Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

Not for the first or last time, my hon. and learned Friend has got absolutely to the point. We have deliberately constructed the policy so that if an individual presents a significant threat to a particular individual—often a spouse or a partner—the presumption would not apply. That is critically important and I was happy to discuss that point with Women’s Aid and other relevant bodies. We are on the side of victims of domestic abuse and violence, and nothing that we do will cut across that important principle.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Supporting offenders in practising their faith is regularly cited as playing a key role in their rehabilitation in prisons. However, as the Minister will know from my frequent correspondence with the chief executive of His Majesty’s Prison Service, many prisons either do not provide the facilities required or actively hinder offenders in practising their religion. HMP Full Sutton has been brought to my attention as one such example. Given its importance, will the Minister assure me that a full review of faith provision across the prison estate will be conducted and guarantee that no one will be denied the ability to freely practise their religion?

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. He is absolutely right to highlight not only the right of people to practise their religion, but the important role that that can play for those individuals in coping with prison life, rehabilitation and getting on the straight and narrow when they come out. I am happy to engage with him directly on any specific case that he wishes to bring up, and it is an issue that I am happy to look at.

Violence Reduction, Policing and Criminal Justice

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to amendments (b) and (h). On Monday night, the Prime Minister made a speech setting out a vision for a foreign policy with morality and values at its heart. However, the absence of anything in the King’s Speech that even comes close to promoting the UK as a positive and outward looking nation shows that this Government embody neither morality nor values.

A foreign policy with morality at its heart would not leave over 2 million Palestinians trapped in a humanitarian nightmare without food, water, medicine or power. A foreign policy that puts values first would not be following the direction set by Washington and the United States in addressing this conflict. A foreign policy that is built on morality would not stand by as over 11,000 Palestinians are killed, more than 27,000 are wounded and 7,500 women and children have their lives taken from them, or as schools, hospitals, churches, mosques, refugee camps and homes are reduced to rubble. A foreign policy that is driven by values would not still be advocating the four-hour pauses that do nothing to alleviate the suffering of innocent men, women and children, and do nothing to end the violence that those living in the region have faced for decades. A foreign policy of morality and values would also not leave the Government unable to answer just how many Palestinian lives will be taken before they condemn the actions of the Israeli military in Gaza that continue to violate international law—acts of collective punishment that clearly fall within the definition of war crimes.

Instead, a foreign policy of morality and values would, front and centre, advocate a ceasefire that ends the bloodshed, allows desperately needed aid to reach those most in need and creates space following the safe return of hostages from meaningful negotiations on a lasting peace. With over 11,000 Palestinian civilians and 1,200 Israelis killed since 7 October, and tens of thousands more wounded, it is clear to me, the United Nations and every single aid agency operating on the ground in Gaza that a humanitarian pause does not do enough and does not go far enough. The innocent men, women and children of Gaza who are trapped in the never-ending nightmare of conflict, which they did not start and have no power to end, do not need a pause—they need it to stop. The only way we can achieve that is with a real and immediate ceasefire. I remain clear in my belief that that is the right thing to do and the right choice to make if we want to see both an end to the bloodshed and a lasting peace in the region, which no humanitarian pause will ever be able to achieve. That is why I stood down from the Opposition Front Bench.

I also advocate for a ceasefire rather than brief humanitarian pauses, because without a ceasefire—without a real break in the fighting—we will just see the unimaginable suffering, horror, death, destruction and devastation continue to unfold in Gaza. Without a ceasefire, the bloodshed that has already left thousands of innocent civilians dead and has wounded so many more—that has left children without parents, robbed parents of their children, and seen premature babies left to die outside their incubators—will tragically continue. Without a ceasefire, the desperately needed aid and assistance that Palestinians urgently need and cry out for—food, water, fuel and medicine—will not be able safely to enter Gaza. We will not be able to reach those who are most in need, and that will lead to the deaths of many hundreds and thousands more.

Without a ceasefire, the negotiations working towards a peaceful resolution and a real two-state solution, for which the region cannot wait any longer, will simply not have the space or the will to succeed. That is why I support the ceasefire amendments, and why I shall continue to advocate for a ceasefire to stop the bloodshed, to enable desperately needed aid to reach those most in need, and to create space for meaningful negotiations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

It has been going through pre-legislative scrutiny and it is important to respond to that. It will increase the oversight of all elements of the criminal justice system, both at the PCC level—the local level—and at the national inspectorate level. One thing that, notwithstanding the fiscal event, I am committed to protecting is the quantum leap in support and funding for victims, which has quadrupled under this Government compared with the last Labour Government.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

10. What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on reforming the death registration process.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)]

The Ministry of Justice is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care and the General Register Office on the implementation of a statutory medical examiners scheme, which will provide an additional layer of scrutiny on cause of death in non-coronal cases. We are also working with the General Register Office to consider how families might play a greater role in the registration of their loved ones’ deaths following an inquest.

[Imran Hussain]

I thank the Minister for that response. For many of my constituents, a swift burial is a core tenet of their beliefs and faith, but in many cases this swift burial is held back by bureaucratic legal difficulties in formally registering the death, particularly when GPs cannot be reached, there is a bank holiday or it is the weekend. I think the whole House will agree that no one wants their relatives to be held in a mortuary any longer than is absolutely necessary. Will the Minister meet me and colleagues from the Department of Health and Social Care to discuss what can be done to break down these legal barriers and address these issues so that everybody can be afforded dignity in death?

[Mike Freer]

First, I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that I have discussed this specific issue of how faith communities are dealt with by the coroners service. I have discussed it with the Chief Coroner, and I have a meeting next week with representatives of both the Jewish and the Muslim faiths. Once I have had those meetings, I would be very happy to meet him so that, having looked at the issue in the round, we can discuss how we can move forward.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I shall have to reduce the time limit to three minutes if there is a chance for most people to make a short contribution.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in favour of Lords amendments 73 and 80.

Like many of my hon. Friends, I marched and protested in opposition to the Iraq war. They were some of the largest and most important protests that we have ever seen. Anyone who attended or saw them would agree they were big, they were noisy and, by their very nature, they caused some disruption. None the less, it was absolutely right that the people were allowed to protest against one of the biggest injustices of our time, even if it was in direct opposition to the policy of the Government. Let us be clear: if protests of this kind, or protests such as those against the poll tax, were to take place today under the measures in the Bill, there would be a real fear that they could be stopped by this Government.

As has been reiterated time and again in this Chamber, the right to peaceful protest, however disruptive it may be to Ministers and Members of Parliament, is one of the fundamental tenets of our democracy. Yet the restrictions that the Government want to impose in the Bill would allow the police to render protests inert, amounting to what is an effective ban. Of course, we have yet to be given any clarity about why the Government are giving themselves such draconian powers, especially when the Government and the police already have ample powers to prevent protests that threaten public order and to take action against those protests they deem disruptive.

It could not be clearer that the powers that the Government want to hand themselves are an extreme overreach, which should leave us all worried about their ability to stifle popular protests against their policies. The reality is that these measures are nothing more than a petty vengeance against protesters by Ministers who are too thin-skinned to accept any criticism. Frankly, they are measures that put the protection of ministerial egos and business interests before the protection of human rights, as part of an intentional journey towards the creation of a Big Brother state that stifles protest and dissent.

Let there be no doubt: this is an extraordinary ideological attack on our civil liberties, with draconian laws, from the undermining of our trade unions to the taking away of our British citizenship without notice, all passed by this Government to curb our freedoms and restrict our rights. That is why this Government must be challenged on every occasion to stop the further erosion of our civil liberties.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

In the time given, I wish to speak on Government amendments (a) and (b) to the Bill in lieu of Lords amendments 189 and 146. Of course, I am speaking about the amendment to repeal the Vagrancy Act 1824, which brings us a massive step closer to ending rough sleeping and would drastically change how we view and help those on the streets.

For almost 200 years, the criminalisation of the homeless has shamed our country, but at long last the Vagrancy Act’s days are numbered. I thank the Minister for his constructive discussions with me, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) for being beside me, both when he was on the Front Bench and now on the Back Benches, fighting for the repeal of the Vagrancy Act.

I know there has been some concern in our discussions about the Vagrancy Act’s disappearing and our inability to deal with aggressive begging. I want to make the point that there are powers in place today in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 which are now used by the police in the majority of cases against aggressive begging. It should be no surprise, therefore, that arrests and prosecutions under the Vagrancy Act have plummeted since 2014. From the conversations I have had with the Met and the City of London Police, I believe alternative powers to deal with aggressive begging are already available.

I am a pragmatist, so I accept the Government’s position of seeking a thorough and comprehensive review, but I ask the Minister to ensure that that is done quickly and concisely; up to 18 months is a very long time, so I ask him to please bring it forward. I hope that during the review he and the Home Secretary might consider revising the specific guidance on aggressive begging under the 2014 Act. I would welcome his response on that.

Finally, in my constituency of the Cities of London and Westminster we have the largest number of rough sleepers in the United Kingdom. I hope that the repeal of the Vagrancy Act will send a clear message to those sleeping on the street, tonight and every night that we will help and support them to turn their lives around and we will no longer criminalise them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

What steps he is taking to tackle legal aid advice deserts.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)]

The Legal Aid Agency is currently acting to fill any gaps in the market, and it frequently renews capacity, to ensure adequate provision. We are currently considering civil legal aid market sustainability, and I have provided £5.4 million in emergency funding for not-for-profit legal advice providers during covid-19.

[Imran Hussain [V]]

Bradford’s community advice centres that provide legal support have been devastated by the Government’s funding cuts and preference for bigger providers. As a result, some of our excellent, hard-working, local grassroot community advice centres have been run into the ground, creating legal aid and advice deserts in some of our most vulnerable communities that need the greatest support. Will the Justice Secretary commit to a “local first” policy, to ensure that community advice centres get the funding they need to help some of society’s most vulnerable people, who cannot afford help elsewhere? Will he commit to ensuring an increase in the number of grassroot community advice centres in Bradford?

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the importance of community provision. Indeed, among those sectors that were helped by the £5.4 million funding during covid was the Law Centres Network, which plays an invaluable role. He will be glad to know that the Legal Aid Agency has launched a procurement process to identify new providers in the areas of housing and debt, where there is currently little or no provision, to help citizens get that advice. It will shortly announce a positive outcome to that process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

What progress he has made on implementing the recommendations of the Lammy review, “An independent review into the treatment of, and outcomes for, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals in the Criminal Justice System”, published in September 2017.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

What progress he has made on implementing the recommendations of the Lammy Review, “An independent review into the treatment of, and outcomes for, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals in the Criminal Justice System”, published in September 2017.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)]

We remain absolutely committed to taking forward every recommendation that falls to Government and to completing the action on all those within our responsibility over the next 12 months. Recently, in February, we provided a further progress report in which we describe the undertakings to which we have committed the Department in relation to the recommendations.

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that question. She will be glad to know that only last Thursday the relevant statutory instrument was laid before the House to remove both the requirement for automatic disclosure of youth cautions and the multiple conviction rule, which cause problems for people who have old convictions, regardless of their nature or the sentence. I want to go further. I have considered carefully the recommendation of the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), and the sentencing White Paper later this year will have further proposals for reform of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

[Imran Hussain [V]]

Stop-and-search is a misused, overused and discriminatory police tactic disproportionately applied to black, Asian and other minority communities, which results in deep resentment and distrust towards the police and the Government. Will the Government, at the very least, hold their hands up and accept that many black, Asian and other minority men, women and children are stopped and searched not on the grounds of evidence or reasonable belief but because of the colour of their skin?

[Robert Buckland]

I share with the hon. Gentleman a deep abhorrence of arbitrary use of police powers, including stop-and-search. We have committed—as we should—to a principle of intelligence-led policing. That means police officers acting lawfully, on reasonable grounds, and not profiling or stereotyping any person because of the colour of their skin. There should be no place for that in our society.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I am looking forward to visiting the prison in the hon. Member’s constituency tomorrow and to speaking to the governor this afternoon. I recognise that the prison has some challenges, but I have heard that it is making real progress. I look forward to discussing the measures being taken in Bedford and talking about how we can support the prison to improve morale and the work of prison officers and to rehabilitate the prisoners.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

This afternoon, trade unions representing the wide variety of staff working in our prisons to keep us safe will meet to finalise the safe prisons charter, which has been drawn up by those facing violence in prisons first hand on a daily basis. Will the Minister adopt the charter and put the safety of staff first—yes or no?

[Lucy Frazer]

I very much look forward to seeing the charter. It is difficult to commit to it until I have seen it, but I am pleased to have met regularly with the unions to discuss general issues relating to their members. When I met prison officers at HMP Whitemoor after they experienced a terrible incident in their prison, I was bowled over to see their determination, resilience and stoicism at first hand and to hear about the amazing work they do every day and the support they give each other. I will look closely at the document the hon. Gentleman mentions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work when he was courts Minister. As he knows, the programme that he helped to spearhead is already improving both access to justice and efficiency. More than 300,000 people have now used new online services established to enhance access, such as to make civil money claims, to apply for divorce or to make a plea to low-level criminal offences. Last year alone, more than 65,000 civil money claims were made online, with nine out of 10 users saying they were satisfied or very satisfied with the service.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome you to your place, Mr Speaker. Let me also align myself with the comments of both the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State about staff at HMP Whitemoor.

Our probation service should keep us all safe, but this morning another damning report said that understaffing in a national probation service that is dealing with the most serious offenders is putting public safety at risk. Those shortages leave staff overworked and unable to conduct due diligence, force them to take on too many cases, and are a direct consequence of the Government’s decision to break up the probation service, so will the Minister commit herself to returning staffing across the service to safe levels in order to undo the serious damage they have caused?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)]

I welcome this morning’s report from the inspectorate of probation. Its publication is timely, given the changes that we are making to create a more unified probation service. That transition has already taken place in Wales.

Having read the report, I am pleased to note that it says that leadership is good throughout the service. Of course we need to recruit more probation officers, and we are doing that—800 officers who are currently being trained will come on board imminently—but we also recognise that as we recruit more police officers, we need to recruit more prison and probation officers as well, and we are taking steps to do so.

Prison Officers: Pension Age

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. In the brief time I have, I will start by thanking the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) for securing such an important debate. I think the whole House can agree that he made a powerful speech, much of which hon. Members across the House will agree with. I have to say that I disagree with him on the points he made about the privatisation of probation, but that is a debate for another day; I will park that for today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) also made a powerful speech. In particular, he gave accounts of some horrific assaults and attacks against our hard-working prison officers. Many other hon. Members contributed through interventions. The theme of much of the debate was that 68 is too late, and I will come to that shortly.

I thank our prison officers for the hard work that they do, often unseen and behind the scenes, to keep us safe. The job that they do on a daily basis is one of the most difficult, and in one of the most dangerous settings imaginable. Yet rather than treating them with the respect and dignity they deserve, for almost a decade this Government have treated them with anything but. Instead of overseeing a highly motivated and trained workforce on the frontline of reforming offenders, the Government have overseen years of declining morale, declining working conditions and declining numbers among our prison officer workforce. The raising of a prison officer’s retirement age is one part of that. It is an important one, but it is not the whole picture.

Last week, in a debate secured by the Select Committee on Justice, we heard how the Ministry of Justice budget has been savaged in the name of the Government’s ideological austerity agenda. Thousands of prison officers and tens of thousands of years of irreplaceable experience have been lost as a result. Between 2010 and 2015, close to 7,000 frontline prison officers were lost. Despite a recruitment drive once the Government realised the terrible damage they were causing to the prison system, we are still well short of 2010 numbers.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

It is very interesting that the Government have now decided to replace the numbers of police officers that they lost over the eight or nine-year period, but they cannot do the same for prison officers. I agree with the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) that a prison officer’s job is just as dangerous in some ways as that of a policeman or a fireman, but there is this disparity. Does my hon. Friend agree that public services over the last eight or nine years have been the recipients of some of the most vicious cuts that have been implemented by this Government?

[Imran Hussain]

I absolutely agree. Given the frontline work that our hard-working prison officers do, they should be an emergency service—a frontline uniformed service—as our other services are, and they should be rewarded and treated exactly the same. I have made that point before.

Like many other public sector professionals on the frontline of vital services, prison officers were also subject to the Government’s harsh pay freeze and public sector pay cap for many years. Even though the pay cap has now been lifted, prison officers are unfairly disadvantaged when compared with their public sector counterparts. For too many prison officers, it is too late. They still feel inadequately rewarded for the important work that they do.

Safety for prison officers has also declined dramatically, with a quadrupling of assaults against prison officers since 2010 and an alarming number of serious injuries, as found in the recent response to my written question, rising from 160 in 2010 to 850 last year. A number of examples have been given by hon. Members; time not permitting, I cannot go through them all, but the reality is that prison officers now go to work fearing for their safety—expecting to be assaulted, beaten or abused. It is truly horrific that they feel that way while this Government do little to address the underlying issues. Those are not the actions of a Government who respect prison officers or treat them with the dignity that they deserve, and nor is raising the retirement age of prison officers to 68.

The job of a prison officer is physically demanding and requires the satisfactory completion of a demanding fitness test. It requires fully fit personnel who are able to perform control and restraint techniques, exercise strength, maintain their fitness and stamina over long periods and react with agility in demanding and quickly changing environments, as alluded to by several Members. The public would not expect anything less from those who keep them safe—and neither, it seems, would the Ministry of Justice, which stated in its submission to the Cabinet Office that the changes were unacceptable. However, the Government have ignored serious concerns about prison officers’ ability to carry out their roles effectively as they get older, despite the Ministry of Justice’s own admissions.

The Government have repeatedly refused to engage with the Prison Officers Association and the prison officers that it represents. Instead of getting around the table to work with the POA to seek a solution, and to look for ways to resolve prison officers’ serious concerns about the retirement age, the Government have sought to pin the blame on it. I am deeply disappointed that Ministers—I appreciate that this Minister is new in her role and is not the Minister responsible for prisons and probation—have failed, quite frankly, to show the leadership needed. They have put the health and safety of prison staff at risk and made it clear that the Government see prison officers not as a vital workforce worthy of investment and support, but as a dispensable commodity.

Because of the way they have been treated by the Government, and with horrendous and dangerous conditions on the balconies and in the wings, many prison officers no longer see their role as a long-term career. It is little wonder that prison officers—both those who have served for years and those in their first year of service—are leaving at such a pronounced rate, creating a retention crisis and worsening the huge problems in our prison system that are of the Government’s making. That is why the next Labour Government will address this issue, and we will work with the POA and prison officers to make sure that they are properly trained and rewarded, and that they are physically capable of doing their jobs. Only then can we deliver a prison system that provides us with security and rehabilitation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Henderson]

I will make just a few points, if I may. We have had consensus today, but I have to say to the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), that the last Labour Government did not cover themselves with glory in the eyes of the POA. Talk to my prison officers: they remember vividly how the Labour party embraced the privatisation of prisons with great enthusiasm. But that was then.

[Imran Hussain]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gordon Henderson]

I do not have time.

With regard to what the Minister said about the difference between prison officers and police officers, I revert to section 8 of the Prison Act 1952, which states that prison officers

“shall have all the powers, authority, protection and privileges of a constable.”

Yet because prison officers happen to be part of the civil service pension scheme, they have to work until they are 68 when the police do not. The Government might have to look at whether prison officers should be part of the civil service, or whether they should be a separate entity again.

The Minister mentioned that staff on Sheppey are getting enhanced pay, and that it is up to £27,000 for new staff. I accept that, but it creates another anomaly in the system: the existing staff do not get that enhancement, so there will be some instances of new staff actually earning more than existing staff. Once again, that is something that we need to look at.

I will end with a little advert. I urge all Members present who have shown an interest in the debate to get involved in the Prison Service parliamentary scheme.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the pension age of prison officers.

Draft Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Legal Aid for Separated Children) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2019

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 General Committees

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. This is the first time that the Minister and I have been together in Committee, and I welcome her to her new role.

The plight of vulnerable unaccompanied and separated children—many fleeing truly desperate and dangerous situations around the world—who have sought safety, refuge and sanctuary in the UK should alarm us all and induce us to action. The Opposition unreservedly support today’s measure to bring those cases involving separated children back into the scope of legal aid. However, we must note not only that access to legal aid should never have been taken from this vulnerable group, but that the Government never intended to introduce today’s measure, and would never have done so if left to their own devices.

We must be clear that we are here this morning to consider the order not because the Government have, all of a sudden, had a change of heart and realised that the misery, pain and suffering that they imposed upon the children affected was too great, but because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central alluded to, of a legal challenge to their decision under the 2012 LASPO legislation to remove separated children from the scope of legal aid by the Children’s Society, an independent, third-sector charity, supported by lawyers, barristers and other legal professionals.

The Government have not introduced the draft order willingly and out of their own compassion; they did so because they have conceded to the legal case that was brought against them, fearing another damning defeat. Migrant children are among society’s most vulnerable groups, and unaccompanied children are even more so given the unique migratory factors at play and the particular vulnerabilities that they have as children without caregivers. Indeed, the Government’s own impact assessment for this statutory instrument states that these children have “distinct vulnerabilities” and needs. According to the previous special rapporteur on human rights of migrants, writing in his final report to the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2011, children who are unaccompanied or separated from their parents are “particularly vulnerable” to human rights violations and abuses at all stages of the migration process. Even the Children’s Commissioner for England has stated that children arriving unaccompanied in the UK are some of the most vulnerable that they deal with, due to the triple vulnerabilities they face.

Yet despite that, and despite the fact that children need access to high-quality immigration advice to regularise their status and protect themselves while being unable to properly represent themselves, the Government have kept unaccompanied migrant children out of the scope of legal aid for six years. Consequently, vulnerable children have been forced to represent themselves in legal cases, even though representing themselves properly is impossible due to their age, language barriers and vulnerability. That is a complex enough cocktail of factors before we even get on to the myriad immigration rules and the intricate nature of immigration law.

That has led to unaccompanied children now being at a heightened risk of having to support and represent themselves through legal processes and procedures, being more likely to receive an unfavourable legal outcome, being less likely than other children to be able to fund and apply for legal advice, and also being at increased risk of exploitation through the need to fund legal services, as the Children’s Commissioner for England has found. This is damming. It is no way to treat vulnerable children. It is no wonder that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has declared that

“the Government’s reforms to legal aid have been a significant black mark on its human rights record”

and that children more generally are being denied the use of the law to assert their rights and legal needs following the changes under LASPO.

Where free legal support does exist, many children are also restricted and frozen out of it due to the postcode lottery of legal support that sees most free legal advice concentrated in certain areas such as London and the south-east, while the number of law centres and other advice services is in decline across the whole country.

Together with the scale of the challenge faced by these unaccompanied children and the urgency of the need to address their inability to access legal aid in order to prevent abuses of their human rights, we are also deeply critical of the length of time it has taken the Government to lay the order before the House. A year went by between a Minister making a written statement conceding that removing separated children from the scope of legal aid was a reprehensible decision and the order being laid in order to reverse the changes under LASPO. Yet the Minister responsible at the time had declared in her written statement:

“The amendment will be laid in due course”.

When dealing with such sensitive issues and such vulnerable children, we should expect a speedier response, particularly considering that the Government are doing nothing new; they are simply restoring what had been taken away by LASPO. Will the Minister identify just how many separated children have been unable to access legal aid support to bring their cases to court since July 2018, when that written statement was published?

I expect that the Minister will response to that question by repeating the words of her predecessor, the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), in that written ministerial statement:

“Legal aid for other immigration matters is available via the Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) scheme”—

something to which this Minister has also alluded today—

“which is intended to ensure legal aid is accessible in all cases where there is a risk of a breach of human rights.”—[Official Report, 12 July 2018; Vol. 644, c. 47WS.]

However, if the Government were anticipating breaches of human rights as a result of their changes under LASPO, why did they enact those changes in the first place? Is the ECF scheme sufficient, and has it been so, given that the Children’s Society and the review of the Bach commission on access to justice found that it had failed to provide a safety net and still left children vulnerable? The Government’s own figures show that thousands of children and young people would have been helped through the exceptional case funding. The reality is that the number helped through that fund is in the tens, not the thousands. Again, the Government have some serious questions to answer on that.

Although we will not oppose the order—

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Well, no; you have just spoken in favour of it.

[Imran Hussain]

We will certainly not pat the Minister on the back and congratulate the Government, given that it has taken them more than a year to lay the order before the House after conceding defeat in the legal case, and almost a further three months to bring it forward for debate. During that time, inevitably, many more children have been unable to access the legal aid support that they have a right to, and many more children will have suffered as a result by being removed from the UK and returned to the desperate and dangerous conditions that they escaped from.

By putting off and delaying the order, the Government have neglected their duty of care to those vulnerable children and discarded their own humanity. We must never forget that, just as we must never forget that the Government removed those children’s access to legal aid to begin with, which put us in this sorry and deplorable situation. They cannot be proud of correcting such a colossal mistake and they must hang their head in shame that it has taken them so long to bring the matter back to the House.