Doctor Training

James Sunderland Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential merits of training additional doctors.

I shall start with a quiz. Who does not like a quiz? What do Members think is the most common nationality among doctors working in the NHS who trained as doctors in Bulgaria? I know that sounds like a silly question—surely Bulgarians train as doctors in Bulgaria and come to work in the NHS—but no, two thirds of NHS doctors who trained in Bulgaria are British, not Bulgarian. Indeed, there are more British people training to be doctors at a medical school in Plovdiv in Bulgaria than there are at Plymouth medical school in Britain.

I imagine Members are thinking, “That makes no sense. How can it be?” Well, those bright, young British people who are clearly capable of being doctors could not get places at medical schools in the UK, so they went off to be trained in Bulgaria before coming back to the UK to work in the NHS. Members might think that that is a stroke of genius by British policymakers—getting other countries to train our doctors; think of the money that saves the Treasury. This has been British Government policy for decades: we do not need to train enough doctors for our needs because other countries will train doctors for us, and they will come to work for us anyway. The purpose of the debate is to show that that Whitehall orthodoxy is not just seriously flawed, but against our national interest. It also harms some of the most deprived countries in the world.

The Government launched their independent NHS workforce review at the end of last year, and it will look at many of those issues. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on the review. The purpose of the debate is to step up the political pressure to ensure that the Government reach the right conclusion, which is that, as a country, we should aim to train enough doctors for our own requirements.

I should declare that I have a big constituency interest in the issue. South Cambridgeshire is the life sciences capital of Europe with a biomedical campus, two major hospitals and two more planned, countless world-leading medical research institutes and hundreds of life science companies. All those are impacted by our national refusal to train enough doctors for our needs.

The first thing to say about our national policy of not training enough doctors is that it has clearly failed. We would have to be hermits to be unaware of the pressure the NHS is facing, with record waiting times at A&E and waiting lists for operations. There are many reasons for those, such as it being winter and the covid backlog, but one of the biggest structural reasons is the workforce. There is a shortage of medical workers of all types, including nurses but in particular doctors, and there are a staggering 132,000 vacancies in the NHS of which 10,000 are for doctors. A recent survey by the Royal College of Physicians found that 52%—more than half—of advertised consultant posts went unfilled, primarily because no one applied for them.

Despite being among the most interesting places on the planet for doctors to work—I agree; I am biased—even my own hospitals in South Cambridgeshire struggle to fill their posts. Across the country, there are doctor deserts in which health authorities have real problems in getting doctors to come and work, and rural, coastal and inner-city areas are struggling the most to fill their vacant posts. The Government are trying to implement their commitment to increase the number of GPs by 6,000, which I strongly support, but in reality, the number of full-time equivalent GPs has been dropping by about 1% a year. There just are not enough doctors.

The international figures highlight the scale of the problem. The UK has just 2.8 doctors per 1,000 people, which is significantly below the OECD average of 3.5. It is even further behind the figure for some of our European neighbours, which have more than four doctors per 1,000 people. To reach the OECD average, the NHS would need an additional 45,000 doctors. Imagine the impact they would have on our waiting lists.

Desperate hospital managers are driven to fill the gaps by employing locum medical workers at pay rates vastly greater than they would be if those people were employed directly, and the bill for locums across the NHS is a massive £6 billion a year—a huge waste of taxpayers’ money.

I do not need to labour the arguments: there is a clear political consensus that current NHS workforce planning is not working. There are many short-term and medium-term sticking plasters for the NHS workforce crisis. We need to reduce the number of doctors who leave the NHS through early retirement, leave for other professions or seek a better life overseas. We need to retain more doctors through improved conditions and financial incentives. We need to improve working practices to give doctors greater flexibility over their lives. We need urgently to update the nonsensical pension regulations that are forcing experienced consultants and GPs to retire early.

Another medium-term solution to reduce strain on doctors is empowering physician assistants, nurses and pharmacists to take on additional duties through new regulations, for example on prescriptions.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend on his excellent speech; I agree with every single word. Would he recognise that the inflow of doctors to the NHS is part of a wider package? He alludes to the appalling high salaries being paid to locums. That is preventing doctors from getting contracts for surgeries locally, which is a problem in Bracknell. Would he also agree that we have to bring doctors back from retirement and other professions? That is about improving inflow at every level, across the whole of the service.

[Anthony Browne]

I agree fully with my hon. Friend that training more doctors is just one part of the solution. There is no point training them if they suddenly leave. We need to ensure that they are not incentivised to retire early, and that they stay working in the NHS.

According to a study by the health consultancy Candesic, only one in four pharmacists are currently allowed to prescribe; 6,000 pharmacists a year could be trained to prescribe, at a cost of £12 million a year. Those are all things that we should be doing anyway, but they will clearly not solve the problem on their own.

The NHS has historically attempted to make up the shortfall of doctors by hiring them from overseas. That decades-old Government policy means that the majority of new NHS doctors are now trained overseas. Only 45% of doctors joining the General Medical Council register last year were trained in the UK—less than half. A similar percentage were international medical graduates from outside Europe, and the remaining 10% came from the European economic area.

Those overseas medical workers keep the NHS going; they provide expertise and care and are part of the exchange of ideas and experience that drives medicine forward. They are very welcome, but relying on other countries to train our doctors for us is not a long-term, sustainable solution. First, it leads to a global doctor shortage, which harms the world’s most vulnerable countries the most. We are far from being the only rich country to try to save money by getting other countries to train doctors for us. In fact, when it comes to training doctors, we are in the middle of the pack. We train 13.1 medical graduates per 100,000 inhabitants. That is more than the US, at 8.5, and Germany, at 12 per 100,000, but we are behind countries such as Italy, at 18.7 medical trainees per 100,000 people, and the world leaders, Ireland, at 25.4.

The World Health Organisation estimates that the refusal by rich countries to train enough doctors has led to a global shortfall of 6.4 million doctors. It is the poorest countries, which can least afford to retain their doctors, that are most harmed. The NHS tends to recruit predominantly from south Asia and Africa. According to the GMC register, the UK is now home to 30,000 doctors from India, 18,000 doctors from Pakistan, 10,000 doctors from Egypt, 4,000 doctors from Sudan and 3,000 doctors from Iraq. Nearly all those doctors were trained in the medical schools of their home country and left to join the NHS.

Many of those countries need their doctors even more than we do. Sudan has a doctor-patient ratio of 0.3 doctors per 1,000 people, a tenth of our doctor-patient ratio. Infant mortality at birth in Sudan is ten times higher than our own. It is ridiculous that our international aid budget is paying for health projects to try to improve health outcomes in those countries, while we strip them of their doctors. If we had supplied 4,000 doctors to Sudan, we would rightly be proud of the help we had given, but instead we recruited 4,000 doctors from Sudan. Countries such as Sudan need our support, rather than our laying out the red carpet for their medical professionals.

The WHO responded to this by setting up a red list of 47 countries that are deemed to have a low doctor-patient ratio, from which other countries should not recruit. That is a step in the right direction. The NHS no longer actively recruits from those countries, but passive recruitment continues apace. The GMC still offers professional and linguistic assessment board tests in countries such as Sudan, Ghana, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In just the past year, another 500 doctors joined the NHS from Sudan, even though the Government are supposedly not recruiting from there.

The global doctor shortage is likely to get worse, as countries age and economies grow, and demand for healthcare increases. It would be foolish to think that we can always rely on importing doctors whenever we want them. We face increasingly stiff competition from the global market. From a workforce planning perspective, it is significant that the retention of UK-trained medical graduates is higher than those trained elsewhere. Nine in 10 UK graduates who obtained their medical licence in 2015 still had it in 2021, but that was the case for only two thirds of international medical graduates, and less than half of European economic area graduates. We need to minimise leakage from the NHS workforce if we are going to stop the vicious spiral of staff shortages.

The only long-term, sustainable solution, and the purpose of this debate, is to train more medical workers, particularly doctors. This really is a long-term solution, as it takes 10 to 12 years to train a GP and even longer for a specialist, but that is all the more reason to start now. We need to ensure that the supply of doctors is sufficient for our national needs, and that we retain them for the span of their whole career. It is a conclusion that the Government have arrived at before: it was once championed by the current Chancellor when he was the Health Secretary and as Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee. The Government announced an ambitious plan to increase medical training places in 2016, creating 1,500 more places—a 25% increase on the existing number. That was then the largest single uplift in our history, and it was very welcome. It was no mean feat and required the building of five new medical schools across the country, but it is still not enough.

We need to be bolder if we are to aim for self-sufficiency. It is an ambition that has widespread support: the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of General Practitioners are all calling for it. The British Medical Association and the Medical Schools Council support it. As I understand we will hear today, it has cross-party support. Last year, just short of 16,000 doctors joined the register. To meet our national needs, we need to double our number of training places by adding at least a further 7,500 to the existing 7,500, making a total of around 15,000 training places.

Points of Order

James Sunderland Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Owen]

I would be grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your advice on how Members like me should respond when the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) tells me to “shut up” in this Chamber, where I speak for my constituents. Now he is attempting to shut me up online as well. What message does this send to women who want to be in politics when they see men like that? [Interruption.]

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

Sit down!

[Sarah Owen]

Do you want to tell me to sit down out there?

Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

James Sunderland Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

As far as I am aware, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are not routinely detained at Manston, but what I will say is that a number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children were accommodated—not detained—for a brief period in the summer while accommodation was being identified and of course, overnight people have been evacuated to Manston from Western Jet Foil, and that will have included some children.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

The issues that we are discussing this afternoon are symptomatic, in the main, of illegal immigration. First, may I commend the Home Secretary for her stated intention to deal resolutely with the small boats crisis, and secondly, may I ask her exactly what primary legislation we might expect—primary legislation is needed—and when we might expect it?

[Suella Braverman]

I thank my hon. Friend for his observations. Ultimately, he is right. We need to be straight with people. There is an influx, an unprecedented number of people coming to this country. They are claiming to be modern slaves, they are claiming asylum illegitimately, and they are effectively economic migrants. They are not coming here for humanitarian purposes. We therefore need to change our laws. We need to ensure that there is a limitation on the ability to abuse our asylum laws, and we need to ensure that our modern slavery laws are fit for purpose and cannot be exploited by illegitimate claimants.

Draft Passport (Fees) Regulations 2022

James Sunderland Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 General Committees

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Cummins. I, too, thank the Minister for introducing the draft statutory instrument. As he said, most of this is pretty technical and the changes are not hugely significant. For that reason, we will not be opposing it, either. But I will make two or three short points.

Obviously, and as the Minister acknowledged, the background to all this is the challenges and difficulties facing the Passport Office at the moment and the fact that we all have large numbers of constituents who are struggling to get hold of passports in time for their holidays. I have said quite a bit about that in the Chamber already, so I need not repeat what I have said previously. However, to justify the passport fee, we need transparency from the Passport Office as to how it is performing. The Minister said again today that 250,000 passports are being processed every week, but we also need to know how many applications are being made and what the up-to-date position is on the backlog. If there could be more transparency about exactly where the Passport Office is on that at any given time, that would be hugely helpful.

Another aspect of transparency is about the policies that staff are operating to. Hon. Members have already mentioned the very helpful desk being operated at Portcullis House. I pay tribute to the staff there for their patience in the face of overwhelming demand. However, it does seem to be a very fast-moving and complicated policy picture. I understand that this week, for example, a rule was introduced whereby someone would not be able to escalate or accelerate the passport process unless they had been waiting for six weeks. It would be useful to know whether there is a place where MPs can go to see the policies that staff are operating to, so that we can understand exactly how things are operating. There have been cases where I have gone away from PCH with a certain piece of advice, only for the constituent to tell me that they eventually got through on the phone line and were told something a little different, so a little more transparency and clarity about exactly what rules and policies are in place at any given time would be useful.

In relation to that specific, six-week rule, I can sort of understand it in the context of people who had allowed their passport to run down and perhaps at least should have been aware of the need to apply in advance. There is a specific issue about those who have lost their passport. I have a constituent who has applied for a passport three or four weeks in advance of their holiday. That is not because they had got complacent or allowed their passport to run down, but if the six-week rule then prevents them from accelerating the process, that causes difficulty, so I wonder whether there is a way to apply a different rule for those who have lost their passports or had them stolen.

I mentioned the telephone line. Lots of constituents are still complaining that they are struggling to get through. They are having to wait hours and racking up significant phone bills. Can the Minister say a little more about what work is being done to address that and, as I said, the sometimes slightly inconsistent responses that we get?

As the Minister said, these regulations do not increase passport fees, but as I understand it, they do continue the system whereby citizens are charged a fee that is actually higher than the cost to the Passport Office of producing the passport. We have complained about that before and we again place on the record our objection on the basis that this is really an essential Government service to our citizens, and the idea that the Passport Office is making a profit sits uncomfortably with us. The Minister will say that it is reinvested elsewhere, in Home Office policy areas. To our mind, that argument could be made in relation to visit visas, for example, but this is something a little more fundamental. It is about people’s citizenship, and it is inappropriate to be making a profit on that.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

To their complete credit, the SNP spokesman and the shadow Minister are raising some really good points, and I endorse all that has been said this morning. My question is simple: does the hon. Gentleman agree that, ultimately, the statutory instrument in question will speed up the process and provide a much more efficient process for the benefit of all?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am not sure that this statutory instrument will make much difference in the grand scheme of things. I will come to the one element of it that appears to be designed to address that. It is about increasing incentives to ensure that people actually turn up for their appointments and therefore we are not losing the slots. I support that, and it might make a little difference. In fact, the deadline for priority passports has been slowed from seven days to eight days, so this will not fundamentally alter the way things are happening.

I have made a point about the profit. Moving on to the idea that application fees will not be refundable, I absolutely get the idea in relation to the 48 hours and not getting the booking fee back. That seems absolutely fine. But failing to refund even the cost of the actual passport application for people who do not show up seems to me a little harsh. I think it might end up making a rod for the Minister’s back. Again, why not just leave it at the booking fee or perhaps a proportion of the application fee? He has mentioned that there will be a policy of giving refunds in compassionate circumstances, but that would not cover, for example, someone who gets stuck in a traffic jam, a tube breakdown or anything like that. I think it is going to be difficult, so I wonder whether the Minister could look generously at what that policy will be and perhaps move it beyond compassionate circumstances.

As I said, on the whole, there is nothing too controversial about all this, and I am grateful to the Minister for explaining the background.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

For example, someone might have glued themselves to the road outside or to the door, or witnessed a crime on the way. Again, we could get a very long list of reasons why people, through no fault of their own, were unable to get to an appointment. However, we will not draw up an exhaustive list, because we could be here all day doing that, only for someone to say, “Have you thought of this?”—so no. We intend to be generally flexible, but if someone just forgets, does not bother or whatever, that is the point at which we have to say, “Well, I’m sorry, but public resource was wasted. A slot that could have been used to process a passport for someone else was wasted.”

Furthermore, the issue formed part of our planning to deal with the surge: we felt that it was appropriate to be clear and proportionate. If someone rings us up beforehand, it is £30, and if someone rings us up more than 48 hours before, completely free of charge, because someone cancelling with 48 hours’ notice allows us to readvertise the slot and, at the moment certainly, we know that other people will be only too happy to take up the slot. We felt that that was proportionate, because most people will ring up and cancel. We feel that £30 is not a huge cost barrier, but is enough to be an incentive to ring up and cancel at a point when we can readvertise the slots to someone else.

I reassure my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire that all appropriate security checks continue to be done on all passport applications. A number of checks are in place. Colleagues will appreciate why, for example, child passports might take slightly longer—certain checks apply for travel by under-18s.

[James Sunderland]

I have two quick questions. First, when will the policy take effect, and will customers be given sufficient notice of the change in policy? Secondly, if an appointment is cancelled with sufficient notice, is the Minister completely confident that that appointment will be reallocated to somebody else in the queue?

[Kevin Foster]

The regulations will come into force 20 days after they are made. It is only fair that we make that clear so that people can book appointments. At the moment, we can say that slots will definitely be readvertised, and if there is high demand it is very likely that people will book them. In more normal circumstances, will every slot that is freed up be booked? Possibly not, but if there is less demand on the day for fast-track or priority, people can be reallocated to do other work in the Passport Office, rather than work on the counters and potentially spend all morning wondering where people are. We cannot say that absolutely every slot will be used, but the Passport Office will at the very least be able to plan the day more effectively rather than have people sitting and waiting for applicants who do not turn up.

Are we confident about the wider system? I have been asked about getting through 9.5 million applications this year. We have got through 2 million in two months, and I am sure that most of us can calculate what 1 million a month equates to. On staffing numbers and preparation, we have already increased staffing in the Passport Office by more than 500 since last April, and a further 700 are on the way and will have joined by the summer.

Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

James Sunderland Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to be called. Law and order is a subject that is close to all our hearts, as has been made clear by the passionate contributions that we have heard so far.

I shall not speak for long, but I want to do two things. First, I want to provide a constituency perspective—a local perspective—which I think is relevant. Secondly, I want to explain why I feel that the crime prevention measures in the Queen’s Speech are so important.

Bracknell is the safest major town in Berkshire, and the 21st safest town in the United Kingdom. That is a great accolade. These statistics, by the way, are taken from the website crimerate.co.uk, and I urge everyone to look at them. The overall crime rate in Bracknell in 2021 was 60 crimes per 1,000 people. That compares favourably with Berkshire’s overall crime rate, being 25% lower than the Berkshire rate of 75 per 1,000. East Berkshire is a pretty good place to live, offering good schools and good roads; we also have almost full employment. I am proud to represent those who live in my constituency.

Crowthorne is deemed to be a “small town” in this analysis, although it is probably a village. In 2021 the overall crime rate was 43 crimes per 1,000 people, 76% lower than the overall Berkshire rate. In Sandhurst, the overall rate in 2021 was 45 crimes per 1,000 people, 69% lower than the Berkshire rate. Finchampstead—which is certainly a village—is categorised as one of the five safest small towns or areas in Berkshire, with a rate of 36 crimes per 1,000 people.

The most common crime recorded in my constituency is violence against the person, including, sadly, sexual violence, so we have work to do. I therefore welcome a number of the measures in the Queen’s Speech. I do not want to wax too lyrical about what we have already heard, and the Home Secretary has covered all the detail. However, I welcome the Public Order Bill, the economic crime Bill, the economic crime and corporate transparency Bill, the modern slavery Bill, the National Security Bill, the draft protect duty Bill and the Online Safety Bill.

Let me focus on three of the Bills that have been announced. The draft victims Bill will set out to restore victims’ confidence that their voices will be properly heard, and that perpetrators will be brought to justice. That is very important to my constituents. The Online Safety Bill creates a new regulatory framework that improves user safety online while safeguarding freedom of expression, making the UK one of the safest places in the world in which to be online. The Bill of Rights, which has real relevance locally, will ensure that there is a proper balance between the rights of individuals, our vital national security and effective government, strengthening freedom of speech and our common-law traditions, and—rightly—reducing reliance on Strasbourg case law post-Brexit.

There are some additional issues to focus on. For instance, 13,500 new police officers have been provided so far in this Parliament as part of the manifesto commitment to put 20,000 extra officers on the streets. We are getting there. Thames Valley alone has gained an additional 368 police officers, with a further 233 projected for this year. That is great news for Bracknell, for Berkshire and for Thames Valley. The commitment to introduce a new drugs strategy is extremely important: we need to break up county lines and criminal gangs, and help those who are struggling and are the victims of crime. So far we have seen the closure of 1,500 county lines, 600 operations against organised crime groups, and more than 220,000 drug seizures. Those are impressive figures, but we can go further. For the purpose of crime prevention, £200 million is being offered for a 10-year youth endowment fund.

I have already mentioned the Public Order Bill. It is so important for people to be able to go about their daily business and get to work, and for ambulances to get to hospitals. No one has the right to impede the way in which other people lead their lives, and those who chain themselves to railings and glue themselves to the road need to be in jail: that is a fact.

I welcome all these Bills on the basis of their inherent merits, and because they will make a difference. Let me end with three key points which are important to me locally, and to my constituents.

We need stronger powers to deal with antisocial behaviour, in terms of police response and in terms of arrest at the scene. We see a great deal of such behaviour in Bracknell, in the wider constituency area and throughout the United Kingdom. Antisocial driving is another feature locally. On Saturday evening, at Birch Hill Sainsburys in Bracknell, there was a big car meet. That is fine: I love cars. I am a motor sports fan, and I chair the all-party parliamentary group for motorsport. However, activities of that kind must be managed and controlled. People were spinning cars and doing “doughnuts”; there was tyre smoke, and there was a huge amount of noise. It reached the point at which residents were being assaulted. This cannot continue to happen. I would urge Sainsburys to lock its car parks at night when its stores are not open—that would be an easy way of dealing with the problem—but I would also urge Bracknell Forest Council, the Thames Valley police and crime commissioner and Thames Valley police to deal more responsibly with such incidents, which cause misery to all concerned. We must cut down on speed, on antisocial driving and on noise nuisance.

A constituent of mine, Luke Ings, was jailed at the age of 18 for affray. He is now 37 years old, and he is still in Durham prison. He has done his time, in my view. He is what is known as an IPP prisoner—imprisoned for public protection. He has been given an indeterminate sentence. I suggest to the Minister that we need to review IPP prisoners to ensure that we are not locking people up beyond the point at which they have be locked up. Luke Ings has done his time; let us please release him.

Young Stacey Queripel, aged seven, was found dead—murdered—in woods in Bracknell 29 years ago. I think we need to focus a bit more on cold cases and cold case reviews. I want to see more police resources given to investigating that particular crime, and all those like it. No one has been brought to justice for that murder in 29 years, and the family still live in Bracknell.

I am very happy with the announcements made yesterday, and I am very supportive of the Government. I think that the Bills will make a difference—but I also think we can go further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Anderson]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and I think that what she describes is the fault of the old, failing asylum system; when people get here, they know how to fill the forms out and they have these lefty lawyers who say, “Put this, this and this.” So they fill the forms out and, hey presto, about 80% get asylum status, and it is wrong. It is a burden on the taxpayer, these people are abusing the system. It is a bit like some benefit cheats—they do it, don’t they? They abuse the system, saying that they are disabled when they are not. [Interruption.] Yes, they do. Come on, let’s be right about it.

Make no mistake: if that lot on the Opposition Benches got in power, perish the thought, this Rwanda plan would be scrapped within five minutes. They want to see open borders. They want to let anybody in. [Interruption.] However, I welcome the sensible comments on food bank use made by the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), who is not in his place. I would welcome any Opposition Member coming to visit my local food bank in Ashfield, where I help out on a regular basis. We have a great project in place at the moment.

[James Sunderland]

My hon. Friend will know that there are two elements to most sentences: rehabilitation, which is important because we can rehabilitate criminals in prisons and put them back on the streets as, we hope, reformed characters; and deterrence. Does he agree that deterrence is an important function of any sentence and that longer sentences may well have the deterrent effect of saying to people, “Think twice before you commit that crime”?

[Lee Anderson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, as he makes a perfect point. Not only is it a great deterrent, but the longer those people are locked up in prison, the longer they cannot commit these horrible crimes.

As I was saying, the hon. Member for St Helens North made some great comments about food banks. My invitation is to every Opposition Member: come to Ashfield, work with me for a day in my local food bank and see the brilliant scheme we have in place. When people come for a food parcel now, they have to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget; we can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Bill

James Sunderland Excerpts

Friday 19th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. Of course, devolution and the devolution settlement is very sensitive, and it is right that directly elected politicians in Northern Ireland and in Scotland reach the decisions that are appropriate for the communities that they serve. However, what we are dealing with here is a very serious matter that relates to the welfare and wellbeing of young people. I would like to think that the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Assembly will want to level up their provisions in the way that we are doing today with this Bill, so that, as one United Kingdom, we have a consistent position. None the less, I am proud of the fact that, across this House, we are coming together to send out a clear message of our intentions in this area. This is a long-overdue reform and I hope that we will see the other nations of the United Kingdom coming together to follow suit. It is welcome, too, that Northern Ireland is about to embark on a consultation on this issue.

The Bill plays an important role in the Government’s ambitions to end crimes that disproportionately involve violence against women and girls—in this case girls. Indeed, in our tackling violence against women and girls strategy published in July, we committed to ending child marriage as soon as a legislative vehicle became available, which it now has.

The UN sustainable development goals require all countries to

“eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilations by 2030”.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has recommended that there should be no legal way for anyone to marry before they turn 18, even if there is parental consent. The fact that it is currently possible to marry at 16 is setting the wrong example both at home and abroad. Having laws that enable child marriage weakens our voice in discussions with other countries and damages efforts to end child marriage globally. This is an area where we should be leading by example, and this Bill will enable us to do that.

This may be a slightly technical point, but it is an important one to make. The Bill will act as a further obstacle to those seeking to take children abroad to marry. That is not covered in the Bill itself, as it relates to the common law, but we anticipate that, following the changes made by the Bill, the common law in England and Wales will not recognise marriages taking place abroad involving under-18s where either party is domiciled in England and Wales. “Domiciled” is a legal term, which, in its simplest form, means the place where a person’s permanent home is. To give an example of this in practice: if a 16-year-old girl, whose permanent home is in England, is taken abroad by her parents over her school holidays to enter into a marriage that is legally recognised in that country, that marriage will no longer be legally recognised in England and Wales.

The Bill will not change the age of marriage in Scotland or Northern Ireland, as marriage is a devolved matter. Therefore, the age of marriage in Scotland will remain at 16 and in Northern Ireland it will be 16 with parental or judicial consent. Someone who arranges for a 16 or 17-year-old to get married in Scotland or Northern Ireland cannot be prosecuted for forced marriage under the law of England and Wales, unless they had used coercion to do so. That applies even if they, or the party to the marriage, lived in England and Wales. However, as explained above, if a couple travels to Scotland or Northern Ireland to marry, and either of them is 16 or 17 and has their permanent home in England or Wales, that marriage will not be legally recognised in England and Wales. It will also not be legally possible for that couple to marry in Scotland, due to existing Scottish law. This will add an extra layer of protection for children, and will provide clarity to teachers and social workers, enabling them to report all concerns about children being forced to marry—having a marriage arranged for them here or being taken abroad to marry—to the police.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend for the repeated use of the word “child”; we are talking about children. We have seen with many other issues an inability to allow kids just to be kids, so I thank him for the work that he is doing and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) for her Bill.

[Tom Pursglove]

My hon. Friend is very generous. It is fair to say that this has been a team effort, spearheaded by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire with support from Members across the House, which is extremely welcome.

I invite our friends in Scotland and Northern Ireland to review the position in their respective countries. I believe that Northern Ireland has just issued a public consultation, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire has alluded. I really do hope that this Bill will be the catalyst for levelling up across the whole United Kingdom, so that we have a consistent position and are able to send out this important message internationally.

Nationality and Borders Bill

James Sunderland Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

Since I was elected to Parliament, one of the issues that I have been left in no doubt about whatsoever by many of my constituents is that the UK must take back control of its borders and deal with the tide of illegal immigration. We have all seen the sad and appalling scenes—images of asylum seekers making the perilous journey across the channel in small boats, on dangerous tides. Frankly, it is suicide, and it needs to stop, for all the reasons that have been debated today. The UK has shown itself over many years to be more than generous and hospitable, but there cannot be an indefinite blank cheque for those who come here illegally.

The Bill, as we know, has three main objectives. The first is to increase the fairness of the system—I emphasise the phrase “fairness of the system”—to better protect and support those in need of asylum. The Bill deters illegal entry into the United Kingdom, thereby breaking the business model of people-smuggling networks and protecting the lives of those they wilfully endanger. The Bill also enables those with no right to be in the UK to be removed more easily. The UK’s legal immigration system is being reformed by the ending of free movement and the introduction of a new points-based immigration system. In my view, this Bill is intended to tackle illegal migration and asylum seekers and to control the UK borders, and it fulfils the manifesto promise that was made in 2019.

Let me set out some of the facts. The number of asylum seeker cases is growing. We must assess the current system and innovate to create a fairer and more efficient, modern system. There were 29,500 asylum applications in 2020 alone, and many more continue to arrive. Contrary to popular perception, the UK will continue to resettle genuine refugees directly from regions of conflict and instability. That has protected over 25,000 people in the last six years, more than any other European country.

The proposals in the Bill will rightly create a differentiated approach. How someone arrives in the UK will impact the type of status they are granted in the UK if their asylum claim is successful. Ministers rightly argue that that approach will discourage irregular entry into the UK, such as entry across the channel via small boats, as we have discussed, which, again, increased significantly in 2020.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Even on its own terms, that will not work. There is not a shred of evidence in the world that tinkering with the asylum system discourages people from coming to claim asylum. In fact, parts of the Bill are already in force, including the six-month palming off of complaints, and of course we already have Napier and Penally barracks, yet still the number of crossings continues to rise. It just will not work. People will still come. They will not be put off coming to Britain; they will just be put off claiming asylum because of how bloody awful this Government are making the system.

[James Sunderland]

I am pretty clear that the Bill is designed to do exactly what I said it is designed to do. What we have to do is disincentivise the ongoing passage across the channel. We have to break the cycle. If asylum seekers know that entering the UK illegally via that method is not going to result in a successful claim for asylum, then it may stop. That will also discourage those gangs from wilfully imposing their own selfishness on these vulnerable people.

Let me move on to immigration enforcement. The Australian experience has shown what can be done legally and fairly with state intervention. The Bill will provide our border force with additional powers to search unaccompanied containers located in ports for the presence of illegal migrants. It will seize and dispose of vessels intercepted and encountered, including disposal through donation to charity if appropriate, and it will stop and divert vessels suspected of carrying illegal migrants to the UK, and, subject to the agreement of the relevant country, such as France, return them to where their sea journey to the UK began. Almost all these migrants have passed through many other countries, which should by rights have offered them asylum, to get to the UK, which, clearly, people perceive to be a soft touch, and that has to end.

Currently, there are more than 109,000 asylum cases in the system, 52,000 of which were awaiting an initial decision at the end of 2020. Around 5,500 have an asylum appeal outstanding and approximately 41,000 cases are subject to removal action. These figures are completely outrageous and point not to any failure by the Home Office, but to the sheer numbers of people who continue to seek the UK as a soft touch. Doing nothing is no longer an option. I therefore welcome the measures outlined in the Bill, and I am clear that our current asylum system is unequivocally in need of reform.

In conclusion, this is not a moral or an emotional judgment, but a pragmatic one. Although I urge the Government to ensure that implementation is as humane, kind and hospitable as possible, as we have seen for many years, it is time for change and I shall be voting this Bill through tonight.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Sunderland Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman understands the seriousness with which the Home Secretary, and also the Prime Minister and the Government, take such matters. I do not agree with his description of the online safety Bill. Indeed, he will note the confidence with which the Government have put it forward as a draft Bill in order to allow Parliament to scrutinise it. On Facebook and its activities, it should be in no doubt that under the new Bill as it stands at the moment, it will be held to account for its activities. The development of its systems is a matter for it, and it must justify that to the public and to this Government.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help ensure children are safe on the internet.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

I, too, am earning my salary this afternoon, Mr Speaker! We are working across Government and internationally to ensure that children are safe on the internet. We continue to encourage companies to endorse and implement the voluntary principles to counter online child sexual exploitation and abuse, which we launched in March last year in collaboration with Five Country Governments, and we are engaging the G7 on how we go further in our collective response to protect children. We have published our draft online safety Bill, and companies will be required to take stringent action to tackle the growing and evolving threat of child sexual exploitation and abuse on their platforms.

[James Sunderland]

Will the Minister please outline the support that her Department is giving the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport with the online safety Bill and confirm that internet companies that break the law will be heavily prosecuted and heavily fined?

[Victoria Atkins]

Indeed. Of course the Home Office has been working with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, at both official and ministerial level, in developing the draft Bill. We remain fully committed to making the UK the safest place to be online while defending freedom of expression, and we believe that the Bill achieves that. The strongest protections in the Bill are reserved for children, and I can confirm that Ofcom, the independent regulator, will have a range of tough enforcement powers to use against companies that fail to fulfil their duties. Those include fines of up to £18 million or 10% of qualifying annual global turnover, whichever is greatest.

Support for Asylum Seekers

James Sunderland Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

Whatever the Government are told, the fact remains that the UK is a global leader in overseas aid and refugee resettlement. Between 2016 and 2019, we resettled more refugees from outside Europe than any other EU member. In 2015, the Government committed to resettling 20,000 of the most vulnerable who had fled the conflict in Syria. The UK has now resettled over 25,000 refugees in total in the past six years. Over half of them have been children. Any asylum seeker who would otherwise be destitute is provided with free accommodation with utility bills and council tax paid, as well as a weekly allowance with extra money for mothers and little children.

As a nation at the vanguard of human rights around the world, it is right that the UK offers legal and safe routes to help the most vulnerable people in the world. But, Mr Chairman, we have got ourselves into an awful pickle, and it is now out of control. My contention today is twofold: first, the current policy does nothing to disincentivise those who seek to take advantage of our generosity, and our over-populated island is already at capacity. Secondly, we need more robust policies, so I welcome current initiatives from the Home Office such as the points-based immigration system. But we also have to send a clear message to disincentivise economic migration on the pretext of asylum.

As part of the New Plan for Immigration and to help speed up the processing of claims, the Government plan to introduce new asylum reception centres. I welcome that, but would urge that it does not include the dis- aggregated model proposed for provincial towns such as Bracknell, and on which Bracknell Forest Council is currently being consulted. The reasons are persuasive. That small unitary council does not have the space or resources to deal with over 200 families. It is about fire safety, it is about community cohesion, community tension, overcrowding, building regulations, environmental health. The list goes on.

Bracknell is not a very multicultural area. The impact on housing pressure at local level could cause further tensions if there is resentment about refugees receiving housing assistance at a time of acute affordable housing shortage. The scale of the proposed procurement would have a significant negative impact on the resources of a small unitary authority with no council-owned stock. Contextually, Bracknell Forest Council’s housing team has managed in the last twelve months to procure 21 private rented sector households: compare that to 200.

In sum, we need a faster, more robust asylum system. I regret, however, that the model pursued by the Government and by companies such as Clearsprings in Bracknell is just not the answer. We will take our share, but we also need a sense of perspective.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Sunderland Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to reduce crime.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to reduce crime.

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to reduce crime.

--- Later in debate ---

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend will have heard me speaking with great praise for Thames Valley police and for its incredible work and dedication, of which there are many examples that we have spoken about in the past. He spoke about Thames Valley Aylesbury’s work on reducing crime within the community. That is very much down to great leadership, no doubt about that, and also to resourcing, with the money that the Government are putting in place, and to the new police officers, the visibility, the money that goes into crime reduction and the surge funding that has gone in. I absolutely stand with him and with his local officers who are doing outstanding work.

[James Sunderland]

Many of my constituents in Bracknell have contacted me recently to express concern about antisocial behaviour. This includes nuisance neighbours, drug abuse, speeding cars and general disorder. Given that the Government have a responsibility to safeguard the law-abiding majority, could my right hon. Friend please confirm what is being done to curb this behaviour?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Knowing his constituency as I do from previous visits, and knowing the way in which the police work locally, we absolutely stand with them in our determination to stamp out criminality and also antisocial behaviour—the things that blight communities. Of course we stand on the side of the silent law-abiding majority—no question about that whatsoever. The funding that we have seen for more police officers within his force and his constituency, along with the money for the safer streets fund, will go a long way to delivering for his constituents.