Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Norris]

Many of the technical points about the scheme, such as those that the hon. Gentleman has made, will be seen in the pilot. We will have to test that and see the evaluation. I am interested to hear from the Minister how much that evaluation will be shared with all of us, so that we can have a say. Moving beyond agriculture, I know that other Members have an interest in the tourism sector, so if they wish to intervene at any point, I will be happy to accept.

There are real dangers in the scheme. Looking at history, a seasonal agricultural workers scheme ran from the second world war until only six years ago. It was not perfect: there were examples of abuse, the minimum wage being dodged, workers being misled about available work and recruiters purposefully over-recruiting. I have pressed the Home Office on this, so I know that

“ensuring the protection and wellbeing of participating migrant workers is of primary importance”,

but part of this debate is about wanting to know how that will be so and what safeguards and accountability will be in place.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying about workers’ rights, but is he aware that in 1961 this country signed a treaty produced by the Council of Europe to give all workers the proper rights within their countries? That is still in force, despite the wealth of European Union legislation that has come in since. Will he hang on to that as a hope for the future?

[Alex Norris]

Those protections are in place, although we have seen that they have not been enough in the past. In the 50 or so years since, it is important that we have built on them.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

John Howell Excerpts

Friday 11th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield), who is my honourable friend from the Council of Europe. This is only the fourth time that I have spoken in a Brexit-related debate. It is not the fourth time I have spoken in any debate, and it is important to point out that we continue to participate in things that are going on as part of normal business. By speaking only in four Brexit-related debates I have not been ignoring Brexit, but for the reasons set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), in his fundamentally excellent speech at the beginning of this debate, I have been concerned by the language being used, and by the lack of respect for anyone who puts forward a contrary view, both in this place and outside. We have all seen Twitter feeds that have characterised that lack of respect.

My view on this process has been sorely tested, and a major turnoff for the British people comes from the humiliation of the Prime Minister and the British people by the European Commission. That humiliation followed the treatment of David Cameron when he tried to change the European Union. Are we surprised by that at all? We need only to think back to a Council of Europe meeting at which a pro-remain Member of this House questioned Mr Juncker, who was there as the equivalent of a visiting Head of State, about how he was going to handle the budget for the European Commission. To paraphrase his words, she was told to “mind her own business.” We had to remonstrate with him to get him to come back and answer the question. That lack of interest in and that arrogance about the whole matter have sorely tested my faith in the deal.

My approach to the Irish backstop is to look at it in terms of risk. If it is so unwanted by the European Union and we are so sure we will not use it ourselves, one has to ask why it is there in the first place. However, I fully accept, having assessed the risk, that the likelihood of our using it is so remote as to be almost infinitesimal.

Similarly, I do not believe a no-deal Brexit is all about WTO rules. In fact, I do not believe WTO rules are the principal reason for wanting a deal. The principal reason for wanting a deal is to bring to a close the 40-plus years for which we have had a relationship with the European Union—to ensure that we know how to deal with all those things that are hanging over the edge, such as legal cases, charging mechanisms and so on.

The Archbishop of Canterbury may, according to press reports, have changed his view about the need for a people’s vote, but I have not. For reasons that have already been set out, I do not think a new people’s vote is a good thing. In putting forward an alternative vision of what we need to do beyond Brexit-related issues, I am very keen to ensure that we are still players in Europe. We will do that by giving more credibility to the Council of Europe and our involvement in it. Why should we do that? There is one very good reason: our leaving the EU does not mean a bonfire of workers’ rights—they are protected by a 1961 treaty, which the Council of Europe brought in and we signed.

Firefighters: Mental Health Support

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Emma Dent Coad]

I concur absolutely with my hon. Friend. The London fire brigade has appointed additional counsellors and set up Mind blue light champions, who are volunteers from within the service who can signpost colleagues to the counselling and trauma service.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. She raises a pertinent point, which we should all pay attention to. She mentions the appointment of counsellors, which is absolutely crucial. The way to help someone to avoid mental health problems is for them to have somebody to talk to when they are experiencing the problems. There is no point in them just sitting there and experiencing the problems on their own; they need somebody to share them with and to help them.

[Emma Dent Coad]

I concur absolutely with the hon. Gentleman.

I hear that firefighters who came from fire stations near the fire are getting a higher standard of care than those from further afield. Call centre staff—many of whom spoke to people trapped by the fire, as we heard during the inquiry—are also traumatised, and some are not getting the support they need.

Let us remember that more than 300 firefighters were involved in the rescue attempt at Grenfell, and that it was not one single, terrible, catastrophic event. The fire raged for more than 12 hours, in which firefighters continually risked their lives in their attempt to save the lives of others. Some of the scenes they saw, and the choices they had to make, are with them every day.

Despite that, the psychological help that those brave men and women, including the call centre and support staff, so clearly need is very uneven. Some have received talking therapy. I have previously told the House that I have received that treatment myself, and it did not help me at all, although I accept it may help others. That treatment is available within the fire service.

Some people have been fortunate enough to receive eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy, which I am told has been helpful, but it is usually available only from the Fire Fighters Charity, so capacity is limited—we are dependent on charity. Some have had very little treatment. I am told that many firefighters from stations across London who attended the fire have not had the support they need, and certainly not the emotional support from the community that many local officers have benefited from.

Three days after the fire, I dropped into one of our fire stations late at night. I drank tea and heard their stories. The team, who had fought back-to-back shifts on Tuesday and Wednesday, had had no time off. All leave had been cancelled. They were emotionally drained and physically exhausted. All I could think was, “Where is the back-up they’d need if there was another Ladbroke Grove train crash now?”. The terrible answer is that there is none.

Cuts to frontline staff mean that, even after a disaster such as Grenfell, there may be no capacity for compassionate leave. While nearly 20% of staff have been lost since 2010, incidents have decreased by just 12%, so fewer operational firefighting staff are attending more incidents each.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Sir Roger.

I thank the hon. Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad) for raising this very important issue. I do not have a confession, but from the outset I have to declare an interest—that would be the best phrase—as I served for 31 years with Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service, and it was a proud journey through my working life. In retirement, I became a local councillor who sat on the fire board, so I continue to have a great fondness and a great respect for the firefighters of today, although I am—quite clearly, for those who can see me—a firefighter from yesterday. I joined in 1974 and served until 2005.

Frontline firefighters—whether they are whole-time, retained or volunteer firefighters—who respond to emergencies, and those with specialist roles within the fire service such as fire investigators, frequently encounter seriously injured or even fatally injured persons in their day-to-day work. Preservation of the scene, particularly if it is a potential crime scene, may mean that anyone who is declared medically deceased must remain in situ, with firefighters having to work in close proximity to them.

Some incidents result in multiple fatalities. I will touch on some in the west of Scotland, but there are many others that I could cite between John O’Groats and Land’s End. For example, there was the Chinook disaster on the Mull of Kintyre, in which 29 individuals died. The first responding appliances to that incident were carrying retained personnel; they were not full-time professionals, but men and women who held down everyday jobs. There was the Lockerbie air disaster, in which 270 persons lost their life, 11 of whom were in the town of Lockerbie, particularly but not exclusively in Sherwood Crescent. Again, the first responding appliances to that disaster were carrying retained personnel, and I absolutely applaud the work that retained personnel do. There was the Rosepark care home fire in Uddingston not so very long ago, in which 14 residents died, and that was a modern facility, and there was the Stockline plastics factory explosion in Glasgow, which was attended by whole-time personnel; nine people died in that fire. That is to name but a few incidents, none of which I personally attended. However, having been part of the fire service, I have followed the stories about them with great interest.

There are also incidents that firefighters endure in which our colleagues are injured, or even fatally injured, in fires. It does not happen that often, but when it does, what a sad and dark day it is. We can even go way back to the Cheapside disaster in Glasgow in the late 1960s, in which I think 15 firefighters and four salvage personnel lost their life. That was an exceptionally horrific incident, but we have improved safety a lot since then.

Such repeated experiences without appropriate ongoing support from external counsellors or medical professionals may result in some firefighters and other emergency responders—I do not exclude other emergency responders who suffer similar pressures—succumbing to stress-related illness, leading to absence from work and, in the worst cases, to their being medically retired; indeed, as the hon. Member for Kensington said, they may even lead to firefighters taking their own life, which in itself is an absolute tragedy.

Believe me: firefighters give their all at incidents, both physically and mentally. They have to be constantly alert at an ongoing incident—alert for their own safety; for the safety of their colleagues; and for the safety of the general public. If the outcome of an incident is not what firefighters would wish for, their initial adrenalin rush turns to what I would describe as a devastating disappointment that they have not achieved their goal or what they had hoped for. Their bodies and minds must cope with sudden emotional changes.

There are also occasions when the judicial process exacerbates firefighters’ exposure to potential stressors, in that the police and, in Scotland, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service may be reluctant for immediate debriefs of crews to take place until they have met with individuals and taken their statements, to ensure that their evidence is not compromised. It is an added stress when firefighters have to speak to people in authority about what has taken place. We have seen on our televisions the grilling of some of the officers at the Grenfell fire. Those individuals did their very best that night, yet they are being grilled through the courts service and various inquiries.

Debriefs have immense value, not simply so that crews can learn lessons in relation to how an incident went—what they could have done better, and so on—but to provide individuals with the opportunity to express their feelings to their peers. They may not wish to burden—or may not be able to burden—their family and friends with those feelings, or confidentiality might prevent them from offloading those concerns on those outwith the service. All of these things may be worse for retained or volunteer firefighters, who live in the very communities that they serve; on many occasions, they may know the victims of an incident.

I will touch on two poignant road traffic crashes that illustrate that. In one incident, a firefighter said hello to four young individuals at a shopping centre in a small town. He knew the four individuals and their parents. An hour after a courteous conversation with the four individuals, his pager was activated and he responded to a road traffic crash in which two of those young individuals had died. As one would expect, he conducted himself professionally, but weeks, if not months, later that incident came back to haunt him. I am pleased to say that he received assistance from Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service, and he made a full recovery.

There was another incident that had a good outcome. The driver of a retained appliance approached a road traffic crash and spotted his wife’s car; it was his wife who was trapped. As I say, there was a good outcome, as she made a full recovery. I attended that incident and it was quite a tense situation. I give credit again to those who serve their own community.

[John Howell]

What my hon. Friend is saying is very powerful. Does he believe that there is more that the fire service can do—I encourage my own local fire stations to do this—to have public exhibitions of what they do and show how they go about their work, because once the public understand that, there is a tremendous amount of additional support for the fire service and for the actions that they take? It would help if we gave firefighters a lot more encouragement to do that.

[Bill Grant]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Yes, a lot is already being done to encourage people and to raise awareness. The fire service in Scotland used to have an annual event at the old Strathclyde regional station, with the slogan, “Reckless driving wrecks lives”, where we brought along fifth and sixth-year schoolchildren. All the emergency services took part. We also make home safety visits now and we are very much part of the team that tries to prevent these events before they happen, through accident and fire reduction. Also, let us not forget the introduction of a very simple thing in people’s homes, which is the smoke detector. In Scotland, we fit them free of charge for anyone who approaches us, and they are worth their weight in gold; they are very effective. A lot has been done on the preventive side. It is a failure if the fire engine goes out; we should prevent all the fires and reduce the number of accidents.

Recently, while out driving in my constituency with a staff member, I turned to them and told them that we had just passed the site of a fatal road accident. The accident had happened 30 to 35 years ago, but decades later I could still vividly envisage the two deceased persons in that vehicle. What triggered that, I really do not know. For some people, there will be no trigger; regrettably, an incident will live with them and haunt them for the rest of their lives constantly. I am able to put such an experience back in the box and reflect on it; perhaps I am very fortunate in that way.

It is so important that rescuers themselves do not become later in life the people who have to be rescued from extensive mental trauma. Let us be proactive and protect, to the best of our abilities, our firefighters from mental trauma or mental harm. The Health and Safety Executive defines stress as

“the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure or other types of demand placed upon them.”

That can apply to a lot of emergency responders, including the police, but it applies to firefighters in particular.

Most people, including most firefighters, can cope with the challenge of work demands, but when other life pressures are added accumulatively—for example, debt problems or marital problems—sometimes it just gets too much to bear and a tipping point is reached. Many workplaces offer stress management courses. In my time in the service, we introduced welfare officers as far back as the 1990s, along with external counselling. I am sure that continues today, probably in an improved way. Many workplaces also have in-house occupational health staff. The hon. Member for Kensington mentioned the fire service benevolent fund, which has been going for more than 100 years and is now called the Fire Fighters Charity. It offers invaluable support through its psychological rehabilitation service for serving and retired firefighters.

While people may be screened and tested for underlying illnesses, susceptibility to stress, as I understand it, may not be immediately apparent and the individual themselves may not know or wish to admit—that is one of the very sad things, and it was a very male-dominated service when I was in it, although I am pleased to report that that was changing for the better when I left—that their illness may be stress-related, given the previous stigma around mental health issues. To some degree that stigma remains.

When we see someone with an injury to their leg or a broken arm, we can see the physical injury, but we cannot see or feel a mental injury. Firefighters may wrongly perceive such an admission as a weakness on their part. It certainly is not. According to the mental health charity Mind, 37% of firefighters think colleagues would treat them differently in a negative way if they conceded or admitted that they had a mental health issue. The black humour and banter of my days—days gone by, fortunately; it is no longer politically correct, and that is quite right—was once a release valve and coping mechanism behind closed doors for firefighters, but they still have the camaraderie and they still work as a team. That is a form of therapy in itself, and it has immense value. When a whole-time firefighter returns to the station, they have that group. It is different for retained and volunteer firefighters. They return to their partners and wives individually, and that gives a different dimension to the situation.

According to Mind, 85% of people in the fire and rescue services—it is an inordinately high number—experiences stress and poor health at work. They are twice as likely as the wider workforce to identify problems at work as the main cause for their stress. Statistics obtained by Members of the Scottish Parliament through a freedom of information request indicated that in 2016, 137 employees of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service—firefighters, control room staff and support staff—were recorded as taking sick leave due to stress. Regrettably, those figures appear to be on the rise, as the figure for those recording stress as a reason for absence was 77 in 2015 and only 27 employees in 2014. That is despite an apparent fall in the number of fires and incidents. We are doing well on fires, but we have got road accidents, factory accidents and farming accidents—there is a whole range of special services. We need to discover what has changed since 2014. What are the root causes and contributing factors? Most importantly, we need to address them.

An article in a recent Fire Brigades Union magazine, Firefighter—I am an out-of-trade member and I still receive it—highlighted a need for ring-fencing moneys within NHS budgets for mental health. That is a prudent thing to request. The Prime Minister said last year:

“I want to use the power of the government as a force for good to transform the way we deal with mental health problems right across society, and at every stage of life. Tackling the injustice and reducing the stigma associated with mental health conditions is a priority for me, which is why today I set the goal of providing 1 million members of the public with basic mental health awareness and first aid.”

That goal has to be welcomed. I understand that NHS England got a top-up of £50 million over five years, which is most welcome, but I do not know whether that will be enough to address the issues and the incident of Grenfell, the consequences of which will be felt for years to come, sadly.

When we consider how much it costs to train and equip a firefighter, together with the potential costs of their ill-health, such as absence or early retirement—they may even go to the extreme of taking their life—surely it makes economic sense to invest in appropriate support measures. Firefighters are the finest example of an asset to society. They serve it on a daily basis, and they must be properly supported. Should they stretch out their hand for help, we must grasp it and give that help. Better still, let us prevent them from needing to do that in the first place.

Offence of Sex for Rent

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the offence of sex for rent.

It is an honour to serve for the first time under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I am also grateful to the Minister for being here. I have known him for a number of years in different capacities, and I know this is a subject that he will have a great deal of interest in.

I am grateful to have been granted the debate, because it gives us the chance to highlight a pernicious, exploitative and pervasive phenomenon that too few people are aware of and too little is being done to tackle. The issue of sex for rent was brought to my attention by Lauren Moss, a BBC journalist. She showed me evidence that people were accepting accommodation from landlords in return for not money, but sex.

We do not have to look hard for the adverts. They are not hidden deep in secret corners of online platforms. In fact, one of the most surprising aspects of this is how open and explicit the adverts are, and how integrated they have become into the advertising landscape for accommodation. Some adverts simply imply what the landlord is expecting:

“Free accommodation for attractive female”.

Others are more explicit:

“You do not have to pay any rent for your stay with me in exchange for some mutual fun times together”.

Many go into much more detail about how much sex is involved:

“You agree sort of like a couple of times a week, pop into my room sort of thing, but as far as the apartment’s concerned, it’s like completely as if we’re flatmates. It’s all the bills, the rent, free.”

The majority of the ads are aimed at women, but I have also seen them targeting young men. Ads describe in detail the age, look and demeanour expected of the tenant, as well as the amount and type of sex that is expected. People moving to towns and cities such as Brighton and Hove, which I represent, are uniquely vulnerable to sex for rent exploitation. Two universities, a housing crisis and ubiquitous access to online platforms such as craigslist mean that some young people are led swiftly down a path toward exploitation.

For some, there is a veneer of harmlessness about it. Because this is such a new phenomenon, understanding the extent of exploitation is hard, but emerging evidence shows that it is a much larger problem than anyone first thought, and it is getting worse. Last year, the housing charity Shelter conducted a tenant survey that addressed the question of sex for rent for the first time and provided the first quantitative data. It asked the question, “Have you ever been offered ‘sex for rent’ while renting?” The estimated number of women affected by the arrangement was shocking. More than 100,000 women have been offered sex for rent in the last year alone, around 250,000 women have been offered sex for rent in the last five years and more than 300,000 women have been offered sex for rent in the time that they have been renting.

I raised this issue with the Ministry of Justice last year to get clarity about the law. The then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), wrote to me in July 2017 confirming that it was his belief that sex for rent fell foul of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and carried a maximum prison sentence of seven years. I sought further clarification of the law, working with Queen’s counsel from Cornerstone Barristers, who offered the following opinion:

“We believe that the practice of ‘sex for rent’ meets the definition of the criminal offence of causing or inciting prostitution for gain. The Offence is established by Section 52 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which provides as follows: ‘(1) A person commits an offence if—(a) he intentionally causes or incites another person to become a prostitute in any part of the world, and (b) he does so for or in the expectation of gain for himself or a third person.’”

It is clear that the incitement to sex in return for accommodation is a criminal offence.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I praise the hon. Gentleman for rightly highlighting this disgusting activity. Does he have a feel for why this is increasing now?

[Peter Kyle]

The hon. Gentleman asks an important question. A little later in my speech, I will highlight the fact that we have a perfect storm in certain cities and towns in our country. The housing crisis and the high cost of accommodation, combined with access to online platforms and the fact that university towns draw young people in, have created a perfect storm for exploitation in this way.

As I say, it is clear that the incitement to sex in return for accommodation is a criminal offence. There is no question. The sex itself does not need to happen for the law to be broken. That prompts a very important question: considering there are hundreds of live adverts online right now, today, and many thousands have been placed in recent years, why, to the best of my knowledge, has there not been a single arrest, let alone conviction? It is likely that thousands of people, mostly young, in Britain have been victims of sexual exploitation, yet not one perpetrator has been brought to justice.

Seeing that this was no longer a matter just of clarifying the law but of enforcing it, I also contacted the Home Office last year. The then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), took time to meet me on several occasions to discuss the matter and investigate ways forward. I am grateful to her for spending that time with me, and particularly for the effort she put in subsequently. It is my understanding that under her direction a work stream was established in the Home Office to look into ways of enforcing the law and bringing offenders to justice. However, to date there is no evidence of success. It is my hope that the new Home Secretary shares his predecessor’s concerns, but such matters must be judged on outcomes, and as this exploitation continues unabated, there is no ground for optimism yet.

I implore Ministers to look seriously at two distinct aspects of sex for rent. The first is bringing perpetrators to justice. There are hundreds of adverts online right now, clearly inciting people into the exchange of sex in return for services—there can be no doubt about that. The question is, why are those who place the advertisements not being locked up for it? Why are people left so exposed to exploitation, simply because the law enforcement agencies seem unable to adapt to the new trends in exploitation fast enough?

I realise that there are challenges. It seems that many people lured into these arrangements are middle class, emerging into adulthood, and they are exploring new freedoms, such as starting at university and moving to a new town. Thrown into that mix is an offer of free accommodation. The emotional impact and the price that they will pay for it may not be felt for years to come. It is unlikely that many victims would feel comfortable identifying themselves as prostitutes, which is how the law currently classes them, so most would be extremely unlikely to go through with a prosecution. Will the Minister consider a new legal definition for victims of sex for rent, in order to enable more victims to come forward? Ideally, the exchange should not take place at all.

I know the Minister personally places great emphasis on the prevention aspects of policing. Difficulties are posed when adverts are placed in areas covered by different police authorities from the areas where the offence is potentially taking place. Those are continual challenges for our policing across the UK. Can the Minister tell us which law enforcement agency is best placed to lead on this and when we can expect results? I am actively working with barristers from Cornerstone, who have generously given their time pro bono, to look into the possibility of a test case. That could provide a way forward to ignite a response from our law enforcement agencies, but it is not ideal. I would like to see our forces act first, and act fast.

Secondly, action must be taken against the websites hosting the adverts. Within a week of my first raising the issue, Gumtree, which had previously had such adverts on its website, came to see me in Parliament. It immediately instigated a policy to monitor and eradicate such adverts from its site, which has largely been successful. I know that Members from across the House will join me in thanking the company for taking such swift action to protect its own customers. Craigslist has chosen a different path. It has ignored my attempts at emailing, writing and calling. It has ignored the media outlets, such as the BBC, the Daily Mail, The Guardian and the Daily Mirror and, as far as I know, it has ignored the Home Office too. Not only is craigslist profiting from facilitating the sexual exploitation of young people, but it is treating our country and our Parliament with contempt.

I do not understand why craigslist is allowed to act like a pimp but is not treated like the pimp that it is. When police come across pimps in the streets, they act. They have the power to act and they know what to do with that power. However, because craigslist pimps via an online platform, we seem spellbound into inaction. Just because the pimps are sandal-wearing, cappuccino-swilling Californians does not mean that we should let them get away with it. Being allowed to trade and profit in our country is a privilege, and I do not see why, when that privilege is so blatantly abused and profit is made from sexual exploitation, we should stand idly by simply because tackling it is difficult.

We have a problem. It is a growing problem that will not go away. I look to the Government for decisive action to enforce the current law, to enhance the law to make it more accessible for victims of sex-for-rent, and to take action against craigslist, whose intransigence and amorality in the face of sexual exploitation should shame each and every one of its employees.

Offensive Weapons Bill

John Howell Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 28th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Thank you. She and the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) have done a great deal on not only county lines but on corrosive substance attacks. She will know that we now have the corrosive substance action plan, which is a voluntary commitment that we introduced at the beginning of the year to get all the major retailers on the right page when it comes to the sale of corrosive substances, because we knew that it would take time to introduce legislation in this place. I hope that she is pleased and satisfied with the Bill’s provisions on corrosive substances.

On county lines, the hon. Lady will know that we have announced the launch of the national co-ordination centre. It brings law enforcement together because, frankly, law enforcement has not been sharing information as well as it could throughout the country on the movement of these gangs of criminals, who exploit the distances between the major urban centres and rural and coastal areas, knowing that constabulary boundaries sometimes get in the way. The national co-ordination centre was launched in September and had an extraordinary week of action in which something like 500 arrests were made. If have got that figure wrong, I am sure I will be able to correct it in due course.

It is important to note that the co-ordination centre brings together not only law enforcement officials but those involved in looking after children—local authorities—because we know that the most vulnerable children have been targeted as they are attending pupil referral units or while they are living in care homes. We need to ensure that when the police go in and do a raid, we have social services there to pick up the children and start caring for them, to avoid their being re-trafficked. Indeed, I hope the fact that so many cases are now being prosecuted not only in the traditional manner, for conspiracy to supply class As, but using the Modern Slavery Act 2015, brings real stigma to those gangs that bizarrely and extraordinarily think that it is somehow okay to exploit children.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I hear what my hon. Friend says about the national co-ordination centre. From my experience talking to my local police force, I recognise that crime is interlinked. We can talk about drugs and we can talk about weapons, but they are interlinked issues, and they are interlinked with so many other things. We are asking the police to think holistically in how they look at these issues so that they can put into place a better strategy for dealing with these problems.

[Victoria Atkins]

That is very much the case. Indeed, in my previous career prosecuting serious organised crime, on occasions we prosecuted organised crime gangs for, for example, the importation of counterfeit cigarettes, because that is what we could get them on. We suspected that they were importing other things, because if they had the lines open to import one type of illicit material, it followed that they probably had the ability to important other illicit materials. Sadly, as we get better at identifying modern slavery, we know that that can also include people.

Let me turn to new clause 5, which deals with an important area that colleagues across the House have expressed interest in.

Elder Abuse

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend kindly for giving way; he is being very generous. He is portraying this as a British problem, but does he agree that it is not just a British problem? The World Health Organisation has published material that shows that this is happening all around the world. It is a generational problem that we have to deal with, as he rightly points out.

[Giles Watling]

I absolutely take my hon. Friend’s point that this happens all over the world, but we must clean up our own act first and make sure that we are far ahead of the game, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Where we lead, others follow.

Drugs Policy

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Westminster Hall

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) on securing the debate. I recently went out with the police force in my constituency, and one of the first things we did was go to an accommodation block for young people, where we tested their rooms for drugs. The police had swabs that they pushed along surfaces in the whole block, and under examination they revealed whether the young people had taken drugs. It was not the first time those rooms had been tested. Many of the people had been tested before and many had come up positive before. This was retesting.

Members might ask why, if those young people had been caught once, they did not do something different the next time, but that is part of the problem. The police took the view that it was not something that needed to be enforced in law. They took the view that there was no point in making criminals out of these young people. The real check on what should happen to the young people was not taken by the police; it was taken by the people who run the building. If it was a small amount of drugs that was showing up, they would have a word with the young people and tell them that this was not encouraged. If there was repeatedly a large amount, they would lose their accommodation. That, more than anything, was a frightening prospect for many of those people, who had found the accommodation quite late. It provided them with a lot of security.

There is a real distinction between the policy that the Government have set out and are pursuing and the policy that the police are pursuing at the same time, and those two policies cannot live together. We cannot have people saying one thing and the other people, who are supposed to be a part of the organisation that delivers it, doing something completely different. The Government need to recognise what is actually happening on the ground, because the police are not implementing legislation in the way the Government think they are. They are doing that with a greater spirit of openness about what is good for those young people in the community, and I encourage the Minister to look at that carefully.

British Citizenship Fees: Children

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered fees for registering children as British citizens.

It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I trust that you are feeling suitably refreshed after the summer recess. What better way to start the new term than by seeking to ensure that all children entitled to British citizenship can access it and not be prevented from doing so by an exorbitant Home Office fee?

I thank colleagues from the different political parties who supported the debate application, the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, and everyone who has come along to support it. I also thank the 69 MPs, from every political party in the House of Commons, who have signed early-day motion 1262. Finally, I thank all the campaigning organisations that have been working incredibly hard, including the Children’s Society, Coram Children’s Legal Centre, Let Us Learn, the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens—PRCBC—and Amnesty International.

What we all seek is utterly reasonable and a very modest proposal. All we are asking the Home Office to do is to put in place a charging regime for registering children as British citizens that is fair and that allows them to access their right to citizenship, rather than one that leaves them to seek various forms of costly and precarious immigration status and sometimes with no status at all.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman may have seen that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has announced that he has asked for a review. Does the hon. Gentleman have an idea of what might come of that?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I hope good things come of the review, but I suspect that the Minister will be in a better position to provide us with answers.

We seek a system that reflects what Parliament intended when it passed the British Nationality Act 1981—that is, a system that makes it easy for kids with the requisite close connections to Britain to exercise their right to British citizenship, not one that makes money out of them by charging what the Home Secretary himself has described as a “huge” sum of money in order to fund other Home Office work. That is the case in a nutshell. In the remainder of my contribution, I plan to look at what Parliament intended for these children when it passed the legislation in 1981 and then to make the case that what the Home Office has put in place undermines rather than implements those intentions.

In 1983, Parliament scrapped the laws that meant that being born in the United Kingdom was in itself enough to make a person British. As well as being born in Britain, a person now also needs to have a parent who is settled or a UK citizen at the time of their birth. That was an understandable step. Many countries, although not all, have done the same. In a world in which people can live in several countries over their lifetime, place of birth is not necessarily the best way to identify a person’s true home country—the country that the person is most closely connected to and that should take them under its wing. However, in taking that step, Parliament was careful and mindful of the fact that it did not want to leave significant numbers of children for whom Britain is home deprived of that citizenship and the protections, security and stability that the anchor of citizenship can provide, which is precisely why it enacted provisions on registration.

British-born kids who were not automatically British at birth are allowed to register as British if they lived in the UK for the first 10 years of their life; either parent settles or becomes British before the kid turns 18; or if the kid was stateless at birth and lived for five continuous years in this country. Citizenship is their right. There is no discretion for the Home Secretary, although the 1981 Act rightly retained a discretion for the Home Secretary to allow other children to register, including those who came here at an early age and are to all intents and purposes British.

We could one day have a different debate on whether the rules are precisely the right ones and whether they draw the lines in the right place, but I think nobody could disagree that this type of rule was essential. The policy reasons behind them were quite right. In ending jus soli or citizenship by birthplace alone, it was vital to ensure that the thousands of kids for whom Britain was and is home should still enjoy that citizenship. The simple fact is that, by setting exorbitant fees, the Home Office is to all intents and purposes undermining Parliament’s intentions. Too many children cannot access citizenship because the Home Office charges what the Home Secretary has acknowledged is a “huge amount” of money.

When the British Nationality Act came into force in 1983, the fee set for registration applications was £30. In today’s money, that is almost exactly £100. For a quarter of a century, the fee simply represented the administrative cost of processing an application, but from 2007 the Home Office started charging more than the administrative cost. Accelerated increases mean that we have reached the “huge amount” of just over £1,000. The Home Office estimates the cost of processing an application to be £340, so it is creaming off £672 every time a child seeks to access their entitlement to citizenship.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) on securing this debate. It will come as no surprise to anybody who knows his tenacity that he managed to bag the first slot in Westminster Hall after the summer recess. I thank all Members who participated—they made thoughtful and very good contributions. I also thank the many Members, not all of whom are in the Chamber, who have taken the time to write to me and express their views. I particularly thank the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) for his comments. He is absolutely right that people have been thoughtful in their contributions. However, he did cause some consternation on my side of the Chamber with his new beard, which has changed his appearance to such an extent that we were not quite sure who he was.

Before I respond to the specific points that have been raised, I will set out the current landscape for the fees that we charge for visa, immigration and nationality services. It is important to remind ourselves of the principles that were agreed with Parliament, and which bring significant benefits to the immigration system and everyone in the UK in the form of effective and secure border and immigration functions, reduced general taxation and economic growth.

Under the Immigration Act 2014, and the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 that preceded it, Parliament approved the principle of setting fees charged for visa, immigration and nationality services to reflect the benefits that they bring to successful applicants. Until 2015, all fees that were set at above the cost of providing the service, which included the charge for children to register as British citizens, were subject to affirmative debate in both Houses of Parliament. Under the 2014 Act, Parliament approved the principle of taking a range of additional factors into account, including wider immigration system costs, the promotion of economic growth, international agreements and international comparisons.

[John Howell]

At the Council of Europe, we produced a strategy for the rights of children. It made the point that the system that had been developed for judicial hearings and activity in relation to adults was simply being imported to deal with children, and that that was fundamentally wrong. We are not the only country to do that—the whole of Europe was largely doing that. Does the Minister share that view?

[Caroline Nokes]

I will turn to the rights of children in comments that I will make in response to other Members, so I will come to my hon. Friend’s point very shortly.

The framework of charging, and in particular the principle of setting fees to reflect benefits accruing from a successful application, has enabled us to reflect the value that people get from the services that they receive, with indefinite leave to remain and citizenship rightly being the two most valuable outcomes.

Mamba: Societal Effect

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ben Bradley]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Later in my speech, I will come on to why that is the case and to what I hope will be remedies for the issue as we currently find it. This comparison with cannabis in particular is neither fair nor realistic. It is more comparable with heroin, and it is important that it is treated in the same way, so that users and people experiencing this in the town centre get the same level of help and support as those addicted to heroin.

I am keen to use this opportunity to ask the Government to undertake a number of actions on this issue. First and foremost, I am concerned about the classification of these drugs. Before the ban on psychoactive substances in 2016, these drugs were sold either over the counter or online, under a variety of brand names. They were often seen as a new version of cannabis. I am pleased that the Government have banned these drugs and other “legal highs” but I am concerned that we have not gone far enough. These drugs are incredibly dangerous, they destroy lives and they are very clearly damaging my community in Mansfield as we speak.

Mamba is highly addictive and the withdrawal symptoms of Mamba and Spice are said to be worse than coming off cocaine or heroin.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the development of a new test for detecting Mamba would be of enormous value in the fight against this drug?

[Ben Bradley]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. There do not seem to be medical interventions into Mamba in the same way as there are with other drugs. Absolutely, being able to diagnose the cause of this zombified state would be very important and could help the police and local health services.

Anecdotally I have heard from constituents who have tried to overcome their Mamba addiction by moving on to heroin, because they say that it is easier to deal with and that there is more support and more medical intervention available to help them to quit heroin than there is for Mamba, which goes to show that this drug is not comparable with cannabis. This is a hard drug.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to ensure that the immigration system facilitates the hiring of sufficient skilled migrant workers for the UK’s needs.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

13. What steps he is taking to ensure that the immigration system facilitates the hiring of sufficient skilled migrant workers for the UK’s needs.

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

The Government are committed to an immigration system that operates in the national interest and ensures that businesses can attract the talented migrants that they need. From 6 July, we removed all doctors’ and nurses’ posts from the yearly cap of 20,700 places, ensuring that the NHS is able to recruit the clinical staff that it needs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

I know that my hon. Friend will agree that it is fantastic that we will now have an opportunity—for the first time in decades—to design our own immigration system. We should take that seriously, as we are. It will be led by the White Paper, which will come out soon after the summer recess, and an immigration Bill that will make all the changes that are recommended and debated in Parliament.

[John Howell]

I am glad that doctors and nurses have been excluded from the cap on skilled workers, which will free up many additional places for other highly-skilled occupations. Will my right hon. Friend give an assessment of how these regulations have worked since they have come into force?

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my hon. Friend for welcoming the changes and for his support. It is a bit too early to give an assessment, since the changes only came into play on 6 July. Like my hon. Friend, I am confident that they will not only help to provide some of the high skills that our economy needs, but will actually go on to create jobs.