Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

7. What steps she is taking to tackle county lines drugs gangs.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

18. What steps she is taking to tackle county lines drugs gangs.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

23. What steps she is taking to tackle county lines drugs gangs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Henry Smith]

Sussex police were recently in receipt of a Home Office grant to tackle county lines drug offences. Will my hon. Friend update the House please?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is a doughty defender of Sussex police and a great supporter, I know, of the brilliant police and crime commissioner there, Katy Bourne, who is doing a fantastic job. He is right that Sussex police have been in the forefront of the fight against county lines and have received significant funding of £900,000 through the early intervention youth fund and £1.3 million to support police operations in the area. I am happy to say that in the latest week of intensification of action against county lines, which I hope he noted the other week, Sussex police made 29 arrests and safeguarded 50 vulnerable individuals.

Immigration Detention: Victims of Modern Slavery

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that, at any one time, 95% of those liable to detention are actually in the community and not in immigration removal centres at all. It is important to emphasise that a freedom of information request will elicit different data to that which is available in parliamentary questions. I reiterate the point that no central record is held and that the information from the FOI has been collated from a variety of sources and may well give an inaccurate picture. If there is one thing that one learns as a Home Office Minister it is to be very wary of numbers at all times and not to seek to give numbers that may be inaccurate.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

In my constituency, there are two immigration detention centres: Tinsley House and Brook House. May I seek assurances from the Minister that the staff who operate those centres receive correct and adequate training to ensure that they are identifying and detecting those who may have been victims of modern slavery?

[Caroline Nokes]

It is still very much the case that it is the Home Office and Home Office staff in the widest sense who identify the greatest number of victims of modern slavery. Training is provided, and it is important that training is not only provided, but refreshed and is an ongoing process. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made her commitment clear on this issue, and it has been a driving force in the Home Office to support her in the mission to stamp out this terrible crime, to identify the victims and to ensure that they are given the help that they need as victims.

Windrush Compensation Scheme

Henry Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. He is of course right to emphasise how important it is that we right these wrongs. I would like to give some further explanation. It is important to reflect that while we have worked very closely with Martin Forde to establish both the tariff-based scheme and actuals, so where people could evidence specific losses, they would be reimbursed for those losses, actually these different heads of claim, which can be claimed for, need not be in the singular but can be cumulative. There is also a discretionary category, which will enable people to claim for other losses, not necessarily identified within the scheme, which is uncapped. [Interruption.] The detail is provided in the scheme online, but it is important to reflect that while there is a tariff set at £10,000 for somebody who was wrongly deported, of course that could be in conjunction with other parts of the claim, which could add up to significant sums in addition to that.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

In addition to the Windrush compensation, can my right hon. Friend say when we will see pay-outs for the Chagos compensation scheme, which was set several years ago at £40 million to that exiled community over 10 years?

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend will be conscious that this urgent question is about the Windrush compensation scheme, but he will no doubt be reassured to hear that last week, when I met high commissioners from across the Commonwealth, that issue was raised with me, and I will be working closely with Home Office officials to update him on that.

Deprivation of Citizenship Status

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady lays down a fair challenge in asking that in such cases we—whether me or Ministers more generally—think very carefully about fairness and the impact of our decisions. I understand why she raised the issue of people who would look for excuses to try to radicalise populations and communities. That should weigh heavily in any decision on deprivation as against the Government’s responsibility to keep their citizens safe. It is worth keeping something else in mind. Let us imagine a hypothetical case where there is the possibility to keep a terrorist out of the country, but the Home Secretary decides not to, for some reason, and that that individual returns, continues to preach extremism and radicalise others, and potentially even carries out terrorist attacks. It is worth thinking about the impact of that on communities and how it could radicalise people.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Earlier today, several Labour MPs said that removing British citizenship from dual nationals accused of terror offences and acts against the British state could harm dual nationals residing abroad who get themselves into serious trouble. Is it not the case that, typically, countries deport back to this country British citizens convicted of serious crimes in those countries?

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend asks me about deportations. In the case of deportations from the UK, we are talking about individuals who, for one reason or another, if they have broken laws, we would seek to deport. The best example in the UK is probably the deportation of serious foreign national offenders once they have served their sentence in a British prison. We take a case-by-case approach, but where appropriate we would look to deport. As he pointed out, many countries seek to deport back to the UK British citizens abroad who have committed offences once they have completed their sentence.

UK Nationals returning from Syria

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend will know that when someone is charged, ultimately it is for the court and judge to decide any eventual punishment, but he can be assured that we want to ensure that justice is done in every single case, either in the region, by helping our allies or in some other way. Justice will be key in every case.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Will the Home Secretary confirm that the safety of no British officials, civilians or military, will be put at risk in an attempt to extract those suspected of supporting terrorism in countries across the middle east?

[Sajid Javid]

I am very happy to confirm that to my hon. Friend. As I mentioned earlier, anyone who has gone to Syria in recent years will have known the huge risk they were taking, and we certainly will not risk the lives of any British officials or soldiers, or anyone else, to help or rescue those who went to support terrorism.

Windrush Scheme

Henry Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

If the right hon. Gentleman is referring to cases in which someone does not have—to use his own words—precisely the right documentation, of course that should be looked at very carefully. The whole purpose of the taskforce is to work with such individuals to make the process as easy as possible, and to ensure that issues such as incorrect documentation are sorted out.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

As we have already heard, it was a Labour Government who started destroying the landing cards of the Windrush generation. It was also a Labour Government who, under the Harold Wilson regime, forcibly exiled the Chagos islanders from the British Indian Ocean territory. As a result, members of the second and subsequent generations of the Chagos community do not have British citizenship. Will my right hon. Friend commit himself to looking into that as well?

[Sajid Javid]

I commend my hon. Friend for taking up this issue so energetically on behalf of the Chagos islanders, and I should be happy to discuss it with him further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is ultimately right in the sense that, yes, if communications service providers fail to respond to abuse of the internet, they will need to see an increase in existing regulation. We are considering a full range of possible solutions to address the issue, including a regulatory framework as well as broader legal and regulatory changes, where necessary.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

19. What steps he is taking to tackle serious violent crime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

We launched the serious violence strategy last year; it has culminated in detailed work, stretching across Government. It includes the Offensive Weapons Bill and the serious violence taskforce. In addition, we want to build resilience for young people into the future, so we will be launching a £200 million youth endowment fund to intervene on children and young people at risk of serious violence. Shortly, we will consult on a new duty to underpin the multi-agency approach on public health.

[Henry Smith]

Sussex police and crime commissioner Katy Bourne was recently successful in getting a grant of almost £1 million from the Home Office—I thank the Department for that—to specifically address serious offences among young people. May I have an assurance that Crawley will continue to remain a focus of such support to combat serious offences?

[Victoria Atkins]

I congratulate police and crime commissioner Katy Bourne; it is always a pleasure to work with her. That was one of 29 projects awarded a total of nearly £18 million from the early intervention youth fund. The project in Crawley helps engage positively with children under 18 at risk of committing serious violence. The project will establish a network of coaches, drawing together the various agencies working with those young people—again, very much underpinning our approach to tackling serious violence: that we should all be concerned about this matter and working together on it.

Future Immigration

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I am pleased that the hon. Lady has raised this important issue of fairness. The Home Office makes millions of immigration decisions, whether on visas or otherwise, each year and we cannot pretend that every single decision is going to be right. Earlier, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) raised the issue of Windrush, which was a problem under successive Governments, and we need to learn the lessons from that, and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman) raised a live case from her constituency that the Minister for Immigration will be happy to meet her to discuss.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I welcome the proposal set out by the Home Secretary to have an immigration system that gets the best talent from around the world for our economy and public services. Will he also undertake to cover in this legislation the loophole of descendants from the British Indian Ocean Territory, whose rights have been abused for the best part of half a century?

[Sajid Javid]

I know that my hon. Friend is passionate about this issue. He has championed it for a while and we have discussed it. It is not specifically addressed in the White Paper in terms of a future immigration system, but he is right to continue to raise the matter, and we are right to continue to work with him and to look at it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I, too, pay tribute to the Sussex PCC, Katy Bourne, who has successfully recently bid for almost £1 million of youth intervention funding. That is really important for my Crawley constituency, which has seen an increase in drug and knife-related crime. May I have an assurance that this partnership working with the Home Office will continue to tackle this issue?

[Mr Hurd]

I assure my hon. Friend that partnership working is absolutely at the heart of this Government’s approach to tackling serious violent crime and the running of drugs outside our major cities. Everything we have learnt from the examples elsewhere shows that effective multi-agency partnership works, and the Government are actively supporting that through funds such as the early intervention fund.

Immigration: DNA Tests

Henry Smith Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 25th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. She is absolutely right about the importance of that wider review of the structures and processes. She refers to cases that she has had to bring to the attention of Ministers. Although it seems from what she said that those have been resolved, Members should not feel that they must keep bringing cases to Ministers’ attention. I should like to see a system in which the vast majority of cases are sorted out properly in the first place, and that is the kind of system that I am trying to build.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I welcome the comprehensive review of the immigration system that the Home Secretary has announced. In that fair and humane spirit, will he incorporate the provisions of my British Indian Ocean Territory (Citizenship) Bill, which is on the Order Paper for consideration tomorrow, in the provisions of the new nationality legislation? They would give British citizenship to people descended from British subjects who were forcibly removed from the Chagos Islands in the late 1960s.

[Sajid Javid]

I commend my hon. Friend for spotting this opportunity. He has brought forward a Bill that I know that he has thought long and hard about, and we have discussed it. It might be helpful—if he feels that it would be helpful—for him to have a meeting with the Immigration Minister to discuss the matter further.