Immigration White Paper

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is, of course, right. We intend to leave the single market and the customs union, and to retain the control over our immigration system that our citizens told us that they wanted back in 2016.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware that roughly half the immigrants who come to this country are from outside the EU and the European economic area. She talks about control, so will she tell me how many non-EEA citizens there are in the UK who have had an immigration application refused, but have not had removal or deportation proceedings initiated against them?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady will be aware that we work very hard to make sure that people who are in this country without permission find it a very difficult environment in which to live. The previous and current Home Secretary’s compliant environment policies have made sure that it is harder to have a bank account, harder to have a driving licence and harder to rent property. The important thing is we know that people come into this country without permission, and we should therefore be seeking to remove them.

County Lines Exploitation: London

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) and the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince). Both Members spoke with a huge amount of sense, obvious compassion and a clear understanding of the issues. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) on securing the debate. She made a characteristically well-informed and engaging speech, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport said, was thoroughly excellent.

I agree with my right hon. Friend that there should be a co-ordinated national approach to tackle the running of drugs along county lines and that we need to review the way in which we deal with children, young people and vulnerable adults who get themselves caught up in such activity. I also believe that we need to consider tougher sanctions for those directing and driving such activity and to ensure that the Crown Prosecution Service, the police and local authorities have the resources and powers that they need to tackle the problem.

I first learned about the phenomenon of county lines drug running about four years ago, following a visit to my advice surgery by a distressed mother. I can picture her now: she was a woman living three or four roads away from my home in Lewisham; she was originally from Sierra Leone, and spoke limited English; and she was in a state of desperate confusion. Her teenage son had been arrested the previous day in Portsmouth. I asked, “What’s he doing in Portsmouth?” She did not have an answer, but she was scared stiff about what was going on, and what she feared had been going on for a while but could not describe. She was crying out to me, as her Member of Parliament, for help.

The mother said that she could not cope. She talked about strange men hanging around her front door, and the fact that her son would disappear for short periods. She did not know what he was doing, and she asked me to help her find out what was going on. Her son was involved in running drugs from Lewisham to the south coast. There are currently 317 under-25s from Lewisham believed to be involved in that activity, of which about 200 are of school age. They are supplying drugs in 19 different counties. That is 200 school-age children from one London borough out of 32, so the problem is not insignificant.

Last year, as a result of a two-year operation involving the police and the local authority, 174 arrests were made, including 22 key adults. A number of the individuals who were arrested are still awaiting their criminal justice outcomes, but so far 121 years of prison sentences have been handed out collectively. Some 23 kg of class A drugs were seized, with a street value of £4.5 million. Lewisham Council, thanks to the leadership of officers such as Geeta Subramaniam and elected councillors such as Janet Daby, has taken a proactive approach to tackling the problem. Some of my colleagues have spoken about the sorts of measures that have been taken. Those people at the council are determined to stop the involvement of children, and let us be clear that some of the individuals involved in this activity are children. I get the sense, though, that they are frustrated.

[Ronnie Cowan]

I may be putting myself on the line here again, but I refer the hon. Lady to Neil Woods, who was an undercover police cop and drug officer for 14 years. He put his life on the line to fight against such people. He probably knows more about cuckooing, county lines, and the production and distribution of drugs than all of us put together. Neil himself estimates, having worked for 14 years and put people away for thousands of years in cumulative prison terms, that he disrupted the supply of class A drugs by a total of two hours across his entire career. I am not saying that we should not be trying to do it, but how we are going about it clearly is not working.

[Heidi Alexander]

I have some sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman says, because I think that what happens in prison to rehabilitate offenders and to take them off the path that they are on is just as important as how many years they spend there. I am not sure at the moment that the system operates correctly, so I have some sympathy with his point. However, the point I am making is about the scale and significance of the activity in one part of London, and the action that is being taken by the local authority and the police to try to tackle it. As I will come on to say, that is very difficult in a time of constrained resources and with the funding pressure that the Metropolitan police and local authorities such as Lewisham are under.

As I was saying, I get the sense, from talking to police and council staff, that they are frustrated in trying to tackle the problem. A number of years ago, there was an operation called Operation Pibera, in which the local authority, in conjunction with the CPS and the police, tried to bring charges of trafficking under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Unlike Enfield, they were not successful in securing those prosecutions. They wanted to bring those charges because the sentences associated with that sort of conviction would be longer than for the other lesser offences with which the individuals could have been charged.

The guys who are in control of the activity and who are luring, and sometimes coercing, children, teenagers and vulnerable adults into getting involved should feel the full heat of the law. They are people who will stab someone who wants to get out of doing the drug running. They are taking advantage of kids and adults with mental health problems by, in effect, getting them to do their dirty work. It is despicable, and rather than simply going for the low-hanging fruit of charging the individuals found with the drugs or the money on the day, there needs to be a mechanism in place to hold the guy at the top responsible.

As I understand it, the Modern Slavery Act was drafted primarily to deal with problems around individuals forced into sex work and domestic servitude. The running of drugs along county lines is different. Some of the underlying principles may be similar, but I would be interested to know whether the Minister agrees that it might be sensible to review whether amending the Act could make it easier to bring successful prosecutions, to ensure that those calling the shots on the county lines are held responsible.

It has been put to me that one of the changes that might be considered is changing the law to require the police and the CPS to prove, in relation to drug offences committed by, for example, teenagers on the county lines, that they were not being exploited, but were knowingly and willingly involved in the activity. The Minister would need to consider that issue in the round, but I would be interested to know whether she is looking at amending the Modern Slavery Act in any way. I believe that some 14-year-olds will know exactly what they are doing, but others will be victims, and we need to take our responsibilities to those children and young people seriously. Just because they might not be cared for, that does not mean that they do not matter.

[Lyn Brown]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; everybody has been very generous this morning. One mum told me what she had heard about how county lines were being run. She told me about the provision of a gift such as trainers to an individual, which is then considered to be a drug debt that has to be paid back. When the child goes on the county run to pay back the debt, they are robbed by the very people who sent them out, which means that the debt gets higher and higher, and the child has to work it off. They cannot go to their parents to ask for money to pay off the drug debt, because they are often not wealthy people, or the individuals simply do not want to burden their parents by asking for that kind of money. It is coercion and slavery, whichever way we look at it.

[Heidi Alexander]

My hon. Friend highlights the precise problem.

How we prosecute individuals involved in this crime needs attention, but so do the tools that the police and local authorities have at their disposal to detect and disrupt such activity. I know that the Government recently introduced regulations to allow the police to apply to a court to close down the mobile phone being used to receive the drugs orders, for want of a better word for them. I know that those regulations were introduced only in December, but it would be helpful to receive an update from the Minister on whether any such applications have been made, and whether they have been successful.

Will the Minister say what resource is being given to the Metropolitan police, the National Crime Agency and local authorities in London to ensure that the basic tasks that are needed to track and monitor such activity can be carried out comprehensively and in a timely fashion? I know that Lewisham Council is keen to do more work on a pan-London basis, looking at how statutory agencies might use social media more effectively to track and predict county lines activity, but that, of course, needs to be funded.

It also seems to me that the work done by councils and the police in big cities such as London to educate young people about how to stay safe is absolutely critical. We teach young people road safety. We need to have the same focus on bullying, knife crime, drugs and healthy relationships in our schools. We can pretend that this is not happening, but that is not doing anybody any favours. We also need to ensure that parents are involved in that conversation. All of that costs money and my genuine concern is that it is money that local authorities and the police do not have.

In my first term as a Member of Parliament, I visited the parents of three boys who had been stabbed to death in my constituency. I never want to do that again. My fear is that the postcode wars of seven or eight years ago, where gangs were defined by territory and violence escalated through revenge stabbings, are being replaced with gangs running drugs down to different parts of the country. The outcomes—people being stabbed and poor kids living in fear—are exactly the same. I do not want children growing up in Lewisham to have that on their plate. We need to find a way to join up the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle, treat children as victims when they genuinely are, take tough action against the ringleaders and find a way to stop the problem spreading. It already ruins too many lives in places such as Lewisham. The least we can do in this place is to try to work out a way to tackle it.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan (in the Chair)]

We now move on to the Front-Bench speeches. I am sure the hon. Ladies on both Front Benches will know how to divide the time equitably.

Report on Recent Terrorist Attacks

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Lady makes such an important point. I am of course aware of the ongoing terrorist attacks, which we take as seriously as any terrorism throughout the country. I also take seriously her point about ensuring that there is sufficient funding.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary talked about the process that authorities follow when new intelligence becomes available about closed subjects of interest. Will she say what, if any, changes have been made to that process over the past six months?

[Amber Rudd]

I reassure the hon. Lady that this is not a case of stopping or pausing, doing a review and making changes. As is shown in David Anderson’s report, a copy of which I have just put in the Library, MI5 has already started to make many changes, one of which relates to ports alerts, as mentioned by several hon. Members today. We are already ensuring that action is being taken to make improvements, as set out in the report.

Oral Answers to Questions

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Lady may like to note that this year, as I said earlier, the Government put protection in for police funding in the settlement, so police are benefiting from that protection. Police forces across the country are recruiting. In fact, the Met is one of the exemplars for how to get a diverse workforce; Police Now was literally the first visit I made in this role. The latest recruitment has seen increases to 25% in respect of women. That is good, but we need to go further and I am glad that the hon. Lady wants to join us in seeing that develop.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

4. What recent discussions she has had with her counterparts in other EU member states on freedom of movement.

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

The Prime Minister has made it clear that article 50 will be triggered before the end of March 2017. We are still working hard on our negotiating position, but we do not want to show our hand of cards before we get into the poker game. However, I assure the hon. Lady that we are determined to get the right deal for Britain.

[Heidi Alexander]

The Government’s approach to Brexit seems to hinge on their ability to persuade other European member states to allow Britain to opt out of current freedom of movement rules while retaining tariff-free access to the single market. Can the Minister name me one European Minister who has told him that that might be possible?

[Mr Goodwill]

There are certainly 3.2 million EU nationals in the UK, and it is in their interests to be able to satisfy their Governments about their status here. As the Prime Minister has said, the only circumstance in which we would not want to guarantee their status would be if the status of UK nationals living elsewhere were not similarly guaranteed.

Hate Crime

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

I wonder whether the hon. Lady would be willing to meet me to discuss her personal experience, because I would like to hear about what is happening on the ground probably as much as she would like to tell me.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Last weekend, my neighbour, a mum of two and a woman of Caribbean heritage, told me that she felt homeless following the referendum result last week. What specific resources will be available to the Metropolitan police to help them engage with communities experiencing a rise in hate crime? Does the Minister agree that we must all do absolutely everything we can to ensure that children in places such as Lewisham can grow up in a country that is respectful and inclusive?

[Karen Bradley]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will write to her with the specifics about what is happening within the Metropolitan police. Clearly, there are many police forces and I do not want to provide information that is not strictly accurate and correct. I agree with her point, however. This is a great country—I am incredibly proud of being British—and it will continue to be, irrespective of the result of the referendum, and the country that I am part of is not a country that accepts this kind of behaviour.

Counter-Terrorism: Conflict Zones

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The reintroduction of exit checks was a coalition Government agreement; it was in the coalition Government agreement that we published at the beginning of this Government as one of the measures that we were going to introduce. The draft Communications Data Bill is a different matter. It is a matter of public record that our Liberal Democrat colleagues did not want the introduction of that Bill. That is why we have not been able to do it.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Speaking on the BBC yesterday, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball said that the Metropolitan police have always thought that relocation powers were a valuable tool in disrupting terrorist networks. Is the Home Secretary saying that when she relaxed the control order regime, the Metropolitan police never made this clear to her?

[Mrs May]

When we changed the control orders regime we discussed the matter with the agencies and the police, and they were absolutely clear that the changes we were making did not significantly increase the risk.

Oral Answers to Questions

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

As the hon. Gentleman says, we accepted the panel’s recommendation to develop proposals for a blanket ban. We have already initiated statutory consultation on the proposals with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and we will consider its advice carefully. Work has begun and is moving swiftly. We will develop proposals for a blanket ban and set out further detail in due course.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

10. How many Syrian refugees have been resettled in the UK under the Government’s vulnerable persons relocation scheme.

[The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

We remain on track to relocate several hundred people under the vulnerable persons relocation scheme in the next three years. Between the first group of arrivals on 25 March and the end of June, 50 people were relocated to the UK under the scheme. Numbers are released as part of the publication each quarter of the Home Office official statistics, and the increased number of arrivals under the scheme up to the end of September will be published on 27 November.

[Heidi Alexander]

On 9 December, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is staging a Syrian resettlement conference in Geneva. Given the unprecedented magnitude of the Syrian refugee crisis, will the Minister ensure that the UK Government are represented at that conference? Will he also take the opportunity to commit to expanding the vulnerable persons relocation scheme?

[James Brokenshire]

We certainly recognise the contribution and role played by the UNHCR. Indeed, the vulnerable persons relocation scheme has been developed alongside UNHCR and the specific cases we accept depend on referral by it. I underline to the hon. Lady the contribution the UK has made to the region: £700 million in aid, the vulnerable persons relocation scheme and the asylum claims we are accepting here.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

No, I do not accept that. What I do accept is that where cuts have taken place, crime has fallen. Let us consider the area that the hon. Lady represents. I quote:

“Despite these difficult times, I am very proud to report that County Durham and Darlington remain among the safest places in the country to live…This performance puts us in an excellent starting position for the period of continued austerity.”

I believe that is from County Durham’s Labour police and crime commissioner, Ron Hogg.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

T2. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

Over the weekend we saw yet another brutal murder at the hands of ISIL, that of United States aid worker Peter Kassig. Both the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) and the Minister for Security and Immigration, referred to it earlier. I am sure the House will agree that, along with the recent shocking attack on the Canadian Parliament, it demonstrates the deadly threat that we face from terrorism at home and abroad. That is why protecting the British public remains the Government’s No. 1 priority, and why we are taking urgent action to ensure that our police and intelligence agencies have all the tools that they need to keep people safe.

As I have told the House previously, and as the Prime Minister confirmed in Australia last week, we will shortly introduce a counter-terrorism Bill which will include new powers to disrupt people’s ability to travel abroad to fight as well as their ability to return here, and will combat the underlying ideology that feeds, supports and sanctions terrorism. The legislation will strengthen our armoury of powers, which will be among the toughest in the world in terms of cracking down on returning foreign fighters.

[Heidi Alexander]

May I associate myself with the Home Secretary’s comments about recent international events?

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children recently launched its “flaw in the law” campaign, which rightly demands legislative change to make it illegal for an adult to send a sexual message to a child. When will the Home Secretary give the police the power to intervene earlier, rather than leaving them unable to act until a child has been coerced into sharing an indecent image, lured to a meeting offline or, in the worst cases, sexually abused?

[Mrs May]

I agree that we need to be able to intervene earlier, so that we can ensure that predatory behaviour is tackled before children are put at risk. Officials had a further meeting with the NSPCC as recently as last Friday to discuss the matter further. I can assure the hon. Lady and the House that we will complete our consideration of the issue as a matter of urgency, so that we have the opportunity to table an amendment to the Serious Crime Bill should we wish to do so.

Refugees and Migrants (Search and Rescue Operation)

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I am aware of a number of points that have been made in this House and by other agencies. We are keen to ensure that the approach is well communicated and well addressed. Our focus, and the focus of the aid agencies and the UNHCR, is on saving lives. That is the Government’s motivation, and the motivation of many other agencies.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

In response to the question from the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), the Minister referred to the Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme. It has been reported that, under that scheme, just 50 of the people who have had to flee their homes and their country have been given safe haven in the United Kingdom—just 50 of the 3 million refugees who have had to flee Syria as a result of this crisis. The Minister is a decent man. Why does he not want the United Kingdom to do more to give those who are fleeing brutality a safe and legal route to this country?

[James Brokenshire]

I respect the manner in which the hon. Lady has asked her question, but the United Kingdom is playing its full role. For instance, we have invested £700 million in the region, because given the numbers that are involved, a regional solution is required. That money is providing direct support for hundreds of thousands of people in the region who are in desperate need of assistance. Our Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme is intended to assist those who are most acutely in need of help; we have said that it will provide assistance for several hundred people over the next three years, and that is precisely what it is doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

6. When she next plans to meet the chief executive of the Passport Office.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

8. What recent estimate she has made of the time taken to process passport applications.

[The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

Since January, Her Majesty’s Passport Office has been dealing with a higher demand for passports than for the same period over the last 12 years. The overwhelming majority of straightforward applications continue to be dealt with within three or four weeks, but we recognise that some people are waiting too long. A package of additional measures has been introduced to help HMPO deliver passports on time while still maintaining security. Ministerial colleagues and I are meeting the chief executive of HMPO on a regular basis.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

The pressure has been the result of a significant increase in domestic applications. The forecasting that HMPO has undertaken, and its expectation, is that it is domestic applications that have really added to the pressure and led to the highest level of applications in 12 years. Clearly we are focused on those individual cases, which is why additional resources have been put into examination, but there is also the specific measure, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary mentioned, to ensure that there is a focus on those who need their passports to travel and to go on their holidays.

[Heidi Alexander]

My constituent Ms Papafio-Gordon is today celebrating her 21st birthday, but she faces the prospect of not being able to go on holiday tomorrow because of delays in renewing her passport. She has already had to cancel two holidays. She booked tomorrow’s flights only after being told that her passport would be couriered to her home yesterday, but it never arrived. Will the Minister look into the case to ensure that my constituent, on her third attempt, can go on holiday tomorrow?

[James Brokenshire]

The hon. Lady raises an individual case. I know how hard Passport Office personnel are working to ensure that passports are delivered on time to enable people to travel. If she gives me the details of her constituent’s case, obviously I will look into it.

Stop-and-Search

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I give my hon. Friend that absolute assurance. However, as I said earlier, the situation has changed because of the case law that was set by the determination in the Roberts case. I am very clear that if I do not see change, I will be back with primary legislation.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

As someone who secured a Westminster Hall debate on stop-and-search two years ago, I welcome the Secretary of State’s comments in as far as they go. In my constituency, there is undoubtedly huge concern about the misuse of stop-and-search powers, but the number of complaints to the police does not necessarily reflect the concern in the community. What does she plan to do to raise awareness among the people who are most often on the receiving end of this policing tool of how to make complaints and of the standards that they should expect when they experience it?

[Mrs May]

We are exploring how we can best get that message across. As I have mentioned, part of the package that we are introducing in “best use of stop-and-search” is that a significant number of complaints on the use of stop-and-search in an area will trigger a response from the police. We are looking at how we can best use various means of communicating with people, particularly young people, about the extent to which they can complain. As the hon. Lady and others will know from their experience, the sad fact is that because so many people accept that this is just what happens, they do not complain. When the power is used improperly, we want complaints to come through. We are looking at what information we can put out about how stop-and-search should be conducted. The point that the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) made earlier about the manner in which stop-and-search is undertaken is important and has been raised with me by young people. They say that if it is done with respect, they have less concern about it than if it is done in the usual way.