Dominic Raab MP: We need to arm the little guy to take on big business

Dominic Raab is the Member of Parliament for Esher & Walton.

From bank interest rate-rigging to soaring water bills, free market enterprise is dogged by criticism that it stands for parasitic cartels - not the ordinary person. Yet, the weakness of capitalism lies not with the free market, but where it lacks competition. We need a consumer revolution to arm the little guy to take on big business.

De-regulation since the 1990s strengthened UK competitiveness and productivity. But, what was in it for a London cabbie, or a hairdresser in Newcastle? Plenty. He could fly to Nice on holiday 83% cheaper. She could call her sister in Australia at a fraction of the tariff - or buy her son a football T-shirt at a 15% discount. Whether it was the latest Tom Clancy thriller from Waterstones, or a flu remedy at Boots, it cost them less.

Since then, capitalism’s reputation has been tarnished – from bailed out banks to water executives pocketing bonuses in a year that saw the dual farce of floods and hose-pipe bans. For many, it points to systemic failure. Yet, these flaws point to a lack of competition that should allow consumers to deprive lousy service providers of their custom. The ‘big six’ energy suppliers wrap up 98% of the market - yet none rank above ninth place for customer service. The ‘big four’ banks control 78% of the current account market - but are some of the most loathed by customers.

Dominic Raab MP: The Government wants its same-sex marriage safeguards to work. So it mustn't appease the Strasbourg Court.

Dominic Raab is the Member of Parliament for Esher & Walton.

Does the ‘progressive authoritarianism’ of the Strasbourg Court threaten to scupper a compromise deal on gay marriage? Personally, I am relaxed about a gay couple choosing to marry in a registry office or other civil premises. As a politician, why would I stand in their way? But, in the same spirit of tolerance, I want to protect churches and other religious institutions from being forced to conduct ceremonies that run counter to their faith.

When I put this to Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone, in March she replied:

‘we will ensure that there is no risk of successful legal challenge against religious organisations that do not marry same-sex couples’.

This looked tenable. After all, the Equalities Act and the Human Rights Act are primary legislation. So, churches could be safeguarded by clear and unequivocal primary legislation.

What about challenges from Strasbourg?  I took comfort from the current Lord Chief Justice who has affirmed:

‘As a matter of statute, the decisions of [the Strasbourg Court] do not bind our courts ... statute ensures that the final word does not rest with Strasbourg, but with our Supreme Court.’

More recently, the President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger stated:

‘The fact remains though that when Strasbourg speaks it is ultimately for Parliament to consider what action needs to be taken. The [UK] courts can only take account of its decisions insofar as they inform its consideration of legislation or the common law.’

Dominic Raab MP: The innocent shouldn't be put at risk in order to catch serious criminals

Dominic Raab is the Member of Parliament for Esher & Walton

Earlier this month, the Home Secretary announced UK plans to exercise its ‘block’ opt out from 135 EU crime and policing measures, and consider which if any to opt back into on a selective basis. This week, I published Cooperation Not Control - The Case for Britain Retaining Democratic Control over EU Crime and Policing Policy with Open Europe. It assesses each of the 135 measures, and makes the case for enhanced operational cooperation, but argues that none of this necessitates that Britain follow the path towards a harmonised EU criminal code, decided by qualified majority voting, and enforced by the Commission, the European Court of Justice and – in due course – an EU Public Prosecutor. In short, it is not unreasonable to want more cooperation without giving up democratic control. Having exercised the block ‘opt out’, that is what the government should push for.

The European Arrest Warrant has become one of the most contentious of the 135 measures. If you are concerned about lop-sided extradition under the UK-US treaty, it is a drop in the ocean compared to the rough justice meted out under the European Arrest Warrant to British citizens like Andrew Symeou, Michael Turner, Deborah Dark and my own constituent Colin Dines. They variously faced corrupt police, incompetent justice systems and squalid jails, despite either being cleared or having no evidence or charges presented against them. The UK surrenders 11 people under the EAW for every individual extradited to Britain, so it is far more lop-sided than the US regime. In terms of scale, last year we surrendered 3 British nationals to the US, but 32 to EU countries.

Of course, extradition relations are vital. No-one wants to abolish the EAW. Predictably, Labour have been stressing the EAW’s law enforcement value. This month Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told Parliament:

‘[The EAW] made it possible to arrest Jeremy Forrest and bring him back to face British justice for the alleged kidnapping of Megan Stammers and to bring back Hussain Osman for trying to bomb the London underground, and it closed down the “Costa del Crime” when British criminals fled to Spain.’

Chris Skidmore MP, Kwasi Kwarteng MP, Dominic Raab MP, and Priti Patel MP: Britain’s best days are not behind us

By Chris Skidmore MP, Kwasi Kwarteng MP, Dominic Raab MP, and Priti Patel MP.

Our new rivals in the world economy are working harder than us, taking their studies more seriously, keeping their debt low, and taking more risks. If Britain is to remain competitive, we must learn from their example. Britannia Unchained is a rallying cry for the 21^st Century.

Britannia Unchained backs the current government’s deficit reduction strategy as a vital first step to restoring economic growth. Here our model should be that of Canada in the 1990s. Between 1992 and 2000, Canada converted an annual deficit of 9% of GDP to a surplus of 3%, cutting federal spending by around 20% between 1992 and 1997. In contrast, British public spending has continued to grow since 2007, and the deficit has been reduced by a quarter.

On education, we should be looking eastwards for positive role models, to arrest our decline in the PISA world rankings - we have fallen as low as 28^th in maths. Britain has the lowest proportion of students studying maths post-16 of any developed country, at 15%. By contrast, in Japan, 85% of students achieve the equivalent of maths A-level, and Indian students study maths and science for twice as long each week at high school as their British counterparts.

On innovation, Britain can emulate the success of Israel, in supporting high tech entrepreneurship, and the USA, in accepting the benefits of risk-taking and losing our fear of failure. The difference between Silicon Valley and Britain is astonishing. In 2005, 3,867 patents were awarded to businesses and individuals in San Jose, a city of fewer than a million people. The total number of patents awarded in Britain the following year was only 2,978.

Dominic Raab MP: "Those with blood on their hands for serious crimes like torture should not be allowed to waltz into this country and buy up property on the Kings Road, as if nothing had happened."

Dominic Raab is the Member of Parliament for Esher and Walton.

On Sunday, The Observer trailed new rules enabling individuals to be banned from entering Britain, on the basis of their responsibility – supported by credible evidence – for gross human rights abuses. Whilst The Observer suggested this was a Lib Dem coup, in reality it follows the House of Commons backbench business debate on 7 March, when the House voted unanimously for mandatory targeted sanctions in these cases, including visa bans and asset freezes. A US Bill along the same lines, sponsored by John McCain (R) and Ben Cardin (D), is progressing through the Senate.

I proposed the motion, but critically it was backed by five former Foreign Ministers from the two largest parties. It was inspired by the tragic case of Sergei Magnitsky, a dissident Russian lawyer tortured to death for exposing the biggest tax fraud in Russian history. In the Kafka-esque Russian justice system, it was those who Magnitsky had exposed who initiated his persecution.

Dominic Raab MP: If LibDems mean what they say about FOI, Huhne must come clean over emissions

Dominic Raab is the Conservative MP for Esher and Walton.

When Ed Miliband was Secretary of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), back in 2010, he turned down a Freedom of Information (FoI) request for the economic impact assessment of a UK cut in emissions by 42% (between 1990 and 2020). The UK cut was offered as part of an EU pledge to cut emissions by 30%, to help achieve a global deal at the Copenhagen summit in 2009. The same EU offer has been repeated at international conferences since then.

The FoI was submitted by Matthew Sinclair of the Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), and his appeal was finally decided by the FoI tribunal shortly before Christmas. It makes for astonishing reading. The estimate of a UK cut of emissions of 42% - as part of an EU cut of 30% - was made by Lord Turner’s advisory Committee on Climate Change, rather than the government itself. Nevertheless, DECC acknowledged that there are seven documents answering the substance of the FoI request.

Relying on an exemption in the FoI Act, DECC refused disclosure - and the tribunal agreed – on the basis that it would harm UK international relations. The argument appears to be that a global deal would be harder to reach, if other countries knew the economic cost of the UK’s proposed emission reductions. I am told that DECC argued that the cost to the UK was so low that other countries might argue that Britain was not bearing its fair share of emission reductions.

Dominic Raab MP: Tomorrow night, MPs can put extradition reform on the agenda

Dominic Raab is the Conservative MP for Esher and Walton. The Spectator recently gave him their coveted newcomer of the year award.

On Monday at 6.30pm, the House of Commons will debate extradition reform (any vote will be at 9.30pm). For those who believe in standing up for our core liberties - and basic standards of British justice - extradition reform is an acid test. I have written elsewhere about the case for reform of the European Arrest Warrant and the arrangements under the UK-US treaty. A rising number of our citizens, many manifestly innocent, are being subjected to rough justice – like the appalling treatment of Andrew Symeou, Deborak Dark and Michael Turner. On Monday night, MPs have an opportunity to do something about it.

The motion calls on the government to introduce legislative proposals to enact the basic safeguards recommended by the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR), rather than accept the ‘do nothing’ counsel of the Baker review. Of course, the House cannot tie its own hands. The detail of any Bill would need to go through the proper Parliamentary process in the usual way. Each recommendation would be scrutinised, one by one. But, the motion prevents extradition reform from being punted into the long grass, and takes the JCHR recommendations as the benchmark. It is not asking the executive to do the impossible – calling on government to ‘pursue’ renegotiation of the European Arrest Warrant and UK-US extradition arrangements. No amendments have been laid, to try and tweak the motion or fudge the issue. So, MPs face a simple, straight, question: do you support or oppose extradition reform?

In addition to the many Conservatives, the motion has strong cross-party support, including Sir Ming Campbell, two Labour Chairs of Select Committees (Hywell Francis and Keith Vaz). The fifty-three sponsors of the motion – from John Redwood to Dennis Skinner - were yesterday joined by Mayor Boris Johnson, adding his full-throated support for reform:

"It is a travesty that the government has been too feeble to help Gary McKinnon and others in similar positions, by ignoring its duty to protect the well-being of its citizens. We need to bring to an end this brutal and absurd law."

Dominic Raab MP: Making it easier to deport serious criminals

Dominic Raab is Conservative MP for Esher and Walton.

Since the Human Rights Act (HRA) entered into force, the grounds for blocking deportation have expanded. Before the HRA, there was not a single UK case of deportation of a foreign national criminal blocked under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), namely the right to family life. As a result of judicial legislation, there are now hundreds of successful challenges under Article 8 each year.

In July 2007, on becoming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown told The Sun:

‘If you commit a crime you will be deported. You play by the rules  or  you  face  the  consequences...  I’m  not  prepared  to tolerate a situation where we have people breaking the rules in our country when we cannot act.'

Yet, his own UK Borders Act 2007 included the express exception that automatic deportation – for crimes resulting in a prison sentence of at least 12 months – were subject to the HRA. Under the HRA, where the UK courts find an incompatibility between an Act of Parliament and the ECHR, the matter goes back to the government and ultimately Parliament has the last word. By including the express HRA exception, Brown allowed the UK courts to get round this democratic safeguard. In effect, there was no clash with the UK Borders Act, because the HRA was deemed part of it.

Dominic Raab: Perils and injustices in the Equality Act

Dominic Raab is Conservative MP for Esher and Walton.

Two of the major flaws of the last government - excessive political correctness and ill-thought through legislation – found their perfect form in Harriet Harman’s Equality Act. Whilst the aim of bringing together the various disparate strands of anti-discrimination legislation made some sense on grounds of clarity, it was feared that the Bill would become a vehicle for social engineering.

Four hangover provisions of the Act, not brought into force before the 2010 election, left a dilemma for the incoming coalition – the parties have mixed views on them. Ministers acted swiftly to ditch the public sector duty to reduce socio-economic inequality, the notorious "socialism-in-one clause". Then, they reined in plans by the previous government to impose mandatory gender pay audits on business - adopting a voluntary approach, working with businesses to increase transparency rather than generating onerous bureaucratic requirements. So far, so good.

However, in April of this year, the government quietly implemented section 159 of the Equality Act - which for the first time licences positive discrimination in recruitment - where several candidates are "as qualified as each other ". In the Soviet style double-speak of the Equality and Human Rights Commission this is merely "positive action". Yet, when it comes to offering a job, the decisive factor may now ultimately be race, gender, sexuality, age, disability, religion, philosophical belief or other social factors - positive discrimination by any other name. It will be voluntary to begin with, but the Commission clearly expects to coax and cajole its increasing use. Such positive discrimination warps the basic value of equality. It smacks of double standards, and has created bitter divisions wherever it has been tried, mainly in countries grappling with historic injustice or ethnic strife - like Malaysia, South Africa and the United States. Section 159 is a recipe for resentment, stigmatising new recruits and sowing social discord. As Kat Akingbade told the Independent on Sunday when she learnt she had been awarded a new job as a Channel 4 TV presenter on grounds of colour: "Positive discrimination robs an individual of drive and self-motivation; it completely undermines the achievements and abilities of the hard-working and truly gifted".

Dominic Raab MP: It's time to get tough with Bob Crow and the RMT

Dominic Raab is MP for Esher and Walton

London’s commuters are bracing themselves for the longest ever spate of tube strikes over the next month, as Bob Crow’s Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union calls six days of industrial action. The justification? RMT wants the reinstatement of two tube workers, one sacked for breaching safety procedures, the other for abusing a fellow tube worker. Mr Crow has accused London Underground of victimising and harassing union activists. While London Underground stand steadfastly by their decision, both cases will be settled by an employment tribunal. Both employees remain on full pay. So how can it be right for RMT to inflict such unprecedented economic damage on the capital, and widespread chaos on commuters?

The last tube strike cost the capital around £50 million each day, disrupting over a million people. The latest strikes risk even worse, the last thing our fragile economy needs right now. In typical Soviet-style double-speak, Mr Crow trumpeted a ‘massive vote for action by tube drivers’. In fact, he is unleashing chaos with backing of just 379 tube drivers (or 29% of RMT members), whilst ‘instructing’ all tube drivers not to show up for work - whether they voted for strike action or not, and in spite of the pay they will forfeit.

Dominic Raab MP: The Case Against China

Dominic Raab is Conservative MP for Esher and Walton.

A young unemployed market trader sets himself ablaze, sparking unrest that ends the twenty-three year reign of Tunisia’s authoritarian President. A middle-class Facebook campaign topples Hosni Mubarak, ending his thirty years of iron-fist rule in Egypt. Yet, last week, the world’s largest communist dictatorship – China – quietly overtook democratic Japan to become the second biggest economy in the world, destined according to some to catch America within a decade. Is Chinese democracy inevitable, as Bill Clinton quipped fourteen years ago, or can the Communist Politburo buck the call of history?

Last year Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, called for China to ‘resolve the issue of the excessive concentration of unrestrained power’, allowing ‘the people to criticise and supervise the government’. In reality, China has become more heavy-handed. A ‘tenure’ system to make party hacks more accountable to local people has fizzled, while the experiment with greater ‘village’ democracy led to soaring numbers of rural protests.

Hopes the Olympics would incentivise greater respect for basic human rights proved forlorn. Chinese security forces deployed live ammunition against Tibetan protesters in 2008, while those detained were subject to electric shocks and other torture. A spate of disappearances was documented in China’s restive Xinjiang province in 2009, while Amnesty reported the sweeping up of activists to muzzle dissent during the games themselves. Last December, literary critic and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, was unable to accept his award, because he is serving an 11 year sentence for ‘incitement to overthrow state power.’

Nor is such ruthlessness confined to domestic policy. From Chinese-run Zambian mines to military support for Sudanese repression in Darfur, China is accused of running rough-shod over human rights to deepen its commercial foothold across this vulnerable continent.

But will any of this hamper China’s economic ascent?

Dominic Raab MP: How we should respond to calls to revise our occasionally perverse human rights laws

Dominic Raab is MP for Esher and Walton and a member of the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.

This week Frances Lawrence, widow of the courageous head teacher murdered by Learco Chindamo in 1995, called for the revision of our human rights laws. Her frustration will be shared by many: ‘Chindamo is being given every help while my family is hung out to dry’.

The cruel irony of our perverse law is that Chindamo blocked deportation by claiming the right to family life – having shattered the lives of the Lawrence family. He promised to lead a clean life and help his ailing mother, but was recalled to prison within months of release after allegations he mugged someone at a cash point.

Meanwhile, Mrs Lawrence was asked by probation officers in 2001 to apologise for publicly criticising Chindamo’s lack of remorse. Apparently, he found this hurtful. Then, this year, when she asked for general information about where he was living – so her family could avoid the neighbourhood – she was rebuffed, again to avoid infringing Chindamo’s privacy rights. Our justice system is out of kilter. So, how can we sensibly respond to Mrs Lawrence’s call, without resorting to knee-jerk reactions?

First, by understanding the problem. The 2007 Chindamo ruling on deportation was made under the EU Citizens Directive, but the court said that its analysis under the Human Rights Act (HRA) was the same. The Directive is a classic example of an EU law badly negotiated by Labour in 2004, with Britain overruled by qualified majority based on changes introduced by the Nice Treaty. However, the wider exploitation of the ‘right to family life’ to block deportation cannot be blamed on Europe. In 2009, the House of Lords made crystal clear that the European Court of Human Rights may have blocked deportation to prevent return to torture (the notorious Chahal ruling), but Strasbourg had never upheld a bar to deportation to prevent interference with family life. That was an innovation made by the UK courts in 2008 under the Human Rights Act.

The human rights lobby claim that replacing the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights would make no difference, unless Britain pulls out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). That is defeatist nonsense. The fetters on deportation, where it disrupts family ties, are a direct result of judicial legislation under the HRA - a clear example of a home-grown problem we can address without pulling out of the ECHR. An investigation by the Sunday Telegraph in 2009 revealed that in most cases where deportation is blocked on human rights grounds, the claim is not fear of torture, but disruption to family life.

So what can we do about it?

Dominic Raab MP: There is much we need to do to combat the modern day slavery that is human trafficking

Dominic Raab was elected MP for Esher and Walton at this year's general election and writes on the eve of Anti-Slavery Day.

Polish men conned into working on building sites in Sheffield without being paid, then turfed out of their squalid digs, onto the streets, by thugs with baseball bats. Young Romanian women duped into searching out a new life in this country, only to be handed over to criminal gangs running brothels. It is a sad fact that, tomorrow, we mark Anti-Slavery Day not as a commemoration of history, but as a clarion call to action.

These are not isolated cases. Human trafficking is a burgeoning trade in misery, with men and women sold for thousands of pounds each. Police upper estimates of the number of victims trafficked into Britain have quadrupled in recent years, from 4,000 to 18,000. The last government made a big song and dance about ratifying the European Convention on Human Trafficking. Now, in opposition, they are calling for Britain to ‘opt in’ to an EU Directive. But, passing new laws, and signing up to international rules, will not make up for longstanding failures in law enforcement.

The Metropolitan Police’s human trafficking unit was axed by Labour – just months before the election – and rolled into SCD9 command. Outside the capital, too many police forces do not incorporate human trafficking into their Control Strategy, so it is not an operational priority.

At the same time, Labour invested in the UK Human Trafficking Centre in Sheffield, which focuses on liaison between government agencies and raising awareness. Given the finite resources available, the focus should have been on maintaining the limited operational capacity we have. Clearly, the current financial pressures restrict our ability to reverse all of these mistakes in the short term. Nevertheless, when the Government establishes the National Crime Agency, cracking down on human trafficking should be part of its mainstream work in cooperation with local forces.

Dominic Raab MP: Why it should be harder for individuals to obtain an arrest warrant against those accused of war crimes

By Dominic Raab MP (Esher and Walton), who was a British diplomat between 2000 and 2006.

War hero, or war criminal? That was the debate I inherited early in 2006, returning from a posting as head of war crimes at the British Embassy in The Hague, to take on the ‘Near East’ portfolio in London. Israeli General, Doron Almog, had narrowly escaped arrest at Heathrow pursuant to a private prosecution brought by Palestinian activists. A hero to Israelis – in 1976, Almog was amongst the crack troops that rescued Israeli citizens hijacked by Palestinian terrorists and held in Entebbe. A war criminal to Palestinians – who accused him, as Commander in the Gaza strip, of demolishing homes (Israelis say the buildings were hideouts for terrorists).

Most of the cases I worked on in The Hague had been more clear-cut – like the Srebrenica massacre of 7,000 Muslim men and boys in Bosnia, or the horrific attacks on children in the long forgotten conflict in northern Uganda. International consensus in favour of criminal prosecutions had been slowly but surely built up around the moral clarity and widespread outrage that followed such wanton violence targeted against innocent civilians. Even the Bush administration – deeply sceptical about the International Criminal Court - gave tacit backing to its pursuit of those responsible for the appalling crimes in Darfur. 

But, an increasing number of countries – including Britain - are also taking national jurisdiction over such international crimes. International tribunals are expensive, cumbersome and bureaucratic. Domestic courts, some argued, should plug the gaps.

In the UK, it came with a twist. Our justice system allows for ‘private prosecutions’ – pro-active citizens can bring criminal culprits to book, where the state fails to act. Today, they are relatively rare and - like the prosecution brought by the family of murdered London teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1995 - they often fail. The Crown Prosecution Service would normally take over strong cases. Still, the principle remains, although it was not designed to deal with crimes committed abroad. The procedure allows private individuals to seek an arrest warrant from a magistrate’s court, which applies a wafer thin test. Does jurisdiction exist? And is there any information that might support the allegations? No real evidential threshold. No requirement that a prosecutor check the credibility of the claims.

The government now plans to change those rules in war crimes cases. That may be controversial – but it is the right decision.

By Dominic Raab MP (Esher and Walton), who was a British diplomat between 2000 and 2006.

Dominic Raab MP: Is the transatlantic relationship still "special"?

By Dominic Raab MP (Esher and Walton), who was a British diplomat between 2000 and 2006.

English frustration, held by the USA on the football pitch, is nothing compared to the recent beating Britain has taken from its closest ally in the diplomatic ring. A string of spats have got many asking whether Obama’s America appreciates their loyalty – and whether the special relationship has entered a twilight era.

There was shock at the language the President deployed towards BP, over the oil company’s catastrophic spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The President’s habitual composure descended into the gruff threat to hold a ‘boot to the throat’ of what he now stresses is British Petroleum (no-one calls the company that) - language that Obama’s predecessor might have used against countries he deemed ‘evil’, but never a close friend.

Under fire at home, the President lashed out at what he depicts as a foreign corporate bogeyman – but not the two American firms with stakes in the Deepwater Horizon drilling. President Obama’s bluster is particularly difficult to fathom, since it hurts US interests – his comments helped wipe almost half the share price of a company which is 40% owned by American shareholders, and which he needs healthy to pay for the clean-up.

And it is not the only slight. Last week, the US supported a unanimous resolution by the Organisation of American States calling for Britain to negotiate the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. Secretary of State Clinton rubbed salt in the wound by offering to mediate. But, mediate what? Either sovereignty is decided on the basis of title or democratic principle. If title, the Falklands were neither discovered nor first settled by the Spanish. Britain has been in continuous control since 1833. On gaining independence, Argentina claimed the Falklands as its ‘inheritance’ – a claim roundly rejected by the US (as well as Britain). If title is up for grabs on that basis, perhaps Britain should offer to mediate the sovereignty of Texas? If, on the other hand, the 3,000 odd people living there get to decide their own fate, the Falklands would stay British by the kind of vote that would make Hugo Chavez blush. The US position has shifted since the Falklands war from impartiality – in reality, studious US neutrality belied Defence Secretary Weinberger’s blanket support for Britain – to tacit support for Argentine claims.