Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

As usual, Mr Speaker, it is no surprise to hear my hon. Friend standing up for his constituents and fighting for their interests. He is right to look for greater police presence in his constituency, and when we finish recruiting 20,000 police officers, we will need somewhere for them to put all their stuff. Having that somewhere in his constituency would make sense.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

A total of 5,279 children were strip searched by the Metropolitan police between 2019 and 2021, 75% of whom were from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background. This data covers only children who were strip searched after an arrest, which means that the number of children strip searched among those not arrested will be even higher, such as in the case of Child Q who was never actually arrested. The Home Office will require police forces to provide this data on strip searches only on a voluntary basis. Can the Home Secretary say why she will not commit to making it mandatory for police forces to produce this data?

[Kit Malthouse]

Although the case of Child Q was deeply regrettable and the Metropolitan police have offered their apologies in that case, I am sure that the hon. Lady will accept that, sadly, there are circumstances where these kind of searches of all manner of people are warranted. She raises a good point about transparency, and I know that all police chiefs across the country have it at the forefront of their minds that their legitimacy is built on public confidence about what they do and I will certainly explore the idea that she suggests.

Public Order Bill

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Gullis]

I could not agree more. I think we do need to organise a trip round the red wall so that Labour Members can actually understand why the Labour party lost those seats. [Interruption.] I hear the sniggering from Opposition Members when I mention Stoke-on-Trent. The only Stoke that the Labour party is aware of is Stoke Newington. They have not gone any further north than that in the last number of years, which is why, again, we have a Conservative-led Stoke-on-Trent City Council, a Conservative-run Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council and a Conservative-run Staffordshire County Council. Under Tony Blair, a man who actually used to win Labour elections, it used to have six of the 12 MPs for the local area. Labour ran the county council at one stage, had control of Stoke city council and ran Newcastle borough council. Those are the facts.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I do not even want to thank the hon. Member for giving way to me, because frankly, his speech is becoming quite insulting. He is talking to Members of Parliament who were elected by the people—in my case, by the people of Battersea—to represent them. I am really grateful that, finally, the people of Wandsworth decided to vote for Labour and kick the Tories out after 44 years of rule to elect a Labour council. We know what the people of London need and we do not need to take lessons from the hon. Member.

[Jonathan Gullis]

Well, Croydon spoke quite loudly, if I remember correctly, by deciding to elect a Conservative Mayor and upping the amount of councillors in Croydon. We had places like Bromley holding on, and Old Bexley and Sidcup, and Harrow going towards the Conservative party. And there is now mass opposition to the mental plan of the Mayor of London, who wants to expand the ultra low emission zone across the whole Greater London area, smashing 135,000 drivers in the pocket with a daily charge and killing small businesses. If this is Labour-run London, God forbid a Labour-run United Kingdom. It would be absolutely terrifying to see what could happen to our community. [Interruption.] It is lovely to see you in the Chair now by the way, Madam Deputy Speaker.

This Bill is so important because it is about making sure that action is taken if someone wants to glue themselves to a train, risk their health and wellbeing, and delay people going to work to earn their money at a time when we are facing a global crisis with inflation, a global crisis with the cost of energy, and a global crisis of food prices, because of events happening in Ukraine, as well as the fact, obviously, that we are coming out of a global lockdown—I know that Labour Members seem to want to pretend that that did not exist. Ultimately, all those things put together mean that, when people are not able to go about their daily lives because of a mindless minority of morons who want to act in an inappropriate way by blocking the road, stopping the trains, stopping oil tankers and smashing up petrol stations, this Bill is necessary.

Finally, I appreciate that the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), is no longer in her place, but I thought that, when she stood at the Dispatch Box today, she gave a very passionate and good speech about why the actions of Insulate Britain, Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil were unlawful. She made a fantastic point about why action needs to be taken, so the House can imagine why the people of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke are simply baffled that Labour Members will not join us in the Lobby this evening and will instead vote against a Bill that they seem in principle to support. However, because of certain Back Benchers, they just do not want to face that rebellion and stare it down. It is a shame that the Labour party has a long way to go.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and to speak in this Second Reading debate. The provisions in this Bill pose a significant risk to the UK’s adherence to its domestic and international human rights obligations, and the Bill is unlikely to be compliant with the European convention on human rights, particularly article 10 on freedom of expression and article 11 on freedom of assembly and association.

Equivalent measures to the protest-banning orders were previously roundly rejected by the police and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services on the basis that such measures would neither be compatible with human rights legislation nor create an effective deterrent. Many organisations, including Justice, have said that the Bill would give the police carte blanche to target protestors. Similar laws can be found in Russia and Belarus. Is this the country we have become?

That is why I support the amendment in the name of my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition. It is disturbing that the Government have put forward this Bill as their first piece of legislation in the Queen’s Speech, and when the ink is not even dry on their Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. We have not even been able to assess that Act’s impact on people and communities. It beggars belief that the Government have brought forward this Bill during a cost of living emergency, when they should be focusing on tackling the crisis facing so many of our constituents. Moreover, the Bill’s provisions are more egregious than those in the Government’s amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 that were flatly and rightly rejected in the other place.

My speech will focus on the Bill’s equality impacts, especially in relation to protest. Before entering this House, I spent most of my life as an advocate and campaigner, and I know from first-hand experience the power that protest can have. My freedoms today are directly linked to the organising and protests that happened on our streets, from the suffragettes who chained themselves to Parliament to secure votes for women, to disabled people who locked their wheelchairs to traffic lights to fight the discriminatory cuts to social security, and the Black Lives Matter protests.

Protesting is one of the most effective ways for people from underserved and under-represented groups to organise and deliver change for our communities. Such people often do not have access to the seats of powers. They face significant barriers to democratic and civic participation. Clamping down on protest will not only have an impact on the types of issues that our communities will be able to voice their concerns about but shut down key avenues of mobilising the public to support and preserve our rights.

I urge Government Members, and the Policing Minister in particular, to watch “Then Barbara Met Alan”, which highlights the fight for civil rights for disabled people and the role that protests played in securing the imperfect Disability Discrimination Act 2005. But for those protests and disabled people protesting and making sacrifices, many of the rights that we fight to maintain today would not have been secured.

This Bill will criminalise protest tactics and drag people into the criminal justice system, and we know that people from our communities will suffer the most. Our communities are already over-policed and targeted by the authorities. I am especially worried about the provision on protest-specific stop-and-search powers. Those powers are a form of structural oppression that will continue to hurt and harm our black, Asian and ethnic minority communities. Their expansion will only entrench racial disproportionality in the criminal justice system and further erode trust in public institutions.

Last week, the Home Secretary announced that she was lifting restrictions placed on police stop-and-search powers in areas where police anticipate violent crimes by easing conditions on the use of section 60 orders under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The Bill will amend section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to expand the types of offences that allow a police officer to stop and search a person or a vehicle. It will also extend suspicionless stop-and-search powers to the protest context; police officers will be able to stop and search a person or a vehicle without suspicion if they reasonably believe that certain protest-related offences will be committed in that area.

Despite ongoing revelations regarding the misuse and racist application of stop-and-search powers, the Government decided to roll them out further. I therefore hope that when the Minister sums up, he will address disproportionality. I am sorry, but the equality impact assessment is flawed. It does not address the Bill’s disproportionate impact on our black and ethnic minority communities, and on black men in particular. Overwhelming evidence, including the Home Office’s own data, provided to human rights and civil liberty organisations, details the inherent disproportionality in the use of police stop and search. We know from the Independent Office for Police Conduct’s report that, in the year to March 2021, black people were seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people; Asian people were 2.5 times more likely to be stopped and searched.

We know that stop and search powers are ineffective. According to the Home Affairs Committee, between March and May 2020, more than 80% of the 21,950 stop and searches resulted in no further action. That is counterproductive. The decision to ease section 60 and the new powers in the Bill do not consider the trauma that structural oppression causes to our black and ethnic minority communities, and in particular to our black boys.

The Bill will also create the offence of intentional obstruction of a suspicionless, protest-specific stop and search. It might be used to target legal observers, or community-led protest marshals, who play a vital role in protecting the rights of groups by keeping them safe and explaining many complicated and technical laws. They are there in an observer or advisory capacity. The lack of that crucial function will impact many groups, and disabled people and people from ethnic minority backgrounds in particular.

We do not need the Bill. It will not solve the problems that it seeks to address. All it will do is increase the criminalisation of people from our under-represented and under-served communities. The Government are not interested in protecting people or serving those who need them most; they want only to protect themselves, to hold on to power by playing with people’s lives, and to manipulate the public to deflect from their failures. They are doing that at people’s expense. If they cared, they would have brought forward the victims’ Bill and ensured justice for the 1.3 million victims who gave up on the justice system last year. I will stand up for the people and, along with Opposition colleagues, I will vote against the Bill.

HM Passport Office Backlogs

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I join my hon. Friend in saying thank you to parliamentary staff who work for Members across the House. I, for one, know that my parliamentary staff work incredibly hard to support my Corby and Northamptonshire constituents. I know the same applies for colleagues, regardless of party, and the effort that is made to support us in our work. I can certainly appreciate the frustration they have felt when not being able to make contact or when calls have been disconnected. He is right to raise the increase in staffing. As I said, we expect 500 full-time equivalents added to Teleperformance resourcing by mid-June. The Passport Office is increasing staffing by 700 by the summer and, of course, there have already been 500 additional staff since last April. This is a priority. We are going to get on and deliver, because it is clearly necessary for the swift and expeditious delivery of people’s passports.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) on applying for it.

Dozens of my constituents are now facing huge delays in getting their passports. In one particular case, my constituent applied for his passport to be renewed back in February. He sent his old passport by special delivery. Following many chases for updates, he was told that they had lost his passport, and that he should report it as being lost and pay an additional fee to have his new application expedited, which he did. By Friday last week, they still had not done anything and told him that he needs to say it has now been lost yet again. He is travelling in July. He needs to apply for visas. He has already spent thousands of pounds on his holiday. Will the Minister agree to look at my constituent’s case and see if we can get a resolution as soon as possible? I should also add that we all knew there would be a surge in demand after the pandemic and I really want to know why on earth the Government were not prepared for that.

[Tom Pursglove]

We do, of course, encourage people, as standard, to apply in good time for passports to be processed and to be available. The point I again make is that after 10 weeks of proof of travel, within two weeks the upgrade is free, but if the hon. Lady could provide me with the details of the specific case in question I will happily make sure it is looked at as quickly as possible for her.

Support for Black Victims of Domestic Abuse

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 578416, relating to support for Black victims of domestic abuse.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I thank the Petitions Committee and its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for allowing me to move the motion despite not being a member of the Committee.

The petition we are considering is entitled:

“VALERIE’S LAW Compulsory Training for Agencies Supporting Black DV Victims”.

It calls on the Government to make

“specialist training mandatory for all police and other government agencies that support black women and girls affected by domestic abuse.”

The petition continues:

“Police and agencies should have culturally appropriate training to better understand the cultural needs of black women affected by domestic abuse.”

I thank the organisers of the petition—the specialist domestic violence organisation Sistah Space—and the 106,519 people who signed the petition, including 339 in my constituency. Sistah Space works with black women and girls who have experienced domestic or sexual abuse or lost a family member to domestic violence. Its mission is to encourage black survivors to report abuse by providing a safe cultural venue for victims to disclose abuse in a confidential environment and to encourage community integration. It also provides advice and support, as well as practical help, by providing hygiene and other essential items to women and girls who need them. I am very pleased that some members of Sistah Space have joined us in the Public Gallery today, and I thank them for helping me prepare for the debate.

The petition is about the support that black women and girls can and should expect from the police and other agencies that are supposed to help them when they experience domestic abuse, it is about the failures we too often see from the police and others in this regard, and it is about how we can make things better.

Before I come to the substance of the petition and the campaign for Valerie’s law, I want to speak a little about the context in which we are debating this issue. In the last few months, we have had the revelation that a 15-year-old black girl was taken out of an exam and strip-searched in her school by police officers on the basis that she smelled of cannabis—no drugs were found—we have had the shocking report into institutional racism and misogyny at Charing Cross police station, where male officers joked about beating their girlfriends and raping women, and we have had two Metropolitan police officers imprisoned for taking dehumanising photos at the murder scene of two black women, Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry.

The trust that black people—and perhaps especially black women—have in the police has been repeatedly damaged in recent months. It is, perhaps, at its lowest point in decades. The police, and indeed the Government, must recognise that, acknowledge it, and set out how they intend to repair it. Even before we get to specialist training, we need basic confidence that the police will treat black women with respect.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has made an excellent start to her speech. She has touched on building trust and confidence in the police. Sistah Space has developed excellent campaigning tools and resources to educate people on the cultural differences that black African and Caribbean women make, but for that to take root and start to make a difference to the lives of black women, the Government and the police must recognise the role of institutional racism.

[Abena Oppong-Asare]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which I completely support. In the last few months in particular, it has become even more apparent that we need that training.

Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I did not blame the Mayor of London—I just pointed out that he has as much influence, if not more, over the Metropolitan police than we do. I was the deputy Mayor for policing. If this had happened under me, I would have taken responsibility for it and tried to sort it out myself. I am just saying that the Government and City Hall will have a duty to work together on this issue.

As for police officers’ involvement in schools, it is, I am afraid, a source of great sadness that it is necessary for police officers to be involved in and around schools, but we have found over the years that such is the problem with youth violence and youth crime, particularly in the capital, that creating a good relationship with young people through the police’s involvement in schools is critical to success, and where it works, it can be of enormous benefit to their safety.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I start by saying that it is incredibly disappointing that the Home Secretary could not be here to respond to this urgent question on an urgent matter.

The police tell us that if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear, but everybody should fear the degrading and traumatising treatment that Child Q suffered when she was strip-searched by the Metropolitan police. More than four children a day are subject to that treatment by the Met, and black people are strip-searched at six times the rate of white people. How does the Minister expect to build trust and confidence in a force that is rife with institutional racism and misogyny when it victimises black children on a daily basis? If his Government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities does not admit the existence of institutional and structural racism, how on earth can we put any trust in the Government?

[Kit Malthouse]

I refute the hon. Lady’s claim that the Metropolitan police victimises young black people on a daily basis. I have spent many hours with it over the years watching men and women of all types and races in uniform doing their best to save young people’s lives. Although I am often challenged about the disproportionality of things such as stop and search, in two and a bit years of doing this job, I have never been challenged in this Chamber on the disproportionality of victimhood and the sadly far too great number of young black people who die on the streets of London. As I said, we need to understand from each of these instances whether we have a systemic or a specific problem. I understand the House’s impatience, but we will know once the IOPC concludes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I am afraid the hon. Lady is completely wrong about the Bill. It is a vital Bill to keep the public safe and protect them from sex offenders, violent rapists and other criminals. The comments she refers to were horrible, and it is clearly unacceptable to mock victims of genocide. We are clear that all forms of hate speech are unacceptable.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

15. What steps her Department is taking to tackle violence against women and girls.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

19. What steps her Department is taking to tackle violence against women and girls.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)]

Tackling violence against women and girls is a top priority for this Government. Our actions include publishing a cross-Government strategy on tackling VAWG, to be followed shortly by a complementary domestic abuse plan; bringing in world-class legislation to tackle stalking, forced marriage and female genital mutilation, as well as the landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021; further increasing our funding for support services to £185 million a year by 2024-25; and making public spaces safer.

[Marsha De Cordova]

In December last year the Government rejected the recommendation to create a firewall to enable migrant victims to safely report domestic abuse to the police without fear of being reported to the immigration authorities. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services said that that would be in the public interest. Can the Minister say how exactly the Government plan to protect victims too frightened to come forward, and to protect the public from the rapists and abusers left free to offend with impunity?

[Rachel Maclean]

Our domestic abuse plan and all the work we have done sets out clearly how we are going to protect the most vulnerable victims of domestic abuse, including those who may find themselves in the immigration system. We have support schemes for those women, and we take this seriously; we work extremely sensitively with our policing partners, who have specialist trained officers to recognise such cases and get support to the victims.

Deportation Flight to Jamaica

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

Clearly, those with British citizenship would not be liable for deportation, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right. We should not define the Windrush generation by a group of people who have committed serious offences or been persistent criminal offenders. The Windrush generation is the midwife who delivered hundreds of babies, the person who worked hard to provide for their family—that is who defines that generation, not serious offenders.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

The Minister’s tone and his response to this urgent question have been quite shameful. My constituent came here from Jamaica when he was five years old and all of his family lives here. He is set to be deported on this flight tomorrow, having served a seven-month custodial sentence in 2015. Given the leaked “lessons learned” review issues, is it not right that the Minister, the Home Secretary and the Government take stock and halt this flight just to make sure that they do not inflict any further harm? This mistake has been made before—people were deported and they ended up dead.

[Kevin Foster]

Yes, we do want to make sure that we prevent further harm—further harm to future victims of crime that may be committed by the persistent or serious offenders who are on this flight. As I have said, the law is very clear. It is rather strange that a Conservative Minister should come under this type of attack, as we are defending and outlining legislation that was actually pushed by the Labour party.

Windrush Compensation Scheme (Expenditure) Bill

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion
Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I agree with my hon. Friend.

Since the previous Government were first obliged to apologise for the scandal, in April 2018, there have been more than 8,000 applications from people seeking the necessary documentation to establish their legality —8,000 applications for documentation, but only 1,000 applications for compensation. What has happened to the other 7,000? Why have they not come forward? Will the Home Secretary tell us what steps her Department is taking proactively to engage with them? Is she aware of any factors that might be inhibiting legitimate applicants? Is it possible that fear of the hostile environment is a factor?

How large is the publicity budget for the scheme? The House would like to know how that budget compares with the £46 million reportedly spent on the “Get ready for Brexit” campaign, which was criticised by the National Audit Office as having not made the slightest difference to public awareness. The House is entitled to know more details of the effectiveness of the publicity campaign. I understand that Home Office officials have visited Afro-Caribbean churches. That is good, but I hope Ministers understand that potential claimants may have difficulty approaching officials about their immigration status if they know that those officials are from the very Department that might seek to deport them, or might have deported someone they know.

Another issue is the extent of the Windrush cohort. As I said earlier, it is not just about people from the Caribbean: it affects all those Commonwealth and former empire citizens who came here legally before 1973, which includes people from west Africa, south Asia and elsewhere. It also includes their daughters, sons, grandsons and granddaughters, because the failure of their parents and grandparents to establish their citizenship may have affected their children’s and grandchildren’s immigration rights. It may be that people who have been rounded up for that flight to Jamaica tomorrow fall into that category. Will the Minister confirm that it is the case that many people originally from south Asia are also eligible for compensation? What will the Government do to ensure that all of them are approached about the compensation they are due?

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way: she has been very generous with her time. Does she agree that it is unclear what the appeals process will be for the compensation scheme? Can people appeal against a compensation claim being turned down, and if so, can they receive legal aid for that appeal?

[Ms Abbott]

There are too many things that remain unclear about the compensation scheme, but I am sure the Minister will respond to my hon. Friend’s comments.

In conclusion, the Windrush scandal was seen and noted around the world. The current Prime Minister talks about reaching out to friends old and new in the new post-Brexit world, but unless and until this scandal is actually ended, do not be surprised if friends old and new treat those claims of amity very cautiously. No money can compensate for the sense of humiliation that members of the Windrush generation felt at being told, perhaps for the first time, that they were not actually British. This is not about the money: it is about making good that unhappiness, humiliation and fear. I urge Ministers to listen carefully to what Members say about their individual constituents’ experiences, because it will shed a lot of light on where this scheme is currently going wrong.