Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I am always delighted to meet my hon. Friend. There has been a lot of airing of this particular issue about the breakdown of the immigration figures, but I think there is a reasonable amount of clarity about which part of them are students and which part are not.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Members of all parties agree that international students coming here to study is a good thing. Therefore, will the Home Secretary say something about how welcome they feel when hate crimes against black, Asian and minority ethnic people went up 41% in the month after Brexit? Many people over here as students report that when they are seen on the streets of our country, they are being told to go home. Should we not make our country more welcoming and deal with this post-Brexit problem?

[Amber Rudd]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady, and I hope she will join me in spreading the word that international students are welcome here. There should be no hate crime here, which is why I launched my hate crime action plan at the end of July. I can give her some reassurance that the unpleasant and unwelcome spike in hate crime in August has now fallen off.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question; we may have been on different sides of the referendum campaign, but we are quite clearly all on the same side now in delivering the result for the British people. The Home Office will be the lead Department in negotiations on this, but we look forward to working with the Brexit Department, and I suspect that the Prime Minister may be taking an interest, given her experience in the Home Office.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

In China, the Prime Minister has unilaterally announced that Britain will not be adopting the points-based system on which the leave campaign put so much emphasis during the referendum, but that we will be doing something more effective. Can the Minister tell us what that is?

[Mr Goodwill]

When the Labour party introduced a points-based system, the numbers went straight up. Australia has a points-based system and higher immigration per capita than Britain. A points-based system would give foreign nationals a right to come to Britain if they meet certain criteria. An immigration system that works for Britain would ensure that the right to decide who comes to the country resides with this Government.

Calais

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. We found out only by accident that this change to the business was going to be announced to the House in this way—we heard about it through the media. Of course, we heard initially that the statutory instrument on hunting was to be debated on Thursday of this week only because we had a load of people from the pro-hunting lobby emailing us about it before it was announced to this House. That was then shifted to Wednesday at the business statement last week. We now learn through the media that it is being withdrawn altogether, while the debate on English votes for English laws has become a general debate. May I ask that we make provision in our Standing Orders for a business statement every day, because the Government seem to be getting into such a shambles with their own legislation?

[Mr Speaker]

The resources of civilisation have not been exhausted. Precisely because I thought that ordinarily such a matter would be treated by way of a supplementary business statement, and in the light of the evident interest in the House in the matter, I will, with the agreement of the House, treat it as a supplementary business statement, in relation to which colleagues’ contributions are therefore not just invited but welcomed.