Illegal Immigration

Debate between David Simmonds and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We must be briefer.

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

I warmly welcome the tone and content of my right hon. Friend’s statement. Does he agree that in addition to the commitment to the ECHR, which is very much treasured by the settled refugee communities in my constituency, this is an opportunity to reinvigorate the work with France that has done so much to bear down on the number of small boat crossings in the way he has described?

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between David Simmonds and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

It is quite important that we think of others and remember that, as I said, the debate finishes at 5pm. I call David Simmonds

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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will endeavour to be swift and to the point. Like the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), I must draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as someone who is sponsored by the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project—RAMP—to provide research capacity.

As the Minister outlined, the UK has proved willing to rise to the challenge of the international refugee situation, with 550,000 people settled in the UK through humanitarian routes. In 24 years in a local authority covering the area of Heathrow airport, I certainly have experience of being on the receiving end of many different sets of Government policy—not just from the coalition and Conservative Governments, but from Labour Governments, too—many of which sounded very good when debated in this place but which did not always work in contact with the real world. I would express the concern that until we have a fully comprehensive asylum visa system, we will not have full control of the way in which we interact with the global refugee situation.

I want to see this policy pass through Parliament and be implemented in a way that works operationally to stop the boats and deliver all the other objectives that Members throughout the Chamber broadly support. There are clearly plenty of disagreements about the detail, but none of us wishes to see the continuation of the cross-channel traffic in human misery and criminal activity that the Bill seeks to address. I know that my constituents share the concern, beautifully expressed earlier, about the fact that we, as British people, believe in the fine old British tradition of queueing. When we see people using criminal means to jump that queue at a time when our country is seeking to be more compassionate through resettlement in a global world, we are concerned about that.

I remain concerned about a number of aspects of how the Bill will operate in the real world. It is enormously positive that the courts decided, having considered the matter, that the Rwanda policy was lawful and compatible with the UK’s international human rights obligations, but we cannot provide sufficient evidence of the effectiveness of one element of our agreement with Rwanda. That element is one example of the things that could, operationally, derail what we all agree are worthy objectives in the Bill. I took part in the Joint Committee on Human Rights evidence session that considered modern slavery in detail, and that has convinced me to follow the lead of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) this evening.

We need to ensure that we live up to the standards we have set for ourselves in this House, and that the positive obligations that much legislation, including the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the Children Act 1989, places on our public authorities do not undermine the objectives of the Bill. Detention is a good example of that. I totally agree with what the Minister said about his approach to the detention of unaccompanied minors. A major challenge for Hillingdon Council was the arrival of unaccompanied children at Heathrow airport. The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) will know that many of them were accommodated in his constituency, at Margaret Cassidy House and at Charville Lane children’s home, both of which I visited.

It was at the point of arrival that those children were at the greatest risk from traffickers. The right hon. Gentleman will remember examples of traffickers arriving on Bath Road to collect girls whom they had targeted for trafficking. We as the local authority were powerless to stop that, because there was no power of detention that we could use to keep those young people safe. In one case that I am aware of, Hillingdon recovered a girl from the sex trade on the continent of Europe, after six months of tracking her from place to place. During that time, she suffered a great deal of abuse, which potentially could have been prevented if we had been able to intervene more swiftly at the beginning.

I am entirely sympathetic to the Minister’s motivations for introducing provisions on that issue, but these questions need to be answered: who will ensure that the places where those children are accommodated and detained are of an appropriate standard? What discussions have taken place with local authorities, such as Hillingdon and Kent, to ensure that a secure estate, based perhaps on secure children’s homes, is available, so that the children coming through the system can be appropriately accommodated? What arrangements have been made with Ofsted—in my view, it is Ofsted, rather than the chief inspector of prisons, that needs to regulate this—to ensure that regulation will give us confidence that the accommodation for children, and for families, is appropriate for children?

Finally, I have asked this question many times, but I do not get the sense that we have reached an appropriate answer. The Bill sets out how individuals are to be dealt with under the asylum and immigration process, but it does not take away the obligations on local authorities under the Children Act, the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 or the Modern Slavery Act, or the other many obligations on local authorities. Members will say, “Let us pass this legislation and demonstrate that we are tough, and wish to stop the boats,” but in six months, will we be looking at a slew of judicial reviews that say that the policy was in conflict with the obligations on local authorities and the police under the Modern Slavery Act and the Children Act, and is therefore not effective?

If the Minister wishes to enjoy the full confidence of all Conservative Members, and wishes them to vote with the Government tonight and over the next few days, I urge him to address those points. Literally decades of policies from Governments of all parties have not quite managed to get to the heart of these issues. He must demonstrate that this policy will do that, and that it has properly covered all bases across government. He must demonstrate that the policy does not leave us vulnerable to finding that the boats do not stop coming; that the frustration of the challenges continue; and that people continue to die. This country wishes to show that it will not walk on by and ignore the needs of refugees, that we will be compassionate, and that we will prioritise our resources on international and global resettlement.

Council of Europe

Debate between David Simmonds and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Thursday 8th June 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I have the privilege of representing the constituency of Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner. Although many of my constituents will share concerns about the small boats, which were referred to briefly by my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), generations of people from all over the world have found refuge in my constituency. In particular, they include a large population of Jewish people, who came to the United Kingdom before the second world war, as the state terror against them was cranked up by the Nazis in Germany. A significant number came following the partition of India. Those people recognised that Europe in general, and the UK in particular, was a beacon of human rights and the rule of law—a place where their lives, businesses and families would be respected. Although I was not a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, that was the reason I took an interest in the Council of Europe during my time in local government, and I served as the Conversative delegation leader at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe.

I want to share some reflections on that part of the Council of Europe, which is rarely referred to in this Chamber, except in the particular context of its work carrying out election supervision. It has significant impact on the way we manage migration and asylum. It is visible through my membership and that of other Members of the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, which looks at the way the legislation we pass in this Chamber interacts with the European convention on human rights, of which we are a member. I will touch on some of the impacts that the different bodies of the Council of Europe have and consider some developments, such as the implications of the Brighton declaration, that show how that convention and the bodies that form part of the Council of Europe continue to be a work in progress, reflecting the changing world we face today.

I have heard in this Chamber, as reflected in much of the academic coverage of the subject, that there is a good deal of debate about the role in its foundation played by Winston Churchill, after whom buildings in Strasbourg and key Council of Europe premises are named. However, there is little doubt reflected back to me by my constituents who came to the UK in those circumstances that its founding politicians saw a desperate need for this body in the reconstruction of Europe after the second world war.

The aim was to ensure that there was a sufficient body of international jurisprudence to restrain potential abuses of state power, such as those that had been seen in a number of its member states in the run-up to the second world war. That would ensure that in the future no nation fell below that minimum standard, through a process where international law could be invoked. That took place against the background of the global work undertaken by the United Nations.

Following its foundation, the Council of Europe has developed a political sense. A number of Members have spoken from the perspective of their experience of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, but in due course the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe was created and the Council of Ministers was always there as part of the supervisory activity, whereby the Council itself was directly accountable to the Governments of the member states and they had a direct role in supervising decision making.

That has been enormously important, because in many of the debates on, for example, the Illegal Migration Bill and the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, both in this Chamber and in the public discourse, we have heard reference to foreign judges and courts and a lack of accountability. The Council of Europe, almost from its inception, has recognised that politics, not just the rule of law, is important in shaping its work. To this day, it remains extremely accountable to and shaped by the view of parliamentarians and the other active parties from the member states.

The role of the judges was referred to during the course of the debates on the Illegal Migration Bill, but it was not mentioned that those judges are elected by the Parliamentary Assembly. Members of this House choose who the judges are going to be, from a shortlist put forward by the Government of the member state. In fact, there is a much higher degree of accountability around the appointment of judges to the court than there is for judges in our own domestic courts here in the United Kingdom. That political relationship is incredibly important.

Then we have to consider the role of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe. The bit that we tend to make reference to, especially when we have debates about emerging situations in countries where there are concerns about whether free and fair elections are taking place, is the role of election monitoring. Our counterparts from local and regional government spend their time checking that those elections are being carried out in a free and fair manner, and also looking at issues such as how positive obligations on public bodies—for example, the duties on local authorities to house people or ensure they have access to education and healthcare—are playing out in practice.

On top of that, we have the Venice Commission, which is the body that looks at setting the international gold standard for the conducts of elections. There was much debate in this Chamber about whether it was appropriate to bring voter ID into the UK system, but it has been recommended by the Venice Commission for some time, as part of the gold standard for ensuring that elections are free and fair. It is standard practice across most member states of the Council of Europe.

I will turn briefly to some of the emerging challenges. A number of Members have made reference to the situation with Russia; I know my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) has done sterling work on that. I served on the Congress during a period when Russia was still an active member of the Council of Europe, which was a good explication of some of the challenges the Council faces. At that stage, Russia had already invaded and annexed Crimea, but was not the only member state of the Council of Europe that, arguably, had invaded and occupied territory of another member state. The challenges were very visible—politicians who were there to represent the interests of their people had to set aside some of those immediate direct international challenges.

It is clear that at the Congress, the Parliamentary Assembly and the organisation in its broadest sense, the changing world, for example the digital environment, introduces new challenges to the way in which the rule of law is enforced. It is only through the willingness of the member states that the principles that underpin the Council of Europe can be upheld. A key point for those who have concerns about the UK’s continued membership, is that, as has already been clearly stated, the number of referrals to the Court from the United Kingdom are exceptionally low, and the number of findings against the United Kingdom is lower still. It is also interesting to note that during its period of membership the largest number of representations from any member country came from Russia. It is very clear that the rule of law has some distance to travel in that country.

I commend the work that about which we have heard from a number of colleagues who serve on the Parliamentary Assembly. I also pay tribute to the work of my former colleagues on the Congress, who have done a tremendous amount to shape both the work and the priorities of the Council of Europe, especially it comes to the rights of refugees, both in the United Kingdom and following their transition from wherever they may have originated to a place of safety elsewhere. It is important that those rights are respected but also managed, and that countries such as Greece, Italy and Turkey—which accommodate millions of refugees at a time when we in the United Kingdom are worrying about tens of thousands at the most—are able to share the challenges that that poses for their communities and the implications for their politics, and also to work with us to find a more functional and effective system of managing the way in which people who are in dire need of help move around the world. As issues such as climate change begin to become a larger factor, we have an opportunity to reflect on how those rights will all play out.

I want to express the pride that I think we all feel in the role that the United Kingdom has played in developing this framework, and in its consistent maintenance and enforcement of the standards of respect for human rights, which have done so much to reduce injustice among the member states and in wider Europe over the years since the second world war. I also want to place on record my personal thanks to some of the UK ambassadors and diplomats who I know are extremely active in Strasbourg, meeting regularly and ensuring that issues that politicians debate perhaps once a session are being managed and the process is being smoothed on a daily basis. In particular, like others, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Henley.

I also thank our counterparts—leaders such as Councillor Kevin Bentley, who leads the local government delegation —whose work behind the scenes, to which we do not often have a chance to pay tribute in the House, addresses our constituents’ need for access to justice when they are abroad. While we in the House can spend a great deal of time arguing about what may in the grand scheme of things be relatively small issues, we have colleagues who are working to ensure that our fellow citizens, in this country and abroad, continue to enjoy their right to life, their right to liberty, their right to a family life, their right to pursue a business, and their right to do all the things that free human beings should be able to do within the context of a legal framework within which it can be ensured that no one infringes those rights unjustly.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between David Simmonds and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for coming to a conclusion. I am going to try to call people who did not get called yesterday, as well as those who have tabled amendments, but that will require a certain amount of brevity.

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

It seems a long-standing conundrum of the immigration debate that most of our constituents express concern about the issue of immigration and its impact on our country, but at the same time tend to be very positive about their own personal experiences of people who have come to this country as migrants. I know that this is the case in the very diverse constituency in north-west London that I represent, but it is true in other parts of the country as well, where people’s experience is that those people who come as immigrants are those who drive the buses, work in the local shops and their children’s schools, and maintain the NHS. We are having this debate at a time when we must acknowledge that one of our biggest demographic challenges remains the fact that we have a declining working-age population, and data from the Office for National Statistics clearly shows that we, alongside much of the rest of the developed world, have a significant challenge in maintaining a workforce sufficient to support our population.

So far, this has been a very constructive debate. In particular, I highlight the comments of the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) about the need for a returns agreement. Professor Thom Brooks of Durham University recently did a very detailed study that highlighted that one of the biggest pull factors for those waiting to cross to the United Kingdom was the absence of a returns agreements with France or with the European Union. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for the work he has already done with Government in respect of safe and legal routes. As we heard from the evidence we took at the Joint Committee on Human Rights during the passage of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the existence of a safe and legal alternative for those who wish to claim asylum in the UK is one of the defences open to the Government in seeking to treat those who, for example, arrive here in a small boat with a less advantageous process.

However, I will focus my contribution on what I fear are some of the unintended consequences of a Bill whose objective we all support: to end the situation where people put their lives at risk as a consequence of seeking to come to the United Kingdom, facing death or serious injury in the English channel in order to lodge an asylum claim in our country. In particular, I will focus on the way in which the Bill interacts with some of the positive obligations on our public authorities that are created by other legislation: for example, the Children Act 1989 and all its allied legislation, such as the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, and—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) has outlined—the provisions contained in the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

My experience of this issue in local government is highlighted in particular by the Hillingdon judgment of 2003, which concerned the Children Act responsibilities of local authorities in respect of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. That judgment clarified that the immigration status of a child is irrelevant to the local authority’s obligations to provide support to that child, both under the Children Act when they are under 18, and as they enter adulthood through the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 and other legislation that we have passed in this House. When we considered the status of children in care, we were clear that we wanted them to enjoy support until they were at least 25 to ensure that they started out their lives in the most positive way.

Health and Social Care Levy

Debate between David Simmonds and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

1st reading
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mark Fletcher]

My hon. Friend is giving an excellent speech. One thing he has touched on, but perhaps not expanded on, is the efficiencies that local government has found. Are there any particular lessons that he thinks are relevant to the NHS as we move forward?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We really are pushed for time, and this is not fair on those who are winding up.

[David Simmonds]

Concluding rapidly, Madam Deputy Speaker, that is a very important point. We need to recognise, as many constituents are surprised to discover, that as a matter of law very strict eligibility criteria restrict what they can access. We need to ensure, as we reform the sector, that we free up local authorities to use these resources to meet the demographic challenges.