Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Christine Jardine and Dehenna Davison

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

19. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of criteria for awarding levelling-up funding.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Dehenna Davison)]

My Department has undertaken a robust assessment and decision-making process in both rounds of the levelling-up fund. Taking on board feedback, we made a number of improvements to better support applicants in the most recent round, including by making £65 million of support available to help with the delivery of projects. We are currently reflecting on the lessons learned from the first two rounds of the fund, and we will be making an announcement on round 3 shortly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christine Jardine]

North Edinburgh Arts in my constituency recently joined the City of Edinburgh Council in a project to provide a new state-of-the art venue in a deprived area, building on already vital work, but that project failed to receive funds in both levelling-up rounds. Only 21% of bids are currently successful, and only 8% of the funds are going to Scotland. Does the Minister think we should review the criteria to make applications more efficient, so that communities can benefit from the levelling-up fund?

[Dehenna Davison]

I am certainly willing to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the project. It is worth noting that the allocations we have made to Scotland meet the commitments that we made in our first levelling-up fund prospectus, but of course we want to ensure that the funds reach the areas that need them most.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Christine Jardine and Dehenna Davison

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dehenna Davison]

The point I make is that these are some of the most serious offenders, and, as I said, my constituents would not accept something along those lines. Furthermore, when we look at statistics on current detention times, we see that for the majority those are very short, with 74% detained for less than 29 days. For those held for substantial time periods, there must be a compelling reason, such as public safety. For example, we have the example of a man who gang-raped a 16-year-old, has a history of absconding and has delayed his own removal with five unsuccessful judicial reviews. Lawful immigration detention is needed to keep the public safe, so I cannot support these amendments. My constituents want a fair immigration system but they also rightly expect that system to keep them safe.

Turning to new clause 2—

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dehenna Davison]

I will not give way any further.

I praise my hon. Friends for their commitment to protecting children in care, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has long been a champion for children. Vulnerable children should always be in our minds when we make policy, and I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) on ensuring that nobody is left behind. However, I know that the Minister shares my concern that this proposal may inadvertently create a two-tier system. So rather than legislating in this manner, we should be strongly doing all we can to encourage local authorities to identify those vulnerable children and make sure that their EU settlement scheme applications are processed so that they have full and proper proof of their status and access to the documents for the rest of their lives, because we must never allow another situation such as Windrush to happen again.

On new clause 29, we have a proud history in this country of providing safe refuge, whether to the Kindertransport children or to Ugandan Asians fleeing Idi Amin. These are human stories and they should always be in our minds when we look at our policies today. The UK’s resettlement schemes have offered a safe route to the most vulnerable and given them a safe home on our shores. Unaccompanied children who are seeking international protection in an EU member state and have specified that family members are here in the UK should continue to be reunited with them, and I am glad that the Prime Minister has stressed the importance of that. The Government have approached the EU to offer a future reciprocal arrangement for the family reunion of unaccompanied asylum seeking children, and we know that a legal text was published in May to contribute to those negotiations. Getting a reciprocal arrangement is in the best interests of those vulnerable children and those families. We must not act unilaterally, as this amendment would have us do, as that would have a negative impact on the number of children who receive our help. Instead, we must work with the EU to form a joint agreement, and we in Parliament must allow time for these negotiations to play out, without binding the hands of our negotiators. We have seen what happens when Parliament tries to do that in past negotiations and we do not want to see a repeat of that.

This is an important Bill. It delivers on the referendum result and helps those of us on the Government Benches in particular, to repay the trust that the British people put in us in December. I vowed in December that I would do my utmost to represent the views of my constituents, whether in Bishop Auckland, Shildon, Barnard Castle or Spennymore, and that means backing this Bill and supporting a fair, robust immigration system that opens our arms to people across the world who have the talents and skills that our country needs to prosper.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

This Bill defines the type of country that Britain will be for decades to come and, more importantly, it reflects the type of country we want to be. My constituents and I care deeply about fixing our broken immigration system and replacing it with a regime that puts the United Kingdom first.

I wish to make it clear that the Bill has the support of my constituents. Rother Valley demanded an end to free movement: the Bill ends free movement. Rother Valley urged the Government to introduce a fairer points-based system for immigrants: the Bill does that. Rother Valley called for a transition to a high-wage, high-skill and high-productive economy: the Bill delivers that change while protecting our businesses and essential public services. We voted overwhelmingly for Brexit in Rother Valley. For too long, our voices were ignored on issues such as immigration. We watched our area decline from chronic underinvestment, which caused business closures, soaring unemployment and a lack of skills, training and education.

Meanwhile, Britain experienced an unlimited and uncontrolled influx of cheap labour from Europe. Thanks to the tyranny of the European Union, there was nothing we could do to manage our borders. A fundamental aspect of sovereignty was stripped from us and left us without a voice, but we have now found our voice. We took back control in 2016 and we are taking back control today with this very Bill, unamended.

In the wake of the coronavirus, we shall have a new immigration system in place that attracts the best and brightest from around the world, no matter where they come from—from Europe and beyond.