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Jim Dowd: There are 11 Members here.
Mr. Forth: I had been intending to mention the hon. Gentleman, but I am happy to bring forward my praise for him. He points out that there may be 11 Members present, and I happily concede that.
As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am something of an anorak. I still believe in what the House does and in the legislative process. I am here every private Members' Bill Friday, but sadly not many of my colleagues are. I am not impressed by those who say that this or that Bill has the support of many Members of all parties—100 here, 150 there. The true test of support for a Bill, in the legislative sense, is bums on seats or, to put it more accurately, bodies in Division Lobbies. To me, therefore, the proper measure of that support is when we divide the House and see how many people are here. Very sensibly, our forefathers set the quorum for the House at 40 Members. I do not think that it is asking too much to say that 40 Members should be present to make law. Let us clear all that nonsense out of the way before we even get started.
I had been about to sing the praises of my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Jim Dowd), who so persuasively introduced the Bill on behalf of the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson). He said that, were the Bill to make progress, the hon. Lady would be present on some future occasion to promote its interests. That is very encouraging, if I may say so. I am really rather pleased that a Member would be prepared to turn up to support
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his or her Bill at some stage. The hon. Gentleman did a magnificent job of promoting his colleague's Bill, and, who knows, we may yet find that he has persuaded the House—that remains to be seen.
Just to clear the decks before I get anywhere near my introductory remarks, never mind the substance of my speech—I am keen to follow others in making my little contribution to the debate—it emerged from the Minister's remarks that our aim today is to repair a cock-up by the Government. Apparently, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act—
It being half-past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed on 16 July.
Remaining Private Members' Bills
TELECOMMUNICATIONS (PERMITTED DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS) (AMENDMENT) BILL
Order for Second Reading read.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Second reading what day?
Jim Dowd: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg). That is the last time I do him a favour.
Friday 16 July, Madam Deputy Speaker.
To be read a Second time on Friday 16 July.
WILD MAMMALS (PROTECTION) (AMENDMENT) (NO. 2) BILL
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [6 February], That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Debate to be resumed on Friday 15 October.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE (JUSTIFIABLE CONDUCT) BILL
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [14 May], That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Debate to be resumed on Friday 18 June.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS MASTS (REGISTRATION) BILL
Madam Deputy Speaker:
Not moved.
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Royal Prerogative of Mercy
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Derek Twigg.]
2.31 pm
Mr. Peter Kilfoyle (Liverpool, Walton): First, I should like to put on the record how pleased I am to have obtained this Adjournment debate. The matters it deals with might seem somewhat dated, but I think that they are as relevant now as they were when I first became aware of them some eight years ago. The debate arises from a previous Adjournment debate that I had the privilege to introduce on 7 March 2001.
At that time, I expressed my concerns about the release from prison of two career criminals, John Haase and Paul Bennett, 10 months after they had been sent down for 18 years for conspiring to supply class A drugs. To date, no one in the Government or their agencies has been able to explain satisfactorily to me how that happened. I hope that today's debate will enlighten us as to part of the process involved—the use of the royal prerogative.
Since that debate, I have met representatives of Customs and Excise and the Home Office—two of the principal agencies involved—but they have added nothing to my understanding of the breakdown in justice. I have to assume either that those concerned are ignorant of the wider context of the Haase-Bennett case, or that they inadvertently stonewalled me in respect of relevant information that I believe should rightly be placed in the public domain.
I am assured that, since the previous debate, Customs and Excise has changed its rules on the handling of informants—something for which I asked at the time and went into great detail about. However, a Customs and Excise officer, Mr. Kevin O'Sullivan, of the law enforcement drugs policy section, wrote to Sir Andrew Turnbull alleging that there is still a culture of malpractice and, indeed, criminal behaviour within Customs and Excise. I hope that that matter will be pursued and resolved.
When I initiated that debate three years ago, however, the Paymaster General told me that I had
"placed much information on the record."
I was told that she would ensure that the issue that I raised would be "properly scrutinised" and that I would be
"kept fully appraised of action that is taken and information that is available."
Finally, I was also told that I was
"making available additional information that requires a response, and I will assure that he gets one."—[Official Report, 7 March 2001; Vol. 364, c. 395–8.]
But, of course, I never did. Time moved on and so did Ministers. The forces of law and order remained mute on the travesty of justice that was the release of Haase and Bennett.
I had put on the record how Haase and Bennett set up stashes of guns from within prison to enhance their credibility as informants. I am talking about not just shotguns and small handguns, but assault weapons—AK47s, M16s, Kalashnikovs and Uzis. A large number
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of guns were set up in those stashes. Subsequently, the two men informed the authorities of where those guns were, thus enhancing their credibility as informants.
At the time, I pointed out that no convictions were involved in the retrieval of those guns. They were found in cars or empty houses. All the information came courtesy of Haase and Bennett from within prison while on remand. It beggars belief that those people could somehow be aware of those stashes in cars, which could be towed away and moved around, but they were always spot on, in the right place at the right time with the right weapons. Of course, the reason was that the stashes had been organised by them, through their confederates outside. That is common knowledge among the underworld fraternity in Liverpool, and I believe that it is commonly understood by the police.
In fact, I also pointed out three years ago that Scotland Yard's directorate of intelligence alerted the agencies to that scam. I believe that it was not new at that time. That information had come from a man known, oddly enough, as the Vulcan—a Turkish baba, or godfather, who was the Turkish connection in drug-dealing activities. I understand that he did the same thing when he was incarcerated in Italy, where he got himself out of prison by doing deals with the authorities in return for information on that kind of set-up gun stash.
No one questioned what was going on at the time because everyone was obviously a winner. The informants gained credibility. That was the purpose of the exercise. The officers involved could show the seized guns as successes. The media trumpeted position outcomes in the war against organised crime. However, I repeat that no one was ever convicted for involvement with all those guns. To anyone with any sense of what life is like on the street, the idea that those guns could somehow remain in the stashes for months and months, while those people were in prison, waiting for the informants to come along and say where they were just beggars belief.
When Paul Cooke, the men's Customs handler petitioned the judge in their case, David Lynch, it even caused consternation and outrage among some of Cooke's colleagues in the Customs and Excise squads—two squads were involved as it was such a big case—as it affected the arrests in a major crackdown on drug importation. I have spoken to members of those squads. They still do not understand why the recommendation was made to allow those two people out of prison. But of course, under normal procedure, Paul Cooke, the officer in charge, together with the defence counsel, approached the trial judge, David Lynch, to set out the reasons why they believed that those two people should be pardoned. In turn—again, under normal procedure—that information would be passed on to the Home Office for its consideration. Of course, the key in all this was the gun seizures—that was the supporting evidence.
Following that procedure, the net result was that the two prisoners were released under the royal prerogative. It was a very strange release, because there were only five pardons in 1996 in total—Haase and Bennett received two of them. I should have thought that, with such a small number of cases getting to that stage, there would be intensive scrutiny of the backgrounds to those cases,
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the people involved, the way in which their credibility had been established and how the guns had been seized by the police.
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