Covid-19 Update

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend is right to raise that point. That is why we have kept our travel rules relating to covid constantly under review. He may have heard that I referred in my statement to a set of changes that we are looking to make, and my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary will bring those changes to the House as soon as he possibly can.

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

The Secretary of State is quite correctly urging people to get vaccinated. He will be aware that, sadly, certain ethnic minorities have relatively low vaccine take-up, and we see that in my borough of Hackney. Has he considered anything that the Government could do nationally to support outreach to ethnic minority communities?

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Lady makes an important point. We want everyone to take up the offer of a vaccine, and she is right to point out the disparity in take-up in certain communities. The good news is that—I think partly as a response to Government action and especially because of the fantastic people I have come across in London working for Public Health England, who have worked with and reached out to communities to increase uptake—we saw a significant increase in uptake over the summer in the communities to which she referred. That work continues, and it remains a priority.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I very much agree with the right hon. Lady about the need for more police. That is why we had a record settlement this year, which included, for example, more than £28 million extra for her local police force, which is leading to more police officers and more police staff. I have said that we need to go further, and we are discussing that internally in Government to see what more can be done. I hope the right hon. Lady recognises, though, that it is about more than just police; it is about early intervention and understanding some of the underlying causes of crime. I have always recognised the need for more resources and more police.

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

The Home Secretary referred to the new public health duty. The Opposition agree that it is a good idea in principle, but does the Home Secretary agree with the Children’s Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, who has said that the change is not enough on its own and who is calling for the next Prime Minister, and perhaps his Chancellor, to ensure that preventive services such as youth services have the right resources? Will the Home Secretary tell us how often the Prime Minister’s knife crime taskforce has actually met?

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Lady has mentioned an important partner in tackling serious violence, and the Children’s Commissioner is part of the serious violence taskforce and we listen to her important views regularly. Of course, the Children’s Commissioner is right that this issue requires action on many fronts. There is no one single answer—we have talked about resources, new powers, early intervention and, of course, the public health approach—which is why we are working across Government. We have institutionalised that in Government in many ways, including with the taskforce that the Prime Minister set up, which has already met once and is meeting again today.

Places of Worship: Security Funding

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Home Secretary for prior sight of his statement. The Opposition welcome his statement in principle, particularly the Ramadan package. We are aware that there is particular fear in some of our communities as we enter the period of Ramadan. However, we reserve the right to return to the subject as the detail of implementation becomes clear.

Across the world we are seeing a rise in terror attacks especially on people in their place of worship. The House should contemplate what it means to be gathered together to pray to your God and find yourself a victim of murder and terrorism. In Sri Lanka we saw more than 200 people die, including hundreds of people at Easter services in Christian churches. We all saw the images of the terrorist entering the church with the rucksack on his back, patting a small child on the head and then proceeding to blow up the innocent worshippers.

This followed the terror attacks in Christchurch on Muslim worshippers, which claimed the lives of 50 people and injured 40 more. The attack was livestreamed on Facebook. Most recently, a gunman stormed a synagogue, killing an innocent woman on the last day of Passover. The concern must be that, in this era of online, when someone can literally livestream their terror, there is a danger of copycat incidents. That is one of the things that has inspired fear in different communities.

On this side of the House, we want to make it clear that these terror attacks are murderous and vile, whether they come from admirers of al-Qaeda or ISIS or from admirers of tinpot Adolf Hitlers. As we move towards the European elections, sadly, we may well see a rise in far right activity, which may seek to mirror some of the terrorist attacks that we have seen. That is why we believe that this statement is timely and to be welcomed.

These terror attacks spread ripples of violence throughout communities and countries. The Metropolitan police report that racist and religious hate crimes in London hit their highest levels in a year immediately following the Christchurch mosque shootings. Tell MAMA, the Muslim community organisation, said that there was an almost sixfold increase in reports to its monitoring service immediately after the Christchurch attack. Separately, the Community Security Trust also reports rising incidents. My own Haredi Jewish community in Stamford Hill have seen a steep rise in attacks; sadly, they do not always report them to the police, although I am working with them to encourage them to go to the authorities after all such incidents. There have been similar reports from police forces and monitoring community organisations across the country.

The proposals that the Home Secretary has announced are both timely and appropriate, but we will follow up some of the measures. For instance, the Opposition will wish to know where the worship protection security fund is being allocated, and which organisations have applied for and been awarded the funding. My experience is that sometimes those who obtain Government funding are better at putting in applications, rather than necessarily being the organisations in most need.

We will want to know about where the £5 million fund to provide security training for places of worship is allocated—that the money is going to the appropriate communities in appropriate parts of the country. We will be interested to hear from Ministers about their consultations with religious communities and will want to know who is able to access and benefit from the Ramadan package of support for mosques. We are not accusing Ministers of bad faith, but we are saying that all too often, when it comes to allocating such funding, the people who know about it and are skilled at making applications benefit, although they may not necessarily be the most vulnerable and needy communities.

We welcome the fact that the police are providing vital protection to all places of worship, although I say gently to the Home Secretary that the situation is not helped by the cuts in police numbers since 2010. Our main point is that nobody should have to go to their place of worship and feel fear. Nobody should feel that horrible incidents such as we have seen internationally may be reflected in their mosque, church or gurdwara. We also say that some Muslim community centres are next to mosques; we hope that they can get some help, support and protection also.

The terrorist incidents that we have been seeing are both frightening and tragic. We as a House must assure vulnerable communities of our intent to support them, whether financially or in other ways. I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, but he can be assured that we will be following up how it actually unfolds in practice.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Lady for the tone of her remarks and for her support. I think it is reassuring for members of the public watching or listening to know that everyone in this House is united in the determination to protect people in all places of worship, whatever their faith, in every way we can. I very much welcome her comments.

The right hon. Lady rightly started by condemning the recent terrorist attacks around the world—in Christchurch, Sri Lanka and San Diego. She was also right to make a link between those attacks and what she called the ripple effect—the rise in recorded hate crime that we have sadly seen here in our own country. I know she shares our absolute determination to ensure we do everything we can where hate crime is reported. People must always feel that they can go ahead and report that crime. Letting the police know enables them to investigate it and take action.

The right hon. Lady said she would follow up on the package, and I hope she does. That is exactly what I would expect of her and I very much welcome it. She is very good at following up on things. That will help us, working together, to ensure we are doing all we can to support our communities. She was right to raise the issue of how we can ensure the fund is allocated as quickly and as efficiently as possible. That is why I referred in my statement to changes I am making to the application rules. In the past the fund has, I think, required at least three estimates for putting up CCTV from different certified contractors. I think we can simplify the rules. We are doing that and it will help to make it more straightforward.

The right hon. Lady raised the £5 million that I announced for training. I think we have a collective desire to ensure it is utilised quickly, properly and efficiently, and that all communities and all faith groups feel they have access and support. That is exactly why we have already started the consultation with faith groups, community representatives and others to make sure we are listening to them about the best way to use the £5 million.

All of us in this House share a determination to ensure that people in our country can worship without fear. We will do everything we can to make that a reality.

Arrest of Julian Assange

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Home Secretary for his account of events. On the Labour Benches, we are glad that Julian Assange will be able to access medical care, treatment and facilities, because there have been worrying reports about his ill health. Of course, at this point that is all a matter for the courts.

We in the Opposition want to make the point that, even though the only charge that Julian Assange may face in this country is in relation to his bail hearings, the reason we are debating this this afternoon is entirely to do with his and WikiLeaks’ whistleblowing activities. These whistleblowing activities about illegal wars, mass murder, murder of civilians and corruption on a grand scale have put Julian Assange in the crosshairs of the US Administration. For this reason, they have once more issued an extradition warrant against Mr Assange.

The Home Secretary will know that Mr Assange complained to the UN that he was being unlawfully detained as he could not leave the Ecuadorian embassy without being arrested. In February 2016, the UN panel ruled in his favour, stating that he had been arbitrarily detained and that he should be allowed to walk free and compensated for his “deprivation of liberty”. Mr Assange hailed that as a significant victory and called the decision binding, but the Foreign Office responded by saying that this ruling “changes nothing”. I note that the Foreign Office responded then, not the Home Office or the Ministry of Justice. The Foreign Office has no responsibility for imprisonment and extradition in this country, but it is interested, of course, in relations with allies and others.

We have precedent in this country in relation to requests for extradition to the US, when the US authorities raise issues of hacking and national security. I remind the House of the case of Gary McKinnon. In October 2012, when the current Prime Minister was Home Secretary, an extradition request very similar to this one was refused. We should recall what WikiLeaks disclosed. Who can forget the Pentagon video footage of a missile attack in 2007 in Iraq that killed 18 civilians and two Reuters journalists? The monumental number of such leaks lifted the veil on US-led military operations in a variety of theatres, none of which has produced a favourable outcome for the people of those countries. Julian Assange is being pursued not to protect US national security, but because he has exposed wrongdoing by US Administrations and their military forces.

We only have to look at the treatment of Chelsea Manning to see what awaits Julian Assange if he is extradited to the US. Ms Manning has already been incarcerated, between 2010 and 2017. She was originally sentenced to 35 years. Her indefinite detention now is because she refuses to participate in partial disclosure, which would allow whistleblowers to be pursued and not the perpetrators. Her human rights and protections as a transgender woman have been completely ignored—[Interruption.] Her human rights as a transgender woman have been completely ignored, and I hope that Government Members will take that seriously.

What this has to do with Julian Assange’s case is that this could be the type of treatment he could expect if he is extradited to the US. In this country, we have protections for whistleblowers, including the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 and others—even if some of us feel that these protections should be more robust. Underpinning this legislation is the correct premise, not that anyone can leak anything they like but that protection should be afforded to those who take a personal risk to disclose wrongdoing where that disclosure serves the public interest. Julian Assange is at risk of extradition to the US precisely because, as we in the Opposition believe, he has exposed material that is in the utmost public interest.

This is now in the hands of the British law courts. We have the utmost confidence in the British legal system, but we in the Opposition would be very concerned, on the basis of what we know, about Julian Assange being extradited to the US.

[Sajid Javid]

First, I thank the right hon. Lady for her response, but I think the whole country, if people listen to her response, will be pretty astounded by the tone that she has taken. She started by talking about the reason for Mr Assange’s arrest and tried to come up with all sorts of justifications, which have nothing to do with the reason. The reason Mr Assange has been arrested is that he failed to surrender to a UK court—that is why he has been arrested. There was a provisional arrest warrant, which is subject to extradition proceedings. Those are usual procedures under UK law. There is no one in this country who is above the law. The right hon. Lady who, we should remember, wants to be the Home Secretary, is suggesting that we should not apply the rule of law to an individual.

[Ms Abbott]

indicated dissent.

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Lady is disagreeing, but she said quite clearly that Mr Assange should not be subject to UK law, and that is something that should worry any British citizen, should she ever become Home Secretary.

[Ms Abbott]

rose—

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Lady can intervene later if you allow her, Mr Speaker—that is possible. However, I want to finish my comments in response to hers.

The right hon. Lady also talked about the UN, as though the UN had some opinion on this issue. I am sure it was not intentional, but she was at risk of not giving quite correct information, because the UN has no view on the Assange case. I think she was actually referring to the view of a group of independent persons who decided to look at this case. They do not speak for the UN in any way whatever. It was a small group of individuals who came up with a deeply flawed opinion, suggesting that somehow Mr Assange was indefinitely detained in the UK by the British authorities. In fact, the only person responsible for Mr Assange’s detention is himself—it was entirely self-inflicted. It is astonishing that the right hon. Lady should even bring up that report and suggest that, somehow, it was a UN view or a UN report.

Then the right hon. Lady talked about the US request for extradition. I will not be drawn into the request for extradition; it is rightly a matter for the courts. Should the courts deem it correct and necessary at some point to send a request for extradition to me, I will consider it appropriately under our laws.

I note that the shadow Home Secretary, both today and in the past—and indeed the Leader of the Opposition —have defended Assange and WikiLeaks from efforts to tackle their illegal activity. They could have clarified things today for the British public; the right hon. Lady could have done that on behalf of the Opposition, but she did not. Why is it that, whenever someone has a track record of undermining the UK and our allies and the values we stand for, you can almost guarantee that the leadership of the Labour party will support those who intend to do us harm? You can always guarantee that from the party opposite.

Windrush Compensation Scheme

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to the Speaker.

Let me say finally that there are some in this House who are the children of the Windrush generation. Whether we are on the Front Benches or the Back Benches, and whether we are in opposition or in government, we will not rest until that generation, one of the bravest generations, gets the justice to which it is entitled.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments and also for what she said about Martin Forde QC and the work he has done to make this scheme a reality. She started by saying that this should never have happened. I absolutely agree with her and always have. I think the whole House agrees on that. Of course none of the people who were caught up were here illegally; they had every right to be here.

The right hon. Lady has referred to the compliant environment. Sadly, she talks about it as though it were an environment that had been put in place since 2010. However, she knows that the right to check whether someone is here illegally and a number of other rules and regulations were put in under the previous Labour Government. She talks about how people were affected, and we are all trying to deal with this issue and to provide justice, but it is worth reminding the House that when the historical review was done and it was determined that 164 people were the most likely to have suffered detriment, almost half of them had suffered detriment under the previous Labour Government. It is worth keeping it in mind that successive Governments have in effect caused this problem, and it is no good trying to point the finger at one particular Government.

The right hon. Lady talked about the EU settlement scheme. It is precisely because of the lessons of Windrush that we need a scheme that cannot just be declaratory in approach. We need to ensure that our EU friends who are here in this country are properly documented. The abiding lesson from Windrush is the lack of proper documentation. She has rightly talked about those who want to have UK citizenship, and she knows that we have set up a special route for that. Approximately 4,000 people have taken advantage of that, at no cost to themselves. She is also right to say that the scheme is not just open to people of Caribbean origin, and I am glad we agree on that. She asked about the urgent exceptional payments fund. This is not just another compensation scheme; it is supposed to deal just with urgent exceptional payments. It is not capped, and I understand that nine payments have been made so far.

The right hon. Lady also asked about the compensation scheme, and how much it was likely to cost. There is no cap on the scheme, so no one knows what the eventual cost will be. It will be based on people’s needs and the claims that are made by eligible people, but the baseline estimate from my Department is that it will be approximately £200 million. She also referred to legal fees and private healthcare costs. I can tell her that in both those cases, although there is a tariff structure, both allow for actuals being paid in certain circumstances where proof is provided.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

We are already engaging with social media companies, especially the US giants that dominate the sector. I have met their representatives both here and abroad to discuss, in particular, terrorists and terrorism-related extremist content. However, the Government recognise that more needs to be done, which is why we will shortly publish the online harms White Paper.

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

The Home Secretary will be aware of recent reports that right-wing extremists are gaining access to ISIS-related terrorist training materials. The House should be aware that just as there is a terrorist threat from supporters of grotesque organisations such as ISIS and al-Qaeda, there is also a growing threat from the far right, which includes the threat of acts of terrorism. It has been reported that senior Home Office officials, Scotland Yard and the security agencies have met senior representatives of both the Muslim and Jewish communities. Will the Home Secretary confirm that those meetings have taken place, and will he tell us what reassurances he was able to provide?

As my hon. Friends have said, there is grave concern in the Muslim community in the light of the Christchurch massacre and the subsequent attacks on mosques in Birmingham. Can the Home Secretary assure us that funds will be available for the security of mosques and other Muslim places of worship, in the same way as they are available through the Community Security Trust for the security of synagogues? Is he aware that there are many Muslim community centres like my own North London Muslim Community Centre, which is next door to the mosque and forms part of the same complex of buildings? The people there feel very threatened. Is the Home Secretary prepared to consider helping them with funds for their necessary security?

[Sajid Javid]

I share the concerns that the right hon. Lady has expressed. Everyone in the House will understand why there are heightened concerns in our British Muslim communities, and why we need to do more. Soon after the Christchurch massacre, I sent “Dear colleague” messages to all Members about the immediate action that we are taking in increasing the funding for places of worship.

The right hon. Lady rightly raised the issue of Muslim community centres. I want to work with Muslim community leaders and others and to listen to what they say about what needs to be done. I think that all Members are united in their wish to ensure that our Muslim community in Britain, whom we cherish, feel hugely valued and receive the protection that they deserve. No one should feel intimidated in any way whatsoever.

Shamima Begum and Other Cases

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on Shamima Begum, the death of her son Jarrah and other cases.

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

We estimate that over 900 people left the UK to engage with the conflict in Syria and Iraq. Many have been killed fighting, some remain there, some have returned and others could still come back. Some irresponsibly took young British children with them, and some had children while they were there as part of their mission to expand the so-called caliphate. We have made it very clear since 2011 that no British citizen should travel to Syria. Those who have stayed until the bitter end include some of the most devoted supporters of Daesh. One of the ways we can deal with the threat that they pose to the UK is to remove British citizenship from those holding another nationality. Since 2010, this power has been applied to about 150 people of a range of nationalities.

It would not be appropriate for me to comment on the details of an individual case—although, clearly, the loss of any child is a tragedy—but, if I may, I will address some of the issues that have been raised. First, these decisions are made very carefully. Where citizenship deprivation is being considered for national security concerns, decisions are based on advice and intelligence from the security services, counter-terrorism police, and specialist security and legal officials in the Home Office. When people dedicated to keeping our country safe give an informed recommendation, any Home Secretary should listen very carefully. Secondly, we are unable to provide support to British nationals within Syria as the UK Government do not have a consular presence there. Thirdly, the status of a child does not change if their parents’ British citizenship is subsequently revoked.

There are no easy answers. I must also think about future conflicts and the precedents that we set. I do not want any more children brought into a war zone because their parents think that they will automatically be bailed out, no matter what the risk. However, the UK is doing all we can to help innocent people caught up in this conflict. We have committed £2.8 billion to Syria since 2012—our largest ever response to a single humanitarian crisis—and we are on track to resettle 20,000 vulnerable refugees who have fled the country, with our national resettlement programmes resettling more than any other EU member state in 2017.

Of course, I understand the public interest, so I have asked my officials to expedite the publication of our next transparency report on disruptive and investigatory powers, including the most up-to-date annual figures on the deprivation of citizenship. This Government remain committed to protecting our citizens around the world, but I will not shy away from using the powers at my disposal to protect this country.

[Ms Abbott]

When she was 15, Shamima Begum made a very bad decision, and it is arguable that much of the tragedy that has engulfed her since then flows from it. It is also the case that she has recently made some reprehensible statements to the media. However, the Home Secretary will know that the Opposition believe that she and her baby should have been allowed to return home. Now we know that that baby is dead. We believed that she should have been allowed to return home because this schoolgirl, born and brought up in Bethnal Green, was Britain’s responsibility. As it happens, that is also the general view of the President of the United States. Above all, bringing the mother and baby home would have given the baby a chance of life.

Instead, the Home Secretary, in the face of a media outcry, chose to strip Shamima of her citizenship. He knows that many authorities contend that that was done illegally, because she was not a dual national. Article 15 of the United Nations declaration of human rights states:

“Everyone has a right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality”.

Does the Home Secretary accept that the child was British? Does he further accept that the British legal system does not hold children responsible for the wrongdoing of their parents? Does he also accept that, despite what Ministers have said about the dangers of sending officials into the refugee camp, aid workers, doctors and journalists go backwards and forwards to and from those camps all the time?

Does the Home Secretary further accept that, by stripping Shamima of her nationality, he made it impossible for her to fulfil her duties as a mother and bring her baby home to a safe place? Will he confirm that, as he said earlier, as well as taking legal advice, he took advice from the police and security services about the desirability or otherwise of bringing Shamima home? Can he explain why he deemed this 19-year-old, with a baby that was not quite three weeks old, more dangerous to Britain than the hundreds of foreign fighters who have already been allowed to return?

We now know that there are other British women in those camps who have been stripped of their nationality by the Home Secretary’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd). Can he assure the House that he will work with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to see how best those British children’s rights can be protected?

The Home Secretary’s decision in this case has caused widespread concern and alarm. We understand the issue of keeping British people safe, but this was a British baby, who is now dead. No Opposition Member condones—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

This is a very serious matter and it is unfortunate that Members on the Treasury Bench do not seem to take it with the seriousness it deserves. I say to the Home Secretary that no Opposition Member condones what Shamima Begum did—the choices she made and the things she said. But if it was his 19-year-old daughter, however badly she had behaved and however reprehensible or near criminal her choices, would he want her to bury three babies in the course of a year? The Home Secretary of course has a responsibility to protect the British public, but he also has a responsibility to appear just and fair in the eyes of the British public. This decision, which has led, as night follows day, to this less than three-week-old baby dying, does not appear just or fair to the majority of the British public.

[Sajid Javid]

First of all, the one thing I do concur with the right hon. Lady about is that the death of any child is a tragedy, wherever it takes place in the world. It is not something that anyone—any Member of this House—would want to see.

The Government are committed to protecting British citizens, but it is very different when it comes to a war zone where there is no consular presence. That is a fact not just under this Government; it has been a fact under successive Governments and it is true for many other European countries. For the same reasons that we do not have a consular presence, they do not have a consular presence. Whichever British citizen in that war zone in Syria the right hon. Lady might be referring to, whether a child or an adult, if there is no consular presence there is no way for British authorities—as much as someone might want to, especially in the case of a child—to provide any type of assistance.

The right hon. Lady is trying to make this issue about British citizenship. It is not about British citizenship. One confirmation I can give to one question she asked is that it is the case that if a child is born to someone who is a British citizen at the time the child is born, that child is a British citizen, even if the parent’s citizenship is subsequently removed. This is not about citizenship; it is about the ability of the British state to help. For the British state to send officials, whether Foreign Office officials or others, into Syria in a war zone would risk the safety of those officials. That is why the Foreign Office has been very clear, ever since 2011, that no British citizen should travel to Syria in any circumstances, because it is incredibly dangerous. That is the view taken on Syria by almost every other liberal democracy, even when it comes to children from their own countries and their own citizens.

The right hon. Lady suggested, on citizenship deprivations, that the Government are somehow making decisions that are making people stateless. She rightly stated that that would be illegal under international law. That means that no such decision can be made, whether by this Home Secretary, my predecessors, or previous Labour Home Secretaries. Under international law, no decision can be made unless the Home Secretary is satisfied, based on expert advice, that that individual will not be left stateless.

The death of any British child, even one born to a foreign terrorist fighter, is of course a tragedy, but the only person responsible for the death of that child is the foreign terrorist fighter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

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

Ministers will remember that last Monday the Home Secretary said:

“We must, of course, observe international law, and we cannot strip someone of their British citizenship if doing so would leave them stateless. Individuals who manage to return will be questioned, investigated and, potentially, prosecuted.”—[Official Report, 18 February 2019; Vol. 654, c. 1193.]

Ministers will be aware that the Opposition think that the latter would have been the correct course of action. By Wednesday, however, the Home Secretary had stripped Shamima Begum of her citizenship rights. Can he share with the House whether he contacted the Bangladeshi high commissioner or the Bangladeshi Government before taking this decision?

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Lady will know that I cannot comment on any individual case and that, in order to protect our national security, Home Secretaries have the power to strip British citizenship from someone where it does not render them stateless. While I cannot talk about an individual case, it should be quite obvious that the power set out in the British Nationality Act 1981 cannot be used if someone is rendered stateless as a result. That power has been used by successive Home Secretaries, in successive Governments, only on the basis of expert advice from their officials, including legal advisers, to ensure that its deployment is entirely lawful at all times. The right hon. Lady is the shadow Home Secretary and wants to be the Home Secretary. She should reflect that ultimately it is the responsibility of the Home Secretary to use whatever tools are available to keep this country safe.

Deprivation of Citizenship Status

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

First, I should say that I always listen carefully to my right hon. and learned Friend, who is very distinguished in the House and served as a distinguished Home Secretary as well as in many other positions of responsibility. As usual, he has made an important point. All I would say is that each case should be looked at on a case-by-case basis. That is exactly what happens in the Home Office: I look at each case very carefully against what tools are available that will help protect our national security and citizens here at home and in regard to what can be done to help bring people to justice.

My right hon. and learned Friend is right to point out that many hundreds of people from the UK—more than 900, we believe—have gone in recent years to Iraq or Syria to join terrorist organisations. There are many more from other European countries and countries such as the US and Australia. We work closely with our allies. I hope he welcomes the fact that we are trying to work even more closely with them following the recent news that Daesh is being defeated in the region, in the expectation that more people may want to come back to the UK or other European countries. We must work with our allies and see how we can co-ordinate and have a more unified approach.

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

On the general question of returning foreign fighters and ISIS supporters, the President of the United States said:

“The United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 ISIS fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial.”

Does the Home Secretary accept that what the security services have been calling for is a very specialised programme of questioning, interrogation, de-radicalisation and quite possibly putting these people on trial, fashioned for this group of foreign fighters and their supporters? What is not helpful is to strip them of their nationality, which on the face of what he has said appears to be on a wholly arbitrary basis.

On the particular issue of Shamima Begum, there is no question but that she has said some very reprehensible things in the media, particularly about the Manchester bombings. However, the Home Secretary knows that the Home Office lost two cases where it attempted to strip people of their nationality on the basis of Bangladeshi nationality by descent, so why is he going forward with the same strategy now? Let me remind the Home Secretary of article 15 of the universal declaration of human rights:

“(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.

(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality”.

Can the Home Secretary explain how his actions are not in breach of the articles of the declaration?

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her questions. She will know—I have said this at the Dispatch Box before—that we estimate about 900 people of national security interest left the UK at some point to join terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq. We estimate that about 40% have returned and approximately 20% have died in the region. Of those who have returned, in every case we know of they have been investigated. Where there is enough evidence, they have been prosecuted for their actions.

The right hon. Lady will also understand that the part of the world they are in is a very lawless and dangerous place, so it is not always possible—in fact, it is incredibly difficult—to gather evidence of their activities that could be used to try to have a successful prosecution, either in the UK or in the other countries with which we work closely. If we have evidence, we can help to bring about prosecutions either at home or with our allies. In each case, we work carefully with them. It is always the case that the preferred outcome is always one of justice, where there is evidence and we can be sure that there can be proper legal proceedings and proper hearings. Our preference in many of cases is to see if more people can be tried in the region. As I mentioned earlier to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), we are working with a number of other countries to see if more work can be done together. Sadly, this challenge is not unique to the UK but is shared across many countries including our European friends.

The right hon. Lady referred to other cases, as did the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey). She knows that at any time any decision made by any Minister can rightfully be challenged by anyone in court. That is their right. But it would be wrong to take one particular case that may have been in the courts and apply it to all other potential cases that follow. It is worth repeating that where legal cases may have an impact, our own legal advisers, who are incredibly experienced and take these issues very seriously, would of course take them into account.

The right hon. Lady referred to the UN declaration of human rights. We absolutely abide by that and it is incredibly important that all Governments abide by it. She quoted the declaration by saying that no one should be made stateless. That is absolutely correct. No one should ever be made stateless and that is not something we would ever do. We would never take a deprivation decision if someone, as a British national, has only one nationality. We would not do that. We would not leave anyone stateless. She also suggested that these decisions are somehow arbitrary. As I said to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey), each decision is taken incredibly seriously. The facts are weighed on a case-by-case basis. It is anything but arbitrary.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

In conclusion, the Home Secretary said in the debate on the withdrawal deal:

“Concern over uncontrolled immigration from the EU was a major factor in the decision to leave the EU.”—[Official Report, 11 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 698.]

Who whipped up that concern? Could it have been the political party that introduced completely bogus immigration targets—targets that have never been met, were never intended to be met and were just a vehicle for anti-immigrant sentiment and targets that the current Home Secretary seems unwilling to stand by? Could it have been whipped up by the “Go home” vans? I saw them driving through my constituency in east London, and I have to tell the Home Secretary—in case he is not aware—that they represent a low point in our migration policy, having been designed to intimidate and strike fear into the hearts of people who were here perfectly legally.

Or was the concern whipped up by the introduction of the hostile environment? I would be the first to say that some of its elements were introduced under a Labour Government, but the majority were brought in post 2010, when the current Prime Minister was Home Secretary, and I voted against the legislation. As a consequence of the hostile environment, sick people were denied cancer treatment, which horrified the public when they read about it for the first time, and people were evicted from their homes because they could not get the benefits they were entitled to. People were detained—I met women detained under the hostile environment on my visit to Yarl’s Wood last year—and deported, and people who had gone home to the Caribbean for a holiday—

[Sajid Javid]

rose—

[Ms Abbott]

I give way to the Home Secretary.

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Lady will know that the historical review of what has been known as Windrush shows that almost half those affected were under a Labour Government. This Government have apologised for their role. Does she want to take this opportunity to apologise on behalf of the previous Labour Government for their mistakes?

[Ms Abbott]

The Home Secretary knows perfectly well that I never voted for those aspects of Labour policy, and I made the point that some of the aspects of the hostile environment, particularly in relation to the health service, were introduced under a Labour Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Monday 21st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

That is quite straightforward. If the right hon. Gentleman takes the time to read the political declaration, he will see that it refers to establishing arrangements—for example, for the quick and efficient surrender of individuals. They are not necessarily exactly the same instruments, but we have done this in a way that is consistent with our taking back control of our laws.

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

I have listened with great care to the Home Secretary. He will be aware that the EU insists on treaty arrangements governing key aspects of international security, justice and policing. Without a treaty, courts have no legal basis to implement arrest or extradition warrants, and cannot allow access to criminal and other databases to third countries. The danger is that there will be a mutual loss of the European arrest warrant and the UK will no longer be able to access the Europol database in real time. How does he justify putting the security of the nation at risk in this way?

[Sajid Javid]

The Government have suggested to the EU—if the deal gets through Parliament, this is what will be looked at—having an internal security treaty between the UK and the EU because, as the right hon. Lady quite rightly says, it is best to have these arrangements on a proper legal footing and it makes sense to do that through treaty-type arrangements. I have to say again, however, that if she is really concerned about continued co-operation, she should support the deal.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Friday 11th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I am not asking the House to believe me. I am simply drawing to the attention of the House what former heads of MI6 and defence chiefs have said. It is for the House to weigh up what value it gives to the opinion of those gentlemen.

[Sajid Javid]

Perhaps it would help if I responded to that remark as well. I have a great deal of respect for Lord Guthrie and Sir Richard Dearlove, but on the particular issue in this letter, they are wrong. There is nothing in this deal that changes our relationship with NATO, with our US allies as intelligence partners or with our wider “Five Eyes” partners—nothing at all.

[Ms Abbott]

First, much of that has not been decided; it is part of the future political framework. Furthermore, it is for the House and the public watching this debate to decide what weight they give to the opinions of former heads of MI6 and former defence chiefs. The point I am making is that it seems to me that the Home Secretary has been a little careless in his assurances around security and the safety of the nation, and it is at least debatable whether this deal gives us the assurance we need.

Migrant Crossings

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Home Secretary for prior sight of his statement. Opposition Members join him in sending our thoughts and prayers to those injured in the attack at Manchester Victoria station, and we thank the emergency services for their courage.

Does the Home Secretary share my concern that we should be careful not to heighten a potentially toxic atmosphere on migration as the Brexit debate reaches its climax? However, the whole House agrees that the public deserve the assurance that our borders are secure. Nobody in this House believes that these crossings should be just a fact of life, not least because these desperate people are putting their lives in terrible danger. However, is he aware that his predecessor—the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—took the decision in 2012 to scrap an aerial surveillance programme of the entire coastline, presumably because of the dictates of austerity? Does he accept that this decision, in the words of the then Security Minister, Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, left us

“more naked than we would otherwise have been”,

and that we are now scrambling to catch up by using the armed forces?

The Home Secretary knows that a little over 200 people arrived here crossing the channel in the entire final three months of last year. One migrant making that dangerous crossing is one too many, but does he appreciate that some people might think that describing this as a major incident is an overstatement, when we consider that, at the height of the Mediterranean crisis, Greece was seeing hundreds of people a day landing on its beaches?

The Home Secretary is correct to make the point about the risk to human life. We know that ruthless people smugglers put desperate people in unseaworthy craft, with no one on board who is any type of seaman, and they distribute fake lifejackets—and all this in the busiest shipping lanes in the world. These people smugglers are putting people’s lives at risk for mere financial gain. However, does the Home Secretary accept that there can be no question of turning back asylum seekers who have reached British waters? That would be to put this country outside international law.

May I also remind the Home Secretary that in this country we operate under the rule of law? In this case, we are bound by the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees. Does he accept that under the convention, to which we are a signatory, refugees have a right to seek asylum here? Taking the failure to claim in the first safe country into account is one thing; claiming that it entirely nullifies the asylum claim is quite wrong. Refugees may have cultural, family or language reasons to claim in this country. Does he understand that it is not for him as Home Secretary, or anyone else, to claim that someone is not a genuine refugee without examining their case?

I welcome the increased co-operation with the French and the French action plan outlined on Friday. The important thing is not bellicose statements, but to stop people making dangerous crossings in the first place.

On the deployment of the Royal Navy, it seems to some that the Home Secretary was in some type of competition with the Defence Secretary as to who can appear more bellicose towards groups of Iranian refugees in their rubber dinghies. Serious questions arise, however. What will be the total cost to the Home Office of this deployment and how will it be funded? What will be the cost per person rescued? How many of the people smugglers have been prevented and detained? What of the operations that were taking place in the Mediterranean which have apparently now been suspended? Can the Home Secretary explain what contingency measures will be put in place, so as not to leave a gaping hole in existing co-ordinated rescue and interdiction efforts? I ask the Home Secretary please to tell the House that all of those issues have been considered and addressed or are in hand, otherwise unkind people might be forced to conclude that this major incident had little to do with a national crisis but more to do with positioning for the forthcoming Tory leadership battle.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments. Let me take this opportunity to wish her and her team a happy new year. She raised a number of points. Let me try to tackle them in order.

This has nothing to do with the Brexit debate or the legitimate debate taking place around Brexit on future immigration and related issues. This is all about protecting our borders and protecting human life: dealing with a situation here and now. That is all it should be about.

The right hon. Lady mentioned the previous Home Secretary, now the Prime Minister. In fact, when she was Home Secretary she did a great deal to deal with illegal migration, especially from France. For example, the work on the Sandhurst agreement was initiated by her as Home Secretary and then continued by her as Prime Minister. As I mentioned in my statement, there is some evidence that as it has become harder on some other routes for people to enter the UK by clandestine means—by ferry, train or car—they are turning to more dangerous routes. We need to address them as well.

The right hon. Lady questioned whether this should have been designated a major incident. Let me make two brief points. First, there has been a significant increase in the number of crossings using small boats across the English channel. As I said, there were 543 attempts in 2018. Not all were successful, with roughly 40% being disrupted. Some 80% took place in the past three months, particularly in December. There is a definite increasing trend. It needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible, so that it does not get completely out of control.

The right hon. Lady may think—maybe it is suggested through her question—that 543 attempted crossings is not very much relative to the total number of asylum claims every year. The problem—this is the real issue—is that this is a very dangerous way to try to enter the UK. It is incredibly dangerous. This is one of the busiest sea lanes in the world. Often these people will travel at night with no lights and no lifejackets. They are taking an incredibly dangerous journey that puts at risk not just their lives but the lives of those who rescue them, such as the RNLI and others. It is the danger that that represents which requires us to take more action. It is one of the reasons, alongside protecting the border, why this is a major incident. I do not think anyone in this House would want to be in a position knowing that the Government have not done everything they reasonably can to protect human life as well as our borders.

I gently ask the right hon. Lady—I know she means well and that she values human life as much as anyone else in this House—please not to use this issue as some kind of political football. This is about protecting human life and protecting our borders.

Let me turn to the other questions the right hon. Lady raised. On the first safe country principle, she mentioned the 1951 refugee convention. The first safe country principle is well established and widely accepted in international law. The Prime Minister herself referred to it in her speech at the UN General Assembly last year. It is a principle indirectly supported through the new global compact for migration and the global compact for refugees. It is a principle legally accepted by the UNHCR when it explicitly recognised the concept in its paper that set out the legal precedent on the agreement between the EU and Turkey. Very importantly, it is a principle at the heart of the EU’s own common European asylum system. In the 2005 procedures directive, it is explicitly stated that an asylum seeker should claim asylum in their first safe country, otherwise it can be declared inadmissible if it is claimed in another country. That is repeated in the 2004 qualification directive. It is also a principle that underpins the Dublin regulation. The whole point of the Dublin regulation is that if someone has passed through another EU safe country, it is expected that they claim asylum first there. It is a principle that I hope she would support, notwithstanding that it was also embedded in domestic legislation passed in 2004 by a Labour Government. I understand that she did not vote against that Act.

Lastly, the right hon. Lady asked me about the other activities in which the boats that I have asked to come back to the UK are involved. Those activities are very important. We will still be involved in international activities and humanitarian support. I believe we can balance both requirements domestically and internationally in the way we have set our plans. The Royal Navy is supporting while we fill the gap until those boats return.

Future Immigration

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Home Secretary for early sight of the statement.

As the whole House knows, since the 2016 referendum politics has been convulsed by the debate about Brexit, and we have seen ever more heightened convulsions in recent days. At the heart of the debate, as far as many of our constituents are concerned, have been migration issues. That is why it is a disgrace that it has taken the Government so long to produce this long-promised White Paper. It is almost a year late, and this is entirely because of internal disputes in the Cabinet.

The whole House knows that when we leave the single market, freedom of movement falls. The Labour party set that out in our manifesto, and it remains our position. Then there will be an urgent need to fashion a new and, we hope, fairer immigration system, but the important thing is that, going forward, we do not base the new immigration system on some of the myths of the past. The whole House heard the Prime Minister say that the Government were still committed to reducing migration to tens of thousands—a target that has never been met, will never be met, and is a pretext for anti-immigrant measures—but many Members will have heard the Home Secretary on the radio today, repeatedly refusing to commit himself to the tens of thousands target. So which is it? Where do the Government stand? Will they continue with a bogus and unachievable target, or will they genuinely try to shape an immigration system that meets the needs of the society?

If the Home Secretary is allowed to abandon the commitment to a formal target in the tens of thousands, that would be welcome. That target was a purely political device, designed to stress the Government’s intent to crack down on immigration when the Conservatives felt under pressure from UKIP, but the House will wait to see what his attitude to targets means in practice. The danger is that he will abandon formal adherence to targets in principle, but that the Home Office—particularly hearing, as it will have done, what the Prime Minister has to say—will continue to function in the same way, with all the distortions, all the unfairness and all the inefficiencies that arbitrary targets lead to.

I support a single immigration system for all nationalities. To my certain knowledge, nothing drove pro-leave sentiment among voters of Commonwealth origin more than the sense that they were disadvantaged in relation to immigration compared with EU nationals. So, if Brexit produces nothing else, it ought to produce a system that moves away from that unfairness. We should be a country that treats the doctor from Poland in the same way as a doctor from Pakistan.

Is the Home Secretary aware of the concern that the uncertainty about the Government’s intentions and the delays in producing a White Paper have produced among EU citizens, their friends, their families and their employers? Is he able to tell us when we will know what the minimum salary threshold will be? There is much concern that the minimum salary threshold will be at £30,000, which would actually rule out healthcare workers, social care workers and technicians, and be very damaging to both the private and public sector. When will we know what that threshold will be?

As for the arrangement that the Home Secretary set out in the statement about time-limited temporary short-term workers who have no rights to access public funds, settle or bring dependants—they would come for 12 months at a time, followed by a year-long cooling-off period—that might suit some sectors, notably agriculture, but it is a very alarming prospect for most employers because it will not allow them to establish the continuity of employment that is vital for delivering their services, whether in the private or the public sector.

Does the Home Secretary really think that the Home Office has the capacity to change its established ways of working and its unofficial targets, which it was clearly working towards and helped contribute to the Windrush scandal? Does he accept that on immigration, he cannot have it both ways? He cannot talk about an outward-looking, global Britain and meeting the needs of society and employers, while being part of a Government with a rhetoric of cracking down on migration—a rhetoric that, I might add, implicitly denigrates the parents of many of us in this House. He cannot be part of a Government with photocalls at airports to stress how they are cracking down on migrants. He cannot have it both ways. If he wishes to speak for a Government who are genuinely outward-looking, genuinely global in their outlook, he needs to move away definitively from that anti-migrant rhetoric and he needs to take steps to dismantle the hostile environment, much of which was implemented under this Government.

Conservative Members may say that the Labour party in government sometimes brought forward immigration legislation that was unfair and unsustainable. I should know—I voted against all of it. So please do not come to the Dispatch Box and make that point. Many of us who sit on the Front Bench voted against those items of legislation again and again. The question for this Government is not what previous Governments did, but what they are going to do. On immigration, rhetoric about global Britain is not enough; they need to dismantle the hostile environment, and they need to create a system that is at the same time fair to migrants, fair to employers and fair to the society.

The Windrush scandal upset society as a whole and Members on both sides of the House, but it was not an aberration; it was a consequence of a way to look at migrants that was essentially negative, which was reflected, sadly, in legislation passed under more than one Government. The system that the Home Secretary has set out in his statement will not meet the needs of migrants for certainty. It will not meet the needs of employers for a stable, skilled workforce. Above all, this statement, although it may read well to people who want to see migration cracked down on, does not meet the need of the hour. Brexit offers, if it offers nothing else, the chance to put in place an efficient—no one that deals with the Home Office nowadays can say that it is universally efficient—fair and non-discriminatory immigration system that meets the needs of the society. We should seize that opportunity. I believe that this White Paper statement falls far short of that.

[Sajid Javid]

First, I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments and for the conversation that we had earlier in the day. We might not always agree on issues, including the approach to immigration that is set out in the White Paper, but she has always approached these issues and debate with courtesy and respect. That is great to see and, sadly, not an attitude shown by every member of the Opposition Front-Bench team, as we saw a moment ago, but certainly she has always shown that. I may not see her again across the Dispatch Box before the end of the year, so I wish her and her team a happy Christmas.

The right hon. Lady asks a number of important questions. First, she rightly emphasises that we should make it clear that, whatever happens when it comes to immigration, it is fair to say that all parties are united in trying in their way to make sure that we remain an open and welcoming country to migrants from across the world who come to the UK to work, to study or to visit, and it is great to have a Parliament that almost universally accepts that. She, like me, is the child of first-generation migrants. Her parents, like mine and countless others, have made a huge contribution to this country and making it what it is, and we should all celebrate that and try to demonstrate that more as the kind of thing that we want to see in our country. I hope that, as the right hon. Lady and her colleagues have time to digest what is in the White Paper—I appreciate that it has just been published—they have the time to look at it in a way that convinces them that it demonstrates that openness.

The right hon. Lady raised a number of other issues. She used a phrase about slaying the myths of the past. One important aspect of the White Paper is that we have listened to the evidence. There is still more listening to do, which is why I said at the end of my statement that there is work to be done over the coming year to ensure that we engage with other political parties, devolved authorities, businesses and others. The starting point for that evidence was the work done by the Migration Advisory Committee, which is completely independent of Government. The MAC undertook a detailed report. It went to every part of the UK to listen and listen hard. It presented its evidence and we published that in full in September. Much of that—not exclusively—is reflected in the White Paper.

The right hon. Lady asked specifically about targets. We are committed to the Conservative party manifesto for this Parliament, but let me be clear: this is about the future immigration system. It is about emphasising control, but bringing net migration down to more sustainable levels. There are no targets in the White Paper.

I very much welcome the right hon. Lady’s support for the principle at the heart of the new system, which is that it is about an individual’s skills and what they have to contribute, not their nationality. There will be no preference to any particular nationality. To take her example, if a doctor or an engineer is coming to the UK it should not matter to us if that doctor or engineer is from India or France. What matters is what they have to contribute. That is at the heart of the proposals and she is right to highlight that principle.

The right hon. Lady asked me about salary thresholds. This is for the high-skilled worker route. The independent Migration Advisory Committee, based on its evidence, suggests a salary threshold of £30,000. What we have said is that we have listened, but that we need to do more work and have more extensive engagement before we come to a final figure. It will not be set in stone at £30,000 at this point. We will have to have more engagement to ensure that we get it right and come up with a threshold that we believe works for all parts of the UK.

The right hon. Lady asked me about the short-term workers route. One reason we included that in the White Paper is a recognition that, as we move away from freedom of movement, which I think all colleagues see as a very easy system to use with hardly any paperwork or bureaucracy involved, to a new system where everyone requires permission, it is right that we have a transition. The short-term workers scheme is a part of that transition, having a more balanced approach and recognising the needs of businesses across the country.

Lastly, the right hon. Lady talked about being open and welcoming, and about the Home Office learning lessons and changing its approach where appropriate. She will know that earlier this year we made changes to the tier 2 system, under the current immigration system, to remove doctors and nurses from the cap. She also rightly raised the Windrush crisis. All year, there has been a process to learn lessons from what went wrong. She is right to highlight that the Windrush problems began under a previous Government and continued under this Government. They should not have happened under any Government. It is right that we learn the lessons. Wendy Williams is working on an independent report. It will be a thorough independent report and she will go wherever she needs to to get to the evidence. That will be an important moment for us to all learn lessons.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Monday 29th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Essex police force has my full congratulations on what it has achieved, which shows what can be done to tackle serious violence with creative thinking. Indeed, I may well invite the force to the cross-party serious violence taskforce.

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

I associate myself with the Home Secretary’s remarks on the tragedy in Leicester and on the horrific events in Pittsburgh. Our thoughts and prayers should be with the family and friends of the slaughtered and with the people of Pittsburgh.

The Home Secretary will be aware that the National Audit Office has clearly set out how the Government have failed to protect police funding. Does he accept that this is a mark of shame and is putting the public at risk? Since 2010, over 21,000 police officers have been cut under the Tory Government’s austerity policy. All our constituents can see the consequences in delays in responding to 999 calls and in rising violent crime. Will we see the Chancellor today offer any additional funding for policing? The fear must be that the Government will not even properly fund the police pension settlement.

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Lady is right to talk about policing and the incredible work that the officers and staff do, but it is worth reminding the House that Labour planned to cut police spending by 5% to 10% had it won the 2015 election. Labour did promise an increase in 2017, but it was not enough, because we increased police funding by more than Labour promised—by £460 million. Labour went on to vote against that increase. Not a single Labour MP voted for an increase in police funding when they had the opportunity, so we will not take any lectures from Labour on policing.

Immigration: DNA Tests

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 25th October 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Home Secretary for prior sight of his statement on the improper use of DNA evidence. He will be aware that all our constituents, including those of immigrant descent, want an immigration system that is robust, but they also want it to be fair. The widespread public response to the Windrush scandal tells us how seriously the general public take the question of fairness in our immigration system.

We now know from the Home Secretary’s statement that the mandatory provision of DNA was neither legal nor fair. He stated that under the law, DNA evidence must always be provided on a voluntary basis. Can he therefore clarify that the demand for DNA evidence was, in itself, illegal, and if so, what legal consequences will follow? Members across the House will no doubt be shocked to learn that among the first victims of this abuse were Gurkhas and Afghans—men and women who put their lives at risk to keep this country safe. Ministers must clarify how long this practice has been taking place, and under what internal Home Office regime it was allowed or encouraged and at what level.

The Home Secretary spoke about reviewing the current structure and processes of our immigration system, which I welcome. He will be aware that the Law Society has said that there are serious flaws in the immigration system, and one indicator of those flaws is the state of appeals. In the last year for which we have records, fully 50% of appeals were upheld, which is an indicator of a system that is internally flawed. Waiting times for immigration appeals have risen by 45%. The Home Secretary talks about independent oversight, but what more effective oversight is there than a system of appeals that is speedy and that works?

Finally, I remind the Home Secretary that the visa and immigration service faces what will possibly be the biggest single influx of applications in its history when EU nationals who live in the UK seek to settle their status post Brexit. It is a matter of urgency that we put in place processes and structures that can guarantee a speedy, efficient and fair resolution of cases.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments. She asks a number of reasonable and sensible questions to which I will reply. She started by saying that the immigration system must be robust—we all agree with that, absolutely—and that it must also be fair. The issue I have brought to the House today is of concern to us all and something that, at least in this regard, is not fair. As I said at the start, this should not have happened, and there should not have been any request in any immigration case, whether family related or not, for mandatory DNA evidence.

The right hon. Lady asked me to make it clear that this is illegal. My understanding is that the Home Office has never had the express power to require anyone to give DNA. It has never had that express power. There have been a number of Acts over time that have referred to this and tried to make it clear. As I mentioned in my statement, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was, when she was Home Secretary, the first Home Secretary to put it completely beyond doubt by amending an Act—I think a 2007 Act—and then again in 2014 to make it absolutely clear in law. As I say, the Home Office has never had the power to compel anyone to provide DNA evidence.

The right hon. Lady will know that we want to have a further review to look into this much more deeply and wanted independent assurance of that. She may be interested to know that we are finding practices, in the cases to which I have already referred, that might go back further. For example, in 2009 two pilots were established by the then Government: the familial testing pilot, which used DNA evidence to verify a child’s biological connection with a family during asylum screening; and the human provenance pilot, which used DNA testing and a technique called isotope analysis to attempt to establish whether asylum applicants were from the country of origin that they had claimed. It is therefore important that we have a review that is thorough and goes back as long as it needs to, because, as I say, the Home Office has never had the power to compel people to supply DNA evidence.

The right hon. Lady referred to the broader review of structures and processes. I thank her for welcoming that. She referred to work that has already been done by the Law Society on part of the structures and processes in the immigration system. I have a great regard for the Law Society, which does just this type of work. It is just the kind of organisation we should be listening to.

The right hon. Lady also referred to the appeals process. There have, over recent years, been a number of changes to the appeals process which I think make it fairer, but she is right to raise this issue. This is clearly a very important part of the immigration system, making sure it is fair and that people feel they have had the right to make their case properly and the right to have a person take a second independent look at their case. There is work to be done there.

Finally, the right hon. Lady referred to the EU settlement scheme, which again she is right to refer to. It is a big and ambitious scheme which, over a relatively short period of time, is designed for 3.5 million European citizens. We want them to stay in our country. Whether there is a deal or no deal, we have been very clear that we want them to stay and we want to make that as easy as possible. I do not doubt how ambitious that is. The Home Office has dedicated a significant amount of resources to it and there is significant oversight of the scheme. I can tell her that the reports from the beta testing that has taken place so far, on a limited number of cases in their thousands, have been very encouraging. If I remember correctly, I think most people found that they could register in about 20 minutes through the app system that has been developed. Approximately over 90% of people asked how they found the process said that it was very straightforward and easy to use, but she is right to raise this issue. It is one of those things we all need to get right.

Immigration Detention: Shaw Review

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving me prior sight of his statement. In a way, it is telling that we are having this statement as the last one of this parliamentary Session. Some may be concerned it will not get the attention it deserves, but, in a way, that is symptomatic. Immigration detention and the conditions in immigration detention have always existed in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny, but that lack of scrutiny has been partly addressed by the Shaw review.

I have the slight advantage over Home Office Ministers on the question of immigration detention because I was an MP in the 1990s, when immigration detention, as we know it, was introduced. One thing Ministers insisted was that immigration detention was always meant to be for short periods prior to removal, but the system Stephen Shaw had to look at in 2016 had morphed into something much more disturbing and inappropriate.

The Home Secretary will be aware that the first Shaw review said:

“Immigration detention has increased, is increasing, and—whether by better screening, more effective reviews, or formal time limit—it ought to be reduced.”

Is the Home Secretary aware that some people will believe that the fact we have managed to reduce the number of people in immigration detention by only 8% since the first Shaw review is not satisfactory? We need to move to a position where people are assured that only the minimum number of persons are detained in this way and only for the minimum time. This Home Secretary needs to be aware that that is what MPs were promised in the 1990s and that is what the Government should be moving towards.

However, I welcome the look at alternatives to detention for vulnerable women who might otherwise be held in Yarl’s Wood. Is the Home Secretary aware of how desperate these women are? I visited Yarl’s Wood earlier this year—it took a year for me to be allowed in—and I was shocked at how desperate and unhappy these women were. Some of them were victims of trafficking and of sexual abuse, and should never have been in Yarl’s Wood in the first place. So I welcome our looking at alternatives, working with faith groups and the community, through care in the community. Is the Home Secretary aware that Yarl’s Wood currently costs £10 million a year? That money would be better spent on giving support to our anti-trafficking strategy and on action to help these vulnerable women. Is he aware of the concern about vulnerable detainees? In particular, Stephen Shaw said in his first review that detention is linked to poor mental health outcomes. So this is not just a question of humanity in the way we treat detainees; we need care for their mental health.

I welcome what the Home Secretary said about more data. As I said at the beginning, I deprecate the extent to which immigration detention and its conditions have lain in the shadows. I welcome what he said about dignity in detention. I found the women in Yarl’s Wood living in very sad and very undignified conditions; their rooms had been searched by men in the middle of the night, and there was inadequate healthcare. We also need to address this question of the feeling that they were detained indefinitely. Whenever it is put to Ministers that this system constitutes indefinite detention, they say, “No, of course not.” But someone in prison has a date for release, whereas these people in detention centres do not know when they are going to be released. I am glad that there will be some examination of the question of time limits, because the notion of indefinite detention is one of the things about our current immigration detention system that is the hardest to defend.

The Opposition understand that some type of immigration detention must form part of our immigration system, but we believe that the sooner immigration detention moves back to the system that Members of Parliament were promised in the 1990s, the sooner we are talking about short-term detention, the sooner there is more care for people’s mental health, the sooner there is more care for people’s dignity and, above all, the sooner women are taken out of Yarl’s Wood, it will be a better day—not just for the detainees but for this Government and for the British people and our reputation for fairness and humanity.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her remarks. She has been very thoughtful and constructive and has welcomed some of the initiatives that I announced today, which I hope to build on further. As always, I would be happy to sit down with her to discuss further some of the announcements that I made today, because she can add to what we plan to do. I assure her that, although we are about to start the summer recess, the work of the Home Office and all the work that I talked about in my statement continues. I want to make sure that, when we are all back in Parliament, we can properly probe further the report and some of the announcements I made today, whether that is through Select Committees or otherwise.

The right hon. Lady was right to talk about the problems with immigration detention over a number of years. I think she would be the first to agree that there have been problems for many years under successive Governments. In preparation for delivering this statement, I looked back at a 2009 Home Affairs Committee report, which talked about many similar problems. More than 1,000 children were in detention that year. The right hon. Lady referred to Yarl’s Wood; that report said that

“Yarl’s Wood remains essentially a prison.”

That was in 2009. I hope that she agrees that, with the work that has been done, particularly Stephen Shaw’s two independent reviews, changes are beginning to be made. I am the first to accept, though, that more needs to be done. That is the purpose of the most recent report and the action that I have announced today.

That action includes making improvements across the board, including in the number of people detained, which I would like to see fall further. The right hon. Lady rightly pointed out that the number has fallen by 8% year to year. The number of places available for detention has been cut by a quarter. Whether they are women or not, we should be working to get even more people looked after in the community. At the moment, around 95% of people who could have been detained are not, but I would like to see that percentage go up even more, because 5% being detained is too high.

On Yarl’s Wood, we will be piloting the alternative to detention. It is worth pointing out that women make up a much smaller proportion of the total number of people in detention. That proportion is currently around 9%, which is around 260 women, but I would like to see that come down much more. As I mentioned in my statement, we will focus on the vulnerable cases. Despite the actions that have already been taken, I welcome Mr Shaw’s scrutiny, and we should do more there, too.

On the whole issue of dignity—everything from contact with families to toilet facilities—there are so many ways in which we can make improvements. I recently visited a detention centre and heard that there are still some cases—very limited cases—in which the detention room was designed for two but three people were being kept in it. I thought that that should end immediately, and that is what I announced today. We can continue to build on things such as that.

Finally, the right hon. Lady referred to detention time limits. It is worth pointing out that 95% are not detained and, of the 5% who are detained, 64% are detained for only two months. Otherwise, 91% have left the detention centre within four months. That said, there has been a debate and there are clearly limits on detention in many other countries, including many European countries. Those countries have different checks and balances from the ones we have, but it is worth giving the matter a closer look. I am sure that the right hon. Lady would agree that we should all focus on the evidence available to see what changes can be made. The review that I have commissioned my Department to do will help to bring about more evidence. As I said, I very much welcome her comments.

Amesbury Update

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Home Secretary for making his statement to the House and for allowing me prior sight of it. I welcome the fact that he is doing his best to keep the House promptly updated on this very serious incident. The whole House appreciates that he chaired another Cobra meeting on this important issue this morning.

The first thing that must be said is that our deepest sympathies go out to the friends, family and loved ones of Dawn Sturgess. It was a horrific way to die. Opposition and Government Members can agree that it is of paramount importance that we establish exactly how it happened. I am sure the family and loved ones of Charlie Rowley must be deeply concerned at this time. We can at least offer them the reassurance that we are confident that the medical staff and medical specialists are doing everything that they can. We wish him a full recovery. I repeat the Opposition’s admiration of and support for the work of the emergency services, the NHS, the security services and the vital public servants at Porton Down.

The Home Secretary will be aware that there was some concern among some people in Salisbury and Amesbury that they were not being given enough information. Ricky Rogers, a leading Wiltshire councillor, said that the death of Sturgess had “heightened tension”. He went on:

“Local residents have never been told enough about the first incident back in March. I think someone from counter-terrorism needs to come here and tell us what they know”.

However, since he said that, the Metropolitan police counter-terrorism chief Neil Basu has made a very full public statement, which may have allayed some concerns. The Opposition appreciate that the security services cannot reveal everything they know as soon as they know it, but will the Home Secretary give an assurance that local people will be kept as fully informed as is feasible?

I welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement of work on a support package for local business, which I asked about last week. We will wait to hear further detail. It has been a terrible period for the community. Public concern after the first incident, and now this second poisoning incident, represents a blow to business and retail in the area. Local businesses were only just recovering from the fallout from the original incident, so we welcome news about a support package.

Going forward, after these very serious security incidents, the most important thing is that we limit speculation and guesswork and have the most thorough investigation that goes where the evidence takes it. The sad death of Dawn Sturgess deserves no less.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments. I join her in expressing our thoughts for the family and friends of Dawn Sturgess, who will of course be going through an incredibly difficult time. She was right to start with those remarks and to remind us all that Charlie Rowley is still gravely ill in hospital. The thoughts of the whole House—of all of us present today—remain with him. We wish nothing less than a speedy recovery for him.

As she did last week, the right hon. Lady quite rightly took the opportunity to commend the work of the emergency services. As I mentioned, I went to Amesbury this weekend and met emergency workers from the local police, health and fire services, and took the opportunity to thank them for everything they have done and continue to do, both in response to the original incident and, of course, now. In their approach to the work and how they have done it, they continue to help local people and to build confidence, so the right hon. Lady was right to mention them.

The right hon. Lady mentioned that she has heard people ask in some quarters whether more information could be made available, especially relating to the original incident in March. That desire for more information, especially from local people, is perfectly understandable, but, as she herself appreciated this is a live, ongoing police investigation, and what the police can share with the public is always limited. That is understandable, but as she noted, and I thank her for that, the head of counter terrorism policing, Mr Neil Basu, has now made a further statement, which touches on both the original investigation and this current incident. I have every reason to believe that he is sharing whatever information he possibly can with the public, but it is right that the information that is shared is a decision made by the police, and by the police alone. If it would be helpful to the right hon. Lady, I would happily arrange a further briefing on Privy Council terms with perhaps the deputy national security adviser. In that way, she could get a bit more information. If she wants to take that up, I think that she would find it helpful, and that offer is available to her.

The right hon. Lady also talked about the support package. I share her concerns there. She will know from the original incident that a support package was put together by central Government working with the local council, Wiltshire Council, and that a number of businesses have received support. Given this new incident and the impact that that can have locally on businesses, and given the meetings that I have had with some of those businesses, it is important that we look at that again and see what further support can be provided. At today’s Cobra meeting, I felt that it should be cross-Government support, taking in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government as well as the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Treasury. They should all be involved and working together. That is why the Cabinet Office offered to co-ordinate that activity, and it is working on that as we speak. The local Member of Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), who joins me on the Front Bench, has been very involved, coming up with some helpful suggestions for local businesses, so we will certainly be following up on those, too.

The right hon. Lady said that speculation should be limited. I do not think that speculation will add in any way to what local people and the country at large want to see. As she quite rightly said, people want to be led by the evidence, the full facts, which is why we must all allow the police to do their work. Whenever I have any further information that I can share publicly, I will, of course, come to the House to do so. As I have just said, if it is information that cannot be made public, I am happy to make sure that she gets updates on Privy Council terms. I very much welcome her approach to this, because it is exactly what the country wants to see.

Amesbury Incident

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Home Secretary for making his statement to this House and for giving me prior sight of it. The whole House appreciates that he came here directly from a Cobra meeting. As he said, the first duty of any Government is to secure the safety and security of their people and all those resident in this country. No Government can allow the poisoning of their citizens or residents as they go about their daily lives, by state actors or others. As he has said, the use of chemical weapons is both barbaric and inhumane. Our thoughts and best wishes go out to Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, and we wish them a speedy and complete recovery. I would also like to place on the record the admiration and support we on this side of the House have for the work of the emergency services, the security services and the vital public servants at Porton Down.

The Home Secretary will appreciate how alarmed the public, particularly the people of Wiltshire, must be at this second incident involving the nerve agent Novichok in four months. This incident has occurred long after local people had been assured that there had been a thorough clean-up of the area. We understood that numerous areas across Salisbury had been decontaminated, at great expense and with great thoroughness. It is still not clear whether this is a wholly separate incident or the fall-out from the original incident but with effects being felt months apart.

The Home Secretary will appreciate that if there are connections, other than the type of nerve agent involved, between this latest incident and the Skripal case, the House and the general public will obviously want to know as soon as possible. The House has not received an update on the Skripal case for some time; the Home Secretary may wish to take this opportunity to update the House and the general public about ongoing work on the Skripal case. The House and the public at large will want reassurance, but they will want it to be based on facts. I agree with the Home Secretary that we should not jump to conclusions. We need the facts on this serious matter, and no doubt Members from all parties will resist the temptation to engage in wild speculation or to offer their own guesswork as informed opinion.

Members from all parties, along with the general public, will eventually want to understand how this incident could have occurred. The public will also be concerned about other issues. Do the local police have the resources that they need? Will the Government be providing them and the local authority with additional emergency funding for the enormous drain on resources that this investigation and the securing of various sites will inevitably involve? As well as causing great public concern, this second incident will be a blow to business and retail in the area. Local businesses were just recovering from the Salisbury fallout; what support will they be given? Will the Secretary of State assure the public that this new clean-up and decontamination effort will be exemplary in its thoroughness?

There are some matters that the Secretary of State might usefully raise with his colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care. Do all relevant emergency workers and health professionals have sufficient information to recognise the symptoms of this type of poisoning? Do they have advice on how to respond to suspected cases? The public will have noted that although Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley took ill on Saturday night and were taken to exactly the same hospital as the Skripals, it apparently took two days to refer the case to Porton Down.

As the Home Secretary said, the eyes of the world are on Russia. We will all have seen the very warm and enthusiastic response of the Russian people to people coming from all over the world for the World cup. The Opposition supported the expulsion of the 23 Russian diplomats and the other related actions that Her Majesty’s Government took in the wake of the Salisbury incident, and we will support any action that the Government take that will keep our people safe. We cannot allow the streets of ordinary British towns and communities to become killing fields for state actors.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her support and her comments and join her in stating again that the whole House wishes the victims a very speedy recovery. I very much welcome her questions, which I shall try to respond to in turn.

The right hon. Lady asked, perfectly correctly, for reassurance that this incident is not connected in any way to the areas that were decontaminated after the original incident back in March. We are very comfortable that that is not the case—and that is not just the view of Ministers on their own; it is the view of experts, especially the decontamination experts. They are clear that the decontamination exercise was successful, as is Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, and we are happy to say that those areas are all safe. We are also comfortable that, from what we know, in this particular incident neither individual contracted or came into contact with the nerve agent at any of the decontaminated areas. That is our belief.

The right hon. Lady asked whether there was any more information on the connection between this incident and the original incident. That is of course the main line of inquiry for the police, for obvious reasons, but as she alluded to—it is worth restating—none of us should rush to prejudge the outcome of the investigation. As more evidence and any information comes out, we will of course share that with Members and with the wider public.

The right hon. Lady rightly raised the issue of resources, and I can reassure her on that. In fact, one of the main things that we discussed at the Cobra meeting earlier was ensuring that all the necessary resources are made available, as they were back in March. We wanted to make sure that that applied to everyone involved in dealing with this incident, but particularly local police, CT policing and the security services. I am comfortable that any resources required will be provided and any further requests will be met. That will be a priority for us.

The right hon. Lady mentioned the impact on the local area, and she was right to do so. People local to the area were heroic in their response to the original attack and have united, together as a community, and sent a clear message of support for each other. At the time of the original incident, there was a lot of support from the local council, Wiltshire Council, and from local political leaders, including my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), who contacted me at the moment he knew about the incident to ask about further support. We are looking at what more can be done. We will meet the leader of the local council, Baroness Jane Scott, and talk about precisely that, and we will also talk about, as the right hon. Lady mentioned, local businesses, many of which were just starting to recover. Whether they are high street shops or part of the local tourist trade, we want to make sure that their business is as unaffected as possible, so we are looking at what further support we can provide to them. The right hon. Lady was absolutely right to raise that point.

The right hon. Lady asked about local health expertise. The Department of Health and Social Care is of course making sure that if any extra resources are required, they will be provided to the health services. It is particularly important that, given that it is where the victims are, Salisbury District Hospital has all the support needed. My current understanding is that in respect of the two victims in this case, the health professionals in the hospital were able to use some of the experience that they gained from March’s incident in their approach, which meant that the right type of medical support was provided earlier than it perhaps would have been otherwise. There is considerable local expertise, but of course if more needs to be provided, it will be.

Lastly, the right hon. Lady asked me about an update on the police investigation into the original case. That investigation is of course ongoing and involves CT policing, local police and the security services, but it would be inappropriate for me to say anything further on that at this point.

Cannabis-based Medicines

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Home Secretary for prior sight of his statement. I am well aware of the damage that cannabis consumption can cause, whether it is the health of very young consumers or ganja psychosis. The newer forms of cannabis, notably skunk, are very much stronger than the cannabis available a generation ago. However, I am also aware, as the Home Secretary will be, that a former chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Professor Nutt, has said that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol. I note that Baron Hague of Richmond is calling for complete decriminalisation.

The Opposition welcome the Home Secretary’s statement that he will look more closely at the use of cannabis-based medication in healthcare in the UK. We agree that this is the right time—if not long overdue—to review the scheduling of cannabis, and we are glad to hear that the policing Minister has spoken to Alfie Dingley’s mother. After the meeting in 10 Downing Street, she was very concerned about the length of time that it was taking to issue a suitable licence.

The Home Secretary has released some of the supply of medication that Billy Caldwell’s mother brought into the country, but does he intend to release the complete supply? Is he aware of the concern at the delays in the current process? Although we welcome the review, something must be done to manage the current process more effectively, including the use of an advisory panel. It is simply not acceptable that parents and families have to suffer, as they have been, as a result of the interminable delays in agreeing licences.

Cannabis and the drug issue generally are big issues of concern for the community. It is important that we base whatever we do on scientific fact and evidence, and we do not just bow to what might be popular sentiment. There are harms connected with cannabis consumption, but it is time to move forward and establish once and for all the potential of cannabis-based medicine to alleviate pain and suffering.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments and her support for my statement. I think she agrees with me that it is absolutely the right time for the Government to look at this issue. She will be aware that under successive Governments, policy in this area has not changed for a long time, but given what we have all seen and heard all too clearly on our television screens, on the radio, and given the many meetings that my hon. Friend the policing Minister has had with the families affected, it is the right time to look at this issue and act as quickly as possible.

There are two parts to our action. I wish to reassure the House—all hon. Members will appreciate that rules of this type cannot be changed overnight. The changes have to be based on evidence. If they are not and are not properly made, some people out there may have different views and may try to challenge the rules legally. They have to be sufficiently robust. That is why we have put in place this process and why we wanted to act as quickly as possible. Professor Sally Davies’ office has said that she can complete her work within a week. We are moving as fast as we possibly can, and I hope that the ACMD can then act within weeks.

At the same time, we do not want any other families to suffer, so we want to ensure that we have a process in place to act much more swiftly. That is why we have established the expert panel. The chief medical officers from all the devolved nations, including Northern Ireland, are involved in that, so we are co-ordinating and will work well together. The expert panel will be able to act very swiftly and Ministers will be able to take action very quickly based on medical advice, which is what we all want to see.

The right hon. Lady asked me about Alfie Dingley. As I mentioned, we will be issuing the licence today. Alfie’s mother has already been informed and is of course very happy with the decision. I am sorry that she has had to wait so long and go through all the distress that she has faced. I am grateful to the policing Minister for all the work that he has done, and to Alfie’s mother’s Member of Parliament—the Attorney General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright)—for all the work that he has done.

The right hon. Lady asked me about Billy Caldwell’s situation. We are working very closely with the family. Now that the licence has been issued, we will ensure that the right amount of medicine is available for the right time. The situation depends somewhat on whether Billy Caldwell’s mother decides to go back to Northern Ireland, because licensing is an entirely devolved matter. We are working closely with the Northern Ireland authorities to ensure that, if she does decide to go, the move is seamless and does not affect Billy Caldwell in any way.

The right hon. Lady is interested in how quickly we acted. The first time we received a request from a clinician in the case of Billy Caldwell was at around 11.15 am on Friday just gone; by noon I had issued a licence and the drug was in possession of the family. I do not believe that we could have acted any quicker from the point at which we received a request from the clinician.

Once again, let me say that I really appreciate the right hon. Lady’s comments. By working together, we can bring to an end the suffering of all these families and help in every way that we can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I absolutely join my hon. Friend in commending the work of her local community in helping refugees, particularly the group CHARIS. It shows the importance of community sponsorship, which is something we want to look at more closely.

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

The importance of family life ought to unite both sides of the House, but the current rules break up families, as many of us see in our own constituency case loads week after week. The rules are inhumane and in breach of the right to a family life under article 8 of the European convention on human rights. It is also unfortunate that legal aid for some of these applications, which was previously available, was removed under the coalition in 2013. Labour has pledged in government to end the breaking up of families under these rules. Surely the Home Secretary should move faster to review his current family reunion rules.

[Sajid Javid]

I say to the right hon. Lady that 25,000 people have been reunited over the last five years—5,000 a year; I hope she would agree that that is not an insignificant number. She says the current rules are inhumane. It is worth reminding her that they were introduced in 2007 by the previous Labour Government. Perhaps she should reflect on that. She talks about legal aid. As she will know, legal aid is under review by the Ministry of Justice and is something we are looking at carefully.

--- Later in debate ---

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

With reference to the earlier questions on how the cap on tier 2 visas is depriving the NHS of much-needed doctors, the visa cap is damaging the NHS at a time when it is already facing a doctor shortage of 10,000 and an overall staff shortage of more than 100,000. The Home Office is turning away doctors the NHS needs because it is unable to breach the cap. Ministers have referred to briefings in the press in the past few days, but does the Secretary of State appreciate that the NHS needs him to come forward as a matter of urgency and say that he is prepared to review the workings of the cap to allow us to recruit those doctors?

[Sajid Javid]

It is right that we control immigration and try to bring it down to sustainable levels in the long term, but it is also correct that we let in the skills that we need, whether for our health service or our businesses. This is an important issue, and as we heard earlier, Select Committees have written to me and I am looking at the issue very carefully.

Windrush

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I simply want to respond to the Home Secretary by saying that I have been online condemning the racist abuse against him. I know what racist abuse is. Everyone in the Opposition, without exception, condemns the names that he has been called.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Lady for getting up at the Dispatch Box and making that absolutely clear. I thank her also for condemning the racism that I referred to. I know that she, like me, has suffered from racism. It is wrong when it happens to any person, whoever they are, and wherever they come from in our country. When it happens—particularly in political parties, including my own, where it has happened in the past—it is incumbent on all political leaders to stamp on it and to deal with it.

Windrush

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Prime Minister if she will make a statement on the Government’s handling of the Windrush crisis.

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

I am honoured to have been asked this morning to become Home Secretary. I start by making a pledge to those of the Windrush generation who have been in this country for decades and yet have struggled to navigate through the immigration system: this never should have been the case, and I will do whatever it takes to put it right.

Learning about the difficulties that Windrush migrants have faced over the years has affected me greatly, particularly because I myself am a second-generation migrant. Like the Caribbean Windrush generation, my parents came to this country from the Commonwealth in the 1960s; they too came to help to rebuild this country and to offer all that they had. So when I heard that people who were long-standing pillars of their communities were being impacted for simply not having the right documents to prove their legal status in the UK, I thought that that could be my mum, my brother, my uncle or even me. That is why I am so personally committed to, and invested in, resolving the difficulties faced by the people of the Windrush generation who have built their lives here and contributed so much.

I know that my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), felt very strongly about this, too. Mr Speaker, please allow me to pay tribute to her hard work and integrity and to all that she has done and will continue to do in public service. I wish her all the very best. I will build on the decisive action that she has already taken. A dedicated taskforce was set up to handle these cases; more than 500 appointments have been scheduled, and more than 100 people have already had their cases processed and now have the necessary documents. We will continue to resolve these cases as a matter of urgency.

We have made it clear that Commonwealth citizens who have remained in the UK since 1973 will be eligible to get the legal status that they deserve: British citizenship. That will be free of charge, and I will bring forward the necessary secondary legislation. We have also been clear that a new compensation scheme will be put in place for those whose lives have been disrupted. We intend to consult on the scope of the scheme and we will appoint an independent person to oversee it. I hope that I can count on the full support of all hon. Members to make this happen as soon as possible. I end by making one thing crystal clear: we will do right by the Windrush generation.

[Ms Abbott]

I congratulate the Home Secretary on his new position occupying one of the great offices of state and thank him for coming to the House to answer this urgent question after what must have been quite a busy morning.

Is the Home Secretary aware how ashamed many British people are about the Windrush scandal, how frightened and angry the Windrush generation and their families are and how the scandal has resonated around the Commonwealth? He talks about the Windrush generation getting the legal status they deserve, but actually they were always British. They were always British citizens.

Is the Home Secretary aware that this is a matter not just for the Windrush generation and Commonwealth citizens from the Caribbean? The plight that befell the Windrush generation could also affect Commonwealth citizens who came here from south Asia and west Africa. What steps does he intend to take to protect later cohorts of Commonwealth citizens from the indignity and humiliation that the Windrush generation have had to suffer?

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that it was the Prime Minister, as Home Secretary, who introduced the Immigration Act 2014, which removed Commonwealth citizens’ protection from deportation. The new Home Secretary has been part of the Government’s immigration implementation taskforce. Was he aware of the problems being caused to Commonwealth citizens? Was he aware of the warnings in an internal Home Office impact assessment? Was he aware of the warnings from the previous Communities and Local Government Secretary that the “costs and risks” involved in the “hostile environment” would “outweigh the benefits”? Will the new Home Secretary commit at the very least to reinstating the protection for Commonwealth citizens that was removed by the current Prime Minister in 2014? What progress has been made in identifying Windrush people who have been deported, detained or improperly refused re-entry? We will also soon want to know more about compensation and its levels.

The Windrush generation was my parents’ generation. I and most British people believe that they have been treated appallingly. The Home Secretary will be judged not on the statements he makes this afternoon, but on what he does to put the situation right and to get justice for the Windrush generation.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her kind remarks at the start. She asks whether Members are aware of just how angry so many people from the Windrush generation are. Of course we are aware. My predecessor was aware and the Prime Minister was aware, which is why they rightly issued apologies for the treatment of some members of that generation. I am angry, too. I shared with the right hon. Lady just a moment ago just how angry I am and the reasons why I am angry. Like her, I am a second-generation migrant, and I know that she shares that anger, but she should respect the fact that other people share it, too. She does not have a monopoly on that.

The right hon. Lady asks whether I am aware that the same issues could—I stress “could”—have an impact on other Commonwealth citizens, perhaps people such as my parents and others from south Asia who settled in this country. I am aware that that could be the case and I intend to look at that carefully. Right here and now, though, all the cases that have come up relate to the Windrush generation of people from the Caribbean who settled in Britain. That is why they are rightly the focus.

The right hon. Lady claims that protections were removed in 2014, but no such protections have been removed. People who arrived pre-1973 have the absolute right to be here, and that has not changed.

The right hon. Lady asks whether I am aware of anyone who may have been wrongly deported. I am not currently aware of any such cases, but I stress that intensive work is being done right now in the Department, going back many years and looking at many individuals, so I will keep the House updated on that.

The right hon. Lady closed her remarks by rightly reminding everyone that her parents were members of the Windrush generation. My parents were also part of the generation of migrants who came to this country in the 1960s. I hope that she can work with the Government to help those people.

Anti-Semitism

Debate between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

The Charedi community will want these issues to be raised. One is the rising level of hate crime; the other is what is happening with the Charedi community maintained schools and Ofsted. I urge the Home Secretary to meet leaders of the Charedi community and leaders of the Shomrim neighbourhood watch organisation to understand and hear their particular concerns.

On the question of the schools, I can do no better than quote Gillian Merron, the chief executive officer of the Board of Deputies of British Jews:

“We understand that Ofsted has a difficult job to do, but the repeated and increasingly aggressive targeting of Charedi schools is fast becoming counterproductive. While some Jewish schools have a good relationship with Ofsted, the Charedi sector is losing confidence in the inspectorate.”

[Sajid Javid]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

The Charedi community has asked me to make these points.