Speeches by Jones.

“We have been very clear all the way through that we believe that the wrong decision was made. The message that it sent to the wider world risked being the message that Jews were not welcome in the west midlands; that is one of the most awful things that could be received by Jewish people around the world. We want to ge…”

“The right hon. Gentleman knows that I cannot tell him the motivation for any of the decisions that were made. The Prime Minister’s clear view is that the decision made by the safety advisory group was the wrong decision and that we must ensure that this does not happen again. Safety advisory groups are local groups, wi…”

“I was not a party to conversations between Aston Villa and UEFA, nor was I a party to the decision- making process. The Government have no political involvement whatsoever in the safety advisory groups—we do not feed into that process at all. That is one of the questions we are looking at, because perhaps that is not t…”

“As far as I am aware, UEFA was not in the SAG meeting. Of course, there would have been conversations with Villa, which ultimately had to make the decisions. It is a complicated decision-making process, as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) said. The SAG sits to consider advice. The police…”

“I was in Birmingham last week to launch our winter of action: police working in our town centres and closely with retailers and other organisations to stamp down on and prevent crime. I was with the police and crime commissioner, who is doing a good job in the policing of the community. For the 4 million people who go …”

“Policing by consent is the bedrock of our policing, and I think everybody across the House would agree with that—those Peel principles drive everything we want our police to do. There are a number of areas where that model of policing by consent has been tested in recent years, and public order and protest are a case i…”

“The hon. and gallant Member is absolutely right; people can, and I would encourage them to do that. Respect orders are part of the legislation that we are bringing in. We do not have time to get into this because I want to let the hon. and gallant Member wind up at the end, but respect orders will have a place in terms…”

“They are very much not a burden or a nuisance; they are doing their civic duty, for which we are very grateful, and we encourage them to continue to do so. Reporting is absolutely key. I have had similar conversations to the ones that she and, I suspect, all of us have had, particularly when things have gone on for a v…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) on securing the debate. There is clearly a problem. It is not my job to defend the status quo; it is my job to consider what we can do about the problem. This debate has brought forwa…”

“The Home Office was aware. As was discussed in the previous panel, its relationship with what was happening, in terms of the West Midlands police, the SAG and the decisions, was via this body called the United Kingdom Football Policing Unit, or UKFPU, which was the interaction that the Home Office had. The Home Office …”

“Again, I will bring in Richard in a minute on the timings of what happened when, but I think the fundamental point was that the Home Office position was to be a receiver of information. We were asking for information—DCMS was the same—and were part of the flow of information across Government. We did not have a role, s…”

“It is much nicer on that side of the table.”

“Do you want to talk through the detail, Richard, and then I can come back?”

“If I can come in here, when police forces want mutual aid—support for matches—the request does not normally come via us; it would come into the wider policing system, so we would not necessarily be part of that process. As Richard says, I asked for information on the 15th. We got information back that said that there w…”

“We had neither the risk assessment nor any intelligence.”

“I am Sarah Jones, the Minister for Policing. I used to be on the Home Affairs Committee.”

“There is a big difference between commenting after a decision has been made and before. No comment was made in the run-up to the decision. It would not have been right, nor did we try or even think about trying, to influence what the police may have to say about the safety of a match. Once the decision had been made, t…”

“As I said, the Prime Minister was expressing a view. Rightly or wrongly, people thought that Jewish people were not being welcomed into our country to watch a football match. Of course, the decision—and this speaks to the challenge that we have in looking at these issues—was not made in a vacuum. The police chiefs know…”

“He met with my predecessor as Policing Minister. We were not there, but the action from that was that the UKFPU was to work with Lord Mann, as we understand it. Lord Mann will know whether that happened or not.”

“Do you mean that in terms of whether it was the hooligan element?”