Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Michael Tomlinson

2nd reading
Tuesday 12th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Tomlinson]

The answer is: no, no and no. [Interruption.] I am here; I have been in the Chamber.

Turning to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Sir Conor Burns), I thank my constituency neighbour for his delivery of a powerful and compassionate speech, as he always gives. My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) asked me to work with him, to be open-minded and to look at ways to make the Bill more effective. In contrast to my response to the previous intervention, my answer is: yes, yes and yes. He and I have worked together before and I commit to continuing to work again with him during the rest of the passage of this Bill.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Will the Minister give way?

[Michael Tomlinson]

Forgive me, but I will not.

In the time I have left, I will refer to my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger), who I hope will continue to work with me on this Bill. I listened carefully to what he had to say. I listened with great interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell), who is a member of the Home Affairs Committee and spoke with great authority. My hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) spoke clearly about her position, the direct impact on her constituency and the imperative of ensuring we stop the boats. My notes about the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) say that he was “on fire.” I am grateful for his contribution; those who missed it should go and watch it on playback.

My hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) made a powerful, measured and careful speech, and I was grateful for his earlier intervention. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) for his contribution, particularly and sincerely for mentioning our late colleague James Brokenshire and his able work in this area.

There was common sense from my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman); I thank him for his contribution. There were attempts to shout down my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) while he was speaking. He stood up, as he often does in the Chamber, in the face of that barrage. He talks openly about his faith. I respect him sincerely for the way he does that and for the way he conducts his business in the Chamber.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) has the distinction of serving on not one but two Select Committees. Not only does he do that, but he does it with distinction and diligence, and I always like listening to his speeches. He had the temerity to suggest that lawyers may, from time to time, disagree with each other—what an outrageous suggestion. I am only sorry that there were not more lawyers in the Chamber to hear that point.

My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) made an outstanding speech. More people should have been in the Chamber to hear the inescapable, inestimable and irresistible logic of his compelling speech. As one of my predecessors, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) for his work in this area and for pointing out what has already happened since the Supreme Court judgment—namely, the treaty. My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) gave us actual numbers, not just percentages, and my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) took us on a tour du monde. It is not just our country that faces these challenges; this is a global challenge of our time.

Let me end by saying that I have sat through more than six hours of this six and a half hour debate. I heard every single speech from the Government Benches and most speeches from the Opposition Benches. I heard every single speech made from the Labour Front Bench, and what was missing was a plan. Labour has no plan. There was intervention after intervention, but where was the plan? There was chuntering from a sedentary position by the Home Secretary, asking “Where is the plan?” Answer came there none. There was a verbal vacuum—not even a cut-and-paste solution. There was no plan whatsoever. Contrast that with the clear determination of all those on the Government side of the Chamber to stop the boats. Madam Deputy Speaker, I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Michael Tomlinson

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

It would have been interesting if the Government had made that argument, but they did not. They made no argument—they allowed the motion to go through. If they had said in the meantime, for example, yesterday afternoon, “We will provide the document that you want. We’ll give it to the Chair of the Exiting the European Union Committee, which has a majority of Conservative Members, and it can decide what should be in the public domain”, I think the House would have been content. That would have been a perfectly logical process to adopt, but the Government have not done that. Perhaps they will do it later today if they lose the motion—I do not know.

Let me consider the important substantive point. Can the House require the Law Officers to provide their legal advice to Parliament? It is important that Select Committees can require documents of all sorts of people outside Parliament, and it is difficult to enforce that if we cannot even require documents of Ministers. Yesterday, the Attorney General referred several times to “previous editions of ‘Erskine May’” to show that “the motion to return” is traditionally always

“confined to documents of public and official character.”—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 563.]

That was his argument for saying that “Erskine May” did not really allow for Law Officers to provide anything that was sought by the House, even though the current 24th edition does exactly that. He suggested that the 22nd or the 23rd edition had changed the rule and that we should return to a previous version.

Perhaps the Attorney General was referring to the 10th edition of “Erskine May”, which, as I am sure the hon. Member for North East Somerset knows, came out in 1893. In that, the traditional version of this doctrine, which I think the Attorney General meant, is laid out:

“The opinions of the law officers of the Crown, given for the guidance of ministers, in any question of diplomacy or state policy, being included in the class of confidential documents, have generally been withheld from Parliament.”

I think that the Attorney General believes that that should still be the case, although that has been superseded. Unfortunately for the Attorney General, “Erskine May” goes on to say:

“In 1858, however, this rule was, under peculiar and exceptional circumstances, departed from, and the opinions of the law officers of the Crown upon the case of the Cagliari, were laid before Parliament.”

I will not go into the instance—I know that hon. Members are saddened by that.

The point is that, when the House has required that the Law Officers provide the information, they have always done so. The Attorney General’s argument therefore does not stand.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

That also appears in the 17th edition of “Erskine May” from 1964, to which I will refer if Mr Speaker calls me. In the case to which the hon. Gentleman refers, in the middle of 19th century, the Minister voluntarily gave that advice, which was not demanded by the House.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Michael Tomlinson

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 27th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. All too often, in some of our towns and villages, it is far too easy to get very cheap alcohol, and vast quantities of it. Under-age people are growing up with the expectation that they will able not just to get half a pint of cider on a Friday night but to get a whole bottle of vodka, doing themselves irreparable damage. I have been doing a bit of work on traumatic brain injury of late, and in particular how it affects the criminal justice system. It is depressing that people who get violent after alcohol will often take enormous risks with their own personal safety or will get violent with others. The brain injuries that can result from alcohol develop especially between the ages of 14 and 21, when the executive function of the brain, which sits largely at the front of it, has not yet fully developed. The damage that is done is then seen in the criminal justice system, because we have thousands and thousands of people in our prisons who have brain injuries that were never properly looked at by medics and dealt with.

As the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said, it would be bizarre not to include sexual assault when we are looking at other areas of assault. I know that the Government have been reluctant about this and have said that we want to treat sexual assault differently, but I think it is better for us to treat it in the same terms. Alcohol Concern recently said that between a third and a half of all emergency service people who responded to their research had suffered sexual harassment or abuse at the hands of intoxicated members of the public. Over half of ambulance service workers reported that they had been the victim of intoxicated sexual harassment or assault, and 41% of police had been sexually harassed by drunken people.

I do not want to pretend that legislation, of itself, solves a problem. That is true of the whole Bill, and I will say a little more about that when we get to Third Reading. After all, if legislation, of itself, ended offending behaviour, we would have no murder, no theft and so on. However, we need to send out a clear message that trying to touch up emergency workers, make inappropriate advances to them, or make even more advanced forms of sexual approach is wholly inappropriate behaviour. It prevents emergency workers from doing their job properly, undermines morale, and makes it more difficult for us to lead a safe life. That is why I very much hope that the Government will signify, first, on amendment 2, that they accept that spitting is part of common assault or battery; and, secondly, that sexual assault should be included as an aggravated offence.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

Let the lawyers’ dinner party commence! It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—I will say a few words about him in a moment—but an even greater pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I fear that he credits me with greater expertise than I possess, but there are real experts in this area in the Chamber—other lawyers. I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friends the Members for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Witney (Robert Courts) and for Torbay (Kevin Foster). There may well be others I have not named who have expertise. [Interruption.]

With regard to the hon. Member for Rhondda, who has just shouted across the Chamber from a sedentary position, it is a great pleasure to speak on his Bill. I congratulate him on the work that he has done, as has the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). I myself piloted a private Member’s Bill that fell at the final hurdle, Third Reading, so I know how difficult it is to get the balance right in order to ensure that such proposals become law. I therefore pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for all his work behind the scenes and in this place. He put me on the Bill Committee—I think I was a last-minute substitute, or perhaps just the last person to fill a space, but it was a great pleasure to have served on that Committee.

I will not speak at great length, but I want to elaborate on the points that I made on Second Reading and in Committee. In particular, I will speak to new clause 2 and amendment 9. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, because I had tabled an amendment framed in almost identical terms to his in relation to extending the sentence in Crown court from 12 months to 24 months. Very bravely, two weeks later I withdrew that amendment, so I am delighted that he has tabled it and that we have the opportunity to debate it today.

As I said on Second Reading and in Committee, under clause 1(2), a person guilty of an offence could potentially be sentenced to the same amount of custody whether the case is tried in the magistrates court or in the Crown court. The clause says:

“A person guilty of an offence to which this section applied is liable…on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months”

and “on conviction on indictment”—that is, in a trial in a Crown court in front of a judge and jury—is also subject

“to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months”.

That is odd, which is why I raised it. I have done some research into this—my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley teed me up—and I cannot find a single example of another Bill that sets out exactly the same sentence for an offence tried in the magistrates courts as in the Crown court. We are breaking new ground, and it is therefore worth questioning whether that is appropriate.

I have challenged myself to find another offence against the person—assault-type—offence where the sentence in the Crown court is only 12 months. This where the expertise of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham comes in. What do we as parliamentarians do when we come into the House of Commons first thing? We go and have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea in the Tea Room, and there I met my hon. Friend and challenged him to come up with another similar offence where the sentence in the Crown court was one of 12 months, and he too could not find one. I found two examples that may be relevant.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention, which gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to both him and the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, who have engaged in this legislation and spoken personally to me about this issue.

No, I am not saying that. I am not proposing to press the amendment to a vote or say that the Bill should fall, or fail, merely because it states that the sentence should be 12 months rather than 24 months, 36 months or any other period. I am merely saying that the Bill is breaking new ground. It struck me as curious that we are passing legislation that has a sentence of only 12 months in the Crown court. I welcome the Minister’s intervention and understand entirely what he is saying. He has worked tirelessly to ensure that the Bill passes through this place, and the last thing I would want to do is to put that in jeopardy. That is why I have been determined not to press the amendment. However, it is right to air the matter and debate it on the Floor of the House.

[Chris Bryant]

Let me explain briefly why we ended up with this process. If we had included only the aggravated offence element of the Bill, then there would have been no greater sentence for common assault. It seems to me that two years for common assault where there has been no lasting physical damage to the person might be thought by many people to be excessive. That is why we ended up with two tools for prosecuting authorities. I am sure that they would usually go for the second where they wanted to get a sentence of more than 12 months.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. People who know me know that I do not want sentence inflation. In fact, I disagree fundamentally with the approach of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley. I do not think we should be locking up ever more people, and that is where I agree fundamentally with Ministers and the hon. Member for Rhondda; I see entirely his thought process. Locking ever more people up is counterproductive. I want to see more people rehabilitated and fewer people committing crimes in the first place. That will help the very victims whom my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley passionately wants to defend.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Michael Tomlinson

Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Bryant]

We are getting to the meat of the Bill, Ms Ryan. I know that you are completely and utterly impartial, but you did volunteer to be a member of the Committee if you were not chairing it, so I am absolutely delighted that you are in the Chair today. I am grateful to everyone who has come along this morning, not least the two late additions, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove—

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

Hear, hear.

[Chris Bryant]

And the hon Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Oh yes.

[Chris Bryant]

That sounded like applause for oneself. I would also like to put on record that the hon. Members for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) and for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) were prepared to serve on the Committee. They have gone to great lengths in sucking up to the Government so as to be in the Government and therefore avoid being on the Committee. None the less, I am very grateful for the support that they have given. Before we get much further, I would also like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax, as in a sense I am midwife to, rather than the mother of, today’s Bill.

Clauses 1 and 2 will, in essence, make two new provisions. The first, in clause 1, is for a new offence

“of common assault, or battery, that is committed against an emergency worker acting in the exercise of functions as such a worker.”

Somebody convicted of such an offence on summary conviction could receive up to 12 months, a fine, or both. Somebody convicted on indictment could likewise receive up to 12 months, a fine, or both.

[Michael Tomlinson]

The hon. Gentleman may remember my intervention on Second Reading, in which I raised the same point that I am going to raise now. It seems slightly unusual for an offence on indictment and an offence on summary conviction to have the same sentence. I know the hon. Gentleman will have anticipated this question, which I will also put to the Minister, but I was slightly surprised not to see an amendment to the Bill. Could he explain his reason for that, and perhaps whether there is any comparable legislation where there is exactly the same sentence on summary conviction as on indictment? I should say that I fully support the Bill and am delighted to be a member of the Committee, even though I am a late addition, but I would like him to address that point.

[Chris Bryant]

When I was re-reading the Second Reading debate last night and remembered that the hon. Gentleman had joined the Committee, I thought it was just as well that he joined very late. Otherwise, he would have tabled an amendment to that effect, we would be debating it this morning, and I would have had to prepare for it.

The exegesis is simply that I was initially hopeful of a two-year maximum sentence on indictment. Obviously, in nearly every—in fact, in all—other cases, the sentence in a magistrates court is six months on summary conviction. That is what I had assumed that we would be proceeding with, but the Government were keener to go to 12 and 12. I hope that the Minister will be able to answer on that point later. I am enormously grateful for the support that the Government have given in making sure that the legislation is in good shape. There have been some tussles along the way, and we may want to return to the issue of sentence length on Report. I think there is still an argument for a maximum of two years for an offence, but others argue that that would be disproportionate when there are other offences that one could be convicted of that would attract sentences of anything between two and five years. Some people are arguing that that might be a more sensible route to go down when seeking to prosecute.

The new offence in clause 1 also applies to those who are off duty when they are performing the functions that they would have been performing if they were on duty. That is an important provision. Legislation in Scotland is similar but is far more complicated and difficult to use in prosecutions, and there have been instances where that has been used effectively as a loophole. It is also important to say that, as with all such legislation, the offence is not retrospective.

The second provision in clause 2 is the new aggravated offence in relation to seven sections of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and manslaughter, kidnapping and ancillary offences. I am glad to say that those ancillary offences cover quite a broad range of those who might be caught. This particular provision has taken the model of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which created an aggravated offence originally in relation to those perpetrating an offence in relation to somebody’s sexual orientation or their disability, and was subsequently amended to include whether the victim was or was presumed to be transgender. That is a good parallel because, although it does not necessarily increase the maximum sentence available, it means that the court has to state the fact that this is an aggravated offence in open court. That will be of some comfort to quite a lot of emergency workers who have gone to court and seen the person get a minimal sentence with no reference to the fact that this was an aggravated offence. Secondly, it means the court has to consider that as increasing the seriousness of the offence.

I have heard people say that the court already has lots of other means of assessing aggravated elements of the seriousness of an offence, but those vary enormously from things such as the time of day to the vulnerability of the person and the venue and so on. It is important that we put this at least on a par with the provisions of the 2003 Act. Again, it would not apply retrospectively.

I hope that all hon. Members will support the inclusion of the two offences.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Michael Tomlinson

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 20th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I would like to cut the number of assaults on anyone in society—that is the truth of the matter. The hon. Lady makes a good point about public sector workers.

Incidentally, I should make one comment before I continue. My hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Ms Lee) referred to HIV. It is true that people often fear HIV infection in these situations, but it is almost inconceivable that somebody would be infected with HIV by being spat at. I want to make that absolutely clear. I would be horrified if my Bill were somehow to be used to increase the stigma attached to such illnesses.

There is a problem with the existing offences. Common assault makes no distinction between a member of the public and an emergency worker, and the other offences apply only to police, prison and immigration officers, and not to all emergency workers. What is more, they are all summary offences triable only in the magistrates courts, with a maximum sentence of six months.

By contrast, the Bill’s new offence will apply to all emergency workers. It will be an “either way” offence, triable in either a magistrates court or a Crown court, with a maximum sentence of 12 months, or a fine, or both. In essence, it will double the maximum sentence available for assault or battery of an emergency worker. It will give the Crown Prosecution Service an extra string to its bow and it will match the provisions already in place in Scotland.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

On that point, I am trying to understand the hon. Gentleman’s reasoning for the sentence on indictment being exactly the same as the sentence on summary. Will that be teased out in Committee? What was his thinking on that?

[Chris Bryant]

My original suggestion was that it should be six months on a summary offence and 12 months on an indictable offence, but the Government decided that they would prefer it to be 12 months on either. Because I am in an emollient mood, I decided to go along with the Government. That may be a question for the Government, today or in Committee. There is an argument for holding the Committee stage on the Floor of the House on one of the days that might be empty over the next few weeks, given the legislative programme.