Electronic Travel Authorisation: Dual Nationals
Lord Spellar Excerpts(1 day, 19 hours ago)
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Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The scheme has been introduced this week, as the noble Lord will know. The friction that may occur on occasions now is because people do not understand or are unaware of the results. But we have made a strong effort to make sure that carriers know that they can accept expired passports. Again, I advise individuals who wish to travel to the United Kingdom to contact the carrier to see whether their documentation is in order in this period when the scheme has been introduced. There are a number of measures, even at the point of refusal, whereby an individual who has been refused at a gate can contact a number of things, which I do not wish to outline because of time. The noble Lord will know, and be able to read in Hansard, about those that I have just mentioned, which are available. The feedback we have had so far is that there is a limited number of concerns in the initial introduction, and I will obviously monitor that over the coming weeks.
Lord Spellar (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the UK Government’s trade envoy for Australia. This issue is causing considerable consternation in Australia, a country with which we are developing our defence, security and other relationships, to the benefit of the wider world. It seems slightly extraordinary that an Australian who is not a British national can much more easily gain entry to the UK than one who is, even if it is a residual matter and they do not have a passport. Should we not be looking at ways to facilitate this? The Passport Office, when we had difficulties two or three years ago, moved at pace and had people here to deal with the cases. Should we not be doing that in Australia and encouraging movement between our countries rather than creating an incident?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
Any Australian dual national who wishes to prove their British nationality can do one of two things. They can apply for a British passport, which is usually a nine or eight-day wait at the moment, or they can even get one speedily if they need to: that can be done. They can also apply for a certificate of exemption, which is a lifetime exemption that can be attached to their Australian passport and will allow them to travel to the United Kingdom without the need for an ETA. That is a reasonably sensible approach to make. It is a short-term thing. Now that the system has been introduced, any Australian citizen who wishes to travel to the UK can either get a certificate, get a British passport or travel here, and if they travel here and are refused, in the meantime there are a number of mechanisms—I outlined them to the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford—that they can adopt. However, in the long term, this ETA scheme is a sensible thing to do and I commend it to the House.
Government Website: Registering a Death
Lord Spellar Excerpts(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am sympathetic to what the noble Lord has said. My colleague and noble friend Lady Merron has said that the Department of Health, particularly in an English context, is working sympathetically with the communities that the noble Lord has mentioned. I will reflect on what he has said. It is a strange situation whereby the Home Office has responsibility for some of the issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has raised—and I am seeking to address those and will change the system—but the issues that the noble Lord is raising are with a different department. However, my noble friend Lady Merron has heard these points and we will look at the question sympathetically.
Lord Spellar (Lab)
My Lords, following exactly on from that question, is not the most sensible approach to look at those areas where coroners are operating efficiently and at speed, to learn from those best practices, and then to extend it to the rest of the country? It is a straightforward business proposition. Is that not that what the Government should be doing?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The answer to that question is yes. The bit that the Home Office is responsible for has a five-day target, which is being met. There are challenges in the medical examination aspect for a range of reasons, which are not just administrative but related to how, when, where and in what circumstances people have died. There may be issues that we can look at. My noble friend makes some important points and after Question Time I will discuss with my noble friend Lady Merron how best we can address those.
Computer-generated Child Sexual Abuse Material
Lord Spellar Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The position is that Ofcom is the regulator for this area and that all child sexual abuse images et cetera are currently illegal. The question is about the use of powers to take them down and hold tech companies to account. That is what the consultation will be completed on and by April 2026 we will have, as a Government, the full response from Ofcom. We will act on that response when we receive it.
Lord Spellar (Lab)
My Lords, what possible confidence can we have in Ofcom to take action effectively, given its lamentable failure to stand up for customers against the mobile phone companies?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
Ofcom has the confidence of the legislation that both Houses of Parliament passed, was commenced under the previous Government and is to be implemented in full by this Government. It has cross-party support to take action to ensure that illegal content online is taken down and if companies do not do so, there is a mechanism to ensure that significant fines are potentially levied on those companies that do not take action.
Draft Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: Fire and Rescue Services) (England) Regulations 2024
Lord Spellar Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Chris Philp
The hon. Gentleman is referring to fire stations typically in sparsely populated rural areas, whereas in urban areas firefighters tend to be on regular salaries. The purpose of the regulations is to make sure we do not have to rely on good-will decisions with quite a high threshold and no guarantee that firefighters on strike, who would normally be at the fire station and particularly in busy urban stations, would necessarily be there. If the house of anyone here or of any of their constituents were on fire and it was a strike day, they would want to know that their house would not burn down. We are trying with the regulations to strike a reasonable balance between the right of firefighters to go on strike and the right of the public not to suffer serious damage and threat to life. By the way, many other European countries, such as Portugal, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands and others, do strike that balance in a variety of different sectors—I am not talking just about fire—and have legislation that is fully compatible with the European convention on human rights and strikes precisely that reasonable, proportionate balance: that is what we are seeking to do here.
Just to return to the points that I was making, I have talked a little bit about control rooms, and I was just explaining, before taking the intervention, that decisions on the number of staff required to fulfil those control room functions will be for individual fire and rescue authorities to take on a bespoke, case by case basis. The reason for that is that the way that different fire and rescue authorities and fire and rescue services organise their control rooms differs, and it is quite difficult to have a single national level that would be appropriate for all of them.
When it comes to the emergency response element, we decided to set the minimum service level on a national basis across England—because these regulations apply to England; we will consider Wales and Scotland subsequently. It will be set at 73% of appliances. Just to be precise, when I say “appliances”, I mean fire engines and other fire and rescue service vehicles, so that is 73% of the level of those that would be available if the strike action were not taking place. Individual fire and rescue authorities will be able to determine the number of staff required to safely crew and oversee those appliances.
The decision to set this aspect of the minimum service level at 73% was based on detailed modelling, which is summarised in our consultation response. The modelling calculates the proportion of days over the past five years on which demand would have exceeded the number of appliances required to meet an MSL. The model identified 73% as the threshold at which every fire and rescue service would have had enough appliances to meet emergency demand—I stress “emergency demand”—on more than 97% of the days in that five-year period. In the interests of public safety, we therefore consider 73% to be the most appropriate point at which to set this aspect of the minimum service level.
Many fire and rescue services also host national resilience assets, which form an important part of any response to major and significant incidents, such as a major building collapse or wildfire. I consider it of the utmost importance that fire and rescue services can maintain those capabilities and keep the public safe. That is why the minimum service level for the national resilience assets is set so that they are also capable of being deployed, as if the strikes were not taking place, in response to emergency demand.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
In this very detailed study that the Minister is talking about, how many incidents did they identify where this had actually been a problem?
Chris Philp
Well, it is set out in the consultation response. But, if the right hon. Gentleman is asking about how many strikes there have been—[Hon. Members: “No.”] Well, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman should restate his question; I was not quite following it.
John Spellar
In the course of industrial action, how many incidents have there been where there had been a serious impact as a result of the strike?
Chris Philp
The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that, in the past—about 10 years ago and, again, about 10 years before that—very considerable military assets were deployed in order to provide cover when there was a large-scale fire strike.
Chris Philp
I will in just a moment. It is worth saying that the assets that are possessed by the military today are not the same; their number of firefighting appliances is lower than it was 10 or 20 years ago. So, whereas—
Chris Philp
I will happily give way again in a minute, if the right hon. Gentleman wants, after I have given way to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover, but the point is that the military assets available 10 or 20 years ago, such as the green goddess fire engines, for example, are not available today.
Chris Philp
I thank my hon. Friend for a characteristically excellent intervention. First, I do, of course, echo and share the tribute that she paid to the brave firefighters up and down the country, who put themselves in the line of danger every day to keep the rest of us safe. I think the whole Committee, on both sides, would echo that sentiment.
The examples that my hon. Friend gave about loss of life during previous fire strikes eloquently and powerfully answer the intervention made by the right hon. Member for Warley. They illustrate that, even when we had far more extensive military firefighting assets available—which we do not any more—none the less, life was still lost. What we are talking about here is ensuring that life and property—because both are important—are protected, even when a strike takes place.
The Committee knows this, but, just for clarity, we are not proposing, of course, to ban strikes. That is not what is being proposed here. We are simply setting out, in this area, as in others, a minimum level of cover that must be provided, even during a strike, to make sure that the public are kept safe and to avoid the tragic fatalities that my hon. Friend the Member for Dover just set out to the Committee a moment ago.
John Spellar
Can I just point out that there is a great difference between “during” and “as a consequence of”? In other words, there is a difference between a death during a strike and as a consequence of that action.
Chris Philp
Well, it may be that my hon. Friend the Member for Dover can set out further particulars of the incidents that she referred to, but it would seem to me to be deeply concerning when a reduction in strike cover occurs and fatalities follow; that is something that should properly concern all of us. When it comes to something as serious as fire, where life and property are at risk, I think it is proper that Parliament ensures that we have done everything we can to make sure that the public are kept safe, even during strike action. Indeed, it would be a dereliction of duty were we not to do so.
Just to complete the point that I was making a moment ago about the 73% level and the assets relating to national resilience, as with other provisions in the regulations, fire and rescue authorities will consult with trade unions and determine the number of staff required to meet the minimum service level should strike action occur. Of course, I hope that the Fire Brigades Union and other unions engage constructively with that process when the time comes.
The third and final element of the minimum service level is to provide cover for urgent fire safety issues. The regulations set out that fire and rescue services will be expected to have staff available to rectify any emerging issues that pose an imminent risk to life and would normally require a same-day response. That might be, for example, where a significant fire safety issue is uncovered in a block of residential flats that necessitates same-day attention.
Individual fire and rescue authorities will be able to determine individually how much cover will be required for that purpose. We think that that is likely to be minimal because we accept that it is reasonable that routine fire safety work, routine inspections and routine visits do not happen if there is a strike. Those are not essential activities; they are not essential for public safety—apart from in the emergency situation that I just described—so we accept and understand that those activities would not happen on the day of a strike.
Draft Police Act 1997 (Criminal Record Certificates: Relevant Matter) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2023
Lord Spellar Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Sarah Dines)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Police Act 1997 (Criminal Record Certificates: Relevant Matter) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2023.
It is an honour to serve before you, Dame Angela.
The draft order amends the Police Act 1997 to require all unspent convictions and cautions to be disclosed on standard or enhanced criminal records certificates issued by the Disclosure and Barring Service. The DBS issues three types of criminal records certificate: a basic certificate, which is available for any role, and two higher level certificates, standard and enhanced, which are available for roles that require a higher level of public trust and/or close working with children or vulnerable adults. More criminal history information is disclosed on standard and enhanced checks than on the basic, in proportion to the sensitivity of the roles to which they relate.
The legislation that governs disclosure on basic certificates is different from that which determines what is disclosed on standard and enhanced. Disclosure on a basic certificate is governed by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, which sets out the periods of time after which convictions and cautions become spent; once spent, they are not disclosed on a basic DBS certificate. Disclosure on standard or enhanced certificates is governed by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 and section 113A of the Police Act 1997, which together allow an employer recruiting for more sensitive roles to see a person’s fuller criminal history.
The filtering rules that govern disclosure on standard and enhanced certificates define particular criminal records as a “relevant matter” that must be disclosed. The definition of relevant matter includes the seriousness of the offence, whether there was a custodial sentence and the length of time since the date of conviction or caution. The intention is that the convictions covered by the definition of relevant matter should include the unspent convictions disclosed on a basic check in addition to the more serious spent convictions that are relevant to the more sensitive roles. However, the filtering rules do not currently include explicit reference to whether a conviction or caution is spent. That has created an anomaly whereby, in certain very limited circumstances, an unspent conviction that would be disclosed on a basic certificate would not be disclosed on a standard or enhanced certificate.
An example may assist the Committee. The most straightforward example involves youth conditional cautions, which remain unspent for three months or until the condition is met, if earlier. If someone applies for a basic DBS check during that three-month window, the youth conditional caution will be disclosed. However, there is no provision for youth conditional cautions to be automatically disclosed on a standard or enhanced check, even during the three-month window in which they remain unspent. That might play out as follows. Let us say that a 17-year-old receives a youth conditional caution for common assault. Two months later, they apply to volunteer in a nursery and are required to undertake an enhanced DBS check. There is no provision for their youth conditional caution to be automatically disclosed on the enhanced check, so it comes back clean. To earn some more money alongside their volunteering, the 17-year-old also applies for a job in a supermarket, for which they are asked for the basic DBS check. The basic check discloses the youth conditional caution, because it is not yet spent. The supermarket thus ends up with access to more information than the nursery.
In that situation, the anomaly in disclosure is temporary, as a youth conditional caution will be unspent for a maximum of three months. Once that time is up, the youth conditional caution would not automatically be disclosed on any DBS check. However, the draft order will remove the anomaly altogether, and in cases such as this 17-year-old’s, ensure that the youth conditional caution would automatically be disclosed on any type of DBS check for the three months that it remains unspent. The order amends the filtering rules so that the unspent convictions and cautions are included in the definition of relevant matter and are therefore always disclosed on standard as well as enhanced certificates.
In conclusion, the disclosure and barring regime is based on the principles that those making employment decisions for the most risky jobs have access to—
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I have been dealing with quite a bit of casework on this issue, and it seems to me that convictions incurred at an early age, particularly during teenage years, seem to debar people from jobs way into their 20s and 30s. The Minister referred to working in a nursery. We have a chronic shortage of workers in the care sector, yet mistakes people made when they were younger are counted against them, even though the principle of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act is to accept that most people can turn their lives around, and its aim is to enable them to do so.
People say, “Oh, the offence is one that the employer will disregard,” but employers do not do that. If they get back a form saying that there is something in a person’s record, they stop looking at the application. Then they come to us saying that they have to bring in people from abroad because they cannot get workers in this country. Is the Department looking at this aspect as well?
Miss Dines
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that an important part of our criminal justice system and our democracy is that people have the right to turn their lives around and become rehabilitated. That is why offences by younger members of our society often have shorter rehabilitation periods. It is right that there is a period after which a conviction, caution or court adjudication and sentence becomes spent, but it is important to strike a balance, and the Government feel that the current balance is the right one. Of course, this is precisely the sort of matter that we should always keep under review, and I am sure that the Ministry of Justice will continue to look at it from time to time. It would also be a very good subject for a debate, which the right hon. Gentleman might want to apply for.
John Spellar
I thank the Minister for her helpful reply. May I send her details of two recent cases I am dealing with, so she can consider whether the public purpose—the thoroughly understandable and correct purpose—of the legislation is being served, or whether we are preventing people from turning their lives around? One case involves not even a caution, but a notification by someone working as a prison officer that “the dog sat down” over drugs; no drugs were ever found on her, yet this notification is coming up in enhanced disclosures. There is no evidential proof, there was no court case; it is merely the—possibly prejudiced—view of one individual.
Miss Dines
That is a really important point. Although these matters may come up on a check, it does not necessarily bar the individual from working; it is a matter for the employer. None the less, I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says, and sometimes employers can be too zealous in considering someone’s history. I welcome employers taking a balanced, long-term view, because we know that people with a criminal record incurred at an early age often turn their life around—and thank goodness they do. There has to be scope in any system for people who have made mistakes to recover from them.
I shall be grateful to see the two cases the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. The Ministry of Justice will be looking at this system. The barring system is in my portfolio, but there are wider criminal justice issues as well. Change is sometimes necessary, and it is led by Members of Parliament, so I look forward to seeing those examples.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Spellar Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Sarah Dines)
We have allocated £125 million across England and Wales through the safer streets fund and the safety of women at night fund, including £550,000 to invest in my right hon. Friend’s constituency. She works very hard on this issue. Work and engagement are ongoing with schools in the Chelmsford area, including the delivery of awareness sessions on healthy relationships and consent, and work with 15 and 16-year-olds who attend Chelmsford City football club.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Suella Braverman
I strongly disagree with the right hon. Gentleman’s assertion, surprisingly. On crime, we have seen a 20% fall in violent crime and neighbourhood crime and a 30% fall in domestic burglary since 2019. We see record numbers of police officers on our streets—something that everyone on the Opposition Benches voted against. When it comes to migration, I am incredibly proud of what this Government have achieved so far: the groundbreaking agreement with Rwanda, which is compassionate, pragmatic and lawful; and a plan to go further and deal with the problem.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Spellar Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Priti Patel
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I pay tribute to those individuals who have served our country. I think it is important that the hon. Gentleman knows and the House is aware of the fact that I am currently working with the Secretary of State for Defence on these very cases; we are both looking at this. There will be future announcements coming forward. However, I am well aware of these individual cases—how these individuals have been treated, and the cases and the representations they are making right now—and, quite frankly, we want to correct this.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Priti Patel
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. He mentioned Windrush and the Department’s inefficiencies of the past, and there are a couple of points that I want to make. Windrush was a stain—let us face it—on the Department and the Government, and we are now working through that; we want to right the wrongs. I hear what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. Do not forget that Wendy Williams’s report basically pointed to the ignorance and thoughtlessness about race and the history of the Windrush generation in the Department, but he refers to something much wider—he has raised this point with me numerous times—which is that we must not treat people like cases. That is a fundamental change that I am trying to bring to the Department. It is taking time, and there is no quick fix. I give him every single assurance that I will continue to work night and day to change our systems and make sure we put people first.
DRAFT REHABILITATION OF OFFENDERS ACT 1974 (EXCEPTIONS) ORDER 1975 (AMENDMENT) (ENGLAND AND WALES) ORDER 2020
DRAFT POLICE ACT 1997 (CRIMINAL RECORD CERTIFICATES: RELEVANT MATTERS) (AMENDMENT) (ENGLAND AND WALES) ORDER 2020
Lord Spellar Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Victoria Atkins
What a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I suspect that you are the first of the 2015 intake to serve on the Panel of Chairs—that is a real and well-deserved privilege.
The orders, which were laid before Parliament on 9 July, are two very technical but important because they relate to the requirements for a person to self-disclose criminal records when applying for roles that are eligible for standard and enhanced criminal records checks, and to the rules for disclosure of criminal convictions and cautions on a standard or enhanced criminal record certificate issued by the Disclosure and Barring Service. As criminal record disclosure is a devolved matter, the orders apply only to England and Wales.
As hon. Members may be aware, in January 2019, the Supreme Court handed down its judgment in the case of P, G and W. Overall, the Court found that a rules-based disclosure regime for criminal record certificates is justifiable and in accordance with the law. However, that judgment also determined that certain aspects of the current disclosure rules are incompatible with article 8 of the European convention on human rights—namely, the right to a private life.
There were two areas of concern. First, the multiple conviction rule, under which all convictions, regardless of their nature, are disclosed when an individual has more than one, was found to be unnecessary and disproportionate in terms of indicating a propensity to offend. Secondly, the disclosure of out-of-court disposals administered to young offenders was found to be “an error of principle”, given the instructive purpose of the disposals, so the Court found against the automatic disclosure of youth reprimands and warnings.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Surely both propositions are absolutely self-evident. Why did we drag it all the way through the Court of Appeal and up to the Supreme Court—wasting years carrying on with it—when the Court actually applied a common-sense approach on both counts and said, “This is wrong”? Why could Ministers and civil servants not have done that years ago, rather than taking it all the way through that elongated process?
Victoria Atkins
I am so pleased that the right hon. Gentleman has raised that point. He has a particular interest in this matter, and I answer many of his parliamentary questions on it, so I know that it is an area in which he is an expert and to which he is very committed.
Although I do not want to go into the details of all the cases that were joined together, the reason that the Government took those cases to the Supreme Court was that there were many important principles of law to be tested. All along, we have reviewed those rules and done as we thought right. We cannot hide from the fact that the reason that the Disclosure and Barring Service regime and its predecessor were set up in the first place was to protect the most vulnerable in our society. It is right that the Supreme Court was asked to look at the regime as a whole. It found that the regime was satisfactory and within the bounds of article 8 and other measures within the convention, but it drew two points to our attention. We have gone into great detail to ensure that we can bring about a system to enact the observations in the ruling by the Supreme Court, but to do so in a way that keeps the purpose of the regime in place.
The orders before the Committee will not change the purpose of the disclosure regime. The disclosure rules will continue to ensure that children and vulnerable people are protected from dangerous offenders. However, the Supreme Court judgment made it clear that these two areas of concern are disproportionate as currently framed, so the orders will ensure that there is a balance between the safeguarding aims and supporting people who have offended in the past to move into employment and move on with their lives.
John Spellar
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I thank the Minister not only for writing to me, but for an informal briefing on the subject under discussion today. The changes are welcome, but long overdue. I have just delved into my files and I have a letter from the Ministry of Justice, from the then Minister, dated 20 April 2013:
“I am writing further to Andrew Lansley’s”—
remember him?—
“response to your Business Question on 18 April, asking for an early debate to discuss the impact of including cautions and minor convictions in disclosures issued by the Disclosure and Barring Service.”
That was in response to a
“recent Court of Appeal judgment in the case of R.”
This has been going on and on.
The changes today are welcome, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham said, but they still do not go far enough. It is still the case that, if people commit slightly more serious offences in their teen years, that dogs them all through their life. Indeed, some of the Supreme Court cases demonstrate that. These anomalies and problems will emerge, and I would hope, without too much expectation, that the Department might respond much more quickly than it has. The situation has gone on far too long.
It has become clear in the exchanges we have had that the issue is not even one that divides the parties, uniting those on the right of the Conservative party and the left of the Labour party. That is not, by the way, unique to the United Kingdom. In the United States, right-wing Republicans and left-wing Democrats have united in working together to introduce schemes for the rehabilitation of offenders, recognising a major social problem and an economic issue.
It is only the Department, and the stubbornness of officials, that have held things back. I have had agreement in the past between the Secretary of State for Justice and the Home Secretary. The trouble was they got moved, and we had to start all over again. At the same time, the matter was dragged back by the officials, who would not move.
That is not unprecedented, by the way, in dealing with such issues. It took something like 10 or 15 years to get changes to wheel clamping, which had been abolished in Scotland by one legal decision. Yet again, after going all the way through the Home Office, the issue finally got transferred to the Department for Transport and we managed to get the changes and prevent wheel clamping on private land.
We cannot afford to behave like that, because the issue is extremely important. Everyone accepts that an essential condition for rehabilitation, which I think we all accept is desirable, just and necessary, enabling offenders to play their part in a law-abiding society, is to have a job and a stable relationship—the second of which is often dependent on the first—as well as being able to move into that job fairly rapidly.
I was interested in the intervention by the hon. Member for Eddisbury, and I pay tribute to the incredible work done by the company that he is associated with, precisely in recognising that. I only wish that more employers would follow through in the same way. He made an important point and asked that employers should look at the person.
Unfortunately, that is where I think the Minister was slightly naive. All that many employers look at is whether the boxes are ticked. Is the age box ticked? If someone is over a certain age, employers do not even look at them. There is a new way of doing that: employers ask for qualifications. For jobs where there is no reason to want A-levels, they want them. Alternatively, they require a degree-level person for a job. What does that say? It says that older people need not apply, because we look at the increase in the number of people taking A-levels and degrees, and we will see that there is a very definite age bias, so again they are excluded.
As for people with a disability, regardless of whether or not that disability prevents them from doing the job, too many employers—including some in the public sector, for all their pretensions—will not look at the person and think, “They can’t take this particular exam; they can’t do the job.” I once had a case of a constituent who had been doing a civil service job on a temporary basis for about four years. Their union reps tried everything to get them the job, but no, because the civil service rules said that they first had to take an exam, but because of their disability, which was a mental disability, they could not do that, but they had worked out a coping mechanism.
This behaviour is immoral, unjust and incredibly economically inefficient. However, there is another factor coming in. For quite a while now, we have had the issue that for too many employers the easy option has been not to look at the person but just to say, “Well, they have got some conviction.” They will then pick up the phone to the agency, which will pick up the phone to Warsaw, and all they will do is just import labour to do the work. Now, with the rapid increase in unemployment—we are already seeing that feeding through into reducing wage rates, indicating a surplus of supply over demand—we will be seeing the same thing, with employers taking the easy route. If somebody cannot tick the box, the employer does not even look at them. I think we will have to return to this issue, although this measure actually enables us to make decent progress.
I take issue with the Minister’s point about timeliness. The Lammy report, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham himself referred to very modestly, was a seminal report produced at the request of the then Conservative Prime Minister in 2017. The Minister referred to the Supreme Court’s judgment of January 2019. We are now in September 2020. Why has it taken the Department so long, given that they knew all the issues that were involved, because they had been dealt with by the Court of Appeal? All that was being asked for was some final validation by the Supreme Court.
I return to the issue I raised. Given the details of the cases involved, why did the Home Office not move? I have to say that I find it truly extraordinary, when we have a lot of complaints about judges trying to make law rather than interpreting the law and adjudicating on it. Actually, we seem to have abdicated that responsibility, leaving it to judges to make the law. I had thought that it was the job of Parliament, Ministers and the civil service to identify problems and see whether they can be resolved within existing law, and then—if the law needs changing—to bring that change to Parliament. Why abdicate that to judges?
Let us look at one or two of the cases that were part of the Supreme Court’s judgment. P received a caution on 26 July 1999 for the theft of a sandwich from a shop. Three months later, on 1 November 1999, she was convicted at Oxford magistrates court of the theft of a book worth 99p and failing to surrender to the bail granted to her after arrest for that offence. She received a conditional discharge for both offences. At the time of the offences, she was 28, homeless and suffering from undiagnosed schizophrenia, which is now under control. She has now qualified as a teaching assistant and has committed no further offences, but she has been unable to find employment. That is a scandal. Why would the Home Office not respond to that and say, “This cannot be and this should not be”?
W was convicted by Dewsbury magistrates court on 26 November 1982 of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. At the time of the offence, he was 16 and the assault occurred in the course of a fight between a number of boys on their way home from school. He received a conditional discharge and has not offended since. He is now 47 and has difficulty obtaining a teaching job.
In 1996, Lorraine Gallagher was convicted at Londonderry magistrates court of one count of driving without wearing a seatbelt and three counts of carrying a child under 14 years old without a seatbelt, and there was a subsequent case in 1998. She has no other convictions. She qualified as a social carer and was admitted to the Northern Ireland Social Care Council register, and then she was rejected for employment as a result of failing the test. There are many other cases—I am sure many Members of Parliament have had them.
Frankly, it is scandalous that this issue has not been dealt with up to now. I doubt that, had I not had the luck of getting a question to the Prime Minister three weeks in a row—no, I did not tip the winner of the St Leger—it would even have got here by now. Why was the Prime Minister, certainly on the second occasion, not able to trump me and say, “This has all been sorted out”? This has been a saga of dither and delay.
A further problem is that the system finds it very difficult to cope with so many cases. Anybody who has moved from one conurbation to another—I get people who have moved from London to the midlands—have to get DBS checks from two police forces, and the record of the Metropolitan police has not been glowing in that regard. Month after month goes by, and those people are not able to get into employment. They are denied the ability to provide for themselves. That is partly to do with the efficiency of those forces, and partly about why these things cannot be done in parallel, rather than in series. It is also because we are overloading the system with so many unnecessary cases.
The Security Industry Authority is another one that has considerable problems. Those who remember the first police and crime commissioner elections know that those who had very minor convictions or cautions in their teenage years—they were often in their 50s or 60s —were denied the right to run as police and crime commissioners even if they were major figures in their local societies. This mindset at the Home Office must change.
I think, therefore, that colleagues on both sides of the House need to consider, as we approach Brexit and this country needs to be firing on four, not two, cylinders, whether we can afford this dithering, delay and obstruction that goes on regularly in so many Departments. Is it not holding back our country, as well as individuals? There is a real economic price to pay, quite apart from the social justice case. If we keep people in enforced unemployment or working in jobs that are below their capability and potential, that is not just bad for them but significantly bad for the country. Therefore, there needs to be a reflection particularly about the Home Office but also about the civil service generally.
We have had too many cases of this in the Home Office. We had the Windrush scandal, in which year after year, decent, hard-working citizens were deprived of their rights, treated with contempt, pushed around and treated scandalously. Even after it was exposed, very few of them received compensation—although, I do not know what the appropriate compensation would be for having their lives ruined. Some have already died, including one who used to work in the House of Commons, yet they rejected her claim. We have more and more delay and obstruction. I do not know how many people are still stuck, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham might.
John Spellar
Five thousand people are still stuck in the system, which will not give way. Frankly, it is that indifference—that contempt for ordinary people—that, bluntly, in previous eras of the civil service, led to the Irish and Bengal famines. This is a welcome change. It needs to go further, but there also needs to be a root-and-branch change in Government.
Victoria Atkins
We were getting on so well! Hon. Members in other parts of the Palace may be heatedly debating certain issues, but I was hoping, from the constructive speech of the right hon. Member for Tottenham, that we could find agreement. Indeed, I acknowledge that he kindly indicated that the orders will not be subject to a vote, for which I thank him.
I also thank the right hon. Gentleman for his work on the Lammy review, on which he continues to keep a laser-like focus. Only recently, in answer to an urgent question, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), updated the Chamber that, of the right hon. Gentleman’s recommendations, 16 have been completed, two have been rejected and 17 are in progress. I very much hope that he considers this measure to be one of the recommendations in progress that we hope to be finalised by the end of the year.
The hon. Member for Warley—
Victoria Atkins
Forgive me. The right hon. Gentleman took a slightly different approach in his advocacy, but we acknowledge the passion that he brings to the subject. I merely confirm and reassure him that his PMQs will have been considered carefully by the Prime Minister, and that the Government will of course continue to consider carefully the Supreme Court ruling. It is precisely because we have been careful to ensure that we are following the guidance in that ruling that we have arrived at these orders.
I will clarify a couple of points in relation to the case that was argued, because the right hon. Member for Warley put a great deal of emphasis on the fact that common sense would have dictated that the Government change the policy before the Supreme Court ruling on the four cases that were joined. In fact, in the case of P, her convictions stood to be disclosed under the multiple conviction rule. W wanted to teach English, but as actual bodily harm is on the specified offences list, it will always be disclosed, and indeed, that decision was upheld by the Supreme Court. The case of Gallagher was again a case of the multiple conviction rule, and will be corrected by virtue of these orders.
The fourth case, which I do not think the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, was that of G, who received two reprimands aged 13 for sexually assaulting two younger boys, both aged nine. G claimed that the acts were consensual. He would have had the reprimand disclosed under the serious offences rule. The Supreme Court was content with that course of action. I hope that shows that, although one may have an instinct as to how certain rules should be applied, the Government must none the less take each case and be clear as to the consequences, intended and unintended, of changing the safeguarding regime.
John Spellar
If we take the case of W, the Supreme Court would have said, “As we understand the law, as the law is, this is what you should do.” The Minister said that the Supreme Court gave approval for the way the Government acted in the case of W. It then falls back to the Minister to justify how a conditional discharge that a 16-year-old received after a fight between a number of boys on their way home from school in 1982, since when he has not offended, should blight his life in his 40s. That is not a job for the judge, who has to work on the basis of the law at that moment. Why did Ministers not take from that example that they should change the law?
Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests
Lord Spellar Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Kit Malthouse
Obviously the decisions to charge, prosecute and hand out whatever sentence may be appropriate are a matter for those who are not under my control, happily—the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts—but I know that they all have in mind the fact that confidence in the criminal justice system comes from exactly what my hon. Friend says, which is that everybody, whether he be aristocrat or commoner, is treated equally.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) on the Front Bench rightly commended the people of Birmingham for going calmly about their business today. Unfortunately, that might be happening because such violent incidents are far too common on our streets now, and quite frankly, this is the shocking legacy of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) during her time as Home Secretary. Her slash-and-burn approach to the police led to the loss of 2,300 police officers in the west midlands, as well as equally valuable police community support officers and civilian support staff. The inevitable outcome has been surging crime and antisocial behaviour, terrorised neighbourhoods and the criminals ruling the streets after dark. So will the Minister now not just talk the talk about the number of police, PCSOs and support staff, but provide the cash from central Government as well, and not just for one or two years?
Kit Malthouse
I am sorry the right hon. Gentleman sought to ascribe blame elsewhere other than with the perpetrator of this awful crime. The basic premise of his attack is completely wrong. When I was deputy Mayor for policing in London dealing with a not dissimilar spike in knife crime, both in the capital and indeed across the country, it was at a time when police officer numbers were at an all-time high and Gordon Brown and Tony Blair were spending money like water. The two are not connected. The causes of knife crime are complex and difficult. It behoves us all to take a serious non-political view and look at a 360° approach to tackling knife crime together.
Covid-19: UK Border Health Measures
Lord Spellar Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I have said, these measures will be reviewed and aligned with the other health measures being brought in. I emphasise again that it is important to look at this in its totality and in the round, alongside the desire of our country and Government to get the R value down, so that we can unlock and reopen society in many other ways.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Just now we had a junior Transport Minister, subbing for the Chancellor, wringing her hands about the aviation industry, but the Home Secretary has just thrown her, the industry and its workers under the bus, and at the same time put up a massive “Britain is closed” sign. At the very least, will she demand from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he extends the furlough scheme to try to avert hundreds of thousands of workers being thrown on the dole in the next few weeks?
Priti Patel
First of all, I find the right hon. Gentleman’s tone somewhat objectionable. I have been incredibly supportive of the aviation industry. [Interruption.] I can hear sarcastic cries of “tough”. It is important to reflect the way in which the aviation industry is dynamic, innovative and huge to our economy.
Priti Patel
I am not shutting it down—on the contrary. I am working with my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary, the Business Secretary and all colleagues across Government. I will restate to all Members of this House that these are cross-Government measures to protect the public health of our nation. I hear the right hon. Gentleman’s comment with regard to the furlough scheme and protecting jobs. Of course, we all want to protect jobs. This has been a tremendously difficult period economically. We will have major economic issues to confront as we come out of this dreadful situation. We are not on our own. The international economy is in exactly the same space. It is right that we work collectively, rather than in an aggressive and hostile way, to find the right solutions for the people of this country, to protect not only their health but their long-term jobs and livelihoods.