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Home Affairs and Justice

Like other Members, I welcome the chance to take part in the debate on the Gracious Speech and to speak about security. National security and terrorism are the most important things on the agenda today. I worked for a couple of years at the Home Office as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the current Attorney-General, and to those who trivialise the threat of terrorism, I say, ““Think again””. This country is under serious threat. I have no time for the conspiracy theorists who say everything is got up by the Government and the security services: national security is vital. One measure I welcome in connection with making our nation and our communities feel safe is a unified border force. North East Lincolnshire, where Cleethorpes is located, sounds like a nice, rural area, but that is misleading. We have one of the biggest and busiest ports in the country at Immingham, where, as with the other Humber ports of Goole and Hull, a phenomenal amount of freight traffic enters the UK. All too often, those of us in that part of Lincolnshire feel a bit forgotten in debates such as this one. When we talk about national security and border forces, we probably naturally think of our large cities, such as London, and ports such as Dover, but the sheer volume of traffic in places such as Immingham means that we need to consider the area seriously in any debate about national security. I shall be keen to see how a unified border force will pan out in areas of the country such as the one I represent. In addition to our ports, we have an airport in my constituency. Increasingly, people trying to enter the UK clandestinely are avoiding some of the more ““traditional”” ports of entry. I have forgotten the length of the UK coastline—I knew it when I was at school—but it is phenomenally long. People are using smaller ports and airports to try to enter the country clandestinely, which has implications for national security. If it is easier to enter the country through those ports and airports, people who want to target the UK could use them, so I hope that Ministers will ensure ample security coverage outside the main cities and the southern coast ports of Britain. Security is not just about big national interests, vital though they are; people's sense of security and safety depends on how they feel in their communities. According to the British crime survey, crime has decreased, but we would probably all say that people feel no safer in their communities. People's sense of personal security depends largely on what happens when they open their front doors, what people see when they walk down the street, what happens in their workplaces, what they read in national and local newspapers, what they see on the local news and what they hear on the radio. I worked as a journalist for many years before entering this House. I do not know whether other hon. Members agree, but I feel that in recent years our local and national media have focused more and more on crime. Journalists must report the news, but whenever I open a local newspaper, it seems to me that there are many more terrifying banner headlines compared with when I was younger. That gives the impression that the law has broken down in all our communities, which is not the case, because it is usually a minority who hold a community to ransom through their lawless behaviour. In many ways, politicians are also responsible, because we always talk about crime, and there is almost an arms race on who can introduce the toughest legislation. I am not blaming a particular party, because we are all complicit in a situation in which crime has gone down but people do not feel commensurately more safe and secure. Last night, through the wonders of satellite television, I watched the local news from my area, ““Look North””, which included yet another report of an attack on Humberside fire and rescue. When the fire brigade was called out to deal with an arson attack on an estate called the Willows, it was deliberately attacked. What sort of people would do that, given that four firefighters had lost their lives just two days earlier? The thugs involved broke into properties and removed fixtures and fittings, to which they then set light, and when the fire brigade arrived, they deliberately attacked it. Following that report, and similar reports in the past couple of weeks, people have contacted me to ask what the Government are doing and to suggest the need for legislation, but legislation has been introduced. The Father of the House introduced a private Member's Bill on attacks on the emergency services, and it became law. Those provisions came into force in the past couple of months, and people need to be reminded that they exist. When people saw that news report, however, those provisions did not make them feel any safer, because they saw the break-ins and arson attacks—it was all very graphic. In my part of the country, people are worried about antisocial behaviour, and I guess that people are worried about it up and down the land. People do not feel safe if, when they walk out of their front doors, they see graffiti and broken windows, or if there is noise at night. In that case, they feel that crime has taken hold, which makes them more fearful, although crime has gone down.