Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

If the hon. Gentleman had listened to my previous answer, he would know that there has been a significant increase in the number of appeals lodged by criminals; in 2012, the figure increased by 1,000. That is exactly why we have strengthened the ability to remove criminals by implementing changes in the immigration rules, and to ensure that that is enforced by tribunals. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has made it clear that we will take powers in primary legislation to do so.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Jamaicans and Nigerians make up a disproportionately large number of the foreign nationals in our jails. What assistance is my hon. Friend providing to the Secretary of State for Justice in negotiating compulsory prisoner transfer agreements with these two countries, and what progress is being made?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the Nigerian Parliament has passed the legislation required to implement compulsory prisoner transfer, which means that in due course we will be able compulsorily to move prisoners to Nigeria, which I am sure he will welcome.

Alcohol: Minimum Unit Price

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The House really must calm down. It is in a very excitable condition, from which I hope it can be relieved by the hon. Member for Kettering, Mr Philip Hollobone.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Was the balance of responses to the consultation in favour of or against minimum alcohol pricing?

[Mr Browne]

There is a range—

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

The Government are doing a number of things, and I entirely take the hon. Gentleman’s point. This is one of the key things that we discuss regularly with the Premier League, the Football League and the FA. The FA, of course, receives one of the largest whole sport plan funding awards of more than £30 million, which is there precisely for the development of the game and to encourage more people to play football. He makes a good point, and we will address it in the reform process.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

8. What her Department’s administrative expenditure was in 2010; and how much that expenditure will be in 2015.

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)]

My Department will have cut its original administration expenditure by 50% in real terms between 2010 and 2015, from £50 million to £27 million, while continuing to deliver across its full range of activities, including a successful Olympic and Paralympics games. Its actual administration budget will have risen from £50 million in 2010 to £55 million in 2015 as a result of the transfer of functions from other Departments.

[Mr Hollobone]

In these tough times, private sector firms and public sector and voluntary organisations in the Kettering constituency are having to do more with less. Will my right hon. Friend insist that her Department is unrelenting in driving down its unnecessary administrative expenditure all the way through to 2015, to give the British taxpayer the best deal?

[Maria Miller]

I can give my hon. Friend that absolute assurance. Across the board, all areas are expected to make the savings that I know he and his constituents would expect us to, whether within the original DCMS functions or in the new responsibilities that the Department has taken on—those from the Government Equalities Office and telecoms responsibilities from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. That includes reducing accommodation costs from £4.9 million in 2010 to £3.6 million this year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Miller]

I have to challenge the hon. Lady’s assertions. It is clear that the Government are giving women the tools and support to become economically independent. The facts speak loudly. This year, we will have taken more than 1 million out of tax altogether. That is the sort of action we want to see—women coming out of tax, being lifted out of poverty and being given the tools to be economically independent.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

What working mothers need from employers most of all is flexibility, but employers find it difficult to be flexible when lots of working mothers are thrown into chaos, through no fault of their own, when schools are closed during snowy weather. As a nation, we are not tackling this problem nearly enough. Will my right hon. Friend hold discussions with the Department for Education to see whether we can nail this problem once and for all?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend makes the important point that, as working parents, we rely on certainty in regard to child care and to schools. The decision on whether a school is open is one for head teachers—they can assess things better on the ground—but his point is well made and I will certainly ensure that it is brought to the attention of my hon. Friends in the Department for Education.

Police Integrity

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

As I said earlier, my statement does not cover any arrangements in relation to pensions. The issue of police officers subject to misconduct proceedings being able to resign or retire from a force and then those proceedings not being taken through because there was no sanction is one of the things that annoys the public considerably. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman makes a gesture; I am not quite sure how Hansard will interpret that, but I think that he is indicating, “Money.” Of course the sanction we propose potentially will have an impact on officers, because misconduct proceedings will be taken through to their conclusion. If they are found guilty of misconduct, they will be placed on the list of officers who have been struck off, and that will impede their ability, for example, to get a job in policing or a similar field abroad or in the United Kingdom.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I declare my interest as a serving special constable with the British Transport police.

Some of the best, most common-sense policing in our country is done by ordinary community beat bobbies at police constable rank, by police sergeants and by police inspectors—people who are not seeking promotion but who love their job and have been doing that job for many years, perhaps decades. Although it is right that scrutiny of the police improves all the time, I do not feel that these individuals get the pat on the back that they should get often enough. What can we do to recognise and reward those long-serving officers for the skills they bring to their job?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend may not be aware that one of the matters that has been referred back to the Police Negotiating Board and that will be considered by the College of Policing is rewarding individual officers’ skills and development. The first and second parts of the Winsor review proposed an interim arrangement that did indeed suggest that recognition for neighbourhood officers be looked into. The Police Arbitration Tribunal did not feel it was appropriate to take forward those proposals and I accepted the PAT’s recommendation, but further work will be done on ensuring that there is appropriate payment for skills that are developed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

2. What steps she has taken to control immigration from Bulgaria and Romania.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

3. What steps she plans to take to control the entry of Romanian and Bulgarian nationals to the UK from 1 January 2014.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend is right to say that it is helpful for us to look at the experience of other European countries. We want to make sure that when people look at the access to our benefits and our public services nobody thinks we are a soft touch in this country, and the Government are taking action to ensure that people will not think that.

[Mr Hollobone]

My constituents think it is madness to open our borders to 29 million people when we have absolutely no idea how many are going to come to this country. Will the Minister at least introduce a new requirement that European Union nationals seeking to reside here for more than three months have to apply for a residency card? Will he insist that the Romanian and Bulgarian Governments share with the Home Office details of any criminal records of those who come to this country?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend’s first point about a residency card is something I will listen to and take away with me. On his second point, he may be interested to know that the Metropolitan police and the UK Border Agency been working closely together over the past few months on Operation Nexus, and have removed about 200 very serious and high-harm criminals. That has been very effective, and I hope it will be rolled out across the country in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I can only give the hon. Lady the facts. In the Greater Manchester police area, crime went down by 10% over the past year. Her constituents’ streets are safer than they were a year ago, two years ago and three years ago, and 84% of the public say that they are satisfied with Greater Manchester police. On the specific point that she raises, the HMIC report states that the force will save money through collaboration, but that

“the public will not notice any difference in the service they receive in their community.”

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Minister join me in commending Adam Simmonds, the new police and crime commissioner for Northamptonshire, who, in his draft crime plan, commits himself to retaining at 1,220 the number of police officers that he inherited, while at the same time creating a new large-scale reservist police force of up to 200 officers, each of whom will be required to give 20 days a year?

Immigration (Romania and Bulgaria)

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. May I, through you, thank Mr Speaker for granting me the opportunity this morning to raise the important matter of immigration from Romania and Bulgaria?

My job is humbly to stand up and speak out on behalf of my constituents in Kettering, and one of their biggest concerns is the level of immigration into the United Kingdom. A large part of the inward migration flows are from the European Union, over which, seemingly, we now have virtually no control whatsoever. The numbers are getting completely out of hand, and my constituents will be horrified to learn that, from December 2013, yet another hole will be opened in Britain’s border controls with the prospect of unlimited immigration from two new accession countries to the European Union—Romania and Bulgaria, the so-called A2.

Over the past number of years, as more countries have come into the expanding European Union, more people have come to our country. The UK Statistics Authority estimates that in the second quarter of 2012 there were 1.4 million EU citizens working in the United Kingdom, with 107,000 unemployed and almost half a million economically inactive; those EU citizens have some 400,000 children. About half of that number come from the so-called A8 countries, which are eight of the 10 countries that became members of the EU in May 2004—Cyprus and Malta, and the eight central and eastern European accession countries. A derogation was included in the accession treaty to allow existing member states, of which the UK was one, to restrict those nationals’ right to work. That allowed existing EU member states to impose transitional restrictions on the free movement rights of workers from those new countries.

The transitional restrictions could have lasted for up to five years, or up to seven years in the case of “serious disturbance” to the old member state’s labour market. Disgracefully, the previous Labour Government did not apply transitional restrictions to A8 workers upon their joining the EU in 2004.

Of those countries, the biggest was Poland with a population of 38.5 million. The Czech Republic had a population of 10.5 million; Hungary, almost 10 million; Slovakia, 5.5 million; Lithuania, 3 million; Latvia, 2 million; Slovenia, 2 million; and Estonia, 1.3 million. The combined population was almost 73 million people. At the time of those countries’ accession to the EU, there were 94,000 A8 nationals living in the United Kingdom; as of the second quarter of 2012, that total is 1,079,000.

In 2003, under the previous Labour Government, the Home Office estimated that the enlargement of the European Union in May 2004 would lead to an additional 5,000 to 13,000 net immigrants every year from those 10 acceding countries. Well, that disgracefully inadequate estimate has been replaced by the fact that well over 1 million people are now resident in the United Kingdom from the 2004 accession countries.

Romania and Bulgaria, the so-called A2, acceded to the EU in 2007. Once again, the treaty allowed for transitional restrictions for up to seven years. This time, thank goodness, the UK did apply transitional restrictions on the free movement rights of Bulgarian and Romanian workers, with the result that such workers normally need authorisation before they start work. Thank heaven for small mercies. The problem is that those seven years are almost up—they end on 31 December 2013.

When Romania and Bulgaria acceded to the European Union in 2007, 29,000 Romanians and Bulgarians were resident in the United Kingdom. As of the first quarter of 2012, that total has risen to 155,000 despite the transitional controls. Her Majesty’s Government are not prepared to estimate how many people will come in after December 2013. How do I know that? Because I asked the Home Department a written parliamentary question on how many immigrants are expected to arrive in the UK

“from Romania and Bulgaria in the first year after transitional immigration controls are lifted.”

The answer was:

“The Government do not routinely produce forecasts or estimates of future levels of migration from individual countries. The difficulty in producing a reliable forecast of likely levels of migration, which would need to take account of a variety of factors, is in this instance accentuated by the fact that the United Kingdom is not the only member state that will be required to lift existing labour market restrictions on Bulgarian and Romanian nationals on 31 December 2013.”—[Official Report, 27 November 2012; Vol. 554, c. 184W.]

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate.

Does my hon. Friend find it frankly disingenuous, even reprehensible, for the Home Secretary to complain about the likely effects of such changes when she has not introduced measures either to measure those effects or to consider whether we can vary the free movement directive? As my hon. Friend may know, I moved a ten-minute rule Bill in the House on 31 October to introduce a de facto workers’ registration scheme mark 2, as the Spanish have.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am delighted by my hon. Friend’s intervention, and I commend him on the work he does for his constituents in Peterborough and on the courage he displayed in taking up the issue of immigration in the House. I was honoured and delighted to support his ten-minute rule Bill of 31 October that would have changed the freedom of movement that EU nationals currently enjoy in our country. For understandable reasons, he speaks for the British people on such issues.

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that we should do what the Spanish Government are doing. Faced with calamitous levels of unemployment, the Spanish have begun to interpret the free movement directive much more robustly. All EU citizens and family members in Spain have to register with the authorities if they wish to reside there for more than three months. Through that process, the Spanish authorities can check whether the requirements of the directive regarding residence after that period have been fulfilled. The Spanish authorities also require notification of any change of address or marital status. That is the absolute minimum that Her Majesty’s Government should be doing in this country, with the arrival of tens of thousands more Romanians and Bulgarians after December 2013.

It is a disgrace that the Home Office will not estimate the expected number of immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria. Opening up our borders to all and sundry is bad enough, but it adds insult to injury not even to give the British people an estimate of how many incomers we can expect.

In the UK there are now almost 1.1 million eastern Europeans from the A8 accession countries, which have a combined population of 72.8 million. That is a rate of some 1.5%. If we apply that same rate to the entry of Romania, with 21 million, and Bulgaria, with 7 million, the 155,000 presently resident in the UK would climb to some 425,000. That means that we can expect three times more Romanians and Bulgarians than are currently resident in this country, an increase of some one third of a million over present levels, possibly within two years.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. My constituency, according to the statistics, has a low level of immigrants compared with other areas of the UK, but the issue remains key on the doorstep among voters. My constituents would be horrified at the figures he announced. Does he agree that the social cohesion of the country is under threat, and one of the first duties of the Government is to maintain that cohesion?

[Mr Hollobone]

As always, my hon. Friend speaks for Cleethorpes. His constituents will be delighted at his intervention, because he rightly highlights the importance of the issue to him and to them.

In truth, host member states are permitted to require EU citizens and their family members to register with the authorities, and to impose proportionate and non-discriminatory sanctions on those who fail to do so. The UK Government fail to do that. Member states are also permitted to restrict rights of entry on grounds of public policy, public security or public health. The UK Government, however, have failed ever to test those conditions or the specific issue of proportionality that is implicit in the directive in respect of the deportation of persistent and prolific criminals who are EU citizens.

Through my humble experience as a special constable with the British Transport police on London’s underground network, I know that some eight out of 10 shoplifters arrested by the police are from eastern Europe. Can they be sent back to their country of origin for breaking our laws? No, they cannot. Well, actually, they could be—if the UK Government had the guts to enforce that measure, but they cannot be at the moment because the Home Office is not introducing the sanctions that it could.

London is the largest city in western Europe, with 7.5 million residents, compared with 3.5 million in Berlin, 3.25 million in Madrid, 2.5 million in Rome and 2 million in Paris. As one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world and with English as its native language, of course London is a magnet for millions of people throughout the European Union, but the British people will not put up with the situation much longer. A local government Minister has said:

“The fact is, 43 per cent of the new households which want a home, is accounted for by immigration”,

so we will see swathes of our countryside built over to accommodate the millions of new arrivals from the European Union, over whom we seemingly have little control.

Is “enough is enough” enough? My constituents want the Home Office to impose the restrictions that it can on new entrants from Romania and Bulgaria. If our constituents were given the right to vote on whether we should stay a member of the European Union, they would now vote to leave, because Britain would be better off out of the European Union and we would have control over our borders once again.

Abu Qatada

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Judgments at the European Court have been making it harder to deport foreign nationals who are terrorist suspects or criminals, but I do not believe that this sends the message that my hon. Friend believes it does. There are some very particular aspects of this case. A trial in absentia took place regarding Abu Qatada, and evidence was allegedly obtained from mistreatment or torture, given by others in that trial in absentia. So there are particular aspects that would not read across to other cases, but that is precisely why I think it was right that we did not risk losing our deportation with assurances, which we could have, had we appealed to the European Court. There are other terror suspects whom we will be able to deport under our deportation with assurances that will not be affected by this judgment, but could have been affected by a judgment by the European Court to overturn those assurances.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

My constituents in Kettering will be horrified at today’s judgment on Abu Qatada, disgusted that this dreadful man could be at liberty tomorrow, and appalled at the rising cost of legal aid for him to defend his cause. Does my right hon. Friend know how much money has been spent on legal aid in his defence, and is there no limit to the amount of money taxpayers are being asked for to fund his case?

[Mrs May]

The amount of legal aid available has been a matter for the Legal Services Commission. I am not aware of the complete sum that it has allowed in relation to this. I understand my hon. Friend’s and the public’s concerns, which is why, in a more general sense, setting aside this case, we want to ensure that we can deport and extradite people more quickly than we can do today, so that we do not have people sitting in these sort of circumstances.

May I correct something I said earlier in response to another of my hon. Friends, Mr Deputy Speaker? I believe I said that at every stage the British courts previously had found in favour of deportation. I understand that under the previous Government, at one stage, the Court of Appeal found against them on deportation, but that then went to a higher court, which found in favour of deportation. There was one judgment against deportation.

Olympics (Security)

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for the Government’s approach to border security. When we identified that security checks had been relaxed and put to one side on many occasions between 2007 and 2011, we decided that as the job of the border forces is about border security, we would tighten up that security.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

In failing to honour its contract, G4S has clearly let the whole country down. As a result of the Home Secretary’s swift and correct decision today, Britain will have more troops dedicated to venue security than deployed to Afghanistan. It is not enough to rely on penalty clauses in LOCOG’s contract with G4S. My constituents would want the Home Secretary and the Government to say that G4S should have no more Government contracts whatever until it pays every last penny of the additional costs of the extra 3,500 troops.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend refers to the number of troops working on venue security, but of course the overall number of troops that I cited includes those who will be involved in specialist support and other operations as well.

A number of right hon. and hon. Members have made comments about G4S and its contract, but it is still contracted to LOCOG as a partner to produce a significant number of personnel for venue security. We want to work with it, and we want LOCOG to work with it, to ensure that it can deliver the number to which it has now committed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

The hon. Gentleman raises the issue of the report by the Refugee Council that was published this morning. Obviously, we will consider the Refugee Council’s recommendations as we continue to improve at all levels, but I point out to the hon. Gentleman that under the Labour Government it was 28 days before Ministers got involved, whereas under this Government it is 72 hours.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

What happens to families who are claiming asylum in this country having passed through other safe countries before getting here? Are we returning them to the last safe country that they left or do we offer them the opportunity to stay in this country indefinitely?

[Lynne Featherstone]

We return where we can, obviously, but the important point is that we have a process for returning and we follow it.