Windrush

Debate between Lord Swire and Amber Rudd

Monday 23rd April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I would gently say to the hon. Gentleman that there are two separate approaches—one to legal people and one to illegal people. The purpose of the compliant environment is to make sure that illegal people do not flourish here. Legal people—those we are talking about today, like the Windrush cohort—should have their documents put in place. They will be able to apply to be British citizens under the law, even though everyone considers them as British citizens as part of their communities. In terms of the particular case he raises, he had better write to my office with specific details and I will look into it.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Any attempt to lay any of this at the door of the current Home Secretary is plainly absurd and ridiculous. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that there were examples going on and there was still a problem as early as 2000 to 2005, under a Labour Government?

[Amber Rudd]

I want to thank my right hon. Friend for his comment but also say that I do take responsibility for this, and I want to be the person to put it right. He is right—those of us who have seen the cases recently know—that there are plenty of examples of people who were not able to return when they went to Caribbean countries where their parents had lived from pre-2010. This is not something that has just suddenly appeared; this has been going on a long time. This cohort should have been dealt with a long time ago, and then we would not be in this position, but this Government will put it right.

Harassment in Public Life

Debate between Lord Swire and Amber Rudd

Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Gentleman raises such an important point. It is tragic to hear about the attacks on him, so I am pleased that he has had the opportunity to put them on the record. I hope that we will start to turn this around, and I wholly agree with him that we need to see more action from communications service providers. As I have said, I am delighted that the Home Affairs Committee is playing its part, and we in the Government will certainly play our part in making sure that they do more, act faster and go further to protect everybody.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

May I add my congratulations to Lord Bew on presiding over a typically balanced and well researched piece of work? When some time ago I asked my right hon. Friend’s then ministerial colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), what the figures for successful hate crime prosecutions were, she said that she did not have the figures to hand at the time. Although I very much welcome the tone of my right hon. Friend’s statement about looking again at the Crown Prosecution Service’s guidance and about more funding for local police forces to investigate digital crimes in particular, will she reassure me that both the CPS and police forces nationally and locally will take this more seriously and that we will see some successful prosecutions to warn off others who would follow in their wake?

[Amber Rudd]

My right hon. Friend raises such an important point. Part of addressing hate on social media is about preventing it, but we also need to make sure that we pursue people and get convictions. I am pleased to say that CPS prosecutions for online hate crime are up 68% in the past three years, and we are ensuring we have a programme of work in place to improve police forces’ digital capability. I hope that he will feel that we are addressing this, but there is obviously more to do.

Health, Social Care and Security

Debate between Lord Swire and Amber Rudd

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I would ask the hon. Lady: what are the outcomes in her constituency? What is the level of incidents of fire in her constituency? What work are those bodies doing? I would ask her to first look at the outcomes before coming back for more resources.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is presumably not wholly taken in by the shadow Home Secretary posturing as a defender of people’s safety, when, in 1989, she—now famously—signed an early-day motion calling for the scrapping of MI5 and the Metropolitan police’s special branch.

[Amber Rudd]

My right hon. Friend raises such an important point. It is a sad truth that those on the Opposition Front Bench—not those on the Back Benches, but sometimes those on the Front Bench—have such a poor record on supporting the people who do such great work to keep us safe.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Swire and Amber Rudd

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

The Policing Minister has spoken to the police and crime commissioner, who has agreed that he will work with South Yorkshire police to make sure that information that the hon. Lady requires is released. I repeat what I said earlier: I made this decision, and the Government made this decision, thoughtfully, having assessed carefully what the facts were and thinking about the families involved. The fact that we arrived at a different decision from hers does not make it wrong.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

May I ask my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to come to Middlemoor, the home of Devon and Cornwall police, and also to Clyst St George, the home of Devon and Somerset fire and rescue service, to thank them for their quite extraordinary work over the weekend in Cathedral Close in Exeter at an incident that saw the loss of England’s oldest hotel, the Royal Clarence?

[Amber Rudd]

We all saw over the weekend the dreadful scenes in Exeter. I would be delighted to come with my right hon. Friend to thank the police and the fire and rescue teams who did fantastic work dealing with such a difficult situation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Swire and Amber Rudd

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swire]

The hon. Gentleman will know that there are several schemes in Northern Ireland, such as warm homes, warm homes plus, the pilot boiler replacement scheme, the introduction of oil stamps, and the Housing Executive itself. Contrary to what Opposition Members say, the Government have maintained the winter fuel allowance and chosen to keep the higher cold weather payment allowances, which is more than the Labour Government would have done, had they won the last general election, which, mercifully, they did not.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the Chancellor’s announcement yesterday stopping the inexorable rise of fuel costs will be most welcome to people suffering from fuel poverty in Northern Ireland, and in Hastings and Rye?

[Mr Swire]

My hon. Friend is right. The Chancellor’s announcement deferring the increase from 1 January to 1 August is very welcome, as indeed is the further increase. She will also want to welcome the increases in pensions, which I believe represent the biggest increase in pensions since 1908. That will also help the most vulnerable in society.