Queen’s Speech

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I thought that after about 50 speakers, a change of pace might be welcome. I had planned to read to your Lordships the poem “Deportation”, by Carol Ann Duffy. The time constraints mean that I can only give noble Lords a taster:

“Love is a look

in the eyes in any language, but not here,

not this year. They have not been welcoming.

I used to think the world was where we lived

in space, one country shining in big dark.

I saw a photograph when I was small.

Now I am Alien”.

We do not have an immigration Bill; we will have rules—we seem to get new Immigration Rules almost every week. I will continue to raise the problems of restrictions on family migration, although not as effectively as the Poet Laureate. I note the irony of those restrictions, and how families are split up when according to the Queen’s Speech we are to have tax benefits for married couples—support for marriage.

Without a Bill, there is still a lot to be said about immigration. From the negatives, last week a report from the Chief Inspector of Prisons said that deportees are treated as commodities by security staff; and from the positives, recent reports on immigrants’ contribution to the economy have come from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the OECD, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

By way of legislation we have the modern slavery Bill, to which many noble Lords referred, which is one of those Bills which we will all welcome and strive to make even better. The focus, as other noble Lords have said, has tended to be on the trafficking of children and young women for sexual exploitation. I agree with the points made by other noble Lords that it is important to extend our focus to all victims: domestic workers, boys and young men, vulnerable people, and people who have left the services. I very much welcome the comments made by the pre-legislative scrutiny committee on supply chains.

Of course, legislation is not everything, as other noble Lords have said. We need to increase support for victims as witnesses and to help them rebuild their lives. I very much liked the phrase of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford that we need affirmation to live well. There is the functioning of the national referral mechanism, the work of witness protection, the work and resources necessary for social services and for the criminal justice system—in that case, how it operates—and not criminalising victims. I know that the Government are very well aware of those and other issues. The challenge is to achieve changes in practice. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby asked whether we can afford all this, or at least said that that would be the question. Is not the question: can we afford not to focus on this?

This week the Government are hosting the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict—an admirable initiative. Some of the issues to which I have referred are the international ones found in different contexts, including the appropriate response by authorities and services, identifying victims as victims and treating them appropriately. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle said, I have decided to refer only to the Bishops’ Benches in my speech.

We recently debated problems police forces have in recognising victims of domestic violence—there is a read-across there. The Howard League recently reported on children within the criminal justice system. It told us that a child was arrested every four minutes in the past year in England and Wales and recommended a reduction in arrests for trivial matters. That is a matter of appropriate responses.

It is ten to nine now and we will be back in less than a week to debate the Serious Crime Bill. I will not say more now than that I welcome, as others have done, the statutory recognition of psychological injury to children, putting it on the same footing as physical injury. It is extraordinary that it needs to be spelt out but clearly it does, as was done—again I mention domestic violence—some months ago.

It seems it is also necessary in terms of legislative lacunae to add to our laws on female genital mutilation. I cannot help noting that this is just a few days after the deportation of Afusat Saliu and her daughters whom she was seeking to protect from FGM in Nigeria.

I had planned to ask the Minister about the extremism task force which started last year after the Woolwich murder to such fanfare and then went very quiet. However, there seems to have been something of a coda or possibly even a new movement in that. It is extraordinarily important to be open-minded and imaginative in addressing the issues around extremism and radicalisation. I guess that many NGOs have less baggage than government institutions in the eyes of the individuals at risk. The NGOs need to be supported.

I wonder whether the time has come to consider extending the role of the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation whose experience might well be used more proactively. Above all we need to talk—Northern Ireland showed us that at home. There must be so many different personalities among the boys and young men at different stages of their development—such a range of reasons for their conduct. Legislation, in itself, will not persuade them to buy into the rule of law. We must be prepared to take risks. It was brave of the American Government to exchange prisoners they were holding for the US soldier whom they retrieved last week.

My Lords, I have one more stanza:

“They are polite, recite official jargon endlessly.

Form F. Room 12. Box 6. I have felt less small

below mountains disappearing into cloud

than entering the Building of Exile. Hearse taxis

crawl the drizzling streets towards the terminal.

I am no one special”.