that local authorities provide sites for the permanent establishment of travellers' encampments that can be properly designated and run. The trouble is that planning restrictions are not being eased to enable local authorities to build those sites. Will the Minister undertake to examine that weakness in the Government's proposals?
Hilary Benn: As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, that is a matter for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, but I undertake to draw it to the attention of my colleagues. The benefit of the new powers that we propose to make available is that they would apply without the conditions that affect the section 61 powers that the police have under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. They would also cover, for example, industrial estates and road lay-bys, which are not covered by the current powers, and deal with the phenomenon which I am reliably informed is described as "hedge-hopping", whereby those who are removed from one field can then transfer their encampment to another one. That is what we seek to achieve, provided that the relevant local authority makes the provision that the hon. Gentleman mentioned.
Margaret Moran (Luton, South): As the Minister will be aware, a few weeks ago several thousand of my constituents in Crawley, Round Green and Stopsley presented a petition to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary concerning the midsummer mayhem that they experienced as a result of an illegal traveller encampment that was chased around Luton and South Bedfordshire. Is he aware that there was a very different approach between the Luton police force and that of South Bedfordshire? As a result, residents of Stopsley—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Let the Minister reply.
Hilary Benn: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for telling hon. Members about the different approaches of two forces. That reinforces the point that I made a moment ago—namely, that fairly extensive powers already exist, but we wish to add to them for the reasons that I outlined. It is helpful if forces co-operate, share information and work with local authorities to ensure that they use those powers in the interests of protecting the constituents of my hon. Friend and other hon. Members.
Street Crime
14. Bob Spink (Castle Point): What new measures he intends to bring forward to tackle street crime. [109768]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (
Mr. Bob Ainsworth): The street crime initiative is ongoing. It covers measures such as crime reduction, resettlement of offenders, faster court processes, education and summer activities, as well as police activity to deal with offenders. In the first six months, street crime fell by 16 per cent. in the areas covered, and £25 million of additional money has been allocated to support continued operations against it.
Bob Spink : On Friday night, I broke up a fight in which six youths were kicking to pulp another youth
outside Benfleet police station in my constituency. There was not a policeman to be found. Does the Under-Secretary accept that the only way in which to tackle street crime, and get on top of crime generally, is to provide the 40,000 additional police officers that only the Conservatives will deliver?
Mr. Ainsworth: All those that the Conservative party did not provide when it was in government for many years, presiding over a doubling of crime. The street crime initiative has been a phenomenal success and led to substantial reductions in robbery and snatch thefts in the areas covered. We intend to keep it up.
Middle East
3.31 pm
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw): With permission Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on Iraq and on the middle east peace process.
Let me start with the security situation in Iraq. Large-scale combat operations are over. The overwhelming majority of the country is under coalition control. The vast bulk of Saddam Hussein's forces have been defeated, dispersed or isolated, although minor pockets of resistance remain in Baghdad and some other towns.
When the House rose for the Easter recess, the main challenge confronting coalition forces was civil disorder and looting in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the regime. It would have been a miracle had there not been such an outburst of anger, frustration and lawlessness in a country where the population had lived for so long in daily fear of torture, arbitrary arrest and summary execution.
In the past two weeks, the looting and civil disorder has declined. In Baghdad, local police have offered their services, and joint patrols with coalition troops are under way. An effective curfew is in place. Baghdad's main hospitals are working and the United Nations Office of the Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Iraq reports that clean water is available in most parts of the city.
More widely, schools and markets are reopening. Local hospitals are resuming normal service and field hospitals, including those supplied by Jordan and Saudi Arabia, are functioning well. Electricity and water supplies are reaching most parts of the country. Again, the UN Office of the Humanitarian Co-ordinator has said that it is about to declare the area to the south of Baghdad "permissive".
In Basra—the centre of the area under British military control—United Kingdom forces are carrying out joint operations with local police and providing food and water through aid distribution points established on the outskirts of the city. A local judicial system is being established with our assistance and encouragement. Thanks to help from British engineers and local Red Cross workers, the three main power stations supplying Basra are now up and running, and the city's electricity and water supplies have been restored to pre-conflict levels. In some respects in the south facilities are already in better shape than before the military action commenced. The seaway into Umm Qasr is being dredged to take larger vessels and the grain store is open. The railway line from the town to Basra, which had not worked for many years, is now running, thanks to British military engineers, and plans are in hand to reopen the line all the way to Baghdad.
Mr. Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton): The railways are better than ours!
Mr. Straw: I shall pass on to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport the all-party message about the important role that the British military might play in this country.
In northern Iraq, essential supplies of wheat, oil and medical goods are being delivered unhindered. UNICEF reports that all schools in the north have reopened, and that the vast majority of people displaced by the conflict have now returned to their homes.
In the coming weeks, coalition forces will increasingly share the burden for the delivery of essential services and aid with the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, and with UN agencies and non-governmental organisations. When, just before Easter, I visited Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, I discussed ORHA's plans with its head, Jay Garner, and other colleagues of his based then in Kuwait. Mr. Garner moved into Baghdad with most of his colleagues just a week ago, and a number of other countries, aside from the US and the UK, are now making substantial contributions to that organisation. Australia, Denmark and Japan have already provided personnel. Others, including Spain, Romania, South Korea and Italy, are about to do so. For our part, we have so far provided 20 British staff, including one of Mr. Garner's three deputies, Major General Tim Cross, a serving officer with the British Army. We will be making further contributions to ORHA to help get Iraq back on its feet.
As well as meeting humanitarian and other essential needs, and starting the process of physical reconstruction, a key objective of the coalition is to support a viable political process that allows the Iraqi people to create representative, democratic government for themselves. In Basra and the south-eastern sector, which we control, we began this process at a local level by sponsoring representative town meetings. Similar local and regional meetings, based, not least, on that model initiated by the British military, have been held elsewhere.
On 15 April, the first meeting of national Iraqi representatives was held in Nasiriyah, with about 60 delegates present. That meeting was attended by a senior British diplomat, Edward Chaplin. A second such meeting—on a larger scale—is being held today in Baghdad, with an estimated 250 delegates in attendance, including a number of Shi'a clerics. The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien) and a senior Foreign Office official are attending that meeting. We will of course ensure that the House is informed of its outcome.
We hope that the current process of consultation will culminate in a national conference of Iraqi representatives. This would, first, set up an Iraqi interim authority to take over progressively responsibility for the administration of Iraq. Secondly, it would create a constitutional framework to prepare the ground for the election of a democratic Government run by the Iraqi people themselves.
As President Bush and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister have made clear, the United Nations will have a vital role in Iraq's reconstruction. Last week the UN Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1476, which will extend the new arrangements for the UN's oil-for-food programme until 3 June.
In the coming weeks, the Security Council will have to consider a range of other issues. Those will include the future of the sanctions regime and the subsequent management of Iraq's oil revenues.
There is also the question of the future arrangements for verifying Iraq's disarmament of weapons of mass destruction. In his presentation to the Security Council last week, the head of UNMOVIC, Dr. Hans Blix, recognised that
- "in a situation that is still insecure . . . civilian international inspection can hardly operate,"
- "some of the premises upon which the Council established UNMOVIC and gave it far-reaching powers . . . have changed."
In the absence of the secure environment referred to by Dr. Blix, the task of locating this material inevitably falls to coalition forces. We are actively pursuing sites, documentation and individuals connected with Iraq's programmes. Both the UK and the US have deployed specialist personnel and will be sending more in the near future.
But the investigations are unlikely to be quick. The inspection process itself will be painstaking and detailed. The testimony from scientists and documentation about WMD development and production programmes will be the key to determining the fate of the prohibited equipment, materials and munitions. But we cannot expect witnesses to come forward until they are fully confident that they can speak freely.
Even so, I know that some hon. Members have expressed concerns about the justification for military action in the absence of discoveries of illegal Iraqi weapons. Let me make two observations in this connection. First, military action was taken on the basis set out very clearly in Security Council resolution 1441, namely that Iraq's
- "non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles"—
- "to international peace and security."
Before I move on to the middle east peace process, let me say this. It is only 19 days since Baghdad was liberated, and barely two weeks since the end of serious fighting. In that time, civil disorder has subsided and—as we saw in the joyous Shi'a pilgrimage to Karbala last week—the Iraqi people have begun to savour the taste of freedom. Of course there are problems associated with this dramatic change for the Iraqi people after more than 20 years of coping with a brutal and vicious regime, but a new and representative Iraqi Government, run by the Iraqi people and for the Iraqi people, will help to
guarantee this freedom for future generations. Despite all the immense challenges that lie ahead, I know one thing for certain: Iraq's future will be better than its past.Of course, the middle east will never look forward to a secure future as long as a settlement to the region's most intractable dispute apparently remains beyond reach. For the past months, Her Majesty's Government have therefore worked tirelessly to secure the publication and implementation of the road map—a document agreed by the Quartet group of the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union that sets out a path to a peaceful settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. I greatly welcome the commitment from President Bush to devote as much effort to this cause as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has given to the search for peace in Northern Ireland.
Later this week, the Palestinian Legislative Council will be asked to endorse the appointment of a new Cabinet for the Palestinian Authority. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, one of the main architects of the Oslo accords, this Cabinet has, I believe, the courage and ability to take the tough measures necessary to clamp down on terrorism and to lead the Palestinians into a constructive dialogue with the Israelis and the international community. This, and action by the Israeli Government to ensure that the Israeli defence force acts strictly within international law, should bring to an end the spiral of killings that has claimed more than 3,000 lives on both sides over the past two and a half years.
Once the Palestinian Legislative Council endorses Mahmoud Abbas's Cabinet, the road map will be published. Then, for the first time for a long time, we should be able to speak of a peace process in which the parties themselves are actively engaged. The road map charts a course to the outcome that the House and the entire world wish to see: a secure state of Israel alongside a viable, separate state of Palestine, consistent with UN Security Council resolutions and the principle of land for peace. We will maintain our very close dialogue with the United States to push this process forward, and we will do all that we can with them and our European partners to help with the implementation of the road map.
With visionary leadership and courageous statesmanship from both sides, the outcomes that I have described for Israel and Palestine can, in our judgment, be achieved within the time scale set out in the road map—that is, by 2005. If that happens, it will not just bring an end to the misery of millions of Israelis and Palestinians who live every day under the shadow of indiscriminate violence; it will remove the single greatest source of resentment and mistrust that bedevils relations between the west and the Muslim world. I know and believe that both sides of the House will support the Government's efforts to secure this great prize.
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