Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Harper Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)]

I refer the hon. Lady to the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which does a great deal to improve matters and which I must say some of her colleagues opposed when it came before the House. It introduces a range of sensible, well-judged new powers that will enable some of the problems that have occurred locally to be diminished. The measures include cross-working between different bodies involved in crime prevention.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

T4. The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims will know that the Independent police and crime commissioner in Gloucestershire has taken the opportunity in both of the past two years to put up council tax by 2% rather than have a proper look for savings. Will the Minister, in a spirit of public service broadcasting, set out some areas where other police forces have taken the opportunity to keep council tax down?

[Damian Green]

Many police and crime commissioners across the country have taken different decisions about taxation, and across the country we have seen crime coming down. Of course the great virtue of the system we have introduced is that if people in Gloucestershire or anywhere else are unhappy with the decisions taken by their PCC, they can, unlike under the old system, vote in 2016 to get rid of them. That is why introducing democracy into police governance is a good thing.

Child Abuse

Mark Harper Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Lady shares my concern to ensure that we have proper safeguards and protection for children in the future and that not only are lessons learned but that action is taken as a result of those lessons being learned following the various reviews into both historical and more recent cases of child sexual exploitation.

The right hon. Lady asked whether all the matters that are felt to be for the police to investigate will be matters for Operation Fernbridge. Actually, a number of investigations are taking place across the country into historical cases of child abuse; it is not appropriate that all those investigations will be in relation to Operation Fernbridge. The National Crime Agency, for example, is leading on Operation Pallial, which is the investigation into potential sexual abuse in children’s care homes in north Wales, and other investigations are taking place elsewhere. All allegations do not necessarily go to a single force; they go to whichever force is the most appropriate to deal with the particular cases and to ensure that people can be brought to justice.

The right hon. Lady asked about the number of prosecutions and offences, which is a matter that is most properly for my right hon. and learned Friend, the Attorney-General, but she will have noticed that he is on the Treasury Bench and has noted her comments.

My right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims answered a parliamentary question in 2013—in October 2013, I think—in which reference was made to the missing 114 files.

The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) asked what I had seen as Home Secretary. I saw the executive summary of both the interim report and the final report commissioned by Mark Sedwill. I did not see the full report for very good reason: the matters that lay behind the report were allegations that senior Members of Parliament—and, in particular, senior Conservative Members of Parliament —may have been involved in those activities. I therefore thought that it was absolutely right and proper that the commissioning of the investigation and the work that was done should be led by the permanent secretary at the Home Office, not by a Conservative politician.

The right hon. Lady asked a number of questions about lessons learnt. Some of those lessons are already being acted on. As I mentioned, the national group that my hon. Friend the Minister for Crime Prevention is leading has already brought forward proposals on how the police and prosecutors could better handle these matters, and it will continue with its work. That will of course feed into the work of the wider inquiry panel that I am setting up. I want it to look widely at the question of the protection of children. I want it to ensure that we can be confident that in future people will not look back to today and say, “If only they had introduced this measure or that measure.” We must ensure that the lessons that come out of the various reviews that are taking place are not only properly learned, but acted on.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and her setting up of the independent inquiry panel. She set out three clear principles. The most important of those principles is that the panel should do nothing that prevents these heinous crimes from being properly investigated and those who are guilty of them from being prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

[Mrs May]

Although it is right that we look at the lessons that need to be learned, I am sure that the view shared across the whole House is that it is absolutely essential that we do nothing that could get in the way of prosecuting the perpetrators of these appalling crimes. That is why it is right to set this review up as an inquiry panel so that it can begin its work without jeopardising the criminal investigations taking place.

Student Visas

Mark Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

Listening to the shadow Immigration Minister, one might be forgiven for thinking that Labour believed in controlled immigration, but let us remember some of the facts about Labour’s record: record net migration of 2.5 million; hundreds of bogus colleges selling immigration, not education; students turning up at Heathrow unable to answer questions in English or even to explain what their course was about; and supposedly highly skilled immigrants working as security guards.

I hear what the shadow Immigration Minister has said, but Labour did nothing to tighten up the system, and it has fallen to this Government to introduce further stringent measures. It appears that, despite all that—despite the serious issues highlighted in my statement today— Labour now want to introduce blunt targets to increase international student numbers. Indeed, I think the shadow Immigration Minister wants to take students out of the net migration numbers altogether. We will take no lectures from the Labour party about immigration and controlling the issuing of student visas.

The shadow Immigration Minister managed to ask some serious questions, and I will address them now. On the investigations that have taken place, I can say that we have taken significant steps to follow through on identifying, locating and removing those responsible. Hundreds of visits have already been conducted and removals have begun. The criminal investigation is ongoing, and he will understand that I cannot comment further on those cases.

We are taking steps in relation to Glyndwr, and have suspended its highly trusted sponsor status. We are keen to provide support for genuine students whose institutions are affected by this. From today, there is a designated student helpline available specifically for all students at the affected institutions. Dedicated staff will take calls on the helpline to ensure that students have an avenue for their questions to be answered and their concerns alleviated.

We are also setting up a working group with relevant education establishments, including Universities UK—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but the Opposition do not seem to care about what is happening to the students who are involved in this. They might want to listen. We are setting up a working group with Universities UK, the UK Council for International Student Affairs, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, the Scottish Funding Council and the National Union of Students to enable the sector to support those genuine students who may eventually need to find a sponsor.

The right hon. Gentleman tried to make his general point about university applications, but the truth is that, while we have cut out much of the abuse in the student visa system, the number of overseas applications to study at British universities is up by 17% since the election, and that figure is based on genuine students. We are attracting the brightest and the best while, at the same time, resolutely focusing on ensuring that those who should not be here are stopped.

I was struck by what the right hon. Gentleman said about the immigration system not working, but I have to tell him—as we have done many times before—that it will take years to fix fully the system that we inherited from his party. We are making the difference. As the former UK Border Agency chief executive, Rob Whiteman, said last week, the agency that Labour set up was never going to work and it was right of this Government to break it into smaller pieces, because staff and managers can now get on with trying to put it right. If the right hon. Gentleman does not want to listen to Rob Whiteman, he could listen to the shadow Business Secretary who said that when he used to work in his predecessor’s surgeries, he could see how chaotic the UKBA was. “Hands up,” he said, “That was under my Government.”

All the facts I have outlined today are a direct legacy of the Labour party. A significant proportion of the students who have been caught cheating came to this country through a student visa system created by Labour. Under the previous Government, bogus colleges flourished, student visas were used for economic immigration and students did not even need to prove that they could speak English. The Government are focused on controlling immigration. Sadly, the Opposition still do not get it; it is as simple as that.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I normally have great respect for the shadow Immigration Minister, but his tone today was not right. When this Government came to power, they had to deal with a legacy of hundreds of thousands of bogus students coming to this country. I commend my hon. Friend for the firm steps he has taken to root out abuse and to work with the sector to protect the genuine universities, higher education institutions and the genuine students and this valuable industry. He should carry on that work and not listen to the Opposition party.

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support. He is right that we are focused on a system that attracts the brightest and the best to this country while rooting out abuse. The step that this Government have already taken in closing down 750 bogus colleges is striking, and there is more work to do. That is what we are focused on delivering.

HM Passport Office

Mark Harper Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

A case ceases to be straightforward if it is necessary for the Passport Office to go back to the individual to request other documents, which of course delays the process. We are looking at part of the system to ensure that that is being done as efficiently as possible.

The shadow Home Secretary asked about taking over the process of passport applications from British nationals overseas. Before March this year that was done by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at processing centres world wide. The change was made to provide better value for the fee-payer and greater consistency in how overseas passport applications are assessed, and to use our expertise to better detect and prevent fraud. The checks needed for applications from overseas can take longer than those for applications in the UK. Security is our priority and we will not issue a passport until the necessary checks have been completed. However, as I said in my statement, for those applying for a renewal from overseas, where we can have confidence in the documents that they have already had and the process they have been through, we will be offering an extension of 12 months.

Finally, the shadow Home Secretary raised the issue of staff numbers, as did other Members earlier this week. Here are the figures: in March 2012 the Passport Office had 3,104 members of staff—[Interruption.] Opposition Members talk about 2010, so I will make one simple point: when we took office there were staff in HM Passport Office who had been brought in to deal with the new identity card. This Government scrapped the identity card. Over the past two years the number of staff in the Passport Office has increased from 3,104 to 3,445. That is the answer. People might say that this is about reduced staff numbers, but actually staff numbers have been going up over the past two years.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

The Home Secretary has set out clearly the action that she is taking to deal with the problem. Those listening outside this Chamber will welcome the grip that she is showing and will see the nonsense that we have heard from Labour for what it is—a cheap attempt to make up for their poor show on Monday.

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and I recognise the points he made about the attempts from the Opposition. Outside the political arena that is the House of Commons, we should never forget that this is about people who are applying for their passports, planning holidays and so forth. That is why the Passport Office has been taking the action it has taken, and why it is continuing to increase the number of staff to ensure that it can meet the current demand which, as I said, is the highest for 12 years.

Extremism

Mark Harper Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

On the specific allegations of extremism in schools in Birmingham and the wider question of how we confront extremism more generally, there are very important issues that I will come on to, but I should perhaps first remind the shadow Home Secretary of a few facts.

Under this Government, foreign hate preachers such as Zakir Naik and Yusuf al-Qaradawi are banned from coming to Britain. Under her Government, they were allowed to come here to give lectures and sermons, and to spread their hateful beliefs. In the case of al-Qaradawi, he was not just allowed to come here; he was literally embraced on stage by Labour’s London Mayor, Ken Livingstone.

I have excluded more foreign hate preachers than any Home Secretary before me. I have got rid of the likes of Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada. The Government do not give a public platform to groups that condone, or fail to distance themselves from, extremism. For the first time, we are mapping out extremists and extremist groups in the United Kingdom. We make sure that the groups we work with and fund adhere to British values, and where they do not, we do not fund them and we do not work with them. None of these things was true when the Labour party was in power.

The shadow Home Secretary asked about the “Ministerial Code”. I can tell her that, as the Cabinet Secretary and the Prime Minister concluded, I did not break the code. As she has no evidence for suggesting I did, she should withdraw any allegation of that sort.

The right hon. Lady asked about the letter, its presence on the website and why action was not taken, but action was taken immediately, because the Prime Minister asked the Cabinet Secretary to investigate, and he did.

The right hon. Lady referred to schools in Birmingham. I am afraid she will have to wait for my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary to make his statement; he will do so shortly, and answer questions about school inspections and oversight arrangements.

I would just say this to the right hon. Lady: I am responsible for the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy and, within that, the Prevent strategy, but she seems to misunderstand how the Prevent strategy works, so I think I should perhaps explain it to her. The Home Office sets the Prevent strategy and it is up to the rest of Whitehall, including the Home Office, as well as the wider public sector and civil society, to deliver it. There is always more to be done, things we can improve and lessons we can learn, but we have made good progress under this Government. Yes, we need to get to the bottom of what has happened in schools in Birmingham, but it is thanks to this Education Secretary that the Department for Education has, for the first time, a dedicated extremism unit to try to stop this sort of thing happening.

The shadow Home Secretary repeated her complaint that Prevent has become too narrowly drawn under this Government, but she does not seem to realise that we took a very clear decision back in 2011 to split Prevent into the bit that tackles non-violent extremism as well as violent extremism and counter-terrorism, and the Government’s integration strategy, which is quite consciously run out of the Department for Communities and Local Government. If what she is suggesting is that Prevent and integration work should go back to being together and being confused, she needs to think again because her Government’s approach was damaging and caused a lot of resentment among many British Muslims.

As the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), the former Home Secretary, said at the time we made that change, it follows

“the eminently sensible objective of keeping the ‘prevent’ strand of counter-terrorism separate from the ‘integration’ initiatives of DCLG.”

He continued:

“I completely agree with what the Home Secretary has said about Prevent.”—[Official Report, 14 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 1011.]

The shadow Home Secretary should listen to her right honourable colleague.

What has happened in Birmingham is very serious indeed, and the Education Secretary will set out his response in due course. We need to do everything we can to protect children from extremism and, more generally, to confront extremism in all its forms. The Government are determined to do that. However, it is quite clear from what the shadow Home Secretary has said today that on extremism, like on so many other things, the Labour party would take us backwards, not forwards.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I am very pleased that the Home Secretary focused on the substance, rather than on the pointless process questions that the shadow Home Secretary focused on. I welcome what the Home Secretary said about the changes to Prevent. Is it not better to have our approach, rather than the last Government’s? The Communities and Local Government Committee said that the Labour Government’s Prevent strategy was wasting money

“on unfocused or irrelevant projects”.

[Mrs May]

I agree completely with my hon. Friend. That was an early decision by this Government. It was absolutely right to separate the two strands of work of the Prevent strategy: the counter-terrorism work and the integration work. It is right that the integration work is now under the remit of the DCLG. I repeat what I said in my response to the shadow Home Secretary: I suggest that Labour Members listen to the words of the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle in this respect. He agreed absolutely with what the Government have done.

Immigration Bill

Mark Harper Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

Various people are attempting to catch my eye. I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper).

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to what my hon. Friend is saying, and the House should realise that he is simply putting the law back to its position before it was changed by the previous Government. I listened carefully when we debated the issue on Report, and many of the concerns involved people who have no recourse to citizenship elsewhere being left permanently stateless. Government amendment (a) deals with the very real concerns of many hon. Members. It is a very welcome move that should be supported.

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I pay tribute to him for his work on the Bill and for the steps he took, quite properly, to consider not only this issue, but the provisions more broadly. We will no doubt move on to those provisions in considering the Lords amendments. My hon. Friend highlighted the fact that the law was changed in 2002. In many respects, we are seeking to bring the law back more closely to the pre-existing position. The law was changed in 2002, and changed again in 2006. There is, therefore, a long history, with clear precedents to setting provisions that comply with our international and UN obligations on statelessness.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) because I respect her opinions on home affairs matters. It would not be appropriate to narrow the scope of amendment (a) in the way that she suggested. She missed the point that the individuals concerned are not always compliant and helpful in seeking a second nationality. Indeed, they often try not to do so. That is why the Home Secretary has to take a reasonable decision, taking account of the laws of the countries involved and the behaviour of the individual. If the amendment were narrowed in the way the hon. Lady suggested, I do not think that we would succeed in closing the loophole.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the point of an intervention is not to comment on a previous intervention, but to comment on what the Minister is saying. If he wants to challenge what the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) said, perhaps he will try to catch my eye.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hanson]

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will come on to that point in a moment. We abstained on 30 January because we wanted to ensure that we gave proper consideration to this matter, and we supported the amendment in another place to ensure that we did consider this matter. My noble Friend Baroness Smith of Basildon signed the amendment before the House today. We want to support the amendment today and return it to the Lords.

The Labour party and my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) will not do anything that puts the security of the United Kingdom at risk. I want to ensure that we do not remove citizenship without a proper right of appeal. I want to ensure that people know the grounds of that removal of citizenship and that the consequences are considered. I want, with the Minister, to tighten up how the Government intend to exercise that power. How do the Government intend to ensure that what is “reasonable” is deemed to be reasonable? I want to give the Minister the opportunity to explain that. This is a serious matter that needs proper parliamentary scrutiny. We have had a very short time in another place and one day in this House to consider this matter. We need to look at it in much more detail and we need to take evidence. A large number of people outside this place have raised concerns and we need to ensure, and not just in one-and-a-half hours, that the Minister justifies the opportunity and practice over a period of time.

[Mr Harper]

The more the right hon. Gentleman speaks, the more confused I am about his position. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary tabled the amendment in January, so more than three months have passed since she put this provision before Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman has now said, notwithstanding the fact that the amendment says the Committee will serve for the duration of the Parliament, that it could all be sorted out before the summer recess, which is only two months away. What does he expect to learn in the next two months that he has not learnt in the past three?

[Mr Hanson]

I think both Houses of Parliament should have an opportunity to take evidence, as happens during pre-legislative scrutiny, and I am not the only person who thinks that. Moving the amendment in the House of Lords, Lord Pannick said:

“A Joint Committee is required because Clause 64 was added to the Bill very late in the passage of the Bill through the other place—that is, 24 hours before Report and Third Reading…so there was no pre-legislative scrutiny of this proposal, no consultation and no opportunity for consideration by the Public Bill Committee of the other place. The absence of pre-legislative scrutiny and proper consultation is especially unfortunate in a context such as this.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 April 2014; Vol. 753, c. 1168.]

The hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) may want to steamroller the Bill through, but I think it important that we get it right.

--- Later in debate ---

The Lords amendments would provide time for further reflection; the Government amendments are no substitute. Let us make sure that we support the Lords amendment; let us make sure that we look at this issue properly before going down this appalling road.

[Mr Harper]

Let me first remind the House what we are asking it to do today—to disagree with the Lords in their amendment. I have a reason for saying that. I listened carefully to what the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), the shadow Minister said, as he carefully avoided setting out his party’s view and quoted lots of other people back at us. His proposed solution was to spend the next two months before the summer recess coming to a rapid conclusion. I think that he accepts that there is a legitimate national security issue here, but what he said does not reflect what the amendment says.

Paragraph (2) of Lords amendment 18 talks about nominating a Committee that would serve

“for the duration of the present Parliament”,

with no deadline to reach a conclusion. I repeat what I said in my intervention on the right hon. Gentleman. I accept his point that there was not much time between tabling the amendment and the Report stage in this House. It is a perfectly fair point that we had discussions before the issues were discussed in the House of Lords. However, three months have elapsed and these matters have been considered in the other place, and I really do not understand what we are going to learn in the next two months that we have not been able to learn in the past three months.

[Mr Hanson]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the proposal is that the Committee shall serve for the duration of this Parliament. I was trying to be ever helpful by offering the Minister the opportunity that we could, through the usual channels, determine to examine these matters in a reasonable time. We could set that time informally even if the Committee did serve for the duration of the Parliament.

[Mr Harper]

I accept the right hon. Gentleman’s point, but that is not provided for. The Committee regulates its procedure. Nothing here talks about the balance of party members on the Committee. The Chairman of Committees in the other place will nominate the members from the House of Lords, and the Speaker of the House of Commons will nominate those from this place. There is no provision in the amendment to do what the right hon. Gentleman suggests.

If a Committee of members of both Houses considers the matter at length, it will produce a report. If we accept for the sake of argument that it manages to agree on the right outcome, it will only produce a report that will inform a further debate in this House. Members of this House will still be required to take a decision. We will still be required to weigh up the arguments that my hon. Friend the Minister for Security and Immigration so ably laid out before the House today and the Home Secretary did in January. We will still be required to consider the arguments that the shadow Minister did not put before the House; he simply recited the views of others. We will not be freed from the responsibility of taking a decision. It is the “kick the can down the road” amendment, which allows the House to avoid taking a decision.

These are difficult issues. I listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Sir Richard Shepherd), whom I respect hugely on these matters, but there is a balance to be struck between defending the liberties of our citizens and protecting us from terrorism. I do not reach easily for the national security argument. I was pleased when I was elected to the House to vote against the provisions for 90-day pre-trial detention. But this is a proportionate and limited proposal. I supported the previous measure. The Home Secretary has listened to the debate on 30 January in this House and to the debate in the other place. Amendments (a) and (b) do two things. First, they ensure that we are not left with a situation of someone left unable to seek citizenship. She has to have reasonable grounds for believing that they are able to, and that addresses many of the concerns raised previously by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who set those out on 30 January.

A review mechanism is now in place, whether by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation or another independent person, which will enable the House to look quite quickly, after an initial one-year process, and then every subsequent three years, at the actual implementation of the legislation in practice, so enabling us, if there are issues, if some of the concerns set out by my hon. Friend for Aldridge-Brownhills or others come to light, to enable the House to amend the legislation. The concern that the Home Secretary set out with the al-Jedda judgment leaves a gap in our legislation, which leaves us vulnerable to those who would do us harm.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Given my hon. Friend’s expert knowledge on this subject, can he give the House some indication of how many people this treatment might be applied to? Are we talking about very few people?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend the Minister set out how many individuals had been deprived of their citizenship on non-conducive grounds, so not using this power, since 2006, and it was 27. It is not possible to know in advance, but we are talking about very small numbers. We are talking about people who conduct themselves in a way that is seriously prejudicial to our national interests. It is a small number of people, but it is a small number of people who mean to do us serious harm, but whom we are not able to prosecute.

This is a proportionate use of the Home Secretary’s power. It is reviewable by the independent judiciary, so there is a check and balance in place. We have to ask ourselves whether we want to leave ourselves open to this vulnerability, exposed by the Supreme Court. We are, as I said, only putting the law back to what it was before 2002. I do not think that any of the scenarios set out by Members happened before 2002. I urge Members to disagree with the Lords in their amendment and to put amendments (a) and (b) on the statute book when we vote this afternoon.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before I call anyone else to speak, let me say that we have a very short time in this part of the debate, so I urge Members to be brief in consideration of their colleagues.

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[Mr Hanson]

Their lordships have expressed their view clearly, and what the Minister has said today is known already. He announced that he had said in January that he would have pilots on the matter. The draft Modern Slavery Bill has been scrutinised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead, and there is a template that we should support, and that is why I reject the Government’s proposal.

[Mr Harper]

I think that the right hon. Gentleman is missing the fact that the amendments are narrowly framed. They deal only with children who come to the UK from abroad. On trafficking and modern slavery, I have constant representations about not just focusing on people who come from outside the UK. The Minister has set out a sensible point. If we reject the amendments, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) has said, the other place has the option of sending them back to us again, and we can consider them again if it does not think that the Minister’s representations hold water. That is the right course of action.

[Mr Hanson]

There is clearly a common interest but a disagreement on procedure. If the Minister has a view about the impact of children being trafficked in the UK, such as in the case in Rochdale that he mentioned, he has the draft Modern Slavery Bill to contribute to those matters. But there is a clear will from the other place, which was supported on a cross-party basis, and I would wish to see that as the template for discussion today.

[Mr Harper]

One thing that would not be helpful is to put these measures in place and have a procedure that deals with foreign national children when the draft Modern Slavery Bill, expertly scrutinised by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead, will put in place yet another process for children who happen to be UK nationals. It would be much more sensible to have one process that deals with all children who are victims of slavery. We should not make the system more complicated than it need be.

[Mr Hanson]

Imperative action is needed now. I have dealt with a number of Bills over the past few years and seen the Government bringing back amendments and amending their own legislation not six months after they introduced it. There is potential here today for a clear statement and clear action on the international trafficking of children. The pilots that the Minister brings forward can be undertaken.

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[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I want briefly to seek clarification in relation to international students and the changes that have been made to the Bill in relation to landlord checks. I pay tribute to Lord Hannay and others who have pressed this point in the House of Lords. I regret that students are included in the Bill at all, and I know that many Members on both sides of the House feel that they have no place in this debate.

The point relates to the changes that have given powers to universities to nominate students to occupy accommodation. That is a welcome move, and I am glad that the Government have accepted it. Speaking for the Government, Lord Taylor said in the other place that

“nominating is just the naming of an individual as being a student at a higher education institution…It is a form of vouching for the genuineness of the student’s immigration status. That is all.”

Baroness Warwick asked whether it would be

“legal and proper for the landlord to enter into that arrangement even though at that point, because of the time involved and so on, the potential tenant has not actually got their visa?”

This is crucial, because there is a brief period between being accepted into an institution and being enrolled during which many students sort out their accommodation. In response to Baroness Warwick, Lord Taylor said:

“Yes, absolutely: that is the case.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 April 2014; Vol. 753, c. 1056-1057.]

That involves a potential contradiction.

Will the Minister confirm in his closing remarks, or in intervening on me now, that an institution can nominate a person who has accepted a university place and has been given a confirmation of acceptance to study, but is awaiting a visa, so that they can confirm their accommodation before they have been issued with their visa?

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to be called to speak, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will make sure that I leave the Minister sufficient time to respond to the points that have been made. I will keep a close eye on you, and if you think I am not leaving adequate time, I am sure you will indicate firmly that I should sit down.

I support what the Minister said in rejecting Lords amendments 16 and 24. I very much want us to deal with those who have been trafficked and victims of modern slavery, but I want us to implement a system that will apply to all children who have been trafficked, and a system that works. I want that decision to be informed by the pilots that the Minister is conducting. That is because in England and Wales the local authority has the legal responsibility to look out for the best interests of those children. In some local authorities, that system works very well, but in many it does not. The legal position is clear, but what is important is not what the law says, by itself, but how it is implemented.

That is why I want to make sure that the Minister runs those pilots and looks at their results. He has clearly stated that he will make sure there is an enabling power in the draft Modern Slavery Bill and that the detail of how we bring these powers into effect can be informed by the pilots. He gave a very clear commitment at the Dispatch Box to use what is learned from the pilots to bring that into force. That is a sensible procedure. I agree with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field): I think there is no disagreement in the points made by him, by the Minister and by the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who has long experience of these matters. We all want to achieve the same thing, and I want to make sure that it is done in the most practical way possible.

I welcome the moves in amendments 5 to 9 and 29 to 34 to put on to the Statute Book the Government’s current policy on the family returns process. I previously gave some commitments at the Dispatch Box when this matter was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), and when the Bill was going through Committee, in saying that the Government would bring forward those amendments in the House of Lords. I am very pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister and his colleague, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, were able to do so. That is a great step forward that locks these provisions into place.

The manuscript amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) are not helpful. The issue of an individual living in a household with the child is important. Otherwise, those who have no right to be in the United Kingdom but who happen to have a child here for whom they have no parental responsibility and with whom they have no contact will use that child as a legal tool to avoid being removed from the UK. What is worse, it would encourage people who have no right to be in Britain—a judge set this out clearly in his legal judgment on a specific case in which he jailed the relevant couple—to have children for the specific purpose of avoiding removal from the country. That is not in the interests of children or of the proper working of the immigration system, so I urge the House not to support the manuscript amendments.

EU Readmission Agreement (Azerbaijan)

Mark Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

The Government have decided not to opt in at this stage to the draft Council decisions concerning the signature and conclusion of the agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Azerbaijan on the readmission of persons residing without authorisation (European Union Document Nos. 15493/13, COM(2013) 745; 15494/13, COM(2013) 744).

There is little illegal migration from Azerbaijan to the UK and we have no operational problems with returns which an EURA would help to resolve. It would be possible for the UK to seek to participate in the agreement post adoption if these circumstances were to change.

Visa Regulations

Mark Harper Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

I am today announcing proposals to change the fees for immigration and nationality applications made to the Home Office and for services provided by the Department. The Government review these fees on a regular basis and make appropriate changes as necessary.

In developing these proposals, the Home Office has sought to limit most increases to 4%. There are further targeted increases to bring dependant fees in line with main application fees, to register as a British citizen and some premium services. A staggered rise has been applied to the long-term visit visa (greater than six months) with a higher rise to the two and five-year visas to ensure the 10-year visa stays at its current level. We are also introducing a reduced fee for those applying to work within areas regarded as shortage occupations and to the direct airside transit visa.

The Home Office has given careful consideration to its fee levels, to ensure they provide the funding necessary to operate effective immigration controls and invest in improving service levels to customers. This is balanced against the need to ensure that the UK continues to attract and welcome the “brightest and best” migrants from around the world and those that make a valued contribution to British society. Given the ongoing need to reduce public spending, we believe it is right that we continue to reduce the contribution made by UK taxpayers towards delivering the immigration system by asking those who use and benefit directly from the system to make a greater contribution.

For certain application categories, we will continue to set fees higher than the administrative cost to reflect their value to successful applicants. This helps to provide resources to run the UK immigration system and enables the Home Office to set lower fees elsewhere in support of wider Government objectives to attract those businesses, workers, students and visitors who most benefit the UK. This includes the short-term visit visa which remains significantly below cost.

I have laid regulations for fees set higher than cost. In addition, I will shortly lay another set of regulations in Parliament for fees set at or below cost. Further details explaining all fees changes are provided in the explanatory memoranda for both sets of regulations. Subject to parliamentary approval the Government intend to bring new fees into force from 6 April 2014 with some fees for premium services overseas coming into effect on 31 March 2014.

The attached table, setting out all the proposed fees, includes indicative unit costs for financial year 2014-15. The unit cost is the estimated average cost to the Home Office of processing each application. Unit costs are published so it is clear which fees we set over cost and by how much.

Full details on how to apply for all of the Home Office’s products and services will be provided on the Home Office website: www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk.

Immigration Bill

Mark Harper Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

indicated dissent.

[Pete Wishart]

The Minister indicates that an LCM is not necessary, but does he agree that we are responsible for marriage and civil partnerships? We are responsible for the health service and housing in Scotland, but there has been no LCM to ask the Scottish Government if they agree to allow Westminster to legislate. We are totally unsatisfied with the Minister’s responses on this—

[Mr Harper]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

We should have an LCM, but the Minister can explain why we are not getting one.

[Mr Harper]

With the greatest respect, I have had conversations with the First Minister and engaged in correspondence with Scottish Ministers. Our clear view is that the Bill deals with reserved matters for a reserved purpose, so we do not believe that an LCM is needed. The tone of the responses that I have received from Scottish Ministers—Scottish National party members of the Scottish Government—does not accord with what the hon. Gentleman says.

[Pete Wishart]

That is not my view of the correspondence that I have seen. I am surprised that the Minister says such a thing because the Bill is foreign to how we want to run our NHS. It has nothing to do with how we want to deliver our devolved services. We are not privatising the NHS like they are down here; we want to invest in it and ensure that it sticks to the ’45 principles of “from cradle to grave”. We fundamentally disagree with the Government about the need for such measures, and we want an LCM so that we can say clearly to them, “Stay out of our devolved services. Keep your race with UKIP out of our delivery of the NHS and other devolved services.” I still hope, although it is probably too late, that we will have an LCM.

A number of the measures in the group are pretty chilling, one of which is new clause 18, on which the Home Secretary spent such a good part of her hour and a half speech. What an appalling measure. This is about removing citizenship from people. Watching the Home Secretary’s attempts to respond to the many searching “what happens if” questions would almost have been comical were it not so sad. She could not start to answer the simple question—some of my hon. colleagues on this side of the House might want to revisit this during the winding-up speeches—of what happens to someone who is stripped of their UK citizenship but is not taken by any other country. I think I heard something along the lines of, “We might give them their citizenship back,” but if that is the case, what is the point of doing it in the first place? Who is going to take these people? Are we going to launch them into orbit and leave them circling round the Earth as stateless people without any sort of citizenship? Is France going to take them, or Germany? [Interruption.] What about an independent Scotland, I am asked. Where will those people go? This is the big question that the Home Secretary has been unable to answer: what will happen to those people once they have been deprived of their citizenship? What will happen to their children, or the people who depend on them? We really need to hear from her on that.

The Home Secretary is effectively asking us to agree to allow her to rip up the passports of people who live in this country. As I have said, these measures have been introduced so late in order to prevent Back Benchers from having the opportunity to speak about the most important parts of the Bill and so that they cannot be voted on, which is absolutely appalling. In fact, to say that the Government’s amendments look like they had been written on the back of a fag packet is to do a disservice to some fantastic speeches that I have heard delivered from the back of a fag packet. Little thought seems to have gone into them.

The plans for the revocation of citizenship have been made by the Home Secretary behind closed doors and without any sort of due process or transparency. Hon. Members might have seen the reports in The Independent today about how some people have subsequently been killed in US drone strikes or rendered to secret locations to be interrogated by the FBI. Perhaps that is what will happen to all these people. They are being betrayed by their own Government, whose duty is to protect them, not throw them under a bus in order to help powerful allies, which looks like what we will be doing. She said that we are simply returning to the situation that existed before 2003, but the UK has signed and ratified the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness, to which more than 50 states are signatories. We will now be breaking that.

I will speak briefly about new clause 15, tabled by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab). We know, as has been said again and again, that Conservative Members do not much care for article 8 of the European convention on human rights. They would have us believe that there are all sorts of foreign criminals marauding across our communities, living the life of Riley on benefits and then going home to phone their expensive lawyers, saying, “Get me off on article 8.” That is the type of image they present. They continue to attack some of the great protections that we have secured over many decades on the back of the European convention on human rights. We are now seeing yet another attack on our human rights. It is no surprise that it comes from the Conservative Back Benches. I very much hope that we will resist it.

Charging Principles Response Document

Mark Harper Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

People who need permission to visit the UK and those who want to live, work or study here must pay a fee. It is important that we seek input into how we ensure that those who benefit directly from the immigration system and enhanced border control contribute appropriately to its costs in the future.

A targeted consultation looking at charging principles was held between 11 November and 3 December 2013. The consultation sought views on how the Home Office charges customers and the services it provides.

Views were sought from stakeholders who have an interest in the way fees are set, on the consistency and complexity of fees and on premium services. We also requested views on proposals on administrative reviews and refunds and how the Home Office interacts with third parties.

Responses to the consultation have been reflected in fee proposals for 2014 where possible and these will be laid in Parliament shortly. Other issues raised as part of the consultation will be considered over the next 12 months.

A copy of the consultation response document has been placed in the Library of the House and on the Home Office website.