Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre
David Linden Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Caroline Nokes
I think that I have been very clear this afternoon that, although we regard detention as a last resort, it is an important part of our suite of immigration policies. We use detention to enable us to remove people from this country, to make sure that those who might cause harm in our communities are kept away from society and on occasions when we are seeking to remove foreign national offenders as quickly as we can.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
How many people in Yarl’s Wood are currently on suicide watch?
Caroline Nokes
We keep the welfare of detainees under very close supervision, and I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that a declining number of people are choosing to refuse food and fluid. Of course, where people have mental health issues or there are concerns about their health, it is absolutely right that we keep them under very close supervision.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Linden Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Hurd
No one disputes the courageous work that firefighters do: we saw it at Grenfell and we saw it yesterday in Leicestershire. The point is that active negotiations are going on between those who are responsible—employer and employee. Central Government do not have a role in that process, unless we are called in for additional support.
The hon. Lady mentions reserves. Labour is in denial on this. The fact is that the fire system, which claims to be short of cash, has increased its reserves by £288 million since 2011. Reserves can only be increased by not using the money received, so our question to the fire service is, “Tell us what you’re going to do with the public’s money.”
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
The level of support provided to refugees and asylum seekers will vary depending on their status in the UK and the route that they were granted. Last week in Lebanon, I heard first hand how important our resettlement scheme is and how it helps individuals and families fleeing danger and conflict to rebuild their lives.
David Linden
I thank the Home Secretary for that answer, but a recent report from Refugee Rights Europe showed that two thirds of asylum seekers feel unsafe or very unsafe in their accommodation. At my surgery on Friday, I met a Malawian constituent who showed me photographs of her accommodation, which is simply unacceptable. Will the Home Secretary agree to meet me to discuss not just my constituent’s case, but that recent report by Refugee Rights Europe?
Amber Rudd
We are committed to ensuring that all asylum seekers are kept in safe accommodation, so I will of course meet the hon. Gentleman to look at the evidence. But I take this opportunity to thank the city of Glasgow, which does so much—way above proportionately—to look after vulnerable people and to assist with the Syrian and vulnerable people refugee scheme.
Migration Policy and the Economy
David Linden Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
It is wonderful to see you in the Chair, Mr Hosie. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) on securing this debate. I very much welcome the opportunity to speak about the positive contribution that migration makes to the economy, particularly in Scotland. As you might expect from an SNP MP, Mr Hosie, I will focus my remarks today on this Government’s obsession with an unrealistic and counterproductive one-size-fits-all net migration target, which I believe is deeply flawed in economic terms.
It is important to set the scene and provide a bit of context for this debate. Scotland’s estimated population was 5.4 million in mid-2016—the highest on record and an increase of 6.7% since 2001. Net migration has contributed to a population increase every year for the past 16 years. In contrast, the rate of natural change has remained low for the past 50 years, and over the past two years has been negative. That contrasts with the situation in the UK, where natural change contributes significantly more to population increase. Migration has therefore been critical to growing Scotland’s population, and any reduction in migration has the potential to seriously damage Scotland’s demographic resilience.
Looking ahead, Scotland’s population is projected to increase by 5% by 2041, driven solely by migration. Scotland has a markedly different demographic profile from the rest of the UK, which is why I believe immigration policy should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, a topic I will return to later. If current trends continue, net inward migration is projected to be the sole contributor to Scotland’s population growth. EU migrants make an enormous contribution to our economy in Scotland, so I am especially fearful about the consequences of restricting free movement in a post-Brexit Britain.
I was recently out in Glasgow enjoying a dinner and was struck that from the moment I entered the hotel to the moment I left, every single member of staff I came across was a European national. That echoes the point made by the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) only a few moments ago. The reality is that our tourism sector is heavily and increasingly dependent on workers from other EU countries. According to the annual population survey, in 2016 there were approximately 17,000 EU citizens working in tourism in Scotland, representing 9.4% of all those working in the sector overall, with that share rising to 15.3% in the accommodation sector specifically. That compares to an EU citizens’ employment share of 5% in the Scottish economy as a whole.
We know that the UK Government’s position on EU citizens in the Brexit process is already having a detrimental impact on flows of inward migration. For example, the number of nurses from the European Union registering to work in the UK has fallen by 96% since the Brexit vote last year. Figures collated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council show that the number of new applicants from the EU fell from 1,304 in July last year to just 46 in April. If that does not cause us concern, I do not know what will.
Mr Harper
I was trying not to intervene because I did speak for a fair length of time, but just to be clear: there are more EU nationals working in the NHS this year than last year. There were 61,891 EU nationals working in the NHS in June 2017, compared with 58,698 in June 2016. The idea that after the referendum decision all the EU nationals working in the NHS went away is simply not true.
David Linden
Those figures will presumably include doctors; the figures that I quoted are from the Nursing and Midwifery Council. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to conflate the figures, that is absolutely fine, but that is where my figures are from.
Restrictions on migration will also have an impact on Scotland’s soft fruits sector—a vital part of our rural economy. That impact will be of interest to you, Mr Hosie, and to the hon. Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair), who I presume will speak about it as well. It is vital that our sectors retain the ability to recruit staff from across the EU. We know that 15,000 non-UK seasonal workers are employed in our soft fruit and vegetable sector, so that should be a cause for concern as we approach leaving the EU.
Before summing up, I want to focus on calls—not from the Scottish National party, but from civic Scotland—for immigration powers to be devolved. We know that the one-size-fits-all approach to which the Government are wedded will not work for the future sustainability of our economy.
Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)
There have been a number of suggestions about having a separate immigration policy for Scotland and England, but there is of course no border there. Countries like Australia, for example, have separate states with separate immigration policies. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that creates issues, with leaks of migrants across the states?
David Linden
Given the mess that the United Kingdom Government are currently in regarding the situation in Ireland, I am not sure that a Member from the governing party lecturing us on borders necessarily suggests the right frame of mind at the moment.
The calls for immigration to be devolved do not necessarily come from the SNP, although we support them; they come from civic Scotland. Let me quote Grahame Smith, head of the Scottish Trade Union Congress, who I believe was right to say:
“We believe migration has an entirely positive contribution to make to Scotland’s economy, demography and culture, particularly in a properly regulated labour market in which workers’ rights are protected.”
He went on to say:
“UK immigration policy is increasingly encroaching on the devolved powers of the Scottish parliament, including how it runs its public services and who works within it.”
Grahame Smith is right: immigration powers must be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. We in the SNP believe that migration is about more than economics. It is about individuals and their families having the right to choose to build their lives in Scotland. It is about the contribution that they make to our culture, communities and society, as neighbours, friends, family members, and work colleagues. That contribution will be lost if people from the EU are no longer able to come here.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, and to appear opposite the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan). I welcome him to his place. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) for this important, topical and genuinely interesting debate. It is so important that we have this debate now. As we move towards leaving the EU, we begin to formulate ideas and plans for our future, not just in the European area but in the world as a whole. As a former Immigration Minister, my right hon. Friend’s expertise and experience precede him. He spoke with clear authority and eloquence—particularly about the issue of skills and productivity. I found his submissions about GDP per head very interesting. I hope those sorts of ideas will come to the fore as we debate the future of immigration in this country.
My right hon. Friend and a number of other hon. Members rightly mentioned students. The Government absolutely believe that our world-class educational establishments are a major success story for the United Kingdom. There is no limit on the number of international students who can visit. International students are included in the net migration figures because the independent Office for National Statistics follows the policy of Australia, the United States and other countries, which also include those figures in the net migration statistics. It is worth bearing in mind that when students leave the United Kingdom, they are taken out of the net migration figures.
David Linden
May I press the Minister on the point about the post-study work visa made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry)? The Conservative education spokesperson in the Scottish Parliament, Liz Smith MSP, made comments about, and was hoping to see action on, this issue. Will the Minister give us an update on the post-study work visa before she moves on from education?
Oral Answers to Questions
David Linden Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)
My hon. Friend has led a strong campaign for ensuring that more notice is taken of mental health. Rape and sexual violence are devastating crimes, and the Government are committed to ensuring that every victim has access to the specialist support they need, including mental health services. The Government are protecting funding of over £6.4 million for 85 female rape support centres across England and Wales, which provide independent specialist support to female victims. In 2017-18, the Government will also provide £27 million for 47 sexual assault referral centres in England.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
Brandon Lewis
I am happy to look into that case and come back to the hon. Gentleman.
Unaccompanied Child Refugees: Europe
David Linden Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
Since my election to this place in June, the issue of unaccompanied child refugees has been a major topic in my postbag and inbox, so I am glad we are having this debate. I commend the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen), who has already set the bleak scene in Calais, for securing it.
Before saying a little about the Dublin regulations, I want to touch briefly on the Dubs amendment.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Dubs amendment, far from being a pull factor, disrupts the traffickers who seek to profit from smuggling and the exploitation of vulnerable children by establishing a safe and legal route for those seeking asylum?
David Linden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the great misfortunes of this debate is that the Government talk a lot about a pull factor but have published absolutely no evidence; it is a case of putting up or shutting up.
I want to touch on the British Government’s woefully inadequate response to what is the worst humanitarian crisis since world war two. To be clear, we on the nationalist Benches would like to see the Dubs scheme continued to enable the UK to receive at least 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees from Europe. Moreover, we want the British Government to increase the total number of refugees they intend to settle under the Syrian vulnerable person resettlement programme.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting Sarah Kirby, from the International Rescue Committee, who shared with me some very harrowing statistics and data about the number of unaccompanied and separated children in Europe. Europol reports that there are almost 90,000 lone refugee children in Europe. Indeed, the UNHCR estimates that in 2016 about 33,800 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children arrived in Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Spain. The majority of those—some 26,000 children—arrived in Italy.
Earlier this year, it was announced that the UK Government had axed the Dubs amendment on refugee children and capped it at 480. The refugee crisis has not gone away and people are still fleeing the continuing violence in Syria and other countries, which creates a very serious risk that the numbers of unaccompanied children becoming prey to human traffickers will increase. Her Majesty’s Government need to do their part by continuing to provide places under the Dubs scheme when local authority capacity is available, as we know it is.
I commend many of the local authorities in Scotland that have embraced, with typically warm hospitality, many refugees from Syria. My own city of Glasgow has been outstanding when it comes to welcoming what are now affectionately known as “refuweegees”. In fact, Scotland has welcomed over a quarter of the total number of Syrian refugees in the UK.
I have some questions for the Minister. Will Her Majesty’s Government consider moving the date of entry to Europe to after 20 March 2016, if indeed there are still spaces available under the Dubs amendment? Given that there are currently 2,590 unaccompanied children in Greece and more than 13,000 in Italy, what assessment has been made of the UK’s ability to accept more than the already agreed 480 children? Sadly, it took a dead toddler to wash up on a beach and photos appearing on the front pages of our newspapers to make most of us sit up and take note of the stark horror of this humanitarian disaster.
David Linden
No, I think we have heard enough of the “little Britain” approach from the Government Benches today.
The photos have now disappeared from our newspapers and the story has largely faded, but the humanitarian crisis rages on. The Government can and must do more.
Aggressive Antisocial Behaviour
David Linden Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I commend the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) for securing this debate. I am pleased to see him in the Chamber leading on this issue after the incident that happened to him this summer; I am sure that all colleagues wish him well.
The debate so far has been good. We have heard contributions from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson), giving us a UK-wide picture. I am conscious that this matter is devolved in Scotland, but I will offer a couple of thoughts through a Scottish prism, as well as from a constituency point of view.
The backdrop to this debate is police cuts in England; when I saw it on the Order Paper, I thought it an excellent opportunity to talk about some of the things that we are doing north of the border, particularly on policing. The Scottish Government went into the 2007 elections with the commitment to put 1,000 extra police officers on Scotland’s streets. I am glad that 10 years on, we have managed to maintain that; the number of police officers in Scotland has gone from about 16,000 to 17,249 in June. As a result of ensuring that there are police officers on the streets, we now have the lowest levels of recorded crime since 1974, which was 42 years ago. That is welcome, but it is important that we do not rest on our laurels. Although there has been a reduction in the number of many crimes, I am disappointed to say that there has been an increase in the number of sex-related crimes, as there has across the board.
From my casework in surgeries and from going out door-knocking, I know that antisocial behaviour involves many issues. I will refer particularly to some antisocial behaviour issues in the Cranhill area, where I come from originally. Antisocial behaviour there comes from a group of young boys who think that it is absolutely acceptable to throw stones at both windows and people. I was disappointed to see a couple of weeks ago that a young girl in my constituency was injured when they threw a brick at a passing car. That is totally unacceptable, and we need to nip it in the bud straight away. There are also antisocial behaviour issues in the Baillieston and Garrowhill areas in my constituency, and I am working hard with Police Scotland and Community Safety Glasgow to address them. I pay tribute to Community Safety Glasgow, a joint initiative of Glasgow City Council and Police Scotland, led by Eileen Marshall, to tackle antisocial behaviour and crime. Since it was set up in 2006, there has been a remarkable transformation in our communities.
I also want to mention some of the local voluntary groups working to provide diversionary activities for young people. The first is Urban Fox, led by Michael McCourt and Debbie McGowan. It is a voluntary project based in Lilybank in my constituency that delivers a range of educational and diversionary activities including supervised sport, leisure programmes and health and social guidance. It promotes self-development and provides young people with skills, confidence and opportunities to develop self-esteem. I commend the work of Urban Fox to the House.
Andy Gilbert is a passionate community activist in my constituency who does a lot of work in the Glenburn centre. One issue that I plan to raise with the Employment Minister on Thursday involves the proposal to close three out of four of our local jobcentres, which is ridiculous given that territorialism and gang culture are still issues in my area. One example that I mention here regularly is Wellhouse and Easthall, which are literally separated by a road into two communities, both of which are small but have their own community centres and housing associations. The work that Andy Gilbert is doing in Easthall is to be commended; he is reaching out to attract young people to the Glenburn centre who might otherwise be at risk of offending.
I was delighted last week to meet Young Movers, also based in Easthall. The organisation does a lot of work on youth empowerment, and I was pleased to hear about its recent efforts in the park at Sandyhills, where about 20 young folk had been hanging about causing trouble and engaging in antisocial behaviour. Through youth empowerment, Young Movers has managed to get them to set up a youth club, which has removed the antisocial behaviour in that part of Sandyhills.
Another organisation is Street League, which is UK-wide; it has operations in 14 cities around the UK and is led in my constituency by Brian Lennox. It has had good outcomes in terms of reducing antisocial behaviour in Glasgow, particularly in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). It ran a programme that cut antisocial behaviour in the Carlton area by 80% through street football, which is to be commended. Another organisation, which the hon. Member for Strangford already discussed, is Street Pastors. It does excellent work, particularly in Glasgow city centre at chucking-out time for the nightclubs; he mentioned initiatives to hand out flip-flops and similar things. I commend Stuart Crawford, a good personal friend of mine, who leads that organisation.
To return to the point about police budgets, we in Scotland have committed to protecting revenue budgets in real terms for the entirety of the next Parliament, delivering £100 million in investment over the next five years. I would like to ask the Minister about VAT. Police Scotland is the only force in the UK subject to VAT; it has cost the Scottish Government £140 million since 2013. I hope that in the Budget next month, the UK Government will do the right thing and ensure that Police Scotland is not subject to VAT. Once we can release that money back into the police force, we can reduce antisocial behaviour in our constituencies.