Refugee Family Reunion Routes: Sudan

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald]

“Computer says no” is pretty close to the bone. The Home Office has a policy on biometric enrolment, and it sticks rigidly to it even when dramatic circumstances such as those persisting in Sudan mean that a different approach should be taken.

The Home Office can take a different approach, and it has done so in certain circumstances. The Minister would not like it if I made a comparison with Ukraine, and I do not want to do so, but I simply point out that, in those incredible circumstances, the Home Office was able to take a different approach. I am not asking for anything remotely approaching what was done in that situation; I am just asking the Home Office to be a little more deft, a wee bit more responsive, and to think about the considerations that should apply for people applying from Sudan.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I am sure my hon. Friend is aware that there is a big Sudanese community in Glasgow, and I remember a meeting I had with a number of Sudanese people who made that very point about Ukraine. They said, “We want this country to look after Ukrainians. Of course, it has to look after them; they are going through a terrible war and they are being attacked—but so are our families. What is the difference?” Does my hon. Friend understand how important this debate will be to Sudanese people living in this country? At last, somebody is talking about their pain and cares enough to secure a debate in the House of Commons. I know they really appreciate everything he is trying to do.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her remarks, but the tribute should be paid to RAMFEL and the other organisations out there that do amazing work on behalf of the Sudanese community.

There are people who would make a legitimate argument that there should be some sort of equivalence in the treatment of Ukraine and Sudan, but that is not the case I am making tonight. I am simply saying that the Home Office showed in the case of Ukraine that it was willing to apply different rules, or to apply the same rules differently. It was able to be nimble and to respond accordingly to a grave situation. This, too, is a grave situation and there should be some sort of flexibility in the response.

On this point, the solution is pretty obvious: we need a more generous set of exceptions to the rule that requires biometric information be provided in advance. I am not the only one saying that. The House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee recently reported on family migration:

“The Home Office should exercise its discretion to lift or delay the requirement to submit biometrics when this would involve travelling in dangerous conditions or outside the applicant’s country of residence. The Home Office should allow biometrics to be completed on arrival in the UK for a wider range of nationalities in crisis situations.”

That seems to be the compassionate and common-sense thing to do. If the Minister is not willing to go as far as the Committee suggests, surely he must see that the application of the rules in the types of circumstances I have described is gravely unsettling and must be revisited in some form.

I turn next to rules in relation to siblings. Even those who ultimately are able to jump through the first administrative hoop are far from guaranteed success in their family reunion application. Existing rules focus on family reunion for spouses and for children under 18. I have spoken in previous debates about various problems with what I regard as the overly restrictive category of relationships that can benefit from family reunion without further tests applying, but today I will focus on siblings.

Given the situation prevailing in Sudan and neighbouring countries, many children find themselves either orphaned or without any contact with their parents. For these kids, their siblings here in the UK are essentially their only remaining family. That said, if a 15-year-old seeks to join their 20-year-old brother here, they must first pay a fee and a health surcharge, unless they are granted a waiver, which adds an additional hurdle. Then, as well as proving their relationship, they must show that there are exceptional circumstances and that the refusal of their application would result in unjustifiably harsh consequences for the applicant.

Meeting those tests can be surprisingly difficult. It often seems that the general country situation, however hellish, will never be enough to make a person’s circumstances—even a child’s circumstances—exceptional enough to overcome that hurdle. A person seems to need to be able to show that their circumstances are exceptional, even compared with other individuals in that country—in that warzone. That is a hugely difficult prospect, likely requiring legal advice and lawyers, and it is difficult to obtain the necessary evidence.

Surely the Home Office can be more responsive to the situation on the ground in Sudan. At the very least, could we not have clear guidance that any child living unaccompanied in Sudan should be treated as meeting the necessary tests of exceptionality and harsh consequences, and therefore should, in principle, be allowed to be reunited with a UK-based sibling? Surely that is the bare minimum we can do.

As I said, even if those tests are overcome, the fact that siblings are not considered “core” family members for the purposes of the rules has other consequences. I turn to another case study. Two unaccompanied Eritrean children saw a household member killed. One of the kids was beaten up during the same raid. They submitted applications for family reunion in November 2022, some months before the most recent upsurge in fighting. The applications were originally refused, but an appeal was lodged and the Home Office eventually conceded it. That was welcome, but the Home Office is now insisting on payment of the immigration health surcharge, which, of course, the family simply cannot afford. Surely in such circumstances any fee or health surcharge should be waived.

Finally, I turn to processing times. If one of these kids is somehow in a position to jump through all the hoops I have described, surely the least we will offer is a speedy priority service. The service standard for family reunion applications is 12 weeks, but I am told that many applications take six months to a year. If an appeal is required in order to overturn a refusal—we have just heard about an example of that—the wait can be more than doubled. Family separation will always be painful, but for unaccompanied children in Sudan, and even in some of the neighbouring countries, it is also seriously dangerous. Surely some sort of priority processing has to be given to cases where the applicant is directly in danger.

Another case study involves Wissam, who is 17, and Abdul, who is 14. They applied to join their older brother just before war broke out and had an appointment to enrol their biometrics in Khartoum. That could not happen, as the centre closed down. Struggling to access food and water, and at risk of kidnapping, trafficking or exploitation, the brothers were victims of robbery. Ultimately, they decided to flee again and make a dangerous, irregular journey to Uganda. They now live unaccompanied in cramped conditions and, because of their age and nationality, face regular discrimination in accessing sanitation, including clean water. The 14-year-old is struggling with mental health issues and suffering night terrors because of his experiences in Sudan and on the journey to Uganda. Surely we cannot leave those two brothers, who are now in a position to submit their application, to wait for months and perhaps years. Surely applications have to be given priority in those circumstances.

The Minister will no doubt tell us about the significant number of people who do arrive here in the UK under our family reunion arrangements. I acknowledge that fact and I welcome it. However, it would be totally wrong to say that the system is functioning well; various reports by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration testify to that. Lots of improvements still have to be made. I am not asking for a revolution today, although perhaps I will pursue that further in the months to come. Today, I simply ask that the Home Office accepts that it has to be nimble, to respond and to tweak its rules and processes where circumstances require. The utterly dire circumstances in Sudan surely justify such a response.

In summary, I am asking the Home Office three things. First, I ask it to rethink the requirement for people trapped in Sudan—particularly children—to provide biometrics in advance at a visa application centre. Please look at alternatives, whether waiting until people’s arrival in the UK before requiring biometrics, or some other compromise that does not hold up the consideration of applications.

Secondly, I ask the Home Office, either by tweaking the rules or, perhaps more realistically, by issuing guidance for cases such as those I have described, to make it clear that, as a general rule, children from Sudan seeking to join siblings or other family members in the UK should be treated as meeting the “exceptional” test for the family reunion rules. I would like to think that that would be applied to siblings more generally, but for today’s purposes I make a special case for those seeking to leave Sudan. I also ask the Home Office not to make any such applications subject to fees and health surcharges.

Thirdly, I ask the Home Office to prioritise these applications, in recognition of the dangers that the people making them face. Do not leave them waiting for months. Finally, if possible, seek to work with international organisations and non-governmental organisations to help support safe passage from Sudan, as and when applications are allowed.

I close with a warning, because the danger is that if we do not facilitate their applications, these youngsters will end up seeking to make their own way to the UK, irregularly and dangerously. That brings me to the final case I want to mention, which is that of 16-year-old Daoud, who fled Eritrea to Sudan. In the light of the situation there, he fled again, to South Sudan. With no progress on securing refugee family reunion from there, he took matters into his own hands and started making his way towards the Mediterranean. He is currently arbitrarily detained in Libya. Some might say he made his own choices, but I think we left him with no choice at all.

I do not want to have to come back here in a few months with another Adjournment debate on this subject and to have to provide similar—or even worse—updates on the other children I have mentioned in this debate. I know the Minister cannot make policy on the hoof, but I urge him to speak with officials, to rethink the Home Office strategy in relation to those who are suffering in Sudan, and to ensure that we are doing all we can to facilitate and support family reunion.

Illegal Immigration

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

This morning I met a British Palestinian woman called Wafia, who told me that 30 members of her family have died in the last month in Gaza. She told me about her cousins, who so far have survived but are utterly traumatised and completely terrified. Should those cousins and their children somehow make it to these shores, albeit on the only route given to them by this Government—in other words, the dangerous small boats crossings—is the Home Secretary seriously telling me that he could look them in the eye and tell them not only that they will they not be joining Wafia, but that they will be going to Rwanda, which is his eventual plan, and will never be reunited with what remains of their family?

[James Cleverly]

I am not going to be drawn into making comments on specific individuals without knowing the circumstances; it would be ridiculous for anyone in the House to try to do immigration processing across the Dispatch Box like that. Of course I recognise the pain and suffering that Palestinian people in Gaza are experiencing—I have seen it. We have family reconciliation schemes as part of our safe and legal routes, but I am not going to make specific comments on individual cases, and the reason will be obvious to anyone who gives it any thought.

Metropolitan Police: Stephen Lawrence Murder Investigation

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Davies.

“We wonder why people become disillusioned. I am sure that all those decades ago when the Macpherson report was first published, there were many who heaved a sigh of relief. Its aim, after all, was to ‘increase trust and confidence in policing amongst minority ethnic communities’. I am also sure that all those decades ago, when the aim of the report was stated to be ‘the elimination of racist prejudice and disadvantage and the demonstration of fairness in all aspects of policing’, many felt they had finally achieved progress. I am sure that everyone involved was aware that Rome was not built in a day, but had some hope, and maybe even allowed themselves a little confidence that life for those experiencing racism would soon change for the better.

The family of Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered and then denied justice because of the colour of his skin—the family in response to whom the Macpherson report came about—perhaps felt when that report was published that his death had not been completely in vain. I have met Stephen’s brother, Stuart Lawrence, and of course we all know or know of his father, Neville Lawrence, and his mother, Baroness Doreen Lawrence”,

who is with us here today. Anyone who listens to Stuart or his parents

“or reads his book, ‘Silence is Not An Option’, begins to understand the catastrophic impact Stephen’s death had on everyone in his family and how they have all had to work so hard, almost every minute of every day, simply to survive.

To a lesser degree, the impact on whole communities was also devastating and life-changing. To have the hope that things would get better for other mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters when the report was published 22 years ago, and then to come to the conclusion that Doreen Lawrence reached recently, namely that ‘things have become really stagnant and nothing seems to have moved’”.—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 7 July 2022; Vol. 717, c. 419WH.]

You will have noticed, Mr Davies, that I said 22 years ago, when it was in fact 23 years ago. That is because what I have just said is the first page of a speech that I made here in Westminster Hall in July 2022, a year ago, about the Macpherson report. And, as I said, Doreen Lawrence said at the time:

“Things have become stagnant and nothing seems to have moved”.

That is why I am saying this again: because it is still absolutely relevant today. I have been to so many debates on this issue in this place, but nothing ever moves.

How must Baroness Lawrence feel now, when things have moved forward but there is no progress and no justice? The BBC investigation has named the sixth suspect, but there has been no progress and there will never be any justice. A decision has also been made not to prosecute any of the four retired detectives who ran that failed and corrupt investigation, so there will be no progress and no justice either. I heard a police officer say on the radio recently—I cannot remember the exact words—that it was time for us to let them have peace. He was talking about the retired detectives, not the family of Stephen Lawrence.

Baroness Lawrence has said of the BBC investigation:

“It should not have taken a journalist to do the job that a huge, highly resourced institution should have done.”

She is absolutely right. Why did it take the BBC to conduct an investigation when the Met already has far more resources to conduct one?

The Macpherson report is about England and Wales, but Scotland is not immune to any of these issues. I know that this debate is about Stephen Lawrence, but I just want to briefly mention Sheku Bayoh, whom I also talked about in last year’s debate. He died after being stopped in the street by two police officers, who were then joined by another seven police officers, in Kirkcaldy in Fife in May 2015. A public inquiry is under way and I hope to get along to it soon. However, it is now eight years since he died and his family still do not have any answers.

How did a fit young man in his 30s—he was a brother, son, dad, partner and friend—who had no weapons on him end up dead after encountering the police? I cannot answer that question—I will leave that to the inquiry—but I will say that in any other situation in which nine people confronted one person and that one person ended up dead, those nine people would, at the very least, be taken in for questioning. Mr Davies, you will never hear me or anyone else in my party claiming that Scotland or our police force is racism-free.

Let us go back to the speech I made a year ago—I am getting very good at juggling my speeches. I quoted Iain Livingstone, the chief constable of Police Scotland, as saying that there was a need for

“practical, firm, progressive, visible action”.—[Official Report, 7 July 2022; Vol. 717, c. 419WH.]

Now, let me fast-forward to May of this year, when he made a statement addressing the matter of institutional racism in policing. I will read out parts of that statement, because it shows how straightforward it can and should be for the Met and for the Government to acknowledge institutional racism in policing. He said:

“Police Scotland has grown into an organisation known to be compassionate, values based, and highly competent. It is well regarded nationally, extremely well regarded internationally, but I know it can improve, must improve.

Institutional racism, sexism and institutional discrimination have become iconic terms in the vital battle to tackle injustice. Police officers and staff, including police leaders, can be conflicted both in acknowledging their existence and in using such terms, fearing it would unfairly condemn dedicated and honourable colleagues”—

of which, no doubt, there are many—

“or that it means no progress has been made since the 1990s.

Truly, I recognise and understand that conflict. I have experienced that conflict myself over a number of years.

The meaning of institutional racism set out by Sir William Macpherson in 1999 in his report on the appalling murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 is, rightly, very demanding.

The phrase, the terminology, however, can be and often is misinterpreted or misrepresented as unfair and personal critical assessments of police officers and police staff as individuals.

That is not the case.”

He is right—it is not the case. He went on to say:

“Does institutional discrimination mean our police officers and police staff are racist and sexist? No. It absolutely does not.”

That does not mean that there are not plenty of them who are, but this does not mean that they are. He says:

“I have great confidence in the character and values of our people. I am proud of Police Scotland and I am proud of my colleagues, proud of my officers and staff.

So I know and have shared the reservations and concerns about acknowledging that institutional discrimination exists in policing.

However, it is right for me, the right thing for me to do as Chief Constable, to clearly state that institutional racism, sexism, misogyny and discrimination exist. Police Scotland is institutionally racist and discriminatory. Publicly acknowledging these institutional issues exist is essential to our absolute commitment to championing equality and becoming an anti-racist Service. It is also critical to our determination to lead wider change in society.”

That is what the Met should do and what the Government should do—just acknowledge it. It is a start, but it is a really good start. Why can they not just say the words?

Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s First Minister, said that this statement was “monumental” and “historic”. He said:

“I hope that it also serves as a reminder to all of us that, whatever organisation we belong to, we have a responsibility to question the organisations that we lead…and to reflect on whether we are doing enough to dismantle not only institutional racism but the structural discrimination that exists for many people”—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 25 May 2023; c. 10.]

The chief constable made the point that words are not enough, and he is absolutely right. Police Scotland has made a great start, and this Government and the Met police need to look at what Police Scotland has said and just own up to it. It is only words; it has to be followed up by actions. We now have a Prime Minister and a First Minister of Scotland who come from a minority ethnic background, but let us not get carried away and think that that has solved racism, because it certainly will not. Again, it is a start, but it is about what we do after that.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford). He gave us an utterly shocking and deeply depressing story, but it is one that must be told over and over, and it is one that we should never stop being shocked at. That is what happens—we hear something so many times, and we get used to it—but we must never stop being shocked at it.

I support the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) in asking the Government about the plan for justice for the Lawrence family. Is there one? If so, what is it? The hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) talked, in a really emotional speech, about the impact on her and about her visit to Elephant and Castle. She described so well and so vividly the swagger of those murderers, who knew they were being protected.

The hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) and others reminded us that the Lawrence family were spied on. We need to keep telling everybody that, because whenever I tell anybody, they cannot believe it. The first time you hear it, you cannot forget it. We have to keep telling everybody what happened to them. She also called for more sanctions. I was stunned when I discovered how few sanctions there are against serving police officers right across these islands.

[Dawn Butler]

With regard to sanctions, is the hon. Member surprised, like me, that if a police officer fails their vetting, they can still work in the police, and nothing happens to them? What we need—I hope the Minister is listening—is independent vetting and psychological testing for every single serving police officer.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I absolutely agree. One of the things that shocked me most when I read through the briefing notes was that someone can fail their vetting but still be a serving police officer. It did not just shock me; it terrified me. I hope I never need to come in contact with a serving police officer who has failed their vetting.

I end by simply expressing solidarity with anyone fighting racism. I will do my best to be an ally. I express solidarity especially with the family of Sheku Bayoh—I offer to do whatever I can, and hope they can draw strength from others as they go through the public inquiry—and most particularly with the family of Stephen Lawrence, for the incredible strength they have shown, which they should never have had to show, over the many decades they have spent fighting for justice for their son.

Public Order Act 2023

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I thank all Members who have spoken in this SNP debate on the repeal of the Public Order Act 2023. I particularly want to mention the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and my hon. Friends the Members for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) and for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), but where on earth were the Back Benchers from the Labour party? They are supposed to be the official Opposition, but perhaps we should not be surprised that the party that claimed to be opposed to this clampdown on the right of people to speak out and then U-turned when the polls said that we might actually be able to do something about it seems to have clamped down on its own MPs. No doubt those Labour MPs who have been—

[Sarah Jones]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Anne McLaughlin]

No, as the hon. Lady refused to take my interventions.

No doubt those Labour MPs who have been consistent and committed in their principled opposition to this Act have been reminded that they are up for reselection soon. What about the rights of their constituents to be represented? What on earth has happened to the Labour party?

These are turbulent and troubling times. I doubt anyone in this place expected much of what we have witnessed in the last five years. From the global pandemic to the outbreak of war in Ukraine, from the mammoth surge in our constituents’ energy bills to the unprecedented rise in inflation, or from the erosion of our shorelines to the erosion of our human rights and liberties under Conservative rule, nobody could have predicted the extent of even that, but we can decide how we respond to it.

As a republican, perhaps the only positive to come from the King’s coronation for me is that the police’s use of this Act and other recent policing legislation has shone a light on exactly what these pieces of legislation really mean for people. The world watched on as members of Republic were shamefully arrested for holding pre-arranged, peaceful and lawful protests. The world must have been aghast, too, when three volunteers from Westminster Council’s Night Stars team were arrested while handing out rape alarms to women the night before the coronation. The police could do both of those things because this legislation hands them almost a free rein. This Conservative Government were hoping that might have gone unnoticed by the masses, but the coronation has ensured that the world now knows just how oppressive the UK has become.

The Public Order Bill was cobbled together when the Government did not get their way with their long list of 11th-hour amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. The House of Lords defeated those amendments. I am no fan of that institution, because I believe in elected representation and I do not believe in gifting power to friends, but the Government do, and they should have accepted that the system they support does not always go in their favour.

Anyway, the Government could not accept that, so they simply repackaged those amendments and within months moulded them into this badly drafted mess. It is not the only example: this is the Conservative Government’s new way of circumventing their version of democracy when they do not get their way. When the legislation is so bad it cannot get through, it is temporarily shelved and brought back in the hope that we have forgotten about it or do not have the energy to fight it. I can see why they might think that about the Labour party, as it has ably demonstrated for us today, but the SNP will always have the energy to fight for our constituents, because this pattern of behaviour is making an absolute mockery of the legislative process, and, worse still, a mockery of this place and our time here. It is also evading parliamentary scrutiny and procedure. For months, we argued that a definition of serious disruption must be written into the legislation and we were told that the Home Secretary would define it for us. The House can imagine how much reassurance that gave me. A day after Royal Assent, the Home Secretary introduced legislation by statutory instrument. Those regulations lowered the threshold for serious disruption from “significant” to simply “more than minor”, which does not fit with the descriptions we have heard from Tory Members today. Those regulations covered proposals that had already been rejected by peers across all parties during the Bill’s passage.

The haste by which the Acts were given assent and enacted meant that, when they hit the streets, the police were given zero time to train frontline officers. That is not fair on those officers. I remember seeing incredible footage last year. Officers arrested a well-known-to-us and pretty noisy protester outside this place under the policing Act just days after its enactment. It was ludicrous: when the protester rightly questioned why he was being arrested, those officers were forced to take out a laptop to look up the relevant legislation. Liberty, which is probably the most foremost civil liberties organisation in the UK, called the combination of the policing Act on public protest and the use of facial recognition technology a “toxic cocktail of measures”. It is not wrong.

For the majority of people, the right to protest is one of the few tools left at their disposal to push for change. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central, in an excellent speech, listed numerous peaceful protests that she has joined here. The Minister listed all the deliberate planned disruptions that he said people are sick of. Equally, I could list all the deliberate planned Tory policies that they are sick of and should have the right to protest against. We will all face serious disruption when the ice cap melts—a point not lost on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk. How embarrassing to be called out by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights when apparently Britain used to be this bastion of human rights. How the mighty have fallen.

I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for her support for this today. In answer to her question, the legislative consent motion that the Scottish Parliament supported was for one small clause, and she knows that the Scottish Government are not asked for legislative consent unless the measure is specific to Scotland. I can be clear that the SNP utterly opposes the Public Order Act.

One of the most egregious parts of the Act is suspicionless stop and search, which the Labour Party was vehemently opposed to, and rightly so. The right for the police to stop one of our constituents and search them without any suspicion of wrongdoing is better suited to Putin’s Russia than it is here. Yes, the blame for it lies fairly and squarely with the Conservative Government, but people expect to be able to rely on the main Opposition to oppose, and sometimes stop the governing party when that is called for. They expect to be able to rely on the Labour party to fight for their human rights and fight against racism—make no mistake, the huge disparity in the number of black people being stopped and searched is racist—but where was the Labour party when it came to the final hurdle? It caved, and it de-prioritised suspicionless stop and search.

We all know in here that Opposition parties often work much more closely together than the public realise. I want to try to explain what happened to people who might not know much about the internal machinations of Parliament. The SNP had an understanding with the Labour party that we did not need to call a vote on suspicionless stop and search because it would do it. Unlike in the Scottish Parliament, here, every party can only call votes on one or two parts of a Bill—I am saying this for members of the public. Because Labour told us that it would call the vote on it, we did not. Guess what? Labour did not either, so we lost the chance to remove suspicionless stop and search from the legislation at that stage.

Labour colleagues later said that it had been a mix-up at their end, so I said nothing publicly, despite being bitterly disappointed at the wasted opportunity, because I thought that we were on the same side. I thought that we could fight this dreadful piece of legislation together. The Labour MP in question assured me that there would be opportunities to tackle it in the Lords and Labour did duly table amendments, but again it fell at the final hurdle and caved in.

Now that the polls are finally turning and there is a chance Labour will get into power next year, we are told that it will not repeal the Act because it cannot unpick legislation and its party leader says he does not care if their policies sound like Conservative policies. How can Labour Members look their constituents in the eye and say that, yes, they will allow police forces under a Labour Government to carry out intrusive searches on anyone even near a public protest for no good reason? This is not a debating society and they are not supposed to be simply a change of management. This is Parliament. This is where we can and should make radical changes. If they are not interested, why are they even here?

I will end with a warning for both main parties in here. We are here to get independence for Scotland and, mark my words, we will get it. They are both utterly opposed to the people of Scotland making their own decisions, but if they keep stifling the right of the people of Scotland to protest against the decisions they make on their behalf, they will find more and more of them turn to us and they will make it a whole lot easier for people to vote for independence, whenever the next opportunity arises.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne McLaughlin]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. A few moments ago, the Minister claimed that the former Justice Secretary, Keith Brown MSP, had welcomed the Public Order Act. Well, I have just spoken to the former Justice Secretary, who is a much-loved and well-respected member of the Scottish National party, contrary to the nonsense uttered by the Minister.

Keith Brown tells me that, although the SNP supported a little element of the Act, he, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament otherwise opposed the Act in its entirety. Will the Minister correct the record?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

The hon. Lady will appreciate that all Members are responsible for their own statements, and that that is not a matter for the Chair. She has, however, placed her point on the record.

Migration

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

The £120 million totally wasted on the Rwanda plan could have quadrupled the number of caseworkers and cleared the backlog in asylum cases urgently. Can we have a Department focused on the nuts and bolts of getting the job done, instead of crazy, brutal and counterproductive headline-chasing policies? After all, that is the root of all our problems—that and the lack of safe and legal routes. A number of months ago, I tabled a written question asking for a list of all the safe and legal routes and it would not even have filled half a page. So can we do something about that?

The revelations in ITV’s “The Crossing”, a documentary about 27 channel deaths last November, were utterly heartbreaking and horrifying. Did the Home Secretary discuss with her counterparts how best to ensure that disputes about precisely where a boat is play a distant second fiddle to saving people’s lives?

May I end by saying how disappointed I am? The Minister distanced himself from the Home Secretary’s crass comments on migrants, but today we have heard him talk about murderers and foreign offenders. We are talking about asylum seekers, and he brings up murderers as if they are one and the same thing. It is an absolute disgrace, because he knows the impact that that has on not just asylum seekers but all migrants.

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady needs to face the facts. We on the Government Benches will always behave with decency and compassion, because those are our values. But we will not be naive. We are capable of making the distinction between genuine refugees and genuine asylum seekers fleeing persecution and human rights abuses, and Albanian economic migrants coming to this country for all the wrong reasons. We are also perfectly capable of making the distinction between good people who deserve our protection and support, and bad people who are foreign national offenders who need to be removed from the United Kingdom as soon as possible. I am surprised to see her joining in with the Opposition, who want to close down the very detainment centres where we keep those people while we try to get them out of the country.

The hon. Lady says she is disappointed that we are pursuing Rwanda. I think Rwanda is an important part of our efforts to tackle illegal migration because deterrence has to be suffused throughout our entire approach. Everything we do to create further pull factors to the UK ensures more people cross the channel in perilous ways and more pressure is put on our public services. It prevents us from helping the people who genuinely deserve our support, such as those who come from Ukraine, Afghanistan or Syria under our resettlement schemes. I will say again—I have said it before: if the SNP wanted to help with this issue, it would address the fact that proportionately Scotland, in particular SNP local authorities, takes fewer people on those resettlement schemes than any other part of the United Kingdom.

Draft Immigration Skills Charge (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 General Committees

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I will be brief. It would be remiss of me not to point out that we would not have labour and skills shortages, and would not have to be constantly tinkering with immigration rules, if we were still in the single market. I often hear Members on the Government Benches say, “Stop going on about it; you are living in the past.” Of course, that is not the case for Scotland: we plan to be back in the single market. [Interruption.] Is that a “Hear, hear”? I welcome the support.

[Mrs Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

Give them the euro. That will go down well.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I have no idea what the hon. Lady is talking about.

[Mrs Wheeler]

Well, you can’t have the pound, can you?

[Anne McLaughlin]

Is that acceptable, Ms Fovargue?

[The Chair]

Is the hon. Lady seeking to intervene?

[Mrs Wheeler]

indicated dissent.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I will try to be courteous. I will support the regulations, but I do not support the skills charge. As we discussed last week in Westminster Hall, there are massive shortages in heavy goods vehicle drivers, food processing workers, nurses and doctors. The health services of all four nations have significant problems, including bed-blocking: people who could go home are unable to, because of the shortage of social care workers. We have a shortage of workers in hospitals. I cannot support any barrier to getting people over here to fill those shortages, but I support a reduction in those barriers, as with the exemptions in the regulations. I would just like those exemptions to go a bit further.

There is one last thing, to which I would appreciate a positive response from the Minister. In this House, we constantly hear negatives about migrants in general and migrant workers: “There are too many of them; we need fewer of them.” Of course, I completely support putting more into training and upskilling people who are already here, but our health service would collapse without migrant workers. We cannot just dispense with them once we have trained everybody up. I invite the Minister to say something positive about migrant workers and the contribution that they make to the United Kingdom’s economy. I invite her to acknowledge—as I think she is doing by saying that we need to train people here—how necessary they are to our economy.

[Shailesh Vara]

I note the hon. Lady’s comments about migrants coming to this country. However, does she agree that we must deplore the way that thousands of them come to this country—by using people smugglers, who risk lives?

[Anne McLaughlin]

I did not know that we were allowed to go off on a tangent. This is getting into an argument about how people come to this country. We are talking about migrant workers; asylum seekers are not allowed to work.

[Shailesh Vara]

On a point of order, Ms Fovargue. I was simply taking up an issue that the hon. Member for Glasgow North East raised. If I am out of order, presumably she is as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Order. Can we move back to the discussion, please?

[Anne McLaughlin]

I am in the governing party’s bad books today, somehow; I do not know what I have done. Would I say that vile people smugglers should be stopped from treating people in the way that they do? Absolutely. Will the Government’s plan to stop them work? Absolutely not. They are victimising people who are already victims of people smugglers. There is more to do on that, but we are talking about migrant workers. Asylum seekers, for some unknown reason, are not allowed to work. We need workers and they need work, but we do not let them work. I again invite the Minister to say something positive about migrant workers.

Labour and Skills Shortages: Temporary Recovery Visa

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I am pleased to serve under your chairwomanship, Mrs Cummins. I thank the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron)—he comes from a beautiful part of England—for highlighting this crucial topic. Much like a lot of Scotland, his constituency faces the problems of rurality and the challenges of supporting a hospitality industry plagued by labour shortages.

It has been interesting to hear the many views on how we can tackle the issue of labour shortages post Brexit and post covid, especially given the divergence in the types of constituencies we represent, each with its own unique set of labour challenges, be they in agriculture, hospitality, fishing—we have heard extensively about fishing today—transport, construction, health and social care, logistics or food processing. The list goes on, but the core issue at heart remains the same. We have witnessed the doors slam on free movement, which is now a dirty word—well, two dirty words—for both the UK Government and the official Opposition. In addition, the global pandemic saw more than 1.3 million EU workers return home. When they finally thought about coming back, they were locked out by this Government’s hugely regressive post-Brexit points system.

If we had stayed in the single market, as the majority of people in Scotland voted to do, free movement would be the perfect solution to the many labour shortages across these islands. It will come as no surprise to hear that I am confident that Scotland will rejoin the EU—and that means the single market—as an independent member soon. Until then, we fully support the call for solutions to labour shortages through visa schemes, including a temporary recovery visa.

This is a crisis of the Government’s making. It was completely avoidable. It is a crisis caused by policy, politics and a rhetoric on immigration that is fuelling the right, stirred up by inflammatory language from the Home Secretary. I cannot tell hon. Members how shocked and disgusted I was to hear the Home Secretary refer to an “invasion” of immigrants to these shores. An invasion—really? “Invasion” conjures up images of insects, wild animals, wars and battles. It is far removed from the reality of the humanitarian crisis that we are witnessing in the channel.

The Minister could argue that the Home Secretary was not talking about migrants per se, just those crossing the channel—I do not think he will—but it is not acceptable, whoever she was referring to. The Home Secretary must understand that using that kind of language and stoking up fear about one set of migrants has an impact on all migrants. That includes the current and future migrant workers that the UK is absolutely dependent on.

It has taken empty shelves and closed restaurants to bring this issue to the public’s attention, but business leaders have been warning the Government for quite some time about the dire situation that they would find themselves in because of these shortages. The British Chambers of Commerce has said that of 5,700 businesses, more than 60% need to find more staff in the UK. Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of UKHospitality, pointed out that one in five workers has not returned after furlough, giving the sector a 10% vacancy rate. She agreed with the recommendations from the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee for a temporary recovery visa, and said:

“This would go a long way to helping recruitment challenges and would support the sector’s ability to provide fantastic service to all its customers. We would strongly urge the government to consider its introduction as part of a pro-growth review of immigration policy.”

Three quarters of UK businesses have said that they are experiencing difficulties filling vacancies. I have received numerous letters from businesses in my constituency that are struggling to get staff and asking what exactly the Government plan to do about it. There is another reason to ensure that we fill those vacancies. As the CBI said recently,

“Guarding against skills and labour shortages can…help keep inflation in check”.

At a time when the cost of living is going through the roof, should the Government not heed that advice?

The Scottish Government have tried to help the UK Government out. The First Minister even offered to split responsibility for immigration policy with them, and proposed a Scottish visa, but that was refused. It would solve some of the economic problems in Scotland, but it clearly does not fit the ideology that says that if the Scottish National party suggests it, it must be wrong. The Scottish Government are determined to address these issues but have very limited powers available to them. They are proposing a rural visa pilot, which offers a community-driven approach to migration that can respond to the distinct needs of remote, rural and island areas.

We want to welcome people, not ward them off, because people make communities and keep our economy growing. It makes no sense to stubbornly believe that we can just do everything ourselves, especially when our rural communities—much like that of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, I am sure—face population decline.

Many of the initiatives from the UK Government are very temporary. I understand that the solution is not complete permanence, but they are so temporary that they offer no real certainty for businesses or workers. They are simply sticking plasters. That is the crux of the issue with so much policy at the moment—the short expiry dates. I have had milk that has lasted longer than some of the previous Cabinet’s plans. I hope this one does better.

Business, industry and the workers themselves need certainty. I have been trying to hammer home that point in relation to the six-month energy relief scheme that is on the table for SMEs, public sector organisations and charities. They simply cannot operate in weeks and months. Last year, we saw a three-month visa offered to HGV drivers. What good is a three-month visa? Who in their right mind would move to a country where they face being kicked out in 12 weeks’ time? That is a point that I would like to make to Labour colleagues. I am not going to go into how crushed I felt when I heard the Labour leader say that we have too many migrants working in the NHS, though I know I was not as crushed as the migrant workers themselves. Today, Labour’s shadow Health Secretary, the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), said that if they got into power, they would keep migrant workers in the NHS until they had enough home-grown workers trained for the health service.

[Rachael Maskell]

I worked in the NHS for 20 years and all I will say is that I know the value of working alongside people who have trained across the world. They bring their skills into the NHS, and it has been a privilege to work alongside them. I think we should aspire to recognise the skills they bring and the opportunities that provides for our patients.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I really do thank the hon. Lady for that. There will be so many migrant workers who have worked their backsides off in the NHS, especially during the pandemic, and who will be devastated about what has been said, but the hon. Lady’s remarks go some way towards balancing that out.

I have to ask: what kind of arrogance does it take to believe that doctors, nurses, radiographers and others are so desperate to be here in the UK that they will fill the positions that we desperately need to be filled in the NHS, knowing that when they are surplus to requirements, they will simply be dispensed with because both Tory and Labour Governments would much prefer the jobs to go to those who were born here? Employment is a two-way thing. Migration is a two-way thing. If we do not meet migrants halfway, they will not come and we will not be able to look after people. Everybody needs to think clearly about that.

We need solutions and ideas. One solution that has been put to the Home Office, certainly by my party—indeed some of my colleagues have private Members’ Bills on it—and other colleagues today, is to allow asylum seekers to work. We are facing labour shortages, yet we have tens of thousands of people who are already here, desperate to contribute and integrate with our communities, but they are cut off and left to rely on meagre handouts from the state.

The current situation plays into the hostile environment rhetoric so well. To paint asylum seekers as economic migrants here for benefits is just not true. Nobody wants to live on less than £6 a day, and people should not be put in that situation. Given that 76% of asylum applications are allowed on the initial decision, not to mention the many more who win their appeals, we are putting thousands of people in an enforced limbo when they could easily be contributing, paying tax and filling the gaps in our labour market.

I would like to know if the Government have any plans to consider this eminently sensible solution. As the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said, there is no downside. If the Minister’s answer is, “No, we are not going to consider this solution,” he must see a downside, and he must tell us what he thinks that is. My preference, and my fervent hope—I saw him nodding his head earlier when it was mentioned—is that he agrees to look into allowing asylum seekers to work and plug the damaging gaps that are holding the economy back.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship for the second time in two days, Mrs Cummins—it is truly a privilege for me. I thank the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) for securing this important debate, and other right hon. and hon. Members for their thoughtful contributions. I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) for her insightful speech. Her clarion call for pragmatism over ideology is something I hope everyone in this Chamber will support.

I would like to set out the Labour party’s approach to work-based migration in the UK. In a nutshell, we support the principle of a points-based system for migrant workers. I will not need to remind hon. Members that it was a Labour Government that introduced the points-based system in 2008 for immigration from outside the European Union. We are clear that there will be no returning to the free movement of labour that was a feature of our membership of the European Union, but we are equally clear that we need to build on and improve the points-based system currently in place. Our long-term ambition is to ensure that all businesses, in every sector, and our public services recruit and train as much home-grown talent as possible to fill vacancies, before they look overseas. For instance, we need to train more home-grown doctors, hence our commitment to doubling the number of clinical placements and to setting out a five to 10-year workforce plan, which is desperately needed when we consider the 7 million person waiting list and the huge issues with workforce shortages and challenges. We know that if we just turn off the tap of migrant labour, without the appropriate workforce structures and adequate training and recruitment in place, our public services will deteriorate and our businesses will struggle to meet our wider economic ambition to make, buy and sell more in Britain. In the end, it becomes a crutch, with more and more jobs eventually disappearing overseas.

Let me address the comments made by the spokesperson for the SNP, the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin). I did not hear the comments today from the shadow Health Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), but I know that our policy is very clear. We want to maximise opportunities for home-grown talent—doctors, nurses and care workers—but we absolutely recognise that we have to get the balance right. Where we have migrant workers playing vital roles, that is what we want to continue to have, but we want at the same time to maximise opportunities for home-grown talent. It is not an either/or question—a binary question. It is a “both …and”. It is a question of balancing—not turning the taps off here and turning the taps on somewhere else.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I appreciate the clarification, but it was quite clear that the leader of the Labour party said there were too many migrant workers in the NHS. The shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care seemed to be saying—I cannot remember the exact words, but obviously I will go and look again—“Yes, okay, we’ll allow migrant workers to be our doctors, nurses, whatever, until we have got enough of our own.” What does that say to them? “You are here when we need you, but when we no longer need you…” I support training people who want those jobs—training people here. But what does that say to those migrant workers who have committed themselves to our NHS? “As soon as we have got enough of our own home-grown people, we are going to kick you out.”

[Stephen Kinnock]

I think it would be a caricature of whatever comments were made to say that we are going to somehow stop people who are already here being here. That seems to be the logical extrapolation of what the hon. Lady is arguing, and I do not think that anybody would argue that. We value the workforce that we have, but we also want to build and create more opportunities for our own, home-grown talent. I am sure that that is something we can all agree on.

Let me turn away from the health and care sector for a moment and look at some of the issues that have been raised about the agricultural sector. We cannot have a situation such as we have had in the farming sector where 30,000 pigs are being slaughtered and £60 million-worth of crops are being burned, which is what happened over the past year. We also know that the construction industry lost 175,000 jobs in 2020-21, and that has had a big impact in the form of projects being slowed down. We know that, in September 2021, UKHospitality called for the Government to include the hospitality sector in temporary work visa schemes in the aftermath of covid-19 and reflecting the need to boost our economy. That call was of course echoed in the report by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee that was published on 24 October. It recommended the introduction of temporary recovery visas for industries—predominantly tourism and hospitality in this case—that are experiencing short-term labour shortages for so-called low-skilled roles.

We recognise these challenges and we feel that the way to find solutions is to go to the heart of the system so that it is better positioned and placed to deliver results on a sector-by-sector basis—pragmatism over ideology, as has already been said. The Opposition are well aware of the flaws in the current points-based system. We feel that the Government are failing to balance the need to encourage businesses to recruit and train home-grown talent with the need to use migrant labour to address short-term pressure points in the labour market.

The fundamental weakness is that the Government’s economic migration strategy is not joined up, so they will struggle to meet their economic and public-service priorities. For instance, we feel that the Migration Advisory Committee and the Skills and Productivity Board are not as integrated as they could be in making decisions on the shortage occupation lists.

We believe that the way to understand the type of short-term support that sectors require, for instance access to temporary work visas, is to get the system working properly, with more flexibility. At the heart of that should be a three-way dialogue, led and convened by the MAC, drawing together representatives from employers speaking for the sector, trade unions, and relevant Government Departments, to look at the sectors on the Migration Advisory Committee’s shortage occupation lists in detail. That dialogue would be the mechanism through which decisions are made around the short-term visa schemes, such the seasonal worker scheme, the youth mobility scheme, and new ideas, such as the temporary recovery visa, which is being debated here today.

The three-way working group would not only look at the shortage occupation lists but set conditions that companies that have sponsorship licences would need to meet on workers’ rights. We are worried that the current points-based system is also failing when it comes to the enforcement of labour standards.

We know, for instance, that Nepalese health workers, Indonesian fruit pickers, and care workers from the Philippines and Ghana, are at serious risk of exploitation through recruitment agencies charging fees, leading to migrant workers ending up in illegal debt bondage through having to repay those recruitment fees. Many of those recruitment agencies operate abroad, and it would be good if the Government were able to investigate whether work could be done by British embassies overseas to look out for problems and red-flag agencies that are suspected of nefarious practices.

We must also clamp down on illegal practices in the UK. Of course, it is illegal to charge migrant workers recruitment fees in Britain, but the Association of Labour Providers said that some employers in the UK are still demanding that workers pay for their recruitment fees. We need solutions to those issues.

Part of the challenge is that, under the past 12 years of successive Conservative Governments, the number of labour market inspectors has decreased to one inspector for every 20,000 workers, when the International Labour Organisation recommends one for every 10,000. I hope the Minister will share his thoughts on that ratio, and whether he believes that it will enable the Government to crack down on exploitation.

In 2019, the Conservative party committed to merging the three enforcement bodies—the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ national minimum wage enforcement teams—into one enforcement body. Perhaps the Minister could confirm what progress is being made on that, or is it perhaps another broken manifesto promise?

The main agency involved in the welfare of seasonal workers is the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority. The scheme operators, which are responsible for recruitment, must have a licence from the authority and can have it revoked if they failed to abide by certain standards. However, the regulator does not routinely carry out inspections on farm premises, and some critics say it lacks the resources to police abuses of workers’ rights.

We also need to understand, for seasonal workers specifically, what action is being taken by the Government to ensure that the 40,000 businesses with sponsorship licences from the GLAA are being properly regulated by HMRC to ensure that they maintain high employment standards.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of another issue, which the Daily Record in Scotland revealed the other day, that delivery drivers for Just Eat, Deliveroo and others—I cannot remember which of the others it was, so I had better not say any names—are able to rent out their accounts? They are told that they are responsible for ensuring that the person they rent it out to is allowed to work and has passed basic health and safety checks, and that is obviously not happening. People are having meals delivered, and do not know if that person has passed the checks that they should have. Just as importantly, some of the workers renting those accounts are not allowed to work and are being exploited. Would the hon. Gentleman agree that the agencies he mentioned should be able to look into that as well?

[Stephen Kinnock]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that there is a vital role to play here, in terms of regulation and enforcement. Our major concern is twofold. There is a bit of a mixture of all of these agencies not necessarily co-ordinating together. There are three main agencies, so, first, let us have a single enforcement body. Secondly, the number of labour market inspectors should meet ILO standards. It is currently one to 20,000 and it should be one to 10,000. Those would be major steps in the right direction, and could be the start of cracking down on the issue the hon. Lady rightly raises.

Maintaining standards is not just important for the wellbeing of migrant workers and preventing undercutting, it is also good for employers, as we need to make Britain an attractive place to work, not least in sectors such as food and farming, where we are clearly more reliant on migrant workers than in other sectors. The National Farmers Union deputy president, Tom Bradshaw, told the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee that, although a 30,000 quota for seasonal workers visas in 2021 was a lifeline for the industry, it has not been big enough.

We also know that the challenge for the sector is not just seasonal but year-round. We understand that there are recruitment challenges in relation to the short-term nature of these visas, which the Government must look at closely. Therefore, we need to be sure that the working conditions attached to the visas are as attractive as possible, in order to attract the workers that we need, and to avoid undercutting.

Of course, where sectors and businesses are given permission to recruit from overseas, we need to see commitment to long-term workforce planning. How, for instance, would a company plan to invest in home-grown talent in the long term? What is it doing to invest in research and development, in modernising its technology and machinery to boost productivity? Does it have a skills strategy? Those are the questions that should be asked of companies, as a quid pro quo and part of the conversation about being given shortage occupation and other permissions to bring labour from overseas. What is it doing to show its long-term workforce plan? How is it boosting productivity? Those are the questions that Government should ask. There should be a proper dialogue, rather than pulling arbitrary numbers out of the air within the Westminster bubble.

Are the Government asking for workforce plans from companies that benefit from the shortage occupation lists? If not, perhaps the Minister might like to say a few words on that. Those are the questions that Labour will ask, as and when we enter Government, committed as we are to ensuring that our points-based system strikes the right balance between incentivising employers to train and recruit locally with the right to recruit internationally where required.

I look forward to the Minister’s responses to my questions, in addition to those raised by other right hon. and hon. Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) and then the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

[Anne McLaughlin]

Could that failure to recruit enough HGV drivers from overseas have been anything to do with the fact that they were told they could come here for 12 weeks and would then have to go home again?

[Robert Jenrick]

No, that was not the issue. Without going off on a tangent, the root cause of the issue was the aging population of HGV drivers. Many were coming up for retirement and the industry had had poor pay and working conditions for a long time. There was also a global shortage of HGV drivers, so it was not unique to the UK. We saw it all over Europe.

Cross-Channel Migrants: Manston Facility

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson, Anne McLaughlin.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

The Prison Officers Association’s Andy Baxter has described this as:

“A humanitarian crisis on British soil”.

As we have heard, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Neal, told MPs that he was left “speechless” by what he saw and advised that we are now past the point where we can describe Manston as being a safe facility. This Home Secretary had better start to listen and the Minister needs to listen, rather than reading out briefings that announce the provision of toilet facilities. He needs to understand what people actually need. How on earth have we ended up with people sleeping on cardboard, in tents, and with outbreaks of diphtheria and norovirus? We are constantly debating these conditions here. Why do we keep coming back to this? How many times are we going to be standing here repeating the question: where was the forward thinking? The Home Office is not coping, but instead of spending that £120 million on her “dream” flight to Rwanda had the Home Secretary spent it on caseworkers, perhaps we would not have these disgraceful logjams.

Finally, Manston is supposed to be a short-term holding facility; people are not supposed to be there for more than 48 hours. Surely that means that people are now being detained illegally in these conditions, so will he tell us: how many people have been detained for more than 48 hours? how many claims for unlawful detention is he expecting and at what cost?

[Robert Jenrick]

We do not want these individuals to make the channel crossing in the first place. They are coming from a safe country and most have travelled through multiple safe countries before making the crossing. They have chosen to make a highly dangerous crossing. When they arrive, we should, of course, treat them humanely. That is exactly what we intend to do, but the Manston site is only meant to be there as a temporary facility to handle people in the instant of their arrival, before they are transferred to other accommodation. We could and will put on more hotel accommodation, but that cannot be our long-term solution. Is the hon. Lady suggesting that we just spend millions of pounds more on hotels and that we build more five-star hotels in which to put people who have crossed the channel? No, that is not the answer. The answer is to try to deter people from crossing the channel, and then to process their claims as quickly as possible and send back those who should not be in the UK.

Public Order Bill

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

Similarly, the new clause as drafted would criminalise someone who accompanies a woman having an abortion and who says, “Are you sure?” even if the woman seeking the abortion is happy for that to be asked. Even if hon. Members agree with the principle of the new clause, there must be a recognition that it is poorly drafted and criminalises far more than ought to be criminalised. It is not tailored to deal with disruptive pro-life protestors, as perhaps the House has been led to believe by those who have proposed it. I encourage hon. Members across the House to consider what has been said about the new clause going far further than needed; laws are already in place to protect women against any misdemeanours or inappropriate behaviour outside such clinics.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I am so disappointed that we are debating a piece of legislation that should have been resigned to the scrap heap, along with the previous Cabinet’s regressive legislative programme. We are firefighting an economic crisis on an unprecedented scale and valuable Government time in this place is being wasted on draconian legislation that nobody, with the exception of selected Government Members, actually wants. I include in that the people who will be sent out on the streets to try to enforce this nonsense. Representatives from police forces have said time and again, throughout the consultation and Committee stages of the Bill, that this is not required.

The powers already exist to police protests in an effective and proportionate manner, and that is what I will focus on—proportionality. After all, this is a balancing act between the fundamental rights that allow us to protest, for whatever cause and whatever reason, and the rights of those who might be inconvenienced or affected by a protest.

At what stage does the scale tip? Government Members will undoubtedly cite cases where protestors glued themselves to the M25 or threw tomato soup at a priceless artwork, albeit one that was behind protective glass, but at what point does their right to stand up and say, “Wake up! The world is on fire,” become less important than someone’s right to get to work on time or to gaze upon a painting? The right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said that people standing shouting at people outside abortion clinics were “just raising awareness”. Well, he cannot argue that such protestors are doing anything other than trying to raise awareness.

Throughout the stages of the Bill and repeatedly during the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, it was made clear to the Government that the whole point of a protest is to make a noise and get noticed. I am sure that when Muriel Matters and Helen Fox chained themselves to the grille in the Ladies’ Gallery of this place in 1908, shouting,

“We have been behind this insulting grille too long!”,

they intended to be heard. Thanks to protests like that, not only can I now vote, but I can stand here and represent the voices of my constituents—as long as my own voice does not pack up soon.

Let us imagine this Bill had been in place in 1908. Muriel and Helen might have been stopped and searched on the way here, and a chain or lock may have been found on them. Maybe they would be serving 51 weeks in prison, or maybe the chilling effect of knowing this might happen would have stopped them altogether, so maybe women would not have got the vote. Do you see where I am going with this, Mr Deputy Speaker? I am not even delving into the vast number of ways a person could be snared by the Bill.

We have a new Home Secretary, who has taken the wheel and veered further into the realms of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” in a way that brings to mind that iconic lyric from one of my favourite bands, The Who:

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Her scant regard for human rights, the European convention on human rights, and our obligations under international law are well documented, so any lip service to the claim that the Bill is somehow compliant with the ECHR is exactly that.

Like the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), I will take some time to focus on part 2 and serious disruption prevention orders. I much prefer the colloquial name given to these orders by civil liberties groups including Liberty and Big Brother Watch: protest banning orders. That is what they are. I have talked to a lot of people about the Bill, and the conversation usually starts with locking on and tunnelling. They are headline grabbers, and rightly so, but when the discussion moves on to protest banning orders and just how far and wide the net spreads to catch people, jaws visibly drop. People just cannot believe that this could happen to them. I can hardly believe it, and I am a really cynical person.

We are talking about an order placed on a person—it could be you, Mr Deputy Speaker—that can restrict where they go, who they see, what they do and how they use the internet, and could result in them having to wear a GPS tag for an indefinite period. It can be slapped on someone who has not even attended a protest. I am hoping for an intervention from a Member trying to claim that I am oversimplifying this, but I doubt I will get one, because I am not. As others have said, all somebody has to do to be served with a protest banning order is to participate in at least two protests within a five-year period, whether or not they have been convicted of a crime. An order can be placed on a person who has carried out activities or contributed to the carrying out of activities by any other person related to a protest that resulted in, or was likely to result in, serious disruption on two or more occasions. Wow!

This provision could not be broader. It could apply to anyone. Take me for example. What if I let my partner borrow my mobile phone to tweet about a Black Lives Matter protest? Could it be claimed that I am inadvertently contributing to the carrying out of activities by another person related to a protest that is likely to result in serious disruption? What is serious disruption? Members should not bother flicking through the Bill, because the definition is not there. The closest definition we might be able to rely on is in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, under which—rather conveniently—the Home Secretary has discretion to redefine it any time she sees fit to do so.

We had hours of debate on this in Committee. The issue has been and always will be that “serious disruption” is wholly subjective, so it sets an incredibly low threshold for these draconian measures being placed on individuals who are simply exercising their human rights. I agree with the Labour amendment that states we must have a definition of serious disruption, but let me be clear: my position and that or my party is that we must get rid of these provisions all together.

When I get my SDPO, I have to fulfil a host of obligations, and if I do not, I cross the line into criminal behaviour for breach of a civil order, ending with a 51-week stay in prison, a fine, or both. Not that civil after all, it appears. I might not be able to attend future protests. I might be stopped from using the internet in ways that might encourage people to carry out activities that are related to a protest, or that are likely to result in serious disruption—again, there is no definition of the term. I do not even have to have been at a protest to be banned from any future protest—a point not lost on Lord Paddick when the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill was on Report in the other place.

Why do we find ourselves in the realm of preventive justice? On Second Reading, I referred to the movie “Minority Report”, where precogs could look into the future and predict a crime before it happened. That is a movie; it is not supposed to be a template to base actual laws on. The police have roundly rejected the concept of protest banning orders and have claimed that they

“would neither be compatible with human rights legislation nor create an effective deterrent,”

so why are we doing this?

We cannot electronically tag people who have committed no crime and claim that we are respecting their human rights, although shamefully the Government have no qualms about doing that to asylum seekers. A GPS tag’s data can carry the most personal and sensitive information, such as who someone’s GP is, where they shop and who they visit. It is a massive invasion of privacy that marks a new era of state surveillance.

We very much support of amendment 1, which removes SDPOs from the Bill. I thank the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker) for his work on the amendment, for his fantastic speech today—I never thought that I would hear myself say that about someone on the Conservative Benches, but it hit the mark—and for his collaborative approach to the amendment, which was in his name and is now in my name. I hope to press it to a vote tonight.

I have spent much of the time available to me discussing SDPOs, but I reiterate the SNP’s complete opposition to the Bill in its entirety, because it is draconian. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) said, we need only to look at the JCHR report to find the list of powers that already exist and can be used—the hon. Member for Broxbourne listed them for us.

Our opposition to the Bill in its entirety is made clear by our amendments not to amend the Bill but to remove all but one little clause. That is a radical step, but it attracted much public and cross-party support. I thank the hon. Members who put their name to those amendments. Unfortunately, as SNP spokesperson, I cannot realistically press more than one of my amendments to a vote—if I could, I would press them all to a vote. In particular, in addition to amendment 1, I would press amendment 12, which would remove suspicion-less stop and search. I hope that Labour will move that amendment so that we can vote on it and, clearly, support it.

We support many amendments from other hon. Members, including all those in the name of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West on behalf of the Joint Committee. We also agree with the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) about the need for a public inquiry into the impact of the policing of public order on black, Asian and minority ethnic people.

I support new clause 11 on buffer zones in the name of the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) but, in answer to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), it will not surprise him or the hon. Lady that we will not vote on it if it is pressed to a vote, because it applies only to England and Wales. The Scottish Government are progressing work on it for Scotland. I agree with everything she said on it and I pay tribute to the work that she and the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) have been doing on it for some time.

In closing, we do not need this Bill—nobody needs this Bill. Our right to protest is fundamental. It is the only tool available to many people—most people—to effect real change. The Bill comes on the back of photographic voter ID, restrictions on judicial review, and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 that we are yet to feel the full force of. When will the Government stop? When will they put their hands up and say, “We’ve got this wrong”? They need to realise that, instead of slamming their hand down on people who are protesting because they are desperately worried, they should extend a hand of solidarity to them and fix the problems that people are protesting about in the first place.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I am expecting four Divisions when the Minister resumes his seat.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

1. What recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on licensing overdose prevention centres.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

11. If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of implementing a pilot project to evaluate the effectiveness of drug consumption rooms.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)]

Welcome back, Mr Speaker. I endorse everything you have just said. We enjoy the right to lawful, peaceful protest, but we enjoy the right to open democracy as well. Those who behave in this way should feel the full force of the law.

Before I answer these questions, I will briefly remark on my three years as Home Secretary under Boris Johnson’s prime ministership. A written ministerial statement in my name was tabled this morning—[Interruption]—shut up—outlining the work of the Home Office over the last three years to meet our manifesto commitments, which include some of the biggest reforms on security, migration and public safety, about which Mr Speaker has just spoken. I am proud to have served in this Government, and I thank the Prime Minister, Home Office Ministers past and present, and a wide range of officials.

Drugs are a scourge on society that destroys lives, blights communities and fuels crime. There is no safe way to take dangerous drugs, so I do not support legalising drugs. Importantly, the drug strategy led by this Government will tackle drug supply, reduce demand and provide world-class treatment to those in need of help.

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point about the tragedy of drug deaths, and she highlights the incredibly important work of Dame Carol Black. I pay tribute to the work of Dame Carol Black, including everything she proposed on the drug strategy and treatment programmes. She also highlighted where funding needs to come together across the whole of Government, and a great deal of work is taking place on that.

The hon. Lady is correct. Not only does more work need to be done, but we need to have bottom-up solutions. Dame Carol Black has presented some strong proposals to the Government, and the Prime Minister and I have backed and supported them. It is right that that legacy continues, as it will help to save lives and re-establish rehabilitation programmes across the country.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Last week I spent an evening in Glasgow with families who, like me, have lost someone to drug addiction. They and I accept that the ideal situation is that people will conquer their addiction, but does the right hon. Lady accept that they can do that only if they do not die first? Does she also accept that, for those who continue to use, we should enable them to do so as safely as possible and as close to medical assistance as possible? The Royal College of Nursing supports drug consumption rooms. Will she support them? And will she support the families and the memory of all those who have lost their life to drugs? Will she give the go-ahead for just one pilot project?

[Priti Patel]

I totally recognise and understand not only the hon. Lady’s remarks, but the scale of drug addiction and drug deaths—we have discussed this many times before in this House and it is tragic. Conquering addiction is not easy, which is why I stand by the work of Carol Black. It is pivotal in terms of putting forward long-term treatment programmes, because long-term treatment is really required. My views on drug consumption rooms, in particular, are known, but there are no easy solutions to this, because people who are addicted to drugs have taken drugs for a wide range of reasons. It is important that we seek to support them to conquer addiction and help them to rebuild their lives.