Points of Order
Edward Leigh Excerpts(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You are the foremost guardian of the convention that the House of Commons must come first. My hon. Friend the Minister is a most charming and able Minister, but I have asked him why the Foreign Secretary is not here. I quite understand—he is a very busy man—if he is abroad or ill, but surely we must establish the convention that when there is an urgent question or a statement, unless it deals with a particular, small part of a Department, the Secretary of State should be here. I would hope that you make that clear to Departments.
Mr Speaker
I must say to the hon. Gentleman that the position is that it is for the Government to decide whom to field. My responsibility is to adjudicate upon applications for permission to put urgent questions. I do that every week, and sometimes several times a week. I cannot require any particular Minister to attend, and it must remain for the Government to make the judgment.
That said, the hon. Gentleman is a very senior and respected figure in this House, and he has just made a point that increasingly I have heard made recently by others. I have not made a statistical study, but there are suggestions that the frequency with which senior Ministers appear to answer urgent questions is declining. It is in no sense to cast an aspersion on the Minister, who knows his brief and has assiduously attended to the matters raised today, simply to note that point in passing. I would hope that senior Ministers wanted, and felt a duty, to answer questions from Members of Parliament. We do not have a separation of powers, as in the United States; Ministers sit in, and are answerable to, this House. None, frankly, should ever forget it.
Child Refugees in Europe
Edward Leigh Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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James Brokenshire
I have already set out the additional funding that DFID has committed to support those across Europe and how some of that money is being provided to UNICEF, for example, to look at how we can best support children in that overall approach. I want to underline the fact that UNICEF itself has emphasised
“the importance of first and foremost assessing the individual situation of unaccompanied children, and their best interests, before any actions are taken; noting that in these situations children who may appear unaccompanied are in fact being supported by family members, or others, and decisions on how they are cared for should take this into account.”
That is precisely the approach the Government are taking.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
No one doubts the humanity of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)—it is very difficult to argue against it—but surely the duty of Government is to balance natural emotion with hard-headed realism. Net migration into this country has been far bigger in last 20 years than for any other country, and we are at the limit of what the public will accept. We are also spending more than the whole of the rest of Europe put together on helping people in Syria. For every child refugee we take from a camp in Dover or Calais, we will simply have to take many other people who will come as part of the family. I urge the Government to stick to their present policy—their humane and correct policy—of spending money to help in the region and not to listen to the Leader of the Opposition and his daft policy of taking people from Dover and Calais.
James Brokenshire
We want to see children who are affected by this appalling crisis given help and assistance at the earliest opportunity. That is why we have committed the aid and support that we have in the region. It is also why in Calais, for example, we have been giving support to the French Government to ensure that claims can be made as quickly as possible. The French Government have set up 78 new centres away from Calais to help migrants to make their claims as quickly as possible. That way, we see people get help at the earliest chance.
Donald Trump
Edward Leigh Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) was quoted this morning—I think in The Daily Telegraph —as saying she was going to “trash” Donald Trump this afternoon. I am not sure he is going to be terribly worried about this debate.
I respect the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) for the measured way in which he introduced the debate. It will be of no surprise that I oppose the ban. First, it just gives Donald Trump publicity. Actually, this debate is the only item about British politics in the US press at the moment. They are not talking about Corbynmania, Brexit or anything else; they are talking about this debate. Why feed the machine? We saw what happened with Geert Wilders. Did that do any good? I do not think so. The hon. Gentleman made that point in his measured speech.
Secondly, a ban would offend free speech. In a free country, people have a right to offend others. I introduced an amendment to section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 to make that clear. I offend people in this House all the time; it is my right to do so.
Thirdly, the United States is a friendly country that came to our rescue twice in two world wars. This man may conceivably become President of our most important ally. Fourthly, we cannot translate American politics to UK politics, which is completely different. I was in a debate earlier this year on full fiscal autonomy for Scotland, and the Labour spokesman described me as an extreme right winger—God forbid. My amendment was supported by the shadow Chancellor when he was a Back Bencher; whether he is an extreme right winger, I do not know. As it happens, I am strongly in favour of gun control; I voted consistently against bombing Syria and invading Iraq; I am strongly in favour of the NHS, which I use exclusively; and I oppose capital punishment—would I survive in the Republican party? Nevertheless, I am told that I am an extreme right winger. US and UK politics are completely different, and it would be a great mistake to try to translate them.
Petitions such as this are a bit of good fun, but if the Government were to act on this one—God forbid—they would be playing into Mr Trump’s hands. His style of politics is to stoke controversy by saying outrageous things. Lavishing him with attention, even if our intent is to condemn or deride, is falling into the trap he set for us. His continuing popularity among voters—we may not like it, but he is popular—is evidence of that. We must be wary of lowering ourselves to demagoguery in fighting demagogues.
We all lament the divisiveness of politics, which seem particularly divisive in the United States when viewed from afar, from our side of the pond. Does a debate such as this really help? Would banning Mr Trump, which would be even worse, really help? Most of us in this room oppose Mr Trump for demonising his opponents. If we ban him from the country, are we not in danger of doing the same?
Like it or not, Mr Trump is also a contender to be the Head of State of arguably the most powerful country on the planet, a country which is a vital ally of ours. We have welcomed to this country Saudi and Chinese leaders, not to mention Mr Ceausescu, whose crimes are far worse than anything Mr Trump can dream up. These people do not just talk about violence; they practise violence on an extreme scale, but we have welcomed them to our country. I am a firm believer in free speech, which is a cause I have supported with such unlikely bedfellows as the National Secular Society and the Christian Institute. If we allow free speech only for those with whom we already agree, is that free speech at all? The solution is dialogue, not deeper division.
Let me end by saying that this is also an attempt to shut down an honest debate about immigration. As soon as one mentions immigration, one is labelled a right winger or a racist. That is not the way to solve the problem of integration. The Prime Minister wrote a fantastic article in The Times today, making the worthwhile and good point that our Muslim friends must learn from previous waves of immigrants, particularly the Jews of the 19th century, who have chosen to integrate fully in our society. Here are some of the prominent immigrants and children of immigrants, all intensely and identifiably British, all of whom arrived long before Britain’s post-war immigration waves: Hans Holbein, George Frederick Handel, Frederick William Herschel, Isaac and Benjamin Disraeli, Christina Rossetti, Gustav Holst, Augustus Pugin, Louis of Battenberg and his son Louis Mountbatten, Hilaire Belloc, Joseph Conrad, George Louis du Maurier, Winston Churchill, Leo Amery, T.S. Eliot, Lewis Namier, Learie Constantine, Alexander Korda, Emeric Pressburger, Nikolaus Pevsner, Isaiah Berlin, Geoffrey Elton, the two Michael Howards, and Solly Zuckerman. The list illustrates a fundamental point: although those figures immensely enhanced British life, they did not make their adopted nation cosmopolitan; their adopted nation made these cosmopolitans British, and we should be proud of them.
Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I must make a declaration: I am the only Member of Parliament who can claim to represent the good people of New York—New York in Lincolnshire. When those seeking religious sanctuary in the 1600s reached the shores of what we now know as the United States of America, that tiny hamlet in my constituency lent its name to a patch of land that grew to be one of the greatest cities on the planet. The good people of the original New York—all 150 or so of them—wear that honour lightly.
Sir Edward Leigh
Ted Cruz has launched a vicious attack on the people of New York, saying they are cosmopolitan—[Laughter]—so I hope my hon. Friend will stand up for the people of New York. Will she note, as I have, having looked at the map, that not a single person from Lincolnshire has signed the petition to ban Donald Trump?
Victoria Atkins
My hon. Friend reaches my point before me. I promise to deal with New York values at the end of my speech.
I turn, as I must, to Mr Trump. His comments about Muslims are wrong. His policy to close borders, if he is elected as President, is bonkers. If he met one or two of my constituents in one of the many excellent pubs in my constituency, they may well tell him that he is a wazzock for dealing with the issue in that way. I sense that my constituents, whether in New York or Tetney, in Minting or Mablethorpe, feel that their values are more than robust enough to survive anything that Mr Trump may say. We in Lincolnshire—in fact, we in the United Kingdom—should have enough confidence in our values to allow him to say whatever he wants in New York, New York, or in New York, Lincolnshire, or anywhere else in the world, because our British values are stronger than some among us here today appear to fear.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, and to participate in the debate. I, too, am a member of the Petitions Committee, and I am delighted that we brought the debate to the House today. That is not because the Committee held a particular view, but because we felt that it was right, given the number of people who signed the petition, to air these important issues.
Like the hundreds of thousands of people who signed the petition, and no doubt millions of others across the country, I condemn wholeheartedly the comments Mr Trump made about not only Muslims, but Mexicans, women, people with disabilities and other minority groups. However, the question whether we should ban him from this country is interesting and important, and we need to address it head on.
This country has a long and strong tradition of free speech. Although, sadly, that principle and some of those freedoms have been eroded recently, we are still a country that welcomes debate and embraces a variety of views. If we were to go down the road of banning Mr Trump because we find his views objectionable or even offensive, where would we draw the line? There are many people with equally intolerant views—some come to this country and some, as we have heard, already live here. Are we to ban them because we do not like the things they say or we disagree with them?
The issue at stake is how our society handles people with different views from us when we find those views strongly objectionable or offensive—the issue of free speech. I believe it is about when someone crosses a line to incite others to acts of violence—to criminal acts. That is the line that I believe must be drawn, and at which we differentiate. I do not believe that Donald Trump has crossed that line. He may do it another time, and then we might need to reconsider, but I do not believe he has done it yet. It is perfectly right that the Home Secretary bans extremist preachers when they tell their followers to commit acts of terrorism and to cause harm and pain to individuals and communities—and, ultimately, to kill. However, I do not believe that Mr Trump has done that.
I wonder how long the list would be if our country began to ban people because they said things we did not like. Ignorant and unpleasant as Donald Trump’s comments are, he is not alone in saying such things. For starters, we would have to ban the Prime Minister of Hungary who has, I believe, said equally offensive things about Muslims. The way we deal with bigotry and prejudice is by confronting it head on, not trying to avoid it. Banning someone like Donald Trump risks making him a martyr. We would only fuel his cause and he would see himself as a martyr. I believe many of his supporters would feel the same.
What would banning Donald Trump achieve? We live in a global village. We will not stop his views reaching our shores purely because we ban him. In fact, I would argue the opposite. The promotion that would come from a ban would mean his views would be heard louder and stronger than they are now. Banning him would only play into his hands. Instead of wanting to ban Mr Trump, I am with those who say, “Let’s invite him to this country. Let’s bring him here and confront his views head on. Let’s take him and show him what a great nation we are, based on those values of tolerance and freedom of speech. Let’s take him to the places that he has spoken about and show him what life in Britain is really like.”
My final point is that I have been surprised at the amount of support Mr Trump has received from the Republican party. In my view, the greatest Republican President that the United States has had in my lifetime was Ronald Reagan, who, far from proposing building walls, was all about tearing them down. He said to President Gorbachev of Russia,
“if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
Therefore, I am surprised that Donald Trump is getting the support he is. It seems to cut against the heritage and values that I understand the Republican party to be about.
Sir Edward Leigh
I am not surprised at all. The fact is that in America and Britain there is widespread disillusion with mainstream establishment politicians, who do not seem to give an honest answer to people’s concerns about immigration and many issues. Therefore, there is no point in just bad-mouthing this guy. We have to take on these arguments and discuss them in an open way.
Steve Double
I agree with my hon. Friend that the response we are seeing is far more about people’s frustrations and concerns than about an individual man.
It would be ironic if we were to take the regressive stance of banning Donald Trump because he has called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. We would surely be guilty of the thing we criticise him for. It would send a signal to the world that we are scared.
Kwasi Kwarteng
I have been very generous with interventions, but I want to clarify that point. I do not have much time, but I repeat: the ground on which Donald Trump is banning Muslims is not their faith; it is because he believes that they constitute a danger to the United States. That is the ground—[Interruption.] I am just explaining his logic; I do not agree with it. And I am saying that any case to ban Donald Trump would be on the basis that he is a danger to our civic safety. Logically, it is exactly the same.
Sir Edward Leigh
On the point about 1.6 billion Muslims, thank God there are not 1.6 billion Trumps.
Kwasi Kwarteng
Yes, that would make our lives very difficult.
This has been a very engaging and enlightening debate, but it is no good saying, “Oh, he’s got huge publicity at the moment, so any more wouldn’t make any difference.” He was well known at the beginning of his campaign, but we have seen that there has been a crescendo of excitement and interest in the campaign. The very fact of this debate, as someone observed, is generating and stoking that excitement.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
This petition, with more than 500,000 signatures, is a welcome indication of the scale of the revulsion with which we in these islands treat the xenophobia of Donald Trump. I am here to sum up for the Scottish National party. I doubt that many parties have a policy on Donald Trump; thankfully, such a policy has not been needed until now. Although I do not necessarily support a complete ban on Mr Trump entering the country, it is clear that his bigoted remarks against Muslims, against Mexicans and against other minorities—particularly his remarks about Muslims—deserve the utmost condemnation from all parts of the House and of society. I am proud of the petitioners and of all who signed the petition for rejecting his outrageous xenophobia and Islamophobia, and I hope that they will not take too much to heart the ticking off that they have had from some on the Government Benches for daring to raise the subject.
Some interesting arguments have been made on both sides of the debate. Those who are against banning Donald Trump, but who oppose him and everything that he stands for, have talked of bringing him here to educate him. I did not quite understand what other Members meant when they said, “I would like to invite him to my constituency and take him to the mosque to meet some Muslims.” Perhaps Members thought that those people would teach him a thing or two, and they would be absolutely right to do that. I believe that the strongest argument in favour of banning him is simply the argument of equality. Are Members correct to say that other, very similar, cases are treated very differently? That is something that the Minister needs to answer.
The fact that the petition was so popular highlights three worthy and important points. First, we in these islands reject wholeheartedly the notion of discriminating against anyone on the basis of their religion. Secondly, individuals of power such as Trump are happy to demonise others but would never consider that they could be treated in such a fashion. Thirdly, there has been public revulsion in this country and in the United States towards the statements of this public figure. Let us not forget the outcry from the many good people in the United States at Trump’s statements, which went against all the shared enlightenment values that tie together the United States and the countries of the United Kingdom.
In addition to recognising that Trump’s statements were distasteful, we should note the hypocrisy of the son of an immigrant, of a religious minority, advocating being so bigoted against other migrants and religious minorities.
Sir Edward Leigh
The debate in America is far more nuanced than the hon. Lady suggests. All the Republican candidates in this election are expressing the traditional American view that America is a melting pot, and that it does not matter where someone comes from, but they have to be loyal to the flag and loyal to America. Trump may be articulating this feeling in a particularly extreme and controversial way, but for us to deny that many ordinary people in America are worried about their Americanness would be to deny the real and valid debate that is going on in America.
Sir David Amess (in the Chair)
Order. Before the hon. Lady resumes her speech, I will just say that we are not as tight for time as we thought we were about 10 minutes ago. The debate can continue until 7.30 pm.
Anne McLaughlin
I agree with that. It is a matter for that political party, but it is a good point and perhaps a good reason for us all to support Hillary Clinton to become the next President of the United States. I am sorry—I forgot that I am not allowed to comment on the presidential elections.
As President Obama’s press secretary pointed out, Donald Trump’s statements make him unfit to be President. He cannot pledge to uphold the constitution of the United States if he does not believe in religious liberty and freedom from discrimination; or is he going to amend the constitution on his own? How would the people of the United States put up with that? Although Trump’s right-wing rhetoric might help him to pick up votes in the primary, in the general election the vast majority of voters in the States will no doubt be horrified that such an individual could lead them on the world stage. Trump believes himself to be plain-spoken. I understand some of the arguments of people who do not just want robotic politicians who churn out rehearsed press statements, but there is a huge difference between that and this case. Appealing to fears and prejudice is not the language and common sense of people here or in the United States.
It is tempting to give Trump a taste of his own medicine and to bar him, but would he love it? Would we be giving him a gift? Would it just, as some people have argued, give him even more publicity, or is the argument stronger that we will give him publicity by letting him in because, having said what he said and caused such controversy, he will be on every TV programme and chat show in the land spouting his nonsense? I do see an argument for allowing Trump in to do that because he will not be able to help himself. He will say things that will render him chargeable, guilty or able to be prosecuted for inciting racial hatred.
Anne McLaughlin
He is not a murderer, but surely the argument cannot be that we want to ban, jail or charge only murderers. There are other crimes, and we are talking about a crime that has a real impact, maybe not on my life but on many people’s lives. There have been many suggestions by Government Members that we should keep quiet about this and that members of the public who signed the petition, some of whom are here today, should just keep quiet.
I have tabled an early-day motion marking Martin Luther King day, which is today—in fact, today is the 30th anniversary of Martin Luther King day—and I encourage everyone to sign that EDM, if they have not done so already. I will quote Martin Luther King:
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”
We will not be silent.
The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) on the manner in which he opened this debate, underlining the reasons why we are debating the issue and the importance that we in this Parliament attach to petitions. When those supported by the public reach a threshold, it provides a voice for the public in this House. That has been an important addition to our processes. He was also right to underline the shared sense of history between the United Kingdom and the United States, and the relationship that we have enjoyed over a considerable period of time. This debate has underlined the value and importance that this House places on freedom of speech, as well as our ability to allow all different views and perspectives to argue those points. That has been done clearly and effectively in this impassioned debate.
Before I respond to a number of the points raised in this debate, there are a few things that I want to say at the outset. Britain is a successful multiracial, multi-faith, multi-ethnic country. Our strength derives from that diversity. Life in our country is based on fundamental values that have been shaped by our history and that are supported and shared by the overwhelming majority of the population: the rule of law, democracy and individual liberty; freedom of expression; mutual respect, tolerance and understanding among different faiths and beliefs. These make the foundation of our successful, pluralistic nation. They unite us and help our society to thrive.
I am proud that our country has so many vibrant, diverse communities comprising people of many faiths. I celebrate the contribution made by British Muslims in this country in every sphere and every walk of life, from those who fought in the trenches in world war one and fought fascism in world war two to businessmen, doctors, nurses, teachers, members of our armed services and Members of this House, some of whom have made powerful and impassioned speeches in this debate. They are proud to be both British and Muslim without any contradiction.
Yes, the threat from terrorism at home and abroad is serious and real; we have seen the damaging and corrosive effect of extremism in our communities. But suggesting that the solution is to ban Muslims who have done nothing wrong ignores the fact that extremism affects all communities and hatred can come from any part of society. It ignores the fact that Muslims are themselves far too often the targets of extremism and hatred, and that around the world many Muslims—more than any other group—are killed by terrorism. It also gives succour to the false view that Muslims cannot live a purposeful and fulfilled life in the west. Such assertions are fundamentally wrong, and as a country we could not be clearer in saying so.
If we are to defeat the threats that we face, we need to work together. We need everyone to play a part in stopping the poisonous spread of extremism and helping to protect vulnerable people from being drawn towards its twisted ideology. That is the approach that this Government seek to foster, because we have seen the devastating impact that radicalisation can have on individuals, families and communities and because around the world, more than 1.5 billion people of different nationalities, outlooks and political persuasions live peacefully, practising the Muslim faith.
We must protect those who might be vulnerable to the poisonous and pernicious influence of radicalisation, working with faith groups, community organisations and mosques across the country. It is a job for all of us, and we continue to work in partnership with communities of all faith backgrounds to challenge those who spread hatred and intolerance. We must work with the overwhelming majority of people of this country who abhor the twisted narrative that has seduced some of our people, and challenge those who use a warped version of faith to undermine our fundamental values.
Many of the contributions from right hon. and hon. Members this evening have focused on Donald Trump’s call for a temporary shutdown on Muslims entering the United States. The Prime Minister has said that Donald Trump’s comments are
“divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong.”
I reiterate the Prime Minister’s view and profoundly disagree with Donald Trump.
Regarding Mr Trump’s comments about the UK and London in particular, again he could not be further from the truth. We should all be proud of London’s status as one of the world’s most diverse and tolerant cities, and of the police’s role in keeping the entire city safe, working in all communities to protect people from radicalisation, and I pay tribute to their tireless work.
Sir Edward Leigh
My right hon. Friend mentioned the Prime Minister. Before he sits down at the end of his remarks, will he commend the Prime Minister’s article in The Times today, in which the Prime Minister says the key to good race relations is full integration? The Prime Minister also points out that there is still a worryingly large number of Muslim women who do not speak English and are not in the jobs market, and he wants to improve the situation. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister commend the Prime Minister?
James Brokenshire
I agree with the policy that the Prime Minister has rightly identified today, in seeking to ensure that language is there to make sure that we help migrants to participate and integrate better in everyday life. That is the building block behind the policy that the Prime Minister has rightly identified.
Equally, the Prime Minister has been prepared to look at some uncomfortable facts; for example, the fact that in 2011 22% of British Muslim women spoke poor or no English compared with just 9% of British Muslim men. Therefore, it is how we can target that support at those communities in the greatest need that is important, and that is precisely why Louise Casey has been engaged, as part of her work, to go about identifying that.
Serious and Organised Crime: Prüm Convention
Edward Leigh Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Andy Burnham
The case the Home Secretary has just set out from the Dispatch Box was compelling and powerful, revealing, as it did, the zeal of the convert to the cause. She was right to make her case with such force, and I am sure my right hon. Friend would agree that the problem with the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Stone and others this evening is that it invites the House to prioritise the civil liberties of British citizens and risks to UK sovereignty over and above risks to national security. That is what the amendment to the motion invites us to do.
Of course our liberties and our sovereignty are important considerations, but the safety of the public must come first. That is the primary duty of any Government, and it is why the Government are right not to listen to the hon. Member for Stone. The truth is they got themselves into difficulty two years ago by listening to those siren voices, and I hope Members on the Treasury Bench will not make the same mistake today. Indeed, I hope they would have learned an important lesson from this whole episode. It was the European Council that required the Government, after notification of the opt-out, to conduct and publish a business and implementation case assessing the costs and benefits of Prüm. In other words, the EU forced the UK Government to face up to the benefits of European co-operation and in bringing this motion to the House tonight they are effectively conceding the EU was right all along.
That assessment was informed by a pilot undertaken by the Government which the Home Secretary referred to. It found an overwhelming case to opt back in. It involved DNA samples from 2,513 unsolved British murders, rapes and burglaries which were automatically checked against European police databases in France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. Searching the profiles against the databases of those four member states revealed 71 scene-to-person matches and 47 scene-to-scene matches, five relating to rape, two to sexual assault and 23 to burglary.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
On an earlier point, is not the greatest defence of the nation’s security the civil liberties of the people?
Andy Burnham
I would put it to the hon. Gentleman that security comes first and that is the primary duty of any Government—to keep the public safe. Once we have secured people’s safety, then liberty comes from that security. That is why I believe the amendment before the House tonight has got things the wrong way round. I conceded they are incredibly important considerations, but they are not more important than national security and any measures that enhance the security of the public here in the end contribute to enhancing their liberty. That is why security must come first.
As well as finding those matches, the pilot also found that information was provided in a much more timely manner than it had been under the old arrangements, as the Home Secretary said. It found that information was being provided in a matter of seconds, minutes or hours, drastically improving the speed and quality of investigations. At present, requests by the British police for DNA checks from other European forces involve a request to the National Crime Agency, which is then passed to Interpol before being passed on to the relevant national police force. On average, it takes 143 days for the results to come back. The benefits to UK law enforcement of opting into the Prüm decisions on data access are therefore abundantly clear, in terms of speed of investigation and of resources. DNA checks will be available within 15 seconds, automated number plate checks within 10 seconds and fingerprint matches within 24 hours.
Paris Terrorist Attacks
Edward Leigh Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Mrs May
I am not able to comment on the case the hon. Gentleman outlines because I do not know all the facts. There have been reports in the media, but it would not be appropriate for me to comment. I confirm that these will be extra posts and that it will be additional money.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on France and on behalf of all those in this place who love France, may I express our solidarity with our French colleagues in their national Parliament? Just as in the two world wars, we stand shoulder to shoulder with them. May I speak directly to them and say, “A nos collègues à l’Assemblée nationale, maintenant et pour toujours, vous avez nos prières et notre solidarité. Vive la République. Vive la France.”?
Oral Answers to Questions
Edward Leigh Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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James Brokenshire
I am always pleased to meet hon. Members to discuss the work of the Scotland Malawi Partnership, and I fully recognise the close bonds and ties that have existed for many years. Our focus is on delivering a high-quality service, and I am pleased to note that about 86% of applications from Malawi are successful. We are considering closely how we can improve the service further, however, and I am certainly happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the issues on his and the partnership’s mind.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Mayor of Calais has a point, does he not, about there being a unique pull factor—[Hon. Members: “She!”] I do apologise. I am sure she is a most impressive lady and a friend of our nation. Anyway, she has a point about there being a unique pull factor in the benefits we pay, how we deal with discretionary leave to remain and the fact that people can vanish into the black economy. Rather than just concentrating on visa applications, therefore, will the Minister undertake to remove all these pull factors into this country?
James Brokenshire
I think my hon. Friend, in his own distinct way, has highlighted the important distinction between legal and illegal migration and the challenges we have faced in terms of migratory flows and those putting their lives at risk on the Mediterranean sea and in the hands of people traffickers. We are examining all options, as part of the Government’s comprehensive stance, and focusing in particular on those people traffickers and smugglers selling people false hope and putting their lives at risk.
Refugee Crisis in Europe
Edward Leigh Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I agree that no country can do this alone. When we have a crisis that involves people fleeing across borders, of course no country can deal with it alone. I am like my hon. Friend in that the pressures in Greece are what I am most troubled about in Europe now. They provide the strongest argument for Britain to respond within Europe and not simply to help those from the camps near Syria.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
No one doubts the right hon. Lady’s humane instincts, and of course we should not be hard-hearted, but we have to be hard-headed. Given that millions are displaced in Syria and there is, quite understandably, no limit to how many want to come here, will she say exactly how many migrants Labour wants to admit to this country?
Oral Answers to Questions
Edward Leigh Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mike Penning
We will work to a tight timescale for consulting and getting the funding formula in place. I hope that we can announce the consultation process in the next few weeks.
I take this opportunity to praise front-line police and the chief constable in Lincolnshire—something that the shadow police Minister always forgets to do. They do a fantastic job, and we should praise them every day.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Lincolnshire police are in crisis for want of a mere £3 million to £4 million. In my area of 600 square miles, there is barely one police car on duty through the night. This is a crisis: £3 million would be a drop in the ocean compared with what we spend on international development, so will my right hon. Friend persuade the Chancellor to transfer just a little money to us? Charity begins at home.
Mike Penning
As my hon. Friend knows, I arranged for a Home Office team to do a deep dive in Lincolnshire to see exactly how the funding formula was working. Lincolnshire police have done a fantastic job—crime has dropped by 24% since 2010—and we will continue to support them.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
T6. The policy of European Governments on migrants is weak, and because it is weak, it is cruel, encouraging traffickers to bring more and more of them in. What action is the Home Secretary taking to enforce the Dublin convention, whereby migrants are returned to the place where they first entered the European Union? That is happening in only 3% of cases. What is she doing to enforce the traditional law of the sea whereby people are picked up in a humane way, looked after, and returned to where they came from?
James Brokenshire
My hon. Friend has made an important point about the established principle enshrined in the Dublin regulation that those in need of protection should seek asylum in the first safe country that they enter. Since 2003, when the regulation came into force, it has allowed us to transfer more than 12,000 asylum seekers from the UK to other European states. As for the point that he rightly made about organised criminality, we have established a new taskforce to ensure that we have the best intelligence so that we can pursue traffickers, who seem to see people as some sort of commodity that they can trade, with all the risks and loss of life that that can bring.
Home Affairs and Justice
Edward Leigh Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for asking me to complete this debate. I shall endeavour to do so—that is, up until the very important closing speeches.
I apologise for being unable to be here for the opening speeches or for all the maiden speeches, though all those I heard were of an extraordinarily high quality, not least the one we just heard from the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and the one that preceded it from the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), who made a speech that was absolutely in the traditions of this House. He is very welcome as a Member of this House if the contributions that he is to make, and his colleagues are to make, are of that calibre and quality. He should know that many people in this House claim Scots ancestry. My second name is Bruce, and I have always been proud to believe that somewhere in my bloodstream there is Scottish blood. There is great sympathy and fellow feeling with the people of Scotland. That is one reason why those of us who are Unionists want to retain Scotland as part of the greater unity of the United Kingdom. However, that is an issue that we can discuss, and if it is done in the manner that it has been today, it will raise the level of debate very considerably.
I want to address the repeal and replacement of the Human Rights Act. I am a passionate defender of our civil liberties. In Cabinet, I defended, sometimes almost single-handedly, the right to trial by jury against attempts to limit and restrict it. Likewise, I fought against compulsory ID cards, often in alliance with my now dear departed friends in the Liberal Democrat party. I supported a free press against the Leveson attempt to introduce state control of our free media. I have advocated legalising cannabis.
However, belief in human rights and civil liberties is not the same as belief in the Human Rights Act or the European declaration of human rights. They are not identical, although of course there was a deliberate political attempt to claim ownership of human rights by enshrining the European declaration of human rights in law in our Human Rights Act.
We all in this House support human rights. We did so before the Human Rights Act, we do so now that we have a Human Rights Act and we will continue to support human rights if the Human Rights Act is repealed. There is no controversy in practice about the core of each right. There is no controversy about the fact that Governments should not be entitled, willy-nilly and at whim, to deprive us of our liberty. There is no conflict or debate about whether Governments have the right to deprive us of our life if we are innocent and are not committing any acts or doing anything that requires self-defence.
The issue at dispute is: where rights conflict, who or what institution should decide the balance between those rights, and who should set the outer boundaries or the lower limits of triviality where rights apply? No right is absolute and unlimited. There is a right to freedom of speech, but there is no right to libel or slander, to spread hatred or stir up breaches of the peace, or to invade another person’s privacy. We have the right to life, but we do not prosecute soldiers who, legitimately and under orders, take lives in war. We do not allow the courts to decide whether the woman should make the decision over the right to life of an unborn child, or to decide that such a right to life should be deemed absolute, as is likewise the case with suicide and euthanasia. There are boundaries to every right, and the balances between rights have to be resolved.
Balancing conflicting rights, as well as setting boundaries and limits to their triviality, is intrinsically a policy or political matter. In the last resort, that is why such issues have been decided by the political process in Parliament, not by the legal process in the courts. Where the boundaries of conflicting rights have not been drawn by statute, the courts do their best to interpret the law to create law, in the way they have learned to do in the common law process in this country, to fill in the gaps left by Parliament. Ultimately, however, Parliament has always been able to redraw the boundaries if it so wished to establish a statutory right or a limit to a right.
That is the process, with Parliament supreme over the courts, under which human rights have developed in this country from Magna Carta onwards. That charter was laid down not by judges but by barons. It is paradoxical that so many advocates of human rights—or self-declared owners of belief in human rights—now assert that the parliamentary supremacy under which those human rights evolved is a threat to human rights, and therefore argue that Parliament must be subordinated to the courts. But if judges are given the intrinsically political role of deciding on the balance between conflicting rights and the outer boundaries of rights, we will inevitably and ineluctably politicise the judiciary.
Such a politicisation has happened in the United States, where the Supreme Court is the supreme court—the supreme arbiter of the rights laid down in the constitution. As a consequence, the appointment of judges is highly political—it is one of the most highly political decisions any President takes—and the political, cultural and social views of candidates, not their legal abilities, are paramount in the choice of candidates for the Supreme Court in America and their ratification through the political process. Indeed, Presidents try to embed their views for long after they and their elected term of office come to an end by appointing to the Supreme Court the youngest, fittest and most intransigent fellow believers, in the hope that they will continue to enforce their views when the President is long gone. Of course, even local judges can be elected in the States. Do we seriously want to go down that route in this country—the route of politicising the appointment of our judiciary?
The second consequence of giving judge-made law supremacy over Parliament-made law is that we take away the most important right of all of the British people: the right to hold their lawmakers accountable. The voters can turf out MPs if they do not like the way we interpret their rights, or if they believe we have infringed them in any way. We are accountable to the electorate, but judges are not accountable. In my view, they should not be politically accountable—they should not be removed or appointed as a result of the political process—but if they are given a political role and remain unaccountable, that lack of accountability will undermine respect for the law, as it is already doing.
I very much hope that we will repeal the Human Rights Act and restore a proper balance between Parliament and the courts, but we should not just replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights that gives judges supremacy over Parliament—that would merely recreate in the domestic forum the problems we have created internationally. However, there is the issue of the European declaration and the European Court of Human Rights. When I was in the Cabinet, the renewal of our membership of that declaration, or our adherence to it, came up. I proposed that we resile from it at that point. It so happened that the Foreign Office had just made Croatia’s adherence to the convention a condition of our recognition of it. It was felt that it would look odd if, having made that a condition, we resiled from the convention. I was quite happy to overcome that little problem, but that was why my advice was not taken.
Many appeal to the origins of the European convention on human rights and to chauvinistic sentiment. They say that the convention is ultimately British and that it was written by a British Attorney General and other British lawyers; that it simply codified British human rights that had evolved over centuries, including the right to jury trial and so on; and that there was therefore absolutely nothing to worry about. Of course, those who codified and enshrined the convention did not realise that they were changing the process by which law was made. Instead of being made ultimately by Parliament, it was ultimately made by courts, often of a political composition but unaccountable to any electorate. Although it was inevitable and foreseeable, they did not anticipate that the courts, once they had been given the right to interpret a rather abstract document, would do so in an extensive and continually elaborated way.
The result is that judges have reached the sorts of decisions that would never have been reached had we not signed up to the European Court of Human Rights and the European declaration of rights, and had we not enshrined it in our law. There have been judgments on relatively trivial issues, such as on whether prisoners should have the vote. I can see quite a good case for giving prisoners the vote—it would force hon. Members to go and campaign in prisons to win those votes, and we would learn more about prisons than most of us have done. I have only ever learned about prison when my friends have been put in it and I have had to go and visit—no names, no pack drill.
Whether or not prisoners are given the vote is essentially a political decision. It is not something that judges automatically know best. Underlying the belief in making judges supreme over Parliament is a belief that judges have an innate ability that others do not have to discern what is right and true, or the belief that the document that judges interpret is a revealed document, a bit like the Koran being interpreted by an ayatollah. It is not, of course. It is a rough summary of what had evolved in this part of the world, and leaving people to interpret it as they will gives them great and unaccountable power that they should not have.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is making a most thoughtful speech. It is worth articulating the exact legal and constitutional position. We signed the convention in the early 1950s, and the Human Rights Act was not passed until the late 1990s. If this Parliament were to repeal the Human Rights Act, it would be entirely our choice as to whether we stayed in the Council of Europe and remained wedded to the convention. We would not be expelled.
Mr Lilley
I am sure that my hon. Friend is right, although I am not sure that it would matter terribly if we were expelled from the Council of Europe. We might just as well belong to it, and I am sure that we could continue to belong to it even if we did repeal the Human Rights Act and no longer accepted the supremacy of the European Court of Human Rights.
The essential issue is whether political decisions should be taken by politicians and judicial decisions by judges. Those who believe that the Human Rights Act should remain on our statute book ultimately want judges to take political decisions, leaving us deprived of that right and the electorate deprived of any ability to hold those who make those laws accountable—or to throw them out if they make decisions the electorate do not like. It is very important that we recognise that that is the issue, not whether we believe in human rights. We all believe in human rights, but we need to decide how the balance between rights is to be determined and how the full extent of any right is to be limited. If that is the question, I am sure that the whole House will agree with the measures that the Secretary of State will develop after consultation and, in due course, bring before the House. I welcome every measure in the Queen’s Speech, but above all the prospect of the repeal of the Human Rights Act.
Oral Answers to Questions
Edward Leigh Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)
The hon. Lady and I have had several discussions about Action Fraud. Let me bring her up to date with the latest figures from the organisation. As we have established in earlier discussions, fraud is historically an under-reported crime. The number of recorded offences has almost trebled, from 72,000 before the introduction of Action Fraud’s centralised reporting system to 211,000 now. As the hon. Lady knows, Action Fraud is also embarking on an improvement plan. It has resulted in a reduction in the number of complaints, which should be welcomed, but we are still keen to ensure that local police forces in particular treat and correspond with victims in a way that enables them to understand the action that is being taken to deal with these crimes.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
T6. Yesterday huge crowds turned out in our most multicultural city, Leicester, to celebrate English history. Did not that celebration of monarchy and continuity provide a fine example of British values, and should we not learn from that example of history that it is not a good idea to get on politically by bumping off one’s close relations?
Mrs May
We could have an interesting debate about my hon. Friend’s last comment, and I am grateful to him for not suggesting that the princes in the tower is an historic case that the police should take up today. The point he made about those in Leicester coming together yesterday from all parts of the community and celebrating British values is an important one. It is exactly what I was speaking about this morning, when I said that we need a partnership of individuals, communities, families and Government, going across Government and including other agencies, to promote our British values and what it is to live here in the United Kingdom and to be part of our British society.