Dame Meg Hillier
MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have huge respect for the Minister, but she has said that she will not take any interventions. She is a very good Minister, and I trust that she will answer in detail the points that have been raised in the House today; having discussions with her and the Government after the debate is too late…”
“My hon. Friend talks about who makes our laws, and she has talked in articles that she has written about the primacy of this place. If the Bill goes forward, is she willing to accept amendments?”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend to her place and thank her for that response, which demonstrates the complications of these schemes. I asked the National Audit Office to look into this, and yesterday the Public Accounts Committee published its report on compensation schemes, suggesting that a central body be established.”
“I am pleased by my right hon. Friend’s answer, but she is in a unique position across Government to ensure that we are protecting not only women, but those who are blind or have visual impairments, who really value this technology.”
“I welcome the Chancellor’s clampdown on speculation and leaks ahead of the Budget; it is certainly an important step he has taken. On the issue of certainty, the National Wealth Fund is a critical investor in crowding in private investment around the UK. I noted that he has changed the remit.”
“Further to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), it is important that we talk here and that we have diplomacy, but what practical actions are the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence taking to ensure that there is a review of physical defence and security, so that we send a clear message to t…”
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“It would not be an impossible model to suggest that anybody applying for a visa in the UK needed to provide proof that they had adequate and appropriate health insurance. I have the privilege of chairing the Public Accounts Committee and it has looked at how the NHS secures money from overseas visitors seeking health treatment. When we last looked at it, certainly it was an imperfect model, but there is a system. Some hospitals, particularly the good ones, recharge the private insurance provider for the treatment they give. If they are not doing that, that is another issue, and one that the Government might want to look at improving, because anyone coming to this country certainly should not get free healthcare just because they happen to be in the UK.”
“I am interested to know why that figure is there and what it is made up of. If he could explain that, it would be very helpful. The impact assessment also notes additional net costs from an increase in visas granted with a fee waiver. Could the Minister provide a clarification? He might have addressed that in his opening remarks, so I apologise if I did not hear him because of the Division bell. The figure noted is £250 million—that is with caveats, as I have set out—but does he expect more fee waivers and, if so, why? Otherwise, is he able to give another explanation for that figure? The more general point about the scheme is that it is challenging for a lot of migrants. A lot of people who come to the UK—such as students or people who are on work visas—naturally come with private health insurance.”
“The assumption is that there might be a reduction in the number of people coming into the country—although the figures that I have just quoted suggest that a lot more people will still be coming—so I wonder how those figures counteract or work with the economic impact assessment outlined on page 2 of the impact assessment. We could see reductions in tax revenue and a reduction of £200 million in tuition fees. I will not quote all the figures as the Minister has them in front of him. The £110 million increase in processing costs is another figure that I am keen for the Minister to talk about. Will he give us a breakdown of why he expects that increase for the health surcharge? It is an increase in cost, not volume. It does not apply to a different cohort of people; it is the same cohort, but the cost has increased.”
“Therefore, although the number of applications is fairly static, the number of granted visas will increase, even though the Government say that it is their mission to reduce overall net migration to the tens of thousands. I think that is still a Government mission, so it would be helpful if the Minister could explain his strategy when the legal routes to come in are increasing the numbers to that extent. The impact assessment also outlines the in-country figures and shows that in-country applications are likely to double. I assume that is because of the cumulative nature of such applications, with some people applying and reapplying. If the Minister clarified that as well, it would be helpful. There is also a lot of uncertainty about the costs and indirect costs to the system.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I want to ask the Minister some questions, focusing in particular on the impact assessment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon has said, the figures are caveated—they are highly uncertain. If we look at the estimated application volumes, which are the central scenario for the five-year period between 2023-24 and 2028-19, we will see that the numbers are fairly static. If I have done my maths correctly, according to the estimates it is 1,016,000 in 2023-24, increasing to 1,032,000 in 2028-29. That is on page 7 of the Home Office’s impact assessment, as signed off by the Minister’s predecessor in October. Table 2 then gives the estimated visa application grants for the same period, and shows them increasing from 765,000 to 985,000.”
“The Minister talks about the average per UK resident. That was unclear from the impact assessment; I thought it referred to the average for the applicants paying the surcharge. However, the evidence is very clear, particularly for people such as students, the younger population, that they have very little purchase on the NHS when they are here, because generally they are a healthier population. Migrants tend to be younger. Therefore, has the Minister done an analysis of what the cost has been of providing healthcare to the cohort in question—that is, those who have been paying the health surcharge?”
“On a point of order, Mr Pritchard. We are in the middle of scrutinising a statutory instrument that will be passed or—looking at the numbers—might well be passed this afternoon, yet the Minister is unable to provide me with information and answers from what is a detailed and thoroughly worked up impact assessment. Officials are in the room. I am a patient woman: I do not need the answers this minute, but perhaps in the next 10 minutes—they were not difficult questions that I asked. They are questions that I think the Minister needs to answer before we agree an SI. I would appreciate your guidance, Mr Pritchard, on whether we can leave questions to be answered after a statutory instrument is passed. This is all from the impact assessment document.”
“I still stand to be advised by you about how best we might do that, Mr Pritchard, but the general principle is that we should not be passing secondary legislation without this. We are here to scrutinise, and in order to do that we need the answers to our questions.”
“I would not want to challenge your ruling, Mr Pritchard, but I do think there is a serious point here. We are being asked to agree secondary legislation on an important issue, and I have questions about some of the numbers in the impact assessment, which are heavily caveated—but nevertheless there are questions. I have sympathy for the Minister, who is new in post. It is a lot to read, but nevertheless I think there is an important issue for the Committee about whether we should be passing secondary legislation without full access to the facts and figures. These facts and figures have been coming for some time, and were actually signed off in October by the Minister’s predecessor, so I thought it would have been possible to get the answers.”
“On this occasion, Mr Pritchard, I will take your guidance. You are the Chair of this Committee and I respect your position. I will take other routes to raise this. I make it very clear that this is not at all an attack on the Minister. He is new in post. It is important, however, that we have stronger answers in Committee. This is not the first SI Committee I have been in where we have not been able to get answers, partly because of the churn of Ministers. I am not naming any individual Ministers, but the system should be better. On this occasion, I accept your helpful suggestion, but I will pursue answers to my questions.”
“I thank the Minister for that helpful comment. It is helpful to get the timetable clear. This impact assessment was signed off in October, so presumably the figures—I will say this for Hansard , so that it can be picked up—reflect the situation in October, and not the policy announcement as of 4 December. That makes me ask: what will the impact assessment be now, after that policy announcement in December? It would be very helpful if the Minister provided me with updated figures.”
“My constituent was the victim of a violent attack, but because the perpetrator got a sentence of less than 12 months, she was not told when he was released from prison. The police say that it is impossible for them to go through the records of everybody who is released in order to advise her, so there is a gap in victim support. Will the Secretary of State commit to resolving that?”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. She will recall that at the end of the last Labour Government, there were returns at the rate of one every eight minutes. Does that not demonstrate that, where there is a will, we can tackle those who should not be in the country and welcome those who should?”
“I thank the Minister for finally giving way to me. He skipped over the costs of the Rwanda scheme. Yes, we know about the £240 million and the £50 million next year, but only because, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said, it was leaked—it emerged from the Rwandan Government. That is being investigated. Can he not just share with the House the total cost of the scheme? There is no reason not to do so. It is a flagship scheme of the Government. The Minister, from what he has said, is clearly proud of it, so why can he not share with us the total cost committed in the treaty?”
“In more recent years, and certainly since the tragedy of Grenfell, we have expected property owners to keep proper, clear building plans that are easily accessible and can be supplied to the fire and rescue services, and any other interested parties.”
“How can Members who represent affected constituents press for a review if we pick up, though our work, issues with how the provisions are applied? Has the Minister given any consideration to the impact where a property does not have a plan? He will know about this, as a former Westminster City councillor. When I became a councillor, properties transferred to the council from the then Greater London Council often did not have proper plans. The plans available depended on when properties were built, and who the original landlord was. To what extent will plans have to be drawn up for buildings that never had them?”
“Can the Minister say anything about that, because £15 a month is not a lot for people in fancy, expensive leasehold properties, who, at the high end, are used to paying thousands of pounds a year in service charges, but others find it a challenge to find the extra £2 a month, or a week, for CCTV on their estate? What thought is going into that? There is a danger with bad leasehold companies, which manage properties badly and are not transparent about costs. It is easy to see how other costs could be hidden in this cost. What thoughts has he had on that? Is there a review point? The impact assessment says that there will be no separate review, other than the review that is built into the Building Safety Act 2022. Could the Minister remind us—I am afraid this does not come to mind—exactly how that review will work?”
“I know the Minister is quite hot on leasehold charges. As my colleagues have said, what efforts will be made to ensure that leaseholders, or indeed tenants, are not fleeced by charges? Where properties are tenanted, there will be certain restrictions. The Minister’s portfolio has shifted so I am confused about what is currently under his remit, but I hope he is able to shed some light on the impact on social rents. Obviously, there is a cap on how much social rents can increase by, but if those extra pressures are put on local authorities, housing associations and other landlords, they will have to pass them on in some way to tenants through service charges. For a lot of tenants, service charges are wrapped up in rents.”
“Could he explain who gets the full data? Is it the resident, and the landlord has some of it redacted? How will that work? There is an awful lot of personal information flying around here, and it is easy to see how there could be challenging GDPR issues. To echo the points from my colleagues about the impact on leaseholders, the guidance suggests an estimated £15-a-month charge to leaseholders over a 15-year period. That works out at about £180 per annum for 15 years. I am interested to know how the Department modelled those figures. A one-off map of the building—if that did not exist beforehand—is one cost; it does not change. The change would be the personal information about residents—the names of people moving in—so that there is a record of who is living there, and information about access and disability where appropriate.”
“It is quite a challenge for a building manager to keep up to date with people who have broken an ankle and have a problem for only a few months, rather than people who have a regular problem. There are also important privacy issues for people with a disability who may need support and assistance, relating to how that might be recorded and dealt with differently from other information. On data, a lot of blocks in Hackney have been sold to overseas landlords. There are landlords overseas and landlords in the UK—sometimes in London but often elsewhere. There are then the residents of those blocks—some are owners, and some are the tenants of those landlords. When the data is shared with the resident, there is reference to the redaction of personal data in some circumstances, as I am sure the Minister is aware.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I am aware that a number of regulations will flow out of the Building Safety Act, so could the Minister clarify whether disability and access information is recorded under this regulation? It is critical that there is a proper record of people who will need assistance when evacuating. I should have declared an interest in that I am a leaseholder and live above the seventh floor in a leasehold block, and I have had recent experience of a fire drill when an alarm went off. But I represent many constituents living in affected blocks, which is my main interest today as their constituency MP. Sometimes, temporary disability is an issue.”
“I thank the Minister for clarifying that. Does he have a rough timescale? I am asking not for a precise date, but for a range of dates when we might see that, because it is critical. I have a constituent who is particularly concerned about that issue.”
“Is there any further change in the rules or guidance for private landlords—they are the ones who would be in scope—that needs to happen as a result? It seems that there may be a small gap that is important and significant. What the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings said was helpful.”
“The Minister is making some helpful points. It is clear that he is very much on top of this matter, so I echo the comments made earlier. It has been helpful to meet him to discuss issues at times. On the issue of information, a lot of the properties in my constituency are tenanted—as I said earlier, the leaseholder is often living overseas or elsewhere—so we are reliant on the whole tenancy arrangement for information to be shared with the tenant. As far as I am aware—the Minister may want to have an exchange of letters about this—there is no absolute requirement on landlords to provide that document. Landlords must now provide 13 different documents to a tenant. The Minister has made general comments about fire safety and so on, but I do not recall anything specific about that document.”
“My constituent worked for the Secret Intelligence Service between 1975 and 1984. In 1984, he was offered a posting overseas, at which point he declared that he was gay, and he was then dismissed expressly because of his sexual orientation. I thank Lord Etherton for the review and for meeting me to discuss this. Clearly, the review does not cover my constituent, but he and others in his position do not even have the comfort of being able to go public at any point because of the nature of their employment. Has the Minister spoken to colleagues in other parts of Government? If not, will he undertake to do so, because this experience should not be prolonged for those in the secret element of service to this nation?”
“The Home Secretary says he will not reveal to the House the Attorney General’s advice, and that is fine, but on the issue of the money, his permanent secretary was in front of the Public Accounts Committee yesterday and told us that, as well as the payment of £50 million due next year, there are payments planned for years four and five. Is he willing to share with the House how much will be paid to Rwanda in years four and five of the programme?”
“The right hon. Gentleman casts aspersions on Labour’s approach to this issue. He is in the presence of two former Immigration Ministers: myself and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). At the end of the last Labour Government, there was one person being returned every eight minutes. I know from my own caseload that people who have reached the end of the line are still dribbling around the system, even though, as others have raised, they want to leave the country. What was the right hon. Gentleman’s record after 14 months as an Immigration Minister?”
“That is a £700 million contract for the first six years, which could extend to be worth £1.16 billion over 10 years. The money is intended to improve those reception centres, which definitely need improving, but according to that pre-tender document, the facilities are expected to be active between 2030 and 2034. I am a bit puzzled: £700 million is being invested in Manston and Western Jet Foil, and although that may be necessary, we have been told all afternoon—I have been here for five and a half hours—that the Rwanda policy is already deterring people. If it is working so well, why do we need to invest that much money in those facilities? They need the investment, but it seems to me that the Government are trying to have it both ways. I would welcome clarity from the Minister.”
“We need to tackle the backlog and we need transparency on the numbers, and I would be also be grateful if the Minister clarified whether any conditions are attached to the money going to Rwanda. We got a useful breakdown from the permanent secretary in Committee yesterday—I will not repeat it, but it is on the record from yesterday’s Committee meeting—but is there anything that it would be out of order for the Rwandans to spend that money on? It has been spent on reasonable things such as education, health and so on, but is there anything on which the Rwandans cannot spend the money that is given to them by the UK? It would be very helpful to know that. There was also an expression of interest for a contract for Manston and Western Jet Foil.”
“That is not scrutiny. In other areas and for other projects—I look to the Minister to answer on this point, or take it back to the Home Secretary—we get updates to the House every six months, or even more frequently, through Committees or laid before the House. That is not uncommon, yet the Minister’s permanent secretary was saying that it is normal to provide updates just through the accounts. We need more scrutiny of this issue: if it is a flagship Government policy, there is nothing to hide, so let us see those figures. The Public Accounts Committee and the Home Affairs Committee will work together on that issue—it is really important that we do that.”
“Friend and I, along with the other members of the Public Accounts Committee, asked the permanent secretary that question yesterday, but he was not forthcoming on that figure. He only released a figure to us when it was leaked to the International Monetary Fund—an investigation is happening into why that was. That is a ridiculous way of releasing figures. It is not normal parliamentary protocol to release information about major projects in the annual report and accounts, especially when we are voting on them in this House. For the benefit of colleagues who may not follow the annual accounts of Departments with the same enthusiasm as members of the Public Accounts Committee, the accounts for the financial year we are in will be published to Parliament in July next year, 15 months after the £100 million was allocated this year.”
“People in my constituency, including a top surgeon, those coming in on work permits and those on student visas, are all behind in the queue because all the Home Office’s effort is going into the Prime Minister’s pledge to deal with the backlog, which is just creating more chaos in the entire system. That approach is not working. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) touched on the question of money, and of course, we on the Public Accounts Committee have been trying to look at the money on this issue. I will not go through the figures, because my right hon. Friend has already set them out, but this is a five-year plan, and we have no figures for how much money will go to Rwanda in years four and five. My right hon.”
“These are people who actively want to leave because they know that is their only option, but they cannot do so. This Government must look much more closely at the existing system and how it is working. It has been 13 years of downgrading the asylum system and the immigration system generally, and now all these extra people have gone into dealing with the backlog of asylum cases—there are 20,000 legacy cases still left. Was 13 December the day on which the Prime Minister said that number would reach zero? He has missed that target, and 160,000 people have been backing up in the asylum system.”
“There are so many flaws in this scheme that the Government are struggling along, believing that a headline and a pledge that it will deter people is enough. That is not good policy making. We on the Labour Benches have often been challenged on what we would do differently. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) and I were on the frontline dealing with immigration matters during the last Labour Government, and my right hon. Friend was the architect of a system that meant that one person was being returned every eight minutes. I have people in my constituency who have reached the end of the line, and they know it. They come to me and we talk about voluntary return, but it is difficult to do that when the Home Office does not return those people’s documents and they have all these problems.”
“We have heard the sounds of optimism over truth coming from the Conservatives. The idea that the measure is a deterrent has not yet been proven, yet it has been cited as if it is actively deterring people from arriving in boats. We all know that the boats are a challenge. They are a real problem; people are dying in the channel. But let us be clear: the Government were the architects of this policy, and it is the second time they have legislated on it. Its architects have stood up, including the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) just now, and said how proud they are that they drew up the policy. But they drew it up so badly that they are having to revisit the legislation. I think they should be a bit less proud. Even though I do not agree with the policy, proper policy making means ensuring a policy works before announcing it.”
“He could be driving this, so I urge the Minister to speak up for his new boss. I hope that the Minister has been given the go-ahead to give us some comfort today that this issue will finally be revolved. There are only a few weeks until the end of the year, and I hope he can give us some comfort on the timeline.”
“It is against natural justice for people who have their homes owned by others as finance vehicles not to be able to have access to them. We need to make sure that this issue is dealt with, because if we do not deal with the issues of money laundering and economic crime across the piece, and we deal with them only domestically, without a strategy for the overseas territories and Crown dependencies, there is a risk that the problem will simply move, rather than be resolved. People with money and advice about where to hide it, if they are minded to hide it, will find ways to do that where those ways exist. This loophole needs to be closed and we have a prime opportunity, with the Foreign Secretary, the very person who, as Prime Minister, was backing that a decade ago, now sitting in the House of Lords and at the Cabinet table.”
“We are in a cost of living crisis, there is a huge pressure on the Exchequer and we have an election looming, with each party that is likely to be in government wanting to make promises to the electorate. This money is being hidden away without people knowing where it is and that is definitely having an impact on the tax take; it is an absolute opportunity for tax avoidance and tax evasion, in particular, and it is key that we have this register. In my constituency, a lot of properties are owned by offshore companies, some of them in the overseas territories, and it is impossible for the residents of those buildings to know who their landlord truly is; they face an address with no name attached, and no responses come from those landlords.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the passion of my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer). I have been on this journey with my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) since I served on the Public Accounts Committee when she was chairing it—shockingly, it is now 10 years on from that. We began to deal with some of the domestic issues with companies that had international footprints—the large companies such as Starbucks, which we had before the Committee. I remember that rollercoaster ride and my right hon. Friend should be congratulated on that work. Let us be clear what the impact of the lack of beneficial ownership registers is. Others have touched on security, but I wish to talk about the tax that is lost.”
“My hon. Friend talks about rebadging officers, but our wonderful police community support officers are worth a shout-out. They do day-to-day work and often stay in the job for a long time. When I am on doorsteps in Hackney, the residents often know the name of the local PCSO. Obviously, we need more police, but it would be good to have more PCSOs as well.”
“The Minister seems to be comparing figures I have not seen. If it is a record year, why have we seen such a dramatic drop in planning applications for onshore wind farms and in the number of onshore wind farms delivered? From a peak of 64 applications in 2011, it went right down to zero in 2019 and now to 10 in 2022, the latest figures the House of Commons Library could provide. That does not seem like a record year to me. Is it not time the Government stopped shilly-shallying on onshore wind and backed the builders, not the blockers?”
“The week before last, during Respect for Shopworkers Week, I had the pleasure of visiting one of my local Co-ops. They have had £155,000-worth of goods stolen in the first six months of this year. For many stores, that is enough to close them down. I commend USDAW—the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers—and the Co-op for the work they are doing on that, but the police are just not turning up or taking it seriously. I commend what my right hon. Friend says; let us see whether she can push the Government to move further here.”
“The right hon. Lady talks about having confidence in the criminal justice system. I will park for a moment the reason we are seeing an increase in police numbers: that, obviously, there was a drop previously. Does she agree that one of the biggest problems is the huge backlog in the courts—not as a result of covid; that has exacerbated it, but it was there before—that will take until 2025 to get anywhere near back to previous levels? I have a constituent who was violently attacked in front of her seven-year-old child. It was three years before her court case was taken. The situation leaves the police powerless, as the individual in question can keep breaking his non-molestation order, with no further action taken. It is all very well having the police officers, but does the right hon. Lady have anything to say about the court system?”
“The Co-op then pulls together that data—USDAW tells me that it is the same for other stores—and presents it to the police en masse to try to get a conviction, yet so little is taken up. A police officer will not necessarily attend an individual incident. I understand the pressures on the police in my borough, where there are lots of things going on. There always has to be a priority, but shoplifting is so often down the list of priorities that it is a real tragedy for those working in those shops.”
“It was interesting and sobering to talk to the member of staff at the Co-op who is responsible for collecting the information about shoplifting across the Co-op group. A lot of evidence is collected. We have heard examples of people going in and sweeping up food, with the same person often making several visits a day; they know when the security guard is on a break and go in then. They case the joint and steal repetitively. They are also increasingly aggressive, and staff tell me that they now go behind the tills more often. The staff now wear cameras to try to record video evidence. They collect video evidence and they collect evidence from staff, who have to take time out of their duties to report it. They tell me that they are assiduous in doing that because they see the importance of trying to tackle the issue.”
“I can see why the police will have lobbied the Government to have the right to chair misconduct proceedings, but I think there is a way of resolving that and keeping the independent oversight while giving police chiefs the right to sack people who have done the wrong thing. I also want to touch on something I mentioned in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) in relation to shoplifting. Shoplifting has increased 25% in the last 12 months alone, with offences under £200 rarely being enforced. I recently visited the Gainsborough Co-op in Shoreditch to talk to the staff there, and I thank them for hosting me. I have also spoken to the trade union USDAW.”
“A panel—chaired, I suggest, by an independent member—could find an officer guilty of misconduct and make a recommendation regarding an appropriate sanction, but the police chief would then make the decision to retain or sack that officer on the basis of the independent findings. We all know that confidence in policing is the foundation of our system and that policing by consent is something we should prize. It is essential for my constituents in Hackney and for people up and down this country that we take concrete steps to address the problems and fix the long-standing systemic issues. I think there is an opportunity to do that in policing.”
“As has been noted in various legal judgements, the legislative regime that has resulted is very complicated.” In regulated professions, the professional body deals with the public interest in fitness to practise issues, which means striking off people from the professional register when that is appropriate, while employers deal with breaches of the contract of employment, which means dismissal or some lesser sanctions. In the absence of a fitness to practise model in the police, a neat solution would be to separate findings relating to misconduct from the sanctioning element.”
“However, it adds another layer of proceedings—another potentially lengthy and resource-draining element. Policing is not a regulated profession, which is extraordinary when we think of comparable professions. As the IOPC points out in its response to the Home Office’s review of the process of police officer dismissals, “Police disciplinary proceedings have their origin in the employer-employee relationship between a constable and their chief officer. However, that relationship has been overlaid incrementally by a statutory regime intended to promote public confidence.”
“For example, a police chief or a police and crime commissioner might be required to make a statement immediately following a police incident, something we regularly see on our television screens and read about in the media. After that, the officers involved could be subject to a disciplinary hearing. How could that police chief then chair the panel objectively? There would be a clear conflict of interest. The Bill creates the right of a chief constable to appeal against a decision made by a misconduct hearing panel. The rationale for that is that police chiefs should have a right to determine whom they employ in their forces. On one level I completely understand that, and, as I say, all power to the elbow of Mark Rowley in wanting to get rid of bad officers in his employment.”