Firearms Licensing
Al Pinkerton Excerpts(1 week, 4 days ago)
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John Milne
Absolutely: let us apply the laws that we already have, as they are well equipped to do the job.
I have been contacted by many constituents about this issue. One constituent, Rob, works as a farm vet, so he is well placed to get an oversight of what is going on. He works with livestock farmers, visits large and small holdings, and sees at first hand how rural businesses operate. He had never written to his MP before but felt it necessary to write to me about this proposal. Rob has seen how shotguns are used responsibly for pest control, protecting animal food stores, managing predation and safeguarding livestock. He understands how tightly regulated the system already is, and he is deeply concerned that a blunt merging of sections 1 and 2 risks placing new financial and bureaucratic barriers in the way of businesses and people who are already under immense pressure.
The proposal to align sections 1 and 2 is presented as a public safety measure, but if that had been in place already, to what extent would it have prevented recent tragedies? The answer is far from clear. The serious failures identified in past cases were ones of process, enforcement and oversight—not failures caused by the legal distinction between shotgun and rifle certification.
This proposal would, however, impose additional administrative burdens on already overstretched firearms licensing units. There are 43 separate licensing authorities across England and Wales, and even more in Scotland. Many already struggle with delays that are measured not in weeks, but in many months. In parts of the country, such as the south-west, it can take years. Some forces have faced backlogs so severe that they have stopped accepting new applications.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
My constituency is home to the National Shooting Centre at Bisley, and therefore also to the National Rifle Association. One constituent contacted me to say that it took a year to have the address on their certificate changed, after they moved from Hampshire to Surrey. Does my hon. Friend agree that to improve efficiencies, we need a centralised, digitised licensing regime that enables some of the processes to be sped up, rather than adding further bureaucracy into an already cumbersome system?
John Milne
I absolutely agree. We should be doing work to improve what we already have; we do not need a radical change. I question whether taking action that would overwhelm licensing units would actually enhance public safety. Can we seriously expect people to wait years for a licence? We run the risk of turbocharging the black-market demand for guns.
Shooting contributes billions of pounds to the UK and supports tens of thousands of jobs. It underpins conservation work, supports game meat production, sustains rural tourism and hospitality, and provides income in areas where alternative economic activity can be limited. Setting higher barriers to certification will lead to lower participation. The proposed change would be the most significant since 1988, and, according to some estimates, could mean a reduction in the number of licence holders of up to a third. That would be difficult to absorb for farm businesses that are already dealing with rising costs.
We should also bear in mind that the legal test of whether someone is fit to possess a firearm is the same, whether under section 1 or section 2. The background checks, character assessments and medical requirements are already rigorous, and recent reforms have aligned referee requirements. If the objective is public safety, as it should be, we should focus on improvements that would make the most difference—for example, introducing medical markers and consistent medical engagement. During a previous debate in this Chamber, my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) set out a more effective approach to identifying vulnerable or potentially dangerous individuals.
Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report
Al Pinkerton Excerpts(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Yvette Cooper
Yes, I can. That work is either completed or well under way.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
In an era when information is increasingly contested and weaponised, political parties would do well to lead by example by providing credible information and avoiding the spread of disinformation, including about the events, proceedings and procedures of this House. Given that Baroness Casey’s report addresses what is, frankly, a matter of the utmost sensitivity involving highly vulnerable young girls, will the Secretary of State ensure that the operation and eventual findings of the report are communicated clearly, responsibly and in a timely manner to the public, and that disinformation is actively countered to prevent political distortion, the incitement of harm and the further diminution of public trust?
Yvette Cooper
I respect the hon. Member’s important points. In fact, inaccurate information was one of the issues that Baroness Casey raised. Whether it is about ethnicity or anything else, inaccurate information can cause huge problems, and the more we ensure that information is robust, the better. As the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee said, Baroness Casey will also give evidence tomorrow, so people will be able to hear directly from her as well as reading her report.
Immigration
Al Pinkerton Excerpts(9 months, 1 week ago)
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Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
The Conservatives want to talk about immigration today. I am delighted to start by talking about their record in government, though I should warn the House that calling it a record may be overly generous. A record, after all, implies coherence, consistency and competence. What we have witnessed instead is a decade of headline-chasing gimmicks, theatrical tough talk, performative cruelty and policy U-turns so dizzying they could give a weathervane whiplash.
Let us start with the basics. As the shadow Home Secretary has already confessed, the Conservatives promised again and again to bring immigration down. That was in 2015, in 2017 and in 2019. Then they promised the same thing in 2024, when the British public in their infinite wisdom told the Conservatives to go back to their constituencies and prepare for a period of quiet reflection. Spoiler alert: they did not just miss those targets—they incinerated them.
At the time of the last election, when the Conservatives wanted to stand on their record, net migration was the highest in British history. It was not just high, not just elevated, but record-breaking. What was their grand response? Rwanda. Yes, Rwanda: a deportation scheme that cost half a billion pounds and moved precisely zero people; a stunt so hollow that it made the policy vacuum look crowded; a triumph of symbolism over substance, if ever there was one. Throughout it all, we heard the same tired refrain from the Home Office lectern from which the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who opened today’s debate, used to speak: that immigration somehow threatens our identity. That came from a Government who relied utterly and shamelessly on migrant workers to prop up every sector that they spent a decade undermining—from the NHS to social care, higher education to farming. If hypocrisy were an export, the Tories would have been running a trade surplus.
Dr Pinkerton
No, thank you. The hon. Gentleman’s party had nine years; I have less than nine minutes.
Meanwhile, the legal migration rules became so convoluted that even seasoned immigration lawyers needed to phone a friend. Skilled workers were welcomed one week and penalised the next. International students were encouraged to come and then punished for having families. The only thing consistent in Conservative policy was chaos.
All that was wrapped in a layer of chest-beating, slogan-touting nationalism. “Take back control,” they cried, as if chanting it loudly enough might somehow make it true. Yet control is not about standing on the shoreline like King Canute, barking orders at the tide. It is about building a system that actually works—one that treats people with dignity, balances compassion with pragmatism and delivers results instead of rhetoric. Instead, what did we get? An asylum system on its knees, trafficking gangs operating with near total impunity and, most tragically, lives lost in the channel. Just this Monday, 62 people were rescued after a small boat sank in the early hours. One person died; others were injured. That, of course, is not an anomaly. According to the BBC, over 12,500 have crossed the channel in small boats this year, and it is only May.
The Labour response so far has, I would argue, been muted ambition, vague promises and nervous tiptoeing around the institutional wreckage, as if managerial competence alone might magic away a decade of Conservative failures. The Liberal Democrats are clear that these crossings must stop, but unlike the Conservatives we do not confuse cruelty with competence.
Dr Pinkerton
No, I will not.
We believe in expanding safe and legal routes for refugees, including humanitarian travel permits offering vulnerable people a viable alternative to risking their life at sea.
Dr Pinkerton
No.
We also believe that the real way to tackle the channel crisis is through stronger co-operation. That means working through Europol to dismantle trafficking networks, share intelligence, deliver joint enforcement and report progress back to Parliament every six months, as well as a statutory duty for the UK Border Security Commander to meet their Europol counterparts at least once every three months.
Dr Pinkerton
We need safe and legal routes in order to allow people an alternative to putting their life at risk to cross the channel. That work needs to be done on a continental basis with our European partners.
Dr Pinkerton
No, thank you—I will make progress.
We believe that European co-operation is, as I have just indicated, the answer to the small boats crisis. Even the shadow Home Secretary agrees. We all heard him say that the UK’s withdrawal from the Dublin agreement, as part of Boris Johnson’s botched Brexit deal, meant that the UK
“can’t any longer rely on sending people back to the place where they first claimed asylum”.
Straight from the horse’s mouth!
Let us talk about the backlog. At the end of 2024, about 91,000 asylum seekers were stuck in limbo; most had been waiting over six months just for an initial decision. And while they wait, they are banned from working, banned from rebuilding their lives and forced to depend entirely on the state. That becomes a source of resentment for local communities, whose discontent can be weaponised by the darker fringes of our political spectrum.
Dr Pinkerton
No.
That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) tabled an amendment to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill to allow asylum seekers waiting more than three months to work. That is humane, it is pragmatic, and it would help to grow the economy. The Conservatives failed to address that injustice for a decade, and Labour has also failed to grasp the nettle since. It is disappointing that both parties voted against that sensible policy, which would have ensured that those seeking asylum paid their own way.
Dr Johnson
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is making an interesting speech, for giving way. He talks about the importance of safe and legal routes, of which there are several, but does he accept that if those safe and legal routes are capped to some extent, there will still be people for whom there is not a safe and legal route, who may then risk their life in the channel?
Dr Pinkerton
We must also recognise that safe and legal routes are one mechanism that needs to be pursued —so too is international aid, which allows people to stay broadly in the regions from which they may otherwise be displaced. We often forget that Jordan has the highest number of refugees of any country in the world.
We welcome this Government’s attempt to address the wreckage left by the previous Government, but let us be clear: any new immigration policy must come with a credible action plan for filling vital jobs without harming the economy. Let us start with a higher carer’s minimum wage. Right now, our social care sector is in crisis: there are simply not enough workers and millions of people are missing out on essential care. Instead of properly investing in the British workforce, the Conservatives chose the short-term fix: underpaid overseas workers propping up an underfunded system. With those workers being squeezed from all sides, many care homes are at breaking point, and families are being left to pick up the pieces.
It is disappointing that Labour’s national insurance increases are only adding to the pressures in that sector. The Government’s recent immigration announcements look set to disproportionately hit the care sector. Let me be absolutely clear: the people who come to Britain to care for our elderly and disabled are not the problem. They are vital to this country and to the wellbeing of some of the most vulnerable people in our society, and they deserve our thanks and respect, not to be demonised by those who failed to pay British workers properly in the first place.
Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)
My hon. Friend is making an interesting point about those who help us. Following a complicated pregnancy, my wonderful daughter was birthed at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford by a team comprising English, Spanish, Indian, Italian and South African experts. Will he join me in thanking those immigrants who bring so much to our country and help us when we need it?
Dr Pinkerton
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I was recently also in my local hospital where I had an extraordinary care experience from a multinational care team. I celebrate all those NHS workers who have come from overseas to serve us all.
Finally, let me turn to one of our greatest national assets: our universities. As a recovering academic who spent more than 20 years in higher education, I have seen at first hand how international students enrich our campuses, strengthen our soft power and boost our economy.
Dr Chambers
My hon. Friend and I have both spent part of our careers teaching at universities. Would he acknowledge, given the university funding troubles at the moment, that our universities are very much propped up by foreign students paying tuition fees, which helps subsidise the cost for British students?
Dr Pinkerton
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comment, and I will come on to make a point about the state of the finances of UK universities.
Universities are magnets for global talent and they are the envy of the world, so why are this Government so determined to undermine that? The new immigration White Paper limits international graduates to spending just 18 months in the UK after their studies. This is a short-sighted, self-defeating policy that has already caused alarm in the sector. I have heard from university vice-chancellors who are warning of financial catastrophe and a collapse in international recruitment. The Russell Group has also been clear that international students drive local economies, fund research and help make Britain a science superpower. Higher education is the No. 1 export for 26 parliamentary constituencies and among the top three in 102 of them. We jeopardise that at our peril.
As if that were not enough, there is now talk of a levy on international student fees, because apparently what our universities really need in the middle of a funding crisis and a challenging international recruitment environment is a brand new tax. This feels reckless, and we strongly encourage the Government to think again and to work with the university sector to flesh out those proposals in a way that works for both the country and the university sector.
The Liberal Democrats will always stand for an immigration system that is fair, firm and forward looking, one that supports the economy, reflects our values and honours Britain’s proud tradition of offering sanctuary to those in need. The Conservatives today want to shine a light on immigration, but when we look at their record, we see a decade of chaos, cruelty and catastrophic incompetence. I congratulate them on their courageous decision.
Irish Republican Alleged Incitement
Al Pinkerton Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Dan Jarvis
I was not intending to attend myself. Let me reflect on the question, not least because I am not responsible for other Ministers’ diaries. However, as I have said previously, I am sure—I am certainly hopeful— that the organisers of Glastonbury will be listening to the contributions that have been made and will reflect on the decision that they have previously taken.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
I thank the Minister for the tone and manner in which he has answered questions. I am cognisant of the ongoing legal action that may be pursued in this case, so to generalise the point a little, how are the Government ensuring that public funding mechanisms, such as the music export growth scheme, are not inadvertently supporting entities that propagate extremist rhetoric and incitement to violence? This is not just about the money; it is about the official imprimatur that schemes like that offer to the entities involved.
Dan Jarvis
The hon. Member makes an entirely reasonable and legitimate point about the public funding. I say again that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is reviewing the scheme, and I am sure that she will have more to say about it in the not-too-distant future.