UK-France Migration: Co-operation

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The shadow Home Secretary just wants to pretend that the last eight years never happened. He knows that this crisis—this small boats chaos—went on for 340 weeks under the Tories. During that period, when he was in charge as Immigration Minister, overall migration nearly trebled and the number of small boat crossings increased tenfold. During those 340 weeks when the Tories were in charge, 128,000 people crossed the channel, and how many were returned to France? Zero. How many were sent to Rwanda? He said himself it was zero, because he did not even want to count the four volunteers. He keeps saying that somehow it was ready to start, but if it had been ready to start, the Conservatives would not have called the election. They would have introduced the scheme which had, in fact, been running for more than two years, at a cost of £700 million and with just four volunteers sent.

I can also tell the shadow Home Secretary that since the election this Government have returned more than 35,000 people who have no right to be here. That is a 24% increase in the number of enforced returns compared to the last year in which his party was in charge. It is a 28% increase in the number of failed asylum returns compared to the last year in which his party was in charge.

As for the agreement with France, which he does not seem to want to talk about very much, I asked him about exactly that back in 2020, when I was Chair of the Home Affairs Committee and he was Immigration Minister. I specifically asked:

“what chance do you put on being able to get a bilateral agreement, say with France, for them to take back people who have arrived here from France…?”

He said—this was five years ago—that that was what he was working on. Indeed, he told the Committee:

“one of our priorities will be to reach those agreements and…it is, I think, strongly in the French national interest to agree such a returns agreement… That gives me significant cause for optimism.”

Well, it turns out that he should have been optimistic—about the return of a Labour Government, reaching an agreement where he had failed.

He also said at the time:

“We intend to return as many illegal migrants who have arrived—

by small boats—

as possible… we have flights planned in the coming days to return these individuals back to France and we will be looking to ramp up this activity.”

Well, that was five years ago. The flights never went, and the activity was never ramped up. The shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), tried to return people to France. The shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), tried to return people to France, and even called for the UK

“to take one asylum seeker”

from France

“in return for one illegal migrant that we return to them. Or indeed more than one.”

As for interception in shallow waters, the right hon. Gentleman said, when he was Immigration Minister:

“Some boats that are just 250 yards away from the French coast have not been stopped by the authorities. This must change.”

I agree, but that was five years ago, and he did not change a thing. The Conservatives never understood that it is not possible to change things simply by jumping up and down and shouting about them. It needs partnership working and hard graft, and that is what this Government have done.

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary on succeeding in agreeing a deal with France. It just shows that treating people with respect can result in positive action, and treating them with contempt, as the Conservatives did throughout this issue, was never going to provide a solution. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that each of those four volunteers whom the Conservative Government paid to be sent to Rwanda was paid, by the British taxpayer, £150,000 to provide free housing, a free university education and free private healthcare? Who approved that funding in the Department?

[Yvette Cooper]

I can confirm that the deal that the previous Government did with Rwanda involved paying £150,000 for every single individual, to cover food, accommodation and healthcare for five years. Those bills continue. A concern was raised by the accounting officer, so a direction had to be given, on the basis that Ministers had been advised that it was not value for money but they continued regardless.

Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the hon. Member’s point. It is immensely important that victims and survivors in every community of every ethnicity can get justice and the support they need, and that issues around race and ethnicity are never used as an excuse to ignore victims or to fail to pursue criminals committing the most terrible crimes. We want to work with the police to ensure not only that we can get effective data and recording on victims, but that the right kind of services and support are in place so that every victim is heard.

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

I am shocked that the Conservatives do not seem able to recognise that they were in power for 14 of the 15 years to which Louise Casey refers in her report. If they had had any kind of enthusiasm for an inquiry when they were in government, they would have called one—so we can dismiss them.

Is my right hon. Friend confident that we are hearing the voice of the victims—the children and their parents? When we had a similar problem when I was in local government back in the ’90s, we set up a thing called Childline to give a direct voice to young people so that they could raise their concerns. Does she think that we should have a similar thing here so that victims of child sexual exploitation can have their voices heard?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. On the history and the action that has been taken, one thing that Baroness Casey criticises in particular is a 2020 report produced by the Home Office under the previous Government. She says that the conclusions that it came to were simply not justified by the data, and that the data gathered was inadequate. I think everyone should recognise that sufficient action has not been taken, be it on data, sharing or implementing recommendations. On victims and survivors, the Minister for Safeguarding is doing immensely important work to look at ways of ensuring that their voices can be at the heart of the new national inquiry and all Home Office work in this area.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We have a duty to ensure that those arriving on our shores who claim asylum are properly processed. The Conservatives prevented themselves from doing that by becoming obsessed with the Rwanda scheme and they left us with a huge backlog. We will speed up immigration processing so that we can deal with those people, protect those who have a right to be here and send back those who have failed. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will welcome the steep increase in returns and removals that I have just announced.

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not gimmicks such as Rwanda but international co-operation that will fundamentally deal with the illegal gangs who are facilitating crossings? Is that not why we should welcome today’s summit, at which people are coming together to co-operate and to tackle those gangs?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. These criminals are cross-national, very sophisticated and operate across borders. In order to respond properly, we have to do the same, and that is what today’s summit is helping us to co-ordinate.

Knife Crime in London

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Luke Taylor]

Introducing blunted knives is a very good example of thinking differently about this crime. The tabloid approach of looking for popular, big and visible solutions, such as banning zombie knives, while important, often ignores the statistics of how crimes are most often committed. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, so I thank him.

The public health approach sees the problem of knife crime in three dimensions and recognises that violence begets violence like an illness. Returning to my argument that violent crime is like a virus, I remind hon. Members that when a contagious, dangerous virus broke out in this country half a decade ago, we rallied every aspect of civil society to fight it. Public services, the police and the third sector were all brought together to work as partners rather than in silos. Implicitly, we recognise that this is the right way to tackle an emergency that threatens life and limb, so why do we fail so consistently to bring that approach to bear in dealing with knife crime in the capital?

A hallmark of this approach is the creation of violence reduction units and the provision of serious financial support by Government to make them the hubs of proactive action they need to be. In London, we have done the first part by creating a violence reduction unit in 2018, but its potential remains woefully unrealised. The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies told me that it fears that the unit remains limited in its ability to engage with wider civil society and is still entangled in the paradigm of enforcement rather than engagement. Funding for the VRUs, including the one in London, is just too low to make this strategy a reality, so it should surprise none of us that it has not borne fruit.

There is a wider problem in that politicians of all stripes have paid lip service to the idea of a public health approach, but have utterly failed to implement it. The last Conservative Government, keen to be seen to do something, embraced the language of public health and crime reduction, but we have seen none of this effectively put into practice. Instead, they piloted controversial new powers that increased suspicionless stop and search, which evidently did little to stop knife crime, although the findings from the pilots have yet to be brought before Parliament.

It just is not good enough—not for mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters all over London whose lives have been ripped apart by knife crime. They deserve a public health approach. We must join up public bodies, the police and the third sector so that young people are supported before they slip through the cracks. We have to consider the principles of restorative practice, too, because they underlie and echo everything that is good about the public health approach.

Earlier this week, I met with Ray and Vi Donovan, who lost their son in a violent attack in 2001. In his memory, they created and have for many years run the award-winning Chris Donovan Trust, which works with police, public bodies and charities across the board to highlight the value of restorative justice in preventing reoffending. They told me that their work takes the restorative principles not just into prisons but schools. That approach, which is grounded in embedding empathy and victim awareness in young people, is like a light in the dark in London It awakens in young people on the cusp of gang life, and even in young people already drowning silently within it, an awareness that carrying a knife will inevitably one day ruin their life and the lives of others. Restorative practice is too often overlooked, even as part of the wider package of public health reforms to tackle crime, yet it is vital to winning the war for the hearts and minds of young people at risk of picking up a knife.

Will the Minister consider putting victim awareness on the curriculum? I encourage the Government to publish all the findings from the serious violence reduction orders that were trialled by the last Government, as well as detailed conclusions about the impact of suspicionless stop and search trials under the knife crime prevention orders. If these punitive and controversial methods worked, surely this information would have already been shared; none the less, Parliament deserves to see the findings in writing, so that we can hasten the end of this troubled approach and speed up the saving of young lives through a better approach, grounded in public health.

Too many young people are being failed before they even set foot into adulthood, and Londoners have had enough of senseless stabbing after senseless stabbing, but the truth at the heart of this crisis is that people carry knives because they fear becoming a victim themselves. The only way to combat that climate of fear is with a public health approach that actually gets results. I reminded the House earlier this month, and I do so again now, that success in this area is measured in something more important than profit or efficiency; it is measured in lives saved, lives nourished and lives reinvigorated.

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister to respond, I remind the Member in charge that he will not have the opportunity to wind up the debate, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

Extremism Review

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

Let me gently remind the shadow Home Secretary that his remarks refer to a leaked report, which, I could not have been clearer, does not and will not represent Government policy. The work, as I understand it—because it is not entirely clear which version of the report was leaked—did not recommend an expansion in the definition of extremism, and as I said to the House earlier, there are not nor will there be any plans to do so.

The shadow Home Secretary mentioned William Shawcross. Again, I will gently remind him that this Government have implemented all but one of the recommendations in the Shawcross review. He also asked about non-hate crime incidents. Again, the Home Secretary has been very clear about that: a consistent and common-sense approach must be taken with regard to non-hate crime incidents. The Government have, again, also been crystal clear that our top priority for policing is to deliver on the safer streets mission, rebuild neighbourhood policing, restore public confidence and make progress on the ambition to halve knife crime and violence against women and girls.

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

I must be careful here, Mr Speaker, because I think you were right to allow this urgent question. However, can my hon. Friend the Minister explain just exactly why we are here? It seems to be—

[Mr Speaker]

I think I can answer that: it is because I have decided. We do not need to pursue it any further.

[Clive Efford]

The shadow Home Secretary seems to have come here to ask questions about a document that is not Government policy and to stand there making indignant statements about issues that are not Government policy either. Does my hon. Friend not think that we should be taking a much more level-headed approach to this issue than that which has been displayed by the Conservative party?

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his observations, which I entirely agree with. This Government and Ministers are always happy to come to this place to discuss and debate Government policy. The leaked report is not Government policy.

Respect Orders and Antisocial Behaviour

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson]

As I said in my remarks, housing associations and social housing providers will be able to apply for respect orders. I ought to say, as well, that the existing civil injunctions will be renamed as housing injunctions, which will deal with that more low-level antisocial behaviour between neighbours. Housing associations might want to use those as well, but they will be able to use both respect orders and housing injunctions.

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Does she agree that the biggest boost to antisocial behaviour we have seen in recent times was the cut of 21,000 police officers by the previous Tory Government, which resulted in the decimation of our local safer neighbourhood police teams? I really welcome her commitment to bringing them back. In addition, the London-hating Conservatives cut the London police budget, so much so that we have a black hole in the budget now that is forcing the commissioner to cut officers. Can she assure me that she is aware of that and will address it, so that we can start to put safer neighbourhood teams back where my constituents in Eltham and Chislehurst want to see them?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

It is always helpful to have experienced and long-standing Members of Parliament to remind us of what has actually happened, because, as I pointed out earlier, there seems to be some amnesia on the Opposition Benches.

Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill

Clive Efford Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Brennan]

I am extremely grateful for all the work the hon. Member has done on football. I participated on Second Reading of the Football Governance Bill recently. It was an enormous achievement on her part to get the Government to bring forward that Bill. It means a lot to me that she intervened and is here to support the legislation. I thank her for that.

By allowing the Bill to be reported, we can send a resounding message that such conduct as was seen at the Euro 2020 final will not be tolerated, emphasising the importance of ensuring safety and security when attending football matches. The legislation reaffirms our dedication to the wellbeing and integrity of football, and restores our collective duty to tackle the challenges confronting the sport. It upholds the role of the sport as a unifying force in our society. I urge hon. Members to endorse the Bill, including the amendment, thereby contributing to the enhancement, safety and enjoyment of football matches for all.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West on bringing forward this important piece of legislation. It is a small but important Bill, which will hopefully be very effective. We have seen issues around football caused by people who I do not think are football fans, because they bring our national game into disrepute. The behaviour of those people needs to be contained, and the Bill is a step forward in doing that. The danger that those people created, as has been alluded to, when they behaved in the way they did at that European final is completely unacceptable. As I have already said, it drags down the name of our national game. I congratulate my hon. Friend on what he is seeking to achieve.

On the issue of whether the Bill could be applied more widely, the legislation could be seen as a model for other sports to follow. If we get it in place, who is to say that there could not be further legislation that would encompass cricket, or any other sport that is suffering in a similar way from those people who are trying to gain illegal entry to competitions, bring them into disrepute and, in some cases, causing a dangerous situation? The Bill could become an exemplar for other sports to follow. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West for picking up this specific issue and taking it forwards.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

I too congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West on the Bill. As he said, Wembley stadium is in my patch, and it was an absolute nightmare for all the families that were there and for the police to manage, because it was so unexpected. I thank my hon. Friend for bringing forward the Bill, in the hope that people can go to Wembley stadium with families and enjoy a match without the possibility of that happening again.

Protest Measures

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. Sadly, as is quite frequently the case, on the more serious occasions it would not be just one offence that was brought. I think this level of punishment represents, rightly, the offence that such actions cause, and the penalty is, I think, appropriate to that. It is of course possible that other charges will be brought alongside that.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister’s statement, and I support the reference to protecting war memorials. As the son of someone who served in the second world war and as someone who grew up knowing people who lost comrades in the war, those memorials are often the only place where those people are commemorated, because they have no grave of their own, and such memorials should be protected in the way the Minister suggests. None the less, the detail of the proposals will require a great deal of scrutiny, so could he say a little more about where we will get that opportunity? The Criminal Justice Bill is now on Report. Are the measures an amendment to that? Will they be statutory instruments? When will we get the opportunity to scrutinise the Government’s proposals?

[Tom Tugendhat]

There will be amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill, which can be scrutinised on Report. I understand the hon. Member’s comments. These are limited and minor amendments, as he knows. They are measures that the police have been asking for, and they enjoy the support of the House for exactly the reason he gave.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that I and my officials are carefully considering what more can be done to ensure that there is equitability in the approach to dispersal. That is critical, and we need to work carefully through some of the pressures and challenges that these issues present, but I gently say to those on the Opposition Benches that a key part of the response is to get the flows into the system down, and they do not have a credible plan for doing that.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

There are currently 56,000 asylum seekers in hotels. The Prime Minister promised to close those hotels some time last year, but since then the figures have gone up by 10,000. Can the Minister confirm that that figure is correct?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am clear in my mind that the figure that the hon. Gentleman has cited, and that the shadow Home Secretary used last week, does not represent the picture as it stands today. They will recognise that there is periodic reporting on statistical releases, but the figures they cite are not representative of the position on the ground today.

Spiking

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Nokes. I am quite sure that if you were not chairing this debate, you would be right over there on the Government Benches participating in it. You have shown leadership and clarity in this matter, and we all appreciate that. I wanted to say that, because I know you cannot speak in this debate while you are in the Chair.

It is also a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), a fellow Omagharian. We were born in Omagh at different times, but none the less we both come from the same town. We have an interest in many things relating to Northern Ireland, but today we have an interest in the issue of spiking.

The hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) is here. I have supported his campaign the whole way through, because I believe it is right. It is as simple as that. I believe we all think so, and I hope he can push this legislation through. He will find us all standing behind him.

The hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) is a good friend. I was a co-signatory to her application for this debate; she nabbed me in the Backbench Business Committee, if I recall rightly. I was applying for another debate, but I was very happy to support hers once she informed me what it was about.

Spiking was not much on my radar when I was younger. I am older than probably anybody else here, so I go back just that wee bit further than most. I do not remember ever having the issue of your drink being spiked and someone then taking advantage of you, but I well remember as a father, along with my wife Sandra, urging my three boys to be careful when they were out. Our real worry now, as I am in the grandparent stage, is for the grandchildren. I have six grandchildren: they are not at an age to be going out yet, because they are all very young, but the 14-year-old is going on 18 or 19, and she will quickly come to that age.

The fear is one that is replicated in universities throughout Northern Ireland. I read an interesting article—this probably goes along with what the right hon. Member for Chelmsford referred to. Queen’s Radio, a radio station for students, has spent time going through the issue to raise awareness. I welcome what has been done at Queen’s University Belfast, because it is important that the matter is highlighted and awareness is raised in Northern Ireland. Students need to be aware of these matters. The Queen’s Radio website states:

“In November 2021 alarming statistics on drink spiking in Belfast were released by the PSNI.”

The stats refer back a few years, but none the less they are still salient. I will give hon. Members some idea of what that meant:

“Throughout that month alone, 120 incidents of drink spiking had been reported”

in one month in the city of Belfast. That is horrendous. The question we all ask ourselves is: are we scraping the scab? Is that just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak? The article continues:

“Amongst these cases, one of Northern Ireland’s main universities (Ulster University) had reported three incidents whilst chief constable at the time Simon Byrne was speaking of the issue as a ‘priority’ for his team.”

The Police Service of Northern Ireland made it a priority to raise awareness, make their constables on the beat aware and visit pubs to highlight the issue.

The article states:

“However, there exists a plethora of young people out there who continue to experience the issue at close range within Belfast. Upon speaking to a first-year student who was spiked whilst celebrating her friend’s 21st birthday several months ago, she spoke of how she does not normally drink a lot and was only planning on having one drink that night.”

The right hon. Member for Chelmsford gave an example of a lady; I will give a similar example, but it is the same issue wherever it may be.

“After ordering a vodka blackcurrant at a bar in the city centre, she left it sitting at her table for less than a minute”—

that was all it took—

“and continued to drink it upon arrival back at the table”,

not realising that anything was wrong.

“It was just after consuming around half of the drink that she recalls everything going ‘fuzzy’ in the room and beginning to feel drunk ‘which was almost impossible since I had only had less than one drink.’”

She could not quite understand what was happening.

“After experiencing this, she left the bar with some friends”.

That is one thing we need to emphasise to young people: it is always good to have a pal. It is always good to have someone, and to keep an eye out for each other. In this case, that is what saved her:

“she left the bar with some friends as she didn’t feel well. Whilst she is thankful that she got home safely and the incident ‘didn’t end too badly’ she spoke of her continuing shock that she experienced side effects symptomatic of excessive drinking”,

which quite clearly was not the case.

[Clive Efford in the Chair]

Unfortunately, the story is replicated throughout the UK. I believe it needs to be a priority not simply for police forces, but for universities. There is a role for us all to play: parents, elected representatives and the police, as well as pubs and hostelries. I know of some community groups that provide so-called spikey stoppers free over holiday periods. Those are very important as we approach Christmas and the new year. As much as I hate it, it is necessary; unfortunately, such things have to be part of the life that our young people and others lead. I believe that universities must give them to students free of charge, and that bars around campus should be urged to ensure that students are using them.

As we come to the festive season, I think of one my very wise 92-year-old mum’s sayings, which I believe is always relevant. She is still compos mentis; she might not be as physically active as she was, but she is still there to tell her big boy what to do and the right way of it. One of the wee sayings she has given us over the years is “James, when the drink is in, the wit is out.” Unfortunately for some people, they are left witless not through choice but either because someone thinks it is funny or for a more nefarious reason: because someone removes the choice of being in control.

I know of one household that will not allow their young adult to go out with their friends without knowing who is the designated sober sidekick, the one person in the group who is not drinking and is watching out for others. In the society we live in, it is right to have that designated person.

Will the Minister consider a cross-departmental approach to provide protection and advice, along with police forces targeted at student areas? Whether such roles are for universities, higher education, local councils and their officers or the police, there is a strong need for things to change.

I commend the hon. Member for Bradford South for setting the scene and giving us a chance to participate. I always like to give a Northern Ireland perspective, but what I am talking about is no different anywhere else; it is happening all over the United Kingdom. I am, as always, pleased to see the Minister in his place. I know he grasps the importance of the issue and will respond in a positive fashion. I look forward to hearing from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), who has also been active on this matter. I am also pleased that the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North is back among us. I said that I would miss her contribution, but now I will not have to. I look forward to it.

I will finish with this point: our young people have the right to go socialising. They deserve that right. It is their life. It is the life they lead and the life they have chosen. That should not come at the expense of taking their lives in their own hands because of somebody’s nefarious and criminal activities. I believe that through debates like this one, we can do more to help. I hope that today will be the first stage. If the hon. Member for Gloucester intends to press this matter in the Chamber, I am confident that we will all be there to go through the Division Lobby in support. To be fair, I think the Minister grasps the issue, so there may be no bother in getting the Government to come along with us.

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

I am sure Richard Graham is as surprised as I am that I am calling him to speak.