Online Homophobia

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 239444 relating to online homophobia.

I will begin by outlining the case put by Bobby Norris, who started this petition and is in the Public Gallery. It was an honour and a joy to meet him earlier this afternoon, and to get a real sense of his excitement that Parliament has responded by scheduling this debate to discuss Bobby’s Bill. Strictly speaking, we are some way off a Bill, but I am sure the Minister will be listening closely. The main thing I took from our conversation—apart from being slightly star-struck on meeting him—was how real, hurtful and profoundly unpleasant is the abuse that he and others receive. We should all be determined to stamp it out wherever it occurs.

Bobby’s petition, entitled “Make online homophobia a specific criminal offence”, reads:

“As a gay man I find it devastating how members of the LGBT community are still subjected to homophobic abuse online. Just because I am on TV I don’t think that makes it acceptable to be sent homophobic messages/comments on social media platforms. Nobody should have to receive these comments. I won’t go into detail as to the various names I have been called, but this should not be acceptable and can have an impact on people’s mental health and has certainly helped in making my anxiety and low self-esteem worse by receiving them.”

It has been signed by more than 152,000 people, so it has immense public support, arising from the fantastic publicity campaign by Bobby, “The Only Way is Essex” and my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), who has worked with Bobby and spoke passionately, eloquently and powerfully on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights last week in a debate in the Chamber. We were all moved by her speech, and as a long-term admirer and friend, I am proud that she is here to contribute to our debate.

There is an extraordinary division between how we treat homophobic abuse online and in what we still call the real world. I am thankful that homophobic verbal or physical attacks that happen on the streets still make headlines, awful though they are. Online abuse does not attract the same outrage, but it contributes to an atmosphere of fear and has a divisive, hateful effect. There are too many examples of that. I will leave it to others to talk more about the injustices of homophobic abuse. There are people in the Chamber today with powerful personal experiences to share. We all agree that it has no place in our society and must be stamped out.

Online anti-LGBT+ hate crime is defined as any crime taking place online that is targeted at a person because of hostility or prejudice based on their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. That could include abuse or even outing someone without their consent. That injustice is not going away. Stonewall statistics tell us that the number of lesbian, gay and bisexual people who have experienced a hate crime or incident in the past year because of their sexual orientation has risen by 78%, from 9% in 2013 to 16% in 2017. One in 10 LGBT people—10%—have experienced homophobic, biphobic or transphobic abuse online directed towards them personally in the last month. People are understandably shocked by that appalling figure and by the fact that no specific offence is being committed, outside the very fragmented and complicated laws that are used in the offline world.

[Ged Killen (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I warmly congratulate those who set up this petition and everyone who signed it. I do not know how I would have coped as a young man coming out and dealing with my sexuality in a world in which social media existed. It is much worse for people going through that now. Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the main issues is that people can send online abuse anonymously? If we are to make this an offence—I think we should—do we not have to deal with that first? People using social media platforms must be identifiable if we are to take action.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I will come on to that point, but I absolutely agree with him.

When I was researching this speech, I thought it would be useful to seek some local advice. I spoke to Anglia Ruskin University’s LGBT+ society, which said:

“As a society, and an LGBT+ community at ARU, we were shocked to learn online homophobia isn’t considered a specific offence. British society often praises itself for its support of LGBT+ people which, while often fair, comes with the assumption that the fight for LGBT+ rights has been won. However, those congratulations are hollow if we aren’t being protected properly by the laws of this society. The LGBT+ society at ARU works hard to offer safe spaces for LGBT+ students across campus, but we feel powerless to help students when we know they can be subject to online homophobia, something we can’t necessarily help with. We need legislation to ensure LGBT+ people are protected in all walks of life, in all activities of life.”

The society put it very well.

Online homophobia and other kinds of online abuse are a relatively new phenomenon, with the rise of omnipresent tech and the fact that most of us communicate digitally—in some cases almost constantly. Social media allows us to speak to people we know and people we have never met at the click of a button. Regulation of the online space is a contentious issue, and we have not got to grips with it. Some tech giants are struggling to find ways of monitoring their users’ behaviour. The number of moderators working for some is both impressive and alarming. Can we ever really check everything that is said? Frankly, do we want to? That is the conundrum that we face.

The laws governing hate speech and online abuse are drawn from various pieces of legislation, much of which was written before the widespread internet use and online communications that we enjoy today. Hate speech, including homophobia, is outlawed under five or more Acts. The Malicious Communications Act 1988 dictates that it is an offence to send an electronic communication in any form that is indecent or grossly offensive, conveys a threat, or is false, with intent to cause distress or anxiety to the recipient. The Communications Act 2003 updates that slightly, confirming that it is an offence to use any public electronic communications network, such as Twitter or Facebook, to send messages that are grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 contains a number of other offences such as harassment, and harassment when someone fears violence. However, the quantity of legislation means that it is sometimes unclear to victims where they stand. It is based on a communications environment that no longer exists, as some of it dates back some 30 years. Although it references online communication, it does not anticipate the all-encompassing nature of the digital world that we live in today, and thus the impact that online abuse can have as part of an online environment in which many people spend much of their lives, rather than simply the email inboxes of the 1990s.

Galop, the LGBT+ anti-violence charity, explained:

“Online life is so enmeshed in our day-to-day lives that increasingly the online and offline world are not separate. Sometimes online hate speech is a part of wider pattern of harassment and abuse that is happening in other areas of our life, for example a neighbour that is targeting you in your home and online”.

That is particularly damaging, because for some people—school students for example—it can all too easily feel that there is no escape from abuse if it is happening on the streets or in the playground, and online too.

The Government’s response to the petition highlighted their request to the Law Commission to review the current law on abusive and offensive online communications. The Law Commission produced its scoping report in November 2018, which concluded that abusive online communications are theoretically criminalised to the same or even a greater extent than equivalent offline offending. However, there is considerable scope for reform. It said that many of the applicable offences do not adequately reflect the nature of some of the offending behaviour in the online environment, and the degree of harm it can cause.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that the Law Commission itself pointed out that only 3% of malicious communication offences are ever prosecuted, so there is a lot of impunity and a weakness of enforcement that must also be taken into account when we are thinking about how we can counter this issue?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention. She is of course absolutely right. Enforcement, which I will come on to, is a key issue.

The Law Commission also said that

“practical and cultural barriers mean that not all harmful online conduct is pursued in terms of criminal law enforcement to the same extent that it might be in an offline context.”

It said that, more generally, criminal offences could be improved so that they are clearer and target serious harm and criminality more effectively. It recognises that the large number of overlapping offences can cause confusion. It says that ambiguous terms such as “gross offensiveness”, “obscenity” and “indecency” do not provide the required clarity for prosecutors. The commission calls for reforms such as reform and consolidation of existing criminal laws dealing with offensive and abusive communications online; a specific review considering how the law can more effectively protect victims who are subject to a campaign of online harassment; and a review of how effectively the criminal law protects personal privacy online. Such reforms could serve to clarify victims’ rights and make prosecutions more likely to succeed.

Campaign groups have also made recommendations. Stonewall recommends that online platforms should communicate clearly to all online users that anti-LGBT abuse is unacceptable, and advertise clear privacy, safety and reporting mechanisms; should deal with all incidents of anti-LGBT abuse seriously and swiftly and keep people informed about the progress and outcome in respect of reported incidents, including what actions have been taken and why; and should work with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to develop more effective responses to anti-LGBT hate online, in consultation with LGBT people and organisations.

The Government are currently consulting on their “Online Harms” White Paper, and I look forward to the roundtable hosted by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport this Wednesday, because this is an important issue that cannot be left while the Government prevaricate on our place in Europe. The White Paper confirms:

“For illegal harms, it is also important to make sure that criminal law applies online in the same way as it applies offline.”

These are big questions and they raise big challenges about how social media platforms in general should be regulated, about anonymity and about enforcement. The bullies should be unmasked, and the tech platforms should be doing that themselves, not waiting to be forced. Unmasking will also allow more effective enforcement. In my view, the White Paper does not look sufficiently at ways to tackle enforcement. That is a wider issue—it seems to me, from my brief time in Parliament, that it comes up so often. We spend hours legislating and considering policy but then do not provide the resources or systems for implementation and enforcement, so too often, laws are observed by the law-abiding but are largely ignored by those who are not—a pointless and frustrating situation.

There is an even bigger question as we begin to understand the age of surveillance capitalism. You do not have to read far through Shoshana Zuboff’s astonishing work on this subject to get a distinct feeling of unease. The White Paper fails to acknowledge that online abuse exists within a system that is run by capital-building algorithms, which push controversial or divisive content for increased clicks, and has a business model based on personal advertising but also maximum engagement regardless of content. That means that, too often, commercial online platforms are content to allow toxic environments, as the content that is pushed hardest is that which is divisive because it provokes extremely strong reactions.

In an excellent article in The Guardian last February entitled “Fiction is outperforming reality”, Paul Lewis exposed the way in which algorithms promote fake news on YouTube. The promotion of this kind of content contributes to an environment in which problematic language and ideas are completely normalised, meaning that there is a degree of desensitisation. We must row back from that and take online homophobia for what it is—hate speech that must not be accepted.

I have strayed a little from the specifics of this petition into the wider debate; I will conclude by returning to the narrower subject. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on data analytics, I meet many people who are rightly enthused by the potential of big data to be a power for good, but the sheer pace of change, often out of public sight, means that we have a responsibility also to ask serious questions about how the new technologies are being used and what effect, unintended or not, they may be having on individuals and on our society. We do not need to develop new ways for people to be unpleasant to one another—we have enough of that already.

I am not one who instinctively wants to ban or regulate; I would rather that people behaved well and decently to one another. There will always be differences of opinion, and that is a good thing. My plea, as we move towards Bobby’s law, is for people just to be nicer to one another. Is it really that hard? But for those who cannot do that, we need laws to protect ourselves from them, and my very simple message to the tech companies and the Minister is that we now need to move swiftly to make it clear that online homophobia, like all other hate, has no place in a civilised society. The one difference between the online and the offline worlds is that, offline, we do not terminate people’s accounts, but in the online world, we should. The message should be, “If you can’t behave, you’re out,” and in my view, we will be all the better for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I thank all hon. Members who spoke in the debate. It has been constructive, and we have had positive contributions from all the major parties in the Chamber.

There are reasons to be optimistic. As I was preparing my speech this afternoon, I looked out of my office window and saw the rainbow flag flying above the Treasury. A few weeks ago, we had a marvellous Pride event in Cambridge. I was heartened by a number of speakers’ comments about the action that is being taken around the world at the moment—the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) talked about the Council of Europe.

In conclusion, I echo the frustrations that my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) expressed. I recollect the fine words from the Government in the discussions on the Data Protection Act 2018. Opposition Members are, however, frustrated that the Government do not seem able to move as quickly as the tech industry does, and the technology keeps changing. It is hard—no one disputes that—but the real harm being done out there at the moment cannot be underestimated. I am afraid we cannot continue to move at this measured pace; we need stronger action, and to move more quickly. To return to the petitioners and to Bobby, who raised the issue of online homophobia in the first place, we need Bobby’s Bill sooner rather than later.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 239444 relating to online homophobia.

Future Immigration

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

We should always be looking to make sure we are doing everything we can to improve how we approach detention in this country. We do not have a policy of indefinite detention; no one can be detained unless there is a reasonable prospect of a removal in a reasonable time. Some 90% of people who are detained are released or removed within four months. One reason we have now commissioned two independent reports on the detention system is to look at ways in which we can make improvements. For example, one of the recent things I have started is a pilot scheme to look at alternatives to detention for people who otherwise would have been kept at Yarl’s Wood.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I think we all know that the £30,000 salary cap fudge is just a political cop-out. The message from the science and research sector around Cambridge could not be clearer: please do not use salary levels as a proxy for skills. The University of Cambridge has warned that extending the non-EEA system would significantly harm the UK’s competitiveness. I realise that the Home Secretary is constrained by the intransigence in the Downing Street bunker, but could he at least, as Home Secretary, recognise just how important this issue is to the science and research sector?

[Sajid Javid]

One reason why Britain is outstanding at science and research is that we welcome talent from across the world, and that will not change with the new immigration system. When it comes to talent employed in our universities—I used the example of lab technicians earlier, because it was one that the MAC used in its report—it is important to recognise that salary does not always determine skill level, and that will be taken into account in the new system. Many students who come to study at our great universities study sciences, engineering and other subjects, where we have a shortage in this country, and we should be making it easier for them to stay and work in the UK if that is what they choose to do. This White Paper does just that.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

There has been much talk about the backstop and about the deal in general—so much talk that, if there is a single word that should be deleted from the English language at the earliest opportunity, it is “deal.” This is not about shopping around for a second-hand car or a better mobile phone tariff. It is about our relationship with our nearest neighbours. If there is one thing we probably could all agree on, it is that relationships between states in the modern world are complicated, very complicated. They cannot just be reduced to deal or no deal. Yet after two and a half years, that is how the argument is all too often presented.

Given that the political declaration is so vague and thin, let me try to characterise in stark terms where we have got to. Many have talked about cliff edges. To me it looks as though we have reached the edge and jumped. That is the withdrawal agreement bit. We will have a two-year transition period in which to sort out what happens before we hit the ground—it is quite a high cliff—and the political declaration is the rope by which we are dangling. But while we are dangling from that rope, the clock is ticking. We will hit the ground, and because that ground is the backstop from which we will have no exit, we will effectively have handed the scissors to the people at the top of the cliff. They might let us land gently, but they do not have to do so. Frankly, as negotiating positions go—with the clock ticking and with us heading towards somewhere we really do not want to be—this is really not a very good place.

There is also the simple fact of geography. We are part of Europe, just as Ireland is one island. Nothing can change either of those facts, so we will have a relationship. It is just a question of what kind it will be. And I have news for those who feel that they have had enough of all this Brexit stuff. Frankly, we are only just at the beginning of all these negotiations. The great irony is that the EU is actually the place where negotiations are done, so coming out will not end the need for reaching agreements with others or for following standards that much bigger trading partners will decide; it will just make it all harder.

That point has been well made by someone I would not normally find myself in agreement with: the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid). In February 2016, he wrote in The Mail on Sunday:

“When a deal is reached, it may require us to accept the same blizzard of regulations that’s imposed by Brussels not just on member states, but on countries like Norway and Switzerland that need access to European markets. And, like them, it’s possible we would have no say over what those regulations contained, while still potentially paying an access fee.”

I would not have used that exact language, but I rather agree with the right hon. Gentleman, who is now the Home Secretary. It is no surprise that this proposed agreement, despite the hard work of officials over many months, cannot deliver what was promised by the leave campaign. It is no surprise because what was promised was just not deliverable. The political declaration is, unsurprisingly, just a wish list that kicks decisions down the road for future discussion while leaving a vacuum of uncertainty.

Moving specifically to today’s debate topic of immigration and free movement, I can tell the House that this has been a cause of intense distress and uncertainty in Cambridge since the referendum, not just for the thousands of non-UK EU nationals who are anxious about the future but for their friends, neighbours and workmates, who never expected to see their friends suddenly facing such divisions. In recent months, I have worked with my neighbour, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen), and the business group Cambridge Ahead on surveying businesses, universities and research institutes across our constituencies. Their responses have been consistent in stating that a third-country-style immigration process for EEA nationals would add more bureaucracy, time and cost to their recruitment. That recruitment is essential, due to skills shortages in the UK labour force and the global market in research specialisms. The tier 2 visa system and the £30,000 salary cap are already not working for non-EEA migration, and extending them to EEA movement would be a major own goal for our country.

Detailed evidence has been submitted to our inquiry from the University of Cambridge, and I will quote part of it:

“The postdoctoral research community serves as the engine room for much of the research that underpins Cambridge’s world-leading reputation, and provides a source of the ideas, innovation, business generation and disruptive technology that enables the UK to compete as a high-tech economy. Any barriers or disincentives to such recruitment, such as visa costs, could therefore have a significant impact on the University’s research and education operations”.

It went on to state:

“Extending the Tier 2 visa route to EEA nationals, as suggested in the MAC report, would significantly harm the UK’s competitiveness”.

I want to underline the fact that the university believes that that would significantly harm the UK’s competitiveness.

We are having this debate in the absence of any policy direction from a Government who cannot even agree a White Paper, but I hope that the view from Cambridge goes some way to exposing the risks that we would be taking if we continued with a backward-looking, numbers-only focus approach to immigration as the nature of our relationship with the European Union changes. We should of course be celebrating the benefits of movement between countries, not cowering in fear. We are at the global forefront of research, science and medicine, and we should not be risking throwing that away.

The agreement gives us no certainty about future mobility, for research or for any other sector or individual. This is not just about those who are traditionally termed the highly skilled; we also need the cooks, cleaners, bus drivers and builders, because our policy should be based on the needs of our economy, not on fear of being part of a rapidly changing world.

The deal fails on other fronts, too. The Prime Minister has gone from high aims—aiming to be part of the European Medicines Agency and of the European Research Council’s programmes—to what we now have: a hope of some form of co-operation. With such weak, limited ambition, the future for research and innovation—the shining star in the UK economy—looks much less bright.

In conclusion, there is a very good deal on offer—the one we currently have as members of the European Union. However, if we are to remain, it must be remain and reform. The EU has to respond to the unhappiness expressed in so many countries across Europe. Business as usual just will not cut it. That is the debate we really should be having. It is inescapable that we live in Europe. But what kind of Europe do we want it to be? I do not think that the Government are capable of facilitating that kind of discussion with the public. The only way out of the impasse we appear to be heading for is an election or a people’s vote.

Data Protection Bill [ Lords ] (Eighth sitting)

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Liam Byrne]

New clauses 7 and 8 to 11 touch on the question of how we ensure a degree of justice when it comes to decisions that are taken about us automatically. The growth in decisions that are made through automated decision making has been exponential, and there are risks to that. We need to ensure that the law is modernised to provide new protections and safeguards for our constituents in this new world.

I should say at the outset that this group of new clauses is rooted in the excellent work of the Future of Work commission, which produced a long, thought-provoking report. The Committee will be frustrated to hear that I am not going to read through that this afternoon, but, none the less, I want to tease out a couple of points.

The basket of new clauses that we have proposed are well thought through and have been carefully crafted. I put on record my thanks to Helen Mountfield QC, an expert in equality law, and to Mike Osborne, professor of machine learning. Along with Ben Jaffey QC, a specialist in data law, they have been looking at some of the implications of automated decision making, which were discussed at length by the Future of Work commission.

Central to the new clauses is a concern that unaccountable and highly sophisticated automated or semi-automated systems are now making decisions that bear on fundamental elements of people’s work, including recruitment, pay and discipline. Just today, I was hearing about the work practices at the large Amazon warehouse up in Dundee, I think, where there is in effect digital casualisation. Employees are not put on zero-hours contracts, but they are put on four-hour contracts. They are guided around this gigantic warehouse by some kind of satnav technology on a mobile phone, but the device that guides them around the warehouse is also a device that tracks how long it takes them to put together a basket.

That information is then arranged in a nice league table of employees of who is the fastest and who is slowest, and decisions are then taken about who gets an extension to their contracted hours each week and who does not. That is a pretty automated kind of decision. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) was describing to me the phenomenon of the butty man—the individual who decided who on a particular day got to work on the docks or on the construction site. In the pub at the end of the week, he divvied up the earnings and decided who got what, and who got work the following week. That kind of casualisation is now being reinvented in a digital era and is something that all of us ought to be incredibly concerned about.

What happens with these algorithms is called, in the jargon, socio-technical—what results is a mixture of conventional software, human judgment and statistical models. The issue is that very often the decisions that are made are not transparent, and are certainly not open to challenge. They are now quite commonly used by employers and prospective employers, and their agents, who are able to analyse very large datasets and can then deploy artificial intelligence and machine learning to make inferences about a person. Quite apart from the ongoing debates about how we define a worker and how we define employment—the subject of a very excellent report by my old friend Matthew Taylor, now at the RSA—there are real questions about how we introduce new safeguards for workers in this country.

I want to highlight the challenge with a couple of examples. Recent evidence has revealed how many recruiters use—surprise, surprise—Facebook to seek candidates in ways that routinely discriminate against older workers by targeting advertisements for jobs in a particular way. Slater and Gordon, which is a firm of excellent employment lawyers, showed that about one in five company executives admit to unlawful discrimination when advertising jobs online. The challenge is that when jobs are advertised in a targeted way, by definition they are not open to applicants from all walks of life, because lots of people just will not see the ads.

Women and those over the age of 50 are now most likely to be prevented from seeing an advert. Some 32% of company executives say that they have discriminated against those who are over 50, and a quarter have discriminated in that way against women. Nearly two thirds of executives with access to a profiling tool have said that they use it to actively seek out people based on criteria as diverse as age, gender and race. If we are to deliver a truly meritocratic labour market, where the rights of us all to shoot for jobs and to develop our skills and capabilities are protected, some of those practices have to stop. If we are to stop them, the law needs to change, and it needs to change now.

This battery of new clauses sets out to do five basic things. First, they set out some enhancements and refinements to the Equality Act 2010, in a way that ensures that protection from discrimination is applied to new forms of decision making, especially when those decisions engage core rights, such as rights on recruitment, terms of work, or dismissal. Secondly, there is a new right to algorithmic fairness at work, to ensure equal treatment. Thirdly, there is the right to an explanation when a decision is taken in a way that affects core elements of work life, such as a decision to hire, fire or suspend someone. Fourthly, there is a new duty for employers to undertake an algorithmic impact assessment, and fifthly, there are new, realistic ways for individuals to enforce those rights in an employment tribunal. It is quite a broad-ranging set of reforms to a number of different parts of legislation.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that this is exactly the kind of thing we ought to have been discussing at the outset of the Bill? The elephant in the room is that the Bill seems to me, overall, to be looking backwards rather than forwards. It was developed to implement the general data protection regulation, which has been discussed over many years. We are seeing this week just how fast-moving the world is. These are the kind of ideas that should have been driving the Bill in the first place.

[Liam Byrne]

Exactly. My hon. Friend makes such a good point. The challenge with the way that Her Majesty’s Government have approached the Bill is that they have taken a particular problem—that we are heading for the exit door of Europe, so we had better ensure that we get a data-sharing agreement in place, or it will be curtains for Britain’s services exports—and said, “We’d better find a way of incorporating the GDPR into British law as quickly as possible.” They should have thought imaginatively and creatively about how we strengthen our digital economy, and how we protect freedoms, liberties and protections in this new world, going back to first principles and thinking through the consequences. What we have is not quite a cut-and-paste job—I will not describe it in that way—but neither is it the sophisticated exercise in public law making that my hon. Friend describes as more virtuous.

I want to give the Committee a couple of examples of why this is so serious, as sometimes a scenario or two can help. Let us take an individual whom we will call “Mr A”. He is a 56-year-old man applying for website development roles. Typically, if someone is applying for jobs in a particular sector, those jobs will be advertised online. In fact, many such roles are advertised only online, and they target users only in the age profile 26 to 35, through digital advertising or social media networks, whether that is Facebook, LinkedIn, or others. Because Mr A is not in the particular age bracket being targeted, he never sees the ad, as it will never pop up on his news feed, or on digital advertising aimed at him. He therefore does not apply for the role and does not know he is being excluded from applying for the role, all as a consequence of him being the wrong age. Since he is excluded from opportunities because of his age, he finds it much harder to find a role.

The Equality Act, which was passed with cross-party consensus, prohibits less favourable treatment because of age—direct discrimination—including in relation to recruitment practices, and protects individuals based on their age. The Act sets out a number of remedies for individuals who have been discriminated against in that way, but it is not clear how the Bill proposes to correct that sin. Injustices in the labour market are multiplying, and there is a cross-party consensus for a stronger defence of workers. In fact, the Member of Parliament for the town where I grew up, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), has led the argument in favour of the Conservative party rechristening itself the Workers’ party, and the Labour party was founded on a defence of labour rights, so I do not think this is an especially contentious matter. There is cross-party consensus about the need to stand up for workers’ rights, particularly when wages are stagnating so dramatically.

We are therefore not divided on a point of principle, but the Opposition have an ambition to do something about this growing problem. The Bill could be corrected in a way that made a significant difference. There is not an argument about the rights that are already in place, because they are enshrined in the Equality Act, with which Members on both sides of the House agree. The challenge is that the law as it stands is deficient and cannot be applied readily or easily to automated decision making.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

If I may, I will write to the right hon. Gentleman with that precise number, but I know that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is very clear in its guidance that employers must act within the law. The law is very clear that there are to be no direct or indirect forms of discrimination.

The hon. Member for Cambridge raised the GDPR, and talked about looking forwards not backwards. Article 5(1)(a) requires processing of any kind to be fair and transparent. Recital 71 draws a link between ensuring that processing is fair and minimising discriminatory effects. Article 35 of the GDPR requires controllers to undertake data protection impact assessments for all high-risk activities, and article 36 requires a subset of those impact assessments to be sent to the Information Commissioner for consultation prior to the processing taking place. The GDPR also gives data subjects the tools to understand the way in which their data has been processed. Processing must be transparent, details of that processing must be provided to every data subject, whether or not the data was collected directly from them, and data subjects are entitled to a copy of the data held about them.

When automated decision-making is engaged there are yet more safeguards. Controllers must tell the data subject, at the point of collecting the data, whether they intend to make such decisions and, if they do, provide meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences for the data subject of such processing. Once a significant decision has been made, that must be communicated to the data subject, and they must be given the opportunity to object to that decision so that it is re-taken by a human being.

We would say that the existing equality law and data protection law are remarkably technologically agnostic. Controllers cannot hide behind algorithms, but equally they should not be prevented from making use of them when they can do so in a sensible, fair and productive way.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Going back to the point raised by my right hon. Friend, I suspect that the number of cases will prove to be relatively low. The logic of what the Minister is saying would suggest that there is no algorithmic unfairness going on out there. I do not think that that is the case. What does she think?

[Victoria Atkins]

I would be guided by the view of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which oversees conduct in this area. I have no doubt that the Information Commissioner and the Equality and Human Rights Commission are in regular contact. If they are not, I very much hope that this will ensure that they are.

We are clear in law that there cannot be such discrimination as has been discussed. We believe that the framework of the law is there, and that the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, with their respective responsibilities, can help, advise and cajole, and, at times, enforce the law accordingly. I suspect that we will have some interesting times ahead of us with the release of the gender pay gap information. I will do a plug now, and say that any company employing more than 250 employees should abide by the law by 4 April. I look forward to reviewing the evidence from that exercise next month.

We are concerned that new clauses 7 and 8 are already dealt with in law, and that new clauses 9 to 11 would create an entirely new regulatory structure just for computer-assisted decision-making in the workplace, layered on top of the existing requirements of both employment and data protection law. We want the message to be clear to employers that there is no distinction between the types of decision-making. They are responsible for it, whether a human being was involved or not, and they must ensure that their decisions comply with the law.

Having explained our belief that the existing law meets the concerns raised by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, I hope he will withdraw the new clause.

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones]

I thank the Minister for her co-operative words and for the invitation to be part of this developing area of public policy. Having already plugged my New Statesman article, I will plug a part of it, which is the news that, having worked with some of the all-party parliamentary groups, I am pleased that we will launch a commission on technology ethics with one of the Minister’s colleagues, whose constituency I cannot quite remember, I am afraid, so I cannot make reference to him. But he is excellent.

We look forward to working with industry, stakeholders and politicians on a cross-party basis, to get into the debate about technology ethics. I accept the Minister’s warm words about co-operating on this issue positively, so that hopefully the outcomes of this commission can perhaps help to influence the work of the unit, or centre, and the Government’s response to it.

I would like this new unit to be given a statutory basis, to show its importance. It is vital that it has clout across Government and across Departments, so that it is not just a positive thing when we have Ministers who are willing to take part in and listen to this debate and instead is something that will go on with successive Ministers, should the current Minister be promoted, and with future Governments, too. However, in return for the Minister’s warm words of co-operation, I am happy not to press the new clause to a vote today.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Very briefly, I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on data analytics. This is a subject, of course, that is very dear to our hearts. I will just say that there is a great deal of common ground on it. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West for trying to put it into the Bill, because I, too, think it needs to be put on a statutory basis. However, I will just draw attention to a lot of the very good work that has been done by a whole range of people in bringing forward the new structures.

I will just say again that in general I think we are heaping a huge amount of responsibility on the Information Commissioner; frankly, we are now almost inviting her to save the world. She and her office will need help. So an additional body, with resources, is required.

The Royal Society and the British Academy have done a lot of work on this issue over the last few years. I will conclude by referring back to a comment made by the hon. Member for Gordon, because it is worth saying that the Royal Society and the British Academy state in the conclusions of their report:

“It is essential to have a framework that engenders trust and confidence, to give entrepreneurs and decision-makers the confidence to act now, and to realise the potential of new applications in a way that reflects societal preferences.”

That is exactly the kind of thing we are trying to achieve. This body is essential and it needs to be set up as quickly as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I must say that I feel considerably better informed about the moped situation now than I was five minutes ago. I hope that colleagues feel the same.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

5. What assessment she has made of the potential merits of removing the tier 2 visa cap.

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

The cap on tier 2 visas was set in 2011 following advice from the Migration Advisory Committee. It enables the Government to control migration and encourages employers to look first to the domestic workforce before recruiting from overseas. The Government are clear that carefully controlled economic migration benefits the economy, but we remain committed to reducing migration and protecting the jobs of British workers. We keep all immigration routes under review to ensure that the system serves the national interest.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the Minister, but given that the cap has been reached three times in the past three months, what would she say to employers that are desperate for skilled staff, such as Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge? They find those people, but then discover that the Government say that they cannot come here. Is it really Government policy to deny the national health service the skilled people that it needs?

[Caroline Nokes]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that no medical professionals on the shortage occupation list have been refused a visa. It is important that we keep things under review and ensure that we recruit more doctors and nurses from within the UK, and my right hon. Friend the Health and Social Care Secretary is committed to ensuring that the number of training places for both nurses and doctors increases.

Immigration White Paper

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I reassure the hon. Lady that we continue to consult businesses and the universities sector, and that is part of the reason why we have asked the MAC to bring forward a report for us by the autumn. It is really important to us that we get our immigration policy right, which is why we have not yet brought forward the White Paper and the Bill, but we intend to.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Last week, two consultants in intensive care at Addenbrooke’s Hospital wrote to me. They had been trying to recruit urgently needed staff. They found three people, but those people were turned down by the Home Office because the tier 2 visa cap had been reached for that month. How can that possibly be helpful to our country? Does the Minister agree that the system is basically broken?

[Caroline Nokes]

Of course we need to ensure that we have a sustainable system, which is why it is important that the Bill and the White Paper take account of all views expressed to us by all sectors. That is what we are determined to do to get this right.

Community Policing

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms Dorries. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) on his timely and important debate. I do not think that anyone would dispute its importance, given how the election and terrorist attack in Manchester focused the nation’s attention on policing, police numbers and the key priorities that we face for policing.

I want to primarily give the Suffolk perspective. When we talk about funding in Suffolk, we always talk about the way the pie is divided more than the overall pie. Whether it is school funding, early years or other areas, we seem to be a long way down the league table, and that is certainly true in police funding. The Minister will know that, because he has received a letter from the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner setting out the fact that we are one of the lowest funded police forces in England. It is not a coincidence that we inevitably compare ourselves with Norfolk, a county in many ways very similar to us. If we received the same spending as Norfolk, our budget would be up by £3.5 million per year, which is a significant sum. We receive 44p funding per day for policing compared to a national average of 50p.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions Norfolk, but I wonder if he is aware of the comments from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary about the role of PCSOs in the area. It says:

“Where dedicated local policing teams exist, too often the warranted police officers on them are routinely taken away from their local policing duties to handle immediate tasks elsewhere. That leaves police community support officers…as the mainstays of these teams.”

Is it not extraordinary, therefore, that the chief constable of Norfolk has chosen to completely disband the PCSO workforce?

[James Cartlidge]

I was referring to the broader pay settlement, and how the chief constable spends that is obviously his decision. I will come on specifically to PCSOs very shortly, but I think that the message from the Suffolk police and crime commissioner in particular, who came to Parliament recently to meet Suffolk MPs—unfortunately I was not able to attend—is that we want to see a fair share of funding or some very difficult decisions will have to be made.

We have to be even-handed in this. We all know the financial pressure that the country is under—there is no point pretending that we are not. The national debt is still extremely high, and despite the declining deficit, all the Office for Budget Responsibility’s public spending predictions for many years hence show that it will go only one way, partly because of changing demographics. A responsible approach would balance those things.

I am interested in parish policing—I do not call it neighbourhood policing—which is the idea that rural communities might fund their own PCSOs. I accept the point that the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) made about the importance of PCSOs. I would not rationally expect the chief constable of Suffolk to take on lots of fully warranted officers to prioritise shed theft. Shed theft sounds fairly unglamorous, and it is; it is certainly not as important as terrorism or cyber-crime. However, in rural communities that suffer from it—sometimes many sheds are targeted at once—it is a cause of great concern, particularly to farmers. A farmer near my village recently had a brand new vehicle stolen from a shed. That does not sound like a headline crime, but it is distressing for the communities concerned. Realistically, the chief constable of Suffolk is not about to get his officers to prioritise that sort of crime, so we need to look at the idea of communities being able to fund their own PCSOs.

I have liaised with Suffolk constabulary about that idea. We could do it on a ward basis; parishes could come together along ward lines. It would cost £10 per voter per year—in other words less than £1 a month—for Brook ward, which is one of my largest wards, to have a dedicated PCSO. That would provide very visible policing. Parish councils commonly complain that the police no longer go along to parish meetings. When I was a district councillor in a rural ward in my constituency, the police tried to come along. They do their best, but that is obviously a big burden on their time—as it is, by the way, for district and county councillors. The point is that if we pursued a parish policing model, we would empower communities at least to have the choice to think about how they could sort this issue out themselves and have a greater police presence, in the form of someone who could prioritise matters such as shed theft and reassure rural communities.

When I was first elected, we had a spate of lead theft from churches in Suffolk. South Suffolk has some of the most beautiful churches in the country, a prime example of which is Lavenham church, where I walked on the roof to see for myself the way the lead had been stripped from it. I am pleased that there was recently a significant arrest—of a Romanian gentleman, I believe—in connection with lead theft in East Anglia, but the point is that these are specific crimes in rural communities.

My concern—I add this caveat—is that I have not detected a great deal of enthusiasm from Suffolk constabulary about communities recruiting PCSOs. One of the reasons they give for that is that they struggle themselves to recruit. We can talk about how wonderful it would be to get those extra police and so on, but as far as I can see, Suffolk police are struggling to recruit. My point is that if we had a more local focus, we could attract people to apply—people who live in and know the community—who would not apply for a more regional post.

I really have two points. I emphasise again to the Minister—I know that he has heard about it many times—the dire funding position in Suffolk relative to other counties. This is not about the overall allocation; it is about the way that allocated funds are divided. I would also be interested in his thoughts about what more can be done to allow communities to fund their own officers, who would provide reassurance and deal with lower priority crimes that the warranted force will never be able to prioritise. There are those of us who recognise the funding pressures and acknowledge that there is no magic answer, but there are reforms that can make a real difference in rural communities.

Unaccompanied Child Refugees: Europe

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that it is one year since the Calais Jungle camp was demolished; further notes that the UK demonstrated moral and political leadership in transferring 750 child refugees from intolerable conditions in that camp to be reunited with family members in Britain and provided those children with protection under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016; and believes that as the UK prepares to leave the EU, provision must be made to ensure that unaccompanied children in Europe can continue to access the safe and legal means to reunite with family and relatives in the EU as is currently provided for under the EU Dublin III Regulation.

I should like to thank the Backbench Business Committee and all those who have supported me for allowing this debate to be heard on the Floor of the House. I want to make special mention of my co-sponsors, the hon. Members for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil).

One of the hardest things about this job is maintaining a focus on important issues, particularly when new headlines and stories so readily grab the media’s attention. It is our responsibility to continue to give a voice to those who might otherwise not be heard, and there are none needier of that representation than the most vulnerable—the children who have fled the most unimaginable terrors of war and found themselves alone and without family in Europe.

Almost a year ago, the squalid Calais refugee camp was demolished, but despite the tremendous efforts of the British Government at the time, there are still refugee children in the Calais region as well as in Greece and Italy. Prior to the Calais demolition, we safely transferred 750 children to the UK: 200 under the Dubs amendment and 550 under the Dublin III family reunification rules. However, at least 250 remain in Calais and Dunkirk, and the youngest is nine. Most have fled from Afghanistan, and 2,950 are registered in Greece today. Moreover, 90% of the 13,687 children who have arrived in Italy so far this year are unaccompanied.

From the very first time this subject was debated in the House, I and many others have maintained that if we do not offer help further downstream in mainland Europe, more people will continue their journeys and arrive on our shores. Those are unnecessary and indescribably dangerous journeys; they do not provide the organised, compassionately prepared and safe welcome that we want to offer to those terrified young people.

We currently have two schemes through which we can offer sanctuary to children in Europe: Dubs and Dublin III. Many in this Chamber were bitterly disappointed that the Dubs amendment did not result in a more generous number of places being offered to unaccompanied children. The Government, in consultation with local authorities, determined that 480 was as many as we could take. In fact, we have learned this morning that the High Court challenge to the thoroughness of that consultation has favoured the Government. For context, I can tell the House that that 480 represents 0.5% of the total number of refugee children who have so far arrived in Europe. That is not even one per constituency. So, setting the legal case aside, I remain disappointed by our contribution. It does not stand proudly next to the outstanding figure of the 23,000 refugees we will resettle from the Syrian region by 2020 through the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme. Aside from the devastatingly obvious moral imperative, we have a duty as part of Europe to help to deal with the migration crisis affecting Europe. To me, that is what a deep and special relationship would feel and look like.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady, my near neighbour, is making an excellent speech and I commend her for the excellent work she has done on this issue. Is she aware that, back in 2015, 100 families in the city of Cambridge volunteered to host refugee children? Does she agree that the Government need to be much more creative and to respond more positively to the kind of generosity that we see, not just in my city but in cities and communities across the country?

[Heidi Allen]

I absolutely agree with that. This goes to the heart of why—the legal case aside—the general public and many Members did not feel that the consultation had exhausted all the offers that were made. I am convinced that there are still families and businesses in my constituency that want to help. A safeguarding strategy was published yesterday, and I will come to that in a moment. It should open a window of opportunity for people to benefit from those offers, and it would be unforgivable for us not to use them.

In Calais, children are still sleeping outdoors at the mercy of the elements and, dare I say it, the police, because the official shelter that the French Government have provided can house only 60. In Greece, more than 1,800 children are waiting for a space in such a shelter, and when they make it, they will find that it is actually a disused prison. In Italy, the situation is even more chaotic. I understand that our ability to influence local arrangements in those countries is limited, but we have a responsibility to set clear parameters with our foreign counterparts to allow them to rapidly identify every child who might be eligible for Dubs or Dublin. It therefore concerns me when the numerous charities still working on the ground tell me that only 20 children have been transferred from France under Dubs in the past 12 months, that only a handful have come from Italy under Dublin, with none under Dubs, and that none at all have come from Greece. It is over 18 months since I last visited Lesvos. Can we honestly say that we have done everything we can?

If we have taken just 200 from Calais so far, there are still 280 Dubs places to be filled. Does the Minister suspect that our criteria have been misunderstood? Are they too tight? Do we need to look again at the cut-off date of 20 March 2016? Can we work quickly to identify the remaining 280? I hope to hear from the Minister what he will do to fill those spaces as soon as possible. Can we aim for the end of the year? Call me sentimental, but can we aim for Christmas?

But this debate is not just about Dubs. I am also seeking reassurance on what will happen to Dublin III once we leave the EU and its legislation. Despite textbook policy suggesting that our existing domestic asylum legislation should already allow unaccompanied child refugees to be reunited with their wider families—grandparents, siblings, uncles and aunts—this is not happening in practice. What plans does the Minister have to improve or amend our domestic legislation so that it does exactly what it says on the tin? Can we have complete confidence that the spirit of Dublin III will exist post-Brexit? Might our negotiations even allow us to stay in Dublin III? Clarity on this point really matters. Knowing that we will continue to offer sanctuary to the most vulnerable children in the world is as important to them as is the depth of charity and benevolence that makes Britain great.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. Of course, police will investigate all crimes. Extremely good police and crime commissioners who work with their communities, such as Katy Bourne, are able to prioritise what matters most to people. They often work in partnership with great organisations such as the National Farmers Union to come up with the right solutions for the community.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

16. What recent assessment her Department has made of the performance of UK Visas and Immigration.

[The Minister for Immigration (Brandon Lewis)]

The Home Office deals with millions of visa, citizenship, passport and immigration status applications each year. In the past year, UKVI has received more than 3.5 million applications, and more than 98.5% of major application routes, including for non-settlement, EU applications and asylum, have all been decided within their service standards. Some 99% of straightforward non-settlement applications were processed within 15 days last year.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I have a number of constituents who have family members who have applied for visas, submitted their passports and then endured very long delays—in some cases of many months—without their passports, so in effect they are trapped, unable to travel. What is UKVI going to do about those cases?

[Brandon Lewis]

Reviewing identity documents such as passports as part of an application is obviously an important part of maintaining a robust immigration system. Travel documents are retained for the duration of the decision-making process, but if the applicant wishes to travel while the application is being considered, dependent on the route through which they have applied, we will of course return their passport to them. If the applicant needs a passport for ID purposes, we can send certified copies that they are able to use.