Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Mark Harper and Bob Blackman(9 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Harper
The hon. Lady still has not found anyone apart from herself to take up that slogan. She will know that £25 million of discretionary housing payment was made available specifically to support disabled people who are in adapted accommodation, so that the local authorities do not have to move them. That money is available, and local authorities should use it for the purpose for which it was intended.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
7. What comparative assessment he has made of unemployment rates in the UK and other European countries.
Border Force
Debate between Mark Harper and Bob Blackman(10 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Mr Harper
The operating mandate specifies that everyone who crosses the border must have his or her passport checked and must have the necessary documents. On the basis of what I know, I do not think that what the hon. Lady says is correct, but I will make inquiries and then write to her. I think that that is a reasonable way to approach the matter. In the meantime, given her position as chair of the all-party group, I shall be happy to maintain a sensible dialogue with her on human-trafficking issues.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
UK Border Force did an excellent job during the Olympics, welcoming millions of new visitors. We hope that they will come back, in which case we will welcome them warmly again. However, is it not time that there were separate streams at our airports and ports—one for UK nationals with UK passports who are returning to the country, one for EU entrants and one for everyone else? Would that not enable us to streamline the whole process?
Mr Harper
First, as my hon. Friend knows, one of our obligations as members of the European Union is to deal with European passport holders together with those from the UK. Secondly—this is a practical point—adopting his suggestion would require us and the airports to spend an extraordinary amount of money on remodelling all our airports and ports, which I do not think would be very sensible at present.
The basis of my hon. Friend’s point, however, is the need to ensure that British citizens returning home, EU nationals coming to Britain and people coming here from outside the EU all have a good experience at the border. The NAO report suggests that we are performing the necessary checks to make certain that the border is secure, while processing people within the provisions of our service level agreements and enabling them swiftly to enter the United Kingdom, where they will be able to work and spend some of their hard-earned money to benefit our economy.
Individual Electoral Registration
Debate between Mark Harper and Bob Blackman(13 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Harper
Those people will not be disqualified from postal or proxy voting, but if they wish to have a postal or proxy vote, they will have to supply their personal identifiers. Those who are already signed up for postal or proxy voting and have already supplied their signatures and dates of birth will have to renew those details from time to time and undergo a verification check. The information will be due at some point in the future in any event, and we are investigating whether we can synchronise the processes to avoid duplication.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I warmly welcome the step to speed up the process of individual registration, but the overwhelming majority of people in the UK do not move from one year to the next. Although I completely agree with having security for the initial registration—supplying national insurance numbers and, most importantly, signatures—because the vast majority of people do not move every year, will the Minister consider sticking with the current position of allowing annual renewals on the list to be done by, for instance, the internet or telephone, rather than having to supply a signature every year?
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend makes a good point. People who are on the register, and who have supplied the identifiers and where verification has taken place, will not have to supply the identifiers and go through that check every year if there are no changes to their details. I thank him for making that point, which has enabled me to make that clear to the House.