UK Extradition Arrangements

Andrew Smith Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I join in the congratulations given to the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) and other colleagues on securing the debate. I believe that our extradition procedures need to be kept under review and protection afforded against the abuses and potential abuses that others have mentioned.

Like many constituents who have contacted me, I sympathise with Gary McKinnon for his plight and agree that if he is to face trial, it would be much better if it could be in the United Kingdom, where the alleged offence occurred. I take the points that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) made about the wider challenges that we face in the global context, and about how we all have to focus on addressing those challenges.

I also wish to add my voice to those of Members who have raised the case of Babar Ahmad. It cannot be acceptable that someone is held without trial for as long as he has been. To pick up on a point that was made earlier, it is encouraging that if there is a change to the law, it will affect pending cases, so he will no longer face the uncertainty of not knowing what will happen to him, or even when he will find out what will happen to him.

Given the limited time, I want to focus on the case of one of my constituents, Mr Benny Wenda. Benny was granted refugee status in the United Kingdom in 2003 as a result of his well-founded fears of persecution by the Indonesian Government, who disapprove of his activities advocating self-determination for the West Papuan people. He has subsequently been granted British citizenship. In granting him refugee status and then citizenship, the British Government accepted a protective duty towards Benny, but they now appear to be refusing to defend him against the same Government from whom he was granted protection in the first place.

The Indonesian Government have issued an Interpol red notice against Benny for the alleged crimes that he was accused of when he first came to the UK, which will have been considered when he was granted refugee status. Yet a letter that I have had from the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), states that the Government will not comment on the red notice; will not confirm or deny the existence of an extradition request; will not preclude the possibility of extradition; will not contact other Governments to ask whether they intend to arrest Benny as he travels to make the case for West Papuan self-determination throughout the world; and will not even contact the Indonesian Government to make a complaint about their continued pressure on him. The letter states:

“The issue of a red notice is a matter for the issuing state”,

but it does not appear to accept that the protection of a British citizen is very much a matter for the state of which he is a citizen.

I ask the Minister for Immigration, who will be responding to the debate, whether there is any situation in which he would give an undertaking not to extradite a refugee to the country from which he or she had been granted protection. I suggest that it would not interfere with the sovereignty of other nations simply to ask them whether they would arrest someone, in this instance Benny Wenda, if they stepped on their soil. For the UK Government to refuse to ask that of a country that my constituent would have legitimate reason to visit seems to me an abdication of their most basic responsibility—to protect their own citizens.

I ask the Government to reconsider what seems to me to be a hastily cobbled together stance on the matter and accept a meeting of Ministers from the Home Office and Foreign Office, Benny, his representatives and me specifically to discuss the red notice. My constituent’s example shows how other Governments, including repressive regimes, can use or abuse the red notice system to intimidate refugees and inhibit their freedom of travel and freedom of speech. As others have said, our Government should stand up for British citizens who are threatened in such a way, and I urge them to do so in this case.

Student Visas

Andrew Smith Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. Part of the difficulty with this debate is that it has focused on discouraging international student numbers from the demand side. We should be looking at it from the supply side by dealing with those institutions that forfeit trust. I agree with the highly trusted sponsor system, which is the same trajectory of policy as that of the previous Government.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Overseas students are absolutely vital in Oxford both for the universities and the many language schools. Is not one damaging feature of what the Government have done the erection of this huge bureaucratic maze through which institutions have to go? Would Government Members not be complaining rightly about red tape if this applied to any other area of exports? Clearly this issue has been exempted from the red tape moratorium. Is not the answer to bring forward a system that combines highly trusted status, proper inspection and a proper operation of country risk profiles?

[Paul Blomfield]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point from his huge experience and from the fact that there are two excellent universities in Oxford and I certainly agree with him.

Let me move on to the problems that have been created by the speed of implementation. When the Home Secretary was announcing the revised tier 4 arrangements in March, she said:

“We recognise the need to implement these changes in a staged manner that minimises disruption to education providers and students.” —[Official Report, 22 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 858.]

We all know, I think, that that is not happening. The new requirements took effect on 21 April at an advanced stage of the university’s admission cycle and at a point where a number of offers had been made and, crucially, had been accepted. In Sheffield, our two universities and Sheffield international college had already made more than 20,500 offers to prospective students for degree-level courses and currently have 1,300 offer holders and applicants for English language programmes. All those offers have to be revisited as applicants may now no longer meet the UKBA’s new subset score requirements. The colleges must now notify students who have accepted offers and who, therefore, have a legally binding contract with them that they must meet new conditions. They are deeply concerned about the legal ramifications of such a change and the damage that could be done to their reputation. They have to alter the terms of the offers that have already been accepted. Could that not be avoided by having transitional arrangements in place to enable students to be admitted in this new academic year on the terms on which offers have been made?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andrew Smith]

My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. Is not the response to the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) that he is ignoring these graduates’ contribution through their wealth creation, skills and taxation payments? If the Government will not listen to us, should they not listen to Sir James Dyson, who not only sits on the Prime Minister’s business advisory group but headed an innovation taskforce for him? Sir James said:

“It is sheer madness to be effectively chucking out graduates who we desperately need. I am afraid what it will end up doing is driving firms like us abroad because we simply can’t get people to do our research and development.”

[Paul Blomfield]

I very much agree with my right hon. Friend. I have talked to companies in Sheffield, and they say that the opportunity to have some of the best intellectual talent in the world working with them in product development and improving manufacturing processes is a startling benefit that our city gets from its two universities.

I will move on to the specifics of an area that the Government have seen as problematic: the post-study work route. I understand, unless there are more changes that the Minister wants to share, that under the new proposals international graduates of UK universities will, from April 2012, need a confirmed job offer for a graduate level role—that is fair enough—but which pays at least £20,000, and they will need to apply for a tier 2 visa for the job before their tier 4 visa expires. There is nothing wrong with limiting work to that of a graduate level, but the imposition of a £20,000 salary threshold is too restrictive for some sectors and regions. Sheffield university tells me that its average graduate starting salary falls below £20,000: in arts and humanities it is £16,600, in pure science it is £16,100 and in social sciences it is £18,000. According to the graduate employer survey of 2011, graduates in Yorkshire should generally expect a starting salary of between £15,000 and £18,000.

One of Sheffield university’s strengths is architecture. The students’ union international students’ officer, Mina Kasherova, in written evidence to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, highlighted the problems facing architects: they need to gain work experience after graduation to obtain their professional qualification, but they will not be able to get such a post with a salary of more than £20,000 through tier 2.