Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I am concerned to hear about the case that the hon. Gentleman raises, and I would be happy to meet him to discuss it further.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

I put on record my gratitude to the Home Secretary and her team for releasing the Home Office commissioned report, “The Historical Roots of the Windrush Scandal”, which concluded that 30 years of racist immigration legislation caused the Windrush scandal. Those now on the Opposition Benches spent three years trying to suppress that report. Will the Home Secretary meet me, other MPs and civil society representatives to discuss its recommendations?

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue. It was a shocking report, and one that the previous Government refused to publish. I would be very happy to meet him and other hon. Members to discuss it.

Immigration and Home Affairs

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

It is an absolute privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore). I watched earlier as she was polishing her “Edstone” joke outside the Chamber, and it was delivered with aplomb.

I am hoping, for colleagues’ sake, that I have to make this contribution to the King’s Speech debate only once; believe me, doing things twice is not what it is cracked up to be. Either way, it makes a wonderful change to be on the Government Benches to speak in a King’s Speech debate in which for once stability eclipses chaos, renewal surpasses decay and hope trumps despair. Let me tell my new colleagues that it is not usually like this, at least it has not been for the past nine or 10 years, maybe longer. Too often, we have been here making speeches that mourn the erosion of our democracy and our rights at work and that can only bemoan the continual and unceasing scapegoating of our communities, the destruction of our rivers, the undermining of our judicial system, the betrayal of international human rights and the deepening of a climate crisis. But not today, because this King’s Speech is a veritable cornucopia of progressive policies pregnant with the potential to unpick decades of drift and deterioration. I would not try to say that after a couple of pints.

There are of course caveats. Announcements on the two-child benefit cap and arms export licences to Israel are but two issues we await to hear more on in the near future. In the interim, however, I for one welcome the announcement of our anti-child poverty taskforce. If done properly, it has the potential to lift thousands of children from my constituency and millions beyond out of hunger and hardship, and to give all our children the start in life they deserve—a start denied them by the last Government.

However, we could go further. We could build new institutions and put power in the hands of those who need it most. One of the lessons I learned watching a Conservative Government close down Labour’s much-loved and beloved Sure Start centres was that, if we give communities the ability to wealth-build and thus help themselves, the institutions built cannot simply be switched off by an incoming Government hostile to poverty reduction. The late and great Robin Cook understood this. He lamented Labour Governments who

“never change the system because they think they don’t need to. And when they lose, they have no power to change it.”

The marginality of this Parliament and the rising spectre of right-wing authoritarianism demands that we legislate as if this were a one-term Government, and one that could easily be followed by a Government with little respect for democracy, tolerance, progressive values or even human rights. In this age of anger and perma-crisis, policy delivery is no longer enough. Transformative change, empowerment and new institutions to deliver are what is needed to future-proof society against the shocks to come. We do not have to look far for examples of what they could look like. The NHS is an institution that is the closest thing to socialism this country has ever attained, and it is the reason most Brits give as to why they are proud to be British.

Let us repower and rebuild our local authorities—democratic institutions that for too long have been undervalued, underfunded and stripped of responsibility. Let us redouble our efforts to strengthen trade unions—institutions that push power back to people in the workplace. Such institutions, both new and old, will help undo 60 years of democratic erosion and make people feel empowered over their own lives. If we do this right, it will pull the rug from under the feet of the hatemongers and authoritarians, because they thrive on anger born of powerlessness, a sense of betrayal and a vacuum of purpose. People-orientated, democratic, institutional power blows them away.

I want to conclude with this observation. The true risk to this country is not the rivers of blood, as some would have us believe, but rather rivers of excrement and rivers running dry. In only a few decades’ time, my constituency might not have drinking water, because of a combination of the climate crisis and corporate corruption in the form of price gouging and criminal levels of under-investment. Immigration and asylum did not lead us here any more than membership of the EU did. Failing institutions, the erosion of democracy and economic failure brought us here. It is that our Government must fix, so let us get to it.

Political Violence and Disruption: Walney Report

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

My hon. Friend is right. We have seen the police taking some very good action on some of these protests. I think about 600 or 700 people—I might be slightly out on the numbers, so forgive me—have now been arrested following the protests that we have regularly seen on these weekends. About 50 or so have been arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000, which is just to say that these are not small arrests, but serious crimes with which the police are dealing.

I would like to make my next point extremely clearly. It is a point that was made to me by a middle-class Muslim family—not in my constituency—who have been friends of mine for many years. One of them said to me something that struck home very hard. They have been trying to protect their teenage kids, as we all do, from the kind of hatred and inspiration to hatred that is now all too prevalent online, through social media and sometimes other means. They do what responsible parents do: they make sure that their kids are home at a reasonable hour, and that they are part of community groups that support their lifestyle and values. Then they see broadcast on national media the kind of despicable hatred that inspires people to radicalisation and extremism and, sadly, they say, “It is not your son who is likely to be radicalised into Islamist hatred; it is mine.” I am afraid that he is absolutely right.

It is the responsibility of this Government, and any British Government, to protect the interests of every British citizen. Frankly, it would be racist and deeply unacceptable to consider that the radicalisation of one child is worth more or less than that of another. It is not, and it is wrong. That is why we will stand up against it. That is why, as my hon. Friend said, some of these protests are not just public order offences, but incitement to radicalisation and hatred, and they should be treated as such immediately.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

I wish to put it on record that things have been said today, on both sides of the House, with which I agree, but that fundamentally I disagree with this report. I also wish to put on record my commitment to the protection of democracy and to the hard-won rights that we enjoy today, but this report contributes nothing to those rights—in fact, it undermines them. This morning, I spoke to a legal mind and expert on these matters who, last night, had the pleasure of reading all 300 pages of the report. He told me that it was broad, sprawling, poorly written, littered with errors, not proofread, entirely confused and, frankly, ludicrous. I shall provide an example, on which the Minister may wish to comment on. Paragraph 1.12 of the report said the Government can

“convene a process to examine the potential issue of juries acquitting defendants and judges applying laws differently when they are transgressed in the name of progressive causes like climate change and anti-racism”.

We have enjoyed the right to trial by jury in this country since before Magna Carta, and this report is undermining that. It is a sham report, and I hope the Government understand that.

[Tom Tugendhat]

As the hon. Member will understand, I will not answer every single page of the report at this stage. I will look at all the pages that have been submitted. In fact, I have looked at many of them already. The reality is that this will take a little bit of work, so I hope that he will understand.

Coronation: Policing of Protests

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I recommend that Members on both sides of the House read the Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s article in today’s Evening Standard robustly setting out the background and defending the police’s approach to the coronation. My hon. Friend refers to the expression of regret that those six people were unable to join the hundreds of others who protested peacefully. Those hundreds of others were exercising their right to peaceful protest, as they are perfectly entitled to do. It is worth mentioning in passing, as he did, that they were in a tiny, tiny minority, but that does not undermine their right to protest if they so choose.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

This is obvious to anyone who looks at it; we take a piece of draconian legislation, such as the Public Order Bill, we rush it through this place, via an unelected Head of State, who gave it consent, and we hand it to a failing institution such as the Metropolitan police, who then decapitate the leadership of the republican protest movement. What do we expect? This piece of legislation is doing exactly what it says on the tin: it is stopping peaceful protest.

[Chris Philp]

That is absolute nonsense. This legislation is preventing disruption to the lives of our fellow citizens. I wholly repudiate the suggestion that it was rushed through; there was extensive ping-pong, which I do not recall the hon. Gentleman turning up to, although he is so concerned about scrutiny. As for his comment about the process for a Bill gaining Royal Assent, I will not dignify that with a response.

Illegal Migration Bill

Clive Lewis Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Suella Braverman)]

rose—

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. On the first page of the Bill, the Home Secretary has made the phenomenal statement that it may not be compatible with the European convention on human rights. Section 19 of the Human Rights Act 1998 confers on the Government a duty to ensure that

“the provisions of the Bill are compatible with the Convention”.

Ensuring that compatibility is not only a basic moral requirement of the Government, but a practical necessity. The Government have said that this is critical legislation, and they are therefore presenting to the House clauses that they know will probably be ruled unlawful by a court of law. Surely, Mr Deputy Speaker, if the Government want to have a fight with the courts, they should have a fight with the courts, and not waste the House’s time with this nefarious legislation.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful for the point of order. This is not something on which the Chair can adjudicate, but I am sure that it will be part of the debate, which I think we should start now.

Public Order Bill

Clive Lewis Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

It is always an experience to speak after the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis)—what kind of experience, I do not think parliamentary etiquette allows to me to express, but it is an experience none the less.

I would like to comment on some of the engagement tonight from Government Members, because it is quite instructive. It is like a one-sided equation. They want to make this issue about the disruption to individuals and the cost to business, and although that is one side of the equation, there is another side to it: the disruption that the climate crisis is bringing to people around the world already and to this country. One thing that the House may or may not know is that, between 2010 and 2019, it is estimated that 5 million people have already died from the effects of the climate crisis. I understand that Government Members want to talk about an individual in an ambulance, an individual who has been disrupted, but we should think about the global disruption and what is happening around the world. Some 800,000 of those people were in Europe. This is not just happening elsewhere—it is happening here and now.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I am not in denial about the importance of dealing with the climate emergency, but does the hon. Gentleman accept that those who are leading these so-called protests should be leading by example? Saying that they do not care about insulating homes, or insulating their own home, does not send a very good message from the top when they are trying to convince the nation to follow their lead.

[Clive Lewis]

That individual has made their comments, but I guess the question we have to ask is who are the criminals. Are the criminals those individuals who are trying to come together collectively to stand up against a Government who are failing them on the climate crisis, or against billion-pound corporations with pockets deep enough to buy influence in Parliament and across politics? Are the criminals those individuals who are trying to use the only apparatus that they have to stand up and speak up for what they feel impassioned about? I would argue that the real criminals are those who are wilfully pushing to extract more oil from our oilfields and who are pushing us off an existential cliff edge. I think that this country and the British people increasingly understand that those are the people who need to be held to account.

Members need not take my word for it; they should listen to that socialist radical, the Secretary-General of the UN. The hon. Gentleman may think that the Secretary-General is woke, but I think he is increasingly important to global politics. He wrote:

“Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels.”

Cue our own Government attempting to do just that.

Opposition Members know all too well this Government’s track record of attacks on human rights, democracy, the poor, the vulnerable, trade unions, justice and migrants. Undermining our democratic right to protest goes against the very essence of what it means to live in a democracy.

Again, hon. Members do not have to take my word for it. The Joint Committee on Human Rights described proposals set out in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 as “oppressive and wrong”. The Equality and Human Rights Commission stated that measures in it undermine human rights legislation. Former senior police officers described it as “harmful to democracy”. Some 700 legal academics called for it to be dropped. UN special rapporteurs and top human rights officials warned that it threatens our rights. More than 600,000 members of the public signed a petition against it.

What possible motivation could the Government have to push through such an authoritarian and regressive Bill? I think that that is a legitimate question for Opposition Members to ask. The Bill is so regressive and anti-democratic that even Conservative Members are baulking at its sweeping, draconian powers.

Let us take a look at the Bill’s provisions on protests involving critical infrastructure. Like so much of this Government’s agenda, they have been lifted directly from the hard neo-con right in the US. A Bloomberg News exposé from 2019 uncovered extensive lobbying by the oil and gas industry to criminalise protest near extraction sites. We know that the Conservative party has received more than a million pounds from the oil and gas industry in the past few years, so it is legitimate to ask what the Government’s motivations are for the Bill.

[Jonathan Gullis]

The hon. Gentleman talks about motivations. May I ask about the Labour party’s motivations from the millions that it takes from trade unions?

[Clive Lewis]

Trade union money is the cleanest money in British politics. [Laughter.] The hon. Gentleman can quote me: it is the cleanest money, because we declare it and because we are representing the interests of workers, which is why our party was set up. We have no shame; we are proud of where our funding comes from.

As many Opposition Members have seen, much of the money that funds the Conservative party has come from the kleptocrats of Russia, with whom Conservative Members have more in common than with the people of this country.

[Tom Hunt]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Clive Lewis]

No, I will make some progress.

The issue of freedom goes to the heart of the Bill. Conservative Members revel in being the so-called party of freedom, but let us interrogate that a little. Some freedoms are zero-sum, but unfortunately many are not. As Isaiah Berlin explained, freedom for the pike means death for the minnow.

Conservative Members often talk about freedom—freedom for people to go about their lives and so on—but we must ask a critical question: freedom for whom and freedom against whom? That is what they do not explain. Freedom from trade unions is freedom for corporations to exploit their workers. Freedom from regulation and red tape, as Conservative Members call it, is freedom for corporations to pollute our rivers and restrict our freedom to swim or fish. Freedom from tax, another Conservative staple, is freedom from the redistribution that is essential for fairness and social mobility.

Now freedom is being mentioned again, and this time it is freedom from protest. That means freedom against the public’s right and ability to hold big business and the Government to account for the climate destruction that they are undertaking. Opposition Members know which side Conservative Members are on. Increasingly, so do the British public. You may wrap this up in the ability of law and order to hold back the unwashed masses, but actually they are the people who are fighting for all our freedoms, for our future and for a world without a climate crisis fuelled by your friends in the big corporations and the oil sector. That is the reality.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Homes for Ukraine: Visa Application Centres

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I thank the hon. Member for her question. Certainly, we would point people towards some of the more recognised charities that are offering matching services, rather than just going on to social media. It was particularly concerning—this has now been rectified following, I believe, an intervention—that at one point a popular search engine put a dating site near the top when people were searching for matching with a refugee. That was clearly an utterly inappropriate site to have as one of the things being suggested.

On the ongoing safeguarding checks, I hope the hon. Member appreciates why I will not go into the exact details of the databases and information we look at for the visa application. However, once people have arrived, councils in England are doing Disclosure and Barring Service checks, with enhanced checks if a child will be staying with the sponsor—I understand that councils in Scotland are doing similar checks—and then there is a requirement for ongoing checks. The £10,500 funding per person is partly there to help support the required ongoing safeguarding work, particularly where there are children or vulnerable women. One of the benefits of our system is that we know where people are, we know who they are staying with and—we have already done this under our system and it would not happen if we did not have a visa process—we have been able to block people from being placed with those who have committed quite serious offences.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

In Norwich, I have 20 constituents in touch with me who are trying to get the Ukrainian families they have offered homes to into the country. Many of the people applying for visas have had emails about other visa seekers coming back to them in the confusion. We have an urgent visa processing and help system for MPs that is nothing but urgent: it takes days of prompting to get anything back. Having listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) talk about the whistleblowers, I guess the question is: is it cock-up or is it conspiracy, or have the Government cocked up their conspiracy to cock up?

[Kevin Foster]

As I said, we have already issued nearly 90,000 visas. We are working hard each day to increase that number, and that will remain our focus.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 20th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

The point that I have consistently made is that the British Government act at all times in accordance with their international obligations, both under the European convention on human rights and the refugee convention. Again I make the point, because it bears repeating, that nobody needs to get into a small boat to reach safety. Everybody who is doing so is leaving what are inherently safe countries with fully functioning asylum systems. If people want to come to this country—we have a proud record of providing sanctuary here—they should do so through safe and legal routes. We have a proud record as a Government of providing safe and legal routes, reflecting the fact that there are conflicts and instability in the world and we respond to that.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

The 1951 UN refugee convention is quite clear, and I do not think that the Minister has answered my hon. Friend’s question. What advice has he had that the UK Government, under this legislation, will not be breaking the UN convention on the rights of refugees?

[Tom Pursglove]

I can only reiterate the point that, at all times, the United Kingdom Government act in accordance with their international obligations, and that is of course something that we will continue to do. Nobody in this House or elsewhere should be encouraging people to put their lives in the hands of evil criminal gangs or to make these dangerous channel crossings. We saw in November the consequences when that happens.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have help from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project for my work in this area.

I have said throughout the debates in Parliament that this Bill is divisive. As my constituents reach across borders to help and house those fleeing the war in Ukraine, this Government are sowing division by making an insidious distinction between “good” and “bad” refugees—a division that we should all completely reject. That is why I rise today to support amendments 4 to 9, especially amendment 6.

Clause 11 makes a totally spurious division between group 1 and group 2 refugees that flies in the face of the 1951 refugee convention. The convention clearly states that refugees, wherever they come from,

“shall enjoy fundamental rights and freedoms without discrimination.”

The Government know that there are no visa or pre-entry clearances for someone wishing to claim refuge. There is no such thing as an illegal refugee in international law, yet that is exactly what the new group 2 category attempts to establish. All clause 11 seeks to do is lazily turn far-right talking points about asylum seekers and refugees into legislation, without seriously thinking through any of the consequences for the people involved.

For example, currently people fleeing war can apply for humanitarian protection leave. The protection grants them five years in the UK, access to the NHS and other public funds, an option to apply later for indefinite leave to remain and the right to work. However, the Government are scrapping humanitarian protection as we know it and aligning it instead with the new group 2 status, meaning regular visa reviews every two and a half years compared with every five, no recourse to public funds, no right to work, restricted family visa rights and no route to indefinite leave to remain. That is something I think many in this House have missed, and I hope they will reflect on it.

It is remarkable that in the middle of the Ukraine crisis, as thousands of people join the effort to support people from Ukraine, the Government are actually proposing that people running from the horrors of war should have fewer rights to come here. Those rights were brought in through an EU directive that became British law, and now the Government are using the smokescreen of this Bill to remove them, all by aligning them with a faulty two-tier refugee system.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very interesting speech. Does she agree that the UN refugee convention was about our common humanity? I have heard a lot of talk about a “great country”, but what we see now from this Government is an attempt to split humanity into two tiers. That undermines the concept of human rights and of there being one, sole, universal understanding of what it is to be a human being. This Government are putting humanity into categories, and history tells us that that is a slippery slope and fundamentally wrong.

[Olivia Blake]

I agree—it is fundamentally wrong. That is why we should ensure that clause 11 is not included in this Bill. Clause 11 is out of tune with the hundreds of thousands of people who have come forward to help Ukrainian refugees. It is an affront to the 1951 refugee convention, and I urge hon. Members to reject it and to reject this Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

My right hon. Friend is right: we are of course doubling the sentence for assaulting—for the common assault of—an emergency worker from one year to two years, which I think is widely welcomed across the House. In relation to other people who deal with the public—not just retail workers, but transport workers, teachers, postmen and women and other people who deal with the public—that is already taken account of in the Sentencing Council guidelines, which makes it an aggravating factor if the victim deals with the public. Therefore, judges can reflect that when handing down sentences. There is a Westminster Hall debate later on today on this very topic, and I am very much looking forward to discussing it in more detail then.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

What rights will be protected for EU citizens and non-EU family members unable to apply to the EU settlement scheme by the 30 June 2021 deadline.

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

In relation to EU citizens who are granted EUSS status, where their family who are not EU citizens reside in the United Kingdom, they can apply for EUSS status as well. For close family members who are not in the United Kingdom at present, they are able to join the person who is granted EUSS status. If it is a child under the age of 21, that is automatic. If it is parents, grandparents or children over the age of 21 where there is a degree of dependency, they can join as well. So I think those are extremely generous arrangements—far more generous than the arrangements for other cohorts of people.

[Clive Lewis [V]]

I thank the Minister for his answer. Even where the guidance provides a route back to status, it will not protect EU citizens who missed the deadline from hostile environment policies, or prevent them from being denied access to homelessness assistance and free NHS care, as recently confirmed by other Departments. Will the Minister assure the House that EU citizens and non-EU family members who miss the deadline will maintain the right to such assistance, and be able to continue working without fear of criminal liability?

[Chris Philp]

On the deadline, I will repeat what I said earlier: the critical thing is to encourage constituents, very strongly, to apply by that deadline. If somebody misses the deadline, of course they can apply where they have reasonable grounds to do so. Guidance is about to be published on precisely what will happen to those who miss the deadline. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government intend to take a reasonable and proportionate approach, and I ask him to wait just a short time until that guidance is published.