Michael O'Brien KC (born 19 June 1954) is a British lawyer and former Labour Party politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for North Warwickshire from 1992 to 2010, serving in a number of ministerial posts.
Early life Mike O'Brien attended state schools, a Roman Catholic primary school, St George's and then later Blessed Edward Oldcorne School in Worcester. He studied for a BA in History and Politics at North Staffordshire Polytechnic, then gained a PGCE. From 1977 to 1980, he was a trainee solicitor, then trained as a teacher from 1980 to 1981. He lectured on business law at Colchester College of Further and Higher Education from 1981 to 1987. From 1987 to 1992, he practised as a solicitor specialising in criminal law, including cases of murder and City fraud, and acted for a major defendant in the Knightsbridge Security Deposit robbery. He became a Queen's Counsel in 2007. He now practises as a barrister at No5 Chambers in Birmingham.
Parliamentary career O'Brien contested Ruislip Northwood in 1983, and North Warwickshire in 1987. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for the West Midlands constituency of North Warwickshire at the 1992 general election, defeating the Conservative incumbent Francis Maude.
He served on the Home Affairs Select Committee from November 1992 to May 1993 focusing on reports on Youth Justice and the defence of provocation in murder cases involving a spouse.
He was a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee which opened up scrutiny of the intelligence services by Parliament. This led to the first meeting of MPs and the head of MI5, then Stella Remington, and this later led to wider parliamentary scrutiny of the intelligence services.
The Home Affairs Committee also did a report on Domestic Violence, which focused on the extent of the problem. One of the strongest recommendations of the report was: "The first priority for government action on domestic violence should be the establishment of a central, co-ordinated policy for refuge provision throughout the country. We believe that this could well be the single greatest cost-saving measure that could be taken". This led to an expansion in the number of refuges in the following decade. The report also focused on the effect of immigration law on victims of domestic violence and has been credited with supporting a feminist perspective on domestic violence. Influenced by evidence from Southall Black Sisters the report also raised awareness of the problems of domestic servants who faced deportation if they complained about being abused and this later led to changes in the immigration rules when Mike O'Brien became Immigration Minister.Home Truths About Domestic Violence: Feminist Influences on Policy and Practice – A Reader Jalna Hanmwer Catherine Itzin
Mike O'Brien introduced a Private Members Bill on 21 April 1993, the Criminal Justice Amendment (No.2) Bill, to allow previous convictions to be taken into account when sentencing a convicted person. This sought to amend the Criminal Justice Act 1991. The Government then accepted the principle and later amended the law.
In May 1993 he became the first Labour Parliamentary Adviser to the Police Federation of England and Wales in 20 years. He opposed cuts in Police Funding, criticising the then Home Secretary Michael Howard saying, "I am appalled at how badly the Home Secretary …has handicapped the police and the fight against crime".
O'Brien subsequently transferred to the Treasury Select Committee where he worked on a report into the collapse of Barings Bank and other reports on City Fraud and Independence of the Bank of EnglandFirst Report, Barings Bank and International Regulation, HC (Session 1996–97) 65. TCSC 18 November 1996 HC 65
He clashed with Sir Robin Butler when the Treasury Select Committee investigated the impartiality of the civil service. He criticised the cabinet secretary for allowing himself to be used to investigate whether a Minister Secretary Jonathan Aitken had stayed at a Paris Hotel. "Sir Robin was, at best, ill qualified to undertake any such investigation, as he did not in any previous incarnation have experience of being a policeman, a private investigator or a barrister trained in interrogation. He had none of the qualifications for playing the detective… Sir Robin Butler should not allow himself to be dragged into the gutter of partisan politics, nor should any civil servant. Some members of the Select Committee fear that impartiality has been undermined, and that should never happen again."
Mike O'Brien raised concerns in Parliament after the Matrix Churchill manufacturing plant in Coventry closed, calling on the government to "ensure that those workers and their families are compensated for the loss of their livelihood".
As a member of Treasury Select Committee, he called for the director of the Serious Fraud Office "to go" and for an inquiry into the case of Roger Levitt.
In the May 2010 general election, O'Brien lost his North Warwickshire constituency to Dan Byles, the Conservative Party candidate by 54 votes.
Minister of State for Immigration Mike O'Brien served as Parliamentary Under Secretary Minister of State for Immigration in the Home Office from 1997 till May 1999. Mike O'Brien, said that the last Conservative government left the immigration system in "a complete shambles" and it could take two years or more to process an application for asylum and "we need to speed up the system. The deportation system is manifestly slow and cumbersome and produces inequity."
O'Brien described to a colleague the chaos he discovered in the department on being appointed as Immigration Minister: "Once, on a visit to IND, he opened a cupboard and found it full of unanswered mail, having just been assured there were no more outstanding letters. A hapless junior official was summoned. His explanation? 'We put them there so that the Minister wouldn't see them'".Chris Mullin "View from the Foothills" Profile Books Ltd 2009. Page 264
In October 1997, after consulting with lawyers from Stonewall, Mike O'Brien announced a change in UK immigration law allowing citizens to sponsor unmarried partners in 1997, including same-sex couples in this group. "Under this concession, a couple must show that they have been living together for four years or more and intend to continue to live together permanently. Once admitted they will have to show that the relationship has subsisted for a further year before being granted settlement". In 1999, again consulting with Stonewall, he announced this was improved by reducing the required length of relationship to two years. This was the first step taken by the New Labour government toward equality for the LGBTQ community.
As a Home Office Minister responsible for race relations, Mike O'Brien worked with Jack Straw to set up the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, meeting with the Lawrence family and their lawyers. He later endorsed the Macpherson Report in a book called "Institutional Racism and the Police: Fact or Fiction?" saying that, "The Report is about securing the commitment of all of us to tackling racism, whether open or unwitting throughout our society, not just in the police force.... The important thing for all of us is that Britain is a multiracial society. We have a choice whether to succeed as one or not. Racism in all its guises endangers and undermines the future success of our society; that is why to be racist in today's multi-racial Britain is to be 'un-British'.""Institutional Racism and the Police: Fact or Fiction?" David G. Green (Editor) John G.D. Grieve & Julie French, Michael Ignatieff, Mike O'Brien, Robert Skidelsky. Institute for the Study of Civil Society London First published August 2000 © The Institute for the Study of Civil Society 2000 email: [email protected] Pages 25–26
Since 1992, the trend for net migration to the UK had been rising and continued till 1999. In 1997, annual net immigration stood at 56,000 but by 2001 net immigration had risen to 191,500.
In March 1998, Mike O'Brien told Parliament that in 1994, the previous administration had scrapped the "embarkation checks for passengers travelling from ferry ports and small ports to destinations within the European Union; so, for four years, 40 per cent. of departing passengers have not been seen by an immigration officer…We inherited an embarkation control which serves little purpose in the tracking down of immigration offenders" and therefore Mike O'Brien described the procedure of checking passports as "routine and unproductive" and said that "Enhanced technology, such as closed circuit television, combined with close liaison between the border agencies, port operators and airlines, will create a stronger deterrent than the current immigration departure checks." The Immigration Service Union criticised the move, saying the changes made it harder to ensure that illegal immigrants ordered out of the country actually left.
In May 1998, Mike O'Brien announced that inhabitants of the island of Montserrat, which had been hit by volcanic eruptions, were able to stay in Britain indefinitely. O'Brien's time as Minister of State for Immigration saw him deal with the late 1990s administrative problems including delays in officials giving clearance to NHS doctors and backlogs in processing applications for passports. The delays in issuing passports made national headlines and resulted in the UK Passport Agency being stripped of its Charter Mark for customer service.
Mike O'Brien also took through major reforms in the Immigration and Asylum Act, including introducing fines for hauliers found to have illegal migrants in their lorry, whether or not the haulier knew of their presence.
Responding to a debate on forced marriage on 10 February 1999, Mike O'Brien told MPs that "…multicultural sensitivity is no excuse for official silence or moral blindness. We long ago abolished laws that treated women as chattels. We cannot shelter or tolerate bad practices under the guise of sensitivity." He announced a national dialogue on how to deal with forced marriage which led to the forced marriage unit run jointly by the Foreign Office and the Home Office.
Mike O'Brien developed the procedures for the creation of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (also known by the acronym SIAC) as a superior court of record in the United Kingdom established by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission Act 1997. SIAC deals with appeals from persons deported by the Home Secretary for reasons of national security or terrorism. It allows the security service to disclose confidential intelligence information to the court without disclosing its sources. Information and the source is disclosed to a special advocate who acts for the person but cannot disclose the source of information to either the person or their main lawyers. Speaking at the close of the committee stage of the bill, O'Brien said the law had, "been governed by the terms of the European Court of Human Rights judgment in the case of Chahal. It is about creating the right balance between the liberty of the individual and the safety of the state."
Hinduja affair Whilst serving as Minister of State for Immigration, O'Brien had to deal with the 2001 Hinduja affair. His testimony that Peter Mandelson had telephoned him on behalf of S P Hinduja, who was at the time seeking British citizenship, led to Mandelson's resignation. An independent enquiry by Sir Anthony Hammond came to the conclusion that Mike O'Brien had acted correctly and neither Mandelson nor anyone else had acted improperly.
Minister for Constitutional Affairs On 10 May 1999, Mike O'Brien became the Minister for Constitutional Affairs, taking through the Commons the Freedom of Information Act, The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, two Representation of the People Acts and introduced a White Paper on Alcohol Licensing Reform.