Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I will politely disagree with the hon. Lady, for a change. She asked about the asylum case—bear in mind that the Labour party supported being locked down throughout the pandemic for even longer than the Conservative party did—and she will know perfectly well that asylum decisions were not made during the pandemic, and that interviews were not granted because many of them were face to face. We have now reformed the system to put many more interviews online and things of that nature. That is the nature of the pandemic. We are building on that work, as she will know, and it is a shame that she voted against asylum reforms and the new plan for immigration.

The hon. Lady mentioned passports, and I sure she would welcome the resources in people and staff, the work that has taken place with the Passport Office, and the increase in demand. More blue passports will be issued this year, compared with previous years—[[Interruption.] It is clear that Labour Members like to run down civil servants, and the hard work of people in the Home Office. [Interruption.] Perhaps they can stop the finger pointing. We work together as a team to deliver for the British people, and it is such a shame that Labour Members constantly vote against those changes and measures.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The European convention on human rights was started in the early 1950s, notably with the involvement of British lawyers, for very good reason, but does the Home Secretary agree with me that last night’s decision by the European Court of Human Rights undermined the original purpose of the convention and that the Court stands the very real risk of losing the confidence of the British people as it seeks to undermine our domestic legal structures?

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend makes a very strong and important point. I have touched on the fact that, from the High Court to the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, our policy—we know that there will be more legal action—has not been found to be unlawful. There are very, very strong submissions based on the evidence: the work that has taken place in country—in Rwanda—on the efficacy not just of the policy but on the delivery of the policy in country. That is absolutely right. I think the public will be surprised, there is no doubt about that.

It is important to be cautious right now because of legal proceedings. I will just finally say clearly that we are in touch with the European Court of Human Rights, because we want to see its judgment and decision in writing, which we have not had yet. As I said earlier, it is concerning, when the British courts have been so public in terms of providing their summary and their positions, that last night’s decision making was very opaque.

Foreign National Offender Removal Flights

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I will happily write to the right hon. Gentleman with an update on the work that we are doing in detention. Of course, we keep all our facilities, policies and approaches under constant review, reflecting feedback that is received, and I would like to provide him with a full update that touches on all the pertinent and relevant issues, which I cannot do on the Floor of the House.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I very much welcome the statement. A successful deportation programme requires co-operative recipients. Will he name and shame those countries who are not engaging with the Government’s deportation programme—in particular, countries such as Iraq, Iran, Eritrea and Sudan—and say what pressure can be brought to bear on them? Will he consider perhaps denying visas to the nationals of those countries until they engage?

[Tom Pursglove]

My right hon. Friend raised that point eloquently. There is mixed performance in co-operation on removals and deportations from our country. We continue to have constructive discussions with countries around the world about those arrangements. He will also note that, through the Nationality and Borders Act, we have introduced new visa penalty provisions that should help us to drive forward improvements. It is the responsibility of countries around the world to live up to their obligations and accept their returns as the British Government do.

Ukraine: Urgent Refugee Applications

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

The hon. Lady makes some strong points. One of the reasons we are working closely with the countries bordering Ukraine is that, given the end of direct travel, it is extremely unlikely that people will make it to the UK in a day. Those who have just crossed the border from Ukraine will need a range of support, including medical support, and colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care are talking with the Polish health authorities because Poland’s hospitals are clearly beginning to become fairly full. We will need to look across western Europe for others to support them, including by potentially taking patients from those hospitals into the UK. I make it clear that people who enter our asylum system will arrive with status and will be able to get on with their life. They will not have to make a further application here.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Salisbury borders my constituency, so I fully accept the need for security checks, particularly on adult males. But the fact remains that the Republic of Ireland, with which we share a common travel area, has a population of 5 million and has committed to take 100,000 refugees from Ukraine, having already admitted more than 2,000. This country, with a population of 67 million, has come nowhere close to that. Why not?

[Kevin Foster]

First, looking at what we are doing, we estimate that about 100,000 people are potentially eligible for the family route, and we have an unlimited position on the sponsorship route, which could well see us exceed quite significantly the numbers offered by the Republic of Ireland.

Visas are now going out. As I said, nearly 500 had been granted as of 9.30 this morning, and more are being granted as we speak. We are surging decision-making capability and upping the biometrics process, which will quickly increase the numbers arriving in the United Kingdom, on top of the numbers we have already welcomed as we moved UK nationals and their families earlier this year.

Delivering Justice for Victims

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I thank the hon. Lady for welcoming the section 28 reforms, and she is right that the reforms are pivotal to helping victims to come forward and to give their best evidence so we can secure prosecutions. She will appreciate that we are consistently discussing these matters with the judiciary, who, obviously, have a significant role in implementing this policy. We will make more detail on that known as the roll-out progresses, but I can assure her that these angles are being looked at closely and those discussions are ongoing.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I very much welcome this statement. On Tuesday, my hon. Friend said that the consultation was imminent, and he has been true to his word. Does he share my concern, however, that the definition of “victim” within the victims’ code is pretty restrictive, unlike the situation in other jurisdictions, which I touched upon on Tuesday? Will he ensure that as we go through this consultation process the voices of those who have not traditionally been regarded as victims are heard and that as the code moves into statute we do much better by them, so that their situation, and the trauma and tragedy that they go through, through no fault of their own, is mitigated?

Support for Offenders’ Families

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Adjournment debates are great opportunities to raise issues brought up by constituents, and it gives me much pleasure this evening to do precisely that. I am grateful to the Minister for being here, particularly after his extremely busy day. I am sorry to have kept him in his place a little longer, but I am nevertheless delighted that he is responding to the debate. He will be aware of my correspondence on a constituency case with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Crime and Policing. The debate draws on that, and on the experience relayed to me by my constituent and others caught up in similar nightmares not of their making. I hope that this debate is timely, given the imminent very welcome consultation on upgrading the victims strategy through a victims Bill.

Many, particularly on the Conservative side of the House, take a very stern view of crime and criminality, and many of us have called for stiffer sentencing, particularly for crimes of a sexual nature. Because of the internet and the opportunities for indecent imaging that it presents, the number of those crimes is, sadly, rising exponentially. I will focus largely on the consequences of those crimes this evening. Specifically, I am buttonholing my good friend the Minister on the collateral—the families left behind to cope with the devastation that follows the arrest and conviction of a loved one for those crimes that attract the greatest public opprobrium.

On that front, Deuteronomy chapter 24, verse 16 offers some chilly reassurance:

“The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.”

Less dramatically, the sins of the father should not be pinned on the sons, daughters, or spouse—or on anyone other than the perpetrator.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I am always attracted to scripture, and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for quoting it. Families have come to me, having had their windows broken, and mess spray-painted on their homes; that often happens in Northern Ireland due to a family member’s actions. Does he agree that that is not appropriate, and that support should be offered, so that the family does not end up having to pay for the sins of the father, as he says, though that is often what happens?

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and he speaks from a great deal of experience. Deuteronomy is bang on the money. These are innocents. They need to be dealt with as innocents by the statutory agencies. That is the burden of what I have to say this evening.

During the course of my research, I have been told about the five o’clock knock that hits someone like a train; the stunning effect of the unheralded appearance of police on the doorstep; the trauma of seeing a loved one taken away; and the all-too-often brusque way in which family members are managed by the police, as they sack the family home searching for evidence, and carry off not just the suspect’s possessions, but those of his or her partner as well—the knock after which nothing is ever the same again.

Over 850 individuals are arrested each month for online offences involving indecency. That is a 25-fold increase in a decade. Each one of those carries in its wake a devastated family, a wall of misery, and the destruction of settled, ordinary lives. For most of these people, the worst brush with the authorities they have had up to that point will have been the issuing of a speeding ticket. That makes them particularly susceptible to vicarious shaming and social isolation.

It is therefore hardly surprising that nearly 70% of family members experiencing the knock in such circumstances have severe post-traumatic stress disorder. That is unsurprising, given that they are often told to speak to no one for fear of bullying and vigilante activity; given that, as part of the process, their mobile phones and computers are removed; and given that the go-to resource of many traumatised people in the modern age—the internet—is for them now no longer a trusted entry point to help and support, but a dark, deeply hostile place. The ascent of social media has meant that there is nowhere to hide. Vigilantes—those self-appointed guardians of public safety—use a confected moral high ground to prey on innocents who they deem guilty by association with those convicted of stigmatising offences.

About the time I was first elected, I remember a group of so-called vigilantes confusing the terms “paediatrician” and “paedophile”, and seeing one of their neighbours described as the former, took it upon themselves to attack the home of the hapless specialist in child health. Those bovinely stupid people are the antithesis of the upstanding public guardians they purport to be, and they are encouraged in their misconception, I am sorry to say, by elements of the tabloid press. They are despicable; they are the mob. And it is the mob, or fear of the mob, that drives innocent bystanders of stigmatising crimes from their homes. When those innocents are at their most vulnerable, and most in need of the agencies of the state, there comes no help, no comfort, and no support. Commenting on “the knock”, one of our more thoughtful police officers said:

“We are acutely aware of the devastation we are leaving behind.”

Where is the attempt to mitigate that devastation? Indeed, some within our statutory agencies and authorities behave as if the families of suspects are guilty too, and that is not good enough.

What is to be done? The 2018 victims strategy and its victims code are a good start. In the code there is a decent stab at a definition of “victim”, which it defines as

“a person who has suffered harm, including physical, mental or emotional harm or economic loss which was directly caused by a criminal offence;”

In common usage, that definition probably does not include family members of people whose crimes have destroyed their lives. Indeed, the then Prime Minister appeared to confirm that when she said, in the foreword to the victims strategy:

“We must make it easier for people who have suffered a crime to cope, recover and move on with rebuilding their lives.”

The simple addition of the word “from” or the phrase “as a result of” before “a crime” would have been helpful in embracing the desperate people who are the subject of this evening’s debate. On the other hand, some would say that the definition of victim should indeed be ambiguous, since surely we can all tell a victim when we see one—can’t we?—a bit like an elephant. Well, I do not think we can. Unless the families of offenders are included explicitly within the definition of “victim”, nothing will change, there will be no recognition or help for them, and the agencies will continue too often to give them the cold shoulder.

Other jurisdictions seem to have been more thoughtful, and they offer a potential way forward that our victims Bill consultation might gainfully reflect on. The United States has a category of secondary victim with access, for example, to the Department of Justice crime victims fund. I am not suggesting that to the Minister for one moment, but it gives an indication of how those victims are regarded by the US. Canada has four categories of victim: direct, indirect, secondary, and tertiary, and all have the dignity of being recognised by the Canadian system as victims, as with the definition used by the US system.

Why is this so important? First, the victims code sets the mood music. Inclusion of the people I am talking about will establish them as victims of crime, and unpick the notion that they have by some curious osmosis contributed to that crime. More tangibly, the victims code offers things to those identified as victims, such as needs assessments, appropriate signposting, and being treated respectfully, sympathetically, and in a dignified and sensitive way.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman has secured this debate, and I hope he got my email earlier.

Over the summer I visited the excellent project Children Heard and Seen, which is campaigning for prisoners’ families. I met a woman who, along with her children, had basically been driven from their home, because the husband had been arrested and imprisoned for an offence similar to the one the right hon. Gentleman is talking about. They were driven from their home and had to change their names. She had to stop her postgraduate studies because her computer had been taken away. The repercussions went on and on and on. One thing I have been calling for is a statutory mechanism so that children caught up in such a situation are recognised, identified by the system, and get the help they need straightaway. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with me?

[Dr Murrison]

Yes, I do agree. I am pleased that the hon. Lady has raised her constituency case, because her constituents are not alone, with 850 such arrests made every month. That is just staggering; it is one and a bit for each of our constituencies every single month. We all have constituents in this awful situation, and the situation that she described is exactly the same as has been described to me. These people are under the radar, and I hope that this debate will, in some small way, make their plight clearer. At this critical juncture when we are considering the victims Bill and the consultation leading up to it, perhaps they might be included, and that will be my principal ask of the Minister this evening.

In September, the Prime Minister brought some good news on this front. He said:

“We are committed to legislation for victims in the Queen’s Speech and will be consulting on a Victims Bill later this year.”

Given that we are fast running out of year, will the Minister outline the timetable for the consultation? Will he include in it an improved, more embracing definition of victim—perhaps one that is more nuanced—as other countries have introduced? Will he task officials with drafting improved guidance to statutory agencies, including but not confined to the police, on the handling of families of those arrested on suspicion of serious, particularly stigmatising, crime?

Will the Minister look at improving support to the few lifeline charities that operate in this space, including the Lucy Faithfull Foundation’s “Stop It Now!” and Acts Fast? Will he ensure that the consultation includes wording that explicitly recognises the pain and suffering experienced by the massive number of wholly innocent family members of those accused and convicted of stigmatising crime? At a time when their lives are falling apart and they are facing—often alone—financial, domestic, occupational and social ruin, they deserve to be treated as victims, with respect, kindness and dignity. We can do so much better. The victims Bill gives us an opportunity to do so.

Afghanistan Policy

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I appreciate that the Minister is dealing with complicated and sensitive matters, and that she is anxious to give full answers to colleagues. She certainly is not avoiding questions, but is taking them head-on. Unfortunately, some of the questions are also rather long and complicated, so we have managed, in 40 minutes, to take questions from five Back Benchers. We will have to go a lot faster now, but in order that the Minister can give short answers, I need to have short and succinct questions. That way, we will cover everything eventually.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I welcome the statement. Many of those fleeing the Taliban will be highly skilled people who will want to integrate rapidly into the workforce so that they can become contributors, not just supplicants. Will the Minister unpack a little the £20,520 per person in core funding that she announced, and tell us what proportion of that she envisages being used for further education to enable people, where necessary, to upskill? What conversations has she had with her ministerial colleagues at the Department for Education to see what more colleges in localities can do to ensure that these people are able to do what they aspire to do, which is to enter the workforce and be contributors?

[Victoria Atkins]

My right hon. Friend will be pleased to know that once we have dealt with the immediate emergency of moving 15,000 or so people from quarantine hotels into bridging accommodation—I hope and plan that that will be concluded this week—we can then start really to set in stone some of our plans for integration. There are all sorts of ideas, including equivalence qualifications involving the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that we get people into the jobs market as quickly as possible. Of course, we will also be measuring English language fluency to help those who are a little bit further from the jobs market towards the jobs market so that they can be truly independent and have their own futures here in the UK.

Napier Barracks Asylum Accommodation

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the publication of the public health guidance. It was published online. He said it was only published because of the court case. It was published on 15 December—long before the court case was registered.

The hon. Member said the people there were sick. There are screening criteria to make sure that people who should not go there do not go there. If they become vulnerable during the time of occupation, they get moved out. I should also add that the people accommodated there are all young single men, almost entirely aged between 18 and 40. On the number who got covid—along with 5 million, or more than 5 million, other people in this country—not a single person was hospitalised that I am aware of. That is why we are taking further steps to make sure the site is covid-secure. I have listed some of them already: lateral flow testing three times a week now, numbers being reduced and enhanced cleaning. Those are sensible steps in response to the pandemic and in response to the court judgment.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con) [V]]

A very happy birthday to you, Mr Speaker.

The Home Office has worked incredibly hard in very difficult circumstances to improve conditions, and covid security particularly, for the men temporarily housed at Napier barracks since the evidence informing the High Court ruling was submitted. However, I represent a large Army community that will be wondering why conditions considered fine for servicemen and women are considered not good enough for asylum seekers, including those who have made the illegal and perilous journey across the channel. How am I to advise my constituents?

[Chris Philp]

I think my right hon. Friend is raising an extremely good question. It is precisely because of that question that we will be introducing a Bill in the near future, announced in the Queen’s Speech, to reform our system to make sure that the asylum system is fair, as of course it should be, to those in genuine need, but that we deal with these claims quickly, effectively and fairly, and also prevent unnecessary illegal migration, which puts enormous pressure on the system of the kind we are discussing.