Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 9th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

It is not in my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, but I am church warden of a small parish church. Most parish churches would probably come under the 200-person limit, but the vast majority would be caught by 100-plus. Not only is there fear among volunteers who have to take on this responsibility, but significant risk of unintended consequences. Volunteers may not be prepared to take on the responsibility, and as a result, vital community infrastructure spaces may close to the public. Would that not be a terrible unintended consequence of this well-meaning Bill?

[Matt Vickers]

My hon. Friend is right. We look at the numbers—100 and 200—and think of organisations we know, and events that we have attended in churches and parish halls. I used to be a Scout leader, and the paperwork, the burden and the challenges used to put us off, in many ways, from fulfilling some of our functions. People who might have come along to help one day get slightly put off by the challenges and responsibilities that come with doing so. I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.

[Matt Vickers]

I welcome the revisions; that is why we had scrutiny. The fact that the figures can be determined unilaterally is the concern. There is agreement across the House that it is right to take the Bill forward. We are looking at what we can do at the edges to mitigate the impact for smaller venues, but I agree in principle with what the hon. Member says.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am particularly concerned about the Secretary of State or Minister having the power to reduce the number from 200 back to 100 by regulation. That is addressed by amendment 25. Does my hon. Friend agree that in the absence of significant evidence or consultation to support such a move, 100 is essentially an arbitrary number? Why 100, and not 125, 150 or 175? Does he agree that we need more evidence to support that regulation-making power being given to the Secretary of State? Does he therefore agree that amendment 25 is a sensible alternative?

[Matt Vickers]

I agree entirely. There is no reason why we should not bring that measure to the House for decision. There is no reason to delegate that power to the Secretary of State. It would be sensible to take that delegation out. We have just talked about the fact that some people think the number should be 100, and others think it should be 200. It would be logical to bring the measure back to the House, if required, in due course, and I hope the Minister agrees.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Vickers]

My hon. Friend is right. When it comes to the Bill, the stakes are high for small community organisations and small businesses, so I see no harm in reviewing the regulations after 18 months, and in keeping those powers for the House, rather than delegating them to the Secretary of State. That is logical and makes a lot of sense for many venues. It is the way forward.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Clause 2(2)(c), defining the premises that will be covered by the legislation, states:

“it is reasonable to expect that from time to time 200 or more individuals may be present”.

Under the regulations, that might read “100 or more”. Coming back to my experience as a member of the parish church, I would love there to be 100 or 200 people present, but the congregation is closer to six or seven. However, the capacity of the church—the structure—is sufficient to take in 100 or 200 people. While on the face of it, the legislation seems reasonable, does my hon. Friend share my concern that a facility that could welcome 199 people may not have the structures in place, or physically have the people available, to support the increased burden placed on it by the Bill? That would increase the risks of unintended consequences and closure. That would be dealt with by amendment 25.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Maguire]

I certainly would not suggest, and neither would the Liberal Democrats, that the training fee should fall on small venues, but the Government should consider it so that there is clarity for those smaller venues. I hope that answers the right hon. Member’s question.

The new clause covers evacuation procedures, monitoring of premises, physical safety and security and the overall provision of protecting lives. It would also establish a full training implementation plan, with the Secretary of State regularly updating Parliament to ensure that the right progress is being made. Crucially, it would ensure that our businesses are fully supported and given the clarity that they need. The public deserve to know that wherever they are—at a concert, a wedding or a local cider festival—staff are properly trained to respond to such emergencies. They should have confidence that venues are held to a consistent standard of preparation and readiness. For the venues themselves, the new clause would greatly improve safety, and would provide clarity and consistency on the standards that they must meet under this law.

Of course, there are concerns from many micro and small businesses about the financial impact and additional bureaucracy that these requirements may bring. That is why the new clause proposes a practical training plan to minimise the financial burden, with scalable and specific training.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I have already mentioned that I am a church warden of a small parish church, so I have practical experience. I also have other duties—I am the safeguarding officer, because there are insufficient volunteers who are prepared to undergo the quite significant training needed to maintain safeguarding duties in that organisation. I accept that, given the Church of England’s troubled history over the past 20 years, safeguarding is a necessary part of modern life, but does the hon. Gentleman accept that the duties imposed on volunteers are cumulative in their impact? I can be a Member of Parliament, a church warden and a safeguarding officer, but can I also be responsible for the additional costs and responsibilities that he has in mind?

[Ben Maguire]

Certainly, the intention of new clause 2 is not to be a burden on our small venues, but to do the opposite and make sure that they have clarity on what they are supposed to do, what their responsibilities are and how they practically carry out the requirements contained in this legislation.

I was glad to receive the promising indication of a commitment in writing by the Security Minister. He said that if the Bill is given Royal Assent, an implementation period of 24 months will be set. That will give venues the time to understand their new obligations, plan and prepare and, if needed, provide training to staff. The Government promise that training will be supplied by a number of expert security partners. I look forward to hearing more details on that.

Over the weekend, I met various local venues in my North Cornwall constituency, such as the Sea View Farm Shop, which expressed concerns over possible fencing requirements. Its venue hosts small outdoor festivals with between 1,500 and 2,000 attendees. It is similar in scale to the nearby Rock Oyster Festival, and can be contrasted with much larger events such as Boardmasters, which hosts over 60,000 people. Could the Minister provide clarity on the requirements for outdoor events?

We are not seeking to push the new clause to a vote, but we seek reassurance from the Minister today about training for staff and operators for venues big and small. New clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford, proposes a review of the role of the Security Industry Authority as the regulator. We do not oppose a cost-benefit analysis of the role of the SIA, but we worry about the impact of additional responsibility on local government, which is already stretched to breaking point, without the accompanying resources to deliver that.

I welcome the intent to ensure efficiency and effectiveness, but I must stress the need for reassurance that smaller venues, such as the village halls that we have heard about and the community centres that, as the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) said, are often run by volunteers, will not be disproportionately impacted. In North Cornwall, we have venues such as the John Betjeman Centre in Wadebridge, village halls in Padstow, Lewannick and St Mabyn and many more.

I acknowledge amendments 25 and 26 to raise the minimum capacity thresholds for standard and enhanced duty premises to 200 and 800, respectively. These spaces are integral to our communities yet they operate with limited resources, often run by volunteers, and cannot shoulder excessive regulatory burdens. Any changes must prioritise support and scalability for these organisations, so that they are equipped to meet public protection requirements without being overwhelmed. This legislation will not be able to do that if it is too burdensome for businesses, which are not clear what their obligations really are.

Will the Minister confirm that the content of our new clause will be given due consideration? Keeping everyone safe is the absolute priority, but by providing clear guidance and training we can avoid burdening our already struggling local businesses, and ensure that they have the clarity that they need about the legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Tapp]

I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention. Any threat that this country faces is continuously reviewed by the Ministry of Defence, MI5, the police and the Government, and we adapt our approaches to suit.

That brings me to the fact that since 2017, MI5 and the police have disrupted 43 late-stage attacks, yet we have seen 15 domestic terror attacks in this country. These incidents underline the ongoing and difficult nature of the threats. I am sure the whole House will agree that we have the finest intelligence services in the world, and we owe it to them to enable their work as much as we possibly can from this place. This Bill is another step towards achieving that. The approach it proposes is both practical and proportionate for small and large venues. I commend the Government for engaging widely in the development of the Bill and for working with businesses, local authorities and security experts to ensure that it is both effective and proportionate. It is right that we in this House support the Bill, and in doing so, we send a clear message that we will not only remember those we have lost but act decisively to protect those we serve.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Mention has been made during the course of this debate of cross-party consensus and what a good thing that is. In some senses that is absolutely right. We should have absolute cross-party consensus on honouring the memory of Martyn Hett and all those who were killed and injured in the Manchester Arena attack in May 2017, but I raise a note of caution because sometimes when we stop being adversarial in this place, we create legislation that is not as good as it could be. That is particularly the case where we have a very emotive issue such as this, and where there is a huge amount of personal sympathy across all the parties in the House. There is a risk that extreme circumstances provoke a natural reaction of saying, “Something must be done. This has to be prevented from ever happening again,” and we end up with bad law.

There is a good example of this risk in the Bill’s progression from its development under the previous Administration, through the election and out the other side. The initial intention of clause 2 was that the standard duty would apply to premises with a capacity to welcome 100-plus people. In my view, this would have had a wholly disproportionate impact on the kind of community buildings that I represent as a church warden, as well as on the village halls that we have already discussed. Pretty much every village hall has the capacity to accommodate 100 people. Every church, bar the very smallest chapels, can expect to welcome 100 people at a wedding or funeral from time to time. There is a tiny, infinitesimally small risk of terrorism in these typically rural areas, yet the previous Administration’s Bill would have imposed very significant costs and time commitments on volunteers. I have already mentioned a couple of times that I am a church warden and, again, I emphasise the risk of unintended consequences when we are all so keen to get on that we do not challenge each other.

[Sir John Hayes]

To reassure my hon. Friend on that subject, he will understand that those of us who have served on the Intelligence and Security Committee are fearless in holding Ministers to account, as this Minister will no doubt find out, and similarly fearless in challenging the agencies, which do such a wonderful job for us. He is right that the agencies need to be questioned appropriately and scrutinised fully.

On my hon. Friend’s second point, about proportionality, it is, of course, right that our response to risk measures the real character of that risk and is proportionate to it.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s intervention, and I am reassured by his comments.

In a previous life, I was a barrister specialising in health and safety risk and risk management, and I was later the managing director of the leisure company Go Ape—Members might not have heard of it—and was responsible for the risk management of over 1 million customers a year. We could have killed every single one of them, so I am deeply familiar with the appropriate mechanisms for risk management. One risk that has to be taken into account is that, if the response is too great or too onerous for the assessed risk, people might not think it is reasonable, leading to omission.

Effective risk management requires mitigations to be put in place that bear some relation to the severity of the anticipated adverse event multiplied by its likelihood. I am very concerned that the previous Administration’s initial proposal that these duties should apply to premises with a capacity of as few as 100 people would have broken that association between a reasonable response and the assessed risk.

I am therefore grateful and impressed that the Government have listened and changed clause 2(2)(c) to raise the standard duty threshold to a capacity of 200. To my mind, that seems a reasonable compromise to protect smaller facilities, which are, of course, most likely to rely entirely on volunteers, and are unlikely to have the financial capacity to undertake the kind of paid-for training suggested by the Liberal Democrat new clause 2 or to have enough volunteers who are prepared to accept this additional burden on their free time. I think this strikes the right balance. However, I am concerned that paragraph (a) in clause 32 introduces a power, through regulations, to reduce the figure back down to 100 without giving a reason. Why is that?

I therefore support new clauses 25 and 26, which would set minimum thresholds of 200 for the standard duty and 500 for the enhanced duty. A cross-party approach has taken the Bill this far, and it is important that that approach is maintained.

[Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)]

I join other Members in paying tribute to Figen Murray for the tenacity and courage with which she has campaigned—a campaign that has done so much to bring us to this point. Any of us who have been touched, even indirectly, by a terrorist attack know the pain, the loss and the shock. That pain is only made worse if there is a suspicion that anything, no matter how slight, might have been done to have avoided or reduced the harm done. In fighting this campaign, Mrs Murray really has done Martyn’s memory proud.

As has been obvious throughout this debate, there is a huge amount of consensus on the need for the measures in this Bill. It is a good Bill. The draft Bill before the election was a good draft, it was improved by pre-legislative scrutiny, and the Bill that this Government introduced and that has come out of Committee is better. The decision before us tonight is not whether we want these measures, because I think we agree, without exception, that we do. The decision before us is what can be done to make this the very best Bill it can be—one that provides the protections that are so clearly needed, as we heard from witnesses in the Committee’s evidence sessions and throughout the debate around the Bill, both inside and outside this House, without putting an unnecessary burden on those venues that do not need it for the purpose that we seek.

It is precisely because this Bill has broadly struck the right note that I rise to support new clauses 25 and 26, tabled in the names of the shadow Minister and the shadow Home Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) respectively. In doing so, I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests relating to hospitality, although I intend to speak primarily not on the hospitality sector, but on the voluntary sector and volunteer-run venues.

I am thinking, in particular, of a venue in the constituency I represented until this year’s general election. The Brierley Hill Civic is a medium-sized venue in the Black Country and, about a decade ago, an asset transfer process was started to transfer it from Dudley council to Dudley council for voluntary service. Over that time, Dudley CVS has done a fantastic job—a really professional job in every sense of the word—in providing a first-class venue for the area. It will typically host a few events each year that top 500 attendees, although they do not reach as high as 800.

The standard duty in this Bill is absolutely appropriate for a venue like Brierley Hill Civic. The concern is about how Dudley CVS, which is primarily run by volunteers, would be able to fulfil the enhanced duties if the threshold were suddenly lowered, taking the venue into the enhanced duty category. That would cause them great difficulty on a practical level as well as a financial level, because as a non-profit-making organisation, they have to balance the books.

Arrests and Prison Capacity

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

First, prison places have not collapsed; I think there are more prison places now than in the recent past. I congratulate North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire police on that operation, which the hon. Lady said led to 62 arrests of dangerous criminals. As I have said, none of the contingencies referenced were activated, and there was never any question of dangerous criminals of that kind not being arrested. That is exactly the kind of operation we like to see. I am speaking from memory, but I think we have closed down something like 6,000 county lines in the past four years. I am delighted to see such operations successfully putting dangerous criminals where they belong: behind bars.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I am glad to hear that the contingency contained in the letter was not required. We can tell how tough this Government are being on crime and criminals by the very heavy population in our prison estate. The long-term solution is to build more prisons. Can the Minister update us on when he estimates the prison building programme will catch up with the prison population?

[Chris Philp]

The Justice Secretary and the Prisons Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), who is also here, are building prison capacity rapidly. By the end of next year they will have added 10,000 prison places, including at sites such as HMP Millsike, which will be open shortly. We are embarking on a huge prison construction programme, which is on top of the fact that we already have record numbers of prison places. The fact that we have filled those up with criminals, serving typically longer sentences, is testament to the successful approach to law and order that this Government have taken.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 12th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I will start by looking at the foundation and principles of the Bill. It is worth remembering that it tries to do what our constituents want us to do. That is not a bad start for any Bill on Second Reading. I knock on doors week in, week out, and I have spoken to hundreds, if not thousands, of my constituents over the past few years. Without question, the single most common issue raised in those conversations is illegal migration, so we in this place owe them an absolute duty to do our very best to deliver on their wishes to produce an effective control on migration and illegal migration. That is what this Bill intends to do: to provide an effective deterrent that breaks the business model and that will lead to stopping the boats. However, it will not do so by itself. This is not an isolated policy; it is part of a whole suite of policies that this Government, to their enormous credit, have introduced over the past years and that are already bearing fruit. We have seen this year crossings by small boats down by a third—I think it is slightly over a third—at a time when they are going up by a third in Europe as a whole and up by 80% in the Mediterranean countries.

Therefore, the schemes that the Government have already implemented are working. They include bilateral agreements with countries such as Albania, a dedication of a safe country status, which is not novel to this Bill. That has had an immediate deterrent effect. It is not that everyone who comes to this country has then been immediately deported to Albania—that has not been the deterrent effect. It is the fact that people know that they will be deported that they have stopped coming in the first place. Crossings by Albanians have dropped by more than 90%. That is why Rwanda is so important. It is not that the capacity of Rwanda has to accept every single migrant who currently comes across the channel; it is the deterrent effect to stop them coming in the first place. We have seen it work, so why not follow the evidence?

We also have the upstream destruction of equipment. As I understand it, just last week there was a Bulgarian seizure of boats, engines and engine parts, preventing the ability of people to cross the channel. There is also increased co-operation with France, which I wholeheartedly welcome, as it has led to increased patrols and increased interdiction of attempts to cross the channel—although not all of them. There has been a 70% increase of raids on illegal employment in this country, and an enormous increase, which I very much welcome, in the number of claims handlers to speed up the process of assessment, bringing down the backlog from 90,000 to below 20,000 now.

The Rwanda Bill is important, but it is just one tool of many. Let us be clear about what the real dispute is in this Chamber today. It is not about the intentions of those on the Government Benches, as we are united in wanting an effective policy for Rwanda. Where the real dispute is—[Interruption.] Yes, every single Member on the Government Benches are entirely united in that objective; it is how we get there that we are debating.

While we want an effective deterrent, those on the Opposition Benches do not. Labour and the Liberal Democrats do not want an effective deterrent. They want to scrap it. Even if the Rwanda policy is demonstrated to be working, they have committed to replacing it. We want flights to take off to Rwanda, as do our constituents. Opposition Members want to prevent them. We want to restore control over our asylum processes, but Labour and the Liberal Democrats say that the only policy is to hire more staff—“Hire another 100,000; have safe and legal routes.” That is important, I accept, but it does not answer the question of how many people come over in the safe and legal routes.

We can have a process that welcomes everyone, but the UN tells us that there are 108 million people in the world at the moment who have been displaced by violence from their own country. Safe and legal routes is a great cliché, a great strap line, but it does not solve the problem of control of our borders.

This Bill responds to the Supreme Court judgment. It does not say that black is white. It does not say that the risk of refoulement then was a false decision by the Lords. The Bill solves the problem by an international treaty, preventing refoulement, and that, in the rare occasions where Rwanda may wish to export people to a third country, they come back to the UK. That is sensible. That is not going against the Supreme Court; it is respecting its judgment and solving the problems that the Supreme Court judges raised in their judgment, and I wholeheartedly support this Second Reading.

Town Centre Safety

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Opposition for calling this debate, because it spans the interests of every party, although apparently not the Liberal Democrats or the Scottish National party. For those who are taking part in this debate, keeping our town centres safe is enormously important. That includes all sorts of concerns, stretching from public disorder not only to more serious violence on the streets and low-grade antisocial behaviour, which can be an absolute scourge in our communities, but—this is particularly important for this debate—to shoplifting and violence associated with it.

That takes me to the meat of the motion that Labour has put forward for our consideration today. Its primary suggestion is that we need a new offence to deal specifically with violence against shopworkers. Presumably the argument behind that is that the offence against shopworkers is so different from other workers or other people on the high street that the tariff associated with that offence will be in some way different.

I listened carefully to what the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) said in his opening remarks, but it left me confused, because as he is well aware, we already have section 156 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which deals specifically with assaults on those providing a public service. I think it is common ground among us all that that includes shopworkers. Under the terms of section 156, which I will not read out—I will spare the House that—an assault against a shopworker is considered an aggravating factor. That leads us to the tariff.

Labour’s position appears to be—I would welcome further clarification on this, perhaps in the wind-ups—that there is something so peculiar about a shopworker receiving violence that the aggravating factors cannot be taken into account adequately under section 156. I do not understand what aggravating factors cannot be associated with the section 156 consideration. Surely the best person to decide the correct tariff is always the judiciary. That is the judge, who has all the evidence in front of them, assisted by legislation that clarifies in their mind what is and is not an aggravating factor according to the views of Parliament, and assisted by the sentencing guidelines. That is the right forum to decide the tariff for this kind of offence.

If we start going down to individual offences, so that we have a specific offence for shop workers, what about bus drivers? They are public servants who are exposed to the public. It is clearly outrageous when bus drivers are assaulted by the public in the course of their duties, which they are. What about that offence is less serious and requires a different tariff from those of shop workers? That is the logic of this motion from Labour. My concern is that by going for an eye-catching initiative—my suspicion is that this motion has been tabled to get a headline—Labour is doing an enormous disservice to the criminal justice system, when we need to empower our courts to assess the gravity of offences and let the judiciary, assisted by the sentencing guidelines, come to the right tariff .

I note in passing that Labour voted against Third Reading of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. In my submission, we already have sensible legislation that deals with aggravating features for people serving the public, which those on the Government Benches voted for and Labour voted against. It begs the question: why was the measure so bad then and why is it so good now?

The second part of Labour’s plan is the roll-out of something called a town centre policing plan. Perhaps Opposition Members failed to notice that on 23 October, the Government launched their own retail crime action plan. There are striking similarities, because our plan changes the priorities of the police and requires them to prioritise attendance at shoplifting, particularly shoplifting with violence, shoplifting where a suspect has been detained and shoplifting where it is necessary for the police to attend to secure evidence. Those are exactly the kind of things that we want the police to attend, to reinforce the public’s faith in the argument that every crime needs to be investigated and brought to justice. As my hon. Friend the Minister mentioned from the Front Bench in her opening remarks, no crime is too small to be investigated. The plan also prioritises hotspot patrols by the police, and it sets up Pegasus, which is the specialist policing team to deal with organised crime using shoplifting gangs as a mechanism to drive revenue. It is important that that is dealt with, too, and I am glad that the retail crime action plan tackles that.

Labour appears to be announcing or, rather, re-announcing what is already Government policy. That leads me to the third part of its plan, which is to announce 13,000 extra police and PCSOs to be used in town centres. I mention in passing that the comfortable majority of that number is PCSOs, not police officers. That appears to be dressing up a £360 million investment and ignoring the £3.6 billion investment that the Government have already put into the police, generating 20,000 extra police officers in the past three years. [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) says that we cut them. I can tell her that we have 1,897 police officers serving in Norfolk right now—more than ever before. That is an increase of 269 officers, which is driving down crime and increasing the capture of criminals in Norfolk, particularly in Broadland.

I wonder whether we should have confidence in Labour’s plans. It is either re-announcing Government plans or going for an eye-catching initiative, rather than looking for serious changes to the legislation. Let us look at Labour’s action in practice. Recorded crime is 34% higher in areas with Labour police and crime commissioners than in Conservative areas. The lived experience of all our constituents is that when Labour is in charge, crime is much higher, yet the Conservative record is that non-fraud crime has fallen since 2010. There has been a 50% fall in reported crimes, but let us look at the gold standard, which is the crime survey of England and Wales. By March 2023, our constituents’ experience of crime had dropped by 15% since before covid, and by a whopping 54% since 2010. That is even higher than the reported crime reduction.

Finally, I had a conversation with a seasoned senior officer in Norfolk, who said, “When I started out, if we had had the crime numbers that we have now, I’d have bitten your arm off.” Crime has fallen under the Conservative Government, and we should recognise that in this debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I prefer to trade in facts, and the fact is that in every single one of the visa categories the UK visa service is at or exceeding the service standard. It is true that we moved a number of people away from work and visit visa duties to ensure that we met the demands of the Homes for Ukraine scheme last year, but those people are now back on the job and the service is performing well. If the hon. Lady wants to give specific examples, I shall be happy to look into them.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

The backlog of asylum seekers is increasing the need for accommodation. We have just heard outrage expressed by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). Can my right hon. Friend update the House on the progress that the Scottish Government are making on housing numbers of asylum seekers similar to the numbers housed in the rest of the United Kingdom?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is right to suggest that the outrage of the Scottish National party is entirely confected. There are almost no individuals in initial and contingency accommodation in Scotland; in fact, there are fewer hotels in Scotland than there are in Kensington. However, it is not just members of the SNP who should hang their heads in shame, but Labour in Wales, because in the whole of Wales there are only three hotels. There are more hotels in Earl’s Court than there are in Labour Wales.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

11. What progress her Department has made on tackling domestic abuse.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

13. What progress her Department has made on tackling domestic abuse.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)]

This Government are committed to tackling violence against women and girls, including domestic abuse, and that is why we introduced the landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021. In March this year we published our tackling domestic abuse plan, backed by more than £230 million of funding, including £75 million for tackling perpetrators and multi-year funding for interventions and support. The plan also includes expanding the roll-out of Domestic Abuse Matters training for police officers and, importantly, projects to protect children.

[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend is right that prevention is the first pillar of our plan. We have set out how we are tackling perpetrators with specific programmes that are proven to prevent this disgusting crime from happening in the first place. It has to start very early, which is why relationships, sex and health education is now a statutory part of the curriculum so that children are taught the importance of respectful relationships.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Reports of domestic abuse now account for 24% of all calls to Norfolk police. Is the criminal justice system the right route for all these calls? If not, will the Minister set out how more appropriate steps can be taken to free up police time?

[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. As I said in my previous answer, tackling perpetrators is a vital part of our work, but our response goes wider than just the criminal justice system. That is why we are funding perpetrator interventions that reach out to tackle some of these unhealthy behaviours at source. We are investing more than £75 million over three years to achieve that end.

Asylum Reception Centre: Linton-on-Ouse

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Member raises a good point. The first tranche of 60 people—service users, as they are called by the Home Office—are due to move in in seven days’ time. There was an indication by the Home Office today that that might be delayed. We do not know by how long yet, but nevertheless, none of the plan for mental health support, GP support or dental support has yet been articulated. The police plan has not yet been articulated. It is simply wrong. We are going far too quickly with this. We need to slow down, pause, look again, consult properly and make sure that we have mitigations in place.

I was on the call with the police and the Home Office today, and the police came out with the phrase that they use, that they want to keep people safe and for people to feel safe. Neither of those things do people in Linton-on-Ouse feel. People do not feel safe. I think those fears are rational; they are not irrational fears. In any cohort of 1,500 young single men, there will be some who do not play by the rules. The vast majority will, but that is of little comfort to people genuinely in fear of their lives and wellbeing. I have had children as young as nine writing to me and meeting me at these public meetings saying how panic stricken they are. I have had elderly residents saying that they have lost the sale of their home and they are in ill health, including one lady whose husband is in ill health. This issue is changing lives today.

Crucially, one thing that has not been considered at all—this was the subject of an exchange of correspondence with the Home Office only yesterday—is what happens to existing service personnel in accommodation on the site and in the village. According to the Home Office, they have been given an option to move elsewhere, but that should not need to be the case. What happens with someone in the armed forces, currently or previously, who has already bought a house in the village of Linton-on-Ouse? I speak with some experience in the property market, and there is little chance of selling any house in Linton-on-Ouse at the moment. We are basically saying to service personnel or former service personnel who live in the village—it is commonly known where they live, and it may be that some of these service users hold a grudge against service personnel who have fought in Iraq and elsewhere—that a grudge held against them might put their lives in peril. No consideration has been made of that. It cannot be right that the Home Office is not showing a reasonable duty of care.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has spoken of some 60 or 70 service users due to arrive next week. That is already 10% of the entire population of the village. Can he clarify whether this will be a closed facility? Will there be any management of ingress and egress, or will the service users be widely open to move around the population at will?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

That is a good question; I should have touched on that earlier. It is a non-detained site, so the service users—asylum seekers—will be able to leave the site and return at will. There will be some management of that on the door to get the name of who is leaving and who is coming back, although there is always a concern that people will get out by other means as it is a very big site, but the point is that they are non-detained. There is an informal curfew at 10 pm, so there is no requirement for them to come back. Safeguarding calls will be made to them after 10 o’clock if they are not back, but there is no limitation on the number of times that they can leave the site. In fact, they can go and stay overnight elsewhere. They are free to come and go, which is clearly a big concern for the village.

I am sure that this is not the Home Office’s intention, but it appears to me that the village is collateral damage of a wider policy. It cannot be right to put the whole burden of a single national policy, however important it is, on one small community wherever it is in the UK—whether it is in my constituency or not. This is not about my popularity locally or my majority. I know many people in the village and was at school with many of them. It is simply unfair, it is simply wrong and Ministers must think again.

Global Migration Challenge

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

That is exactly why we are proposing safe and legal routes, as we have done with Syria and Afghanistan. These are bespoke routes that help those fleeing persecution. There is an important point that the hon. Gentleman has made in there, which is also why our case-by-case approach and assessment when it comes to those seeking asylum is absolutely applied in the right kind of way. The new plan for immigration and the Nationality and Borders Bill are trying to do exactly that by bringing efficacy to our asylum system to make sure that we can help those in genuine need.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

The EU uses Rwanda for refugee settlement. The United Nations uses Rwanda for refugee settlement. Even the Labour Government legislated to use safe third countries to process asylum claims. Given this, does my right hon. Friend agree that exactly the same approach lies behind this partnership with Rwanda?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It goes without saying that it seems to be fine, depending on your political persuasion, to say it is fine for the EU, it is fine for the UN, but it is not fine for the British Government. That is simply not acceptable. This has worked in the past. I come back to the fundamental principle that doing nothing is not an option while people are drowning not just in the channel but in the Mediterranean. People are taking dangerous journeys, often through Libya, making difficult and dangerous crossings across the Mediterranean and then across the channel. That is what we want to stop and we have a moral duty to do everything we possibly can to break up that model.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christian Wakeford]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We are seeing a party that wants to fight the deportation of foreign criminals but whose Members then insult their opponents and hide away by turning off their screens.

Let me return to my speech. Britain truly does have a proud history of providing a safe haven for those fleeing persecution and oppression. I know that because my own family have been part of it. During the second world war, my grandfather came home from university one day and saw his entire family, other than his twin brother, get shot. They fled during the war and ended up, of all places, in Tamworth, followed by Pendle and finally Keighley, before my grandfather passed on. People who have come here have been part of recent wars and recent refugee camps. They sought refuge in our country. We are a proud nation, a helpful nation and a compassionate nation. We will do what we can. That is especially the case in my constituency of Bury South, where, if people need help, we respond.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

We have heard from the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) that there are between 25 million and 30 million asylum seekers worldwide, so demand clearly outstrips any possible form of supply. We should be having a debate about the number of legal asylum seekers within the process. Should it be 10,000, 20,000 or 40,000? There has to be some limit. If the focus of the argument were that, would it not be more sensible to shut down obviously illegal and obviously dangerous routes of alternative entry?

[Christian Wakeford]

My hon. Friend gets very much to the crux of the problem. I am not going to talk about what threshold is right or wrong, but I am going to talk about the fact that we are trying to achieve a fair system that helps those who are most in need. That is what we truly need to understand. Our communities are rich in their diversity because of immigration and because of the people we have been helping. I think again of the Syrian resettlement scheme, which we are proud of. In Lancashire we have taken thousands, and I am proud of us helping those most in need, but for far too long the system has been exploited by people smugglers, criminal gangs and asylum shoppers, who cheat that system. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, people are paying extra either to break into a lorry or to get into a boat to be shipped across. That is not the right way to try to seek asylum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Wakeford]

I thank my right hon. Friend for those meaningful comments. I was not going to touch on that matter, but it is an important part of the debate that again takes us to the crux of why we are trying to—[Interruption.] I get the feeling that another intervention is on the way.

[Jerome Mayhew]

May I elaborate on that point? As a former member of the Bar, I struggle to criticise members of the legal profession who use legitimate means to extend the stay of their clients, but that is surely an argument—a very strong argument—for exactly the terms of the Bill. It is not an abuse of the system to exploit it, so we cannot complain about that, but we need to remove those loopholes so that our legal teams properly represent their clients but it does not slow the system down.

[Christian Wakeford]

I thank my hon. and, perhaps, learned Friend for his further comments. As I said earlier, this goes to the heart of what the Bill is actually about. Some Opposition Members, in particular, may disagree with particular points. I say to them, “Back the Bill on Second Reading, and try to make the changes that you want to see in Committee.” They acknowledge that there is clearly a problem, but they do not want to do anything to fix it. It is almost as if they want to see us fail and want to see Britain fail, and that is absolutely wrong.

The way in which things currently operate is not fair to the most vulnerable people who are in genuine need of asylum, or to the British public, who unfortunately have to pay for it. We must help to ensure that refugees claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. The current trend means that we see refugees reaching a safe country such as France, Greece or Italy—indeed, countries in most of southern Europe—and then pressing on with their journey, paying people smugglers to help them into the UK illegally or falling victim to criminal gangs who exploit them. There was a reference earlier to the Jungle camp. We need only see what goes on there to realise that many of these journeys are life-threatening for many people, so we need to do what we can to prevent them.

In October 2020, a Kurdish-Iranian family tragically died when their overcrowded boat sank off the coast of France. Both parents drowned, along with their nine-year-old, their six-year-old and their 15-month-old baby. Every journey across the channel is life-threatening, so we absolutely need to take this seriously and do everything we can to try to prevent anyone from making that journey when it is not necessary.

Last month was the worst ever recorded for illegal crossings, more than 2,100 people having arrived, and I fear that that figure may be surpassed this month. Many of the people risking their lives to cross the channel are young men who are economic migrants and are denied legitimate asylum seeker status.

As Conservatives, we will protect those most in need and put the rights of those who respect the rules above those of the asylum shoppers who take our country for a ride. We need an asylum system that is fair to everyone—a system that prioritises women and children escaping wartorn countries and those fleeing unwarranted persecution, not a system that is openly gamed by economic migrants or exploited by people smugglers.

EU Settlement Scheme

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow those comments from the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), although I disagree with almost all of them.

The settled status scheme has shown us that more than 6 million people have taken advantage of the opportunities that the United Kingdom offers and moved to this country. The first point to make is that this shows how successful the scheme has been. We have already heard that it is by far the most generous scheme in Europe, simple to apply for from home with a good app, well-advertised and well-supported by agencies. The numbers show how well the scheme has been developed and applied by the Government. Now that the scheme deadline has passed, it has been suggested, not least by the previous speaker, that applicants for this settled status might be at risk of what is described as a hostile environment. Yet the Government guidance to civil servants on how to approach applications after the deadline has been published and it simply explodes that myth. Rather than being a hostile environment, civil servants have been instructed to give applicants the benefit of the doubt when discrepancies arise, and to show a proportionate response. If mistakes in an application have been made, they should be pointed out to the applicant who then should be given a reasonable amount of time to correct them and resubmit without criticism. Applications out of time will also be permitted indefinitely if there are reasonable grounds for the delay.

This is the opposite of a hostile environment. To my mind the Government have bent over backwards, and continue to do so, to facilitate applications. They have commissioned £8 million of advertising to raise awareness. A wide range of support has also been offered and made available online, over the telephone if it has been needed, as well as from 72 organisations across the United Kingdom funded by the Government to help in the application process, and it has worked as the huge take-up proves.

Looking at the statistics, there is a key number that jumps out: just 290,000 out of more than 6 million EU citizens have chosen to make Scotland their home. These are figures that have been unaffected by any constraints on immigration. It is an historical measurement, so it is a measurement of the relative attraction of Scotland under the SNP to immigrants. Rather than seeking devolution of immigration powers, as the motion demands, the SNP might want to reflect on why it is that so many of these welcomed immigrants who have voted with their feet to make a new life for themselves here in the United Kingdom have decided not to make that life in Scotland.

The SNP has been in continuous power in Scotland since 2007, so this is the SNP Scotland that has been judged by European Union immigrants. What does it say about the anti-business approach of the SNP with the resulting underperformance of the Scottish economy with the SNP in charge, creating fewer job opportunities and successful careers? We should not forget that between 2007, when the SNP took over, and 2019, the Scottish economy has grown by 9.3%. The UK as a whole over the same period has grown by 16.5%, and that is including the drag of the SNP’s Scottish economy. What does it say about the prospect of having to pay the SNP’s higher taxes as an entrepreneur in Scotland than in the rest of the United Kingdom? What does it say about the prospect of sending their children to the SNP schools that are going backwards in the international league tables when compared with the rest of the United Kingdom?

With the relentless focus on separation by the SNP, how welcoming is that message for immigrants, whether from the EU, the rest of the world, or the rest of the United Kingdom? Creating a border at Berwick is the last thing to encourage inward migration. This is another example of the SNP obsession with separation damaging the real interests of the country.