| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Blunkett: My hon. Friend has done my standing with The Guardian and The Independent a power of good by describing me as too soft. I am grateful to him for it. He asks a substantive question: how can we develop from the powers of the Serious Fraud Office the ability of the new agency not only to demand information, but to access documents and take the necessary steps, from which the National Crime Squad has so far been precluded, to get at the detail that my hon. Friend describes and to penetrate the wall erected to prevent people from getting at the truth? It is much more difficult to do so in the international context implied by his question. I believe that the proposed powers will be proportionate, and that they will be able to get behind the scenes as he described, which is essential to get to the truth.
Vera Baird (Redcar) (Lab): I hope that I do not damage my right hon. Friend's reputation by welcoming the statement as a balanced package. I can see how the evidential changes in particular might make a real difference in the courtroom pursuit of organised crime. I am pleased that the new serious and organised crime agency will cover cross-border trafficking, people trafficking and immigration crime generally. On that theme, can my right hon. Friend expand on the comments that I think I heard him make this morning about backlog clearance in immigration cases?
Mr. Blunkett: The first thing that I should make clear is that those cases are not about asylum or about people flooding into our country. They deal substantially, as they have since the 1980s, with in-country renewal and claims that are dealt with on evidence already available. I shall lay in the Library a list of changes and operations undertaken since the late 1980s, through the 1990s and into the 21st century, all of which reflect the desire of successive Governments to use common-sense approaches to deal with a common-sense problem in such a way that those engaged in crime of any sort or terrorism present no threat to us and would be picked out in the normal way.
Mr. Robert Marshall-Andrews (Medway) (Lab): It is a pleasure indeed, a great joy to welcome substantively all the general points made in the statement. May I, however, ask the Home Secretary for
assurances on two points? First, in relation to plea bargaining, transparent plea bargaining has become long overdue in dealing with serious crime. May I ask for his assurance that he will consult those who practise who prosecute and defend serious crime and serious criminals so that we can get this difficult area of the law right before it comes back to Parliament? Secondly, may I ask the Home Secretary to assure the House that he will exercise very great caution in considering anything that interferes with or restricts legal professional privilege, lest we have the effect of discouraging and deterring the very best and most reputable of firms that deal with this area as a result of bringing in those that are not reputable, and thereby defeating the essential elements of the statement?
Mr. Blunkett: Having damaged my reputation for ever, I am about to damage it even further by saying that I do not intend to threaten lawyers in the way that my hon. and learned Friend describes. [Interruption.] I hear it said that I should read my Shakespeare; I shall go back and do that, having read my Dickens when I was dealing with earlier legislation. I can assure him that we do not threaten what he describes. The consultation period on the White Paper, prior to introducing the legislation I hope that we will do that at the end of the year will provide an opportunity to consult those who are most deeply involved.
Points of Order
David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your advice on a very serious matter: how can Members of Parliament protect a civil servant who has been penalised as a result of sending to a Member an e-mail alerting them to potential inaccuracies in a ministerial statement? Last week, the British consul in Bucharest, a career civil servant, was suspended for sending me just such an e-mail from his home address. Is it not the case that disciplining civil servants for talking to Members of the House of Commons is a breach of privilege?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): The right hon. Gentleman appears to be raising a complaint of privilege rather than a point of order. Privilege issues should be raised in writing with Mr. Speaker, so that he can give them proper consideration. If the right hon. Gentleman sends Mr. Speaker a letter setting out the full circumstances about which he is complaining, Mr. Speaker will give the matter his attention and respond as appropriate.
John Cryer (Hornchurch) (Lab): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will know that Mr. Speaker has frequently ruled from the Chair that hon. Members should give warning of visits to one another's constituencies, and I think that most hon. Members on both sides of the House follow that convention. However, within the past couple of weeks, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), the shadow Secretary of State for Health, has visited St. George's hospital in my constituency without giving any warning, and I still have not received any kind of written explanation. It also seems that the Tories locally are using St. George's as a political football by claiming that there is a definitive plan to close the hospital, which is not the case. There is a consultation on the hospital, and I am contributing to it, but it sounds to me as though they are using scare tactics. Will you comment on that convention, and confirm that it is the convention that right hon. and hon. Members should warn Members representing neighbouring constituencies or any other Members about visits to their constituencies?
Mr. Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire) (Con): Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. If I have caused any upset to the hon. Gentleman, I apologise. For the record, so far as I was concerned, I was visiting Oldchurch hospital in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Mr. Rosindell) and undertaking a private party engagement in Hornchurch, during the course of which I did indeed comment on the subject of St. George's hospital, but undertook no official engagement there. [Interruption.] I did indeed talk about St. George's hospital while I was in Hornchurch. As the hon. Gentleman knows well, I combined that with a private engagement in Hornchurch, visiting my parents. Of course, I shall take care to tell him whenever I visit my parents in future.
Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne) (Con): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will be very aware that the last crash at Heathrow landed in my constituency
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I wish first to respond to the previous points of order.
I can only reiterate what Mr. Speaker has said: clearly, there are common courtesies of this House whereby right hon. and hon. Members should inform the Member whose constituency they are visiting of that visit. Mr. Speaker has also suggested that these matters are perhaps best dealt with between the Members concerned. I hope that all Members will observe the common courtesies of this House.
Mr. Wilshire: I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker; I thought that you had decided that silence was the best way of dealing with the last matter.
As I was saying, you will be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the last crash at Heathrow landed in my constituency, and that the mortars that were fired into Heathrow were fired from my constituency. I am sure that you can therefore imagine how deeply alarmed many of my constituents were at the weekend at the story about Heathrow being identified as a primary al-Qaeda target. In the circumstances, I wonder whether Mr. Speaker has received any request from a Minister to make a statement that would reassure my constituents that everything is being done to ensure that they are as safe as possible?
Madam Deputy Speaker: Much as I would like to reassure the hon. Gentleman's constituents, I do not think that Mr. Speaker has received any such request, which is not strictly a point of order for the Chair.
Orders of the DayEuropean Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill
Lords message considered [25 March]
5.20 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs (Mr. Christopher Leslie): I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1F to Commons amendment 1C.
I can barely believe that, despite the House of Commons reaching a strong view on so many occasions and so frequently expressing its opinion, we are still being told by the Conservative and Liberal majority in the House of Lords that it knows better than the House of Commons when it comes to elections policy. In its latest amendment, the other place suggests that we should not proceed with all-postal voting in four regions, which the Government announced on 21 January. On this occasion, the other place wants to leave out the north-west of England for a variety of inexplicable reasons, and I urge the House to reject that suggestion and to stand firm with our decided view that we want four regions in those pilots.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |