Non-EEA Visas: Inshore Fishing

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to speak on this issue, and it is always good to see the regions of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland agreeing on something. It is one of many issues that unites us; we can all sing from the same hymn book about it.

I thank the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) for bringing the matter to the House and clearly setting the scene. I was a member of Ards Borough Council and I have represented Strangford in the Northern Ireland Assembly and do so now as a Member of Parliament, and the issue we are debating has been a key issue throughout. Fishing is in my blood; I never worked on the boats, but my brother did and I understand the issues clearly. When I was introduced to the fishing fleet in Portavogie, I became aware of the heightened level of danger affecting fishermen and fishing boats. That reinforces the importance of fishing to people in Strangford, and in Portavogie in particular, as well as in Ardglass and Kilkeel.

With all the Brexit talk and the decisions over deal makers and deal breakers, there is no one among us who does not think about the subject during most of the hours of the day. Probably we all do: it is Brexit in the morning for breakfast, then for lunch and dinner and before bed—and on getting up in the morning it is all Brexit. We shall have more Brexit before the day is out, and I hope our appetite for it will be as strong as it was when it started. None of us wants to face the prospect of a no-deal exit from Europe, but there are things that are deal breakers, and to me the exclusion of non-EEA fishermen needs to be one of the things that is gone with the wind.

We need security of employment for the fishing fleet in Portavogie, Ardglass and Kilkeel. We understand there is a need for Filipino fishermen in particular, because they are dependable and they work hard. The whole thrust of their life is to do the job, which is why the fishing fleet owners in Portavogie, Ardglass and Kilkeel want them. Other Members have made a similar point about wanting Filipino fishermen to be able to come here. It must be possible to hire crew based on who can do the job, and not what someone’s passport says. Fitness for purpose is something that has often been lost in the eurozone as we focus on nepotism as opposed to ability. We must ensure that, going forward, that is not the case and that if possible our vessels can be filled with home-grown crew, but otherwise with whoever can do the job and fit in best within the vessel.

We in this Chamber are all aware of the issues at play here. It is good to see the Minister in his place; I know this is not his direct responsibility, but we look forward to his response. There are five tiers to the points-based system. The tier 2 or general visa is the main category for bringing skilled non-EU or non-European Economic Area workers to the UK. Generally speaking, the tier 2 visa caters only for jobs that are classed at graduate level with a minimum pay of £30,000 per year, and for jobs that are on the official shortage occupation list.

Tier 3, for low-skilled workers, has never been used. It has always been assumed that any need for low-skilled workers can be met from within the UK or European Economic Area, but it cannot. That is why this debate is important and why the fishing fleets across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland need the opportunity to introduce this new tier system, enabling the Filipino fishermen to come to all the fleets across the UK and in Northern Ireland.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and I congratulate the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) on bringing this debate. My hon. Friend will know that we have a lot of people working across the wider spectrum of the agri-food industry from other parts of the European Union and from outside the European Union. Surely, if accommodation can be reached there, it can be reached on the fisheries side. It does not make sense.

[Jim Shannon]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend and colleague. To reiterate the comments of the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), I must say that the hon. Members here who met the Minister are united on the simplicity of what we are asking for. It cannot be any more graphic or easily put together than it is.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman is putting the case a lot more calmly than I did, because I am so frustrated by this. Was his heart lifted when he saw a few weeks ago, when the new Home Secretary came in, that the Financial Times raised the issue of doctors and nurses on the Monday and, by Friday, the pen was lifted and it was sorted out? It is as easy as, “Lift the pen. Sort it out, Home Secretary.”

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It is that simple. If we have a willingness to do it, let us just do it. We do it for the right reasons—not just because it feels good but because it helps the industry, as those of us who represent fishing villages know. My local fishermen cannot speak highly enough of the ability and work ethic of those from the Philippines, and yet they have been prevented from utilising people who, while they may not be highly skilled on paper with degrees and letters after their name, undoubtedly have the ability and fitness for purpose that is needed.

I often quote my mother in this House. I do so because she is a very wise woman, not because she is my mother and I am her son. She is very wise. My mum often says, “Letters after your name don’t mean anything to someone whose house is flooded and needs a plumber.” Letters do not mean anything in that trade; experience and know-how do. Fishing is the same. Degrees will not be able to read the sea or the sky, but experience will. A degree does not tell someone how to catch fish, to follow fish on a boat or to stand without falling over. This is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, and we need the people to do it.

[Bill Grant]

In my discussions with local fishermen, I have found that they particularly value the Filipinos who come as migrant workers. They are far beyond labourers; they bring in immense skills, whether in engineering, safety or dealing with vessels. They bring important skills to the fishing fleet in Scotland, Northern Ireland and throughout the United Kingdom. They are more than simply labourers. They bring great skills to the fishing fleet. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Jim Shannon]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that they bring skill; I think if the Home Office looks at this issue it will see the skills that the Filipino fishermen have. They should fall into tier 2, where we can enable them to be accepted. I think the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar is right when he says it is a simple issue. I read the same article in the paper that he did. The Home Secretary accepted that there was a methodology that justified the right for doctors and so on to come in. By the same logic, that should happen here as well, and I would like to see it take place.

We want to see the Filipino fishermen allowed in. Under the transit visa provisions, non-EEA nationals cannot come to work on vessels that operate wholly or mainly within the 12-mile limit. People who work, or employ people to work, on inshore vessels after they have come to the UK on a transit visa or sought to enter at the border to join a ship are breaking immigration law.

Even more important, prawn trawlers, for example, operate by dragging a trawl net across the seabed to catch prawns, so only certain parts of the sea can be fished. The sea off the west coast of Scotland, containing the sea of the Hebrides, the Little Minch and the Minch, is a particularly good fishing ground for langoustines, but these areas are also well within territorial waters, as is most of the sea around Northern Ireland. Prawn trawlers have one of the highest demands for non-UK crew. Therein lies a key issue for my constituents and for the constituents of other hon. Members present. The difference is down to geography and, as usual, the postcode lottery does not work in favour of my constituents.

I, along with other interested MPs— the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar and the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid)—met with the Minister for Immigration and had a very forthright meeting, in which we tried to press collectively, from our four different parties, the importance of this issue. I know that the fishing organisations in my area are currently working hard to address the fact that, despite the demands of their difficult and often dangerous job, fishing vessel crew members are not deemed to be sufficiently skilled to fall within the ambit of tier 2. We need these workers to be elevated to tier 2, or tier 2 to drop down to that level. I feel the frustration that the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar expressed; I am not always cool, but I try to make the case in such a way that people can understand the need to do it.

The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, which I sit on with other colleagues and hon. Friends, is doing an inquiry into fishing. One of our recommendations is that the issue of Filipino fishermen should be addressed. I am conscious of the time, so I will make one last comment. The Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland did a trawl—if I can use that pun—across the whole of the UK and Europe for 150 job vacancies. That is the Department, not Jim Shannon or the local councils; it was the Northern Ireland Assembly when it was functioning. We got some 30 replies to that from the whole of Europe, and only 10 applicants were suitable for interview. Eight attended the interview; six were chosen, of whom one did not turn up; five took the jobs. We have 145 jobs that Northern Ireland’s DFI cannot fill.

We have done everything we can on this. The local Assembly has tried. We now look to the Minister and the Home Office to do the same thing as for the doctors and nurses—to bring in the Filipino fishermen who would help our industry to thrive. When we are out of Europe, on 31 March 2019, we will need an industry that is able to respond to what we can do when we advance. I thank the hon. Member for Moray again for introducing this debate. Everyone is united in this. All we need now is for the Minister to say, “Yes, let’s do it.”

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I have two more hon. Members who wish to speak. Some hon. Members have not quite followed the guidance, and we have to finish Back-Bench speeches by half-past 10, so it would be helpful if the remaining speakers could look at that and split the time between them.

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[Deidre Brock]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is very difficult for the industry to deal with the revolving door of Ministers who constantly have to be informed of the important parts of their brief that they need to get up to speed with and deal with. Then they need to go round and visit all the different and important stakeholder groups and get to know them. Things are very difficult for the industry in those circumstances.

[Jim Shannon]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on the contribution that she is making to the debate. Does she agree that the pilot scheme that has been intimated to us on a number of occasions—indeed, the last occasion was the last meeting that we had—is something that we are all very eager to see coming into place? It is one that the industry and the sector will work with, as the hon. Lady said, and elected representatives will also endeavour to ensure that it works. All the safety and all the employment rights that are important for it to go forward are things that the industry is committed to. If ever you wanted a good scheme, do the pilot scheme now.

[Deidre Brock]

I absolutely agree. There is nothing to be lost by looking at this proposal. There is a general will across parties and across the industry to make the pilot scheme work. I am sure that if a Minister fronted up and actually committed to it, all of us would be cheering to the rafters, as my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar points out.

I was referring to skilled fishermen and the fact that they are willing to come here to do this very difficult job. They should be welcomed and given all the rights and protections that EU workers have. The SWFPA chief executive, Mike Park, says that people have presented the case to the MAC and to various Immigration Ministers over the last few years, but on each occasion they were

“basically told to go away”.

A new scheme for non-EEA workers would be lifeblood to our fishing fleets—we have heard the evidence that it could take 10 to 15 years to get fully staffed from local sources—but it would of course be even more sensible for the Immigration Minister to accept that the one-size-fits-all immigration system is not the right solution. If she is worried that any sensible concession for fishing might open the floodgates for other shortage occupations, the solution is not to bolt the door and hope that they go away. Perhaps she ought to ask how the MAC compiles its list, why so many sectoral cases can be made and whether the committee’s approach to immigration is working in the best interests of the economy. Reducing dependency on migration by killing an industry that wants to employ people hardly seems a sensible way to go about things.

The root cause of the problem is surely inflexible, old-fashioned British bean-counting bureaucracy. The UK Government cannot blame Brussels. As has been pointed out, this mess was made entirely in Whitehall. Defying logic, the Conservatives continue to pander to those who want to cut the number of foreigners in the country, setting policies that satisfy those who blame immigrants for all the economic woes that this Government have presided over. That approach is a disaster for the Scottish economy and the demographic challenges that we face. As an inquiry by the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs found, the populations of more than one third of Scotland’s local authority areas are projected to decline, and future population growth in Scotland is expected to depend entirely on inward migration. We have the space and the need to welcome more people who want to live and work here, yet we are enforcing net migration targets that are entirely counterproductive.

The ever more hostile approach to immigration has not only been damaging economically; it has been distasteful and inhumane and it reeks of racism. Despite all the evidence of the benefits that migrants bring, the Tories have doggedly stuck to the notion that cutting numbers is more important than meeting need. I continue to hope for a change of heart from the Government, or for devolved control of immigration policies so that we can do that better in Scotland, but this concession for fishing would not even ruffle the feathers of the people counters in the Home Office. The number of skilled fishermen affected would be some 1,200 or so—a number far too small to make a dent on its silly targets, yet crucial enough to have a massive knock-on impact for coastal communities across Scotland.

I urge the Government to do the right thing for the fishing industry for once. Our fishing communities need flexibility from the immigration system if they are to survive. They need support from this Government through their currently reserved powers on immigration, not intransigence. The need and the solution are clear. Decisive action would be welcome.

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[Mr Wallace]

No, we do not have time. I am afraid the hon. Gentleman’s Front-Bench spokesperson spoke for way longer than the other two so the Scottish National party has used up most of its time already.

I lived in Donside, with an office in Stonehaven, and have fond memories of meeting with the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, the Scottish White Fish Producers Association and the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association. I remember learning the differences between pelagic and demersal fish and so on. I have some experience. Indeed, I sat on the European committee and looked at reform of the Scottish fisheries policy when I was in the Scottish Parliament. At that time, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar was probably down here in Westminster. That may be why they sent the Security Minister; he has some experience and knowledge of those things. My grandmother’s family actually hails from Keith in Moray. A large part of my family, on both sides, are from Keith and Aberdeenshire. They were Unionists, I hasten to add, and still are.

I have listened carefully to the points that were made by all hon. Members and have noted the many concerns. It is tempting, as the Security Minister, to ensure that the Immigration Minister always attends these debates by simply going off script and just giving a commitment—I guarantee they will never ask me again.

I hear the strength of feeling, which is cross-party and deeply felt. When there is a skills shortage, whether in agriculture, fisheries or aerospace—which employs 6,000 workers in my constituency—it is incredibly important that skills requirements are met. Skills are like oxygen to an industry. We can debate regulation and tax, but skills are needed. That is not to say that we have to let employers off the hook for investment in their workforce. We should bear it in mind that while we remain members of the EU, we have a pool of 500 million people to recruit from. Youth unemployment in other fishing countries, such as Spain and Greece, is well over 30% or even 40%. It is interesting that we have been unable to recruit people from those countries. Employers have to ask themselves about wage rates and the Government have to ask themselves how we can do more to recruit people.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Wallace]

Sorry, we do not have a great deal of time. I am happy to speak to the hon. Gentleman afterwards.

Otherwise, we are in danger of constantly undermining employment rights and the basic standards that we expect by grabbing people off the shelf from further and further afield to meet demand. That is something that we should not take lightly. We have to ask why only 10% of the English fishing fleet’s workforce are from the European Union or non-EEA countries, but 35% of the Scottish workforce and 53% of the Northern Irish workforce are. There must be a reason for the difference.

[Jim Shannon]

I referred to the Department for Infrastructure, which is responsible for this in Northern Ireland. It did a Europe-wide recruitment programme and filled only five out of 150 jobs. Clearly, a lot of effort has been put in by the Northern Ireland Assembly and by other bodies in the United Kingdom. With respect, that proves that we need to trawl more widely to recruit fishermen from the Philippines, because that is the only place potential workers are coming from.

[Mr Wallace]

The Northern Ireland Assembly has to be commended for making that effort, but we also have to mention salaries. Margins in fishing and agriculture are not large, which is a big challenge, because people cannot rustle up a high salary if they are not making much profit, but basic economics says that if someone cannot recruit, they have to look at terms and conditions, and obviously salaries.

My right hon. Friend the Immigration Minister and I have looked carefully at some of the good ideas put forward by the Fishermen’s Welfare Alliance. I am open to the idea of the temporary scheme that existed between 2009 and 2012, and I will press the Immigration Minister, and the Government more broadly, to explore that to allow some of those issues to be addressed. We have also had representations from the trade unions, which wrote directly to the Home Office to express their concerns about proposals to lower the bar for the admission of fishermen working in the inshore fleet. In their view, that might weaken our commitment to increase employment opportunities in the UK’s domestic maritime sector.

As a Home Office Minister, I understand the industry’s pressing need, but I also understand that that need is not unique to fishing but is clearly present in agriculture, whether that is soft fruit or other parts. It is also extant for other skills. When I was a Northern Ireland Minister, there was a need for skills in the tech and digital industries, because firms were moving from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland because they could find the skilled workforce more easily there. We have to tackle the skills issue in a way that reflects the pressing need, and invest in our domestic workforce at the same time. The Home Office should be open to looking to relieve some of those pressures temporarily, however, as it has in the past. I will press the case for doing that for fishing in the Department and to the Immigration Minister, as they are doing for other parts of the economy that face those issues.

As we approach leaving the European Union, it will be easier to strike the balance between immigration policy and domestic skills policy. The Government will obviously be listening to the industry and stakeholders about that to inform a new immigration Bill, in line with the new fisheries strategy that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published, which looks at what we will do with our fisheries after Brexit to ensure that we have the skills to match.

In the past, there have been successful short-term schemes, but we need to stimulate our domestic skills base as well and ensure that the terms and conditions are met in a way that looks after people who come here to work. In offshore fishing, where there has not been that restriction, we have seen considerable exploitation of workers in some cases. Border Force has stopped factory ships, where people are part of the human slavery that has been going on. We have to be alert to that position. [Interruption.] It is not independence, by the way.

We have to listen to the independent Migration Advisory Committee, which has previously looked at the issue. It is looking at several factors again as we approach Brexit, and we will be open to its research-based views and suggestions. The Immigration Minister has obviously heard the previous calls from hon. Members, and I will ensure that this debate is reflected to her when I see her later today.

Hon. Members should not think that the Government do not take the importance of the fishing industry seriously; we absolutely do. We do not think that people working on boats are unskilled—clearly, they are. I have been up to some of the fishing boats at places such as Fraserburgh and Peterhead, and my seat neighbour Fleetwood has one of the main fishing processors in England, so I am not blind to the industry. The tier 2 visa is for work at a graduate level. As a non-graduate myself, perhaps there is something to examine in the way we define skills after Brexit.

It is a serious matter, and we should be trying to get on and deal with it. We will listen to representations from all hon. Members, but we have to bear in mind the wider immigration picture, no matter which party is in government—the rules were set in 2008. It is true that immigration and skills affect the constituencies of the hon. Members present, who predominantly represent north-east Scotland, but also Northern Ireland and the Western Isles, but they also affect all industries, and we have to address that in future.

There is no substitute for long-term planning for skills. I am acutely aware that employment, long-term planning and education in Scotland have been the Scottish National party’s responsibility for a very long time. If the fishing fleets are desperate for workers, what have the Scottish Government been doing for the last 10 years to prepare their workforce and people to come forward and fill those places? The answer is that education in Scotland has declined under the SNP’s leadership, which is tragic, because my forefathers in Keith were teachers. That is potentially why there is a big problem. [Interruption.] Although they are crowing from the side lines, the SNP—

Commercial Sexual Exploitation

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak on this issue, which I have a great interest in. I congratulate the hon. Members for Luton South (Mr Shuker) and for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) on setting the scene. I will give the Northern Ireland perspective and describe what we have done legislatively. I suggest the Minister does the same here on the mainland, because it is the way forward.

Two weeks ago a court in Northern Ireland convicted a man in the first case to be contested under the legislation introduced in 2015, under which it is an offence to pay for, or, in this particular case, attempt to pay for, the sexual services of another person. One might be forgiven for thinking it has taken some time for the first conviction to be made, but, in addition to that case, data up to the end of March this year records 13 individuals who have been cautioned or received another discretionary disposal having admitted their guilt.

Would I like to see the Police Service of Northern Ireland making greater use of the offence? Yes, I certainly would, and so would you, Mr Paisley. However, the arrests show that this simple offence is much more effective than the more complex offence we had before. Previously our law targeted kerb crawlers who seek to buy sex in public and those who purchase sexual services from a person subjected to force, which are the laws that England and Wales still have. The kerb crawling offence has limitations because it can address only those who seek to purchase sex in a public place, yet research suggests that the majority of prostitution in the UK now happens indoors in brothels, private residences and hotels. The offence that applies where a person is subjected to force is difficult to apply because, although there is no requirement that the offender know about the coercion, there needs to be proof that the coercion is happening, which is not always easy to document in the time required by a relatively low-level offence. PSNI statistics show that no one was arrested or charged for that offence in the whole time that it operated, so the change in legislation has given the PSNI the power it needs to be effective and to change attitudes. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that we need such changes here on the mainland.

[Michael Tomlinson]

One objection to the sex buyer law is that it has been used only in Nordic countries that have a different jurisdiction from our own. The examples that the hon. Gentleman is giving are powerful because they show that our own jurisdiction can cope with such laws and that they work.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I agree wholeheartedly with him.

We changed the law in Northern Ireland because we needed a law that would enable us to tackle the demand for commercial sexual exploitation more effectively. The Northern Ireland Assembly overwhelmingly supported the provision by 81 votes to 10, with the four largest parties in the Assembly—the Democratic Unionist party, Sinn Féin, the Social Democratic and Labour party and the Ulster Unionist party—in support. Both Unionists and nationalists supported the legislation. Lord Morrow, who was a Member of the Assembly at the time, was one of those who did the good work.

People are easily moved around the UK, across the border with the Republic of Ireland and more widely within Europe. Germany and the Netherlands, which have legalised prostitution, have become destination countries for so-called sex tourists and also for traffickers and their victims. Legalisation has not stamped out organised crime or trafficking. It has not worked. The change that we have had in Northern Ireland is needed here. Fighting sex trafficking by using the criminal justice system might even be harder in the legalised prostitution sector.

Some might ask, “Why tackle the demand at all?” The simple answer is that without the demand for paid sex there would be no need for a continuing supply of women tricked, bullied or forced by circumstances into prostitution. Reducing the demand is the key to reducing the number of people who end up in commercial sexual exploitation and is the key to reducing human trafficking.

I want to quote from a lady who addressed the Northern Ireland Assembly and came here as well. Her name is Mia de Faoite. She spoke powerfully at an event in Stormont to mark the coming into force of the offence of purchasing sex, and spoke in this House as well. She said:

“It is my firm belief that everybody on this Island be they born here or not is entitled to live a dignified life, and prostitution is the systematic stripping of one’s human dignity and I know that because I have lived and witnessed it, and it must no longer be tolerated and now in Northern Ireland the next generation of girls, will grow up knowing that the bodies to which they have been born into are respected and at no time will they ever be up for sale.”

She spoke at an event that took place here in Westminster, which I co-hosted with the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and the former Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi). Women and girls across the whole of the UK deserve the same freedom. Northern Ireland has led the way in the British Isles. The Republic of Ireland followed suit, and it is now time for England, Scotland and Wales to join us. Taking action to tackle the demand for commercial sexual exploitation is the first step, and I encourage the Minister to follow the actions of those in Northern Ireland. That is the way forward.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley, and I thank the hon. Members for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and for Luton South (Mr Shuker) for securing this important debate on tackling the demand for commercial sexual exploitation. We have a full Public Gallery, and I am sure this debate is being watched on television. The accounts that have been given have clearly touched many people, and they have shown in an incredibly compelling way the risks, harms and agony that prostitution can cause to those who are most vulnerable. I also thank the all-party group on prostitution and the global sex trade for its work in this area. I am pleased to see so many of its members present in the debate, and I thank them for their report, which I read with great care.

I thank Members for addressing the House in a compelling but hard-hitting way. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) talked about the fallacy of choice and the loss of self. Those are phrases that were borne out in the quotations that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) gave from websites, and in the description the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) gave of a lady whose life path changed 30 years ago and who has suffered the terrible consequences of that. I also thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who has brought the developments occurring in Northern Ireland to the Chamber. I will be watching with interest the results of that change in their law.

The Government’s priority is to protect those selling sex from harm and exploitation and to target those who exploit vulnerable people and those involved in exploitation. Just this afternoon, a group of people are meeting just along the corridor to discuss how we can prevent exploitation in hand car washes. We know that nail bars are another area rich for exploitation. Of course, the most difficult area of exploitation is the sex industry involving adults and children.

I come to this matter drawing on my experience outside the House. I used to prosecute serious organised crime. I remember a woman who I defended many years ago. She was caught because she had illegal documentation. This was back in the 2000s, when sadly we had a different attitude towards victims of slavery. I am pleased to say we have much improved it since. She told me her story, through her interpreter, of how she came to be in our country. It was a tale not dissimilar to the tales we have heard already today. She showed me her wrists—I remember this; it haunts me—and they bore the physical scars of her experience in a brothel that she had managed to escape. She was treated as a criminal for having documentation papers that were not legitimate, and I am genuinely so pleased to say I have complete confidence that now she would be picked up, put into the national referral mechanism, treated as a victim and supported through her journey to a better life. I feel as though she and the many, many other women we have heard about are sitting in this Chamber with us as we debate this topic today.

As a Minister, however, I cannot proceed only on the basis of compelling, heartbreaking stories; I have to proceed on the basis of evidence. That is why we have commissioned research through the University of Bristol to understand the scale and nature of prostitution in the 21st century. We know it is different from how it was 10 years ago through the proliferation of the online sites that the hon. Member for Rotherham described, which I will deal with in a moment.

[Jim Shannon]

The Minister said clearly that she would look at the legislation in Northern Ireland. Will those who are doing the research to which she has just referred look at the evidence of what Northern Ireland has done, the change it has made, including in attitudes, and its success?

[Victoria Atkins]

It is a team of respected academics in the field, and it would not be right for me as a Minister to their research. I am sure they will be looking at the example the hon. Gentleman mentions, as they will look at other examples across Europe. It is something I can look at, too.

Before I descend into the details, I add that I am pleased that colleagues have talked about the role that education has in tackling demand. Colleagues will know that I spend a lot of time talking about that when it comes to how some crimes are perpetuated against women and girls. Relationships education is absolutely key. The hon. Member for Rotherham mentioned the Secretary of State for Education. My understanding is that while some schools will be in a position to provide this education very quickly because they have the teachers and skill sets available, other schools are not quite at that place. We are trying to help them get to that place so that the policy is consistent and high-quality across the country.

The acts of buying and selling sex are not in themselves illegal in England and Wales, but many activities that can be associated with prostitution are offences, and we have heard about them today. When those offences were designed, the basis of them was to protect vulnerable people involved in prostitution. They relate to activities such as controlling prostitution and buying sex from someone who has been a victim of trafficking. We are aware of the different legislative approaches taken elsewhere, including the Nordic model and the regulated decriminalised approach in Germany and the Netherlands. We are seeking unequivocal evidence as to whether any one approach is better than others at tackling harm and exploitation. That must remain our priority.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I hope the hon. Gentleman has heard some of the comments made around this issue over the past 20 minutes or so. I do understand the arguments around the issue, and of course he would expect the Home Office to listen to arguments on the other side as well, which as he says have had an input into the Bill. I am more than happy to listen to colleagues on both sides of the House on that issue and any other issues around the Bill.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The Secretary of State will have received correspondence from the Countryside Alliance and the British Association for Shooting and Conservation. One of the issues my constituents have asked me about is the compensation clause for weapons that might be taken back or retrieved. How will the value of the firearms be calculated, and where will the money for the compensation come from? Will it come from Northern Ireland or the UK centrally? Will people who surrender firearms face questioning or checks that might dissuade them from surrendering their firearms? We must have good communication with those who hold firearms and will be impacted greatly by this.

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman will know that these measures in the Bill are devolved in the case of Northern Ireland, and some of the issues he raised about compensation and how it is calculated may well be decisions that eventually the Northern Ireland Government, once in place, will reach. In England and in Scotland if it consents, we have set out how compensation can work, and our intention is to make sure it is reasonable and it works, and that is not just in the case of firearms—there is a general compensation clause. It is harder for me to answer that question in respect of Northern Ireland as ultimately that decision will not be made by the Home Office; it will be a decision that the Northern Ireland Government will have to settle on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Many of my constituents in Chelmsford write to tell me how concerned they are about the changing nature of crime. They know that crime overall has dropped, but they see more crime happening online and more violent crime. This morning, I spoke to my police and crime commissioner to make sure that I was fully up to date with what was happening on the streets. Violence with injury has increased by over 10% in Chelmsford in the past year, although that is lower than the national increase of 15%. Possession of weapons has increased by nearly 50%, and there has been a rise in wounding with intent.

My police and crime commissioner says that the police are doing a great deal. Operation Raptor is under review, while Operation Survey, which is targeted at serious violence, has also been helpful. They are launching their new violence and vulnerability framework, and they believe that they can get ahead of this surge. However, they want to make more use of stop-and-search, and a commitment to more policing resources. We know that a lot of this is related to county lines, and that the increased crime is related to the more complex ways in which drugs are moved around the country by gangs. The Government and Parliament need to take a lot of action.

As elected politicians, our top priority is to care about the safety of those we represent, who expect us to act. The police and crime commissioner made a comment about extra resources. I was pleased to work last year with colleagues from across Essex in making a strong statement to the Policing Minister about the need to increase the cap on local police funding so that our police would get the resources that they need. Those extra 150 police officers are now being recruited and are going into action across Chelmsford.

We can do more about some of the causes of crime. In an intervention, I mentioned the young people who are being recruited into drugs-related gangs through online platforms. The evidence in the Science and Technology Committee was to do with drill music being played through YouTube; those who had written it could then directly message the young people. The point made in the Committee was that that could happen to any teenager and that no one is immune. That has definitely been seen in Chelmsford. I believe that we will act on this issue through the internet safety strategy, about which I have just had a meeting with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

There is also the issue of what weapons are being used—that is why we are discussing this Bill about offensive weapons. We need to strengthen laws to prevent the possession and sale of knives in particular. I have seen many images shared by my local police of knives that they have intercepted—particularly the “zombie killer” type. I am pleased that the Government are taking action on knives.

There is also the issue of acid attacks. A few months ago, I visited Chelmsford mosque and spoke to some of the young people about what they felt as they went around the streets these days. I was taken by how many young members of that community referred to how concerned they were about recent acid attacks, particularly those carried out on some sort of religious grounds. If I can go back to that group now and say that we are strengthening the law to make it illegal for young people to buy acid and to carry it in a public place, that will be an extremely important and positive message. I am glad that such provisions are in the Bill.

I turn to firearms legislation. I never expected to spend a lot of my life as a politician working on that issue, but I do spend an enormous amount of time on it. I led the reform of European firearms legislation through the European Parliament a couple of years ago following the Paris attacks in the Bataclan theatre, where firearms that had supposedly been permanently deactivated—they therefore could be bought and sold without licences in many parts of Europe—were actually not deactivated. Pins had simply been put through the barrels; they were pulled out and the firearms were reactivated by the terrorists. Ninety people were murdered in that attack.

In the UK, we were not immune: 35 of those same firearms were found in a marina on our shores, having been smuggled here. The then Home Secretary—the current Prime Minister—went to Europe and said that we needed to tighten up European gun laws because those affect our own security. I must make one point: those incorrectly deactivated firearms could not have been bought and sold under our law without a licence because the UK has among the strongest—if not the strongest—firearms legislation of anywhere in Europe. It was absolutely in our interest to make sure that the rest of Europe rose to that challenge.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady is correct about the measures relating to firearms. Does she agree that those who transgress and break the law are not those who have a licence to hold arms legally? The Government need to focus attention on the law breakers, not those who uphold the law.

[Vicky Ford]

I completely agree and that brings me to my next point. What I learnt from looking at our firearms legislation, and firearms legislation across the continent of Europe and in Ireland, is that there are many very good reasons why genuine law-abiding people may need to have a firearm. There are particular sensitivities relating to personal security in Northern Ireland, where many people have permission to hold firearms that would not be permitted in other parts of the UK. The devil is in the detail and it is really important detail. There are many legitimate reasons for why people might want to hold firearms. They could be historical re-enactors, filmmakers—Britain has more filmmakers using firearms than anywhere else in the world, which is one reason why we have such an active filmmaking industry—farmers, target shooters or people involved in the countryside.

My concern is that the Bill makes changes to what firearms are available to law-abiding citizens. Measures have possibly been strengthened without thinking through all the consequences. If I may, Mr Speaker, I would like to read just one email I received from a constituent:

“I completely agree with the other sections of the Bill, but believe that these restrictions on the shooting community unfairly target law-abiding members of our society. I am a keen target shooter and police officer, and I don’t see how these restrictions will cut down on the amount of gun crime on our streets. I have yet to see any of this type of firearm that is due to be restricted used in any criminal activity.”

If we are to tighten the law in this area, we need to make sure that we maintain the confidence of the law-abiding gun-holding community and make sure we can explain to them the evidence the Minister has seen for changing the law.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford).

I have had the opportunity to listen to the majority of contributions to the debate, but I would like to start my contribution by paying tribute to the Minister. She has gone out of her way—I have heard other Members refer to this as well—to go through the content of the Bill in detail, and to listen thoughtfully, productively and passionately to the arguments put forward. She knows that most of our arguments with the Bill focus on the firearms aspects, but I shall speak about the whole Bill in its current form.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) made a comment about not understanding why anyone would need to buy acid if they were not a scientist. I can only assume that he can afford a very good cleaner who has to procure and use such acids in his own home. There are many legitimate reasons why individuals might wish to buy acid—I am delighted for him that he does not have to go through the trials and tribulations of normal life like the rest of us—whether in a domestic setting, or for agricultural use. In industry, hydrochloride is regularly used for cleaning.

There are legitimate reasons for buying acid, but there have been incredibly harmful and distressing illegitimate uses of acid for personal attacks, and some for personal defence. They horrify us. We have seen the news stories and the ramifications. We have seen the efforts of countless passers-by and members of society who come along with bottles of water to try to clear acid from a victim’s eyes and skin. It is obnoxious that anyone would seek to use domestic acids for such a cruel purpose.

It is right that we as a Parliament decide that enough is enough and take steps to frustrate the purchase and illegal use of acid. This does not mean that acid will not be available if somebody really wants to get their hands on it, but the Bill will empower the police, giving them the powers to stop people having it who should not have it in a public place. That is the right step to take.

The Minister also knows that we raised some practical points relating to proposals on postage and delivery for the online purchase of blades. This issue is important, because if we look at Parliament’s consideration of online sales and its scrutiny through Select Committees of how online sellers and marketplaces describe themselves, we see that they have thoughtfully avoided much of the legislative restriction that we have sought to place on them, because they say that they only facilitate sales and that the contract is with the individual seller, not the marketplace. Whether it is Amazon or eBay, they have all argued, “Yes, you can have whatever legislative provision you want, but it does not attach to us—it attaches to the person who uses us as a forum to sell.”

Whether we do this with online delivery charges and considerations around the unfairness of differences in postal charges, it will be important, for the provision on the delivery of knives in particular, that we have complete buy-in and sign-up from the marketplaces, rather than just the sellers. It is important to make sure that we know who is buying the blade and that they are able to buy it—that they are of a legal age and we know their identity—and we need to make sure that all who are involved in the process adhere to the Bill. I hope that the Minister has thought about that, engaged with the online sellers and taken the opportunity to tell them that they also have a duty in this process.

I was flicking through my phone 20 minutes ago—I will not say who was speaking at the time, but it was no reflection on their contribution—but zombie knives and combat knives are available for purchase. People can go on websites that say, “Here are UK legal blades. Here are blades that fold, that are less than three inches, that are suitable penknives for sporting purposes, and so on,” but many other sites will callously sell something that is designed to hurt, injure or kill. Having seen and heard the outrageous and horrendous stories in our broadsheets, on our television screens, in our communities and from our constituents, it is important that we take steps—I am not saying that this is entirely the right way to frame the legislation—to provide protection in our community. Having never had the privilege of serving on a Bill Committee and being very unlikely to have the privilege of doing so, I hope that members of this Bill’s Committee will take the opportunity to thoughtfully consider the provisions and augment them in a way that will ensure that the Bill will do what the Minister hopes.

Let me turn, in particular, to the firearms provisions. I made an intervention that touched on energy and velocity, and I think there are fundamental issues, which I raised with the Minister. The first is about safety. When we consider safety, why is something above 13,600 joules unsafe but something under that is not? Why does this Parliament need to interject ourselves in this discussion? Are we saying that 13,599 joules is okay? Is it any less lethal? No, it is not.

[Jim Shannon]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In this Bill, the Government are considering removing .50 calibre rifles of a certain velocity. If someone shortens the barrel or reduces the load, however, they can reduce the impact of a .50 calibre rifle or anything else of that size. There are other ways to do this so that law-abiding people can obtain these guns.

[Gavin Robinson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but this is about the purpose of the Bill. What are we trying to achieve? Is it to make the public safer? The arbitrary figure of 13,600 joules cannot make the public safer. We are talking about law-abiding sport enthusiasts who have been through all the processes, as has been discussed this afternoon. Are we saying that 13,599 joules is okay, but 13,601 joules is not? It makes no sense. It is not just .50 calibre rifles either; it is exactly the same for .357 Lapua Magnum rifles. It does not matter if someone home loads, as my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, and lowers the velocity of the round, because the Bill is framed so that what matters is not what they put through a firearm but what the firearm is capable of delivering.

I am afraid that the public safety test in the Bill does not cut it. A .22 rifle can remove life and has a much lower velocity. Families often introduce their young ones to the sport of firearms shooting—target shooting, plinking around the farm—with .22 rifles or air rifles, but a person can still lose their life from a .22. What, then, are we trying to achieve? What arguments and evidence base has the Home Office used to advance these provisions? I do not think they have any, and neither do sporting enthusiasts throughout the country. There has never been any discernible or detected use of rifles of this calibre, legally held, in the commission of a crime.

Some mention was made of the Northern Ireland provisions that allow us to access handguns and other firearms that people cannot access in the rest of the UK. That is true. Several Members of this House are in that position. Every time a person purchases a firearm of that capacity—handgun size, whether a 9 mm, a .40 calibre, a .45 ACP, or whatever—they must first apply for permission and show justifiable grounds for having one and then, shortly after purchasing it, hand it in to the police. They then take it away and put it through forensics and ballistics testing so that if that legally held and approved firearm were ever used and in the commissioning of, or during, a crime and the case left where it was used, the ballistics report would tell the police that it was that person’s firearm.

EU Settlement Scheme

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

The EU citizens living in Bexhill and Battle are very important to us, as are all citizens currently living here as well as those who will arrive during the implementation period. My hon. Friend is right: as I have set out, EU citizens will be asked to demonstrate their identity and residency and to declare any criminality. I got rather anxious that this might provoke the Solicitor General into reciting the entire withdrawal agreement, but I am somewhat relieved that he does not appear to want to do so.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for her statement. The agri-food sector in my constituency is very important. Workers from the EU make up large proportions of the workforce in Mash Direct and Willowbrook Foods, to give just two examples. She has outlined how the scheme will work for those who have lived here for five years, but for those who have lived here for under five years, and are in special circumstances, will she ensure that in Northern Ireland—as indeed in all the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—we have enough staff to help applicants to fill in the applications with the necessary details and facts? Also, with a 12.5% shortfall of workers to harvest crops, will there be a seasonal scheme that helps them?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Gentleman returns to a common theme of seasonal agricultural workers and indeed, the importance of EU citizens working in many parts of the UK who come here on a seasonal basis and may well not have been here for the required five years. As I set out in my statement, EU citizens who have been here for less than the five-year period will be able to apply for pre-settled status. Once they have accrued the five years, they will be able to apply for settled status, but there will be no additional cost. He makes an important point about those who might find the process difficult. We are determined not only to make it as simple and streamlined as possible, but to put in place contact centres to provide the required assistance to people who need it.

Cannabis-based Medicines

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, and I reassure her that I will not be thrown off track.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Home Secretary very much for his statement and the urgency he has given this. I also thank the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service for all his hard work, which should not be ignored. My constituents Darren and Danielle Gibson took their eight-year-old daughter Sophia to Holland so that she could receive these drugs. It was very important that they did so, as that had a clear medical benefit for their child. The Minister will know—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I express the cautious hope—it would probably be unrealistic of me to say this with enormous confidence—that the hon. Gentleman, whom we all love dearly, is approaching his peroration, at the end of which there will be an unmistakeable question mark.

[Jim Shannon]

There certainly will be, Mr Speaker.

When I met the permanent secretary of the Health Department in Northern Ireland, he said that he would have some difficulty giving the go-ahead in Northern Ireland. He needs direction from the Home Secretary. What discussions has the Home Secretary had with the permanent secretary to facilitate this urgently for my constituent Sophia Gibson?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the decision to issue a possession licence is completely devolved in Northern Ireland, so it is outside the Home Office’s area. That said, we want to work closely with Northern Ireland. The permanent secretary in my Department has been working with the permanent secretary in the Health Department in Northern Ireland. We want to help in every way possible, especially in the case of Sophia Gibson, and that is exactly what we are doing.

Medicinal Cannabis

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for his help so far. I thank him, in particular, for the meeting that we had with my constituent Danielle Gibson about her daughter, Sophia. The Minister will know, and the House needs to know, that Darren and Danielle Gibson took their daughter Sophia to Holland to receive cannabis oil, under prescription and controlled. During the three weeks they were there, she had only one seizure instead of the dozens that she has every day. In the past 48 hours, she has not eaten or slept. At this moment in time, there is six months of cannabis oil available for her, paid for, sitting in Holland for her to collect. What will I tell my constituents? How long will the process take?

[Mr Hurd]

As the hon. Gentleman and I have discussed before, and in the presence of Danielle, there is a mechanism—a process—that can lead to a legal, sustainable solution to this through a licensing process that needs to be clinically led. In this case, it is devolved to the Northern Ireland Administration, as he well knows. There is a process. We are feeling our way. We all want to drive this fast, but it does need to be done properly. In the situation that we had this week with Billy, we were responding to an emergency situation where clinical leads inside an institution came to us and said, “We need this on an emergency, limited-duration basis.” The long-term solution for Billy now has to be clinically led, but we were responding to an emergency situation.

Immigration Rules: Paragraph 322(5)

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered paragraph 322(5) of the Immigration Rules.

To assist those who wish to intervene or speak later, I will speak about the background to this issue and about recent case studies from my constituency, and then I have some questions for the Minister. That may help them tailor their remarks.

I pay tribute to the members of the Highly Skilled Migrants campaign group, who have now held four large demonstrations outside this Parliament and have been extremely active on social media. They have self-organised and worked hard to give this issue the attention it deserves. I also want to thank Amelia Hill at The Guardian and Kirsteen Paterson at The National, who have given this issue first-rate coverage.

For more than a year at least, the Home Office has been issuing highly skilled migrants, many of whom entered the UK via the tier 1 general route, with notices detailing that their leave to remain application has been refused. It seems that many of those decisions have been predicated purely on the applicants’ alleged poor character in the wake of amendments to their tax returns and income statements. In making those decisions, the Home Office has deemed highly skilled migrants a threat to national security under paragraph 322(5) of the immigration rules, which refers to

“the undesirability of permitting the person concerned to remain in the United Kingdom in the light of his conduct (including convictions which do not fall within paragraph 322(1C), character or associations or the fact that he represents a threat to national security”.

That is highly inappropriate.

It is important to note that paragraph 322(5) is discretionary: it should be for the Home Office to determine whether to use it, based on the merits of each individual application. It also places the burden of proof on applicants, rather than on the Home Office. From my constituency casework, and from listening to highly skilled migrants who have contacted me, I have seen that that is regimented, calculated decision making. Individuals’ applications are refused whenever they supply details of different incomes, or seek to amend information in a tax return, often on the instruction of an accountant.

None of the migrants to whom I have spoken has any issues that should cause them to be considered a threat to national security, but the very invoking and recording of this paragraph could compromise their future work and travel. After all, what country would wish to accept somebody who had been refused by the UK on such grounds?

When an application is refused, it is incumbent on the applicant to challenge the decision through the courts. In many cases, the judge has overruled the Home Office’s decision, finding it entirely disproportionate. A number of refusals appear to have been predicated on nothing more than the individual making an honest mistake. As far as Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is concerned, when the correction is made, the case is closed. Some of the sums involved in those corrections are only a few pounds—sums of £1.20 and £1.60 have been reported—and many were from many years ago. For one of my constituents, it was from 2010. Many people have asked me, “If there was a problem back then, why didn’t it affect my status at that point?”

I raised this matter with the Financial Secretary to the Treasury at Treasury questions in May, and he confirmed that

“people should clearly continue to make appropriate changes to their tax returns. I reassure her and the House that Treasury Ministers and HMRC officials are working closely across Government—particularly with the Home Office—on the issues that she raised in order to ensure that we get these matters right.”—[Official Report, 22 May 2018; Vol. 641, c. 710.]

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this matter to Westminster Hall for consideration. Does she agree that some of those affected are doctors—highly skilled, highly valued members of our medical society—in the Ulster Hospital in Northern Ireland and in hospitals throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? We must ensure that those who are living, working and making a difference in our communities, and are pouring into them, are able to continue to do that without the undue stress of overly onerous immigration procedures, caused by simple non-criminal mistakes on tax returns. Perhaps some in this House have made such mistakes themselves.

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. Many of the people I have spoken to are in shortage occupations and are much valued. They are the very people we wish to attract to this country to work.

Sexual Exploitation: Newcastle

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

All of us here will have tremendous sympathy with the victims of sexual exploitation and the challenges, barriers and burdens they face. I want to pay tribute to the bravery, strength and perseverance of the victims of sexual exploitation, who deserve not merely our sympathy but our concrete, committed and long-term support.

Last August, a jury returned guilty verdicts on 17 men and one woman who had committed abhorrent crimes in Newcastle. This was the culmination of Northumbria police’s Operation Sanctuary, a three-year investigation into the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women and girls. No convictions would have been secured without the bravery of the victims in testifying against their attackers, re-living their terrible experiences, in some cases more than once. To be subject to such abuse is more than anyone should have to bear. To then describe it to a court full of strangers shows the sort of courage that the rest of us can only hope to equal.

I feel personally ashamed that the city in which I grew up, and which I now have the privilege to represent, harboured men who groomed, exploited and raped women and young girls. They targeted women and girls because they were vulnerable, turning the vulnerable into victims, but I am also grateful to the victims for their courage, which has made Newcastle a safer city.

At the end of 2013, Northumbria police were contacted by a woman who informed them of sexual exploitation in the west end of Newcastle. Northumbria police responded rapidly. The national charity Changing Lives has worked extensively with the victims, and it told me that the police believed the victims immediately and maintained unconditional positive regard throughout the process, which has not always so in other sexual exploitation cases.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I spoke to the hon. Lady beforehand just to tell her some things that we are doing in Northern Ireland. The Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland said that people who have had up to six adverse childhood experiences—in this case, sexual exploitation—are not only traumatised but, it is estimated, could die some 20 years earlier as a result of their experiences. Does she agree that this clearly underlines the need for more support to be given at an earlier stage and that the police need to be more active for the victims of sexual exploitation, whose lives are shortened as a result of what they have experienced?

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I agree that the impact of such sexual exploitation on the lives, mental health and long-term opportunities of the victims is significant. That is why long-term support is required, and I will touch on that in more detail later.

The police acted upon 1,400 pieces of intelligence, identifying 278 victims and arresting 461 suspects. Eight crime gangs were identified, all of which are now subject to ongoing disruption, and 220 child abduction notices have been issued, warning suspects that they face arrest if they contact children. The professionalism with which Northumbria police conducted Operation Sanctuary has made Newcastle safer. As April’s police and crime panel report put it,

“it is difficult to overstate the positive impact of Sanctuary.”

That was not only because perpetrators were taken off the streets; there was also a recognition that victims would need long-term support provided by various agencies.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 11th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), particularly as at least an element of my speech would have exhibited a degree of naivety without his. I will continue with it, but I think I should apologise for it in advance. The purpose of the first part of my speech was to juxtapose my experience of terrorism in this country with what was happening with regard to the IRA and its activities in this country. Part of my premise is that, after the Good Friday agreement we are in a position where any occurrences that happen in Northern Ireland make the news in a considerably lower-level format than they would have done during my time growing up. So it is almost easy to believe, viewing Northern Ireland from a distance, that all is well over there, peace has broken out and the world is a good place, whereas, the incident mentioned at the start of the hon. Gentleman’s speech clearly proves that that is not the case.

I was drawn towards making this comparison because it is my 50th birthday this year, the troubles started in 1968 and I wanted to talk about my experience of how they had an impact on us in this country over that time. I am not old enough to remember this, but in 1972 we might have had the first cynical ceasefire that the IRA announced over the Christmas period, and yet only a short time later we had the bombings in Birmingham.

I fully appreciate that nobody has been convicted of those bombings in Birmingham, so it is not possible for us to say so with a degree of certainty or to attribute the cause to it, but I would say that we are fairly comfortable in knowing that the IRA was responsible, and many people lost their lives at that time.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share the concern of those of us on this side of the Chamber within our party, and perhaps further afield, who see glorification in a play park in Newry being named after an IRA volunteer who was involved in a campaign of murder and terrorism, and in Gaelic Athletic Association clubs naming their venues and locations after IRA men and IRA women who have been involved in terrorist activity? Does he share our concern about glorification of their activities, which, hopefully, the Bill has the power to change—making it unlawful so that it cannot happen?

[Eddie Hughes]

I absolutely do share those concerns, and I sincerely hope that the Bill presents the opportunity to prevent that from happening. The hon. Member for Belfast East made the comparison that if we were to experience something similar in this country we would all think it an abomination, yet clearly, that is what is happening over in Northern Ireland.

Let us move through that period to come to a comparison that I want to make. In 1996 the IRA exploded in Manchester what I understand was the biggest bomb to be exploded on the mainland since the second world war—a 1,500 lb bomb. Fortunately, 90 minutes’ notice was given, and the excellent work of the emergency services allowed 75,000 people to be evacuated, although, unfortunately, those services were unable to defuse the bomb and I understand that 200 people were injured when it went off.

The cost of that bomb runs to the equivalent today of approximately £1.2 billion, I believe, but how this country responds to that sort of situation is to be celebrated. In 1996, England was hosting the European football championships. The following day, Germany was due to play Russia. That game proceeded and turned into a celebration of the fact that countries around the world would not be oppressed by terrorism and actually joined together in a celebration that said, “Terrorism will not win.”

Compare and contrast that with the bombing in Manchester last year. An Ariana Grande concert was targeted with the perpetrator knowing full well that parents would be there with very young children. It was completely despicable. My understanding is that the perpetrator, who was also killed in that attack, had been to Libya and had some Libyan connections. To draw back to that parallel, clearly Libya has been a source of great difficulty given that association and its previous association with the IRA over the suggestion of the supply of arms and a fight against what was considered British imperialism.

We need to say that we are not going to accept terrorism and that we are going to do everything we can to ensure that our laws are tidied up to prevent it. An element of that, which I would like to celebrate, is biometric data. We should celebrate the fact that, many years ago, DNA was discovered in this country, and the double helix formation was subsequently identified, but it was not until 1984 that Sir Alec Jeffreys was able to realise the benefits of using DNA to profile people and help to determine the difference between pieces of evidence.

We should celebrate that because DNA profiling is now used by 120 countries around the world, and 54 of them have DNA databases. This technology is not only used to help to identify people who are guilty; it helps those who are innocent. Its first use was in a case just two years after its discovery. It was a case in Leicester, where somebody had admitted rape and murder only to have the DNA evidence prove that they were not responsible. Some time subsequently, Colin Pitchfork was identified as the murderer as a result of DNA evidence.

It is important that we realise the benefits of modern technology and the pace with which it can change. We need to ensure in this House that the law tracks those developments, because people can now be radicalised in their home in the UK by reading literature produced in other countries. We need to ensure that we act appropriately to prevent the dissemination of that sort of information. To return to the bomber in Manchester last year, that person acting alone, thanks to the internet and those illicit sources, had the opportunity to learn how to make a bomb using items that are freely available in this country. Without physical contact with other people, they were able to garner the information, be radicalised and carry out a dreadful act. It is surely essential that we do everything we can to tidy up the law in this country to prevent that.

I want to end with a quote I heard yesterday:

“The law is reason free from passion.”

Aristotle apparently said that. I think it is important that in this House we are not totally free from passion, that we remember these dreadful atrocities that have been committed and that we ensure that we have law that prevents them.

BAME Communities: Stop and Search

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Philip Davies]

Thank you, Mr Owen. I will try to resist more interventions on that basis.

I do not accept the premise the hon. Lady starts from, which is that police officers in this country are inherently racist and are going out of their way to deliberately stop people from ethnic minorities whom they know there is no basis for stopping. I do not accept the premise of that argument. I have a high regard for police officers, not only in my local community but right across the country. I believe they do the job to the best of their ability. The evidence shows that her premise is not right, because the people most likely to be found guilty of something after being stopped and searched are people from ethnic minorities, which would indicate that police officers are not doing as she and the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) allege.

The Ministry of Justice’s most recent publication says that

“the rate of prosecutions for the Black ethnic group was four times higher than for the White group. The Mixed group had the second highest rate, which was more than twice as high as the White group.”

That mirrors the higher stop-and-search rate in that same period, when black individuals had a stop-and-search rate around four times higher than white individuals in London, and about five and a half times higher in the rest of England and Wales. In many respects, the rates of stop-and-search based on different people’s ethnicity only mirrored the exact same difference in conviction rates for those ethnic groups. The two were entirely in line. The most recent figures show a bigger gap between the rates per 1,000 who are stopped and searched by ethnicity, and time will tell whether those rates continue to mirror the same pattern within the criminal justice system.

When it comes to youths, the difference is even starker. According to the Ministry of Justice report:

“The number of juveniles prosecuted for indictable offences in relation to population size varied by ethnicity. Prosecution rates per 1000 people aged 10-17…were highest for Black juveniles (12 juveniles per 1000 people), followed by Mixed (4 per 1000), Chinese or Other (2 per 1000), White (2 per 1000) and Asian (2 per 1000).”

In 2016, the black ethnic group represented 4% of the general population aged 10 to 17 but 19% of all juvenile prosecutions for indictable offences, whereas the white ethnic group represented 82% of the general population aged 10 to 17 but 67% of juvenile prosecutions. In answer to the shadow Minister, the figures suggest a clear pattern in youth offending, and particularly in serious youth offending. Those are the facts. They might be uncomfortable, but we cannot get away from them just to suit our political narratives.

I do not even accept the premise set by the hon. Member for Bradford West that people from ethnic minorities feel that the criminal justice system and stop-and-search are discriminatory against them. Again, I do not see the evidence to suggest that. A group of young BAME people were asked if they agree that, if used fairly, stop-and-search is a good tactic to help reduce crime. Some 71% either agreed or strongly agreed, and only 9% disagreed. Why did only 9% disagree that stop-and-search is a good thing? Could it be that they believe and realise that the police predominantly protect them through the use of stop-and-search? Without stop-and-search, they are much more likely to be the victims of these serious crimes.

Another survey, with the results published in “Statistics on race and the criminal justice system”, was done back in 2014. It found that the ethnic group with the highest confidence in the criminal justice system was Asian people, with 76% of them having confidence in the criminal justice system. For mixed race people it was 66% and for both white and black people it was 65%—exactly the same. Again, I do not see any evidence to suggest that people from ethnic minorities have less confidence in the criminal justice system. Those surveys certainly do not suggest that.

The hon. Member for Bradford West may well have seen the article in The Sunday Times last weekend with research from Cambridge University that found that Muslims are no more likely than white Britons to be stopped by police on suspicion of committing a crime. I hope that she will read that report, because it is a helpful piece of research.

Are police officers guilty of racism towards non-white individuals in the street? That, in effect, is the allegation that Opposition Members are making. Actually, that does not even take into account the fact that BAME officers themselves engage in stop-and-search. According to the Home Office’s latest police workforce figures, 6% of police officers are non-white. In London, where stop-and-searches occur far more than in any village in my constituency, 13% of officers are BAME. As of 31 March 2017, there were 7,572 BAME police officers in total, and many of them will themselves use stop-and-search on other people from ethnic minorities. Are they being racist towards people from ethnic minorities? They are part of the statistics I have quoted.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

To follow the hon. Gentleman’s line of thinking, this is all about stopping crime. Bearing in mind that, in 2016-17, 62% of stop-and-searches were for drugs, compared with 11% for offensive weapons, 9% for going equipped and 1% for firearms, does the hon. Gentleman agree that higher priority must be given to searches? That would help to reduce the rise in killings in London, for example. Stop-and-search is a way of preventing crime, and it is very important.

[Philip Davies]

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman, and I am grateful to him for that support.

Why are more black people being stopped? If the uncomfortable truth is that they commit more of the crimes for which they are stopped, we need to accept that and deal with it. If that is not the case, we need the evidence to show what the issue is. The Prime Minister said that institutions should explain or change. I say that this evidence needs an explanation, and it may well be that it should result in a change to the recent policy on stop-and-search, and that stop-and-search should be used more.

As a result of this politically correct chatter about stop-and-search, the number of stop-and-searches has reduced dramatically. One reason is that the police fear stopping and searching people in case they are branded racist. In fact, one police officer told me that, in their training, they were told to avoid stopping and searching somebody from an ethnic minority because it could easily get them into trouble. What a message to send out to our police officers, who try their best to combat crime. Cressida Dick is reported to have said of police officers last August:

“I think there are some who have become concerned that they will be accused of racism, that they may get a complaint and that if they do get a complaint, that may inhibit their work in other ways, or they may not be supported by their bosses. When I look at it, there’s a very low number of complaints, and the vast majority of those are resolved very, very quickly and in favour of the officer.”

Of course there will be the odd bad egg in any institution or organisation, and of course that should never be tolerated. Modern technology in the form of body-worn cameras can help to allow greater transparency, and those who abuse their position can be weeded out. I understand that 94% of Metropolitan police officers now wear those cameras, so what is anybody worried about?

All the evidence as to whether people are treated fairly or unfairly is there. Let police officers get on and do their job. They do a fantastic and important job in keeping us safe. The last thing they need is meddlesome politicians, who know barely anything about what they are talking about, interfering in their operational work. Their job is hard enough as it is without people in this place making it even harder for them. Let us trust them to get on and do their job. They do their job with great skill and dedication, and we should support them.

It is totally unacceptable to have a situation in which officers leave criminals free to commit crimes simply because they want to avoid racism complaints. We need to ensure that everything is done to stop the needless killings and other crimes on our streets. Above all, we need to trust the police and let them get on with their job. There are plenty of political correctness wallahs in the police anyway nowadays, so there are plenty to look after that agenda. We need to give the police the best chance of fighting crime and protecting all our people, black, white or whatever—their skin colour is completely irrelevant. I am not sure that debates and agendas like these help with that unless they are based on evidence and facts.

At the beginning of May, the Evening Standard reported on parents who have lost children to knife crime leading a peace march and rally in London. The article said:

“Hundreds of marchers are expected to take to the streets in Hackney and Islington amid a growing outcry over the number of fatal stabbings. There were also calls for the Metropolitan Police to boost the number of stop-and-searches in London to detect knife carriers.

March organiser Janette Collins, who runs the youth intervention project The Crib, said: ‘We are saying we have had enough. There are no police on the streets, we do not see them walking on the streets in Hackney and Islington, they are in their cars. We need to bring back stop-and-search. If people object to it, I ask do they want to see kids running around with big knives?’”

That is the real view of people out in the streets, but it is a view that this House seems completely out of touch with. I think that most people in this country expect us to support the police in the work that they do. I certainly do. I hope other Members will do so too.