Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Government have set out an economic analysis of the deal and exit from the EU, including in a no-deal scenario. I point him to that.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the Home Secretary recognise that ending freedom of movement is a huge loss for many people—not just for businesses and for our economy, but for families and friends here in the UK now? Will he actually own up to the fact that, as we should be reminding people, ending freedom of movement means that the freedom of movement for young people in this country to visit, stay and work in other countries will be massively reduced—we are shrinking our young peoples’ opportunities—and that if our goal is to reduce immigration, this is perverse because immigration from non-EU countries is actually going up while immigration from EU countries is going down?

[Sajid Javid]

I think the hon. Lady and I will have to agree to have different points of view. I respect her view, but I think one of the clear messages from the referendum result was that many people felt we needed an immigration system that is designed in Britain and built in Britain and which is designed specifically to meet the long-term needs of our economy and our society, and that is what we have set out in the White Paper. The independent work by the Migration Advisory Committee—the analysis it has done by looking at the immigration systems of other successful industrialised economies—shows that it is not necessary to have freedom of movement or something similar to freedom of movement in order to have a successful country and society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful point. I want to take him back to the threshold figure of £18,600, because it is so unfair, so unequal and so unjust. That is not even the minimum wage, so it deliberately splits up families, depending on the wealth of one person in that family. The Supreme Court says it has a particularly harsh effect on citizens who have lived and worked abroad. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is cruelty and callousness at the heart of this Government’s policy?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I absolutely agree. We could spend many hours debating, and highlighting the flaws of, so many of the features of the family migration rules. Another is the fact that this threshold only takes into account the earnings of the UK sponsor; it does not take into account, for example, the potential earnings of those who want to come and join their family members here. So these rules achieve absolutely nothing but keeping families apart—families split apart and destroyed.

Our asylum system also urgently needs important reform: to fix and extend the “move-on period” that forces newly recognised refugees into homelessness and poverty; to end the poverty support rates for asylum seekers and allow them the right to work; and to respect the vote in this House on the Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill to extend family reunion rights.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes]

I do not mind being called a traditional Tory, but I am not so keen on “lazy”. If I am articulating that view and if it reflects a view that is held by many of my constituents and a large number of other people, I am doing the House a service.

[Caroline Lucas]

rose—

[Sir John Hayes]

I will give way in a second.

Trevor Phillips, the founding chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, argued that there is a liberal consensus not to speak about such things. There is what he described—I do not know whether I am being unfair, but perhaps the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) matches this description—as “touchy”, “smug”, “complacent” and “squeamish” unwillingness on the part of bourgeois liberals to address the issue. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is a bourgeois liberal, but I do know that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) is, and I will happily give way to her.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way with the customary courtesy that we all appreciate so much—Hansard could perhaps put “sarcasm” in brackets there. To address his point, of course he needs to respond to his constituents, but would he accept that his constituents may have reflected such a view back to him because of things such as the poster put up by Nigel Farage during the referendum campaign that actually showed Syrian refugees while implying that that was something to do with freedom of movement being out of control? Perhaps he would be doing his constituents more of a service if he based his arguments on evidence, and the evidence, time and again, is that freedom of movement does not reduce wages. We need a Government who are willing to enforce a minimum wage. I wish this Government would do that, but that is not the fault of freedom of movement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Harman]

I am heartened by the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, and I hope he will join us when we take up the Home Secretary’s offer to go and talk to him about how we can make progress.

[Caroline Lucas]

The right hon. and learned Lady is making a powerful case. When I finally got into Yarl’s Wood, what came over to me from my conversations with the women I met is the mental torture, the arbitrariness, of not knowing why they had been taken. Although I respect that she is trying to get a majority for a particular timeframe, which is why she has chosen the 28 days, does she agree that, if we were not trying to make that compromise, there is an argument for ending indefinite detention altogether, without any timeframe?

[Ms Harman]

But the point is that it would not be indefinite—it would be finite. It would be for up to 28 days, and then with the possibility of a further 28 days—the cap would be there, with no more days after that. Perhaps I could talk to the hon. Lady about this further.

Here in the UK we pride ourselves on our commitment to human rights, so how is it that indefinite Home Office detention has been a feature of our system for so long? I suspect one reason is that immigration detention used to be used for a very small number of people—exceptional cases. In 1993, there were only 250 detention places, and for the most part many of them were not full. Now, 27,000 people are detained every year, with 7,000 of them for more than 28 days. I am very encouraged by the Home Secretary’s offer to meet us to discuss a way forward on this. I am grateful to the Immigration Minister for the evidence she gave to the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

Unaccountable, arbitrary, indefinite detention is a human rights abuse. It is a cruel anomaly in our system, and I hope the Government will use the opportunity of this Bill to end it. They will have then done something that the last Labour Government should have done and did not, as was rightly pointed out by my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary.

Immigration Detention: Shaw Review

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments and for her welcoming of the pilot regarding vulnerable women. I will happily take a proper look at that report. I have seen a summary of it, but as I am looking for some more summer reading to do, that is a very good suggestion. When Parliament is back after the summer, I would be very happy to meet her and her colleague.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I visited Yarl’s Wood a few weeks ago. The overwhelming sense that I got was that the indefinite nature of detention is what makes it such a mental torture. People literally do not know how long they will be there or why they are there. It is a Kafkaesque nightmare. Will the Secretary of State acknowledge in particular that the adults at risk policy is fundamentally flawed because detention itself makes people more vulnerable? May I echo those others who have called on him to make it a priority to end administrative detention for immigration purposes, perhaps starting with a 28-day limit, but, ultimately moving to end it, because it makes vulnerable people more vulnerable and it does not work.

[Sajid Javid]

It is good that the hon. Lady has visited Yarl’s Wood, because that is the kind of scrutiny that we need. [Interruption.] I have just heard her say that it took time to get permission. I am sorry to hear that. However, it is good that she has visited and seen the centre at first hand. That does not necessarily mean that I agree with her entire assessment following her visit, but I am very happy to listen to her experience and her thoughts. Although I said at the start of my statement that administrative detention plays an important role when done properly in our immigration system, I do think—this is where we could agree—that there should be more alternatives to detention so that people can be held in the community, rather than in a detention centre, while their cases are being looked at. I hope that she welcomes some of the announcements that I have made today, but I am looking to do more and would be happy to hear her ideas about alternatives.

Cannabis-based Medicines

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that point. He will know that Sativex, which has a cannabis base, is already licensed for those with MS, but today’s announcement is about how we can improve on the medical use of cannabis even further.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I, too, genuinely welcome the licence for Alfie today, but what a scandal it is that it has taken three months since Hannah Deacon met the Prime Minister and was promised swift and compassionate action, and what an outrage it is that, frankly, it is only the press attention that has finally shamed the Government into action. With regard to the expert panel, what assurance can the Home Secretary give that there will be enough Home Office staff to deal with the thousands of applications that might well now come?

[Sajid Javid]

Let me say gently to the hon. Lady that in the case of Alfie Dingley, of course we are all pleased that we have been able to issue the licence today. She should know that before the application—the approach by his clinicians—no Government had even entertained the idea, given that cannabis is classed as a schedule 1 drug, of looking at this from a medical point of view. This Government have done that. I hope that she can join us in not just welcoming that, but working together on how we can end the suffering of so many other people, particularly children, who could benefit from these kinds of medicines.

Medicinal Cannabis

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

Of course this process must be driven at pace, as it was this weekend by the team at the Home Office. I wish to place on record my thanks to the officials who worked extremely hard to find a solution and respond to this emergency. I come back to the point that this needs to be clinically led. In asking Dame Sally Davies to take forward the important work of setting up this panel, I am not talking to a plodding bureaucrat.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Further to the question from the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is unfathomable that medicinal opiates, which are the same family as heroin, can be prescribed for medical reasons—usually for pain relief—yet medicinal cannabis cannot be despite the strong evidence base that it should be? Crucially, can the Minister give us the evidence base that is informing the Government’s position?

[Mr Hurd]

The evidence base comes from the official advice from the advisory council and others and it has been set for some time. The rules that we are having to work with have been around for a while under successive Governments. If this is the moment to revisit and challenge those rules, that is the role of a parliamentary democracy. What I am saying is that the Government have reflected deeply on the events of the past few weeks. They are constantly updating the evidence from the World Health Organisation and others, and are actively discussing changes to the way in which we handle these cases. I have made one announcement today and expect others to follow.

Medical Cannabis

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

We seem to be in some kind of Alice in Wonderland world where words mean the opposite of what we imagine. The Minister said that he is being fleet of foot, yet we have established that we are dragging our feet behind 15 EU member states and 29 US states. I have lost count of the number of times that he has talked about the importance of evidence, yet will he not accept the overwhelming evidence that there are no downsides to the kind of policy change that we are talking about, no matter how hard he looks for them? Why will he not commit at the very least to trials of the regulation of medical-based cannabis? That could, for example, answer questions about how best to distinguish between different types of use and facilitate research that might otherwise be hindered.

[Mr Hurd]

We are fleet of foot in the sense that we keep abreast of the evidence as it develops. I made it very clear in my statement that the Home Office will consider issuing licences to enable trials of any new medicine under schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, providing that it complies with the appropriate ethical approvals.

Women’s Suffrage Centenary

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we need to make sure that more women get involved in engineering as part of widening their opportunities. While she is thinking of additional landmark anniversaries or celebrations, I point out that today is Safer Internet Day, which is a reminder of how important it is for positive things to be published and circulated online, and of how we have to be so vigilant to make sure that we are not put off coming into Parliament by the online negativity that sometimes takes place.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I am delighted that we are celebrating 100 years since some women first got the vote, but now is the time to go further and ensure that all votes count equally by introducing a fairer voting system. It is not an accident that every democracy with more than 40% women legislators uses some form of proportional representation. Does the Home Secretary agree that a fitting tribute to the suffragettes would be to replace our archaic and undemocratic electoral system with one that ensures that every vote genuinely counts equally?

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the hon. Lady, but I cannot share her view. We had a referendum on that not so long ago, and my view is that the public have had enough of referendums for now.

Drug Consumption Rooms

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ronnie Cowan]

As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted, we created this situation and we can fix it, but doing so will take a change in attitude at governmental level. Rather than pay lip service to people with an addiction, we need to start listening to what they are asking for. We need to treat addiction as a health issue rather than a criminal justice issue, not just in part but in its entirety.

Drug consumption rooms are part of the solution. Supervised drug consumption facilities, where illicit drugs can be used under the supervision of trained staff, have operated in Europe for the past three decades. Those facilities aim primarily to reduce the acute risk of disease transmission through unhygienic injecting, prevent drug-related overdose deaths and connect high-risk drug users with addiction treatment and other health and social services.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the big strengths of DCRs is their ability to reach people with drug addiction problems who are not otherwise known to the services? If we build relationships and trust with such people over time, we are much more likely to get them into services that can begin to address the reason for their addiction.

[Ronnie Cowan]

I completely agree. The first step of the healing process is building a working relationship with someone and earning their trust, so that they come back and do not have the suspicions that we have built among drug users.

Drug consumption rooms also seek to contribute to reductions in drug use in public places, in discarded needles and in public order problems linked with open drug scenes. Typically, they provide drug users with: sterile injecting equipment; counselling services before, during and after drug consumption; emergency care in the event of overdose; and primary medical care and referral to appropriate social healthcare and addiction treatment services.

Currently, people are sharing needles, using a product that may kill them instantly, and living chaotic lifestyles that harm them, their friends and their families. DCRs provide needles, which instantly reduces the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, instantly improves the health of the user and instantly engages users back into society, where they can be signposted to relevant services. Needle exchanges also go some way towards doing that, but the paraphernalia leave the premises and are often discarded in public places or shared with other users. Users may choose to inject themselves in streets, doorways or gardens near to the exchange, which is unsuitable for users and local residents.

The great thing is that we have evidence from 10 other countries that DCRs work. The first supervised room was opened in Berne, Switzerland, in June 1986. Further such facilities were established in subsequent years in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Norway, Luxembourg, Denmark, Greece and France. Outside Europe, there are facilities in Australia and Canada. A total of 78 drug consumption facilities currently operate in seven European monitoring centre for drugs and drug addiction-reporting countries.

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas Ross]

I will give way in a moment. Someone may use a drug consumption room once—they may even use it regularly—but there is no guarantee that they will use it all the time. As long as someone is addicted to these drugs, they cannot be kept safe. They certainly cannot be set on a course towards recovery, and the drug-free life that every human being deserves.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Douglas Ross]

I think we are short of time, so I want to keep going.

Drug consumption rooms could even make things worse. Some drugs, such as heroin, work in such a way that many people build up a tolerance to them, so in order to get the same high and to satisfy their addiction, they end up having to take more and more of the drug. We therefore could be faced with the prospect of the state building a facility to passively watch over someone sinking deeper and deeper into an addition that becomes more and more likely to kill them with each hit. Instead of building drug consumption rooms and trying in vain to make addiction to these drugs safer, we should be redoubling our efforts to help people overcome their addictions altogether.

When it comes down to it, the only safe approach, and the only thing that we should be encouraging, is detox and abstinence. That approach also has the added benefit of being less regionally biased. I for one cannot foresee many drug addicts in Moray, which I represent, making use of a drug consumption room in Glasgow, but drug addiction is not limited to the large cities or the communities close to them. This issue affects all parts of the country, including small and relatively remote rural communities such as my own. There may be fewer addicts in Moray than in other parts of Scotland, but they deserve the same level of support. The issue should not be reduced to a postcode lottery.

--- Later in debate ---

[Crispin Blunt]

Then frankly my hon. Friend is in quite a rare position. The vast majority of people—certainly Members of this House—use a drug perfectly legally, and that drug is called alcohol. It happens to be the drug that the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs said is probably the most dangerous drug in use in the United Kingdom in terms of its impact. He is a football referee, and having seen football crowds he will know the difficulty of policing crowds under the influence of alcohol. Alcohol is a significant and difficult drug.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and that body has recommended that DCRs are a policy that we should pursue. Would he agree that it is the case that not only have DCRs not been a venue where people have died, but they have been one of the most effective interventions at getting people away from addictions? DCRs are not being complacent about addiction; they are being realistic—[Interruption.]

[Joan Ryan (in the Chair)]

Order. We have two more speakers, and they will be able to get in. We will resume immediately once everyone is back from the Division; we will not take the 15 minutes. If there are two Divisions, the same applies. As soon as the second one is done— I think there will be two—I ask everyone to get back quickly, apart from Members who have informed me that they cannot do so.

Drugs Policy

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The briefing from Transform states:

“No one has died from an overdose, anywhere in the world, ever, in a supervised drug consumption room”.

If Transform has made a mistake, I apologise.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, because he is making such a powerful case about the importance of evidence-based policy. Is it not the case that drug consumption rooms allow us to reach people who would otherwise be very hard to reach and, over time, build up trust and bring them into recovery? The purpose of drug consumption rooms is not simply to go on handing out drugs to people, day after day. It is to reach those hard-to-reach people and bring them into recovery, over time.

[Norman Lamb]

I totally agree, and I applaud the hon. Lady for the work she has done in arguing the case for reform. Trials of this type of approach have shown huge reductions in acquisitive crime resulting from illegal drug use and in the small-time dealing indulged in to pay for the habit, but the Government withdrew the funding for these trials in April 2016. How short-sighted! The strategy stresses the importance of listening to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, but it recommends the use of rooms where drugs can be taken safely, heroin prescribing and, in effect, the decriminalisation of the use of drugs, and the Government are doing none of those things. If the Government say they should listen to the council, they should please listen to what it is arguing for.

It seems to me there is a dishonesty to this debate. In the foreword to the strategy, the Home Secretary says:

“By working together, we can achieve a society that works for everyone and in which every individual is supported to live a life free from drugs”.

Incidentally, does that mean “free from drugs” other than the most dangerous drug, alcohol, which we of course allow to be sold and take the tax from? The objective or ambition of a world free from drugs is unachievable, as other hon. Members have pointed out, so let us just get rid of this fantasy at the heart of the so-called war on drugs, which has been a stupid and catastrophic failure. Such an international policy approach has had extra- ordinary consequences. It has massively enriched organised crime, to the tune of billions of pounds every year. It has also criminalised young people in particular, and it has had a disproportionate impact on ethnic minorities.

Illegal drug use is actually lower among black and minority ethnic groups than in the white population in this country, but black people are six times more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs than white people. Our son, who is in the music business, was driving in London in the middle of the night, on his way back from a recording at the BBC, when he was stopped in his car. He happened to have a black artist with him, who said, “This is just a fact of life in London for us. This is what happens to us.” They were all pinned up against a wall as they were searched for illegal drugs. There were no illegal drugs in the car, but this is too often what black people in our inner cities have to cope with week in, week out, and it is not acceptable. Black people in London are five times more likely to be charged for the possession of cannabis than white people. This is extraordinary discrimination.

We criminalise people with mental health problems. We know that there is massive comorbidity: if people are suffering from mental ill health—depression, anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder—they may well end up taking drugs as an escape from the pain that they are suffering, and then we prosecute them and give them a criminal record. How cruel and stupid! There is hypocrisy in that the former Prime Minister famously took cannabis when he was at Eton and many members of this Government have probably taken drugs in their time, yet they are happy to see the careers of other citizens blighted by criminal convictions for what they did in their younger years. Surely that is intolerable.

The strategy addresses the issue of decriminalisation and refers to the evidence of harm, yet we know that the most dangerous drug for causing harm is alcohol, as I have already said, to which the Government take a completely different approach. They still use the language of having a tough approach to enforcement, yet the Home Office’s own report from a couple of years ago showed that there is no link between the toughness of a regime and the level of drug use in society. The illegal market also causes extreme violence in our communities. To control the market in a particular community, all people can do is resort to extreme violence to protect it; they cannot have resort to the courts, as other capitalists do. It has always been disadvantaged communities that suffer the most.

I recommend to anyone here who is interested in this subject the book by Johann Hari, “Chasing the Scream”, which refers to the extraordinary spikes in violence—particularly in America, where there is ever a legal clampdown on the suppliers of drugs to communities—when new suppliers come into a community and seek to gain control of the market. The only way they do that is by using extreme violence.

As I have said, in Portugal, after initial resistance, there is political unity across the spectrum. In the United States, more and more states are moving towards regulated markets for cannabis. In Canada, a Liberal Government are legislating to introduce a legal regulated market. In the UK, I commissioned an expert panel that included a serving chief constable, Michael Barton from Durham. Its recommendation was that in the interests of public health—not despite public health, which is an important point for the Minister—we should move towards a regulated market where we control potency, who grows it and who sells it. That protects those at risk of psychosis and memory impairment because potency is controlled. If people buy from a criminal, they have no idea what they are buying. The criminal has no interest in people’s welfare; they simply want to make a fast buck from them. If people buy from a regulated seller, there is a chance to avoid the sort of harm that we see so often at the moment.

I make this plea: do not claim that the case for change is irresponsible, but bring about change because it will save lives, it will reduce HIV and hepatitis C infection, it will protect people better, it will end the ludicrous enriching of criminals, it will cut violence in our poorest communities, it will end the self-defeating criminalisation of people who have done exactly the same thing as successful people in government, in business and in all sorts of walks of life, and it will raise vital tax revenues. Follow the evidence. Do not perpetuate the stigma and the fear. End this catastrophic approach to drugs policy.