Antisemitism in the UK

Debate between Chris Philp and Andrew Jones

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I would be very happy to come back to the hon. Lady and other Members with an update on that question. It is an evolving situation, but I echo her comments. It is particularly concerning when universities—the training grounds for the next generation—appear to have been hijacked in some places by antisemites: when Jewish students are being intimidated and harassed and Jewish societies have their meetings picketed, with people standing outside shouting abuse and worse. That is completely unacceptable, and we should all support the Department for Education’s work in this area and call on university vice-chancellors to show absolutely zero tolerance for that kind of behaviour—to stamp on it hard wherever they find it.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, and join him in paying tribute to the work of the Community Security Trust. Today, however, the most senior Liberal Democrat councillor in Harrogate and Knaresborough has been exposed for tweeting horrendous antisemitic comments for the past five weeks. She had hundreds of followers, including many senior local Liberal Democrats; she tweeted over 500 times on the subject, and those tweets were read over 10,000 times, so it beggars belief that no Liberal Democrat knew what she was saying. They must have known, but in the five weeks she has been tweeting, they did nothing until it was exposed in the media today.

In our politics, we have seen antisemitism in meetings; we have seen it online; we have seen it in Rochdale; and now we have seen it in Harrogate. Does my right hon. Friend agree that political leaders—indeed, everyone in every political party—must act immediately if they encounter antisemitism in their midst, not wait to see whether anyone notices?

[Chris Philp]

Yes. My hon. Friend is quite right: it is incumbent on political leaders, from whom many other members of the community take their lead, to act immediately, not just when antisemitism gets exposed in the media or when pressure builds, and not because it is convenient but because it is right. Whether it is the example in Harrogate that my hon. Friend gave or, indeed, the recent example in Rochdale, acting immediately from principle is what counts, not just reacting to public pressure a few days later.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Philp and Andrew Jones

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones]

I am encouraged by the measures my hon. Friend is taking to catch up on the backlog. Will he update me specifically on how many Nightingale courts are now open and in use for Crown court work?

[Chris Philp]

There are currently, as we speak, 49 Nightingale courtrooms open and available for work. There are five more opening this week, one of which is Croydon, the borough that I have the honour of representing in south London, and by the end of this month we will get up to a total of 60. Many of those courtrooms can be used for Crown court work, but even where they cannot—for example, because they do not have custodial facilities—they are very often able to do work that would otherwise be done in a Crown court centre that is then freed up for work where, for example, custody suites are required. This is making a real contribution and we intend to go further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Philp and Andrew Jones

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to increase the use of video and audio to conduct court proceedings during the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

The increased use of video and audio is a critical component of our response to the current situation. Over the course of the past eight weeks, we have increased the number of daily remote hearings to about 4,000 per day—about a tenfold increase on the pre-coronavirus level. That means that about 90% of all hearings are now being conducted remotely.

[Andrew Jones]

I am very encouraged by that answer. One of the consequences of this current crisis has been the impact on public transport capacity and therefore people’s access to courts. Will my hon. Friend consider the measures brought in in this emergency to be part of the long-term future for delivering efficiency, access, and a timely disposal of justice in our courts system?

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point to the use of remote technology not just in the current circumstances but long into the future to help the quick administration of justice. We are now in the middle of rolling out the cloud video platform, which is the technology enabling court proceedings to happen remotely. That will be fully rolled out in the Crown court jurisdiction and the magistrates court jurisdiction by the end of this month, we hope.