Scheduled Mass Deportation: Jamaica

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

I have been contacted by many of my constituents in Vauxhall who are concerned about these deportations. Given the Government’s track record on Windrush and the delay in implementing the lessons from the Wendy Williams review, it is understandable that hon. Members in this House seek assurances and more detailed information from the Minister in regard to this deportation. The Home Secretary has rightly committed to implement all of the 30 recommendations in that review. Will the Minister confirm how many recommendations have been implemented? Will he today give a clear timetable for when each of the 30 recommendations will be implemented?

[Chris Philp]

I have already given the House a clear assurance that all these cases have been individually looked at and, as I have said several times already, that none is eligible for the Windrush compensation scheme. It is wrong, and indeed almost offensive, to conflate, in any way, these people who have committed terrible criminal offences with those victims of the Windrush scandal; they are completely different things and it is completely wrong to conflate them. As the hon. Lady says, the Home Secretary is fully committed to implementing each and every one of Wendy Williams’ recommendations; she published a response to the Williams review back in September and I know that she will be keeping the House regularly updated about the timing of the implementation of each and every one of those 30 recommendations.

Gang-associated Girls

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Before we start this debate, may I remind Members that only those on the call list are able to participate? We have five right hon. and hon. Members in Westminster Hall at the moment, and that will be the maximum number who can participate in this debate. That means that even if the debate looks as though it is going short, others who are not on the call list will not be able to join us.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered gang-associated girls.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher, and to be back in Westminster Hall to debate such an important topic. Youth violence is a very serious issue across our four nations in the UK, and it has a devastating impact on families—mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers—as well as on the wider community in our towns and cities. Here in London, it has almost become a daily occurrence on news bulletins. In the last two months alone, I have had to speak to three inconsolable mothers who have lost their children as a result of knife crime. These children were murdered by their peers. As a mother of two young children myself, that is not something that I can live with, ignore or accept.

However, today I want to talk about something different—another aspect of youth violence, and one that is hidden and often under-reported. It is the role played by girls and young women, whose activities and exploits, both in and around gangs, so often fly below the radar. I will also touch on the emerging issues and evidence that gang members are using the uncertainty caused by covid-19 to recruit vulnerable girls, as they adapt their business to the models of the new normal following lockdown.

I am sure that we all want to see an end to violence, exploitation and abuse, but if we want to understand this whole complex picture, we must understand that gang violence and abuse is a gendered and intersectional issue that requires a different approach. Even the word “gang” can be problematic when discussing the risks faced by girls and women. A youth worker who I spoke to recently highlighted to me that the language used to identify this issue sometimes fails to communicate the impact suffered by girls and young women. As she put it to me:

“Girls running county lines are not in a gang. They are victims of gangs.”

Girls and young women face different risks from those faced by males. Girls and young women may experience rape and other forms of sexual abuse, physical abuse, online grooming in the form of job offers, and direct threats of violence to themselves or their families to make them move or store drugs, weapons or even cash.

Some of these girls start off as girlfriends and get emotionally drawn into a relationship with an exploiter, and they face the additional emotional obstacle of trying to escape from that relationship as well as other forms of exploitation. Young women often carry the emotional burden for gang members and their wider crew, because they are often relied on for emotional support and counsel. Unfortunately, some girls are forced into criminal activity, such as county lines—moving drugs between cities and rural areas. There have been press reports recently of young women dressing as key workers to avoid being stopped and searched while travelling during lockdown.

The perception that girls work only in low-key roles in county lines is now starting to be challenged, with professionals reporting that, increasingly, young women work in the same roles as young men. That highlights the full scale of the exploitation that is taking place. Also, because young women and girls often go under the radar, their associations are much harder to track than those of males, but that does not mean that we should not offer them support. These are some of the most vulnerable young women and girls.

In February, in my role as London Assembly member for Lambeth and Southwark, I released a report entitled “Gang Associated Girls: Supporting young women at risk”. One key issue that I identified was a lack of data. There was no reliable information about the number of girls associated with gangs. For example, here in London, the Metropolitan Police Service’s records as of last year highlighted on its gangs matrix only six females, in contrast to 2,492 males. However, also in February, the Children’s Commissioner estimated that about 2,290 girls were associated with gangs in England; that is about 34% of all gang-associated children. When I sent a freedom of information request to all London boroughs, I found that more than 1,000 young women and girls had gang associations identified as a factor in their assessments by children’s social services. Therefore, we know that the data is patchy at best.

The invisibility of gangs’ association with girls has dire consequences. Abianda, a social enterprise that works with young women, highlighted that and the problems that it causes. A report from the crisis support charity Hestia in July found that girls were being deployed in county lines operations specifically because they were less likely to be stopped and searched by the police, and that exploitative romantic relationships were being used to lure young girls and women into carrying out that dangerous activity. Therefore, while we as the policy makers fail to truly appreciate the role that girls are playing in gangs, the same gangs are deliberately using that exploitation—that gendered advantage—to pursue their criminal activities. They are evading the law and, because girls on the periphery of gang violence who may need support are not being identified, funding is being disproportionately channelled into supporting young men.

A lot of good work is going on to rehabilitate young men away from this criminality, but there is little support for young women and girls. The issue of gangs’ association with girls is largely absent from the public discourse about violent crime, with both media reporting and funding concentrating on young men who are involved with gangs. Unfortunately, that means that public agencies risk missing the signs of gang-associated girls and do not offer the right support services to help them. If we do not offer adequate support to young women and girls at risk of gang association, we miss a vital opportunity to tackle violent crime.

The Minister shares my passion to end the exploitation of county lines, so will she ensure that resources are put in to disrupt county lines, working on the principle of taking a gendered approach to ensure that those working to prevent county lines activity are always aware of the role of young women and girls in these operations? If we accept that the cause of gang-associated violence has a gender dimension, it follows that the solution should also adopt a gendered approach rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

Young women and girls experience the trauma of gang-related violence in a different way and, as a result, they present differently in hospital settings. Redthread, a charity whose workers operate in hospitals across London and the midlands, has reported that when they talk to young women, they are less likely to present with a physical injury, such as knife wounds, and are more likely to present with psychological issues related to trauma, such as self-harm, suicidal ideation and overdoses. In response, that charity has placed a number of young female workers in accident and emergency departments specifically to support these young women and girls.

The St Giles Trust is another charity that helps young people who are caught up in gangs. It has found that when it works in a hospital and its staff are given flexible access to a range of departments, they can identify these females at risk of exploitation and criminal and sexual abuse. If staff can get to them earlier, it will save costs down the line and get better results for the young women and girls.

Gender-based support works, but we know that our local councils up and down the country are struggling to provide that tailored support because of severe budget cuts. Given the potentially life-changing benefits that will be produced by programmes such as these, run by charities, will the Minister lobby the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ensure that councils have the funding available to provide that bespoke care? The reality is that gang-associated girls are part of a bigger system that not only harms the young women and girls directly involved, but contributes to the wider criminal activities of gangs and their exploitation of children and vulnerable young adults.

We cannot address gang violence without taking a gendered and intersectional approach. We need a better understanding of the role that girls and young women face so that support services can be there for them. We need to look at targeted interventions to help the girls who are being exploited, groomed and abused. We need to continue to raise awareness with the authorities around the use of girls in county lines and other gang-related activities, and we need policy makers to change the language that they use in highlighting the issue. Most importantly, we need to continue to listen to what young women and girls tell us.

When we talk about youth violence, knife crime or gangs, young people are too often labelled as criminals and perpetrators, but evidence shows that the young people themselves have been victims of crimes. We need to remember that when we talk about them. We are all here today because we want an end to the criminal exploitation of all vulnerable young people. To do that, we need to recognise and understand the gender dimension of gang association and violence, and invest in solutions based on that reality. It is a difficult reality, but one that we need to face up to, otherwise we risk dealing with only part of the problem. If we do that, the girls and young women who we all care about, and will carry on advocating for, will continue to suffer and end up in prison, or, even worse, continue to lose their lives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank all hon. Members for their attendance this morning. I thank the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for highlighting her experience of dealing with this issue on the frontline as a councillor. Dealing with some of the things that have come across her desk in children’s social services in an inner-London borough such as Westminster will have been very difficult and challenging. I thank her for her work highlighting these issues with the police, and for touching on the important role of relationships with our young people, both boys and girls. I remember my relationship discussions in school, when it was something that only girls had to talk about. It is important that we are now making sure that our young boys and men understand what it is to be in a healthy relationship, and that we are teaching our girls about saying no and why it is okay to say no. Teaching our girls and boys to respect their bodies is something really important that parents, teachers and youth workers should be working on.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) for highlighting the fact that this is not just an issue in London, but across the country; we must make sure that we have solutions to address that. What is happening in Vauxhall will be different from what is happening in Liverpool, Riverside. My hon. Friend also highlighted the fact that the basis of the issue is poverty and deprivation. We need to look at how we make sure some of our most vulnerable citizens in society have opportunities and access to jobs, housing, employment, training—all things that have now been made a lot harder on the back of the pandemic. It is important that we think about next steps, once we have helped these young women and girls, into a life that is better for themselves and their families.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) for raising the important role that CAMHS plays through early intervention. Funding for the service, which is often overstretched, is important. We know that the case loads of some of our social workers continue to grow. Again, it is about making sure that they get funding and support, putting aside party politics and working across the country to make sure that that happens.

I thank the Minister for highlighting some of the initiatives and funding that have already gone in. It is important to ensure that VRUs across the country have a localised approach and that funding is targeted at a local level to address local issues. We must continue to acknowledge that this issue will not disappear overnight. The issue cannot be resolved just with funding. It requires a different approach.

I am happy that the Minister said that she will take away the idea of looking at the data. We cannot deal with something unless we understand the data behind it. We could be throwing money at a problem when we do not know its real cause. The commitment to VRUs looking at the data specifically on girls associated with gangs is really important.

Lastly, politics aside, all of us want to see our young people flourish. No child is born with the intention of holding a knife, carrying drugs or carrying guns. We have to let children be children. Our young children are being forced to grow up too early. We have to ensure there are positive activities for our young children to engage with, and that they have schooling opportunities and access to safe homes. I hope the Government will continue to invest in those things, continue to work with local councils who know their local areas, and, when we are talking about criminality, continue to remember that these are young children.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered gang-associated girls.

Public Order

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about applying the full force of the law to those thugs and hooligans who were on our streets this weekend, and about the support that the Government have given to our police officers. He will know that in West Yorkshire alone, the force there will receive 256 more police officers and a cash uplift of approximately £36 million. That is transformational in terms of policing and it again illustrates our commitment to backing the police.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I want to commend the Home Secretary for condemning the actions of the small minority of people intent on causing problems at the weekend. For two successive weekends, we have seen the best and worst of people out in parts of my constituency, in and around the south bank and the Waterloo area. The image of Patrick Hutchinson and his friends picking up that gentleman shows us the best.

A number of businesses in and around the south bank area are concerned because, while they are planning for their recovery, they are now seeing a level of violence around that area. I am worried about the police’s ability to cope with that. Is there anything more in this short time that the Home Secretary could do to help the Metropolitan police to get additional resources? Officers from Lambeth and Southwark are always abstracted to help out with the major protests, and as businesses reopen, they do not need also to be worrying about the safety of visitors coming to the area.

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I understand the concerns faced by her local businesses in the light of everything that has happened recently. I speak to the commissioner virtually every day. I am in touch with her and her team about policing and resourcing, and I have frequently asked whether more resourcing is required. I hope that the hon. Lady will lobby and work with the Mayor of London to further this. It is fair to say that more can be done in this area. In terms of police resource, I am sure she will know that the Metropolitan police has had a cash increase of over £193 million and will be receiving more than 1,300 new police officers, so the officers are there and the cash is there, but quite frankly, the leadership from the Mayor of London is something that certainly could improve.

Public Order

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I give my thanks to his local police force and the officers that policed the protest at the weekend. He is absolutely right: we want to ensure that swift justice occurs, sending a clear message to the perpetrators of serious violence that we do not want to see a repeat of it.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

Vandalism and violence should never be accepted. I too pay tribute to the hard-working officers who have been on the frontline, including officers from my borough of Lambeth, who are often the first to be called whenever there is a protest because of our proximity to central London. Does the Home Secretary actually understand the anger and frustration felt by so many people? Does the Home Secretary recognise that this protest is being led by young people? Does the Home Secretary recognise that there is structural inequality, discrimination and racism in our country? Does the Home Secretary recognise that people want to see action from the Government?

My son turned three yesterday. I do not want to have to wait until he is a teenager before we see changes in this country. Will the Home Secretary and the Government act now? Black lives matter, and we need to see the Government doing something about that.

[Priti Patel]

I would make a number of points to the hon. Lady. I have been very clear in my remarks about the level of injustice that is felt across the country, and that has been illustrated in what we have seen over the weekend and the very peaceful protests that have taken place, but I am really saddened that she has effectively said that this Government do not understand racial inequality. [Interruption.] On that basis, it must have been a very different Home Secretary who as a child was frequently called a Paki in the playground; a very different Home Secretary who was racially abused in the streets or even advised to drop her surname and use her husband’s in order to advance her career; and a different Home Secretary who was recently characterised in The Guardian—if I may say so, Madam Deputy Speaker—as a fat cow with a ring through its nose, something that was not only racist but offensive, both culturally and religiously. This is hardly an example of respect, equality, tolerance or fairness, so when it comes to racism, sexism, tolerance or social justice, I will not take lectures from the those other side of the House.

I have already said repeatedly that there is no place for racism in our country or in society and, sadly, too many people are too willing to casually dismiss the contributions of those who do not necessarily conform to preconceived views or ideas about how ethnic minorities should behave or think. This in my view is racist in itself. As I said earlier, both in my statement and in my answers to other colleagues in the House, to combat the real inequalities in society and to end the gross disservice to many communities across our nation who are subject to real and pressing inequalities, we must address these sensitive issues in an accurate and responsible way and by addressing prejudice rather than inciting and inflaming tensions.

Sentencing (Pre-Consolidation Amendments) Bill

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

3rd reading & Committee stage & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I am delighted to see the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) in his place on the Opposition Front Bench. I know that the Justice Committee, which I have the honour to Chair, will look forward to engaging with him and the Minister as we go forward on these issues. May I adopt a number of the questions that he has raised with the Minister, which are not partisan but important questions of procedure?

As the Minister rightly said, this is an important and technical Bill. It is warmly welcomed and, I think, universally supported among practitioners and, I hope, by the broader public too. It is therefore important that the substantial Bill makes progress as soon as possible. I join both Front Benchers in paying tribute to the work of the Law Commission. I might mention that again on Third Reading, as I know the Lord Chancellor will wish to do. I particularly want to mention the work of Professor David Ormerod, who was the criminal law commissioner for a period and recently retired. He has done exceptional work in this regard and has been almost the principal driver behind the measure and the code itself.

I particularly welcome the introduction of the “clean sweep” provisions in clause 1. That is novel, but it is much to be commended, and I hope that this will not be the only occasion on which it is used. Incorporation by reference, which is the style of legislative amendment we tend to have now in this country, can create inconsistencies and anomalies, and it is quite a bold measure to have a consolidation platform of this kind. I am glad to hear the Minister say that it is not intended that anything should undermine either the common law or article 7 rights that there shall not be retroactively greater punishment than would have been available at the time.

I particularly welcome the Minister’s reference to the need for linguistic clarity and consistency in sentencing legislation. That has been a real difficulty for those of us who have practised and sat in the criminal courts over the years. At the moment, about eight statutes have to be referred to, depending on the nature of the offence, and experienced professional judges can get this wrong as much as anyone else. I ask him for assurance that the Government as a whole will bear in mind the need for linguistic consistency in any further sentencing measures that may come forward. Many Bills may have sentencing provisions attached to them, and it is important that, having got consistency through clause 1, we do not lose that by a departure from that approach in future legislation, not all of which will necessarily come from the Ministry of Justice. I hope that the Government will take those points on board.

I think it will be generally welcomed by those who sat as recorders in the Crown courts, sometimes dealing with matters being sent up from the magistrates court on appeal, that the Bill will enable us to remove the current inconsistency of language between the law that must be applied in resentencing in the magistrates court as opposed to the Crown court. Although the effect is the same, and the rule on greater retrospectivity not being permitted remains the same, the language of the provisions relating to the Crown court and the magistrates court is different. That causes confusion when judges are sitting as recorders, or judges and recorders are sitting with magistrates on the Crown court dealing with an appeal from the magistrates court where they have to apply the magistrates court provisions. Anything that removes that anomaly is to be welcomed.

I think we all hope that the Bill is enacted as swiftly as possible. I note the observations of the noble Lord Judge, on behalf of the Joint Committee in the upper House, about the importance of the Bill and of it being a living instrument. Will the Minister reassure us that it is intended that all future Government legislation touching on criminal justice and sentencing matters will adhere to the principle behind the code?

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I concur with the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). This is an uncontroversial Bill that has support right across the House, and as such, I do not wish to detain the Committee for long. However, I want to return to a subject raised by my colleagues on Second Reading, and I would be grateful if the Minister could respond today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) raised the shocking statistic mentioned in the Library briefing that 36% of 262 cases sampled by the Law Commission involved unlawful sentences. This has potential serious repercussions for the administration of justice in our courts. One suggestion made by my hon. Friend was for the Government to publish a list of common mistakes made, to draw to the attention of the judiciary. The Minister said he would investigate that idea, so could he update us on his investigation or any work being done to draw up that idea?

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I should state at the outset that, before coming to this place, I was a magistrate for 12 years and consequently sentenced a large number of offenders. For some 18 months, I was the magistrate member of the Sentencing Council. While there, I was party to briefings by the Law Commission on the proposed sentencing code that is indirectly the subject of today’s legislation.

The sentencing code is greatly to be welcomed, and thus so is this legislation. It must be right that sentencing law is as clear and straightforward as possible, in the interests of justice for all parties in a case, including, naturally, not only the offender being sentenced, but the victim of the crime, for whom clarity and certainty can be a comfort. It follows that it must be right to take the necessary steps towards achieving that aim by amending existing legislation to facilitate the enactment and operation of the proposed sentencing code. The clean sweep approach covered in clause 1 is a significant step that will help avoid errors and appeals resulting from historic or redundant aspects of legislation being incorrectly reflected in a sentencing exercise. I welcome the improvement that that will bring to initial sentencing decisions and am reassured that the concomitant safeguards against retroactivity will protect human rights.

Although the details of other clauses of this Bill may not seem to merit great discussion in and of themselves, they do form part of a significant and important process to improve a vital element of the criminal justice system. In the interests of brevity, I will reserve any other remarks for Third Reading. However, I ask the Minister to do all he can to ensure that the magistracy is properly trained once these provisions come into place, along with the sentencing code, to ensure that they are able to apply to all correctly and appropriately.

--- Later in debate ---

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Bill is a very welcome culmination of the Law Commission’s four-year-long project to clear up and consolidate sentencing legislation. It acts as a clean sweep that has the potential to make the window to our sentencing law much clearer not only for judges but for those going through the criminal justice system and those who wish to hold the justice system to account for its failures. It cannot be right that the Law Commission’s survey found that more than one third of sentences are handed down against the statutes of our Parliament. Passing the Bill, along with the upcoming Sentencing Bill, makes those errors in our justice system easier to stop and spot.

I remind Ministers, and Members hoping to become Ministers, of how we ended up here and why the Bill is necessary in the first place. On Second Reading in the other House, Lord Falconer drew attention to the fact that there had been substantial changes to sentencing in no less than 16 years since 1990. It is little wonder, with such regular reform, that our sentencing statutes had become so cluttered. As we saw earlier this year, new legislation on sentencing is of course necessary, but this clean sweep does not in itself stop future legislation rendering the window to our justice system opaque once again.

When the Sentencing Bill comes in, I urge Ministers not to lose track of the importance of this measure. In the other House, Lord Falconer outlined four principles: any changes should be made by changing the terms of the sentencing code; any changes due to come into force after Royal Assent should be put into schedule 22 of the Sentencing Bill; any new arrangements should maintain the principle of the clean sweep; and any commencement information should be included in this Bill. Those guidelines are sensible and easy to follow and they maintain the clarity that we wish to create. Will the Minister commit to following those guidelines? If not, will he inform the House of any other plans going forward?

I finish by paying tribute to the Law Commission for its hard work in getting the Bill to this stage today.

Fire Safety Bill

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 29th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

In my first virtual contribution, I start by paying tribute to the House staff for their tireless work over the last few weeks to make these hybrid proceedings possible.

I support this long overdue Bill, which provides much needed clarification on fire safety law, but we must go further if we are to prevent the potential for fatal fires in people’s homes. The Bill does not include the provisions arising from the recommendations made during the first phase of the Grenfell inquiry—something that Ministers had promised—and it does not include the much-needed changes to building safety standards.

It is nearly three years since the tragic Grenfell fire, which claimed the lives of 72 people, and for the Government to move so slowly on this is unacceptable. Like many other Members who have highlighted this today, I remember that fatal night, as I sat up for most of the night nursing my young son, who was just one week old on 14 June 2017. I sat up watching the scenes unfold during the night, and we must never forget those 72 innocent victims.

I also pay tribute to our hard-working firefighters, who continue to put their lives at risk and who need the Government to provide the necessary funding and assurances that this will never happen again. Will the Minister today confirm when we expect to see the recommendations from the inquiry brought into law and when the Government finally plan to bring forward a building safety Bill?

Legislation is only one piece of the puzzle in making our homes safe to live in. During this lockdown period, I have been contacted by many leaseholders in my constituency of Vauxhall who live in flats owned by private companies and who are having severe problems and delays in removing this dangerous cladding from their homes. This is not the fault of those leaseholders, and they should not be the ones to shoulder the blame for the Government’s failures, yet they are the ones who are struggling to get the necessary safety gas certificates and paying for really expensive service charges and interim security measures, and they are now having to spend this lockdown in unsafe buildings, worried that their homes will catch fire.

I welcome the £1 billion announced by the Chancellor in the Budget to remove the dangerous cladding from residential buildings, but the £200 million offered to private residential blocks to remove the cladding has been available for over a year now, and only two buildings have accepted that grant. Three years on, almost nine out of 10 private sector buildings affected have not yet had the dangerous cladding removed or replaced. The Government set a deadline of June for all private sector buildings to be safe, yet we know that the deadline is certainly going to be missed.

The Government need to accept responsibility for making our homes safe now and make the necessary steps to ensure that the money that they have made available is used to remove this dangerous cladding as soon as possible. We must not and cannot afford to wait.

Points-based Immigration System

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

It is important to restate for the benefit of the House the Government’s focus and emphasis on the labour market and its needs. The system is flexible so that assessment can be made of any strains, and so that we can surge employment in certain key sectors.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State said in her statement:

“We will continue to refine our immigration system, and will build in flexibility where it is needed.”

Does she recognise that denying migrant workers the right to a family life—the right to bring their family—is inflexible, and a breach of the Human Rights Act 1998?

[Priti Patel]

I hope the hon. Lady will recognise that the points-based system—she will have heard me say this in my statement, too—is welcoming those with the right skills and attributes, and that applies equally to their families.

Deportation Flight to Jamaica

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

Yes, these are all serious or persistent offenders. The offences committed by those on board include rape of minors, rape of adults and serious drugs offences. That is why we are required to issue a deportation notice.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

How many of the people scheduled to go on the flight have had their mental state assessed? A number of them are vulnerable. After what happened in the Windrush scandal, does the Minister think it is fair to continue to treat people in this way?

[Kevin Foster]

Anyone entering immigration detention is assessed as part of our adults at risk policy where there is a concern, but let me be clear: these are people who have been through the criminal justice process, some on a number of occasions; they have completed sentences and are now liable under the law to deportation. They have been judged on their criminality, not their nationality, but there are exemptions provided for in the 2007 Act.