Serious Violence

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

This is a very important subject, and it is at the forefront of many of our constituents’ minds. The House respects the fact that the Home Secretary chose to open this debate himself, even though we may not agree with some of his conclusions. Up and down the country, communities are haunted by the fear of the rising tide of violent crime. This is happening in metropolitan areas such as London and Birmingham, as well as in cities such as Grimsby. The fear and the concern are universal. Generations ago, young men solved their disputes with their fists. Nowadays, the same disputes—even the same criminal interactions—are settled with guns and knives.

The fear in the communities is threefold. First, there is the threat to yourself. We heard earlier about the tragic death of a man in Anglesey who was killed by a crossbow, and we hope that the Home Secretary will look into the regulations on crossbows. Secondly, there is the fear that your child could be the victim of violent crime. As a long-standing east end MP, I have sat with too many mothers who had said goodbye to their son in the morning as they saw him off to school or college, only to get a call from the emergency services later telling them that their son was dead. When you have sat with so many of those mothers, you understand how harrowing violent crime is for our communities. Thirdly, there is the fear that your child could be a perpetrator. It can be almost as traumatising to discover that your child is involved in violent crime as it is to find that they have been a victim. It is almost inevitable that there will be more deaths from violent crime this weekend in one or another of our great cities.

I have to begin by talking about the effect of the Government’s policies in the round. Violent crime does not happen in a policy vacuum, and the Opposition contend that the Government’s austerity policy has contributed to the causes of increased crime in almost every conceivable way. That is one reason why the Government have presided over a rise in violent crime. Ministers cannot be right in saying that the rise in violent crime is all down to better recording. If someone is a victim of violent crime, that is one crime that they will report and that will be recorded.

We have heard about some of the extra money being spent on different initiatives, particularly the £22 million for the early intervention youth fund. However, as Opposition Members have said, that does not begin to offset the cuts in youth services up and down the country. I stress to Ministers that it is not a choice between targeted intervention and a properly funded general youth service: we need both. If the money goes into just targeted interventions, the danger is that those young people feel stigmatised and do not want to engage. Ministers talk as if, on any given estate, a couple of guys are on the verge of committing some terrible violent atrocity, and for all the other young men on that estate, everything is just fine.

In our communities, on our estates and in other communities, young people need a properly resourced general youth service, not just because someone is on the verge of committing a criminal atrocity, but because, sadly, in the 21st century, with the break-up of the nuclear family and many mothers out of work who might not choose to be out of work, many young men—and women—need to interact with role models, particularly male role models. That is what the youth service offers. It is not just a question of dragging somebody from the brink of violent crime.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

I speak as a former Connexions manager. The Government have cut £880 million from youth support services. Those cuts have consequences. They come on top of the several hundred million pounds cut from public health—the Secretary of State spoke about a public health approach—and the loss of 21,000 police officers, 7,000 police community support officers and 15,000 police staff. Does my right hon. Friend agree that those cuts have consequences?

[Ms Abbott]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes an important intervention. I will return to the question of cuts having consequences later.

[Huw Merriman]

I sense that the shadow Home Secretary will not agree with me, but to try to take the party politics out of the discussion, it is worth considering that back in 2008, when there was no austerity, there were 272 knife-crime-related homicides—too many. Last year, there were 285—too many. By 2015, when the right hon. Lady could argue that austerity was at its height, the number had gone down to 186. I am appealing to her to look at the subject a little more holistically rather than considering just financing.

[Ms Abbott]

This is not about party politics for me. It is about the lives of people I live among—my friends’ children’s lives and the lives of some of the women and children on the street where I live in Hackney. The hon. Gentleman denigrates the issue by reducing it to mere party politics.

[Huw Merriman]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was not making a party political point. My point was that we do not need to be party political because the figures have fluctuated under different approaches. I think that perhaps the shadow Home Secretary is confused about my point.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

That is not a point of order. I think the hon. Gentleman will try to catch my eye later and he could deal with the point during the debate. I really do not like points of order in the middle of debates—they just disrupt the proceedings. We are having a serious debate, so let us get on with it.

[Ms Abbott]

I do not think I was confused at all. I know the point that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle is trying to make, and my point is that this is so much more than party politics; it is people’s lives.

[Dr Huq]

My right hon. Friend is making a moving and powerful speech. On the subject of party politics, does she agree that this is not even a political choice for councils anymore? Councils of all political complexions are cash strapped. Youth services in Labour Ealing have been cut by 50%, but in Tory Hillingdon, the borough of the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, youth services have been cut by 85%. This Government said austerity is over; they need to put their money where their mouth is and reverse those local government cuts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and this is not just an issue for councils of a particular political colour. Austerity is hitting the ability of councils of all political colours to deliver the services we need to effectively combat violent crime.

[Stephen Doughty]

My right hon. Friend is making a strong, powerful speech, and I agree that this goes well beyond party politics. It is about our communities and the challenges faced by the young people who live in them. My dad was a youth worker for many years in Cardiff, and he trained youth workers across the city. I have three local councillors who were fantastic youth workers in my community, and the one thing I hear from all of them is that because young people spend the vast majority of their lives outside school, youth services are even more important.

Why do we not consider making youth services statutory? Instead of them being a Cinderella service that is always cut, always slashed and always bearing the brunt of austerity, with devastating consequences for young people’s lives and opportunities, we should start taking them seriously and provide a serious youth service for all young people.

[Ms Abbott]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the importance of having statutory youth services, and more so because most young people spend most of their life outside school, which is why a properly funded youth service is so important.

The Home Secretary has announced another pot of funding for young people’s advocates, but that does not begin to compensate for the thousands of community police officers who have been cut. I would say that community police officers, inasmuch as they engaged with families and young people in the community on a day-to-day basis, were very much the frontline against criminality, including violent crime.

This Government, and this is a fact, imposed austerity on the police, which led to falling crime detection rates. Crime prevention efforts have also been undermined, partly because of the cuts to community police officers.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Detection is obviously essential, as is getting weapons out of circulation. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner says she is in favour of stop-and-search as a means of getting those weapons out of circulation. Does the right hon. Lady back that call?

[Ms Abbott]

Absolutely. I have always argued that evidence-based stop-and-search has an important role to play. The Opposition fully support targeted, evidence-based stop-and-search. What has proved problematic in the past is non-evidence-based, random stop-and-search. I accept that one thing that has helped in the use of stop-and-search, as the Home Secretary says, is body-worn cameras, which minimise accusations on either side—by the person who has been stopped and searched or by the police officer. Evidence-based stop-and-search is a good thing; random stop-and-search has a very chequered history of exacerbating community tensions.

[Janet Daby]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that some families and young people do not complain about stop-and-search, or indeed about police behaviour, for fear of reprisals? I would have thought the Home Secretary would be aware of that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

Sadly, there are still tensions in many of our communities between young people and the police. Those tensions will be easier to deal with when we have the right levels of police funding and the right number of police officers. I do not doubt that my hon. Friend is correct when she says there are young people who do not necessarily report the injustices they think they have experienced.

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

The shadow Home Secretary talked about the right levels of police funding and police officers. Can she tell me what the right level of funding is, given that she voted against this Government’s increase in funding to the police?

[Ms Abbott]

People should stop using that old Whips Office line. The reason we voted against the Government’s proposal on funding was that we did not think it was enough money. Hopefully, nobody will raise that point again.

Government austerity has contributed to increases in the factors underlying the causes of serious violent crime, undermined prevention and cut police numbers, so there are inevitably fewer arrests and convictions. Ministers and other Members will say that the Government have recently increased spending on the police. In real terms, if we take away the precept, and once the cost of police pensions is taken—[Interruption.] We are talking about central Government funding. The problem with the precept, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) will perhaps explain to Conservative Members, is that it inevitably falls more heavily on poorer areas than on wealthier areas. We are saying that the claims about increased spending are not as impressive as they might seem, once we take away the cost of police pensions, which had to be met, and once we realise that much of that increased spending actually comes from the precept rather than central Government spending. In any event, this is a sticking plaster on a gaping wound—a wound inflicted by the Government’s own cuts.

The National Audit Office, which I hope will not be accused of being party political, has previously shown that central Government funding for the police has been cut in real terms since 2010. Offensive Weapons Bills and knife crime orders are one thing, but communities also need actual police officers in place to make use of those new legislative options.

It should be clear that Ministers are in danger of tying themselves in knots. On the one hand, they have tried to insist in the past that there is no correlation between the cuts they have imposed on the police and rising serious violent crime. On the other hand, the Home Secretary has boasted to us today that the Government are now providing more resources to the police. Which is it? Do police resources and police strength have anything to do with rising crime and falling arrest rates? Or are the recent, relatively modest resources provided to the police purely decorative and designed to get Back-Bench Tory MPs off Ministers’ backs? Are they supposed to stop the crisis in funding and police strength getting worse? If so, is that not a tacit admission of the huge damage that Government cuts have caused?

I have mentioned the overall cuts in central Government funding for the police. However, as was mentioned earlier, the head of the National Crime Agency says that an extra £2.7 billion is needed to tackle organised crime. As it happens, that is close to the amount that has been cut from the police budget since 2010. We also learn that there is now a cost over-run in the emergency services network of £3.1 billion pounds. Ministers have not yet come to the House to explain that and what they intend to do about it—and that at a time when billions have been cut from police budgets.

The effect is clear. In March 2018, there were 122,400 police officers in the police forces of England and Wales. That is a fall of 15% since March 2010, or a decline of 21,300 officers. All the new law, all the new orders, all the committees and all the reviews in the world cannot compensate for losing 21,300 officers. It is also relevant that the rate of those leaving the police force has almost doubled since 2010. Stress and overwork are taking their toll on under-resourced officers. There are now fewer police officers in England and Wales than there were in 1982. Of course, the under-resourcing of individual forces by this Government means that some forces are in an even worse position.

[Stephen Doughty]

I thank my right hon. Friend for being generous in giving way. She is talking about the underfunding of specific forces. Does she share my concern that, as in the case of South Wales police, and particularly of Cardiff, as a capital city, which has particular challenges because it is a seat of government, hosts major events and so on, there is often a real knock-on effect on our community policing, which amplifies the effect of the cuts? That is despite the strong efforts of South Wales police, which has been arguing with the Home Office for months and months now for some additional funding for Cardiff’s capital city responsibilities to free up the capacity of community policing to deal with serious violence on our streets.

[Ms Abbott]

I visited Cardiff last year, and the senior police officers and the police and crime commissioner put to me the case for more funding. That case is well made.

On the question of knife crime, as of March 2011—not long after the coalition Government took office—there were 30,600 offences with a knife or sharp instrument; by 2018, that total had reached more than 40,800. That is a rise of nearly a third. In the latest year, there was a 12% increase in homicide, even if we exclude the cowardly terrorist attacks in Manchester in London. It is an appalling record; it is actually shameful. Government cuts have consequences. The Home Office’s own data shows that almost half of all crimes are closed with no suspect identified. In the past year, the proportion of summons or charges fell from 11% to 9%. That means a reduction of summons and/or charges in 41,000 individual cases. Police strength does have an impact in the fight against crime. Cuts do have consequences.

I have long taken an interest in disorder and crime—since long before I had the honour to represent my party on home affairs from the Front Bench—and my view on serious violence is, as with all policy matters, that we should focus on what works. From the inception of the violence reduction unit in Glasgow, we have seen a system that works: homicides due to knife crime in Glasgow have plummeted. We welcome the £80 million that the Chancellor has provided in funds for the new violence reduction units—it is a policy that we have long advocated on the Opposition Benches and we are pleased that the Home Secretary is copying the Labour party—but violence reduction units alone are not enough.

The Glasgow violence reduction unit was established when public spending was rising under Labour. The allocation of the latest funds takes place as austerity still rules. That means that poverty and inequality will continue to rise, as will zero-hours contracts, no proper apprenticeships and the burden of student debt. Pupils continue to be excluded, and find themselves in pupil referral units. The Government have a failed drugs policy combined with police cuts. We argue that the underlying causes of crime, and the opportunities for crime, are rising, and the prospect of criminals being caught are falling. More money for violence reduction units is welcome, but while austerity continues, they are unlikely to be as successful as they could be. As money is trickled into violence reduction units, the Government have carved a big hole in the bottom of the bucket with austerity.

When it comes to law and order, the Government cannot take with one hand, with the big cuts in local authorities, and give with the other, through individual pots of money for things such as violence reduction units and the youth endowment fund. Those individual pots of money do not begin to compensate for nearly a decade of cuts to policing, to youth services and to mental health services for young people and adolescents, and Ministers should not pretend that they do. All the summits, the committees, the reviews, the new legislation and even a new statutory duty cannot compensate for an overall lack of resources.

As for the public health approach, in her evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, Chief Constable Sara Thornton stressed the importance of strong drive, co-ordination and a concerted approach, if the public health approach was to succeed in England. Chief Constable Dave Thompson of the West Midlands police pointed out that, although the Home Secretary’s strategy alludes to a public health-based approach, it is not yet a public health-based strategy. There is next to no mention of violence in Public Health England documentation, including in Public Health England’s outcomes document. I understand that there is a consultation going on, but people will not take this Government seriously on a public health approach until that begins to be reflected in the actual practice and the actual close working between Public Health England, education and the NHS.

Violent crime haunts our communities. We argue that it is not just a failure of individual boys, young men and, increasingly, women, but an overall failure of Government policy, and it is partly caused by austerity. When it comes to violent crime, words are easy, but providing the proper resources and taking the right actions are difficult. I argue that, as we move into a weekend where, inevitably, we will hear about more violent crime and more knife crime, it is well past time that the Government left behind words, good intention and pots of money and showed genuine intent and provided the genuine level of resources that are needed.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I have now to announce the result of a Division deferred from a previous day. In respect of the question relating to the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations, the Ayes were 294 and the Noes were 184, so the Ayes have it.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

Places of Worship: Security Funding

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for prior sight of his statement. The Opposition welcome his statement in principle, particularly the Ramadan package. We are aware that there is particular fear in some of our communities as we enter the period of Ramadan. However, we reserve the right to return to the subject as the detail of implementation becomes clear.

Across the world we are seeing a rise in terror attacks especially on people in their place of worship. The House should contemplate what it means to be gathered together to pray to your God and find yourself a victim of murder and terrorism. In Sri Lanka we saw more than 200 people die, including hundreds of people at Easter services in Christian churches. We all saw the images of the terrorist entering the church with the rucksack on his back, patting a small child on the head and then proceeding to blow up the innocent worshippers.

This followed the terror attacks in Christchurch on Muslim worshippers, which claimed the lives of 50 people and injured 40 more. The attack was livestreamed on Facebook. Most recently, a gunman stormed a synagogue, killing an innocent woman on the last day of Passover. The concern must be that, in this era of online, when someone can literally livestream their terror, there is a danger of copycat incidents. That is one of the things that has inspired fear in different communities.

On this side of the House, we want to make it clear that these terror attacks are murderous and vile, whether they come from admirers of al-Qaeda or ISIS or from admirers of tinpot Adolf Hitlers. As we move towards the European elections, sadly, we may well see a rise in far right activity, which may seek to mirror some of the terrorist attacks that we have seen. That is why we believe that this statement is timely and to be welcomed.

These terror attacks spread ripples of violence throughout communities and countries. The Metropolitan police report that racist and religious hate crimes in London hit their highest levels in a year immediately following the Christchurch mosque shootings. Tell MAMA, the Muslim community organisation, said that there was an almost sixfold increase in reports to its monitoring service immediately after the Christchurch attack. Separately, the Community Security Trust also reports rising incidents. My own Haredi Jewish community in Stamford Hill have seen a steep rise in attacks; sadly, they do not always report them to the police, although I am working with them to encourage them to go to the authorities after all such incidents. There have been similar reports from police forces and monitoring community organisations across the country.

The proposals that the Home Secretary has announced are both timely and appropriate, but we will follow up some of the measures. For instance, the Opposition will wish to know where the worship protection security fund is being allocated, and which organisations have applied for and been awarded the funding. My experience is that sometimes those who obtain Government funding are better at putting in applications, rather than necessarily being the organisations in most need.

We will want to know about where the £5 million fund to provide security training for places of worship is allocated—that the money is going to the appropriate communities in appropriate parts of the country. We will be interested to hear from Ministers about their consultations with religious communities and will want to know who is able to access and benefit from the Ramadan package of support for mosques. We are not accusing Ministers of bad faith, but we are saying that all too often, when it comes to allocating such funding, the people who know about it and are skilled at making applications benefit, although they may not necessarily be the most vulnerable and needy communities.

We welcome the fact that the police are providing vital protection to all places of worship, although I say gently to the Home Secretary that the situation is not helped by the cuts in police numbers since 2010. Our main point is that nobody should have to go to their place of worship and feel fear. Nobody should feel that horrible incidents such as we have seen internationally may be reflected in their mosque, church or gurdwara. We also say that some Muslim community centres are next to mosques; we hope that they can get some help, support and protection also.

The terrorist incidents that we have been seeing are both frightening and tragic. We as a House must assure vulnerable communities of our intent to support them, whether financially or in other ways. I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, but he can be assured that we will be following up how it actually unfolds in practice.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Lady for the tone of her remarks and for her support. I think it is reassuring for members of the public watching or listening to know that everyone in this House is united in the determination to protect people in all places of worship, whatever their faith, in every way we can. I very much welcome her comments.

The right hon. Lady rightly started by condemning the recent terrorist attacks around the world—in Christchurch, Sri Lanka and San Diego. She was also right to make a link between those attacks and what she called the ripple effect—the rise in recorded hate crime that we have sadly seen here in our own country. I know she shares our absolute determination to ensure we do everything we can where hate crime is reported. People must always feel that they can go ahead and report that crime. Letting the police know enables them to investigate it and take action.

The right hon. Lady said she would follow up on the package, and I hope she does. That is exactly what I would expect of her and I very much welcome it. She is very good at following up on things. That will help us, working together, to ensure we are doing all we can to support our communities. She was right to raise the issue of how we can ensure the fund is allocated as quickly and as efficiently as possible. That is why I referred in my statement to changes I am making to the application rules. In the past the fund has, I think, required at least three estimates for putting up CCTV from different certified contractors. I think we can simplify the rules. We are doing that and it will help to make it more straightforward.

The right hon. Lady raised the £5 million that I announced for training. I think we have a collective desire to ensure it is utilised quickly, properly and efficiently, and that all communities and all faith groups feel they have access and support. That is exactly why we have already started the consultation with faith groups, community representatives and others to make sure we are listening to them about the best way to use the £5 million.

All of us in this House share a determination to ensure that people in our country can worship without fear. We will do everything we can to make that a reality.

Arrest of Julian Assange

Diane Abbott Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for his account of events. On the Labour Benches, we are glad that Julian Assange will be able to access medical care, treatment and facilities, because there have been worrying reports about his ill health. Of course, at this point that is all a matter for the courts.

We in the Opposition want to make the point that, even though the only charge that Julian Assange may face in this country is in relation to his bail hearings, the reason we are debating this this afternoon is entirely to do with his and WikiLeaks’ whistleblowing activities. These whistleblowing activities about illegal wars, mass murder, murder of civilians and corruption on a grand scale have put Julian Assange in the crosshairs of the US Administration. For this reason, they have once more issued an extradition warrant against Mr Assange.

The Home Secretary will know that Mr Assange complained to the UN that he was being unlawfully detained as he could not leave the Ecuadorian embassy without being arrested. In February 2016, the UN panel ruled in his favour, stating that he had been arbitrarily detained and that he should be allowed to walk free and compensated for his “deprivation of liberty”. Mr Assange hailed that as a significant victory and called the decision binding, but the Foreign Office responded by saying that this ruling “changes nothing”. I note that the Foreign Office responded then, not the Home Office or the Ministry of Justice. The Foreign Office has no responsibility for imprisonment and extradition in this country, but it is interested, of course, in relations with allies and others.

We have precedent in this country in relation to requests for extradition to the US, when the US authorities raise issues of hacking and national security. I remind the House of the case of Gary McKinnon. In October 2012, when the current Prime Minister was Home Secretary, an extradition request very similar to this one was refused. We should recall what WikiLeaks disclosed. Who can forget the Pentagon video footage of a missile attack in 2007 in Iraq that killed 18 civilians and two Reuters journalists? The monumental number of such leaks lifted the veil on US-led military operations in a variety of theatres, none of which has produced a favourable outcome for the people of those countries. Julian Assange is being pursued not to protect US national security, but because he has exposed wrongdoing by US Administrations and their military forces.

We only have to look at the treatment of Chelsea Manning to see what awaits Julian Assange if he is extradited to the US. Ms Manning has already been incarcerated, between 2010 and 2017. She was originally sentenced to 35 years. Her indefinite detention now is because she refuses to participate in partial disclosure, which would allow whistleblowers to be pursued and not the perpetrators. Her human rights and protections as a transgender woman have been completely ignored—[Interruption.] Her human rights as a transgender woman have been completely ignored, and I hope that Government Members will take that seriously.

What this has to do with Julian Assange’s case is that this could be the type of treatment he could expect if he is extradited to the US. In this country, we have protections for whistleblowers, including the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 and others—even if some of us feel that these protections should be more robust. Underpinning this legislation is the correct premise, not that anyone can leak anything they like but that protection should be afforded to those who take a personal risk to disclose wrongdoing where that disclosure serves the public interest. Julian Assange is at risk of extradition to the US precisely because, as we in the Opposition believe, he has exposed material that is in the utmost public interest.

This is now in the hands of the British law courts. We have the utmost confidence in the British legal system, but we in the Opposition would be very concerned, on the basis of what we know, about Julian Assange being extradited to the US.

[Sajid Javid]

First, I thank the right hon. Lady for her response, but I think the whole country, if people listen to her response, will be pretty astounded by the tone that she has taken. She started by talking about the reason for Mr Assange’s arrest and tried to come up with all sorts of justifications, which have nothing to do with the reason. The reason Mr Assange has been arrested is that he failed to surrender to a UK court—that is why he has been arrested. There was a provisional arrest warrant, which is subject to extradition proceedings. Those are usual procedures under UK law. There is no one in this country who is above the law. The right hon. Lady who, we should remember, wants to be the Home Secretary, is suggesting that we should not apply the rule of law to an individual.

[Ms Abbott]

indicated dissent.

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Lady is disagreeing, but she said quite clearly that Mr Assange should not be subject to UK law, and that is something that should worry any British citizen, should she ever become Home Secretary.

[Ms Abbott]

rose—

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Lady can intervene later if you allow her, Mr Speaker—that is possible. However, I want to finish my comments in response to hers.

The right hon. Lady also talked about the UN, as though the UN had some opinion on this issue. I am sure it was not intentional, but she was at risk of not giving quite correct information, because the UN has no view on the Assange case. I think she was actually referring to the view of a group of independent persons who decided to look at this case. They do not speak for the UN in any way whatever. It was a small group of individuals who came up with a deeply flawed opinion, suggesting that somehow Mr Assange was indefinitely detained in the UK by the British authorities. In fact, the only person responsible for Mr Assange’s detention is himself—it was entirely self-inflicted. It is astonishing that the right hon. Lady should even bring up that report and suggest that, somehow, it was a UN view or a UN report.

Then the right hon. Lady talked about the US request for extradition. I will not be drawn into the request for extradition; it is rightly a matter for the courts. Should the courts deem it correct and necessary at some point to send a request for extradition to me, I will consider it appropriately under our laws.

I note that the shadow Home Secretary, both today and in the past—and indeed the Leader of the Opposition —have defended Assange and WikiLeaks from efforts to tackle their illegal activity. They could have clarified things today for the British public; the right hon. Lady could have done that on behalf of the Opposition, but she did not. Why is it that, whenever someone has a track record of undermining the UK and our allies and the values we stand for, you can almost guarantee that the leadership of the Labour party will support those who intend to do us harm? You can always guarantee that from the party opposite.

Windrush Compensation Scheme

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Ooh, it is very striking to see the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) beetling off together. It is almost certainly a conspiracy—but probably a conspiracy in the public interest, I feel sure.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing this important urgent question.

The whole House knows that the Windrush generation was let down by successive Governments, Labour and Conservative, but with this derisory compensation scheme, the Windrush generation has been let down once again. I draw it to the attention of the House that although I did get early sight of the Home Secretary’s statement on 3 April, I was not provided with early sight of the scheme rules, and I appreciate the opportunity to question the Minister on them today.

This scheme compares very unfavourably with the criminal injuries compensation scheme, whose awards are aligned with compensation for loss under common law. Claimants are also allowed a statutory right of appeal of awards. They are also allowed legal aid for those appeals. None of that is true in any meaningful sense in the case of the Windrush victims. How can the Minister possibly justify that?

The Opposition believe that the Home Office must pay for losses actually incurred. For instance, claimants will be paid just £1,264 for denial of access to child benefit. It is easy to quantify what people would have lost altogether. Why cannot they get that exact sum of money back, plus interest? There is only £500 for denial of access to free healthcare. It is easy to quantify how much people had to spend when they had to access private healthcare. Why cannot they get that money back?

On awards, the scheme provides compensation for detention. However, in the false imprisonment case of Sapkota v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, the courts upheld three common law principles. First, detention is more traumatic for a person of good character. Secondly, a higher rate of compensation is payable for the first hour. Thirdly, historic damages awarded in precedent cases must be adjusted and uplifted to present-day values. The deputy High Court judge in that case awarded Mr Sapkota £24,000. This proposed scheme provides nothing like those common law damages.

The amounts offered for wrongful denial of access to higher education are pitiful. The scheme offers just £500, but all the research shows that the lifetime benefit of access to higher education is counted in tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of pounds.

This scheme is shoddy, unfair and unjust. Ministers did not make all the information available to Her Majesty’s Opposition when we were able to respond to the scheme. Some might say—I will not say it—that Ministers were attempting to conceal the reality of the derisory nature of their scheme. Above all, the Home Secretary said there was no cap. These tariffs are a cap. We are asking Ministers, even at this late stage, to review these unfair tariffs, remove the cap, and give this generation the justice they deserve.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments, but given that the rules and guidance were published on the same day as the Home Secretary made the statement, it is somewhat unfair to suggest any attempt to conceal the scheme. Far from it: we have sought to publicise the scheme and to reach out to posts across the world with a selection of communication tools, and we invited high commissioners into the Home Office last Thursday to emphasise the scheme to them.

I will comment briefly on the published Home Office ex gratia scheme that was already in place and to which the Home Office and Martin Forde referred when considering this scheme. The ex gratia scheme provides a maximum £1,000 for someone who has been wrongfully deported. In arriving at the £10,000 figure for deportation, the Government considered that alongside the case law evidence of courts awarding a range of damages subject to individual case details. We regarded £10,000 as a more appropriate figure than the £1,000 in the existing scheme, which has been in place for many years.

The right hon. Lady mentioned the scheme of review. We have put in place a two-tier review: first, an internal review, whereby someone who is not content with the original decision can have it referred to a senior caseworker who was not involved in the original decision; and, secondly, independent of the Home Office, another tier of review will be considered by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs independent adjudicator.

With regard to caps on payments, this scheme is both tariff and actuals-based. The right hon. Lady raised the issue of those who might have been denied NHS care, where the tariff scheme involves an award of £500. However, if an individual incurred private healthcare costs, the actuals will of course be repaid. The Home Office is determined to work with its own information and with data held by other Departments and indeed by individuals more widely, so that we help claimants to establish their actual level of loss, where that is the most appropriate route.

Windrush Compensation Scheme

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for early sight of his statement. I also wish to place on record our gratitude to Martin Forde QC and his colleagues for the advice he has provided. I would like to say at this point that none of the delays in this process is attributable to him.

We have to remember in this House how much pride the Windrush generation took in being British. We have to remember that they came here in good faith under passports which indicated to them that they were indeed British. There are all the material challenges they faced as part of the Windrush scandal but, above all, having to spoken to numbers of these people, there was the humiliation of being told year on year by the British state that somehow they were not British, they were not worthy, they were not deserving and services they had paid into for years and years were not available to them.

The reality is that this is a scandal that should never have happened. It is a scandal to which the Government were initially slow to react and it is a scandal in which some Members of Parliament deliberately muddied the waters with talk of illegal immigrants, when, by definition, none of the Windrush victims is here illegally. It is a scandal that is set to continue unless and until the Government end their hostile environment. It is also a scandal that is set to multiply with the 3 million EU citizens because of the Government’s refusal to guarantee all their existing rights and, I am sorry to say, because of the lack of preparedness at the Home Office.

The Prime Minister told us that she would fight “burning injustices”. Well, the Windrush scandal was a burning injustice and it took place on her watch, first as Home Secretary and then as Prime Minister. Her successor as Home Secretary was obliged to relinquish her post because she incorrectly told the House that there were no numerical deportation targets. We have since learned that the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) had written to the Prime Minister promising to increase deportations by 10%. We also know that deportation numbers were a key performance indicator when she presided over home affairs, and that Home Office officials received bonuses relating to the numbers of deportees. It is hard not to imagine that these targets, performance indicators and bonuses did not affect the lack of care with which the Windrush generation were treated. The current Home Secretary told the House in April last year:

“I will do whatever it takes to put it right”.

He also said:

“We have made it clear that a Commonwealth citizen who has remained in the UK since 1973 will be eligible to get the legal status that they deserve: British citizenship.”—[Official Report, 30 April 2018; Vol. 640, c. 35.]

And yet here we are. We know that many citizens from the Commonwealth who have been here since 1973 have still not been granted British citizenship and are still not treated as British citizens.

On this side of the House, we welcome the fact that the compensation scheme will be open to the estates of deceased Windrush generation persons and also to their relatives. They were an ageing cohort, and it is only fair that their relatives should be able to claim. We also welcome the fact that the Home Secretary accepts that this is not just about persons from the Caribbean. The Windrush generation is so called because of that emblematic symbol, the Empire Windrush, but it actually involves anyone from a Commonwealth country who came to this country between 1948 and 1972. I believe that many more persons will need to come forward if we are really going to clear up this scandal.

Will the Home Secretary say a little about the hardship fund, which was set up in response to pressure from my hon. Friends to deal with the immediate issues faced by the Windrush generation? How much is available to the hardship fund as a whole? Is it true that thus far only two people have had payments from the fund? We are glad to have further details of the compensation scheme itself, but I believe that it still falls short of what is expected, what is required and what is fair. Is the Home Secretary able to tell the House how much is available for the compensation scheme as a whole? Is he willing to comment on the fact that the scheme will not compensate those who may have gone back to the Caribbean or elsewhere in the Commonwealth for a holiday or a funeral and who were not allowed to get back on the plane? The document states that it is difficult to ascertain

“whether inability to return to the UK is a loss”.

Of course it is a loss. That is an extraordinary thing to say. We know that people were wrongly prevented from returning to their home here. The Home Secretary admits that. One of the reasons was that they were unable to provide documentary proof of their status. Now the Home Secretary proposes to exclude them from compensation. These people were British citizens, yet they were unable to return to their home here and in some cases they were separated from their families. This is not ending the scandal; it continues it.

The Home Secretary and the Government propose to make a contribution towards legal fees only up to a fixed amount and will not reimburse for fees higher than that amount. This is despite the fact that these legal costs, which are easily documented, were incurred in challenging wrongful loss of jobs, deprivation of public services including the NHS, loss of home, wrongful detention and wrongful deportation. We also note that there will be no compensation for private healthcare for persons living in this country who were unable to access the NHS care they were entitled to.

The remedies provided by the scheme will include an apology and ex gratia payments. The Government will make these compensation payments voluntarily, without necessarily establishing a formal legal obligation. Surely there must be a formal legal obligation. I do not think we can rely—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I say very gently to the shadow Home Secretary that this is going to be talked out, as things stand, because we have only until 1.45 and about 20 colleagues want to take part.

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to the Speaker.

Let me say finally that there are some in this House who are the children of the Windrush generation. Whether we are on the Front Benches or the Back Benches, and whether we are in opposition or in government, we will not rest until that generation, one of the bravest generations, gets the justice to which it is entitled.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments and also for what she said about Martin Forde QC and the work he has done to make this scheme a reality. She started by saying that this should never have happened. I absolutely agree with her and always have. I think the whole House agrees on that. Of course none of the people who were caught up were here illegally; they had every right to be here.

The right hon. Lady has referred to the compliant environment. Sadly, she talks about it as though it were an environment that had been put in place since 2010. However, she knows that the right to check whether someone is here illegally and a number of other rules and regulations were put in under the previous Labour Government. She talks about how people were affected, and we are all trying to deal with this issue and to provide justice, but it is worth reminding the House that when the historical review was done and it was determined that 164 people were the most likely to have suffered detriment, almost half of them had suffered detriment under the previous Labour Government. It is worth keeping it in mind that successive Governments have in effect caused this problem, and it is no good trying to point the finger at one particular Government.

The right hon. Lady talked about the EU settlement scheme. It is precisely because of the lessons of Windrush that we need a scheme that cannot just be declaratory in approach. We need to ensure that our EU friends who are here in this country are properly documented. The abiding lesson from Windrush is the lack of proper documentation. She has rightly talked about those who want to have UK citizenship, and she knows that we have set up a special route for that. Approximately 4,000 people have taken advantage of that, at no cost to themselves. She is also right to say that the scheme is not just open to people of Caribbean origin, and I am glad we agree on that. She asked about the urgent exceptional payments fund. This is not just another compensation scheme; it is supposed to deal just with urgent exceptional payments. It is not capped, and I understand that nine payments have been made so far.

The right hon. Lady also asked about the compensation scheme, and how much it was likely to cost. There is no cap on the scheme, so no one knows what the eventual cost will be. It will be based on people’s needs and the claims that are made by eligible people, but the baseline estimate from my Department is that it will be approximately £200 million. She also referred to legal fees and private healthcare costs. I can tell her that in both those cases, although there is a tariff structure, both allow for actuals being paid in certain circumstances where proof is provided.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

We are already engaging with social media companies, especially the US giants that dominate the sector. I have met their representatives both here and abroad to discuss, in particular, terrorists and terrorism-related extremist content. However, the Government recognise that more needs to be done, which is why we will shortly publish the online harms White Paper.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary will be aware of recent reports that right-wing extremists are gaining access to ISIS-related terrorist training materials. The House should be aware that just as there is a terrorist threat from supporters of grotesque organisations such as ISIS and al-Qaeda, there is also a growing threat from the far right, which includes the threat of acts of terrorism. It has been reported that senior Home Office officials, Scotland Yard and the security agencies have met senior representatives of both the Muslim and Jewish communities. Will the Home Secretary confirm that those meetings have taken place, and will he tell us what reassurances he was able to provide?

As my hon. Friends have said, there is grave concern in the Muslim community in the light of the Christchurch massacre and the subsequent attacks on mosques in Birmingham. Can the Home Secretary assure us that funds will be available for the security of mosques and other Muslim places of worship, in the same way as they are available through the Community Security Trust for the security of synagogues? Is he aware that there are many Muslim community centres like my own North London Muslim Community Centre, which is next door to the mosque and forms part of the same complex of buildings? The people there feel very threatened. Is the Home Secretary prepared to consider helping them with funds for their necessary security?

[Sajid Javid]

I share the concerns that the right hon. Lady has expressed. Everyone in the House will understand why there are heightened concerns in our British Muslim communities, and why we need to do more. Soon after the Christchurch massacre, I sent “Dear colleague” messages to all Members about the immediate action that we are taking in increasing the funding for places of worship.

The right hon. Lady rightly raised the issue of Muslim community centres. I want to work with Muslim community leaders and others and to listen to what they say about what needs to be done. I think that all Members are united in their wish to ensure that our Muslim community in Britain, whom we cherish, feel hugely valued and receive the protection that they deserve. No one should feel intimidated in any way whatsoever.

ISIS Members Returning to the UK

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Luke Hall]

My hon. Friend gets to the heart of the matter. The fact that so many of her constituents signed the petition demonstrates the strength of feeling in many communities. Later, I will look in a bit more detail at whether and when it is right to remove citizenship. I thank her for that intervention.

The petition text states that a ban on all foreign fighters returning to the UK would send a message to others that membership of terrorist organisations is not tolerated. That is representative of a concern raised by many people that, in recent years, our democracies have taken too lax an attitude in dealing with extremism, allowing people the freedom to act in unacceptable ways that contravene traditional British values. Many people who have contacted me since this debate was scheduled worry that a precedent is being set, and that people are allowed to act as they please with no fear of consequence, resulting in an environment in which people feel able to join terrorist groups without any retribution.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it is illegal under international law to strip away someone’s nationality if thereby they are left completely stateless?

[Luke Hall]

I thank the right hon. Lady for making that point. At the moment, I am trying to articulate the concerns of the people who signed the petition. In a minute, I will talk about my own thoughts on the petition text. I am very aware of the point she makes, and I thank her for doing so, but that cannot cloud the fact that a lot of people feel this, which has resulted in the huge support for the petition. Those who have contacted me feel strongly that these are reasons for change alone.

A number of people who signed the petition think that, when foreign fighters realise that the area they have travelled to is not the utopia they anticipated, they feel able freely to return to their old lives in Britain without being prosecuted, and that taking a stronger line in denying those people the right to return to the UK would remove a substantial burden from our police force, which is required to spend time and resources in responding to terrorism-related incidents. The police’s time could be better used on other issues to maintain security and keep people safe on our streets.

A third argument that has been put forward is that the Government could do more to ensure that people who travel to countries such as Iraq and Syria to aid and abet terrorism can be reliably prosecuted for their actions on return to the UK. At present, every person returning to the UK is questioned and investigated. The Government have made it clear that, wherever possible, prosecutions are brought. However, statistics show that, of the 360 people who have returned to the UK, only 40 have been successfully prosecuted. It is of course incredibly difficult to gather evidence from regions such as the territories held by Daesh. Most people recognise and understand the difficulties that are likely to arise in trying to build a case against foreign fighters in order to level a charge against them that can be successfully prosecuted when they are in those regions.

People support the new public offence of entering or remaining in a designated area, which will enable prosecutions to be brought against people travelling to regions that the Government have designated as a terror risk. Therefore, although deprivation of citizenship may be suitable in certain unique situations, there are advantages to establishing that broader approach while retaining the ability to strip citizenship if the circumstances dictate that that would be the best course of action to keep our country safe.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Ind)]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Howarth, and it is a pleasure to follow that very measured and balanced opening contribution from the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall). It is unfortunate that the debate clashes directly with an urgent question in the main Chamber about far-right violence and online extremism in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist atrocity. That means that a number of us have had to choose between one and the other, which we did not originally think would be the case.

I will set out why I do not agree with the central proposition of the petition. The Government could be far more effective in tackling the menace of foreign fighters returning to the UK. Their current measures probably alienate people on most sides of the debate, and not for the first time.

It is abhorrent for anyone who claims to be British, who was born here and who has benefited from the manifest advantages that our country and society offer our citizens, to declare themselves effectively in opposition to everything that the UK stands for, to go as far as to travel to another country to take up arms—or to aid those taking up arms—fundamentally against the British state, and to aid actions that could result in members of the British armed forces being killed on the battlefield. Why, then, although I sympathise with its aims, do I think that the petition is wrong? There are two reasons.

The first is on the grounds of effectiveness. If we pronounced that no British citizen who went abroad as a foreign fighter would be allowed to return to the UK, we would essentially be tearing up long-standing international agreements on the exchange of citizens. That would make this country less, not more, safe, which is the opposite of the petition’s intention.

In the wake of the focus on the Shamima Begum case, I asked the Home Office to list the number of foreign citizens whom it has attempted to deport from the country, both for terrorist-related reasons and for other reasons. The officials who drafted the parliamentary answer on behalf of Ministers said that that information was not available. That sounds absurd; of course the Government know how many foreign nationals they have deported over recent years. The Government should be open about figures, particularly when that information probably stands to strengthen their overall position, which is to adhere to international rules on deporting citizens who are guilty of sufficiently serious offences.

I would be surprised if the figures, once we have them, do not show that, overall, the UK has deported more foreign extremists from our territory over the past five, 10 or 20 years than it is looking to accept back via deportation. Therefore, if we were to declare unilaterally that we will no longer accept British people back from foreign countries, not only would we be in breach of international rules, but why then would any other country accept back one of its nationals who has been found guilty, or is even suspected—people can be deported on the basis of less than a full conviction by a British court—of committing a terror offence. That approach could spectacularly backfire.

The second reason is a moral one, and I believe this strongly. When British society has created the problem—Shamima Begum was born in Britain, she is a British person and she was radicalised in Britain—she is our problem to sort out. How is it acceptable for the Government to deport the problem to another country through whatever strangulated means they used and without fully explaining them? In such circumstances, surely we need to be careful about the message we are sending as lawmakers. I am afraid that statements such as, “These people aren’t really British”, often have an undercurrent of meaning—that such a person does not look right, that they do not have the same skin colour as a British person or dress in the same way or follow the same religion as a British person. That is fundamentally wrong. We are an open society. We welcome people in and, once someone has been born here or has been accepted as British, that is it. We need to make our society work and to be far better at rooting out extremism in our country and in our communities, but the Government are not doing that sufficiently well enough.

We should pay attention not to stopping those Brits who have gone over and committed atrocities coming back, but to finding a way properly to prosecute them for any evil acts they might have done. That would be the deterrent effect to stop future generations going over.

[Ms Abbott]

Does my hon. Friend agree that telling first-generation British citizens of Bangladeshi origin that their citizenship can be stripped from them at will is potentially counterproductive, and that Shamima Begum should have been brought home, interrogated, and put on trial if that was the right thing to do?

[John Woodcock]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that intervention. Yes, I believe strongly that Shamima Begum should be brought home and put on trial. The possibility that there is insufficient evidence to try her is deeply alarming, however, and I will come on to how the system ought to be strengthened. Anyone who looks at the case, apart from those from a narrow and legalistic background, will see a woman who travelled over to the so-called caliphate of Islamic State with the express intention of supporting it. She admitted that openly to the journalists who found her and who interviewed her subsequently. She admitted to supporting the caliphate as part of a community. How on earth can she not be prosecuted for terrorist offences? If the legal position is that proof is needed of the active aiding and abetting of violent acts, or of carrying out such acts directly, clearly the legislation is far too lax.

That is the first point on which I want the Minister to come back to me on, although I understand that she is standing in for her colleague, the Security Minister. By the way—if this is not too much of a detour, Mr Howarth —I commend the Minister, probably on behalf of everyone present and of much of the House, on what she apparently said on the margins of a vote to the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), about the issue of historical child abuse. I will say no more than that and I do not expect her to comment on it for Hansard.

We should ensure that the terrorism laws are fit for purpose. If people go over there and admit to being part of and in general support of that organisation, in whatever way, that means that they are guilty of a terrorism offence, and they should be prosecuted for it. Some of my colleagues and I have long pushed for an Australian-style declared areas offence in British law—to be fair to the Security Minister, he was also on that track. That is finally being done, although it is being weakened in a way that I am concerned about, but let us see. It is good for it to be on the statute book. The Iraq and Syria conflicts will not be the only such conflicts so, in future, with such an offence, a case could be made against someone simply for going to an area that has been prohibited.

As I mentioned in my intervention on the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate, a potentially severe threat to national security is posed by the hundreds of returnees whom it is apparently not possible to prosecute—or the enforcement agencies are not willing to prosecute them—so, in these serious times, we should make that law retrospective to cover people who went out to the area during the conflict with Daesh, to make it possible to prosecute them. If they had good reason to be there—they were genuinely part of an aid mission or were there with journalists, for example—they will be able to prove that.

What is palpably obvious, however, is that the majority of those returnees went over to support the caliphate. The failure to prosecute, or the apparent unwillingness to countenance such radical measures to hold them to account, leads people to lose faith in our judicial system and to favour the kind of measures set out in today’s petition. If the Minister cannot give an answer, I would very much appreciate one from her colleague.

The Government have announced a review of the Prevent programme. It is important for Members in all parts of the House—unfortunately, in particular, those in the Opposition—not to undermine and damage the purposes of the Prevent programme by, in essence, mimicking the criticism pushed forward and pumped into our communities by Islamists determined to delegitimise the intervention of the British state. Too many times in recent years, we have seen good people in effect taken in by the idea that the British Government should in some way not get involved at all in such issues. That is a deliberate strategy—it is exactly what Islamists of different shades, from the apparently non-violent to those committed to violent jihad, have intended to do, and it is very dangerous.

I hope that the Government will reflect on the culture of secrecy that they still maintain on this issue. We recognise that there are difficulties and that it can be awkward to talk about the lack of success, but the Government are doing themselves no favours by making it difficult to drag out information about their measures to tackle extremism. It took months for me to prise out of the Security Minister the figure of 40 successful prosecutions, and the Government still refuse to give any details of the nature of those prosecutions, despite repeated requests from journalists. In a recent meeting of the Home Affairs Committee, the Home Secretary, with the permanent secretary sitting next to him, agreed to my request to look at that issue. I would like a response soon.

It is a total fallacy to suggest that the British state’s inefficiency in prosecuting people can be kept secret. The Government may be worried that a message is going out to communities that people can get away with extremism, but there are hundreds of people who are living examples of that message. Government secrecy will not prevent potentially vulnerable people from finding out. With respect, I suggest it is solely a measure to cover the Government’s embarrassment. If they want co-operation across the House to find more effective ways to prevent extremism, they need to begin with more transparency.

Like the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate, I hope that the Government are looking realistically at modernising treason laws. We should not simply stick that on a press release to sound more draconian and in touch with the 19th century; in these difficult times, we ought to examine that closely. I would welcome an update from the Government: what steps are they taking to look at how the law could be modernised to apply to the current situation?

Toughening up our data-sharing laws could be an important part of stopping foreign fighters before they make the journey abroad. There was debate in the main Chamber about the proposed data-sharing agreement with the United States, which I do not propose to rehearse. In recent days, following the appalling tragedies in Christchurch, social media companies have been unwilling to acknowledge their responsibility and the impact they can have. I have not tried to look for the video, shared far too readily on social media, of deeply distressing images of peaceful Muslims being gunned down as they went to pray. It is shocking that social media companies refused to pull the plug on their platforms while the vile video was being shared, which clearly could incite further acts of terror.

There is something deeply wrong in the relationship between community, Government and the social media giants. An effective way to address that could be to take down the platforms in international emergency situations. A palpable contribution to fighting the extremism that leads people to go to foreign lands could be to require companies to share with Government the IP addresses and log-in details of every user who hosts extremist content that companies take down.

Social media companies are getting better, although far slower than we would like, and are upping their game at taking down extremist materials. But there is a weird situation because, although far more is being taken down than just a year ago, the vast majority disappears into the ether. Every time that extremist material is shared online, spotted and taken down is an opportunity for Government to spot someone who has been or is being radicalised. That is better than waiting until it is too late, when they have committed a terrorist act on British soil—God forbid—or have become foreign fighters or supporters of foreign fighters abroad. The Government can do so much more. In this debate and in the weeks ahead I hope they will step up their fight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

In the light of the terrorist atrocity in Canterbury, New Zealand, this debate about a petition that quite correctly expresses horror and condemnation of terrorism, whatever its source, is extremely timely. The petition expresses a deep sense of anger about terrorism, but it also poses the very important policy question, “What are we going to do about returning foreign fighters?”

Government Members said that British citizenship should not be taken lightly. You do not have to tell the daughter of West Indian migrants that British citizenship is a pearl beyond price. I do not take it lightly, my parents did not take it lightly and I do not believe the parents of some of these foreign fighters take it lightly. I do not think the contention that, because someone’s parents or grandparents migrated from somewhere, they do not take the notion of being a British citizen very seriously, stands up.

A lot of this debate revolves around the particular case of Shamima Begum. I have said before in the House—I will repeat it, for the avoidance of doubt—that Shamima Begum made some very bad, very stupid and quite possibly illegal choices. She has also made some terrible statements in the media. I do not, and Labour does not, sympathise with or excuse her views or her actions. What we on the Opposition Front Bench are concerned about is what should be done genuinely to make this country safer.

On the question of Shamima Begum, we have to recognise that she was just 15 when she left this country to join ISIS. She had clearly been groomed in her bedroom by the disgusting agents of ISIS. There has been talk from Members who seemed to imply that she is wholly responsible for her fate; I thought that since the Rotherham child sex abuse cases the House had moved beyond blaming 15-year-olds who had been groomed entirely for their fate.

We have recently discussed cases of British people being deprived of their citizenship, including Shamima Begum. We now learn that other British women were made stateless under the previous Home Secretary, but in secret. At least the current Home Secretary has disclosed, with a little prompting, that he has made someone stateless, which is an improvement on his predecessor. However, he seems unable to tell us if he has received any advice from MI5 or MI6, and what they have said about his decision to strip Shamima Begum of her citizenship. He is unable to clarify what other legal advice he may have received.

It is not clear what steps, if any, the Home Office took to ensure the safe return of Shamima Begum’s son, Jarrah, who was a British citizen and who was born before the Home Secretary’s decision. That son now lies dead. Shamima Begum has buried three babies in Syrian soil in less than a year. Will the Minister tell us whether there will be coroner’s inquest for Jarrah and whether the Home Office is willing to facilitate contact between Shamima Begum and her legal representatives?

When we debated this issue, the Home Secretary repeatedly hid behind the words that he cannot talk about individual cases. He appears to be pretending that Shamima Begum’s case is somehow sub judice and therefore cannot be safely discussed. I put this as kindly as I can: that is nonsense, as everyone knows—the Speaker had to point this out. The Home Secretary had no compunction about naming Shamima Begum directly, for the benefit of 400,000 readers of The Times in an article he wrote on 17 February. That article was headed:

“If you run away to join Isis, like Shamima Begum, I will use all my power to stop you coming back”.

He clearly had no problem discussing an individual case then. Can Ministers not see that that defence will not do?

The House can only speculate what line of defence Ministers will take when the almost inevitable legal challenge to their decision comes, if not in this case then in other cases. I remind Ministers that they have lost twice in court when attempting to strip British citizens of Bangladeshi descent of their nationality. As Ministers like to remind us, the duty of the Government is to ensure the safety and security of all our citizens. I contend that it is not for Ministers to pick and choose who enjoys those rights; it is a matter of law. One is almost obliged to ask Ministers if they regard it as their duty to uphold the law and to defend British citizens, such as the defenceless baby, Jarrah.

Let me remind the House of article 15 of the universal declaration of human rights, which says:

“Everyone has the right to a nationality…No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality”.

Could the legal position be any clearer? The idea that Ministers can unilaterally deprive British citizens of their nationality and render them stateless is clearly contrary to international law. Hopefully, the Minister will explain how she proposes to get away with that. Shamima Begum had only one nationality; now she has none. The same applied to her children. The Home Office decision, which I contend was clearly against international law, has deprived them all of their citizenship.

Citizenship entails obligations as well as rights. The basic obligations include not breaking the law of the land. If Shamima Begum and others in similar circumstances have broken the law, they should be allowed to return, but they should be investigated, interrogated and, if appropriate, prosecuted. They are the responsibility of the British Government. We are talking about British citizens. If Shamima Begum or anyone else is identified as representing a threat, our judicial system is there to deal with it. We are a country of laws, and it should be clear that dealing with a threat is preferable to not dealing with it, and dumping it on foreign countries.

Ministers like to say that they are acting in defence of us all from the terrorist menace. We see from Christchurch, New Zealand, that the terrorist menace, whether Islamic or far right, is real, but does anyone seriously claim that Shamima Begum was more dangerous than the upwards of 400 foreign fighters who have returned from conflict zones, having fought for ISIS, al-Qaeda or their disgusting offshoots or splinter copycat organisations? It is reported just 40 of those fighters have faced any charges, and that the others remain at liberty. We need a more systematic approach and a proper programme for returning foreign fighters—perhaps an extension or an enhancement of the Prevent programme—but the idea that one 19-year-old girl with a two-week-old baby was somehow more dangerous than the 400 foreign fighters who have already returned seems to me to be a difficult position to defend.

No less a person than the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has said that European countries ought to be prepared to take their foreign fighters back from Syria and related territories, and put them on trial, where necessary. It is not often that I find myself agreeing with the President of the United States, but on this point he is correct. How can we expect other countries and jurisdictions to deal with British citizens who have broken British law?

Returning foreign fighters are a real threat to our security. That is a genuine terrorist threat, and I contend that the Government have yet to respond to it adequately. We cannot ignore the fact that there are many hundreds of British foreign fighters in Syria and associated areas. We need a proper programme to deal with them. Arbitrarily stripping people of their citizenship, contrary to international law, is not the answer, not least because it can be challenged in court.

Instead of seeking cheap headlines and grandstanding against Shamima Begum, Ministers’ time would be better spent—and our security enhanced—by addressing the real risks and threats posed by foreign fighters, and understanding that if they are British they are Britain’s responsibility and should be subject to the British criminal justice system. As the security services have said in the past, we need a genuinely tailored programme to deal with the threat. It cannot be a case of knee-jerk reactions to newspaper headlines. Some 400 foreign fighters have returned to this country; we need a more systematic approach to keeping this country safe.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. May I join colleagues from across the House in reflecting on the fact that the debate follows upon the weekend’s terrible events in New Zealand and Surrey and, today, Utrecht. As has been said before, we will reflect on the fact that terrorism takes many forms but the purpose of terrorist acts is to undermine the rule of law, to frighten, and to put a stop to the values that we hold dear in western society. It is sickening that people choose to undermine our societies by killing the most innocent of people—people going about their daily lives, whether at a place of worship or in a car park as they go about their day-to-day business in a working day.

Many colleagues are in the main Chamber, focusing on the issue of far-right violence and online extremism, and bearing that in mind I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) for the measured and balanced way in which he opened the debate. It is quite something that the petition has secured some 570,000 signatures which, as my hon. Friend told us, makes it the most heavily endorsed petition to have come before the House. It is with those great expectations of the public weighing heavily on our shoulders that I hope to answer some of the points raised today.

[Ms Abbott]

Can the Minister provide the House with figures about the number of far-right terrorists we are engaged with, or who are perhaps currently going through the Prevent programme?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am sorry; I was talking about the people who signed the petition. I do not understand the link. Perhaps the right hon. Lady could clarify.

[Ms Abbott]

I apologise to the Minister. I was referring to her earlier remarks about far-right terrorist responsibility for the atrocity in New Zealand. I wanted to understand whether she has figures available for the number of far-right terrorists whom Government agencies are currently engaged with, and who are passing through the Prevent programme. If she does not have the figures to hand I will quite understand, but perhaps she can write and furnish me with those figures.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am happy to provide that information. As the right hon. Lady knows, the Prevent programme, which I shall talk about later, focuses on the threats and risks posed by individuals regardless of the ideology under which they claim to be acting or which people who are worried about them, and who have referred them to the Channel programme under Prevent, are worried they are operating under. The Government have been clear that people of far-right tendencies are part of the programme and are being helped through it. We are clear that it is a matter of threat and risk. The efforts to stop radicalisation apply regardless of the false ideologies that people appear to subscribe to when they are put through the programme.

I thank other Members—including the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), who has paid particular attention to this subject during his parliamentary career—for their contributions and thoughtful comments on such matters as the passage of the most recent counter-terrorism Act, the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019.

The Government’s priority is the safety and security of the United Kingdom and the people who live here. That includes managing the risk posed by those who have gone to fight in Syria or Iraq or to support terrorist organisations such as Daesh or al-Qaeda. We have a range of powers and tools available to us to protect the UK from the national security risk posed by returning Daesh members. Members have referred to specific cases in their speeches, but I cannot as the Minister discuss individual cases in response, for many reasons including the possibility of related or future investigations or legal proceedings. Of course the Government never comment on the operational capabilities and methodologies of the security services, for obvious reasons.

All decisions that we make must be rooted firmly in British values and must be made in accordance with the law. That means that we cannot make people stateless, and UK nationals have the legal right to return to this country. However, anyone who returns from taking part in the conflict in Syria or Iraq can expect to be investigated by the police and prosecuted, where there is evidence that they have committed criminal offences that meet the requirements in the code for Crown prosecutors. About 900 people have travelled from the UK to engage with the conflict in Syria and Iraq, against the advice of the Foreign Office. Of those, approximately 20% have been killed in the conflict and about 40% have returned to the UK. They have all been investigated and the majority have been assessed to pose no or a low security risk. The hon. Member for Barrow and Furness asked about the number of foreign nationals who have been deported and I am afraid I do not have that information at hand, but I will ask the Security Minister to write to him with it.

We know that those who remain in the conflict zone include some of the most dangerous, who choose to stay to fight, to raise families or otherwise to support Daesh. They turned their back on this country to support a group that butchered and beheaded innocent civilians, including British citizens. Those individuals pose a greater threat to the UK than those who returned earlier in the conflict. They will have become desensitised to violence and may have received combat training and intense indoctrination. They will have had the opportunity to expand their terrorist network. Where they pose any threat to this country we will do everything in our power to prevent their return. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises against all travel to Syria and since 2011 there has been no consular support available to British nationals there. We are resolute that we will not put British officials’ lives at risk to assist those who have left the UK to join a proscribed terrorist organisation, and therefore we cannot and will not actively provide assistance to any individuals who have travelled to the region.

The Home Secretary can exclude non-British nationals from the UK, and under the British Nationality Act 1981 has the power to deprive any British national of citizenship status. Deprivation of citizenship is used in extreme cases where it is conducive to the public good and where it would not leave the individual stateless, which would be unlawful. Deprivation is a powerful tool that can be used to keep the most dangerous individuals out of this country. Each case will be considered based on the information that is available, regardless of gender, age or family status. Since 2010, the power has been used about 150 times for people linked to terrorism or serious crimes. I know that that is a matter of concern to colleagues, so I emphasise that Parliament has clearly set out the legislative basis for the exercise of the power, and that it is a decision to be taken by the Home Secretary. Removing an individual’s British citizenship is a weighty decision and, for that reason, it is a matter reserved to the Home Secretary. He takes those decisions in the light of carefully considered advice prepared by officials and lawyers. However, a statutory right of appeal is attached to each deprivation decision, and individuals can and do exercise that right, so that the courts can review the appropriateness of a decision independently.

Several colleagues have raised the issue of bringing to justice people who return to this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate did so on behalf of the petitioners, and the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness emphasised its importance. Those who have fought for or supported Daesh, whatever their nationality, should wherever possible face justice for their crimes in the most appropriate jurisdiction. Sometimes that is in the region where their offences have been committed.

Individuals who return will be investigated and, where there is evidence that crimes have been committed overseas, they should expect to face prosecution in the UK. There have been about 40 convictions of individuals prosecuted following their return from Syria for a range of offences, either connected with their activities overseas or as a result of subsequent CT investigations. That includes a 10-year custodial sentence for Mohammed Abdallah, a British national convicted in December 2017 of Daesh membership after leaked documents from a defector revealed his role as a specialist sniper, and a minimum of 40 years imposed on Khalid Ali, who was sentenced in 2018 for planning a terrorist attack in Westminster. I will, however, remind the Security Minister of the specific request by the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness.

In answer to questions posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate regarding new offences, or offences available for law enforcement and the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute, our courts could try cases involving overseas terrorism offences relevant to foreign fighters even before the recent extensions of extraterritorial jurisdiction in the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019. Those offences include preparation of terrorism, for which the maximum sentence is life imprisonment; encouragement of terrorism, the maximum sentence for which has been extended from seven to 15 years by the 2019 Act; training for terrorism, which also has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment; and membership of a proscribed organisation, which has a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Hon. Members also asked whether the Government are considering a new law of treason. That is a matter for debate and the Government have not yet reached a settled position, but our concern is that to prosecute terrorists for treason risks giving their actions a political status or a glamour that they do not deserve, rather than treating them merely as criminals. That is why we recently passed the 2019 Act, which updates terrorism offences and introduces new powers to reflect the threat we face today from foreign terrorist fighters, thus providing the police and intelligence services with the powers they need to protect the public. At this point, we do not believe there are grounds for introducing an offence of treason, but of course the Government keep all these matters under review.

It is of course for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether individuals should be prosecuted, in accordance with the code for Crown prosecutors. As has already been acknowledged, for crimes committed in a conflict zone where there is no national infrastructure and no police force taking section 9 witness statements or making notes about who said or did what, obtaining evidence admissible in a UK court is extremely difficult. That is the problem we have to face.

That is why, where prosecution is not possible, we have a range of powers available to protect national security and to monitor and manage the risk posed by terrorism suspects in the UK, including terrorism prevention and investigation measures and temporary exclusion orders to place conditions on individuals’ return, including regular reporting to a police station and mandatory attendance on our de-radicalisation programme. The best way to reduce the risk posed by these individuals will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Those decisions are based on advice and intelligence from the security services, counter-terrorism police where relevant, and specialist security and legal officials in the Home Office.

We publish statistics on the total number of TEOs in place in the annual “Disruptive and investigatory powers: transparency report”. Last week the Home Secretary asked officials to expedite the publication of the next transparency report, which will include the most up-to-date annual figures on disruptive and investigative powers, including TEOs and deprivation orders, because we recognise that it is a matter of great concern to the House.

The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act updated our terrorism laws for the digital age and modern patterns of radicalisation, closing gaps in some existing offences and adding new ones, such as recklessly expressing support for a proscribed organisation, or publishing its flag or logo online. The Act also creates a new power to ban British citizens from entering designated terrorist hotspots without legitimate reason. The designated area offence, along with most of the Act’s provisions, will come into force automatically in April, two months after Royal Assent. Decisions to designate an area will be based on careful assessment of all relevant information, including sensitive intelligence as well as open-source information, while applying the tests of necessity and proportionality.

The hon. Member for Barrow and Furness raised the question of retrospectivity—an understandable point to make. This is where balance is required; our priority to protect the security of the United Kingdom must be within the confines of the rule of law. In line with normal judicial principles, the power will not be retrospective and it will not be possible to prosecute for travel to an area before it is designated, but it will be an offence to remain in an area after it has been designated, even if the person has been there for some time. Individuals will have one month to leave the area, following which they will face prosecution if they remain. I hope that goes some way towards answering his concerns.

These powers and tools send a clear message to individuals that membership of or support for terrorist organisations will not be tolerated. Of course, as has already been discussed, this is against the backdrop of the Prevent strategy, which seeks to help those who may be at risk of radicalisation and extremism and to put them on to another path of lawfulness, away from criminality and potentially terrorism offences, by ensuring that they are able to obtain help locally from Prevent officers and others to steer them on to that better path.

The UK is doing all it can to help innocent people caught up in this conflict. We have committed £2.8 billion to Syria since 2012—our largest ever response to a single humanitarian crisis—and we are on track to resettle 20,000 vulnerable refugees who have fled the country, with our national resettlement programmes resettling more than any other EU state in 2017. We do not have a consular presence within Syria from which to provide assistance. Our position therefore applies as much to children as it does to adults. However, if British children were able to seek consular assistance outside Syria, then we would work with local and UK authorities to facilitate their return.

Children returning from Syria are likely to have been exposed to the conflict and to have experienced trauma. In some circumstances they may also pose national security concerns that must be carefully managed. A range of specialised support, some of which is funded directly by the Home Office, is offered to address many concerns ranging from safeguarding to national security. Our support will be tailored to the needs of each individual child. Local authorities and the police can use existing safeguarding powers to protect returning children, support their welfare and reintegration back into UK society, and minimise any threat that they could pose within schools and to their local community.

[Ms Abbott]

On the question of children, which the Minister addressed a few sentences ago, we have seen that journalists, aid workers and United Nations officials can go in and out of Syrian refugee camps. Why is it so impossible to make arrangements to protect British children?

[Victoria Atkins]

As the right hon. Lady knows, and as I have said twice already, we do not have a consular presence in Syria. The firm advice of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is that it is not safe to travel there. I know that journalists and aid workers travel there against that advice, and they must take that decision very carefully and seriously. However, we are clear that we do not wish to put British officials at risk in a part of the world that we have designated as so dangerous that we have withdrawn consular support from it.

[Ms Abbott]

I am well aware that the Government advise people that it is not safe to travel to Syria. However, the Minister will be aware that children, particularly those who may only be a few months old, are not in a position to abide by that advice. I ask her again: would it not be possible, working with NGOs, to get these very young—often weeks or months old—British children out to the nearest British consular presence, which may be on the border with Turkey?

[Victoria Atkins]

First and foremost, we do not want babies to be born in war zones, so the longer-term answer is that we do not want people traveling to Syria in the first place. It is not good for them and it is against clear FCO advice; we have clearly advised people for some years not to travel to the area. As I have already set out, if children are in a camp, it may well be that aid workers and others seek access. That is against our advice. I am afraid we cannot put officials at risk in that way.

This is very difficult—I do not think that anyone pretends otherwise—but Syria is in a part of the world from which we have withdrawn consular support, and anyone going there does so against Foreign Office advice. Given the situation in the region, everyone who returns from Syria or certain parts of Iraq, including some children, must expect to be investigated by the police, to determine whether they have committed criminal offences, to assess any safeguarding concerns and to ensure that they do not pose a threat to our national security.

Before I bring my remarks to a close, I note the completely reasonable comments that have been made about the role of social media and tech companies in this regard. Colleagues will know that the Home Office and others are working with tech companies to ensure that they clean up their own backyards. We have seen some progress by some of the major technology companies, including the development of technology that can automatically detect and take down terrorist content. However, such material continues to remain accessible. More needs to be done.

As part of our efforts to prevent the dissemination of terrorist content online, the Government are not only preparing a White Paper on online harms, but working with those in the advertising industry to make them more aware of the types of content that is appearing online, and to highlight that their advertisements may unknowingly appear next to that harmful content. I must say that the industry response has been very positive, and I hope that we will see some real change over the coming months. However, as this weekend has shown, there is a great challenge to the tech companies to ensure that, when invidious material is placed on their platforms, they remove it as quickly as possible, so that it cannot be forwarded or embedded in the web.

I conclude by thanking the 570,000 people who felt moved to sign the petition, causing us to debate this important issue again in the House. The Government’s priority is to ensure the safety and security of the United Kingdom and the vast majority of our citizens who continue to uphold our shared values. We will not allow anything to jeopardise that.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered E-petition 231521 relating to ISIS members returning to the UK.

Shamima Begum and Other Cases

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on Shamima Begum, the death of her son Jarrah and other cases.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sajid Javid)]

We estimate that over 900 people left the UK to engage with the conflict in Syria and Iraq. Many have been killed fighting, some remain there, some have returned and others could still come back. Some irresponsibly took young British children with them, and some had children while they were there as part of their mission to expand the so-called caliphate. We have made it very clear since 2011 that no British citizen should travel to Syria. Those who have stayed until the bitter end include some of the most devoted supporters of Daesh. One of the ways we can deal with the threat that they pose to the UK is to remove British citizenship from those holding another nationality. Since 2010, this power has been applied to about 150 people of a range of nationalities.

It would not be appropriate for me to comment on the details of an individual case—although, clearly, the loss of any child is a tragedy—but, if I may, I will address some of the issues that have been raised. First, these decisions are made very carefully. Where citizenship deprivation is being considered for national security concerns, decisions are based on advice and intelligence from the security services, counter-terrorism police, and specialist security and legal officials in the Home Office. When people dedicated to keeping our country safe give an informed recommendation, any Home Secretary should listen very carefully. Secondly, we are unable to provide support to British nationals within Syria as the UK Government do not have a consular presence there. Thirdly, the status of a child does not change if their parents’ British citizenship is subsequently revoked.

There are no easy answers. I must also think about future conflicts and the precedents that we set. I do not want any more children brought into a war zone because their parents think that they will automatically be bailed out, no matter what the risk. However, the UK is doing all we can to help innocent people caught up in this conflict. We have committed £2.8 billion to Syria since 2012—our largest ever response to a single humanitarian crisis—and we are on track to resettle 20,000 vulnerable refugees who have fled the country, with our national resettlement programmes resettling more than any other EU member state in 2017.

Of course, I understand the public interest, so I have asked my officials to expedite the publication of our next transparency report on disruptive and investigatory powers, including the most up-to-date annual figures on the deprivation of citizenship. This Government remain committed to protecting our citizens around the world, but I will not shy away from using the powers at my disposal to protect this country.

[Ms Abbott]

When she was 15, Shamima Begum made a very bad decision, and it is arguable that much of the tragedy that has engulfed her since then flows from it. It is also the case that she has recently made some reprehensible statements to the media. However, the Home Secretary will know that the Opposition believe that she and her baby should have been allowed to return home. Now we know that that baby is dead. We believed that she should have been allowed to return home because this schoolgirl, born and brought up in Bethnal Green, was Britain’s responsibility. As it happens, that is also the general view of the President of the United States. Above all, bringing the mother and baby home would have given the baby a chance of life.

Instead, the Home Secretary, in the face of a media outcry, chose to strip Shamima of her citizenship. He knows that many authorities contend that that was done illegally, because she was not a dual national. Article 15 of the United Nations declaration of human rights states:

“Everyone has a right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality”.

Does the Home Secretary accept that the child was British? Does he further accept that the British legal system does not hold children responsible for the wrongdoing of their parents? Does he also accept that, despite what Ministers have said about the dangers of sending officials into the refugee camp, aid workers, doctors and journalists go backwards and forwards to and from those camps all the time?

Does the Home Secretary further accept that, by stripping Shamima of her nationality, he made it impossible for her to fulfil her duties as a mother and bring her baby home to a safe place? Will he confirm that, as he said earlier, as well as taking legal advice, he took advice from the police and security services about the desirability or otherwise of bringing Shamima home? Can he explain why he deemed this 19-year-old, with a baby that was not quite three weeks old, more dangerous to Britain than the hundreds of foreign fighters who have already been allowed to return?

We now know that there are other British women in those camps who have been stripped of their nationality by the Home Secretary’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd). Can he assure the House that he will work with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to see how best those British children’s rights can be protected?

The Home Secretary’s decision in this case has caused widespread concern and alarm. We understand the issue of keeping British people safe, but this was a British baby, who is now dead. No Opposition Member condones—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Wallace, please, I respect your governmental responsibilities and the seriousness with which you take them, but I appeal to you just to listen to the exchanges. You can always look wise—that is not difficult for you—but it is best for you just to listen. As for the Parliamentary Private Secretary, Mr Hoare, you are a junior Member of the House, trying to come to terms with your responsibilities as a PPS. Your role is just to sit there and nod or shake your head in the appropriate place. It is not for you to give a running commentary on the shadow Home Secretary’s performance. I have not the slightest interest in what you have to say, and you will say no more in the course of these exchanges or I shall have to ask you to relocate yourself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

This is a very serious matter and it is unfortunate that Members on the Treasury Bench do not seem to take it with the seriousness it deserves. I say to the Home Secretary that no Opposition Member condones what Shamima Begum did—the choices she made and the things she said. But if it was his 19-year-old daughter, however badly she had behaved and however reprehensible or near criminal her choices, would he want her to bury three babies in the course of a year? The Home Secretary of course has a responsibility to protect the British public, but he also has a responsibility to appear just and fair in the eyes of the British public. This decision, which has led, as night follows day, to this less than three-week-old baby dying, does not appear just or fair to the majority of the British public.

[Sajid Javid]

First of all, the one thing I do concur with the right hon. Lady about is that the death of any child is a tragedy, wherever it takes place in the world. It is not something that anyone—any Member of this House—would want to see.

The Government are committed to protecting British citizens, but it is very different when it comes to a war zone where there is no consular presence. That is a fact not just under this Government; it has been a fact under successive Governments and it is true for many other European countries. For the same reasons that we do not have a consular presence, they do not have a consular presence. Whichever British citizen in that war zone in Syria the right hon. Lady might be referring to, whether a child or an adult, if there is no consular presence there is no way for British authorities—as much as someone might want to, especially in the case of a child—to provide any type of assistance.

The right hon. Lady is trying to make this issue about British citizenship. It is not about British citizenship. One confirmation I can give to one question she asked is that it is the case that if a child is born to someone who is a British citizen at the time the child is born, that child is a British citizen, even if the parent’s citizenship is subsequently removed. This is not about citizenship; it is about the ability of the British state to help. For the British state to send officials, whether Foreign Office officials or others, into Syria in a war zone would risk the safety of those officials. That is why the Foreign Office has been very clear, ever since 2011, that no British citizen should travel to Syria in any circumstances, because it is incredibly dangerous. That is the view taken on Syria by almost every other liberal democracy, even when it comes to children from their own countries and their own citizens.

The right hon. Lady suggested, on citizenship deprivations, that the Government are somehow making decisions that are making people stateless. She rightly stated that that would be illegal under international law. That means that no such decision can be made, whether by this Home Secretary, my predecessors, or previous Labour Home Secretaries. Under international law, no decision can be made unless the Home Secretary is satisfied, based on expert advice, that that individual will not be left stateless.

The death of any British child, even one born to a foreign terrorist fighter, is of course a tragedy, but the only person responsible for the death of that child is the foreign terrorist fighter.

Knife Crime

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on the crisis of knife crime.

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

The Home Secretary flew to Brussels last night to participate in the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council, the significance of which at this time I am sure colleagues across the House will recognise. He asked me to respond to this urgent question on his behalf.

The senseless killings in recent days, and the too many others before them, have rightly shocked the country. Our thoughts and sympathies are with the families of all the victims and everyone affected. There is no denying the urgency of this issue. Day in, day out, we are acting to end the bloodshed. At the start of the week, the Home Secretary came to the House to set out our approach to serious violence. He said there was no single solution and that we had to unite and fight on all fronts to stop the slaughter.

We are taking a tough law enforcement approach with our Offensive Weapons Bill, which is going through Parliament, and we have listened to what the police tell us they need and at their request are introducing knife crime prevention orders in that Bill. We are also increasing police funding by up to £970 million next year, including council tax, and police and crime commissioners are planning to recruit hundreds of new officers as a result.

We recognise, though, that we cannot arrest our way out of this. In the serious violence strategy, we announced a multi-agency approach, and we will consult very soon on a statutory public health duty of care to ensure that all agencies that can and must work on this play their part. We are also investing more than £220 million in early intervention projects to stop the most vulnerable being sucked into a life of violence and addressing the drivers of crime, including the drugs trade, with the launch of our independent drugs review.

Day in, day out, we, the police and others are acting across the country to try to stop the bloodshed. We continue to look for new ways to tackle this epidemic. Yesterday, I attended a serious violence summit with senior police officers hosted by the Home Secretary as part of our continuing work under the serious violence strategy. Consulting those on the frontline is vital to making sure our next steps are effective. While lives are being lost, we are determined to do even more to stop knife crime and serious violence. We owe it to our young people and our communities to get this right.

[Ms Abbott]

We have had several days of newspaper headlines on knife crime, but does the Minister accept that for families and communities up and down the country this is not just a few days of newspaper stories; this is their lives? It is every mother’s worst nightmare: they say goodbye to their son in the morning and the next call they get is from the emergency services telling them their child is the victim of violent crime.

On police numbers, does the Minister accept that it is a question not just of police officers on patrol, but of community policing, safer school partnerships and police officers working with our diverse communities? Does she agree with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick, who says there is a clear correlation between the fall in police numbers and the rise in violent crime, including knife crime, or does she agree with her Prime Minister, who denies any such correlation? Does she agree with the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who said of the Prime Minister:

“I don’t think she listens, quite frankly, to what she’s being told”?

Does the Minister accept that many people will find the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s suggestion that the police only have to move resources from other areas to fight knife crime, monstrous and an insult to grieving families? The police are under pressure in nearly every area. Our constituents know this from the delays in responding to 999 calls—not just a few hours, but sometimes the next day—and they know when they ring up to say they have seen people selling drugs or other criminality on the street that the police do not have the resources to respond. We need more resources for the police, and we need them now.

Yesterday, the Home Secretary met police chiefs from seven forces and others. Since 2010, Tory Governments have cut more than 9,000 officers from those forces alone. Did the Home Secretary apologise to them? Did he offer them extra resources? Is the Minister able to tell us?

In 2009, the Home Affairs Committee published a comprehensive appraisal of what needs to be done to fight knife crime. We know about the success of what has been done in Glasgow. Does the Minister accept that what frightened communities, families and mothers need is not more hand-wringing, not more summits, not more committees, and not more reviews? They want the Government to put the necessary resources into the youth service, into work with excluded children, into strengthening mental health services for young people and adolescents, and, above all, into the police service. Only then will the public believe that the Government are taking the knife crime epidemic seriously.

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments. She knows from the many debates that we have had on this matter, and the many occasions on which she and I and Home Office Ministers have discussed it, that we all recognise the great fear, worries and concerns of mums and dads in certain parts of the country that have been suffering from these crimes for some time. That is precisely why we issued the serious violence strategy last year. [Interruption.] The right hon. Lady is chuntering at me. I am trying to answer her questions.

It is because of that fear that we are putting so much effort into supporting local charities, through both our anti-knife crime community fund and our early intervention youth fund, to help young people and children and their families. We are also working on the youth endowment fund, which will invest some £200 million over 10 years to support projects to intervene on young people and protect them from being ensnared by gang leaders.

The right hon. Lady was right to raise the issue of resources. Only a couple of weeks ago we voted to increase police resources by nearly £1 billion, and I am sorry that she did not feel able to vote for that. Police funds were increased last year, and will be increased again next year.

The right hon. Lady talked about summits and meetings and so on. The point of those is getting the right people into the room to tackle this issue together. As we all know, there is no single simple solution. I wish that there were, but the issue is very complex. That is why there are both short-term and longer-term measures in the strategy, which meets with the approval of the police and others with whom we engage to try to crack this problem.

I very much hope that today we will yet again hear fruitful, constructive and non-partisan comments about this topic, because it is affecting every single one of our constituencies. We need to work together to get it right, because when I meet victims and their families they want to hear what we are doing, not what our conversations across the Dispatch Box are about.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

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

I am pleased that there has been some progress—albeit, as my hon. Friend describes, in small steps—in the inquiry in Telford. The fact that an inquiry chair has been advertised bodes well for the process overall, but as a good constituency MP she will continue to pressure the local council to ensure that it continues its work expeditiously.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Ministers will remember that last Monday the Home Secretary said:

“We must, of course, observe international law, and we cannot strip someone of their British citizenship if doing so would leave them stateless. Individuals who manage to return will be questioned, investigated and, potentially, prosecuted.”—[Official Report, 18 February 2019; Vol. 654, c. 1193.]

Ministers will be aware that the Opposition think that the latter would have been the correct course of action. By Wednesday, however, the Home Secretary had stripped Shamima Begum of her citizenship rights. Can he share with the House whether he contacted the Bangladeshi high commissioner or the Bangladeshi Government before taking this decision?

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Lady will know that I cannot comment on any individual case and that, in order to protect our national security, Home Secretaries have the power to strip British citizenship from someone where it does not render them stateless. While I cannot talk about an individual case, it should be quite obvious that the power set out in the British Nationality Act 1981 cannot be used if someone is rendered stateless as a result. That power has been used by successive Home Secretaries, in successive Governments, only on the basis of expert advice from their officials, including legal advisers, to ensure that its deployment is entirely lawful at all times. The right hon. Lady is the shadow Home Secretary and wants to be the Home Secretary. She should reflect that ultimately it is the responsibility of the Home Secretary to use whatever tools are available to keep this country safe.