Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Carden Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Immigration (Brandon Lewis)]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. As I outlined earlier, we are preparing for all eventualities. We have published our offer for EU citizens. We will publish a White Paper later this year outlining our views about a future immigration system. We have also been very clear, in terms of citizens and flow, that we do not want to have a cliff edge. We want to make sure that businesses and the economy across this country can continue to access the labour they need as we move to a new immigration system.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

T3. The Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries, a church in my constituency, was recently exposed by the Liverpool Echo as overseeing what can only be described as disturbing and dangerous gay cure therapies, which involve rituals and starvation as a cure for homosexuality. What assessment has the Minister made of such therapies to in relation to LGBT hate crime? Will she take forward previous efforts to have an outright ban on such therapies, which have no place in 21st-century Britain?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. It is very sad to hear what is happening in his constituency. I would welcome him coming to the Home Office and providing me with more detail. One would really hope that in the 21st century such homophobic activity was consigned to the history books. Let me be absolutely clear: there is no place in our society for hate crime. In our hate crime action plan, we have very, very strong laws against those committing homophobic hate crime. I hope that his constituents will not hesitate to use those powers.