Illegal Imports: Dangerous Materials Question 2.59 pm Asked
by Lord Harris of Haringey To ask Her Majesty’s
Government what plans they have to increase the physical and human
resources available to Border Force, Her Majesty’s Coastguard,
the National Crime Agency and police forces in 2017–18 to
combat illegal import of firearms, drugs and other...Request free trial
Illegal Imports: Dangerous Materials
Question
2.59 pm
Asked by
-
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to
increase the physical and human resources available to Border
Force, Her Majesty’s Coastguard, the National Crime Agency and police
forces in 2017–18 to combat illegal import of firearms, drugs
and other dangerous materials into the United Kingdom.
-
(Lab)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as recorded in the
register and beg leave to ask the Question standing in my
name on the Order Paper.
-
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of
Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, securing the UK is about active law enforcement,
using and sharing intelligence to ensure that resources are
effectively utilised in line with threats and pressures. Law
enforcement partners work to prevent dangerous items ever
reaching our shores, and at the border a combination of law
enforcement officers and officials, targeting and technology
is used to make our already secure borders even stronger.
-
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer,
which I interpret as meaning that there is no plan to
increase the resources available to protect our borders. In
September last year, the outgoing Commissioner of the
Metropolitan Police said that the rapid increase in gun crime
was a result of more illegal arms coming into the country.
Last month, dog walkers on the Suffolk and Norfolk coasts
stumbled across packages containing cocaine with a street
value of more than £50 million. I am told that the weight of
this was 360 kilograms. To put that in context, it is about
three times my body weight, so we are not talking about a
small amount here. Can the noble Baroness tell us whether the
Government are being complacent about the arrival of drugs
and guns in this country or whether will they increase the
resources to patrol our borders and make them effective?
-
My Lords, the Government take the issue of guns and drugs
arriving in this country very seriously. The noble Lord and
the House will have heard me talking previously about
Operation Dragon Root last October, in which 800 potentially
lethal weapons were seized and 282 suspects were arrested. In
addition, 80 kilograms of illegal drugs were seized. I do not
know how that compares with the noble Lord’s weight, but that
is a lot of drugs.
-
(LD)
My Lords, currently at UK airports EU citizens use automatic
gates, which check only that the person seeking entry is the
passport holder. Once we leave the European Union, EU
citizens will have to be questioned about the purpose of
their visit, as there will be no automatic right of entry.
How will the Border Force cope without a massive increase in
resources, particularly when it is already failing to meet
its own targets in terms of delays?
-
The noble Lord has asked me a bit of a hypothetical question
in terms of numbers. However, he asked about e-gates, which
have provided a very efficient way of handling people at
passport control. Not only are they very efficient but, in
terms of the facial recognition service that they provide,
they are very accurate. Just to give the noble Lord an
example, one officer can deal with five e-gates.
-
(Con)
My Lords, there are, as we speak, naval reservists from HMS
“President” serving on board border patrol vessels but,
unfortunately, they do not have the resources. Last year, I
suggested that it would be very good for the reservists if we
had about a dozen boats equivalent to the old-style MTB fast
torpedo boat grade, with marine reservists on board,
stationed at various small ports up and down the coast. The
advantages would be that the populace would see that they
were being protected and it would provide a role for the
reservists. I am sure that the subject will come up in a
major debate next week led by my noble friend Lord Howe, but
does the Minister feel that this is worth pursuing?
-
I can tell my noble friend that we take a very robust
approach to maritime security. Border Force and partner
agencies use a combination of cutters, radar, onshore assets
and area surveillance to detect and stop small craft. We also
work closely with domestic and international enforcement
colleagues on an intelligence-led approach, allowing us to
tackle the criminals involved before they leave for the UK.
We have more cutters on order.
-
(Lab)
My Lords, 260 years ago tomorrow, Admiral Byng was shot for
upsetting the Government. At the risk of falling into the
same danger, the co-ordination of the very limited assets
around our inshore waters—seven craft for the Border Force—is
a complete and utter dog’s dinner. Does the Minister not
agree that that there is a crying need to establish a command
and control centre to co-ordinate action that the National
Maritime Intelligence Centre provides, so that we can
actually protect our inshore waters, because at the moment we
are absolutely not doing that?
-
I can assure the noble Lord that I am not going to shoot him.
The NMIC brings together 14 maritime security stakeholders to
provide the UK with a unified picture of maritime threat
around the UK and globally. As I think I pointed out in
previous Questions, a multi-agency, multi-effort approach to
intelligence and security and control of our borders is the
way forward.
-
(GP)
I am sure that the Minister is aware that wildlife crime is
another international illegal activity that feeds into all
sorts of crimes here in the UK. The wildlife crime unit is
always under pressure. Interpol takes it incredibly
seriously: it has 30 officers. Are the British Government
going to take it seriously as well, and not cut its budget?
-
The British Government do take it very seriously; in fact, I
was watching last night, as I am sure that the noble Baroness
was, the programme that is on at teatime on Sunday, which I
think is called “Countryfile”. It was about the death of
wildlife and some of the wildlife crime that goes on. Yes,
the Government do take it very seriously indeed.
-
(Lab)
During Oral Questions just over a month ago, I suggested that
figures on the number of firearms illegally imported into the
United Kingdom that are seized each year were not very
meaningful without an estimate of the percentage of firearms
illegally imported into the UK that are seized each year. I
also asked whether we were seizing most firearms that are
illegally imported, or only a very small percentage. On
behalf of the Government, the Minister has since written to
me to say that the information that I was seeking was,
“operationally sensitive and not suitable for release”.
Why is it operationally sensitive? I hope that it is not
operationally sensitive because of the low percentage of
firearms illegally imported into the UK that are seized each
year. Certainly, withholding information is very helpful to
the Government, since it means that they cannot easily be
held to account for their failures, which were identified by
the Metropolitan Police Commissioner last September, and to
which my noble friend has already made
reference. Will the Minister look again at the figures and
information that the Government can provide on this issue?
Governments should be able to be held to account.
-
I agree with the noble Lord that Governments should be held
to account, but I cannot give him the figures. I hope that he
will understand that I simply cannot give him the figures. I
was going to suggest that we meet, at some point, the noble
Lord, Lord Harris, given his sustained interest in this
subject. Perhaps we could talk through some of the issues
that he is concerned about.
Extract from
Westminster Hall debate on Child Abuse Offences
(Sentencing)
(Newcastle upon
Tyne North) (Lab):...What is more worrying is that
one of Britain’s most senior police officers cannot identify
a feasible solution to the growing numbers of people
accessing such images online. Chief Constable Bailey made his
comments in the context of an 80% increase in the number of
child abuse reports over the last three years, and 400 men
arrested by the police and the National Crime Agency every
month for viewing indecent images of children. He states that
that is just the tip of the iceberg. Estimates also suggest
that there are around 500,000 people sharing indecent images
of children, but I believe that we cannot remove the threat
of prison without devaluing the crime, even though our prison
population now stands at more than 85,000...
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the
Home Department (Sarah Newton):...The Government’s
response has been significant, with law enforcement agencies
taking action against online offenders, developing new
capabilities to find and safeguard victims, and working with
the industry here and overseas to make sure that we remove as
many images as possible. All UK police forces and
the National Crime Agency are connected
to the child abuse image database, which was launched in
2014. CAID provides law enforcement agencies with effective
tools to search seized devices for indecent images of
children, reducing the time taken to identify such images and
increasing the ability to identify victims.
Recently, the NCA was able to use CAID to review one of its
largest ever seizures within six weeks. Based on the case
size, that would have taken six months to review before CAID.
Collaboration and use of the new tools that are available are
dramatically reducing the time it takes to search, find
victims and secure prosecutions. That has resulted in around
400 arrests each month for online CSE offences, and we
estimate that it is safeguarding around 500 children each
month.
Child sexual exploitation and abuse is one of the national
priorities in the strategic policing requirement. The threat
will be more visible and there will be more consistent
understanding, prioritisation and planning of capabilities to
tackle child sexual abuse. The strategic policing requirement
enables forces to collaborate and to share resources,
intelligence and best practice, and provides improved access
to specialist capabilities.
Some Members have asked whether we are giving the police
enough money to do the work. I absolutely want to reassure
everyone here that the Child Exploitation and Online
Protection Centre, the main specialist agency within
the National Crime Agency, has had its
resources nearly doubled. We have committed an additional £20
million over the spending review period. It also gets a
significant amount of help from specialists within GCHQ, so
our top intelligence community, which is there to keep the
nation safe, is now deployed to help CEOP. I regularly meet
police officers in CEOP. Every time I visit, I ask them, “Do
you have the resources you need to tackle this crime?”, and
they all say yes. The amount of investment that we put in is
something we keep under constant review...
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