Oral Answers to Questions

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

Perhaps I have not said often enough in this Chamber that we now have record numbers of police officers across England and Wales, including in the Metropolitan police area, which has the highest number of police officers per capita of any police force in the country. Despite that, I was disappointed to see in the recent figures published that, while across the rest of the country excluding London knife crime went down, on Sadiq Khan’s watch in London it went up.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

T5. In 2010, the period of service to be eligible for a police long service medal changed from 22 years to 20 years. Sadly, no decision was made to award it retrospectively, meaning that people such as Sedgley resident Guy Hewlett, who served with distinction for 20 years, were excluded. This seems to be fundamentally unfair. Will the Home Secretary agree to look into that unfairness, as a simple remedy could be found to recognise officers who served for the minimum 20 years pre 2010?

[Chris Philp]

Changes of this nature are generally not applied retrospectively. I will look at that matter again. Normally, when a length-of-service period has changed it applies prospectively rather than retrospectively, but I will look at the issue.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Marco Longhi Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 12th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to my former colleague on the Home Affairs Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

I say to the right hon. Gentleman that we are discussing this legislation not because of a European court, but because of a decision by a British court: the Supreme Court. It made a decision based on British laws. I know that there are Members on the Government Back Benches who want to make everything about the European courts, and that is the heart of their dilemma. They want to get rid of the European convention on human rights. The Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have all said that they do not and they will not. That is at the heart of the Conservatives’ divides and chaos. That is what their row is all about. It is not about having a workable solution to the serious problem of our border security being undermined, of dangerous boat crossings that are putting lives at risk and of criminal gangs whose profits have soared as a result of effectively being allowed to let rip along the channel, because the UK and France have failed to work together sufficiently to stop them.

[Marco Longhi]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Yvette Cooper]

I will, and then I will have to conclude my remarks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marco Longhi]

I will quote article 21 of the ECHR, which clearly the right hon. Lady likes to support in so many ways:

“The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government”.

I do not understand how the will of the British people is being expressed within the European convention on human rights and through European courts—perhaps she can explain.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member’s problem is with those on his Front Bench. His problem is with his own Home Secretary, his own Foreign Secretary and his own Prime Minister. He wants to make all of this about Europe, rather than about our having a proper border security plan, a proper plan to clear the backlog and a proper plan to fix the asylum chaos that the Tories have created.

Instead of wasting taxpayers’ money, instead of these performative rituals and instead of all the deeming, boggling and scheming, we should be trying to build cross-party consensus on what needs to be done. [Laughter.] The Tories cannot even build consensus within their own party, so I accept that that is particularly hard for them at the moment. We should be trying to build a cross-party consensus on what needs to be done to stop the boat crossings that are undermining border security and putting lives at risk.

We should be strengthening border security, smashing the criminal gangs that have spread their tentacles and going after the supply chains, instead of ignoring these warehouses and these lorryloads of boats crossing Europe unchallenged. We should be getting real-time security information, instead of carrying on with the ludicrous situation where we do not even know when suspected smuggler operatives are flying into our country. We should be getting prosecutions and convictions for the smuggler gangs and their vile trade. We should be clearing the backlog, not making it bigger, and ending asylum hotel use. We should be doing more of the things we support, such as the co-operation with France, the deal with Albania and getting more workable deals in place. We should be working together across this country and with other countries to stop dangerous boats, to smash the gangs, to strengthen our border security and, ultimately, to save lives. It is time to end all this chaos, time to ditch the gimmicks, and time for the Government to get a grip.

Net Migration Figures

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

As I said in answer to an earlier question, we have set out a social care plan. The Chancellor and the Health Secretary set out a long-term plan for the NHS workforce more generally. It is absolutely right that we train more people in this country to be nurses and doctors than we have in the recent past. That is why, for example, the Health Secretary set out a plan for further medical schools in a number of parts of the country, including in places where there have been shortages. That is the way forward. It is not a sustainable future for the NHS or social care to recruit in other parts of the world. Even those places are now encountering shortages. There is a highly competitive international market for doctors and nurses, so the future of our NHS has to be by persuading more of our own young people to go into those sectors and train people properly here.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the people of this country will not be fooled by the shallow, opportunistic tough talk coming from Labour Members? They were the Members for remain, which would have meant completely open borders. They are the party of re-join, which would again mean completely open borders, including to those people who have since migrated into European countries and who would then be completely free to come to the UK. Does he agree that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) said, it is time for a cap on net migration?

[Robert Jenrick]

I do not think anyone listening to the debate will be fooled by the damascene conversion of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and her colleagues to controlled migration, when they have spent their entire lives campaigning for completely the opposite. One of the few pledges that the Leader of the Opposition launched his campaign on just a few years ago was freedom of movement. We have committed to controlled migration. We share a deep conviction that we have to get the numbers down. I am hopeful and confident that the package the Prime Minister and Home Secretary will bring forward very soon will do just that.

Illegal Migration Bill: Economic Impact Assessment

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The difference here is that if we do nothing, we will see the British taxpayer spend billions of pounds. [Interruption.] That is not on us; that is on the Labour party. We are not doing nothing; we are taking forward the Rwanda partnership, which is one of the most innovative and novel approaches to tackling this issue of any country in the world.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

May I extend my most sincere thanks to the Minister for his words today in response to the urgent question? I have been very loud about exactly this matter in the Chamber since I was first elected, and this is without question what the British people voted for back in 2019. Does he agree that the Labour and the Lib Dem response of simply saying, “Oh, speed up the asylum system,” equates to saying, “Just let them all in”?

[Robert Jenrick]

I could not agree more strongly with my hon. Friend. There is a naivety to the Labour party’s position. If Labour Members think that they can solve the problem just by granting people asylum quicker, doing a few more arrests and trying to reinvent the Dublin convention, which even European leaders have moved on from, they do not know what we are dealing with. Just the other day, the shadow Immigration Minister, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), supported a proposal to loan Ukraine the small boats that we have seized to help its citizens deal with the recent floods. Does he have any idea what these boats are like? They are the most unseaworthy craft that I have ever seen, produced by the most evil and ruthless people smugglers and human traffickers. That suggests that Labour Members do not understand the problem. If we are to beat the people smugglers, we need to take robust measures, and that is what we are doing.

Illegal Migration

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I refute the characterisation the hon. Lady puts forward. I am proud of this Government’s track record of welcoming hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people from across the globe over several years, through schemes that have offered them sanctuary. It is a track record of which we can be incredibly proud. The SNP’s criticism is frankly astonishing, talking piously about wanting to provide more sanctuary despite doing virtually nothing to help. As we have said before, there are almost as many contingency hotels in Kensington as there are in the whole of Scotland. The truth is that the SNP is all talk and no action; until it gets real, I really must question its seriousness on this subject.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

I welcome the statement from the Home Secretary. This is progress, and I hope it will accelerate at pace. However, I ask her to investigate a recent incident, a boat crossing where it was alleged that the French border force co-operated with the British Border Force, but in so doing escorted a boat from French territorial waters to the British Border Force. I assume this is not the kind of co-operation she was alluding to earlier.

[Suella Braverman]

I will look into the incident to which my hon. Friend refers, but on the whole we are seeing improvement and very positive collaboration with our colleagues in France. For example, for the first time we now have embedded Border Force officials working side by side with their French counterparts, and the French are preventing more crossings than previously. There is a long way to go, but there is some improvement.

Illegal Migration Update

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Gentleman and I may disagree on the fundamental point here, but I believe in borders, in national security and in national sovereignty, and those people who choose to enter our country in flagrant abuse of our laws, and who, in many cases, throw their documents into the channel, are breaking the law, and it is right that we take action against them and, where possible, remove them from our country.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

May I welcome you back to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker? It has been a while.

Does the Minister agree that while the Government accelerate assessment, enforcement and removal, it is quite right that we look at suitable and sustainable accommodation for illegal immigrants? Does he also agree, then, that if armed forces bases are suitable for our brave, they are certainly suitable for illegal immigrants?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is right to say that there is a peculiarity in that those on the left of politics seem to be happy to house our brave armed forces personnel on those sites but not to see illegal immigrants temporarily housed there while we process their claims. Of course, we will always be motivated by decency and legality. Those sites will be well run and appropriate, but we must not allow a further pull factor to the UK to emerge.

Knife Crime: West Midlands

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Suzanne Webb]

I commend Danny for the amazing work that his project is doing and I completely agree that early intervention is a very good way to go. I would be more than happy to talk to my hon. Friend in more detail about what we can do as MPs in the west midlands to facilitate such intervention.

Not only has there been an increase in the possession of weapons, but there is the corresponding issue of the significant increase in violence against the person, including knife crime, which is up by 439%. It is astonishing and unacceptable that total crime has risen by 113% in the west midlands over the past decade; it suggests that there has been a significant failure locally in the approach to prevent or deter crime in the west midlands.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

Is it not a sad reflection of what we are seeing today across our various constituencies in the west midlands that the police and crime commissioner is nowhere to be seen on this? At least the previous police and crime commissioner occasionally came out, but this particular police and crime commissioner is sitting in his ivory tower, or perhaps it is a Tower of Babel, because he seems to speak a different language or no language at all, from me and others. I have now written to him, via recorded mail, and he is still not answering. Just as we see not a single Labour Member here today, the Labour police and crime commissioner is failing the people of the west midlands. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Suzanne Webb]

I most certainly do. One may consider that the police and crime commissioner is focusing too much of his attention on his mayoral prospects as opposed to performing his role as the police and crime commissioner. He needs to consider that, because we have had a decade of increased crime—significantly increased crime, in fact, with a 496% increase in the possession of weapons, and it is all under the watch of two Labour police and crime commissioners.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I thank my right hon. Friend for mentioning the name of her constituent James Brindley. Each death is mourned deeply, and we must do everything that we can to try to prevent them from happening.

Confronting serious violence is clearly a priority for this Government, and it is a focus for the Home Office as well. The starting point for that must be to ensure that there are sufficient police officers and police resources available to enable the police to combat violence. As Members will know, we are in the middle of recruiting an additional 20,000 police officers across England and Wales, and once that programme has completed, which is due to happen by the end of this month, we will have more police officers in England and Wales, by some thousands, than we have ever had at any time in this country’s history. Clearly, ensuring that those police officers are available to protect our streets and protect the public is a critical element in the fight against violent crime.

[Marco Longhi]

The Minister rightly emphasises that we are putting so much more resource into policing and recruiting so many more police officers to do the job that the people of this country deserve and need, but it is also true that police need the infrastructure—a place that they can call their own base. To be a little parochial—I hope that the Minister will forgive me—my predecessor announced that there would be a brand-new police station in Dudley in 2019, and the then police and crime commissioner said that it would be implemented. In 2023, we still do not have one. Where can these new police officers operate from when the previous police and crime commissioner closed all police stations, including the main police station in Dudley?

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. We have given police and crime commissioners resources. Next year, they will have, between them, over £500 million extra, and there will be more money for the west midlands as well. I understand that the West Midlands police and crime commissioner is even today looking at closing up to 20 police stations across the west midlands, which is a terrible mistake, and I certainly do not support those plans at all. I urge the West Midlands police and crime commissioner to think again about the closures that he is contemplating. I have heard Members today make the case that perhaps the powers currently exercised by the west midlands police and crime commissioner might be better exercised by the directly elected Mayor of the West Midlands. I will take that proposal away and consider it very carefully, given the serious problems that have been outlined.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge mentioned some of the serious problems with knife crime and violent crime in the west midlands, which are rightly of deep concern to Members of Parliament across the region. The problems are particularly stark given that they run against the national trend. The most reliable measure of crime is the crime survey for England and Wales, which is the only source of crime data authorised by the Office for National Statistics. Since March 2010, violent crime across England and Wales has fallen by 38%, from 1.84 million offences to 1.15 million. When it comes to measuring violent crime where a knife is involved, the Home Office has been tracking admissions to hospital with a knife injury, and since 2019 they have dropped by around 20%. I am deeply concerned to hear that in the west midlands the trend appears to be going in the opposite direction. It is right that my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge and others are raising this issue.

I have mentioned the additional resources being given to policing. We are also investing in prevention; in particular, violence reduction units have received £64 million. Those entail identifying people, particularly young people, in danger of following the wrong path, and intervening by ensuring they stay in education, have the right social care if they need it and providing them with alternative activities, such as sport. I visited Everton and the community on Merseyside in Liverpool last week to look at a scheme that is being funded there that also helped young people into employment.

Violence reductions units are critical, as is the Grip programme, which is a hotspot policing initiative funded by the Government, identifying geographical areas where there is a high risk of violent crime and patrolling and policing them heavily. Where that is done, it dramatically reduces crime. Interestingly, it does not displace crime somewhere else; it actually reduces it. I strongly encourage police and crime commissioners around the country to pursue the violence reduction unit and Grip initiatives. The west midlands receives funding to do those things, as would be expected.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge raised a few questions. One of them was about sentencing for knife crime, and that is an extremely good question. We want to have strong deterrents for knife crime possession. Members will know that the maximum sentence for possessing a knife—or a “bladed article”, as the law describes it—is four years’ imprisonment. We recently legislated through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 to strengthen the presumption, making it near certain that if someone is convicted for a second time carrying a bladed article, the court will impose a minimum six-month custodial sentence for adults, or a four-month detention and training order sentence for 16 and 17-year-olds. We have strengthened the law in this area to ensure that the consequences that follow knife crime are strong. The deterrent effect that my hon. Friend described is very important.

My hon. Friend also asked a couple of questions relating to the trial of Ryan Passey’s killer, and the jury acquittal that occurred. She asked me if I could signpost her towards the Ministers responsible for policy in that area. The policy around that sits with the Ministry of Justice. The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, or the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), who has responsibility for courts, would be the right people to approach regarding that policy. Provision in the Crown Prosecution Service’s guidance states that in exceptional circumstances, it can seek a retrial, where there is new compelling evidence that was not available at the time of the original trial. It is possible to seek the quashing of an acquittal, but that is extremely rare. I hope that gives my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge some assistance when she is thinking about who else to speak to.

We have heard harrowing stories this morning about the devasting effect of knife crime on people’s lives—particularly those of young people—in the west midlands, but clearly it applies elsewhere as well. Nationally, the Government are doing everything they can in terms of more police officers, funding violence reduction units, Grip hotspot policing, diversionary activities and stronger sentences for knife possession. Police and crime commissioners also play a critical role by using those resources in their local areas in a way that is appropriate and wise. I strongly commend my hon. Friend and her colleagues for shining a light on this issue. The Home Office will do everything it can to work with her and colleagues to fight this abominable crime.

Question put and agreed to.

Illegal Migration Bill

Marco Longhi Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

I entered politics in 1999 and, since then, having become a Member of this place in 2019, I have always put representation at the heart of everything. We are a representative democracy before we are anything else. When I represent the people of Dudley here, I speak from the heart, saying that an overwhelming majority would want me to support the Bill put forward tonight.

The Bill would deter people from undertaking very perilous journeys, and not only across the channel. It is those people who perish in the channel who we get to hear about; the ones we do not get to hear about are the ones who might be coming across from the other side of Africa, or from another God-forsaken country, all the way to Calais. We do not hear about the harm that comes to them, but while the message out there is “Set foot in this United Kingdom and you shall not be removed ever again”, we remain a magnet, and people will continue to make those very dangerous trips.

I hear what Opposition Members say. I hear what Scottish Members say. I must mention the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). She was right when she said that Glasgow Central takes more asylum seekers than the rest of Scotland, but that is a very relative comment to make when speaking to everyone in this Chamber. The debate in Scotland in November 2022 —only a few months ago—was to argue against the Home Office, which was saying, “You should be taking 4,000 asylum seekers under the dispersal scheme.” The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which represents a significant number of councils in Scotland, was saying, “No, we can’t do that. It should only be 2,000.” It was a member of the Scottish Government who said that it should be a voluntary system for councils in Scotland.

I hear from Labour Members, who like to virtue signal and show that they are representing their own views, rather than those of their constituents, when they talk about people who should be coming to this country because they are raped or because they are children. What is actually happening, if we look at the Albanians who have come over here—just to give an example—is that 14,000 of them have come from a safe country, Albania, to another safe country, France, and over here. Why do we never hear about them from Labour Members? We only hear about those tiny numbers who they like to talk about.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Yes, I would be happy to.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

In 2010 and 2015, Dudley town centre was the scene of some very ugly riots, with the British National party, the National Front and the English Defence League converging on the town centre. On that basis alone, will the Home Secretary ask her officials to reconsider the proposals for siting up to 144 illegal immigrants in a hotel—the Superior Hotel—not 100 yards away from this location?

[Robert Jenrick]

As a result of the good work undertaken by the Home Office in recent weeks to ensure that the Manston site in Kent is operating appropriately, we have now been able to implement some simple criteria, including risk to public order or disorder, when choosing new hotels. If there is compelling evidence in that regard, it should be taken into account by the Home Office, but there are no easy choices in this matter. The UK is essentially full, and it is extremely hard to find new hotels or other forms of accommodation.

Hotel Asylum Accommodation: Local Authority Consultation

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I had a very productive meeting with London Councils. It raised questions, such as the one the hon. Gentleman raises. We will now be providing a full set of information about who is coming, what their prior medical conditions are, what nationalities they are and other matters that will be useful to local authorities. We are setting a minimum engagement period of 24 hours, but quite clearly that needs to be significantly more in future—at least a week—and I hope we can reach that within a matter of months.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

It has been determined in the courts that fear, and particularly the fear of crime, is a material planning consideration. The Home Office is contracting hotels and other premises through third parties to house people who arrive illegally in this country—people on whom we have no background information and who may even have ill intent against our way of life. Although we should not be in this position in the first place, should local people not be consulted and local consent sought for housing people who are clearly not holidaymakers or business visitors, and should we not test whether the fear of crime locally has changed?

[Robert Jenrick]

We want to get to a point where there are multi-agency meetings prior to a final decision on a hotel or other sort of accommodation. That would involve full engagement with the local police force so that we could test, for example, far-right activity or public disorder. In my short tenure at the Department, I have seen a number of cases in which we have chosen not to proceed with accommodation on that basis, because it is very concerning when residents, or indeed migrants, are put in that situation. More broadly, when migrants arrive at Dover, we take biometrics, have counter-terrorism police officers there and do everything we can to screen them, prior to their moving on to other accommodation.