Migrant Women: Domestic Abuse

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

We listened very carefully to the Joint Committee’s recommendations. I will discuss with colleagues whether there is any discrimination inherent in the scheme. While it will be in force for only four months, we fully intend to roll it out far beyond March. I will keep the noble Baroness updated, and certainly take back her point about discrimination within the scheme.

[Baroness Warsi (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the destitution domestic violence concession is a limited way in which some of these women can access some support, but can the Minister confirm how long it currently takes for such applications to be considered, and for a payment to be made to these vulnerable women?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I cannot confirm the time but, particularly during Covid, our intention is to get funds to people and to lift any restrictions on recourse to public funds as quickly as possible, so that those people—mostly women—get the support that they need when they need it.

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble and learned friend on his clear and comprehensive maiden speech. He opened today’s debate on a crucial issue of national interest, but also gave the first of three excellent maiden speeches. The others were from my noble friend Lord McLoughlin, who, like me, had the pleasure of serving as chairman of the Conservative Party, and the noble Lord, Lord Walney, whose moving and emotional speech I fully understand and resonate with. It is not easy taking on your own party, colleagues and friends on an issue of principle.

Turning to the Bill, no one can reject the importance of CHIS or the need to protect them. No one can doubt the importance of putting existing practices, the status quo, on a statutory footing. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, based on his real experience in this area, the status quo has rarely caused issues. I therefore support this Bill in principle, to the extent that we have a statutory basis for the current position.

I agree that we need to place a shield in front of CHIS, but we must be careful not to place a sword of blanket immunity in their hands or the hands of those who authorise, especially when the scope of those who can authorise is so widely drafted in this Bill. I ask my noble and learned friend to hear and heed the very personal and powerful contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Hain. Accountability tempers excess, and in this case appropriate authorisation and oversight provide the necessary accountability.

I note what the Bill—and my noble and learned friend in opening the debate—said about our commitment to the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights, but I am sure that he too, in the back of his mind, has concerns about much of the political debate around the Government’s commitment to both. We heard today from noble Lords on torture, murder and sexual offences. If we are clear which activities cannot and must not in any circumstances be authorised because doing so would put us in breach of convention obligations and rights, surely that must be in the Bill. I cannot accept that to do so would simply tip off criminals, terrorists or others, as my noble and learned friend said; as he and other noble Lords will know, those who operate in these gangs and terrorist organisations are far more sophisticated and already prepared for what they may see as potential CHIS activity. To this end I endorse the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws.

I look forward to supporting the principle of this Bill and the Government, but will make sure that I work with noble Lords across the House to ensure that this Bill protects covert human intelligence sources in a manner consistent with hard-fought human rights and the rule of law.

UK Terrorism Threat Level

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate is right to say that places of worship should be not only places of sanctuary but places where people are not attacked because of their religion. We have funding for places of worship through the protective security grant. As to guidance, we work very closely with the police. He brought to my mind the “punish a Muslim” day, and the way in which the police gave comfort and reassurance to communities was exemplary. In fact, I visited various places of worship in Greater Manchester, where the police calmed a very nervous community.

[Baroness Warsi (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I add my thoughts and prayers to those of colleagues for those who have lost loved ones during the recent terrorist attacks in France, Austria and, more recently, Kabul University in Afghanistan, where, tragically, 22 people lost their lives. Terrorism is a violent manifestation of extremism, so how do the Government define extremism? Are any forms of extremism specifically defined? In light of the “nasty mix” of threats recently identified by the head of MI5, Ken McCallum, does the definition cover the wide and diverse threats that we now face?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, our definition of extremism, as I know my noble friend knows, is

“vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.”

I think my noble friend was asking whether there are any specific forms of extremism that are not covered. We have a government definition but not a legal definition of extremism, as she knows. However, in broad-brush terms, it covers a working definition of extremism.

Brexit: Refugee Protection and Asylum Policy (EUC Report)

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, I join noble Lords in welcoming this report. I wish to put on record how fortunate we are to have colleagues like the noble Lords, Lord Jay and Lord Dubs, in this House. Their campaigning and compassion are genuinely inspirational.

I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Williams, who will reply to this debate. She is both noble in her dealings and, indeed, a friend, but more importantly, I know that she is genuinely committed to compassionate policy-making. I look forward to hearing what she says.

I start with the closing words of the summary of the European Union Committee report, to which the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, referred. It urges

“Ministers to moderate the language they use when discussing asylum issues.”

It reminds us succinctly that the UK

“has a proud history of offering sanctuary to those in need, and should be a vocal advocate for protecting refugees from persecution.”

Further, it stresses that the Government

“should have the confidence publicly to challenge those who seek to present genuine asylum seekers as a threat and something to be feared.”

That climate of fear and demonisation, promulgated over the years by sections of the press and, sadly, even some in politics, has meant that we as a country seem to have lost touch with the very basis of humanity and human rights as enshrined in the UN Convention on Refugees and subsequent protocol, which formed the basis of a common European asylum standard and response.

Britain has a long and proud history as an architect of human rights frameworks, whether that is in the proposing and drafting of international conventions; by developing national legislation and case law to implement our obligations; by being strong advocates at the UN—something that I have been a part of; and by being one of the largest funders of the International Criminal Court. So, it is troubling that Brexit, which, as many argued, was an opportunity for us as a country to establish and espouse our unique British values, appears in these negotiations and others as a moment when we seem to be backsliding on our international obligations.

We should not be seen as a country that was attached to our international humanitarian obligations only through some form of duress via our membership of the European Union. Instead, we should, in negotiations, set standards that are true to our values of protecting the most vulnerable; and no one can doubt the vulnerability of unaccompanied minors who find themselves on European shores. In giving evidence to the committee, Beth Gardiner-Smith, the CEO of Safe Passage, said that

“there are just under 5,000 unaccompanied children currently in Greece, the majority of whom currently live in unsafe and inappropriate accommodation”,

and we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, how in more recent times this has become worse. This accommodation might include temporary accommodation and open camps. She went on to say:

“It can even include what is called protective custody, which is essentially a mattress on the floor of a police cell because no other accommodation is available.”


Even under the current system, research from Safe Passage shows that

“children awaiting family reunion have to wait up to 16 months from the point of applying for family reunion to finally being relocated”.

As we approach another partial lockdown six months after the previous one was imposed, in which most of us, for the first time in our lives, experienced the trauma of not being able to see and meet our children and other loved ones, we should be more aware of and more able to understand the pain of separation. The Covid pandemic, a virus for which there is yet no cure, is difficult enough to accept, but what we are talking about is separation created by us—by people, by Governments, by states—and forced on some of the most vulnerable children in Europe, forcing them into the arms of those who seek to exploit.

The committee was explicit in its support of the Government’s aim to establish a new strategic relationship with the EU on asylum and illegal migration and the framework for asylum co-operation set in the July 2018 White Paper on the future of the UK-EU relationship. However, what concerned the committee—and indeed me—is that our statements have, over time, been more cautious and less ambitious. Whether it was the lack of any reference to future UK-EU asylum co-operation in the November 2018 political declaration, or the breakdown of more recent discussions this summer, it appears that Brexit has become a trigger for a less humane policy. It seems increasingly likely that separated families and unaccompanied children will, from 1 January, have to make their case within a more complex and restrictive immigration process.

I have only one question for my noble friend: can she categorically assure the House that, as of 1 January 2021, vulnerable children and other separated family members will have the same routes and rights available to be reunited with their loved ones as they have now? I hope that, in answering, she can reaffirm the Government’s commitment to a humane asylum policy in line with a long and historic British tradition.

Immigration: Detainee Support

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I do not agree with the noble Baroness that detention is inhumane. Detention, in the main, is for the purposes of removal. Clearly, at this time, removal is far more difficult than it would usually be, and we are trying to grant bail where it is safe to do so.

[Baroness Warsi (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my question follows that of the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan. What has clearly been shown during the Covid period is that the number of immigration detainees has reduced significantly, by some 900 individuals since December of last year. Indeed, it is now one of the lowest numbers we have had since the previous decade. What lessons have been learned from this reduction in the number of immigration detainees? Can my noble friend assure the House that this positive move will continue as lockdown eases?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness points to our wish to avoid immigration detention at all costs. It is for the purposes of removal when the right of appeal has been exhausted and there is no other prospect of removing people. One lesson we have learned is how humane this country is. We have taken in people from Greece, which, I think, no other European country has been able to. I am very proud of that position.

Reading Terrorist Attack

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I have already gone through the figures for CT policing and for policing in general. I am sure the noble Baroness will have heard them. I am confident that our security and intelligence services have the resources they need. I concur with what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said about keeping people under surveillance. Not everything can be solved by legislation, but intelligence-led information is incredibly important. It will be at the heart of how we go forward so that people who are a danger to themselves and to others do not slip through the net.

[Baroness Warsi (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I endorse the comments of all the Front-Benchers and particularly those of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. The challenge of the lone wolf attack was addressed recently by Met Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu. It is a real and growing threat. How can the Government seek the support of a community that it needs to deal with these challenges when it simply refuses to work with that community? My noble friend is aware from her own connections with the community that this is an issue, especially when this refusal of the Government to engage is ideological and political and neither factual nor practical. To tackle terrorism we need to work together. When and how is the Government’s policy of disengagement going to change?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The Government have been very clear that we will engage with people and communities that share our common values and wish to see a society that is safe for everybody. The Government keep decisions about disengagement under regular review, but it is very difficult to engage with those who wish to do us harm or do not share the common values of the wider society in which we live.

Public Order

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I echo the sentiments of my noble friend and the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Paddick. As someone who has both family and friends in the police, I know the amazing work that our police do every day in this country. However, does my noble friend accept that what we saw in the small incidents of public disorder were simply the symptoms of racism, not the disease, which results in the inequalities that the protests are about? We have had the Lammy review, the Williams report and indeed the race disparity audit, which reported back in 2017. Could my noble friend give words of hope and practical examples of what the Government are doing to deal with the disease of racism that feeds the inequalities which resulted in the public disorder?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I agree with my noble friend that what we saw on Sunday was a symptom of the frustration that people feel about racism, both overt and covert, within our country. We need more diversity in the workplace, in Parliament and in all sorts of areas of life. My noble friend will have heard the Prime Minister addressing the public yesterday about this and talking about how across government we need to drive this out. This is not about one particular department of government or one particular individual; it is about a public collective in terms of driving this sort of poison out of our society.

Anti-terrorism Policy

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, as I said, we do not intend to institute an inquiry into this website. If he so wishes, the noble Lord can refer the website to the counterterrorism referral unit that looks at websites that might contravene counterterrorism legislation, to have it taken down. But freedom of speech is not an excuse to break the law or to stir up hatred. It is right that hate speech is not acceptable in this country.

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, it is interesting to hear once again the House talk about Islam; we seem to do nothing but talk about Islam, especially the noble Lord. Does the Minister accept that, at a time when households up and down the country, and indeed around the world, are concerned about their lives and livelihoods, it is unusual for this House to be discussing a website whose main role appears to be division and hate, when what we should be doing in this House is showing leadership by demonstrating community and tolerance? Are the Minister and the Home Office concerned that a number of people who write for this website have been excluded from entering the United Kingdom because they are considered as not being conducive to the public good?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

To answer my noble friend’s last question first, I had a brief look at the website, and it does not look like the sort of website that I would want to derive any information from. She is absolutely right in what she said about showing leadership at this time. One thing I saw on the news the other day was Muslims in, I think, Leeds, making up bags of food for older people who could not get out of their homes. On her point about those concerned with their livelihoods, we know in times of difficulty where our friends are.

Immigration Control (Gross Human Rights Abuses) Bill [HL]

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, on bringing forward the Bill to the House. She has many admirers on all sides of this House and I fully endorse the words of my noble friend Lady Bottomley, who elegantly and succinctly reminded us why we all admire her so much. I too support the Bill and, as I speak lower down the order, I fully endorse comments made by noble Lords on all sides of the House—it is not often that I can say that. I hope that that means I will not have to speak for as long as I might.

I congratulate the Government on adopting the amendment to the Criminal Finances Act, which brought in the first part of the Magnitsky Act but, as other noble Lords have said, this does not go far enough. It is right that, as my honourable friend the Security Minister, Ben Wallace, said,

“we need to make the UK a hostile environment for those seeking to move, hide and use the proceeds of crime and corruption. In an increasingly competitive international marketplace, the UK simply cannot afford to be seen as a haven for dirty money”.

We must go further than that: we must not be a haven for dirty deeds and human rights violations.

The law which the Bill would create has widespread support in this House. Polling has shown that it has popular support in the United Kingdom. It has support across the political divide and is in tune with what has happened in the United States, Canada and other European countries, as other noble Lords have already mentioned. More than five years ago, a motion was unanimously passed in the House of Commons calling for visa and economic restrictions on Russian officials involved in the original crimes uncovered by Magnitsky and in the cover-up since his death. A month later, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee issued recommendations to make public the list of banned human rights violators, with reference to the Magnitsky case.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, also referred to the Home Secretary’s overarching power to refuse or remove those whose presence in the UK would not be conducive to public good. You may therefore ask: what is the need for this law? However, as you have heard from my noble friend Lord Trimble, those bans are rarely published and often, when questions are asked, they are neither confirmed nor denied; there is no naming and shaming and no knowing who is here and who has been allowed in; no light is shed on those who have operated in very dark ways.

Let me quote again Ben Wallace. He said that when dealing with the financial provisions that we now have this measure would,

“send a clear statement that the UK will not stand by and allow those who have committed gross abuses or violations around the world to launder their money here”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/2/17; cols. 975, 881.]

I argue that we need to send a similarly strong signal in relation to the presence of these individuals in the United Kingdom. We have said, “We don’t want your money here”; we need to say, “We don’t want you here either”.

This Bill, however, must not limit itself to the specific and appalling circumstances that the House has heard about today around the death of Sergei Magnitsky, even if it is motivated by that. The Bill must be universally applied. In the United States, initially a limited Magnitsky Act was passed in 2012 to deal with the specific issues and individuals surrounding that case. However, four years later, that Act was made global. It authorised the President—at a time when we had a US President to whom human rights mattered somewhat—to block or revoke visas and impose property sanctions if individuals or entities are responsible for, or acted as an agent for someone responsible for, extrajudicial killings, torture or other gross violations of internationally recognised human rights. A similarly broad Act could and should be adopted by us.

Every day, we see the most heinous human rights abuses committed around the world by the so-called respectable, official and powerful. Officials, politicians and military personnel in Burma have been a particularly horrific case in recent months. This Bill could apply to those at the highest level who commanded such acts, but also to those on the ground who committed such acts. While we must always in the long term seek to bring the perpetrators to justice, either in their home countries or the fora of international courts, in the short term we must send out the strong signal that it cannot be business as usual. Our belief in and commitment to human rights must be clearly visible when people seek to enter the United Kingdom.

This Bill, extending previous legislation, would enable us to say that if you have been known to have committed or been involved in gross human rights abuses—or possibly even wider than that, as we have heard—then Britain will not be a place where you can do business, buy property or holiday. If your children come to study here, you will not be at their graduation. If you have blood on your hands, you will not be doing your Christmas shopping at Harrods. Earlier today, this House discussed refugees and family reunion. For centuries we have quite rightly been a haven for those who flee from human rights violations and abuse. We must never become a haven for those who commit such abuse.

Prevent Strategy

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Warsi]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Prevent strand of CONTEST is part of a counterterrorism strategy or counterextremism strategy.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, Prevent is part of the UK’s counterterrorism strategy, Contest. It safeguards people from being drawn into terrorism.

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that Answer. I also welcome the Government’s statement that they intend to tackle all forms of extremism. Does my noble friend agree that, to tackle hate crime effectively, we must define those acts, words, conduct and attitudes that we consider to be extreme? Therefore, what is the Government’s working definition of Islamophobia? When, if at all, do they intend to agree and publish a definition of far-right extremism?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank my noble friend for that question. On Islamophobia, the Government are absolutely clear that hatred and intolerance on the grounds of race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity have absolutely no place in our society. Our hate crime action plan sets out our commitment to defeating all forms of hatred. Generally, the Government’s counterextremism strategy defines extremism as,

“vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs”.

This applies to all forms of extremism, including the far and extreme right wing.