International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Members for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) and for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) on securing the debate. I am very glad to say that the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), who is the spokesperson for the Scots Nats, and I never miss any of these debates. As men, we are very glad to be here.

I welcome the news that earlier this week the UK hosted the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative summit. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) asked a question on this very issue at Prime Minister’s questions this week. At business questions today, I asked the Leader of the House a question along these lines. The Government have had the summit and they have shown, through the answers that the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House gave, that there is a commitment on this issue.

It is important that the UK works towards recognising sexual violence in conflict as a line that is not to be crossed, with serious repercussions for the perpetrators of such an awful crime and the violation of a woman or child’s dignity. There are numerous factors that might put a woman at greater risk of violence, but there is one that I will focus on specifically; others will touch on other subjects. The factor I will focus on is women belonging to faith groups who face persecution on the grounds of their faith and the violence that goes along with that.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Sometimes a woman’s decision to wear a headscarf or modest clothing is described as oppression, but there are many women who say that their decision to display their faith in that way is not oppressing; they find it empowering. Does the hon. Member agree that respecting the choices that women make in expressing their faith is an important aspect of society empowering women and girls?

[Jim Shannon]

I certainly do; as always, the hon. Lady brings an aspect to the debate that truly helps to illustrate things.

Persecutors target men, women and children in different ways and to different extents. Women invariably face a greater breadth of persecution, owing to the compounding factors of their faith and their sex, which unfortunately makes them an easy target for those who want to take advantage. It is probably no surprise that the targeting of women is strategic and malicious. Women are the ones who give birth to the next generation and bring up families. It is a great tragedy that their life-giving nature is violated by extremists and those with evil intent, as they take away their life of freedom and peace.

A report by Open Doors on the persecution of Christian women and girls explains that in countries impacted by conflict in central and west Africa—Nigeria, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo being key examples—women and girls are at high risk of abduction. The report states:

“Once taken, they are then forced to marry militants and bear children, who are used to boost the ranks of militant groups”.

Such “forced marriage” is rape by another name. Horrifically, the bodies of women and girls offer an extra dimension of conflict for extremists and perpetrators of violence to wreak their destruction and their dehumanising actions.

One example of such gender-based persecution is Leah Sharibu, who was kidnapped along with 110 other students from her school back in 2018. The Islamic State of west Africa refused to release Leah when she did not renounce her Christian faith. Leah is still waiting for release. When some of us were in Nigeria in May, we asked about her and we were hopeful that something was going to happen, but it does not seem that anything has happened. I hope that the Minister can give us some indication of what is happening. Leah has been forcibly married and raped since the age of 14. She now has two children born of that forced marriage, with little hope of being able to pass on the Christian faith that she believes in to her own children.

Regrettably, Leah’s case is just one of thousands of such cases. How is it that eight years after Daesh launched a genocidal campaign against the Yazidis, with 2,763 Yazidi women and children still missing, nobody seems to be interested in this issue? I am not being critical of the Minister or the Government, but can we be given some indication about what is happening to those Yazidi women? It seems that they are off the radar for nearly everybody who I can think of.

My hope is that the Government ensure that any funding given to support women and girls around the world targets women and girls who face vulnerabilities due to their faith, with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office recognising faith as a factor in such vulnerability. Defending women and girls should encompass all aspects of the UK Government’s overseas engagements. Therefore, the Department for International Trade should seriously consider any reports of gender-specific religious persecution as it negotiates trade deals and before it signs any new trade agreements. Our Government should take care about the human rights records of countries with which they trade. Turning a blind eye to the treatment of women in a country we benefit from is not something that I wish to hear about. I want to hear about how we are moving forward progressively and positively for women and girls.

Finally—I am conscious of the time, Ms Elliott—increased efforts must be made to help women and girls who suffer violence and endure persecution because of their faith to reach safety. I will give another example: I am saddened that Pakistani Christian girl Maira Shahbaz is still in hiding after escaping her Muslim abductor in Pakistan. She is still waiting for the Home Office to grant her asylum claim. It is unbelievable. The facts are obvious; the evidence is there. The Right Rev. Philip Mounstephen, the Bishop of Truro, has said:

“Tragic cases like that of Maira Shahbaz are a test case for the UK Government’s commitment to put freedom and religion front and centre in its foreign policy.”

My comments today are a new call for the Government to do just that and make freedom of religion or belief a reality for everyone across the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the speech that the hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly) has just given. I congratulate the hon. Members for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) and for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) on securing this very important debate. It has become somewhat of a sad and serious tradition to mark the international day for the elimination of violence against women and girls in this place. I have been proud to speak in many of these debates.

The hon. Member for Bristol South led off the debate powerfully and thoroughly. She started with an excellent point on the decision to host the World cup in Qatar, particularly as it runs over the 16 days of action. It is a shame that women and girls are not safe to walk their own streets.

The hon. Member for Thurrock spoke powerfully about the fact that this violence is carried out by male perpetrators. Every day, women take decisions to affect their own safety. The hon. Lady said she would like to see more men in this debate and in general in these debates, and I agree.

As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, the Members present today are consistent and proud supporters of the movement. The hon. Gentleman—the hon. Member for Westminster Hall, as I like to call him—spoke of the different ways in which perpetrators target their victims and, indeed, the persecution of Christian women and children, an issue he does a huge amount of work on.

The right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) spoke of her middle-class privilege, but I think it is fair to say that it is all of our middle-class privilege, rather than just hers. She was so right to say that all victims are not equal.

The hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) spoke of a local police officer who told her that offences are up 76%. She rightly made the point that such horrendous stats are essentially the tip of the iceberg, with many women unwilling or, indeed, unable to report their abuse.

The hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) set out his impressive bona fides as a very strong campaigner in this area. He added a very welcome international perspective to proceedings; some of his comments on the use of rape and sexual violence in conflict were particularly powerful.

The hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) made the good point that, as she grew up, she hoped that the world would get better, but it is in fact less safe for her daughters walking the street. She spoke of her local Reclaim the Night march; I have attended my local Reclaim the Night march as well, but I was unable to attend this year as, sadly, it was on Tuesday of this week.

The hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) was absolutely right to lay into the victim-blaming culture and to lay out the vast improvements in abuse legislation on both sides of the border but, as we have heard, all the legislation is for nothing without proper funding and enforcement.

The right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) highlighted the Everyone’s Invited campaign, which works in schools. When I started working on the issue, I found the stats about abuse and violence against girls in schools to be the most shocking of all.

Last, the hon. Member for Bury North finished with a powerful speech focusing on enforcement and the scandalous levels of charging and conviction. We can all agree that that is an issue on both sides of the border; there is no politics to be had on that particular issue.

As others have said, there is an issue with the culture these days in social media. The management and ownership of certain social media companies is consuming a great deal of attention at the moment and I am sick to the back teeth of multibillion pound international companies hiding behind the curtain of free speech when we talk about online harms and the treatment of women and girls. Their version of free speech is the kind where rape threats and stalking are treated as minor misdemeanours, while posts about breastfeeding are deleted and users banned. The rampant misogyny that is allowed to spread almost entirely unchecked online is only getting worse since the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk. It would be wrong to single out Elon Musk and his anti-woke agenda; all the social media companies are failing abysmally at sniffing out misogyny and are utterly disastrous at stamping it out. Together with the historically unprecedented ease with which young men and boys are able to access pornography—often violent pornography, as we have heard—we are seeing an utterly toxic environment unleashed on deeply impressionable minds.

At this point, the Online Safety Bill looks likely to fall short of forcing the media giants to accept some responsibility for the bile and abuse hosted on their servers and from which, in one form or another, they improve their profit margins. If we want to change, build a better society and provide safety for women and girls, we cannot rely on the social media companies to challenge things. It falls to us as individuals, and as a society, to do things for ourselves—that is why campaigns such as White Ribbon UK are so important. Since being introduced to White Ribbon in late 2015, I have been proud to support the campaign; indeed, I chair the all-party parliamentary group on White Ribbon UK. It has been a journey of discovery for me, going from what I imagine is the case for most men—an awareness of the cruelty and sadism of which others are capable, without looking too deeply at the reasons and complexities—to wanting to drive change forward in my own community and across the country through my work in Westminster.

I am proud to be a White Ribbon ambassador, along with thousands of men across Scotland and the UK. To support the campaign, we pledge to never commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women. It is on the condoning and remaining silent where we can make real change. We will all have experienced behaviour or language from men whom we encounter that runs contrary to values of respect and dignity toward women. Too often, those behaviours are not challenged; they are put down as banter or old-fashioned, and left to fester.

I was pleased to host a coffee morning on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, bringing together those working to support survivors and community groups that work with men and boys in those communities. We were fortunate to hear from both Renfrewshire Women’s Aid and Jubilee House, a charity serving Renfrewshire and beyond, which I was lucky enough to visit recently. Its focus is on empowering families to live fulfilled lives, free from abuse, and pretty much anything that empowers women to live their best lives. I met Fiona from Jubilee House, who shared some of the great holistic support provided by the charity and emphasised the crucial importance of education and supporting women and children to recover and get on living once the initial emergency support has been provided.

Some of the facts and stories were, as is unfortunately always the case at such events, utterly shocking. Violence against women and girls costs the Scottish Government alone £2.6 billion a year. Up to 10% of women will be victims of domestic violence in any given year, and, as we all know, more than 80% of domestic abuse incidents involve men abusing women. Marianne from Women’s Aid highlighted the financial challenges faced by women who are affected by domestic abuse, and told us of the new Cost of Leaving campaign. In the light of the cost of living crisis, the need to highlight such challenges has never been more urgent.

Despite the horrific stats and narrative, that event was absolutely worth organising, and it is something that I want to do annually—well, for as long as I am in this place.

[Jim Shannon]

Hopefully for a long time!

[Gavin Newlands]

I know there is subtext to the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.

I want to ensure that organisations in my constituency know that support and help is there for them if and when they want to start making change among the people they speak to daily. Young men have dozens of interactions with friends and family every day, and those friends and family members will have hundreds more. Some of those conversations will be about women and girls, and of those, some will perpetrate disrespect and disregard for the rights of women and girls. If we can turn just a fraction of those conversations into something to be challenged or objected to, we can make a start—just a start—on nipping the attitudes in the bud before they are allowed to fester and develop into something more serious five, 10, 15 or 20 years down the line. That does not mean letting grown men off the hook, but helping a developing mind along the right path is light-years easier than attempting to put the genie back in the bottle in adulthood.

To conclude, I welcome the UK Government’s progress on ratification of the Istanbul convention, on which I have campaigned on for many years—indeed, an SNP colleague passed legislation on it—but the previous Secretary of State had reservations about ratifying it. I urge the Minister to speak to the Home Secretary and revisit the decision to opt out of articles 44 and 59, because migrants deserve the same protection as everyone else.

Despite the progress that has been made in removing the taboo around domestic abuse, to some extent it is still society’s dirty little secret. The attitudes of misogyny and bigotry that ultimately lead down a path of gender-based violence are still there and are, in some cases, being allowed to grow unchecked. It is incumbent on us all, not just as MPs but as human beings, friends, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, to bring that dirty secret out into the open and ensure that all of us—men and women—are fully aware of the carnage and horror that some of our ilk wreak on women and girls, because challenging those behaviours means knowing about them.

Domestic Homicide Sentencing Review

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) for setting the scene so well. I spoke to her outside in Westminster Hall—it was freezing out there; it is slightly warmer in here, thank goodness. She deserves to be commended for bringing this matter to the House.

I mentioned to the hon. Lady that I want to give some figures for Northern Ireland to underline where we are. To be fair, Northern Ireland is not the responsibility of the Minister, because this is a devolved matter, but I want to give those figures to illustrate why I fully support what the hon. Member for Redditch is putting forward today.

The hon. Lady has spoken up on numerous occasions; she has done good work and made sterling comments in support of victims of domestic abuse and, ultimately, the voiceless. In Westminster Hall and in the Chamber, more often than not we speak for the voiceless—those who do not have a voice and who do not have anybody to ask questions on their behalf. The hon. Lady set that scene very well.

We also speak for those who, sadly, have been taken too soon due to domestic homicide. I speak today to raise awareness of the issue and for those in Northern Ireland who have fought tirelessly for greater sentencing reviews. It is great to be here in Westminster Hall for them.

Recent Home Office statistics show that 61% of victims of domestic homicide had a vulnerability. The hon. Lady referred to a lady who was dependent on her partner, who abused her in every possible way, to the extent that her confidence was low and she did not have the freedom she deserved, and then she was brutally injured by her partner. Some 34% of those victims had mental health issues, while 28% had alcohol problems and 23% used illicit drugs. Most of that was down not to their addiction but to their dependence on their evil partner, who subjected them to that lifestyle and, ultimately, to their death. Despite those figures, there is absolutely no reason why somebody should be subjected to their own death at the hands of a domestic partner.

It was revealed in February 2022 that Northern Ireland has, per head of population, the joint highest rate in Europe of women killed as a result of domestic violence. I was horrified to hear those figures. I have already told the hon. Lady about some of the figures that we have back home. Over the recent period of covid—and, indeed, before that—the worrying trend of abuse against partners was at a level incomparable with anywhere else in the United Kingdom. We remain the only part of the UK that does not have a law criminalising the use of coercive control of a partner. Back home, the Northern Ireland Assembly has decreed that it will look at this matter.

Following that news, I am pleased to make Members aware that on 10 November 2022—just two weeks ago, or thereabouts—the Northern Ireland Department of Justice concluded its review of domestic homicide. Independent reviews of homicides include a range of representatives from numerous agencies across Northern Ireland, including Women’s Aid, which I have worked with on numerous occasions and which has information on some absolutely worrying trends; the health and social care trusts; the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which tells me that domestic abuse issues are involved in a large number of cases that it deals with, not just in my constituency but across Northern Ireland; the Probation Board for Northern Ireland; and the Department of Health’s strategic planning and performance group, formerly the Health and Social Care Board.

Over the past few years, as I told the hon. Lady before we came into Westminster Hall, there have been occasions on which the sentence given for murdering or injuring someone has not equated to the crime. I want things to be improved. We have asked the Public Prosecution Service to review those cases. It is important that the law of the land gives the right sentence for the crime.

Since the start of the pandemic, 12 women have been killed in their homes. Similarly, instances of domestic abuse have increased and continue to increase in Northern Ireland. These figures cover a short period of time and are shocking for a population of 1.9 million, but they underline why today’s debate is so important. The latest PSNI figures show that it received reports of almost 2,000 domestic abuse incidents between 14 December 2021 and January 2022—in other words, during a six-week period. Those figures are worrying. That illustrates why this debate is important and why the sentencing review must take place, and it is why I am here to support the hon. Lady in her request for that. Domestic violence and homicide accounts for some 20% of all crime in Northern Ireland, which is completely unacceptable. None of us here could ever contemplate just how bad it is.

Domestic homicide sentencing reviews are to learn, to improve services and to support the families who are living with domestic abuse. Northern Ireland’s latest domestic homicide plan confirms the horrifying truth that domestic violence and homicide is getting worse. Is it because of covid? Is it because of stress? Nothing whatsoever justifies an attack on a partner, especially on a lady. I am an old-fashioned person, and I will always speak up for someone who is unable to speak for themselves. That is why this debate is important to me.

These cases are a complete tragedy. Each one is preventable with the correct support and encouragement to victims to speak up and notice the signs. Sentencing reviews will strengthen the link between review learning, policymaking for domestic homicide sentencing, and practice. There is hope that that will result in changes that prevent future deaths of loved ones who are subject to domestic abuse.

We live in a very troubled society. The reality is that domestic violence is a common occurrence. I know that it features heavily in my constituency workload back home. Domestic violence that is not dealt with in the first instance has the potential to turn deadly, which is why the hon. Lady has brought the debate forward.

We must ensure that sentencing reviews for domestic homicide are treated with the most intense sentencing rulings, as they are murder. That is necessary both for prevention and to ensure that sentencing reflects just how bad the crime is. Regardless of the situation or the circumstances, no individual deserves to die at the hands of someone else so violently. I have seen that with horror in Northern Ireland. I know that is not the Minister’s responsibility, but I wanted to add it into the equation in support of the hon. Member for Redditch. I very much look forward to the Minister’s reply.

I will, obviously, share this debate with the Justice Department back home and the Minister, Naomi Long, to let her know what is happening here so that we can try to move forward after the report that we have just done on domestic homicide reviews, and do something equally vital. The volume of abuse and homicide contributes to a deteriorating picture of our criminal system, and we must do more.

Hotel Asylum Accommodation: Local Authority Consultation

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need a system with deterrence at its heart. That means ensuring that those who come here illegally in small boats cannot find a path to a life here in the UK. The Rwanda policy is an important part of that and is currently in the courts. I am confident that we will win the arguments; when we do, we will implement the policy as soon as possible.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I believe that the processing system for asylum applications is at the root of the issue. It must be solved. Although I recognise that putting families into hotels for long periods is far from ideal, they are met with safe, secure and warm conditions, and in most cases medication and shelter are provided as well. Does the Minister agree that to tackle the problem, the Home Office must employ more staff to ensure that asylum applications are processed urgently, in a timely manner?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am increasing the personnel making decisions from about 1,000 to 1,500. However, the team who do the work have greater resources today than prior to the pandemic, yet productivity has fallen, so this is not primarily an issue of productivity. It is about processes and leadership as well.

Asylum Seekers Contingency Accommodation: Belfast

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the use of contingency accommodation for asylum seekers in Belfast.

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Sir Robert  I welcome the opportunity to raise this issue and I welcome the presence of the Minister to respond. It is fair to say that the Minister’s party and my own are probably in very different places ideologically in how we approach asylum and humanitarian issues, but I intend to focus my remarks on the implementation and impact of UK Government policy as it manifests in the area that I represent—primarily the use of hotels for long periods due to the catastrophic Home Office failures in processing asylum applications.

The growing backlog in decisions and claims is the core problem in asylum, meaning that more people are left in limbo, unable to move on and live a life. Anyone in direct contact with people in asylum accommodation knows that it is unsuitable for most, especially families and those with specific needs, on anything more than a very short-term basis. By way of context, it is of course a complicated and hard enough and dangerous world out there. Although the necessity to leave one’s home country in order to survive is beyond the lived experience of most of us in this room, we know there are myriad reasons that people are forced to make the decision to flee their home—war, famine, persecution, and increasingly the climate crisis. We are lucky to live in places where we are not faced with those kinds of decisions. Indeed, the UK receives a relatively low number of applications from the global asylum seeker population—considerably below the European average.

The number of people seeking asylum has not changed dramatically over the years, although the routes have changed and the number of arrivals in Belfast has increased. There is a current upward curve, but, overall, arrivals remain below the levels of asylum sought in the early 2000s. What has changed, though, and what has collapsed, is the Home Office’s willingness or ability to process applications properly, and that is creating bottlenecks in the use of contingency hotel accommodation. The system is broken and unfortunately there seems to be no plan to fix it. If the Government spent as much money on resourcing, processing or designing safe routes as they have on cartoonishly cruel proposals such as the Rwanda scheme and wave machines, we would be in a very different position.

I am encouraged by word of positive discussions with France to reduce unsafe channel crossings because, to date, the only success of Government policy has been to increase fear and trauma among asylum seekers and refugees. It is not reducing the number of people coming because they do not, in most cases, have the luxury of choice.

I represent south Belfast, long known as the most diverse and integrated part of Northern Ireland, and proudly home to people from all around the world. As the MP, I am often contacted by people regarding their asylum claims, and the numbers have spiked in the last year for reasons that include a post-covid backlog and being forced to apply retrospectively post arrival.

Figures from the Refugee Council indicate that the UK’s asylum backlog has almost quadrupled in the last five years, from just under 30,000 in December 2017 to 122,000 in June 2022. The comparison over 10 years is even more stark. In December 2011, the number of people awaiting an initial decision was just 12,800. Freedom of information requests reveal that of those awaiting an initial decision, one third have been waiting one to three years, with a proportion waiting more than five years, which is the situation facing specific constituents of mine. That limbo period is a mental torment for people who are unable to participate properly in society, who have little recourse to public funds, and who are unable to work or start a business. Some three quarters of applicants are ultimately accepted as legitimately seeking asylum, but they are held back unnecessarily from beginning a new life.

Selectively leaked Home Office figures urge us all to look instead at those who do not have legitimate claims—a deflection and a demonisation strategy that many of us are used to in terms of the abuse of people who require social security support. The obvious way to address those who do not qualify for asylum is to process and reject their applications, but that is not as politically lucrative as rhetoric about invasion and overwhelm.

Home Office figures, to the extent that they are available by region, indicate that the number of people arriving in Northern Ireland seeking asylum has increased significantly since January 2021, and just over 1,000 people are currently in hotel accommodation. Around 15% of hotels in Belfast are now designated as contingency accommodation for asylum seekers. In Northern Ireland, the accommodation is run by Mears, a private company, for profit.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing the debate forward, and am glad to be here to support her. Home Office figures for the past year show that 2,010 asylum seekers received local authority support in Belfast—more than double the figure for last year. There have been numerous reports that, throughout Belfast and Northern Ireland, the conditions of some—but not all—of the homes asylum seekers have been given are damp, mouldy, dirty and not fit to live in. Does the hon. Lady agree that we must focus on ensuring that the homes we already have are safe and clean, before we focus our priorities on additional accommodation for asylum seekers, whose applications are, as she says, taking months to process?

[Claire Hanna]

There is no doubt that the public housing stock in Northern Ireland is inadequate and has been under-resourced for many decades. The hotels and dispersal accommodation are in many cases far from adequate. The hotel accommodation that we are discussing is far from the luxury that some people would want us to believe it is. I am pleased to say that the hotels of which I am aware in Northern Ireland are themselves in decent physical order, but I understand that that is not always the case elsewhere.

The setting is often compared to prison because of the restrictions placed on residents, the overcrowding of rooms, and the disruption from fellow residents, among whom some mental ill health is inevitable given the circumstances. Children and adults share the same small spaces. In at least one hotel, offices have been converted into bedrooms. The overall atmosphere is described as chaotic and oppressive.

Behind the statistics is one of my constituents, Mustafa, who, since arriving in Northern Ireland in January this year, has been living in one room with his wife, Linda, and their three boys, who are aged five, six and 13. They spend most of their days in their room. They eat at set mealtimes, and are unable to choose what to eat. They are unable to have the simple family pleasure of shared mealtimes. They all have to go to bed at the same time, or lie in silence. Their movements outside the hotel are restricted by time and distance limits. That is as close to imprisonment as is possible without actually being incarcerated.

The experiences of individuals and children in contingency accommodation falls significantly short in key respects, which include the right to education, the right to play, the right to privacy, the right to family life, the right to health, freedom of assembly, effective participation in society, and respect for and opportunity to develop one’s own culture. Families in the hotels do not have access to shared spaces for play, socialising or self-organisation. Many of the hotels lack proper outdoor space, and those in city centre hotels do not have access to play parks or other stimulating environments—Belfast city centre does not do well enough on green space. Children who do not have a place in school are particularly restricted in terms of age-appropriate activities. Many of those in contingency accommodation are from the continent of Africa, and they experience a much more restrictive and less supportive asylum process than new arrivals from Ukraine, for whom the situation is absolutely no picnic.

Mustafa and his family’s situation is reflected hundreds of times over. One of the issues raised regularly with me is the atmosphere of fear and restriction in hotels. Indeed, when I visited a hotel a few weeks ago for a meeting with a constituent to discuss only their asylum application—no comment had been made to me about the accommodation—I was treated to an extremely frosty reception by a member of staff. I was told in no uncertain terms to leave the hotel, despite having been signed in and granted access by very courteous security guards. As we say in Belfast, I am big and ugly enough to look after myself and to deal with people, but I am genuinely concerned about the atmosphere that that creates for people who are fearful of getting on the wrong side of the system that will decide their future. Complaints processes are long and unwieldy, and it feels impossible for asylum seekers to effect positive change from within the system.

Ultimately, processing backlogs mean a lack of control or agency for people, in any area of their lives, for interminable periods of time. They elongate and exacerbate the worst experience of their lives. My caseworkers and I tried to seek updates about the growing backlog of applicants, and were increasingly met with silence or oblique responses from the Home Office. Each new arrival essentially has to reinvent the wheel and chart their own course in terms of accessing information about public services and their basic financial entitlements. Financial restrictions mean that families cannot avail themselves of social or cultural activities and they cannot buy specific toiletries, clothes or other things for their children. The ban on the right to work for asylum seekers drives more people into destitution; it does nothing to help them integrate or to stand on their own feet, as people want. It makes little sense at a time when we know the UK’s economy is being limited by skills and labour shortages.

I fully support campaigning by organisations, such as Participation and the Practice of Rights, for the right to work for asylum seekers who have been waiting for more than six months. I deeply regret that a well-supported and crafted cross-party amendment to the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 did not advance the issue.

A report from the Children’s Law Centre in Northern Ireland earlier this year found that around 135 school-age children placed in accommodation had not been provided with school places. School places, when they are sorted, are temporary because of the temporary nature of accommodation, meaning that the children are unable to settle properly. I must commend a number of local schools that have really stepped up and truly wrapped their arms around those children and their families. Notably, in Belfast, Fane Street Primary School and Holy Rosary Primary have done so in a way that is genuinely inspiring and reassuring about the society we live in.

While the original sin in the asylum system is processing failures, the issues I have outlined also demonstrate fundamental failure by the Northern Ireland Executive, as was until last month, who are inadequately co-ordinating services that asylum seekers are entitled to in Northern Ireland. We are still without a proper refugee integration strategy, and efforts to address the needs of asylum seekers are piecemeal and largely reliant on voluntary and community organisations to lead and step into the breach.

The asylum seekers I speak to have their already restricted opportunities to leave their accommodation hampered by the worry that they might miss a call about their accommodation or another public service. That means they are cut off from the small number of services that are put in place for them. I wrote to the various Departments at different points this year, asking that Ministers—who were very much in post at the time—commit to engaging across Departments. I am afraid that I got fairly vague platitudes about working with the wider public and voluntary sectors. I am yet to see much evidence.

It does not have to be that way. Northern Ireland and the UK have a track record of successful co-ordination in welcoming asylum seekers. In 2015, Northern Ireland welcomed 1,800 Syrians under the Syrian vulnerable person relocation scheme. Through that scheme, families received support from a consortium of voluntary and statutory organisations, along with overwhelming support from the population in Northern Ireland. The scheme treated people with dignity and compassion; it ensured that they had access to the right to work, to public services, to paperwork and to the right to family reunion. That shows that we do have the capacity and compassion to welcome and integrate asylum seekers.

In conclusion, I acknowledge that these are complex and, in many cases, expensive challenges. The Government have many competing priorities, and I reiterate that no one is suggesting that the UK takes all asylum seekers—we absolutely do not do that. While it is obvious that the contingency accommodation that we are contracting is inadequate, the underlying cause of those issues, and where the blame lies, is firmly at the feet of the Home Office. Hotel accommodation, even if it was well appointed and integrated with public services, is restrictive for normal family life. The Home Office has created and perpetuated the crisis through its hostile environment policy, which is penny wise and pound foolish. It has been through sheer, and fairly basic, incompetence.

It would suit the Home Office better to put in place rational, fair and humane ways to deal with backlog of claims, to provide safe and legal routes—including being able to apply from outside the UK—and to resource and expedite the integration of those granted asylum into society. That would allow them to work, fully participate and contribute positively to the economy, as other aspects of inward migration very clearly do.

[Jim Shannon]

The Syrian scheme, which the Government have been running for some time, has been an absolute success for us in Newtownards. I know we took only six families, but they integrated quickly and all the local community and church groups came together to make that happen. The families have excelled and are working. They are fully able to use the language and have integrated into society, so does the hon. Lady agree that there are examples of what can be done, and done well?

[Claire Hanna]

I thank the hon. Member for pointing that out. We have demonstrated that that is possible under the Northern Executive and a Conservative Government.

We want to see an end to the use of hotels for anything other than short-term stays, certainly for children and pregnant women. We need urgent improvement in living standards and atmosphere in Mears accommodation, and we need effective data sharing, co-ordination and co-operation between the Home Office, the Northern Ireland Departments and Northern Ireland public bodies in order to ensure access to services and support. To the limited extent that the UK is meeting its legal obligations and playing a constructive role in the world, we need to do it properly. We have shown we can do that, I believe the population wants us to do that, and we know the need is there, whether we want to do it or not.

Solihull Murders

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Miss Dines]

The Government are doing that at the moment. The “Enough” campaign has had quite a high profile on social media, with a great deal of take-up. The work of tackling violence against women and girls is very serious. In July 2021, we published our new cross-Government programme on the tackling violence against women and girls strategy. That includes the tackling domestic abuse plan published in March 2022. As a result of that there will be specific pieces of work on education and, I hope, training within the police, but education of the population has been brought forward. I know, from discussing this with young men across the country, that they have taken up the “Enough” programme and campaigned on it really seriously. The message is hitting through, but it is just the start. I want to do more.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

May I associate myself and my party with what has been said. My thoughts and prayers are with Raneem, her mother and her family. The 999 calls in relation to the Solihull murders are indeed harrowing and frustrating. Raneem, 22, stated, “When I call 999, they cannot come quickly enough.” She rang 999 six times in the hours before she was killed. Does the Minister agree that the murders of Raneem and her mother were entirely preventable? Those calls should have been red-flagged. There were six 999 phone calls, but there was no answer. The police should have taken quicker action to ensure that the two victims were kept safe from the dangerous man and the abuse that he inflicted on them. We must do better. We can do better.

[Miss Dines]

What is worrying about this case is that there were obvious markers—not just one or two but many. I know that that is something that West Midlands police are working hard on. Nobody could fail to be moved by those 999 calls, which were on all the TV channels—the soft voice of somebody who was about to be murdered, but who was ignored. That must never happen again. The fact that a person speaks softly, calmly, or in a way that the police are not used to, should not be a barrier to listening to the words that they are saying.

Labour and Skills Shortages: Temporary Recovery Visa

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you, Mrs Cummins. You caught me out, because I was not expecting to be called; I was just doing my duty of jumping up and sitting down again. You are most kind. I congratulate the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) on setting the scene for the debate. The Minister probably knows what I will ask in relation to the fishing sector, because I asked him last week after the debate; his Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey), was there as well. I have sought a meeting with the Minister and he has agreed to it, so hopefully we will have that in the diary over the next period of time. I will specifically focus on that and explain why it is so important, and reflect on my meetings with the previous Minister, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), and how we move forward on the issue.

One UK sector that most people agree has a bright future following Brexit is our fishing industry. Located in often remote coastal communities, the industry has weathered many challenges over many years, including those that are unique to the sector. The fishing fleet based in Portavogie, in my constituency, probably had its heyday during the second half of the ’70s and into the ’80s. Good profits were made and shared with the crew, which reflected the hard work and long hours that fishermen put into their profession. My brother is one of them; he worked the fishing boats in Portavogie over a period of time. I could never understand how the guys could get into the fishing boats, never mind get out of them, but that is by the way. It is a dangerous profession. Being a fisherman carried with it a great deal of pride, but something went wrong. Fisheries management policies were applied that undermined the industry; with hindsight, it is debatable whether those policies were right or wrong. Nevertheless, the policies succeeded in reducing most crew wages. Combined with alternative occupations, this led to a situation developing in the 1990s where there were more crew vacancies than there were crew to fill them. That is a wee bit of background about the sector before I put forward some ideas.

Fishing vessel decommissioning schemes released some crew who found positions in other fishing vessels. At that time, it was migrants from eastern Europe who, although inexperienced in commercial fishing, offered a breathing space when they were recruited to fill the crewing gaps. Then, trawler owners from Portavogie, Kilkeel and Ardglass followed the lead of owners elsewhere in the UK by beginning to recruit new crews from overseas. Those crews were Filipinos, who became a very important part of fishing for nephrops in the Irish sea and the Clyde.

The fishing fleet has never pretended that overseas crews offer a long-term replacement for domestic recruits. I understand exactly that it is not a long-term solution, but it is a short-term solution. It would be great if young people from my constituency were going into fishing, but they are not, and neither are young people from Kilkeel or Ardglass. The hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) will speak for Scotland shortly, and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) will speak for Wales. I think both of them will endorse that point.

Overseas crews have filled critical roles, which has kept a large part of the UK’s fishing fleet at sea and, in turn, maintained supplies of domestically caught seafoods to markets at home and overseas. Overseas fishing crews have largely been recruited to the UK on the basis of transit visas. I understand that transit visas were never intended for that purpose. Transit visas permit a crew member to join a vessel that is departing the UK and working outside UK territorial waters. It has generally been accepted that the majority of time on a fishing vessel at sea has to spent beyond the UK’s—

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

One fishing practice that the Minister might propose is for those vessels to keep their foreign-originating crew offshore, beyond the 12 miles of territorial waters, but that is both dangerous and inhumane.

[Jim Shannon]

The right hon. Lady illustrates the issue very clearly, as well as the concerns that we have. I think there are solutions that all of us here can support. I suspect that, besides fishing vessel owners, many ship operators would find the 12-mile limit challenging, as she mentioned. That is certainly not a new issue.

For well over a decade, the fishing industry has sought to engage with the Home Office to resolve the ambiguities around the matter. Ten years ago, a concession was granted: the option to move crew on to work permits. That was not widely taken up. The situation has changed again, not least because EU crew have left the industry, so there is a dependence on non-UK and non-EU crew.

Geographically, areas such as the Clyde have nowhere outside 12 miles. I am told that, towards the end of 2021 and early 2022, staff from Border Force visited Campbeltown, where they reminded fishing vessel owners about their roles, and effectively told the owners that overseas crew would have to go home. As a result, boats have been tied up and some have been sold. On 20 August, Border Force visited the fishing community in Mallaig and delivered a similar message to the one that was heard in the Clyde. A virtual meeting was held with industry representatives in Northern Ireland on 15 September.

I arranged a meeting with the previous Minister, the hon. Member for Torbay, and we discussed concessions granted to other marine operators, specifically those engaged in the construction of offshore wind farms and the owners of well boats. The latter are largely Norwegian-owned ships that transport fish between salmon farms in the west of Scotland, which are all within the 12-mile limit. Will Minister tell us the difference between a well boat carrying salmon smolt inside the 12-mile limit and a trawler carrying prawns in the same area? I do not quite understand that, but if we have a meeting, perhaps we can develop that argument constructively and find a solution. For me, it is all about solutions. It is never about the negativity; it is about the solutions. It is about what we can do to make it better. We ask the Minister for that meeting.

The industry is indebted to the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer), for his early intervention with the Home Office on this matter. A six-month window has been agreed during which trawler owners are encouraged to pursue the sponsorship route for fishing crew, and the industry is working on that. Although that avenue is being pursued by some, questions are being asked about its applicability to the fishing fleets, especially in respect of the Government’s immigration targets.

Fishing vessel operators accept the need for a scheme that is transparent, complies with international law and affords protection to all fishing crew, especially those from overseas. There is no question about what they are trying to achieve. Fishermen and fisherwomen are skilled professionals, as the Government recognised in early 2021, following a recommendation from the Migration Advisory Committee. However, despite the committee’s further advice that deckhands be added to the shortage occupation list, the then Home Secretary declined to approve the recommendation, and stated that more time was needed to examine the impact of the covid pandemic on UK employment levels. Again, I honestly believe that the fishing organisations that I and other Members represent have a working solution. The Minister’s PPS, the hon. Member for West Bromwich West, is not involved in the debate, but he knows that only too well, so he knows what I am going to say. I also note that it is accepted that skills can differ across the professions on the Government’s shortage occupation list, with one being English language fluency. However, the same standard of English is required across all occupations, which is something that we urgently need to examine.

I am nearly finished and am going really fast—I hope Hansard can follow my flow of words. The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) says that Jim Shannon gets more words to the minute than any other MP, and today may be one of those occasions.

Leaving the EU creates opportunities for our fishermen, yet they are still competing with EU fishermen. The Home Office’s refusal to engage with the fishing industry and consider a bespoke or flexible approach to the issues around overseas crews compares less than favourably with the approach taken by others, such as the Dublin Government. In Ireland, a partnership approach has recently resulted in a new policy being unveiled. When we meet the Minister, we might be able to share this example, which is a constructive one. Less than a month ago, on 11 October, the Irish Government approved the publication of the “Review of the Atypical Scheme for non-EEA crew in the Irish Fishing Fleet”. The report and its recommendations followed an extensive consultation process, with stakeholders involved in the scheme. It is that kind of collaborative approach that needs to be pursued by the Home Office, instead of trying to squeeze the square peg of the fishing crew into the round hole of the sponsorship route. A square peg in a round hole really does not work.

The fishing industry remains focused on creating an economically viable sector that will offer financial rewards in order to reflect the hard work that the fishing sector does. After decades of challenges, that ambition will not be met overnight, which is why officials need to work with the industry to develop a visa system that allows skilled overseas crew to pursue their professions on UK fishing vessels in a controlled, transparent and law-abiding way. That would allow our fishing industry to develop its full potential, benefiting the economic life of our coastal communities as well as the whole of the United Kingdom.

What I have said today about Northern Ireland is reflected for our fishermen in Scotland, Wales and England, and I honestly believe in my heart that we have a solution. I know the meeting last week was about a different thing, but none the less I took the opportunity to appeal to the Minister’s good nature and will. I hope to have a meeting shortly, so that collectively we can move forward together in a partnership fashion and solve this problem. If we can do that, it will be a big day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

No, that was not the issue. Without going off on a tangent, the root cause of the issue was the aging population of HGV drivers. Many were coming up for retirement and the industry had had poor pay and working conditions for a long time. There was also a global shortage of HGV drivers, so it was not unique to the UK. We saw it all over Europe.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the Minister for his interest in trying to solve these problems. In my contribution I spoke specifically about fishing and skills; will he give an assurance that he will meet me, and other Members who wish to join us, to discuss that topic? That would be helpful. I make that request in a constructive fashion—I mean that honestly—because I believe there is a way forward that we can all agree on.

[Robert Jenrick]

In the time I have available, let me address some of the specific points raised. I am looking forward to meeting the hon. Member for Strangford and representatives from the fishing industry. He has made a number of good points today and I hope we can explore them in more detail when we meet.

The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) made valid points, particularly on health and social care. As a former Health Minister, I hear what she said. The issues she raised are the reason why my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham created the health and social care visa, which has been very successful, and we now see tens of thousands of doctors and nurses coming to the UK. That is not the long-term answer—we want to train more people domestically, and I am alive to arguments made for lifting the cap on medical school places—but in the meantime it is important to bring in those who want to come here to work. That visa is also applicable for care workers, although I appreciate that there are some legitimate concerns about the salary threshold and so on that make it more challenging than we would like it to be.

In opening the debate, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale talked about the broader labour market challenges and how we respond to them—a valid point also made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham. We need to take that up across Government so that we have a far more joined-up approach to these challenges. One way in which we are trying to ensure that skills training more adequately meets the needs of particular communities in England, at least, is through devolution. We now routinely devolve the skills budget for adults to local authorities and Mayors. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale has a new devolution deal in his area; if that progresses to a mayoral deal, I suspect he will see a devolution of skills budgets and training to Cumbria, which may be helpful to him.

A number of colleagues raised the question of youth mobility schemes, which I fully support and would like to see more of. Most recently, we have progressed that idea through the Australia and New Zealand free trade agreements, while negotiations are ongoing with other countries. We are open to more agreements, which clearly must be reciprocal. With respect to European countries, we are open to that debate. The EU is currently seeking an agreement across the whole European Union, rather than on a state-by-state basis; although that does not preclude us from entering into it, it clearly means a longer and more complex negotiation than if we were able to negotiate with individual states.

Several Members raised the question of asylum seekers having the right to work in the UK. I appreciate that there are good arguments on both sides of this debate, which I have considered at length. On balance, I do not agree with doing it because it would add a further pull factor to the UK. The UK already sees a very large number of individuals making the dangerous crossing across the channel. There are a number of reasons for that. The UK is viewed as a more attractive location to come to for work and access to public services because of the way in which we treat those individuals versus other European countries. I do not think it would be sensible for us to add a further pull factor to the many we already have. Deterrence has to be suffused through our approach to tackling illegal immigration. If we undermine that further, we will only find larger numbers of individuals crossing the channel.

With that, I draw my remarks to a close. I look forward to meeting the hon. Member for Strangford to discuss fishing. If the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale ever wishes to take up these matters with me, I would be happy to meet with him to discuss them further.

Asylum Seekers Accommodation and Safeguarding

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The work that has been done over the past year by this Government, supported by local authorities and tens of thousands of our fellow citizens, to help people from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Hong Kong and elsewhere to find safety and, in some cases, a new life in the UK is something of which we should all be proud. Our system should be based on safe resettlement schemes, rather than individuals crossing the channel illegally in small boats.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for his answers to the questions, which are difficult and complex. Tensions are rising as the temperatures are dropping in the United Kingdom, and the Government are intending to pay out large amounts of money for heating, but I am concerned that ill feeling towards migrants is growing as people mistake legal asylum-seeking for illegal immigration. Will the Minister outline how his Department intends to ensure that those who have no right to be in this country are treated with respect and care, but will not be allowed to overstay beyond that which is fair, equitable and enshrined in law?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: the UK wants to be a big-hearted country that welcomes those in need to our shores, but we must ensure that those who come here illegally for economic migration or other purposes are removed as swiftly as possible, because it brings the whole system into disrepute and makes it impossible for us to treat people who deserve our care in the way that we would want to see. At the moment, the system is frankly overwhelmed by the sheer number of individuals coming here, a very large proportion of whom should not come here, because they are economic migrants.

Police Service: HMI Report

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

The report made it clear that there have been problems with vetting—that is one of its key and troubling findings. There is a programme of automatic re-vetting of officers on a periodic basis, and one of the report’s recommendations is that that should be done more frequently, for the reasons the hon. Gentleman sets out. More broadly, officer numbers did go down shortly after 2010, owing to the catastrophic economic circumstances at the time, but they are now going up rapidly and by March of next year, as I said a second ago, we will have a record number of police officers—at no point in this country’s history have we had more officers on the books than we will have by March next year. In fact, my understanding is that in the force area covering his constituency and mine there are already a record number of Metropolitan police officers. Never in the Met’s history have there been more police officers on its books than there are today.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for his response to the questions that have been asked. I also want to put on the record my thanks to the many police officers who are above reproach and do a wonderful and very courageous job; it is important to say that before asking questions. It is disturbing to learn in this report that petty theft or assault charges were either ignored or not found out in the vetting procedure, which tells us just how broken the system is. What has been done to fix that and to ensure that the past record of people of both genders is known, decisions are made in the best interests of the force and every action is taken to restore the general public’s confidence and trust? That is really important.

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Member for his question, and I agree with his comments at the beginning. We should keep in mind in this debate, both in the House and publicly, that the vast majority of police officers are decent, hard-working and brave people putting their own safety at risk to keep us safe; we should never lose sight of that fact. I share his concern about the vetting issues that we have discussed, and there are recommendations to improve those. Where applicants have served a custodial sentence or signed the sex offenders register, there is currently an absolute prohibition on them being recruited as police officers, and where they have a criminal conviction of any kind, there is a presumption against their recruitment. That is a rebuttable presumption, so they can make representations, but the presumption is that they will not be hired. Clearly, we need to ensure that that information is always known and always considered, and there are recommendations in yesterday’s report to ensure that that happens.

International Doctors: Visas

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank you for allowing me to participate in the debate, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) for bringing this matter to light. It is good to see the Minister in his place—a return to duty in his ministerial role—and I am confident that, like the rest of us, he will be keen to address the key issues of the debate and why this issue is so important. I wish him well in this new role and look forward to his response to our questions.

The issue of visas is always a difficult one. I am incredibly aware of the need to protect our country and ensure that only those who have a desire to enjoy British life and to enhance it should be given visas. I understand the system of immigration and agree that it should be rigorously implemented. However, within that, we very much need to have the appropriate systems for the appropriate types of visa. That is why I believe that changes need to be made, as outlined by the hon. Member. Talented and skilled doctors want to come here and contribute to our society but unfortunately, due to the visa system, they are not always able to do so. For me, the issue is: how can we help them to help us in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

[Margaret Ferrier]

As the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) said, a difficulty that many international medical graduates face is that many GP practices do not have a visa sponsorship licence in place, making it harder to meet the requirements before the student’s studies end. Does the hon. Member share my concerns about the general level of the Home Office backlog and the associated impact on IMGs?

[Jim Shannon]

I agree with the hon. Lady. I hope that through today’s debate and contributions, this issue can be addressed. Again, we look to the Minister to give us some help, direction or support in how we can go through the vigorous bureaucracy that is clearly there. People with talent and skills want to come here; it is about how we can make that happen.

I have raised immigration on multiple occasions with Home Office Ministers—in particular, with regard to visas for those working on fishing boats in my constituency and the skilled work done by Filipino fishermen. The previous Minister was most helpful. That work is undoubtedly skilled, but it is under the pay threshold, so visa requirements sometimes restrict that opportunity.

Junior doctors, nurses and others do work that is not highly paid but highly skilled and necessary. That is why there must be time-sensitive application systems for those vital jobs and staff members. We need flexibility in the system. I say this again because it is important: those highly skilled and highly talented people who wish to come here will add to society and enable us to fill some of the vacancies.

I cannot speak for the United Kingdom mainland, but I can certainly speak with some knowledge of Northern Ireland. I am my party’s health spokesperson, and the research we did for this debate shows that 6,613 vacancies are listed for the five trusts in Northern Ireland. I know that they are not entirely for medical staff, but it is clear that we are desperately in need of staff, and there are many opportunities for doctors.

In my constituency and neighbouring constituencies, we are having problems in relation to GPs. I absolutely agree that there is a need for restrictive immigration, but we must not cut off our nose to spite our face. I am sure those numbers are replicated throughout the entire UK; perhaps the Minister will give us some figures for GP vacancies. I know that the Government have set out a strategy for employing and recruiting more GPs—that is good news.

During the Brexit discussions, we were told that there would be distinct differences between the visa systems. That is as it should be. The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness said that the system needs to be altered to meet the need, and that is what we need to do today.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned GPs, and we are of the same mindset. In a neighbouring constituency, a GP surgery, which is 10 minutes from my office, is set to close down because there are not enough GPs. In response, the GPs in my area have issued a moratorium on joining or leaving local practices. In other words, they will not take any more patients, and in some cases they are directing patients who live outside the area—that was okay a few years ago—to go elsewhere.

The trust is hopeful that it will get more GPs to take over the practice, but the fact is that we simply do not have enough GPs. That puts more pressure on the existing ones, which leads to more burnout, and the vicious cycle continues. GPs are under incredible pressure. Patients want to meet their GP; they want face-to-face appointments. That has been lost to them over the past two and a half years due to covid, but they are trying hard to get back in the queue.

The hon. Gentleman said that 40% of all GP trainees are international medical graduates—the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) referred to that—but they have difficulties obtaining visas. I do not have the exact numbers for Northern Ireland, but I do know that we cannot afford the loss of any more GPs. I therefore add my voice to those of others in the Chamber requesting that a special dispensation be granted not simply to allow those trainees to stay but to enable us to recruit further.

If there a block of trainee GPs who have almost completed their degrees and courses and are ready to come here, let us encourage them to do so. The question is not why it cannot happen, but how we can make it happen. The thought of training GPs to understand how we do medicine and run our practices, only for them to leave—not because they want to but because the system is not working for them—is madness. That needs to be addressed through this debate.

Recently, medical professionals outlined to me that the mental health and self- esteem of our medical community are at an all-time low because the staff are simply burned out. I have met many nurses, GPs and surgeons who are absolutely exhausted with the work they do. For those who are on call and have a duty rota to complete, being sent an SOS text to cover shifts is no longer exceptional; it is standard. That tells us that the GPs need to be employed and some of the pressure taken off.

We need to change the way that things are done, by giving GPs more admin support and funding for on-site nutritionists, physios and mental health teams, which we need within all health clinics. In my constituency, they are trying to do that regularly, and it should help to diagnose early, whether the problem is diabetes, arthritis or dementia. Whatever the issue, doing that correctly in GP surgeries is the way forward.

It is impossible to imagine that things can go on much longer the way they have for the past two and a half to three years throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We need change, flexibility and help, Minister. We do not want to put all the pressure on the Minister, but in this case there are ways forward. The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness has outlined them, as have I and others. We look forward to a successful conclusion to this debate, with a way forward from which we can all benefit across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart C. McDonald]

That is a valid proposition, and we could do the same with health boards in Scotland. If we knock our heads together, we can come up with a way to fix this. It just requires a little bit of pragmatism.

There is a second issue I wanted to raise—when I saw the motion for this debate, I wondered if the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness would raise it. That issue relates to recent reports from the BBC flagging complaints of poor treatment and conditions for international doctors in private hospitals, as well as highly questionable recruitment practices. I will touch upon it briefly because it has not been raised, although it is important to draw it to the House’s attention and to see if the Minister will investigate and respond. There were reports from 11 October suggesting that doctors from some of the world’s poorest countries were being recruited, by Nuffield Health in particular, to work in private hospitals under conditions prohibited in the NHS. There are reports of doctors being on call 24 hours a day for a week at a time, not being able to leave the hospital grounds and, unsurprisingly, suffering from extreme tiredness, putting both patients and doctors at risk.

Nuffield Health denies those allegations, but a British Medical Association and Doctors’ Association UK questionnaire of 188 resident medical officers adds some credence to the claims. It shows that 81% of respondents were recruited from Nigeria, and most complained of extreme working hours and unfair salary deductions. The conclusion of the Doctors’ Association UK was that we now have a two-tier system: one for the NHS and one for other international recruits in the private sector. I ask the Minister to look into that.

That issue highlighted to me another fundamental problem with how the immigration system operates. We have all sorts of checks and regulations that focus on ensuring that people who come to work here abide by their visa conditions, and they include the doctors we have been talking about—the IMGs—where the Home Office is on their case as soon as they have qualified to see what they are doing next. However, little or no checks are done to protect people who come here. That is not just in the NHS and with doctors; I have been firing off parliamentary questions and freedom of information requests in relation to the agricultural sector. That is a sector wide open to exploitation, but as far as I can see there is no concerted effort to protect people from that exploitation.

As the Minister will appreciate, Nigeria is a red-list country for recruitment. According to both the World Health Organisation and the Government, that is not where we should be finding doctors.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Member agree that, when it comes to the criteria used, one thing we should perhaps be seeking from the Minister is an assurance that greater weight will be given to the skills that people have, as opposed to the money they could earn?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

That is absolutely fair. The point I am making is that we should also consider—and in fairness, we do—where it is that we are recruiting from. We do not want to leave some of the poorer countries in the world without the skills they need.

Nigeria is a red-list country, but the report highlighted that both the General Medical Council and the British Council are involved in establishing and overseeing a professional and linguistic assessment board test in Lagos. I encourage the Minister to look into those reports. I appreciate that he might not be able to tell us about them today.

Various broader issues have been raised, including visa fees, pensions and so on. We could talk about the impact of free movement and how that has mired certain services, including GP practices, in red tape and bureaucracy, but we will keep that discussion for another day.

I again congratulate the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness on securing the debate. Throwing out skilled and desperately needed GPs in whom we have invested tens of thousands of pounds in training is utterly absurd. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) put it very nicely, as he always does. The question is how we can help them to help us. There are pragmatic solutions available. This is an early test for the Minister on whether he will be a pragmatist or take what I would characterise as the more dogmatic approach of the previous Home Office regime. I very much hope it is the former and that he is a pragmatist.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I recently chaired an event in Portcullis House on a completely different matter. When I came out, the people taking over the room were getting ready to give a presentation about how Ukrainians with medical skills could help the UK. I am not sure who the sponsor was, but I will try to find out, and the Minister’s staff might do the same. It took place at 2 pm in room Q in PCH. I had to go to another event, so I could not stay, but it seems that there are a number of Ukrainians here who have medical skills that could be used in the NHS. That is just a thought.

[Robert Jenrick]

Of course, adults who come to the UK on the Homes for Ukraine scheme have the right to work, and we actively encourage them to do so while they are here. There has also been an exercise across Government, which I have not been personally involved in, to help them to find equivalent professional qualifications while they are here, and to break down any barriers. I would be happy to look into whether there are remaining issues for doctors and nurses from Ukraine while they live here on the three-year visas that we are granting.

Some 30,700 nurses and 14,900 doctors obtained a health and care visa up to the end of August this year. In total, including care workers and other professionals, 96,000 such visas have been issued—a very significant number, which accounts for 52% of all skilled worker visas that have been issued to people taking up work in the health sector. I would like to think that that innovation has been a success, but we take seriously the legitimate concerns that have been raised in the debate and that we have heard from royal colleges and others. Let me now turn to some of those concerns and what we might be able to do to assist.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness said, the Royal College of General Practitioners has made a number of suggestions. We believe that the best way to increase the number of international GPs taking up places in the UK is for GP practices to register as Home Office-approved sponsors. The Government have run a number of engagement events that aim to explain the sponsorship process. Sponsorship is not supposed to be onerous, and the Home Office believes that it is not as onerous as some people clearly perceive it to be. Over 48,000 organisations are licensed sponsors of skilled workers, and many are high-pressure, small organisations, such as GP practices. However, there is clearly an issue—whether in reality or in perception—so I have two proposals to answer the concerns raised by my hon. Friend.

First, I am prepared to consider other sponsorship arrangements suggested by the sector, provided that they are consistent with the sponsorship system and that the sponsor can continue to discharge the important duties of a sponsor, which enables us to ensure that the overall system is robust and defensible. In principle, the sponsor could be an appropriate national body, such as Health Education England. It has not approached us to ask to be such a body, but I would be open to considering that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) suggested, the sponsor could be an integrated care board in England or an appropriate body in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, or it could be a royal college. I will therefore ask my officials to work with the sector to see whether there is a way forward to create umbrella bodies, if there is mutual support on both sides, with the caveat that any umbrella body would need to discharge the required duties in law to ensure the robustness of the system.

Secondly, in the interim my officials would be happy to run further engagement events with the sector to talk them through how straightforward they believe it is to be a sponsor. I encourage anyone listening to the debate to get in touch with the Home Office if they would like us to host an event in their area or with their part of the health sector. I have asked my officials to organise at least one such event in the weeks ahead. We will take account of any feedback that we receive at these events, and if it is true that the system is simply too complex and burdensome, I have asked them to report back to me with that feedback and we will take it into consideration.

The shadow Minister—the hon. Member for Aberavon —and others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness, raised the fundamental question of whether five years is the right length of time to demonstrate an individual’s commitment to the UK. That is a profound question, and it is important that we approach it fairly, rather than hiving out individual sectors, however important they might be for our economy or our public services. Although I am sympathetic to the arguments around granting GPs settlement on completion of their training, my view today is that it is better to stick to five years because that has been, by the long-standing convention of this Government and their predecessors, considered the right length of time for an individual to demonstrate sufficient commitment to the United Kingdom to obtain indefinite leave to remain. We should value indefinite leave to remain, because it is an important and significant moment for anyone committing to life in our country.

Overseas Chinese Police Stations in UK: Legal Status

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

I entirely agree with the hon. Member about there being one law across this country. After all, that was the point of the common law and the reforms of hundreds of years ago that have seen liberty flourish and opportunity prosper in these islands. He will forgive me but, since I gave up the chairmanship of the Committee, I have forfeited the right to have personal opinions, but the Government have absolutely the commitment that he mentioned that all laws in this country will be voted for and allowed only by this House or the devolved Administrations, and that all citizens here and all those visiting will be under the same law.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member on his long-awaited elevation to Minister. It is genuinely, truly well deserved. Further to my business question last Thursday on the despicable actions taking place in Chinese buildings in the UK, while we all recognise the right of an embassy never to have foreign influence, will he confirm that our underlying moral duty is to ensure that torture is not carried out on any inch of our soil? In accepting that, what diplomatic and legal steps can be taken to prevent torture?