Constitutional Law

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Alison Thewliss

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

We are awake all right.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman was making us nod off.

Public Order Act 2023

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Alison Thewliss

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

I would like to just finish the point I am making to the Minister, and then I will let the hon. Gentleman come in on this point. I have laid out my past history of protest for a very good reason: I have previous on this. I have not been arrested at any of those demonstrations, but I am sure that my name is in a file somewhere—perhaps the Security Minister might tell me—for having protested outside Faslane, for example.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

It is now.

[Alison Thewliss]

Perhaps it is now—who knows? My name may be on a file. The police may say, “This person has form for having protested before. She could be a risk; she could present a threat.” I am an SNP Member with the stated aim of wishing to break up the British state; some may consider that a threat. I am wearing a necklace today that says “Not my King”; had I been walking down The Mall at the coronation, perhaps that would have been cause for me to be arrested. Would the Minister consider that to be a threat? I have a belt on this dress; is that considered a locking-on device now? Can I tie myself with a very firm knot to a lamp post—would the Minister consider that a threat under the Act? If he would like to intervene on me now about all of those things I would be very interested to hear whether he would consider me a threat liable to be arrested under the Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss]

It certainly is. When we look at how the Act has operated in its first outing, we know that although it is working as the Government intend, it is not working as some people claim it is.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly) and the Minister at the Dispatch Box mentioned intentions, which would be fine if intentions could not be misread, deliberately or otherwise. The fact that they can leaves a serious weakness in the Act.

[Alison Thewliss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When we talk about intentions, we are almost in the dystopian area of pre-crime, guessing what people’s intentions might be. With strings around placards or a cyclist walking along with a bicycle chain, it is difficult to establish those intentions. It is clear from the coronation weekend’s activities that the measure is insufficient. The Bill should never have been brought to Parliament in the first place, given that it was just a repackaging of the measures that were already rejected during the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Rather than accepting the democratic will of Parliament, the Government reintroduced the provisions later in the Public Order Bill, now the Public Order Act 2023. It is clear to me that the Government are seeking to crack down on protesters and protest without looking at the very reasons for that protest. It is very much a knee-jerk reaction.

I come now to the position of His Majesty’s official Opposition, such as it is. The Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), instead of saying that this Act should be repealed, said that we need to let it “bed in”. The shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) has said:

“We can’t come into office, picking through all the Conservative legislation and repealing it…It would take up so much parliamentary time.”

I am giving the official Opposition the opportunity today: here is some parliamentary time, and here is the opportunity to repeal the Act. Why will they not come forward and support us in the Lobby tonight?

The shadow public health Minister, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), told Sky News that the Opposition would

“look very carefully at this legislation”,

and the police would appear to have been “heavy-handed” in their approach during the coronation, but he refused to go as far as to commit to scrapping the Act. The Opposition are not opposing the restrictions on the right to protest, and their dithering is enabling it. They have said they are a Government in waiting, but today, on this piece of legislation, as with so many others, they are simply looking like gormless Tory sidekicks.

The Public Order Act 2023 was a petulant, vindictive, knee-jerk reaction from a UK Tory Government who are hellbent on undermining human rights and ignoring international legal obligations. It is a pattern of behaviour, and Scotland wants no part of it. The failure of Labour to stand up against this erosion of human rights and to commit to scrapping the Bill, along with the anti-trade union laws and the Illegal Migration Bill, will gain them no votes in Scotland. It will only reinforce the urgency of independence and of getting rid of this toxic Westminster Government and its successors once and for all.

Migration and Scotland

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Alison Thewliss

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Gentleman is correct about that. As a member of the all-party group on hospitality, I agree very much that that sector needs to have people coming in here to do those jobs and that we value them as well, because they bring not only their skills to our restaurants and catering services, but their food, which we enjoy. We should thank them, rather than making them feel unwelcome.

Let me move on to people in the care sector and the issues they face. A couple came to see me on 16 December 2015, having worked in care homes and been very much valued there. They were then at the point of working in their care home voluntarily because the Home Office had rescinded their right to work. They had a son they are putting through school. They came to see me at my surgery on 13 January to say that finally, after five years, they had been granted their status. They were looking forward to going back to work in the care home, because that care home had kept the faith that they would eventually get the chance to work and be paid for it. During that period of many years they were hosted by volunteers from Positive Action in Housing, and they were supported by the British Red Cross, their solicitors McGlashan MacKay and a range of services that provided them with food for free, with food banks and with other things. They had to come to my office to get school uniforms for their growing son. During that time they were destitute. What does that say to that family? They want to come here and work hard, they are in a valuable role, but the Home Office says, “No, actually, we don’t need you.” We know that we do. We know that we need people in the care sector, yet a couple who have dedicated their lives to caring are being told that they cannot do that. So I have no confidence in the UK Government to make the required changes that will allow constituents such as these to manage their lives, to be a success and to feel welcome in this country.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I echo the point made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) about this being a well thought out speech. I also echo his point about hotels and my hon. Friend’s point about the care sector. At the heart of this debate is surely the one-size-fits-all approach the UK Government take. They do not do what Switzerland or Canada do; they think that Whitehall and Westminster know best, but in the west highlands we have needs, and Glasgow has needs. We need to have a decentralised policy—not one that suits the headline writers of the Daily Mail, but one that suits Scotland.

[Alison Thewliss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that. In many ways, his constituency could not be any more different from mine, but the needs are not being catered for by the Home Office in any way.

We have been expecting an announcement from the Government on what the new post-Brexit immigration policy will look like, and there has been a lot of speculation that we will have an Australian-style points-based system. However, there has been no acknowledgement that Australia’s system allows for a degree of autonomy for territories to decide their own criteria on migration, with the ability to adjust their policy to their own diverse needs. There has been no acknowledgement, either, that the Australian system is much more generous than the one we have here just now, or that in her first speech after she demitted office as Prime Minister the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) got up and said pretty much to the Home Office, “Good luck. We looked at it.” So I wish the Minister all the best of luck in trying to establish a system that does not have the evidence to back it up.

We on the SNP Benches have long called for a separate immigration policy for Scotland, and we have long been told by the UK Government that that would not work. We do not believe them on that, as on so many other things, because research from the Fraser of Allander Institute and the David Hume Institute has shown not only that it would work but that it is vital if Scotland is to meet the demographic challenges of the future. It is not good enough for the UK Government to take this one-size-fits-all approach when there are pressing concerns in Scotland. If they will not take action to address this issue, perhaps they should allow the people of Scotland to decide for themselves who they want to be in charge.

If you will indulge me and allow it, Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish to highlight a couple of cases from my recent casework. The Scottish Government said as part of their Budget last week that they are going to look to set up some means of addressing the issue of “no recourse to public funds”. This relates to what the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean said about people not being allowed to access the benefits system in any way. I had a woman who had been coming to my surgeries for many years. She was No. 3 on my books after the election in 2015. She was working hard in a low-paid role and doing everything that she could but, because she had no recourse to public funds, she was just about managing the rent and her electricity, but she could not buy Christmas presents or school uniforms or put food on the table. That is not fair: she is doing everything that she can, yet because of “no recourse to public funds” she cannot do anything about it. The Home Office is sneaky on this, because every time somebody tries to find a workaround for “no recourse to public funds”, the Home Office promptly shuts it down. The Scottish Government want to help. The Scottish Government do not want people to face destitution. It is immoral and wrong for the UK Home Office to decide that it wants to make people destitute and to make people struggle so hard that they want to leave this country in poverty.

I also wish to mention the case of a particular constituent who came to me. I do not want to mention names because the case is quite sensitive, but this man is a local imam and his wife had complications giving birth, lost 17 litres of blood and was given a transfusion during a horrific ordeal in her pregnancy. They applied for the imam’s mother to come over to support her after the birth, because she was in desperate need and, because of parental leave issues, he had to go back to work. The Home Office refused that reasonable visitor’s visa. There is a lack of compassion that runs through the Home Office and prevents people from getting visitors’ visas on very reasonable grounds. Week in, week out, I see people who are desperate, broken and sad. They are people who want to show off Scotland and their new home. Members have talked about not being welcoming enough; the visitor visa system, which refuses people for no reason whatsoever other than the fact that they come from a country where people are brown, is a system that cannot stand and must stop. [Interruption.] The hon. Member shakes his head; he can come and sit in my surgery. [Interruption.] He is looking about. You know who you are. The Minister, the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), shakes his head; he can come and sit in my surgery and he can listen to the people who come to my surgeries from particular countries who get refused visitor visas time and time again.

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

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Alison Thewliss

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Absolutely. When people mix together, rub shoulders and talk to each other, they learn quite a lot from each other. They stop fearing each other and stop believing the demagogues who are telling them all sorts of nonsense about the other.

We will not just see more work in our own MPs’ offices, but add anxiety and angst to people’s lives because of the nonsense that will come before us. What is all this based on? It is based on a voodoo referendum. The question was about leave or remain, but it quickly became akin to slaughtering a chicken, looking at its entrails and claiming that the people meant us to leave Euratom, that the people meant something on standards and tariffs, that the people meant something on the customs union, or that the people meant something on the single market. It is claimed that the people meant something else again on migration and freedom of movement, and on the European Court of Justice. It is nonsense, but people draw all sorts of conclusions. This is voodoo politics based on a voodoo guff referendum that we had a couple of years ago.

[Alison Thewliss]

I am almost loth to interrupt my hon. Friend because he is making some excellent points. He mentioned the increased casework for MPs’ offices. My surgery on Friday overran by an hour and 10 minutes, all because of Home Office problems. Does he agree that the Home Office cannot cope with the additional 3 million people, and woe betide anyone else in the system at the moment?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

My hon. Friend’s point stands for itself and is well made. As we are dealing with further voodoo from the Home Office, let me say that the problems that we have at present are based on voodoo thinking. Part of it was “Take back control”, but when we are dealing with the Home Office, no one is in control, least of all the Home Office itself.

The Bill is based on Soviet-style central planning and a desire for tractor statistics, but it does not take account of what we really need. I have raised one of the most important points with the Home Office time and again. It is said that we are in control and we do not have free movement, but if we need people to come and work on fishing boats—people from outside the European Union want to come here, their Governments want them to come, our local authority wants them to come, fishing organisations want them to come and our communities want them to come; indeed everybody wants them to come except somebody in an office in London—we are told it cannot happen. The Home Office in London says no, and boats are tied up.