Migrant Crossings

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Law enforcement work is an important part of this operation. Since April 2018, UK law enforcement authorities have disrupted 46 organised criminal gangs involved in people smuggling. In November 2018, two men were jailed for eight years each; in September 2018, seven members of an OCG were jailed with sentences totalling 48 years; and last February, two men were jailed for over nine years.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

The Home Secretary was previously cautious about increasing the number of patrols because perversely it might have led to an increase in the number of attempts. Why has he changed his mind?

[Sajid Javid]

That is a very good question. It is important to keep this under constant review. Border Force has a limited number of vessels and a great deal of work to do, not just in the UK but as part of international operations. I asked for advice on redeployment, and once I had received it and was comfortable that it could meet both its international obligations and prioritise the UK border, I made a decision, and that is what was implemented.

Future Immigration

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

We are committed to the 1951 convention, and I think that that commitment is shared across the House. As for the specific issue of work, it is one that we have been considering.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

What are the implications of the UN agreement on migration that we have signed in Marrakesh?

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Almost two and a half years have now passed since the people spoke in that big democratic referendum. The people voted in very large numbers to take back control of our laws, our money and our borders, and to reclaim the lost sovereignty of the United Kingdom electorate, and they did so in the teeth of enormous hostility and propaganda from many elements of the political and big business establishment.

The people were told they were too stupid to understand the arguments and that there were huge dangers if they dared to vote to leave the EU. They were told by both campaigns, and by the Government in a formal leaflet, that we would be leaving the single market and the customs union, because rightly we were told that the EU would not allow us to cherry-pick bits of the single market and customs union and that those were an integral part of the whole. They were given a set of entirely bogus and dishonest forecasts about what would happen in the short term after the vote, and practically every one of those forecasts was wildly too pessimistic, which has led to the distrust between the vote leave majority and the establishment that pushed out those forecasts.

I urge the House to move on from “Project Fear”, to move on from gloom and doom, and to understand that many millions of decent, honest voters made a careful and considered decision, and they do not believe those who tell them it will all go wrong, that it must be reversed or that they must be told to think again and vote again because they did not do their homework. It is deeply insulting to the electors, and I am sure that this Parliament is worthy of a much better performance than that.

The people were saying something wonderful for this Parliament. They were saying, “We believe in you, Parliament. We believe you can make wise laws. We believe you can make even wiser laws than the EU. We believe you can make better judgments about how to spend the taxes we send you than the EU, which spends so much of the money on our behalf in ways of which we do not approve. We believe, O Parliament, that if you help us to take back control of our laws and democracy, we will get better answers. Or, of course, Parliament, if you do not give us a better answer, we the people will have our sovereignty back, and we will dismiss you.”

One of the things that most annoys people about the EU among the leave-voting majority is that we cannot sack them. Whatever they do, however bad they are, however much money they waste, however irritating their laws, we have to put up with them. We cannot sack them; we cannot have a general election. [Interruption.] Scottish National party Members say that they feel the same about the Union of the United Kingdom, but we gave them the democratic opportunity, and their people say that they like our system of government, because this is their democracy too. [Interruption.] The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) should understand that her colleagues in Scotland, and her voters in Scotland, believe in UK democracy, and they have exactly the same rights of voice and vote and redress as all the rest of us.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. Ever since the referendum, the narrative has been to find explanations for why the people voted as they did—any explanation other than the fact that they wanted to leave the European Union. Does he consider that the majority in favour of the amendment in the name of our right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) shows that the game is up, and that there is now a majority in the House against leaving the European Union? The game for us must be to find some orderly way around that, irrespective of the majority who are now against us.

[John Redwood]

I do not prejudge the evil intents of other Members. I hope that all Members will agree that we must implement the referendum result. We had a general election in the summer of last year, and I remember that in that general election Labour and the Conservatives got rather more than 80% of the vote in Great Britain, the Democratic Unionist party did extremely well in Northern Ireland, and all three parties said that they would faithfully implement the referendum decision of United Kingdom voters on leaving the European Union. I trust that they will want to operate in good faith in the votes that may be to come.

My advice to Ministers, as well as to the rest of the House, is that what we should now be doing is celebrating the opportunities and the advantages that we will gain after March, when we have left the European Union. We should be having debates about how we will spend all the extra money on improving our public services instead of giving it to the EU. We should be having a debate about all the tax cuts that we need to boost our economy, so that instead of growth slowing after we leave, we speed it up by deliberate acts of policy which we would be empowered in this place to take if only Members would lift their gloom and their obstinate denial of opportunity, and see that if we spent some more money and had some tax cuts, it would provide a very welcome boost to our economy in its current situation.

I want to see us publish a schedule of tariffs for trading with the whole world that are lower than the tariffs that the EU currently makes us impose on perfectly good exporters, particularly of food products, from elsewhere in the world. Why do we have to impose high tariffs on food that we cannot grow for ourselves? I want us to have a debate on urgently taking back control of our fishing industry so that we can land perhaps twice as many fish in the UK and not let them all be landed somewhere else, and build a much bigger fish processing industry on the back of domestic landings from our very rich fishing grounds.

I wish to see us get rid of VAT on, for instance, green products and domestic fuel, which we are not allowed to do because we are an impotent puppet Parliament that does not even control its own tax system for as long as we remain in the European Union. I wish to see us take back control of our borders, so that we can have a migration policy that is right for our economic needs and fair to people from wherever they may come all around the world, rather than having an inbuilt European Union preference. I wish us to be a global leader for world trade. Now that the United States of America has a President who says that he rather likes tariffs, there is a role for a leading great power and economic force in the world like the United Kingdom to provide global leadership for free trade.

We will do none of that if we sign this miserable agreement with which the Government have presented us, because we will be locked into their customs arrangements for many months or years. We will not be free to negotiate those free trade deals, let alone provide the international leadership which I yearn for us to provide. I want us to have our seat back at the high tables of the world in the big institutions like the World Trade Organisation, so that with vote and voice and purpose, we can offer something positive, and have a more liberal free-trading democratic world than the one that we currently have. That is something that we are not allowed to do for as long as we remain members of the European Union.

I say this to Members. Lift the gloom. Stop “Project Fear”. Stop selling the electors short. Stop treating the electors as if they were unable to make an adult decision. Understand that they made a great decision—a decision I am mightily proud of—to take back sovereign control to the people, to take back the delegated sovereign control to this Parliament. It is high time that this Parliament rose to the challenge, instead of falling at every opportunity, and high time we did something positive for our constituents, instead of moaning and grumbling and spending every day—groundhog day—complaining about the vote of the British people.

Stop and Search

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. One of the most important things we did as a Government, and the then Home Secretary—now Prime Minister—did, was to scrap a lot of targets, because she knows, with her experience, that targets can distort behaviour. There is no interest among Government Members in this being a numbers game; we are responding to some evidence that the police have lost some confidence in stop and search. We want them to feel that confidence, not least with the advent and prevalence of body-worn video. We want them to use their existing powers and to continue to use them lawfully.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

It may have been intelligence-led when I was recently stopped and searched outside 1 Parliament Street, but I do not complain—I want to see more use of it made. But that does imply more police officers to do it, does it not?

[Mr Hurd]

I cannot comment on what intelligence the police had that led them to that decision—obviously they got the memo! My right hon. Friend’s main point is right, and I have made it clear from the Dispatch Box that, as we approach the end of austerity, this Government are determined to make sure that our police system has the resources needed. That is why we took the steps last year that have resulted in an additional £460 million of public investment in our police system and almost every police force in the country recruiting again.

Leaving the EU: Rights of EU Citizens

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think “unseemly” is a perfect description.

As I said, we will be bringing forward the parliamentary timetable for the immigration Bill shortly, and further details will be set out in due course, which I am sure will give the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) satisfaction.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

What reciprocal announcements have been made by EU states following the Prime Minister’s generous offer in respect of leaving with no deal?

[Caroline Nokes]

My right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour makes an important point. At every opportunity, Ministers raise both with the EU and our counterparts in the EU27 the important factor of UK citizens lawfully residing in other EU member states. There is of course huge concern that we have made a generous offer to EU citizens, and let me be clear that we want them to stay here and that we regard them as part of our community. It is time for the EU to step up to the plate and say what it is doing for British citizens.

Foreign Fighters and the Death Penalty

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am old enough to remember “Jackanory” and I think that I have just heard a “Jackanory” narrative from the hon. Gentleman. Let me deal with his questions. He asserted that, in every case previously, we have always sought assurances. That has not been the case. I apologise for not getting back to him in time for his summer reading. We did have to go back into the previous Labour Government to find a number of cases; I am talking about a Government in which the hon. Gentleman was a Minister in the very Department where this was taking place. We discovered that one of the cases took place in a Labour Government after 2001.

Secondly, the details of mutual legal assistance arrangements, as the hon. Gentleman will know, are subject to strict confidentiality, because they are often about individuals involved in an investigation. However, I can help him in his “Jackanory” story: the 2014 Thailand example that he has cited is not a case where this has happened; it has not been brought to my attention. Perhaps he has raised another case, but, certainly, the two of which I am aware do not relate to that case.

Furthermore, when the hon. Gentleman comes to talk about the policy of successor Governments, he should know that, in 2011, this Government brought forward, for the first time, through the OSJA, written guidance. It was very clear in paragraph 9 that, on some occasions, there were strong reasons for not seeking assurances in such cases. The policy before 2011, including the time when the hon. Gentleman was a member of the Government, was that a Government could exchange evidence without seeking assurances on the death penalty in “exceptional circumstances”—[Interruption.] I think that the hon. Gentleman knows that his Government did do it. Certainly, he was a member of the Government when one of these cases took place.

The reality is that the two individuals in question, who are suspects and innocent until proven guilty, are charged, or effectively viewed, as having been part of very, very dangerous and heinous crimes, including torture and beheading, against many, many people, and that they are held in a place of detention, effectively in a war zone in north Syria, by non-state actors. That means that the choices are stark for any Government charged with keeping people safe and trying to deliver justice for the victims.

We are guided by the overseas security and justice assistance. The Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary considered this guidance strongly, found that there were strong reasons and took the necessary decision that in this case we would share with the United States evidence on the condition that Guantanamo was not part of the process, but in this case we did not seek death penalty assurances.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Some of us, and most of our constituents, are a lot less squeamish about this than the Minister and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). Indeed, they take the view that these people had it coming, didn’t they?

[Mr Wallace]

What these individuals who are suspected of an offence and many others have coming is justice. We will do everything we can to work with our allies to see that justice is administered in a way that follows due process and that takes place in a court of law, where there is a separation between the judiciary and the Executive, where people have a right to defence and to make an argument, and where the rule of law prevails. That is what they and anybody else who involves themselves in that type of terrorism has coming to them, and that is what we are trying to uphold.

Police: Financial Sustainability

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I say to the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, as I have said publicly, that the appropriate point to address this issue—which is very sensitive and which a number of forces and MPs representing forces feel very strongly about—is in the context of the CSR, which is the most important framework for long-term financial planning in the police. I will be very frank: my priority, working with the Home Secretary, is to make an argument to set the size of the total cake. We have made it clear that we will then need to deliver a compelling analysis and plan for how that cake gets divided up in a way that more fairly reflects the demands on the current policing system, which are evolving. We are very serious about that, but we just happen to think that the CSR is the most appropriate framework in which to do this work.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

In God’s own town of Lymington a robber was captured but had to be released because there was no police officer available to be sent. We do need more police officers, don’t we?

[Mr Hurd]

We do; I agree and totally accept the argument that we need more resources for the police, which is exactly what we have delivered. That includes an additional £9.7 million for Hampshire police, whom I meet regularly. Across the country forces are using that money to recruit additional officers: 500 more here in London, 200-odd in Kent, 150-odd in Essex, 150-odd in Nottingham, and 100 in West Mercia. Across the country police forces are using the additional resources we are able to deliver, as a result of our successful stewardship of the economy since 2010, to deliver what the public want, which is more policing. We would not be able to do that under the Labour party’s policies.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sajid Javid)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

For the past two years, we have seen an unacceptable increase in recorded knife and gun crime. We have also seen a rise in acid attacks. Sadly, there was a vivid example just this week, with the fatal stabbing of Jordan Douherty, a young man of only 15 who had a great future ahead of him, but whose life was tragically cut short. The Bill will strengthen powers available to the police to deal with acid attacks and knife crime. Its measures will make it more difficult for young people to use acid as a weapon and to purchase knives online.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Craftsmen such as carpenters rely on mail order for the provision of their specialist tools because that can no longer be maintained locally. Will the Home Secretary ensure that this excellent Bill does not intrude on the provision of lawful trade?

[Sajid Javid]

I am glad that my right hon. Friend, like me, thinks that the Bill is excellent. I can give him that assurance. As I talk a bit more about the Bill, it will become clear that the right types of reasonable defence will absolutely be in place. For example, knife sales to businesses and for other legitimate use will remain unaffected.

There have sadly been 77 homicides in London alone this year, but violent crime affects all parts of our country, not just our big cities. Violent crime destroys lives and devastates communities, and it has to stop.

Cannabis-based Medicines

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Yes, I think that there is a need to make the process clearer. I have been quite open that I do not think that the current process is a friendly one at all. The decision made in the case of Billy Caldwell was unprecedented; no Government in the past had recognised the medicinal benefits of cannabis by making such a decision and issuing a licence. We need to make the process—even the interim process, through the expert panel—much smoother and more straightforward. Once the panel is set up, which will happen by next week, we will set out exactly how the process will work for the hon. Lady’s constituents and others.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Clinical leadership may have its place, but for years the crying need has been for political leadership, so may I thank my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Policing Minister for providing it?

[Sajid Javid]

The Minister and I both thank my right hon. Friend.

Medicinal Cannabis

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Gentleman is expressing the view, which is held in many places across the House, that legislation needs to be revisited and that this is the right place in which to debate that. I refute what he was saying about the Government sitting on their hands in relation to the Billy Caldwell case. We worked very hard during the week to try to find solutions to a very difficult situation. The Government will always be bound by the rules of the day whatever people think about them. I am just very glad that we could find a temporary solution for Billy and I hope that it is a step towards the long-term solution that he deserves.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend ensure that this process, even if clinically led, is not administered by a bureaucrat, but is electrified by a politician alive to the need to be re-elected?

[Mr Hurd]

Of course this process must be driven at pace, as it was this weekend by the team at the Home Office. I wish to place on record my thanks to the officials who worked extremely hard to find a solution and respond to this emergency. I come back to the point that this needs to be clinically led. In asking Dame Sally Davies to take forward the important work of setting up this panel, I am not talking to a plodding bureaucrat.