Immigration and Home Affairs

David Simmonds Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

May I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests?

It is a pleasure to participate in today’s debate on the King’s Speech and to follow the hon. Member for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker), who is one of many on both sides of the House who gave a warm and positive speech. We welcome that context because, although cross-party there will be much political debate about the contents of the King’s Speech, we all recognise that it is a privilege and an honour to be in this House and to participate in that debate on behalf of our constituents.

I thank my constituents in Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner for returning me for my second term as a Member of Parliament. There were a number of things in the King’s Speech that they would wish me to draw attention to, such as the damaging impact of VAT on schools—the taxing of education is of huge concern in my constituency, which has many mainstream and special educational needs independent schools. They would also wish me to mention the loss of green-belt protection and the decision of an incoming Government to prioritise the deregulation of the green belt rather than building the 1.4 million homes that already have planning permission in our country.

On the decision to press ahead with GB Energy, those of us with a background in local government know that it is a policy model that brought the cities of Nottingham and Bristol to the very edge of bankruptcy. We will hold the Government to account to ensure that GB Energy does not do to the United Kingdom what the decisions of those Labour councils to press ahead with those projects did to the capacity of local authorities to deliver vital public services, as well as increasing bills for vulnerable households.

The main theme of today’s debate is immigration and home affairs. Having served briefly as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Ministry of Justice in the previous Parliament, I welcome the tone of many things that have been said about criminal justice. In particular, I hope to see the new Government continue the commitment, as previously set out, to sentencing reform. All of us, in all parties, wish to see fewer victims of crime. The previous Member for Cheltenham, who received a very warm tribute from his successor the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson), set out measures on the use of modern technology and tagging that aimed to ensure that we bring down the rate of reoffending which has long dogged the criminal justice system here in the UK.

As a Member of Parliament who proudly represents a suburban constituency in London, I recognise that following the 2014 reforms on shoplifting, which were agreed in partnership with the retail sector, the police and the security industry, it is time to look again at how they work. We welcome the fact that, overall, there was a major reduction in serious crime in particular under the previous Government, but we will be holding the Government to account and Mayor Khan to account for the fact that his neglect of the suburbs has left many of our constituents concerned about the availability of police teams which in theory should be there but all too often seem to be abstracted for other duties. The measures to protect shopworkers need to be part of that context of the reform of how we deal with shoplifting to ensure that anyone who works in retail or owns a business in retail enjoys the protection from our police forces and our criminal law that they rightly deserve.

On illegal migration, there is a lot of noise and fuss, but I hope the Government will continue patiently with the work done previously, in particular with the authorities in France. I have met the people doing that work, both here in the UK and on the French side, to bring to justice criminal gangs—the successful prosecutions achieved of those involved in setting up smuggling. I pay tribute to the work of the BBC in shedding light on the complexity of the international gangs, highlighting how often the kingpins seek to find refuge in places such as Iraq, where they are beyond the reach not just of the criminal law in the United Kingdom but in that of Europe too. I hope that when the Government set out that commitment we will see effective measures put in place.

I say gently to the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who is no longer in his place, that we know from the extensive debates around the ECHR that it stands as no barrier whatever to the deportation of criminals and those who should not be here. We have successfully achieved that in respect of many, many countries. What we need to ensure is that people are no longer putting their lives at risk in the channel.

I will finish with a brief word about the NHS. Those who visit Hillingdon hospital and Northwood and Pinner cottage hospital in my constituency will see that work is under way to deliver those projects. I can promise the Government that I will be holding them to account to ensure that those projects are completed.