Mr.
Ruffley: I will give a genuine answer. The report does not
specifically refer to the passenger information issue or to the order,
but to Brussels. The right hon. Gentleman can read the report on the
internet. My information is that that source referred to the
arrangements that we are talking
about.
John
Reid: Will the hon. Gentleman give
way?
Mr.
Ruffley: In a moment. As we shall vote on the order, it
seems legitimate to ask the Minister whether she is aware of the
request.
Mr.
Ruffley: I will give way in a minute. If the Minister is
not aware of that request, no one would be more delighted than I to get
a denial on the record. Then we will all be happy. I give way to the
right hon. Gentleman, who must contain
himself.
John
Reid: It is difficult to give an answer to a question, the
premise of which is not based on empirical evidence or fact. Will the
hon. Gentleman therefore tell
us— [Interruption.] I am asking for
elucidation for the Committee. He said that his information is that the
reference was to the order. Will he share the nature and the source of
that information with the
Committee?
Mr.
Ruffley: I will not engage in nit-picking. The right hon.
Gentleman does not want his Minister to answer. I have read out the
source, and it should not be too difficult for the Minister to deny
that it refers to the order. What possible objection can the right hon.
Gentleman have to a question put to the Minister in simple
terms—that is, does the set of requests that will allegedly be
made by the Department of Homeland Security relate to the order? Is the
Minister aware of that? The answer is yes or no. The right hon.
Gentleman obviously does not like debate. We are here to ask questions,
and the right hon. Gentleman should let the Minister
answer.
I repeat my
final question, as we have been detained by the deeply unhelpful
peregrinations of the former Home Secretary. Will the Minister place a
copy of the guidelines in the Library, so that we can
scrutinise
them? 3.23
pm Tom
Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): It is a pleasure
to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. O’Hara. I hope
that it has not been too taxing so
far. I
have a limited number of straightforward questions for the Minister.
First, there has clearly been some delay in putting the order before
Members. Is there an explanation for why it has take so long to reach
this point? Echoing the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds, it would be
useful to know how many requests have been processed so far, so that we
have an idea of the scale. As the Minister indicated, there are
informal arrangements at present. Is there anything different in the
more formalised arrangements that we are
discussing? I
am sure all Members will welcome the fact that the arrangements are
mutual. Will the Minister say whether comparable tests will be used in
the UK and the US to authorise the requests? There is a list of
judicial and prosecuting authorities in England, Wales and Northern
Ireland. Will the Minister say whether there is comparability between
the authorities in the UK that can make requests and those in the US?
Finally, will the Minister say whether there are any other designations
from other countries that we might consider
shortly? 3.25
pm
John
Reid: I am more or less prompted by the hon. Member for
Bury St. Edmunds to contribute to the debate. He is not an unpleasant
chap, but his contribution was slightly over-long and less than
substantial in content. In particular, I do not understand how anyone
on the Opposition Front Bench could speak about the order for almost
half an hour without using the phrase “victims of crime”,
which is what the order is about.
The order
seeks to ensure that our system is fair, and that citizens of the
United Kingdom are protected from criminality in an age of huge
mobility, when the movement of people around the world and
international crime are heavier than ever before and when international
terrorism is a concern. In the past fortnight we discovered that fraud
among marketing managers appears to have risen by 40 per cent. in the
recent past.
Not once in
the hon. Gentleman’s 30-minute contribution did he make any
reference to the victims of crime. There was no reference to those who
have suffered as a result of terrorism, fraud or international scams or
to the nature of the justice that we are trying to bring about,
together with our major international partners. I hope my contribution
will be as short and substantial as his was over-long and
insubstantial.
Will my hon.
Friend the Minister please respond by describing how the legislation
will contribute towards alleviating some of the threats, pressures and
possible damage against the ordinary people of this country, who are
the potential victims of such
crime? 3.27
pm
Meg
Hillier: I am not used to being bullied. I am all for
scrutiny in Committee, have been a scrutineer myself, and strongly
believe in the rights and roles of the
process of parliamentary scrutiny. It improves policy when done well and
should be welcomed by all Ministers. Happily, I have five brothers and
am used to the behaviour of silly little boys, but I am saddened that
the debate on the vital issue of mutual legal assistance, which we take
seriously and responsibly, has become a knockabout.
Perhaps that
has more to do with a distant by-election campaign and silly points to
be made in relation to that, instead of helping to support
victims of crime, as my right hon. Friend the Member for
Airdrie and Shotts rightly highlighted. That is one point on
which we might have agreed, as the hon. Member for Bury
St. Edmunds acknowledged that crime now crosses borders on a
regular basis, so it is important that we have the safeguards in place
to deal with
it. A
number of detailed points were raised, so I shall have to detain the
Committee to answer them, but I hope my comments will be more
informative than those from the Opposition. The hon. Member for North
Wiltshire asked why the explanatory memorandum did not include a
reference to section 35. I did not have the explanatory memorandum
immediately to hand, so I took him on trust when he said there was no
reference. However, section 35 is dealt with in paragraph 2 of the
explanatory note and paragraph 7.4 of the explanatory memorandum. Next
time he should check his facts before raising such
concerns.
Mr.
Gray: Will the Minister give
way?
Meg
Hillier: I have many points to answer and we have heard a
great deal from the Opposition. If I could get into my stride, that
would be
helpful. We
heard much about the difference between serious criminal conduct and
the serious code. I stress that we are here today not to make primary
legislation, but to decide whether primary legislation that has already
been debated extensively in the House and which is already part of law
should be extended by order to an additional country. If there are
concerns about the primary legislation, I will happily write to the
hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds, but I will need to look back at the
activity undertaken, both in Brussels and the House, to decide on the
language used at that point. However, that is not the issue
today. I
am mindful that in Committees chaired excellently by you,
Mr. O’Hara, and other members of the
Chairmen’s Panel, it is important that we stick to the subject
of debate and do not go beyond
it.
Mr.
Ruffley: I am somewhat surprised that the Minister does
not want to delineate the difference between the customer information
order and the monitoring order. Why does one apply to serious criminal
misconduct and the other not? It is at the heart of the order. Will she
refresh our memory about what the primary legislation and the debate at
the time said about the difference between the two orders and the tests
applied to
them?
Meg
Hillier: I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman, but he
could look it up in Hansard himself. Rather than going into
detail about that, I shall move on and pick up on some of the other
points that he raised, particularly in relation to section 32 and
customer information.
In simple
terms, customer information is details concerning whether a person
holds a particular account; account information includes details of
activity in a particular account; they are different matters. The hon.
Gentleman also raised issues with sections 43 and 44 involving UK
requests dealing with foreign accounts, account monitoring orders and
the difference between criminal processes. I have dealt with that as
far as I can in this
Committee. The
hon. Member for North Wiltshire spoke about the drafting of the
protocol. I must write to him about that, as I was not involved in it,
and it would be better for me to check the facts absolutely. As he is
an experienced Member of the House, I am sure that he is aware that it
takes a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in discussions and debates in Europe
and a lot of negotiation at the diplomatic stage to reach agreement
across the European Union. As a Home Office Minister, I am involved in
that now, but I was not in a position to do so—in fact, I was
not even an elected Member of the House—at the time when the
protocol was drafted.
I will have
to look at Home Office records to see what discussions previous
Ministers had at the time. I know that great work is done in Europe by
our diplomatic and ministerial teams to ensure that we get things as
right as we can for the UK’s interests. I attempt to achieve
that as a Home Office Minister in Europe, and I have no doubt that my
predecessors, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and
Shotts, did the
same. The
hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds attacked the United States of America
for its keenness to use extraterritorial powers freely. This point has
been made, but it is worth stressing again: there are safeguards in
place. There is a threshold that must be reached. The Secretary of
State has discretion. She must ask an operational officer to go to the
Crown court, where the judge can refuse a request. It is not an
unfettered right.
On the issue
of information, I am not keen to debate a partial quote from a
newspaper article that I have not read in which unnamed people are
quoted, but I should make it clear that I also deal in Europe with
passenger name records. That is a different matter from the one covered
by the order. Although I could explain in a lot of detail what
passenger name records do, suffice it to say that we have agreements.
Through e-Borders, a system that I hope all parties acknowledge is
important in monitoring migrants entering and leaving the country, we
monitor the information that people provide as passengers. We are in
discussions with the US and across Europe about how to extend that.
That is a different issue, and it does not relate to the
order.
Mr.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con): The scale of the impact is
obviously an issue for debate. An impact assessment has not been
prepared. What is the Department’s estimate of how many requests
will be forthcoming under the two
sections?
Meg
Hillier: I will come to that point. In the past three
years since the measures came into force, no requests have been
received in respect of European partners. Each request, when received,
will be dealt with
on its merits; I must stress that. It is not a free fishing exercise for
any country wishing EU assistance; it is a mutual arrangement to
benefit either country involved. If a request was cast very widely, it
would be for the Secretary of State to consider whether it fell within
the order. That is a matter for discretion. So far, that has not
happened.
Mr.
Gray: I am extremely interested to hear that in the three
years in which the order has been in effect with regard to the EU,
there have been no requests. Can the Minister claim, therefore, that
the order has some particular purpose? It has not been used for the
last three years and she is just about to argue that it will not be
used successfully for years to come. What on earth is the purpose of
it?
Meg
Hillier: The Government have to take responsibility for
planning for any future possibility. The hon. Member for Bury St.
Edmunds acknowledged that financial crime crosses boundaries. It is
important that we have the tools in place to deal with these issues.
Perhaps there are not such issues in Europe. I know that, as other hon.
Members have highlighted, there are issues with transfers of money and
financial crimes that cross borders. It is right that we have powers in
place. That the powers have not been used in Europe, to my knowledge,
is no reason for not having safeguards in place to ensure that victims
of such crimes are protected in
future. I
move on to the issue of micro-banks and small
businesses.
Mr.
Blunt: Will the hon. Lady give
way?
Meg
Hillier: May I please make some progress?
Here, I again
refer to the scaremongering from the Opposition that there will be a
flood of requests. There is not likely to be a flood of requests or a
heavy burden for banks. Since 2006, banks have had to have a mechanism
in place to deal with such requests, but this is not a routine matter.
It is a question of taking each case on its merits. A request would not
go to a bank until it had been considered by the Secretary of State and
had gone, via the Crown court, through the processes that I have
described. At that point, the banks would have to get
involved. There
is no plan to undertake a further impact assessment, because we have
not had to use this power; we do not believe that to be necessary just
because we are introducing one additional
country.
Tom
Brake: I do not want to prolong the Minister’s
pain, but there is an issue with the number of requests. If a large
block of requests came in, could the Secretary of State dismiss all the
applications en bloc because of the scale or because no particular
assessment had been done at the other end, or would each one require
assessment?
Meg
Hillier: Perhaps I should clarify that there is no pain
for me in explaining Government policy on this important matter. The
hon. Gentleman raises an important point. As with other information
requests that pass
across international borders, it is important that the country making
the request do so in line with the protocol and
agreement. There
may be instances where the evidence from the requesting country
suggests that there is not just one case, but that information might
have to be captured for others. The requesting country might have
picked up a pattern of behaviour—perhaps of money coming on
certain routes across Europe or the world. That route map may lead it
to question a number of bank accounts when it does an exercise. At
other times, it might have an individual
case. It
will be for the Secretary of State to assess the evidence gathered by
the requesting country, in this case the United States. At that point,
the Secretary of State would have to be satisfied that there was good
reason for a request that caught a lot of individuals. She would have
to judge the case on its merits in deciding whether to split it up
because it was oversimplifying a number of individual cases, or to take
it as a genuine single case with lots of parties involved. We have
long-established protocols in place for dealing with
that. Overall,
it is not possible to make a block request for data. A request should
be related to a particular account. There may be multiple requests on a
single type of approach, perhaps if a money laundering ring has been
uncovered. In that case, a number of requests might come in on the same
issue, but it would not be just a block presented to Her
Majesty’s
Government.
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