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Queen's speech debate on Wednesday, 7 November 2007, in the House of Commons, led by Jack Straw. The answering member was David Davis.

Home Affairs and Justice Debate on the Address

Queen's speech debate (second day) on home affairs and justice.

Secondary information

Type
Parliamentary proceeding
Reference
467 c143-237 
Session
2007-08
Department
Home Office
Ministry of Justice
Procedure
Addresses to the Crown
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Proceeding contributions
Jack Straw | 467 c147 (Link to this contribution) I hope very much that it will be possible to introduce that Bill, but we could not be absolutely cer...
Jack Straw | 467 c147 (Link to this contribution) There is a competition, as there always is among the Liberal Democrats. I shall give way to the more...
Show all contributions (171)
Simon Hughes | 467 c147 (Link to this contribution) Following the exchange between the Secretary of State for Justice and my right hon. Friend the Membe...
Jack Straw | 467 c147 (Link to this contribution) I have made it clear to the point of exhaustion that we are going to stick to the convention. Of cou...
Dominic Grieve | 467 c147 (Link to this contribution) I should like to tease out what the Lord Chancellor has said. As I understand it, he wants his Bill ...
Jack Straw | 467 c147-8 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman has taken a very consistent approach to the incorporation of the 1998 Act, and ha...
Kali Mountford | 467 c148 (Link to this contribution) While my right hon. Friend is talking about rights and responsibilities—I hope that I am not taking ...
Jack Straw | 467 c148 (Link to this contribution) I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. A few days ago, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I ...
Tom Levitt | 467 c149 (Link to this contribution) Clearly, my right hon. Friend has to find a consensus between this House and the other chamber to ge...
Lord Cormack | 467 c149 (Link to this contribution) For wholly different reasons, I endorse the request by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). D...
Jack Straw | 467 c149 (Link to this contribution) We are not excluding other Members, of course, but there have to be different mechanisms. If the all...
Chris Bryant | 467 c149 (Link to this contribution) Could the Lord Chancellor include in the discussions on Lords reform not only the Front Benchers of ...
Jack Straw | 467 c149 (Link to this contribution) That is an interesting proposition on which I think it fair to say that we have not quite reached th...
Lord Young of Cookham | 467 c149 (Link to this contribution) A majority of Conservative MPs voted for one of the two elected options.
Jack Straw | 467 c149 (Link to this contribution) I knew that the right hon. Gentleman would have the answer; he is a very wise and sage man. That mer...
Jack Straw | 467 c149 (Link to this contribution) I think that the right hon. Gentleman may have the answer, so I shall give way.
Lord Clarke of Nottingham | 467 c150-1 (Link to this contribution) Apart from using various strange historical quotations that do not seem very apposite today, the Lor...
Jack Straw | 467 c150 (Link to this contribution) In a moment. If the Leader of the Opposition does not like Gladstone, perhaps he should try the dist...
Pete Wishart | 467 c151 (Link to this contribution) Will the Lord Chancellor give way?
Jack Straw | 467 c151 (Link to this contribution) Would that matters were that simple, but what happened in 1893 remains pertinent, because the House ...
Jack Straw | 467 c149-50 (Link to this contribution) I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman must excuse me, as I have to make some progress. While we in Go...
Pete Wishart | 467 c151 (Link to this contribution) The Lord Chancellor is absolutely right. I make no excuse whatever for coming to this place to repre...
Jack Straw | 467 c152 (Link to this contribution) I entirely agree it should be debated, and that is what I am doing; it is just that we have come to ...
Lord Clarke of Nottingham | 467 c152 (Link to this contribution) Unlike the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), I am a Unionist. If there were...
Jack Straw | 467 c153 (Link to this contribution) My hon. and learned Friend will have noticed that, by omission, the fraud juryless trials Bill was n...
Robert Marshall-Andrews | 467 c153 (Link to this contribution) I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. Whereas I accept many of my right hon. Friend's remarks...
Jack Straw | 467 c153 (Link to this contribution) If my hon. and learned Friend does not mind, I need to get on—[Hon. Members: ““Ah.””]—but I will giv...
Jack Straw | 467 c152 (Link to this contribution) And coal as well. The Bill specifically excluded any impact on Northern Ireland, yet Unionist Member...
Jack Straw | 467 c152 (Link to this contribution) I am happy to fight a general election in England any time. We will win and the Conservatives will l...
Jack Straw | 467 c153 (Link to this contribution) I am going to make some progress.
Lord Redwood | 467 c143 (Link to this contribution) As the right hon. Gentleman wishes to increase the length of time for which people are detained with...
Jack Straw | 467 c143 (Link to this contribution) It gives me great pleasure to open this debate on the Gracious Speech. That speech outlined a number...
Jack Straw | 467 c144-5 (Link to this contribution) If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I shall make a tiny bit more progress. I was reflecting over th...
Jack Straw | 467 c144 (Link to this contribution) If the right hon. Gentleman does not mind my saying so, that is not up to his usual standard. [Hon. ...
Jack Straw | 467 c146 (Link to this contribution) My right hon. Friend does not need to go to a bookshop for it, because she has learnt it off by hear...
Jack Straw | 467 c146 (Link to this contribution) There are two aspects to that issue. In general terms, most—although not all—rights are contingent o...
Lord Beith | 467 c146 (Link to this contribution) When the Lord Chancellor links responsibilities to rights, is he implying that someone other than a ...
Jack Straw | 467 c145-6 (Link to this contribution) May I say to the hon. Gentleman that I am, of course, aware of this concern and we are trying to dea...
Julian Lewis | 467 c145 (Link to this contribution) Is the Secretary of State aware that something that has bothered people on both sides of the House, ...
Baroness Smith of Malvern | 467 c235 (Link to this contribution) It is marginally dodgy to suggest that we should find holding charges. If there is a reasonable view...
Peter Luff | 467 c235 (Link to this contribution) I am genuinely interested to hear the Home Secretary's answer to this point, which has impressed me:...
Baroness Smith of Malvern | 467 c235-7 (Link to this contribution) I am not under the misapprehension that everybody agrees on that issue. I have already quoted senior...
Chris Mullin | 467 c235 (Link to this contribution) How does the Home Secretary square her belief that there is a need for a further extension with the ...
Baroness Smith of Malvern | 467 c234-5 (Link to this contribution) The first point is that there will be only a small number of extraordinary cases where it would be n...
Lord Clarke of Nottingham | 467 c234 (Link to this contribution) The Home Secretary is obviously not about to answer the straightforward question put by our Scottish...
Baroness Smith of Malvern | 467 c232-3 (Link to this contribution) I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has not received the letter yet, but it does set out the an...
Robert Marshall-Andrews | 467 c233 (Link to this contribution) Will the Home Secretary return to the vexed question of the number of days for which a suspect may b...
Baroness Smith of Malvern | 467 c232 (Link to this contribution) I am sorry—the Chief Whip slightly threw me by suggesting that I had only two minutes left; however,...
David Davis | 467 c232 (Link to this contribution) I have not received the letter.
Baroness Smith of Malvern | 467 c234 (Link to this contribution) When I appeared before the Home Affairs Committee, I spent a considerable time exemplifying my argum...
Jeremy Browne | 467 c234 (Link to this contribution) If, as the Home Secretary says, there is a trend of growing complexity, when two years ago the Gover...
Baroness Smith of Malvern | 467 c233 (Link to this contribution) I thought that the rapprochement between my hon. and learned Friend and me was too good to last, but...
David Winnick | 467 c233 (Link to this contribution) Does my right hon. Friend accept that, if the detention period is to be extended beyond 28 days, the...
Baroness Smith of Malvern | 467 c234 (Link to this contribution) The truth of the matter is that the Government were defeated on 90 days—[Interruption.] We were defe...
Speaker | 467 c225 (Link to this contribution) Order. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has given notice to the Member concerned that he intended...
Shona McIsaac | 467 c225 (Link to this contribution) On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to persist in going...
Speaker | 467 c225 (Link to this contribution) That is not a point of order for the Chair.
Lord Herbert of South Downs | 467 c225-7 (Link to this contribution) We do not believe that there should be a single extra penny of state funding for political parties u...
Baroness Smith of Malvern | 467 c227-30 (Link to this contribution) Today's debate has been wide-ranging. Many valuable contributions have been made from both sides of ...
Lord Herbert of South Downs | 467 c230 (Link to this contribution) The Home Secretary mentioned the proposed 16,000 additional police community support officers. Can s...
Baroness Smith of Malvern | 467 c230 (Link to this contribution) They are not the ““proposed”” 16,000 police community support officers, but the 16,000 police commun...
Julian Lewis | 467 c230-1 (Link to this contribution) One of the good things that the Government have done, although they have not said so explicitly, is ...
Baroness Smith of Malvern | 467 c231-2 (Link to this contribution) I am not sure that I agree with that particular term. However, the hon. Gentleman makes a serious an...
Mark Hendrick | 467 c159 (Link to this contribution) Twenty-eight days is the buffer, so surely one has to charge then.
David Davis | 467 c159 (Link to this contribution) I shall deal with the Home Secretary's sotto voce comment of ““Thank goodness”” because she appeared...
David Davis | 467 c156-9 (Link to this contribution) That is right. The right hon. Gentleman also knows that I rather approve of him, although I should ...
David Davis | 467 c160-1 (Link to this contribution) Again, the Lord Chancellor wriggles off the point. If we recall the 90-day debate, who said that 28 ...
Jack Straw | 467 c160 (Link to this contribution) Of course, there is a serious issue about the maximum length of time for which people should be deta...
David Davis | 467 c160 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman presents the Government's argument that we want review and oversight. We have tha...
Tom Levitt | 467 c160 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman should know that no one in the House voted for 90 days as a blanket figure....
Jack Straw | 467 c154 (Link to this contribution) I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I need to make progress, because I am conscious of how lon...
Jack Straw | 467 c154 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman should listen to the Leader of the Opposition, who has talked about the importanc...
Lord Herbert of South Downs | 467 c154 (Link to this contribution) The Lord Chancellor has repeated his claim that the Government have provided 20,000 extra prison pla...
David Davis | 467 c156 (Link to this contribution) It is a particular pleasure to face across the Dispatch Box the Lord High Chancellor, the real Deput...
Jack Straw | 467 c155 (Link to this contribution) Ending slopping out is rather different from introducing internal sanitation. That was the programme...
Lord Howard of Lympne | 467 c154-5 (Link to this contribution) First, will the Lord Chancellor answer the specific question that has just been put, namely that mor...
Jack Straw | 467 c155-6 (Link to this contribution) I shall go on to deal with that point. We are committed to providing enough prison places for those...
David Heath | 467 c155 (Link to this contribution) It is extraordinary to watch two parties squabbling over who created the crisis in our prison system...
Chris Mullin | 467 c165-7 (Link to this contribution) With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall range a little more widely through the Queen's Spe...
David Davis | 467 c163-5 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend has a point. The number that the Home Secretary bandied around this morning was three...
Julian Lewis | 467 c163 (Link to this contribution) My question is closely related to the one that my right hon. Friend has just answered. The only othe...
Jack Straw | 467 c168 (Link to this contribution) I was paying attention. The question is to what! In the statement to the House on 3 July, a range of...
David Winnick | 467 c168 (Link to this contribution) Is not one of the arguments against extending the period beyond 28 days simply that it would be coun...
Chris Mullin | 467 c167 (Link to this contribution) Oh, yes—a much safer seat. I noted the right hon. Gentleman's quotations from Ronnie Flanagan, Stell...
Chris Mullin | 467 c168 (Link to this contribution) It will not appear in the constitutional renewal Bill, but some other mechanism will be introduced t...
Chris Bryant | 467 c161 (Link to this contribution) I agree with the right hon. Gentleman's last point. However, I ask him to stop using the phrase ““th...
David Davis | 467 c161 (Link to this contribution) I acknowledge that the hon. Gentleman makes a serious point. The raw truth is that comparisons are n...
David Davis | 467 c161 (Link to this contribution) Of course. However, two points arise. First, in the coming weeks, a serious comparison will be publi...
Chris Mullin | 467 c162 (Link to this contribution) I am sympathetic to many of the points that the right hon. Gentleman is making. I was one of those w...
David Davis | 467 c161 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is exactly right and that is precisely the point that I put to members of the pol...
Robert Marshall-Andrews | 467 c162 (Link to this contribution) Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that topic, I want to raise the problem of encryption of elec...
David Davis | 467 c162 (Link to this contribution) I think that that point answers itself. At the end of all this, there has been no case at all in wh...
David Davis | 467 c162 (Link to this contribution) The position is sharper than that. As has been said, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Ac...
Lord Herbert of South Downs | 467 c224-5 (Link to this contribution) The Government have introduced changes requiring annual approval in relation to companies, but they ...
Jack Straw | 467 c224 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman may not understand that the current arrangements that we are all operating were a...
Lord Herbert of South Downs | 467 c225 (Link to this contribution) I agree with my hon. Friend. We will relish the opportunity to talk about this issue every day unti...
Peter Luff | 467 c225 (Link to this contribution) Surely the position is even worse than that. Is it not the case that the Government are paying money...
Jack Straw | 467 c223-4 (Link to this contribution) I am glad that the hon. Gentleman was smirking as he said that—he obviously did not believe a word t...
Lord Herbert of South Downs | 467 c224 (Link to this contribution) That sounds rather similar to the justification that the Prime Minister offered for failing to go to...
David Heath | 467 c224 (Link to this contribution) I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman. I would love to agree with him that this was similar to...
Lord Herbert of South Downs | 467 c224 (Link to this contribution) We cannot agree to a cap on donations which is not a comprehensive cap on donations. What the Govern...
William Cash | 467 c218 (Link to this contribution) Did my hon. Friend notice that the Lord Chancellor referred today to the British judiciary? Does he ...
Lord Herbert of South Downs | 467 c218-23 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend and I have debated the matter previously and our position is that we want British jud...
Lord Herbert of South Downs | 467 c217-8 (Link to this contribution) I am sorry that the Lord High Chancellor has not returned to his place, because I wanted to welcome ...
Lord Beamish | 467 c216-7 (Link to this contribution) I did not know that, but local communities across this country provide similar examples. In the nort...
Shona McIsaac | 467 c216 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is right that there are many hidden histories in the UK of people who have come to th...
Lord Beamish | 467 c212-6 (Link to this contribution) I support the Gracious Speech. Like the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff), I shall tou...
Patrick Mercer | 467 c210-2 (Link to this contribution) It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson). I am sure that all th...
Lord Beamish | 467 c209 (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend agree that on most of those occasions, the Liberal Democrats have voted against ...
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield | 467 c209-10 (Link to this contribution) That is right, and the Liberal Democrats are now saying that they do not want to punish someone who ...
Tim Farron | 467 c209 (Link to this contribution) I am listening to what the hon. Gentleman says with great interest. Is he aware that we are now on 2...
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield | 467 c209 (Link to this contribution) One need only examine our good record on crime over the past 10 years to see the results of those Bi...
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield | 467 c208-9 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is right—Durham constabulary has a very good record on this issue, including in my co...
Julian Lewis | 467 c179 (Link to this contribution) Is not the best example historically of the tendency that my right hon. and learned Friend was descr...
Lord Howard of Lympne | 467 c179 (Link to this contribution) That is certainly an interesting example. I suspect that the implications of it are quite far-reachi...
Robert Marshall-Andrews | 467 c179-84 (Link to this contribution) It is a pleasure and a privilege, as always, to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Folkest...
Ann Cryer | 467 c174-5 (Link to this contribution) I am not ““just accepting”” the situation. That is why I am talking about problems that I see every ...
Chris Mullin | 467 c175 (Link to this contribution) I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. She has, rightly, persistently raised this issue over a long p...
Ann Cryer | 467 c175-6 (Link to this contribution) I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. This is a sad situation, and I live with it constantly....
Lord Howard of Lympne | 467 c176-9 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful for having an opportunity to take part in this section of the debate on the Loyal Addr...
Anne Main | 467 c174 (Link to this contribution) In that case I recommend services such as the one in my community, where schools are actively involv...
Ann Cryer | 467 c174 (Link to this contribution) I agree with the hon. Lady, but she must understand that that is fine as long as it is their choice....
Anne Main | 467 c174 (Link to this contribution) As the hon. Lady might know, my constituency contains large Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities. M...
Nick Clegg | 467 c173 (Link to this contribution) Indeed. One is not sustainable without the other: that much is clear from experiences around the wor...
Ann Cryer | 467 c173-4 (Link to this contribution) Let me begin by apologising to my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench. I am going to talk about th...
Nick Clegg | 467 c170-3 (Link to this contribution) Legislation on identity cards, legislation removing the distinction between innocence and guilt in D...
John Barrett | 467 c173 (Link to this contribution) The other parties often mention a points-based immigration system, but regularly fail to mention the...
Nick Clegg | 467 c169 (Link to this contribution) First, may I say how good, if unusual, it is to see Liberal Democrat Members outnumbering other Memb...
Jack Straw | 467 c170 (Link to this contribution) As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary says from a sedentary position, she and I are chaste in c...
David Davis | 467 c168 (Link to this contribution) If the hon. Gentleman undertakes to table such an amendment to the constitutional renewal Bill, may ...
Chris Mullin | 467 c168-9 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful for that and I will take the right hon. Gentleman's advice. If we are serious about i...
Chris Mullin | 467 c168 (Link to this contribution) I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for showing me the way forward.
Peter Luff | 467 c200-5 (Link to this contribution) He is lucky. Mine does not. I speak as a simple Back Bencher. I see on the Order Paper today, howeve...
Peter Luff | 467 c205-6 (Link to this contribution) I think that the error has been duly noted, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I am encouraged by that. The ce...
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield | 467 c206-7 (Link to this contribution) It is a pleasure to have an opportunity to speak on this aspect of the Gracious Speech. I made my m...
Lord Beamish | 467 c207 (Link to this contribution) Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating Durham constabulary, which in my constituency—and perh...
Shona McIsaac | 467 c194-5 (Link to this contribution) Like other Members, I welcome the chance to take part in the debate on the Gracious Speech and to sp...
Peter Luff | 467 c199-200 (Link to this contribution) It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac). I listened careful...
Shona McIsaac | 467 c196-9 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend makes some valid points. Although the police are judged on how they deal with antisoc...
Lord Bellingham | 467 c189 (Link to this contribution) Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that a number of the sitting Law Lords do excellent jobs as chai...
Lord Beith | 467 c186-8 (Link to this contribution) I wholly agree. Legislation is for defining the law and determining what is and is not an offence, n...
Lord Howard of Lympne | 467 c189 (Link to this contribution) I am sympathetic to the position that the right hon. Gentleman and his Committee have taken, but it ...
Lord Beith | 467 c193-4 (Link to this contribution) Indeed. I, too, wondered about the status of the document. There can be nothing of greater status th...
Peter Luff | 467 c193 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman has given us an interesting piece of information. The document ““The Govern...
David Heath | 467 c186 (Link to this contribution) Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the other weasel phrases sometimes heard about legislati...
Lord Beith | 467 c184-6 (Link to this contribution) We have just heard a telling speech from the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrew...
Robert Marshall-Andrews | 467 c184 (Link to this contribution) Let me think about that. If the Minister accepts my invitation, I warn her to expect a severe custo...
David Davis | 467 c160 (Link to this contribution) That point—or the point that the hon. Gentleman missed—was picked up by the Joint Committee on Human...
Evan Harris | 467 c161 (Link to this contribution) The Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I serve, was interested in what happened to the three ...
Lord Beith | 467 c190-3 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Law Lords—and former Law Lords—make an extremely valuabl...
Jack Straw | 467 c151 (Link to this contribution) In a moment; I want to quote to the hon. Gentleman what the leader of the Scottish National party ha...
Lord Bellingham | 467 c147 (Link to this contribution) The Lord Chancellor mentioned the July statement, which said that there would be a coroners Bill in ...
Pete Wishart | 467 c232 (Link to this contribution) In the Secretary of State's view, how many days should be allowed for pre-charge detention? [Interru...
Lord Herbert of South Downs | 467 c225 (Link to this contribution) I apologise to the Secretary of State for not having given notice, but that is as nothing compared w...
Sammy Wilson | 467 c153-4 (Link to this contribution) Does the Lord Chancellor agree that it is strange that those who claim to be most pro-Unionist are c...
Chris Mullin | 467 c168 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is quite right, and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) ma...
Jack Straw | 467 c168 (Link to this contribution) That is the current position, but as my ministerial colleagues often remind me, the constitutional r...
David Leslie Taylor | 467 c195-6 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is discussing the cognitive dissonance between what people read about and see on TV a...
Lord Beith | 467 c189 (Link to this contribution) I wonder whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman is still feeling the pain of the many judgment...
Speaker | 467 c153 (Link to this contribution) Order. The right hon. Gentleman is not going to give way.
Subjects
Accountability Crime prevention Crime Civil proceedings Devolution Human rights Immigration controls Immigration Identity cards Law Police Powers Migrant workers Terrorism Victims Islam
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