Metropolitan Police Service

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

One of the principal problems, bluntly, with the Metropolitan police is the quality of leadership at the very top, which determines the quality of leadership at street level. As the Minister seeks very diligently to find a new Metropolitan Police Commissioner, will he bear in mind the precedent from some time ago of finding a commissioner from outside the police forces, and bear in mind that within the military establishment there is a cohort of utterly brilliant generals and leaders who could bring those skills to bear on behalf of the Metropolitan police?

[Kit Malthouse]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to recognise the importance of leadership. I am sure he will be encouraged by the significant investment that we have made in the College of Policing leadership programme, which was designed to produce the future policing leaders. I say from a personal point of view that whether outside people with different professions could run a constabulary is open to question. In the reverse case, I am not sure whether, for example, a police officer could command a battalion in the Army. Also, modern policing is a much more complex environment than it used to be. However, we hope that through the work we are doing on leadership we will develop leaders who can drive policing forward into the 21st century.

Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. I will come onto the forthcoming economic crime Bill, which speaks very specifically not just about how we do better and more, but how we target our resources to stamp out fraud and go after the permissive environment and the individuals who occupy that space and commit the most appalling economic crimes.

Since I became Home Secretary, an additional 13,500 police officers have been recruited. We are well on the way to our target of 20,000 more police officers by next March. Following the incredible response to our public consultation—

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way. May I reinforce the cross-party nature of what the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) has just said? She will know that the right hon. Lady and I have done quite a lot in the House to support the points that she has just made. I very much hope that, when the right moment comes in the economic crime Bill, she will listen carefully to the work that has already been done to try to reinforce the very point that she has just made.

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is correct on this. I know that, for many years, he has been a champion of many of the reforms, some of which have been put in place. We have had part 1—the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 and sanctions—but the next Bill will also tackle Companies House and many of the wider issues that have been raised.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 20th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I can only reiterate the point that, at all times, the United Kingdom Government act in accordance with their international obligations, and that is of course something that we will continue to do. Nobody in this House or elsewhere should be encouraging people to put their lives in the hands of evil criminal gangs or to make these dangerous channel crossings. We saw in November the consequences when that happens.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

Could my hon. Friend set out for the House what the safe and legal routes are, apart from the now closed route from Syria, the route under the scheme from Afghanistan and the current Ukraine scheme?

[Tom Pursglove]

In terms of various schemes, as I say, we have a rich and proud history in this country of providing sanctuary to people from around the world who require it. That has included 40,000 people being sorted out through the family reunion route, 20,000 Syrians and 100,000 Hong Kongers. Also, 20,000 Afghans are eligible to come and 60,000 Ukrainians so far have had visas granted. I think that is a record that we can be very proud of as a Government, and it is one we will continue to build on in the years ahead.

The first safe country principle is a fundamental feature of the common European asylum system. I have already set out the issue of inadmissibility. By enforcing this part of the Bill, we are taking the battle to the people smugglers and showing them that their horrible business will be made unviable. For that important reason, we cannot agree to this amendment. Hon. Members have already voted against the amendment, prompting the Lords to bring a further amendment adding a time limit of five years to get agreements in place. That does not address the issues we have with this—namely, it is right to allow for removals to be sought on a case-by-case basis where appropriate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has just said.

I turn to Lords amendments 15 and 13B, which bring us back to the sweeping criminalisation of asylum seekers and others arriving in the UK. We are talking about Afghans, Syrians, persecuted Christians and Uyghurs. Those are causes that many in this House advocate and speak up for all the time, and yet when these people come to our shores, suddenly we are planning to let them down, offshore them, discriminate against them, treat them abysmally and criminalise them under this legislation.

The Minister has said today that the Lords have defined the criminal offence too tightly and he wants to go back to a sweepingly broad offence. He assures us that that does not really matter, because we will not use the provision against the Afghans and Syrians; it will be used only in egregious cases. We cannot pass criminal laws on the basis of wishes and assurances expressed at the Dispatch Box that we will be quite reasonable in how we use them. He has to come up with the tight wording for the criminal offence that he is aiming at. If he does not, I am afraid we cannot support it at all; in fact, we fundamentally oppose it.

We believe that the Bill represents completely the wrong approach, and we continue to support the House of Lords in all it is doing to try to rein in the worst aspects. I hugely regret that we have had such a pitiful amount of time to say what we have to say about the amendments. In deference to other Members, I will sit down now and do my voting later on.

[Mr Mitchell]

I draw the House’s attention to my registered interests.

I want to try to be constructive with the Minister this afternoon. I do not believe the Rwanda scheme will work, but I am full of good will towards the Home Secretary when it comes to trying to stop this ghastly, deathly channel trade. The Minister asks those who think that the scheme is impractical, ineffective and extraordinarily expensive what we would do. He is right to ask that, so let me try to answer.

There are four things we must do. The first, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) said, is to employ more staff. We need to ensure that we process these asylum claims more rapidly. In Rwanda, it takes three months to process an asylum claim. We ought to have a much more streamlined system in this country, and ought to try to do away with all these lawyers, who extend and prolong the process unnecessarily. That is a point the Government should definitely address.

Secondly, we need to put right our dreadful relationship with France, our neighbour just 22 miles away. The relationship is not what it should be. There are plenty of senior officials and people of good will who have a much better relationship with France, and we need to address that point and repair the relationship. Nothing can be achieved in tackling this evil trade without our having a far better understanding with France. We need, if not its active support, then its passive acquiescence at the very least in the measures that need to be taken.

Thirdly, we need safe and legal routes. I asked the Minister to set out what those routes are, and of course he was not able to.

[David Simmonds]

Does my right hon. Friend share the concern that many of us have who wish to see the Government succeed in their endeavours, which is that the legal test for anyone opposing immigration control is not that there are safe and legal routes in general, but that a person specifically had access to a safe and legal route but chose not to use it, which may undermine some of the objectives we wish to see? Safe and legal routes need to be much broader if they are going to work as an effective tool as part of this policy.

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend absolutely puts his finger on the point, and he knows of what he speaks because he has dealt with these matters a senior councillor.

It was Lord Kirkhope who amended the Bill in the other place. He was Home Secretary Michael Howard’s Immigration Minister, and I think he holds the record as the Immigration Minister who has deported the most people needing to be deported from Britain. He also knows of what he speaks, and he made it clear that if we do not have safe and legal routes, we will not be able to make this system work. By definition, if we do not have such routes, anyone arriving on our shores will be arriving illegally, and that point needs to be addressed.

The fourth and final thing that needs to happen is that we need a new international convention. The 1951 convention, which Britain played a big part in setting up, is now completely out of date. That is because, since then, as colleagues will appreciate, there has been a revolution in travel. We also now have the tremendous push of climate change, which is pushing migration up very high. So we need a new international convention. I put this point to the Prime Minister on 25 July last year, and he described it as an “excellent point”, but I fear that since then nothing has been done. Britain needs to use its leverage and its experience at the United Nations as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, and it also needs to use its brilliant diplomatic experience and knowledge to negotiate a new convention.

Those are the four key things that have to happen, and I hope the Minister will consider them before embarking on a scheme that, as I say, is impractical, ineffective and extraordinarily expensive. Rwanda is a safe country and a beacon of stability in Africa, but we should not export our problems in this way to a country that already tries to do its very best to help people who are caught up in humanitarian jeopardy.

[Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I would like to use my three minutes, which have not come up on the clock yet, to focus on Lords amendment 6B. It is truly damning of the Government’s conduct that they oppose an amendment that merely seeks to guarantee refugees their rights under the 1951 UN refugee convention.

There is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker under international law, yet under the Government’s plans, unlike refugees who have arrived on officially sanctioned routes, group 2 refugees—I will focus on them—who are deemed to have arrived in the UK in an illegitimate manner will only be offered temporary protection status and will have no recourse to public funds. As chair of the all-party group on no recourse to public funds, I am only too aware of its devastating human impacts. The Bill would further expand the number of people without access to public funds such as welfare benefits and housing assistance, and thereby ensure that thousands more refugees a year fleeing war and persecution are at increased risk of falling into destitution and homelessness once they have reached the UK.

If this Government were truly interested in the wellbeing of refugees, they would build a support network and safety net to enable those who have sought refuge in the UK to live comfortably and have fruitful lives, rather than chip away at existing support and create a tiered system. I urge all Members to support Lords amendment 6B to ensure that refugees living in the UK are not forced into poverty and destitution.

Global Migration Challenge

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

First, I am surprised that the right hon. Lady is using Sir David’s name in vain, given that a former Labour Home Secretary infamously and discourteously described the Home Office leadership and management as “not fit for purpose” during Sir David’s tenure. Things have moved on in terms of the asylum system. Her party and other Opposition Members continuously vote against the new plan for immigration, but they have no plan to deal with these important and difficult issues. It will bring in the reform that our country needs, while making sure that we preserve the efficacy of safe and legal routes for people fleeing persecution to come to our country and get the support they need.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend deserves great personal credit for seeking to tackle the dreadful crisis that exists in the channel, but does she accept that many of us have grave concerns that the policy she has announced simply will not work? On the cost, can she confirm that she will not be using expensive military aircraft to make the 9,000-mile round trip? Also on cost, will she ensure that before the House of Commons votes on this matter tomorrow we know the cost per asylum seeker of those she is sending to Rwanda?

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend knows Rwanda incredibly well. We have had many discussions about it and I am very happy to meet him to have further discussions. We will not be using military planes for any removals. He will, like many Members of this House, be pretty familiar with the approach we take to removing failed asylum seekers and foreign national offenders to return them to their country of origin or to third countries. There is a whole process around this, which involves a lot of operational work and detail. I am happy to talk to him privately about that because the ways in which we can do this are complicated. He makes further points that I am happy to discuss with him as well.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady]

I will not give way because I am out of time, and this Government are out of ideas and out of compassion, as they have shown in recent weeks in response to the current situation. People in Scotland and people across the United Kingdom do not want to put up barriers to people fleeing war, famine and disasters caused by a climate emergency that we in the west created. They want to show solidarity and compassion. They want to say it loud and say it clear—that refugees are welcome here.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I take a rather different view from the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady). I draw the House’s attention to my outside interests. I also want to make it clear that I think this is a most important piece of legislation and I completely agree with the aims of the Home Office. I congratulate the Home Secretary on her vigorous attempts to remedy a serious problem.

I want to raise three brief points. First, I point out to the House that when the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) agree so clearly, the Government should think carefully about whether they can move on the issue of 12 months coming down to six months.

The two Lords amendments I particularly want to raise, which would improve the Bill, are those tabled by Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate. They should be given very serious consideration. Lord Kirkhope was the Immigration Minister under Michael Howard, the former Home Secretary in John Major’s Government. Both are much respected and on the right of the Conservative party. Our former colleague Lord Kirkhope’s views are an important contribution to this debate. Furthermore, he has a long-standing interest and expertise in the handling of population movement in Europe from Calais to Moscow.

On amendment 11, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) has already made clear the huge benefits that would come in if it were agreed to. It is designed to break the people-smugglers’ business model. The Government are quite right: people fleeing terror and persecution should only come here by safe and legal routes. We will only stop people in desperation coming over the channel—that is, set up the settlement pathway the Home Office rightly refers to and break the smugglers’ model—if, first, we have accessible and meaningful numbers, and, secondly, we are not restricted to one geographic area. The Home Office confirms that 87% of the 28,000 arriving illicitly in 2021 came from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, for whom there is currently no alternative legal and safe route to which they can apply to get to the United Kingdom. Endorsing resettlement is central to the Government’s new approach set out in the “New Plan for Immigration”, but Ministers have yet to bring forward any provision in legislation that would see the necessary safe and legal routes made available.

It is rarely popular among Conservatives to talk of specific targets. Any figure can be changed up or down by the Government to reflect international circumstances. I fear that we must do so if the Government’s laudable aim of stemming the dangerous flow of desperate people across the channel, exploited by evil traffickers, is to stop. The figure of 10,000 suggested by Lord Kirkhope equates to 15 per parliamentary constituency, or five families per local authority. The amendment makes it clear that this is inclusive of, not in addition to, the Afghan refugees, and having a target would enable local authorities to plan in a co-ordinated manner, as we have heard, and avoid the current system where so many Afghans whom we want to help are waiting to move out of inappropriate accommodation.

On amendment 9 and offshoring, this is the issue that Lord Kirkhope looked at so comprehensively before and reluctantly rejected. The Home Office is asking Parliament to grant it this power when it has no idea of where it would exercise it, when it could exercise it or if it can exercise it. We know that it would be incredibly expensive. Judged by the cost of Australian offshoring, the British taxpayer would face unprecedented costs per asylum seeker. It would be much cheaper to put each one in the Ritz and send all the under-18s to Eton. That would cost a great deal less than what is proposed. Much more sensible is to recruit and train several hundred new civil servants to process these claims more rapidly and, yes, to crack down on an over-lengthy appeals process exploited through unscrupulous lawyers.

[Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)]

Recently, I was sent hundreds of Valentine cards from pupils at St Dunstan’s Primary School in my constituency, to my surprise; it is more than I have ever received. In each card, handmade and written by a pupil, the message was clear: to stand in solidarity with refugees and vote against this draconian Bill. Primary school children were asking me to do the right thing. These young people want a society based on compassion, humanity and solidarity with those in need. They want their country and their communities to be safe havens for those fleeing war, famine and persecution. It is moving to see such displays of unconditional love and understanding from our young people, and I am immensely proud to represent these pupils. I only wish that an ounce of their compassion could be found among Conservative Members who will vote to support this inhumane Bill.

Make no mistake, this Bill is one of the most draconian pieces of legislation brought before this House in quite some time. Millions of people across the UK have recoiled in utter disgust at some of the provisions contained within it, and they are right to do so. Its timing could not be worse. We have all been given a stark reminder of the importance of providing support and assistance to those fleeing war. The situation in Ukraine is driving millions from their homes, many of whom have found refuge in neighbouring countries. However, those who have sought to claim asylum here in the UK have faced nothing but obstruction and bureaucracy. A cold shoulder has been given to the Ukrainian people by the Home Office. They are the latest victims of the long-standing hostile environment faced by those in search of safety.

Let us be clear that this Bill does nothing to improve the lives of those fleeing war and persecution—quite the opposite. Clause 11, concerning illegal entry into the UK, will criminalise those who do not arrive by regular routes, which for millions of refugees are simply not available. It will do nothing to support those who face perilous journeys after fleeing from their homes, and it seeks only to further punish those who are most in need of help. Furthermore, there are no serious measures in this Bill aimed at tackling people trafficking, or any provisions to ensure that safe and legal routes are made more widely available. Instead of measures designed to safeguard and support refugees, this Bill contains only provisions to further dehumanise and isolate them, with the suggestion of offshore processing facilities and the ability for them to be sent back to countries they have travelled through.

That is why I am standing with those pupils from St Dunstan’s Primary School in opposition to the Bill. I urge others to learn from their example and do the same. Edward from the school said:

“Rose are red / Violets are blue / Do you support refugees too?”

Holly said:

“Show your heart for refugees”.

Sam said:

“Roses are red / Violets are blue / I support refugees / How about you?”

Refugees from Ukraine

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

As ever, I am delighted to be in the Chamber. In fact, Mr Speaker, as you know, we were intending to give a statement this morning, so far from the comments from the Opposition Members, the right hon. Lady should have some perspective on all this.

If I may, I will just respond to some of the points that the Opposition party has made—of course, it is the job of the Opposition to attack the Government rather than find collective solutions and support the approach that the Government are taking. First and foremost, I have always maintained that we will take a pragmatic and agile approach to our response. We are making important changes. The right hon. Lady has asked why we are not making these changes immediately. They are subject to digital verification. There is no comparison to British national overseas schemes because 90% of Ukrainians do not have chip passports, so they would be excluded from any such scheme and approach.

Visa applications are important in this process. It is important that we are flexible in our response, and we have been. We are seeing that many Ukrainians do not have documentation. This country and all Governments, including probably a Government that the right hon. Lady once served in, will recognise that there was something known as the Windrush scandal and it is important that everyone who arrives in the UK has physical and digital records of their status here in the UK to ensure that they can access schemes—[Interruption.] Opposition Members may holler, but the process is vital in terms of verification, notification and permission to travel. It is important to give people status when they come to the United Kingdom, so that they have the right to work, the right to access benefits and digital verification of their status. That is absolutely right.

It is really important to remember again that although we have known that this attack has been coming, we have to work with the intelligence and security agencies. No disrespect to the right hon. Lady, but these checks and data—biographical and the warnings index—are important security checks that can be done through the digital process. They have been verified by the intelligence and security services, and we have to work with them in particular.

At a time of war and conflict, it is really important that we work together. I reflect on many of the comments and observations that I have heard directly from members of the Ukrainian community in this country, who I have spent time a great deal of time with this week, not just on their applications and how applications are processed but on how applications can be made both in the UK and outside the United Kingdom. There are not swathes and swathes of forms; there is a clear application process for families who undertake it.

We have been working within the Government, I emphasise to those in the House who want to listen to me rather than talk over me, and it is through that engagement, importantly, that many families have said that they want to see the country come together in the support. Rather than have misinformation about VAC appointments, which originated from the Opposition party, we should stick with the factual information about the scheme. Everybody should work together not just in promoting the scheme but in making sure that those who need our help are united in our collective approach to not only how we serve them but how we support them in getting their family members over to the United Kingdom.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

Of course my right hon. Friend is absolutely right that many of the people who are fleeing from this appalling murder and mayhem, from war crimes and from breaches of the international rules of war want to remain as close as possible to the areas from which they have been driven, so that when this appalling catastrophe is over, they can return. Will she keep in touch with our European partners on both their practices and procedures so that we help these desperate people whom our constituents are rightly intent on us assisting, and so we are part of a co-ordinated and effective European response to this horrendous humanitarian crisis?

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is right to refer to the need for a co-ordinated approach, and also to the response within the region. It is very clear that families want to stay there. I receive calls every day from my counterparts in the region—Ministers of the Interior—who are asking for aid to support those families who want to stay in the region because they want to go back home; and the ambassadors in the region are saying the same.

My right hon. Friend asked about the EU in particular. I am in constant contact with Commissioner Johansson to discuss how we can support the region and, specifically, countries and Ukrainian nationals in the region. The need for that co-ordinated response is so important, and the British Government, through a whole-Government effort, are supplying not only financial aid and support but practical aid and equipment to many countries in the region on the Ukrainian border that are asking us for direct help and support.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

Thank you for that, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was not looking for a promise.

Before I talk about my amendment, for which I have a one-minute speech, let me address questions that my hon. Friends on the Government Benches asked the Opposition spokesman. He was asked whether he agrees with the idea of withdrawing citizenship, full stop. My answer is that the British Nationality Act 1981 gives too much power to the Home Secretary—[Interruption.] I will answer, if I am not interrupted. It gives too much power, without sufficient early judicial intervention. It allows for a right of appeal, but it does not require the right of application to court first, and given that we are talking about something as serious as citizenship, it should.

We should not give the state the power to take every right away from erstwhile citizens of the country. That is not just my view; it also happens to be that of our biggest ally. In my time in this House, I have only once had a visit, as it were, from the State Department of the United States, and that was on this policy. In some people’s view, we are leaving our “human detritus” out in the conflict zones of the middle east. Most of our allies, having started with that policy, have withdrawn it and are taking back their people to put them on trial in their own country. From a security point of view, this policy does not stand up in the view of our allies.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly strong point. Does he think it is quite inappropriate for one of the leading nations at the United Nations, with the privilege of a veto, not to accept its international responsibilities, when all other members of the permanent five do?

[Mr Davis]

I do think that, but I was focusing on the security element, and I do not think that the security argument stands up.

Amendment 12, in my name, would remove clause 9 from the Bill. That would not take away the Home Secretary’s right of rejecting citizenship, but it would take away her right to do so without notification. Of course, that matters. I go back to judicial rights. Say that someone does not know that they have had their citizenship withdrawn. They cannot appeal the matter for as long as they do not know, and that might be a long time.

Clause 9(2) says that the requirement to notify

“does not apply if it appears to the Secretary of State that”—

and there is a series of conditions, one of which is that notice should not be given if that is

“in the interests of the relationship between the United Kingdom and another country”.

I cannot think of a weaker reason to withhold the rights of one of our citizens than to favour our diplomatic relations with another country. I do not think we are on the same page on that.

English Channel Small Boats Incident

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend will know what is in the Bill. He mentions offshoring and third countries; all those options are under consideration, and our new plan for immigration covers those areas. He is absolutely right in his principal point, which is why we are determined. We will not cease after the measures that we have already announced, but look to augment and enhance some of them. With the state of crisis that we are seeing, with global migration issues right now and with the appalling loss of life that we have seen, it is incumbent on everyone—Governments, law enforcement, border controls and all the various agencies—to come together to stop the awful trade of human trafficking.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for the content and tone with which she delivered her statement. Does she agree that in dealing with these criminal gangs of people smugglers, we are dealing in every sense with the modern equivalent of the slave traders of yore? Will she ensure that the full force and diligence of the intelligence services and security services, working with their counterparts in friendly states, are brought together to address this terrible challenge?

To prevent further such tragedies as we saw yesterday, can my right hon. Friend see any reason to object to processing asylum claims at all British embassies, so that those who have a successful claim, who are the significant majority of those arriving by boat, can come here in a legal and humane way once asylum has been granted, rather than risking their lives just for the chance to file paperwork in the first place?

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend makes important and valid points. First and foremost, I agree that we are seeing a modern-day slave trade—there is no question about that. That is why, as he says, we are using the full force of our intelligence, security and law enforcement partners and agencies, not just in the UK or in France, but upstream. He will be very familiar with the footprint that the Government have, particularly in other countries upstream and in places such as Africa, where there is a great deal of work to stop the smuggling of people and the human trafficking that have taken place.

Processing outside the United Kingdom is very much part of the process that we are looking at: having safe and legal routes, but also creating the right kind of parameters and working with many of the humanitarian aid agencies that my right hon. Friend will be familiar with, which have led many of the safe and legal routes and resettlement schemes around the world.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I am going to have to start making some progress.

Lords amendments 6, 7 and 8 relate to detention time limits—an issue that is not directly relevant to the purpose of the Bill, which is to end free movement. In addition, at the heart of the Bill is a commitment to a global system and equal treatment of immigrants of all nationalities as we exit the transition period. On the broader point, imposing a 28-day time limit on detention is not practical and would encourage and reward abuse, especially of our protection routes. No European country has adopted anything close to a time limit as short as that proposed in these amendments, and comparable nations have not gone down this route at all.

However, I recognise the point made by those who are concerned about this issue. As I said when we discussed a very similar amendment tabled on Report, we want to reform the system so that it makes a quicker set of decisions, and for our position to be clear that detention is used when there is no alternative, or when there is a specific need to protect the public from harm.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

My hon. Friend will be aware that many of us across the House are concerned about the fact that there is not a limit. He is absolutely right that what is required is an international convention and international agreement on this issue. Nevertheless, for some people to be detained indefinitely having committed no crime is a matter of concern, and I would like my hon. Friend’s commitment that he will keep this matter under review within the Home Office.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his constructive intervention. We will absolutely keep it under review. I gently say that it is not possible to detain someone indefinitely as such; they can apply for immigration bail, and we have to meet a test that says there is a reasonable prospect of their removal. My right hon. Friend will appreciate that, similarly, there are instances where it is out of the Home Office’s hands, or even this jurisdiction’s hands, and we cannot immediately remove someone by a particular day.

Registers of Births and Deaths Bill

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I must apologise to the House, because I have not been a regular attender on Friday sittings in recent years. The last occasion on which I brought a private Member’s Bill to the House was in March 1991, when I promoted the Education (Publication of Examination Results) Bill, which proposed to set up league tables. It failed to win the support of the House, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) may recall, it subsequently became Government policy. In those days, the doyennes of Friday sittings were Ian Gow, Nicholas Soames and Michael Brown. I see that I attended on 20 April 1990 and spent 45 minutes speaking about the relative merits of low-volume alcohol drinks being defined as no more than 0.65% alcohol or 1.2%. Both you and I, Mr Deputy Speaker, will understand why a speech of such length was required.

My purpose today is much more serious, and I wish to start by thanking the Minister for his support and interest in this Bill. I know that he will have spent much of last night swatting up on all the details, a process I will remember from my time as a junior social security Minister in the 1990s. The good news for him is that once he reaches the Cabinet, which will not be long, he will not have to take Bills through the House any more—he will have a junior Minister to do it for him. I wish to thank his officials, particularly Linda Edwards and Saskia Molekamp, who have been extremely helpful in drafting and addressing the issues in this Bill.

My championing of this measure will come as no surprise whatsoever to my constituents in the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, whom I have the great honour of representing in this place, because our register office was closed by Birmingham City Council in 2014. It took that measure to save £83,000 of expenditure, which included the lease of a desk in the local library, so much of that expenditure was not actually saved. At the time, the failure to tell the local Good Hope Hospital, funeral directors and local GPs caused a considerable fuss. The central Birmingham register office was very overstretched at the time and people had to struggle to get an appointment to register a birth or a death, and it was not well placed for access in terms of parking. So for my constituents the removal of the register office constituted a considerable inconvenience, as a result of which there was a lot of campaigning across the town for it to remain open. I commend the Conservative councillors on Birmingham City Council, who, under their outstanding leader, Bobby Alden, have each year since then, in an alternative budget, pledged to reopen it and make better use of district centres to reduce travel and boost high-street activity.

Alas, that campaign at the time, which I, as the Member of Parliament, the hard-working councillors in Sutton Coldfield and local residents strongly supported, did not prevail. The failure of local government to hear the call from the royal town to stop this closure is one reason why people voted for local democracy; they voted, in a referendum, to set up the Royal Sutton Coldfield Town Council, which is today one of the largest, if not the largest, town councils in the country, under its outstanding leader, Simon Ward. I reiterate, because it is so relevant to the Bill, that the reason for the campaign from the royal town was that at an often upsetting and sad time in life my constituents had to journey all the way into Birmingham to comply with the necessary registration procedures.

The purpose of the Bill is to reform the way in which births and deaths are registered in England and Wales, moving from a paper-based system to registration in an electronic register. Registrars already use an electronic system to register births and deaths, and have done so since 2009, but they are still required to keep paper registers securely, in a safe, due to the requirements of the current and, I submit, outdated legislation. The Bill will remove the duplication of processes.

I reassure my hon. Friends that my Bill does not make any fundamental changes to the current arrangements for registering births and deaths—for example, who is able to provide the information to the registrar or the information to be recorded in the entry—but it will make a big difference, as I have described, for our constituents. The way in which births and deaths are currently registered dates back to 1837. It is much in need of modernisation and a move to digital methods of registration.

I hope that it may be helpful to the House if I explain how the current system works. All births and deaths that occur in England and Wales are required to be registered by the registrar for the sub-district in which the event occurred by a qualified informant. For example, in the case of a birth, the qualified informant is usually the child’s mother. When registering a birth or death, the registrar will record all the information on an electronic system. Once the registration is complete, the system will generate a paper register page, which is signed by the informant and the registrar. That paper record is then put into a loose-leaf register, which the registrar keeps in a safe. It is that paper record that is the formal record of the event, from which all certificates are then issued.

The changes proposed in my Bill would remove the requirement for paper birth and death registers and introduce a single electronic register in which all births and deaths would be registered. This will create a much more efficient and secure system of registration. The electronic system is already there and is used on a daily basis.

[Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Mitchell]

I give way with great pleasure to my hon. Friend, who, as a distinguished resident of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, may well recall the events of which I have spoken.

[Suzanne Webb]

I do indeed, and troublesome they were at the time. Under my right hon. Friend’s Bill, will the old birth and death certificates be destroyed, or will they be archived?

[Mr Mitchell]

That is a most important point. I will come to it, but clause 4 refers to the very point that my hon. Friend so wisely makes.

Currently, registrars submit copies of all the birth and death entries they have registered in the last quarter to their superintendent registrar via a system of quarterly returns. The superintendent registrar certifies those entities as being true copies of birth and death entries in the registers and forwards them to the Registrar General. That is done electronically using the electronic system. The Registrar General holds a central repository of all births and deaths registered in England and Wales. My Bill will remove that administrative burden.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

When the electronic system was introduced in 2009, why did the Government decide not to abandon the hard copy record? Surely the reason was that it was a safeguard. Hard copies are an essential safeguard, are they not?

[Mr Mitchell]

I will come on to a number of points that my hon. Friend alludes to, but I think he will be satisfied, when he hears about the other provisions of my Bill, that that point is properly addressed.

With the move to an electronic register, the system of quarterly returns will no longer be necessary. Following the registration of a birth or death in the electronic register, the entry will immediately be available to the superintendent registrar and the Registrar General, without the quarterly returns process having to be completed from the paper registers.

The Bill amends the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 to insert a new section that enables Ministers to make regulations that make provision that a duty to sign the birth or death register is to have the effect of a duty to comply with specified requirements. If an informant complies with those requirements, they are to be treated as having signed the register and to have done so in the presence of the registrar.

The entry in the electronic register will be treated as having been signed by the person who has provided the information relating to a birth or death. For example, the regulations may require a person to sign something other than the register or to provide evidence of their identity. I reassure my hon. Friends that the regulations would be made using the affirmative procedure, which requires them to be approved by both Houses of Parliament and therefore there would be the opportunity to discuss the content of those measures.

The provisions in my Bill are the first step in moving to a more modern system of birth and death registration. By removing the requirement for paper registers to be signed in the presence of a registrar, we would pave the way for a move to online methods of registration. That would provide more flexibility and allow an informant to provide the particulars of a birth or death online and at a time to suit the individual, without having to visit a register office. That would modernise how births and deaths are registered in the future and give the public more choice, but the choice to register in person would remain, as register offices and facilities are needed for marriages, civil ceremonies and citizenship.

As I am sure my hon. Friends will agree, removing the requirement for face-to-face services is particularly relevant and most important at the moment as we deal with the issues of covid-19 and the pandemic. My right hon. and hon. Friends will also be pleased to hear that just these measures in respect of the registration of deaths would save the taxpayer £90 million over 10 years. Over the next 10 years, we conservatively estimate that the effect of all these measures would save £170 million for the taxpayer. I should explain that the figure of £20 million that appears in the explanatory notes is a reference only to the amount saved by removing the paper register and the requirements for quarterly returns. The savings to the taxpayer would be significant indeed.

I turn briefly to the clauses in the Bill. Clause 1 amends the original Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953. The new sections allow the Registrar General to determine how registers of live births, stillbirths and deaths are to be kept. It would remove the duplication of processes: all births and deaths would be registered in an electronic register without the need for paper registers.

Clause 2 deals with the provision of equipment and facilities by local authorities. It makes clear that all local authorities must provide and maintain the equipment and facilities set down by the Registrar General for all register and sub-district register offices. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) for specifically raising that point in our discussions earlier.

Clause 3 is the requirement to sign the register. This is a new power that would bring before the House new regulations in respect of non-paper registration. Where someone complies with specific requirements, they will be treated as having signed. Obviously, such provisions may require evidence of identity, and those provisions would be put to the House in further legislation that we would move in the way that I have described. The clause makes it clear that the Government can do so only under the affirmative procedure, which means that any provisions must be laid before and approved by both Houses of Parliament.

Clause 4 is the about the treatment of existing registers and records—the point made so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb). It requires the Registrar General to continue to keep and maintain all the existing records.

Clause 5 effectively brings the schedules to the Bill into effect. Clause 6 is a power to make further consequential provisions, including, if required, to primary legislation. Again, in those circumstances that can be done only by affirmative resolution. Clause 7 is the commencement clause, which comes into force on the day the Bill is passed. Finally, the schedule deals with minor and consequential amendments to the original 1953 Act and certain other primary legislation consequent on the provisions of this Bill.

The Bill requires neither a money resolution, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will be pleased to hear, nor a Ways and Means resolution. It is also fully compatible with the European convention on human rights. I very much hope that the Bill will progress through the House and, indeed, the other place, where our late colleague my noble Friend Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton has agreed to assist in its passage, and that, with its self-evident benefits for our constituents, it will, after further scrutiny, become an Act. I commend its provisions to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I am not sure that we wanted our parents to give us really popular Christian names, but I note that my parents had the foresight to give me the same Christian name as my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder), so that was obviously a good thing. We are 152nd in the league table. I predict that it will not be long before we are about 1,000th in the league table because obviously Christopher is a name that has Christ in it, and I fear that the Christian emphasis in our society is on the decline, rather than on the increase, but that is by the bye.

The Bill of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) is one about which I have considerable concerns. The hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) identified two concerns: the risk of identity fraud associated with the registration of births, and the problems that there already are in the reliability of the registration online system. We have a registration system at the moment and there is a back-up, which is the hard copies. What this Bill is going to do is to deprive us of that back-up.

I am sure there are hon. Friends who run their constituency offices on the basis that it is all purely electronic, but I certainly do not, and I have good reason not to do that because on so many occasions the electronic systems fail and we need to rely on the hard copy back-up. If that was not just a general proposition, it was brought home to me last evening because I was talking to my wife and she showed me an email that she has had from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency saying that her driving licence details need to be updated. She looked at the email and saw that the details registered were not correct. She tried to change the details but could not. Suffice it to say that, in those details, there are names of foreign people and suggestions that my wife’s driving licence record has now been tampered with and been the subject perhaps of fraud or forgery.

I cite that as a topical example of what happens if we become wholly reliant upon electronic systems. I think most of us will have safes at home where we keep our birth certificates for ourselves and our children, our marriage certificates, our passports, our driving licences, exam certificates, degree certificates and so on. The reason we do that is that we have the security of having a hard copy, instead of having to faff around trying to get duplicate copies. How can we be sure that the back-up system, which will now become the main system under my right hon. Friend’s Bill, will be 100% reliable and proof against fraud?

My right hon. Friend identifies savings, and obviously any savings that come from efficiency are good. In terms of the need to pass these records on up through the lines, from the area manager to the regional manager and then to the top dog, I think that is a very sensible reform, but dispensing totally with the written record will save only £20 million over 10 years. The other savings to which he referred are from the other streamlining processes set out in his Bill. I have no problem with those, but I question whether, for £2 million a year, it is worth taking the risk both in terms of opening up fraud and damaging the potential for future generations to be able to examine this period of our history, which is much easier to do with hard-copy, written records than it is with electronic data.

[Mr Mitchell]

I believe that in Committee we will be able to satisfy my hon. Friend absolutely on the issue of fraud and on the other points as well. I hope that he will perhaps consider serving on the Bill Committee, where I am completely confident we will be able to satisfy him on all his concerns.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his confidence. I approach this sort of legislation in a constructive frame of mind. One point occurred to me when he referred to draft regulations. In due course, we will all be able to see these draft regulations. Although they would be affirmative resolution regulations, we know that we would not be able to amend them. I ask my right hon. Friend: would it be possible, by the time that the Bill reaches Committee, as I expect it to, for us to have a draft of those regulations so that we can look at them in Committee alongside his Bill? That practice has often been supported by Ministers, and I think that he would support it as well.

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I think that would be a very good thing to do. Of course, it would have to be the proposed orders, which will be subject to the affirmative resolution, as we have both agreed, that are already on the stocks, and there will be more in the future, not least to address any dangers—he mentioned the issue of fraud—that are not relevant or understood today but which could emerge in future.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that assurance. We are talking about fraud and forgery. We know from our own constituency records that it is rife. Action Fraud is incapable of dealing with all the fraud cases that come before it. Most of our local police forces are incapable and under-resourced to deal with the fraud, which is rife. It never used to be part and parcel of British society that you assumed that people were fraudulent until proved otherwise, but we have almost got to that stage now. Elderly people are receiving phone calls and most of them seem to be to try to con the individual out of some money. There is every incentive for fraud where we are talking about birth certificates and certificates of registration, which give us our identity. What could be more fundamental than that? I look forward to seeing these assurances in Committee, but it would be helpful and desirable that we should be able to give them a line by line examination, rather than just rely on expressions of good intention.

I go back to the point that I made in an intervention on my right hon. Friend’s speech. When the legislation was changed in 2009 to allow electronic records to be kept, safeguards were in place. Who could object to the establishment of electronic records if we were going to retain the hard copy written records? Now, just over 10 years later, we see that that safeguard, which was fundamental to the change then, is being removed and without, it seems, any justification. I hope that, in due course, my right hon. Friend will be able to explain what has happened in the last 10 or 11 years that has removed the necessity for the safeguards which this House thought were absolutely essential back in 2009.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mitchell]

I am most grateful to the House for its support of this modest but important measure, particularly to the two Front Benchers for giving such fulsome support. I believe it updates and modernises an important Government service. It extends choice and convenience for our constituents. It saves a great deal of public money—I emphasise that £170 million over 10 years is a very conservative figure—and it starts to put right a wrong inflicted on the good people of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).