Drugs Policy

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Everyone in this Chamber knows that drug abuse casts a long shadow over our society. Whether it is the many thousands of crimes committed by drug users seeking to fund their habit—fully 45% of acquisitive crime is committed by regular heroin or crack cocaine users—the chaos caused in families and communities by drug use, or the lives ruined or cut short by it, the scale of the problem is truly shocking. We have the highest recorded level of mortality from drugs misuse since records began. There are record numbers of deaths from morphine or heroin, and from cocaine abuse. Under this Government, the UK has become the drugs overdose capital of Europe.

According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, one in three of Europe’s overdose deaths—they are mainly related to opioids—occurs in the UK. That is roughly 10 families a day bereaved as a result of illegal drugs—more than are bereaved in traffic accidents. We have an overwhelming economic, moral and public health case for examining this country’s drugs policy.

Labour Members welcome the publication this month of the 2017 drugs strategy, even though it comes two years after the Government’s self-imposed deadline. However, having waited nearly two years for it, we have to confess to being a little disappointed. Let us remember what has happened along the way. Drug rehabilitation centres have been closed; budgets to tackle drug abuse have been cut; key services such as the NHS are under increasing pressure; and there have been cuts to police officers and Border Force guards by the thousand. In the light of these constrained resources, it is not clear how much impact this strategy, in which there is much to welcome in principle, will have.

Official drug strategies always include reducing demand, increasing awareness and education, restricting supply, tackling organised crime and improving treatment and recovery, so those elements, although important, are not new. The Government’s recognition of the importance of evidence-based treatment, recovery and harm reduction is welcome, but what stakeholders, and families and communities up and down the country who are suffering from drug abuse, want to know is whether the strategy is not just old methods in a shinier package. We frequently use the term “war on drugs”; I ask the Minister how exactly we expect to win a war with reduced forces and resources on the frontline.

Responsibility for drug and alcohol treatment was transferred from the NHS to local authorities in 2013, which was undoubtedly a good idea in principle; local authorities are much better placed than central Government to facilitate co-operation between drug and alcohol services, local police, those involved in social and youth work, education and housing and other stakeholders, but sadly local authorities gained those new responsibilities at a time of bone-crunching pressure on their budgets, and this transfer of responsibility meant an end to ring-fenced budgets for drug treatment.

[Diana Johnson]

I agree exactly with my right hon. Friend, but does she think that when the Government transferred that responsibility to local authorities, they missed a trick by not making it clear that police and crime commissioners and representatives from the criminal justice system should sit on health and wellbeing boards, so that they could provide input on drug and alcohol treatment services?

[Ms Abbott]

My hon. Friend is exactly right, because the purpose of transferring responsibility to local authorities was that they should bring together all the stakeholders, including police and crime commissioners and the local police.

[John Mann]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning the vast number of Labour local authorities that, in 2013, took their drug service out of the NHS and gave it to private providers? That includes mine in Nottinghamshire. Should we not have a Labour party position that would stop them doing this?

[Ms Abbott]

It is unfortunate that many authorities, including many Labour authorities, privatised these services. Privatising them necessarily makes it harder to achieve the co-ordination and co-operation that was the whole point of having these services sit in the local authorities.

Local councils face unprecedented cuts to their funding—anything from 25% to 40% of their entire budget. Is it any wonder that drug-related deaths are increasing when local authorities do not have the funds necessary for comprehensive treatment programmes?

[Norman Lamb]

The right hon. Lady has talked about the war on drugs, and how it has been undermined by a lack of resources, but does she favour simply increasing the resources in that war, or a more enlightened approach that involves decriminalisation and, potentially, the regulation of cannabis markets so that we take the criminals out of the market altogether?

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We cannot have a meaningful strategy on drug abuse without looking at the question of resources, but I would be the first to say that it is more complex than simply providing more money.

To give an overview of what local authorities are facing, Barnsley cut its drug and alcohol service by more than a third between 2015-16 and 2016-17. Some services will be unavailable and key drugs practitioners will be made redundant. Staffordshire County Council was forced to make cuts of 45% to its drug and alcohol treatment budget over the past two years, due to its local commissioning group pulling the expected £15 million of NHS funding. Middlesbrough Council, which sadly has one of the highest rates of death from heroin overdoses in the country, cut its budget by £1 million last year.

When the Home Office announced those policies, it correctly said that for every £1 spent on public health, £2.50 is saved. However, instead of helping local authorities to follow that logic, the Government have obliged them to pursue short-term cuts. Some local authorities have tried, and some have been particularly innovative in seeking efficiencies in their public health budgets, but the reality is that too many are looking at significant reductions in services, and some are even privatising services. When it comes to public health, the Government talk a good talk but do not follow through with the resources. I note with dismay that the strategy includes no mention of providing more resources to local authorities, which after all are on the frontline of any strategy against drug use.

[Ruth George]

Bearing in mind the figures that my right hon. Friend has set out—for every £1 spent on public health, £2.50 is saved for the public purse—does she agree that the overall cuts of £85 million to local authorities’ public health budgets are a false economy that are not serving our communities, or even the Exchequer?

[Ms Abbott]

I think that the public health cuts were disastrous. The Treasury, in an extraordinary example of short-term thinking, clawed back the funds that had been promised. The King’s Fund has shown that local authorities in England are being forced to spend more than 5% less on public health initiatives this year than in 2014, and tackling drug misuse in adults will face a 5.5% cut of more than £22 million. Until the Government put their money where their mouth is on the drugs strategy, they will have to accept that some stakeholders remain sceptical.

There was an interesting discussion about alcohol earlier in the debate. Ministers seem to struggle with the notion that alcohol is actually a drug, but the truth is that in absolute terms alcohol causes more harm than any illegal drug. It is shocking that the strategy managed only two paragraphs on alcohol, which is a major killer in Britain today. Professor Ian Gilmore, chair of Alcohol Health Alliance UK, has said that

“we also need a dedicated strategy on alcohol which recognises the breadth of harm done by alcohol. In the UK alcohol is responsible for over 26,000 deaths per year, over 1 million hospital admissions per year, and…alcohol cost the UK economy between £27—£52 billion in 2016.”

In 2015, there were 8,000 casualties caused by drink-driving alone. Professor Ian Gilmore continued:

“The time has come for the Government to take an evidence-based approach to controlling the supply of and reducing the demand for a legal drug which is sold on virtually every street corner, sometimes at pocket money prices.”

[Paul Flynn]

Portugal de-penalised drug use in 2001 and, as a result, halved the number of heroin users in the country, and the number of deaths has fallen from 80 a year to 16 a year. In the 30 years in which my right hon. Friend and I have been in the House, can she think of any initiative by any Government that has reduced drug harm so spectacularly?

[Ms Abbott]

My hon. Friend is a passionate proponent of decriminalisation, and I think that he makes his own case.

The strategy claims that the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 has been hugely successful in stopping the proliferation of legal highs. It is true that in the first six months since the Act came into force nearly 500 people were arrested. However, as various drug charities suspected, despite those measures demand for the substances continues to increase. So-called legal highs have simply been pushed into the black market or on to the internet, which I suspect is why the Government have in the same breath claimed that they will focus on eliminating the vast range of problems that these substances cause. That exposes something that the Opposition made clear during the passage of the Act: legislation is effective only if there is a wider strategy in place.

The strategy has now been produced, but meanwhile legal highs are more dangerous than ever, affecting the poorest and most vulnerable in society. It remains the case that too many people, particularly women, go to prison without a drug habit and leave with a drug habit. I believe that Ministers, working with the Ministry of Justice, could do a great deal more to make our prisons drug-free zones. It is an elementary issue, but one that the Government continue to fail to address.

I am sure that most Members were as alarmed as I was last year by CCTV footage of a drone making deliveries to a prison. That is the favoured manner of getting contraband, in the form of mobile phones, weapons and drugs, into our prisons. There are no easy answers, but if there are not enough guards to guard the prisoners, I find it hard to believe that they could devote much time to searching one another or taking down drug-mule drones. My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Justice has repeatedly said that the decimation of prison officer numbers under the Conservatives is a key reason for the Government’s inability to stem the growing influx of drugs into prisons. What specific extra staffing resources will be given to prisons to enable officers and prison authorities to meet the objectives of the new drugs strategy?

The Minister referred to global issues and to the international war on drugs, but she will be aware that it is largely regarded as failing. We would like to hear how Ministers plan to make the international war on drugs more successful than it has been. There are some aspects of the strategy that we welcome. For example, it is excellent that greater efforts will be made to provide young people with effective, evidence-based drug prevention education. As a parent, I think that most parents are unable to keep up with the kinds of drugs that young people are discovering nowadays. As I said earlier, it is very important that prisoners are given more help to get into recovery and that their progress is monitored closely. We need far clearer and more explicit guidelines on the value of opioid maintenance treatment which, if properly implemented, allows many people with opioid dependence to live their life and, crucially, prevents overdoses.

Another important aspect of the strategy is its recognition that people can slip through the cracks of dual diagnosis of mental health problems and problem substance use. I am glad that the strategy, at least in principle, wants those people to be better catered for, rather than shunted between services that are reluctant to take on complex and demanding cases.

There is a tendency to regard drug use and abuse as a personal failure. We in the Opposition would rather regard it as a societal failure. We say that any drug strategy has to look at the broader picture, including what is happening in society and the resources available. Although we welcome the drug strategy in principle, we question whether the resources or the will is there to make its worthy aims real and manifest.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I entirely agree with that sentiment, which was expressed very powerfully. The materials, particularly the panels, were not compliant, and should not have been used on those buildings. We must now re-examine systematically, using all the best evidence available, the landscape of policy and regulation—both the regulation itself, and what is meant to happen in respect of building inspection.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The concerns about fire prevention and safety are vital issues, but does the Minister agree that we should not lose sight of the immediate plight of the survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire, their families and their community? Does he understand that one of the factors preventing people from coming forward, either to obtain the help that they need or to provide the information that we need, is concern about their immigration status? I know he has said that their papers will not be checked, but will he consider announcing an immigration amnesty for the survivors of Grenfell Tower? Otherwise there will be people who have died whom we will never know about, and too many people who need help will not receive it.

[Mr Hurd]

The right hon. Lady is right. That is an issue, as I know from conversations that I have had and will continue to have with survivors. One of our big problems is not being able to identify fully who was in the building on that night, and concerns about immigration status are part of that. We have communicated some advice which was meant to reassure, and we are reviewing with people closer to the community whether that advice is sufficient.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brandon Lewis]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to write to me about any specific case, I will be happy to have a look at it. As a general point, however, it is right that we look at making sure that everybody across the UK has the same position to deal with, so that the system is fair and that it is also fair to taxpayers, so that someone bringing a member of their family to this country can afford for them to be here. I also point out to the hon. Gentleman that the figure of £18,600 is several thousand pounds below the median wage in Scotland.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Under the freedom of movement rules, EU citizens are currently not obliged to meet that minimum income threshold if they wish to bring in family members. However, UK citizens do have to meet a minimum income threshold, which the Supreme Court has said causes hardship and ignores the rights of children. Is it not therefore fair to say that this new regime proposed by the Government means that EU citizens will lose their current rights to family life and that it represents a levelling down?

Health, Social Care and Security

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I beg to move an amendment, at the end of the Question to add:

“but respectfully regret that the Gracious Speech fails to end cuts to the police and the fire service; commend the response of the emergency services to the recent terrorist attacks and to the Grenfell Tower fire; call on the Government to recruit more police officers and fire-fighters; and further call on the Government to end the public sector pay cap and give the emergency and public services a fair pay rise.”.

On occasion, much of what we do and say in the Chamber must seem to ordinary members of the public looking on like something approaching an elaborate game, but the Opposition believe that the amendment goes to the heart of public concerns. We wish to commend the response of the emergency services to the recent terrorist attacks and to the Grenfell Tower fire; we wish to call on the Government to recruit more police officers and firefighters; but above all, we call on the Government to end the public sector pay cap and give emergency and public service workers a fair pay rise. As we have seen in recent months, in times of national and personal crisis, it is to public sector workers that the country looks.

We have all seen and read about the firefighters who ran towards danger, into the blaze in Grenfell Tower to save lives. Some of us wondered whether we could have summoned up that courage. We all know about the national health service workers who came in off shift to save lives and help the victims of the terror attacks at Westminster, Manchester, London Bridge and Finsbury Park. We know of the gallantry and professionalism of the police and the transport police who responded swiftly to the terror attacks. My mother was a nurse, and I know that the dedication and commitment of our public service workers is above price. It is one thing for hon. Members to praise public service workers for their bravery, heroism and effectiveness at times of national emergency, but we need to treat public service workers fairly every other day of the year. That is what the Opposition think, and increasingly that is what the general public think.

Ministers will be aware that the latest British social attitudes survey revealed that eight in 10 people wanted more cash pumped into the NHS; seven in 10 people wanted more investment in schools; and six in 10 wanted higher spending on the police. I will come on to Ministers’ claims to have protected police budgets later, but the question that Ministers have to answer is: how long will they continue to peddle hard-line austerity? Their targets for closing the deficit are receding ever further, raising the question of whether savage cuts are counterproductive to encouraging growth. How long are Ministers going to pursue austerity when any parent who has a child at school, anybody who uses an accident and emergency department, and anyone who has an elderly relative in need of social care can see for themselves that cuts have consequences, and that there is a human price to pay for Tory austerity?

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I have much sympathy with the points that the right hon. Lady is making, and my colleagues and I will support the Labour amendment this evening. However, can she explain why in Wales, which is run by the Labour party, the number of firefighters has been cut by 20%?

[Ms Abbott]

It is not for me in this—[Interruption.] I think that the hon. Gentleman will find that the funding available to the Administration in Wales has been cut.

In her statement to the House last week, the Home Secretary said:

“We have protected the police budget from 2015.”

She went on to say:

“There has been a lot of scaremongering about changes to the budget, and I repeat here, in the House, that it will be protected.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2017; Vol. 626, c. 199.]

The Opposition are aware of the Government claim that the allowed increase in the council tax precept adds funds that will make good any shortfall, but this is a tax increase to provide funds, not Government protection for the budget. I wonder whom the Home Secretary is accusing of scaremongering. Is it Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, who said in March that policing in England and Wales was in a “potentially perilous state”, as Government cuts lead to investigations being shelved, vulnerable victims being let down and tens of thousands of dangerous suspects at large?

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way so quickly. What she is saying relates particularly to bobbies on the beat. Police are doing excellent work on knife and gun crime, particularly in hotspots; taking away bobbies on the beat has an undermining effect on otherwise excellent police work.

[Ms Abbott]

The public fully appreciate that community policing and bobbies on the beat are important, not just in respect of knife and gun crime but in providing the first line of connection and communication with the community when it comes to tackling terrorism.

I was wondering who the Home Secretary was accusing of scaremongering. Was it the president of the Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales, who said that

“There are now 34,000 fewer staff working in policing than there were in 2010, including 19,000 fewer police officers”?

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

On the right hon. Lady’s theme, has she heard Cressida Dick, the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner, talk about the need for more resources and say that the Met is stretched? Has she ever heard a Met Commissioner demanding more resources so publicly?

[Ms Abbott]

Government Members can mock, but Londoners are very concerned that within the overall levels of crime, there is rising violent, knife and gun crime. No, I have never heard the Metropolitan police talk so clearly about funding problems.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Ms Abbott]

I need to make some progress.

When the Home Secretary accuses people of scaremongering, she should explain why every stakeholder in policing is saying that there is an increasing problem with Government cuts to policing.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

Can my right hon. Friend tell me whether the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey), who just got up to complain about police cuts, is related to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton who was in the coalition Cabinet that reduced the number of police officers by 20,000?

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention, and I ask the House to focus on the information he has brought forward.

After seven years of Tory government, there are 20,000 fewer police staff, 10,000 fewer firefighters and 1,000 fewer Border Force guards. When the Conservatives came to office in 2010, they immediately cut Security Service personnel by 650; now they expect plaudits when they pledge an increase.

All ordinary public sector workers have faced pay freezes and pay caps, which have made them worse off. Between the coalition’s coming into office in 2010 and May this year, inflation has seen prices rise by more than 15%. In reality, whatever figures the Government want to throw around, public sector workers have had effective cuts to their pensions and seen large-scale job losses because of inflation. They have been asked to do more with less.

The Opposition say that asking the security services, and public sector workers generally, to do more with less is unfair, unworkable and counter-productive. It has led to low morale, difficulties in recruitment and retention—particularly in parts of the country where house prices are spiralling—staff shortages and gaps in services. Those public services are among the most important that any civilised society offers. In his remarks, my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) will highlight the effect of austerity and Government cuts on our NHS. The cuts in vital services—the police, the fire services, the Border Force and the security services—have been serious, and they come in addition to the cuts that have already forced out more than 20,000 police staff.

I turn to the counter-terrorism strategy. Labour welcomes the considered approach outlined in the Queen’s Speech; too often, the knee-jerk reaction of Governments has been further legislation. We believe that it is right to review what is happening in relation to the evolving terrorist threat and its many and varied sources and purposes, but the terms of the counter-terrorism review are crucial. Labour believes that the following questions must be addressed. Are there sufficient resources and are they properly directed? Are there gaps in the legislation, or is it catch-all and ineffective? What is the role of community policing in gathering intelligence? Sometimes, Ministers seem to think that community policing has no role in combating terrorism, but we believe that it does.

Is there a danger that communities are being alienated by Prevent, although good work is done under the Prevent badge? Should we review Prevent? How can community engagement be increased, and could we immediately take basic precautionary measures, such as installing barriers to cars and trucks? Should terrorism prevention and investigation measures, or TPIMs, be used more frequently, as Max Hill, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, says? If so, should they be subject to better due process?

We believe that some of the answers to these questions are self-evident. If the Government announced today that they were going to introduce more barriers to trucks and large vehicles along some major thoroughfares, we would support them. Advice could be issued immediately to all elected officials not to remove existing barriers, as the Foreign Secretary did when he was Mayor of London. If the Government announced that they were going to halt and reverse the police budget cuts this year, we would support them.

The Government have announced a commission to tackle extremism. We welcome such a commission in principle, although some have suggested that it is being set up because the Government cannot make good on their repeated promises to introduce anti-extremism legislation. We note that there are already laws against incitement, conspiracy and murder. We are told that some perpetrators were known to the authorities.

I was at the Finsbury Park mosque with the Prime Minister, and more than one of the faith leaders raised the importance of a review of the Prevent strategy. In common with many members of the communities involved, we believe that, despite the good work that has happened under Prevent, the strategy needs to be reviewed. It needs not to run the risk of alienating communities; we have to work with all communities. The terror threat confronts us all, and we must all confront it together. If the Government want to discuss with us how we can help engage all communities in the fight against our common threat of terrorism, we will be only too happy to help.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

I have to make progress.

When I was at the Finsbury Park mosque last week, people there would have been concerned that Government Members do not want to take part seriously in a debate of this nature. I note that there was no promise of further legislation on counter-terrorism. Max Hill has said that the security services already have enough powers. The Opposition concur, and it now seems that the majority of the Cabinet also agree.

Resources remain the key issue in fighting terrorism. The Conservatives have constantly sought to portray Labour as not facing up to the challenges posed by terrorism, but in our communities—in the inner cities and in areas such as London Bridge, Finsbury Park and Manchester—we face up to the day-to-day threat of terrorism and disorder. Nobody takes those issues more seriously than Members on this side of the House. We speak for our communities, and for the parents concerned that their children may be drawn into terrorist activity. We seek to offer practical remedies and support, and to support the Government in strategies that do not run counter to our liberties and community support.

Talking tough on terrorism and antisocial behaviour is cheap. Like all decent services in a civilised society, security costs money. Records show that since 2010, the Tories have proved unwilling to spend what is necessary to keep us safe. We need only look at what has happened to police numbers and Border Force officials, the closures of fire stations and the cuts to fire officers. Labour is prepared to spend the money and commit the resources to keep us safe. In closing—

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. At present, the shadow Home Secretary is manifestly not giving way.

[Ms Abbott]

I said at the beginning that from some of what we do in this House, it might appear to members of the public looking at us on their television screens or reading the newspaper that some Members of this House see this as a game. Labour is fully aware of the fear and horror with which the public regard recent terrorist outrages and the fire in Grenfell Tower. We are talking about practical measures, real community involvement and, above all, the resources to keep our communities safe.

Terror Attacks

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The Opposition are grateful to the Home Secretary for her statement. We would like to offer our condolences to all the families of the victims of the Westminster, Manchester, and London bridge and Borough Market attacks and, most recently, the Finsbury Park attack—36 innocent people dead, 150 people hospitalised, with too many families to whom children or parents will never come home, too many people, particularly children, who have seen sights that they may never be able to unsee, and whole communities traumatised.

The Opposition commend all the emergency services, including the police, the fire service, the British Transport police and NHS staff, for their swift action, for running towards danger and for coming in off shift, which undoubtedly prevented worse injuries and saved lives.

I would like to say a word about the imam at the Finsbury Park mosque. He put himself at risk to protect and defend the alleged assailant, who had driven over so many people outside the mosque. I believe that this imam exemplifies the best of the values of Islam, such as peace and justice, as well as the best of British values.

I would also like to say a word about the community around the Finsbury Park mosque. I was there this week and I met people of all faiths—Christian leaders, Jewish leaders, including my constituents Rabbi Gluck and Rabbi Pinter, and of course Muslim leaders—working together to heal the community and take the community forward. I believe that the way in which multi-faith and inter-community co-operation is working in practice in that area of London shows us the way forward in the long run in contesting the ideology of fear, violence and terror.

The variety of the attacks and the varied backgrounds of their perpetrators reveal that we face multiple threats. No single type of person and no single community is the sole source of these attacks. We all face these attacks and we must all face them together. Of course, the blame for the attacks lies solely with the perpetrators and any murderous supporters and enablers they may have had, but it is reasonable for this House to say that the role of Government is to secure the safety of our citizens, and it is reasonable for the House to ask whether everything has been done that could reasonably have been done.

I noted the actions that the Government have taken in the Home Secretary’s statement. Largely, the Opposition support them, but we warn against an emphasis on more legislation, rather than looking at resources. We will look at all legislative proposals that the Government bring forward on their merits, but we believe that resources are at the heart of this matter, not just new legislation. In that view, we are supported by Max Hill, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. His objective view is that the current powers are sufficient. He told the BBC after the Prime Minister’s speech in which she called for more powers:

“My view coming into the scrutiny which we are told the prime minister wants to conduct is that we do have the appropriate laws in place, and that essentially the police and security services, and those whose job it is to keep us safe, do have the powers at their disposal.”

He added that there was a case for increased use of terrorism prevention and investigation measures.

On the question of resources, it is one thing to talk about specialist policing and security resources, but the Opposition do not believe we can overstate the importance of neighbourhood policing. It is that neighbourhood engagement at all levels, often in what seem to be simple ways, that builds a community’s confidence in officialdom and the Government, and that encourages people to come forward with the information that may help us to stop future terrorist activity. We have said and continue to say that it is wrong that since 2010, we have lost 20,000 from police numbers. We oppose the further cuts to the police budgets that are in the pipeline.

The Home Secretary keeps saying that the Government have protected police budgets. I have to tell her that no policing stakeholders, including the Police Federation, support her in saying that police budgets and resources have not been hit. We are being told that austerity must end, so will the Home Secretary now commit to halting these cuts, or does austerity still apply to our safety?

Senior retired officers have said that police cuts have gone too far. I have heard that Mark Rowley, the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has written to the Home Secretary saying that counter-terrorism is not able to operate effectively because of demands in other areas of policing, and that if resources were diverted to counter-terrorism, other areas of policing would suffer. He is saying that cuts have consequences, and that the Home Secretary’s cuts run the risk of putting us all in danger. The Opposition’s understanding is that the Home Secretary is going to cut again.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. At this early stage of the Parliament, can I just say something that I think is quite important for future reference? There are time limits for questioning on statements, which, in the last Parliament, were very substantially disregarded. That cannot happen in this Parliament, because it is not fair to Back Benchers. That is my first point.

My second point—forgive me; the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) is extraordinarily articulate and very experienced—is one that Opposition spokespersons frequently just do not seem to understand: in responding to a statement, the Chair is not expecting to hear a counter-statement. The Chair is looking to hear, as provided for in our procedures, a very brief response, followed by a series of questions. That should be the character of the response.

On this occasion, I will allow the right hon. Lady to finish, but I hope she will be sensitive to quite a widespread feeling in the House that she is approaching her peroration. Thereafter, we must observe these limits. If they are not observed, I will regretfully have to ask the spokesperson concerned to resume his or her seat.

[Ms Abbott]

So can I ask the Home Secretary, does she accept that resources are as important as new institutions and new legislation? The Opposition welcome the measures to get internet companies to block and take down content that promotes terrorism, but does she accept the need for a review of the Prevent programme and the need to reframe the debate around it as relating not only to the Muslim community but to far-right terrorism?

The Opposition believe that there is considerable unity on these issues in the country as a whole. We believe that the country as a whole wants to know that we will not play into the terrorists’ hands by stoking divisions, demonising communities or rescinding our hard-won freedoms under the law.

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments and the constructive way in which she is approaching this. The Government look forward to working with her to make sure that we have a constructive, united approach to this enemy that is trying to attack us.

The right hon. Lady asked particularly about new legislation. She is right that Max Hill has said that he does not see the need for new legislation, but he also said that he does see the need for a review of sentences, so we will certainly look at whether we can have tougher sentences. On our potential new legislation and approach, I ask her to hold fire for now on concluding that to be the case until we have done this review. Looking backwards, our review over the next few months into why so many terror attacks took place will be critical. For that, we will have independent assurance in the form of David Anderson. We will also have a review looking ahead to what else we can do.

As I said in my statement, we feel we have entered a new phase. That may mean that we need to introduce new legislation, but we will not rush to do that based on the attacks. We will look at doing that depending on what we find out from these reviews. I ask her to keep an open mind on that, depending on what conclusions the reviews reach.

I yield to no one in my respect for the work of the police, particularly the work of the counter-terrorism police in the past few months. We all recognise the enormous extra work and effort that has gone into following up on the attacks and keeping us safe. We have protected the police budget from 2015. There has been a lot of scaremongering about changes to the budget, and I repeat here, in the House, that it will be protected. We will ensure that we always give the security services and the police who work to keep us safe the resources that they need.

Detention of Vulnerable Persons

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Anne McLaughlin]

What I am suggesting is that this Government will always raise that point. They will always say that. I am talking about people who have committed no crime. The Minister wants to talk about people who are in immigration detention because they have a criminal conviction; I am going to assume that they were sentenced, served a prison sentence and should be treated the same as any other prisoner. If they are a danger, they should not be out of prison. If they are not a danger, they should not be in detention.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

As one of the few people in the Chamber who was actually in the House when immigration detention as we know it was introduced, I have never forgotten that when we queried the lack of due process and safeguards we were told that people would only ever be in detention for a few months. The use of immigration detention has mushroomed, and the length of time has expanded, and that has shone a light on the lack of due process. We should never forget that none of these people, as matters stand, has committed a crime.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Absolutely. I could not agree more. I was not here at that time; I was a Member of the Scottish Parliament, I think, and very aware of the arguments being used.

I want to say a little about how we treat people with mental illness. Often they have an illness that did not exist or that lay dormant before they were detained, and the detention exacerbates it. I mentioned some of the organisations that have sent me information for today. One of them, Detention Action, helped Mishka to tell his story. This is what he said about being detained:

“I was detained with my twin brother. It was very difficult for us. We went in ok and we came out broken. The last three days before my brother was removed he tried to commit suicide two times. The first time, there was blood everywhere. The officers and nurses were so annoyed. They are thinking he is just trying to escape from removal. The nurse put a plaster on his wrists and took him to segregation.”

For goodness’ sake! Those are my words, not his. He continues:

“There he ripped a piece of metal off the wall to cut himself again. He was very, very vulnerable by the end. He was not the only one. There were many other people in bad states—mental and physical. There is more than one suicide attempt a day in detention now. All I know is that when suicide becomes normal—anywhere, ever—something has gone very, very wrong.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) on securing this really important debate on a subject that does not get enough public scrutiny.

In 1998, the Labour Government—my Labour Government—published a White Paper with the title “Fairer, Faster and Firmer—A Modern Approach to Immigration and Asylum”. That Labour Government had many great achievements to their credit but this White Paper, and the legislation and the actions pursuant to it, was not one of our finer moments. It was that White Paper, and the legislation that followed, that led to a flurry of new detention centres being opened, mostly under the private finance initiative—Oakington, Yarl’s Wood, Dungavel and Harmondsworth. That is how we went from fewer than 50 immigration detainees in 1988, mostly detained within the airports where they had come in, to the current figure of 3,000, with the number of people detained at one time or another during the year now exceeding 30,000.

It is important to remind the House that we were told initially that we should not worry about due process, human rights and fairness because the people would be held for only a few months, but there is now very little due process around immigration. That is why we are faced with exploding numbers and a situation that is hard to defend.

Stephen Shaw was asked to report on the detention of vulnerable persons, and he recommended a series of exemptions for vulnerable immigration detainees, including, as we have heard, for victims of rape and other sexual or gender-based violence such as female genital mutilation; for those with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder; for transsexual people; and for those with learning difficulties. He also called for a presumptive exclusion of pregnant women to be replaced by an absolute exclusion, and for the words, “which cannot be satisfactorily managed in detention” to be removed from the section of the guidance covering those suffering from serious mental illness.

I am interested in hearing from the Minister how far advanced we are in putting in place those exemptions recommended by Stephen Shaw, who the Government themselves asked to report on the detention of vulnerable persons.

We have seen the explosion in numbers. The hon. Member for Glasgow North East asked the question more than once: given that it is so expensive and there are so many human rights issues involved, why do we not examine cheaper and more effective methods of managing immigration detention, possibly in the community? I have followed this issue for my entire career as a Member of Parliament and I am afraid that, for me, the reason the Home Office seeks to cling to the notion of immigration detention is that it is seen as a deterrent. There is always a debate in immigration policy between push factors and pull factors, and the notion, certainly at the time, was that if individuals were detained in this way—quietly, contrary to any due process and with no consideration of their human rights—that would somehow deter people from seeking to come here as immigrants and asylum seekers. Of course, that has not proved to be the case.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North East also talked about cost. The annual cost for one person is £34,000 and the total annual cost of detention is approximately £120 million. It is hard to believe that we could not spend that money on dealing with whatever immigration detention challenges we face more humanely, and in a way that reflected better on us as a country.

I have done a certain amount of work with Bail for Immigration Detainees and it has briefed me on some cases it has dealt with recently. Last week it won bail for a client who had spent 15 months in detention after serving a six-week prison sentence. How can that be proportionate? It also had a client held in detention in prison for almost a year, despite mental health problems and an outstanding appeal; and a male client, the sole carer of a child, who had a serious health condition and who was released on bail after nine months in detention. Another client spent 27 months in detention despite the fact that it would not be possible to remove them anyway and, finally, a client was released in January after spending two and a half years in detention, despite suffering from schizophrenia and, again, despite not being removable. Those cases are unacceptable, and I think that Members on both sides of the House want to hear what progress the Government are making towards living up to what the Shaw inquiry said.

Stephen Shaw also stated that there is little or no correlation between the number being held and those later deported, and that other methods, such as electronic tags, should be considered. He talked about mental health, which right hon. and hon. Members have spoken movingly about, and he also mentioned the number of cases in which the Home Office has breached article 3 of the European convention on human rights in respect of detainees.

I have always taken an interest in detention because of having been in Parliament when there was the explosion of detention that we now see. I am perturbed that, although I have been asking since November to visit Yarl’s Wood detention centre, we have yet to have a reply from Ministers. I remind the Minister, in case it has slipped his mind, that the chief inspector of prisons described Yarl’s Wood as a place of national concern. It was burned down three months after it was opened and there are current accusations of abuse, poor healthcare and inappropriate sexual contact. I put it to the Minister, therefore, that if four months after I first asked to visit he is not able to respond, people might ask what he has to hide.

In common with Members of all parties who have spoken in the Chamber today, I think it is time to address the long-running concerns about immigration detention—concerns that go back to the measures introduced in the ’90s by a Labour Government. I have talked about the role of the Labour Government because I do not approach the matter from a party political perspective. I have visited Campsfield, Oakington and Yarl’s Wood and, with the help of the Minister, I will visit Yarl’s Wood again. The conditions in which these people are held is a shame for this country. If people have a criminal record and should be deported at the end of their sentence, it is for the Home Office to organise itself so that they can be deported directly from prison. People should not be deprived of their liberty, with no due process, because the Home Office is chaotic in how it deals with people who have a recommendation of deportation when sentenced.

In common with other speakers this afternoon, I think we need to see an end to indefinite detention. I am glad that the numbers of detained children have fallen, but there are still 71 children entering detention, and that is 71 too many. Despite the fact that this subject does not excite the attention of the tabloid press and that Ministers might think there are not many votes in making immigration detention fairer and more humane, this is a long-running cause for concern. I hope that, decades after we introduced immigration detention at this level and on this scale, the Government will move to bring about some of the changes recommended by Stephen Shaw.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Minister, you may wish to allow a minute at the end for Anne McLaughlin to wind up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

My hon. Friend is quite right to talk about stalking, which can be a truly devastating crime. This Government are placing an absolute priority on keeping women and girls safe across our country through extra resources, extra training and new forces so that they can go after the perpetrators of these terrible and devastating crimes.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The Opposition welcome the introduction of this legislation—it was, after all, Labour party policy—but when are the Government going to put their money where their mouth is on domestic violence? We know that local authority spending cuts have severely impacted on specialist domestic abuse services, which has meant cuts and closures. Women and children are being turned away daily at the point of need. Data from the Women’s Aid annual survey showed that on just one day in 2015, 92 women and 75 children were turned away from a refuge. When are the Government going to address the financial pressures on women’s refuges?

[Sarah Newton]

This Government have done more than any other to keep women and children in our country safe. It is very disappointing when the right hon. Lady takes a partisan approach to something that should unite the House rather than dividing it. As she knows, we have committed £20 million to refuges, and we have an £80 million transformation fund. Grassroots organisations throughout the country are benefiting from our record level of investment in services to keep women and children safe.

[Ms Abbott]

It is very disappointing that the Minister is not prepared to accept that, as a result of local government cuts, services are being reduced and refuges are closing. As for the question of resources, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary recently flagged up failings on the part of the police when they were dealing with the most vulnerable victims. In at least two forces, domestic abuse risk assessments were being conducted over the telephone. This is a consequence of trying to deal with increasing levels of demand with few resources, and if the Government are serious about combating domestic violence, they must make those resources available.

[Sarah Newton]

I very much welcome HMIC’s work in inspecting the police response to domestic abuse and violence. It is making excellent progress, as we saw in the police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy programme—PEEL—reports last week. However, the right hon. Lady is right to point out that some force areas have more work to do. That is why we are helping the College of Policing to ensure that training is available, and why we are investing record amounts in the police transformation fund, which is enabling more organisations to provide the services that women and girls all over the country deserve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

Yes, my hon. Friend is exactly right. There will be a moment to have a full debate on that, and that will be in this House when those rights are changed.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Is the Secretary of State aware that British public opinion increasingly thinks that the Government are being callous in continuing to seek to use EU nationals as bargaining chips? Is she also aware that, given the cloud of uncertainty hanging over EU nationals and their families, employers in sectors that rely on their labour—notably financial services, health and education—want that uncertainty to be removed?

[Amber Rudd]

It is because we care about employers and the jobs that they provide that we will be consulting during the summer on the right form of immigration process to put in place as we leave the European Union. There is no question but that this Government are going to continue to listen carefully to the employers who have provided so many jobs to people in the UK and quite a few in the European Union as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

We are still considering that suggestion. I know that the shadow Home Secretary would like to visit as well.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

indicated assent.

[Mr Goodwill]

We did wonder whether the Home Affairs Committee would like to take precedence on a visit of that sort, but if it does not want to go, we will certainly look into the matter more urgently.

Jamal al-Harith

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. First, as I said earlier, by introducing consolidated guidance to guide our intelligence services when they operate abroad; by introducing the 2013 Act, which allows for closed material proceedings; and by beefing up the ISC, we have put in place a much more robust and defendable structure so that we are not the victim of people coming along and trying to sue us for actions we may or may not have taken. That is the most important part of it. It is also important to point out to the House that we will act in accordance with our inherent right of self-defence. We will always put first the defence of our citizens and our nation, and we will make sure that we do that to the best of our ability.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Terrorism is the scourge of modern democracies. It has meant that the frontline of international conflict has moved from the battlefield to our homes and high streets. There will therefore be natural public concern about the case of Jamal al-Harith, who was allegedly paid £1 million in compensation by the UK Government following his incarceration in Guantanamo. There will also be natural public concern that the Minister has chosen to hide behind the notion of sensitive intelligence in order to fail to answer even the simplest factual questions about this case. I repeat: was there any payment? We do not need to know exactly how much, but was there any payment? Is there any truth in the idea that the settlement was designed to prevent al-Harith from making embarrassing revelations about our acquiescence in and enabling of the torture of a UK citizen? Given the monitoring of British detainees after their release from Guantanamo, how was he able to leave the country and travel to Syria in 2014? Will the Government review this case and refer it to the Intelligence and Security Committee, which we believe would be the appropriate, and secret, method of dealing with these very important issues?

[Mr Wallace]

I can perhaps answer the last point. Of course, the Intelligence and Security Committee now has the power, because of the 2013 Act, to properly investigate these issues. Members of that Committee will be listening to this debate and will have read the media reports, and it is entirely for them to choose what they wish to investigate. If they do choose to investigate, we will of course comply, as we are obliged to and as we would wish to. It is very important that we do that.

The right hon. Lady asks me to disclose intelligence operations concerning an individual. I cannot do that; it has never been the practice of this Government, the previous Government or the Government before that. We are not hiding behind that phrase; we are having to oblige ourselves in line with the legally binding confidentiality agreement made between Her Majesty’s Government and the parties involved. I am sure the right hon. Lady is not trying to encourage me to break the law and reveal details of the compensation.

Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy)

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) and others on securing this important debate. We have heard powerful speeches by my hon. Friend, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma), the hon. Members for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) and for Dundee West (Chris Law), the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah), who informed us that she has actually fostered refugee children, which gave what she had to say added significance, the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), the hon. Members for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen), for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), for Colchester (Will Quince) and for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) and, finally, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald).

Most Members, on both sides of the House and from all parties, have made it abundantly clear that in effectively closing the Dubs scheme after accepting a mere 350 children, the Government have fallen far short of what Members in both Houses thought they had voted for.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

I have sat and listened to the debate and heard powerful presentations from many Members across the House. I think that the debate distils down to two very clear things. First, what do we want to look like to the rest of the world? What example do we want to set? Secondly, what type of country do we want to be? Does my right hon. Friend agree with that?

[Ms Abbott]

I agree that this is about asking, particularly post-Brexit, what sort of Britain we are: are we a genuinely outward-looking, internationalist and humanist country, or are we a country that seeks ways to avoid its moral obligations?

I have to begin by acknowledging the investment and exemplary work of Her Majesty’s Government with regard to those refugees who have stayed in camps in the region. I have visited those camps, but this debate is about the Syrian refugee children and others who are in mainland Europe. Some Members and, sadly, the Minister have implied that if we pretend that those tens of thousands of child refugees who are already in Europe somehow do not exist and do not matter, they will disappear.

I must direct the focus of the House to the tens of thousands of refugee children in mainland Europe. I contend that in narrowing the safe and legal routes from Europe for those children, the Government run the risk of acting as a marketing manager for people traffickers. I have visited the camps in France and Greece. These children may be in safe countries, as some Members have said, but they are living in horrible conditions. That is despite the best efforts and the personal kindness of—

[Mr Bone]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

I have to make progress.

[Mr Bone]

It is supposed to be a debate.

[Ms Abbott]

I have listened with a lot of care to all the speeches by Members on both sides of the House and now I have to make progress in order to leave time for my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South.

I have visited the camps in France and Greece. The children there may be in safe countries, but they are living in horrible conditions. That is despite the fact that so many local people do their best to be kind and helpful. Far from arguing, as some Members in this House have done, that providing more safe and legal routes from Europe is some kind of incentive, as if it is a choice, no one who has visited the camps and informal encampments and looked these families and children in the eye can seriously argue that they have come to Europe on some sort of jaunt and can easily be turned back. Remember that these are families and young people who have risked their lives, who have seen people die crossing the Sahara and who have then risked their lives again crossing the Mediterranean.

Of course it is true that the French Government should have done more in the past. It was because the French were so slow originally to register refugees of all ages that so many set their hearts on the UK, but let us be realistic about the conditions facing refugees in Europe. In Greece, the conditions facing asylum seekers were so dire that as long ago as 2011, the European Court of Human Rights ruled it unlawful to send people back there. Only last year, in December, did the European Commission finally decide that sufficient improvements had been made that other EU member states could start sending people back to Greece.

How far have conditions improved really? I am not so sure that they have. Last month, just weeks after the Commission said it was appropriate to send people to Greece, there were reports that three migrants in an overcrowded camp in Moria on Lesbos had died within 10 days of each other. It is thought that the immediate cause was carbon monoxide poisoning, after men sharing overcrowded tents inhaled toxic fumes from the heaters they had been forced to use in the harsh winter temperatures.

In Italy, where the number of new arrivals reached its highest ever level last year, conditions may have been worse still. Recent measures requiring the Italian authorities to fingerprint new arrivals have led to shocking abuses, according to Amnesty International. It has documented cases of the police using beatings and electric shocks to force compliance from those who are reluctant to have their fingerprints taken. So say that those countries are technically safe, but do not say that the conditions in those countries are acceptable and justify closing off one of the safe, legal routes for children to come from mainland Europe to this country when they have relatives here or other appropriate legal reasons for coming here.

On the question of local government capacity, we have heard that David Simmonds of the Local Government Association says that current Home Office child refugee funding for local councils covers only 15% of the funding costs. That is a serious matter when so many local authorities led by all parties—Labour and Conservative—are under terrible funding pressure. There has been very limited consultation with local authorities. All the evidence suggests that, given more time and appropriate funding, many more councils would step up to provide accommodation for child refugees. An absolute lack of capacity among local authorities simply has not been proven.

[Mr Goodwill]

Local authorities now receive £41,610 a year for each unaccompanied child under 16. I think that is slightly more than 15% of the costs.

[Ms Abbott]

I can only listen to the LGA, which said that the money covers only 50% of funding costs. The Minister must have that debate with local government.

It is all too easy to say that closing off routes, whether the Dubs scheme or Dublin, for refugee children in Europe is acting in their best interests—that somehow they will go back, and that the fact that we are doing good work in the region offsets the fact that children are being left in squalor at the mercy of people traffickers on the continent of Europe. It is all too easy, but it is not right. The hallmark of a civilised country is the fairness, the justice and the humanity with which it treats the most vulnerable. Who could be more vulnerable than refugee children?

I join many Members on both sides of the House who plead with the Government, even at this late stage, to fulfil the hopes and expectations of Members in this House and the other place when they voted for the Dubs amendment. We plead with the Government to fulfil not only their legal but their moral obligations, and to act to save the tens of thousands of refugee children still on the continent of Europe from the squalor, the people traffickers and the exploitation, and, perhaps above all, to save this country’s good name and reputation.

Criminal Finances Bill

Diane Abbott Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

We in the Opposition broadly support the thrust of this legislation, and we have noted that the Minister has proved to be a listening Minister, which we welcome.

Tax avoidance and money laundering are the opposite of victimless crimes. In the first instance, there are inflated asset prices in the territories where the money is laundered, and there is no bigger example of that than the housing market in this country, particularly in London. In some of the most expensive parts of London, we can walk down streets where most of the houses are completely empty. Some might be empty because it is the wrong time of year for their owner to be there, and others because they have been bought as an investment, but increasing numbers of those properties are being used to launder money, and if this legislation can bear down on that, it will be of value not least to people who are victims of the wildly inflated London housing market.

Tax avoidance and money laundering mean a loss of tax for some of the poorest communities in the world. I was in Ghana last year looking at tax avoidance and evasion, and I was struck by the fact that a woman selling drinks by the side of the road could pay proportionally more tax than some of the biggest drinks manufacturers in the world. These are distorted systems of taxation, and if this legislation can bear down on that type of tax avoidance, it is to be welcomed. I was pleased to hear the Minister say that we are beginning to return money to some of those territories, notably Macau. I believe that we have also signed an accord with Nigeria. Above all, this legislation is important for suppressing corruption. It is not just a law-enforcement measure; it is also, indirectly, an anti-corruption measure.

I remind the House that the genesis of the Bill was the Panama papers, which revealed extremely widespread and highly lucrative avoidance of tax on an industrial scale. There were 11 million leaked files, and Britain was the second most prominent country in which the law firms’ middlemen operated. It was second only to Hong Kong. One British overseas territory, the British Virgin Islands, was by far the most popular tax haven state used by the firms in the documents. The Minister has said that we are at the forefront of taking action on tax avoidance and money laundering, and so we should be. The UK has sovereignty over one third of tax havens internationally.

We welcome the Government’s new clause 7, which will bear down on money recycled as a consequence of human rights abuses elsewhere. We still believe that there is insufficient scope for the civil recovery of assets, and the enforcement powers in the civil recovery provisions could be improved. There are particularly important omissions regarding the penalties for offences relating to the facilitation of tax avoidance, involving middlemen such as lawyers, accountants and straightforward spivs such as those identified in the Panama papers.

On the disclosure of beneficial ownership, we feel that there is a major problem, as the lack of disclosure can help to facilitate money laundering and corruption. Let us take an example. In the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills consultation paper published in March 2016, the Government said that between 2004 and 2014, more than £180 million-worth of property in the UK was being investigated by UK law enforcement agencies as it was suspected of being funded by the proceeds of corruption. Moreover, more than 75% of those properties had offshore corporate ownership. That is believed to be the tip of the iceberg in terms of scale and of the proceeds of corruption being invested in UK property through offshore companies.

On the British overseas territories and Crown dependencies, I understand the technical argument that we cannot apply the same regime to those areas, but the moral issue is substantially the same. Some Members have spoken as though the populations of those territories as a whole benefit from financial services, but that is not the case. Only in recent years has the financial services industry been open to employing people born and bred on those islands in advisory, legal and management positions. Just because the political elites in those countries argue for light-touch regulation, let us not delude ourselves that financial services are helping the territories as a whole. We believe that the argument that we cannot impose proper standards on those territories is false. UK jurisdiction applies in all matters of defence and security, and the House has a right and a duty to see how best to impose those laws.

The people who are benefiting from the secrecy and the lack of regulation are the tax evaders and avoiders, the money launderers, the major criminal enterprises and the terrorist networks. We urge the Government to move forward on those issues. If legislation is required for onshore activity here in the UK, most reasonable people would argue that it is even more pressing to include overseas territories and Crown dependencies.

The Opposition are calling for a wide-ranging review of the UK tax gap, including an assessment of the loss of income tax due to tax evasion. As several Members on both sides of the House have said, if the legislation simply rests on the statute book and does not result in commensurate prosecutions, it will be a dead letter. We note that the Minister has listened thus far, and I hope that the Government and the appropriate Departments are listening when I urge them to ensure that the legislation amounts to more than just good intentions and that it is actively used to bear down on tax evasion, money laundering and corruption.

[Mr Speaker]

This debate has been concluded with notable speed.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Unaccompanied Child Refugees

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We are always grateful for the work that local authorities do. We must not underestimate the difficulties involved, particularly in taking children who have been through war zones. We work with them to ensure that they deliver the extra work and care that those children need. He is also right to suggest that we must ensure that the children in the UK are always looked after.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Last year, I visited a number of refugee camps in Europe, including some in Lesbos. I met the Red Cross volunteers who were saving refugees from the sea, and they said to me that the worst thing was the children. The worst thing about this Government’s failure to step up to the totality of the refugee crisis is the children. In a written statement yesterday, the Minister for Immigration said:

“All children not transferred to the UK are in the care of the French authorities.”

They might technically be the responsibility of the French authorities, but many of those children are not being cared for at all. They are sleeping on the streets and in informal encampments, and they are making their way back to Calais, to Dunkirk and to the mud. Will the Home Secretary tell me how the UK plans to find, screen and process the 150 extra Dubs children, and from which countries they will transferred? What conversations has the Home Office had with the French, Italian and Greek Governments regarding taking such a small number of children? How does she live with herself when she is leaving thousands of people—[Interruption.] Members opposite can jeer, but I ask her how she can live with herself when she is leaving thousands of children subject to disease, people trafficking, squalor and hopelessness.

[Amber Rudd]

I share one thing with the hon. Lady: it is the children who matter most. We have a disgraceful situation on the borders of Europe, with so many people being trafficked through to Italy and, in the past, to Greece to meet their desire to come to Europe. Too often, they find themselves in the hands of the people traffickers. It is because we care in this way that we have put together our plan to take the refugees from the most vulnerable places. She says she doubts that the children in France are being looked after, but I can tell her that the children who are most vulnerable are the ones in the camps in Jordan and Lebanon. They are the ones who are really vulnerable, and they are the ones we are determined to bring over here, to give them the benefit of safety in the UK.

I would also say to the hon. Lady that I do speak to my European counterparts about the best way to help the refugees who are now coming to Europe in such numbers. The French are very clear that they are processing the children who have come out of the Calais camp, and they want to continue to do that, but one of the things that stops the children operating with the French authorities is the hope of being taken into the Dubs scheme and coming to the UK. The authorities are clear with us that if they are to manage those children and do the best thing for them—which is what I want and, I think, what the hon. Lady wants—making it clear that the scheme is not going to be open indefinitely will provide the best outcome for them.