Oral Answers to Questions

Charles Walker Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

The Prime Minister—the previous Home Secretary—and the current Home Secretary are seeing a reduction in crime. The police should be proud of that while running things efficiently for the benefit of the taxpayer. There is also an increase in recorded crime, which, as the Office for National Statistics itself has outlined, is because of the willingness of victims to come forward as a result of their increased confidence in the police to deal with the issues. That is to be welcomed.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

12. What legal protections are in place to protect people’s freedom of expression with regard to religious satire.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)]

Freedom of speech and religion are core values that make our country great. They are, indeed, protected in law. What is or is not a joke, or what constitutes satire, is, I believe, in the eye or ear of the beholder and is not, perhaps, for Government to opine on.

[Mr Walker]

Why did the Home Secretary and her Ministers not give voice to those principles during the manhunt and vilification of the gymnast Louis Smith?

[Amber Rudd]

One of the first actions that I took when I came to office in July was to publish a hate crime action plan, to which I refer my hon. Friend. It enables anybody who is the victim of any sort of hate crime, which I think is what he is referring to, to have the confidence to report what is going on and to make sure that the police take action so that they do not feel singled out and abused.

Policing and Crime Bill

Charles Walker Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The hon. Lady raises an interesting point. However, it is possible that the age of the individual can be used as an aggravating factor in relation to dealing with the offence, so it can be taken into account in the case of somebody who is 16 or 17.

Before coming specifically to the issue of mental health, I will deal with the bail proposals. To address the legitimate concerns that have been raised about the current arrangements, the Bill introduces a number of safeguards. First, it creates a presumption that a suspect will be released without bail conditions attached. Secondly, where it is necessary and proportionate to release on bail, this would normally last no longer than 28 days. Thirdly, if this initial period needs to be extended, it can be extended only up to three months on the authority of a superintendent, and any subsequent extension, for a maximum of three months at a time, must be authorised by a magistrates court. The Bill provides for a special procedure in complex cases, such as those investigated by the Serious Fraud Office, but the requirement that prolonged periods of pre-charge bail, and any conditions attached to that bail, are subject to judicial approval is clearly established in primary legislation.

The Government are committed to ensuring better outcomes for people with mental health problems. Those experiencing a mental health crisis and who present a danger to themselves or to others need rapid support and care from mental health professionals. They do not need locking up in a police cell for up to 72 hours.

Over the past couple of years, significant strides have been made in reducing the instances where police cells are used as places of safety, but we must do more. The amendments to the Mental Health Act 1983 will ensure that police cells can never be used as a place of safety for children and young people under 18, and that they are used only in genuinely exceptional circumstances in the case of adults.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for all the work she has done with Black Mental Health UK in previous years. Will she meet Black Mental Health UK, Rethink Mental Illness, Mind and other interested parties to discuss their continuing concerns about sections 135 and 136 of the Mental Health Act? They all accept that the Home Secretary has made some fantastic strides in the Bill.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend, who has a fine record of campaigning on these issues, is right to raise that point. The organisations he mentions meet Ministers regularly through the crisis care concordat, but I am happy to look at their concerns. I hope that the Bill will go some way to dealing with some of the continuing concerns, notwithstanding the work we have done over the past few years in improving the police response to people who are at a point of mental health crisis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I am aware that some Bills are driven by the civil service and some are driven by No. 10, but this Bill is driven by the Home Secretary, and I congratulate her on that. I have worked closely with her over the past few years in many of the areas covered by the Bill, and I know that she has held meetings at the Home Office with a variety of interested parties who, in the past, may not have had access to the Home Office. I also know that she has hosted conferences, including, in 2013, a conference with Black Mental Health UK at the QEII Centre to discuss policing in respect of, in particular, African-Caribbean people with mental health problems. Once again—and I am not ashamed to say it—I congratulate the Home Secretary on bringing the Bill to the House.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris). He is the unsung hero of the debate on mental health, both in the context of the Bill and when the Secretary of State for Health is addressing the House. He is chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on mental health, a job he has done for more than two years, and he has been dogged and determined in pursuit of many of the reforms that are contained in the Bill. He is a great man, and we are all lucky to have him here today.

We need to be clear that we cannot simply will places of safety into being. I know that the Home Secretary understands that. We cannot just shut our eyes and think really hard and hope that it is all going to be all right. There is a need for the political drive and determination to provide them, so that people can be looked after and treated with respect during their time of crisis.

The Home Secretary is absolutely right to say that a police cell is no place for an ill person. Being ill is not a criminal offence. Being ill and black is not a criminal offence, but we know that people of African Caribbean descent who are suffering a mental health crisis are more likely to be subjected to force, to be detained or to be subjected to a community treatment order. That is not right. We need to address these unfairnesses in the system, because they are ensuring that a large number of people who need our help are frightened to engage with those who are able to offer it, because their experience up to this point has been so unsatisfactory. That is one of my pleas today.

We cannot make demands on the police to change the way they do things in providing places of safety unless we actually provide places of safety. My experience of the police is that, in most cases, they want to do the right and proper thing by the people they are protecting and looking after. Most police officers are left distraught at the idea of having to take an ill person or a young person to a police cell as opposed to putting them into the care of healthcare professionals in a hospital or a place of safety that has a bed to offer them.

This is not in the Home Secretary’s gift, but the truth is that there are not enough beds in this country for mentally ill people who are suffering a real crisis. There is nothing more boring than Members of Parliament standing up in this place and saying, “Well, I’ve been warning about this for years”, but I am going to be boring because I and others have been warning about this for the past 10 years. My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and I were warning about it before being joined by my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis in this place six years ago. We need more beds, and I hope that the Home Secretary will be uncompromising in her discussions with colleagues in the Department of Health to ensure that they are in a position to support our police officers in doing the right thing and the best thing.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a great speech. Would he advocate the introduction of interim places of safety in some police stations, so that people can be put somewhere that is not a cell while they are on their way to hospital?

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend is genuinely trying to be constructive and to find a way forward, but I just do not think that police stations are the right place to take ill people. It might be unavoidable in some circumstances, but we need to minimise those circumstances. All too often a police cell is used as a place of safety, but that is not right. However, I entirely accept the spirit in which he made his intervention.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that someone having a heart attack is in crisis and in a life-threatening situation, and that, likewise, someone who is in severe mental torture is experiencing a crisis and in a potentially life-threatening situation as well? Why does he think the two should be treated differently?

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend—for that is what I call him—knows that I do not think that the two should be treated differently, which is why he and I have joined forces on so many occasions in the past and will do so in the future to make sure that the reality changes. There is slow progress, but it is progress none the less. My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis is helping us to make progress, but I do not disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones).

As well as a lack of acute beds, the choice of health-based places of safety for an assessment in many places is incredibly limited. I will now draw on the excellent and concise briefing provided by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. According to the Care Quality Commission map, there are no health-based places of safety for under-16-year-olds in many local authority areas, including Devon, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Bristol or Bath. That is not good and it is not sustainable.

It is not all doom and gloom. There is clear evidence that, where local areas have emphasised long-term preventive measures and put in place crisis outreach and triage teams, they have already improved their services, so they would easily be able to provide the care set out in the Bill. We have heard from the Home Secretary —it is worth repeating—that the crisis care concordat has been a great driver. She also knows that most Department of Health-funded schemes have managed to reduce significantly the number of people being detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. For example, in areas where street triage is operating—this is not in the whole force area, but specific parts of a force’s area—pilots have delivered massive reductions in the use of section 136. I recall my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis having an Adjournment debate on that very subject a year ago.

[Andy Burnham]

I have huge respect for the hon. Gentleman and for his campaigning on these issues over many years. I am listening to his speech carefully. Does he agree with the point that I made that £15 million is not enough, as there is a huge shortage of crisis beds across the country? Does he think that there may be risks in enacting these proposals before major investment is put into mental health crisis services?

[Mr Walker]

I do agree that we need more beds. It cannot be right that children and adults at a point of crisis are sometimes driven hundreds of miles from their homes to receive treatment. The right hon. Gentleman may recall that one of his predecessors, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), had an Adjournment debate a few months ago on how we treat children who are in mental health crisis, and he pointed out that one of his constituents was being treated 200 miles from his family home. That is not acceptable. The right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) did say that, outside the cut and thrust of this place, he had a good working relationship with the Home Secretary. It would be fantastic if, on this matter, the two Front-Bench teams could work closely together, along with the Secretary of State for Health, to make sure we get this right.

Let me look briefly at the successes of triage, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis will be aware. There has been a 20% reduction in Derbyshire; 13% in Devon and Cornwall; 39% in Thames Valley; 31% in Sussex; 27% in the west midlands; and 26% in West Yorkshire. The reductions in the number of people being put under police custody under section 136 in these areas were greater still. For example, there was a 50% reduction in Derbyshire; 85% in Thames Valley; 11% in Devon and Cornwall; and 44% in West Yorkshire. Those are real numbers that have real meaning and that are making a real difference to many people’s lives.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists and other interested parties are calling for the Bill to be amended so that the Secretary of State for Health is obliged to report back to Parliament on the range of crisis responses in each area. That could include street triage teams, availability of acute psychiatric care beds, and health-based places of safety. That sort of information would help the Home Secretary and her team to deliver on their worthwhile pledge, and that pledge needs the support of the Department of Health.

I have spoken for longer than I wanted to, but, in conclusion, I point out that a mental health event is not a criminal event. It is a health crisis. We need to look after people with care and compassion and commitment. It is no good just talking about things. It is no good looking good, as some woman once said to me—it is important that we spend more time being good. We need to be good, not to look good.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

I agree, and as has been mentioned, there is good practice in co-locating police officers and other emergency services with mental health professionals.

My other problem is with who takes such a decision. Clearly, if someone is in crisis and faced with a choice of being taken to a police cell or being allowed to stay at home, most people will stay at home even if that is not the safest place for them. Likewise, their relatives or carers may feel that they have no choice but to take the default position of keeping somebody at home. Perhaps when the Bill goes to Committee we should examine exactly how the measure would work in practice, because it could also lead to the problem being masked. Like the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), I think that we need a place of safety. That does not necessarily have to be a bed—I will come to that issue in a minute—but we need places where people can be taken and properly assessed. These statistics may suddenly disappear, and people might not be placed in that position—the local health commissioners might suddenly say that we do not need a place of safety, but that is not currently the case. We need clarification on what is deemed a place of safety.

Clause 59(5) states that the police must consult a health professional before using section 136 of the 1983 Act. It requires a police officer, where practicable, to consult a doctor, nurse, approved medical professional or another person as specified in the regulations—we have not seen those yet—before using their section powers. Again, I have some problem with that provision. I can see it working in practice in a situation such as those outlined where there is good triaging work, but it is a big call on a police officer in a difficult situation when somebody is in crisis—especially if they are threatening to take their own life—if practical steps have to been taken to consult a mental health professional. The thrust of the provision is right, but I am not sure how it would work in practice without a clear indication that local police forces have ready access to mental health professionals. I accept, however, that in some places great work is being done on that with joint working.

Clause 60 refers to the place of safety and police cells. Should a police cell be a place of safety for somebody with a mental health issue? It certainly should not. Subsection (6) prohibits the use of cells for those under 18, and I completely agree with that. The only problem is that if there are alternatives to the police cell, what will be the default position? People say that more beds are needed, and in some areas that is a problem. In other areas, however, we need places of safety to take people to. We cannot separate the crisis that faces housing in London, for example, and mental health issues. If we have proper supported housing and other projects for people to go to, that is the alternative. A bed is not always the answer to these problems. The Crisp report demonstrated that 500 people had to travel 50 km to access a mental health bed. However, because such statistics are not kept nationally, how will we know whether the targets are being met? At the moment, statistics are kept sporadically, and perhaps in Committee we should insert some provision for them to be kept nationally.

The thrust of the Bill is right, and clause 60 provides regulatory powers to the Secretary of State on the use of police cells as a place of safety for those aged 18 or over. The regulations will set out the circumstances in which a police cell may be appropriate for someone waiting for an assessment. I do not question for one minute the Government’s direction of travel in not wanting to place people with mental health issues in police cells, but some examination of what those regulations would mean is important. Clearly, if beds or places of safety are not available locally, people will wait a long time. I have spoken to police officers in my area and a police cell is the last place they want such people to be in.

Measures to reduce the maximum detention time from 72 hours to 24 hours are welcome. However, I would even question the 24-hour limit, which I think is linked to Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 regulations. These people are not criminals, so why do we have to use the same time limit? Guidance for commissioners from the Royal College of Psychiatrists on section 136 says an assessment should be made within three hours. In Committee, we should try to reduce the time limit down to a maximum of three hours. I am not criticising civil servants for drafting the provisions thinking they would fit in with the PACE regulations, but the inference of criminality stigmatises people who are clearly not criminals.

The chair of the Health Committee, the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) raised the issue of when the 24-hour period starts. Does it start from when the person is detained in a police van or police car, or does it start when they arrive at the place of safety? This could make a big difference if people are being transported long distances to a place of safety. These issues need to be considered.

The issue of health service advocacy is completely missing in the Bill and needs to be addressed. Under the Mental Health Act 1983, there is provision for independent advocates for people with mental health issues. There are some exceptions, however, one of which happens to be the place of safety under sections 135 and 136 of the 1983 Act. People need advocacy and I would like some provision in the Bill to allow access to it. People in crisis will not be in a position to argue for their rights or to ensure they make the right decisions. The idea that advocacy is an exception rather than mandatory under the Act again puts pressure on statutory services to take it seriously.

I do not want to be churlish. I recognise that the Government are trying to move forward and I welcome what is being proposed, but the practical implications perhaps need to be considered in Committee. Alongside that consideration, we need a debate about what is a place of safety. In some cases it will be a bed, but the hon. Member for Broxbourne has other examples of places of safety run by charities and others. Unless the provisions in the Bill are implemented alongside changes to the health service and the voluntary sector, the issue, which is perceived to be a problem, will be placed unfairly back on to the police. We need to ensure the two are linked up. I hear what the Government say about £15 million being made available, but that is a drop in the ocean compared with the problems we face. We need to ensure that local commissioners work with the emergency services and others when commissioning local services. This is not just about beds. I am coming around to what the hon. Member for Broxbourne said as perhaps more appropriate.

[Mr Charles Walker]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about short-term crisis houses, which tend to be run by the third sector. They are community based and people can go to them for between three and five days at that moment of crisis to be sorted out before they go back home or back into the community to stay with friends or relatives.

[Mr Jones]

Yes. It is time to consider that proposal irrespective of whether such houses are provided by the voluntary sector or the statutory sector. A network of that type of provision across the country would get away from the use of police cells. As the hon. Gentleman knows, they could be commissioned at a local level, and third sector development could provide very good value for money. I welcome the proposed changes, but they need to be amended in Committee.

I broadly welcome the Bill, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) is right to say that we cannot consider it in isolation away from the funding of our police forces or of our fire and rescue services. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase gave the impression that this is all about driving through efficiency locally, forgetting that more than £2 billion has been taken out of policing by her Government in the past six years. In addition, money has been taken out of local fire and rescue services. Before she claims that I am arguing for inefficiency, I stand proud to be the Member of Parliament for the most efficient police force in the UK—Durham. However, efficiency has been achieved at a cost. The central Government grant has been cut and 350 officers have had to go. She talks about precepts and making local government accountable. That is fine, but the system needs to change. An increase in the precept in Durham, on both the fire service and the police, will not fill the gap created by central Government cuts. In a perverse way, the Government seem to be moving money away from more deprived areas to the more affluent areas of the south.

On the relationship between the fire services and the police, I am not opposed to efficiencies relating to the back office or anything else, but the hon. Lady did say she did not want the police fighting fires and firefighters catching criminals. I agree. We need to be clear that there will be no merging of the frontline. I will support anything that can make the service better for people and more efficient. The firefighters and police officers that I know want that, too.

Immigration Bill

Charles Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I sat in this Chamber for 13 years while a Labour Government were producing Acts time and time again. One thing that one learns in this role is that, in the immigration arena, one has constantly to be looking to see that the system is what it should be. There were some things that we were not able to do in the last Immigration Act that we are now able to do in this new Bill.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs May]

I did say that I would make a little progress.

[Mr Walker]

Just very briefly, please.

[Mrs May]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will try to catch my eye later on. I will make a little more progress if I may.

I referred to our achievements and said that they were helping us to build an immigration system that is fairer, stronger and more effective, but if we are to ensure that we can protect our public services from abuse and that the system works in the national interest, and if we are to tackle the illegal labour market where vulnerable people are often exploited by unscrupulous employers and subjected to appalling conditions, then further reform is needed. The new Immigration Bill will help us to do that in a number of ways.

Part 1 is about tackling illegal working and preventing the exploitation of workers. The House will appreciate that illegal working is one of the principal pull factors for people coming to the UK to live and work illegally, but those who do so are particularly vulnerable and can find themselves living and working in dangerous and degrading conditions. The illegal labour market can also depress or hold back pay and conditions for the local sector, and undercut reputable businesses. Increasingly, we are seeing labour market exploitation becoming an organised criminal activity, and it is clear that Government regulators responsible for enforcing workers’ rights are in need of reform.

In June 2014, the independent Migration Advisory Committee called for better co-ordination between the various enforcement agencies so that employment rights can be enforced more effectively. Members of this House have pressed that issue on many occasions. In our election manifesto, we committed to introducing tougher labour market regulation to tackle illegal working and exploitation. This Bill will allow us to do that. It establishes a new statutory director of labour market enforcement who will be responsible for providing a central hub of intelligence and for facilitating the flexible allocation of resources across the different regulators. In addition, this morning we published a consultation on the future of labour market enforcement, and I will place a copy of it in the House Library.

[Mrs May]

My right hon. Friend is right. If somebody is admitted at the border, or is found at the border without the right papers, without their visa and without the right to be here in the United Kingdom, they may be turned around and returned to the country from which they have come. As he knows, if somebody is able to come into the country by other routes and get here illegally, identification is rather harder.

[Mr Charles Walker]

What we must do in this country is get better at removing people when we discover that they are here illegally. What frustrates my constituents and their Member of Parliament is that the appeals process can go on for year after year. People have worked out that, once they have arrived in this country, it is very difficult for us to remove them.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend puts his finger on an important point. We have already been able to take some action in this area. We have reduced the number of appeals routes, from 17 to four, and, in the previous Immigration Act, we took some action with the “deport first, appeal later” arrangements, but that was restricted to a particular category of individuals. We will extend that in this Bill. Once again, we will ensure that it is easier for us to remove people who have no right to be here, without them having this continuous process of appeal after appeal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

I think that is where the Home Secretary is beginning to cut an isolated figure, as she did last week at her party’s conference. I understand that her own Cabinet colleagues are making the same argument to her—the Chancellor of the Exchequer got dangerously close to making the same argument on his recent trip to China. The hon. Lady is right. If we are looking for an area where there is economic benefit to the country in the long term, it is absolutely that of welcoming to this country students who will then commit themselves to the country for the rest of their working lives.

The critical response to the Home Secretary’s speech last week did not come just from the usual suspects on the Labour Benches. The Daily Telegraph called it

“awful, ugly, misleading, cynical and irresponsible”,

while the Institute of Directors, no less, dismissed it as

“irresponsible rhetoric and pandering to anti-immigration sentiment”—

serious words. They were not alone. The public can spot any attempt to play politics with this issue from a million miles away, and that is why the Home Secretary got the reaction she did. She claimed in Manchester that immigration was undermining social cohesion. I put it to her that legislating in haste without clear evidence and bringing forward half-baked, divisive measures is far more likely to do precisely that.

[Mr Charles Walker]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman is concerned about immigration, but the Leader of the Opposition, his boss, has said that there should be no borders in this country anywhere—forget the European Union. He said during the Labour leadership contest that we should have open borders. Does the right hon. Gentleman share that view?

[Andy Burnham]

I stood alongside him and he said no such thing, so I will move on from that pointless intervention.

A number of organisations—Amnesty International, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Justice, the TUC and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants—have expressed serious reservations about the Bill. They believe it could damage social cohesion, force children into destitution, undermine efforts to tackle human trafficking and modern slavery, erode human rights and civil liberties, and lead to widespread discrimination.

Let me take those issues in turn, starting with the potential for discrimination. Clause 12 in part 2 amends the Immigration Act 2014 to make it a criminal offence for a landlord to rent premises to an individual with no immigration status, punishable by five years in prison. The measure is intended to underpin the national roll-out of the Government’s right to rent scheme, as the Home Secretary said. I am not against asking landlords to carry out reasonable checks of identity documents, as they already do, but there are a couple of points to make. First, landlords are not border or immigration experts, they are not trained in reading official paperwork from around the world, and they are not experts in spotting forged documents, so on what basis are we planning to outsource immigration control to them? Will not the regulatory burden that this will impose on landlords be way beyond the capacity that many can manage? Secondly, given all that, is it really proportionate to threaten them with jail, and will not that have a major impact on the housing market and the way it works?

The House will recall that in the previous Parliament the Government tried to bring forward the same proposals, but given the huge implications, not least for private landlords, they were forced to back down and pilot them. A commitment was given to this House that the findings of the pilot would be presented to us before the Government proceeded any further. That was the commitment given by those on the Front Bench. We learned yesterday that that commitment will not be honoured. Although the Home Office has conducted its study, it will not present its findings until the Committee stage. That is not good enough. This House should not be in a position where it is being asked by the Home Secretary to vote tonight on measures that could have a huge impact in every constituency represented here today without evidence for what those measures might do. It is not just a discourtesy; it is downright dangerous. She is asking us to be complicit in legislating in haste, and this House should have none of it.

Let me explain why. We know that right to rent could cause widespread discrimination, not just against migrants but against British citizens. In the absence of the Government’s study, an independent survey was carried out by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. It found that in the west midlands, the pilot area, 42% of landlords said that right to rent had made them less likely to consider someone who does not have a British passport, while 27% were now more reluctant—as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) has said—to engage with those with foreign accents or names. Those are very serious findings. Why on earth is the Home Office not presenting its own information to the House so that we can establish whether it is correct?

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Charles Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

May I declare an interest at the outset? My wife works for Google, albeit in a role entirely unrelated to this debate.

It was US founding father Thomas Jefferson who declared:

“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”

He meant vigilance not by the state but by lawmakers, citizens and civic society. As the Government grapple with an undoubted problem—the proliferation of the means, and the volume, of communications used by terrorists and serious criminals—this House must exercise its duty of vigilance, particularly when legislation is being rushed through at lightning speed, increasing the risk that we get the balance wrong.

I for one would like to see Parliament remain in Session until the summer to make sure that we get this right. I urge the Government to look very carefully at the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) and others, which would allow us to sunset this Bill by the end of the year, to give us time to put some proper legislation in place. That seems to me to be the one point in this debate that is utterly unanswerable—we must surely be able to enact a better piece of legislation in six months than in one day. If not, what would that say about hon. Members on both sides of the House?

Last Thursday, this House debated giving the European Court of Justice the last word on powers relating to crime, policing and extradition, yet today the Government are lamenting the ECJ’s ruling on UK surveillance powers. I hope that all hon. Members will wake up to the wider democratic erosion by the European Union of our ability to strike the right balance for ourselves through this Parliament and our courts.

Equally, I recognise the concern of the intelligence agencies about the capability gap between communications between nefarious individuals and groups and our capacity to keep track of them. However, even if legislation itself can provide a framework for collecting this rising tide of data in a safe way with adequate checks and balances, the real problem, to be frank, is not the gathering but the challenge of sifting through an exponentially increasing amount of communications data to find the missing piece of the security jigsaw. That is why, while they are invaluable in police investigations and prosecutions after criminal activity has occurred, the role of comms data in monitoring real-time plots by terrorists and criminals posing some kind of imminent public threat is, frankly, pretty minimal. I wish Ministers and shadow Ministers would be a bit more explicit and honest about that.

In that context, I want to make five points. First, it is not strictly correct to say that we are merely reasserting the legal status quo. Until recently, internet providers and other IT companies held communications data voluntarily, and the key issue was the terms on which the Government could access those data. They no longer need to retain those data for commercial purposes, so the nature of the relationship between the state and commercial operators has fundamentally changed from a voluntary to a coercive one. This is the first time that we have in effect put our legislative imprimatur on that change, and it will have major implications for the IT companies. There is a very real risk that they will be perceived by their customers as the privatised wing of an increasingly powerful surveillance state, and they are understandably very anxious about that.

The second issue is the extent to which we can retain our communications capability at least at the same level as before. I do not doubt that the technological revolution has dented our ability to track criminals, but I question whether we can realistically expect to maintain this particular operational capability, at least in the way we have in the past, just by gathering more and more data on every citizen. There is a world of difference between gathering the rising tide of communications data and the effective use of such data to improve our security. If our challenge is to look for a needle in a haystack, increasing the size of the haystack will not necessarily make that task any easier. The only way in which the authorities will be able to make effective use of the increasingly vast quantities of data is through data mining and profiling, which—mercifully—no Minister has avowed; it would have major ramifications for the relationship between the citizen and the state.

With that in mind, my third point is that our strategic approach to surveillance should focus our finite resources and our intrusive powers on national security and the most serious crimes that threaten public safety. Yet the Bill will retain powers not just for national security, crime and public safety, but for a long list of other purposes—from tax collection to economic well-being and public health—and, indeed, any other purpose that the Secretary of State may order. I appreciate that Ministers will say they are just copying RIPA, but that legislation is fundamentally flawed, and it is regrettable that we are just nodding it through again in such a rushed time frame.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend suggesting that he wants those aspects of the Bill removed before Third Reading?

[Mr Raab]

Rather than the Bill just being nodded through, the key thing is to take advantage of a fairly light legislative timetable between now and the end of the year: we could pass the emergency legislation, and then get the job done properly and correctly, with the right balance.

The fourth issue is the extension of interception and communications data powers to cover foreign companies under clause 4. It is a new power, or at least there is an increase in the extent of the power. Have the internet and phone companies concerned agreed to this substantial assertion of extraterritorial jurisdiction? If not, how do the Government plan to get round the encryption and other security mechanisms in which many such firms take pride for the purpose of protecting their customers’ privacy? In practice, there are only three possibilities: that foreign firms co-operate voluntarily, which would be brand suicide; that that part of the Bill becomes utterly ineffective, because those with a malevolent intent quickly work out which providers will leave them immune to the powers that are enacted; or the nuclear option of the Government considering Chinese-style blocks or bans on offending modes of communication by overseas providers. Such unanswered questions are fundamental to the Bill, as they were to the draft Communications Data Bill before its demise. For all the legitimate concerns about privacy, it can equally be questioned whether clause 4 has any realistic hope of dealing effectively with the problem at hand.

Finally, as so often in this House we are yet again reaching instinctively for legislation to deal with issues that really require a stronger law enforcement capability. The annual Home Office statistics released last September showed that total terrorism convictions had fallen by 57% compared with the level in 2006-07. I have long called for a more robust prosecutorial capacity to fight terrorism and serious crime, such as lifting the ban on the use of intercept evidence, more plea bargaining and a stronger Crown Prosecution Service.

I am very conscious of the time, but the fundamental point is the need to recognise that there is a problem with communications data, but that we do not need to rush through the Bill or to repeat the mistakes of RIPA. I hope that Ministers will respond to the points made so that we can avoid passing in haste yet another piece of clumsy surveillance legislation that will erode our privacy as citizens without effectively tackling the undoubted security threat we face.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Charles Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Watson]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood, and to take part in this debate and speak to amendment 2, which has been tabled by about 25 MPs across the House, representing seven different parties.

We have been told that there is a legal emergency and this Bill needs to be passed through both Houses of Parliament in three days. This huge Government steamroller has revved up the engine and driven into town with my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) in the back seat and Liberal Democrat Members in the passenger seat, and we have been told we have very little choice. It has been hard to have time to consider this Bill, to pass amendments and to have proper debate and scrutiny, yet a curious thing will happen when this Bill is finally steamrollered through on Thursday or Friday, which is that the Government will take out the keys of the steamroller and say, “Relax, this legal emergency will only last for two and a half years.” That seems peculiar to me.

A little earlier the shadow Minister, who went to the same university as me, but many years before—I will not share the rumours about him that were passed down for many years—said he was new to social media and that his metadata footprint was smaller than those of many other citizens in this country, but many people are deeply concerned about their data being held in this way and they are following this debate. What they might not know is that if we do not complete this debate by 9 pm, even on the timetable we have, the amendments we are discussing now will fall, so I cannot speak for too long without jeopardising an amendment that has been supported by MPs representing seven different parties and a significant minority in this House.

What our amendment does is say to the Government: “Okay, we’ve not seen what you’ve seen; we will compromise with you. We will let you say you have a legal emergency and give you these powers for the summer.” That would allow the time for proper debate and scrutiny in the normal way that this House debates legislation. Earlier my good and hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made a powerful case for why we have the systems we do in this House—proper Bill Committees that can scrutinise, pre-legislative scrutiny, Select Committee scrutiny, Second Reading followed by a period in which people can reflect on the debate, a decent time for people to table amendments, Third Reading, and the like. A six-month sunset clause would allow for that.

A six-month sunset clause might also allow for a little bit of research to be done over the summer and for civic society to engage in a public debate. The shadow Home Secretary declared that this was the start of a debate in the country about the lines that could be drawn between privacy and liberty, and security. For me, six months is a long time for us to do that.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. What our constituents really want is proper scrutiny of legislation in this place. Having scrutinised the Bill properly, we may find ourselves in disagreement with our constituents, but at least we would have the opportunity to exercise our judgment and to reflect on that exercising of judgment.

[Mr Watson]

I completely agree. It has been mentioned that there have been few MPs in the Chamber for some of the debate—the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who has been in his place all day, reflected on that. The honest truth is this: are we really surprised at that, when Back-Bench MPs have been treated in this way by the Executive, when MPs did not even know that this Bill would be published until last Thursday and when they had 47 minutes to table amendments when the business motion was passed last night? Thankfully the Speaker has said that he would accept manuscript amendments today, under these unusual circumstances. If it is baffling for Back Benchers, how on earth can our constituents have any comprehension or faith in today’s process?

What our amendment would do is simple. It does not ask for a report—I know that the shadow Minister has said we can have a report, but that is not the same as discussing clauses in Committee and allowing elected representatives to tease out the issues. He knows what this is: it is a fudge, and it is an unacceptable one. What I am saying is that we should give the Government the benefit of the doubt tonight with a six-month sunset clause, which would give us plenty of time to discuss a Bill in the proper way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

Of course I accept that the public are concerned, but from my long experience they have a clear view of how to balance the interests of liberty and their own personal security—that is what this is about, not the security of the state—and they implicitly acknowledge that, although the systems that we have built up during the past 30 years may not be perfect, they do provide that balance. They provide a level of control over Ministers and the intelligence, security and police services, which is pretty unparalleled in most other countries.

Let us consider the abuses that take place in Europe. I think of what has happened in France in recent years, where one Minister intercepted the telephone calls of another Minister—all kinds of abuses by Ministers and the judiciary. That has never happened here and it could never happen here under our system—[Interruption.] Yes, it used to happen. It is right that trade unions were wire-tapped. Many others, thousands of people, were subject to intrusive surveillance. I know that to be the case because an officer of the Security Service told me that and showed me my file. I know that to be the case in respect of my family as well. But that was under a system where there was no statutory regulation whatsoever of telephone intercept, or data retention, which was available then, and when the very existence of the security and intelligence agencies was itself denied. That has rightly changed to take account of our duties and public concerns. It is not perfect, but we are much closer to a system that properly balances those things.

I hope that the Committee will not accept, for the reasons I have suggested, what my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East suggests, which will lead to a truncated, abbreviated review that will not work, and that instead we will have the longer review, proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn, and sober consideration of a new Act to replace this one and RIPA before the end of 2016.

[Mr Charles Walker]

I rise to support amendment 2, tabled by the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson). This really is a ridiculous way to transact legislation in this place—to sit here and listen to a lot of nonsense from some quite respectable people. The idea that we should put something so important and worth while through in a day just takes the biscuit.

I am sure that there is a huge amount of worthy content in the Bill, and I am sure that it is extraordinarily important that business is transacted as quickly as possible, but we have a duty of scrutiny and reflection in this Chamber. We represent 65 million people. This is not simply a rubber-stamping process. The idea that doing this in a day is somehow no worse than revisiting it in December just does not hold water. That argument will have no resonance out there with our electorate.

There is a slight undertone in the debate that those in the Chamber who express concern about the way business is being done today are somehow complicit in putting the nation’s safety at risk. That really is the last hiding place of scoundrels. I do not mean that anyone in this place starts from that basis, but we have a moral duty here to scrutinise legislation. I totally and honestly agree with the hon. Member for West Bromwich East that we need to revisit this sooner, rather than later.

[John McDonnell]

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) has formally requested a vote on amendment 2. If he has not, I would like to do so. I will deal quickly with some of the points that have been made. I think that the House is open to derision in putting such important legislation through in this time scale. The argument that the time is limited because we are abutting the summer recess and MPs are about to go on holiday opens us up to even more derision, so we will be held in contempt yet again. I say to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), for whom I have a lot of affection, no matter how infuriating he can be at times, that the argument that a piece of legislation that could be undertaken in the next five months is somehow not as good as one that we will put forward in 24 hours simply does not hold water.

The point is that we are appealing to the Government today to give us the opportunity not only to have a thorough debate in this House, but to go back to our constituencies, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said, and consult the people who put us here. With such a technical piece of legislation, I want to ensure that I consult my constituents and all those voluntary organisations and experts in the field. That includes taking expert legal advice on its exact meaning, because I no longer accept the argument—it has become confused today—about there being no new powers. I think that there are new powers, but I would like that to be verified by external advice. We have had no chance to do that. We have received, at best, a couple of briefings and a curtailed Select Committee hearing. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), who chairs the Joint Committee on Human Rights, appealed to the Government and said that all we need is the original judgment from the European Court of Justice and the points it raised, matched with the legislation and with clarification on which points the legislation addressed. We do not even have that.

Furthermore, we have the draft legislation before us, but not the guidance, which is the really meaningful part. It will specify who will be included and how it will be implemented in detail. That is still to come, so we are passing this legislation virtually in the dark. On the argument that there will be review after review, the Government’s new clause 7 simply means that a report of the review will be sent to the Prime Minister, but if it

“appears to the Prime Minister that the publication of any matter in a report under subsection (4) would be contrary to the public interest”—

not just prejudicial to national security—the Prime Minister can ensure that it is not given to this House. The definition of the public interest can be as wide as the Prime Minister determines. That is unacceptable. That is not open or transparent.

We have all been in this House long enough to know that having review after review is almost meaningless unless, at the end of the day, the Government decide to legislate or change legislation. A review process is usually used to put something on the back burner so that we can all ignore it as though it has gone away. The reason for a sunset clause is to give the whole exercise of reviews some bite. Without that bite, I am afraid that Governments do not act. The idea of having some bite at a distant point at the end of the following year means that this country will labour and languor under what I think will be an unjust piece of legislation for a long period, which could result in miscarriages of justice and an imposition on our freedoms. It is too long to wait. That is why the short curtailment of the sunset clause is critical to ensure that we give the matter serious attention; otherwise, it will drift further away.

The next five months give us the opportunity for full consultation, proper advice and full display of information, particularly on the Government’s statutory code. We could then come back after the recess and examine new legislation in detail, which may address some of the points that have been raised about the operation of RIPA. As the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) has said, this is no way to legislate and create laws that could have significant consequences for our constituents.

I have raised the issue of the secrecy of professional advice, which was provided for in the European judgment. That is supposed to be covered by the code of practice, but we have yet to see it. That advice could relate not just to lawyers, but to the operations of journalists who wish to expose matters of public interest and to trade unionists and others. This is a risk to civil liberties that I am not willing to support. That is why I support amendment 2.

Migration Statistics

Charles Walker Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jenkin]

I do share that concern, but if the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will deal with that issue later.

I was talking about the 95% confidence interval in respect of smaller samples relating to individual countries. The ONS will publish estimates of immigrants by country only for the top 15 source countries, because for all the other countries the sample is too small to provide a meaningful estimate—in other words, the number of people from Iran or Afghanistan is actually smaller than the 95% confidence interval itself, so the number is meaningless.

We have vague estimates of the numbers coming in from China, India, Poland, the USA, Australia, Spain, Pakistan, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Nigeria, New Zealand, Lithuania and Hong Kong. Those are the countries for which figures are published. For the other 180 or so countries, no figures are published, so we cannot tell from the data how many Russians, Iranians, South Africans or Romanians are coming to this country.

For the same reason, the ONS migration data cannot provide anything meaningful for local authorities that are trying to work out how migration flows affect their area or to plan for population changes. The UK Statistics Authority also stated:

“The IPS sample size is too small to enable the production of reliable international migration estimates at a local authority level, and cannot realistically be made sufficiently large to achieve robust local estimates.”

The census, which is designed to count every member of the population, provides the only reliable data on the number and characteristics of migrants at local level, but we get it only every 10 years, which is why it was so full of surprises.

In evidence to us, Westminster city council said that the current methodology for estimating migration was not robust enough to support accurate local-level estimates, so that

“the measurement of migration from the perspective of an LA user and as reliable information on our residents is failing”.

The leader of Westminster more or less told us that the only way it can find out the nationalities of the people in the borough is to go around and count them itself. That may be a responsibility that it should take on, but—[Interruption.]

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. I say to the official who just approached the Minister: please do not do that again. This is a Chamber.

[Mr Jenkin]

That, perhaps, is one of the shortcomings of Westminster Hall, Mr Walker.

The question is how this situation could be improved. We suggested, and I suggested to the Prime Minister when he came before the Liaison Committee, that we should expand the size of the international passenger survey and therefore increase the size of the migrant sample on which the estimates are based. We were advised that if we spent an extra £15 million on the IPS, that would quadruple its size. That would halve the size of the confidence interval, meaning that there would be a 95% chance that the data were within 17,500 of the estimate, rather than there being a total margin of error, on a 95% confidence interval, of 35,000. That brings the range down, but it is a lot of money for not much improved accuracy and it still helps us only with the headline figures. It does not help us with the quality of the data for smaller groups of migrants or for local areas.

The ONS could see what extra value it could derive from the IPS by, for example, asking respondents for various details, notably passport numbers but also national insurance or NHS numbers, which would allow responses to be linked to administrative data, but that would still not address the fundamental problem of the small sample size.

Alternatively, there could be a survey more specifically targeted at migration. A large-scale face-to-face survey of migrants in the UK has previously been considered, leading to a feasibility report published by the Home Office in January 2011. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to give that further consideration. The Government concluded against funding such a migrant survey after it was estimated that it would cost a mere £2 million, based on the survey design envisaged. Unlike the Government, I think that that would be good value for money, and that option was recommended by the Office for National Statistics. I hope very much that the Minister will deal with that in his closing remarks.

A migrant survey could provide valuable information on the characteristics and distribution of migrants. That would increase the reliability of immigration estimates in relation to smaller geographical areas and be of some help to local authorities such as Westminster, which at the moment are reduced to doing surveys of their own.

In the longer term, as the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) said, the only sure way to improve migration data is to use the e-Borders information. That comes from the advance passenger information, or API, which airlines and other carriers provide to the authorities whenever there is an incoming aircraft or ship.

“Using e-Borders data in the production of long-term and short-term migration counts would be a ground-breaking improvement that would offer several advantages over the migration estimates produced solely from the International Passenger Survey”.

Those are not my words but those of the ONS.

The ONS and the Home Office should move as quickly as possible towards measuring immigration, emigration and net migration using e-Borders data, so that at least a significant proportion of people can be counted in and out of the country as they enter and leave. The e-Borders scheme has now been replaced with the border systems programme, but it should still be possible to use it to count people in and out of the country. Those administrative data would give information about cross-border movements different from that provided by the IPS, but they would still not be without faults. In many respects, the data would give a deeper understanding of the comings and goings from our country. In their response to our report, the Government said that the data gathered through the border systems programme

“does not hold the information to directly estimate net migration”

and that:

“The Border Systems Programme is not designed to provide direct statistical measurement of migration flows”.

My understanding is that that represents a significant downgrading of the Government’s original ambitions for the programme and a failure to deliver what was originally envisaged. The Government’s original business case for the e-Borders scheme said that it would provide

“the ability, for the first time, to comprehensively count all foreign national passengers in and out of the UK, improving public confidence in the integrity of the border and enabling a more accurate count of migrants for future planning and for informing the population count.”

Of course, not everyone entering or leaving the UK is migrating, but if people are on a visa, it should be possible to measure when they enter and when they leave the country. Passport checks are all about checking whether people have a valid visa and whether they are on a watch list. Currently, although 80% or 90% of visas are scanned on entry or exit, we are told that those data are not used for counting in and counting out visa nationals. Why not?

I think that most of the British travelling public would be astonished to find out that passports are scanned but not even people who are on a visa are recorded as they pass into or out of the country. The Home Office should move as rapidly as possible towards integrating visa information with border systems programme data, so that an accurate measurement can be made of immigration, emigration and net migration by people in different visa categories. That would also provide data on the number of people in different visa categories currently living in the UK, and it would enable the Home Office to gather detailed information on the characteristics of migrants who are subject to migration control.

As things stand, we simply do not know how many visa nationals are currently in the country; we do not know how many comply with the rules and how many overstay; and we do not know how many of the people migrating to and from the UK on a long-term basis entered the country in each visa category. That makes it hard to work out whether changes in visa policy are having the intended effect on migration flows and almost impossible to establish the scale of the problem of people who stay here illegally. There is no reason for the situation to persist now that the Government have committed to reintroducing exit checks, but in their response to the Public Administration Committee the Government made no commitment to track the entries and exits of visa holders once that becomes possible, even though it is fully within their power to do so. They say only that that

“may be feasible in future”.

We believe, however, that it should be done as a matter of urgency.

To be clear, we have not recommended that the Government should stop using the IPS by any means, but the Public Administration Committee recommended that the Government plan to end their reliance on that survey as the sole basis for estimating migration flows. The IPS was not designed for the important job that it now has. It was never intended to be used for the purpose of estimating international migration; it was designed to support the work of the then British Tourist Authority by providing economic data on travel and tourism.

The next five years will see much work in Government on developing new data sources that will eventually replace the decennial population census. It is vital that work on immigration be fully co-ordinated and that Departments share intelligence. That our official immigration and emigration estimates do not match our official net migration figure for a whole decade underlines the Committee’s main finding that the current system of relying solely on the IPS for migration statistics is not fit for purpose. Although the IPS provides useful information about the characteristics of migrants, it cannot be relied on to give us accurate numbers of those migrating into and out of the United Kingdom.

There is no reason why the Government cannot use border systems programme data dramatically to improve the accuracy of migration data. The Home Office told us:

“There will be some possibility to link e-Borders data in the future, in due course”,

but we have not yet received any clear commitment that that will happen, let alone a time scale. That is not adequate. The issue requires urgent action. Estimates based on a survey alone are no longer fit for purpose. Instead, we need to make proper use of the electronic data from the border systems programme. The public need and deserve to be given accurate information about migration to the UK, using the latest technology and methods available.

We are now in an election year, during which the issue of immigration will be hotly contested, but that debate is likely to do no more than produce despair in the minds of our voters. The politicians of the main parties are arguing about policies, the effects of which they cannot measure, in relation to numbers of migrants that they cannot determine. That can only undermine trust and confidence in political life, and it will provide an avenue for extremist parties to exploit at the expense of the proper government of this country. We owe it to our voters to deliver more accurate migration statistics as soon as possible.

Stop-and-Search

Charles Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Yes, I can. I am absolutely clear that this is an important power, but it is an important power that should be used properly and effectively. I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance he asks for by again citing the experience that the Metropolitan police has already had: it has reduced its no-suspicion stop-and-searches by 90% and its overall stop-and-searches by 20%; yet stabbings and gunshot crimes have actually fallen over the same period. It is therefore possible to use this important power more effectively than it is being used at the moment.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her announcement. She will recall that we recently met a young man who has been stopped 50 times in the past five years, from the ages of 13 to 18. That state of affairs just cannot continue. The last time he was stopped he was collecting some milk for his mum. I welcome the announcement, but I say to the Home Secretary that I thank God my children are not stopped regularly, because I would have a sense of total desolation and alienation if that happened to them.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The testimony of that young man really brought home to me both the extent to which the misuse of stop-and-search can alienate people, and the problems that people from particular communities, such as that young black man, have experienced over the years. What was distressing was his assumption that, “It will happen to me because I am black.” That is appalling and must not be the case, which is why the reforms are so important.

Oral Answers to Questions

Charles Walker Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The certificate of knowledge in policing is designed precisely to improve the standards of those entering the police force, to make them even more professional. From this year, the Metropolitan police will offer financial support to help with the costs of the CKP, in the form of an interest-free loan, which will be available on the basis of London residency and means-tested household income, so that will specifically be available to the hon. Lady’s constituents.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Following on from that question, on the policing of ethnic minorities, the Minister will know that I am greatly concerned about the welfare of African-Caribbean people held in detention environments, and of those with mental health issues. Is there anything that the Minister can say today to reassure me that Front Benchers are aware of this concern, and are doing something about it?

[Damian Green]

I am indeed aware of my hon. Friend’s concern, not least because I have debated the matter with him in this House. I am able to reassure him further: my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has written to Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary on the subject, because we take it extremely seriously.

Romanian and Bulgarian Accession

Charles Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I have made it clear on many occasions that I think immigration has been good for the United Kingdom overall. The problem we faced was uncontrolled immigration under the previous Labour Government, whom the hon. Lady supported. We therefore needed to ensure that we brought some control into our immigration system. Most members of the public think that it is only fair when they are hard working and contributing to the NHS, for example, that other people coming here should be required to contribute as well, while those who come here legitimately think it only fair that those who are here illegitimately and illegally should be removed from this country. Some of the measures—the tightening of the habitual residence test, for example—have been renegotiated in recent months. These policies are being looked at and they will be in place by 1 January; others will be put in place as soon after 1 January as is possible.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement, but I ask her to find her inner lion or tiger and extend transitional controls until 2019. She should take the hit and not pay the EU fine.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend raises the same point as my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) raised, and I suspect that other hon. Friends would like to raise the same point. I think it right for this Government to look at everything we can do to ensure that we can maintain the control of migration to which we have been committed to introducing in the UK. The current legal position is clear, and I have set it out, but it is right to look at every possibility to ensure that we deal with the situation. I have set out in my response to the urgent question the moves that we are making.

Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Charles Walker Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Christopher Bryant.

[Chris Bryant]

Only my mother calls me Christopher, Mr Walker. However, while reading recently, I was struck by the fact that the person who produced the original report for the then Government claims that, if we read all 85 pages, it was remarkably accurate on probable EU migration from the A8 countries to the UK. Unfortunately, all the different political classes at the time relied only on a headline, which was wholly inaccurate. I suspect that it is possible to map out the numbers rather better than has been done in relation to next year.