EU Settlement Scheme
Ian Murray Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
May I start by echoing the words of the Minister about his colleague the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire)? We wish him well and hope he has a speedy recovery back to his position in the Home Office. I also thank the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) for the way in which he presented the case for the motion.
Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be amazed, as I am, that for the first time since the election in 2019, the SNP are holding an Opposition day debate that is not about independence. When I heard that would be the case, I thought, “Great—we’re going to have a big debate on covid recovery in Scotland,” but that did not come forward either. I wonder why, given the events of the last week. The SNP has, however, still managed to make the debate about a border of some kind, so there is more to do yet; but maybe next time we have one it will have nothing to do with the constitution. This is nevertheless an incredibly important topic and I am delighted to be able to speak on behalf of the official Opposition.
May I first pay tribute to all the organisations who have been assisting in providing information to EU nationals on the settlement scheme, including the3million —mentioned by the Member who moved the motion, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East—and the Citizens’ Rights Project, which has helped so many of my constituents in Edinburgh? It is important to say at the outset that we should not conduct this debate on the narrative set by the Government’s hostile environment on immigration; that would be the wrong context for it, but it is worth putting in context why EU nationals are so anxious about this entire process.
We should be conducting these debates from the foundation that EU immigration has been good for this country and that the contribution that EU nationals make will continue to be of benefit to this country irrespective of their position with regard to Brexit. We do not have to look too far to see that. For example, just last week alone in the sporting world we have seen the incredible talents of Emma Raducanu, the new 18-year-old star of British tennis who reached the last 16 at Wimbledon. Born to a Romanian father and a Chinese mother, she was raised in the United Kingdom and has left every one of us in awe at her sporting talent, success and potential. Likewise, all the home nations football teams have been built with the benefits of immigration. An interesting graphic was circulated on social media by the Migration Museum, which showed that eight of the starting 11 in the England team that defeated Germany last week were the children or grandchildren of immigrants to this country; it was a very powerful graphic indeed.
Of course, tonight we will hear thousands of England fans singing “football’s coming home”—I would argue that the home of football is in Scotland, but nevertheless they will be singing that—but what is the definition of “home” for the Government? EU nationals, many of whom have been here for the majority of their lives, see Britain as their home, but the EU settlement scheme has made them feel, in their words, “unwelcome” and “unappreciated”. This is their home, and we cannot emphasise enough that they are welcome. [Interruption.] I hear some chuntering from the Conservative Benches, but those are their words—EU nationals have told us that they feel unwelcome and unappreciated.
Steve Double
Will the hon. Gentleman at least acknowledge that, while I take it that a few may feel that, the vast majority of EU citizens—certainly those I have spoken to in my constituency—actually feel at home and feel that the EU settled status scheme has made it incredibly easy and simple for them to gain their status? They love this country and I am glad that we have made it easy for them to stay.
Ian Murray
I do not think it is in doubt at all that EU nationals love this country, or they would not choose to be here and contribute to being here. This debate is about making sure that the EU settlement scheme can work for everyone and that the deadline that has just passed does not leave anybody, including the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, in limbo legally or otherwise, and the point of holding debates in this House is to iron out some of those problems.
I was not just talking about sports stars, of course. It is a simple, inescapable fact that our society and our precious national health service could not function, and certainly would not have functioned when we needed it most over the past 18 months, without the hard work of the people who have migrated to this country. They make Britain great, and we will never apologise for standing up for the rights of those who choose to call this country their home.
The immigration system that this Government have created over the past 11 years is broken, and surely the Minister could see, when he reeled off the list of things that the Home Office has been doing with regard to immigration, that the fact that the SNP has tabled a motion to devolve immigration and create that border is the result of some of the things that the Home Office has done over the past 11 years. The Government should reflect on some of those problems and try to resolve them. Demonising people who have contributed, or want to contribute, so much to our country has provided a level of distrust in the system that has meant that EU nationals feel uncertain about their future.
It is also very counterproductive, as we have already seen in the impact of the Government’s immigration policies, especially in key sectors at the forefront of the fight against coronavirus. There are workforce shortages now in our public services, particularly in the NHS and social care. Construction companies say that projects will have to be delayed due to lack of EU workers. Traditional industries in agriculture and food are struggling for the numbers that they require to function as normal. Hospitality businesses are struggling to find enough staff; even the famous Tim Martin, founder of JD Wetherspoon, broke the irony meter last week when he called on the Government to introduce a new EU migrant visa for the hospitality sector.
And, of course, migration works both ways, with more than 1 million UK citizens choosing to make another European country their home. We cannot speak for other Governments in EU countries, of course, but I know that in France the Government have extended the deadline for UK citizens to register until September, to ensure that they catch everyone who wishes to stay in France post Brexit. The Home Office has failed to do that despite repeated calls for it. Last week, in the days leading up to the settlement scheme deadline, I raised that very issue with the EU deputy ambassador to the UK, who told me of the extreme lengths to which EU countries and embassies are going to ensure that their citizens register for the scheme and have their status preserved. She also talked of the massive volumes of correspondence that the mission was getting from EU nationals as the deadline approached.
The Home Office has a great many questions to answer on the EU settlement scheme. The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East was right to pay tribute to all the staff working through the applications. How many EU citizens living in the UK does the Home Office think had not managed to apply by the 30 June deadline? That is an incredibly difficult question to answer, I appreciate, because the Home Office talked about 3.2 million and may have had upwards of 6 million applications—many of which, of course, will be from people not currently living in the United Kingdom. What is the Department doing to reach out to those whom it knows about but who have not applied? Statistics released on 30 June showed that only 5.4 million of the nearly 6 million applications had been processed. How long can applicants expect to wait before finding out their status?
What efforts has the Department made to get to those hardest-to-reach individuals, such as those without internet access? We find that difficult as MPs. Has it taken additional measures, so that people in such circumstances will not fall foul of the law through no fault of their own?
The Minister has said repeatedly, including in the Chamber today, that the Government will not extend the deadline. Indeed, they have not extended the deadline. He said that was not the solution. What is the solution for the estimated 70,000 whom the Government know about who have not applied for settled status but are in receipt of some Government support? What is the solution for those left in legal limbo by missing the deadline? We have heard about some processes put in place, such as the reasonable excuse test, but I hope that we will not see convoys of immigration control vans heading down our streets to deport EU nationals. Will the Minister rule out that option for people who are legally allowed to be here but have not applied for settled status? The Home Office says it is looking to be flexible, but what does flexibility mean in all those cases? What will happen to someone who has not yet applied but will do so at some point in the future when they realise that they must?
Of course, many EU nationals have been in this country for decades and may not think that the scheme applies to them. I hope that maximum flexibility will be allowable for those cases. Surely the easiest way to try to catch all the people whom the Home Office thinks have not applied would have been to extend the deadline, contact them, make sure that they apply and make sure that they are in the scheme as quickly as possible. We all want the scheme to work, because it has to work.
As representatives in this House, we will all have had many constituency cases. We have heard of EU nationals who have been refused on spurious grounds, those who have found the process difficult to navigate and those who have not applied at all. Hopefully, most of them have now been caught. The scheme has caused a great deal of uncertainty, stress and anxiety for millions of our fellow citizens with whom we share our communities and lives. I hope that, at the end of the debate, the Minister will give assurances on the many questions that Members will pose to him.
It is with great regret that Labour cannot support this motion on such an important issue. It is disappointing that the SNP has decided to use the motion as a clarion call for a border at Berwick, rather than for a debate to stand up for and help our EU friends and family with regard to the settlement scheme. It is a real missed opportunity.
The motion makes reference to the SNP’s desire for a separate Scottish immigration system. I would observe that, given that it will take the Scottish Government up to nine years to build the infrastructure required for the devolution of some social security powers that came in the Scotland Act 2016—powers that my colleagues and I fought hard for—I am unsure how long it will take them to create a system to handle migration. What such a system will indisputably need is a border at Berwick. Any system of differing migration ultimately requires a border between the two countries with different systems, and we know that is the SNP’s desire. When we are debating the consequences for individuals of putting up a border between the UK and the EU, the SNP’s solution is to put up a border between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom—or, as some SNP MSPs famously called it, a border job creation scheme.
Stuart C. McDonald
For goodness’ sake. We do not have a hard border with the Republic of Ireland, and we see that system all across the planet—in Canada, Spain, Switzerland and various other countries. The Isle of Man has immigration powers. It is perfectly reasonable to ask for some immigration powers to be handed down and to take part in that discussion, rather than this nonsense about a hard border at Berwick.
Ian Murray
Some years ago I did a little research into the differential of immigration policies. There is great stress in the Canadian system because, as the Minister said, many people land in Quebec, stay for the required period and then move to other parts of Canada. The other provinces in Canada find that incredibly difficult to cope with, and that is exactly what would happen in the context we are talking about—
Kevin Foster
I am sure the shadow Secretary of State is also aware that at many of the crossing points from the United States into Canada there is full passport control. Presumably, that is what the SNP envisages at Berwick.
Ian Murray
Well, we do not know what the SNP envisages, because we do not know the proposals; it is just a list of words. Unfortunately, this debate will turn to this issue—the Minister spent some time on it and I am having to spend some time on it—because it was put into the motion. If it was not in the motion, we could have debated the EU settlement scheme and voted accordingly. That is what is so frustrating about these debates: they always boil down to the constitution. None of these things are answers to the question. I want the Minister to tell us how he will sort the scheme and resolve things for the EU nationals who are not in the system, rather than our having to debate whether the solution is another border at Berwick.
To tackle the shared challenges of our time, of which this is a massive one, we need greater co-operation, which is why we see the trade and co-operation agreement between the UK and the EU as the floor of our ambition for our future relationship, unlike this Government, who see it as the ceiling. These issues must be resolved and they can be clearly resolved. Ideas can come forward from the Scottish Government about how to resolve the immigration system, when the two Governments are willing to work together. For example, the former Scottish Labour First Minister Jack McConnell, who is now in the other place, introduced the Fresh Talent scheme in Scotland, which allowed overseas graduates to stay on after university. The scheme was then implemented throughout the United Kingdom.
Stuart C. McDonald
That is another perfect example of a devolved system that did not require any sort of border at all. It could work perfectly well.
Ian Murray
No, it was not devolved; the UK Government implemented that policy at the insistence of the Scottish First Minister who brought it forward.
In 2019, the Prime Minister famously promised to get Brexit done, yet here we are, 18 months after his Government’s election with a majority, still debating the details of these schemes more than five years after the referendum, with many EU nationals still living in limbo. The Government have not got it done, and will never get it done as they promised the public they would. We need to be getting Brexit to work properly. The EU settlement scheme is another example of where many people are falling through the gaps, with the Government unable to contact them and get them into the scheme.
I say again, regretfully, that we will not be able to back the motion. I hope that the Government will listen to charities or to the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), and even now extend the deadline for the thousands of EU citizens who have failed to submit their applications on time through no fault of their own. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us how many EU citizens living in the UK the Home Office believes have not managed to apply on time, and what the Department is doing about finding and contacting them and getting them to apply on time. It is particularly important for the Home Office to contact proactively those citizens who are either vulnerable or hard to reach as a result of issues such as a lack of internet access, or who do not think the scheme applies to them because they have been here for so long. I hope the Minister can reassure us that the applications of the nearly half a million people who submitted them before 30 June will be concluded as quickly as possible.
What is missing from these debates is the fact that those affected are our neighbours, our friends, our partners, our colleagues and our fellow citizens. They are human beings, not numbers on a Home Office screen. Those are the people who have chosen to make this country—our home—their home. Together, we make this country our home. As we chart the next phase of our country’s history, we would do well to remember that we are talking about human beings and we need to make sure that the scheme works for them all.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I remind the House that if colleagues’ speeches are between four and five minutes, we should be able to get everybody in.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act
Ian Murray Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
I was here in the Chamber yesterday at the moment to which the hon. Gentleman refers, and I do not recognise that description at all. What I do recognise is that over a number of years in this House, there have been debates on immigration. One of the issues that hon. Members have reflected from their constituencies is a concern over increasing levels of immigration and a need to take more control, and that is exactly what this deal delivers.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I am very grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way so early in his speech. The No.1 priority for most countries, particularly in Asia, when doing a trade deal will be to loosen the UK Government’s immigration policies so that they can get more people working and living in this country. Given that he has confirmed that the Government stand by their policy of cutting net migration to tens of thousands, how does he propose reconciling that number with trade deals with other countries?
Sajid Javid
What the hon. Gentleman has highlighted is that, because we are leaving the EU, we can actually contemplate for the first time having our own trade deals with other countries, in Asia or elsewhere in the world. When such trade deals are struck, there are clearly deals to be made on services and on the trade of goods, and each time we strike such deals, we will look carefully at them and do whatever it takes for them to work in the British national interest.
Sajid Javid
First, the decision about what is included in immigration statistics and what is not is an independent decision for the Office for National Statistics. I have discussed the issue with it and last year we asked the Migration Advisory Committee to look into it. Its recommendation was to keep the number in the statistics, reflecting the fact that, although most students leave the country, there is an impact on infrastructure and public services. I am very sympathetic to the issue the hon. Lady raises, but I remind her that it is an independent decision for the Office for National Statistics.
Ian Murray
I am very grateful to the Home Secretary; he is being incredibly generous. In the last few minutes, he has said that there will be no cap on international students, that the hospitality sector will be fine, that agriculture will be fine and that trade deals will be fine, despite the No. 1 priority for most countries in a trade deal being to loosen up the visa regime. How can any of that—be honest with the public, because it is about time the Government started being honest with the public—be compatible with cutting net migration to the tens of thousands? It is a lie, isn’t it?
Mr Speaker
Order. For the avoidance of doubt, the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting for one moment that a Minister would lie in this Chamber.
Ian Murray
No, Mr Speaker. The manifesto pledge to cut net migration to the tens of thousands seems, on the basis of the answers, to be the lie; it is not the Secretary of State himself. He can clarify that when he comes back to the Dispatch Box.
Mr Speaker
I am sure that he can clarify the situation, but there is no allegation of personal dishonour against the Home Secretary.
Peter Grant
I say first to the hon. Gentleman that his Government refused point blank to give the immediate unilateral guarantees the Scottish Government asked for the day after the—[Interruption.] No, they refused point blank to do it. Nicola Sturgeon was pointing out to EU nationals in Scotland the danger of continuing to have an immigration policy that was reserved to this place. She was not stating what would happen in the event that Scotland became independent; she was warning what might happen in the event that we did not. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the fears being expressed now by tens of thousands of people in Scotland are exactly the fears they were warned about by the then Deputy First Minister.
Let me remind the House of one of the boasts the hon. Gentleman made when he intervened on the shadow Home Secretary. Unless I am very mistaken, he boasted that he had fought to get his constituents passports. The Conservative party is proud of the fact that people who came here to live, work and contribute as a matter of right now have to seek the services of a Member of Parliament to fight to be given the passport that should be theirs as a matter of right. If the Conservatives think that is something to be proud of, that demonstrates once again how far their moral compass is from anything that could ever be accepted in Scotland.
That is only when we consider the moral and humanitarian arguments against what the British Government are seeking to impose on us. It would be bad enough for them to embark on such a regressive, socially divisive path if they thought that it would make us better off, but every one of their own analyses, of which there are quite a few—in fact, just about every credible analysis ever made of the economic impact of free movement of people—tells us that it is good for the host nations, and good for the peoples of the host nations.
The Government’s own analysis shows that, no matter what Brexit scenario we end up with, ending free movement and slashing the rights of immigrants to come here on anything like the scale that they intend will damage our economy. So even if we subscribed to the Thatcherite gospel that there is no such thing as society, but just a collection of individuals—even if we followed that creed of “Let us look after ourselves, and to hell with everyone else”—ending free movement of people would still be the wrong thing to do. To subscribe to this Government’s anti-immigration and anti-immigrant philosophy, we would not just need to be selfish; we would need to be out of oor flaming heids.
On 19 December, during the final Prime Minister’s Question Time of the year, I asked the Prime Minister to name one single tangible benefit that would compensate my constituents for the social and economic damage that we know ending free movement of people would cause. She could not give a single example. If the Home Secretary wants to listen, I will give him a chance to stand up and name one benefit to my constituents of ending free movement, but even if he were interested enough to listen, he would not be able to do so.
In fact, I will happily give way to any Conservative Member who wants to take the opportunity to answer the question that the Prime Minister dodged. None of them wants to do so. No Conservative Member can identify a single tangible benefit that my constituents will see. By their silence, the Conservatives are telling me that I cannot vote for this deal. By their silence, they are telling me that ending free movement of people is not good for my constituents—so how dare they ask me to support it?
The Prime Minister dodged the question, just as she and a succession of Ministers have dodged every difficult question that they have ever been asked during the Brexit process. Indeed, the ongoing debacle over parliamentary scrutiny of this shambles demonstrates that we have not only a Prime Minister and a Government who have lost control, but a Prime Minister and a Government who will cynically play the card of parliamentary sovereignty when it suits them, but will use every trick in the book—and quite a few tricks that are not in the book—to try and stop us doing the job that we were elected to do. They spout their creed of parliamentary sovereignty sometimes, and at other times they do everything possible to undermine it.
They Government went to court to try to prevent Parliament from having any say in the triggering of article 50. They have whipped their own MPs—although not successfully in every case—to vote against allowing this debate even to happen. I have noted on every day of the debate that those who claim that allowing it to take place was an act of treason have not exactly been backward in coming forward and asking to join in at every opportunity. The Government abuse their privileged position in respect of setting parliamentary business to try to strip the meaningful vote of any actual meaning. Like bad-loser, spoilt-brat football managers the world over, they have even resorted to ganging up on the referee to complain and accuse him of cheating every time he gives an offside decision against them—and not just during the 90 regulation minutes of points of order on Wednesday; the Leader of the House even tried to do it again during a wee bit of penalty time yesterday morning.
The Government are mounting an intense campaign of what can only be described as misinformation to frighten Parliament, to frighten our citizens, to frighten businesses, to frighten everyone, into believing that they must accept this deal because it is the only possible deal and the only alternative is no deal. That is simply and palpably not true, and the Prime Minister knows it is not true. How can I be sure that the Prime Minister knows it is not true? Because she has said so herself on at least half a dozen occasions that I can trace. She has said it at the Dispatch Box, and she has said it in television interviews. She has told us that it is not a simple choice between her deal and no deal.
In an attempt to scare the no deal brigade in her own party, the Prime Minister was forced to admit that if her deal failed, Brexit might not have to happen. When I first saw that reported on the BBC website, I thought it must be a mistake, but if it was, it is a mistake that the Prime Minister has made nearly every day since then. Her clearly stated position is that we are not faced with a simple binary choice between her deal and no deal. We still have the option of keeping the deal that we already have. Staying where we are is always an option. The status quo is always available. The best of all possible deals is the deal that we have right now, and I must say to my colleagues and good friends on the Labour Benches that it is the only possible deal that meets their six tests of an acceptable Brexit. If they could only get their act together and accept that, between us we could stop this madness with absolute certainty.
Earlier this week, the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), in what I have to say was the most shambolic appearance before a Select Committee that I have ever seen, managed to walk into a trap and make an admission that he had been trying to avoid making throughout the meeting. It was a trap set—presumably by mistake—by one of his own fellow hardline Brexiteers. He was asked:
“Minister, would you agree that, by taking no deal off the table, it weakens our hand in negotiations with the EU?”
His reply was “I would, yes.” Members should think about that for a minute—apart from the slight technical point that there are no negotiations with the EU, because the deal has been done and the negotiations have finished.
Not only the Minister, but one of those hardline Brexiteers in the European Research Group, has admitted that the Government have it in their power to take no deal off the table. Why would they leave it on the table when they know, and everyone knows, that it is the worst possible outcome? Why would they try to force a situation in which it the only alternative, which is what they want us to believe? Why, in recent weeks, have they spent so much time and money telling businesses, trade unions, voluntary organisations and everyone else something that they know is not true?
Only the Government could answer those questions, but when it is put in the context of all the other shenanigans that they have been up to, it seems obvious what they are doing. They know that the Prime Minister’s deal has absolutely no chance of getting through the House on its own merits. In fact, I think most Ministers have known for months that as soon as the Prime Minister set her stupid red lines, there was no possibility of an acceptable deal that complied with those red lines, but instead of doing the right thing—instead of persuading the Prime Minister that she had to change her approach— they set out to try and pauchle the whole process. They were determined that the only vote we would ever have—the vote, remember, that they do not want us to have at all—would be rigged. They knew that the only good thing about the Prime Minister’s deal was that it was not quite as bad as no deal, so they set out to fabricate a situation in which they tried to tell us that no deal was the only alternative. That is why we have seen the Prime Minister’s almost Damascene conversion, virtually overnight, from “No deal is better than a bad deal”—which, by the way, is in the Conservative manifesto—to “Any bad deal is better than no deal”.
That is just one example of the hypocrisy and the double standards that we have seen from this Government, but perhaps the most brazen example of their double standards—and that is saying something—appeared in a tweet earlier this week.
Ian Murray
May I intervene briefly on the subject of double standards? The hon. Gentleman is advancing a powerful argument, and the right argument, that it is in Scotland’s interests to remain a member of the European Union, but will he please explain to the House—and to my constituents, and to the people who are watching the debate in Scotland—how he can advance that argument while at the same time advancing the opposite argument that Scotland should pull itself out of its closest and most important Union?
Peter Grant
I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman wants a debate on independence. I suggest that he should be patient, because that debate is coming, not because I want it and not because he wants it, but because the people of Scotland are demanding it. The simple answer to his question, however, is that the nature of Scotland’s union with this place is fundamentally different from the nature of the partnership of the EU.
As I was saying, earlier this week, Glenn Campbell of the BBC—not Glen Campbell the Rhinestone Cowboy, in case Members are wondering—tweeted, after interviewing the Secretary of State for Scotland:
“Scottish secretary @DavidMundellDCT says if PM’s #Brexit deal is voted down he doesn’t see why MPs shouldn’t be asked to vote on it again once they’ve had time to reflect.”
The Secretary of State for Scotland does not see why, having asked MPs to vote on the deal once, the Government should not come back and try again once we have had time to reflect. So it is okay for Conservative MPs—that is who he is talking about—to be allowed to change their minds about the Prime Minister’s deal, and it is okay for Conservative MPs, as the Standing Orders allow them to do, at the end of this year to change their minds and have another go at removing the Prime Minister through another vote of no confidence, but it is not acceptable to allow the people to confirm whether they have changed their minds.
Returning to the intervention of the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), at the same time that this Parliament and these nations are being presented with a choice of at least two futures, the people of Scotland are faced with a choice of two futures as well. It is not a choice that they wanted to be forced into and it is not a choice that we wanted them to be forced into: there was a majority vote to stay in the Union of the United Kingdom but there was a significantly bigger percentage majority vote to stay in the union of the EU. Through no fault of the people of Scotland, and against the expressed wishes of the people of Scotland and our national Parliament, we are being forced into a position where it is no longer possible to respect the results of both referendums, so the people of Scotland are going to have to decide which future they want: which of these two unions is more important to us?
Is it to be a true partnership of equals, which, as our friends in Ireland have seen, sees all other members show solidarity and support even for relatively small members of that partnership; or is it to be the so-called partnership where the powers of our Parliament are already being stripped back unilaterally by the British Government, as confirmed by Britain’s own Supreme Court? Do they value more a union that was forged by the desire of former mortal enemies to work together to sustain peace and prosperity across a continent, or a Union that was forged through bribery and corruption for—[Interruption.] Or a Union that was forged through bribery and corruption for the sole purpose of sustaining sectarian bigotry in the appointment of high offices of state? Do they give most importance to a union that has at its core the fundamental belief that the exchange of the free movement of people, the free exchange of talents and the free exchange of ideas benefits us all or one that denounces its citizens as queue jumpers and chooses to exploit them as bargaining chips? The exploitation of migrants as bargaining chips was not the policy of the Scottish Government; it was the stated policy of the colleague of the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) in the United Kingdom Government.
This Parliament faces a choice next week, and it must be a choice not between the Prime Minister’s deal or no deal, but between the Prime Minister’s Brexit or no Brexit. That is the choice this Parliament deserves and demands; that is the choice the people of these islands deserve and demand. The time is coming—and I think it will come a lot sooner than most in here expect—when at least one of the partners of this Union, and possibly more, will see a demand from its citizens to be given a further choice: do we want to remain part of a Union that tramples on the rights of our citizens and which treats us as a second-class nation, not as a partner, at every opportunity, or do we want to remain part of the most successful trading partnership and one of the most successful partnerships for peace—a partnership that even now has numerous other candidate members desperate to get into it? Again, I will give way if anyone on either side of the House—[Interruption.] We have a lot of countries trying to get into the EU, but nobody that has left the empire of the UK has ever asked to come back—nobody that has won their independence has ever asked to come back. I wonder why that might be.
We will be opposing this rotten deal next week not because we think no deal is an option, but because we want, and we demand, the alternative: to give Parliament the choice to say, “Is this the Brexit we expected?” and if not, “Don’t do it.” We have to give that right to the people of these islands as well.
Nobody was elected to this Parliament in 2017 on a no-deal Brexit manifesto. Nobody voted for a no-deal Brexit in the referendum; that was not one of the options. This Parliament and this Government do not have the right to do anything that creates the danger of a no-deal Brexit without the explicit approval for such a course of action from the people of these islands. A Government who claim to respect the democracy of the people or the democracy of Parliament must not attempt to force the issue by effectively giving us a choice between “Would you like to voluntarily give us your money?” or “Would you like me to shoot you?” That is not an acceptable choice; it is anti-democratic. It is fundamentally wrong for the Government to seek to turn this into a choice between doing what the Prime Minister tells us or leaving without a deal.
Not leaving is still an option, and not leaving must continue to be an option, and we will continue to press the case to allow the people to decide whether they want to accept the Prime Minister’s Brexit or, having seen what it really means—having seen the disastrous impact of the deal the Prime Minister has achieved—they want to decide that the best deal we can ever get is the deal we already have.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
May I say that I am really looking forward to reading the diaries of the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning)—[Interruption.]
Ian Murray
May I wish you, Mr Speaker, and every Member of this House, a very merry Christmas? Or that is indeed what I would have done had I made this speech back in December when we were supposed to have concluded this debate. We have done nothing over the past month apart from give the Government an opportunity to ramp up the rhetoric of no deal, which even the Foreign Secretary admitted this morning may not be an advisable choice for this country.
Never in the recent history of this Parliament has the next few days been so important to this country and, indeed, to my constituents. Many in this House forget that they were sent here for two reasons: the first and most important one is to represent their constituents, but the second is to look after the best interests of the country. There has been lots of debate and argument, but never has the sound of the Division bell been held in such significance as it will be on Tuesday as we find out which direction this country will take.
I say to those across this House who know they want to do the right thing, but whom the rules of the game of this House preclude from so doing, that they should do the right thing for the country. Brave politicians break the rules. Brave politicians smash the rules and do what is in the best interests of the country. This Government certainly want to smash the rules. They are in danger of being the first Government in history to wilfully and knowingly make the country poorer. This is the first Government in history who proudly admit that they will make my constituents poorer. Surely that cannot be correct. Surely nobody voted to be poorer. We need to stop this catastrophe now, which means voting against the shoddy, blind, worst-of-all-worlds Brexit deal and putting this back to the people in a public vote. Let us have more democracy, not less.
We are 77 days away—the stakes could not be higher—and all the major questions as to the future are still unanswered. It is time for the Government in particular to start being honest with the country, but the Prime Minister cannot be honest with the country for fear of her own Back Benchers. The Home Secretary today told the House that we can have all the migration we wish for in all the sectors that require it, plus uncapped international student immigration, plus trade deals where migration will be at the top of the agenda, and still cut net migration down to the tens of thousands. That is disingenuous to the people of this country. These deceptions must stop, because they are not in the national interest.
The first thing the Government could do in the national interest is rule out a no-deal scenario. We know that any deal or agreement, in particular no deal and the agreement that is on the table, will make our country much poorer than what we currently enjoy as a member of the EU. That is where the Government’s problem comes in. There are two choices: to leave the EU with no deal or to stick as closely as possible to the EU institutions to reduce the pain, suffering and cost of a no-deal Brexit. What the Prime Minister has done is to set red lines that means she does neither. She has therefore united leavers and remainers in this Chamber against the deal.
Now I come to the vacuous soundbite of taking back control of our borders, laws and money. I wish I had slightly more time, Mr Speaker, because I would like to explain why the deal on the table means that we will cede control of our borders, laws and money more than we have at the moment. The deal does not include the 80% of our economy that is made up by services such as financial services and higher education, which are critical to jobs in my constituency. I say that no unicorns is better than bad unicorns for this country.
This issue goes much wider than the economy. It is about EU citizens; it is about our outlook to the world; it is about driving change in Europe; it is about taking our place in the world as a country that wants to work together with others. We cannot achieve what we want to achieve if we are an isolationist nation. The notion of global Britain—I am glad that a Foreign Office Minister is here—is as empty a slogan as “Take back control.” Let us be bold. Let us take this deal on the table, give it back to the people in a people’s vote and let them decide whether this is the kind of Brexit they wanted. If they want to save the country from the self-harm we are about to inflict on ourselves, they could simply vote remain and keep us in the European Union.
Future Immigration
Ian Murray Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
I always listen carefully to what hon. Members, businesses, hospitals and others have to say. The hon. Lady mentions nurses, and an example in relation to nurses—and doctors, for that matter—is the change we made earlier this year to the current tier 2 scheme to take doctors and nurses out of the cap altogether. That decision was welcomed by the sector. She may also know that nurses are currently on the shortage occupation list, which shows just how seriously the Government take this issue.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) asked the Prime Minister directly at Prime Minister’s questions if she still stands behind the ludicrous policy of cutting net migration to the tens of thousands. If the White Paper—admittedly it is a White Paper—is fully implemented in legislation, what conclusions has the Home Office come to on the resulting level of net migration?
Sajid Javid
The commitment of the White Paper and of the system it represents is to bring net migration down to a more sustainable level.
Police Employer Pension Contributions
Ian Murray Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr McFadden
I think it is tragic if the state spends money training good police officers who end up, for the reasons that my hon. Friend has set out, leaving the force and embarking on another career.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for this engaging Adjournment debate. He will be interested to hear that in Scotland we have the lowest number of police officers in a decade, and a £200 million shortfall in the next few years, with the Justice Minister saying that police numbers are no longer a priority. This is happening in Scotland as well as across England.
Mr McFadden
I do not know what the Minister in Scotland has said, but I welcome the admission from the Home Secretary this week that police numbers matter, that they are important and that they are part of the solution. I contend that, having said that, the Home Office now needs to deliver.
Data Protection Bill [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)
Ian Murray Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Margot James
Amendment 122 and clause 121 deal with measures inserted into the Bill with the intention of protecting and valuing certain personal data held by the state—an issue championed by Lord Mitchell, to whom I am grateful for taking the time to come to see me to further explain his amendments, and for giving me the opportunity to explain how we plan to address the issues he raised.
Lord Mitchell’s amendments require the Information Commissioner to maintain a register of publicly controlled data of national significance and to prepare a code of practice that contains practical guidance in relation to personal data of national significance, which is defined as data that, in the Commissioner’s opinion,
“has the potential to further…economic, social or environmental well-being”
and
“financial benefit…from processing the data or the development of associated software.”
Lord Mitchell has made it clear that his primary concern relates to the sharing of health data by the NHS with third parties. He believes that some information sharing agreements have previously undervalued NHS patient data, and that the NHS, along with other public authorities, needs additional guidance on optimising the benefits derived from such sharing agreements.
We agree that the NHS is a prime state asset, and that its rich patient data records have great potential to further medical research. Its data could be used to train systems using artificial intelligence to diagnose patients’ conditions, to manage risk, to target services and to take pre-emptive and preventive action—all developments with huge potential. I have discussed this matter with ministerial colleagues; not only do we want to see these technological developments, but we want the NHS, if it is to make any such deals, to make fair deals. The benefits of such arrangements are often not exclusively monetary.
NHS patient data is only ever used within the strict parameters of codes of practice and the standards set out by the National Data Guardian and other regulatory bodies. We of course recognise that we must continue in our efforts to make the best use of publicly held data, and work is already being carried out to ensure that the value of NHS patient data is being fully recognised. NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care have committed to working with representatives of the public and of industry to explore how to maximise the benefits of health and care data for patients and taxpayers.
Lord Mitchell’s provision in clause 121 proposes that the commissioner publish a code of practice. However, if there is a problem, a code would seem to be an unduly restrictive approach. Statutory codes are by necessity prescriptive, and this is an area where the public may benefit from a greater degree of flexibility than a code could provide in practice, especially to encourage innovation in how Government use data to the benefit of both patients and taxpayers.
The Government are releasing public data to become more transparent and to foster innovation. We have released more than 40,000 non-personal datasets. Making the data easily available means that it will be easier for people to make other uses of Government-collected data, including commercial exploitation or to better understand how government works and to hold the Government to account. The benefits of each data release are quite different, and sometimes they are unknown until later. Lord Mitchell’s primary concern is health data, but can guidance on how that is used be equally applicable to the vast array of data we release? Such guidance would need to be so general that it would be useless.
Even if we stay focused on NHS data and what might help to ensure that the value of it is properly exploited, Lord Mitchell’s proposal has some significant problems. First, by definition, data protection legislation deals with the protection of personal data, not general data policy. Companies who enter into data sharing agreements with the NHS are often purchasing access to anonymised patient data—that is to say, not personal data. Consequently, the code in clause 121 cannot bite. Secondly, maintaining a register of data of national significance is problematic. In addition to the obvious bureaucratic burden of identifying the data that would fall under the definition, generating a list of data controllers who hold data of national significance is likely to raise a number of security concerns. The NHS has been the victim of cyber- attacks, and we do not want to produce a road map to resist those who want to harm it.
Thirdly, we do not believe that the proposed role is a proper one for the Information Commissioner, and nor does she. It is not a question of legislative enforcement and, although she may offer valuable insight on the issues, such responsibilities do not comfortably fit with her role as regulator of data protection legislation. We have consulted the commissioner on the amendments and she agrees with our assessment. In her own terms, she considers herself not to be best placed to advise on value for money and securing financial benefits from the sharing of such personal data with third parties. Those matters are far removed from her core function of safeguarding information rights. She adds that others in Government or the wider public sector whose core function it is to drive value from national assets may be a more natural home for providing such best practice advice.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I have the great pleasure of representing a constituency with one of the best medical research facilities in the world. One of the greatest impediments for that facility is getting access to anonymised NHS data for its research. Is the Minister saying that her amendment, which would remove the Lords amendment, would make it easier or more difficult for third parties to access that anonymised data?
Margot James
I am ill-qualified to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question. Hypothetically, it would probably make it more difficult, but that is not our purpose in objecting to clause 121, which we do not see as being consistent with the role of the Information Commissioner, for the reasons I set out. However, he raises an interesting question.
I agree with Lord Mitchell that the issues that surround data protection policy, particularly with regard to NHS patient data, deserve proper attention both by the Government and by the National Data Guardian for Health and Care, but we have not yet established that there is any evidence of a problem to which his provisions are the answer. We are not sitting on our laurels. As I have already said, NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care are working to ensure that they understand the value of their data assets. Further work on the Government’s digital charter will also explore this issue. When my right hon. friend the Prime Minister launched the digital charter on 25 January, she made it clear that we will set out principles on the use of personal data.
Amendment 122 removes Lord Mitchell’s amendment from schedule 13. We do this because it is the wrong tool; however, we commit to doing everything we can to ensure that we further explore the issue and find the right tools if needed. [Interruption.] I have just received advice that the amendments will make no difference in relation to the hon. Gentleman’s question, because anonymised data is not personal data.
I commend amendment 122 and give notice that the Government will oppose the motion that clause 121 stand part of the Bill.
Money Laundering
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Mr Wallace
Unless the hon. Gentleman can come up with an alternative to operational independence and the rule of law, he has to understand that that is how we operate. The National Crime Agency has been asked on a number of occasions, before a number of Select Committees in this House, about exactly that case. I refer him to the answers that the National Crime Agency gave to those Committees.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
What proportion of Scottish limited partnerships have not provided ownership information, and how many have been fined for not doing so?
Mr Wallace
I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the answer from this Dispatch Box, but like the Scottish National party, I have been concerned that Scottish limited partnerships are remarkably popular with countries such as Russia and Ukraine. Far greater numbers are being used by those countries than they currently are by Scotland. I shall write to him with a detailed answer to his question.
Data Protection Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)
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Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful case against this particular exemption. He will know as well as me as a constituency Member of Parliament that one of the first things checked when someone comes to seek our advice is whether the Home Office has the correct information on an individual. Nine times out of 10, because of sheer workload, the Home Office just has it wrong. Then the visas and so on can be processed. Am I right in saying that, under this exemption, we would be unable to do that?
Brendan O'Hara
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct; I was just getting on to the point about the information held by the Home Office. If it cannot be checked and if it is wrong at source, it is wrong at the end of the process. As far as I can see, there are no safeguards against that. He is absolutely correct that one early error in data collection and processing becomes an irrefutable and indisputable fact by the time it reaches the Home Office. The Home Office could then base its case against an individual on that wrong information.
The hon. Gentleman is right—as constituency MPs, there is not one of us, I am sure, who is not painfully aware of wrong information being held not just by the Home Office, but by a whole range of Departments. That makes the exemption fundamentally unfair. This is an issue of basic fairness and there is little wonder it has been so loudly and roundly condemned by civil liberties groups and many in the legal profession. If we go ahead with the schedule as it stands, it fundamentally changes how we can operate and how we can help people who require our assistance.
At the moment, we have subject access requests. As matters stand, the Home Office and the subject or their legal representative have a right to access the same information, on which legal claims and challenges are based. Surely, if both sides do not have access to the same information, the fairness of any legal proceedings is inevitably compromised. Subject access requests are often the only route through which a legal professional can make representations on very complicated issues on behalf of their client. Indeed, for clients who have been victims of domestic abuse and are fleeing an abusive partner, sometimes a subject access request is all that stands between them and a successful application to remain.
This exemption will reduce legal representatives’ ability to best represent their clients and it removes a fundamental tool for holding the Home Office to account when it either gets things wrong or chooses to ignore or misrepresent the facts. The exemption is fundamentally unfair and as unnecessary as it is disproportionate. I urge the Government to reconsider.
Victoria Atkins
I feel I should defend all the hardworking people both in the Home Office and Border Force who do their best to do their jobs, day in, day out, to ensure that we have an effective, fair and proportionate immigration system. They have come under a bit of an attack in this debate.
Ian Murray
I do not think anybody on the Committee would disagree with the statement that the staff work incredibly hard. Would it not be a show of solidarity with those staff to give them the resources they require to do the job properly?
Victoria Atkins
The hon. Gentleman is starting the debate in very sparky form.
Victoria Atkins
I didn’t start it. The point is that, when people talk obliquely about the Home Office, it is people working in the Home Office who have to make these decisions day in, day out and who have to apply the law and do their best. I think we need to bear that in mind when we are talking about the Home Office system and how bad it is.
The provision relating to data processing for the purposes of immigration control in paragraph 4 of schedule 2 has been the subject of much debate. I would like to address some of the misunderstandings that have clearly arisen during the course of the Bill around both the purpose and scope of the provision. I hope I can persuade the Committee that this is a necessary and proportionate measure to protect the integrity of our immigration system.
Seasonal Migrant Workers
Ian Murray Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Kirstene Hair
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but I do not think his story would resonate with any of the farmers in my constituency. There has been an issue for several years, since before the referendum in 2016, and any farmer would agree with that.
Action must be taken, or we will watch the demise of an industry that is so inherently British. Migrant workers enjoy coming over to the United Kingdom, which is why so many farms have loyalty from them, year after year, with some having a 10-year return rate. They are rewarded with a healthy wage—some pickers in Angus earn up to £12 per hour, which is well above the minimum wage.
As for a solution, there is only one choice: the introduction of a system that permits individuals from European and non-European states to come to the UK specifically to carry out this seasonal work. This is not labour that can be undertaken by the existing British workforce. We do not have the numbers in the rural areas where it is required, and nor do we have people who are willing to undertake the lifestyle that is necessary for the harvesting of crops. Early starts and intensive work is the norm. As I said before, it is skilled work. One can go and pick fruit, but to achieve the necessary rate requires stamina and skill, which are generated over time. To put it simply, it is hard graft.
It is without question that if a job is available, a British person should have a chance to compete for it, but I am reminded of an example that demonstrates my point. There is a producer, which I shall not name, that has on two occasions attempted to find seasonal staff from among the local workforce. On the first occasion, the producer worked with the local jobcentre and advertised extensively on social media and in the recruitment section of the local newspaper. There was a high volume of local applicants and the producer went on to hire 90 workers. Within three weeks, only 10 members of staff remained. In 2017, the same producer offered 12 jobs; 10 employees started and only two remain. The job is simply unattractive to the domestic workforce.
In July last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) led a debate on this very topic. He stressed the need for the introduction of a seasonal migrant scheme, and drew the support and presence of Members from across the political spectrum, including the shadow DEFRA Minister at that debate, the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew). The need for a scheme has only grown with time, as has the support for it. I am grateful for the encouragement and backing from the entire Chamber, with Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Scottish National party and Democratic Unionist party representatives all urging the Government to act.
I have strongly supported this issue since I came into office and know that it requires the input of the farming community. Following constant lobbying from my local farmers, I have taken the case to my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Home Secretary, to immigration Ministers, and to the Prime Minister herself. Along with the National Farmers Union Scotland, I have pressed our argument at every level. Every time I have delivered my case, it has been recognised. I will continue to push for swift action.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate and on the great work she has already done to try to push this matter forward. This is of course an incredibly important issue, but does she agree that there are many other industries that would also like the Government to look at their workers’ immigration status, including financial services and our great universities? Does she agree that the Government in the round should be doing an extensive piece of work on what the immigration system should look like to support those industries post-Brexit?
Kirstene Hair
Obviously, a lot of work is going on through the Migration Advisory Committee, and that will be produced in its totality in the autumn. I fully agree that immigration is not just important for the agricultural sector; indeed, in hospitality and many other sectors people are genuinely worried and looking forward to the immigration framework that is produced in due course.
I was delighted when last month my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs accepted an invite to Angus, when we toured the largest fruit farm in my constituency. During our meeting, and after repeated questions on the subject, I was finally promised that a clear answer would be given on the issue. That was repeated at the National Farmers Union conference last month, although it was within neither the timeframe that I requested nor the one that the farming community requires. Farmers need clarity and they need it urgently. I will continue to fight until we receive it.
Why do we need a scheme so urgently? Three words: harvest twenty-eighteen. It is imperative that we act now, because our farmers cannot plan, cannot invest and cannot ensure that the crops they sow will be harvested. This is an industry in turmoil. The Migration Advisory Committee is currently producing a report on the impact of European economic area workers in the UK labour market, and it will be published in the autumn. Following consultation with farmers in my constituency, I contributed to the report, stressing the situation in Angus. I am certain that other Members present also added the voices of their own constituents.
We do not yet know the findings of that developing report, but the MAC has in the past been vocal about the necessity of retaining seasonal workers. In a report from 2013, when the previous scheme was repealed, the MAC acknowledged the likely events that would take place:
“Growers were in general agreement that, at least in the short term (one to two years), they will be able to find the required supply of seasonal labour from Bulgaria and Romania. However, based on their experience following the EU accession of eight Eastern European countries (A8) in 2004, growers expressed strong concerns that they will find it increasingly difficult to recruit workers from Bulgaria and Romania, who will likely seek employment in other sectors with less physically demanding work and more permanent employment. In addition, because SAWS workers predominantly live in situ on the farms, and thus provide a flexible and quick response to peaks and troughs in filling orders, farmers are concerned that, without a scheme, workers will be less flexible and reliable.”
The introduction of a new scheme, similar to the one that was abandoned, is the only option. It is imperative that we create a system that makes the process of coming to work in the UK for seasonal periods as simple and attractive as possible. Migrant workers should have the ability to work across farming operations, perhaps starting off dressing potatoes, then bringing in a cereal harvest, and finishing in a soft fruit tunnel. We need a system that enables them to work wherever there is demand in the agricultural industry. That is what the workforce wants and what the farmers want.
Countless countries throughout Europe are having to turn to alternative means to secure new labour sources. Spain is dependent on labour from the north of Africa; Italy has previously recruited large numbers from Bangladesh; and Germany, like us, has been dependent on Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and Croatia. We are competing directly with those countries, and if we do not ensure that British farms seem the most appealing prospect, foreign workers will go elsewhere, as they rightly should.
In closing, I say again how much I—and, I am sure, farmers throughout the United Kingdom—appreciate the presence of all Members today. There is a need for us to make progress during this debate and for a system to be put in place in the very near future. Since 2013, there have been calls for a seasonal agricultural worker scheme, and with every year that has passed the situation has become more strained. The British rural sector is a key part of our national economy, and one in which we have seen tremendous success in recent years. More broadly, our international standing in respect of agriculture is impeccable. I am so incredibly proud of the produce that we grow across Angus and, indeed, our United Kingdom. I so desperately want to ensure that our high-quality British produce will dominate our shop shelves. We must safeguard this industry; I hope that this debate will help to guarantee its protection.
Draft Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2018
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The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2018.
The purpose of the draft order is to make a relatively small number of changes to the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Order 2016, which, along with the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2017, remains in place. The changes are needed to ensure that the charging framework set out in secondary legislation for immigration and nationality fees remains current and supports plans for the next financial year.
The Committee will wish to be made aware that it has come to my attention that there is an error in the draft order and its explanatory note. Following further review of the section of the draft order that deals with circumstances in which a fee may be set in respect of the provision of biometric identity documents, it has been identified that the change we sought to make, through article 2(4)(a), has no effect. That is because of the way in which the related legislation, the Immigration (Biometric Registration) Regulations 2008, operates. The intention was to permit the Home Office to charge a fee when a person fails to collect their biometric residence permit within the required time limit. However, the 2008 regulations do not in fact require an application in those circumstances, hence there is no service for which a fee could be charged.
Although the explanatory note states that article 2(4)(a) has an effect, that is not correct. Before such a change can take effect, we will need to amend the 2008 regulations. The explanatory memorandum has been amended to clarify that issue for the record. The 2016 order continues to set out the overarching framework and the maximum amounts that can be charged for immigration and nationality functions over the current spending review period, as previously agreed by Parliament.
Changes made by the draft order are intended to clarify existing powers in connection with entry clearance to the Bailiwick of Guernsey, the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Isle of Man. The draft order will confirm powers to charge fees when offering premium services in relation to the Crown dependencies, and also makes clear that the current definitions of a “sponsored worker”, “unsponsored worker”, “sponsor” and “certificate of sponsorship” apply in respect of applications to the Isle of Man.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I am slightly disappointed that the draft order does not allow for a reduction in fees for European Union nationals seeking residency. Will the Minister comment on that?
Online Hate Speech
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Amber Rudd
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. Like him, I am a great admirer of America, and I have friends with different views, shall we say, to those of the President, who are keen to communicate them to me sometimes. As for the invitation, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his views, but no date has been agreed yet.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I emphasise that what the President of the United States has said on Twitter is not what the American people feel. I am sure that most Americans are embarrassed by and abhor what the President has done. The Home Secretary is in charge of policing in this country so this is a very serious and direct question. Inciting racial and religious hatred is a crime in this country. Have Twitter or the President of the United States committed a crime?
Amber Rudd
We keep all potential crimes of the type that the hon. Gentleman has referred to under review. I will not comment on individual cases of the type that he has referred to. I am sure that he can conclude by himself on the line between free speech and criminal activity. I think I will leave it at that.