Examination of Witnesses (Questions 503
- 519)
TUESDAY 1 DECEMBER 2009
MR BILL
HUGHES AND
MR NEIL
GILES
Q503 Chairman: Mr Hughes, Mr Giles,
good afternoon, thank you very much for coming to give evidence
to this Committee today, indeed we did not expect to see you back
quite so quickly.
Mr Hughes: Always a pleasure,
Chairman.
Q504 Chairman: Thank you very much.
No doubt you have seen our report into SOCA which we published
just a few days ago and you have probably studied very carefully
recommendation 11, the expectations of the public, the public
requiring, as this Committee requires, evidence of seizures as
opposed to the amount of money that is currently spent on SOCA.
Just clarifying a number of facts, Mr Hughes, in your report you
say that drug seizures in 2008-09 amounted to 85.1 tonnes of cocaine.
Are those drug seizures within the United Kingdom or worldwide?
Mr Hughes: Worldwide.
Q505 Chairman: Worldwide. What is
the figure for what you have seized in the United Kingdom?
Mr Hughes: Can I just explain,
Neil leads on the programme activity number 9 which is the UK
Control Strategy work on "upstream" cocaine interdiction.
Q506 Chairman: Excellent. It is just
that what concerns us is that we have seen figures which show
that the amount of cocaine entering the United Kingdom last year
was 45 tonnes. You claim in your annual report to have seized
85.1 tonnes and you are probably adding figures that have been
seized by, for example, the Colombian government or the Venezuelan
government as well, is that not right?
Mr Hughes: No, let me pick up
on that. First of all, the reason that we do the work we do is
because it is upstream interdiction and we are picking that up
on behalf of the UK Control Strategy. The reason for that is because
there are three main areas of vulnerability for the traffickers.
Q507 Chairman: I understand that.
Mr Hughes: You do not understand
otherwise you would not have asked the question.
Q508 Chairman: Mr Hughes, I just
want to know the figures. May I just ask you the question that
I want to ask you? What are the figures for the amount of cocaine
seized by SOCA in the United Kingdom last year? In the United
Kingdom, not worldwide.
Mr Hughes: I do not have those
figures to hand at the moment, I can get them for you and send
them to this Committee. The point is when you asked the question—
Q509 Chairman: Do you not have any
idea of an estimate? You are the Chief Executive of SOCA, you
are before the Select Committee, do you not know how much cocaine
was seized within the United Kingdom last year?
Mr Hughes: I have not got it in
front of me. It is not one of those figures I can necessarily
recall.
Q510 Chairman: Mr Giles, can you
help us, do you know how much cocaine was seized in the United
Kingdom last year?
Mr Giles: I do not, Chairman,
but I can find out fairly easily.
Q511 Chairman: May I suggest, Mr
Hughes, that when you put some figures in your annual report you
do make it very clear that the figures that you are referring
to, the 85.1 tonnes of cocaine seized, is a worldwide figure and
not exclusive to the United Kingdom?
Mr Hughes: We make that very clear
and you made the point just now. The 45 tonnes dates back a long
time ago to an estimate of what we thought was coming towards
the UK. The 85 tonnes, because we are operating with our colleagues
overseas—we are dealing with cocaine which is making its
way across the Atlantic towards Europe—that includes cocaine
that is going to make its way into the UK. We cannot differentiate
between that when it comes across the Atlantic and that which
we take out in South America, so what we are doing is we are working
on all of those areas where cocaine is making its way into Europe
and therefore some of that will come to the UK. That is why we
work with the Spanish, and half their cocaine seizures come from
us, and with the Dutch, where most of their cocaine seizures come
from us as well. Once it gets into the UK the UKBA pick up a lot
of it and then we take on the other cocaine seizures that come
from work that we do within the United Kingdom.
Q512 Chairman: Mr Hughes, we understand
that; we need figures and facts so that we can put it before Parliament.
Mr Hughes: I can get those facts
for you and will do.
Chairman: If you could let me have those
facts in a letter by midday tomorrow that would be extremely helpful,
the amount of cocaine seized by SOCA in the United Kingdom last
year. Mr Davies, did you have a supplementary on this?
Q513 David Davies: Yes. Mr Hughes,
I have been very impressed by SOCA officers whom I have met around
the world but I still have a difficult question for you and that
is this: when you make a claim about the amount of cocaine you
have seized to what extent have you actually been solely involved
in seizing it and to what extent are you saying "Okay, we
have been involved but it might simply have been sending a fax
or passing on a name", the national police force of that
country did all the rest of it and you have marked down whatever
they got as part of your total. That is what concerns me. The
supplementary to this is that there does not seem to be any sort
of independent agency monitoring what you say; every police force
in this country is monitored by a police authority day-to-day
but nobody seems to play that role with SOCA.
Mr Hughes: Let me take the second
part of that question first because the HMIC inspect us, we are
also subject to NAO inspection—an audit of what we do and
a report to the Home Secretary to whom we are politically accountable
in every department. We brief ministers regularly on what we do,
so those issues are the accountability issues. The point that
you are making about what we do overseas, what we are doing overseas
is something that I cannot disclose in a public session. We have
made an open invitation for you to come and be briefed in camera
on what we do overseas; I am not prepared to say what we do here.
When you say how does this work, that is the point, I cannot go
into that in detail but our officers whom you have seen—and
if you have been to Colombia you will have seen our officers there
and in Afghanistan—are operating on the ground with local
enforcement agencies. They work in very close partnership, they
work with them, they are actively involved in what they do and
the intelligence that leads to the arrests starts with us and
it moves on from us into those law enforcement agencies because
we do not have powers of arrest in those other countries. That
is where our activity is taken on.
Q514 Chairman: One other figure that
would be very helpful in the letter that you kindly will send
tomorrow is the amount of cocaine entering the United Kingdom.
I put to Brodie Clark a figure that also came from your report
of between 35 and 40 tonnes of cocaine entered the United Kingdom
last year.
Mr Hughes: No, that is not true.
Q515 Chairman: Exactly. It would
be very helpful if you could let me have that—do you know
that figure now?
Mr Hughes: We do not know how
much cocaine is coming into the country. The figure you are quoting
is an estimate from some years ago from the UK threat assessment.
Q516 Chairman: Do you have a current
estimate?
Mr Hughes: We do not know what
is currently coming in. What we are working on is the availability
and you see this from the work we are doing on purity and on price.
Q517 Chairman: I will come to purity
and price in a minute.
Mr Hughes: That is what we are
working on.
Q518 Chairman: Mr Hughes, this is
not a debate, these are questions that we need in order to—
Mr Hughes: It is a very complex
issue.
Q519 Chairman: I am sure it is and
some of us are able to deal with complex issues, I can assure
you. The issue is that we need to be clear on our facts. Do we
have a current estimate as to the amount of cocaine that entered
the United Kingdom last year through any source in the possession
of the entire United Kingdom Government?
Mr Hughes: No.
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