Ukraine Refugee Visas

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Can I say to the Minister that I still think an emergency visa scheme would be far less bureaucratic than the system we have now? I remind him that some of the most vulnerable people have fled their homes without technology and the paperwork necessary for them to be able to complete the forms. What is the Minister doing to ensure that these people are not forgotten? What changes is he making to the system so that people who do not have the technology or the paperwork do not get left behind?

[Kevin Foster]

First, I am not sure what taking time out to set up another visa scheme would deliver in this context, compared with the refinements to the process that we already have in place. I can appreciate the argument about not having a visa. We do not agree with it and I think it is a bit odd to go down that path, but our decision makers have extensive flexibility. We appreciate that the type of documents we might normally ask for, such as translated copies of birth certificates, will not reasonably be able to be got hold of in a warzone. Our decision makers, subject to certain national security and safeguarding red lines, which the House would expect us to have for the protection of all involved, have a large amount of flexibility about the situations they can accept. Likewise, they can also consider families as a group. If one person has particular items, the decision maker can then apply that as proving the position of the rest of the family. It is safe to say there is significant flexibility for our decision makers, recognising the situation people are facing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, Cambridgeshire police has expanded quite significantly, in terms of pure police numbers, over the past couple of years, but I hope he will also have noticed the work that is being done by the national retail crime steering group, which I chair, to look specifically at crime in this area. Given what he has mentioned about ramraiding in his constituency, I will go away and look at whether a pattern is emerging across the east of England and hope that I can encourage the police to address it.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The Minister has just said that there is an unprecedented expansion, but back in the real world, antisocial behaviour increased by 7% last year: it is a growing problem across so many communities in my constituency and around the country. Although the new officers are beginning to come on-stream, does he even begin to understand the damage that the cuts not only to police numbers but to services such as youth services have done to communities like the ones I represent?

[Kit Malthouse]

Year on year, last year and the year before, we actually saw a fall in police-recorded incidents of antisocial behaviour, but we have seen fluctuations in that crime type over the past few months as the variations in covid lockdown regulations have changed. We are keeping a close eye on it. The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that in our “Beating crime plan”, published in July last year, we encouraged police and crime commissioners—I hope he will encourage his to do this as well—to form their own antisocial behaviour taskforces so that they can really pinpoint and address this most local of crime problems very effectively.

Delivering Justice for Victims

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I am fond of my right hon. and learned Friend, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with him. He made a significant contribution during his time as Lord Chancellor, and it undoubtedly shifted the dial considerably on many areas of policy in relation to the criminal justice system. He was consistently passionate about victims and wanting to see genuine improvement for them. It is fair to say that his hand is most definitely on this work, and I would never want to disregard the very good work that has been done previously. I am grateful to him for everything he has done in this regard, and I look forward to his participation in the consultation. I share in his remarks about Emily Hunt, and it is our intention to have prelegislative scrutiny to allow Members on both sides of the House to scrutinise and help shape the plans.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

As the Minister knows, the Home Affairs Committee has also taken a great deal of interest in these matters. I welcome his statement on the intention of Ministers to make these changes to the criminal justice system to benefit victims. I am especially pleased that he mentioned the scorecards that will help spread best practice to areas that are not doing as well as they could and are basically letting down victims. Why does there not seem to be a specific strategy to tackle gender-based violence? That does not seem to be in this package as clearly or as up front as it should be. When will we get something on that?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the constructive tone of his question. The tackling violence against women and girls strategy, which was published in July, is fundamental to the work in this area. Separate from this session, I am sure Ministers would be happy to talk to him so that he can further understand our work in this inevitably important area.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right in her comments. Through changes linked to the new plan for immigration we will end the use of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers, which was a result of the pandemic—we had to take decisive action to ensure that those seeking asylum in the UK were protected under covid measures. It was a short-term solution and the new plan for immigration includes long-term changes in the offing for asylum accommodation.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

One big reason why we need to use hotels is that the asylum processing system has basically imploded. The share of applications that received an initial decision within six months fell from 87% in 2014 to just 20% in 2019. What is the Home Secretary’s explanation for that?

[Priti Patel]

There are a number of factors in terms of why there has been slowing down in the processing of asylum claims. In particular, because of the covid pandemic last year, decisions were not made and we had to change our accommodation policies in the light of Public Health England guidance, which is well documented and well known. That has put pressures on the wider system. Of course, the hon. Gentleman will be well aware of the proposals in the new plan for immigration on not only processing, fast-track removals and the changes we are making in legislation, but the digitalisation of the system. We will move from paper-based decision making to digitalisation and that work is already in train.

Violence Against Women and Girls: Police Response

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I would like to be able to write to the hon. Lady about this specific strategy, as these are my first couple of days in this role. She is clearly right to highlight the importance of dealing with perpetrators and bringing them to justice, which is why we have introduced a number of measures across the piece in the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to her new post. On this issue, there has to be a culture change in society as well as in the police and the criminal justice system, because the common thread running through many of these crimes is a power differential between women and men. Too many men still feel entitled to do or say whatever they wish to women, to disrespect women and to harm them. What more is the Minister doing to tackle head-on the culture that is prevalent in too many men out there? What is she doing to change that culture?

[Rachel Maclean]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight this culture. He is also right to say that it is unacceptable. This type of violence against women and girls has no place in our society. Publishing the strategy is simply the first step. There are a number of actions that many actors in the system have to take. They include, but are not limited to, our significant public communication campaign, as well as working with our colleagues in education and schools, driving through our priorities and making it crystal clear that this culture has no place in our society and that we must tackle it.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

Racist Abuse on Social Media

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I most certainly do agree. In fairness, as the House would expect, I should say that we do a lot of work with online companies across a great range of subjects. Indeed, only yesterday I met business leaders, including tech leaders, to discuss how we can create opportunities for our hardest-to-reach young people who are at risk of serious violence. I am grateful to them for those activities, but the message is coming out loud and clear not just in this country but across the world that somehow we must tame the wild west of the internet so that these more hateful practices are not dominating our national headlines and taking away from the great achievements of our England team.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]]

Racist abuse online is not just abhorrent; it normalises racist views offline and desensitises people to them. The true spirit of Greater Manchester is in the scenes that the Minister mentioned of the community placing messages of support and love on the defaced Marcus Rashford mural, not the graffiti of some pea-brained moron. As a Man City fan, I say that United’s Rashford is among the best of us. I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to extending football banning orders to cover online abuse, for which Labour has been calling for some time. Given the urgency, when and how will that happen?

[Victoria Atkins]

I do not have a timeframe to hand, but I will happily write to the hon. Gentleman on that. May I thank him, as a Man City fan and a Member of Parliament for one of the greatest cities on the planet, for highlighting the great humour and support that the people of Withington have shown?

Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is right that we have to make sure in all we do that victims are at the heart of the criminal justice system, and he will have seen in the recent Queen’s Speech that we have made a commitment to bring in a new victims law. It will put the victims code, which has 12 strong rights for victims in the criminal justice system, into law and ensure that all the operational partners—the police, the CPS and the courts, which are all rightly independent of Government—see the need to take up the challenge of putting victims at the heart of the system.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]]

The statistics are frankly lamentable, and behind each one is a victim. There were 52,210 rapes recorded by police in England and Wales in 2020. Only 843 resulted in a charge or a summons—a rate of 1.6%. For every 10 cases the CPS prosecuted in 2016-17, it now pursues only three. We know what failure looks like: it is this. What should the figures look like to be acceptable to the Minister? How long does he think we should have to wait to get to that point?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Member is quite right. As I have said, the numbers are deeply, deeply regrettable, and he is correct that not enough victims are getting justice in court. There have obviously been significant changes in technology, not least the advent of the mobile phone and the critical part it plays in so many of these investigations. We need to get ourselves in shape, both in terms of capacity and capability, and we need the right framework around inquiry and disclosure for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. That work is ongoing. We have ambitions, obviously, to raise the number very significantly, but I would not underestimate the operational challenge in embedding this across 43 police forces. The hon. Gentleman will know that creating the structural change alongside the cultural change in two operationally independent organisations, as well as in the court system, will take time and a foundational approach to change, which we are committed to and on which the work has started already.

New Plan for Immigration

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I know he has raised concerns about this issue in the past. We have to break up the criminal trade in human misery. We will continue to do everything possible through the reforms that we are proposing today, which will go to public consultation, and then we want to bring in new legislation to achieve the outcomes that we are outlining.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]]

I have always believed that we have a duty to meet our international obligations in a fair, firm and humanitarian way, but the current system is failing on all three of those. It is important that we draw the distinction between legal migration, refugees, victims of people trafficking, and illegal immigration: they are all very different things. The Home Office has announced plans to introduce tougher age assessments. Can the Home Secretary confirm to the House that these new assessments will be sensitive to disabilities, trauma and medical needs, as well as being carried out with dignity and respect?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman makes some valid points about not just age assessments, but the categories of vulnerability that we are speaking about. We are launching a consultation today that he will be aware of, and it is absolutely right that we give all due consideration to the different needs of individuals, as well as the circumstances and the situations that they are fleeing.

UK Border: Covid Protections

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I do not want to speculate about new measures; he will bear with me, as he has heard me say this a number of times. There are processes around making decisions, and clearly, when changes come forward, the Government will announce the details in due course.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]]

It is not hindsight. The Home Secretary knows that the Home Affairs Committee, on which I sit, took evidence from New Zealand and Singapore last year about what they were doing to successfully apply effective covid controls at the border. Ten months on, it feels that the Home Secretary is closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. I simply ask her this: why did our measures not work? Did they not go far enough, and does she take any responsibility for that?

[Priti Patel]

As a member of the Select Committee, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that in April last year, we discussed at the Select Committee health measures at the border and the work of the Government. In terms of the effectiveness of the measures, he will be very familiar with all the measures—the statutory instruments, the regulations and the directions to airports, Border Force and the ports. As I and other members of the Government have said throughout, and particularly today, all measures are under review, and that is the right thing to do.