Windrush
Julian Lewis Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con)
I am very pleased to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda).
It has been very obvious today and in previous debates that there is justifiable anger over this issue. I think it is partly motivated by the fact that the contribution of the Windrush generation to building our society and economy in the post-war years has not been sufficiently recognised, or is undermined by what has happened. One element that we would do well to celebrate and recognise is the contribution of many members of the Windrush generation to our armed forces, prior to their arrival in this country in 1948, during the second world war. During the second world war, some 10,000 Caribbean soldiers served in the British armed forces across all three services, and many conducted themselves in a very distinguished manner.
That includes one Billy Strachan, who arrived in England from Jamaica in 1940 to serve in the Royal Air Force. He conducted himself with distinction, completing 30 missions as a part of Bomber Command at a time when the casualty rate in it was some 50%. He was made an officer and completed his training at Cranwell. The historian Ashley Jackson, in his book “The British Empire”, quotes Billy Strachan, who describes arriving from Jamaica as a new young pilot officer in his RAF unit and his surprise on meeting the batman he had been allocated:
“I was a little…boy from the Caribbean and instinctively I called him ‘Sir’. ‘No, Sir’, he hastily corrected, ‘It is I who call you “Sir”’.”
That is a very interesting vignette, and it reflects the remarkable role that serving in the armed forces can often have in advancing human rights.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I only wish I had known my hon. Friend was going to make that point, or I would have looked up the name of the very distinguished Afro-Caribbean officer from world war two who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and was one of many people from that background who were recognised for great gallantry in the fight against fascism and Nazism.
Leo Docherty
I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s intervention, and I hope that, prior to the conclusion of my speech, another Member will intervene to give us that name.
Of course, it was not such a positive experience for every member of the Caribbean community who served in the British Army. Allan Wilmot, who also came from Jamaica, volunteered to join the Royal Navy in 1941 and served throughout the second world war. He described the sense of hostility that many felt on arriving in the British Isles after the war:
“Being British, you feel like you are coming home, but when we came here it was like we dropped out of the sky. Nobody knew anything about us.”
Those people had to display the same bravery that they had demonstrated during the war on arrival in this country, to overcome that hostility, and of course many of them overcame it successfully and went on to contribute very meaningfully to our economy and our society.
The distinguished service of Caribbean armed forces men and women is not confined to the history books. There is no finer example of gallantry in the modern era than Johnson Beharry, from Grenada, who served with the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment in Iraq and was awarded the Victoria Cross in 2005 for his remarkable bravery in Amarah. Anyone who has served recently in the armed forces will have very positive experiences of serving shoulder to shoulder with members of the Commonwealth and Caribbean soldiers. I was very pleased to serve alongside Guardsmen from St Lucia and Jamaica.
My interest in the experience of soldiers from abroad who have come to this country and then go on to settle here also links to the experience of our Gurkha soldiers. They, like the Windrush generation, navigated the transition from service life to civilian life. Just as we are hugely proud of the distinguished conduct and contribution that the Gurkhas make, we would do very well today to be similarly proud of the distinguished service of a generation of Caribbean soldiers and the positive contribution they made in the second world war to guarding and defending our freedom.
Oral Answers to Questions
Julian Lewis Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
The hon. Lady makes a really valid point. One of the challenges is that, while broadcast is obviously covered by Ofcom and so on, some individuals move online and broadcast speeches that would be illegal if they were broadcast under Ofcom’s responsibility. I am due to visit the United States this week, and that is exactly one of the points that I shall be raising, so her question was very timely.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
If a relative suspects that a vulnerable family member is being radicalised online, what advice would the Minister give that relative about what would happen to that vulnerable person if they were reported?
Mr Wallace
First of all, the relative could make a report to the police, the local authority, local safeguarding officers or safeguarding officers at school. That report would then be looked at in conjunction with a Prevent panel. People’s names would not be logged; they would not be part of a deep surveillance operation. They would simply be looked at, and the case would be discussed at a multi-agency level. Over 30% of cases are referred to other safeguarding—it might be domestic abuse or sexual abuse—and about half see no further action taken. So it is all done delicately, with respect for the individual and respect for the community. At the end, we get a good outcome, whereby a significant number of people are given assistance and are no longer radicalised or a threat.
Health, Social Care and Security
Julian Lewis Excerpts(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Ms Abbott
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention, and I ask the House to focus on the information he has brought forward.
After seven years of Tory government, there are 20,000 fewer police staff, 10,000 fewer firefighters and 1,000 fewer Border Force guards. When the Conservatives came to office in 2010, they immediately cut Security Service personnel by 650; now they expect plaudits when they pledge an increase.
All ordinary public sector workers have faced pay freezes and pay caps, which have made them worse off. Between the coalition’s coming into office in 2010 and May this year, inflation has seen prices rise by more than 15%. In reality, whatever figures the Government want to throw around, public sector workers have had effective cuts to their pensions and seen large-scale job losses because of inflation. They have been asked to do more with less.
The Opposition say that asking the security services, and public sector workers generally, to do more with less is unfair, unworkable and counter-productive. It has led to low morale, difficulties in recruitment and retention—particularly in parts of the country where house prices are spiralling—staff shortages and gaps in services. Those public services are among the most important that any civilised society offers. In his remarks, my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) will highlight the effect of austerity and Government cuts on our NHS. The cuts in vital services—the police, the fire services, the Border Force and the security services—have been serious, and they come in addition to the cuts that have already forced out more than 20,000 police staff.
I turn to the counter-terrorism strategy. Labour welcomes the considered approach outlined in the Queen’s Speech; too often, the knee-jerk reaction of Governments has been further legislation. We believe that it is right to review what is happening in relation to the evolving terrorist threat and its many and varied sources and purposes, but the terms of the counter-terrorism review are crucial. Labour believes that the following questions must be addressed. Are there sufficient resources and are they properly directed? Are there gaps in the legislation, or is it catch-all and ineffective? What is the role of community policing in gathering intelligence? Sometimes, Ministers seem to think that community policing has no role in combating terrorism, but we believe that it does.
Is there a danger that communities are being alienated by Prevent, although good work is done under the Prevent badge? Should we review Prevent? How can community engagement be increased, and could we immediately take basic precautionary measures, such as installing barriers to cars and trucks? Should terrorism prevention and investigation measures, or TPIMs, be used more frequently, as Max Hill, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, says? If so, should they be subject to better due process?
We believe that some of the answers to these questions are self-evident. If the Government announced today that they were going to introduce more barriers to trucks and large vehicles along some major thoroughfares, we would support them. Advice could be issued immediately to all elected officials not to remove existing barriers, as the Foreign Secretary did when he was Mayor of London. If the Government announced that they were going to halt and reverse the police budget cuts this year, we would support them.
The Government have announced a commission to tackle extremism. We welcome such a commission in principle, although some have suggested that it is being set up because the Government cannot make good on their repeated promises to introduce anti-extremism legislation. We note that there are already laws against incitement, conspiracy and murder. We are told that some perpetrators were known to the authorities.
I was at the Finsbury Park mosque with the Prime Minister, and more than one of the faith leaders raised the importance of a review of the Prevent strategy. In common with many members of the communities involved, we believe that, despite the good work that has happened under Prevent, the strategy needs to be reviewed. It needs not to run the risk of alienating communities; we have to work with all communities. The terror threat confronts us all, and we must all confront it together. If the Government want to discuss with us how we can help engage all communities in the fight against our common threat of terrorism, we will be only too happy to help.
Ms Abbott
I have to make progress.
When I was at the Finsbury Park mosque last week, people there would have been concerned that Government Members do not want to take part seriously in a debate of this nature. I note that there was no promise of further legislation on counter-terrorism. Max Hill has said that the security services already have enough powers. The Opposition concur, and it now seems that the majority of the Cabinet also agree.
Resources remain the key issue in fighting terrorism. The Conservatives have constantly sought to portray Labour as not facing up to the challenges posed by terrorism, but in our communities—in the inner cities and in areas such as London Bridge, Finsbury Park and Manchester—we face up to the day-to-day threat of terrorism and disorder. Nobody takes those issues more seriously than Members on this side of the House. We speak for our communities, and for the parents concerned that their children may be drawn into terrorist activity. We seek to offer practical remedies and support, and to support the Government in strategies that do not run counter to our liberties and community support.
Talking tough on terrorism and antisocial behaviour is cheap. Like all decent services in a civilised society, security costs money. Records show that since 2010, the Tories have proved unwilling to spend what is necessary to keep us safe. We need only look at what has happened to police numbers and Border Force officials, the closures of fire stations and the cuts to fire officers. Labour is prepared to spend the money and commit the resources to keep us safe. In closing—
Amber Rudd
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. We all need to choose our words carefully, but we also need to call out what we believe this is. We should talk about radical extremist ideology, whether it is Islamic or far right, but we need to make sure that we are clear that we are equally hostile to both, and will take action where either is doing damage to society.
Dr Julian Lewis
Following up what the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) said about the use of terminology, does the Home Secretary accept that there is a valuable store of experience from the past in the way agencies tackled the doctrines of fascism and Nazism, and subsequently of Marxism-Leninism, and that questions such as the use of vocabulary mean that we need a specialist agency to co-ordinate this effort in the future as we did successfully in those past instances?
Amber Rudd
I thank my right hon. Friend for his contribution. This may be something that the new commission for counter-extremism will want to look at.
Since 2015, we have had a Government-wide counter-extremism strategy, the first of its kind. At the heart of the strategy is a partnership with communities to make sure that we build on British values. We have published a hate crime action plan and funded additional security measures at more than 50 places of worship. We are also supporting 53 civil society groups that are confronting extremism in their communities.
However, defeating the evil ideology of extremism is one of the greatest challenges of our time, and there is more that we must be able to do. That is why we will have the new commission, which will support the Government to identify and eradicate extremist ideology in all its forms. Across society and online, we will work with communities, and public sector and civil society groups, to promote and defend our pluralistic values of democracy, freedom of belief and expression, the rule of law, mutual respect, and opportunity for all. The commission will advise the Government on what new powers might be needed to tackle the evolving threat. Work is under way on the design of the commission, and we will set out our plans in due course.
Turning to the future immigration system, the Gracious Speech included an immigration Bill that will allow the Government to end the EU’s rules on free movement of EU nationals in the UK, ensuring that we have the flexibility to create a fair and controlled immigration system. It will give us control over the numbers of people who come to the UK from the EU while welcoming those with the skills and expertise to make our nation better. What these rules look like will depend on the needs of the UK, and we are considering all the options of our future system very carefully. It is imperative that we understand what the impact could be on different sectors of the economy and the labour market, and that we make sure that businesses and communities have an opportunity to contribute their views on any future system. As now, new immigration rules will be subject to scrutiny by Parliament.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the eloquence of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), and an honour to be re-elected once again to represent the lovely New Forest East constituency.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr George Howarth)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but I should have announced that there is now a time limit of six minutes, which I think he was aware of, in order to accommodate as many people who want to speak as possible. Dr Lewis, your six minutes start now.
Dr Lewis
I have at least benefited from a few extra seconds as a result.
There is plenty to welcome in this Queen’s Speech, from the prioritisation of mental health to the forthcoming visit of Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain, which will give us all a chance to show that our friendship with that great country is as enduring and immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar. I will touch, however, on two other aspects of the Queen’s Speech, and they will not come as a surprise to colleagues who know of my areas of speciality.
The first is the reiteration of the Government’s pledge to continue to meet the NATO commitment to spend at least 2% of national income on defence. I am sorry to say that it is not enough. One of the things that the Select Committee on Defence managed to establish, through a great deal of hard work and original research by its professional and dedicated staff, was a comparison over the decades of what happened to defence with a graph showing something very different for other high-spending subjects. We found that in the early 1960s we spent similar sums—about 6% of GDP—on welfare and defence. Now we spend six times as much on welfare as we do on defence. In the mid-1980s we spent similar sums—about 5% of GDP—on education, health and defence. Now we spend two and a half times as much on education and nearly four times as much on health as we do on defence. In every year from 1981 until 1987, at the height of east-west confrontation, we spent between 4.3% and 5.1% of GDP on defence, yet even after the cold war had finished, even as late as the financial year 1995-96, we were spending 3% of GDP on defence—a total that does not include things such as war pensions and Ministry of Defence civil service pensions.
Mrs Moon
I thank the former Chairman of the Select Committee for giving way. He, like me, was at a dinner last night at which it was pointed out that at 2%, without pensions and all the other bizarre add-ons that the Government add to get this country to 2%, France will be spending €56 billion on defence; Germany, when it gets to 2%, will be at €70 billion. We are at £36 billion. How can we hold our heads up high and say that we can defend ourselves with sums like that?
Dr Lewis
The hon. Lady is a staunch defender of everything to do with the defence of this country, and she is absolutely right. It is a measure of the management downwards of our expectations that we are supposed to ring the church bells in triumph at our not falling below the bare minimum that NATO members are supposed to achieve. We really have to rethink this. We really should be looking at 3% of GDP, and not this bare minimum of 2%.
I want to turn mainly to what is said in the Queen’s Speech about the creation of a commission for countering extremism,
“to support the government in stamping out extremist ideology in all its forms, both across society and on the internet, so it is denied a safe space to spread.”
That implies, although it is not explicit, that the new body will be some form of executive agency. I want to hear from the Front Bench that that will be the case, because we are approaching a key point: it looks likely that the territory seized by ISIL/Daesh will be retaken from it. That will rightly be hailed as a considerable achievement, but we need to remember that only a few years ago no one had heard about ISIL/Daesh, and everybody was overwhelmingly concerned with al-Qaeda. It was unusual for a terrorist organisation to seize territory, because by doing that, ISIL/Daesh gave up the advantage of invisibility, which is what most terrorist organisations make maximum use of. However, I venture to suggest that when it has been removed from its territory and its moment has passed, there will be other groups that take its place, perhaps fighting in different areas and perhaps not trying to seize territory. This will go on and on, as long as there is no effective response to the underlying ideology.
This is not the first time that there has been talk of commissions of this sort. Back in 2013, David Cameron had a taskforce on tackling radicalisation and extremism. On that occasion, too, evidence was taken, but I believe that any future successful plan needs to draw on the similar threats that we faced and overcame in the past.
As I said in an earlier intervention, huge agencies were called into existence to counter other totalitarian ideologies. This rather massive book was never really meant to be published. It is called “The Secret History of PWE”. PWE was the Political Warfare Executive, and the book is a classified history of all the work that it did to counter fascist and Nazi ideology. It was published as recently as 2002. Another organisation, the Information Research Department at the Foreign Office, worked on a grand scale to counter the poisonous ideology of Marxism-Leninism.
What we need today is an organisation that is equally wide-ranging, equally proficient, and equally capable of answering the thoughtful interjection of the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) on the subject of the vocabulary that we should use—whether we should use the terms “Islamic”, “un-Islamic”, or simply “violent extremism”. We need an agency to do that. Until we have such an agency, and until it operates to scale, groups will continue to crop up to implement the ideology, and we do not want that to happen.
Terror Attacks
Julian Lewis Excerpts(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Amber Rudd
I thank the hon. and learned Lady for her question and her kind welcome.
The recommendations that the commission on extremism makes will need to be brought before Parliament. I therefore expect full scrutiny of the recommendations when they are brought to Parliament to be taken forward.
I can confirm that we will always provide the resources necessary to keep our citizens safe. We have already announced substantial uplifts to the security services. There will be 1,900 new people joining the security services up until 2020, and an increased number of armed officers are being made available in the country.
I can also tell the hon. and learned Lady that later this year we will conduct a full-scale counter-terrorism exercise involving Police Scotland and forces from the north of England. We will always work with the Scottish Government and police to ensure that we keep all parts of the United Kingdom safe.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Will there be an opportunity to give evidence to the commission for countering terrorism and extremism, based on the lessons that we have learnt in the past to counter other totalitarian ideologies such as communism and Nazism? Does my right hon. Friend accept that organisations like ISIL/Daesh and al-Qaeda rise and fall, but the underlying doctrine of what ought to be called un-Islamic extremism persists? Does she accept that that is what must be countered, and that an active Government agency to counter it is what is required?
Amber Rudd
My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Extremism comes in many different forms. “Un-Islamic extremism” is one way of describing it, and it is a perfectly reasonable description. I would expect the commission on extremism to ask people to give evidence, so that we can be sure to collect the best possible information in order to do the best possible job for our communities.