Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Nick Thomas-Symonds

Thursday 7th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; it is great to see you in the Chair so early in the day. Members will be aware that the Government attempted to sneak out in the summer that announcement about the utter chaos they have created over the border target operating model. I say to the Minister that inflation is of central relevance to this matter, because the cat is out of the bag. The Government’s own document concedes that these measures, when introduced, will have an impact on inflation and will make the cost of food even higher. Can the Minister set out what assessment has been made of the wasted money and the cost to taxpayers and businesses as a result of the Government’s chaos on this issue?

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Nick Thomas-Symonds

2nd reading
Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

The Home Secretary shakes her head, but in the 2019 report “Responding to irregular migration: A diplomatic route” the Foreign Affairs Committee warned of exactly that:

“A policy that focuses exclusively on closing borders will drive migrants to take more dangerous routes, and push them into the hands of criminal groups.”

The Home Secretary should remember that because she was a member of the Committee at the time and her name is attached to the report.

While we are debating—or at least should be debating—a plan for refugees, we should cast our minds back to last week and the failure to restore the 0.7% commitment to international aid. The Department for International Development was tasked with delivering help to countries to tackle poverty and the drivers of people becoming displaced from their homes in the first place. The abolition of that Department was wrong and short-sighted. The work that was going on around the world to tackle the refugee crisis has been starved of funds, with programmes suddenly cut off. Our reputation around the world as a force for good has been damaged. The Government should restore the Department for International Development and restore spending to 0.7%.

The Bill is as wrong as it is ineffective. It will not tackle people smugglers, and it will not protect victims of human trafficking. It is, in reality, a continuation of this Government’s culture war. It is a culture war that led them to side with those booing the England men’s football team for taking the knee. Instead of supporting that brave stance against racism, the players were dismissed as taking part in “gesture politics” by the Home Secretary, and were told to stay out of politics altogether by other Conservative MPs. Last week, the Government refused to live up to their promises on international aid, and they ran away from their own failure to stand with football players against racism. This week, they promote more division with this Bill. As ever, they talk tough, but deliver nothing.

As it stands, the Bill is a charter for human trafficking. It is a missed opportunity that represents the worst of all worlds, lets evil criminals off the hook, and fails those who have been exploited. The cruel irony of this Government’s approach is that they are weak on taking action against criminal gangs, and brutal when it comes to orphan children from war zones. I ask all Members of the House to reject the Bill in the vote tomorrow.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

To reiterate, I am sorry but we have to start with a time limit of four minutes, simply because so many Members wish to participate in the debate. I call Mrs Theresa May.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Nick Thomas-Symonds

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 1
Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I do not want to stop the debate for this, but you do not call the person who is speaking “you”. “You” means the Chair; the right hon. Gentleman is the right hon. Gentleman. I call the right hon. Gentleman.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Yes, I was not aware of your position on the Bill, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have not finished my speech yet, so the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) will just have to wait for me to complete my argument.

As welcome as this measure is, the Labour party is clear that it does not go far enough. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda said, we need to consider the workers on the frontline of the pandemic who should also be given that level of protection. First, it does not cover the whole of the NHS family, so we are calling for protections to be extended to social care workers as well. Throughout the pandemic, the range of frontline service workers who put themselves at risk to serve our community has been clear.

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Nick Thomas-Symonds

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I certainly would never use divisive rhetoric about those before our courts who are protecting people’s rights; we should be absolutely clear about that. This Bill is on the narrow issue of criminal conduct. It should not and would not have anything to do with trade union and lawful activity, and if it ever did, it would, of course, be strongly opposed. On my hon. Friend’s final point, existing practice versus what happens now is a very important issue. At the moment, this happens in the shadows: it happens where prosecuting authorities are given specific information and the prosecutions simply do not take place. This should be on a proper statutory footing, with the safeguards we are arguing for.

Labour’s commitment is to work in the national interest to keep people, their families, their community and the country safe. That is why I have taken the approach I have with the Bill. We recognise the importance of this activity being on a statutory footing, which is why I will not be opposing the passage of the Bill today. However, in Committee we will look to press the Government on their position. We will hold Ministers to account, seeking to improve the Bill on the vital issue of safeguards, so that the public can have confidence in the process, while law enforcement bodies can carry out the vital work of keeping us all safe.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am going to start with a time limit of nine minutes, which is advisory. I put on a time limit of nine minutes so that no individual Member is encouraged to take dozens of interventions and therefore take 20 minutes. I hope that that will be roughly about right to ensure that everybody gets a decent chance to speak on this extremely important issue.

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

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Nick Thomas-Symonds

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 18th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like to start by thanking the Home Secretary for our briefings in recent weeks, which have been very important throughout this crisis. I look forward to them continuing in the weeks and months ahead. We meet today during a public health emergency that has shone a light on deep inequality and unfairness in our society, and that has shown the extraordinary value of what so many workers do for our families and our communities.

The Bill fell at the general election and has now been brought back to the House for the second time. Looking at the text of the Bill, we see that little has changed—it now has nine clauses rather than seven—but what has changed dramatically are the circumstances in which we debate it.

On a Thursday evening at 8 o’clock, we clap for our carers. Millions of people come to their doorsteps to say thank you. Quite rightly, we are showing our appreciation for our NHS workers, our care workers and all our frontline workers—police, fire, all our emergency services, those in our shops and those out on our roads driving supplies up and down the country—who are putting themselves in harm’s way day after day to keep us safe. They are making sacrifices in order to help others. We are rightly proud of them and we honour their bravery and courage, yet in the midst of this crisis, the Government are putting forward an immigration system containing a salary threshold of £25,600. That sends a signal and tells people that anyone earning less than that is unskilled and unwelcome in our country.

We on the Opposition Benches know that people are not being paid the value of what they do, and that what our frontline workers earn does not reflect what they contribute to our society. Many of us did not need reminding of that, but it seems that the Government do need reminding. Those who clapped on Thursday are only too happy to vote through a Bill today that will send a powerful message to those same people that they are not considered by this Government to be skilled workers. Are our shop workers unskilled? Our refuse collectors? Our local government workers? Our NHS staff? Our care workers? Of course they are not. Government Ministers who were out clapping for the 180,000 EU nationals in the NHS and the care sector on Thursday night are sending a message tonight that they are no longer welcome. That is not fair, and it is not in the national interest.

A labour force survey by the Institute for Public Policy Research found that 69% of EU migrants who currently work in the UK would not be eligible for a visa under the Government’s new immigration system. It found that 66% of EU workers in the whole health and social work sector and 90% of EU workers in transport and storage would be ineligible—the very people who are keeping this country running right now. Four in five EEA employees working full time in social care would be ineligible to work in the UK under the skills and salary threshold the Government want to impose. The average salary for care workers is £19,104, leaving many short of the cap, and there are 115,000 workers in our care system who are EU nationals.

I will give Members an example. This is somebody who did not want her name mentioned, but these are her details. She is an EU migrant, and she is 62. She came to the UK in 2013 and has been working as a live-in carer ever since. She is a 24-hour live-in carer for a 96-year-old lady with dementia. On her earnings last year, she would have no chance of coming to the country under the Government’s new rules. Are we to believe that a 24-hour live-in carer is in low-skilled work? That is what the Government want us to believe.

The care sector in England was not properly prepared going into this crisis and it seems that no lessons are being learnt from that lack of resilience and that lack of proper preparation before the crisis began. One would think the Government would have learned the lesson about not leaving people vulnerable in our care homes, but it seems they have not. Indeed, they want to create conditions where the situation could become even worse. In England alone, 66,000 NHS workers are EU nationals and there are 40,000 nursing vacancies, which will be exacerbated by the income threshold.

The Home Secretary talks about a fast-track visa, but it is not on the face of the Bill and, in any event, it does not include social care. No wonder the Royal College of Nursing says that the Government’s current proposals for the immigration system will exclude some health and care workers from entering the UK, primarily social care staff, and will have a devastating impact on the health and social care sector. No wonder the British Medical Association says:

“Any changes to the UK immigration system, which could deter those who may want to work in the UK, risks having significant implications for the staffing of health and social care services, quality of care and patient safety in the future.”

The truth is that the Government have not won the trust of our most vital service at this crucial time, yet rather than reflect on that they are attempting to rush this through Parliament and ask that we trust they will do the right thing by the health service. We all know that you cannot trust the Conservatives with the NHS. When it comes to the health service, if asked to choose between the RCN, the BMA and Unison on the one hand, and the Conservatives on the other, I know who I would choose every time.

Let us be clear: the Bill allows the Government to create a new system through statutory instrument. Ministers are asking this House for a blank cheque, for the trust of Members to go away and implement a new system, and for an Executive power grab that reduces the role of this House in shaping it. The Lords’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report on the 2017-19 Bill expressed concerns about the wide scope of the powers:

“We are frankly disturbed that the Government should consider it appropriate to include the words ‘in connection with’. This would confer permanent powers on Ministers to make whatever legislation they considered appropriate, provided there was at least some connection with part 1, however tenuous”.

The words “in connection with” are in the new version of the Bill and the situation is unchanged.

In recent weeks, we have seen the confusion and chaos caused when the Government act like they are giving Executive orders outside Parliament without proper scrutiny. The Government should not make the same mistake again when it comes to an issue as important as our future immigration system. Scrutiny makes for better Government decisions and should be welcomed, not shunned.

Let me take this opportunity to say that the 1.2 million British-born people living in the EU27 should be protected and that the 3 million EU citizens living in this country are welcome and are valued here: our families, our friends, our neighbours. They are a central part of our communities and our society. They have brought great benefits and make us a richer, more diverse society. But I am only too aware that warm words are not enough. The deadline for the EU settlement scheme will fast approach. The default position is that anyone who has not applied by the deadline will lose their legal residence status here in the UK unless they have a good reason not to have applied. The Government must act, be open on the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the system, and do all they can to ensure that those who are eligible for the scheme apply and have their applications swiftly processed.

The Government plan for the future immigration system was first set out in the White Paper published in December 2018. How different things were then. The Government talk of a points-based system; what they actually propose is an income-based system. Salary is not a proxy for the level of skill and a salary-based system will not work for incentivising high-skilled migration.



The Government have deliberately held down public sector wages for a decade, and if they do so again, the gap between what people are paid and the value of their contribution to our society will only widen. This does not reward work and is unfair. Try telling the careworkers in my constituency or, indeed, any in the land that their work is unskilled.

Fairness will be at the heart of the amendments that the Opposition will press in Committee. We know what happens when a Government lose sight of fairness and the national interest in our immigration system. Wendy Williams’s “Windrush Lessons Learned Review” was published only a short time ago. The Home Secretary referenced the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). That review makes for sobering reading, saying:

“Members of the Windrush generation and their children have been poorly served by this country. They had every right to be here and should never have been caught in the immigration net. The many stories of injustice and hardship are heartbreaking, with jobs lost, lives uprooted and untold damage done to so many individuals and families.”

Never should we let something like that happen again. Indeed, there is such mistrust that the3million and other campaign groups want physical proof of settled status for EU citizens because they simply do not trust the Government’s assurances about everything being digital.

Where the system is not working as it should, the Government must act. Take, for example, looked-after children in local authority care. Currently, there have to be applications for pre-settled or settled status on behalf of eligible children by hard-pressed local authorities that are dealing with the coronavirus crisis. Given those pressures, the Government should just do that automatically, and I urge the Home Secretary to consider that. On immigration detention, we will be putting forward proposals for fairness, including an all-important time limit of 28 days.

In my first letter to the Home Secretary last month, I raised the issue of the injustice of continuing with the policy of no recourse to public funds during the coronavirus crisis for victims of domestic abuse. The Government must look at the issue of those left with no recourse to public funds. We are in a public health emergency—it is in the interests of all of us that people get the help they need.

There are also issues around NHS charges during this crisis. Nobody should have barriers placed in front of them when their work is essential in helping us all. I was appalled by the revelation over the weekend that, after all, NHS staff will not be exempt from these charges, despite their hopes having been raised by the Home Secretary, who mentioned a review. The issue has been mishandled by this Government from the start of the crisis. Additional fees for NHS staff to access the very healthcare that we are thanking them for providing is no way to mark their extraordinary service throughout this crisis. I ask the Home Secretary to think again about that review.

Having left the EU, and with the transition period coming to an end, we must have an immigration system that is fair and in the national interest. Handing over sweeping powers to the Government to create a system that labels so many of those workers who are keeping our country running day by day as unskilled is the wrong thing to do. If the Government are confident in their arguments, they should not be afraid of parliamentary scrutiny of their proposed new system. If they truly value what our frontline workers do, they will not send out a powerful signal that those who earn below £25,600 are unskilled and unwelcome. Instead, they should think again, and that is why we will vote against the Bill tonight.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Caroline Nokes, who has five minutes.

Coronavirus Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Nick Thomas-Symonds

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I appreciate the hon. Gentleman is making a very important point, and every Member of Parliament has received similar emails from their constituents to the one that he has just described. I am very concerned that we have only an hour and a bit to go—[Interruption.] No, I make no criticism of the hon. Gentleman: it is very important in emergency legislation that the official Opposition have a full say in what happens at this point of the Bill, but I implore Members to move a little bit faster. If everybody makes short points, we will get all those points in, which we must do.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I say to my hon. Friend that he is right. One of the issues about making announcements is that people actually have to be able to access what they are being offered.

I have already set out that statutory sick pay is too low at £94.25 a week. Amendments regarding that have been tabled, as well as on people who do not qualify for it, and I urge the Government to look at that again. We must also speak of the businesses laying off workers and not applying for the 80% coverage of wages, which is what they should be doing. There are people who have lost their jobs, and who need help fast. It is a concern that the 80% wages support applies in the April payroll, not the March payroll, and what that will mean is that money will not be available until the end of next month. I appreciate the scale of this and I appreciate that Treasury officials have done a lot of work on it, but as the days pass more and more people are losing their jobs. Every day matters in bringing that help forward.

I have already spoken about renters and mentioned help for homeowners. On businesses, I say to the Government that grants are better than loans. We do not want to build up a stack of debt, and where the Government are relying upon the universal credit system, they must look at the fundamental structural problems in the system and at the five-week waits. Surely we cannot continue with face-to-face assessments in the next few months, with the scale of this crisis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that profiteering is affecting people now. We have heard some examples from across the House and, clearly, that issue needs to be seriously considered.

I turn now to what all this means taken together—I will draw my remarks to a close, Dame Eleanor, because I know that you wish other people to come in. This is an unprecedented change in the relationship between Government and Parliament, and Government and people. First, I say to the Minister that the imperative is to protect everyone and support them in this time of peril. We ask people to make sacrifices and we must support them, too. Secondly, the need for safeguards in this legislation is paramount. I hope that the Minister will look in particular at the suggestion that I made on the six-month review and that being amendable.

We are not seeking to divide the House, but we hope very much that the Government will heed what has been said, and we, of course, reserve the right to pursue these matters further in the other place.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

If everyone takes around three to four minutes, they will all get a chance to come in.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Nick Thomas-Symonds

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am going to complete this. Throughout my time in this role, I have worked with the Government. I worked with them on the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, and I think that our working together has enhanced the security of our citizens. What I am doing here at the Dispatch Box today is to scrutinise this decision carefully and hold the Home Secretary to account, which I believe is the role of a responsible Opposition. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Oh, I beg the hon. Gentleman’s pardon. My goodness, I thought he was giving way but I am very pleased that he has concluded. There will be a limit on Back-Bench speeches of three minutes.

Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Nick Thomas-Symonds

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before we continue with the debate, the House has the exciting prospect of the results of the deferred Divisions.

In respect of the question relating to consumer protection, the Ayes were 309 and the Noes were 268, so the Ayes have it.

In respect of the question relating to financial services and markets, the Ayes were 309 and the Noes were 261, so the Ayes have it.

In respect of the question relating to floods and water, the Ayes were 310 and the Noes were 267, so the Ayes have it.

In respect of the question relating to radioactive substances, the Ayes were 309 and the Noes were 265, so the Ayes have it.

[The Division lists are published at the end of today’s debates.]

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

The first thing I should point out is that everyone in the House wants to see a way in which the mutual legal assistance treaty system is speeded. I do not think there is any issue with that in any part of this House. The issues to which I shall come in a moment in essence fall into two categories: first, the issue of death penalty assurances; and secondly, protections for journalistic data.

In respect of the intervention from the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), he has tabled an amendment that is essentially the same as the one that I pursued in Committee. I do not accept in any sense the difference that he suggests there is between the two. I am pleased that his amendment has been accepted and adopted by the Government.