Unaccompanied Child Refugees: Europe

Debate between Bob Stewart and Charlie Elphicke

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is the central point that I am just coming to.

It was right that we managed to get the Jungle dismantled. It was right that we got so many vulnerable people removed to safer places. It is also right that we have worked tirelessly, on an international basis—Britain, France and countries across Europe—to target the international criminal gangs: the trafficking gangs behind the evil trade of modern slavery and this wicked exploitation.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I dealt with child refugees a long time ago and I have total sympathy for their plight. We have taken about 8,500 people into this country, about half of whom are children. Am I right to assume that all the people who come through that system are tracked, looked after and watched so that they do not just disappear into an underclass?

Human Rights Act 1998 (Repeal and Substitution) Bill

Debate between Bob Stewart and Charlie Elphicke

Friday 1st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend who makes a characteristically forceful argument. For too long, human rights have been interpreted under the convention in what lawyers have called an “objective test”. It asks people “Do you have a family?” and “Do you have a right to family life?”—and if the answer is yes, end of story. The British common law way, however, asks people “Do you have a family?” and if the answer is yes, it says it is important to preserve it, but it also asks whether they have acted in such a way according to a subjective test to establish whether that right should be allowed as far as that person is concerned. That is a key point, which goes to the heart of why human rights are in such crisis in Britain today, and it is a key plank of the change I am seeking to make through the Bill.

There are more cases. A Pakistani man was found by the deportation tribunal to be an al-Qaeda operative who posed, and still poses, a serious threat to the national security of the United Kingdom, and another man was found to be willing to participate in the former man’s plans for a mass casualty attack in the UK—in other words, these people were plotting terrorism. The man could not be deported back to Pakistan because of the risk that he would be maltreated by the Pakistani intelligence service.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

If someone cannot be tried properly in their own country, the International Criminal Court may well try him or her—and I speak as someone who has given evidence for the prosecution in five ICC trials. I think it is quite a good system. It is one way round the problem we are discussing.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I thank my hon. Friend, who speaks with great experience. He is not only a war hero himself, but has pursued justice and kept the peace in dangerous places throughout the world for so many years, dedicating his life to such causes. I completely agree; there should be such a system. If we have a system in which we have to second-guess the justice of other countries, putting them down by saying they are not good enough and will not come up to the standard, perhaps there should be an international mechanism for people to be tried and made to answer their crimes.

I feel very uncomfortable about the fact that someone can butcher people and commit genocide in Rwanda, yet still be allowed to drive a taxi around Essex today. That is wholly wrong. I worry about the passengers in that taxi, who may not know the driver’s background, previous conduct or behaviour. They may be literally putting their lives at risk by getting into that taxi. My hon. Friend’s idea of having an international court for these cases is one that should be explored.

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[Charlie Elphicke]

I have a great deal of sympathy with that view, and, as my hon. Friend will have noted from the polling evidence that I quoted, a large majority of the British people have an enormous amount of sympathy with it, too. I hope that, if the Bill is given a Second Reading and if my hon. Friend becomes a member of the Bill Committee, he will table an amendment to clarify the provision in question, and we can engage in a wider debate on it.

In March 2011, a YouGov poll found that 51% felt that human rights laws were bad for British justice. Significantly, there was strong support for rights being dependent on the conduct of the individual asserting them, and 64% rejected the motion that everyone should be entitled to have their human rights protected even if they had broken the law themselves. That is a key aspect of what I said earlier about the objective versus the subjective test. As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) pointed out, British people have an instinctive feeling about the issue of coming to court with clean hands. The principles of equity run deep in the psyche of the British people.

Seventy-five per cent. of those polled believed that the Human Rights Act

“is used too widely to create rights it was never intended to protect”.

That too is a key issue, which people often talk about. In February 2012, a YouGov poll found increased concern, with 72% agreeing that

“human rights have become a charter for criminals and the undeserving.”

Just 16% disagreed with that proposition.

The polling evidence highlights the extent to which the British people reject the UK’s current human rights settlement. People clearly and consistently do not feel that the right balance has been struck to restore public trust in our basic rights. The UK’s human rights settlement ought to be revised, and that is why I tabled the Bill.

It is worth reflecting on the UK’s history in relation to human rights. We have a long and proud history of protecting the rights of individuals against the Government. The development of those rights—which we now call “human rights”—stretches back at least 800 years, and includes Magna Carta and the 1689 Bill of Rights. Various settlements and Acts have changed the constitution over a long period. Many people think that we do not have a written constitution, but of course we do: it exists in many different documents.

The magic thing about our constitution is that, because it exists in those various documents and because it was not set in stone 200 years ago like the American constitution, it is easy to change and easy to keep up to date. It is easy for our constitution to bend like a reed when the breath of fresh air of social change sweeps across the country, and I think that it works well.

[Bob Stewart]

So my hon. Friend’s change is a two-phase change. Phase 1 involves making a change here, and phase 2 involves changing the European Court of Human Rights so that it accords with what we want in this country.

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend is right. The European convention is a document that was drafted 50 years ago following the tyranny of the totalitarian regimes in the second world war and the blood that they spilt across Europe. We ought to have a document that is living. One of the biggest problems with the convention is that it is not a living document, but a document that was set in stone 50 years ago, and it has not kept up with or changed with our times. Europe has moved on, but the European convention has not moved on with it. One of the key problems with the whole idea of having written constitutions is that they cannot change over time. The Americans spend an inordinate amount of their time arguing about whether they have the right to bear arms, which strikes us as absurd. We in the UK can easily change things.

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[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right in what she says. I have been roundly criticised on social media by people who, oddly, seem to be lawyers in this area. I wonder whether part of the reason for their criticism is that they feel that I might be threatening their livelihoods. They are milking the system and the legal aid budget for every penny and pound they can get out of it in order to put forward their too-often spurious human rights claims. As a former lawyer, I have little sympathy for lawyers who seek to milk the taxpayer to fatten their wallets. That is important, and I have made it clear in my responses to people that they have a conflict of interest in terms of human rights issues and their own livelihood.

The sixth pillar is that the right to vote should not apply to convicted prisoners, a matter on which this House has expressed concern. The seventh is that legislation passed by Parliament should be changed only if Parliament so decides. Courts believing that legislation breaches human rights should declare their opinion, yet Parliament should make the final decision on whether laws ought to be changed.

The eighth pillar is that public authorities should not be penalised for applying legislation that is approved by Parliament, because that has happened too often, creating uncertainty and making their lives extremely difficult. They think they are doing what they have been told to do by Parliament and suddenly end up with a human rights claim and a member of the Bar pursuing a compensation claim, not only on his or her client’s behalf but on his or her own behalf, to get money out of the taxpayer. The ninth is that UK law should not be automatically interpreted in line with the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights. In deciding human rights cases, UK courts should take into account centuries of common law rulings from the UK and elsewhere in the common law world.

Finally, the UK social contract is not just about rights. It is about responsibilities and the contract should include responsibilities as well as rights.

[Bob Stewart]

I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that there is a worry here. If my hon. Friend’s principles are put into law, will anyone in this country who disagrees with them and wants to avoid extradition, for example, have any right to go to the European Court and say, “This is wrong, may I appeal to you?” in order to delay the process? Will that process be negated by the Bill?

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Bob Stewart and Charlie Elphicke

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the detailed and forensic speech of the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith). However, unlike her, I support the Finance Bill, and hope that it will go further, particularly on business and the reductions in corporation tax. By 2014, corporation tax will be 22%—the lowest rate in the G7. I strongly believe that if the rate is cut, the take is increased. However, in cutting the rate, we also need to take firm action to stop tax avoidance and to have a new tax compact. A low rate means great responsibility, and a greater responsibility to pay the tax that is due. We need business to pay a fair share of taxes, especially multinationals that are located not here in the UK, but overseas. For too many years, they have failed to pay their fair share.

Let me give some numbers. In 1997-98, income tax raised £77 billion a year; in 2008-09, it raised £153 billion a year. In other words, income tax receipts doubled. Let us look at corporation tax. In 1997-98, corporation tax raised £30 billion; in 2008-09, it raised £43 billion, an increase of just a third. How can it be that income tax receipts doubled in the same period that corporation tax receipts went up by only a third? The rate during the period was largely unchanged. The answer is that the Labour Government allowed massive, egregious and unacceptable tax avoidance for a decade on an industrial scale. That is a disgusting record in government.

There was a massive change during that period. With the rise of the internet, tax bases were threatened, but the Labour Government were asleep at the wheel and failed to reform our tax system, and to understand and take into account the new technologies and the new threats to our tax bases.

Let us look at this massive and inexcusable tax avoidance by multinationals. Who am I talking about? I shall give a few examples. In the last financial year, it is estimated that Apple had earnings of about £6 billion in the UK. Apple has an operating margin of some 33%, meaning that profit in the UK would be roughly £2 billion. Tax attributable to UK profits should be roughly £500 million, but how much tax did Apple pay? It paid £10 million—not £500 million. That is unacceptable.

Let us take the case of Amazon. In 2010, Amazon had revenues attributable to the UK of £2.8 billion. It is estimated that it should have paid some £35 million in tax on profits of some £125 million. How much tax did Amazon pay? The answer is nothing.

[Bob Stewart]

So we are going to sort this, are we? Will it be sorted as soon as possible so that it does not happen again? We must ensure that it does not happen again.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for anticipating the next part of my speech, but let me first give some more examples.

Google revenues in the UK were £2.15 billion in 2010. Estimated UK profit was £700 million. How much tax should have been paid? Google should have paid around £180 million, but how much did it pay? It declared a loss of £22 million.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Bob Stewart and Charlie Elphicke

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

I am not certain that just chucking that in the Bill is the most important thing, but I hope very much that the Secretary of State will pick up on my hon. Friend’s comments, and also on the other issues mentioned, and that he will make sure that they are given a proper hearing and are properly understood. I hope he will make sure he puts them in his report.

We should enable the Secretary of State to have that kind of flexibility because other issues that our armed forces are very concerned about, and that will need to be addressed, will arise. The three issues I have mentioned are included in the Bill, but I hope that priority health care will be as well. It is important that when people who serve in our nation’s cause return home, they are properly looked after, because they are much more likely to have serious health issues, mental as well as physical. It is right that we as a country honour that covenant and ensure that they get priority treatment because of their service.

It is right that we should have had Professor Strachan’s report. I do not agree with the Opposition that it is just a damp squib that is a bit wishy-washy and not very interesting. It is important that there is the armed forces community covenant. It is important that the accommodation scheme, which is there to thank people who give their support through the armed forces, is in place, because it will engender a sense of direction and the message that it is right to be on the side of our boys and girls out in the field and that we should support our armed forces.

It is also right that the Government give further, and more detailed, consideration to the other measures that were in the report. That is why the Opposition are wrong to write off this report. It encourages greater help in respect of military housing and greater home ownership. It also proposes that there should be a champion for veterans and better training.

We have also discussed the issue of medals this evening. Some want to hand them out like confetti at a wedding, while others want to be more parsimonious. Whatever happens in that respect, it is important that the MOD makes the following change: the citations for medals should be public from the beginning. I have a constituency case involving a Mr Pile who has written to me saying that he wants to tell his children about his father’s heroic activities. What could be better than for someone to balance their kids on their knee and say, “Do you know what your grandfather did? He served heroically, he got a medal and here is the citation”? But he cannot get his own father’s citation, because he fell out with his stepmother and his father is dead, so the MOD has said, “Sorry, data protection! You can’t know the citation.” So he cannot tell his own children.

[Bob Stewart]

Actually, he can get his citation, if it is a gallantry award, because it will be in the London Gazette, unless there are special circumstances. If my hon. Friend is saying that there should be citations for campaign medals, that is extremely difficult, because everyone who serves for 28 days—or whatever the qualifying period is—gets the medal. The only way someone could get a citation for that is to understand what the campaign was about. Citations for gallantry medals are obtainable via the London Gazette.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I thank my hon. and gallant Friend. This issue was raised with me, and the MOD wrote to me saying, “Data protection means that we cannot tell you.” The position is ludicrous. All medal citations should be automatically public and transparent.

Finally, the doubling of the operational allowance and the Government’s efforts to increase the rest and recuperation for military personal have been positive steps. However, there needs to be an improvement on kit and operational duties. That is vital. We have started to see that, which I welcome, and I also welcome the Bill and the military covenant finally being enshrined in law.