UK-Rwanda Partnership

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for his efforts to tackle a problem that is of great concern to my constituents in Sleaford and North Hykeham, and I welcome the assertion of parliamentary sovereignty because many of my constituents have questioned how courts can tell us what to do. However, there is a provision, as he says, for individual claims. Can he tell me in what circumstances such an individual claim could expect to be successful, and how long that and the appeal process would be expected to take?

[James Cleverly]

The provision for individual claims is nothing to do with the safety of Rwanda, and that is the important distinction that needs to be made. Of course, there do need to be provisions for appeals—that is a normal part of any judicial or legal process—but the point is that in this Bill we are taking a huge step forward in our ability to work with Rwanda on refugee assessment, administration and ultimate relocation.

Legal Migration

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I assure my hon. Friend that we will deliver these proposals with alacrity and at pace.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

My constituents believe migration figures are too high, so I welcome today’s statement and thank the Home Secretary and the Immigration Minister for their hard work to develop the proposals. We heard from the Opposition how some large businesses will bemoan the fact that they no longer have access to cheap labour undercutting the British workforce, but does the Home Secretary agree that raising the threshold to £38,000 means that businesses will need to invest in technology, higher wages and better conditions for the domestic workforce?

[James Cleverly]

To be really profitable, a lot of businesses understand that their best choice is to invest in their own businesses and people. Through the super-deduction policies put forward by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, we are encouraging businesses to invest in technology to unlock productivity and in the people they employ, because we are committed to a high-wage, high-productivity, high-growth economy.

Net Migration Figures

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I do not think fiddling the figures is the answer to this challenge. The public want to see us delivering actual results and bringing down the numbers. Of course, universities and foreign students play an important part in the academic, cultural and economic life of the country, but it is also critical that universities are in the education business, not the migration business. I am afraid that we have seen a number of universities—perfectly legally but nonetheless abusing the visa system—promoting short courses to individuals whose primary interest is in using them as a backdoor to a life in the United Kingdom, invariably with their dependants. That is one of the reasons why we are introducing the measure to end the ability of students on short-taught courses to bring in dependants. Universities need to look to a different long-term business model, and not just rely on people coming in to do short courses, often of low academic value, where their main motivation is a life in the UK, not a first-rate education.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I am glad to hear the Minister, on behalf of the Government, recognising that the legal migration figures are far too high. I am glad he recognises that migrants bring not just economic benefit, but potentially economic cost and pressure on public services and communities. Will he confirm whether his plan will be published and brought to the House before Christmas, and will it include a raise in salary thresholds and an increase in the minimum salary required to bring in dependants?

[Robert Jenrick]

My plan would have been brought to the House before last Christmas if I could have done that, but let us hope we can bring forward a substantive package of reforms very quickly. I am working intensively with the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. We are at one on this issue. I hope my hon. Friend will not be disappointed.

Illegal Immigration

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I completely sympathise with the frustration that the hon. Lady’s constituent must feel, which is reflected in the frustration that I detect in the question. I remind her and the House that we never claimed that the Rwanda deal was the totality of our response to this issue. We made a commitment to increase the speed of decision making and to drive down the backlog, and we have demonstrably done that.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

My constituents are disappointed by the judgment, but will be heartened by the Government’s commitment to stop the boats. As the Government threaten to take over RAF Scampton, my constituents are impatient and want the boats stopped as soon as possible. I understand that the Home Secretary’s plan is to upgrade the treaty with Rwanda. How long will that take, could it be subject to legal challenges, and if so, how long could those legal challenges take?

[James Cleverly]

I am not able to give certainty on timelines—I wish that I was—but my hon. Friend will know that I have a constituency interest in getting this right, as RAF Wethersfield in my constituency is being used as an asylum centre. In my conversations with the Minister for Immigration, in a constituency capacity, we discussed the need to drive down the demand for accommodation, be it at Scampton, Wethersfield or anywhere else. The best way of closing down Wethersfield and not needing Scampton is to stop the boats—[Interruption.] We are relentlessly focused on doing so, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) understands, for all the reasons that I have set out.

Draft Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (Risk of Being Drawn into Terrorism) (Revised Guidance) Regulations 2023

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 General Committees

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I would like to say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers.

First, I pay tribute to all involved in Prevent, because I think they have been maligned recently—and on two wings. Certain people from the Muslim community, for example, will never like Prevent and think that the state somehow uses it to try to brainwash people, which is further control; I will come to that in a minute. On the other side we have the former Home Secretary, who has tried to portray Prevent as somehow ignoring Islamist terrorism and penalising those with right-wing views. Both of them, I would argue, are wrong.

I thought that the Shawcross review was very disappointing, as it was quite clearly written with a political agenda from the beginning. It tried to somehow argue that right-wing terrorism is something we should not really be worried about, but that the real problem was with Islamist terrorism. We have also seen nonsense about referrals to Prevent being trivialised. There was a succession of wild stories in papers such as the Daily Mail suggesting that people were being referred to Prevent for silly reasons.

If any Member would like to know what the process is, I suggest they go and meet the people who actually do the work. Individuals are not referred to Prevent without there being some concern about them. I have to say that when it works, it is very good, but to somehow think that we can have a hierarchy of terrorism—I am sorry, I do not accept that. Whether it is a threat from the Muslim community or a threat from right-wing terrorism, neither should be tolerated and they should be dealt with equally.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

Has the right hon. Gentleman ever taken part in the Prevent training programme?

[Mr Jones]

Yes. I spent a day in Leeds with the regional counter-terrorism group there with individuals from Prevent. I think they do a very difficult job, especially on referrals. They are the frontline and have to make some quite difficult judgment calls about individuals. I will talk about one particular case in a minute.

[Dr Johnson]

As an NHS employee, I have done the Prevent training programme, which addresses the various types of people who may be radicalised and the different ideologies to which they may be radicalised. It urges people in the NHS to make reports to the Prevent team when they think that individuals in their care may be a victim of radicalisation, vulnerable to it or may have already been radicalised by particular ideologies. This is done for Islamic and right-wing ideologies, and others besides.

[Mr Jones]

I agree with the hon. Lady; that is exactly how it operates in practice, but that is not the impression given by the previous Home Secretary, who suggested that one community was being targeted more than another. That is not the case. What the hon. Lady says is exactly right. Individuals should look at vulnerabilities in each case. That is not the agenda we have had, and that is why I think that the Shawcross review was a waste of time. A lot of its conclusions could have been written even before it even took evidence.

The important thing to remember, as I have said, is that terrorism is terrorism. Individuals under NHS care, to whom the hon. Lady referred, who are radicalised or vulnerable to either Islamic terrorism or right-wing terrorism should equally be referred to Prevent. I am a great supporter of Prevent, because if it is done properly, it works very well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Johnson]

The other point I would make about the training is that it talks a lot about vulnerabilities of people who may be victims of ideology. We need to be making it clear that when atrocities are committed, people are responsible for the actions they have taken. They should not be excused because of being vulnerable to becoming victims of ideological radicalisation.

[Mr Jones]

I would agree, but when the Intelligence and Security Committee, on which I serve, did its right-wing terrorism report, there was evidence of groups targeting certain individuals with some vulnerabilities. The shocking thing for me is the rise in right-wing terrorism. Twenty-five per cent of the plots that were disrupted in the last few years were by right-wing terrorists, mainly young boys and teenagers, who were not radicalised by individuals, but usually on the internet. That is an area where it is very difficult for gatekeepers to intervene.

[Dr Johnson]

The right hon. Gentleman said that the right wing had increased and represented 25% of plots. What were the other 75%?

[Mr Jones]

It is right that Lord Anderson’s review moved the responsibility for right-wing terrorism to MI5 from the police. That is why we undertook our review. The other part is made up of Islamists and other types of terrorism. That is a growth area that we cannot ignore, and to try to categorise that, which is what the previous Home Secretary tried to do, is unfortunate. We should be coming together and, whether it is Islamist terrorism or right-wing terrorism, we need to deal with it in a co-ordinated and forceful way. Prevent is good at that but, unfortunately, political discourse in the last few years has led to fingers being unfairly pointed at certain people in Prevent. It is a difficult job. Certainly, as regards our report on right-wing terrorism, when dealing with young people and individuals who have been radicalised online, how do we get the gatekeepers to spot what they are doing? Let us be honest—some of those people will not go on to commit acts of terrorism.

Like it or not, the biggest threat to us now in this country is not necessarily organised terrorism; it is self-generating terrorism by individuals who are radicalised in cyber-space by other individuals. That is a very difficult thing for the security agencies to deal with. If we see some of the content on both the Islamist and the right-wing sides, it is pretty disgusting and it affects young people’s minds. That is why if we can get in there and use it properly, Prevent is the right way to try to stop people taking the next step, which is either to commit an act of terrorism or an act of hatred. We have seen a rise in such acts over the past few years on the right-wing side, with Islamophobia and others. That is the important thing that Prevent should do.

I just wish that Prevent had not become a political football to be kicked around by some people who have always been against it, for example in the Muslim community and likewise by those on the right in this country. We depend a lot on individuals and how they do the work, but a lot of the success stories are never told. As the Minister knows, having met some of the individuals as well, there are success stories.

I welcome the guidance. All I stress is that we must try and turn the temperature down on this and do what I think we all want to do, which is to prevent people from being radicalised.

Illegal Migration Bill: Economic Impact Assessment

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

First, I agree that Glasgow is taking in a large number of asylum seekers. It is just a pity that nowhere else in Scotland is. That is the approach the SNP Government have established. Only last week, we approached the SNP Government to suggest that the vessel that has been housing Ukrainians in Leith be used to house asylum seekers. The SNP Government said that they did not think that that was a good idea—Ukrainians were welcome, but asylum seekers were not welcome. That is emblematic of an approach that is rhetorical and never backed up by reality. I would be happy to speak to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, but the truth is that the SNP is letting them down.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

Much of the media reporting this morning focused on the £169,000 cost of transporting an individual and processing them in Rwanda, but what are the alternative costs of ongoing open illegal migration, leading to problems with accommodation, access to public services, lack of infrastructure, increasing house prices and social integration? Could the Minister tell us more about the costs of those, please?

Illegal Migration

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I am very disappointed by the tone that the hon. Lady adopts when talking about Rwanda. I have been to Rwanda and met our partners there. I am very grateful for, and encouraged and impressed by, the co-operation that our partners in Rwanda are extending to the United Kingdom in helping us with the very challenging problem of illegal migration. I am afraid that the hon. Lady’s views are based on outdated and frankly ignorant assumptions about Rwanda, and I really encourage her to review them.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I welcome the statement from the Home Secretary and the fall in the number of people arriving illegally, but I would like to question her further on her statement on the use of RAF Scampton, which she described as fairer and more cost-effective. Who is it fairer to? Is it fairer to the asylum seekers themselves, left in a remote rural location? Is it fairer to the many veterans in my constituency who are very concerned about the heritage, or is it fairer to the wider Lincolnshire population who may now miss out on a £300 million investment in the Scampton site?

[Suella Braverman]

I put on record my gratitude to everybody in the local community of RAF Scampton. I understand that it is a challenging situation for those communities and, indeed, the local MPs who are doing a very good job of standing up for their constituents. The challenge we face is that we have 40,000 people in hotels all over the country, costing the taxpayer £6 million a day—that needs to stop. We therefore need to identify and deliver alternative accommodation, and we are looking at a wide variety of sites and locations all over the country. Asylum seekers will be housed on these new sites. They will receive all appropriate support. As we bear down on our asylum backlog, they will eventually move on and, when we pass our Illegal Migration Bill, if they do not have a right to be here, they will be removed to a safe country.

Illegal Migration Bill

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

Yes, we do support a capped scheme for safe and legal routes, and it has to be based on prioritisation according to, for example, high grant rate countries and family reunions.

The hon. Gentleman’s intervention is all very well, but the reality is that those on the Government Benches have completely burned every relationship with our partners and allies across continental Europe and, as a result, we have left the Dublin convention. There is a direct connection between the massive surge in numbers coming on small boats and the Government’s botched Brexit negotiations.

Solving these problems also means establishing formal working arrangements to put the UK at the heart of international efforts to crack down on our real enemies here, the people smugglers, by relentlessly hunting them down and ensuring that they are brought to justice. The Labour party has set out a more targeted approach than the Government are currently undertaking; we would recruit a cross-border specialist unit in the National Crime Agency to go after the criminal gangs upstream, working with French experts and Europol. Finally, it means working closely with our European friends and allies to develop new safe and authorised routes from EU countries to the UK for those who are most in need of our help.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about making more safe and legal routes available and has suggested he would be supportive of a cap. At what level would he support such a cap, and what would he do to manage those people who continue to arrive once that cap was exceeded?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I think I have given my hon. Friend two examples. The family reunion scheme, certainly in the terms in my new clause 19, is non-country specific. A Dubs II-type scheme is non-country specific. At the moment, if you are not country specific, you have had it, largely, particularly for young children. The numbers, I am afraid, do not add up.

There is another consideration that I should have mentioned earlier. We are told that everything used to be great and fine in terms of us being able to return failed asylum seekers to the EU and that it has all gone pear shaped since Brexit. In the last year that we were covered by the Dublin regulations and still within the terms of the EU, the UK tried to return 8,500 failed asylum seekers to the EU. Of those, 105 were admitted. So it did not work before. This is a long-standing problem, which we have not had any help in solving from our EU partners. That is why we need to take more proactive and robust action now and why the Bill, controversial though it is, is so necessary.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

rose—

[Tim Loughton]

I will give way to my hon. Friend and then I will finish my comments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Johnson]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument for additional safe and legal routes, but the Bill is designed to try to prevent illegal migration. Although I understand that those few people affected by his new safe and legal route may be deterred from illegal migration by the fact that they are part of that scheme, there will still be many other people who will not be. How will creating a few more safe and legal options for a small number of people prevent people coming across the channel who are not affected by those schemes?

[Tim Loughton]

We are not going to eradicate people coming in boats across the channel totally, unless the French agree to intercept and return them. However, we can limit it to those people who do not stand a credible chance of claiming asylum in the United Kingdom. One problem in the courts at the moment, with the many failed asylum claims that then go through the appeals process, is that there was no other way of getting here, other than on a boat. If the safe and legal route amendment, and everything that goes with it, goes through, that will not be an excuse because anybody could apply through a safe and legal route and, if they are turned down and then turn to a boat, that is not a defence.

Illegal Migration Bill

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

Forgive me, but that question displays the Labour party’s naivety and lack of realism. It is not right to say that everyone coming here is doing so for genuine asylum or humanitarian reasons, which is why we need to take a measured, compassionate and pragmatic approach.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

My constituents are concerned about the number of boats coming across the channel, and they and I welcome the Government’s measures to resolve the problem. The Rwanda scheme remains unenacted and is mired in court action. Some of my constituents are wondering why the democratic will of the Parliament that they have elected is taking so long to be realised. How will my right hon. and learned Friend ensure that the Bill that she has announced today will not face the same fate?

[Suella Braverman]

The Rwanda partnership has been tested rigorously in the High Court, which is why I welcome the judgment of senior judges, who upheld the partnership as being lawful and compliant with human rights laws and the refugee convention. It is a big step forward in vindicating the decision on the partnership that we struck with our friends in Rwanda, and we will wait for the outcome of further litigation.

Public Order Bill

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

With respect to the hon. Gentleman, equating the actions of the Russian state to suppress the views of brave Russian citizens who speak out to oppose Putin’s brutal war with our proportionate updating of the long-established legal framework for policing protests is just wrong and misguided. Let me be very clear: these measures are not about clamping down on free speech, but about protecting the public from serious disruption of their daily lives by harmful protests.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

My constituents are horrified by disruption that prevents people from getting to hospital or work and children from getting to school, but they are also concerned about the huge economic impact. Can the Home Secretary tell us how much these policing operations have cost? My constituents and I believe that the money could be much better spent on proper policing, rather than on having to police protesters causing disruption.

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; her constituents are right to be outraged and concerned, and she is voicing their concerns as their representative in the House. In 2019 alone, the cost to the public purse of the Extinction Rebellion protests was £37 million. The cost of the HS2 protests is estimated at £122 million. In my county of Essex, where I have spent a great deal of time with the amazing teams, the cost has been more than £4.6 million. When I visited the Navigator site, I met police officers from Scotland, Wales, Devon and Cornwall, such is the extent of the resources that have to be brought in to police these protests.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

I think that there is a strong case for using injunctions to deal with the kind of disruption that we saw from Just Stop Oil, but that is not dealt with at all in the Bill, which is part of the problem with it. It does not address a great many of the problems about which the Home Secretary is supposedly concerned; instead, it will cause alternative huge and serious problems. Most significantly, it fails to deal with some of the very serious issues about which the Home Secretary should be most concerned at this moment.

This is the first of the Government’s Queen’s Speech Bills of the Session. This is the Bill to which they have chosen to give pride of place, and what does it contain? There is no action to deal with the cost of living, although inflation is hitting its highest level for decades and millions of people are going without food to get by; nor is there any action to deal with the crisis facing victims of crime. There is no victims Bill, even though 1.3 million victims of crime who have lost confidence in the criminal justice system dropped out last year, and even though crime is rising and prosecutions are falling.

Instead, what we have are rehashed measures from last year’s Bill. We have a second round of measures on public order, even though the Government had plenty of time to work out what they wanted to do in last year’s Bill; even though the Home Secretary claimed that that Bill would solve all these problems—she said then that it would

“tackle dangerous and disruptive protests”;

even though the Government have not even implemented the measures from last year’s Bill, or assessed them to see what impact they are having before coming back for more, as any sensible Government would do; even though, for seven years running, the Home Secretary and her party have been promising a victims Bill; and even though, over those seven years, support for victims has become staggeringly worse. The number of victims dropping out because they have lost confidence has doubled since that victims Bill was first promised. That is more victims being let down and more criminals being let off.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

The right hon. Lady has made an assertion that the Bill does nothing to help victims or to reduce crime, but does she accept that the prevention of disruptive protests will save a lot of money in the policing budget that can be redirected into preventing crime and helping victims?

[Yvette Cooper]

No, I do not. I will come on to that point later, because both HMRC and, astonishingly, the Home Office itself have said that those kinds of disruption orders are in fact unworkable.