Immigration and Asylum Bill (First sitting)

Anna Turley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 15th September 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Matt Vickers]

Q To get the result that we want—tackling that abuse—what else should the Home Office be doing in that space? If this is not a solution, what would you put forward as an alternative, if that abuse does exist?

Eleanor Lyons: If you took the premise that there is an issue with the system, I would focus on better training and support for first responder organisations so that they are good at doing referrals in the first place. There is a real mix in terms of how qualified and competent first responder organisations, such as local authorities, police forces and charities, are. I would also look at a higher quality of decision making from the Government. At the moment, about three quarters of negative decisions that are challenged are then accepted as having been the wrong initial decision by the Government, and are overturned. If there were more opportunities for people to be identified, better-quality decisions and a more trauma-informed approach, we would identify victims earlier in the process and there would be fewer challenges on that part. All this legislation will do is to make it very hard for us to identify or support victims who need help.

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Anna Turley)]

Q Thank you all for coming to give evidence to us. More than a third of our charter returns that fail to go ahead have involved a modern slavery referral raised after the return arrangements have been made. Can you give us some indication of why you think that is and, building on your previous answer, what would help to challenge that?

Eleanor Lyons: Thank you, Minister, for your engagement so far on the Bill. It is very much appreciated. Building on what I was saying, we really need a system that allows for early identification and support of victims of exploitation. That includes all victims of exploitation, UK nationals and non-UK nationals. When I first came into my role three years ago, the big conversation was about what mandatory training would look like for first responder organisations, so that they would know how to spot a potential victim of modern slavery. Many victims themselves do not even recognise that they are being exploited. To introduce early support into the system would make a huge change on that side of things.

I am concerned about the Home Office data on already high-risk flights. Less than 2% of the total number in the national referral mechanism are on those flights. The Home Office has five days to make a “reasonable grounds” decision. It only protects a victim of modern slavery for five days if they are referred into the national referral mechanism. If the Government decide that, actually, they do not think that there are grounds for those people being a victim of modern slavery, after that point they do not get any extra enhancements for indefinite leave to remain, so I do not think that that provides extra protection for victims. All we try to do in that period is to provide them with the support and care they need in their recovery period, if they need it.

[Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)]

Q Would you reject the view that the referral system is exploited?

Eleanor Lyons: I would say that, from the evidence that we have seen—this has been looked at across the years by different Select Committees and academics—there is no evidence of widespread misuse of the system. Of the flights that did not go ahead in 2025 after 3 pm, that is less than 1% of the number of potential victims of modern slavery whom we identified in the UK last year. As I mentioned, if you make these sweeping changes in the legislation, you will also have a negative impact on all victims of modern slavery, in particular cases where we have taken too long to identify them. For example, the survivors of al-Fayed have reached out to me, and they have serious concerns, because we failed them; we did not identify them when we should have done. The Bill would have a negative impact on them, too.

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[Matt Vickers]

Q Is there a particular feature that you would have liked to see in the Bill to aid you in that objective?

Helen Rance: No.

[Anna Turley]

Q I pass on my thanks to everyone at the NCA for their excellent work. We know how important it is for disrupting the organised, industrial crime that is taking place across borders. It is critical that we intervene and prevent dangerous crossings as early as possible. I wanted to put my thanks on the record for everything that the agency does.

You mentioned the importance of deterrence. That is critical, and it is one of the key things that we want to achieve in the Bill. Could you say a little more about how you think the measures in the Bill will help to deter people and make interventions earlier in the process of illegal immigration?

Helen Rance: In terms of deterrence, we are obviously a law enforcement agency, and we would not make specific definitive judgments on the different effects that the measures will have on deterring crossings or immigration. We very much think that deterrence is about a combination of factors, and is, ultimately, a matter for Government policy. However, we believe that the measures contribute to a system that is seen as firm, fair and less susceptible to exploitation by organised crime groups. It is likely that that will help the overall deterrent effect. The changes to appeals, protection status, asylum arrangements and the removal process might contribute to making the UK a less attractive target for the criminal networks that facilitate illegal immigration.

[Mr Kohler]

Q I sit on the Home Affairs Committee and have spoken to your colleagues about smashing the gangs. The NCA has been trying to smash the drug gangs for half a century. Is there anything missing from the Bill that would help you to smash the gangs? What is your view on how far the NCA has progressed in smashing the gangs?

Helen Rance: If “smashing the gangs” means reducing small boat crossings, crossings are down this year compared with last year, and the number—

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[Matt Vickers]

Q Is there any risk that the article 8 provisions in the Bill could move litigation on to different questions, rather than increasing the Government’s ability to remove those with no right to be here? If Parliament wanted to go further in restricting the circumstances in which article 8 can prevent removals, what could it do beyond what is proposed in the Bill?

Professor Ekins: Litigation will certainly arise in consequence of these new provisions, if they are enacted; they will not end the controversy in this space. The litigation may turn on different questions, such as whether something counts as “normally”. There is a great deal of uncertainty about how the changes made by the relevant provision, clause 18, will be received by the courts.

In a sense, the legislation leaves untouched the fundamental structure of article 8 in this context, which is individuated proportionality assessment. It tries to clarify, or maybe streamline, some aspects of the way in which article 8 is understood and applied—those changes are to be welcomed, so far as they go—but it is unclear whether, and to what extent, that will restrain the courts in applying article 8.

The legislation takes for granted continuing individuated assessment. The legislation does not purport to be an exclusive code for article 8, does not displace article 8 under the Human Rights Act, and does not direct the courts to focus only on the terms of this legislation and close their eyes to the Strasbourg case law. The way in which article 8 will be understood and applied will be informed to some extent by this new legislation, but there will be arguments about precisely what it means and whether there are conditionals in the legislation at play.

It will always be open to unlawful migrants and asylum seekers who are making arguments by reference to article 8 to invite the court to go back to the Strasbourg Court’s case law and to take this legislation as, in a sense, advisory. I know that that may sound somewhat strange, but that is effectively the structure we have. Parliament is not clearly telling the courts, “Focus only on this legislation, and close your eyes to the other body of case law.” It could attempt to do so: it could go further, by disapplying article 8 under the Human Rights Act and making this an exclusive code for the relevance of family life. That would require some recasting.

To my mind, the more fundamental problem is that we are maintaining individuated proportionality assessment as the test for the lawfulness of removal. That will inevitably be somewhat—“ad hoc” is perhaps the wrong term, but it will be particular and unpredictable. A great deal will turn on the persons who are making the adjudicative decisions. The Bill obviously has something to say about that, but how it will play out is quite unpredictable.

That is a complicated answer to your question. There will certainly be litigation, and it would be a mistake to think that this new legislation will authoritatively determine how article 8 will be understood. It will make some difference, but much turns on how it is received, which you simply cannot tell from where you sit now.

Dr Casey: I agree. There are two different ways, broadly speaking, that this Bill could be received by courts and tribunals. One way—which, so far as the Home Secretary is concerned, would be the positive scenario—is that the tribunal takes very seriously the clear intent behind the Bill, which is to tighten and narrow the circumstances in which article 8 can be invoked and successfully relied on to resist a removal or deportation.

However, as my colleague Richard pointed out, a lot of the wording in the Bill gives leeway for more flexible or generous interpretations for applicants. For example, the Bill says that article 8 applies “normally” only to a nuclear family—partners residing together, or a parent and a child residing together. That “normally” suggests that judges might take a broader understanding of other types of family arrangements. With the standards throughout the Bill—unreasonable impact, “adverse” impact or “unduly harsh”—there is, again, scope to give these a much more generous interpretation, such that, for some judges, it might be hard not to find an instance where deportation could not be considered harsh or as having an adverse impact on a child, because it separates a family unit.

I can imagine some judges—not all, but some—reading these standards in a generous way that would capture a large sweep of cases and defeat removals and deportations. There is a scenario where the reception of the Bill is such that judges retain quite a lot of discretion to come up with their own understanding of the right balance between the public interest and individuals’ family life and, plausibly within the text of the Bill, to reach conclusions that are in tension with the clear policy intent behind the Bill.

I think that that is an unavoidable situation if one accepts the strictures imposed by the ECHR and its jurisprudence because a sine qua non of article 8 law, as articulated by the Court, is that the tribunal must reach its own assessment—it must reach its own assessment of proportionality. At best, Parliament may give indications of where it wants weighting to go but, to stay within the strictures of the ECHR, the courts must have the final say.

Also, in response to the question about whether, if article 8 claims are less attractive, other claims might be made under the ECHR: absolutely. I imagine that article 3 claims will probably increase. The difference between article 3 and article 8, as the Committee will know, is that article 3 is categorical—there is no qualification if the threshold is met. The threshold sometimes includes things like whether removal will lead to substandard medical care, compared with the NHS; that is ill treatment. We could see a spike in such invocations, and the Bill does not touch article 3 claims whatever.

Professor Ekins: I should add that this legislation, as the Committee knows, builds on the Immigration Act 2014, which also attempted to tighten the understanding and application of article 8; that is largely viewed as having been much less effective than Parliament intended in 2014. This legislation will go further and that is to be welcomed, but the earlier Act should be a cautionary tale about the risks of failure.

[Anna Turley]

Q Thank you very much; I appreciate your responses. May I step back from just the article 8 measures and talk about the Bill in the round? What is your view on whether it strikes the right balance when it comes to honouring our obligations to refugees under the conventions? Are we balancing that with taking stronger action to deal with the challenges that we face internationally on illegal immigration? Is the Bill striking the right balance, or can we go further?

Professor Ekins: In my view, the legislation does not strike the right balance, because it fails—as have successive Bills, I think—to take sufficiently robust measures in relation to the problem of illegal migration and people smuggling; I am thinking of the small boats crisis in particular. That is somewhat distinct from the broader problem of unlawful migration, which is clearly a problem—people overstaying, foreign criminals and so on—but the small boats crisis has particular features that warrant a particular response.

To my mind, unfortunately, although the legislation tinkers with aspects of how the refugee convention should be understood in our law—perhaps we will come to that later—it seems, silently at least, to take for granted that persons who have contracted with people smugglers and made it across the channel are entitled to asylum and to remain in the UK. I think that that is a misunderstanding of the terms of the refugee convention, which do entitle us to expel persons from the UK, even when they are genuine refugees under the meaning of the refugee convention. That is a protection that all member states enjoy. It entitles us to expel them to other states, because they have entered in violation of our migration law. It would be different had they entered directly from a state where their lives were in danger, but no one coming from France is in that position. That makes that a structurally different position to other contexts, when people flee danger.

The legislation simply does not address that feature of the problem. The measures it takes—which, as I say, I welcome as far as they go—simply tinker with the edges and do not address the central problem. Genuine refugees will cross the channel but, so long as contracting with people smugglers is a viable route to enter and thus to settle in the UK, that will persist. It is a logical and rational expenditure of funds, and it is a flourishing business so long as you do not care about the lives of people crossing a dangerous water.

There is a failure to recognise the protections that we have as a country under the refugee convention. We may take action that would not place persons in danger—they can be removed to safe third states. As far as I can see, the Bill is focused on increasing administrative adjudicative capacity to process appeal claims more speedily. That is admirable, but it leaves untouched the central structural problem, which I and others writing for Policy Exchange have tried to draw attention to over the years.

Dr Casey: I agree. I do not see anything in the Bill that would deter unlawful channel crossings. But, as has been mentioned, , depending on how the Bill is received in the courts, it might deter overstaying on visas and the breaching of conditions of your permission to reside. That could be valuable, as those are significant numbers, but I do not see anything that would deter unlawful channel crossings in any way.

You could go further in the Bill and, for example, take advantage of provisions in the refugee convention that allow states to return those convicted of serious criminal offences or of threats to national security to their home countries, even if there was a risk of ill treatment. The refugee convention allows that, but it would not be possible within the confines of the ECHR. Article 3 puts a categorical prohibition on those kinds of returns even if the person being returned poses an enormous threat to the United Kingdom itself. So even if you did take full advantage of everything that the refugee convention permitted you to do to protect your own immigration system, the ECHR would pose even more stringent restrictions in many respects.

Professor Ekins: I agree with everything that Dr Casey has said, but I would add that that is article 3 as—in my view—misinterpreted by the Strasbourg Court. Article 3 does provide a categorical prohibition on torture and subjecting people to inhumane treatment; as I say, that has been misinterpreted in recent decades to establish a much more far-reaching bar on taking action that exposes someone to a risk of such action from third parties.

In 2021, we published a paper that addressed in close detail the misinterpretation of the ECHR and its far-reaching impact for immigration and asylum law. That Policy Exchange paper is backed by Lord Hoffmann, former judge of the House of Lords. It makes clear the problem in the Strasbourg Court’s reading of article 3—as well as its reading of article 8, I should add.

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[Blake Stephenson]

Q That is very helpful, thank you. Do you want to add anything, Dr Casey?

Dr Casey: Yes, I agree. I will just say that I think that, because the Independent Immigration Appeal Authority will not be a judicial body, the courts might be more anxious in scrutinising whether a clause ousts judicial review. At the moment, the way it is drafted, as a public lawyer you read a clause trying to oust and you think how a court would read it. I can imagine a court looking at that at the minute and inserting brackets and making it “A (rational and reasonable) decision of the IIAA”, and interpreting it in that respect.

[Anna Turley]

Q I am keen to come back to some of your comments on article 8. What is your analysis of how it has, slowly over time, come to protect those it was never originally intended to cover, and how can we safeguard against that in the future? Picking up on your point about the potential knock-on effect to article 3, Dr Casey, what mechanisms can we use to prevent article 3 being abused, essentially, on the back of our changes to article 8?

Professor Ekins: On the article 8 point, my own view, which is substantiated in quite some detail in the 2021 Policy Exchange paper with the support of Lord Hoffman that I referred to is that, for a long time in the history of the ECHR, article 8 had nothing to do with immigration and asylum. It was not a provision that was understood to impose limits on the enforcement of migration law or on the deportation and removal of non-citizens, especially foreign criminals and so on. There was no connection there.

A connection has been established in the case law by reading article 8 very expansively and then effectively requiring each particular decision to enforce the migration law of a member state to involve an individuated proportionality assessment about the impact on the particular person being removed—or, in relation to article 8, quite often on his or her family or maybe his or her extended family—and for that to pass judicial muster.

As I say, I think that is an innovation in the case law of the Strasbourg court. I do not want to overstate its novelty—it is an innovation that has been going on for several decades—but it is not part of what the UK and other member states agreed when they agreed the terms of the convention, and I think it should be viewed as a misinterpretation of the convention.

In a sense, the joint declaration of the member states earlier this year recognises that something has gone wrong in the case law of the Court; that it has read article 8—we will come to article 3—to establish a kind of Europe-wide migration and asylum law, beyond the terms agreed by the member states. That needs to be addressed and wound back.

The thought that, in a sense, you are wronging a foreign criminal when you remove him or her from the UK so that he or she cannot maintain a connection with family is just fundamentally misconceived. In the same way, we are not wronging the offender by incarcerating him, which makes it very much more difficult to maintain a flourishing family life; the consequence is a side effect of the wrongful choice made by the offender. Something similar holds, I think, with the wrongful choice made by a person who violates our migration law.

There are harsh consequences in many of these cases, of course, but they are not harsh consequences whereby the UK sets out to wrong someone’s family. That structure has to be more fully recognised. We should see that something has gone badly wrong in thinking that the right to respect for private and family life entails, at least in some cases, a de facto immunity to the application of migration law.

Dr Casey: I agree with Professor Ekins entirely. The extension of article 8 into the domain of immigration law was a very conspicuous act of judicial lawmaking through the living instrument approach.

As recently as 1985 in the Abdulaziz v. the United Kingdom case, you had the UK Government—Sir Peter Rawlinson, the Attorney General—arguing tooth and nail that article 8 did not apply to questions about entry into the UK or removal and that it was just outside the scope. They lost that case, and that has been the EHCR’s position for several decades since then, but it was not understood as part of the original compact when the convention was ratified.

Professor Ekins: You asked us about article 3 as well, I think.

[Anna Turley]

Yes, I did.

[The Chair]

We have an absolute hard stop at 11.05 am, so please be very succinct.

Professor Ekins: The 2021 paper I referred to chronicles the misinterpretation of article 3 as well. The categorical prohibition on torture and inhuman treatment has been wrongly extended to require the UK to avoid consequences that are not within the UK’s responsibility, such as the consequence of moving to a country with a much less developed health system, which really cannot be reasonably understood to involve a violation of article 3.

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[Matt Vickers]

Q If you think that the outcome of entering illegally should be the same as the outcome of entering legally, is there any other deterrent in that space? If the immigration consequence is not used as a deterrent, is there anything that the Refugee Council might accept?

Jon Featonby: For the people who are refugees, it is about having an asylum system that first and foremost does what it should do, which is making decisions as quickly as it can that are right the first time. I think making sure that that happens has been a bit of a challenge under successive Governments now. For the people who are genuinely seeking protection and who need it, the system needs to make sure that they are able to access that protection when they do.

What we have also seen is the challenge at the other end. For the people who are found not to have that protection need, there needs to be a firm and fair system in place to make sure they are removed from the UK as quickly, and hopefully as humanely, as possible. That is probably where there have been challenges. Some of them are legal challenges, but some of it comes down to basic good caseworking in the Home Office.

[Anna Turley]

Q We share your commitment to safe and legal routes; they are an important way to fulfil our obligations. However, as you see, we have large numbers of people who are coming here through irregular means. What proportion of those arriving by irregular means does the Refugee Council think are genuinely fleeing war and persecution? Do you have a view on that?

Jon Featonby: The easiest way to look at some of this is through the immigration statistics published by the Home Office. Since small boats really started in around 2019, the top nationalities have largely stayed the same. There have been people from Afghanistan, Sudan, Eritrea and Iran, and the reasons why people would seek safety from those places are quite well known. Within that time, there have also been spikes from other countries. Quite famously, there was a lot of attention in 2022 on Albanians, but those numbers dropped quite quickly. That was probably a slightly different route from some of the other countries.

The Refugee Council has done some analysis in the past on what you would expect the asylum outcomes to be for those nationalities. Historically, you would expect around two thirds of the people crossing in small boats to go on and get protection. That has dropped slightly in the last year because the overall grant rate has dropped, although one caveat is that because the Home Office has not published appeals outcome statistics for the last three years, it is quite hard to work out exactly what happens once some of those cases go through the appeals process.

[Anna Turley]

Q What are your views on article 8 specifically? We know that the majority of our article 8 grantees have a history of immigration breaches. How can we best protect the immigration system while safeguarding family rights?

Jon Featonby: There is only so much that I can say on this, with my particular focus being on the people we support at the Refugee Council. The previous panel mentioned that, with article 8 rights, there has to be a balance between having a controlled immigration system and a focus on individual cases. From the Refugee Council’s point of view, we will continue to support the individual application interpretation of article 8. We see that in our work with refugee families: for a family that has been forced to displace, it is very much not one size fits all; these families can look like all sorts of different things.

One area where we focus a bit more on article 8, particularly around how the UK defines the core family, is the future system for refugee families to be able to safely reunite. We have shared our concerns around the suspension of that route. By our estimate, there are probably 20,000 people who have not been able to apply to be reunited safely through that route since it was suspended just over a year ago. For us, the important thing to remember about that route is that, for many years, nine in 10 of the visas granted to people on it were for women and children. In terms of family reunion in the future, we see it as important that some of the most vulnerable people who have been displaced from their homes and who are in danger have access to that safe route.

[Dr Ahmed]

Q Mr Featonby, thank you, and your counterparts at the Scottish Refugee Council, for the work you do to look after the vulnerable; we are very grateful. Of course, that work can go on only if there is public confidence in the system. As you know, applications have risen steadily since 2021. From your perspective, what is the urgency for a change in the legislation to return the trust and confidence in the system that have been eroded over the last few years?

Jon Featonby: There are definitely some positive signs that the Government should be quite proud of. Around the time of the election, we published a report that looked at the state of the asylum system. We described it as a “system in meltdown”, largely caused by the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which had seen productivity in the Home Office drop to its lowest level since the height of the covid pandemic. Since then, the Home Office has done a much better job of being able to make decisions quickly. The latest statistics we have show that about 75% of initial decisions are made within six months of somebody making an application. That is a good thing.

We think some Government priority should be given to how you make sure that people have confidence in the asylum system. That system needs to be doing its basics right: making decisions as quickly as it can that are right the first time; supporting refugees who are found to be in need of protection to get on with their lives, rebuild their lives and contribute fully to UK communities; and providing a way for people who are found to be not in need of protection to be removed safely and humanely. That is where we see some challenges in the Bill. We do not think it addresses some of that context.

The previous panels touched on how the backlog in the asylum system is now at the appeals stage, which is an almost inevitable consequence of dealing with the initial decision backlog. There will be more decisions and therefore more refusals, and therefore more people will go into that appeals process. There are probably three times as many people in the appeals backlog as in the asylum backlog itself. Some of that will work its way through the system as the Government get more on top of the asylum system—what officials refer to as having friction within the asylum system—where the number of decisions they are making is roughly the same as the number of people entering the system.

As a result of the speeding-up of decision making in recent years, we have also seen a reduction in the quality of some decisions, which we think has put unnecessary pressure on the tribunal and left people stuck in the asylum system, and in accommodation, for longer than they should be, at cost to the taxpayer and to those individuals. That is borne out by the appeals statistics that we now get from the first-tier tribunal, which show that in the last year, in two thirds of appeals that were disposed of, either the tribunal granted the appeal or—as is increasingly the case—the initial decision was withdrawn by the Home Office, because once the appeal got towards the tribunal hearing the Home Office found that it was not going to be able to defend the decision. That is why we think there should be a laser focus on initial decision making and on what else can be done to reduce the appeals backlog.

One of our concerns around the IIAA is that the appeals backlog is an urgent problem that needs to be dealt with now, but the best case scenario is probably that the IIAA starts to hear some cases at the back end of next year. It may well be the next election before the IIAA is really up and running. We think that more urgent things could be done without having to rip up the entire tribunal system as it currently is.

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

Anna Turley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 15th September 2026 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Anna Turley)]

Q Thank you both for coming to give evidence to us today. You both emphasise the importance of evidence and evaluation. Can you give us some idea of what metrics you think we should use to judge whether our reforms have been successful?

Dr Sumption: Obviously, there are several different goals of the Bill, and the metric used would depend on that. For the deterrence stuff that we have just been discussing, small boat arrivals and asylum applications are the most relevant ones. Some things that cannot be tracked now—at least, not in the published data—could potentially be tracked in future.

For example, we actually have remarkably few statistics on human rights grants, including how many people are granted and what happens to refusals over time, or how many refusals are overturned in court. All those things could be tracked, but the data does not currently exist. My understanding is that it does not exist internally either, because the impact assessment used a sample of around 3,000 cases, rather than just using full statistics for many of them. I think there is probably some statistical work that could be done to try to track the impacts of the human rights measures a bit more.

Also, the data on returns could be linked to the data on what happens to people before that return. For example, one of the potentially very important outcomes that the impact assessment looks at is how many people are refused as a result of the changes, but never actually removed from the country. I think most people would qualify that as an undesirable outcome in the sense that you have people who are still in the UK. and there may be costs associated with them. If they are destitute, the local authority will have to support them, and it increases the unauthorised population. Using the current statistics, we would never know to what extent that is happening, but in theory it would be possible to track all that stuff using the data.

The other major metric on the impact of the changes to the appeals system would be how the backlog changes over time. Of course, you can then look at the numbers of onward appeals to the extent that that becomes a problem, which I am sure other witnesses here will discuss. It is about having data on people’s journeys through the asylum system and appeals system. How long does it take? What are the metrics on the accuracy of the decisions? How many decisions are overturned? I think all those would be important metrics.

[The Chair]

Did you want to add something to that, Mr Mehmet?

Alp Mehmet: Forgive me; my hearing is not what it ought to be. I am not listening to cricket or something; I need to ensure that I can hear what you are saying.

[Anna Turley]

Q I was asking for your view on potential metrics we could use in future, after the Bill has been implemented, to measure whether it has successfully achieved its aims.

Alp Mehmet: I suppose the principal metric will be the extent to which it has sped up how long it actually takes to deal with someone who arrives, claims asylum, goes through the system and then has a decision made. It will also be the extent to which, having made that decision, appropriate action can then be taken—that is, the person is either removed or permitted to stay.

It is going to take a couple of years, which is another problem I find with the Bill. Here we are again, proposing fresh measures, and however welcome or not they are, the fact is that it will be three years down the road before we know what their impact is. I do not think that matches the urgency the problem requires. If it does indeed discourage people from coming and from making repeat appeals, one after the other, I think that is a metric that can also be used to determine whether or not what was intended is being achieved, but it is going to be at least a couple of years, if not longer, before we know.

[Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)]

Q Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. A question to both of you: given that you have mentioned the urgency of addressing the challenge the country faces, and remembering the strict international legal frameworks that constrain some of the legislation we can enter into, which single policy would you like to see in the Bill that is not there now, but that you would think would have the biggest impact on reducing illegal migration? I know it is a difficult question, it is the golden question, but I would be interested to know from two experts, given the urgency and the legal frameworks we are working within, what you think would have the biggest impact on preventing the illegal migration we are being challenged with.

Dr Sumption: If your goal is to reduce unauthorised arrivals, I think most of the measures for which there is evidence that they are effective do not actually require legislation. There is evidence from other countries that physical enforcement—measures like intercepting boats, where it can be done safely—can have a large impact. There is also evidence that a lower grant rate, which the UK already has, will have an impact in reducing the number of people who apply, and that returns agreements—a much larger version of the one in, one out deal with France, for example—would have an impact. Those things are difficult for their own reasons, but none of them would require legislation.

Alp Mehmet: Needless to say, I agree with all that. I start by saying that I believe that the biggest flaw in the Bill is the further opening up of the border, effectively, with the safe and legal routes, which will allow approved organisations, institutions and employers to act as sponsors. That, if it actually works, may attract some of those who would otherwise have crossed in boats or got into the backs of lorries or crossed by other means, but I do not think it will do that. I suspect that if the number of boats coming across slows down, it will not be because of the Bill; none the less, it might have the effect of making fewer people attempt the crossing. You could argue that in itself is a success because it means that fewer people are putting their lives at risk. Nevertheless, opening up in the way that is being proposed, so that universities, employers, non-governmental organisations, and communities can act as sponsors, potentially gives an opportunity to some 120 million people around the world.

Some figures I saw from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees suggested that at the end of 2025 something like 118 million people were displaced globally. Potentially, any one of them can take advantage of this new route the Bill opens up—in effect, anyone who has a friend who can persuade an employer to take them on. Employers go out looking for these people, or universities; presumably somebody will pay for those who are going to be studying there.

My fear is that this will put the Boriswave in the shade. The numbers the measure attracts may become a serious problem, in the same way that those who arrived over the preceding five years became a problem. It is probably too late to do anything about that, but I have a feeling that, three years down the road, we will be talking about legislation to end that process. That is unfortunate, to say the least.

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[Matt Vickers]

Q What is the single biggest border control measure missing from the Bill?

Tony Smith: It is more what it does not do, which is exclude people coming from safe third countries, such as France, from claiming protection. That was the intention of the Illegal Migration Act. There is also provision in the 2002 legislation where someone has come from a safe country and, under article 31 of the convention relating to the status of refugees, they are not in immediate fear of persecution. We interpreted that as saying, “If you come from France on a small boat, you could have claimed asylum there—you did not have to—ergo you will not be granted asylum in this country.” The previous Government relied on that for the Rwanda plan, and this Government rely on it for the one in, one out scheme. There is now provision to exclude people from claiming asylum if they come via that route. There is no provision to exclude them from claiming protection under human rights or modern slavery.

There are some things in the Bill that I applaud. There are attempts to tighten up on article 8 of the ECHR to stop some claims under human rights and under modern slavery provisions as well, which is to be applauded. But while you continue to run a system where somebody simply needs to get within the 12-mile zone and then make a claim for protection, and you bring them ashore and process that claim in the UK, I am afraid that that is always going to send a message back, particularly to the high-intake nationalities we are talking about, from Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and Iran, that all you need to do is get within the 12-mile zone and claim protection, and it is very unlikely—only about 4% have ever been removed—that you will be removed. I am afraid that that still creates a factor for migrants who are unsettled in the Schengen zone, who do not want to stay in France and who are determined to come here. It also still fuels the smugglers’ business model—there is profit in this; this is international organised crime—and they will continue to exploit that market.

[Anna Turley]

Q I would like to focus on the measures in the Bill—you made some reference to the ones on modern slavery. Could you expand on how those provisions might make it harder for individuals who have fictitious claims to stop themselves being removed?

Tony Smith: The Bill is really about the asylum process, rather than law enforcement. I think the Bill last year was more about the law enforcement; this is about the asylum process. There are some good things in here. As I say, I applaud the article 8 reforms, because article 8 is often used as a lever quite late in the process. After someone has been here for quite a while and has been through the process, you suddenly get an article 8 claim because they have developed a connection in the UK. So I think that that reform is right and will help to reduce the pull factor.

I like the idea of the tighter protection arrangements—the 30 months at a time. My only counsel against that is that the Home Office, in my experience, tends to automatically grant and grant and grant, because it is a lot easier than refusing, and that might just become an automatic turnover of grants for however long you allow people to stay.

I think you ought to look at who is going home. If people go back to their own country on holiday when they have a claim for refugee status, we can establish that. We have the passenger information and can cross-match that to their asylum records. If people go back to their own country once they have been given some kind of protection status here, they should not be allowed back in, because they are clearly not in fear of persecution.

The faster appeals process is absolutely essential. The problem with the appeals process is that it went over to the Ministry of Justice years ago, when the Home Office and MOJ were split up. The MOJ does not seem to have been really bothered about it—it has other things on its plate. The backlog is over a year now, so you have to try and get a grip of that. I do not know how you get that in the Home Office and how you persuade them, but I think it is a good idea. You really have to get that end-to-end process going right.

I like the idea of recouping public funds from people, a bit like in the student loan scheme. If people have come here and been a draw on public funds, and they then get into the workplace, why would you not claw back some of that money into the public purse?

I think that all those things might reduce pull factors. They are really good reforms. I am not saying they are not good measures; what I am saying is that, in my opinion, they are not good enough to stop the boats.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

Q As we have just heard, you were director general of Border Force. You talk about the importance of stopping people coming in the first place. But Border Force has only five ocean-going cutters and six coastal patrol vessels. Is there a fundamental issue here of not having the assets for agencies of the state to do their job? Is that something that is not addressed in the Bill, but that would make a meaningful difference?

Tony Smith: The Border Force will enact whatever its operational instructions are, and its operational instructions are drawn from legislation, powers and authorities, so it does not matter how many boats you have out there in the channel. Currently, if someone comes within the 12-mile zone, under the law of the sea you are obliged—quite rightly, because saving lives is paramount—to bring them on board your vessel. The problem is that once they are within the jurisdiction, they accrue all of these rights to asylum applications, ECHR and modern slavery applications. I do not think it is a question of resource. I am a bit worried about resources, given what we saw in Portsmouth last week, because I do not think we have the bandwidth to cover the entire coastline any more. We have been focusing what resources we have on the short straits. Clearly, the smugglers are moving along the coast, so we need to be adaptable to be able to deal with that.

They would always take more resources if they were on offer, but for me it is more about how you get the people coming off the boats properly screened, not cleared within 24 or 48 hours—that is not long enough. Whatever your views on immigration, you have to properly and thoroughly screen people. A passport tells a story—it will tell you all sorts of things. We do not know their dates of birth or their nationalities; the biometric checks are pretty useless. All I am saying is that I think we need to be detaining people for at least longer than 24 hours at Manston if we are going to reduce the risk in any case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Vickers]

Q If you could make one amendment to the Bill to increase the distinction between people coming to Britain legally and those entering illegally, what would that be?

Guy Dampier: That is a very difficult one, because one of the big problems that the Bill does not tackle is the fact that an increased number of people are coming legally and then claiming asylum. Since 2019, I think, the number of those coming on the study route has gone up by four times and the number of those coming on the work route has gone up by 22 times. A lot of people are abusing the legal way of getting into the country and then claiming asylum, often suspiciously close to the end of their visa. Nothing in the Bill would really tackle that; that area is really missing.

[Anna Turley]

Q Could you say a little more about the article 8 provisions and how you think they might affect strung-out appeals and deterrence?

Guy Dampier: On the strung-out appeals, the new immigration appeal authority is supposed to help tackle that. The difficulty there, which will touch on article 8, is that potentially the people being used will not be fully legally trained as adjudicators. There are examples of countries that have such a system, including Denmark, Canada and, I think, Norway, but all those have relatively high bars for people to become adjudicators—and in a lot of cases, I think that they end up being lawyers anyway.

The Australians had a similar system. I believe that they cancelled it precisely because the paperwork was being done so badly that they had to redo things or the wrong decisions were being made. Although bad decisions are being made now, the new authority could potentially lead to worse decisions, depending on the quality of the people who come in. We cannot know that quality, but at the moment the lack of qualifications in the legislation is a potential danger.

On article 8, we are seeing restrictions and a narrowing down of things, which is good and will reduce the number of people able to use it. But that will apply only to a minority of cases—even when we are dealing with people who have come here illegally. The majority of people claiming under article 8 now will not be affected. I believe that the Home Office estimates that something like 50% of those who will be refused if this legislation passes will remain in the country illegally; obviously, that is something of a problem.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions from Members, I thank the witness for his evidence and we will move on to the next panel.

Examination of Witness

Angela Afzal gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Vickers]

Q Is there any evidence that expanding safe and legal routes would reduce the number of small boat crossings, rather than simply increase the overall number of people coming to the UK?

Angela Afzal: To reduce small boat crossings, there will be a range of interventions. Our position would be that the safe routes need to be part of that, because if refugees do not have an alternative, they will use people smugglers. Under the Biden Administration in the US, for example, there was a mixture of a change of internal policy on the border and an extensive offer of safe routes for people. The evidence showed that when there was an alternative, people chose it, and it reduced irregular arrivals significantly.

[Anna Turley]

Q Thank you for joining us this afternoon. You mentioned in your earlier answer that there are not sufficient routes to claim asylum, but a lot of the people who come here, particularly on small boats, have come through another safe country. I think your organisation has said that individuals bypassing safe routes is a secondary issue. How do you think that that enables us to support a fair, rules-based international framework?

Angela Afzal: Sorry; I did not catch the second part of your question.

[Anna Turley]

Do you think it is fair for people to be able to circumvent an international rules-based framework by going through a safe country already before coming to claim asylum in the UK, or do you think that should have no effect at all on their asylum claim here?

Angela Afzal: We have to acknowledge that the majority of refugees claim asylum and receive protection in countries neighbouring where they had to flee. Secondly, we need to acknowledge that the UK is about 14th in the ranking of EU-plus countries in how many asylum applications we have per capita—we are quite far down the list.

The nature of our geography means that people need to be able to cross the channel in some way to reach the UK for protection. At the moment, there are not significant safe routes for people to get to the UK; we are talking about hundreds of them at the moment. In the absence of safe routes for people to get here, people who arrive here and have their claims processed should be granted the full entitlement to refugee status, so that the UK plays its part according to the obligations of the UN refugee convention.

Ideally, we would want people to have the opportunity to travel here on a safe route from the region of displacement, so that they would not have to make the dangerous journeys to Europe in the first place. As things are at the moment, there is little alternative.

[Blake Stephenson]

Q In the view of the International Rescue Committee, what safe routes should be opened up today to deal with the issue that you have just described?

Angela Afzal: We welcome the safe routes that the Home Secretary has recently announced. We think that they are a positive development. There has been a wide consultation with communities and stakeholders, and the approach has allowed communities to offer consent for the refugees who come to them. There can be planning for people arriving so that services are ready. Our experience shows that that is when you get good refugee integration and good social cohesion.

We welcome the offer of complementary safe routes, so that people who want to come here to study and work, but are not able to access the usual immigration rules—

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Vickers]

Q In your experience, how often does article 8 make the decisive difference between somebody being allowed to remain or being removed? Do you think that the provisions in the Bill will materially and effectively change that situation?

Jacqui McKenzie: We are worried about the provisions in the Bill around article 8, particularly as they relate to the best interests of children and the redefinition of the family, at a time when we are recognising that families come in all different types and colours—I do not mean colours in terms of race; that is probably not the best word. There is not a straightforward definition of a family. The Bill seeks almost to narrow it down to who lives in the house and who does not. That is the sort of language we are getting from the Home Office in trying to describe what it means, because we do not know yet. All we have is a template of an idea.

We have section 55 on the best interests of the child, which most of us base our work on. That enables families using article 8 to remain together in the country. In the impact assessment accompanying the Bill, I saw that fewer than 12,000 families were likely to be refused. We are going for such a draconian measure to deal with a very small number of people. It almost reminds me of Rwanda again. We spent £700 million and we got four volunteers out. Even if we had got some people out through enforcement, it would have been a very small number.

I cannot quite understand why we are targeting families. A lot of those families are actually the third and fourth generation of people who settled here and then brought over their children. In Windrush families, south Asian families and west African families, we have this concept of leaving children behind. The first came when they were over the age of 18, and now large numbers of their children are the ones caught up in the system and using article 8 to remain. Those are the sorts of people we would be targeting. This is their home. They are settled here. The numbers are small. It is not yet clear to me why we need to be doing this.

[Anna Turley]

Q Thank you both for joining us. I want to refer back to the example you gave of the online case that you joined by mistake, where something had got to a judge that was a result of poor decision making. Does that not make the case for the IIAA, in that it was a waste of a judge’s time to have gone through that process? Having a quicker appeals process would have enabled that to be seen quickly and dealt with much more effectively. Building on that point, we have seen a 21% increase in the amount of investment and judges dealing with tribunal appeals, yet the rate of appeals and the waiting time are still going up. Surely, you must admit that there is an issue with the backlog, the time it takes and the small pool of people we have to draw from.

Jacqui McKenzie: I think I might have confused the point. There are two separate things. The point I was making about the man from Iraq was about the lack of representation. That lack of representation, and people coming unprepared to do their appeals, causes judges’ time and the entire tribunal’s time to be wasted. That goes out of the system and it comes back in. The poor decision making is a separate thing. I do not know whether the refusal of that man, which brought him into the appellate system, was a good decision or not. We did not get round to that bit, but we see considerable poor decision making.

I work quite a lot with the Windrush community. We keep seeing in the news, “They’re waiting for the Windrush generation to die.” I do not think that is true at all—I do not think the Home Office is that sinister—but we are seeing very straightforward cases taking two or three years to come to conclusion. The whole reason for that is the poor decision making. You get cases where the first decision is a zero, and then it goes up to six figures after two or three reviews. We are dealing with an elderly cohort, and these reviews go on for years and retraumatise the victims.

I see the same sort of thing across my practice: poor decision making on a number of things, including human rights applications and asylum claims. I do not know how, unless things are improved in the first instance, we will reduce the backlog in either the existing tribunal system or the new appellate authority.

Professor Singer: Just to clarify, that is bad quality initial Home Office decision making, as opposed to adjudicator decisions.

Jacqui McKenzie: Home Office decisions, yes, absolutely.

[Anna Turley]

Q My point was, would it not be better to go to an intermediate tier, rather than take up the time of the courts? That is where we are seeing the backlog—the delay—because of the lack of available judges we have—

Jacqui McKenzie: We have that; we have a review mechanism. The Home Office is meant to review; once you load something up on the tribunal portal, the Home Office is meant to review the decision. That is why we are getting costs in these cases, which is almost unheard of. I have been doing this work as a lawyer for 18 years—it is two years for training—and I have never seen anything like it. We are getting costs in these cases because of the poor decision making at the Home Office, even when there is a built-in review mechanism. A formal part of the process is that things go back to the Home Office for it to review.

Professor Singer: I would add that if the problem this new mechanism is seeking to address is the lack of sufficient capacity among decision makers, the way that that could be most expediently addressed is simply by expanding the eligibility criteria for the existing tribunal system, to increase the pool of decision makers, rather than by having to staff an entirely new body, which the impact assessment itself says would be incredibly challenging.

[Joe Robertson]

Q I will address my question to Professor Singer. We heard in previous evidence about some of the novel or unusual drafting and wording in the Bill. For example clause 19(4) says:

“No weight should be given to a private or family life”,

rather than that those issues should be “disregarded”, which I think is the normal phrase you would find in law, rather than “no weight”—it is hard to understand what “no weight” means. Also, the ouster provision in clause 1(8) seeking to try to oust the jurisdiction of the court in certain circumstances is drafted in a very loose way, when we know from case law that courts want very specific ousters if they are going to accept them. Does that not run the risk that this entire Bill is actually going to increase litigation just so that the courts can try to define and understand what some of this novel and peculiar wording actually means?

Professor Singer: I have to say that I have questions about the drafting of the Bill in its entirety. I do not think that the Committee can appropriately scrutinise the Bill, because there is a significant lack of detail in so many of the provisions, in addition to very odd drafting. With due respect, a lot of it is back-of-the-envelope-type stuff, which has clearly been rushed through the legislative drafting process.

For example, in the previous panel, I heard the Committee questioning the clause on the introduction of a core protection status. The clause does not actually set out the eligibility or content, in terms of what a core protection status is; it gives the Secretary of State significant powers to make regulations in respect of what eligibility for a protection status would be and what the content of that status would be.

Similarly, in the provision on asylum support, we do not have any details about the actual operation or functioning of that system. The provision gives the Secretary of State power to make regulations in respect of this scheme. In relation to the Independent Immigration Appeals Authority, we do not have the rules of procedure to scrutinise, to be able to ascertain whether there will be due process, which will be appropriately followed, and fairness.

I agree with you that there are strange inconsistencies in the drafting, but, additionally, I think the whole content of the Bill is quite lacking in many respects.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Vickers]

Q What impact do you expect the financial penalties for companies that fail to comply with the reporting requirements to have on company compliance?

Dr Buttle: As I say, we have been evaluating companies’ modern slavery statements for three or four years now. There is also another investor coalition that we are part of, which is Rathbones’ Votes Against Slavery initiative. That has identified 194 instances of companies in the FTSE 350 not complying with section 54 over the past six years. That is quite widespread and companies are not actually complying. In our benchmarking work, we have identified some of the largest companies in the world that have exposure to modern slavery. They operate in high-risk geographies. They have supply chains that reach into high-risk geographies and they are in sectors that we deem high risk that are not currently complying with section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act. So we do think there is a risk at the moment, and we think that financial penalties would mean there is a risk of not complying with the legislation. On the way that the Bill introduces penalties of £1 million or up to 1% of turnover, that should be sufficient to make businesses consider this more seriously.

[Anna Turley]

Q That was the question I wanted to ask: will this have the intended effect? Where businesses are not complying with transparency in supply chains, do you think the financial penalty will encourage greater compliance?

Dr Buttle: I think it will, but the other thing to note is that there has not been very much enforcement by the Home Office of the Modern Slavery Act in the past. In addition to the penalties, we need some enforcement by a body; we would consider that in future that may not be the Home Office, and that the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade might be a better place to enforce this. If there is no enforcement, companies may still consider not complying with the regulations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Vickers]

Q Do you think there will be any significant effect from the proposed article 8 changes, or do you think we will just see everything coming back on different legal grounds?

Stephen Webb: You obviously have a combination of both the article 8 definitions and the decision-making body, with a new appeals structure. The appeals structure could be very helpful. There is a significant problem of public confidence in the immigration tribunals as they stand, so I welcome the Government’s measures essentially to phase that out.

It is very hard to say how decision makers and people on appeal are going to interpret this. There clearly is a toughening-up here, certainly on article 8. There is nothing at the moment that does much on article 3 claims, which, as the Committee knows, have been broadened very widely by the courts over the last 20 years into things like whether there is an equivalent health system in the host country and the receiving country, and into areas that are really quite surprising for something that is supposed to be an unqualified right.

[Anna Turley]

Q Could you say a little more about where you think the IIAA will have an impact on improving public confidence in the appeals process?

Stephen Webb: The problem with the immigration tribunals at the moment is that the reporting on judgments, in some cases, has been pretty shocking. The judiciary have not helped themselves in the way that most first-tier judgments are not routinely available. The only time you really hear about them is when they go up on appeal and are quite often turned down. The point about the famous chicken nuggets case is that it was not actually upheld on appeal. It was turned down, but it gave people a taste of the sort of things that might be happening in the tribunals. Obviously, there are recorded cases of tribunal judges coming from quite an activist background, which again seems very odd—I think the public would not expect that.

From that point of view, there is an opportunity to reset and to have clear rules about impartiality. There is also considerable scope to speed things up, which will definitely be helpful. Certainly, a lot of cases are lost because of the time it takes to get to a hearing, so people can build a case. Maybe they will get involved, rightly or wrongly, genuinely or not, in making a political case. Maybe they will create it. They might start developing religious reasons or, indeed, article 8 reasons related to relationships formed in the country. The quicker a decision is made, the more likely it is that it will be rapidly upheld at that first stage. Those are all positives. It is going to be a big process to find these people—identifying them, training them and getting them ready—but in principle, I think it is a good idea.

[The Chair]

If Members have no further questions, I thank the witness for his evidence and move on to the next panel.

Examination of Witnesses

Rt Hon Anna Turley MP, Dan Hobbs and Bas Javid gave evidence.

Modern Slavery Act: Independent Review

Anna Turley Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I declare my interest in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) on securing the debate, and on his report with the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and Baroness Butler-Sloss in the Lords.

I know that the Minister is committed to doing all that she can on this issue, so my remarks are really a challenge to us as an institution, and as a Parliament, rather than a criticism. We all want to end slavery and trafficking; that goes without saying. However, we have an opportunity to ask how we can wake the system up a bit, and make it go a bit faster. I was in Government, and it is a great source of frustration for me that some of the sensible amendments that the Government have started to accept were tabled in 2015. They should have been adopted then, and the Government are now adopting them four years later.

We all understand why people outside sometimes get frustrated. In a sense, that fuels populism, because people ask, “Why doesn’t the system get a move on?” Everybody knows that it is a problem. I say to the Minister that this is a real opportunity to get hold of this issue, and say that not only will we be outraged, frustrated and angered by it, but we will drive the system much more quickly than at present to work in a way that makes a real difference.

A difference has been made, of course, but let us look at what the report says. In the limited time that I have, I will make a couple of points in each area. Businesses are still not really conforming to the transparency arrangements, which I know the Prime Minister has made a statement about. I say to the businesses of this country that surely every managing director or board of directors deplores slavery, and I challenge them to put their own houses in order—to use their massive purchasing power to invest in companies, businesses and supply chains that conform to the requirements of the Modern Slavery Act.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a passionate and well-informed speech. Will he join me in paying tribute to the brilliant businesses around the country who understand the agenda and are trying to do their best about it, such as the Co-operative Group, which has brought in a project called Bright Future that guarantees a job placement for anyone who is a victim of modern slavery?

[Vernon Coaker]

Yet again, the co-op movement shows the rest of us what can be done. I use this debate to challenge businesses to get their act together—to stop just talking and to show the rest of the country in their investment decisions that they mean what they say. One of the suggestions in the report is more transparency. I know the Minister will address that, and the Prime Minister has already started to address that, which is good.

We come to independent child trafficking advocates. That has to be rolled out much more quickly and has to include not only trafficked children, but unaccompanied children, which is a demand of many of the non-governmental bodies. People would be shocked—I know the Minister is—that we save children, and then we lose them. How can that be right? How can it be right that we take children from the traffickers and put them into the care of the state, and then we lose them, and not just for a short period of time? According to the 2017 report from Every Child Protected Against Trafficking and Missing People, 190 of them have gone and we have no idea where they are. That simply is not acceptable. We have to do better.

The report laid out that the role of the commissioner is a challenge for the Government. The commissioner has to be independent. Governments hate that—I know that from my time in Government. They say they love it, but they hate it, because as soon as the commissioner brings out a report that says the Government need to be doing better, the Government usually row back—although I know the Minister will not do this—and say, “If only the commissioner understood the parameters in which we operate.” That is why the suggestion in the report that the commissioner should be moved into the Cabinet Office rather than the host Department might be a way forward.

It is really important that some of the legal applications are clarified, particularly in terms of what we mean by trafficking and modern slavery, and the relevance to the Palermo protocols and so on. There is a job of work to be done there.

I want to labour one point with the Minister, which completely and utterly bedevils the system, and it bedevils me—I find it intolerable. The Government must reconcile the needs of victims with the immigration system. Somebody can be found to have conclusive grounds for claiming to be a victim of modern slavery or trafficking, and yet they end up with no immigration status at all. The Home Office even looks to send home some of the people in that situation. I know the Home Office will say that it will look at this, and that the processes will all be done very carefully, and so on and so forth. I say again to the Minister, all power to her elbow when she points out to the immigration department of the Home Office that these people are victims of the most heinous crimes and should be guaranteed some security of residence in this country, over and above what they are given at present. It simply is not good enough.

I finish where I started. This is a real opportunity. It is a positive report that reflects the good work that the Government and the whole of the House of Commons have done, and it says to the British people that we know more needs to be done, and we are going to do it.

Police Grant Report

Anna Turley Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

Crime, antisocial behaviour and the lack of visible policing is the biggest issue that I face when I am out on the doorsteps talking to my constituents. With the indulgence of the House, I will quickly read out an email that I received from one of my constituents; it exactly epitomises what I hear day in, day out.

My constituent says:

“I have lost count of the amount of times I have rang both the police and fire brigade because of youths trying to and succeeding in lighting fires on the playing field and also to the rear of my property. They are stealing wheelie bins, people’s fences and various items from the back of the shops to set on fire. There is also large groups of youths hanging around in the area. There are motor bikes and quads flying around like they are untouchable”—

I can vouch for that because I nearly got knocked flying myself by one the other week—

“both on the roads, the paths and the children’s playing field. There is drug dealing (that is very clear to see) that has been reported countless times, regular vehicles back and forth that the police would catch in the act if there was enough of them in wait. In the 6 years I have lived here the last 18 months have been the worst and getting even worse. Why? Because they know they are getting away with whatever they please because we have no policing. Things are going from bad to worse and people are starting to take matters into their own hands. I hope and pray you get the funding that is needed.”

That is not an unusual plea for me to get from my constituents.

I know that the police officers of Cleveland police are doing a fantastic job against all the odds, and I want to pay tribute to all of them today for the sacrifice and service they give to us, but they have been struggling with nearly a decade of year on year real-terms cuts. We have lost 500 police officers and 50 police community support officers—that is nearly 40% of our staff in Cleveland police. How on earth do the Government think we can have a functioning service that protects the public when they wipe out 40% of the resources—the members of staff—that are there to protect the public? That is why crime is rising. We have seen a rise of 12% in all crime in the Cleveland police area in the last year, and a shocking 95% increase in violent crime in the last five years. Those figures are appalling and are a direct consequence of the cuts to police numbers.

I do not understand how this funding settlement can have been set out with such clear inequality and such a lack of needs-based resourcing as we are seeing today. Cleveland has the fourth highest crime rate in the country, yet today it is receiving the lowest settlement in the country—just 5.77%. That is 1.42% lower than the average increase across the rest of the service. How can it be that the area with the fourth highest crime rate gets the lowest settlement? There is something fundamentally wrong with the way the Government are calculating the funding formula.

I would have liked to have put this question to the Home Secretary, but I cannot—I am sorry he cannot spare three hours of his life to listen to the entirety of this debate and hear from constituents around the country—so I will put it to the Minister instead. What on earth is the Government’s funding formula based on, given that every single force area that received a lower than average increase, bar one, was among those with the highest levels of recorded crime per head? It is just not right or equitable. In line with all the other cuts, this appears to be politically motivated, not based on need, which is unacceptable.

I am shocked that my constituents are being asked again to pay through the nose for higher local precepts. Not only has the Home Secretary hidden the local collection figure in his national funding announcement today, but—this is the most important point—my constituents are paying twice. They are already paying for their police service through their taxes and are now being asked to pay again through the precept.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is nothing but a Tory police tax—no ifs, no buts—on top of the £2.7 billion of cuts? That is from the National Audit Office, not the Labour party. Those are the facts.

[Anna Turley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is what we should call it: a Tory police tax. Not only are people paying twice, but this is a regressive tax that hits the poorest the hardest, and once again it is the poorest who are seeing the highest levels of crime. People are paying twice and getting fewer police officers and a lower standard of service. It is not acceptable.

The poorest are being made to pick up the Government’s tab. It is no wonder that in my constituency there are private security firms being set up to reassure people who are desperately worried about their properties and businesses. That should not be happening in our society. This is what a broken society looks like. People are having to set up companies just to maintain the peace and safety of the streets.

It is no wonder people are taking to public meetings and writing to me in desperation and despair. The funding formula is a disgrace. Cleveland police are yet again at the bottom of the pile. My constituents are angry and desperate and they want to know what the Government are going to do about it. In the meantime, I will not be voting for this funding formula tonight.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Anna Turley Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 28th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate the Minister’s generosity. I hope to speak to those amendments but if time eludes me, fair enough; that is why I want to raise this issue now. Have the Government done an impact assessment of the implications of these measures for online retailers? I speak on behalf of a constituent who runs a DIY shop, and thinks that the implications would be in the region of £30,000 if he was unable to sell wallpaper scrapers and specific DIY knives to residential addresses.

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Lady’s constituent will be able to sell the products. We are not banning the online sale of bladed products; we are making it clear that retailers have to conduct proper checks as to the age of the person to whom they are selling. They should be doing that at the moment anyway, and this legislation means that they will also have to package the items up as they do if they are selling online or at a distance. The point is that the package has to be labelled, and that it will then be kept at the post office or wherever before being picked up by a person with ID.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Turley]

I rise to support my two amendments, amendments 1 and 2, with regard to a specific constituency case I mentioned earlier to the Minister. I am afraid her response did not go quite far enough to satisfy me, so I would like to press my case a bit further.

My point refers specifically to an online decorating business in my constituency, which expressed deep concerns that the proposed legislation could potentially force them out of business. My constituent estimates that were the Bill to be enacted as it stands, he would lose approximately £32,000 per year. That is probably enough to destroy a small business. He currently sells a number of bladed decorating tools, including bladed paint scrapers, craft knives, safety knives and utility blades—all very niche tools for the DIY trade. These items are delivered to residential addresses and so the provisions under clause 17 could potentially make a significant part of his trade illegal.

There could also be a wider impact on the rest of his business. As customers often purchase those items with other decorating materials such as wallpaper and paint, my constituent is concerned that if people are forced to visit decorating stores to buy a single tool, such as a scraper or a knife, they will buy all their decorating materials and bladed items there in one go. That would have a huge impact on his business.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend has seen, as I think would be the case under the Bill, that people like her constituent would not be able to post those products to somebody’s home, whereas somebody selling identical products from overseas would freely be able to carry on sending them by post to the purchaser.

[Anna Turley]

My right hon. Friend makes a really important point. That is just another huge loophole in the Bill that will have an impact on British businesses, forcing them to be unable to compete. Ahead of Small Business Saturday, I really hope Ministers will take that under consideration.

In response to my question earlier, the Minister responded that the simple difference would be that people would just have to go to a post office to sign for these goods. In areas like mine, people often travel as far as six or eight miles to get to the nearest post office. That is a long way, so why would they not go to the nearest B&Q or other big store to buy all their DIY needs? We are driving out small online businesses who have struggled to get themselves up and running. They are losing out yet again to major stores, because we are making their customers’ lives more difficult.

My constituent is just one example of many small and medium-sized businesses across the country that could be inadvertently affected by the Bill. Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy and local communities, and we will all be celebrating them this weekend. I am sure the Government did not intend for the Bill to unjustly penalise online retailers and I am sure this is just an oversight in the drafting. The proposed legislation already makes very specific exemptions on bladed items for activities such as sporting or re-enactment. It would therefore not be unreasonable to extend that flexibility to decorating items which similarly support a genuine public purpose and are used regularly by law-abiding citizens.

I would also like to speak in support of amendments 8 and 9, tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), which seek to address the same problem. There will obviously be a number of other businesses—we have already heard today about the importance of Sheffield steel and Sheffield knives—affected by the poor drafting of the Bill, including in the catering and the arts and crafts industries. The amendments would create a trusted trader status entitling qualifying businesses to sell bladed products to residential premises, creating another means of protecting such legitimate businesses. As long as there was not a resulting excessive administrative burden or unnecessary delays to trading while registering, the trusted trader approach could be an effective means to ensure a satisfactory balance between necessary restrictions on the sale of blades to those who intend to use them as weapons, and ensuring legitimate businesses can continue to operate.

The Minister raised the point about overburdensome regulation in opposition to the amendments. Again, she is already asking people to send their customers to the post office, so that we try to make sure that they are not selling to those under the age of 18. We are already putting such restrictions on people. I do not think it is that burdensome to ask someone to register as a trusted trader, which is a positive thing for them to sign up to and would enhance, not jeopardise, their businesses.

I hope that the Government will look again at the amendments and recognise that there is, I am afraid, a serious flaw in the drafting of the Bill. I hope that they will work with the Opposition to amend the Bill as it continues its passage through the House, while engaging fully with the retailers and others affected. Otherwise, I am afraid that the Bill as it stands will have a disastrous effect on many of our hard-working small businesses, which are the lifeblood of economies such as mine.

[Huw Merriman]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), who is a fellow Arsenal fan and one of the nicest people in this place—[Interruption.] There was no career to lose—at least for me.

I want to speak about new clauses 5 and 26. I am conscious that the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) has not yet spoken, so I will leave time for her to do so. Generally, I am very supportive of the Bill, and I am very concerned that the number of offences of violence against the person recorded by the police in 2017 was 21% higher than in 2016. That demonstrates the need for more to be done across the House to support the police. There was also the highest level of offences involving knives or sharp instruments since 2011, so we clearly have a problem. This should not be a party political issue; it should be for all of us as constituency MPs to work together to deliver a solution. That certainly came through to me last night, when I was due to be meeting a friend—not just a friend to me, but to many in this place—who works for Save the Children and who I went to the Syrian border with. She did not turn up to the meeting that we were due to have because she was attacked and mugged by somebody carrying a large knife. She is well known to us all, so this is going on in our communities.

Let me deal with new clause 5. I am indebted to the Minister, who is not in her place, but we spoke at length this morning. When I look through the clause, which was tabled by the shadow police Minister, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), it is very difficult to see anything in it that I would not agree with. I can see that the issue may be the impact that it could have on small businesses. However, if I wished to harm myself by going into a shop and buying a packet of cigarettes, those cigarettes would be behind a counter locked in a cabinet, often in very small premises, yet if I wished to harm somebody else, I could go into a shop and pick up a bladed article to do that. Of course, the issue is with regard to shoplifting. Although I absolutely agree with the need to support small businesses and be proportionate, I say to the Minister, through the Front Benchers who are here now, that if we find out from a review over a period of months that we still have difficulties with knives, and that the measures taken on internet restrictions and delivery to addresses have not dealt with this matter, the new clause will need to be looked at again. I therefore ask those on the Front Bench, in return for me supporting their position and the Bill overall—notwithstanding that I think the new clause is excellent—to ensure that we see the new clause again if it is absolutely demonstrated to be necessary.

When I was speaking to the Minister, I had the feeling that we were looking for other solutions, because if we compare the scenario in south London, where knife crime is prevalent, with my constituency, where it is not as prevalent, we see that a one-size-fits-all ban across every single shop may not be proportionate. However, we do have public spaces protection orders, which were brought in to allow local authorities to put orders in place to prohibit certain behaviour relevant perhaps just to that community. Such an order can be applied for if the activities are being carried out in a public space within an authority’s area and those activities have a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality and are likely to be persistent, unreasonable and justify such a restriction—so, something as crucial as knife crime should fit within that.

I understand from the Minister, who is back in her place, that the difficulty is that the definition of “public space” would not include a shop. I am sure that that has been tested legally. I was trying to find the research, and in the short time I had I could not do so, but I did notice that the US definition would actually include a shop because, in effect, it only precludes areas relevant to a private gathering or other personal purposes. I understand that a “public space” would tend to be open, but I would ask if lawyers could reconsider whether that is relevant and, if it is, whether local authorities in areas where knife crime is prevalent should be able to apply for such orders. That would have the same effect as the new clause.

Leaving the EU: Rights of EU Citizens

Anna Turley Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary indicated that the White Paper will be coming forward in the autumn. The hon. Gentleman will be able to work out that we are in the autumn now, so perhaps he can have greater confidence that, when I say soon, I mean soon. However, he raises the 3.5 million EU citizens that we want to go through the settled status scheme to confirm the rights that we have offered to them. Of course, they have those rights, and that is not dependent on the future immigration system. We have opened the settled status scheme now to the testing cohorts and will be opening it more widely in the new year.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Immigration Minister has confirmed that there will be transitional arrangements for EU citizens even in the event of no deal. How long will those transitional arrangements last? Last week, I was treated by a nurse from Romania who had been here for many, many years, but she has asked her landlord to reduce her tenancy to a six-month rolling contract because she is terrified—in her words—that she will be “kicked out”.

[Caroline Nokes]

The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union have all made it very clear that there will be no removals of EU citizens; we want them to stay. They are welcome here and they play an important role not just in our communities, but in our health service, as the hon. Lady pointed out. The settled status scheme is open in its testing phase and we will open it fully in the new year, but it is really important that we convey a message to everyone that we want EU citizens to stay. Seeking to sow seeds of uncertainty and division is actually really unhelpful to them.

Asylum Accommodation Contracts

Anna Turley Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham]

Yes, indeed; that is the case. It is something that I will allude to later on in my remarks.

My staff team and I know first-hand how hard it is to break through the barriers of service providers and their subcontractors to try and get them to fulfil their contracts to vulnerable people. One example in Stockton is a family with a seriously disabled member. They were dumped in a second floor flat, making the person a prisoner in their home. It took us weeks and umpteen phone calls to providers, contractors, subcontractors and the Home Office to sort it out. Had the contract been properly monitored, this would never have happened.

The Home Affairs Committee—I said I would mention it—recommended that the Government recognise local authorities and the third sector as key stakeholders, empower devolved Governments to monitor the delivery of the contracts and give local authorities greater flexibility to determine where accommodation is procured.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

I appreciate my hon. Friend giving way and congratulate him on securing this debate. As my neighbour in Teesside, will he join me in congratulating the local authority there? They have proved themselves to be excellent partners in delivering the Syrian resettlement programme. Does he agree that flexibility should be extended on the asylum dispersal system, so that local authorities can again prove themselves to be excellent partners in providing these services when the private sector fails?

[Alex Cunningham]

Yes, I most certainly do. We have some great local authorities throughout the Tees valley. The local authorities really want to work with the Government on this. They have the expertise, they know the people, they know the places and they know the facilities.

Police Funding

Anna Turley Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am extremely glad that we are having this debate this evening, because crime and antisocial behaviour is the number one issue raised with me on the doorstep, in my surgery and in my mailbox.

People in my community are deeply concerned about rising crime and antisocial behaviour. They tell me they are scared of leaving the house after dark and many say they feel besieged by the antisocial behaviour they see in their local areas. They are angry at the devastating damage being done, and I have received a huge number of petitions calling for more officers. Many people have attended public meetings to share their concerns. Local businesses on Redcar High Street and across our town centres in Eston, Normanby, Grangetown, South Bank, Ormesby, Dormanstown, and Marske have all told me they fear the threat of burglaries and damage to property, which is on the rise. As the Minister knows, these businesses already feel the pressure from huge job losses and stagnant wages in our area.

We have had a number of public meetings recently called by residents—not by politicians—who are desperate for action. I attended one recently in east Redcar. This is what people told me. One elderly lady said:

“We are too afraid to leave our homes after dark. We feel under siege in our own community.”

Another resident told me:

“When I am coming in on a night I feel very vulnerable.”

Another said:

“Whatever niceties are put in place in this town will be ruined in this lawless place.”

Another said:

“Bring back our police. At the moment it’s such a scary place to live.”

It gives me no pleasure to say that because Redcar is a fantastic place to live. I know that as a resident. It is full of wonderful people, but a small minority are causing problems. The police are desperate to tackle them, but they feel that they are working with at least one hand tied behind their back because their resources are stretched so thinly.

The crime statistics for our area are deeply worrying. Reported crime across the Cleveland police area has increased by 18.3% since 2010, when the Conservative Government came into office. For Redcar and Cleveland Borough, violent crime in particular is up by a massive 46.4% since March 2011. That is absolutely shocking.

[Mr Simon Clarke]

The hon. Lady and I share Redcar and Cleveland Borough between us. I fully accept that there is concern about crime, but there is also a question about how resource is allocated within the borough. Does she concede that Cleveland police have, I think, the fourth highest ratio of officers per head of population of any force in the country?

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. He has made the point about resources before. Given his concern about moving resources to east Cleveland, I ask him where exactly he would like to take those resources from. Whether they come from Redcar, Middlesbrough, Stockton or Hartlepool, we are all stretched for resources. He has made that point before, but resources are stretched extremely thin.

It is no coincidence that crime has gone up when there are fewer officers on our streets. The introduction of neighbourhood policing was a massive step forward in tackling crime and making people feel safe. The last Labour Government made it a priority to ensure that local neighbourhoods had their own dedicated teams, with a visible and accessible presence. Sadly, that important initiative is being slowly eroded. I do not for one moment fault the work of our police force, which has been fantastic. Our hard-working men and women are doing their utmost to protect our communities, but when there are fewer people to cover the same ground and deal with more crime, they are swimming against the tide, and the Government must take responsibility.

[Stephen Doughty]

I, too, have a Grangetown in my constituency. We also suffer from challenges from drugs, antisocial behaviour, burglaries and so on, but a big difference is that the Welsh Labour Government continue to invest in police community support officers in our communities in Wales, so we have that presence in communities that is able to respond to issues. It is not perfect, but at least we have that resource on the street in communities.

[Anna Turley]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. I envy him for having that support. We have lost over 50 PCSOs in our area. They provided that visible reassurance to the public and were there as the eyes and ears for our police force. That vital role has been cut and that has had, and continues to have, a huge impact.

In Cleveland police, we have lost £40 million from cuts to our budget, and since 2011, we have lost over 500 officers. That is going to have an impact; these cuts have consequences. When I raised that with the Government, they insisted that they are providing extra funding for policing, but that is just not right. In reality, the grant settlement that the Government provided for my local force does not provide a single penny of extra money to allow for a single extra officer to be recruited. For my area, with the 2% pay award, inflation and other cost increases, the settlement means a real-terms cut of £1.6 million, which is equivalent to losing another 50 to 60 officers.

Even worse, local taxpayers are again being asked to put their hands in their pockets through the local precept just to maintain the status quo, so people are paying twice for less of a service than they have previously received. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) rightly said, this is a regressive tax. There is no reason why my constituents, who, on average, have some of the lowest wages and the highest unemployment in the country, should be paying exactly the same rate as people in the Minister’s constituency.

I am starting to see a very worrying trend regarding private protection, because people are losing such confidence in the police’s ability to support them. Some of my constituents have been driven in desperation to pay for private protection companies to protect their homes and businesses. These companies offer protection packages for around £13 a house that involve offering security, responding to incidents and investigating crimes. I am deeply worried about the legality of such companies and the fact that vulnerable people feel obliged to pay for protection because they have no faith in the law being upheld. It is a damning indictment of the Government’s austerity agenda, under which police funding has been cut back to the extent that my constituents are worried that their local force does not have the resources to keep them safe.

On the Prime Minister’s watch—first as Home Secretary and now as Prime Minister—police budgets have been slashed and crime has shot through the roof. I am afraid that her Government are totally out of touch with the reality on our streets and our estates. The hard work of our dedicated police officers is being undermined by a Government who do not understand the impact of their austerity on our communities. If the cuts do not stop and investment in neighbourhood policing does not start, I fear that people who are desperate to protect their families and communities will take matters into their own hands—that is what they are telling me word for word. I repeat my call to the Prime Minister and Ministers here today to apologise to my constituents—not just for the cuts, but for asking people to pay again for less of a service—and immediately to give back the money that we need to ensure that there is proper neighbourhood policing for our communities.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clarke]

Like everyone, I welcome signs of improvement in the force. I pay tribute to the work of outgoing Chief Constable Iain Spittal and I wish our new Chief Constable Mike Veale every success. However, the truth is that the consequences of these historical allegations continue to damage the force’s finances: the most recent pay-out was half a million to Mark Dias, again for bullying and discrimination. More than that, they damage public trust in the force. That ongoing legacy continues to damage the situation in Cleveland today.

In an earlier intervention, I promised that I would come back to the hon. Member for Redcar about the balance of how policing is deployed across Cleveland. There is an issue about how the force allocates resources across our area. The only manned police station in East Cleveland in my constituency is in Guisborough; it is manned by a slender force of a couple of officers and a few police community support officers.

There is real angst in those communities about the fact that the 1,300 officers of Cleveland police are so under-deployed in rural East Cleveland. I am the first to accept that the problems of crime can be less apparent in rural communities, but the truth is that there is a problem of under-reporting of crime in those communities. If there is one message that I want to get out this evening, it is that if my constituents see crime, they should report it to the authorities. I hear from too many people that they simply do not have faith that Cleveland police will follow it up. That is a real concern.

[Anna Turley]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he is content that Cleveland police has sufficient resources, and that this is just about deployment, despite the fact that we have lost more than 500 officers and £40 million?

[Mr Clarke]

I fully accept that there are real pressures on the police, but I also believe that the current deployment pattern could be improved upon. That would be a fair reflection of my position.

It is a mark of the concern that exists in East Cleveland that I attended a rally at the Railway Arms pub in Brotton just before Christmas. It was organised by the publican, Graham Cutler, who is a dedicated public servant, and by Barry Hunt, the local Independent councillor. Those are not people would regard themselves as natural figures to be calling out the police about the service they provide; they are law-abiding individuals who are on the side of the police and who want to see more officers in East Cleveland. My answer to them would be that I am going to raise the matter with our new chief constable, Mike Veale, to see what can be done, and perhaps look at trying to reopen the police station at Loftus, because as my colleagues will know, it is an awfully long way from Loftus to anywhere else in the patch. I hope we can find a way forward that will reflect the fact that, while these are difficult years for the police, there are real challenges for them in my more rural part of Cleveland.

I held a rural forum—the inaugural meeting of my rural club—at the Hunley Hall hotel in Brotton a few weeks ago. It was attended by a group of people who run rural businesses as well as by farmers. It was interesting to hear about the sorts of problems that they are facing. At a lower level, they include endemic theft, problems with cannabis farms hidden in their fields, and offences such as hare coursing, but there are also more serious threats. The farmers were saying that when they challenged people who were creating a nuisance on their land, they had been threatened with physical violence or with their crops and property being burned. I pay tribute to their resilience, but I think this needs to form part of the conversation we have within Cleveland police about how we allocate resource, because these are serious and sinister threats. I was quite shocked by the calm resolve that my constituents showed in the face of these, but they should not have to live with this.

Just yesterday, I presented my ten-minute rule Bill on the problem of drug needles, and I described some experiences in Loftus. I am calling for a change in the law so that we can criminalise those who recklessly or intentionally discarded needles in public places. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Redcar for sponsoring the Bill. This, too, is a matter that I would like to take up with Ministers in due course, because I believe that there is a gap in the law there.

As all of this comes together, my message is that Cleveland is a complex area to police. It is deprived and quite sparsely populated in parts, and, as I have said, historically it has a broken culture that we all want to fix. I believe that there are lessons we can learn to make the best of this challenging situation. I am not going to stand here today and say that all is well in the world of policing in Cleveland, because it is clearly not, but I believe that there are answers that will allow us to offer some comfort to my constituents that we are striking a better balance and achieving a healthier outcome for the communities that we serve.

Jamal al-Harith

Anna Turley Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I will go from here and make sure that any legally binding agreements are correctly monitored and that, where there is a breach, we recover any moneys we can.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

The British public will be completely bewildered by the lack of information from the Minister today. They will be appalled: this is not simply an issue of the individual case, but a policy issue that we need to reflect on in the House. The debate is already raging out there among the British public and the media, along with an awful lot of misinformation.

There are questions that the Minister needs to answer about monitoring. Is he confident that we are monitoring our suspects? How are people able to leave the country, given that there are checks at the border? Crucially, how are we monitoring people through our money laundering laws, to notice any changes in behaviour? The Government must come clean on those policy issues. The Minister said that the Government are discouraging people from travelling to Syria, but it looks to the British public as though they have funded that.

[Mr Wallace]

It is a regrettable part of the operation of the security services—and, often, our police—that we cannot sing about our successes as much as we would like. Every day and every week, we manage to prevent people at the border from going across to do harm, either within Europe or further afield. We often have to do that on the basis of intelligence that we cannot reveal, but we use our powers in a number of terrorism Acts that have gone through the House.

As the hon. Lady mentioned, there are occasions on which we have to discuss whether we could have done more or less. That is why we gave more power to the Intelligence and Security Committee: so that it can ask all the deep, searching questions without putting at risk agents, methods, capabilities and technologies that we need so diligently to protect to make sure that more and more people are kept safe from a more and more determined group of terrorists who operate in the name of Daesh.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anna Turley Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

3. What resources her Department provides for security measures at UK ports.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

16. What resources her Department provides for security measures at UK ports.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

Border Force carries out 100% checks of all arriving passengers on scheduled services. It works closely with other law enforcement organisations to deliver effective and intelligence-led responses to a range of security threats. Officers use high-tech equipment and an array of search techniques to combat immigration crime, and detect banned and restricted goods.

[Anna Turley]

I thank the Home Secretary for that answer. Last September, seven men and five children were found in a container in Teesport in my constituency, just three weeks after 20 illegal immigrants were found in South Shields. My local Border Force is facing cuts of about a quarter of its front-line staff, so how can she reassure me that these cuts are not damaging the safety and security of ports outside London and the south-east?

[Mrs May]

I can reassure the hon. Lady about that, because the approach we are taking comes across in a number of ways. We are looking not only to introduce new technology in Border Force but to ensure that it can operate flexibly and base its activities much more on an intelligence-led approach, so that we can target where the staff need to be. This Government have also enhanced our ability to deal with organised immigration crime through the creation of the organised immigration crime taskforce. The National Crime Agency, set up by the last coalition Government, is also taking this issue seriously and is acting on it.