European Convention on Human Rights

Debate between Graham P Jones and Julian Brazier

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I shall be fairly brief. In one sense, it is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), because I would like to pick up one or two of her points. Her speech started as though it would be bipartisan but ended on an extremely partisan note.

A couple of background points should be made immediately. First, under the previous Government, there was a surge in net immigration quite unprecedented in our country’s history. Even according to official figures, more than 2 million more people entered the country than left it under the last Labour Government, but given that border controls had largely broken down and we were no longer measuring embarkation, there is a range of statistics and estimates suggesting that the numbers might be much higher. For example, the Office for National Statistics keeps on revising up its population projection statistics. In 2004, it said that by 2050 the UK population would reach 67 million, but it now says that in just 15 years, it will be 73 million—twice the increase.

Secondly, the shadow Home Secretary made much of the number of deportations of foreign criminals, looking particularly at a single year. The statistic she did not share with the House is that the number of foreign criminals in British prisons almost trebled under the Labour Government, from 4,000 to more than 11,000. That should concern us all.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

Is that not actually a good statistic showing that the police were catching criminals and locking them up?

[Mr Brazier]

The hon. Gentleman is obviously not familiar with the statistics. The number of criminals in the criminal justice system, or in prison, rose by between 20% and by 30%—I cite these figures from memory—over that period. The fact that the number of foreign criminals trebled suggests that much was wrong with our border controls at the time.

I strongly support what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is trying to do. She and the Minister for Immigration, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), my constituency neighbour who is sitting next to her, have taken a brave stand in this area, against a great deal of criticism by much of the media and many parts of the legal establishment. My concerns about what we are doing are all to do with the fact that we are not going far enough. They are in no way about opposing what we are trying to do.

My first concern is one that I mentioned in an intervention on my right hon. Friend. Experience from a number of other areas of law—not least family law—suggests that the courts might drive a coach and horses through what we are trying to achieve by putting the words “except in exceptional circumstances” in each of the relevant places. An alternative would be either simply not to include those words at all, or to say that in exceptional circumstances cases should be considered again by the Home Office.

My next concern is about the way in which we are looking at the rights of children. I hope that most Members of this House—at least those who have been here for a while—will be aware of the amount of time I have spent pursuing the concerns of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children, particularly in adoption and fostering, and the way in which child witnesses are treated in court. I have to say that the most colossal amount of garbage has come out of some of the court cases. The idea that it is somehow automatically in the child’s interests that a parent who is also a violent criminal who has committed a serious criminal offence should be kept in the country, whether or not the child has regular contact with that parent, seems extraordinary. In many cases it is in the child’s interests that that individual should be deported.

My next concern is that although we are taking a tough line with foreign criminals—something I strongly support—I would urge my right hon. Friend to consider applying some of this thinking more widely. A large proportion of the people who are in this country illegally came in through a perfectly legal route and have chosen to overstay. Two of the most common types of cases involve those who came in on student visas and overstayed—I represent the largest number of students in any constituency in the country—and those who came in on family visits and overstayed. By allowing the courts to continue treating each case on its own merits, from scratch, we are making it harder and harder to justify allowing people to come in for perfectly legitimate reasons.

We want to encourage students into this country, and of course people should be able to come in for family weddings and all sorts of other reasons. However, if it is possible for them to bring an article 8 family connection case after they get here, every time someone who has relatives in this country comes here as a student—I am dealing with one such case at the moment, through my constituency postbag—and every time someone who, by definition, has relatives in this country comes over for a family wedding, Home Office officials will inevitably look at those cases with a jaundiced eye. There is a strong case for saying that if those who come in through certain routes then want to make an article 8 application, they should be able to do so only after they have left the country, applying through the normal routes, irrespective of any exceptional circumstances.

I want to make only one wider point. We get few opportunities in this House to debate the wider issues around immigration. I know from my experience on the doorstep, not only from working in my constituency but from helping in a number of others—in the general election, in local elections and in the marvellous election that has just delivered Boris Johnson as Mayor of London again—that people are deeply concerned about the wider issues around immigration. I am fully behind everything that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration are trying to do in this regard, but we are a long way from meeting the target, and the target itself seems to regard elderly couples retiring to live in the sun as somehow a balance for young people from areas with very high birth rates coming to this country. We have a very long way to go.

I want to end by saying that we must be clear on one central point. This is an important measure and we must send a message to the courts that it is we in Parliament, not the courts, who are answerable to the people. The courts must therefore listen to what we have to say.