United Front Work Department

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Government if they will make a statement on the extent of the operations of the United Front Work Department within the UK.

[The Minister for Security (Dan Jarvis)]

The first duty of any Government is national security, and we therefore welcome the court’s decision to uphold the Home Office’s position with regard to the exclusion of H6, who can now be named as Yang Tengbo. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission concluded that there was a “basis for the conclusion” that H6

“had been in a position to generate relationships with prominent UK figures which could be leveraged for political interference purposes by the CCP (including the UFWD) or the Chinese State.”

Where there are individuals who pose a threat to our national security, we are absolutely committed to using the full range of powers available to disrupt them. When we encounter foreign interference or espionage, whether it stems from the United Front Work Department or from any other state-linked actor, we will be swift in using all available tools, including prosecutions, exclusions, sanctions and diplomacy, to keep our country safe.

Given the potential for further litigation, it would be inappropriate for me to say any more, but it is important to recognise that this case does not exist in a vacuum. As the director general of MI5 made clear in October, we are in the most complex threat environment that he has ever seen. Alongside the threat from terrorism, we face ongoing efforts by a number of states, including China, Russia and Iran, to harm the UK’s security. Our response is among the most robust and sophisticated anywhere in the world.

The National Security Act 2023, which was supported by Members on both sides of the House and which strengthened our powers to protect the UK, is central to our protection against states that seek to conduct hostile acts. To date, six individuals have been charged under the new Act, and the Government have been working hard on the roll-out of a crucial part of it: the foreign influence registration scheme, or FIRS. We will say more about that soon, but we intend to lay regulations in the new year and commence the scheme in the summer.

The Government have also set out our approach to China, which will be consistent and strategic. We will challenge where we must in order to keep our country safe, compete where we need to, and co-operate where we can—for example, on matters such as climate change. That is acting in the national interest, as the Prime Minister reiterated earlier today. However, the threats we face from foreign states are pernicious and complex. The work of our intelligence agencies is unrivalled in mitigating them, and I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to them for the amazing work that they do to keep our country safe. Today, as ever, they will be pursuing those who wish to do us harm, including those from foreign states. We support our intelligence agencies in their efforts, and we always will—and they will know that at any point when the UK’s national security is at risk, we will not hesitate to use every tool at our disposal to keep our country safe.

[Mr Speaker]

I want to put two things on the record. First, it would have been easier for the Government to come to the House with a statement; obviously, there was more to say than we have allocated time for.

Secondly, I say to Sir Iain: please do not tell the media what you are going to do and how you are going to do it, and do not try to bounce the Chair into making a decision. If anybody else had put in for an urgent question, I would have given it to them—on the basis that I am not dancing to the tune of the media.

It would be helpful if the Government came forward with statements, rather than being dragged to the Dispatch Box. Hopefully, we can all learn from this, and here is a good example of how that will be done: I call Sir Iain Duncan Smith.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Mr Speaker, I apologise if that was the case.

Yang Tengbo—H6—was, in fact, not a lone wolf. He was one of some 40,000 members of the United Front Work Department, which, as the Government know, the Intelligence and Security Committee report last year said had penetrated “every sector” of the UK economy, including by spying, stealing intellectual property, influencing, and shaping our institutions. Our agents say they are now frustrated by the lack of action, but they do not seem to have the tools they need to deal with the issue. One of those tools is staring us in the face. Will the Government commit to putting China in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme, and will they do it now? There is no need for delay.

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, or IPAC, found that H6—Yang Tengbo—is already well known as a United Front member, and that he is known to others who are already deep in the political establishment. Parliamentarians are exposed to the United Front on a regular basis. Will the Minister remedy this today, and accept that China is our most prominent security threat and that all action must take priority?

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), who was the previous Security Minister, has said publicly that the Home Office was ready to name China in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme, which would have forced United Front members like H6 to register or face serious consequences. Given that doing so is an available option, why have we not done it yet? Is it true, as is being reported by papers, including The Times, that behind the scenes the Government are now under pressure from banks, the wider business community and Government Departments not to do it?

When it comes to a member of the royal family, I simply say this: how was it that somebody who was known to the security forces was allowed to get so close to a member of the royal family without proper scrutiny exposing them?

Finally, I note that the Prime Minister said today in response to the issue that we will “co-operate where we can”, particularly on environmental issues, and “challenge where we must”, particularly on human rights issues. If the Prime Minister means that, why are we still buying from China huge numbers of solar arrays that have demonstrably been made using slave labour? Surely his statement is clearly incorrect; far from challenging China on human rights, it now appears that we are turning a blind eye. Why is that?

[Dan Jarvis]

Let me first come to the point the right hon. Gentleman made about FIRS. Upon our arrival in government, we found that FIRS was not ready to be implemented, as has been claimed. Since coming into office, we have ensured that more people than ever are now working on FIRS implementation, and the case management team have been recruited and are now in place. As I said in my opening remarks, we plan to lay the regulations that underpin the scheme in the new year, ahead of the scheme going live in the summer. As we have previously committed, we will provide three months’ notice of the scheme’s go-live date to give all those who will be affected by it adequate time to prepare.

The scheme will be underpinned by an IT solution consisting of a registration platform, a case management system and an online public register. The IT programme developed under the previous Government was not ready for the scheme to go live, and plans were not sufficiently robust. This Government have progressed at pace with the work to ensure that we are in a position to launch FIRS, with the laying of the regulations in the new year with a view to the scheme going live in the summer. Work is also under way to identify which foreign powers will be placed on the enhanced tier. That will be based on robust security and intelligence analysis. The Home Secretary and I plan to begin setting out the Government’s approach for the use of the enhanced tier in due course.

Immigration and Home Affairs

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman was the one who said it, so he is the one who will know. If he wants to deny that he ever said it, I will not say it again—honestly—but I think that he protests a little too much with this sort of wriggling. He would not do very well under interrogation.

We have heard today that the leadership contest will run until November. We have five months of this. There are hardly any Tory MPs here because they are all off doing their little chats and meetings. It is like a cross between “Love Island” and the jungle. Rob and Suella have broken up, and now John has gone off with Kemi. Everyone is looking over their shoulder for snakes and rats. Apparently somebody has had a nervous breakdown, and that is probably all of their Back Benchers, dreading getting a little text saying that another candidate wants a chat. We can see it. Look at them all. They are all saying, “I am a Tory MP. Get me out of here.” That is exactly what our Labour MPs have just done: they have got a lot of Tory MPs out of here because the country is crying out for change—for what the Prime Minister has described as a decade of national renewal on our economy, our public services and our relationship with the world, and in politics itself, by bringing politics back into public service again.

I say to all hon. Members, on my side and on the Opposition Benches, that I will work with everyone to restore Britain’s sense of security, public safety on our streets, secure borders, and confidence in our police and criminal justice system. Yes, I will repeatedly challenge the Conservatives on the legacy that they have left us, because the damage is serious, and I think that they have been hugely reckless with the safety of our country. Yes, the approach and values of our parties may be different, but I think that there are important areas where we should be able to come together to bring change in the interests of our country, our communities and our security, because that is what public service means. That is what this Labour Government are determined to do. We have set out in the King’s Speech three Home Office Bills on crime and policing, borders and asylum, and security. I will cover each issue in turn, starting with safety on our streets and confidence in the police and the criminal justice system.

Everyone will have, fresh in their minds, the concerns raised by constituents during the election campaign. I fear that, at a time when we have 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police and PCSOs, confidence in policing has dropped. Street crime and knife crime are surging in towns and suburbs—not just in our cities—and shoplifting has become an epidemic. Those are the kinds of crimes that really affect how people live in their own communities, yet too little is being done.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on her new position. Before the election was called, we had succeeded in a cross-party campaign to make cuckooing a criminal offence in the Criminal Justice Bill, which then sadly fell. I notice that in the crime and policing Bill, there is no mention at all of cuckooing. Does she support the idea of making cuckooing—using the homes of the most vulnerable in society for criminal behaviour—a criminal offence? If so, will she commit to introducing that process again? She would have my support, and I can guarantee that she would have the support of the previous Government, because I told them so at the time. Over to her.

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Member raises an immensely important point, which we support. I am happy to talk to him further, or he can talk to the Minister with responsibility for victims and safeguarding, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips). A series of issues included in the Criminal Justice Bill, which fell when the election was called, had cross-party support and need to be taken forward.

Criminal Justice Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 15th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I am grateful for that. The key bit about cuckooing is that the police have never been able to arrest somebody because they have taken over a house; they have to prove that there are criminal activities inside. This new offence will therefore break new ground and protect people.

There is an important point about coercion. Will the Minister guarantee that in the guidance notes attached to the Bill it will be clear to the police that they should be checking that victims are not being coerced into saying that they have given their consent? It is important for the police to know that.

[Laura Farris]

That is an excellent suggestion. I confirm that and thank my right hon. Friend once again.

Before I conclude, I would like to address a number of other matters that have been raised by hon. Members and tabled as amendments. I start with the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Dame Tracey Crouch)—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

The hon. Lady is making an important point. All of this comes back to how we view vulnerability, because it displays itself in very different ways. In almost all these cases, there is some base vulnerability, and a drug addict or a person who has been accused of various things realises that, on balance, they had better do what they are told or coerced into. That is the real point, is it not?

[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely agree, and it can truly happen to anybody—we have seen how people even in this House can be coerced into things. It is dangerous. If there are criminal charges for blackmail, sexual violence or whatever against a person, grooming should be an aggravating factor, regardless of age, on the basis—as the right hon. Gentleman rightly says—of a differential of vulnerability. Until grooming of adults is recognised in legislation, it will continue to be misunderstood by law enforcement and the criminal justice system, and victims will not be adequately protected.

New clause 45 would essentially decriminalise the offence of loitering or soliciting for the purposes of prostitution, and repeal section 1 of the Street Offences Act 1959. Tens of thousands of sex trade survivors who are convicted of that offence endured violence and abuse from punters and pimps, or they were criminalised for offences arising from their exploitation. The exploiters and abusers remained at liberty, continuing to offend, while we criminalised the victims.

In one case I was told of, a young woman was 15 when she was first exploited into prostitution by a man posing as her boyfriend. He became her pimp, and as well as sexually abusing her himself, he made her sell sex on the street where she often feared for her life. For years she suffered violence and abuse from her pimps and punters, and was regularly arrested by the police while they exchanged friendly greetings with her pimp—that, by the way, is essentially protected under the law in our land at the moment, which needs some heavy review. As a consequence of that history, which dates back to the 1980s, she has 39 convictions for soliciting and loitering, which will remain on her record for life, despite her having exited prostitution more than 30 years ago. She is one of thousands of women who have lived through that experience.

Times have changed. Those in much of street prostitution are now widely understood to be the victims, and they are usually no longer arrested. The new clause would provide the necessary recognition that women convicted of such offences were not criminals. It would ensure that the UK complies with international human rights obligations to women exploited in prostitution, and it would replicate the majority of Council of Europe states that have fully legalised or decriminalised prostitution, or adopted the sex buyer model, which decriminalises only those exploited and not those who profit or benefit from prostitution.

New clause 46, which is connected to new clause 45, would create a mechanism for those who received convictions for loitering and soliciting for the purpose of prostitution to have them disregarded. We have seen quite a push in the House regarding the criminalisation of people from the Post Office and—quite rightly—to have those convictions quashed. I am asking us to consider those young children and very vulnerable women who were criminalised, because that will remain on their criminal records until the survivor reaches the age of 100. It means that women who were convicted continue to be disadvantaged by the mandatory retention of such records, as a result of being historically subject to violence and exploitation. Despite recent changes to the disclosure regime, women are still at risk of those records being disclosed in certain circumstances. In the Post Office drama, one woman could not go into her kid’s school to do a painting session. We are talking about women who have been exploited not being able to go into our kids’ schools.

New clause 48 argues that strangulation should be seen as an aggravating factor in the sentencing of murderers, and the Minister sought to address some of these issues. Working with many families of murdered women, many of them speak to me of the horrors of how their loved one was killed by strangulation. Strangulation is not a weapon. Weapons have different sentencing regimes, and in this instance, a man’s strength is their weapon; he brings a weapon by bringing the strength to strangle and kill somebody. We have gone over the debates and the amazing work of Carole Gould and Julie Devey looking at the differentiation between those who kill a stranger or anyone in the street with a knife getting a 25-year minimum sentence, and someone who kills their wife with a knife in their home getting a 15-year minimum sentence. That is fundamentally wrong. Schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act 2020 needs a massive review, but one thing we could definitely do is put in aggravated factors specifically on strangulation, as Clare Wade suggested.

We debated new clauses 49 and 50 extensively in Committee, and they relate to whether victims of domestic violence deserve defences in the law. I imagine this matter will get an even bigger run-out in the Lords. Many learned Members of the other place very much wish to see these mitigations for cases where women commit crimes as a result of the pattern of abuse they have suffered. I look forward to that being the ongoing debate down there.

We did not debate new clause 93 in Committee, so I will just talk about it. I like it as a policy, because it does not cost anything, which the Minister will be pleased to hear. It calls for the sentencing code to be amended to require judges to consider making compensation orders where there is evidence of economic loss or damage as a result of the offence. I know from my constituents and the charity Surviving Economic Abuse that even when a survivor is lucky enough to have her case reach court and her abuser handed a prison sentence, she has to live with the long-lasting impact of the abuse. Some 5.5 million UK women have had their money and belongings controlled by their current or former partner in the past 12 months. Many economic abuse survivors often end up homeless, destitute and with damaged credit scores that prevent them from rebuilding their life.

While the sentencing code requires judges to consider awarding compensation when making their judgments, in reality they do not. Research by Surviving Economic Abuse looked at successful controlling or coercive behaviour prosecutions that featured economic abuse between 2016 and 2020, and it found that despite evidence of loss and damage caused by the perpetrator, just 2% of cases resulted in the perpetrator being ordered to pay compensation. New clause 93 would help ensure that judges consider whether a compensation order is appropriate in cases of economic abuse.

That is the end of my amendments. However, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) has had many a mention today. She cannot be here today, but she has asked me to make some remarks on new clause 2 on her behalf. I make them very much on my behalf, too, with one particular question to the Minister. I have already asked her about the age being under 13. If somebody came to me and said that the father of their children had raped a 14-year-old, I do not think they would be particularly happy that they still had to go through the family court process, so I very much hope that when the Minister says this is an iterative process, that will actually be the case. There are still massive safeguarding issues.

New clause 2 would change the law to protect the children of convicted child sex offenders by taking away their father’s parental rights. That would be hugely significant and would lay down that fatherhood is a privilege, not a right and that people will forfeit it if they are a danger to their children. That would be a major change. The patriarchal hangover whereby a father’s rights over a child were sacrosanct will, at long last, give way to the priority of protecting the child.

It has long been recognised that children need protecting from sex offenders. While in the 1990s we brought forward protection for children through the sex offenders register and restrictions on people who have been convicted of serious sexual offences, we did not tackle parental rights and protect the offender’s own children. Somehow, the patriarchal view that a father’s rights over their own children must not be disturbed was a carve-out. Obviously that was wrong, because the rights of the child—not the rights of the father—should be at the forefront.

A recent family court case in Cardiff put a spotlight on that. When the father of Bethan’s daughter was sent to prison for child sexual abuse, Bethan was horrified to discover that, despite being in prison, he still had rights over their child. When he was sentenced, he was given an order banning him from any future contact with children, but that ban did not extend to his own children. Bethan spent £30,000 going through the family court fighting to protect her child from him.

The courts and the law should step forward to protect children. It should not be left to the mother—especially because, in most of these cases, the mother will be a victim as well. The court should strip the father who has done the offending of rights over his child.

As the Government have said, they are adopting this change. I have already said that I have concerns about some of the limitations with regard to the offence type. Let us be honest: I do not believe in the rights of fatherhood when parents are abusive at all.

When working with my right hon. and learned Friend, there are a lot of messages—that is what it is always like. The drafting of the legislation has essentially been copied and pasted from previous campaigns that we worked on with regard to Jade’s law on homicide, and there is a worry about the drafting of proposed new section 10B to the Children Act, which requires local authorities to make an application to the family court to review the decision to remove the sex-offending father’s parental right in every case, even when there is no issue at all with the mother. In her closing remarks, will the Minister address that?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I urge colleagues to be considerate of each other in the length of time that they are taking. I am trying to ensure that we get everybody in, and the debate will finish at 7.20 pm, so that means that colleagues have about 10 to 12 minutes each.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I rise to speak in favour of new clause 57 and what was new clause 7 which has been copied by the Government in new clauses 94 and 95 on cuckooing. Having discussed the matter, I very much welcome the fact that the Government have essentially adopted my original new clause. Some modifications have taken place, and I agree with all of those.

It is critical that cuckooing is an offence in itself. When we talked to the police about it, they were clear throughout that they could not get into houses where there were problems—or even perhaps criminal activity was taking place—because there was no offence of having taken over the house. It will make the police’s job a great deal easier if they do not have to be able to demonstrate suspicion that a criminal act is taking place in the house; they will simply have to believe that the house has essentially been cuckooed. They will then be able to go in and discover lots of stuff.

Many criminals take over these houses for the simple reason that they know it will take the police a while to get their act together and be able to get inside. That action will be speeded up, which I think ultimately will help the police dramatically.

I made the point to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) that vulnerability plays a massive part in all this. Who knows what vulnerability is, but some victims have drug, alcohol, physical and mental health problems, and may have other learning difficulties and other disabilities. We forget about the learning disabilities element, but vulnerability can encompass somebody’s lifelong failure through all education systems and everything else. They are vulnerable, but they may not display those vulnerabilities to the public cognisance. Therefore, cuckooing—using someone to take over their house—is what happens. Hidden behind those doors, the victims go unnoticed.

[Rob Butler]

Building on that point, does my right hon. Friend accept that, sometimes, vulnerable people might appear to be exactly the opposite? They might put up a façade of great confidence or even of arrogance, including in the criminal justice process, which I have witnessed as a magistrate. We need to look carefully behind that, to assess whether someone is arrogant or vulnerable.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I could not agree more. That is why I was insistent that the Government are clear in the guidance that coercion and other acts negate the idea that, superficially, the individual is declared to have given their permission. That needs to be investigated more deeply by the police before they say, “It’s all right, they gave their say so, it is fine.” It is not fine. That vulnerability needs to be examined. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point, and I am grateful to the Minister for making it clear at the beginning that that will be in the guidance.

Research from the Centre for Social Justice and Justice and Care highlighted that, despite the terrible impact on victims, taking control of a person’s home in this way is not specifically a crime. The specific offence of cuckooing is therefore needed to rectify the harm done. It has been claimed endlessly that civil orders do the job, but they do not because they are short term. They can be obtained quickly but they are not lasting and do not do anything—perpetrators are back into the process because they are not criminal orders. That is the point: if we make this a criminal offence, suddenly these perpetrators will have to think twice.

I am being brief because I welcome the Government’s decision to amend their own Bill and put it into law. I am grateful for that, and it will be celebrated up and down the land by many people who have felt abandoned. The issue is linked in many senses to what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley said earlier about vulnerability. It may open a wider debate about how vulnerability is recognised in criminal law.

New clause 57 would create an offence of causing death by serious injury and dangerous, careless or inconsiderate cycling. If accepted, it would ensure that cyclists are held accountable for their actions, enhance road safety and provide justice for victims and their families. Simply, it tries to bring in what has, for some reason, been completely left out of the normal criminal codes and highway code with regards to some of problems caused by the increase in cycling. Let me make it clear that I am very keen for more cycling to take place—it is good for individuals and the environment. I recognise all that. This is not anti-cycling, despite what many people say about it—quite the opposite. It is about making sure that cycling is safe and reasonable.

I want to raise the case of Matthew Briggs, who has been campaigning for a law recognising death and serious injury. He is in the Gallery, witnessing these events. His attempt to get a cyclist prosecuted after his wife was killed in central London in 2016 involved a legal process so convoluted and difficult that even the presiding judge has said, since she has retired, that it made a mockery of the law. It needs to be addressed that the laws do not cover what happened to Matthew’s wife and a lot of other people. They had to use a Victorian law made in about 1850, about wanton and furious driving, which referred to horse riding. Nothing has been done ever since. It is quite a different offence, to be frank, and it certainly is not about cycling.

As far back as the 1950s, it was recognised that juries were slow to convict in motor manslaughter cases—that is recognised in a report that I will come to in a second—which led to major changes in the law for drivers. The case for changing the law on cyclists is now urgent. By the way, it is not just me saying that. Back in 2018, the Department for Transport commissioned an independent inquiry into this very issue. Some of the points it made are really relevant, but nothing has been done since. It stated:

“there is a persuasive case for legislative change to tackle the issue of dangerous and careless cycling that causes serious injury or death; in order to bring cycling into line with driving offences.”

It is interesting that it referred to a number of countries that do incorporate that. It has not led to a fall in cycling in those countries—it is still increasing—but it is done on a lawful basis. The report quoted a barrister—this is a key component:

“I consider that this legislative change would have a positive effect on all road users.”

They went on to say that it

“would have a positive impact purely and simply on the basis of cyclists being well aware that if they were to ride in a careless or dangerous manner and were unfortunate enough to kill someone”

laws would proceed against them. They went on to say:

“I would like to think that it would have a positive impact for people to think ‘I am going to slow down, I’m not going to do anything stupid’”

because it could put them in danger with the law. As I said, that independent report is from 2018, but nothing has been done since. That has made this more important. Matthew Briggs and other campaigners often have faced a lot of abuse from people who simply do not want change to happen. It is time for us to recognise the impact of this issue.

Under the current 1861 law, even if someone on a bike has killed a pedestrian, they can only be jailed for a maximum of two years. That creates a clear discrepancy between different forms of dangerous behaviour on roads, and the punishment does not always fit the severity of the crime or achieve justice for victims. In one case, Mr Justice Mitting stated:

“If the vehicle ridden by”

the suspect

“had been motorised he would have had no defence to a charge of causing death by dangerous driving, an offence which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment.”

There have been calls for legislative change for some time—I mentioned the report—but the numbers are growing.

It is worth looking at some other cases, which show that Mr Briggs’s case is far from isolated. Families who have lost loved ones or who have suffered injuries are desperate for change. In July 2020, Peter McCombie, 72, was killed by cyclist Ermir Loka, who had jumped a red light. In June 2022, Stewart McGinn, 29, was jailed for a year after he sped on his bike around a corner in Monmouth, south Wales, hitting Jane Stone, 79, who died four days later.

In June 2022, Hilda Griffiths—this is a very important case—who was aged 81, was run over by a cyclist, who was racing along at 29 mph in a 20 mph zone on a high-performance racing bike. She subsequently died. The extent of Hilda’s injuries were so severe that all the NHS medical professionals at St Mary’s Hospital could not believe that the collision had been with a bicycle. At the time, they thought they had misread the notes and that it must have been a motorbike or a vehicle that caused such extensive, life-threatening injuries. The case was unable to proceed because the speed limit does not apply to cyclists. These anomalies need to be resolved.

On 1 May, I met Paolo Dos Santos, who was knocked unconscious after she was hit by a speeding cyclist who was overtaking a car—overtaking a car—at the same spot. She suffered several facial injuries and now requires reconstruction surgery for her upper jaw socket. Without initial surgery, she would have lifelong discomfort and pain, and would not be able to use her mouth properly to chew, or anything else. In 2016, Diana Walker, 76, died when a cyclist hit her in Pewsey, Wiltshire. In June 2020, Ian Gunn, 56, died in south Manchester, yet the cyclist was cleared of wanton and furious driving.

It is interesting: I am talking about not just deaths, but injuries. I hope colleagues note the age of most of the victims. It is older people who are affected and it is worth recognising that this is a real problem.

The Department for Transport produces statistics on pedestrians involved in road collisions in Great Britain as reported by or to the police. Between 2018 and 2022, 2,000 pedestrian casualties in Great Britain occurred in a collision involving a pedal cycle. Of those, nine were fatal, 657 were very serious injuries and 1,292 were injuries. The number of pedestrians hit by cyclists has increased by a third since 2020, and in 2022, the most recent year for which figures are available, 462 collisions between cyclists and pedestrians were recorded by police. According to data from NHS England, 331 pedestrians were admitted to hospital after a collision with a cyclist between 2022 and 2023. Six of those patients were over the age of 90, and 11 were under the age of four.

We can see a pattern here: the elderly and the very young are becoming the people most affected. It should also be borne in mind that most of these injuries and accidents are not reported to the police because most people do not think anything will happen—unlike motor accidents, although I take the point made earlier by the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) that even motorists try to abscond.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I will, but very briefly, in view of your strictures, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Rehman Chishti]

May I make a specific point about road traffic accidents? We are debating a Criminal Justice Bill, and we are discussing support for victims. The maximum penalty for driving without insurance is a £300 fine or six points on the driver’s licence, unless the case goes to court, in which case drivers can receive unlimited fines and be disqualified from driving, irrespective of whether their offence is the first or the 10th. Should we not address that aspect as well, with the aim of making our roads safe?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not go down that road at this particular point, because I am dealing with a very focused new clause, but I think that, as a minimum, we need to bring matters back into balance and allow ordinary pedestrians and others to recognise that there is a problem that needs to be rectified. I hope the Government will do that.

There has been an explosion in the number of electric bikes. The other day, I watched as someone on an electric bike passed a small primary school, just at the last moment avoiding the children who were coming in and out of it. I genuinely believe that he must have been doing over 30 miles an hour—coat flapping in the wind, not a care in the world, wearing no protection and certainly with no concern for those young children. It gave quite a shock to many of the mothers who were standing there. I watched with astonishment at the arrogance of the cyclist. It has been reported that some of these bikes have been adapted so that they can go faster than the legal speed limit for vehicles. These are not simply retrospective issues; they are developing issues.

I believe that the new clause will achieve equal accountability. Drivers are held accountable for dangerous driving resulting in death, and cyclists should face similar consequences for reckless behaviour that leads to fatalities. It will achieve deterrence, because stricter penalties for dangerous cycling will act as a deterrent, and it will achieve justice and closure for the families of victims who deserve it; outdated laws that do not adequately address cycling-related fatalities can leave them bereft. Finally, it will achieve public safety, because updating traffic laws can contribute to safer road environments for all users, including pedestrians, cyclists and motorists.

New clause 57 stands not only in my name but in those of many colleagues on both sides of the House, and I recommend it to the Government. I recognise that it is not perfect—as was suggested by the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham)—but I hope that the Government will adopt it, given that it can be modified in the other place if necessary. Not to adopt it now is to deny that there is a problem. I intend to press it when the time comes, but we do not have to divide on it, because I hope and believe that there is a chance of the Government’s adopting it, which would be a relevant and good position to take.

Let me end by commending Matt Briggs. He has campaigned bravely for some time, and has been vilified by many parties who do not want this to be done. His wife died and he has been without her for a number of years, but he has never relented in his campaign. Just over a week ago, I heard him speak on Radio 4, and his testimony so moved me that I decided we had to start acting now. I make no apology for that. As I have said, the new clause is by no means perfect, but action is better than inaction in so many cases.

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

I would like to speak in support of new clause 16, which is in my name. It seeks to amend the Road Traffic Act 1988 to provide that dangerous, careless or inconsiderate driving offences may be committed on private land adjacent to a highway. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for presenting and supporting my new clause in Committee, and for the positive comments in Committee from colleagues on the shadow Front Bench and the Government Front Bench, as outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) earlier.

--- Later in debate ---

[Laura Farris]

Yes, I can give my right hon. Friend that commitment.

I was interrupted, but I was briefly paying tribute to the very passionate speeches that have been made about road traffic accidents. These are not small matters—the case of the little girl in the constituency of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) is such a painful one, and I know that the Transport Secretary and other Ministers have been very affected by it. As the hon. Member knows, this matter is not straightforward for reasons that we have discussed, but I hope progress will be made on it in a way that helps his constituent.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) made an excellent speech on the offence of causing death or serious injury by dangerous, careless or inconsiderate cycling. It is not in dispute that whether a vehicle is a car, an electric scooter or a bicycle, if it is operated in a certain way, it is effectively a dangerous weapon on the road. We are supportive of my right hon. Friend’s amendment, and we will be bringing it back in the Lords; we will be changing it in the Lords, as he knows, but we are accepting it.

I think I have covered all the amendments that have been selected.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I assume that my hon. Friend meant that she will accept the amendment when I move it.

[Laura Farris]

Yes, I did mean that.

The final amendments that I will speak to are new clauses 91 and 92, relating to a new criminal sanction on water companies.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I rise to support the Government. The proscription of Hizb ut-Tahrir is overdue, but it is always good when it happens. I continue to welcome my right hon. Friend the Minister to his position. Both of us, of course, have been sanctioned by the Chinese Government, and I may touch on this in a second.

The proscription of Hizb ut-Tahrir is overdue because it has been well known for quite some time here that the UK has been at the centre of operations. I am always concerned about how long it sometimes takes us in the UK to openly recognise that there are forces at work within this United Kingdom, using our freedoms and our judicial system to protect themselves while they promote the most ghastly behaviour and attitudes. After all, Hizb ut-Tahrir is an antisemitic organisation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and my right hon. Friend the Minister have already made clear. Antisemitism is at the core of its whole being. It is not an organisation that is passingly antisemitic; antisemitism is its core belief.

Let us be clear that the killing of Jews is a priority for Hizb ut-Tahrir, and its activities here in the UK, as a result of the protection it is no longer to have, have influenced a lot of people who do not really understand what is going on in the middle east and who settle on the idea that Hizb ut-Tahrir is somehow espousing the views of a people who are persecuted abroad. It is not; Hizb ut-Tahrir is talking about the persecution and eventual eradication of the Jewish people.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is antisemitic and racist, as my hon. Friend said. It has also supported other groups in their attacks on Israel, as has been said already. Hizb ut-Tahrir celebrated the October murders and the taking of hostages, and it has encouraged terrorism globally, but it has also provided excuses for some of the nonsense being said at the moment on some of the marches. People do not seem to understand what the organisation is saying. I support my hon. Friend’s call to make sure that its online activities are sought out and shut down, and that those involved in them are prosecuted under the criminal code. That is critical, so I welcome my Government’s decision to proscribe Hizb ut-Tahrir.

It is worth bearing in mind—I want to come back to this in a second—that, as my hon. Friend said earlier, there are 79 terrorist organisations proscribed here in the UK, and this will now add to that. I want to come to the other bit here, which is to do with the IRGC. I will not spend too long on this, but I want to make this point, because these organisations are linked. We are proscribing an organisation that is dangerous, vile, antisemitic and abusive, but there is another organisation whose fingers extend into all these organisations around the world and here in the UK: the IRGC. It makes possible much of what goes on in terms of the attitudes towards antisemitism, the attacks on people in a democracy, and the misogyny and homophobia within these organisations. It is not just one element; it is complete.

We know now that, since the attacks in October, Iran has accelerated its executions of those who have protested against the current regime. An astonishing number of executions is now taking place, under cover of what is going on in Gaza. It is quite appalling. We know that the IRGC is behind Hezbollah. It directs, it arms and it makes sure that Hezbollah acts as its arm in Lebanon and beyond. It is attacking Israel right now to keep Israeli forces tied up in northern Israel for tactical reasons.

The second part is that we are now engaged in trying to protect our shipping in the Red sea. Who is supplying the Houthi rebels—the terrorists—with arms and direction? It is Iran, which has upped its supply of rockets to the Houthis. When the Foreign Secretary says to Iran that it has some responsibility for this, as I think he did quite recently, Iran’s response is, “Mind your own business and leave that alone.” It is still supplying the Houthis with weapons and, if we do not get our action right, they could shut down the Red sea for all trade.

When I was approached by somebody who had been protesting, I asked, “Are you aware of what is going on here?” They said, “What does it matter? These people in Israel are persecuting the Palestinians in Gaza, so they’re right to do this.” I replied, “So you don’t mind massive inflation hikes and huge extra costs. You don’t mind the fact that trade cannot travel down the shorter route and all the other considerations.” They just looked at me blankly, because they had not understood what we were talking about. Right now, Iran is directly involved in what is going on in the Red sea to try to shut down the free world’s business arrangements and affect the cost of goods.

Another part of it is that Iran was quite clearly involved in the attacks that took place in October on peaceful Israeli citizens and others, the murders and the hostage taking. How does it benefit from this? Iran knew that Israel would have to respond. That was exactly what the whole plan was: to launch a vile attack, murder enough Jews and make sure that Israeli territory was invaded, so that Israel was bound to attack.

I am not going to spend time debating exactly how far Israel should have gone or any of that, which is a separate issue. My personal view is very clear: Iran is linked to Russia, and what is going on takes the attention off Russia and divides America’s ability to supply arms and weaponry. It creates a major debate, which is going on in the United States at the moment, about giving supplies to the Ukrainians to defend themselves, and it also takes the attention away from China’s aggression towards Taiwan.

Iran is part of the axis of authoritarianism which also includes China, North Korea, Russia, and now Syria and others in the middle east. Iran is very dangerous, and the IRGC is the arm of the Iranian Government. Not only is Iran behind all the attacks, but it continues to persecute Christians to a degree that we simply cannot understand. Executions, incarcerations and abuse are taking place, as we heard yesterday in a report delivered here in the House of Commons.

What do the Government plan to do about the IRGC? America has asked the British Government to proscribe it, and we simply have not yet responded. I asked a nameless individual who is involved with this, and with the Government, why they have not proscribed the IRGC. They said, “It keeps a back channel for us to get America through to Iran.” I said, “What? We now have to act as a back channel for the Americans? Don’t we think the American Government are quite capable of finding ways to engage Iran if they have to?” They then said, “Well, of course we would lose our ability to influence Iran.” I asked them, “Exactly what influence have we had over Iran in the last five years?” They said, “The release of hostages.” I said, “No, you didn’t. You paid for those big time, and they were hostage-taking for that.” We have no influence over Iran. Iran is dangerous, and the IRGC is the arm of that threat around the world.

With two Iranian banks sitting in the City of London, we know how the money is transferred to support some of these organisations, creating some of the nonsense on the marches. Most people do not understand what “From the river to the sea” means, notwithstanding the fact that Hassan Nasrallah made it very clear that the chant means clearing the Jews out of Palestine, and Israel being gone. It is as simple as that. He said that that is what it means, yet people chant it and the Metropolitan police still does not seem to understand that it is an aggressive, antisemitic chant.

I have a Jewish sister-in-law who told me the other day that she has never felt more under threat and less safe in this country in her whole life. What a statement to make in this United Kingdom, which upholds freedom of speech and the rule of law—that a Jewish person now feels desperately under threat just getting up and going to work in the morning. That is simply not right and we need to deal with it. Who is behind all this? The IRGC.

In his concluding remarks, will the Minister please address this issue? It is more than high time. This is a cross-party issue; I know that those on the Opposition Front Bench have called for it. We have to face this. The IRGC must now be proscribed and the banks of Iran shut down in the UK. The IRGC can no longer continue to use the UK as a base for further operations. I congratulate the Government on their decision on Hizb ut-Tahrir, but we should go a lot further. We need to protect our citizens.

Illegal Immigration

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

Our immigration policies, as laid out in the figures I ran through in my statement, are having the positive effect that we committed to. We are bringing down small boat numbers, the need for hotel places and so on. I said in my statement that their lordships have set out the route to successfully operationalising the Rwanda scheme, through addressing those concerns about refoulement. We will focus on what we need to achieve to unlock that. We recognise that this is a constant battle against criminals and, as with all constant battles against criminals, we focus on what is effective and right. Their lordships set out exactly what that is, and that is what we will focus on.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I genuinely welcome my right hon. Friend to his place at the Dispatch Box. Speaking softly and carrying a big stick is always a very good way of behaving—no reference intended. I fully agree with all his intentions and the direction of travel in which he wants to go to settle this issue, in terms of proper organisation such that concerns are dealt with in the courts. Does he not agree that those who greet this judgment with glee need to remember that people are dying in the channel trying to cross in the boats?

Will the Home Secretary ask our right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General to come to the Dispatch Box in due course to reflect on the judgment? It appears to me that it is much wider than the migration judgment, because we are now linking directly to applicability in UK law agreements that were made with the UN that were never bound into UK law. Whether one wants it or not, that widens the whole issue of what becomes justiciable, and I would be grateful if she would come to the House at some point and deal with that.

[James Cleverly]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his kind words. My focus in this role is making sure that the Department is highly effective in protecting the British people and protecting our borders. This is not about trying to look tough; it is about trying to deliver for the British people, and that will be my relentless focus. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General reminds me that her advice, like that of all very good in-house lawyers, is limited to the client, which is His Majesty’s Government. However, I have no doubt I could persuade her to meet my right hon. Friend on a private basis.

Illegal Migration Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I read the remarks of the noble Lord Clarke, and I entirely agree with his point, which is that, having listened to the totality of the debate in the House of Lords, he had not heard a single credible alternative to the Government’s plan. For that reason alone, it is important to support the Government.

I also agree with Lord Clarke’s broader point that this policy should not be the totality of our response to this challenge. Deterrence is an essential part of the plan, but we also need to work closely with our partners in Europe and further upstream. One initiative that the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I have sought to pursue in recent months is to ensure that the United Kingdom is a strategic partner to each and every country that shares our determination to tackle this issue, from Turkey and Tunisia to France and Belgium.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. I believe that the Bill should go through, as we have to do something about the deaths in the channel, which is an important moral purpose.

I bring my right hon. Friend back to Lord Randall’s amendment on modern slavery. We agree quite a lot on this issue, and the Government have said that they will do stuff in guidance, so Lord Randall has taken the words spoken by my right hon. Friend at the Dispatch Box and put them on the face of the Bill—this amendment does exactly what my right hon. Friend promised the Government would do in guidance. The Government have not issued the guidance in detail, which is why the amendment was made. Why would we vote against the amendment today when my right hon. Friend’s words and prescriptions are now on the face of the Bill?

[Robert Jenrick]

First, the Lords amendment on modern slavery goes further by making the scheme, as we see it, much more difficult to establish. There are a number of reasons but, in particular, we think the complexity of the issue requires it to be provided for in statutory guidance rather than on the face of the Bill, in line with my assurances made on the Floor of the House. One of those assurances is particularly challenging to put in statutory guidance—where an incident has taken place in the United Kingdom, rather than an individual being trafficked here—and that is the point Lord Randall helpfully tried to bring forward.

We are clear that the process I have set out should be set out in statutory guidance, because the wording of the amendment is open to abuse by those looking to exploit loopholes. Those arriving in small boats would seek to argue that they have been trafficked into the UK and that the 30-day grace period should apply to them, on the basis that they qualify as soon as they reach UK territorial waters. The proposed provision is, for that reason, operationally impossible and serves only to create another loophole that would render the swift removal we seek impossible or impractical. The statutory guidance can better describe and qualify this commitment, by making it clear that the exploitation must have occurred once the person had spent a period of time within the UK and not immediately they get off the small boat in Kent. For that reason, we consider it better to place this on a statutory footing as guidance rather than putting it in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend makes a number of important points. The guidance is very detailed, but I am sure that it would benefit from updating. Therefore, the points that she has made and that other right hon. and hon. Members have made in the past will be noted by Home Office officials. As we operationalise this policy, we will be careful to take those into consideration. We are all united in our belief that those young people who are in our care need to be treated appropriately.

Let me turn now to the Lords amendment on modern slavery—I hope that I have answered the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). This seeks to enshrine in the Bill some of the assurances that I provided in my remarks last week in respect of people who are exploited in the UK. However, for the reason that I have just described, we think that that is better done through statutory guidance. In fact, it would be impractical, if not impossible, to do it through the Bill.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

The point that my right hon. Friend made earlier is that, somehow, those people will be able to get into the UK and make a false claim. However, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 already provides for that, so anyone found to have made a false claim will be disqualified, and disqualified quite quickly. The critical thing is to prosecute the traffickers. That way, we can stop them trafficking more people on the boats. My worry is that this provision will put off many people from giving evidence and co-operating with the police for fear that they may still be overridden and sent abroad while they are doing it and then be picked up by the traffickers. Does he give any credence to the fear that this may end up reducing the number of prosecutions of traffickers as a result?

[Robert Jenrick]

I understand my right hon. Friend’s position, and it is right that he is vocalising it, but we do not believe that what he says is likely. The provision that we have made in the statutory guidance that I have announced will give an individual 30 days from the positive reasonable grounds decision to confirm that they will co-operate with an investigation in relation to their exploitation. That should give them a period of time to recover, to come forward and to work with law-enforcement. That is a period of time aligned with the provisions of ECAT, so we rely on the decision of the drafters of ECAT to choose 30 days rather than another, potentially longer, period. That is an extendable period, so where a person continues to co-operate with such an investigation, they will continue to be entitled to the support and the protections of the national referral mechanism for a longer period.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I just want to make it clear that under the new regulations, the Secretary of State can still feasibly decide that, even if someone is co-operating, they do not need to remain in the UK for that. That is the critical bit: they live under the fear that they can be moved somewhere else to give that evidence. Does the Minister not agree that that will put a lot of people off giving evidence?

[Robert Jenrick]

I hope that that is not borne out. It is worth remembering that we will not remove anyone to a country in which they would be endangered. We would be removing that person either back to their home country, if we consider it safe to do so, usually because the country is an ECAT signatory and has provisions in place, or to a safe third country such as Rwanda, where once again we will have put in place significant provisions to support the individual. I hope that that provides those individuals with the confidence to come forward and work with law enforcement to bring the traffickers to book.

Illegal Migration Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I think that my right hon. Friend and I agree that the point at which individuals misuse the NRM is the point at which the state tries to remove them from the country. Our concern is that there is a significant increase in the number of people misusing the NRM—and the good work that my right hon. Friend has done on this issue—to bring about a spurious, frivolous, last-minute way of frustrating their removal from the country. So the statistics I referred to are the most relevant statistics, because that is the point at which individuals are in the detained estate for the purpose of removal. Their removal from the United Kingdom is imminent and we are seeing a very high proportion of them using the NRM to try to delay that removal. Delay, as she knows from her great experience, is particularly relevant, because once someone has delayed their removal, they are liable to be bailed and to go back out into the community. Some will be very difficult to bring back into the detained estate, or may abscond and never be seen again. Even under the current system, that makes it extremely difficult to remove people.

Under the scheme envisaged by the Bill, we will seek to remove many of those people to a safer country such as Rwanda, while today we predominantly remove people back home to their own countries, such as Albania and Romania, so the incentive to misuse the NRM will be significantly higher. It is reasonable to assume that a very large number of individuals will make use of that as a route to frustrate the scheme. As I said earlier, that risks driving a coach and horses through the purpose of the Bill, which is a swift and speedy form of removal to act as a deterrent to prevent people making the crossing in the first place.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

There are two elements here. First, the whole system can be massively speeded up, which is a fact of the NRM, straightaway. That was an obligation I was meant to have been given in the previous Bill, but it was never brought into the guidance. But the main point here is that nothing that happens outside the UK can be evidenced on this particular point. We are talking about the Minister’s fear that people are departing to within the UK and then subsequently making a claim. The real problem with the Bill right now—he knows I have concerns about this—is that much of the prosecution process against the traffickers can take place only because of the evidence given by those who have been trafficked. On Report, the presumption in the Bill suddenly changed dramatically—it was done without any notice. There is now a presumption that they do not need to be here at all, other than if there is some evidence that somehow they do, whereas before it was that in order to get that evidence, they do need to be here. Why are we knocking out the amendment, rather than amending it and specifying which categories are exempt? He runs the risk of people not giving evidence and not co-operating with the police, and us not getting prosecutions. If they are going to be cleared out of the UK while giving evidence—this is the point—the reality is that they will stop doing so, because they will be in danger of being picked up by the traffickers again outside the UK. Will he therefore rethink this and put something on the face of the Bill to define those who are exempt?

[Robert Jenrick]

First, I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead for their advice and wise counsel. We have sought to make changes and to listen to their point of view. That is why we brought forward two significant changes. One, as I have outlined, with respect to retrospection, means that the cohort of individuals who entered the United Kingdom from 7 March to Royal Assent who have not been in the detained estate and are then, if you like, in the community at large—in many cases they are living in supported accommodation and in some cases are liable to exploitation by human traffickers and other criminals—will now not be included in the full extent of the Bill’s provisions and so can be supported in the ways that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodgreen wishes. That has significantly reduced the pool of individuals he has concerns about. We are also—I will come on to this in a moment—committing to bringing forward statutory guidance, which I hope will provide further reassurance on the question of how law enforcement authorities would interact with victims of modern slavery to ensure that they can be appropriately supported, and have the time they need to recover and bring forward their claims so that we can all achieve our shared objective, which is the prosecution of human traffickers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

It is our intention that the statutory guidance will be provided and in place for the commencement of the Bill. I hope that that also answers the question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green about the fact that he feels that previous assurances in prior legislation were not fully delivered.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I welcome some of the moves the Government have made and I support the principles of what the Bill is trying to do. However, this is a really significant problem of the Government cutting off their nose to spite their face. The positive we have is that when victims give evidence and a prosecution takes place, it cuts down the likelihood that traffickers will be allowed to traffic boats across. When that is turned around, it contradicts the purpose of the Bill. The point I made to the Minister earlier was that the sudden change to the presumption power of the Secretary of State is really where the problem arises. Surely the way to deal with that is not through the guidance mechanism, but to ensure, on the face of the Bill, that that presumption is restricted, and clearly restricted. He talks about the intention of the guidance. I was given that assurance on the other Bill in December. No guidance emerged subsequently so he will forgive me, having sat in Government myself, if I do not always take the word of the Government absolutely as a categorical assurance. The only way we can get this is by doing something on the face of the Bill. The amendment, as amended, would really help enormously to reassure people and achieve the Government’s objective, which is more prosecutions and fewer boats.

[Robert Jenrick]

I understand my right hon. Friend’s position, but I hope he will accept that we intend to bring forward the statutory guidance and that it will set out the points I have just described. They do accord with ECAT. I appreciate that there are those who would like a longer period than 30 days, but that seems a reasonable place to settle, given that that is what the framers of ECAT themselves chose as the period for recovery and for bringing forward claims.

Nottingham Incident

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I am personally very moved listening to the hon. Lady. What those families must be feeling, going through and experiencing right now is unimaginable for most of us; it is the nightmare that every parent dreads. We need to allow the police to complete their investigation, but, subject to what they unearth and put forward, yes, of course, every victim of crime wants to see justice done. That is ultimately what the rule of law is about.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I align myself completely with everything that has been said about the people of Nottingham and the difficulties they are going through now, but Grace O’Malley-Kumar, one of the two student victims, was resident in Woodford. I remember she had been part of Woodford Wells cricket and hockey club—and she was a star: England under-16s, England under-18s, and destined for a great future. It is very important to remember that not only are the communities in Nottingham and the families affected, but all those people who got to know her and had high hopes for her will have had those dashed as well. Can we make sure there is a degree of outreach to all those people who worked with her and helped her to grow? The terrible devastation of this terrible act is not just a lost life, but a lost future that might have changed other lives for the better.

[Suella Braverman]

My right hon. Friend puts it powerfully. The ripple effects of this tragedy will be felt far and wide, and it will take considerable time for many people to recover and move on with their lives. This is a tragedy of an enormity that the people of Nottingham have not seen, but it is also a tragedy for many other groups and communities around the country.

Illegal Migration Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I apologise to my hon. Friend for not praising his long-standing interest in this issue and the very good conversation that he and I had recently, in which he made exactly the point that he has just made on the Floor of the House. We are concerned about those kinds of cases and about those individuals who are exploited within the United Kingdom, but we are keen to ensure that that is not inadvertently turned into a loophole that would undermine the broader scheme.

One of the existing protections within the Bill for an individual such as the one my hon. Friend mentions is the provision that, if someone is co-operating with a police investigation, the duty to remove will be suspended. Therefore, if somebody was in exactly the position he described, they should of course go to the law enforcement authorities. At that point, the safeguard that we put in the Bill would apply and they would not be removed from the country.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I will speak to my amendment shortly, I am sure, as will my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and others, but I want to raise one particular point. The Minister used the word “inadvertently”, but I wonder whether Government amendment 95 is inadvertent when it gives sweeping powers to the Secretary of State to decide whether somebody is genuinely giving evidence to the police. I am also puzzled by the wording of proposed new subsection (5A) to clause 21, that

“the Secretary of State must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State”,

which is the same person, I think. I am not sure how that achieves the desire to be balanced on this.

[Robert Jenrick]

That provision ensures that where an individual has presented to the authorities and the police may have opened an investigation, the police would then make a submission to the Home Secretary, who would then decide whether that was sufficiently advanced for the provisions in the Bill to apply. That is a sensible safeguard, but this is exactly the sort of issue on which I am happy to continue working with my right hon. Friend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We have had some very long opening speeches, and I have over 20 people wishing to contribute to the debate. That means that, in order to get everybody in, everybody would need to take about six minutes, if not less. We will prioritise those who have tabled amendments. That is just my guidance for the moment, because we also have the SNP spokesperson to come in.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I rise to speak to amendment 4, in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. It is essentially about clause 21. Since tabling it, I have realised that the Government have a new amendment—amendment 95—which I am afraid makes quite a lot of what we are trying to achieve with our amendment 4 almost impossible to deliver. However, I will go through the purpose of our amendment and then deal with the new Government amendment.

First, a lot of this is foreshadowed by the already existing Nationality and Borders Act 2022, and we still wait to see what its impact is on a lot of this. There is some clear evidence already that it is tightening up the areas that the Government want to tighten up when it comes to those suffering from modern slavery. Therefore, first and foremost, I question the necessity of these provisions about modern slavery in the Bill at all. Frankly, I do not want to be too broad; I want to focus on this problem quite carefully.

I think, and I hope, that the Government may recognise—my right hon. Friend the Minister mentioned that that is the general direction of his thinking at the moment, and I really hope that is the case—that there are unintended consequences of what they have to tried to do with the changes they are making in clause 21, and that the clause would be damaged without our amendment. It is interesting that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) intervened with some very new evidence that the police are now saying that the effect of this, even though it is not in the Bill, is to concern people who might well give evidence that would lead to the prosecution and conviction of those guilty of trafficking. Can I just say that I think the whole purpose of this is to get the traffickers, prosecute them and put them inside? That is one of the deterrents against other traffickers doing such business, and I understand that the purpose of the Bill is to stop the business model of the traffickers, so this fits with that. The problem, as a counterpoint to that, is that clause 21 seems to move in the opposite direction and is actually now beginning to discourage people from the idea of giving evidence.

It is very important to remind everybody, because they get confused, that human trafficking is distinct from people smuggling. We tend to blur the edges of this, but human trafficking is about people who, against their will—when brought to this location or while in the UK—are themselves abused. All the issues were talked about earlier, but the reality is that this is against their will. They do not wish to do it, and we need categorical evidence of that. It is because this is dealing with the trafficking side rather than the people smuggling side that I am really concerned about it.

Remember that a majority of the potential victims referred through the national referral mechanism are exploited in the UK in full or in part. Mostly, those are non-UK nationals, but UK nationals are caught up in it as well. The majority of these cases are not relevant to those coming across on the boats; they are here. They have been trafficked, they are here and they are now involved in modern slavery, and they are possibly prepared to give evidence to the police in that regard. It could be sexual exploitation, or it could be criminal exploitation. When I was the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, we saw evidence of that with people brought over to stake their claims to benefits, and then they would disappear off, trafficked into brothels and various other places. I want to say that it is important that we distinguish between that and the issue of the boats.

Many of those people are likely to have arrived in the UK illegally under the terms of this Bill, whether by small boat or lorry, or with leave obtained through deception such as false documents, including deception by their exploiter. Instead of being given temporary protection in the UK, these victims—under clause 21, as now amended by amendment 95—will be subjected to removal and detention under this Bill and denied access to the statutory 30-day recovery period of support for modern slavery victims. Victims will be driven even further underground—this is our fear and the fear of those who deal with them—by the fear of deportation and trapped in the arms of their abusers. Why would that be the case? The answer is simple. If one looks at the wording of clause 21, we see straightaway a clear shift in balance: it is left to the Secretary of State to judge whether victims are going to give evidence or are giving evidence that is relevant.

Then there is Government amendment 95, which I am really concerned about. It shifts the whole rationale in the opposite direction. Instead of there being a judgment about that, under clause 21, it is clear that the premise of the Secretary of State’s decision making is now reversed:

“The Secretary of State must assume for the purposes of subsection 3(b) that it is not necessary for the person to be present in the United Kingdom to provide the cooperation in question unless the Secretary of State considers that there are compelling circumstances which require the person to be present in the United Kingdom for that purpose.”

I raised this point earlier. In doing that,

“the Secretary of State must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State.”

That looks to me like a bit of a closed advice section, which will come up with the same decision at the end of the day. Government amendment 95 amends clause 21, which we already had concerns about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Carmichael]

Despite the right hon. Gentleman’s best efforts, and he is a model of clarity on this, it is still like trying to knit fog. Does not the fact that we are dealing here with an amendment he has tabled that has subsequently been affected by a Government amendment to the original Bill illustrate the total inadequacy of trying to deal with a Bill like this in this way?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

It is a concern because we have clashing amendments. We know that. The point of this debate is to rectify that. We do not have a lot of time, so the right hon. Member will forgive me if I tentatively nod in his direction but at the same time pursue my own purposes. I will try to keep my remarks narrow. I do not want to go wide because other people wish to speak.

Amendment 4 is needed because victims of modern slavery experience inhumane torture and abuse. They are deprived of their liberty and their dignity. They are exploited and abused on British soil. Whether a UK citizen or a foreign national, they deserve care to recover and we cannot leave them subject to that exploitation. The point I keep coming back to is that victims in this category hold the key to the prosecution of the very traffickers we are after. We should not lose sight of that. If the inadvertent result of these changes to the Bill and the Bill itself is that victims are fearful of coming forward to give evidence, partly because the presumption is that they will leave the country, and partly because they do not have enough time to feel settled and protected to be able to give evidence—I think the police know this and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead has quoted from a police statement—it will reduce the number of prosecutions, damage our case and act as an opponent, as it were, of the idea of sending a message to traffickers that their game is up.

All the evidence shows that, with appropriate consistent support, more victims engage with investigations and prosecutions, providing the vital information that brings criminals to justice. Support needs to come first to create that stability, otherwise they will not feel safe. If we put ourselves in their situation, we would not give evidence either if we thought that the next stage would be to go out of the country, where the traffickers would catch us and our families and others being abused. So it will get harder to get convictions.

I am pleased my right hon. Friend the Minister accepted there may be consequences, although we need to go further than “may”. There will be consequences as a result of the legislation. I do not believe that the Government want victims of modern slavery to be trafficked. I do not think they want the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to be damaged. In the minds of those in the Home Office, I think there is a genuine dislike of that legislation and a wish to blame it for excesses, but there is no evidence of that. Only 6% of those who claim to be victims of modern slavery have come across on boats.

First and foremost, there is not a huge, great swell. Secondly, the Nationality and Borders Act that preceded this Bill has tightened up on all the elements that claimants have to provide to show that that is the case. The rules are already tighter, and I suspect that will lead to fewer cases already. The question is, what is the point of putting these elements into the Bill, because they are in the previous Act, and we have still not seen the effects? We are putting at risk the prosecution of all those traffickers and bringing them to justice, for something that almost certainly will not happen. If it did happen, there is plenty of scope for that evidence to come forward through statutory instruments if necessary, but I do not believe that will be the case.

I am told endlessly that people will come and give false claims, but let me remind Members that referrals can be made only by official first responders who suspect that the person is a victim. In 2022, 49% of referrals were made by Government agencies— it is ironic that the Government themselves decided who were the victims. The idea that any person could come forward and suddenly say, “I’m a victim,” and therefore get lots of time, is not the case. The test of evidence is tough.

We should remember that our amendment is about those who are trafficked and abused here in the UK. That means that the evidence base will almost certainly be incredibly strong, because it is based around what we know to exist here in the UK. I understand that it is difficult when people are trafficked from abroad, but we are talking about people in the UK and their evidence is clear to all of us. Under the changes made to the national referral mechanism statutory guidance on 30 January 2023—which, again, we have yet to see the full effects of—the threshold for a positive reasonable grounds decision has been raised to require objective evidence of exploitation. This is an unnecessary element of the Bill because we have yet to see the effect of the previous Act, which I believe is already having an impact, as do the police.

Other Members want to speak, so I will conclude my comments by saying that we should proceed with caution when it comes to modern day slavery. I am deeply proud of what we did and what my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead brought through, because it deals with victims, who cannot speak for themselves and are being used and abused by others. We were the first country in the world to do so, and others have followed suit. We need to send the right signals. The problem with the Bill is that it unnecessarily targets a group of people who are not the problem. They will suffer and, ironically, we will fail as a Government in home affairs because the police simply will not be able to get those prosecutions. On every ground, it is wrong.

Government amendment 95 is a disastrous attempt to make it almost impossible for anyone in the country to feel confident before they give evidence. I ask the Government to make it clear at the end of the debate that they will take this issue away, genuinely look at the unintended consequences and make that case to us, before we vote on their amendment.

[Alison Thewliss]

I will speak to the amendments that stand in my name and those of my hon. Friends. It is interesting to follow the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). Given his concerns about the Bill, I hope that he will join us in the Division Lobby later, because I do not expect that he will get the assurances that he hopes for from the Minister.

The Bill remains an affront to human decency and to our obligations to our fellow human beings. It rips up hard-won international protections and is in breach of the European convention on human rights, the refugee convention, the Council of Europe’s convention on action against trafficking in human beings and the UN convention on the rights of the child. The Children and Young People’s Commissioner of Scotland has said that the Illegal Migration Bill

“represents a direct assault on the concept of universality of human rights and the rule of law.”

Organisations have lined up to condemn the Bill, from the UNHCR, Liberty, Amnesty International, trade unions and medical bodies. It seeks to turn ships’ captains and train drivers into border guards, and it creates a sub-class of people in immigration limbo forever.

This refugee ban Bill is based on myths, mistruths and the myopic pursuit of clicks and tabloid headlines. There is no evidence whatsoever to support the wild claims made by the Home Secretary and her acolytes. The Bill will not meet its stated aims, but it will cost lives. It fails to provide safe and legal routes, and it will cause untold suffering. It diminishes the UK in the eyes of the world and it yanks on the thread that will unravel refugee protections across the world.

The Bill delivers people who have been trafficked back into the hands of those who would exploit them. In his article published this morning in ConservativeHome, the Immigration Minister descended yet further, speaking of those with “different lifestyles and values” cannibalising compassion. That is not a dog whistle but a foghorn.

The process by which the Government have brought forward the Illegal Migration Bill is an insult to democracy and to the House. It has been rushed through without a full Committee stage or evidence sessions—no evidence whatsoever from the Government about the things they have put forward. Swathes of Government amendments have been brought forward today in haste, but there has not yet been an impact assessment, even at this very late stage. It is unacceptable that we are being asked to vote on something without an impact assessment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) has requested an impact assessment umpteen times in the House and via a freedom of information request, but nothing has yet been forthcoming. I know the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) has also been tirelessly pursuing an impact assessment of the Bill. It is testimony to the Government’s dogged evasion of scrutiny, not to their lack of effort, that that has been fruitless.

As Members of Parliament, we are guarantors of rights. The SNP’s amendment 45 seeks to hold the UK Government to their international obligations—how utterly bizarre and reprehensible that we even have to introduce an amendment to ensure that—and to attempt to have the provisions in the Bill line up with convention rights in the UN refugee convention, the European convention on action against trafficking, the UN convention on the rights of the child and the UN convention relating to the status of stateless persons.

Anyone reading the UNHCR legal observations on the Illegal Migration Bill can plainly see how far the UK Government are deviating from international norms. Those observations say:

“The Bill all but extinguishes the right to claim asylum in the UK…breaches the UK’s obligations towards stateless people under international law…would lead to violations of the principle of non-refoulement…would deny refugees and stateless people access to their rights under international law.”

They go on to say that the Bill violates article 31(1) and 31(2) of the UN refugee convention and international human rights law,

“puts at risk the safety and welfare of children”

and

“would increase the pressure on the UK asylum system”.

What an atrocious mess this Government are making.

Further to this condemnation from the UNHCR, the Council of Europe’s group of experts on action against trafficking in human beings stressed that, if adopted, the Bill would run contrary to the United Kingdom’s obligations under the anti-trafficking convention to prevent human trafficking and to identify and protect victims of trafficking, without discrimination.

The Home Secretary appears to misunderstand the very nature of modern slavery and human trafficking, as right hon. and hon. Members on the Government Benches have outlined. Perhaps that could be accounted for by the lack of an independent anti-slavery commissioner, as the post has now been standing vacant for a year. The previous holder of the post, Professor Dame Sara Thornton, gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee last week on how the national referral mechanism actually works. I suggest the Immigration Minister should have read that evidence before coming to the House with such proposals as he has today.

New clause 26 replaces the placeholder clause 51 and gives the Government the power to ignore interim measures from the European Court of Human Rights and remove people who would otherwise have not been removed. The clause hands powers to Government Ministers to unilaterally decide whether the UK should uphold its international obligations. Liberty has described this as a concerning shift of power away from Parliament and towards the Executive. Yet again we are seeing the stripping away of crucial checks and balances—another Westminster power grab that has become a hallmark of this Government.

I tell you what this is really about, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is about setting up a fight with the European Court of Human Rights. It is about setting out to breach international law. It is about sleight of hand and deflection from the Conservatives’ failure to get a grip on the immigration backlog that they created. They think that if the public are somehow distracted by judges in their jammies, they will forget about the incompetence of the Minister. I give my constituents and people up and down these islands more credit than that—their heids don’t button up the back.

One of the most egregious aspects of the Bill is its impact on children. The Children’s Commissioners are crystal clear about the harm that it will cause; the Minister should heed their calls. The Scottish National party is happy to support new clauses 2 and 3 on pregnancy, given the impact on both the mother and the child in the circumstances; amendments 2 and 3 and new clause 14 on safe and legal routes and family reunion for children; amendment 5 on unaccompanied children; and new clause 4 on an independent child trafficking guardian.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Theresa May]

I will concentrate my remarks on amendment 4, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith)—I have also signed it—and Government amendment 95.

Before I do so, I want to say a word about evidence. The Minister has indicated again today that, in his view, there is evidence that the Modern Slavery Act 2015 is being abused. I apologise for doing this to him again, but he might wish to look at the evidence given to the Home Affairs Committee this morning by a representative of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, basically saying there is no evidence to support the claim that the national referral mechanism is being abused. On the contrary, the evidence is that there is a low level of abuse. They went on to say that the biggest problem with the NRM is not abuse but the big delay in finding an answer for victims, which is of course within the Government’s control because it is about the length of time that officials are taking to consider cases.

I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me last week to discuss the concerns I raised in Committee. I welcomed the Government’s apparent attempt to improve the Bill for victims of modern slavery, and their willingness to look at that, but then I saw Government amendment 95. Far from making the Bill better for victims of modern slavery, the amendment makes the Bill worse. I believe the Minister was talking in good faith, but it is hard to see Government amendment 95 as an example of good faith. It is a slap in the face for those of us who actually care about victims of modern slavery and human trafficking.

Equally concerning, Government amendment 95 suggests that those who are responsible for the Bill simply do not understand the nature of these crimes or the position of victims. The Minister wants to see an end to human trafficking, and he wants to stop the traffickers’ business model, as do many of us on both sides of the House, but the best way to do that is by identifying, catching and prosecuting the traffickers and slave drivers.

Government amendment 95, by making it an assumption that victims do not need to be present in the UK to assist an investigation, makes it much harder to investigate and prosecute the traffickers and slave drivers. It has been shown time and again that victims’ ability to give evidence is affected by the support they receive. They need to feel safe and they need to have confidence in the authorities.

As Detective Constable Colin Ward of Greater Manchester Police says:

“If we get the victim side right first, the prosecutions will eventually naturally follow, alongside us doing the evidence-based collection of that crime.”

Support for victims matters in catching the slave drivers. Sending victims back to their own country, or to a third country such as Rwanda, will at best make them feel less secure and, therefore, less able or less willing to give the evidence that is needed, and will at worst drive them back into the arms of the traffickers and slave drivers.

Again, the representative from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe made the point today at the Home Affairs Committee that the UK has been leading the world in identifying victims exploited by criminal activity. That tells us that these people are vulnerable, because they have been compelled by traffickers to engage in criminal activity. Disqualifying them from our ability to rescue them will mean the UK is no longer able to identify them, and it will leave them to the mercy of the traffickers. Far from helping, Government amendment 95 flies in the face of what the Minister and the Government say they want to do to deal with the traffickers and slave drivers and to break their business model.

The Government have previously used clause 21(5) to tell us that they are providing more support for victims of slavery. Government amendment 95 reverses that by making it even harder for victims to get the support they need, which I think would be a setback in the fight against the slave drivers and traffickers.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

My right hon. Friend is making a good speech. The reality is that amendment 95 poses a threat. Straightaway, its assumption is that someone goes, rather than that they have to prove anything; they go first and then somebody has to prove that they have to be here. What are they going to do when they look at that? They are going to say, “We’re off, so why would we give evidence?”

[Mrs May]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. I hope that this is an unintended consequence of the Government’s amendment, but I fear, given that they tabled it, that they knew all too well what they were doing with this amendment, because they just want people to leave the UK. As he says, assuming that where somebody is identified they are going to have to leave the UK means that they are less likely to give evidence, and we will not catch and prosecute so many traffickers and slave drivers. Sadly, all too often those individuals will return to a country where they will be straight into the arms of the traffickers and slave drivers again.

The purpose of amendment 4 is simple: to ensure that victims who are being exploited, in slavery, here in the UK are able to continue to access the support they need, which will enable them to find a new life here or indeed in their home country. Not everybody who has been trafficked here for slavery wants to stay in the UK. Many of them want to return home, but they need to be given the support that enables that to be possible.

Amendment 4, if accepted, would ensure that it would be more likely that the criminals were caught. This Bill says, “If you are a victim of modern slavery who came here illegally, we will detain and deport you, because your slavery is secondary to your immigration status.” It has always been important to separate modern slavery from immigration status. Modern slavery is not a migration issue, not least because more than half of those referred to the national referral mechanism here in the UK for modern slavery are UK citizens here in the UK.

Modern slavery is the greatest human rights issue of our time. The approach in this Bill will have several ramifications. It will consign victims to remaining in slavery. The Government will be ensuring that more people will stay enslaved and in exploitation as a result of this Bill, because it will give the slave drivers and traffickers another weapon to hold people in that slavery and exploitation. It will be easy to say to them, “Don’t even think about trying to escape from the misery of your life, from the suffering we are subjecting you to, because all that the UK Government will do is send you away, probably to Rwanda.” The Modern Slavery Act gave hope to victims, but this Bill removes that hope. I genuinely believe that if enacted as it is currently proposed, it will leave more people—more men, women and children—in slavery in the UK.

As I have said, another impact of the Bill will be fewer prosecutions and fewer criminals being caught and put behind bars. I apologise to the Minister for bouncing him with the Greater Manchester Police evidence that I cited earlier, but it is very relevant and he needs to look at it. The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 already means that people who are in slavery—the figures on those who get a positive decision from the national referral mechanism show this—are not coming forward because of the evidence requirement now under that Act. That is having a real impact and it means fewer prosecutions of the criminals.

I wish to mention the impact on children, and I urge the Minister to listen carefully to the concerns of the Children’s Commissioner. Other Members of this House, including my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), have long championed, through the process of this Bill, the issue of children. My concern is particularly about those children who are in slavery in this country and being cruelly exploited, as victims need support.

The Children’s Commissioner has cited the example of Albin, a 16-year-old Albanian national who came to the UK in September via a boat. He was trafficked for gang and drug exploitation. It was clear to the Border Force that he was young and malnourished, and that he had significant learning difficulties. He was provided support, including from the Children’s Commissioner’s Help at Hand team, but the point the commissioner makes is that

“without the NRM decision…he would have not been processed through the immigration/asylum route as quickly and he would have not received the adequate support to meet his needs.”

Upon receiving the positive decision for the NRM, the social care team was able to transfer him to a suitable placement. That 16-year-old would otherwise have potentially been detained and deported by the Government.

It is important that we consider the impact on children who are victims of slavery. I put the arguments earlier about making it harder to prosecute the slave drivers, and that covers child victims as well, but there may well be an added element for the traffickers to use to keep children enslaved, by which I mean the situation in Rwanda. UNICEF said:

“In Rwanda, over half of all girls and six out of ten boys experience some form of violence during childhood. Children are usually abused by people they know—parents, neighbours, teachers, romantic partners or friends. Only around 60% of girls in Rwanda who are victims of violence tell someone about it, and the rate is even lower for boys.”

I recognise that that quote relates to children in Rwanda being abused by people known to them, but the environment is hardly conducive to the good care of children.

Amendment 4 would remove the problem by ensuring that those identified as being exploited into slavery here in the UK could still access the support provided under the Modern Slavery Act. We have led the world in providing support for those in slavery by what we have done here in the United Kingdom. The Bill significantly damages the operation of that Act. It is bad for victims, bad for the prosecution of slave drivers and bad for the reputation of the United Kingdom.

I was grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for saying from the Dispatch Box that he was willing to talk and listen to us to see whether we can find a way through this. I say to him quite simply that the best way to do that is through amendment 4. That is what removes the problem in relation to the victims of modern slavery, so I hope the Government will be willing to look very carefully at that amendment and to listen to what we have said. What we are talking about is not just what we say, but what those who are identifying and dealing with the victims of modern slavery are experiencing day in, day out. They worry that more people will be in slavery as a result of the Bill.

Chinese Police Stations in UK

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

The shadow Home Secretary asks a number of a questions relating to the specific individual named in The Times today in connection with his activities in Croydon, which is, as she will appreciate, the borough that I represent in Parliament—this is of great concern to me as well as to the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones). I can tell the House that I have been briefed today, as one would expect—at short notice, as this is not ordinarily part of my ministerial portfolio—and there is a live investigation of this matter by the law enforcement community. As I said in my opening remarks, I cannot comment on the details of such an investigation while it is live for reasons that will be obvious to all Members of this House. As soon as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security is in a position to provide an update on the results of that investigation, he will do so. I will also ask him to brief privately the hon. Member for Croydon Central as soon as possible.

It is worth mentioning that the Chinese activity in this area is not confined to the United Kingdom. We are aware of approximately 100 alleged stations of the kind we are discussing around the world—they are not unique to the United Kingdom—and, as the shadow Home Secretary said, earlier this week arrests were made in New York in connection to an investigation conducted by the FBI similar to the investigations that we are conducting.

On party politics, all political parties need to be alert to the danger of representatives of hostile states seeking to infiltrate or influence their activities. It is fair to say that other Members of this House have been similarly targeted—those we know about—so I ask all Members of Parliament and all political parties to be alert to that risk. We all owe that to democracy.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

May I bring my right hon. Friend back to the real issue? Investigations into individual transgressions are absolutely fine, and they progress. The problem is that we in this House and the Government have known for a considerable time—it has been raised by many of my colleagues—about the activity of the three illegal Chinese police stations. We know that they are bringing Chinese dissidents in, confronting them with videos of their families, and threatening their families in front of them if they do not co-operate, leave and go back to China. We know that. The security services have warned the Government about it. The question today is this: why in heaven’s name have we not acted, alongside the Americans and even the Dutch, to shut those stations down and kick those people out of the country?

[Chris Philp]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question and for his long-standing campaigning on this issue and the activities of China more widely, which are rightly of great concern to this Government and to Members on both sides of the House. The activity that he describes—interference with Chinese nationals in this country—is something that we take incredibly seriously. We saw that terrible incident in Manchester not very long ago, where members of the Chinese consular staff dragged someone inside their compound. As a consequence of that, six Chinese officials have now left the United Kingdom.

The activity that my right hon. Friend describes is incredibly serious and unacceptable, and it must and will be stopped, but the three particular locations that he referred to are subject to a live investigation and work by the law enforcement community, so I am afraid that I cannot say any more from the Dispatch Box today. As soon as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security can provide an update, he will do so.