On his last day as Justice Secretary, David Lammy was accused of ‘fighting to cover up foreigners’ crimes’. This is because the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) which he led is taking legal action against the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), seeking to overturn a ruling which instructed them to publish conviction data by nationality and offence type for the past seven years. This ICO ruling followed a Freedom of Information request by the Centre for Migration Control (CMC).
Why are they so determined to avoid publishing the data? In truth, there seems to be no good reason
I spoke with Rob Bates, the CMC’s Director, who explained to me what has happened:
‘We first requested the data in June last year, only to be met with resistance from the Ministry of Justice which claimed the information was exempt from disclosure because it pertained to personal information. In July last year we escalated the case to the Information Commissioner’s Office who gave the MoJ the opportunity to set out their case.
Over a year after the original request, last month the ICO finally ruled that the MoJ has “not demonstrated” how this dataset would lead to the identification of individuals, nor how the costs involved in its production would be excessive, and that the MoJ must “disclose the requested information”.’
Further, Bates told me that during this time the MoJ ‘introduced a spurious claim that the data should be withheld for cost reasons.’
And now, the government are taking this matter to the courts, which will incur substantially more costs than the £500 limit for an FOI request. Why are they so determined to avoid publishing the data? In truth, there seems to be no good reason. The MoJ has already produced a large amount of this data – as Bates argues, ‘it is sitting there ready to be released’ – so there is perhaps another reason they don’t want it published.
The only reason I can think of is that the information itself is going to reveal information the government would rather keep secret. If, as expected, it shows that particular nationalities are overrepresented, especially in violent and sexual crimes, then that will be one more nail in mass migration’s coffin. It will also reveal that officials and politicians are complicit in the migrant crime wave, because they are fighting to keep the public in the dark about the actual outcomes of our migration and asylum policies.
Why else fight so hard to keep the information secret?
I spoke to Zia Yusuf, Reform’s shadow home secretary, who said ‘David Lammy’s attempt to block the publication of this data is a disgrace. If Labour has nothing to hide, it should publish the figures today.’
I don’t find this convincing, and nor does Bates:
‘There is no justifiable reason for the Ministry of Justice to be attempting to block the publication of these migrant crime statistics, unless of course they have something to hide. The Centre for Migration Control will use every available means to fight this attempted cover-up. The public has the right to know the impact that uncontrolled migration has had on their country.’
As Bates says, in a serious country, this data would be published as a matter of course, along with economic activity data by country of origin, so that we could have a sensible, informed and pragmatic debate about migration. In the UK, which is not a sensible country, officials seek to keep information secret if it might show that government policy is stupid and harmful.
I asked the MoJ for comment. They told me that ‘we are in the process of appealing the Independent Complaints Office’s decision and we do not comment on live legal proceedings’, although I understand they do not think this is a cover-up.
In order to fund their legal action, and eventually publish the data, the CMC have launched a crowdfunder, while of course the government can spend as much taxpayers’ money as they like on Government Legal Services. It should not be like this. There should be a presumption that the state publishes all data which informs policymaking, rather than guarding it jealously in Whitehall, as though certain truths are too dangerous for the electorate to know (or, more likely, too much of a threat to what Whitehall wants to do). It remains to be seen whether Alex Norris, Lammy’s successor will be brave enough to overrule secretive civil servants and publish the data on foreigners’ crimes.
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